[supernumerary]

Can we do an experiment and use 'she' for anonymous players in these stories? Would be kinda cool. The article uses 'he' throughout, and only acknowledges the possibility of it being either/or/group in the final paragraphs.

[droidist2]

I thought we were only supposed to use "she" as the default pronoun when the subject is something positive though, like always "she" the engineer, but never "she" the thief or "she" the serial killer.

[plainOldText]

What's wrong with he? I think one can choose one or the other, and the author chose he. There's also the alternative of using he/she every time, but I think that would just be annoying.

[rdubz]

Attempting to expand on context that I think the parent left implicit:

- Women are underrepresented — in STEM fields at large and in the cryptocurrency space in particular — relative to a fairer world with less sexism, outmoded notions of gender roles, etc.

- This underrepresentation self-perpetuates partly because well-meaning men in these fields don't realize it's happening: it always feels better to believe a happier story about the world being more fair, and such men have less data about what keeps women out than they would have in a fairer world where women were more present to tell their stories.

- Erring on the side of feminine or gender-neutral pronouns — against this backdrop of under-representation — is a lightweight way to signal basic awareness of these issues and avoid the appearance of reinforcing them or believing they should be reinforced. As such, it informs my general model about the writer's thoughtfulness/sensitivity, which has some bearing on how compelling I find their argument to be.

It also bears noting that while I can mostly shrug and move on if a writer is implying apathy (or worse) about this issue, it is a more acute and even threatening signal for some women whose careers/lives have been damaged by these playing fields' having never​ been level, and it is morally fraught to participate in and benefit from discussions/community/resources that are effectively/unfairly off-limits to under-represented groups.

tl;dr:

- default-masculine-pronouns are not neutral,

- we've all been tacitly made to think that they are,

- some work to counter that makes sense, and

- it's good to push conversations/awareness about them because the default perpetuates them.

[plainOldText]

Yes, I know women are underrepresented in many fields, but I believe there are better ways to address this than subjecting authors to a particular language. I'm open, of course, to read some studies discussing the effect of pronoun choice and awareness. Meanwhile, treat women with respect and be a model for other males, and it should probably achieve greater results than your choice of pronouns.

[matthewmarkus]

I discovered this article a while ago:

Avoiding Sexism in Legal Writing—The Pronoun Problem

https://lawyerist.com/49433/avoiding-sexism-in-legal-writing...

It has some solid advice, but it also notes that the use of "he" in sex-indeterminate situations was codified by Ann Fisher, "an 18th-Century schoolteacher and the first woman to write an English grammar book." Now, every time I see "he," I think of her.

[plainOldText]

Good article! As a result I am now aware there are various techniques writers could employ to adopt a gender neutral language. Thanks for sharing!

[martinko]

No.

[supernumerary]

Basically 'Why not?' you wanting it to be a male makes no sense ... unless you get a kick out of casting yourself as a protagonist in this story ... in which case go figure.

[nebabyte]

He's not the one asking for an imposition of some rule. When you write the article, pick whatever pronouns you want.

[supernumerary]

No one is asking for a rule. In fact - the conventional use of masculine pronouns that you're enforcing is perhaps the closest thing to a rule that's being imposed, albeit subconsciously. Bro.

[Trundle]

I've read enough articles where anonymous or hypothetical actors are given feminine pronouns by female authors that I'd say the convention is to favour the pronoun that represents yourself, not to default to masculine ones. Writers choice.

[greglindahl]

Huh. It's actually kind of popular in Computer Science papers in the security field to alternate (Alice, Bob, Carol, ...), and also (in general) for some male authors to always use a feminine pronoun when referring to anonymous or hypothetical actors. Surprised you haven't noticed either.

[Thriptic]

Does it matter? And if it does, wouldn't it be better to just use "they" and avoid gender issues all together?

[supernumerary]

Yes x2.

[des429]

Why