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Swedish national news has a initiative where gender is avoided in articles unless it is directly relevant. The goal is to avoid creating a exaggerated view of g
by belorn 8y ago
Swedish national news has a initiative where gender is avoided in articles unless it is directly relevant. The goal is to avoid creating a exaggerated view of gendered roles. If 80% of the police is men and a person see two stories which both include male police, a reader might conclude that all police is 100% male. If one out of five articles have a female police you only reach the subset of readers that happen to catch those articles. With no gender you reach all your audience.
I would very much like to see a similar policy on HN. Attaching gender to articles inhibit progress. The fastest progress is the one that goes unnoticed and simply is.
- DoreenMichele 8y agoI don't know what the best approach is. I would like to think that downplaying gender helps, but minorities find it hard to find good role models, people "like them" that they can identify with, etc. Actively downplaying gender and officially excluding gender signaling in headlines seems to make it all the harder for women to find things they can relate to. I honestly don't know what the best path forward is. I do know that excess criticism of minority signals often actively shits all over expressions of pride and attempts to connect while nominally pretending to be righteous indignation on the part of mistreated underdogs.