(What I think is) A feminist argument for not using the he/she or she/he gender nonspecific pronoun

This sort of came to me while I was working today. That will happen when you spend long hours pushing a lawn mower around. It gives you lots of time to think about all sorts of random shit.

Before I get into my argument I suppose I should point out that I am doing this merely as a thought exercise. I think the debate is actually completely irrelevant because I happen to buy into Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar, which is a commonly accepted explanation of how languages work and evolve. The way I understand Universal Grammar it defines pronouns as part of the determiner functional category of free morphemes and therefore part of the closed class. This means that pronoun usage cannot be changed by conscious means over a short period of time. Their usage can only change evolutionarily over generational time periods. Therefore making a debate over whether we should try to change pronoun usage a moot point, if it happens it will happen evolutionarily as a reflection of changes in the culture rather than consciously as a means of bringing about that change.

So first I suppose I will outline what I think is the argument for using a gender nonspecific pronoun rather than the more traditional "he" in indeterminate instances. Our culture is male dominant. I suppose some would argue against this, but I think that if you really look at the reality of the situation that is what you will find. I think that's shameful, but true nonetheless. There is an element of the politically correct movement that wants to change pronoun usage in the English language. The way I understand it is that they feel that in order to move towards gender equality it is necessary to remove the various aspects of our culture that enable and reflect gender inequality. This would seem to make sense, and I would argue that for many truly harmful aspects of our culture that is the right course of action.

But compared to something like say wage inequality pronoun usage would seem to me to be relatively benign. However this aspect of our culture serves as a constant reminder of the male dominant history of English speaking cultures. Here I'm somewhat embarrassed to use a cliche but it really does sum up a good bit of my argument: Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. So in our language we have a built in constant reminder of the shameful heritage and current state of our culture. Is it not better to keep the relatively benign aspects of our culture that remind us of much more harmful aspects as well as elements of our history that we wish not to repeat? Seems that way to me, but than again what the hell do I know.