[hyperhopper]

"Man hours" is not a visual irritant. It is not saying that only men can do work. It is not a statement on gender. It is the most common and easiest to understand way to express an idea. You are being overly pedantic and rabble-rousing for no good reason.

[ylg]

No. I'm making a pedantic (clearly) suggestion about a small visual irritant for the very good reason that because of the (hopefully) temporarily toxic environment in our field, some other human beings I care about might feel a bit put out by the choice of word A over word B. Words or humans? A different word could have been chosen at zero cost and made someone else feel better or less bad; so I'll suggest that door thank you--no it doesn't matter if those put out are being rational, expressing logic compilable by GCC, or otherwise fit with anyone else's ideas about what is proper and right, because it cost nothing to do.

I dislike thinking about stuff like this. It's a waste of time and a distraction from things that truly matter, e.g., Pluto! But, a bunch of jerks already set the stage and the tune and it behooves those of us wanting to profit on that stage to be aware.

If you have data or citations to back up the "most common and easiest to understand" please share, I'm always interested in seeing data. Here's what I have to offer, for what it's worth:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=man-hour&year_...

[fennecfoxen]

> I'm making a pedantic (clearly) suggestion about a small visual irritant for the very good reason that because of the (hopefully) temporarily toxic environment in our field, some other human beings I care about might feel a bit put out by the choice of word A over word B.

The problem is that an ugly little debate exists outside of this thread. You don't actually get to drag in small pieces of pedantry like that in isolation.

So, on the topic of this debate:

There are serious real problems in the world and in the software industry with people who are jerks, and (in particular, topically) unwelcoming and offensive to women. This is a very bad thing. And there are people who wish to fix this by changing the language we use. That's a legitimate position to propose and advance.

It's also a legitimate position to object to. But there are those come into the discussion wielding the hammer of Moral Authority, and often they suggest that if you fail to join the crusade to change a word like "man-hours" then you're an ignorant bigot riding high on all your privilege (you can already find some posts on this thread suggesting ideas from this group). Really, it isn't strictly about treating women decently, it's about demanding your subscription to and endorsement of a particular worldview and series of political prescriptions... it's about securing power and finding ways to stifle your opponents and detractors.

A POX ON BOTH YOUR HOUSES.

[jellicle]

I think even your strawmen have strawmen.

[fennecfoxen]

100%, and that's what you get condensing a minor culture war into a paragraph or two on the Internet :P

[numbsafari]

There are plenty of other, worthwhile terms like "Billable Hours", "Person Hours" that are present in many existing contracts.

You're being mentally lazy for no good reason.

[snowwrestler]

The essence of privilege is to define and defend a limited default. There is no reason to defend "man hours"; it is less accurate than "person hours" and only slightly longer.

[npizzolato]

Until those who don't recognise themselves as persons take offense to the obviously bigoted phrase "person hours." This whole argument reeks of fishing for things to be offended by. Any systematic problems women face in the tech industry are certainly not caused by something so insignificant as the use of the phrase "man hours."

[jhurliman]

It's not a cause, but a contributing factor

[x1024]

Holy shit, this entire comment chain is cancer.

Literally nobody commented on the actual content of the OP.

[snowwrestler]

The idea that someone must be "fishing for things to be offended by" starts from the assumption that this is not a thing that would legitimately offend anyone.

That's what I mean by defining the default. The default, in your point of view, is the word "man," so therefore anyone who objects to that must be "different" in some way: overly sensitive, manipulative, deficient, etc.

When in reality, "man" is the default because men made it the default. That doesn't mean that it has to remain the default.

I'm not suggesting that we go back and edit Neil Armstrong's words--they were of their time and are amazing. I'm suggesting that we're in a different time now, and starting now, it is within our power to choose the words we use.

The idea is to recognize the history and context of language, not assign all problems to one word. No single drop thinks it is responsible for the flood, etc.

[nostrademons]

You could use "developer hours", which is gender-neutral, more specific, and seems to be used more often in the tech industry anyway.

[s73v3r]

Which ignores things like design, planning, and testing.

[nostrademons]

Those are all still developing. "Developer" (as opposed to "software engineer") usually has connotations of being a full-stack role where you do everything needed to get a software product out the door. I've been doing graphic design in Photoshop for the last couple days, for example.

[jayvanguard]

You sound silly nowadays if you use "man hours". Everyone calls them person hours, hours, billable hours, etc.