[ars]

> everyone is assumed to be male by default

Not by me. I make no assumptions on the matter at all, the entire topic never even crosses my mind.

I don't get why gender even matters for these topics. You aren't dating them.

> a common complaint among men is that women "don't contribute technical articles"

This is a common complaint? I've never even noticed the gender of someone contributing an article. Who are these people who tally these things up?

> In short, yeah

And you call me sexist? And how do you know if the author is male or female anyway?

You sound very obsessed with knowing the gender of each person you interact with online.

You are aware that discriminating for women on good things is just as sexist as doing it for bad things, right?

> and refer to the author as "he" anyway

Because that's how English grammar works.

[cloudier]

> Not by me. I make no assumptions on the matter at all, the entire topic never even crosses my mind...This is a common complaint? I've never even noticed the gender of someone contributing an article. Who are these people who tally these things up?

Anextio was pointing out the the tech industry is sexist, not trying to call you in particular sexist. It's cool that you make no assumptions if that's the case (although, to be honest I find that a bit unbelievable since you think the tech industry doesn't suffer from sexism), but that doesn't change the tech industry.

> And you call me sexist? And how do you know if the author is male or female anyway?

There are links (e.g. http://blogs.perl.org/users/steven_haryanto/2012/07/so-appar...) that show that the author is male.

> You are aware that discriminating for women on good things is just as sexist as doing it for bad things, right?

I don't see where you got the idea that anextio was doing anything other than pointing out that women in the tech community don't get the credit they deserve.

> Because that's how English grammar works.

So it's suddenly not sexist to assume that the author of an anonymous blog is male? (Just to clarify: I don't mean sexist as in 'I'm out to systematically repress all women!', I mean the follow-the-leader sexist as in 'it's okay to x because everyone else does it.') 'He', unfortunately, isn't a gender-neutral pronoun.

> I don't get why gender even matters for these topics. You aren't dating them.

So...the gender of another person only matters if you want to get into their pants? It's really quite obvious that you don't respect whichever gender you are not.

Edit: formatting

[ars]

> I find that a bit unbelievable

I find it unbelievable that you (or anyone) pays any attention to the gender of a programmer you only met online.

> that show that the author is male

I searched and couldn't find it. The closest I came is the name on github.

> women in the tech community don't get the credit they deserve.

Why do they deserve credit as women? Who cares if they are women? Give them credit for doing something as a human, not for their gender.

> 'He', unfortunately, isn't a gender-neutral pronoun.

Yes it is. The fact that you think it isn't is a discredit to your education.

> So...the gender of another person only matters if you want to get into their pants?

Or if you want to be close friends with them. Online it makes no difference.

> It's really quite obvious that you don't respect whichever gender you are not.

And yet you can't even tell which it is despite me writing about gender. (And no, I'm not going to tell you.)

I ignore gender for things that have nothing to do with gender. There are plenty of things (including online) where gender matters, but programming isn't one of them.

[cloudier]

> I find it unbelievable that you (or anyone) pays any attention to the gender of a programmer you only met online.

I didn't mean paying conscious attention to the gender - I was thinking of automatic assumptions people make about others. It's natural to make assumptions about people; it's immoral to pretend they don't exist or to object to reducing their effects.

> I searched and couldn't find it. The closest I came is the name on github.

Steven is a masculine name.

> Why do they deserve credit as women? Who cares if they are women? Give them credit for doing something as a human, not for their gender.

I entirely agree, however that doesn't stop people from making incorrect and broad generalisations about groups of people who share characteristics that are entirely out of their control.

> Yes it is. The fact that you think it isn't is a discredit to your education.

'He' is the unmarked pronoun but it's still gendered (i.e. masculine). 'It' isn't gendered, but is also generally used for inanimate objects rather than people.

> And yet you can't even tell which it is despite me writing about gender. (And no, I'm not going to tell you.)

Haha, only because I thought you would get angry if I made any assumptions about who you are.

> I ignore gender for things that have nothing to do with gender. There are plenty of things (including online) where gender matters, but programming isn't one of them.

Like I said before, I think that's cool, even if I find it a bit unbelievable that you don't make assumptions about people you meet online.

[jack-r-abbit]

> 'He' is the unmarked pronoun but it's still gendered (i.e. masculine). 'It' isn't gendered, but is also generally used for inanimate objects rather than people.

I think I will start referring to everyone as (s?)he regardless of whether I know their gender or not. Seems the safest.

[darkestkhan]

And what about "one"? Quite archaic but gender neutral :)

And there is name "Maria" in Polish which is feminine name but I personally know guys bearing this name so maybe there is woman with name "Steven" - are you sure?

[cloudier]

Nope, but seeing as he doesn't mention his gender on the subsequent blogpost I think it's a reasonable assumption.