The Hypothetical Pronoun

 

Recently I’ve wrestled with the question of the hypothetical pronoun. Sometimes saying "one does or doesn't do X" doesn't sound right, and saying "they" can get annoying. However, there are many who complain that using "he" as a hypothetical pronoun is somewhat chauvinistic/misogynistic/etc. I disagree. But this also prevents me from using "she" so much, just to placate those who are offended by so innocuous a word as "he".

 

I would contend that by overuse, "he" as a hypothetical pronoun does not necessarily favor men over women. I've argued this point in a Rhetoric class before, but I feel like putting it up here now. Assuming "he" is most often used in the hypothetical cases I'm discussing, it can be used to represent nearly anything.

 

"When a witness lies under oath, he may be held in contept of court."

"A crocodile uses his teeth when he bites."

"The man said he lost his sunglasses."

 

The meaning of "he" is stretched far to encompass any gender or neutral object by being applied to situations wherein the subject is unknown. The witness may be a woman, or he may be a man. The word "he" has lost it's gender, unless its established by another word like "man" in the third example. "She", on the other hand, is reserved most often for situations in which the subject is known to be female/feminine (in terms of nouns). The definition of "she" is narrowly defined.

 

By this we can see that "he" has become only half masculine, whereas "she" is all feminine. And therefore, using "he" instead of "she" in situations where the gender of the object is unknown does nothing to "put down" real live females. In this situation, "he" has as much worth as "they" or "one".