11 ms·
because for many people, not even in CS, 'he' is the default pronoun. There's a trend in writing now to actually use "she," when writing about a hypothetical pe
by MAGZine 12y ago
because for many people, not even in CS, 'he' is the default pronoun. There's a trend in writing now to actually use "she," when writing about a hypothetical person who is genderless, rather than "he." But not only could this be construed as sexist (i.e. akin to reverse-racism), but randomly breaking convention can be jarring to the reader. It isn't necessarily, but can be.
I'm just saying that I've read some papers by leading feminist theatre art/drama scholars, and even they use the masculine pronoun.
Also, I find it annoying that while you adknowledge OP's attempt to be gender neutral, you destroy her (see what I did there?) over a single pronoun, which happens to be gendered but is used neutrally.
- mrbrowning 12y agoConsider that the author spent one short paragraph to talk about the OP's choice of pronouns, while you spent an entire comment taking her to task for it; that her criticism was politely stated, while you employ rank hyperbole in describing that comment as "[destruction]"; that you're expecting someone to be polite and dispassionate who by her own admission has dealt repeatedly with the litany of disappointments and frustrations that come with being a woman in a male-dominated field, while not even meeting that standard of even-handedness in your own comment; and then maybe reconsider how you're devoting your efforts in this conversation. From here it looks like thou dost protest too much, methinks.
- thirsteh 12y ago> the author spent one short paragraph to talk about the OP's choice of pronouns which was completely unnecessary and added nothing meaningful to the discussion. (In fact, it was self-contradictory given the insinuation that the OP had to be male in "I don't expect any different from this field.")
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- eximius 12y agoI know I default to 'he', personally. I have become increasingly aware of it because I work in a call center at my college and I have to consciously refer to a parent's students as 'he or she'.
- toothbrush 12y agoWhat's wrong with "they" as singular 3rd person pronoun? [0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_(singular) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/They_(singular)