Hello Joshua, I don’t know whether the pages have been changed but when I have checked the biographies on the gov website the pronouns appear as he and she not they. I am not sure where you have taken the pictures from?
Why on earth are these ministers referred to as 'they'? Their gender is not in doubt. Are the pronouns 'he' and 'she' now to be consigned to the dustbin?
Encouraging gender neutral pronoun etiquette among adults in the public sphere seems like a good move.
Much of the asymmetric allocation of rights and opportunities casually engendered (🙂) by gender stereotyping remains effectively invisible, ingrained, though quite arbitrary.
Yes, but my question was why you would expect that removing that 'cultural baggage' from our grammar should make any difference to our culture? Lots of languages use sex neutral pronouns and I'm not aware of any empirical evidence that these cultures are any less 'gendered' than ours (on the contrary, Bengali and Turkish, for example, are spoken in cultures with much more rigid gender norms than most Western European Countries)
Thanks, Joshua; quite so, and -although I find these concerns in no way affect me- attacks on so-called wokeism are often so gratuitous, ill considered and in some cases downright threatening that I can understand the anxieties of someone in government.It may however be a case of meeting trouble halfway all the same. Our daughter (Professor) Corinne Fowler ( principal subject Colonial History and related slavery) has been attacked so viciously in print and words as a pseudo- academic and has received so many rude and lewd insults as well as death and other vile threats that we in my view do need to stand up and be counted as against such “little England” attacks from in particular the Common Sense Group and also some academics and quasi-academics who do surely know better and so particular shame on them.
Why on earth are you moved to use capital letters?! The whole pronouns thing is clearly part of gender ideology which has spread so widely and which insists on a change of perfectly clear and serviceable language to obfuscate, while asserting sex and gender identity are indistinguishable. This has implications across single sex spaces like women’s prisons, hospital wards and domestic violence refuges, to name a few. Attempting to shut down commentary on this by calling people right wing or that they are participating in culture wars shows a refusal to engage in discussion with those you don’t agree with
And how do you justify putting words into my mouth?
I said nothing that could give you any excuse for saying that I am "asserting sex and gender identity are indistinguishable".
Of course they are distinguishable. I've been a feminist probably longer than you've been alive & in all that time I've worked harder on women's rights than most.
Nor did I call anyone right wing, let alone try to shut down commentary or accuse Joshua of participating in culture wars.
I merely noticed that it was very disappointing to see someone I respect commenting on something so unimportant, when there are much more serious issues to consider.
It's time that particular dead cat was buried, along with all the others the last government used to cover up its corruption & incompetence. That way, trans people will be safer, and so will women and single sex spaces. We can get back to talking about the real problems.
And Putin's bots (and the Daily Mail) will have to look for another way to disrupt our democracy.
I don't understand why you don't understand why this is do important!
It's pandering to a woke ideology that 50years from now (assuming we still exist as a species) will br looked upon with horror.
It's throwing in his lot with gen whatever who are incapable of independent critical thinking and incapable of allowing anyone to criticise them.
It's important because "they" and "them" denote plural not singular. Si its not just pandering it's brown nosing his way up the b u ms of the aforesaud jokes, at the expense of grammar.
But "they" doesn't only mean the plural; it's also correctly used when gender is uncertain, unknown - or unimportant.
For heavens sake let's abandon any ignorant pandering to Gove's grammar police, too, while we're ignoring culture war nonsense! English grammar is really not that rigid, never has been & was misused by the previous government to create artificial ways to measure how good teachers were, with no consideration of how that damaged childrens' love of literature.
I'm flattered that you imagine me as "gen whatever", though. I'm defo in the "nan" age bracket, according to the scaffolders who were working here this morning, and that came with an interesting measure of respect!
I myself use "they" myself when gender is uncertain, unknown or unimportant. But I try to avoid it because it can sometimes be ambiguous.
What I can't understand is why the government has started to use "they" when to refer to a person whose gender is certain, known and — for some, at least — important.
These ministers have been referred to by gendered pronouns all their lives and, as far as we know, they have not complained. Why change now?
Isn't it interesting that people like me - who care desperately about sexism, misogyny and prejudice in general - find themselves wondering why people are making a fuss about certain pronouns, after so many years of counting each female/minority high profile appointment as a step forward, and thinking carefully about how we refer to each other?
Perhaps that was the point.
Perhaps we can stop worrying about it - at least until the nightmare weaponisation of culture war issues fades away.
There are more important things to think about at the moment and it would be so nice to have boring politicians who weren't constantly throwing dead cats about to hide their latest disastrous misjudgement.
Hello Joshua, I don’t know whether the pages have been changed but when I have checked the biographies on the gov website the pronouns appear as he and she not they. I am not sure where you have taken the pictures from?
Quite right. Power of the press, eh?
Why on earth are these ministers referred to as 'they'? Their gender is not in doubt. Are the pronouns 'he' and 'she' now to be consigned to the dustbin?
Encouraging gender neutral pronoun etiquette among adults in the public sphere seems like a good move.
Much of the asymmetric allocation of rights and opportunities casually engendered (🙂) by gender stereotyping remains effectively invisible, ingrained, though quite arbitrary.
Language evolves. What canst thou say?
I'm not sure I'm following your logic, why would the adoption of sex-neutral pronouns reduce or mitigate gender stereotyping?
I guess I was observing that a gendered pronoun is a gender neutral pronoun loaded with an unbalanced bundle of cultural baggage?
Yes, but my question was why you would expect that removing that 'cultural baggage' from our grammar should make any difference to our culture? Lots of languages use sex neutral pronouns and I'm not aware of any empirical evidence that these cultures are any less 'gendered' than ours (on the contrary, Bengali and Turkish, for example, are spoken in cultures with much more rigid gender norms than most Western European Countries)
Thanks, Joshua; quite so, and -although I find these concerns in no way affect me- attacks on so-called wokeism are often so gratuitous, ill considered and in some cases downright threatening that I can understand the anxieties of someone in government.It may however be a case of meeting trouble halfway all the same. Our daughter (Professor) Corinne Fowler ( principal subject Colonial History and related slavery) has been attacked so viciously in print and words as a pseudo- academic and has received so many rude and lewd insults as well as death and other vile threats that we in my view do need to stand up and be counted as against such “little England” attacks from in particular the Common Sense Group and also some academics and quasi-academics who do surely know better and so particular shame on them.
I for one am really happy to say "WHY ON EARTH DOES THIS MATTER?"
I'm disappointed in you - why are you bothering to talk about this?
Let's forget this particular part of the culture war and get on with sorting out the mess.
Why on earth are you moved to use capital letters?! The whole pronouns thing is clearly part of gender ideology which has spread so widely and which insists on a change of perfectly clear and serviceable language to obfuscate, while asserting sex and gender identity are indistinguishable. This has implications across single sex spaces like women’s prisons, hospital wards and domestic violence refuges, to name a few. Attempting to shut down commentary on this by calling people right wing or that they are participating in culture wars shows a refusal to engage in discussion with those you don’t agree with
And how do you justify putting words into my mouth?
I said nothing that could give you any excuse for saying that I am "asserting sex and gender identity are indistinguishable".
Of course they are distinguishable. I've been a feminist probably longer than you've been alive & in all that time I've worked harder on women's rights than most.
Nor did I call anyone right wing, let alone try to shut down commentary or accuse Joshua of participating in culture wars.
I merely noticed that it was very disappointing to see someone I respect commenting on something so unimportant, when there are much more serious issues to consider.
It's time that particular dead cat was buried, along with all the others the last government used to cover up its corruption & incompetence. That way, trans people will be safer, and so will women and single sex spaces. We can get back to talking about the real problems.
And Putin's bots (and the Daily Mail) will have to look for another way to disrupt our democracy.
I don't understand why you don't understand why this is do important!
It's pandering to a woke ideology that 50years from now (assuming we still exist as a species) will br looked upon with horror.
It's throwing in his lot with gen whatever who are incapable of independent critical thinking and incapable of allowing anyone to criticise them.
It's important because "they" and "them" denote plural not singular. Si its not just pandering it's brown nosing his way up the b u ms of the aforesaud jokes, at the expense of grammar.
Neeed I go on?
But "they" doesn't only mean the plural; it's also correctly used when gender is uncertain, unknown - or unimportant.
For heavens sake let's abandon any ignorant pandering to Gove's grammar police, too, while we're ignoring culture war nonsense! English grammar is really not that rigid, never has been & was misused by the previous government to create artificial ways to measure how good teachers were, with no consideration of how that damaged childrens' love of literature.
I'm flattered that you imagine me as "gen whatever", though. I'm defo in the "nan" age bracket, according to the scaffolders who were working here this morning, and that came with an interesting measure of respect!
I myself use "they" myself when gender is uncertain, unknown or unimportant. But I try to avoid it because it can sometimes be ambiguous.
What I can't understand is why the government has started to use "they" when to refer to a person whose gender is certain, known and — for some, at least — important.
These ministers have been referred to by gendered pronouns all their lives and, as far as we know, they have not complained. Why change now?
Agree absolutely.
Isn't it interesting that people like me - who care desperately about sexism, misogyny and prejudice in general - find themselves wondering why people are making a fuss about certain pronouns, after so many years of counting each female/minority high profile appointment as a step forward, and thinking carefully about how we refer to each other?
Perhaps that was the point.
Perhaps we can stop worrying about it - at least until the nightmare weaponisation of culture war issues fades away.
There are more important things to think about at the moment and it would be so nice to have boring politicians who weren't constantly throwing dead cats about to hide their latest disastrous misjudgement.
Thanks. It must matter to someone in government.