Co-worker editing documents with "(s)he" to just "he" about generic people

PossiblyOverworked

I work in "teapot design and manufacturing" in the Quality Inspection area (let's say - obviously this isn't my real industry). Part of my role involves writing process documents about the "teapot quality checking" process, and the docs have to use quite formal, "third party" language e.g. "the Teapot Inspector must check the 1st and every 25th teapot and must note the results on Sheet B" rather than being worded as a set of instructions to the Teapot Inspector ("Check the 1st and every 25th teapot and note what you find on sheet B").

The documents get submitted and double checked through someone who is 'Senior' in my team but isn't actually my line manager (he and I have the same manager) before being added to a library of process documents.

So in writing these documents, I've put things like "if the Teapot Inspector finds a defect, (s)he must raise it with the Manager on duty or if (s)he is unable to contact the Manager then... blah blah blah". Obviously "(s)he" is a shorthand way of writing "he or she" or similar -- "he or she" gets cumbersome very quickly in a document where you have to use it a lot of times.

The Senior person reviewed the documents I did, and they made their way in to the document library with no significant changes, but the Senior person had replaced every instance of "(s)he" etc with "he"!

I asked why (in a "what should I do differently next time so you don't have to edit it" way although that was sort of passive aggressive on my part) and got a response that was basically: it's cumbersome to keep putting (s)he etc and it looks out of place, and besides, all of our Teapot Inspectors are male so it is just "he" for all practical purposes. (I'm paraphrasing but that was essentially it)

I'm still listed as the 'author' of these documents for what that's worth.

It is actually the case that all of our Teapot Inspectors are male, but that's just because it's a fairly male-dominated industry and the best applicants for the job happened to be male. There's isn't an unofficial policy against hiring females or anything (I'm female, but don't fall into the Teapot Inspector group).

So my question is, should I bring this up again with this co-worker or just leave it? Should I do it differently in the future and just use "he" (which I really don't want to do) as I'm pretty sure the senior coworker would say something to our manager like "I had to edit all of PossiblyOverworked's documents again before we could upload them" without any context...

He is pretty clueless about how things are perceived by other people, being inclusive, etc.

I didn't just push back since although he isn't my manager, he does have a sort of quasi-supervisor status in the team (possibly because he wanted to leave, they wanted to keep him so gave him this spurious authority, presumably with a pay bump which they needed to justify.) He is "thick as thieves" with our mutual manager and I'm a good employee but not well liked by this manager for some reason I haven't figured out (I get on with most of the people ok!)

What should I do ??

w06

can you use 'they' instead on (s)he?

Nicki

You sound jealous. He was promoted and is now senior to you. There's nothing at all spurious about his authority just because he may once have been on the same level as you. Further, he was asked to review your work so whether or not he is your line manager, he does have the authority to ask you to change it.

If you object to the terminology you need to grow a pair and actually raise this properly with the supervisor not try to go over their head to your line manager. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why your line manager doesn't much like you by the way if your first response to conflict at work is to become passive aggressive and if you are so dismissive and disrespectful of the company hierarchy

PossiblyOverworked

Nicki wrote: »

You sound jealous. He was promoted and is now senior to you. There's nothing at all spurious about his authority just because he may once have been on the same level as you. Further, he was asked to review your work so whether or not he is your line manager, he does have the authority to ask you to change it.

If you object to the terminology you need to grow a pair and actually raise this properly with the supervisor not try to go over their head to your line manager. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why your line manager doesn't much like you by the way if your first response to conflict at work is to become passive aggressive and if you are so dismissive and disrespectful of the company hierarchy

What I meant by "spurious" really is more like... he has some level of seniority in title and presumably salary and so on, but it is in name only as for all intents and purposes he carries out the same job role as the rest of us, etc. No particular additional responsibilities, authority (beyond things like being asked to review these documents), decision making power, working on more advanced projects or any similar thing that is normally expected of someone 'senior'. It really does seem to be that they offered him more money to stay, but needed something official on the org chart or whatever to "justify" that.

I do understand that a reviewer can ask me to change my work but I'd assume that's if there are errors, something needs to be re-worded differently, etc. I don't think "correcting" (s)he to he is a legitimate thing to change, regardless of if he is Senior or not.

There are documents out there with my name and authorship on them with sexist language that isn't my doing.

As I said I did bring it up with him, but got a response that I see as nonsensical or bigoted (all of the people doing this role happen to be male, so we can just write "he" as it's visually more pleasing).

ViolaLass

PossiblyOverworked wrote: »

As I said I did bring it up with him, but got a response that I see as nonsensical or bigoted (all of the people doing this role happen to be male, so we can just write "he" as it's visually more pleasing).

You could try going back with a line about how it's important to keep the language open as future inspectors may be female and the company should want the language used to be welcoming to all.

IAmWales

(S)he is political correctness gone mad, it's also distracting to the reader. There's nothing bigoted about using he or she but you should stick to the same throughout the document. Given that you are an all male team it would seem nonsensical to use she, should you have a particularly sensitive female inspector in future offer to edit the document for them, it would take seconds to replace he with she if needed.

bugslet

Yes, I find it distracting as well I am Wales. I honestly don't think it matters, I am female.

hyubh

Quizzical_Squirrel wrote: »

Definitely don't use they. It's neutral but the poor grammar will offset any good intention.

Rubbish, the singular 'they' has been established for centuries...

bouicca21

Good grief. I thought (s)he was pretty well standard nowadays. Either that or you preface the document with a statement explaining the use of the male pronoun. Does the company not have an equality policy? Has it not occurred to them that the use of sexist language opens up them to a charge of discrimination?

Owain_Moneysaver

Abolish the pronoun altogether and use an abbreviation for the job title, eg



The following roles are designated parts of the quality assurance process:

TI = Teapot Inspector
MOD = Manager on Duty

if TI finds a defect, TI must raise it with MOD or if TI is unable to contact MOD then TI must ...

Torry_Quine

bugslet wrote: »

Yes, I find it distracting as well I am Wales. I honestly don't think it matters, I am female.

Me too. Especially when they are all men