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