Its not any weirder than pretty much any other language. In many Latin languages the default is feminine rather than masculine. Referring to a group of mixed gendered people in Spanish would be default feminine. Theres literally nothing inherently incorrect about either one having a default. I would imagine most native Spanish speakers would view someone as stupid for intentionally making something masculine over feminine just to prove a point of any kind.
Seeing English having a masculine default is patriarchal in some way is just nonsense. Latin countries are no less patriarchal despite having a completely different kinds of genderization in language. I studied a great deal of feminism and gender theory in college but this is one place where I dont see the logic at all. Overall tho I could care less if people want to write whatever pronoun they want there. To me, having it be gendered is a very outdated method of writing and they sounds far more modern. Saying he or her where you could say they just sounds like old timey Atlantic accent speech
It’s kinda weird in general that most languages have gramatical markers for gender.
We don’t have a separate pronoun and separate word endings for e.g. young vs old, for poor vs rich, for educated vs unlearned and so on.
Many languages don’t even have a neutral form (like “they” in english), thus forcing you to mark the gender of the person you are talking about gramatically.
Like, for example, why would I care whether the baker making my bread is male or female? I care that they are a baker and know how to make good bread. Otherwise they don’t even have to be human for all I care.
or just likes reminding people in an effective way how strange it is that the “default” pronoun is “he”
Its not any weirder than pretty much any other language. In many Latin languages the default is feminine rather than masculine. Referring to a group of mixed gendered people in Spanish would be default feminine. Theres literally nothing inherently incorrect about either one having a default. I would imagine most native Spanish speakers would view someone as stupid for intentionally making something masculine over feminine just to prove a point of any kind.
Seeing English having a masculine default is patriarchal in some way is just nonsense. Latin countries are no less patriarchal despite having a completely different kinds of genderization in language. I studied a great deal of feminism and gender theory in college but this is one place where I dont see the logic at all. Overall tho I could care less if people want to write whatever pronoun they want there. To me, having it be gendered is a very outdated method of writing and they sounds far more modern. Saying he or her where you could say they just sounds like old timey Atlantic accent speech
It’s kinda weird in general that most languages have gramatical markers for gender.
We don’t have a separate pronoun and separate word endings for e.g. young vs old, for poor vs rich, for educated vs unlearned and so on.
Many languages don’t even have a neutral form (like “they” in english), thus forcing you to mark the gender of the person you are talking about gramatically.
Like, for example, why would I care whether the baker making my bread is male or female? I care that they are a baker and know how to make good bread. Otherwise they don’t even have to be human for all I care.
The default pronoun is they though, not he. I would have put the exact same comment if they’d used he.