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Every default setup on every website and app for the last five or so years has been encouraging users to add pronouns, making it difficult to avoid it, even my
by wincy 7mo ago
Every default setup on every website and app for the last five or so years has been encouraging users to add pronouns, making it difficult to avoid it, even my iPhone asks me to add each person’s pronouns when I add a new contact. I don’t know why Siri needs to know that, but it’s there. There’s one website I use that won’t let you sign up as a contributor without “completing your profile”, which includes mandatory pronouns.
I guess there’s some workplaces where it’d be useful for me to update these, probably the ones Apple PMs work in.
- 4ndrewl 7mo agoIt's often useful for me so that I can know how to address you/refer to you, especially if it's a foreign (to me) name I'm unfamiliar with.
- array_key_first 7mo agoI would imagine it would be useful in 100% of English-speaking workplaces because all workplaces have the expectation of English communication, which pronouns are essential for. If I'm writing an email or a chat message, I will typically have to use a pronoun. Inferring pronouns has always been dumb and annoying. Many names don't have obvious pronouns, for example, the name "Taylor". Is that he or she? And clicking the little profile icon and squinting to see if someone is a man or a woman is also a waste of time. It's a lot easier for everyone if it just tells you the pronoun.
- vdqtp3 7mo ago> If I'm writing an email or a chat message, I will typically have to use a pronoun. It's not that hard to just avoid it. I send emails to a lot of people I haven't spoken to and don't know their gender, so I write gender-neutral emails.
- array_key_first 7mo agoSure, but why would I go out of my way to use gender neutral pronouns like "they" when they can just tell me their preferred pronouns?
- defrost 7mo agoIt's only "out of your way" if you never learned to write gender neutral from the ground up. In the 1970s and 1980s it was the default in many Commonwealth locales to not assume that (say) Rob Owens writing mathematics and engineering papers was male (as it turns out, she isn't, the Rob is short for Robyn). So much correspondence was with people who had Initial Surname or abstract handles that didn't broadcast gender.
- array_key_first 7mo agoBut if someone has the ability to broadcast their preferred pronouns and we built that in, and it costs nothing, then what's the problem? I guess I'm just not really understanding people getting upset at what I perceive to be completely made up problems. We have technology, we no longer have to assume gender neutral pronouns for everyone. They can just tell us the pronouns they want.
- defrost 7mo agoI cannot see the need for anything other than neutral pronouns when discussing permutations with either G.Egan or C.Praeger.
- array_key_first 7mo agoI cannot see the harm in using a different pronoun or opening up the ability for that - it feels like a fake or imaginary problem that we are creating such that we have something to complain about to make ourselves feel better. If we want to feel better, we should just smoke or something.
- vdqtp3 7mo agoHow are you going to know the appropriate pronoun on your first email to "jsmith@company.com" or "ppatel@company.com"? Are you going to send an email to ask their pronouns before you send the actual email?
- analog31 7mo agoWell, it's past the edit window, and of course I accept the downvotes, but I realize that I should have provided a bit more context. In the US, the faction in power right now is attacking perceived symbols of "woke" ideology, and one of them is the use of pronouns. As I understand it, some government agencies are even forbidding the use of pronouns in e-mail signatures etc. So it struck me as ironic that a software component with pronouns would have evaded their notice. I have no problem with the use of pronouns.