Re: Respect (was Re: Some Comments on Sexism in #debian)
Hi, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> To get back to something *concrete*, would anyone find it sexist if the
> phrase was "So easy your secretary or your boss could use it"? This pairs
> a stereotypically male and a sterotypically female profession, both
> stereotypically clueless.
These words are also gender-neutral, so anybody who objects to "secretary"
and/or "boss" on grounds of the words being sexist just shows that they
have their own axe to grind here.
My position is, however, that it's not necessary to resort to
secretary/boss/grandma/whoever stereotypes in the first place.
If we want to make task X possible for people in group Y who typically
don't have background knowledge or experience Z, why not explicitly
mention Z instead of resorting to group Y as an example?
Additonal benefit: People still understand your argument even if their
experience with persons from group Y differs from yours.
--
Matthias Urlichs
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