4 ms·

Just use the generic he[1]. It's classic and has the benefit of not injecting politics into an unrelated issue. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third-person

• egypturnash 8y ago
  So the problem is that there’s no way to disguish the “generic” he from the “gendered” he, and it is very easy to read everything that uses the generic as being gendered, and then you suddenly have a world where only guys exist, which is probably some sort of political statement. The singular they[1] has precedent going back to the fourteenth century. Just use that. [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
  • azangru 8y ago
    > and then you suddenly have a world where only guys exist, which is probably some sort of political statement. I wish people who felt about that strongly and wanted to make a political statement just used the gendered she creating the fictional world where only girls exist. That would have been so much simpler and avoided so much pointless arguments over the grammatical number and gender of pronouns.
• kaitai 8y ago
  As a mathematician I use the generic she as it's got a better expected value if you're optimizing for being right.