It’s interesting how some linguistic issues seem to get solved and then are up for solution again, as seems to be the case with gendered pronouns in English. The first wave of gender-neutral language was inspired by the realization that many professions that had traditionally been all male (fireman, mailman) were now becoming more gender integrated, giving rise to terms like firefighter and letter carrier. Likewise, we realized that the default “he” might rub half the population the wrong way, and the proposed solution was to always include both genders, like “Every student should bring his/her own calculator.”
As gender-neutral language has evolved, he/she has fallen out of favor and been deemed clunky, and a few alternatives are floating around. The easiest end-run around the he/she issue is to pluralize the subject and use “they” or “their,” as in “Translators must bring their own dictionaries to the exam,” “When students go on field trips, they must wear sneakers,” except in situations where the subject clearly refers to one gender or the other, as in “Every egg donor receives compensation for her time.”
On the other side of the coin, we sometimes need a new term when the habitual gender of the person who holds a certain role changes. The term “maestra” is seeing more exposure as the number of women orchestra conductors increases, and the U.S. now has a number of “First Gentlemen,” the husbands of women governors.
It goes without saying that translation adds a whole other layer of mystique to the gender issue, especially since many of us work between English and a language that makes much more liberal use of gendered words. In French, you just can’t get around the issue that a table is feminine and a book is masculine, but at least they both become “the” in translation; on the other hand, French doesn’t have different words for his and hers, but instead uses son/sa/ses for both, which puts the issue in the translator’s lap when those words are translated. French, and other languages like it, also have the interesting issue of words that are always masculine or feminine no matter who they refer to. I have to admit that it cracks me up to see French male movie stars referred to as “une grande vedette,” (a big star), where they’re not only feminine but get an “ette” to boot.
However, this too may be changing. Last month’s issue of Champs Elysées featured an interview with Roselyne Bachelot, the (female) French Minister of Health, Youth and Sport, in which she responded to the interviewer’s first question (you don’t have to speak French to understand this!): Madame la ministre ou Madame le ministre, Roselyne Bachelot? by saying “On dit Madame la ministre, parce que c’est un mot épicène, qui suppose la possibilité de le mettre au féminin ou au masculin, comme secrétaire ou d’autres.” (We say Madame la ministre, because it’s an epicene word, which implies the possibility of making it feminine or masculine, like secretary or other words).
It’s worth noting that Bachelot’s assertion that Madame la ministre is just fine has been vigorously opposed by French academics, but who knows, maybe John Malkovich will one day be un vedet.