Few grammatical debates nowadays cause more heated discussion than one that centers on the masculine pronoun he (him, his).  What makes the debate most interesting – and heated – is that it represents a convergence of grammar and what sociologists today call "gender issues."  It thus illustrates the extent to which the words we use and how we use them relate to who we are and how we think.

Background.  English grammar states that a pronoun must agree with its antecedent (the word to which it refers) in number and gender.  For instance, if the antecedent is the singular "a woman," the pronoun used to refer to this antecedent is she or her; if the antecedent is "a man," the pronoun is he, him, or his.  If the antecedent is the plural "people," the pronoun is they, them, or their.  But what if the antecedent is "a person," which could refer to any individual of either sex?  [The matter of sex versus gender is discussed in an addendum to this article.]

Until recently, the practice of using the masculine pronoun (he, him, or his) to refer to an antecedent that designated a person who could be of either gender (e.g., a student, a doctor, an executive, a person) was widely accepted.  A technical term used here is epicene:  belonging to or having the characteristics of both male or female (in another sense, sexless).  Another way of refering to this practice was to say that, grammatically, he, him, and his constituted "gender-neutral" pronouns and could be used to refer either to a masculine antecedent (the man) or to an antecedent of indeterminate gender (the person).  This approach, however, has recently come under attack as unacceptable, resulting in the current heated debate.

The Cultural Context.  When women's role in our culture was regarded as subordinate to men's, the epicene or gender-neutral pronoun he spurred little, if any, controversy.  With the rise of the movement for equality between the sexes, however, came an effort to "desex" the language, to strip it of connotations deemed to be discriminatory.  This trend manifested itself in what has come to be called "political correctness" (goodbye garbage collector, hello sanitation engineer; goodbye waiter and waitress, hello server or waitperson; goodbye steward and stewardess, hello flight attendant).  Not surprisingly, the use of the masculine pronoun in such statements as "A doctor should be attentive to his patients' emotional needs" became considered insensitive at best and offensive at worst.  It implies – so the argument goes – that all doctors are men.

Grammatical Consequences.  The immediate response to the discrediting of he, him, and his as gender-neutral pronouns was to substitute "he or she," "him or her," and "his or her," leading, in turn, to some squabbling about giving equal time to "she or he," "her or him," and "her(s) or his."  Some writers began to use the slash mark:  he/she, she/he, him/her, and so on.  It didn't matter that the slash imposed some problems when one read the sentences aloud.  For a time, the totally unpronounceable s/he was in vogue, but that practice seems to have faded.  In sum, writers were finding that frequent use of "he or she," "him or her," and "his or her" was unwieldy; they sought shortcuts.

One shortcut that avoided "sexist" pronouns and enabled the writer to use one word instead of a cumbersome three-word phrase was to use they, them, and their to refer to a singular antecedent:  "A doctor should be attentive to their patients' emotional needs."  This solution neatly bypassed the gender issue, but it also meant revoking in all such contexts the rule that pronouns must agree with their antecedents in number.  Indeed, it is highly probable that a rise in what grammarians would call errors in pronoun-antecedent agreement coincided with the efforts to liberate the language from what many deemed to be sexism. 

Occasionally, level heads have prevailed.  Among them were those who pointed out that it is possible to avoid sexism, "he or she" constructions, and pronoun-antecedent disagreement by recasting the sentence.  The new phrasing would change the antecedent to plural so that a plural pronoun could be correctly used, or it would eliminate the need for a pronoun altogether.  Thus, we might have "Doctors should be attentive to their patients' needs" [recast as plural] or "Doctors should be attentive to patients' needs" [eliminate the pronoun].  Such an approach alleviates the problem but does not solve it entirely.  Many instances still remain in which rephrasing is not possible without affecting the intended meaning; futhermore, such revisions require more effort and thought than many writers are willing to exert.  It is quicker and easier to let the pronoun-antecedent agreement error stand and hope that nobody notices – or cares.

A Compromise?  The matter does not lend itself readily to a simple resolution, but we think that a compromise is possible – one that should satisfy all parties in the debate or at least reduce the intensity of the salvos being fired between the entrenched camps.

> Even if one is not personally offended by the use of the masculine pronoun to refer to a person who may be of either sex, it is wise to avoid doing so.  The principle of considering the reader applies here.  It doesn't matter whether the writer thinks the reader should not be offended; discretion and common sense suggest that we should not risk alienating the reader unnecessarily.  Except in private correspondence, we usually do not know who might read what we have written; it is foolhardy to engage in usage that may be offensive when we have more important matters to communicate.

> Frequent use of "he or she," "him or her," and "his or her" is cumbersome.  We should, therefore, apply this solution only as a last resort.  A careful writer can usually find another way to express the same idea.

> Until agreed-upon rules for pronoun-antecedent agreement change, it is unwise to use they, them, and their to refer to a singular antecedent for several reasons.  Possibly the most compelling is that the reader cannot possibly know whether such usage reflects the writer's ignorance of the rules or the writer's attempt to avoid "sexist" pronouns.  Especially when another option exists (besides "he or she," "him or her," and "his or her"), the reader may justifiably conclude that the writer's use of they, them, and their reflects ignorance of – or disregard for – the rules of grammar.  Just as use of the masculine pronoun to refer to a person of either sex may be construed by some (perhaps many) readers as a reflection of bias, faulty grammar may suggest that the writer is not intelligent enough to be taken seriously.  Such a conclusion may be unjustified, but it will be made nonetheless.

Looking to the Future.  It is possible but unlikely that the controversy will be resolved by returning to the practice of using he, him, and his as epicene or gender-neutral pronouns.  The objection to this usage reflects a cultural change that is unlikely to be reversed and one over which grammarians have no control.  It is also possible but unlikely that they, them, and their may someday be accepted to refer to a singular antecedent, but, even if this were to happen, it would take a very long time.  Changes in the grammar of a language do not occur overnight, even though changes in and additions to vocabulary and idioms may, especially nowadays, take hold with great rapidity.  The modification of grammar is an evolutionary process.

Proof of the last point resides in the treatment of everyone.  Although still regarded as singular by most grammarians and still requiring a singular verb ("Everyone is," not "Everyone are"), everyone is widely referred to in common usage with a plural pronoun:  "Everyone who came to the party brought their spouse."  The practice is becoming accepted, even by many traditionalist grammarians and even though there's a logical contradiction in using a singular verb and a plural pronoun with everyone. Nevertheless, such usage is being adopted as an exception to the rule (partly on the grounds that the sense of everyone is plural – all of them).  It has not led to total abolition of the rule that pronouns must agree in number with their antecedents – nor, in our opinion, should it.

Addendum:  In this debate, another issue that arises concerns the use of the words gender and sex.  Traditionally, gender has been used to refer to grammar-based categories – masculine, feminine, and neuter.  Recently, however, the term has come to be applied and is well-established as referring to sex-based categories, as in, gender gap, gender issues, and the politics of gender.  To be sure, the term sex has retained its distinctive meaning – we're going to say that a film has many sex scenes, not that it has many gender scenes – but gender is not used nowadays to refer strictly to grammar-based categories.  Even those who are careful to distinguish between sex and gender are likely to concede that "a person of either gender" and "a person of either sex" are equally acceptable.  That some still insist upon making a clear-cut distinction between the two terms is, in fact, proof that linguistic change tends to be a slow, evolutionary process.  In our opinion, the acceptance of they, them, and their as singular pronouns will be even slower than the acceptance of gender as having some use beyond its grammar-based meaning – if indeed it happens at all.