One of the community members has approached the moderators with a concern about gendered pronoun usage amongst our Academia members. Specifically, this individual felt that calling out gender in discussion—e.g., "he said…" or "as she commented…"—risks introducing bias and may affect the quality of the discussion.
As such, I wanted to ask the community on behalf of this member... should we, as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion?
I'll repeat what I said in the other thread, which seemed to be supported by the community (as indicated by their votes):
I am in favor of encouraging clarity above all else, and leaving other matters of language and style up to the author of the post.
As long as the language of the post is clear and it is consistent with the be nice policy, we should let authors express themselves as they prefer. If you don't like gender-specific terms or pronouns, don't use them in your own posts, but don't insist that others refrain from using them.
In response to StrongBad's suggestion that
if users list preferred pronouns in their profiles, then they can flag posts for moderator attention to "fix" references that use a non-preferred pronoun
I disagree completely. Moderators editing comments does not leave any edit trail, so the user appears to say whatever the moderator wrote. It is used with extreme care in exceptional cases involving comments that can't be deleted (e.g. because they are an integral part of some exchange), but have offensive content that violates the Be Nice policy. (Gendered pronouns are not offensive content with respect to the Be Nice policy that all Stack Exchange users are required to follow.)
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Commented
Sep 29, 2016 at 21:55
It seems to me there are two different issues here:
The original question by eykanal asks whether we should "as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion" because this "risks introducing bias and may affect the quality of the discussion".
StrongBad raises an entirely different issue, claiming that it is difficult or impossible to write correctly using pronouns, arguing that "as very few of us list our preferred pronoun in our profiles, we generally have no way of knowing what the correct pronoun is" and "the only way to know what is correct is to be told."
These are really very different points, and it muddles the discussion to confuse them with each other. For example, the second issue would be obviated in a situation where all participants had specified their preferred choice of pronouns, while the first question would remain equally relevant.
In any case, I do not think it matters much: neither issue is within the bailiwick of the community/moderators/meta readers.
As with any SE network, contributors have the right to write their questions/posts in the form they desire, and neither the community nor the moderators should attempt to externally impose a particular style or preference. This seems close in spirit to edits to change e.g. British spellings to American, which has always been an invalid reason to edit someone's post.
If someone wants to try to convince contributors that a particular style would be better, that's fine; one can always try to convince people to agree with oneself -- although doing it in comments might be off-topic, since comments are not for extended discussion. But I would be especially wary of such efforts from moderators, since they might give the false impression that they represent a collective norm of the community, rather than one person's opinion. (If moderators can post without the mod diamond, that would remove this problem.)
I think that, for all the reasons noted elsewhere, it is valuable to encourage the use of gender-neutral pronouns where peoples' preferred pronouns are not known, or when talking about a generic person rather than an individual.
It should be mentioned somewhere in help or on meta that this is the preferred behaviour, and some people will hopefully make a point of commenting and pointing to that policy where applicable. My reasoning here is that it avoids potential offense, and avoids potential bias of the "I assumed that all researchers in $field are $gender" type, and (as far as I can see) has no downsides[1].
I am far less clear, however, on whether (or to what degree) this policy should be actively enforced. Are people politely asked to edit their posts? Do community members edit others' posts just for this reason? Is it something for moderators? (I would probably argue not the latter, except in cases of clear and deliberate misgendering where a complaint has been made - in which case it should fall under anti-harassment policies anyway)
[1] yes, sometimes gendered pronouns can remove ambiguity in a sentence, but so can rewording the sentence to not be ambiguous
Should we, as a community, discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion?
Do you mean
Should we discourage users from using gendered pronouns in general? or
Should we avoid assuming a particular gender, when one hasn't been indicated in the question, username, profile, avatar or discussion?
For #1: No, that would be absurd; #2: yes, we should avoid making unsubstantiated gender assumptions.
I will share two reasons for my answer to #2:
When musicians audition for orchestra jobs, they play behind a screen, and their names are not provided to the committee. This practice was developed in order to remove gender bias. Compare youtube videos of historical vs. modern orchestra concerts. The contrast is striking. The gender make-up of the big orchestras has changed dramatically, thanks in part to this gender-free audition process.
When I was a child, anti-Semitic neighbors made assumptions and nasty remarks to me, based on my surname. Well, my surname came from my father, who had been raised Catholic (but who, except from his name and some books sent on random birthdays, was entirely absent from the scene). Jewish law and custom says you are Jewish if your mother is Jewish. Mine was (although not through religious practice). Where did that leave me? Uncomfortable with unwarranted assumptions.
Perhaps a new, more clearly posed question would be helpful for the site.
(I would not suggest an edit to the question, given that a lot of very confusing discussion has taken place based on the question in its original form.)
I think it's more important to try to avoid bias based on gender, rather than using gender pronouns to hide the reason for bias.
The first (which I agree is more complicated) is the actual issue we deal with. The latter is only covering up the problem, but lets it proliferate.
So, if someone is or feels clearly male or female (name, photo, information) then let's use gender pronouns and let those that have problems with the specific gender reveal themselves and be stigmatized.
In the case that the question refers to the gender that a generic student or post doc should have, I don't see it as a big problem either. We can write he/she, or the student, or they...
Having thought about this a bit more, and reflecting on comments, I thought I'd add a second answer rather than heavy editing on my old one.
I think there are three slightly different matters that are being talked about here.
In an ideal world we would not make assumptions based on these things, but in reality, at least for now, this is going to happen, and the number of people for whom it will be wrong, as a proportion of the population, is very small. Except in the case where somebody is being deliberately misgendered (which would come under anti-harassment rules), I think this is something to leave alone.
Here, users should make every effort to refer to that user by gender-neutral pronouns. It must be pretty offputting for a woman to post here under a neutral name (for whatever reason) and be assumed to be a man - or, probably less common, vice versa. It is not appropriate to make assumptions, which may tend to reinforce stereotypes.
I believe that this should be noted in the help, and people should make an effort to remind askers and answers of this policy in comments.
I mean here when somebody is not talking about a specific SE user, but is referring to, for example, "a student" or "a postdoc". Here I think that it is really important to remain gender-neutral, lest we reinforce the idea that all researchers in $field are $gender.
I think this is by far the most important of the three items here. I think that correcting gender-specific terms used in this sense should, in itself, be grounds for editing a post. If there is argument over this on a specific post, then preferring gender-neutrality in generic people should be the guidance for moderators.
I strongly object this would-be "politically correct" thought police, which is only done to hide real problems. A person so unstable it get's offended by a mere wrong pronoun needs help, by a therapist, not a thousand "friends" who really just find it unsettling to see a guy breaking to pieces over a trivial misconception.
I add this much: If I have not hint as to what pronoun could be right, I also use "they" to refer to an individual person. It's a bit crude, but the other has solicited for it, and it is embarrassing for both having to correct me. Otherwise "he" implies "she" unless otherwise mentioned. If I need a lawyer, it does not matter to me if he's a man, woman, transsomething, or this very clever aarvark my second cousin refered me to.
I think we should discourage the use of gendered pronouns in discussion (as well as in questions and answers). The use of gendered terms generally does not add clarity and has the potential to be offensive/upsetting when the wrong term is used. As very few of us list our preferred pronoun in our profiles, we generally have no way of knowing what the correct pronoun is.
The issue is, how do we want to discourage the use of gendered pronouns. I do not think policing usage is the way to go. In other words, we should not systematically remove all usage of gendered pronouns. Instead, I think we should bring up in chat and meta that we strive to use gender neutral language when possible.
I also think if users list preferred pronouns in their profiles, then they can flag posts for moderator attention to "fix" references that use a non-preferred pronoun. I am not exactly sure how to handle edits for individuals who are gender fluid or who's preferred pronouns change with time.
