Getting rid of ‘he’ and ‘she’

Michael Brendan Dougherty

NationalReview.com

Should the “gendered” pronouns such as “he” and “she” simply be eliminated from common usage to liberate Americans from gender norms? Believe it or not, said Michael Brendan Dougherty, that was a serious suggestion last week by New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo, a straight married father who said he now wants to be referred to as “they,” rather than “he.” Why? “They (Manjoo)” thinks his daughter and son are conforming to society’s gender roles, and “this horrifies them. By ‘them’ I mean them (Manjoo).” Sorry, I can’t keep this up. But Manjoo’s discomfort with gender identifiers for everyone—not just trans or nonbinary people—“is a great illustration of the difference between conservatives and progressives.” Conservatives believe that cultural norms and values bestowed by our ancestors are “a gift”—earned wisdom resulting from many generations of human experience. Progressives tend to see such norms as “an arbitrary form of oppression.” Manjoo wishes his kids could grow up in “a pure state of nature,” with no cultural norms or expectations, but this, of course, is impossible. Just because his kids are currently identified as “he” and “she,” they “are not in a prison, and he is not a jailer.”

■