Brian MarickSometime in the '80s, I adopted the habit of using "she" as the generic pronoun. "Consider someone learning that the thing she pointed at..."
I dropped out of the habit, largely because Dawn said she found it distracting and mildly annoying. (1/4)
Nowadays, "they" is popular, and I tend to use it, though it's not a habit. But I'm coming to think it's counter-effective. We're supposed to see “they" as some sort of abstract superclass, encompassing all people. But I think people, when reading, are governed by habit: "they" is visualized as the appropriate gender. (2/4)
That is, when people read "Consider someone learning that the thing they pointed at...", they instinctively envision the "they" as "she" or "he", depending on how what is being learned is gendered. (Consider whether it's a floral arrangement or a nuclear weapon core.)
"The marines stood back while she carefully disassembled the nuclear core" disrupts expectations in a way that "The marines stood back while they carefully disassembled the nuclear core" doesn't. (3/4)
I think I'll revert to my older style. (4/4)
I should note that Dawn favors the "power on through" response to discrimination, and who am I to dispute her success at that strategy?
(When she became a large animal (cow) veterinarian, very few were women. This caused some problems, like clients insisting on a male doctor. She worked through that, though not in my "lives inside his head" style of assuming that the right framing makes a difference. Instead, she had to insist she'd be the one to save the cow's life – and then did exactly that)