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In the following sentence, I am not sure if "she" should be the object "her" or the reflexive "herself and himself"

"It is not Irene in this circumstance that should have felt uncomfortable in carrying out her duties, it is the officer who put both himself and she in that position."

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    Take out the "himself and", and try the sentence again. You'll find that "her" comes naturally in that case, so it should come with "himself and", as well; note that "himself" is an objective form. As a matter of style and not grammar, I would suggest that "both her and himself" flows more easily than the opposite, just from its foot structure.
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 5, 2014 at 15:30
  • JohnLawler is correct, and, just to clarify the grammatical reason why you use the object pronoun "her"... The officer put ?who? in that position. The "who" is functioning as the direct object; hence, why you are using object pronouns. "Officer" becomes the object pronoun "him" which becomes reflexive "himself" and "Irene" becomes the object pronoun "her" and not the subject pronoun "she".
    – Apple Freejeans
    Commented May 5, 2014 at 16:22

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The correct form to use is 'her', which is the objective case.

It is not Irene in this circumstance that should have felt uncomfortable in carrying out her duties, it is the officer who put both himself and her in that position.

An easy way to determine whether to use 'she' or 'her' is to ask a question. In this instance, ask yourself WHO the officer put in that position. The answer is 'her', he put her in that position and himself.

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