4 ms·
Name, ok... but why "gender"?
by mooneater 15y ago
Name, ok... but why "gender"?
- mdwrigh2 15y agoI suspect it's due to internationalization reasons. Even in English, we don't really have useful singular third-person gender-neutral pronouns (yes, I'm aware of "they", but it's actually a debated topic). In other languages where everything has genders, there might not be a reason to have gender neutral pronouns whatsoever.
- killerswan 15y agoSo what? Gender isn't relevant to every online activity. A century ago we didn't have any gender neutral clothing, either: if we need better pronouns, then let's make some up.
- Groxx 15y ago>if we need better pronouns, then let's make some up. For every language?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- carbonica 15y agoPerhaps Google finds asking users for their gender (which is highly correlated with your name, anyway) to be an easier task than introducing the necessary pronouns into every language in the globe.
- rryan 15y agoWhat about languages that don't have gender neutral pronouns?
- callahad 15y agoGoogle isn't (yet) using it for selecting pronouns and/or they don't seem to have a problem using "their" as a neutral pronoun: http://i.imgur.com/1B5rT.png http://i.imgur.com/1B5rT.png
- rachelbythebay 15y agoThey'll claim it's for customization of prompts ("His photos", "her updates"), but that's a cop-out. Think of the possibilities when you can sell such demographic details to your advertisers. Now it should start making sense.
- buro9 15y agogender is actually highly sensitive for a lot of people as well, especially being forced into male/female buckets (which are actually sex and not gender). There's a world of pain for them in this.
- kylemaxwell 15y agoJust verified, they have an "Other" selection. This isn't forcing anyone into a bucket.
- mooneater 15y agoOh yeah, publicly stating "other" is so much better =|