[petsfed]

Also, I disagree categorically with

>I hope the next time someone writes "dancer" and means "professional dancer", they think for a second and write "professional dancer" instead.

Maybe its a British English vs American English distinction (if that's the case, that would be helpful to point out, and is very much in the yard-vs-garden realm of language distinctions, and why I keep saying "in the states"), but it was pretty apparent to my American ear/eye. Its also important to point out that its not necessarily a professional dancer, but rather someone who has gone out of their way to train to dance for an audience. Doing the dougie in the club does not, by itself, make you a dancer, and it feels weird to describe people drunkenly dancing in the club as dancers.

[sillysaurusx]

Just wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful and thorough way you’ve handled all of this. I would’ve done a worse job. Cheers.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

>> Just wanted to say thanks for the thoughtful and thorough way you’ve handled all of this. I would’ve done a worse job.

Because you assume bad faith.

[sillysaurusx]

Quite the opposite. I know you had good intentions. You were here to correct a misconception, and you’re fighting the good fight against people being wrong on the internet.

But in the process, you left no room whatsoever for nuance. You treated it like someone said 2+2=5 without even pausing to think that maybe your own experience isn’t representative. The whole point of the thread is that our experiences aren’t representative of women’s. So if you can’t even admit that dancers might be skewed towards women (which was my one idea of how to make it click for men that women feel very out of place in tech through no fault of their own), then I didn’t even begin to know where to start with you to make progress. petsfed did a remarkable and patient job, and all I was doing was thanking him for that, and you’re coming in ranting about how you’re being treated badly. What are people supposed to think? You’ve made this all about you.

The thing is, I don’t even have any negative feelings towards you about it. I’m numb to it because this is just how the tech industry is, for a large fraction of people. It gets exhausting after awhile, but I know that things will change with time and patience. Which is why I thank people when they make progress towards that end.

Like, what do you want out of this interaction?

The other half of this is that it’s disrespectful to OP to make this thread yet another instance of having to explain things to men. My whole goal was simply to thank stormqueen for setting an example. That’s all. Being dragged against my will into a conversation about how the stereotype I chose may or may not exist was not the point of the thread. It has nothing to do with assuming good or bad faith.

Think of it like this. Imagine someone who’s white, and married to someone who’s black. The white guy thanks the black person for being a great example that their daughter can one day look up to, and then someone else comes along and challenges the basis of why the guy was even thanking them in the first place.

If that still doesn’t make sense, I don’t know what to tell you. But this is my honest attempt at reaching common ground.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

In the UK where I live, people driving cars are described as "motorists", people riding bikes are described as "cyclists" and people strolling on the beach are described as "leisure makers". I mean they are described like that commonly, in the news.

So, yeah, in my British-English trained ears (I'm a native Greek) "dancer" sounds like "someone who dances". For any reason.