Posted: Oct 02, 2014 7:08 pm
Jake wrote:Pebble wrote:The problem identified is real, the solution off target. Information can be used to monitor a problem that would otherwise go unnoticed. So reducing language to a bland genderless goo would provide opportunities for unobserved sexual bias.
You do not get racial equality by getting racists to pretend they are colour blind, rather by making discrimination socially unacceptable.
The problem I've identified, and the problem that you seem to be acknowledging, is that gendered pronouns create gender/sexual bias, so I don't see how eliminating these pronouns is "off target". People form associations and generalizations based on the language they speak and hear. Fixing the language helps eliminate unfair associations and generalizations. Again, please read my entire argument.
On what basis do you make the incorrect assumption that I did not read the entire argument. That I found it unconvincing and unworthy of line by line rebuttal at this point in the thread is not evidence that I did not read it.
I have not argued that people do not generalize, simply that you solution addresses only a tangential issue. Recognition and use of gender is not the problem, gender bias is the problem. Generalization will occur with or without these pronouns. So associations between female sex and lack of physical strength, inability to hold alcohol, solve mathematical problems etc - those are the issues, not the use of pronouns per se.