‘She’ vs. ‘he’

Re “Which writers use ‘he’ more than ‘she’?” Opinion, April 16

In his piece on the prevalence of “he” versus “she” in the literature most often taught in schools, Ben Blatt did not take into account the narrative weight of the pronouns in each example he gave. A bunch of “he” references might just be for characters with fleeting walk-on parts, whereas a “she” reference might be for a major character on whom the whole story depends.

And of course Herman Melville’s “Billy Budd” had nearly 100% masculine pronouns. It was about an entirely male crew back in the days when men were men and women were glad of it. Tim Bradley

Altadena