How gender specific in writing is the character 他 A couple of years ago I wrote this comment below an answer:


  On mainland China 他 is used for both male and female. I've only seen 她
  used as a stylistic thing for advertising and some old formal writing.


Since I wrote that comment I have had a few people ask about whether or not this is true. When I think about it today I am not sure what my original thinking was and I am doubting myself over whether or not this is a true statement.

I haven't been back to China in 3 years (going in September, yay!) and I haven't picked up a newspaper in a while. What I do recall is seeing 她 used in social media (微信 posts) which has only become mainstream in the past few years.

Here is what Wikipedia says on the subject:


  In 1917, the Old Chinese graph tā (她, from nǚ 女, "woman") was borrowed
  into the written language to specifically represent "she" by Liu
  Bannong. As a result, the old character tā (他), which previously also
  meant "she" in written texts, is sometimes restricted to meaning "he"
  only. In contrast to most Chinese characters coined to represent
  specifically male concepts, the character tā is formed with the
  ungendered character for person rén (人), rather than the character for
  male nán (男)."


So how correct is my original statement and has social media and the internet caused an increase in the use of 她?
In my experience, when referring to a single subject, I have never seen 他 used as a female pronoun. 她 is used for females, and 它 used for non-gendered or non-human subjects.

Do note that 他 has meanings outside pronouns; it can have the meaning of "other". In these cases, 他 is used and never 她. Examples include 他人 (other people), 他乡 (a place far away from home), 他日 (future).

There are two interesting cases for the 他/她 question though: in the group pronouns 他们/她们 and when the gender is unknown.

For 他们/她们, 他们 is indeed the gender-neutral term. Use this when referring to a group of people (other than yourself and your subject, i.e. "they" or "them"), where their genders are either mixed or not relevant. If you are specifically referring to a group of females though, use 她们. Here's some discussion on this matter. This is in contrast to English which has no gendered "they" or "them".

When gender is unknown, it is more proper to use 他. This is similar to older English style which considered generic he proper usage. Use 他 when in English you would have used "he / she". Note that some people use "他/她" which is perfectly understandable but less proper.

So to summarise:


他 is gender neutral, except in two cases where you would use 她 instead:
When referring to a single female of known gender
When referring to a group of females