Why would I want to use exclusive language? If I know it's going to make someone feel worse instead of better, why would I use?
The only argument for not using it that I can think of is that you don't give a shit about other people...
The alternative is not exclusive, but traditional. Some words have double meaning, traditionally. A word "man", for example, can mean male, but can also be inclusive. Nobody in the right mind would argue that the word "mankind" means only male part of humanity.
Plenty do.
Well, then as my sentence states, they are not in the right mind.
Traditional homonyms reinforce ingrained cultural stereotypes.
Nobody in the right mind would argue that the word "mankind" means only male part of humanity.
Perhaps not, but it does support the outdated tradition of considering the male gender to be the "default person". This has had many lasting negative consequences, in areas ranging from scientific research to product design.
I seriously do not think that when people use the word mankind they do anything that has negative consequences. The word has very gender neutral meaning today and if anyone would want today to change it, then they actually do disservice to equality movement because they look like crazies.
It's very easy to cast ableist accusations at imaginary scenarios.
Nobody is suggesting the word is erased from the dictionary or existing literature be modified. We're suggesting that it is more efficient communication to choose words which communicate our intended meaning instead of incorporating unintended additional anachronistic connotations. There are plenty of existing choices that are just as easily understood, we don't even need to invent new ones.
It's the same reason I no longer call cigarettes "fags" - and that actually has a different etymology to the slur, whereas "mankind" is inherently based on the gendered word "man". It's just not worth it to have to actively disambiguate the meaning, especially to someone who has some associated memories of being bullied for their sexuality.
People may not say a word with negative intentions, but when you are excluded for irrelevant historical reasons that imply you're not worth considering, it's noticeable. If you think that's not the case, walk into your next work meeting and greet them only with "Hello, ladies."
Intention and perceived intention are conveyed by the words we choose, it makes sense to be intentionally unambiguous.
I don't care. I am Australian so everyone is mate. unless I forget their name then they are whatsTheirFace.
I thought everyone's a cunt?
Only if you are a bogan.
Only if you like them.
I sometimes use whovidoovits (not sure of the spelling)
It's mate, but if I forget their name, it's 'old mate'
Inclusive language isn't even a particularly new "woke" thing. The phrase "Ladies and gentlemen" goes way way back.
I'm going to assume you're in the white men majority, probably christian, so it seems weird to you because by default, people use he/him and male centric wording. Lets flip it for a second: female is now the default. You're presumed to be a woman unless proven otherwise. Everything starts with "Ladies, welcome to the show". All the products are pink and advertised to women, unless it's specifically a men's product, and when it does, it clearly says "for men" like you're a special kind of human. You buy a wrench "for men" to fix your car. People always talk to your wife first, as you're just the wife's husband she's hauling around. How do you feel? Pretty excluded right?
That's why we use inclusive language. And we didn't even touch LGBTQ+ issues yet.
It's not hard to not make assumptions. I can use "OP claimed they did X" instead of "OP claimed she did ", with zero loss of information, but the first one is right whether you're a man or woman, the other assumes you're a woman and implies you're unusual for not being a woman, you're the other kind that needs to be explicitly mentioned. And it happens all day, everyday, all the time.
So, if you want to include everyone, you don't make gender, race, political alignment or religious assumptions unless you know for sure. It's basic respect, it's free, and it makes some people happier, so why not do it?
Pretty reasonable mate, personally as I speak English and Spanish it's very simple to use inclusive lang in English, but in Spanish it's a mess.
Thx for your POV.
I speak french, I can definitely understand the mess that it is (and the currently accepted neutral pronouns are... not great). Fortunately in those languages we're also just kinda accepting we're stuck with it for the foreseeable future, it's not like we can have a french 2.0 where my desk is genderless.
Ultimately it's respect. You don't have to go all out of your way to be inclusive, but trying your best to be is a nice gesture overall.
This might not be the right place for a linguistic history lesson, but how did that happen in the first place? Why does your desk have a gender? It sounds creepy thinking about it now. Who looked at a desk, or a spoon and thought “ah, that’s a ‘she’, then looked at a door and said ‘yep, definitely a ‘he’ right there…”
It's kinda weird because you somehow intuitively know which gender it's gonna be, it's got to have some pattern to it in some way. I think it comes down to sounds, "la/une table" vs "le/un table", "le/un bureau" vs "la/une bureau". Except when we decide fuck it we'll just say "l'amour", "l'argent" so it's like, only tangible things can be gendered but also intangible things inherently sound weird if you do try to slap a "le/un" or "la/une" before it, so like the whole sound of the word somewhat carries its gender? Things in "-ette" are pretty much always female.
The more you think about it the weirder it gets with exceptions and edge cases.
Who looked at a desk, or a spoon and thought “ah, that’s a ‘she’, then looked at a door and said ‘yep, definitely a ‘he’ right there…”
Thinking about it, it sounds about right. If I were to name a thing, I'd probably just pick what sounds best kinda like you'd name a pet or baby except you're not constrained to a gender.
I'd definitely enjoy a good read on how the fuck we ended up there. It seems to affect most romance languages so it's gotta go way back. I think the genders are mostly matched with spanish too, like, tables are also female in spanish iirc.
Eh, it costs me nothing, makes some people feel respected, ans allows me to piss off idiots. What's not to love?
Asks a neutral question about how the community feels: gets downvoted. I swear the Internet is just echo chambers now.
Even if you have strong opinions (in either direction) on the subject, use this as an opportunity to express that point of view. Are we really so sensitive as to be mad for someone asking the question?
While I totally agree with you: OP does have an "anonymous" PFP and their username is "Politically Incorrect", so it is a bit easy to assume their question is bad faith trolling from a 4channer.
I think gendered pronouns (he/she) kinda suck and cause more problems than they're worth. Sure they solve grammatical ambiguity in writing, I guess, but other than that they don't really add anything. But on the downside they encourage either "male first" or very clunky ("he or she") language. Not to mention the fact that it causes referring to significant groups of the population to suddenly become a "gender politics" issue, and is used as a tool to hurt said people.
Personally, I think "they" should always be acceptable and we should get rid of gender connotations for words like "dude". In modern times where you can talk to people without physically looking at them (like here for example, you don't know how I present IRL), there's no reason for gender to even be a part of people's identity any more than, for example, what sublemmys they follow or what instance they are on.
... But of course, I don't see that happening, at least soon, but I do think in 2024 there is no excuse not to use gender neutral words if it's ambiguous.
I also have some thoughts on "autistic people" vs "people with autism", but I'm not sure if that's what's being discussed here or of interest to anyone, so I'll leave it be. :P
I think it depends on circumstances.
We still have people here who use phrases like "Indian giver" and ">!wigger!<", and describe dads parenting as " babysitting". Phrases like these will offend people and should not be used.
Saying "partner" instead of husband/wife directly helps people who don't want to specify because being out of the closet is a political statement. Referring to your partner as your husband/wife/whatever doesn't offend anyone (at least, no reasonable person), but it's a nice gesture.
Then we have shit like LatinX which is made up by bored white people on Twitter. It's cringeworthy, stupid and nobody asked.
And these categories can change depending on locale. I live somewhere with little to no Romani population. If you tell someone here not to say "gypped", they will tell you to touch grass. Nobody knows or cares about the origin of that word here. As I understand it though, it can be a very un-pc thing to say in some parts of of the world.
What do you mean by inclusive language?
For example using "they" instead of "he" or "she".
I speak Spanish too so it's a little bit more complicated than English.
Edit: I believe you can use "it" too if someone feels like a thing.
"them" is so much better than the alternatives for when you don't know a person's gender.
"Him"? 50% chance of being wrong and sounding stupid.
"Him or her"? 3x as many syllables.
"It"? Sounds like talking about an object, and when talking about someone you don't know the gender of, you're often talking about objects in the same sentence too. So "them" specifies the person, and "it" specifies the object.
"the [noun]"? Often requires more syllables, sometimes many more.
For example...
"[...] Always print the receipt and hand it to them directly."
We know that "it" is the receipt, and "them" refers to the customer/person. Any alternative would be wrong/awkward or too many syllables.
The "they" thing makes a lot of sense. I write a fair bit of documentation, and I make a point of referring to generic people/roles without gendered pronouns. If I'm talking about "a user", I'll refer to them as "them" or "the user."
At this point, I'm not sure what the alternatives are. Assuming gender seems very 1960s. Assigning a name (like "Alice" or "Bob") complicates the text too much.
When I talk to you, I use "you" and "you are". It is quite logical when I talk about you in third person, I can use "they", "they are".
It's always good to consider your audience, I guess is my take. So for instance, since my development team at work is comprised of both men and women, I don't use the term "boyscout changes" and instead just "scout changes."
But also, I'm not gonna nitpick and get lost in nuance. For instance, the exclamation of "DUDE!" has no gender connotations to me. And if it offends someone... get over it dude.
I think inclusive language is a way to pat ourselves on the back when we really should be enacting inclusive behavior.
Changing language is always tempting because it’s a zero-effort way to do nothing and appear like you’re doing something.
Inclusive language per se not a problem, but it’s far too easy for it to act as an empty virtue signal.
Here’s an example of an inclusive behavior: next time you’re thinking of cutting someone out of your life, don’t.
See what I mean? There’s gonna be people who would take offense at the idea of letting someone stay in your life, giving them another chance, because it could be unsafe or it’s not your job or something.
But keeping people around is the definition of inclusion. Inclusive language allows us to think of ourselves as inclusive without actually being inclusive.
My perspective: Thr right-wing people have a too narrow perspective on trying new things. Where I live it's them yelling the loudest about how to use language. And writhing, yelling and opposing things just for the sake of it doesn't get you anywhere. We'd need to talk about how to include people, be nice and how to actually tackle the underlying problems. But people are too lazy for that. It's easier to debate a strawman and make it about who tries to tell whom, how to speak. And the issues doesn't ever gets dealt with. The whole debate is childish and entirely misses the point.
I liked using what was then archaic language back in school 20 years ago. I'll be one of the last ones to change.
2010 called, they want their cringe pfp back.
Consider a reversal:
Imagine just how consistently-offended we guys'd be, if the term for an uncrewed vehicle was "unwomaned".
So, it was either "womaned" or "unwomaned".
Insulting-as-hell, right?
It's equally insulting, the other-way-'round, but we're concertedly conditioned to feeling it to be "normal".
That's the only difference: our imprinting.
This is a decades-old demonstration of how prejudiced it is to use a single pronoun "Mr." for guys, while using 2 different pronouns for women, depending-on marital-status.
Hofstadter remapped it from married-status-of-women to employed-status-of-blacks, to show how prejudiced it is, in spite of our imprinting.
https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.html
Growing up I swear we had Master => Mr and Miss => Mrs though... I could be wrong though
I generally use "they" if I'm talking about an unknown or indeterminate person, like "someone forgot their umbrella here. They are going to get wet", "if one of our clients has a problem with our software, they will tell us", etc.
I don't fuck with "they" for talking about someone specific. I always find it irritating when someone says something like "Alice is going to the shop. They are going to buy a dress", or "Geoff is going to watch the hockey match. They are a fan of the Habs." It just sounds clunky and like intentionally being obtuse for the sake of shoehorning in one's politics.
What if Alice has told you their preferred pronouns are they/them? Would you still call them ‘her’ in spite of their wishes?
If Geoff is happy with being called ‘he’, then sure, he went to the match.
I think it only sounds clunky because we’re not so used to it. Imagine a child today being brought up knowing “they” is a perfectly normal individual or group pronoun alongside he and she. In ten years, it won’t sound weird to them (hah) at all.
I personally don't respect people's wishes to be called "they" with no alternate pronouns. I don't allow them to dictate changing the way I use language, and I don't really buy into the whole "non-binary" thing. IMO it always comes from a place of promoting societally ingrained gender roles, and I don't agree with that. Like "I don't want to be called 'she/her' because all women like pink and wearing dresses and that doesn't apply to me".
I will call people whichever of he/she they prefer. If someone is presenting as male I will call them he/him, and if they are presenting as female I will call them she/her. If they are presenting but not really passing I'll still respect that they're making an effort and call them whichever they are trying to present. Eg. There was a trans girl in my MTG club in uni. She did not pass at all but I'd still use female pronouns since she kept referring to herself as a girl and I'm not trying to make someone feel bad just because they were born with the wrong hormones.
There are 2 ways of being inclusive: making minorities feel welcome and showing toxic positivity. When it's the former, it's absolutely necessary. Being able to view media like Everything Everywhere All At Once and Patriot Act has genuinely filled a hole left by sitcoms like iCarly and Full House. It's not easy for me to describe this "older TV" experience to someone who hasn't experienced it, but it may be a tiny bit like moving suddenly from the US to the UK and being forced to become fully British. Characters always have some trait that makes them completely unrelatable.
The latter mostly manifests in censorship. While it's fine for people to give small corrections (e.g. using 'they' instead of (s)he), being rude about it or not letting people talk just fosters hate. A rough example is racial jokes. While it's not okay for a random stranger to say them to another stranger, it's perfectly acceptable (and IMO should be encouraged) to use them to strengthen relationships. Policing jokes that me and my South Indian friend make to each other is not only unnecessary but also less inclusive. If I was on the receiving end of racial remarks and ignorance, I should be able to say those exact things in a joking or mocking manner with the intent of having fun
EDIT: Pavitr Prabhakar is genuinely one of my favorite characters, and I'm so glad they included him in Spiderverse 2.
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