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My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for r
by chroem- 6y ago
My work sent out a memo today regarding what pronouns I'm allowed to use. We're in the middle of a cultural revolution, and the current trend seems to be for rapid acceleration rather than moderation.
- abhorrence 6y agoWith what pronouns you're allowed to use to describe yourself? Or what pronouns you're allowed to use to describe others?
- chroem- 6y agoI am no longer allowed to refer to my group of cisgendered male companions as "you guys."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- servercobra 6y agoTime to embrace "y'all"! But seriously, that's pretty heavy handed IMO to tell you that you can't use "you guys". Encourage? Sure! But not allowed seems a bit far to me.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- yerwhat01010 6y agoI've heard people say it's racist for white people to say "y'all" too, since black people say "y'all" therefore it's cultural appropriation. Nevermind that "y'all" is common among white Southerners (where do you think African Americans picked it up from?). Why let facts get in the way of your attempts to control people?
- cc_cccc 6y agoI hope everyone agrees how insane this is. Language is not a rigid construct, it is inherently contextual.
- nullserver 6y agoLot a job over it. Did everything I could to be polite, but was not going to use weird terms. Never mind they were biggest bunch of bigots I’ve ever seen.
- artursapek 6y agoTell us more. You got fired because you refused to use some batshit pronouns people insisted on?
- yerwhat01010 6y agoI would also like to hear more details about this story.
- markdown 6y agoMost here seem to disagree with you, and rigidly believe that "you guys" should be the way to address girls. They're not willing to be flexible and accommodating of "others".
- bigwheeler 6y agoWow, I would be so fired. That’s been my go to for every group I’ve ever come across in my life.
- nvr219 6y agoYou wouldn't because you wouldn't get fired for only saying "you guys".
- ryall 6y ago"you people" sounds so much better
- uberduper 6y agoWhat do you mean, "you people?"
- at_a_remove 6y agoWhat do you mean, "you people?"
- labster 6y agoYou people would say that.
- throwaway98797 6y ago“Hey fuckers” might be a safer term now days. Granted, at bigger firms this will get you in trouble.
- King-Aaron 6y agoAs an Australian, 'Oi c*nts' can often work in non-work situations
- TylerE 6y agoThat’s a funny thing. In the US the “c word” is probably the nuclear option. I know the UK and related usage is a bit more mild.
- King-Aaron 6y agoLanguage is funny like that isn't it. I've met people who use 'fuck' in every second to third word but then get upset for using an incorrect pronoun.
- leshenka 6y agoWhat? why? How should you call them now?
- chroem- 6y agoIt listed "folx" and "people" as alternate descriptors.
- snicksnak 6y agoWhat could possibly go wrong with using "you people" instead of "you guys". That might already constitute entrapment.
- throwawayboise 6y agoLol yes "you people" couldn't go wrong. Ask Ross Perot.
- temp667 6y agoFolx? How do you pronounce the x? I'm in a pretty progressive setup and haven't heard that yet.
- drdeca 6y agoAiui, it is pronounced "folks". It is just written as "folx" when in writing, as a weird shibboleth. I kinda distrust people/institutions who/which use it? (not when they say "folks" though. That's fine.)
- Dig1t 6y agoI imagine folx will sometimes be pronounced as “fucks” depending on accent and circumstance. That sounds like a lot of fun haha
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- eru 6y ago
- refenestrator 6y agoI've referred to entirely-female groups of people as "you guys". It seemed like a better bet than "hey ladies", and I'm not southern enough to pull off "y'all".
- jonwachob91 6y agoI'm not southern either, I'm from Central Florida [0] and we use Y'all often. I believe in your ability to use Y'all too! Embrace Y'all :) [0] There's a joke in Florida that the further north you go, the more south you are. The further south you go, the more north you are. It's 100% true too.
- rriepe 6y agoYes, that's how you fit in in Silicon Valley. Signal that you're from the South.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoIt is only once I hear y'all from woke people that I start to understand why people dislike so-called "cultural appropriation". It is cringey and weird-sounding to me. And also if you were to speak to these same people saying "y'all" in any southern accent you would be seen as uneducated.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- azinman2 6y agoAnd you’d be surprised at the number of people who (validly) don’t like this but won’t speak up about it. I know women in tech who tell me this exact behavior feels constantly degrading and makes them want to leave tech. There are alternatives in English other than y’all, such as “team” or “everyone” or “all”.
- refenestrator 6y agoThis isn't a tech thing, it's an english language thing. Are women in finance degraded by this extremely common linguistic quirk? Women in medicine?
- disposekinetics 6y agoLanguage isn't prescriptive right up until the anointed need it to change, then you'll be told what to say.
- brailsafe 6y agoEven if I loved the company, this would probably be a tipping point of some kind. Hypothetically, if I didn't quit in a comparable situation, I'd gradually resent the company to the point where I'd become sufficiently unproductive enough to be fired. How are you thinking about it?
- VRay 6y agoIs it really so hard to include the few women who've managed to get anywhere in the industry? The whining in this thread sounds like my white southern grandma getting mad about having to call "n**s" people If you don't like it, go ahead and quit. I REALLY doubt that anyone's going to get in trouble for addressing a group of 5 or 10 men as "you guys", but it's not the hardest thing in the world to just swap out "you guys" with "team" or "friends" or whatever
- joyeuse6701 6y agoIf it’s not that hard as you say, then it’s not that hard to accept that these are just sounds coming out of a bag of flesh trying to get your attention, instead of inconveniencing the entire world of English speakers to keep a fragile ego and identity placated.
- da_big_ghey 6y agoI am not hearing any person call other persons "guy" as term of derogatory. Not this the case within case you otherwise mention.
- brailsafe 6y agoYikes. It's a bold move to compare a colloquial casual term to literally the most foul term in American history. It's absolutely a matter of principle, which I don't think is a surprise to you. I find that it's common to conflate refusal to oblige what amounts to policing my ability to communicate, with refusal to oblige someone's request to be addressed a certain way. One is just a matter of retaining my right to decide for myself how I communicate, but I've never had the right to say anything I want and have it not be capable of being interpreted as rude. The thing is, you don't get to decide objectively what is wrong and right, or what I find difficult to fluently introduce into my vocabulary. A business kind of does, in so much as they can keep employees, but generally we've accepted a high bar for that, largely relying on subjectivity rather than them deciding to legislate bad words for adults. You can't just decide that a term is objectively sexist or a personal attack, and "I really doubt" arguments aren't convincing, evidenced in part by you already implying it's anti-woman. edit: I'd add that I'm not particularly attached to specific phrases like this, it all depends on circumstances and context, and a matter of what would make me start thinking about a change. Generally, I do think about how I'd address a group of people, because some opt not to use this or that, and it's best to find that comfortable common ground, and if you're speaking with customers I could probably more easily grasp a business wanting to pick the safest option, especially if it's likely to make it's way onto Twitter when my barista commits a faux-pas. If I worked at Reddit when they implemented their new policies for example, I'd probably start looking elsewhere. Pick your battles, and not every fight is worth your job. But if my company decides for me that this isn't an interpersonal issue, and I don't get to make these choices for myself, but that it's by definition hate speech, then maybe I'll go work on a farm or whatever you'd have me do. One that butches animals for mass human consumption; I hope that's ok ;)
- offby37years 6y agoFor those that don't already consider the Slippery Slope Fallacy a fallacy.
- hntrader 6y agoSlippery Slope Fallacy Fallacy
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- 83457 6y agoWhat precipitated this?
- katbyte 6y agoProbably women feeling excluded by the use of the inherently gendered term "guys" and the refusal of men to stop using it/brushing off their concerns/not feeling comfortable bringing it up.
- string 6y agoI don't know where you're from but where I live "guys" is a completely neutral term for any group of humans. My wife used it today on a call to three other females.
- artursapek 6y agoIt sounds like your wife and those three females don't have crippling self-esteem problems, good for them.
- tartoran 6y agoWait until smiling or even looking at someone will be deemed offensive if you don’t do it the only right way. Cameras will be everywhere and and wrong look will be penalized harshly
- katbyte 6y agoAnd yet it keeps coming up at the american based global company i work at as a term many women do not like or consider gender neutral, consider maybe that there are people outside your limited social circle who view it differently and in large companies spanning the globe they need to take into account other cultures and people who are not in america?
- Spivak 6y agoIt’s really region dependent. But since “girls” definitely isn’t gender neutral to you all you have to do is reverse it to understand the potential awkwardness. Imagine you took a job somewhere where in their region your field was overwhelmingly female dominated and “hey girls” was considered gender neutral. And you already felt pretty excluded being the only guy on the team and one of less than 10 guys in the whole company. And they’re not purposely excluding you but they didn’t even think that having outside of work team bonding of getting mani-pedis might be uncomfortable for you. Or the fact that all their reaction gifs and references in Slack are of girly shows you’re never seen. And so the fact that at every Zoom call, every company wide meeting it’s “hey girls” just reminds you of how excluded you already feel. So you being it up and ask them to maybe use a different phrase that is a little more gender neutral to you and they brush you off, say that “girls” IS gender neutral and that it’s not their problem.
- easton 6y agoWhat was the replacement phrase? “Team” is the only replacement I can possibly think of but that makes you sound like an unfeeling robot.
- katbyte 6y agoya'll, folks, people, team, everyone, friends, pals, peeps, chums, gang, squad, crew, mates, peers - i mean c'mon, there are just so many non-gendered ones out there to pick from (and inb4 "but guys is not gendered!!" - how do you explain the phrase "guys and gals" then?)
- least 6y agoThe term "guys and gals" is slightly more archaic than the gender neutral "guys" that is used commonly in many parts of the United States.
- katbyte 6y agoAnd yet it keeps coming up at the USA based company i work at as a term many women do not like or consider gender neutral
- Spivak 6y agoYeah it’s region dependent. In the Midwest it’s super gender neutral to the point where people will “hey guys” or “hey man” to refer to women. Really really jarring.
- least 6y agoUSA in itself has many microcosms of culture, it's not one homogeneous clump. The fact that your company is USA based offers no indication of the cultural backgrounds of people working there. You can try to homogenize language and culture to suit your own sensibilities. Since I view "guy" as a gendered term, then that's clearly the only acceptable definition and interpretation of the term. Other people's usage is obviously problematic and I want to compel them to change their language to meet my requirements and sense of acceptable terminology. Alternatively you can embrace the fact that people's language is their own and acknowledge that the person's intent here does indeed matter. You don't need to adapt the same language that they use, but you could be mindful that people speak differently than you and that your discomfort with terminology is sometimes maligned.
- nvr219 6y agoStart using yinz
- grumple 6y agoYouse
- axaxs 6y agoThis feels pretty extreme. I was raised in the Midwest where everyone calls everyone 'guys.' Even if I could successfully stop saying it...why? It's very obviously meant with no ill intention.
- RandallBrown 6y agoI've been trying to stop saying "you guys" to refer to groups of people because while I don't mean any harm, it's really not a big deal to prevent some potential discomfort to someone. I think it's really hard to understand gender dysphoria if you haven't been through it. I haven't, but if I can prevent reminding them that some people don't see them as the gender they see themselves, I should make the small effort.
- neltnerb 6y agoHaving one of my direct reports mention that they are trans and that using "guys" to refer to the team made them feel left out was really all it took... you have to take people at their word at some level and "consider alternatives to 'guys'" is a pretty minor ask.
- tartoran 6y agoI came to the US at 20 and was surprised girls used guys to refer to other a group of girls. I stored it like that and sparingly used it and nobody ever got visibly offended but now I can’t be certain. Now i have to erase it from my informal repertoire lest I offend someone or even worse get sued or something. As I i got older I find it hard to change these autopilot things. Again, I am not wishing to degrade anyone but am afraid someone will punish me for it. There are other examples that I could probably have a hard time unlearning as well and this only gives me more anxiety everytime I open my mouth in public. Im lucky Im somewhat a goofy person and blunders are forgiven easier but in these times one never know. Some anxiety is unavoidable these times and frankly I think this is a force that will drive groups of people apart
- monktastic1 6y agoThe modern far left understanding is that intention doesn't matter one whit. Only outcome does. And if the outcome is that someone was offended, the only valid reason is that you are a bad person and should be made to feel bad -- ideally, as publicly as possible. Of course, this is only true if the offended party falls into one of a number of sanctioned buckets. I wish I were making this up.
- eru 6y ago"You guys" isn't a pronoun in the first place. I guess at least not grammatically. But informally people might use 'pronoun' in a way that includes this meaning?
- pseudalopex 6y agoIt functions as a pronoun. The technical term is pronominal. But people would have to look it up. And they'd wonder why you didn't just say pronoun.
- techdragon 6y agoThanks for the useful new language term! I’d never heard of Pronominal before.
- protomyth 6y agoWell, I'm deeply offended that someone has called me "cisgendered male". Can you folks stop using terms I have not agreed to also?
- da_big_ghey 6y agoI am agreeing with you in this problem. I have a large dislike for this term. The gays pick so many words on how to say about them. And we then get word placed on us. Also word that I heard only in derogatory contexts as to this day.
- Spivak 6y agoWait huh? It just means not transgender. That’s is. It’s exactly the same form as heterosexual. homo- same hetero- different trans- on the other side cis - on the same side
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Spooky23 6y agoSeriously. It sounds like some sort of disease.
- Spivak 6y agoOn the off chance you’re one of today’s 10,000. trans- is a prefix that means on the “opposite side of.” And so that’s where transgender came from. But then people wanted a term for people who aren’t trans and “not transgender” is awkward. So people looked and found that cis- is a prefix that means “on the same side of” and just went with that. Kinda clever honestly.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Cerium 6y agoI would prefer to identify as male. I don't want to be trans, I don't want to be cis. I just want to be a male, and _ANYONE_ who wants to join me is welcome.
- grumple 6y agoHello, fellow sentient beings!
- LanceH 6y agoYea, but you get a whole new word for referring to all the dads in your group.
- nullserver 6y agoI learned the hard way that using a persons name instead of desired pronoun is a major offense.
- temp667 6y agoIt is, I do this routinely because I'm constantly meeting people and don't have desired pronounces in front of me.
- petrocrat 6y agoI don't understand... How is referring to someone by their name offensive?
- benjohnson 6y agoThe theory of it being 'bad' is that it's a work around having to use a pronouns that you may object to.
- mjevans 6y agoI object to using pronouns, and many people dislike singular they. I refuse to allow a DDoS on my memory space to recall everyone's preferred form of being addressed; I have a hard enough time remembering names.
- nitrogen 6y agoIt's kind of like we're witnessing the emergence of a new style/honorifics system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_(form_of_address) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Style_(form_of_address)
- nullserver 6y agoMassive fines in New York if you refuse.
- throwaway98797 6y ago
- Pfhreak 6y agoLike, you aren't allowed to use the neopronouns for yourself? Or is your work telling you that you should respect other people's pronouns?
- op00to 6y agoThis never happened, so probably the latter.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- brailsafe 6y agoThat's scary and possibly illegal.
- op00to 6y agoHow is it illegal?
- brailsafe 6y agoI don't know, but it just feels like it could be. It can certainly be illegal in some places if you intentionally misgender someone, so if the bar is that low, anything more reasonable isn't that fanciful.
- hshshs2 6y agodefinitely not illegal, employers can make rules about what you say while you work... tons already do
- Shivetya 6y agoits not a cultural revolution, its a cultural intimidation, where groups have come to realize the real power of social media is to name, shame, and blame. there is no middle ground here, you cannot debate anything, as they consider no moral higher than what they profess. this is some serious Soviet Union type stuff being done to rewrite the world, no limits on how back one can go for an accusation, and then erasing people from the public for a transgression. Fake news isn't the main threat of social media, intimidation, degradation, and even threats, is.
- vimy 6y agoWhat’s happening is exactly the same as the Chinese cultural revolution.
- eplanit 6y agoI'm convinced that the CCP is playing us like a fiddle.
- CincinnatiMan 6y agoCan you expand? I don't know enough about the cultural revolution to make the connection.
- wwww4alll 6y agoIt’s been steady progression for a while. Welcome to the struggle, lol. The only bright side is that the people on other side are really incompetent. The gender studies degrees have no meaning when power goes out and sink is backed up. Most people play along because they think it’s their kids play acting to progressive ideals. They will get rude awakening when the little progs come for their heads. This will play out like it has in the past and this cycle will repeat again in the future. History doesn’t repeat, but people don’t change and they will make exact same mistakes again. Look into rise and fall of civilizations throughout history, US is right on schedule. Start learning Chinese, it will come handy one day, lol.
- vyhd 6y agoThis is a wildly incendiary ideological rant and it has no place on HN.
- throwaway3699 6y agoI would argue that what is going on today and the mirrors with the Chinese Cultural Revolution are too close to not be worried. We need to talk about this.
- vyhd 6y agoI'm sure you would, but at least do us the decency of bringing data and leaving hyperbole out.
- vxNsr 6y agoI think we can start by not referring to someone else’s thoughts as “wildly incendiary rant”
- shortandsweet 6y agoHow about say that first instead of trying to cancel someone from posting?
- 6y ago
- madeofpalk 6y agoWould love to see this email.
- dmingod666 6y agoThese conversations always crack me up. Its just so comical. An empire with the largest military presence around the world, outspending the rest of the world to buy weapons that can decimate the world population multiple times over, but, somehow that is not "offensive"..
- sixQuarks 6y agoIt's also not offensive that America is the only "developed" country that doesn't have universal healthcare.
- toomim 6y agoNope, we call that "defense!"
- ClumsyPilot 6y agoWe used to staight up call it 'ministry of war" untill PR people got involved. I prefered the more hobest approach, keeps you on your toes.
- StillBored 6y agoIf your speaking of the USA, it was the "Department of War" Until yah, someone decided to throw in some doublespeak.
- torstenvl 6y agoDoublespeak is used to hide the truth, not to express the truth. The renaming happened in the late 1940s, in a United States that was reluctant to join WWII in the first place, and as the entire world got behind the idea that aggressive war was a violation of the law of nations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_United_Nations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_the_United_Nations
- ClumsyPilot 6y ago
- Azeralthefallen 6y agoThe company I work for did something similar at the end of last year. We had consultants who went over everything, and made a massive document of all sorts of things they deemed "problematic". Along with a week long of seminars/training/workshops on sensitivity/inclusion/etc. - Everyone had to list what pronouns they wanted people to use. In slack / our email footers everything. This was not optional. We were also told that referring to people by their names instead of pronouns can be offensive. - Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. Ironically they also said use of "CRUD" was inappropriate because it was slang for poop. - We have a bunch of things where we have an owner of users/reports/etc, and we have a bunch of code with stuff like "listUsersOwnedByUser", which apparently could be construed as offensive by certain groups of people. - A bunch of verbs such as "see", or "visible" could be ablest, etc. - Our company had a completely optional get out/get exercising type of thing since everyone is WFH, and apparently exercise could be considered offensive to people. - Our company of 300 people does not have some sort of LGBTQIA+ outreach program. Some of it made sense, but a lot of it was frankly so nitpicky and difficult to even understand. Pretty much everything we were told/taught went out the window almost immediately.
- ttt0 6y ago> Words such as "master", "owner", among some other ones were deemed problematic and needed to be changed. This is slippery slope happening right before your eyes. For those who claimed that slippery slope is just a fallacy and never ever can be true. When did Github change the default branch name from "master" to "main"? Few months ago? Now it's "owner" too, and using this word probably could get you in some real trouble. I'm not even going to comment on "see" and "visible".
- interestica 6y agochmod 755
- Azeralthefallen 6y agoIt is already difficult enough to come up with naming things that makes sense. I kind of get "master" when used in the context, however things like "owner" i struggle extremely hard with. Especially since major companies like Microsoft use it. I remember asking what did they suggest instead of owner, and they basically gave a list of synonyms that frankly did not really work the same way, or are insanely long e.g. "Primary Account Holder".
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mbg721 6y agoHere in Flyover Country, these debates sound entirely bizarre. I was going to say "It sounds like everyone's lost their minds", and I noticed I didn't say "his mind", so clearly there's a lag.
- readflaggedcomm 6y ago"Their" as a neuter/indeterminate plural goes back centuries. Which is to say that Midwest usage isn't part of that culture war.
- mbg721 6y agoThat's fair. I don't think that anybody who says that is thinking much about it, but isn't that the point? To establish the default that nobody thinks about?
- Rapzid 6y agoI thought we might work at the same place for a second there but I've not received anything like that today.
- pmiller2 6y agoDo you have one kind of problem with calling people what they prefer to be called?
- cable2600 6y agoWars over, the ultra-left won via social network and Internet. They will ban more stuff. You ever heard of good people banning books and banning words? It is mostly dictators doing that.
- chmod600 6y agoLegitimate question for liberals of the freedom-and-mild-socialism variety: what do you think about this? Do you find that the current leftists in control of government and media are liberal like you?
- nearbuy 6y ago> You ever heard of good people banning books and banning words? A majority of developed democracies have laws that restrict hate speech, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, South Africa, Sweden, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. That said, I disagree with what eBay is doing.
- yerwhat01010 6y agoBut the ever-present question is "who defines hate speech?" Most people's definition of the term seems to be "speech that I hate." This won't end well.
- nearbuy 6y agoThe point I made isn't that we should ban hate speech; it's that looking at which countries/companies ban hate speech is a bad litmus test for determining which countries/companies are bad. The parent comment asked if we "ever heard of good people banning books and banning words?". Yes, I have. The majority of democracies have done so. The U.S. is in the minority. Lack of hate speech laws doesn't correlate with any of the major freedom indices or human rights indices. As a separate point, Canada's hate speech laws have been working quite well. They're used rarely, and only in extreme cases, like a case where a promoter of the Rwandan genocide wanted to immigrate to Canada. Judges understand that "speech I hate" isn't the legal standard for hate speech.