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From: garys@bunker.UUCP (Gary M. Samuelson)
Newsgroups: net.nlang,net.women
Subject: Re: Gender-specific responses to s/he
Message-ID: <643@bunker.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 2-Jan-85 17:45:47 EST
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Posted: Wed Jan  2 17:45:47 1985
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Xref: watmath net.nlang:2307 net.women:3953

> Generic Versus Specific Inclusion of Women in Language: Effects on Recall
> 
> Mary Crawford and Linda English
> 
> J. Psycholinguistic Research, 1984, 13, 373
> 
> ...  College student subjects read essays that were identical
> except for the use of "generic" terms versus those that deliberately
> include women (he/she, his/her, people).  In experiment 1, the Generic
> essay form led to better recall of the essay's factual content by male
> subjects, while the Specific form produced better recall by females.

Wonderful.  So no matter how I write, I will be discriminating
against *somebody*, in that what I write will be harder for females
to grasp if I use generic terms, and harder for males to grasp if
I use he/she.

Gary Samuelson
ittvax!bunker!garys