Gender Neutral Personal Pronouns

This article highlights the question of gender neutrality in prescriptive legal texts and shows how the rise of feminism has led to the stigmatization of ‘sexist’ language by criticizing the use of the ‘masculine rule’ in legal texts. After a brief historical survey as to how and why the masculine rule was introduced in the early 19th century, the author explores the situation of gender-neutral drafting in a variety of English-speaking countries as well as in international organizations. This is followed by a detailed analysis of gender-neutral drafting in the United Kingdom and Ireland, with specific reference to the situation in Westminster, the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly of Wales, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Oireachtas in Dublin. It is noted that some of these legislative bodies have been quicker than others in introducing gender-neutral drafting.

This paper is an attempt at a preliminary definition of nounself pronouns, which are a large number of newly invented English 3rd person personal pronouns that have not been previously studied. The pronouns are created and used primarily by a virtual community on the blogging platform tumblr.com, with the first occurrence of a nounself pronoun in late 2013. The study is based on data from 134 responses to a questionnaire written by the author, distributed through tumblr.com, as well as on email-based interviews with three respondents who volunteered to be interviewed. Analysis of the data suggests that the pronouns are used to express, explore, and negotiate the identities of the respondents, in particular in relation to gender identities.

This paper focuses on ungendered narrative with reference to select fictional works, to shed light on the elements that define the genre. One or more characters with an undisclosed gender are the focal point of the narrative. The paper discusses techniques that authors employ to keep gender hidden, such as employing inventive gender-neutral pronouns or not using them at all. First-and second-person points of view are also common modes of narration, as " I " and " you " are gender-neutral. In depicting characters, authors consciously merge masculine and feminine stereotypes to create gender-secretive characters. The heterosexual love interest that has hitherto ruled the creative world is thus replaced by endless gender possibilities with which a couple may identify. Love, rather than the characters' gender, is at the forefront of these works. These narratives confront readers with the importance they assign to gender and their habit of pigeonholing certain behaviors, characteristics, and tendencies into a binary gender system. They force readers to question gender segregation and the consequences of choosing to defy the gender one is assigned at birth. Ultimately, these narratives ask whether gender matters in life.

The Danish pronoun de and its inflections are traditionally described as 3rd person plural, but, as this article demonstrates, it is also used as a gender neutral 3rd person singular pronoun. As this pronoun - termed singular de - has not been documented or described in the literature thus far, the purpose of this article is to provide a grammatical description and analysis of singular de and its referential use in interaction. This is based on 104 occurrences of singular de in naturally occurring conversation. It is found that singular de is used with both generic and specific reference, and that interlocutors may use singular de to avoid indexing gender and orienting to it as a relevant topic in talk-in-interaction (gender-unspecified reference) or to index the referent's gender as neither male nor female (gender-specified reference). The article also parallels between singular de and English singular they, as well as sociolinguistic variation in the use of singular de which could be topics for future studies.

Desire knows no boundaries. However, when an author depicts an amorous scene that involves ungendered characters – those whose gender is not disclosed in the text– language creates boundaries around the desire. Desire is chained and shackled under the restriction of language in an effort to keep the gender hidden. In ungendered narrative, bodies express desire, but we never know to what gender the bodies belong. The reader is in constant search of clues to gender-segregate the bodies, but the author does not let the reader succeed. Moreover, the gendered nature of language comes to the fore, making hiding gender a daunting task for writers. The author manipulates the language to depict the lust of bodies, devoid of gender. The description of intimate moments in gendered narratives is pleasure-inducing for readers, but in ungendered narratives it becomes a thorny issue. The solution to this problem is to stop searching for clues to a character’s gender by looking beyond the binaries of gender. The lovemaking should be treated as an act that does not require the knowledge of what is between legs, but the genuine desire in the heart. This realisation makes the readers sense the same passionate experience felt by the bodies of the characters. The readers witness how love transcends the limitation of gender and achieves greater significance at the hands of writers of ungendered narratives.

The Danish language, like many other 'Western' languages, does not have any human-referent gender neutral third person singular pronoun that is "officially" recognized in the sense that it is taught in language classes, used in public documents, or included in most dictionaries. Nevertheless, many individuals prefer being referred to with pronouns that do not designate that individual as either female or male, which prompts linguistic innovation and creativity. This article is a pilot study presenting the initial results of a 7-question survey investigating the use of gender neutral and nonbinary/genderqueer pronouns in Danish. Based on 75 responses, it is found that the pronouns most people prefer others to refer to them with are de 'they' (the third person plural), den 'it' (the third person singular common gender, conventionally used to refer to objects and non-pet animals), and hen (third person singular neologism), as well as hun 'she' and han 'he'. The survey targeted two groups of respondents: 1) Nonbinary/genderqueer individuals and 2) Women and men who wish to be referred to with pronouns other than hun/han. The final section of the article suggests several topics for further research of gender neutral and nonbinary/genderqueer pronouns, both in Danish and in other languages.

Indian software industry is witnessing a rapid
growth where the sector is estimated to have generated
US$ 142 billion in revenue during 2015 compared to US$
111 billion in 2014, implying a growth rate of 22.43 per
cent. From the perspective of labour relations and the
workforce, the industry is distinctive in its apparently
woman-friendly policies. Major players in the industry
boast themselves on their well-designed HR policies,
blended with tall claims about equality of opportunity
that is supposed to give equal opportunity to women. In
reality, software sector is still a male dominated industry
which tends to exclude or marginalise women. Although
researches suggests a reasonable gender neutral pursuit
by this industry, an adequate level of gender inclusivity is
yet to be accomplished. Important players claim to have
achieved higher levels of psychological well-being
experienced by employees through creating a gender
neutral environment. Data was collected from 400
software engineers working in three large organizations
with the help of online questionnaires. Analysis of data
was carried out using one way ANOVA with the aid of
SPSS software. It was found that female employees
perceived higher levels of psychological well-being
compared to that of male employees working in software
industry. It was also found that female employees
perceived higher levels of the pleasure and purpose
dimension of psychological wellbeing compared to that of
male employees working in IT sector.