6 ms·

I'm sorry, but the entire notion that using masculine pronouns somehow implies sexism is complete bullshit. That's how the English language works. "He" is used

by aroman 13y ago

I'm sorry, but the entire notion that using masculine pronouns somehow implies sexism is complete bullshit. That's how the English language works. "He" is used as both neuter and masculine. There is no "it" pronoun. Please, for the love of all that is holy, stop fighting about this. Unless someone actually did something sexist, this is a linguistic bikeshed to end all bikesheds. Childish community behavior aside, the entire argument is a moot point. There is NOTHING sexist about using "he". If you feel otherwise, please, please educate me.

quinnchr 13y ago
Yeah for sure the english language couldn't possibly itself be influenced by sexism. That's just how it works. We should just accept it. The pronoun itself isn't sexist it's the reason behind it's use. Beyond indicating (possible) differences in biological sex, what purpose does using a gendered pronoun serve? It doesn't add information, it merely reinforces gender norms. http://www.english.wisc.edu/rfyoung/336/gender.pdf http://www.english.wisc.edu/rfyoung/336/gender.pdf
- aroman 13y ago
  Thanks for your reply. > Yeah for sure the english language couldn't possibly itself be influenced by sexism. That's just how it works. We should just accept it. That was not my point, nor do I believe I implied that. I acknowledge that the original reason why English's nonspecific/neuter pronoun is the same as the masculine is almost certainly because of ages-old sexism and masculo-normativity. > The pronoun itself isn't sexist it's the reason behind it's use. I completely agree. Do you think sexism was intended in the original code comment? If not, then by your logic there was nothing sexist about using "he" and "him". > Beyond indicating (possible) differences in biological sex, what purpose does using a gendered pronoun serve? It doesn't add information, it merely reinforces gender norms. I agree, from a 21st century perspective it seems absurd to not have a neutral/neuter/nonspecific pronoun. But it is an established point of English grammar and language that the masculine pronoun is because there does not exist a neutral/neuter/nonspecific one. Using "they" and "them" and those forms is a relatively recent development of modern language. Personally, I tend to use them very often because I don't want to offend anyone, and I think their usage as an "official unofficial" neutral/neuter/nonspecific pronoun is well on its way to becoming the de-facto way of referring to non-gender-specific people. My point was, and still is, that it is neither wrong nor sexist to use "he" or "his". Unless of course, the sentence you are writing is incorrect or sexist.
  - quinnchr 13y ago
    It's an example of gender bias. By using exclusively he, there is an implicit assumption that whoever reading the doc block is a man, reinforcing the gender norm of programming being male dominated. I would say that falls under sexism. I don't think sexism was intended, but that doesn't mean it can't be sexist. I'll be the first to admit it, I say sexist shit all the time, most of the time it's unintended. Fact of the matter is I'm constantly surrounded by sexism, I was raised on it, and it is what was taught to me. Even though I make a conscious effort to think outside the perspective of what I was taught, it's impossible not to internalize the sexism all around me.
    - opello 13y ago
      Do you really think that it assumes the reader is male? Why not the caller? Can't the function written in the user's code be masculine, just like boats are feminine? (This was largely intended as hyperbole, I don't know why "it" is not the answer. Distancing and dehumanizing language seems appropriate when talking about function calls.)
  - gruseom 13y ago
    Two of your beliefs about English are demonstrably wrong, in a good way. First, singular "they" isn't a recent construct: it goes back at least to Chaucer and never fell out of use. Second, it has never been "an established point" of English grammar to use generic "he"; that one was a prescriptivist construct, introduced by grammarians in the 18th century, most prominently by an author (and entrepreneur!) named Ann Fisher as well as by the perhaps aptly named Sir Charles Coote. You'll find many sources on all this if you plug "singular they" into HNSearch (or Google for that matter), but this article is good on Fisher: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-.... The point is that singular "they" is actually more authentic and more historical English than generic "he" is. That's why I said you were wrong in a good way: there's no conflict at all between inclusive language and good English, and never has been. The language has had an answer for this all along; it was generic "he" that was the interloper, and this was at least partly for ideological reasons—the British parliament even passed a bill in 1850 mandating it! So the ideologues and outrage addicts have been at this for a long time. They just switched sides at some point.
ispivey 13y ago
There's a bunch of research suggesting that using "he" as a neuter pronoun makes women feel excluded: - First experiment/study I found: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1288&context=theses http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12... - Links to more research on the subject: http://alyx.io/educational-resources/gender.html#generic-masculine-pronouns http://alyx.io/educational-resources/gender.html#generic-mas... Douglas Hofstadter wrote a good piece of satire explaining why it's oppressive by s/man/white, etc: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html Contrary to what you say, "they" was used as the singular neuter pronoun for a long time, until a concentrated effort to force it out of use in the 1800s. Some examples from a previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6824352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6824352. Some history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Given it's possibly (likely) ostracizing and there's nothing categorically wrong about using "they" as a singular neuter pronoun, I think you're on the wrong side of this. People should certainly stop fighting; the answer is to just roll with "they".
- aroman 13y ago
  Thanks for all those links — I wasn't aware of those studies (especially not about the deliberate effort to force the singular "they" out of use) and I think they have definitely influenced my conscious personal writing style (I do tend to avoid gendered pronouns anyway). I will agree that I was on the wrong side of this in the sense that "he" is more or equally preferable to "they", but I made another point too — that this entire topic is a giant bikeshed. You say "people should certainly stop fighting", but do you then imply that fighting for "they" is justified? Personally, I don't think it is.
- hacker789 13y ago
  I use gender-neutral pronouns unless context dictates otherwise, but I want you to consider something. If a policy (or lack thereof) is correlated with women feeling excluded or intimidated, it doesn't necessarily mean that the policy (or lack thereof) is a bad thing. If women tend to feel intimidated by eye contact with men with whom they are in competition, it doesn't mean such eye contact should be banned. If women tend to feel feel excluded if the founding members of an organization or club are all men, it doesn't mean men should be forced to find a woman before founding an organization or club.
graue 13y ago
It's true that historically "he" has often been used a generic pronoun, but singular "they" also has a long history. I'd start with this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Some object to the usage because: > Proponents of gender-neutral language argue that the use of gender-specific language often implies male superiority or reflects an unequal state of society. According to The Handbook of English Linguistics, generic masculine pronouns and gender-specific job titles are instances "where English linguistic convention has historically treated men as prototypical of the human species." Words that refer to women often devolve in meaning, frequently taking on sexual overtones. > These differences in usage are criticized on two grounds: one, that they reflect a biased state of society, and two, that they help to uphold that state. Studies of children, for instance, indicate that the words children hear affect their perceptions of the gender-appropriateness of certain careers. Other research has demonstrated that men and women apply for jobs in more equal proportions when gender-neutral language is used in the advertisement, as opposed to the generic he or man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language_in_English#Rationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language_in_Eng... Many years ago, I would have agreed with you that using "he" as neuter was correct and therefore preferable to singular "they". I no longer feel that way. I'd attribute that change in opinion to two causes: One, I'm less concerned with by-the-book "correctness" and pedantry, and more concerned with the real-world effect my words have on people. Two, I now realize that English is a living, evolving language, and there is no one authority on what is or is not correct usage. What is widely held to be proper English at a given time is a product of who happened to have influence in society at that time, no more, no less. Also, although this is not what changed my opinion, I find it interesting to note that many of the same people who call the matter trivial will also expend considerable time and effort defending generic "he". If you find it so trivial, why not humor the people who think gender-neutral language is important?
- aroman 13y ago
  Thanks for your comment and for the information. I definitely agree with your point that the singular "they" is, at this point in time, as correct or more correct than the neuter "he". I also totally agree with your point about humoring people who actually care passionately about this — that's precisely my issue with this whole debacle. I wasn't taking the position that "he" is the only correct option, and other phrasings must be attacked. Rather, that the entire matter is a bikeshed, and that people should not assume that just because someone used "he" as neuter that he (see what I did there?) is sexist.
Brakenshire 13y ago
It is highly debatable whether 'he' remains a gender-neutral pronoun. I would say that is certainly not the case in the UK.
CyruzDraxs 13y ago
More importantly, a quarter of the world speaks grammatically-gendered languages. Many languages have no concept of gender-neutral pronouns.

by aroman 13y ago

quinnchr 13y ago

Yeah for sure the english language couldn't possibly itself be influenced by sexism. That's just how it works. We should just accept it. The pronoun itself isn't sexist it's the reason behind it's use. Beyond indicating (possible) differences in biological sex, what purpose does using a gendered pronoun serve? It doesn't add information, it merely reinforces gender norms. http://www.english.wisc.edu/rfyoung/336/gender.pdf http://www.english.wisc.edu/rfyoung/336/gender.pdf

aroman 13y ago
Thanks for your reply. > Yeah for sure the english language couldn't possibly itself be influenced by sexism. That's just how it works. We should just accept it. That was not my point, nor do I believe I implied that. I acknowledge that the original reason why English's nonspecific/neuter pronoun is the same as the masculine is almost certainly because of ages-old sexism and masculo-normativity. > The pronoun itself isn't sexist it's the reason behind it's use. I completely agree. Do you think sexism was intended in the original code comment? If not, then by your logic there was nothing sexist about using "he" and "him". > Beyond indicating (possible) differences in biological sex, what purpose does using a gendered pronoun serve? It doesn't add information, it merely reinforces gender norms. I agree, from a 21st century perspective it seems absurd to not have a neutral/neuter/nonspecific pronoun. But it is an established point of English grammar and language that the masculine pronoun is because there does not exist a neutral/neuter/nonspecific one. Using "they" and "them" and those forms is a relatively recent development of modern language. Personally, I tend to use them very often because I don't want to offend anyone, and I think their usage as an "official unofficial" neutral/neuter/nonspecific pronoun is well on its way to becoming the de-facto way of referring to non-gender-specific people. My point was, and still is, that it is neither wrong nor sexist to use "he" or "his". Unless of course, the sentence you are writing is incorrect or sexist.
- quinnchr 13y ago
  It's an example of gender bias. By using exclusively he, there is an implicit assumption that whoever reading the doc block is a man, reinforcing the gender norm of programming being male dominated. I would say that falls under sexism. I don't think sexism was intended, but that doesn't mean it can't be sexist. I'll be the first to admit it, I say sexist shit all the time, most of the time it's unintended. Fact of the matter is I'm constantly surrounded by sexism, I was raised on it, and it is what was taught to me. Even though I make a conscious effort to think outside the perspective of what I was taught, it's impossible not to internalize the sexism all around me.
  - opello 13y ago
    Do you really think that it assumes the reader is male? Why not the caller? Can't the function written in the user's code be masculine, just like boats are feminine? (This was largely intended as hyperbole, I don't know why "it" is not the answer. Distancing and dehumanizing language seems appropriate when talking about function calls.)
- gruseom 13y ago
  Two of your beliefs about English are demonstrably wrong, in a good way. First, singular "they" isn't a recent construct: it goes back at least to Chaucer and never fell out of use. Second, it has never been "an established point" of English grammar to use generic "he"; that one was a prescriptivist construct, introduced by grammarians in the 18th century, most prominently by an author (and entrepreneur!) named Ann Fisher as well as by the perhaps aptly named Sir Charles Coote. You'll find many sources on all this if you plug "singular they" into HNSearch (or Google for that matter), but this article is good on Fisher: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-t.html http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/26/magazine/26FOB-onlanguage-.... The point is that singular "they" is actually more authentic and more historical English than generic "he" is. That's why I said you were wrong in a good way: there's no conflict at all between inclusive language and good English, and never has been. The language has had an answer for this all along; it was generic "he" that was the interloper, and this was at least partly for ideological reasons—the British parliament even passed a bill in 1850 mandating it! So the ideologues and outrage addicts have been at this for a long time. They just switched sides at some point.

ispivey 13y ago

There's a bunch of research suggesting that using "he" as a neuter pronoun makes women feel excluded: - First experiment/study I found: http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1288&context=theses http://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=12... - Links to more research on the subject: http://alyx.io/educational-resources/gender.html#generic-masculine-pronouns http://alyx.io/educational-resources/gender.html#generic-mas... Douglas Hofstadter wrote a good piece of satire explaining why it's oppressive by s/man/white, etc: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html Contrary to what you say, "they" was used as the singular neuter pronoun for a long time, until a concentrated effort to force it out of use in the 1800s. Some examples from a previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6824352 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6824352. Some history here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Given it's possibly (likely) ostracizing and there's nothing categorically wrong about using "they" as a singular neuter pronoun, I think you're on the wrong side of this. People should certainly stop fighting; the answer is to just roll with "they".

aroman 13y ago
Thanks for all those links — I wasn't aware of those studies (especially not about the deliberate effort to force the singular "they" out of use) and I think they have definitely influenced my conscious personal writing style (I do tend to avoid gendered pronouns anyway). I will agree that I was on the wrong side of this in the sense that "he" is more or equally preferable to "they", but I made another point too — that this entire topic is a giant bikeshed. You say "people should certainly stop fighting", but do you then imply that fighting for "they" is justified? Personally, I don't think it is.
hacker789 13y ago
I use gender-neutral pronouns unless context dictates otherwise, but I want you to consider something. If a policy (or lack thereof) is correlated with women feeling excluded or intimidated, it doesn't necessarily mean that the policy (or lack thereof) is a bad thing. If women tend to feel intimidated by eye contact with men with whom they are in competition, it doesn't mean such eye contact should be banned. If women tend to feel feel excluded if the founding members of an organization or club are all men, it doesn't mean men should be forced to find a woman before founding an organization or club.

graue 13y ago

It's true that historically "he" has often been used a generic pronoun, but singular "they" also has a long history. I'd start with this Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they Some object to the usage because: > Proponents of gender-neutral language argue that the use of gender-specific language often implies male superiority or reflects an unequal state of society. According to The Handbook of English Linguistics, generic masculine pronouns and gender-specific job titles are instances "where English linguistic convention has historically treated men as prototypical of the human species." Words that refer to women often devolve in meaning, frequently taking on sexual overtones. > These differences in usage are criticized on two grounds: one, that they reflect a biased state of society, and two, that they help to uphold that state. Studies of children, for instance, indicate that the words children hear affect their perceptions of the gender-appropriateness of certain careers. Other research has demonstrated that men and women apply for jobs in more equal proportions when gender-neutral language is used in the advertisement, as opposed to the generic he or man. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language_in_English#Rationale https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_language_in_Eng... Many years ago, I would have agreed with you that using "he" as neuter was correct and therefore preferable to singular "they". I no longer feel that way. I'd attribute that change in opinion to two causes: One, I'm less concerned with by-the-book "correctness" and pedantry, and more concerned with the real-world effect my words have on people. Two, I now realize that English is a living, evolving language, and there is no one authority on what is or is not correct usage. What is widely held to be proper English at a given time is a product of who happened to have influence in society at that time, no more, no less. Also, although this is not what changed my opinion, I find it interesting to note that many of the same people who call the matter trivial will also expend considerable time and effort defending generic "he". If you find it so trivial, why not humor the people who think gender-neutral language is important?

aroman 13y ago
Thanks for your comment and for the information. I definitely agree with your point that the singular "they" is, at this point in time, as correct or more correct than the neuter "he". I also totally agree with your point about humoring people who actually care passionately about this — that's precisely my issue with this whole debacle. I wasn't taking the position that "he" is the only correct option, and other phrasings must be attacked. Rather, that the entire matter is a bikeshed, and that people should not assume that just because someone used "he" as neuter that he (see what I did there?) is sexist.

Brakenshire 13y ago

It is highly debatable whether 'he' remains a gender-neutral pronoun. I would say that is certainly not the case in the UK.

CyruzDraxs 13y ago

More importantly, a quarter of the world speaks grammatically-gendered languages. Many languages have no concept of gender-neutral pronouns.