[Gendergap] Hardcoded discrimination (KIZU Naoko)

[Debora Weber-Wulff]

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,
-- 
WiseWoman
WP:DE, WP:EN, etc. etc.