Re: sexist language in debian instructions/documentation
On Tuesday 03 August 2004 01:28 am, Patty Langasek wrote:
> If pronoun usage in documentation is seriously an offensive and
> train-halting offense to you, then by all means, feel free to devote
> your time to finding other ways to have the documentation rewritten.
> However, please keep in mind that some women aren't quite as ruffled
> and are not offended by this.
Wow, who said that about train-halting offense :-). To me, it's not
offensive but exclusive. Intentional or not, when I read (he this, he
that, he, he, he, he...), I get the feeling I'm not included. But,
when I read (NM, he/she, and alternating hes and shes), I get the
feeling that I am included (yay). It's very subtle.
Coincidentally, I didn't become consciously aware of this until I
started reading open source docs. For the first time, there were many
examples written with she as the pronoun, and I wasn't always having to
mentally replace the male pronoun with something gender neutral.
-Liz
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