The authors of the state constitution didn't anticipate Beverly Perdue.
In laying out the role of the governor in North Carolina, Article III of the constitution describes the job soon to be assumed by the state's first female governor using the male pronoun "he" or "his" 25 different times.
Nowhere does the constitution explicitly limit the state's chief executive to men, but language used throughout seems to assume it.
"No person shall be eligible for election to the office of Governor or Lieutenant Governor unless, at the time of his election, he shall have attained the age of 30 years," it says, in a typical passage.
It also makes mention of "his office," "his election" and "his successor."
History offers little excuse. Although the state's prior constitutions date back to 1776 and 1868, the current one was ratified in 1971 — at the height of the second-wave feminist movement.
Perdue has faced this dilemma before as the state's first female lieutenant governor, a position also described with the male pronoun in the constitution.
Update: "Governor-elect Perdue has overcome many barriers in her career — an inaccurate pronoun is just one more to add to the list," said Perdue spokesman David Kochman.
The constitution also describes the duties and qualifications of Supreme Court justices using the male pronoun, but other statewide elected offices are only described using plural pronouns, so they do not have the same problem.
