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In the culture's that I'm familiar (western anglophone) it's entirely unacceptable to use the word "him" for a putative technical cofounder that does not exist.

In the culture's that I'm familiar (western anglophone) it's entirely unacceptable to use the word "him" for a putative technical cofounder that does not exist. I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.

Zababa 5y ago
"entirely unacceptable" sounds very strong to me. The Wikipedia page on gender-neutral language has a point on avoiding "him" and the reference dates back from 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language. But nothing on that page suggests something as strong as what you say. Same thing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#P.... The page suggests that there is an ongoing debate, but no answer is accepted by everyone. Perhaps your social circles don't reflect the whole western anglophone sphere? Considering all of that, you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language, implying that their usage of "him" was only rooted in ignorance and couldn't be a deliberate choice. You said that you made your point "politely", but that isn't the case. I don't know if you acted in bad faith or in ignorance, but in both cases, you should try to be a bit more nice and open about how you approach people here. I don't really get what you're trying to say with "I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.". Are you disappointed because you got downvoted without any explanation? Or that people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Or something else?
- da39a3ee 5y ago
  > you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?" or perhaps "easier". Given that, I certainly assumed English wasn't their first language. I honestly thought I was improving matters by leading with the possibility that English wasn't their first language, in order to avoid it seeming that non-English speakers were being battered for a mistake. I'm interested you perceived that as impolite or disingenuous; it wasn't the latter, although in retrospect, and given my priors, a semi-literate native English speaker is a distinct possibility. > Are you disappointed because ...people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Yes, this. It seems we just disagree. You may be right that I am overstating the case regarding all gender-specific language being "unacceptable", but on reading this particular example, my immediate reaction, which has not weakened in the ensuing discussion, is that it is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps I'm failing to recognize a nuance or finer distinction whereby I place this example in a different category from certain other examples of he/him. I didn't think it was the subject matter context, although that is worth noting. I.e. that the male-gendered language here hardly helps the undeniably undesirable proportions of men and women in technical roles.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    That may just be my experience online but generally outside of extreme example (in which I wouldn't include the original post), there is usually almost no correlation between the quality of English of one person and English being his first language or not. Again in my online experience, implying that someone isn't a native speaker is generally considered rude. That may just be a difference in our social circles, or me being in the minority though. I think there is a difference between "This is not how you should speak English the language", and "The way you say things doesn't improve or even worsen the current proportions of men and women in tech.". I agree that we disagree on one point: I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. But if there is a ratio that's perfectly representative of the population and discrimination still exists, it isn't fine for me. Outside of our differences in views, you're pushing a certain view of things and certain values, and not everyone might agree with this. A few people probably expressed that by a silent downvote. Some people may also think that you're derailling the conversation. A common response to that is that these kind of issues are really important and are always on topic, but not everyone agrees with this.
    - da39a3ee 5y ago
      OK, well we've already derailed it so let's continue :) > I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. I think I can make you see that you don't actually hold that position. Consider the following hypothetical world: (1) From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure. (2) From the age of 8, all boys are encouraged that their role in life is to study academic subjects with a view to making the world a better place. Now fast forwards to considering technical roles in the adult workplace in this hypothetical world. There will clearly be a huge disparity in representation of the sexes, and this remains true if we posit zero discrimination. And yet, despite the absence of discrimination, the state of this world is clearly "undesirable": young women are being treated awfully and their ambitions are being utterly thwarted by what's happening when they are young. So in fact, many possible versions of our universe exist in which a highly skewed numerical proportion itself is undesirable, because it indicates that something is wrong. Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes.
aeoleonn 5y ago
stop trying to control other peoples' actions such that they are in alignment with your political beliefs.

Zababa 5y ago

"entirely unacceptable" sounds very strong to me. The Wikipedia page on gender-neutral language has a point on avoiding "him" and the reference dates back from 2015 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language. But nothing on that page suggests something as strong as what you say. Same thing with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#Pronouns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_neutrality_in_English#P.... The page suggests that there is an ongoing debate, but no answer is accepted by everyone. Perhaps your social circles don't reflect the whole western anglophone sphere? Considering all of that, you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language, implying that their usage of "him" was only rooted in ignorance and couldn't be a deliberate choice. You said that you made your point "politely", but that isn't the case. I don't know if you acted in bad faith or in ignorance, but in both cases, you should try to be a bit more nice and open about how you approach people here. I don't really get what you're trying to say with "I've flagged this thread to give the moderators an opportunity to consider this data point; HN is a great community but I think that it is numerically male-dominated. That of course needn't necessarily translate into cultural problems but I am disappointed by the behavior of thread participants here.". Are you disappointed because you got downvoted without any explanation? Or that people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Or something else?

da39a3ee 5y ago
> you unnecessarily said that English may not be the author's primary language They wrote "Which one is easy?" when they meant to write "Which one is easiest?" or perhaps "easier". Given that, I certainly assumed English wasn't their first language. I honestly thought I was improving matters by leading with the possibility that English wasn't their first language, in order to avoid it seeming that non-English speakers were being battered for a mistake. I'm interested you perceived that as impolite or disingenuous; it wasn't the latter, although in retrospect, and given my priors, a semi-literate native English speaker is a distinct possibility. > Are you disappointed because ...people don't react as much as they should to the "him"? Yes, this. It seems we just disagree. You may be right that I am overstating the case regarding all gender-specific language being "unacceptable", but on reading this particular example, my immediate reaction, which has not weakened in the ensuing discussion, is that it is entirely inappropriate. Perhaps I'm failing to recognize a nuance or finer distinction whereby I place this example in a different category from certain other examples of he/him. I didn't think it was the subject matter context, although that is worth noting. I.e. that the male-gendered language here hardly helps the undeniably undesirable proportions of men and women in technical roles.
- Zababa 5y ago
  That may just be my experience online but generally outside of extreme example (in which I wouldn't include the original post), there is usually almost no correlation between the quality of English of one person and English being his first language or not. Again in my online experience, implying that someone isn't a native speaker is generally considered rude. That may just be a difference in our social circles, or me being in the minority though. I think there is a difference between "This is not how you should speak English the language", and "The way you say things doesn't improve or even worsen the current proportions of men and women in tech.". I agree that we disagree on one point: I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. But if there is a ratio that's perfectly representative of the population and discrimination still exists, it isn't fine for me. Outside of our differences in views, you're pushing a certain view of things and certain values, and not everyone might agree with this. A few people probably expressed that by a silent downvote. Some people may also think that you're derailling the conversation. A common response to that is that these kind of issues are really important and are always on topic, but not everyone agrees with this.
  - da39a3ee 5y ago
    OK, well we've already derailed it so let's continue :) > I don't think the proportion itself is undesirable, what's undesirable for me is discrimination. If tech becomes a perfect environment in regards to discrimination and there is still a low proportion of women in it, it's totally fine for me. I think I can make you see that you don't actually hold that position. Consider the following hypothetical world: (1) From the age of 8, all girls are encouraged (by schools, family, and the rest of the cultural environment) to view their role in life as to have children and to eschew all intellectual activities. Girls who want to pursue academic interests are unhappy but nevertheless follow the societal pressure. (2) From the age of 8, all boys are encouraged that their role in life is to study academic subjects with a view to making the world a better place. Now fast forwards to considering technical roles in the adult workplace in this hypothetical world. There will clearly be a huge disparity in representation of the sexes, and this remains true if we posit zero discrimination. And yet, despite the absence of discrimination, the state of this world is clearly "undesirable": young women are being treated awfully and their ambitions are being utterly thwarted by what's happening when they are young. So in fact, many possible versions of our universe exist in which a highly skewed numerical proportion itself is undesirable, because it indicates that something is wrong. Since we do not know a priori which version of the universe we are in (we are not omniscient; this is an inference problem), we acknowledge that, having eliminated discrimination, numerical proportions far from the biological 50:50 are undesirable in that they are statistically associated with regions of parameter space that describe undesirable societal/cultural processes.

aeoleonn 5y ago

stop trying to control other peoples' actions such that they are in alignment with your political beliefs.