> kids were not allowed to say "he" or "she" when talking about person but rather had to use [a gender-neutral pronoun]
At first, that struck me as excessive, too, but on the other hand, I can't help but wonder how much of an effect language has on the way people think, and gender-specific pronouns are something that really reinforces the concept of "other".
There's no logical reason for encoding gender into the grammar of a language, particularly as opposed to some other construct that would be better at distinguishing between multiple subjects in the same passage.
Of course, I wouldn't go to the extent of forcing children to use non-standard language, but I can't disagree with the idea that we'd be better off switching to gender-neutral pronouns.
At first, that struck me as excessive, too, but on the other hand, I can't help but wonder how much of an effect language has on the way people think, and gender-specific pronouns are something that really reinforces the concept of "other".
There's no logical reason for encoding gender into the grammar of a language, particularly as opposed to some other construct that would be better at distinguishing between multiple subjects in the same passage.
Of course, I wouldn't go to the extent of forcing children to use non-standard language, but I can't disagree with the idea that we'd be better off switching to gender-neutral pronouns.