thomblake comments on Babies and Bunnies: A Caution About Evo-Psych - Less Wrong

52 Post author: Alicorn 22 February 2010 01:53AM

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Comment author: thomblake 25 February 2010 03:03:54PM 3 points [-]

the answer to "he or she?" is sometimes "no"

Indeed - I dislike "he or she" because it makes assumptions about gender and just puts off the "gendered language" problem.

Comment author: Wei_Dai 25 February 2010 03:59:35PM 2 points [-]

I think there can be no complete solution to the gendered language problem, since it comes down to respect and status, which is something people will always fight over. For example, if I start using an ungendered pronoun to refer to everyone I know, then some people might be offended because they think I don't care enough about them to refer to them using the correct gendered pronouns (which takes more effort and therefore signals caring).