What GNOME's Women Outreach Program Is Paying For This Summer

[profoundWHALE]

Here's the thing, if offense is implied when using certain words then go ahead and kick them between the legs. Then people usually think, "Well how am I supposed to know if they mean it or not?". Common sense, good manners, etc. If you go around assuming everyone using words like Male/Neutral are being sexist to women on purpose then you've just displayed a judgment on their character which is ironically the very thing you are trying to stop them from supposedly doing.

Sexism is not the problem and racism is not the problem. (I sound a bit like a hippie when I say this buuut) Hate is the problem. As long as people are around, they're going to find something to hate. I have things I hate myself, all of which I keep to myself save a few obvious ones. (And yes, I hate people who don't keep their hate to themselves, but I usually just keep that to myself to try and see past it to find what they're really angry at.)

Oh yeah, the problem is often that it's quite personal so I tend to not ask someone until I feel comfortable (with how much I know them and how comfortable they are with me) enough to do that.

[daedaluz]

Not true. You don't need zero tolerance to have a code of conduct and set the expectations and removing gender bias from our language to the extend we can, does help and is already done in many places. So no luck needed.

Do you have any evidence that creating newspeak helps at all? Any metrics before/after? Anything concrete at all? I asked earlier in this thread do you even have any concrete evidence of discrimination against women in FOSS, but you led it slide, as excepted. You and your kind are creating oppression and discrimination literally out of thin air. You are not intellectually honest the slightest.

What you are doing is creating a victim myth around yourself and perpertuate that to no end. Then you literally create a conspiracy theory of a wicked entity called "patriarchy" where every white male is member. After you have managed to frame every single male as a member of that conspiracy theory, trying to talk any sense into you becomes futile. Why? Well, because patriarchy by your own definition is evil and hates women. Which is why you think you don't have to listen. Which is why you consistently ignore reality. You feminists simply think that because anyone opposing you is from patriarchy and patriarchy is misogynist and evil, listening to opposing viewpoints is even dangerous. That framing was indeed effective. It's exactly the same tactic as managing to frame someone as antisemite in US politics and just as effective. It doesn't have to have any basis in reality, but if that set-up is successfull, nobody will ever take anything those people say. Nobody wants to listen to antisemite, right? And that is exactly what you feminists have done, but in massive scale. You have managed to frame entire 50% of population and entire cultures inside a conspiracy theory which has no basis in reality. Just like feminists in Sweden think there is a widespread satanist pedophile conspiracy that wants to rape women and sacrifice fetuses to satan, which is why women can never be safe. It doesn't matter that there is zero evidence about such thing, obviously facts are hidden by cult members! It doesn't matter what you say to them, because obviously if you oppose their insane delusion you are one of cultists! That is how every other feminist thinks as well: it doesn't matter if facts don't match with you retarded theories, because the facts were obviously produced by males (patriarchy), which is why they can be ignored and laughed at. Wake up. You are all delusional to worrying degree.

[RahulSundaram]

Do you have any evidence that creating newspeak helps at all? Any metrics before/after? Anything concrete at all?

Sure. There is substantial number of studies showing that negative attitudes towards gender neutral language is often linked to sexism.This is a pretty well researched topic for well over 40 years now.

http://www.academia.edu/4320377/Sexism_in_Language_-_An_Analysis_of_Non-Parallel_Use_of_Paired_Gender_Nouns

http://doc.rero.ch/record/209006/files/SarrasinGabrielGygax_2012_preprint.pdf

http://www.livescience.com/18574-gendered-grammar-sex-inequality.html

https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~dforsyth/pubs/murdockforsyth1985.pdf

I am sure you can find dozens of references that links sexism and racism to lower pay grade for other gender identities and minority groups and several other forms of discrimination including but not limited to violence, attitudes towards education etc. I am not going to do all that research for you but they are readily available if you are honestly curious and want to read about it.

[daedaluz]

Sure. There is substantial number of studies showing that negative attitudes towards gender neutral language is often linked to sexism.This is a pretty well researched topic for well over 40 years now.

http://www.academia.edu/4320377/Sexism_in_Language_-_An_Analysis_of_Non-Parallel_Use_of_Paired_Gender_Nouns

http://doc.rero.ch/record/209006/files/SarrasinGabrielGygax_2012_preprint.pdf

http://www.livescience.com/18574-gendered-grammar-sex-inequality.html

https://facultystaff.richmond.edu/~dforsyth/pubs/murdockforsyth1985.pdf

I am sure you can find dozens of references that links sexism and racism to lower pay grade for other gender identities and minority groups and several other forms of discrimination including but not limited to violence, attitudes towards education etc. I am not going to do all that research for you but they are readily available if you are honestly curious and want to read about it.

You said "removing gender bias from our language to the extend we can, does help", to which I asked "Do you have any evidence that creating newspeak helps at all? Any metrics before/after? Anything concrete at all?", to which you replied "negative attitudes towards gender neutral language is often linked to sexism". Did that answer my question? No. Please answer properly. Also for the third time, please answer to this here in proper fashion: http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showt...370#post416370

[RahulSundaram]

You said "removing gender bias from our language to the extend we can, does help", to which I asked "Do you have any evidence that creating newspeak helps at all? Any metrics before/after? Anything concrete at all?", to which you replied "negative attitudes towards gender neutral language is often linked to sexism". Did that answer my question? No

Actually it does. To spell it out, if negative attitude towards gender neutral language is correlated with a bias towards sexism, promoting a gender neutral language does create a more positive and less sexist environment. If you want to know more, read the references from the studies I linked to. Also, if you don't think a highly sexualized environment or differences in pay grade isn't discrimination, you have a fundamentally different perspective on what discrimination is and no amount of objective studies is going to help with that.

[daedaluz]

Actually it does. To spell it out, if negative attitude towards gender neutral language is correlated with a bias towards sexism, promoting a gender neutral language does create a more positive and less sexist environment. If you want to know more, read the references from the studies I linked to. Also, if you don't think a highly sexualized environment or differences in pay grade isn't discrimination, you have a fundamentally different perspective on what discrimination is and no amount of objective studies is going to help with that.

Your logic is extremely warped. How does forcing people to adapt a ridiculous newspeak they hate create a more positive and less sexist environment? Those two are related in no way to each other. Obviously hating that absurd idea correlates with sexism because by very definition of that first article you linked, English is sexist misogynist female hating patriarchal language that should be eradicated just because it is a language that doesn't fit perfectly with feminist ideology, just like it didn't fit with IngSoc.. So because English is a horrible sexist language, then ofcourse defending that and hating newspeak correlates with sexism (and sexism is bad and one should be ashamed of that blaa blaa blaa...)! There is no way around it, is there? Either you accept that framing and be labeled as sexist bigot for speaking proper English, or you start championing newspeak like you do.

You are correct. My perspective on discrimination is not as vague as yours. You can obviously not provide any concrete examples I requested of widespread direct discrimination, as defined by English standar dictionary, so you start spinning the term to mean everything that points even slightly towards some kind of inequality to further your cause. That is called grasping at straws. Pathethic. By the way, do you even understand the newspeak term I'm using when addressing your "gender neutral language"? Do you know where it refers to?

[kigurai]

Your logic is extremely warped. How does forcing people to adapt a ridiculous newspeak they hate create a more positive and less sexist environment? Those two are related in no way to each other. Obviously hating that absurd idea correlates with sexism because by very definition of that first article you linked, English is sexist misogynist female hating patriarchal language that should be eradicated just because it is a language that doesn't fit perfectly with feminist ideology, just like it didn't fit with IngSoc.. So because English is a horrible sexist language, then ofcourse defending that and hating newspeak correlates with sexism (and sexism is bad and one should be ashamed of that blaa blaa blaa...)! There is no way around it, is there? Either you accept that framing and be labeled as sexist bigot for speaking proper English, or you start championing newspeak like you do.

I don't think anyone is being forced here. You are simply asked to consider using gender-neutral pronouns where possible.
Don't know about you, but I think it makes sense to use the best matching word to describe something, and unless the gender of the person or thing I am talking about is explicitly specified, why should I add a gender to it?
Considering that the "default" choice of gender for specific things might strengthen stereotypes, I think trying to use gender neutral speak is a good thing.

[RahulSundaram]

Your logic is extremely warped. How does forcing people to adapt a ridiculous newspeak they hate create a more positive and less sexist environment? Those two are related in no way to each other.

I obviously disagree with that and the evidence that I linked to and widely adopted industry practices are not in favor of your position and it is possible to use gender neutral terms in English as well so that is not a good reason not to do it however it is clear that you feel that gender biased language is just fine. Agree to disagree on that position

[dee.]

newspeak ... newspeak ... newspeak ... newspeak

Hey, it's nice that you just learned a new term, that the rest of the world has known since the publishing of 1984, but hear me out: sprinkling it about in your forum posts doesn't make you look smarter, just like sprinkling sugar on a piece of dog turd doesn't make it taste any sweeter.

On another note, it's always fun to hear how white heterosexual male middle-class neckbeards are the best judges of whether something is discriminatory or not...

[anda_skoa]

Don't know about you, but I think it makes sense to use the best matching word to describe something, and unless the gender of the person or thing I am talking about is explicitly specified, why should I add a gender to it?
Considering that the "default" choice of gender for specific things might strengthen stereotypes, I think trying to use gender neutral speak is a good thing.

Indeed.
I think it is also important to keep in mind that languages which are in active use are always in a process of change, they evolve along the people using them.
None of us is using the same form of our native languages that people a hundret years ago did.

Cheers,
_