
Removed use of gendered pronoun - tosh
https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015
======
rodrodrod

      Glad this didn't go through. The White Knights of tech are getting a bit
      over their heads on this. One thing is to raise awareness of a problem that
      exists throughout society -- not just tech, a whole different one is to go
      to the extent of requesting a pull request to remove gendered references.
      That helps no one. Zero. It does not advance anyone's argument.
    

Gosh, it's pretty upsetting that there are people who believe this. In any
case, though, I'm glad that the PR went through. A small step in the right
direction.

~~~
vezzy-fnord
Why is it upsetting? I wholeheartedly agree that this particular case is a
triviality.

I tend to use gender-neutral pronouns in written language myself, but I do not
see any significant difference in using gendered ones, either. They can be
used to describe hypothetical scenarios that apply to everyone reading the
documentation.

I've noticed a recent tendency to use female pronouns extensively, something
that I am not bothered by at all.

~~~
aredridel
But a lot of us notice. A lot of us notice that it's usually 'he'. And a lot
of us notice that that's not for us.

------
parennoob
This is ridiculous and leads to awkward constructions like 'the user might not
know that _they_ need to catch that error' when the intended use is obviously
singular.

The fair solution is to grep the entire codebase for 'he', 'him', and
similarly gendered pronouns, and then randomly replace 50% of them with the
corresponding female pronouns. This should be done regularly if desired.

Also, stuff like "using gendered language is hostile" is absolute rubbish. It
is not hostile to have a specific instance of gendered language in technical
documentation -- it makes it more personal and identifiable. To be fair, this
identification can be randomized between male and female.

[EDIT: downvoters, how about _my_ choice to not want to be known as "them" and
suchlike? I would like my pronoun to be in the singular form. I am not
multiple people.]

~~~
Brakenshire
Using they or their in a singular form is a very well-established form in
historical and modern usage; the gender-indeterminate form in particular is
known as the 'epicene they':

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they)

For instance, there are sections on there using this form by Shakespeare,
Austen, Thackeray and Bernard-Shaw.

I actually wonder whether this might be an American thing, along the same
lines as the Webster spelling reforms - the wikipedia page says that
grammatical prescriptivism over this primarily occurs in America. Personally,
I would say your quoted sentence is completely standard English.

~~~
parennoob
Look at the reflexive form in that article.

"Each child feeds themself."

I don't think that singular "they" _never_ be used, just that _enforcing_ its
usage everywhere by claiming that the opposite is "hostile" (as this PR seems
to lead to) will lead to awkward constructions.

------
overgard
This probably doesn't help feminists with the image problem of being uptight
and overly serious.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I am a heterosexual white man, but this kind of comment still makes me
bristle. If you had to deal with the casual dismissal of inequity in your
particular cohort on a regular basis, you might be "uptight and overly
serious," too.

~~~
parennoob
I am a heterosexual man of colour, and I think this sort of artificially
enforced "all right, let's remove all traces of individually identifiable
references" does absolutely nothing to increase equality between different
subgroups.

[side note + example: I really do not understand the term "person of colour"
as used in modern American society. To me, it smacks of the old racist term
"coloured". But do I still go ahead and use it to refer to myself, because
_the majority of people understand what I mean_.]

~~~
Adrock
What if our pronouns were racial instead of gendered? I'd have a problem with
the white versions being used in all my technical documentation.

~~~
parennoob
Exactly. But if you go around and look at any tech company, the majority of
people are white males. I think changing that actual situation is more
important than changing documentation and making yourself feel good about
having done _something_.

If you really want to change things, you can write to your Senator or suchlike
about racial inequality you have observed, or immigration reform. That is much
harder than just grepping a codebase and submitting a PR -- but if you do it,
you might actually effect change (and as a person of colour, I would be much
more grateful to you, if you are from a more privileged class).

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Of course, doing something to effect greater change is 'better' than doing
something that effects lesser change, but that doesn't invalidate doing the
thing that effects lesser change. Lesser change is better than no change.

~~~
parennoob
No,
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity_cost)

You grep your codebase of choice for 'him', s/him/them, fire off a pull
request, and think "Nice! I really did a lot for the advancement of minorities
in tech today!", and then go out for drinks with your mostly white coworkers,
where you discuss diversity in the workplace with a straight face.

~~~
aredridel
It's a start. It costs you very little. Do it!

Posting on hacker news an starting a flame war might cost a lot though.

------
glomph
I am a strong supporter of using the singular pronoun 'they' where the gender
of the subject is unknown. People who say it is improper english are
completely idiotic. It has been widely used in this way for a very long time
and specifically as a direct substitute for the opposing trend for at least 30
years now.

That being said, I think it is perfectly reasonably to reject pull requests
that only change the wording in a couple of comments and don't have any impact
on the implementation /or/ the clarity. They should have added something else
of value at the same time imo.

------
tobych
Or they could use one of various invented gender-neutral pronouns, including
those listed here:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-
neu...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-specific_and_gender-
neutral_pronouns#Invented_pronouns)

~~~
freditup
These aren't really used at all in real-world English though (at least
American English). So the result would be a very awkward phrase and probably a
phrase that is understood by fewer people than before.

The technically grammatically-incorrect plural pronouns come off sounding
better and in my opinion are the better choice if the use of gender-specific
pronouns is an issue that needs to be addressed.

I don't personally mind the use of masculine pronouns to indicate a generic
person, because I think there's nothing inherently wrong with it, but in the
tech world it's good to be careful as there clearly are gender issues to be
sensitive of. I think another good solution to this kind of wording issue is
to just use masculine pronouns in some places and feminine pronouns in others.

~~~
lowboy
Yeah, agreed. Singular "they" is the best path forward IMO.

------
autodidakto
Alright. You kids can't just agree to something? Fine! Everyone is now "it".

~~~
yapcguy
Thing.

------
yapcguy
What a waste of time.

Seriously.

And I'm not talking about Node.js.

~~~
oneeyedpigeon
Hacker News? :)

------
aaronbrethorst
fwiw, less than 10% of the comments on that page were from women, but ~50% of
the human race consists of women. hmm.

~~~
parennoob
78% of the teaching staff is female at the school my girlfriend teaches at.

Someone should really tell them that this horrible gender balance is a problem
and get onto correcting it _immediately_.

~~~
CJefferson
I wish people would stop making comments like this.

Education departments are well aware of the under representation of men,
particularly in primary education, and are trying to fix it (although not
doing any better than computing does, unfortunately)

~~~
parennoob
If you work in education, do you hear people telling kids to refer to an
imaginary teacher as "she"? (cause kids I know do that).

I know a lot of people who work in the K-12 education sector, and I have never
heard them saying that the gender ratio is unfair towards men.

------
zw123456
Or one could perhaps just say something like "one could say something like..."

