7 ms·
Using the male pronoun by default is simply common practice in English, dating back at least hundreds of years. I wouldn't read into it.
by rand_r 10y ago
Using the male pronoun by default is simply common practice in English, dating back at least hundreds of years. I wouldn't read into it.
- unimpressive 10y agoI notice a fairly common tactic for trying to change norms is to pretend that the norms aren't norms and then aggressively shame people for doing a normal thing. This leads to a toxic atmosphere where people can't be secure in their words, social reality keeps being pulled out from under their feet.
- tamana 10y agoWhen the normal thing marginalizes people, marginalized people are hurt. In recent years, they have started to defend themsves in force, the ks to unifying power of the internet. The insecurity you observe is feeling of the erosion of privilege.
- unimpressive 10y agoI'm sure it is. http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/hot-allostatic-load/ http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/hot-allostatic-load/
- colordrops 10y agoWhere should boundaries get drawn? And when should they change? In the past, gender and race were dividing lines for privilege. What about animals? Don't they have the right to not be murdered and be free? Are they not conscious pain feeling beings? Is it OK for me to constantly call everyone out on their meat eating murderous ways? Many people are offended when people talk about eating steak.
- apgwoz 10y agoI've made this argument before, and not surprisingly, it didn't go over well.
- dimfox11 10y agoFor PC, Norm need to be changed often, it's like changing passwords often. http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-726-how-and-why-progressives-keep-changing-whats-offensive/ http://tomwoods.com/podcast/ep-726-how-and-why-progressives-...
- apgwoz 10y agoThere is thought that changing your password often might make passwords worse... Don't have a citation at the moment (phone) but, the tl;dr is that often changing means you're more likely to pick smaller passwords that are easier to construct, and to remember, making them weaker than something you'll commit to for a longer time. So... maybe not the best analogy, but understood.
- nishac 10y agoI absolutely agree. Being "PC compliant" is more about staying informed of what is considered, that moment, to be proper language. As much as I would like to not offend anyone, I find such extreme scrutiny of language to be unnecessary and quite honestly, arbitrary. If one generally does not encounter the "liberal elite" and say, one is not a native speaker of a language, they can easily be misconstrued as being racist/sexist or as possessing any other undesirable traits. Having grown up in a society where sexism/racism/casteism is extremely blatant (in urban India), I sometimes find it hard to comprehend the utility of labelling people harshly for what might be innocuous comments. I almost feel those energies must be spent in condemning the "real" racists/sexists, many of whom are still allowed to scream whatever offensive nonsense they please (I have seen many growing up). How do people feel genuine outrage over harmless comments? Are we allowed to ever call out on hypersensitivity? Also, as a vegan, sometimes I do feel genuinely sad when I see lots of meat being eaten and relished. I feel like giving my friends an explanation or at least attempt to convince them to cut down on the meat-eating but I also realize it can be highly offensive and have never voiced my opinion.
- generic_user 10y agoBrigading forum threads and dog piling social media of people you have a perceived grievance with does not help 'marginalized' people. In fact your trying to marginalize and bully people. Cry bully trolling and aimless power tripping under the banner of 'social justice' does not provide you any magic cover. I think most people can see thorough it this point and realize your only contribution is harassment and its destructive to communities like this one.
- rudedogg 10y agoYou assume the parent is privileged (younger white male) for having an opinion that conflicts with your own? Another point - educated white males are not your enemy. If you're looking for racists, sexists, etc - you need not seek them out by reading between the lines of comments here. There are people proudly spewing garbage you can speak out against (on their own forums and blogs). Why fight against your allies in this?
- 35bge57dtjku 10y agoI think the disconnect is that the vast majority of people, regardless of gender, do not consider these things to be marginalizing anyone. Why you can't see that and why you want to patrol for everything that only superficially resembles that is puzzling. When the number of people who are complaining about these "normal" things is about 1 in 10,000, it should make you stop and think. Are you really an early adopter of significantly better social norms and a heroic defender of the chronically marginalized, people who are so downtrodden that 99% of them don't see or don't have the energy to complain along with you? Or, are you just the crackpot on the street with the sign saying, "The end is near," whom people walk more quickly just to get past?
- emn13 10y agoOr perhaps the marginalization is felt now, but certainly once wasn't - it's an artificial, unnecessary and divisive perpective. But I can imagine that just like misheard song-lyrics it's something that people pick up on, and won't let go. It's aggrevating, but it's a battle that may already have been lost.
- 10938101 10y agoIf you wrote some software instead of talking, like Grace Hopper, Barbara Liskov and thousands of others, people would respect you automatically in this space.
- xwvvvvwx 10y agoUgly words from a throwaway account. Do you really believe that women should be seen and not heard?
- jdbernard 10y agoThat is not what they said. You are creating a strawman.
- mpweiher 10y agoIn fact, it is pretty much the opposite of what they said.
- xwvvvvwx 10y agoReally? What did I misunderstand here?
- nkurz 10y agoLikely you did not understand that the clause starting with "like Grace Hopper [and] Barbara Liskov" applies to "wrote some software" not to "instead of talking". '10938101' is actively praising women who write code, and disrespecting those (of both sexes) who only talk. The attack is not directed at women, but at empty talk by non-practictioners.
- AsyncAwait 10y agoHere's the thing; I am technically from a "marginalised" group and yet I still often use what you'd call marginalising pronouns. I use them not to marginalise anyone, but because they're commonly used and there's no reason to not use them. When I say "he", it's probably because I am a male so I default to "he", but that DOES NOT mean that I mean to "marginalise" women, in fact be free to substitute "she" in if you feel like it, it is sort of implied if you're a female and I am technically talking about all genders. In reality, it's just faster to not watch every word your write for "inclusiveness" or "marginalisation", because I assume you're able to infer the inclusiveness from context. If you're searching for offence, you WILL BE offended, even if no offence was meant by the original poster and by doing this you're actually marginalising the real problems marginalised groups face.
- DanBC 10y agoPeople aren't saying that you are trying to marginalise women and transgendered people. And if they are saying that you can safely call them idiots and ignore them. What they are saying is that switching from "he" to "they" is simple and easy, and will make life better for many people. It's correct English, and has been in use since the 16th century, albeit with some push from prescriptivists. You're right that in the face of things like rape statistics (women are far more likely to be raped by men) or domestic violence (women are far more likely to be killed by male partners) worrying about "he" vs "they" is a small thing.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago> What they are saying is that switching from "he" to "they" is simple and easy I get that and if I remember to use it, I will, but when I instinctively do not use it, because well, "he" still comes more naturally to me than "they", it should not be assumed that I am sexist, bigoted etc. because I made a particular choice of words that can be reasonably interpreted as not meant to explicitly exclude people, unless they're looking for it. > will make life better for many people It's true that it may make them feel better, if they're looking at every use of a gendered pronoun from a "it's sexist" perspective, but I'd argue that's unproductive and not really making their life any better in a meaningful way > It's correct English That's good, but that doesn't mean that it's "intuitive" English for everyone and they shouldn't feel bad for it.
- inopinatus 10y agoMaybe it depends on your origins or age, but I'm over forty and attended a conservative religious school, and it boggles even me that anyone considers "he" the current generic/default pronoun.
- monkeywork 10y agoMaybe focus on the actual meat of the argument rather than the plate it's served on and you'll enjoy your meal more.
- inopinatus 10y agoOk sure. In that case, I'll point out that being "a common practice going back hundreds of years" should lead you to question something, not accept it. It reminds me of the time I recommended (to the Unix team at a major financial institution) that they use ssh rather than telnet, and being rebuffed with "that's the way we've always done it". In this case, since you want to be specific, the practice of defaulting to "he" correlates with hundreds of years of treating women as chattels, with economic consequences and imbalances that persist today, and continue to be reinforced through structural, unconscious, and explicit biases, and that we'd all be better off without. The notion that language should reflect thought is as old as Plato.
- kalleboo 10y agoI know languages where literally every word is gendered, and languages where almost nothing is gendered and haven ever seen any correlation to how women are treated.
- mpweiher 10y ago> the practice of defaulting to "he" correlates with hundreds of years of treating women as chattels Er, no. It just means it is the unmarked/unremarkable case corresponding to males being generally worth less and discardable ("save the women"...). It is also a quirk of some of our languages that the gender-neutral pronouns are considered derogatory when applied to people. German and English have this problem ("it", "es"), whereas French "on" seems to be okay. So the language requires gendering when no gender is semantically intended. In German, every noun is gendered. So "person" is "she", whereas "human" is "he", "Civilisation" and "Society" are both "she", "state" is "he". "Lampshade" is "he" whereas "Lamp" is she, etc. You can try to read deep meaning into these quirks, or you can just not. TL;DR: Not only are you reading way to much into linguistic quirks, your analysis is also at best shaky.
- madeofpalk 10y agoI've noticed this online, and I actually find it quite bizarre. Maybe it's my age or culture (24, brought up in regional Australia then moved to the city), but I actually find it really disjointing when people use gendered pronounce when talking generics, regardless of whether it's 'he' or 'she'. My default, myself and everyone I interactive with just default to gender neutral pronouns - not out of any sense of 'political correctness', but it just makes for easier conversation.
- AsyncAwait 10y agoAlso, the uninvited speaker is male, so in this context it makes sense that that's what was first on OP's mind.
- chris_wot 10y agoTake care, someone might say you should be fired for it.