The Great Gender Pronouns Debate

September is my birthday month and it seems like a good time to jump in on the debate over gender pronouns. If you’ve noticed emails or letters with “she/her” or “he/him” after the name of the person who sent the message, you’ve already been touched by this debate. It’s gained fairly wide acceptance rather quickly and has likely left many of you wondering what the heck it’s all about.

 

I’m not sure who or what started it. Perhaps androgynous young people did. Or those transitioning from one sex to another. Whatever the answer, a common solution seems to be to refer to everyone as “they/them” even in the singular. If you don’t want to be a “they,” be sure to put “she” or “he” after your name.

 

I can remember when the great gender-related debate was whether to refer to a woman as “Miss” or “Ms” if you knew she wasn’t married. It didn’t take long for “Mrs” to be replaced by “Ms,” too. “Mr” had survived the fray until recently. Now that’s up for grabs as well. The other day I saw a signature line on something written by a man that had “Mx” on it. That’s one way to duck the issue.

 

So, what other options do we have other than “they/them”? How about just “it”? “It” has served us well for time immemorial as a way to reference something of an unknown sex. Ditto for using “the uni,” short for unisex. Here’s another option, one I haven’t heard used before: “the neut.” That’s supposed to refer to something that’s had the sex it was born with removed. That seems to be the reason some people jettison the “she/her” and “he/him” options (not literally). If you just want to confuse people, go with she/him and he/her, alternating genders.

 

Language isn’t the only place where gender is in play. Baby showers now usually include a gender-reveal feature. Sometimes the baby’s sex is shown via pink or blue layers of a cake. Often a huge balloon is popped and colored confetti rains down. Some couples spend a lot on elaborate reveals. I hope the babies will be comfortable with the pronouns they’ll be born to live with. Thoughtful parents could consider preserving their children’s options by combining both colors in their reveals, the equivalent of “they,” with a caveat that there are not twins on the way.

 

In this sex-aware culture, another gender feature occurred to me. I never thought about it until now, but belly buttons could be considered to have genders, too. Innies would be female; outies would be male. (Visualize that for a minute.) This may sound crazy, but is it really any more ridiculous than referring to a single person as “they”?

 

When I was getting ready for college, my father and I put together a hi-fi system for me using a Heathkit. He was explaining the connector cables to me, but we didn’t have those yet. He said that the male end would go in the back of one of the items (I forget which now) and the female end would attach to something else. I foolishly asked him how I would know which end of the cable was the male.

 

It would have been so easy for him to just wiggle his pointer finger at me, and then poke it into his loose fist. Instead, he turned purple, got out the Heath catalog and turned to the cable page. He stammered something as he pointed to one of the pictures. The light bulb went on over my head, and I assured him I now understood. I can’t tell you how relieved he was!

 

Who knows where this gender pronouns debate will lead over time. Will baby clothes that are considered specifically female or male be shunned? There are already a plethora of names that are so unisex they offer no clue to the gender of the person who bears them. In fact, one of the websites that ranks baby names by popularity added a unisex column to its lists two years ago. Picture this: You peer into a carriage at a newborn in a yellow onesie. You don’t want to ask the baby’s sex, so you ask “their” name. It’s Taylor or Morgan. Good luck with that.

 

Somehow there needs to be a stop to this gender pronouns debate before it gets completely out of control. I don’t have any idea how to do that. If you have a suggestion, feel free to send it to me, Elaine Decker, I/me.

 

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Retirement Games - Name That Paint Color!

By now you must have read at least one of my posts bemoaning the lack of character in the paint colors my Realtor and her stager had me use in my kitchen. They want everything to be as neutral as possible, so we don’t alienate anyone. As a marketer, I feel we’re missing the opportunity to engage our key target audience (someone who will appreciate turn of the century architecture.)

One of my go-to sources for posting ideas had an article that offers a compromise. In the June 30 New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye wrote about how paint companies are changing the way they name their colors. Per Ms. Seelye, they’re doing this to capture consumers’ attention. They’re now using names that, among other things, “summon a memory or evoke an emotion” or represent the consumer’s lifestyle. The names rarely have any relationship to the colors they represent, and it’s OK if they sound negative.

I smell a marketer behind this trend! The Home Depot’s merchandising VP for paint articulated my compromise nicely when she stated that “Emotional color names in neutral shades and color combos are crucial for successful home sales.” Thank you, Lyne Castonguay. Since my house painting is now complete, it’s left to me to come up with emotional names for what are mostly bland, unemotional colors.

Let’s start with the kitchen, which has been painted Fossil (walls) and White Dove (cabinets and trim.) I’m naming this combination “Truffle Season in Piemonte.” My sister and her husband took his sister and me there during truffle season. The weather was overcast, so the vistas were a hazy, grayish white. That’s also the color of white truffles as they are shaved onto your risotto. While my potential buyer is mentally savoring truffles in Piemonte, perhaps she won’t notice the lack of granite countertops and designer appliances.

The entry hall and stair tower have mostly bittersweet orange and white striped wallpaper. It’s subtle, as stripes go, but it runs on and on up three stories in the tower. If it were a color, what comes to mind for me is “On Hold for the Social Security Office.”

The living room is wallpapered light blue with pale coral medallions. If it were a color, it would be “Quiet Walk on the Beach at Sunrise.” There’s even a Coalport china bowl filled with sea shells on the sideboard. The dining room has been painted a spicy color that borders on neutral. I’m calling this “Learning to Do the Tango.” That should highlight the open spaces in the entry and dining areas; there’s room enough to tango.

The master bedroom has muted wallpaper with soft sprigs of flowers. It gives the impression of being painted cream, as in “Homemade Eggnog at Our Tree Trimming Party.” The main guest bedroom has been painted Parchment, but I’ll call it “Love Letters from Your First Boyfriend.” That should make buyers notice the bay window with its romantic seating area. The smaller guest room has nondescript wallpaper (off white with fine blue plaid lines.) I’ll name this “Pedal Pushers You Wore to Band Camp.” (Don’t ask.)

The third floor bedroom that is newly painted is pale yellow (Lemon Whip) and the bathroom is pale green (Green Tea.) I’m renaming them “Remember When Whole Foods Was Bread and Circus” and “Lunching with Friends at Whole Foods.” There are two Whole Foods within two miles of us, lest we forget; reason enough to buy the house just for that.

I haven’t named the colors in every room, but I feel that I’ve covered the ones that will matter most to my target audience. If my office area weren’t paneled in faux wood, I’d color it “Where I Go with My Glass of Wine When I Need Inspiration.”

Speaking of which, here I am at my computer. Now if I can just remember where I moved the wine when the stager banished it from the dining room…