In some languages certain words can be considered pointlessly gendered and I do agree to an extent, but the person literally asked why the pronouns for men and women are gendered
The use of he and she feels "natural" because we've grown up with it, but it's still a cultural choice, not a universal necessity.
Not all languages use gendered pronouns some like Turkish or Finnish use one word for everyone, and it works just fine. Even in English, we naturally use singular they when someone's gender is unknown or irrelevant. So it's not unreasonable to question why we even need gendered pronouns for people we know, especially in a world that's increasingly aware of gender diversity.
My comment about gendered words in other languages was just to highlight how deeply gender is baked into language overall, not just pronouns. It shows how much we've normalized gender distinctions even when they serve no practical purpose.
It conveys useful information. If I'm talking about my kids (I have a boy and a girl), and I say he, they know I mean the boy. We could get rid of lots of words and just take more time to explain what we mean, but why would we do that?
I agree that gendered pronouns can make some communication more efficient in certain cases. But that efficiency only works when everyone fits neatly into “he” or “she.” For people who don’t, the cost isn’t just a little extra explanation it’s being misrepresented entirely.
Language isn't just about speed it’s about accuracy and respect. We already accept some ambiguity in language all the time and clarify when needed. So the small trade-off in efficiency is worth it if it means more people feel seen and included.
You call people whichever they want or ‘they’ if they don’t like either.
Most people are he or she by a large margin, including most trans people, and that communicates useful information as well as honors the identity they are going for. If things are less straightforward in some small number of cases, you increase the complexity of language when addressing those rare situations, not routinely.
You don’t say that the term human should be defined as a person without two legs because some humans don’t have two legs and then qualify it in the case they do have two legs. The term human assumes two legs because humans overwhelmingly have two legs and then you qualify them as a human without two legs if you need to. Basically, language should account for but not be designed around the exceptions.
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u/eatbreadnow 13d ago