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>My language forces you to add gender-dependent postfixes to every verb and noun. If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine

>My language forces you to add gender-dependent postfixes to every verb and noun. If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine that people always use one gender for generic cases, and as such it's not exclusionary. Which is different from having the option and not using it. >The source is people being jerks. Non-jerks being exclusionary is arguably far more of a problem than isolated jerks. If one person says "lol women suck at computers", they're obviously a moron, and can be dismissed. Whereas if everyone around you subtly assumes that all programmers are male, it's far more hurtful, because they're people that you respect. >When you embarass them into treating women differently Asking for gender neutral language isn't asking people to treat women differently.

lucian1900 12y ago
> If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine that people always use one gender for generic cases, and as such it's not exclusionary. But it is almost always male, even in languages that have the concept of neuter. Defaults matter.
ajuc 12y ago
> If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine that people always use one gender for generic cases, and as such it's not exclusionary. Which is different from having the option and not using it. Well, the option is always there, you can use "The person that is using this application clicks the button X" instead of "User clicks the button X". "Person" is female so you then use female for every verb. It's just longer, inconvenient and sounds like legal text so nobody does it. People just write everything in male versions. Even "Are you sure?" is different depening on gender of "you", and I'm yet to see application that uses anything other than the male version for dialogs (except for the applications that know your gender somehow). I think the distinction beetween using defaults without assuming gender, and assumming gender is important, but some people argue for using the contrived language to not be exclusionary, and that's what I'm against, and what I think is counterproductive. Imagine if everybody talked in legalese when you aproach them, and switched to normal language otherways.
- aninhumer 12y ago
  Humans are pretty flexible when it comes to language, what sounds awkward or verbose can often become completely natural over time. That said I agree that it's easier to make smaller language changes stick. There might be an alternative way to phrase things neutrally that's easier to say though. (passive?)
  - throwaway981 12y ago
    Yet if neither men nor women wish to change their own language, why must it be changed? Sometimes HN reminds me of Christian missionaries: interposing themselves into foreign cultures that they do not understand and saying "No! No! It's all wrong! You do it our way." It is an ugly kind of imperialism.
    - ajuc 12y ago
      Meh, nobody is using guns, and the discussion is interesting. I just don't like the assumptions some people make (I've heard that my culture is inherently sexist for example).
  - ajuc 12y ago
    Yes, passive works as well, as long as you don't need to have 2 or more agents doing different things. Still it's longer, contrived, and sounds like legal text. Regarding small changes - not possible :) In English I would like "hen" to exist, cause it's often useful. In Polish it wouldn't change a thing, you'd need to change the underlying system if you want gender-neutral language, and at that point you may as well invent a new language. Every word (ending) will change anyway, that means words work differently with cases, numbers, plurality works differently. People would need to relearn the whole thing. But most importantly I really don't think the language is the problem. In Poland there are more female doctors than male. Same with teachers. Yet the default word for unknown gender doctor or teacher is male, and the plural is made from male versions usually. Haven't stopped women to dominate these fields. Anyway, thanks for discussion.

lucian1900 12y ago

> If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine that people always use one gender for generic cases, and as such it's not exclusionary. But it is almost always male, even in languages that have the concept of neuter. Defaults matter.

ajuc 12y ago

> If there's truly no gender neutral way of saying something, then I'd imagine that people always use one gender for generic cases, and as such it's not exclusionary. Which is different from having the option and not using it. Well, the option is always there, you can use "The person that is using this application clicks the button X" instead of "User clicks the button X". "Person" is female so you then use female for every verb. It's just longer, inconvenient and sounds like legal text so nobody does it. People just write everything in male versions. Even "Are you sure?" is different depening on gender of "you", and I'm yet to see application that uses anything other than the male version for dialogs (except for the applications that know your gender somehow). I think the distinction beetween using defaults without assuming gender, and assumming gender is important, but some people argue for using the contrived language to not be exclusionary, and that's what I'm against, and what I think is counterproductive. Imagine if everybody talked in legalese when you aproach them, and switched to normal language otherways.

aninhumer 12y ago
Humans are pretty flexible when it comes to language, what sounds awkward or verbose can often become completely natural over time. That said I agree that it's easier to make smaller language changes stick. There might be an alternative way to phrase things neutrally that's easier to say though. (passive?)
- throwaway981 12y ago
  Yet if neither men nor women wish to change their own language, why must it be changed? Sometimes HN reminds me of Christian missionaries: interposing themselves into foreign cultures that they do not understand and saying "No! No! It's all wrong! You do it our way." It is an ugly kind of imperialism.
  - ajuc 12y ago
    Meh, nobody is using guns, and the discussion is interesting. I just don't like the assumptions some people make (I've heard that my culture is inherently sexist for example).
- ajuc 12y ago
  Yes, passive works as well, as long as you don't need to have 2 or more agents doing different things. Still it's longer, contrived, and sounds like legal text. Regarding small changes - not possible :) In English I would like "hen" to exist, cause it's often useful. In Polish it wouldn't change a thing, you'd need to change the underlying system if you want gender-neutral language, and at that point you may as well invent a new language. Every word (ending) will change anyway, that means words work differently with cases, numbers, plurality works differently. People would need to relearn the whole thing. But most importantly I really don't think the language is the problem. In Poland there are more female doctors than male. Same with teachers. Yet the default word for unknown gender doctor or teacher is male, and the plural is made from male versions usually. Haven't stopped women to dominate these fields. Anyway, thanks for discussion.