Our Desperate, 250-Year-Long Search for a Gender-Neutral Pronoun

I asked a ton of people, and while there were a few in favor of singular “they,” this exchange with my old friend Michael, a San Francisco musician, composer and poet (and executive, by day) is representative:

Me: Do you write “she” for indeterminate pronoun? What do you do at work?

Michael: At work we make ugly constructions to avoid “he.” Every once in a while, somebody uses “she” and it comes off smarmy, in my estimation. Either it’s a slur against women, or it’s giving women a gold star, either of which is annoying.

By Maria Bustillos, The Awl