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Ha ha ha this Americans and their political correctness. I cringe every time I see things like this and the HN community doesn't escapes from it, in fact, I hav

Ha ha ha this Americans and their political correctness. I cringe every time I see things like this and the HN community doesn't escapes from it, in fact, I have seen more "political correctness" towards sexism here more than in other communities on the Internet (at least the ones I visit). I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. I can only imagine how people would react in countries with a language with Latin roots like French, Portuguese, Spanish where there are multiple ways to refer to a individual or group of people with different genders more than in neutral languages like English.

wpietri 10y ago
> I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. Quite a lot of people who respond as you do actively don't want to understand. But in case you're one of the ones who is actually curious: Historically, sexism has been a problem. For millennia, women were basically property. The last couple hundred years, we've been unwinding that. E.g. less than 100 years ago, women finally got to vote. They didn't have equal access to credit cards until 1974. In the 1990s, US states finally all made marital rape illegal. In the early aughts, women reached parity in the proportion of people getting medical and legal degrees. (The proportion of actual doctors and lawyers hasn't caught up yet; it's around 33% now, and I'd guess it will hit 50% about 2040.) One place that sexism still resides is in language. That language at least sometimes shapes thinking. Many women in professional contexts reasonably object to gendered language that excludes them. So to be polite, many workplaces are shifting to use more inclusive language. So, TL;DR: we're in the middle of overturning millennia of pervasive sexism, a language shift is part of that, and if we're lucky we'll be done with the project in only decades.
- Anasufovic 10y ago
  What is your solution for gendered languages?
  - Naritai 10y ago
    Regardless of what speakers of those languages do, we can do everything we can to remove gender bias from English. We don't have to keep doing something just because others are doing it.
    - wpietri 10y ago
      Yup. I don't have a solution for gendered languages because it's not a problem I deal with much. I'm going to work on English, and I'll trust that other people will find the right solution for their cultures.
      - refurb 10y ago
        Are you working hard at not referring to ships using a feminine pronoun (i.e. "this is her maiden voyage")?
        wpietri 10y ago
        Nope. Gendering ships has always felt awkward to me.
  - lutorm 10y ago
    There is a perfect, old-school expression: "ladies and gentlemen".
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
jrockway 10y ago
This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dating this great guy!" Nope. So why use that as your generic pronoun for your coworkers? It unnecessarily makes people feel excluded, even if you don't intend to exclude them.
- ohyoutravel 10y ago
  100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group. That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.
  - jrockway 10y ago
    Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
    - JBReefer 10y ago
      I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.

wpietri 10y ago

> I still do not understand why people pay so much attention to these things. Quite a lot of people who respond as you do actively don't want to understand. But in case you're one of the ones who is actually curious: Historically, sexism has been a problem. For millennia, women were basically property. The last couple hundred years, we've been unwinding that. E.g. less than 100 years ago, women finally got to vote. They didn't have equal access to credit cards until 1974. In the 1990s, US states finally all made marital rape illegal. In the early aughts, women reached parity in the proportion of people getting medical and legal degrees. (The proportion of actual doctors and lawyers hasn't caught up yet; it's around 33% now, and I'd guess it will hit 50% about 2040.) One place that sexism still resides is in language. That language at least sometimes shapes thinking. Many women in professional contexts reasonably object to gendered language that excludes them. So to be polite, many workplaces are shifting to use more inclusive language. So, TL;DR: we're in the middle of overturning millennia of pervasive sexism, a language shift is part of that, and if we're lucky we'll be done with the project in only decades.

Anasufovic 10y ago
What is your solution for gendered languages?
- Naritai 10y ago
  Regardless of what speakers of those languages do, we can do everything we can to remove gender bias from English. We don't have to keep doing something just because others are doing it.
  - wpietri 10y ago
    Yup. I don't have a solution for gendered languages because it's not a problem I deal with much. I'm going to work on English, and I'll trust that other people will find the right solution for their cultures.
    - refurb 10y ago
      Are you working hard at not referring to ships using a feminine pronoun (i.e. "this is her maiden voyage")?
      - wpietri 10y ago
        Nope. Gendering ships has always felt awkward to me.
- lutorm 10y ago
  There is a perfect, old-school expression: "ladies and gentlemen".
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

jrockway 10y ago

This isn't about political correctness, it's about using the words you actually mean. If you are addressing a group of people, it makes sense to include them all in your address. So use a word that includes everyone, as the bot mentions, there are plenty. If you think "guys" is gender-neutral, how about a thought experiment. You're a man, you started dating a woman. Do you tell your friends, "hey, I just started dating this great guy!" Nope. So why use that as your generic pronoun for your coworkers? It unnecessarily makes people feel excluded, even if you don't intend to exclude them.

ohyoutravel 10y ago
100% on board with this. But I think the "dating a great guy" example is slightly off. In many languages, the masculine plural refers to a group of all men, or a mixed group. Whereas the feminine plural only refers to a group of women. And of course masculine singular refers to male only, and vice versa. Saying "guys" in English refers to a masculine group or a mixed-gender group historically. Same with Spanish, for example. The suffix -o is masculine and -a is feminine. But -os is plural masculine or mixed gender group, -as is feminine only group. That's generally just how language works. When I personally speak to any group (or person) I don't use gendered language, but although I like your example, I don't think it holds up to scrutiny.
- jrockway 10y ago
  Right, "man" being the default gender is somewhat unfair to half the population, so it's best to avoid it. Yes, this means you have to think of new words. Nobody had a problem when their phone keyboards were too shitty to type "you", so I think we can do it.
  - JBReefer 10y ago
    I don't think that the 472 million Spanish speakers are going to change their cherished language based on your opinions. Once you're done with them though, you only have the rest of the Romance language derived world. I don't think it's a fight worth having lol.