elections

[David Fawcett]

On Sun, Mar 21, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Rand Al Thor <
randalthor_thedragonreborn at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
> *IMO google "guys", informal way of referring to either sex.
> No offence was intended. If you chose to take offence then that's
> your prerogative.*
> *I don't think things need to be changed because of one persons dislike
> for a particular term. Especially when the majority find it acceptable.*
>

Rand this argument is largely indefensible. You can't offend a minority,
claim that such offense is unavoidable and then claim that such offense is
 acceptable because it doesn't offend the majority.

Melissa was stating that she felt marginalized by the use of the term 'guys'
when she doesn't identify herself as a 'guy'. It is no different to someone
saying, 'hey white people' and someone popping up and saying, 'could you
please not only address white people because I'm not white and I participate
in this forum too'.

Melissa was also wrong about one point. She stated her political belief
and said that she did not wish to justify it or discuss it which is a bit
dubious stand to take and saying this essentially boils her political belief
down to an ultimatum. By no means is she required to justify it but if she
wishes the forum to use more gender neutral language then it's likely
some explanation is required before her point is made and the forum changes
it's behavior. As it turned out that further explanation was forthcoming
anyway.

Ok gang, we have two options here. We can either continue to use language
that makes a member of the forum uncomfortable and feel marginalized or you
can make a small, simple and minor modification to the language we use and
make a member of the forum feel welcome and included.

There is a third option not available to the rest of us: Melissa can accept
that the term 'guys' as gender neutral and choose to feel included when this
term is used. While we can encourage her to change her mind about this
ethically we can't try to force her to change her mind by continuing to use
the term. What I mean by this is that the term means what it means to her
and we should be aware that continuing to use it makes her feel alienated
regardless of what the term means to the majority.

Personally I'm all for inclusion and I would encourage everyone on this list
to make the small change that Melissa has requested in order to make her
(and women in general) feel more included.
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