[guylhem]

In order to reach your goal of "using language to erode stereotypes about the types of people involved in tech enterprise", would it be better to reserve the use of "him" for failures and "her" for success?

I then suggest you are promoting a biased view. Some people alternate between him and her, some just refer to the person in a way that does not indicate the sex (this CEO, the founder...)

Somehow, I prefer the latter, because it's simply trying to present arguments without reference to sex, instead of "using language to erode stereotypes about the types of people involved in tech enterprise", which could also be called "performing propaganda using newspeak" (and that is less politically correct of course)

EDIT: as noted below, «If "she" is not allowed to fail, then "she" is not accepted as an equal to the "he" is able to fail with spectacular results.» - spot on

[chromaform]

I certainly would not advocate using 'him' for failure and 'her' for success.

I definitely would prefer to see neutral descriptors used in articles like these (as I implied downthread); when I wrote "using language to erode stereotypes" I intended it to be taken as an author alternating between pronouns in a single work.

[dizzystar]

I used to try to write completely gender-neutral, using such things like "s/he" or "his or her" or "one," since "they" feels a little off to me. Unfortunately, the English language offers no easy way to do this, so now days I alternate between the genders, and I've found it to be effective when there are two heroes to the story, one "he" and one "she."