Gender-Neutral (Poem)

Gender-Neutral

He is standard form.
We use him

standing for her.
He's universal.

Man she is not,
nor human seen,

nor in hir alternative
accepted. Encased

in brackets, (s)he takes up
too much space

and change of letter —
that simple e to i or y —

some womyn like
but spell checks catch,

grammar rule refutes.
Zie who settle for splitting

the difference leave
symbol to divide the one

for two, though he/she cannot
agree with everything

that follows and the plural
that and sign so easily holds

together makes her once more
disappear. Some switch

every other she with he
but guess who goes first

how often. Hu might work
at being gender-neutral

can no longer play the words
for one side or the other

when she a room of her own
takes, leaving him to reason

what matters more: to be
a man who lives by bread

alone or one more sun in her orbit.

© 2011 Maureen E. Doallas
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I wrote this poem for this week's Random Acts of Poetry at The High Calling.

The prompt is "What's in a Word?": Read Marcus Goodyear's post and his suggestions for what others are saying about the power of language and then "write a poem that tells a story or paints a picture in order to answer the question: What's in a word?" Be sure to add your link in the comment section by March 9 to have your work considered with other RAPs.

I've chosen to evoke and provoke thought about the traditional and not-so-traditional uses of the words he, him, and his; the problems that such forms as hir, womyn, (s)he, and he/she create; and how our customary use of the masculine excludes, thereby shaping perceptions of women as somehow inferior. 

"Zie" and "Hu" are two of the more unusual forms created as substitutes for masculine and feminine pronouns and possessives. My own uses are wordplays.

UNESCO offers a useful downloadable publication titled "Guidelines on Gender Neutral Language" (it's available in both English and French). As the guide states, ". . . language does not merely reflect the way we think: it also shapes our thinking. If words and expressions that imply that women are inferior to men are constantly used, that assumption of inferiority tends to become part of our mindset. Hence the need to adjust our language when our ideas evolve. . . ." The Purdue Online Writing Lab provides for its students a guide on "appropriate" language. The International Reading Association has produced a "lesson plan" for "Avoiding Sexist Language by Using Gender-Fair Pronouns".

In 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives included in its rule changes language for "gender neutrality".  The digest of House Resolution No. 5 called the gender-neutrality provisions "clarifications [that] do not amount to any substantive rules changes".

A very informative article by Leslie M. Rose published in the Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy takes up the issue of "The Supreme Court and Gender-Neutral Language: Setting the Standard or Lagging Behind?" (January 2010), underscoring the points above.

Thousands of articles have been written about rewording the Bible to ensure gender-inclusive language, including posts here, here, and here. Vern Poythress and Wayne Grudem, Ph.D., have published a book on the subject, The TNV and the Gender-Neutral Bible Controversy (Broadman & Holman, 2005).