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Done!
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(147)
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Written by holizz the 17 May 08 at 20:48.
Category: Brainstorm.
Related to:
Nothing/Others.
Status: Implemented
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Description
There's no option in the Brainstorm profile settings to specify my gender, therefore why does it say "His ideas", "Ideas he promoted", etc. on the contributor page of everybody?
I suggest either swapping he for they and his for their, or rephrasing the text to remove the pronouns.
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jhoger wrote on the 18 May 08 at 00:04
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I think you answered your own question. Because your gender is not known, the closest thing we have to a gender neutral pronoun in English is used... 'he/his'
Using 'they/their' is not actually correct (yet).
Maybe they could use a random number generator. Or they could use the more verbose "this person's ____" or "holizz's ____'
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jhoger wrote on the 18 May 08 at 06:31
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pimlottc... so are you saying that "he/his" doesn't work here for that reason? I see no sentence where a specific person is referenced.
But, yeah, I like your solution since it leapfrogs the issue entirely.
Just please don't use "they/their" as the original idea suggested.
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Warbo wrote on the 18 May 08 at 16:38
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I was under the impression that she/her is the formal way of referring to a person with unknown gender? Anyway, it is specifically referencing the individual users, ie. http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/contributor/Warbo/his_ideas/
"Warbo/his_ideas" is very different to saying "A Brainstorm user can see his ideas listed at XYZ". The first is referencing me, the second is referencing every user.
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Mike Graham wrote on the 18 May 08 at 17:10
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Bad: His/He
Better: Their/They
Good: avoid pronouns, like pimlottc suggests. "Ideas submitted" or maybe "holizz's ideas".
Voted yes.
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 nand (Brainstorm admin) wrote on the 18 May 08 at 18:12
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"They/Their" are plural words, right?
Could a native english speaker confirm that this is (in)correct in this context?
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broomfighter wrote on the 18 May 08 at 18:37
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well that's not hip
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Joseph DeCock wrote on the 18 May 08 at 19:39
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nand: I am a native English speaker. They and Their are plural words.
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nand (Brainstorm admin) wrote on the 18 May 08 at 20:36
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The question is: Are the titles "Their ideas", "Ideas they promoted", "Ideas they demoted", "Their bookmarks" correct in a page concerning *ONE* user? (i.e. the current user page)
To me, this is logically incorrect, but I have seen quite a few people submitting these titles as an alternative, in this ideas and in others place as well.
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hunt.topher wrote on the 18 May 08 at 23:32
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I think this suggestion comes down to a simple and deep-rooted fact about the English language: an anonymous person or entity will generally be referred to as "he". Pronouns are a very delicate subject among many feminist groups, but I will be perfectly honest and give my opinion: pronoun usage is not an area which is very open to change or worth gender equalists' efforts to change.
1) Pronoun bias was passed down to English from earlier Germanic languages and may originally have reflected gender inequalities; however, the link between pronoun usage and gender equality has long since been severely weakened.
2) If anything, language tendencies do not CAUSE social inequalities as much as REFLECT them. If you have a problem with Anglo values, the place to try to change those values is not through altering the wording on a website; it's through increasing awareness of the values present.
3) Pronouns are so deeply embedded in language that they are just about the most difficult part of langauge to change manually. There are other areas where equalists could direct their efforts which are much more susceptible to change.
There have been suggestions to rename "semester" to "ovester" and "history" to "herstory" because feminists felt discriminated against when these words were used. As I feel with these words, I feel that trying to change pronoun usage will only result in awkward formalcy and won't result in any effective positive change.
So I sympathize with this user's feeling of restriction, but I don't think that this change would have much practical effect. On the other hand, it also would take very little effort to change this.
-1
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daretoeatapeach wrote on the 20 May 08 at 03:47
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I disagree hunt.topher: already the word "their" is becoming acceptable to refer to unclear gender. True, it is not yet technically correct but this is how language changes and grows. At one time, women were not thought of as part of history and slightly less than human. "He" seemed appropriate for everyone. Obviously few English speakers think this way now, and as the way of thinking changes, language changes too.
This is neither here nor there---no one is suggesting that Brainstorm rewrite the entire language, just don't stick a label where it doesn't go. It isn't like a thousand other sites haven't solved this problem fifty different ways.
This is a serious oversite on Brainstorm and should be changed. It makes me feel like all the people working on Ubuntu are men. And it makes it appear that all Ubuntu's users are men, too. This is particularly troublesome in anything dealing with computers, as it is such a traditionally male interest to begin with. And it is incorrect.
Really, this could be fixed so easily. But now it looks like a bunch of third graders building a fort with a sign on the door that reads "NO GIRLS ALLOWED!".
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Jadd wrote on the 20 May 08 at 11:43
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Although I think that using 'he' for anonymous persons flatter women not men (masculinity becomes almost synonymous with the neutral gender it), I think we shouldn't use 'his' on a user's page, because that assumes that that particular user is a man.
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pimlottc wrote on the 22 May 08 at 18:13
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jhoger: it's not in the same sentence, but the usage here (e.g. "his ideas" on a user's profile page) clearly refers to a specific user.
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broomfighter wrote on the 26 May 08 at 04:03
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Let's just ditch the pronouns like pimlottc suggested.
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Meryl wrote on the 30 May 08 at 21:58
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"His" often cited as a generic pronoun for "people" whilst it may be just an oversight, it is especially noticeable to women working in ICT as yet another affirmation of the "you do not belong here" stereotypical hegemony.
That's why gender neutrality is so important.
see also: http://blog.markvdb.be/2007/05/on-gender-equality-and-discrimination.html
and Ubuntu "main" Component license Policy: Must not discriminate against persons, groups or against fields of endeavour. If "Contributor name" is removed and replaced with name's it makes more sense when the gender label is removed:
Meryl's
_______ ________________ ___________
| ideas || ideas promoted || bookmarks |
The essence of "ubuntu" is unity, so all divisive elements should be culled.
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melat0nin wrote on the 6 Jun 08 at 10:26
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I have site based on Brainstorm, for political policies, and I have changed the tabs like this:
http://www.concernedcitizen.co.uk/contributor/concernedcitizen
I have added the '$username's profile' heading at the top to remove the problem of pronouns, and while I've improved the tabs, they can be changed further to, as suggested above, simply:
Summary | His ideas | Ideas promoted | Ideas demoted | Commented ideas | Bookmarks
or something similar.
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melat0nin wrote on the 6 Jun 08 at 11:04
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Sorry the above obviously shouldn't read 'His ideas'.
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thr wrote on the 12 Jun 08 at 21:43
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right. sexism is bad.
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nand (Brainstorm admin) wrote on the 16 Jun 08 at 17:57
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The issue has been corrected, and the changes should be uploaded shortly.
Thanks for your attention to detail :)
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