As I started my story for this year's
NaNoWriMo (click NaNoWriMo for the main website, click
here for my page/story synopsis), I started to wonder what it would be like to write one character without any gender pronouns, thus setting me up to stop writing and hop onto Google. Apparently, it's harder than one would think to "create" a genderless pronoun without offending somebody in the process. One of the first genderless pronouns that came up while I was on Google was "it/its/it's," and this bothers me for many reasons. First, it seems to me to be the kind of pronoun you would assign a human being, not a gender-nonconforming person. Second, I would never want to be referred to as an "it." The phrase seems demeaning.
The next term that I came upon was the term "
em." With this pronoun, the general consensus of the poster was that the term was "masking" a real gender. However, I think that em is a perfectly acceptable substitute or pronoun for those who don't conform to the gender binary.
I guess I have a couple of questions for you guys:
- What do you think of using gender neutral pronouns in everyday society?
- What pronoun would you use/invent if you answer yes?
- If you answer no, why?
- Do you think it's possible to write a story without revealing the gender of the mail character?
Other Gender neutral pronoun sites/blogs:
Gender neutral pronouns such as "one", "they", or "em" are interesting to use in everyday society. I kind of find the use of the word "zie" to be unusual. When I refer to someone of ambiguous sex, I will say "them" or "one."
ReplyDeleteIt is possible to write a story without revealing the gender of the character. You can use the words "one," "the person", "human," "being," entity," and/or "subject." If the character is not human, then it is even easier not to use gender specific pronouns and that validates the use of the word "it," which is appropriate when describing animals BUT not humans of ambiguous sex. With that said, it is possible to write about a character without revealing their gender, although you would have to cover up deficiencies with the obvious lack of gender pronouns.
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ReplyDeletei definitely made it a goal throughout my entire creative writing class to be as ambiguous about the gender of my characters as possible, and i think it worked pretty well.
ReplyDeletei also get gender pronouns terrible confused in real life, so i guess i'm less attached to them than most people.
In narratives, where emotional connection with the character is required, i feel "one," "the person", "human," "being," entity," and/or "subject" are too clinical and too distanced.
I think terms like 'em' and 'zie' are appropriate to use with an actual person who has clearly identified their desire to be referred to in such a way, or in a character who has given some justification for referring to themselves that way. If no adequate justification is given in a story, the terms stand out a little too pronouncedly. they become "look, this character wants to have no gender!", which automatically calls attention to that character's lack of gender, which is really what wants to be avoided. I think in story format the use of "them", "they" or the character's name (it's also very interesting to try and write sentences with no pronouns at all) are the best for conveying a story without gender.
Well y'all know how I feel about pronouns! (Generally, I dislike them because I think they tend to distort and cloud the full meaning of the author.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big fan of although I know lots of people who despise it. I'm just beginning to learn about "em" and "ze."
I do think the ability to play upon the reader's inherent gendered assumptions by making one's own writing as gender neutral as possible can be a powerful effect.
I'd love to see what students are writing for "NaNoWriMo" (should be a link in your post, Tricia).
I have never actually known/met anyone who preferred gender-neutral pronouns, so I've never heard of any, but will keep 'em' and 'zie' in mind from now on. I do think it would be possible to write a story/novel without revealing the MC's gender, but it would be really difficult - kudos for trying, it's an awesome idea. I may actually be forced to try and do the same thing with one of my less-main characters who is supposed to be somewhat androgynous (though other than that my NaNo has NOTHING to do with GLBTness).
ReplyDeleteThe strategy I remember for this most vividly is the one used in the English translation of the video game Final Fantasy IX. Quina, one of the party members, is part of a species of hermaphrodites, all of which are referred to in-game as "s/he". (I don't remember what happens when a "her" or "his" pronoun is necessary. Possibly it's never used.) It didn't bother me that much, being that Quina is a) nonhuman and b) primarily used for comic relief. Besides which, I don't know if 'em' and 'zie' existed when the game came out, which was a long time ago. I might be curious to know what the pronoun used in the original Japanese version was, though.