3 ms·

I strongly disagree. First of all, more than half the population is female (not to even look at race, sexual orientation, those who don't identify as male or f

I strongly disagree. First of all, more than half the population is female (not to even look at race, sexual orientation, those who don't identify as male or female, etc.) so the majority of people by far are not white males who have "no personal stake in the culture wars." I see every day how people use male pronouns when talking about engineers, implying time and time again that women aren't engineers or that it would be very atypical for them to be. This pushes women out of STEM fields slowly but surely over time, both because they feel they don't belong and because their superiors actually assume males will be better subconsciously due to stereotypes and language norms. You can literally put a man's name on a woman's resume and it is more likely to be accepted. Secondly, the truth is that in most of America you are still much more likely to be harassed for being female, non-heterosexual, non-caucasian, etc. than for using the wrong pronoun. Its not like every time someone says "he" without knowing the person's gender they get called out on it. I appreciate that the original poster felt strongly about one particular case where it put someone's job at risk, but race, gender, and sexual preference put millions of jobs at risk daily.

masondixon 10y ago
> how people use male pronouns when talking about engineers In French, if there are 99 women and 1 man, you use the masculine plural. Some languages are sexist, but it ain't a big deal. > that it would be very atypical for them to be It currently is atypical for them to be. When there are more, it won't be atypical. > This pushes women out of STEM fields slowly but surely over time But do you really think this is about pronouns? I think there are other issues like women making choices to go into other fields for other reasons. There are innate psychological differences between men and women (I'm not even sure I am allowed to say this let alone go near this topic in PC-world). Open-source programming is a place where your gender doesn't matter at all. No one ever needs to know if you are female if you don't want them to. Its a very objective field. If I do a code review - I don't ever need to know your gender, and I can judge the quality of your code. I mean if you are a gun female coder, and someone says "women are scared away by pronouns and are being pushed out", what are you going to think of this? You don't want a world of male programmers thinking that a women got a job because of some diversity hire. If I were a male entering a female dominated industry, the thought of telling them to change the she's to they's makes me a little ill. I'd like to see a survey on women complaining about this. If there was a quality survey of women saying their top ranked issue preventing them from entering STEM was gendered pronouns, then this would absolutely be the biggest priority! I think there are bigger issues and this is just a bike-shedding thing that is easy for SV white knights to make themselves feel good over. > the truth is that in most of America you are still much more likely to be harassed for being female, non-heterosexual, non-caucasian, etc. 100% agree. But the nitpicking over pronouns enrages people, and distracts from the more serious cases of outright and blatant sexism. Everyone is crying wolf these days, and it is driving sexism underground. I know it sucks real bad, but you have to bring people along with you to change their minds. This is why Trump won.

masondixon 10y ago

> how people use male pronouns when talking about engineers In French, if there are 99 women and 1 man, you use the masculine plural. Some languages are sexist, but it ain't a big deal. > that it would be very atypical for them to be It currently is atypical for them to be. When there are more, it won't be atypical. > This pushes women out of STEM fields slowly but surely over time But do you really think this is about pronouns? I think there are other issues like women making choices to go into other fields for other reasons. There are innate psychological differences between men and women (I'm not even sure I am allowed to say this let alone go near this topic in PC-world). Open-source programming is a place where your gender doesn't matter at all. No one ever needs to know if you are female if you don't want them to. Its a very objective field. If I do a code review - I don't ever need to know your gender, and I can judge the quality of your code. I mean if you are a gun female coder, and someone says "women are scared away by pronouns and are being pushed out", what are you going to think of this? You don't want a world of male programmers thinking that a women got a job because of some diversity hire. If I were a male entering a female dominated industry, the thought of telling them to change the she's to they's makes me a little ill. I'd like to see a survey on women complaining about this. If there was a quality survey of women saying their top ranked issue preventing them from entering STEM was gendered pronouns, then this would absolutely be the biggest priority! I think there are bigger issues and this is just a bike-shedding thing that is easy for SV white knights to make themselves feel good over. > the truth is that in most of America you are still much more likely to be harassed for being female, non-heterosexual, non-caucasian, etc. 100% agree. But the nitpicking over pronouns enrages people, and distracts from the more serious cases of outright and blatant sexism. Everyone is crying wolf these days, and it is driving sexism underground. I know it sucks real bad, but you have to bring people along with you to change their minds. This is why Trump won.