I recently read an excellent opening chapter of a thriller. One thing about the chapter got me to thinking, though. The author wanted to keep the gender of their spy secret, so what pronoun should they use? They tried things like, “The spy adjusted its parachute as it glided toward the target,” but I found that confusing. Was the spy automated, a drone perhaps, or some other inanimate object? We don’t usually call people “it,” so it took me a while to figure out what was going on.
This led my question:
What are some strategies for an author who doesn’t want to reveal the gender of one of their characters?
One answer is built into the question: use the singular they.
In our question and in my opening paragraph, the gender of the noun “author” is unknown. Some languages have a special pronoun for when this happens, but not English. The only gender-neutral personal pronoun in English is “it,” which generally doesn’t refer to people. For example, if you replaced “their” with “its” in the above question, it’s confusing. Readers would look for an inanimate object as the antecedent, and there isn’t one. They would eventually figure out what you meant, but that little stumble would take them away from the here-and-now in a story.
People use the “singular they” in conversation all the time. There’s historical evidence of its use for at least the last six hundred years. In fact, the Chicago Manual Of Style now allows its use in informal writing (paragraph 5.48). Many authors strive for an informal, conversational style when writing fiction, so the “singular they” is a natural choice. Certainly, it’s better than the cumbersome “his or her,” which the CMS also deprecates.
A related question has to do with gender-neutral pronouns. Style guides used to recommend the use of the male pronoun when the gender was unknown. Some still do. But most now recommend gender-neutral language. Paragraph 5.255 of the CMS lists several strategies for gender-neutral language. The most useful is to rephrase to avoid the pronoun altogether.
For example, we might have rephrased our initial question as follows, “What are some writing techniques to avoid revealing the gender of a character?” That’s every bit as good as the original question, and avoids the problem altogether.
Another is to repeat the noun instead of using a pronoun. Repeating words and phrases isn’t such a good idea in fiction, though, since it tends to make our prose seem monotone. Another strategy is to just change “an author” in the original question to “authors.” Now the antecedent is plural and the use of “their” is grammatically correct.
More generally, we might be asking, “What are some strategies to achieve gender-neutral writing?” When I was growing up in the 1950s, all doctors were assumed to be men and all nurses to be women. Today, 47% of all new MDs in the US are female, so these presumptions are no longer accurate. Recently, the “he or she” alternative, invented in the 1970s, has also been deprecated in many style guides not only because it’s awkward, but also because it doesn’t reflect those with alternative, nonbinary gender identities. It only makes sense that our language should adapt to evolving social norms and customs.
The growing acceptance of the “singular they” in writing is evidence of the evolution of language. People use it all the time. If your editor says change it, well, the editor is paying for your copy, so by all means change it. Otherwise, I think the meaning is clear and most readers won’t even notice. It’s common in everyday conversation. It makes your prose feel natural rather than forced to achieve an unnatural end. And, it doesn’t assume the default gender is male.
What are some strategies you’ve found useful in achieving general-neutral language?
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