You Lose Readers When You Write With Gender
Why writers should omit gender: a reader’s perspective
It may seem hypocritical for me to speak about my own gender in this article, but I think it helps with context. I’m a cis-gendered woman who happens to believe that gender is a harmful construct, but this article isn’t about that belief at all. It’s about how writing with gendered pronouns can cause you to lose your reader, regardless of how they identify.
You might be thinking that of course, some writing needs to include gendered pronouns, and I agree. Especially with historical nonfiction. From a gender perspective, we absolutely should identify people the way they choose to identify themselves, and I think it’s to be expected that many fictional characters will have binary gender identities. My main focus here is on anything that’s written to the reader or in support of the reader, such as self-help, motivational, and inspirational writing. This includes any writing, fiction or non, that speaks directly to the reader. And educational writing, when research shows that it applies regardless of sex and/or gender, whichever is applicable to the topic at hand.
Many readers are imaginative. They enjoy inspirational work because they get to imagine themselves experiencing the end result. With a really motivational piece they even get to feel what it’s like to have the thing the author’s describing, which makes them want to go out and get it so they can maintain that feeling. I’m one of those readers.
When I am reading something in which the author keeps referring to “you”, I know that they’re talking to me. When they leave out their own description (as the writer or narrator), sometimes I even get to be the one in the story. I love it when a writer puts me inside their poem or short story.
Not all writers let me stay there though. The fantasyland I enjoy so much can crumble quickly when gender is thrown into it. I’ll be chugging along, reading some motivational piece, feeling inspired that I, too, can quiet that voice that constantly lives in my head, when suddenly I’m hit with a “he”. Up pops that very voice I was just learning to quiet: ‘wait a second- who is this article for?!! I thought it was about us?!!’
This can even happen to me when a writer starts talking about women, even though I do identify as one. There are many characteristics of the “stereotypical woman” that I don’t identify with. So when someone starts talking about women as a group, sometimes I’ll assume they’re not really speaking to me. How can they really get me if they’re treating me like I’m just another one of them? I know that I’m not the only one who feels this way. I know several women in the same boat, tons of men with an aversion to masculinity, and then of course there are all of the people out there who don’t identify with either of the genders most writers tend to refer to.
So if you don’t want to lose me, or other readers like me, please leave gender out of it when you can! I know this can be really hard and isn’t how most of us have been trained. I struggle with it constantly, and I mess up sometimes. It took me forever to finish this short poem because habit energy kept trying to include my partner’s pronouns. But I didn’t want that poem to be just about us. I wanted whoever took the time to read it to get to experience it too. And I think you can create that same experience if you leave out gender too.
