4 ms·

And this comment is at the heart of the issue. It would have taken minimal extra effort with negligible effect on the intent of the OP to simply say: Have you e

And this comment is at the heart of the issue. It would have taken minimal extra effort with negligible effect on the intent of the OP to simply say: Have you ever met someone seriously hot? I mean, so seriously hot? Then they open their mouths and go to hell... etc. Your comment, to whit address this part of HN, IS the problem. The OP could have addressed everyone - but failed to even bother wanting to try. Take the extra effort to include all of us, regardless of our genes. Be kind - we'll think all the more of you.

res0nat0r 12y ago
Unfortunately HN seems to take anything related to this topic to some type of all inclusive white-knight extreme, which causes more problems than the people who make an issue out of it try and solve. The grandparent comment is that persons personal experience or perspective. Nothing offensive about that, or any need to iterate through every possible gender pairing needed to try and give everyone a warm fuzzy. The comment is only offensive if you are trying to make it into something more than what it actually is when taken at face value.
coldtea 12y ago
I think that this "white knight" (as the other commenter put it) "here to help women" kind of corrective action, actually belittles them. I mean, women are perfectly capable to understand that the one who wrote the above happened to be a straight male and so talked from HIS viewpoint. They can also adapt what he said for their circumstances, as can gay men etc, and e.g respond with "yeah, I know what you're talking about, had that happen with a great looking guy that turned out to be totally vacuous", etc. Speaking like genderless objects addressing other genderless objects with genderless pronouns and genderless generalizations doesn't really help anyone.
- davmre 12y ago
  > Speaking like genderless objects addressing other genderless objects with genderless pronouns and genderless generalizations doesn't really help anyone. If you're speaking in the first person, about your own experiences, it's totally cool to go wild with gender. Also if you're speaking to a person of a particular gender, or in the third person about people of a particular gender: great! No one's saying all speech should be genderless (well, I'm sure someone somewhere is, but that's nowhere near the position of anyone in this thread.) The only issue is that if you're speaking in the second person, to a crowd of people that is in fact mixed-gender, but you speak as if they were all male, then this can have the effect of making women feel (very slightly) unwelcome. Yes, women are more than capable of performing the mental transformation into what you would have said if you were actually addressing them. But the experience of doing this is a constant, subtle reminder that they don't belong.
- spoiler 12y ago
  > I mean, women are perfectly capable to understand that the one who wrote the above happened to be a straight male and so talked from HIS viewpoint. I second this. I think this exaggerated gender neutrality bullshit is more sexist than using genders. It all goes under the assumption that someone somewhere with skewed perception will get offended and call you out for being sexist (or, as is the case here, someone will tell you off how your lack of gender neutrality was potentially careless and might cause someone offence), when in fact, only a few loud dim-witted balloon-heads will get offended if someone used "he" or "she" in their writing. Furthermore, I doubt anyone would've given two fucks. Alas, I'm sure someone will get offended by me saying this and comment to this how I'm wrong, even though they probably wouldn't, they just think they would have (but that's another issue). Anyway, to conclude: I don't believe there's anything sexist about using "he" or "she" (or whatever other form of gender) in communication the way the author (christoph) used it. In my opinion, sexism is about bigotry, or misbelief that one gender is superior to others.

res0nat0r 12y ago

Unfortunately HN seems to take anything related to this topic to some type of all inclusive white-knight extreme, which causes more problems than the people who make an issue out of it try and solve. The grandparent comment is that persons personal experience or perspective. Nothing offensive about that, or any need to iterate through every possible gender pairing needed to try and give everyone a warm fuzzy. The comment is only offensive if you are trying to make it into something more than what it actually is when taken at face value.

coldtea 12y ago

I think that this "white knight" (as the other commenter put it) "here to help women" kind of corrective action, actually belittles them. I mean, women are perfectly capable to understand that the one who wrote the above happened to be a straight male and so talked from HIS viewpoint. They can also adapt what he said for their circumstances, as can gay men etc, and e.g respond with "yeah, I know what you're talking about, had that happen with a great looking guy that turned out to be totally vacuous", etc. Speaking like genderless objects addressing other genderless objects with genderless pronouns and genderless generalizations doesn't really help anyone.

davmre 12y ago
> Speaking like genderless objects addressing other genderless objects with genderless pronouns and genderless generalizations doesn't really help anyone. If you're speaking in the first person, about your own experiences, it's totally cool to go wild with gender. Also if you're speaking to a person of a particular gender, or in the third person about people of a particular gender: great! No one's saying all speech should be genderless (well, I'm sure someone somewhere is, but that's nowhere near the position of anyone in this thread.) The only issue is that if you're speaking in the second person, to a crowd of people that is in fact mixed-gender, but you speak as if they were all male, then this can have the effect of making women feel (very slightly) unwelcome. Yes, women are more than capable of performing the mental transformation into what you would have said if you were actually addressing them. But the experience of doing this is a constant, subtle reminder that they don't belong.
spoiler 12y ago
> I mean, women are perfectly capable to understand that the one who wrote the above happened to be a straight male and so talked from HIS viewpoint. I second this. I think this exaggerated gender neutrality bullshit is more sexist than using genders. It all goes under the assumption that someone somewhere with skewed perception will get offended and call you out for being sexist (or, as is the case here, someone will tell you off how your lack of gender neutrality was potentially careless and might cause someone offence), when in fact, only a few loud dim-witted balloon-heads will get offended if someone used "he" or "she" in their writing. Furthermore, I doubt anyone would've given two fucks. Alas, I'm sure someone will get offended by me saying this and comment to this how I'm wrong, even though they probably wouldn't, they just think they would have (but that's another issue). Anyway, to conclude: I don't believe there's anything sexist about using "he" or "she" (or whatever other form of gender) in communication the way the author (christoph) used it. In my opinion, sexism is about bigotry, or misbelief that one gender is superior to others.