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0 pointsjholman15y ago0 comments

> his

her

If you can't check your sexist assumptions, then you could check the byline.

0 comments

As long as we are going to share the same internet, we can acknowledge that the use of the masculine as the default gender for an anonymous person is a longstanding tradition in the English language, and not every person checks every byline of every article she reads. Norms are changing, but I wouldn't call someone wrong or sexist for using a convenient idiom instead of more awkward and somewhat forced modern formulations (although in this case, she is indeed wrong).

bouncingsoul15y ago

Norms will only keep improving if people keep complaining.

Here's an article about the forgotten tradition of they as a singular pronoun: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=723184

Also, because of the he, I assumed Ixiaus was referring to Gary Shteyngart, the author being reviewed.

lionhearted15y ago

> Norms will only keep improving if people keep complaining.

This may be controversial or offensive, but it's the truth so I'll take the heat for saying it:

None of the most successful women I know really care or complain about things like he/she in the English language. For the most successful women I know - I'm thinking of an investment banker, lawyer, and chief editor of a magazine in particular - the idea of causing a fuss over pronouns is so low on their radar that it wouldn't happen.

Again, I'll take heat for this, and so be it - but I think people who complain about that sort of thing need to go do more relevant stuff in the real world. Most people who are actually hard working, enterprising, expansive and successful (professionally or in other worthy endeavors) simply don't have time to be upset and pedantic over this sort of thing.

Anyway, I'll take the heat for this now. It's not 100% the case, but the general pattern certainly holds.

2 more replies

GeneralMaximus15y ago

Forgotten? I still use it. I also like to refer to companies as groups of people rather than individual entities. I prefer "Apple are evil" over "Apple is evil", and "Google own you" over "Google owns you".

mcantor15y ago

Wouldn't it be just as sexist to assume that someone named "Alice" is a woman? Well, maybe not just as sexist. But at least a little bit sexist. I mean, for all we know, someone named "Alice" could be a male-to-female transgendered individual who still prefers to use the male pronoun. Or a female-to-male transgendered person who kept his original name to cut down confusion among friends, but switched pronouns.

I guess I shouldn't debate... I read the line about "... the hilarious moment 3 seconds into an intimate embrace when I realize that I'm literally rubbing the screen of my iPhone against his spine," and assumed the author was female because in my head, the "default" participants in an intimate embrace are a guy & a girl, since that's the one I'm most familiar with. So, negative points for me on the knee-jerk gender assumption front.

I thought that was a really great line, potential elicited sexism notwithstanding, by the way. I've had those moments myself. It took me a second to realize exactly what she was talking about, but once I did, I couldn't help but chortle at how much I've chided myself for the very same thing.

Ixiaus15y ago

I was referring to both the author and Shteyngart using the masculine pronoun to make what I had written, "more personal" (instead of using "they"); a bit loose, I know, but this is a casual discussion medium.

jholmanOP15y ago

Wow. I've often heard people complain about using "they" as a non-gendered singular pronoun because it was inaccurate, but I've never before had someone argue against it because it was _too_ accurate. I guess what I'm saying is that the stylistic choice you say you made (to use a singular pronoun when referring to two people, one of whom was male), totally confused me.

I note that nothing in this piece discusses Shteyngart leaving college (where the college link was how I resolved the pronoun in your first paragraph), and that surely Shteyngart will not write a follow-up to "this piece", (which is how I resolved the pronoun reference in your last paragraph). I guess I just don't understand how the male pronouns in your comment refer to Shteyngart.

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