On 06.02.11 23:09, KIZU wrote
In my observation, German female editors tend to (or not care of) using Benutzer (user as male) to mention themselves in their writing, but French editors seem to stick to call themselves Utilisatrice (user as female).
We need to get away from "I don't know any who are bothered so this is not a problem." I grit my teeth each and every time I have to write "Benutzer:WiseWoman". In German I am a Benutzerin. This defining the normal to be male, the abnormal to be the female is very off-putting to *some* women. I am an editor and I care.
Go read Gert Brantenberg's "Daughters of Egalia" for a text written entirely in the feminine in English/German/Norwegian and then tell me that language is not gendered.
Besides that, in feminism it has been pointed out addressing explicitly someone female as such when their gender/sex is not a matter is a sort of discrimination (the earliest mention was iirc Barkoff 1968 in a study of English linguistic). It's no simple question if we should make it clear whether a user is male or female.
It needs to be a preference. I mean, it's software, let it sort out how I want to be addressed! In general, I prefer to be thought of as a competent person first, and then have my gender noticed as an afterthought, if at all. But to keep in-your-facing me and calling me by a male noun when I am not male is just irritating to me and others.
In reply to Erik Moeller:
I am wondering:
- Are there people on this list affected by this? If so, how do you
feel about it - how important would it be to you to get this fixed?
I think we need charm school for admins first, and gender sensitivity training as a much more urgent item on the list. But while you are overhauling MediaWiki, just get it to be sensitive to modes of address
- Are there other examples of discriminatory language (or interfaces)
that are built into the software?
Not exactly the software, but the "rule" that Lemmata are only in the male (like "Professor") and deletion of articles that specifically address the issues involved in the female-of part (such as "Professorin"), or the deletion of categories such as "Cartoon Superheros (Female)" gets really irritating.
In German we have "Benutzerkonto" - why not "Benutzungskonto"?
"Tour für Leser" could be "Lese-Tour" and
"Tutorial für Autoren" "Tutorial für Schreibende"
Cheers,