Duke Student Government has been locked in a “he said, she said” debate.
With a referendum in the Sept. 14 DSG election, DSG called on the student body to make the language in its constitution gender neutral. The students obliged, approving the change by an 80 percent margin.
“Gender equality is a core principle of DSG and the University,” said Executive Vice President Gregory Morrison, a junior. “Readability was the biggest issue. The good thing about a referendum is it’s not just a bunch of DSG folks sitting around a table. The students have a voice.”
But both DSG senators and students seemed to have trouble figuring out where they stand on the issue of gender neutrality in the constitution. The DSG constitution had “he/she” pronouns until the body voted narrowly to approve a “streamlined” document with masculine pronouns Feb. 25. Students, for their part, voted to approve the masculine language along with a slate of other changes to the constitution at the end of March.
But one week later, the senators had another change of heart, deciding to dodge the problem of pronouns entirely by using specific nouns such as “the president” throughout the document.
The gender neutral language was first put to the student body for a vote in March but did not pass because less than the requisite 25 percent of the student body cast a ballot. Last week’s 27 percent turnout was enough to finally approve the changes.
Morrison supported the move to make language in the constitution masculine and, later, to make it gender neutral again.
The original document was inconsistent with its use of gender neutral pronouns, alternating between “he/she,” “s/he” and “s(he),” he said. Morrison explained that the Rules Committee decided that masculine pronouns would clarify and modernize the document.
“There were a lot of errors,” he said. “We wanted to fix it—the errors hindered the conciseness and readability of the document.”
Then-DSG Senators Julia Chou and Spencer Eldred, both currently seniors, raised concerns about the masculine pronouns before the Senate voted to approve the revised constitution. But most DSG senators did not think that the masculine language was a good enough reason to reject the new document given all the other changes that it included, Morrison said.
After the Fall elections, 27 of the 64 members of DSG are women.
Eldred, currently vice president for student affairs, said he thinks that students approved the masculine language at first because they also agreed with other aspects of the revised document.
“It was two choices—you either take the bundle of changes or reject them completely,” he said.
With the usage of specific nouns, Morrison said DSG has found the right grammatical balance, noting that the body’s biggest concern has always been to maintain the clarity of the constitution while keeping everyone happy.
Regardless of how the change came about, several linguistics faculty members applauded DSG for taking a step forward on what they think is an important debate over the relationship between gender and language.
Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Edna Andrews, who teaches a course titled “Gender and Language,” said she believes that language is a negotiation and speakers—and DSG senators, by extension—should aim to offend as few people as possible in their discourse. She added that although the masculine form is grammatically correct, some people object to its use as the default pronoun when gender is ambiguous.
Replacing gender pronouns with specific nouns is a good solution, Andrews said.
“The shift from pronouns to nouns alleviates a lot of ambiguity,” she said. “Getting away from pronouns is a better decision although not necessarily a more politically correct one.”
Others find it encouraging that students are even having these discussions.
“It’s important to keep gender in the public eye,” said Jim Fitzpatrick, Trinity ’03 and lecturing fellow for the Department of Romance Studies. “I think the fact that DSG is even considering this is really good. DSG is a very visible group on campus—in a lot of ways the face of Duke.”
Fitzpatrick, whose research interests include language and gender, recalls having similar debates when he was an undergraduate at Duke.
“Conversations like this got me interested in language,” he said.
Sophomore Kemp Knott, however, said he thinks DSG could make better use of its time.
“Shouldn’t DSG be fostering community relations between Duke and Durham or making Tailgate safer rather than debating pronoun usage?” Knott said.
Sophomore Reshma Kalimi said she believes that changing technicalities in the constitution is not as effective as making institutional changes.
“The debate is worthwhile, but it shouldn’t be the number one issue,” she said.
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