[Foundation-l] Showing the difference between the sexes

[Austin Hair]

On Sun, Feb 13, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org> wrote:
> And do you want it to be implemented :) But that question is to be
> answered on a community level of course - but I guess there are a few
> potential reasons why they might not want to implement it:
[...]
> * Although grammatically correct, I would find "gebruikster" in Dutch
> very weird - because it is rarely used it would put a huge emphasis on
> the fact that someone is female - this will depend per language.

In English, of course, "Userette" would be even worse, being totally contrived.

Like with many European languages, the masculine is the default and
feminine suffixes are added only for emphasis, which is pretty
anti-feminist, and it doesn't help that the feminine forms are related
to or even the same as the diminutive forms. And so we're
systematically eliminating words like "stewardess" and "usherette."
(Though we've introduced new forms like "chairwoman" and "gentlelady,"
so we're not exactly consistent.)

As I understand it, the Dutch word for "secretary" has two different
connotations based on the gender applied. "Secretaris" is more like
"UN General Secretary," while "secretaresse" is "someone who does your
typing and gets you coffee." I don't tink Dutch is unique in that.

> * I'm no expert in the field, but I can imagine some issues around
> transgender people

Not touching that one, but yes.

> etc. I would be a supporter of making it possible for a community to
> make this choice, but I would not like us to make that choice for
> them.

I would have taken this for granted, but I don't think it's a strictly
linguistic issue, and I'm not sure it's even something that should be
determined on a wiki-by-wiki basis. It seems more like an individual
preference to me.

Austin