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From: buzzard@TheWorld.com (Sean T Barrett)
Subject: Re: Feminine Curiosity
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Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 13:11:30 GMT
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Robin Rawson-Tetley <robin.rawsontetley@btinternet.com> wrote:
>Just out of interest really, I've been hanging around raif for a
>couple of years now and I noticed that every time someone talks about
>a hypothetical user playing a game, they always refer to them as being
>female.

When talking about an unspecified person like this, I usually
attempt to work my sentence around to avoid using a gendered
pronoun. Often it can't be avoided, and I find myself having
spent a fair amount of time avoiding it and then being forced
to drop the bomb. I probably choose 'she' about 75% of the time
in that case.

I would rather cause some awkwardness in the reader's beliefs
for a moment, while giving them a reminder that yes, women
do this too, than preferentially use the male gendered pronoun
"that doesn't bother anybody", "that everybody accepts represents
an unspecified person", and that continues to reinforce a belief
that the average "typical" person is male. Call it political
correctness, call it what you will.

Hennessey and Patterson's "Computer Architecture" book--in
addition to being having the authors' names reversed half
the time--alternates the gender of the generic pronoun every
chapter. That 50/50 compromise seems good, but I lean to 75%
to make up for all the people who exclusively use the male
pronoun.

In Heroes, the gender of the characters makes essentially
no difference in the game, but I allow you to choose them
anyway. I could have left it unspecified, but I chose not to.
Make of that what you will.

SeanB
