Language Log

Geoff Pullum has argued in a number of posts that English he can't be a sex-neutral pronoun (e.g. "Lying feminist ideologues wreck English, says Yale prof", 3/2/2008). This question has recently taken on new practical significance, according to an article in the Reno Gazette-Journal by Anjeanette Damon ("Lawsuit: Woman can't be president", 4/9/2008):

In a lawsuit that legal scholars call "amusing," a Reno man is seeking to keep U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton off the Nevada ballot with the argument that the U.S. Constitution prohibits a woman from holding the office.

Douglas Wallace, 80, contends that because the U.S. Constitution relies on the pronouns "he" and "his" in describing the duties of the president, no woman can hold the office.

Wallace argues the constitution would have to be amended to specifically allow a female president and accused Clinton of trying to make an "end run around the Constitution."

"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 lawsuit.