Who’s ‘They’?

The New York Times report on “they” becoming the most popular gender neutral pronoun used by the media, including the Washington Post and the Economist.

In January, the American Dialect Society voted the singular “they” its 2015 Word of the Year.

Amanda Hess of the New York Times writes:

Lynn Liben, a psychologist at Penn State, has studied the effects of gender-coded language — English weaves it in by way of pronouns (she, his) but also identifying nouns (girl, uncle) and honorifics (Mr. and Mrs.) — for about 15 years.

In a pair of studies conducted in preschool classrooms in 2008 and 2010, Liben found that when teachers emphasize a gender divide in speech — like saying, “Good morning, boys and girls” — children adopt more intense stereotypes about what boys and girls are supposed to do, and become less likely to play with children of a different gender at recess.

“When they see adults talk about gender as a category system,” Liben says, “kids become more vigilant about making the distinction themselves.” Jill Soloway, creator of the Amazon series “Transparent,” is a fan of “they” as a corrective to that phenomenon.

“A really interesting thought exercise is to say ‘they’ and ‘them’ for all genders,” she told The New Yorker recently. “The promise of this revolution is not having to say, ‘Men do this, women do this.’ ”

Illustration rom the New York Times by Javier Jaén. Letters: Golibo, via iStock/Getty Images. Hand: Starblue, via Dreamstime.