DEV Community

David G. Horsman
David G. Horsman

Posted on

DEFINTELY off topic. Polite discussion.

Hey kids!
I guess that is offensive IMO. But I have a funny, hopefully interesting story for you.
.
As a feminist, sometime in the late 80's we began to refer to the girls (which were clearly women) as guys (which were clearly men).
.
That's seems odd doesn't it?
Was that not denying both their womanhood, uniqueness and visibility?
.
It's hard to understand. You see the girls (which were clearly women) clearly knew that we guys (which were men) clearly knew that they were not guys or girls but were in fact women. Clearly.
.
You see, this was our way of including them and acknowledging that they were our equals in every respect, only better in many respects, which my spidey senses tell me should best be avoided, but they knew that anyways if you might or might not.
.
But that's not the good part. The on topic part. The may have been funny part. Where I posted a comment on the internet in the 21st century. On a development site, which is at least tangentially on topic.
.
What's funny is that one day I commented on a new feature on the Coral Talk website saying "one of the guys could code that in a week".
.
Which wasn't meant to be funny but merely factual. And it turns out that nobody found that the least bit funny.
.
You could say that folks got a bit excited about it while completely forgetting the basic point. It was the "guys" thing you see... the women (which were not girls) got quite upset.
.
Which when you consider where the whole guys thing (which was now everyone) about the girls (which were women) started, if you don't find that funny you should at least find that ironic.
.
All of which might only be true, funny or ironic if you are an old white guy that frequently gets tossed off of web sites. But not that one, which I put on the back shelf, you could say, while they cool off a bit.
.
However I believe it does instruct us that there have been some positive changes in the industry if not in gender relations.

FOOTNOTES (edits)
There are certain habits of speach that become deeply embedded. People learn to change them in situ or novel environments.
They seldom forget. But when they get REALLY excited (ie angry) they sure do.
You see this in ESL where folks fall back into their native toungue. The two appear to be closely related.

Top comments (0)