Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
I think gendered pronouns (he/she) kinda suck and cause more problems than they're worth. Sure they solve grammatical ambiguity in writing, I guess, but other than that they don't really add anything. But on the downside they encourage either "male first" or very clunky ("he or she") language. Not to mention the fact that it causes referring to significant groups of the population to suddenly become a "gender politics" issue, and is used as a tool to hurt said people.
Personally, I think "they" should always be acceptable and we should get rid of gender connotations for words like "dude". In modern times where you can talk to people without physically looking at them (like here for example, you don't know how I present IRL), there's no reason for gender to even be a part of people's identity any more than, for example, what sublemmys they follow or what instance they are on.
... But of course, I don't see that happening, at least soon, but I do think in 2024 there is no excuse not to use gender neutral words if it's ambiguous.
I also have some thoughts on "autistic people" vs "people with autism", but I'm not sure if that's what's being discussed here or of interest to anyone, so I'll leave it be. :P