3 ms·

Use of "he" when the gender is unknown is very common (especially online) and has lots of historical precedent. It's not as common as it used to be, but that do

Use of "he" when the gender is unknown is very common (especially online) and has lots of historical precedent. It's not as common as it used to be, but that doesn't make it wrong. "They" is also correct.

neltnerb 7y ago
I mean, "he" is "wrong" because it's factually incorrect. Sure it's common and I basically agree that it's amusing more than malicious. It's a pretty gentle reminder that it can be offputting to misgender people, and while you may not care, the author might and it erases their gender from view in the discussion. It is inferior to assume that everyone you talk to is a guy, it may not be the most important thing ("no, she's a great coder, that's why I follow her" or whatever) but it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male. Anyway, this is getting waaaaay off topic. Apologies.
- fastball 7y ago
  People can get upset at literally anything, that doesn't mean it's reasonable. The solution here is to not get upset when you are accidentally misgendered - then there is no problem.
  - robbrown451 7y ago
    Neltnerb said "it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male" I'm not sure I see how "not getting upset" has an impact on that specific problem.
    - fastball 7y ago
      > it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male Yes, that is what was said. I have never seen a convincing reason to believe that this is true, however. Until then, it is making much ado about nothing.
      - robbrown451 7y ago
        Ok, well I disagree. I go to a lot of effort to make sure my fiver year old daughter doesn't get the impression that she is somehow the less important gender.
      - neltnerb 7y ago
        I have made active efforts over many years to train myself to be careful about this and I am telling you that my experience of life is better now than it was when I was less aware. If you do not want to try the same experiment I am not sure what reason could ever convince you to do something you do not want to try. If you're in the practical personal impact camp, it's not so relevant online but it can have repercussions on your ability to keep employees, build collaborative teams, or notice great ideas. To broaden it just a bit, why should the person who notices a mistake (whether the subject of the mistake or just an observer) be responsible for also making sure people making the mistake never know they made it? This seems like a bizarre position to me. I see people pointing out a mistake who are maybe or maybe not upset (I am not, this is a common problem) and a small number of people getting defensive about the mistake being noticed.
fyfy18 7y ago
It's also worth bearing in mind not everyone is a native English speaker. In languages that have gendered words, a lot of languages use the masculine subject forms by default, for example when referring to a mixed or unknown gendered group. In French for example: il - he or it in the impersonal form (e.g. it is nice outside today) elle - she ils - they, referring to a group of men or a mixed or unknown group elles - they, referring to a group of women Some languages, such as Swedish, are trying to introduce gender neutral forms to work around the issue: https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/hen-swedens-new-gender-neutral-pronoun-causes-controversy.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/hen-swedens-new-gen...
zzzeek 7y ago
All kinds of words that were common years ago, even just a few decades ago, are now considered to be not only inappropriate but slurs. Change happens

neltnerb 7y ago

I mean, "he" is "wrong" because it's factually incorrect. Sure it's common and I basically agree that it's amusing more than malicious. It's a pretty gentle reminder that it can be offputting to misgender people, and while you may not care, the author might and it erases their gender from view in the discussion. It is inferior to assume that everyone you talk to is a guy, it may not be the most important thing ("no, she's a great coder, that's why I follow her" or whatever) but it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male. Anyway, this is getting waaaaay off topic. Apologies.

fastball 7y ago
People can get upset at literally anything, that doesn't mean it's reasonable. The solution here is to not get upset when you are accidentally misgendered - then there is no problem.
- robbrown451 7y ago
  Neltnerb said "it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male" I'm not sure I see how "not getting upset" has an impact on that specific problem.
  - fastball 7y ago
    > it colors the way you think about the world to make the default gender male Yes, that is what was said. I have never seen a convincing reason to believe that this is true, however. Until then, it is making much ado about nothing.
    - robbrown451 7y ago
      Ok, well I disagree. I go to a lot of effort to make sure my fiver year old daughter doesn't get the impression that she is somehow the less important gender.
    - neltnerb 7y ago
      I have made active efforts over many years to train myself to be careful about this and I am telling you that my experience of life is better now than it was when I was less aware. If you do not want to try the same experiment I am not sure what reason could ever convince you to do something you do not want to try. If you're in the practical personal impact camp, it's not so relevant online but it can have repercussions on your ability to keep employees, build collaborative teams, or notice great ideas. To broaden it just a bit, why should the person who notices a mistake (whether the subject of the mistake or just an observer) be responsible for also making sure people making the mistake never know they made it? This seems like a bizarre position to me. I see people pointing out a mistake who are maybe or maybe not upset (I am not, this is a common problem) and a small number of people getting defensive about the mistake being noticed.

fyfy18 7y ago

It's also worth bearing in mind not everyone is a native English speaker. In languages that have gendered words, a lot of languages use the masculine subject forms by default, for example when referring to a mixed or unknown gendered group. In French for example: il - he or it in the impersonal form (e.g. it is nice outside today) elle - she ils - they, referring to a group of men or a mixed or unknown group elles - they, referring to a group of women Some languages, such as Swedish, are trying to introduce gender neutral forms to work around the issue: https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/hen-swedens-new-gender-neutral-pronoun-causes-controversy.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2012/04/hen-swedens-new-gen...

zzzeek 7y ago

All kinds of words that were common years ago, even just a few decades ago, are now considered to be not only inappropriate but slurs. Change happens