Re: [boost] Political correct (was: Re: implicit_cast inventor)

From: David Abrahams (dave_at_[hidden])
Date: 2002-11-30 14:36:34

Terje Slettebø <tslettebo_at_[hidden]> writes:

>>From: "David B. Held" <dheld_at_[hidden]>
>
>> "David Abrahams" <dave_at_[hidden]> wrote in message
>> news:u8yzbaret.fsf_at_boost-consulting.com...
>> > "Victor A. Wagner, Jr." <vawjr_at_[hidden]> writes:
>> >
>> > > PC run amok
>> >
>> > No, you can't blame that on a malfunctioning PC. That was just me
>> > being intentionally considerate.
>>
>> In this case, I suspect PC == Politically Correct.  However, when talking
>> about a specific individual, and not an anonymous person, I think it is
>> quite
>> appropriate to use the correct gender, if it is known.  I suspect Victor
>> would object to someone calling him a "her", and then ascribing any
>> corrections to political correctness. ;)
>
> I'm reminded of when Aleksey said (regarding the MPL paper, which uses
> "she"), that "MPL user is "she" ". I was tempted to say "Name one." :)

...which might, after all, be a good reason to use "she". I know of a
few female users of metaprogramming tools, but only a few. Engineering
departments, conferences, seminars and newsgroups filled only with men
do tend to get boring, don't you think? An argument can be made that
using "he" everywhere makes the field less-welcoming to women. If I
can do some small part to counteract that, so much the better.

Furthermore, since we were discussing looking for this person, it's
always possible that one of us knows a Christine Green in the field
who might have been overlooked had I not pointed out the possibility
that (s)he could be a woman.

Finally, I'd feel pretty foolish if I had gone along presuming that
"C. Green" was a man and she turned out to be a woman. So I was just
practicing a little CYA in case things turned out differently than I
expected.

-- 
                       David Abrahams
   dave_at_[hidden] * http://www.boost-consulting.com
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