Question: I've been taught that a *child* is gender-neutral noun. But in the textbook on linguistics I've been reading, the noun is used as feminine. For example, a sentence in the book goes like this:

> 
> The child must also learn many aspects of grammar from her specific linguistic environment.
> 
> 
> 

Is there an explanation for the use of the pronoun *her* instead of *its*?

Answer: 
Child **is** gender neutral. As a result, when referring to a child, one must then choose a pronoun **he**, **she** or **they** when referring to the said child, as English does not have a gender neutral way of referring to that individual. This causes a problem for writers. Whatever you choose could be wrong.

Some would write **he**, but that sounds sexist and presumptive. Some write **they**, but this does not confirm the singular as it could refer to many. As an alternative some writers have taken to using **she** to balance those that historically have used the masculine form.

Other writers go to great lengths to avoid any of these forms by just rewriting the sentences completely.

Stack Exchange questions and answers have the same problem. Do we refer to a writer as **he**, **she**, **they**...? Whatever one chooses makes implications that it may not be correct.

We almost never use **it** or **its** to refer to a child, as this form is reserved for objects and not people and thus is considered to be demeaning.
The word *child* is indeed gender-neutral. In fact, really English as a whole doesn't have grammatical gender. All that matters is the gender of the actual person that it is referring to.

If the child being referred to is a boy, then you use *he*. If the child is a girl, you use *she*.

If the writer is not really referring to a specific child (as in this example), then you have a problem. Traditionally, writers used the male *he*. In modern English, that implies that all children are male unless otherwise specified, which smacks of sexism. Some use the wordy *he or she*. Others use just *she*, as a sort of corrective to centuries of assuming maleness. Still others borrow *they* to refer to a single generic person.

Of course, it's also possible to rewrite the sentence in the plural.