Quote:
Originally Posted by Destriarch
I mean does anyone really think it's sexist to just pick a personal pronoun at random and use it to avoid confusion? Really? Using these strange almost-words just smacks of pretention.
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Not pretention. In this case, it smacks of "trying to make the book feel transhumanist/"social science fiction-y". I forgot what the intro said about the words, (book's at home, I'm at work) but it's something to the effect of using them for their SF-iness, not just so that those two truly "gender is oppression!" folks out there feel at ease.
Check out
Distress by Greg Egan. In that book (among others where a theme of transhumanism/transgenderism plays a strong part of the social world, like his awesome collection of short stories "Axiomatic", or his seminal work "Diaspora" where most of the main characters are computer-born AI humans), there are sexless pronouns in play all the time as well.
Personally, I like Egan's pronouns better. "Ve/Ver/Viz" instead of "He/She,Him/Her,Hers/His" for androgynous/sexless humans, while still recognizing he/she for humans who identify with a sexual gender.
-Andy