4 ms·

> don't use words to describe groups just because everybody else does What? Arriving on shared definition of terms carries enormous cultural benefits. The worl

> don't use words to describe groups just because everybody else does What? Arriving on shared definition of terms carries enormous cultural benefits. The world is vastly more complex than language, so language will always fall short. > have enough respect to know what you're talking about Who decides this? How is one supposed to know this? > or consult those who do Taken with the prior statement, this seems very similar to an abusive relationship. This kind of consultation would require enormous amounts of trust. How does one know if a person is trustworthy? > harmful stereotypes Who decides if a stereotype is harmful? I'm not sure how to act on this in a way that's not susceptible to being abused. > what category of people you're really talking about This is pretty good advice, but again shared cultural definitions are extremely powerful and valuable, so it will likely be in adequate.

wizzwizz4 3y ago
“Shared cultural definitions” carry enormous cultural baggage. If I say something affects women, but it's about menstrual bleeding… well, why not just say “people who menstruate”? Much clearer for women on the pill or without a uterus, or trans men, or whatever. And if it's about breast cancer, that's a completely different set of people, many (though not most) of whom are not women. This imprecision has a death toll. To give an example from the article, “boomers” is a term referring to a specific American demographic group, usually from a sociocultural perspective. (It's actually a bit more complicated than this: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom for details.) If you're trying to classify humans by age, e.g. in a medical context, the term is not appropriate. I can't tell you how to know whether you know what you're talking about: that's difficult. A good rule of thumb is that you're aware of contradictory viewpoints, and understand why those people disagree with you (and why they're wrong, if they are), but this only works if you don't force it (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law). Finding experts is a difficult problem, but in this case it's easy: picking a member of the demographic group at random, then randomly picking one of their friends (also in the demographic group), will probably give you someone who can tell you how members of that group will react to various terms, what the preferred terminology is, and why it's not about the words you use. (Because it isn't. Never has been, never will be. Even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute isn't about the name.) Stereotypes are harmful if they cause harm, which is most of them. There's no arbiter except reality. If it's easier for you, avoid stereotypes that are inaccurate: which is, again, most of them. If you don't know that either, just use one of these irritating checklists of prescribed and proscribed terms: that's why they exist.
- pragle 3y ago
  > If I say something affects women, but it's about menstrual bleeding... well, why not just say "people who menstruate"? Much clearer for women on the pill or without a uterus, or trans men, or whatever. Unfortunately, in healthcare contexts this language will most likely be less clear. Here's an excellent, well-sourced paper which argues, amongst other things, that avoiding sex-based language with regards to female reproduction is problematic because it works against the plain language principle of health communications, and therefore can actually reduce inclusivity for vulnerable groups by making communications more difficult to understand: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.81885...
  - wizzwizz4 3y ago
    > These [unintended consequences] include: decreasing overall inclusivity; dehumanizing; including people who should be excluded; being imprecise, inaccurate or misleading; and disembodying and undermining breastfeeding. Describing the wrong groups, and being misleading, are exactly what I am not advocating for. I have, sadly, seen people advocate find-and-replacing in a document to make it “more inclusive”, and that never ends well. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem) The majority of phrases criticised by that article are… awful. (Seriously, “gestational carrier”? “Pregnant” is already a noun.) > “8 in 10 people” will get pregnant after having unprotected sex Obviously you don't use clunky language constructions, and you certainly don't do that. (If you are, I dare say that's not the only problem with your writing.) But one doesn't stop being a woman at menopause: this ambiguity might cause clear communication for some, but it comes at the expense of unclear communication for others. For accessibility, you can't have a one-size-fits-all text.[0] There's a reason we have separate easy-read versions.[1] Provide an imprecise, oversimplified summary if it improves outcomes, but don't make that the only version. > They may not know, for example, that “a person with a cervix” is a woman and refers to them If people don't know what the cervix is, explain what the cervix is, probably in parentheses. Rather than constructing an artificial example, I'll quote the World Health Organisation (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cervical-cancer https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cervical-ca...): > Persistent HPV infection of the cervix (the lower part of the uterus or womb, which opens into the vagina – also called the birth canal) if left untreated, causes 95% of cervical cancers. This sentence could do with some work, but it demonstrates the point. A skilled writer can be clear and correct: it's not either-or. [0]: https://indoxicate.me/text-accessibility-requires-multiple-formats/ https://indoxicate.me/text-accessibility-requires-multiple-f... [1]: https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2021/10/11/easy-read-is-hard-to-get-right/ https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2021/10/11/easy-read-is-hard...

wizzwizz4 3y ago

“Shared cultural definitions” carry enormous cultural baggage. If I say something affects women, but it's about menstrual bleeding… well, why not just say “people who menstruate”? Much clearer for women on the pill or without a uterus, or trans men, or whatever. And if it's about breast cancer, that's a completely different set of people, many (though not most) of whom are not women. This imprecision has a death toll. To give an example from the article, “boomers” is a term referring to a specific American demographic group, usually from a sociocultural perspective. (It's actually a bit more complicated than this: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_boom for details.) If you're trying to classify humans by age, e.g. in a medical context, the term is not appropriate. I can't tell you how to know whether you know what you're talking about: that's difficult. A good rule of thumb is that you're aware of contradictory viewpoints, and understand why those people disagree with you (and why they're wrong, if they are), but this only works if you don't force it (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law). Finding experts is a difficult problem, but in this case it's easy: picking a member of the demographic group at random, then randomly picking one of their friends (also in the demographic group), will probably give you someone who can tell you how members of that group will react to various terms, what the preferred terminology is, and why it's not about the words you use. (Because it isn't. Never has been, never will be. Even https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry/Londonderry_name_dispute isn't about the name.) Stereotypes are harmful if they cause harm, which is most of them. There's no arbiter except reality. If it's easier for you, avoid stereotypes that are inaccurate: which is, again, most of them. If you don't know that either, just use one of these irritating checklists of prescribed and proscribed terms: that's why they exist.

pragle 3y ago
> If I say something affects women, but it's about menstrual bleeding... well, why not just say "people who menstruate"? Much clearer for women on the pill or without a uterus, or trans men, or whatever. Unfortunately, in healthcare contexts this language will most likely be less clear. Here's an excellent, well-sourced paper which argues, amongst other things, that avoiding sex-based language with regards to female reproduction is problematic because it works against the plain language principle of health communications, and therefore can actually reduce inclusivity for vulnerable groups by making communications more difficult to understand: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.818856/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fgwh.2022.81885...
- wizzwizz4 3y ago
  > These [unintended consequences] include: decreasing overall inclusivity; dehumanizing; including people who should be excluded; being imprecise, inaccurate or misleading; and disembodying and undermining breastfeeding. Describing the wrong groups, and being misleading, are exactly what I am not advocating for. I have, sadly, seen people advocate find-and-replacing in a document to make it “more inclusive”, and that never ends well. (See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scunthorpe_problem) The majority of phrases criticised by that article are… awful. (Seriously, “gestational carrier”? “Pregnant” is already a noun.) > “8 in 10 people” will get pregnant after having unprotected sex Obviously you don't use clunky language constructions, and you certainly don't do that. (If you are, I dare say that's not the only problem with your writing.) But one doesn't stop being a woman at menopause: this ambiguity might cause clear communication for some, but it comes at the expense of unclear communication for others. For accessibility, you can't have a one-size-fits-all text.[0] There's a reason we have separate easy-read versions.[1] Provide an imprecise, oversimplified summary if it improves outcomes, but don't make that the only version. > They may not know, for example, that “a person with a cervix” is a woman and refers to them If people don't know what the cervix is, explain what the cervix is, probably in parentheses. Rather than constructing an artificial example, I'll quote the World Health Organisation (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cervical-cancer https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cervical-ca...): > Persistent HPV infection of the cervix (the lower part of the uterus or womb, which opens into the vagina – also called the birth canal) if left untreated, causes 95% of cervical cancers. This sentence could do with some work, but it demonstrates the point. A skilled writer can be clear and correct: it's not either-or. [0]: https://indoxicate.me/text-accessibility-requires-multiple-formats/ https://indoxicate.me/text-accessibility-requires-multiple-f... [1]: https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2021/10/11/easy-read-is-hard-to-get-right/ https://designnotes.blog.gov.uk/2021/10/11/easy-read-is-hard...