He Includes She, *Not*

[woodwardiocom]

A recent post by noire reminded me about the experience of writing for Steve Jackson Games. Overall, it was very positive, and I may well write more for them in the future. One thing I do have a little problem with: The style guide mandates that the correct pronoun for a person of no specified gender was "he". "He or she" and singular "they" were specifically not allowed. I find this dumb, not least because the existing demographic for the books I was writing (GURPS books) is something like 85% male. What, you don't want women's money? Maybe a little inclusive language will get it for you!

So, anyway, when I was writing books for SJGames, there were standard techniques for making that edict moot:

• Frame examples in the plural. "The adventurer will find that his gold has turned to cheese." "The adventurers will find that their gold has turned to cheese." This got to be absolutely reflexive. If I found myself typing his/he/him, I went back and started the sentence over in the plural.
• Name and gender-ify the examples. For instance, in my book about adventuring on Mars in the year 2100, when discussing the effect of 38% gravity on the encumbrance rules, I had two running examples, Stanley and Chan, Chan being female (and Chinese, China being a big deal in the book).
• A trick, which I only got to use once, was to specify that a particular set of magic snakeskin boots were women's boots. I then used "her" freely when describing the effect on the wearer. The editor let it slide, so...

(Of course, I'm looking over those Martian encumbrance rules right now, and I see a disturbing number of "he"s. It looks like I nodded a bit...)

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

I am a big fan of the singular gender-neutral "they".

I am also a fan of "examples involving players use one gender, examples involving the GM use the other", or "always have example named players/characters and use the appropriate gender for them." (Though I suppose this gets trickier when always using one of two genders when, even aside from RL debate over the gender binary, there are settings that involve distinctly more than two gender options.)

While I find "swap pronoun choice by paragraph/section" a bit awkward, I at least admire the effort.

And, dammit, one of these days I want to read an RPG that is in fact using female as the default for good in-setting reasons without being an aimed-at-men hee-hee-hot-babes sort of game. But I suppose that's a bit outside the original point.

(Now, in academic writing, I can go for the gender-neutral "one" if absolutely necessary, but otherwise will reword the sentence to avoid the use of either.)

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Alternating He and She is common in certain academic disciplines, particularly game theory; publishers who normally prohibit gendered pronouns (but also won't accept singular "they," my preferred style) will mostly accept alternation if it's a convention of the field.

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

publishers who normally prohibit gendered pronouns

Meaning they don't like "he", either?

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

In the academic world, "he" is pretty nearly extinct. Nearly all the style guides disallow it, calling for various awkward expedients for getting around it.

[noire.livejournal.com]

*smile* Go you for trying to buck them. Every bit helps.

I'm not a huge fan of "they" as a singular gender neutral pronoun though I am aware of the strong historical reasons it might be the best choice.

But a giggle--for the sentence
"The adventurer will find that his gold has turned to cheese." "The adventurers will find that their gold has turned to cheese."
I might have said, "The adventurer will find that the gold has turned to cheese." I like playing games to eliminate as many gendered references as possible and see if people pick up on it (usually IME they don't.)

[be-well-lowell.livejournal.com]

I think of RPGs as a group activity to such a large extent that the singular seems strange to me in examples like this, completely aside from the gendered pronouns issue.

I do the first one a lot

[drwex]

but lately I'm also retraining myself not to twitch at a singular 'their.' I've read enough linguistic history to be convinced that it's historically correct usage so I should be OK with it, but I have all these years of built-up reflex to overcome, still.

[ectropy.livejournal.com]

I do much the same. I especially like putting in lots of female example characters.

[jeffr23.livejournal.com]

I'm not a fan of singular they; while most times it doesn't bother me in the least, sometimes (when the subject matter is aggressively singular or gendered, or when a reflexive pronoun is called for). But I don't like generic 'He' either, so I end up using tricks like those when possible.

One more: if you can, recast into second person. ("As a 22nd century Martian farmer, you will often...")

[archangelbeth]

*nods sagely*
*has used those tricks a time or three herself*

[wombattery.livejournal.com]

I once wrote an article for Pyramid in which I alternated between he and she in the examples, with the note that characters not matching the gender in a relevant examples would be reassigned. I think I was able to get away with it because it was about Paranoia.

[fanw.livejournal.com]

I'm perfectly fine with he or she, but I find the singular they vague and annoying. I also find he/she breaks the flow of the sentence. I'm perfectly okay with the singular "he" as default. I find it extremely unusual and noteworthy, but somewhat pleasant, when the rare person uses "she" as default.