How to Avoid Sexism in Legal Writing: A Pronoun Primer

Good legal writers should write in such a way that no one could call sexist, but also appears totally natural and not contrived. Bryan Garner recommends that legal writers adopt a style that “no reasonable person could call sexist [and that] never suggests that you’re contorting your language to be nonsexist.” In Modern American Usage, Garner suggests three solutions to the “Pronoun Problem“:

  1. Alternate your use of masculine pronouns he, him, or himself, and feminine pronouns she, her, or herself. After all, that’s what the Supreme Court Justices do.
  2. Use pronouns pairs like he or she and his or her.
  3. Avoid the pronoun problem by:
  • Deleting the pronoun
  • Changing the pronoun to an article like a(n) or the
  • Pluralizing the sentence so that he becomes they
  • Substitute the relative pronoun who for he or she
  • Repeating the antecedent noun making the pronoun unnecessary

What NOT to do – avoid the “slants.” What is a “slant”? According to William Zinsser, author of On Writing Well, a “slant has no place in good English.”  The slant is a nonword that combines the pronouns: s/he, he/she, she/he, s/he/it (really?).

For more, read “Avoiding Sexism in Legal Writing – The Pronoun Problem” here.