An apology for masculine pronouns

"Apology" in Webster's (1828) sense: something said or written in defense... of what appears to others wrong, or unjustifiable; or of what may be liable to disapprobation.

Above: “Moses”, in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome, by Michaelangelo (1475-1564).

Our language is a clumsy enough vehicle already without burdening it further simply to satisfy the demands of a linguistic special interest group intent on misreading someone else's words and attributing to that author a sexists content and intent he disavows. - Michael Bauman, Pilgrim Theology

When I was a graduate philosophy student, there was a tacit rule which directed students to use feminine pronouns in every paper. I never liked the rule or the pressure on students to follow it. We ought to write for the ear, not the eye, and so I thought it made English a bit clunkier. For example, "he” and “his" are easier to read and say (phonetically) than "she” and “her". But more importantly, as a principle, I was against exploiting language to push dubious political agendas. Back then I usually wrote "you", which was the safe a via media that allowed me to avoid using feminine pronouns and removed me from the crosshairs of professors who didn't like masculine ones.

Now that I am loosed from the fetters of academe, I use only masculine pronouns in accord with traditional usage. Such use, though currently unpopular, is neither sexist nor inappropriate, for grammatical gender is not the same as sex, and context makes clear when a masculine pronoun is generic (and thus inclusive) or not. We refer to objects like ships, concepts like liberty, and nature in general in feminine terms, and we are not sexist or inappropriate for doing so. And, if writers are not sexist or inappropriate for using feminine pronouns, then neither are they for using masculine ones.

I also prefer a single pronoun to the “he/she” hybrid and its cognates, which, to borrow from Jacques Barzun, "destroy the rhythm of a sentence and create an unwanted emphasis."¹

If you find the foregoing thoughts unconvincing, then I leave you with Peter Kreeft’s classic and humorous apologia:

The use of the traditional inclusive generic pronoun "he" is a decision of language, not of gender justice. There are only six alternatives.

(1) We could use the grammatically misleading and numerically incorrect "they." But when we say "one baby was healthier than the others because they didn't drink that milk," we do not know whether the antecedent of "they" is "one" or "others," so we don't know whether to give or take away the milk. Such language codes could be dangerous to a baby's health.
(2) Another alternative is the politically intrusive "in-your-face" generic “she," which I would probably use if I were an angry, politically intrusive, in-your-face woman, but I am not any of those things.
(3) Changing "he" to "he or she" refutes itself in such comically clumsy and ugly revisions as the following: "What does it profit a man or woman if he or she gains the whole world but loses his or her own soul? Or what shall a man or woman give in exchange for his or her soul?" The answer is: he or she will give up his or her linguistic sanity.
(4) We could also be both intrusive and clumsy by saying "she or he."
(5) Or we could use the neuter "it," which is both dehumanizing and inaccurate.
(6) Or we could combine all the linguistic garbage together and use "she or he or it," which, abbreviated, would sound like "sh...it."

I believe in the equal intelligence and value of women, but not in the intelligence or value of "political correctness," linguistic ugliness, grammatical inaccuracy, conceptual confusion, or dehumanizing pronouns.²

1. If my notes do not deceive me, this is drawn from his book From Dawn to Decadence: 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life.

2. Socratic Logic: A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles, 3rd edition (South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press), page 36.