This in from a lawyer friend of mine.
A Reno, Nevada man has filed a state lawsuit claiming that the U.S. Constitution would have to be amended to allow Sen. Hillary Clinton to appear on the presidential ballot.
Douglas Wallace, 80, argues that because the constitution refers to "he" and "his" in describing presidential duties, a woman can't hold the office.
"The use of female gendered pronouns 'she' or 'her' are not present in the document, making it conclusive that the framers never intended that a woman would be president of the United States," Wallace wrote in the suit.
Folks are crazy.
But I do think the "he" pronoun in documents intended to refer to both genders does stop people from imagining women in traditionally male roles. I have co-written numerous manuals and text books, and I make a point to switch up the pronouns. Instead of writing "s/he" or "he or she," sometimes I'll use she, sometimes he. I do enjoy inserting "she" in places where we're more accustomed to "he."
For example, I used to write SAT manuals. So I might explain a savvy SAT technique in a sentence like this one:
"The seasoned SAT-taker does not assume that all the data in the problem is useful, or even relevant. She will focus on the question being asked, and determine for herself what information she needs to answer the question."
Anyway, Hillary is really getting on my nerves, but I stand by my original stance on her: I'm grateful for her candidacy because I think that the nationwide undertaking of imagination that can conceive of a woman President of the United States has shifted what we see as possible. As a country we hadn't gone there yet. Now we have.
