Section: Inclusive writing
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Introduction
Sometimes, you can avoid introducing gender into your sentence by simply leaving out the pronoun altogether. This is most often the case if the sentence is short and simple.
| Gendered sentence | Inclusive solution |
|---|---|
| An employee may submit his or her allotted vacation days at any time. | An employee may submit allotted vacation days at any time. |
| The clerk should file the documents once they are forwarded to him by the client. | The clerk should file the documents once they are forwarded by the client. |
| A manager must create a positive environment if she wants to win her employees’ trust. | A manager must create a positive environment to win employee trust. |
An added benefit is that the inclusive sentence is also more concise and direct than the original.
Guidelines for omitting the pronoun
When you use this technique, make sure the sentence retains its clarity. Pronouns help us be specific in our writing, and removing them without putting anything in their place can result in ambiguous sentences.
| Gendered sentence | Inclusive but ambiguous solution | Inclusive and clear solution |
|---|---|---|
| Once a trainee has finished an assignment, make sure to provide her with a performance assessment. | Once a trainee has finished an assignment, make sure to provide a performance assessment. | Once a trainee has finished an assignment, make sure to provide the trainee with a performance assessment. |
In the case above, omitting the gendered pronoun makes the sentence inclusive but also introduces ambiguity. Who should be receiving the performance assessment? The trainee? A manager? Repeating the noun eliminates the ambiguity.
Omitting the pronoun can also make your sentences sound more impersonal or unnatural. In that case, you may find that you need to make more significant changes to sentence structure (that is, rewrite the sentence) to avoid using the gendered pronoun.
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