[OTR-users] sexist assumptions in README, process_receiving_im()

[Jason Cohen]

I'm surprised David's remarks were immediately attacked as "stupid" and
"bullshit" without even a consideration of their validity. Some have
said that he must be a non-English speaker to have made such a
ridiculous request. Perhaps as a non-English speaker he noticed
something strange that you all have become accustomed to. The fact that
"his" is /still /used as a gender-neutral pronoun doesn't prove that the
statement is not sexist. It only proves that our language itself is sexist.

If you're trying to refer to an individual with an unknown gender you
have three options: 1) use "him" (the common solution), 2) use "their"
even though it is a plural pronoun,or 3) use his/her, which I would
imagine some of you may find awkward English. The fact that so many
people use "their" incorrectly as a singular pronoun shows that at least
some people have a desire for a gender-neutral pronoun and are forced to
resort to incorrect grammar so that their writing isn't perceived as
awkward.

Why can't we just change the sexist and illogical convention and begin
using "his/her"? This sounds awkward to most English speakers only
because they're not accustomed to hearing or seeing it. Yet, that
strikes me as a pretty poor argument for continuing to use "his" when
referring to an individual of unknown gender that not only sounds
awkward to non-English speakers but is in addition conceptually flawed
and a vestige of a patriarchal society that did consider women
second-class citizens.

It's also not just "his" that poses this problem. People still refer to
mankind, businessmen, firemen, fisherman, man-made, mailman, policemen,
congressman etc. There's nothing exclusively male about any of the
mentioned professions, yet they are commonly or exclusively referred to
with a non gender-neutral term. Likewise, man-made and mankind are
referring to humanity and not just men so it would be far more
appropriate to refer to humankind and human-made. However, society has
successfully shifted away from some gendered terms such as stewardess
which is now commonly referred to as a flight attendant without any
awkwardness in its usage. I think it is important to note that such a
large number of native English speakers use "their" as a singular
pronoun that its usage has now become standard for non-formal writing.
Many English speakers don't even realize that their usage of "their" is
grammatically incorrect as its usage has become so common. I therefore
see no difficulty in replacing his/her with his. It may be awkward for a
short period time, but it will become normal over time, just as other
changes in our language have come to be accepted.

Jason Cohen

David Thiel wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 02, 2005 at 10:52:13PM -0500, Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>   
>> Then why didn't you just initally suggest we change it to "Rebecca has
>> ended the private communcation with you" or "Private communcation
>> ended by remote system" or any of the other nearly infinite
>> permutations which involve neither gender confusion nor misuse of the
>> personal plural?
>>     
>
> I didn't make a suggestion at all, since the exact syntax of how it
> could be corrected doesn't really matter. How about "Rebecca has ended
> private communication with you" - or would it be "communications"?
> Any of those suggestions are fine.
>
>   
>> You could have just done that yet you saw fitting to claim sexism.
>>     
>
> I should clarify then - I didn't know that such offense would be taken
> on a function being "sexist", and I meant it rather tongue in cheek.
> My actual complaint is that the message is awkward when the person
> it applies to is not male. It's not meant to be an affront to your
> grammatical prowess or the code as a whole. My apologies if I offended.
>
> -David
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>   
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