Am Montag, 02.08.04 um 22:13 Uhr schrieb Nori Heikkinen:
but foreign, so think they have the upper hand of what their English textbooks told them in insisting they're correct and i'm overpoliticizing it.
Don't think so. Especially for German language we have the same problem (and a bit more with "man" = one as we do not use "you" in manuals).
So for German developers, they should be aware of the problem if they are not much oder as I am.
I and many ohter women do not feel addressed, if only male gender is used.
Years ago a colleague of mine wrote an invitation for an event. He was aware of the gender problem. As most of the documents are written with male pronouns he decided to take the female gender instead of sie/er (= she/he). - As a result he got protest from most of the men, who felt not to be addressed. They would have liked the male form even if this would not have addressed the women.
Making women visible, accept them in daily speech and writing. - That is one step to equality.
cu Jutta -- http://www.witch.westfalen.de http://witch.muensterland.org