I have also, as Gil pointed out, gendered the definition when I didn’t need to. He struck the “his” from “his running mate.” “It is conceivable,” he said afterward, while going over my definitions with me, “that a woman will run for president at some point, and if she does, this definition will need to be revised. So why not write it in a way that the gender of the candidate doesn’t matter.” I was gobsmacked: here I was, a recent graduate of a women’s college, getting schooled on gendered language by an old guy.
