Thread: !!Everybody *has* to answer this one!!

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

Anyway, to the OP: I'm at least 50% of one of those choices...

So, what you're saying is that you have at least an X chromosome?

Originally Posted by laserlight

So your answer is "Man"?

No, it was a question.
Man? No answer so far.

Originally Posted by SlyMaelstrom

I would also like to mention that I am also exploring Mario's inner-woman

Ohhh, a party!

>I don't understand whether its a man or a woman answering my questions in C/C++.
Why does it matter?

>I might end up referring you by "she" even if you
>are a man in case you don't answer this question.
Your solution is inefficient. By asking everyone's gender, you have to remember them all. And that list will only cover a fraction of this forum's members, so your solution isn't very effective either. Why not just refer to someone by name when you feel the need to use a gender-dependent pronoun?

Originally Posted by Prelude

Your solution is inefficient. By asking everyone's gender, you have to remember them all.

Not really. Since the gender imbalance is huge, all he has to do is to remember the two or three women among the active posters.

He could just go with my solution and call everyone "he" unless being explicitly corrected. The gender imbalance also means that this won't happen often. (This needs adaption, of course. On another board there's mostly women, so my default stance there is "she".)

I perfer the completely PC approach of "he/she" as apposed to "he-she", which I'm sure is just a silly approach from a statistical perspective.

As noted before there's also the possibility of fleeing from the issue altogether, depending on how the phrase is constructed.

"Xpact logged in. It's in their right to do so."

>Since the gender imbalance is huge, all he has to do is [...]
Of course, you have to know the genders to realize there's an imbalance, and it still doesn't protect you at all from insulting a new or less active member that you haven't encountered. I still claim that it's inefficient (because you have to remember more than with a simple guideline of avoiding gender pronouns) and ineffective (because the approach doesn't take unknowns into account).

>On another board there's mostly women, so my default stance there is "she".
Is it a programming board?

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Sometime ago I made a public move on laserlight on this forum only to discover he's male and the avatar is of a female colleague at work.

Oh the humanity, that just ruined my week

On a lighter note, in Modern English, he/him/his is also the neuter. So unless the gender of the article is relevant to the discussion, it is perfectly correct to use he/him/his when the gender is unknown.

Originally Posted by CornedBee

On another board there's mostly women, so my default stance there is "she".)

That makes me wonder if perhaps there isnt a gender imbalance among programmers, but maybe just self segregation on to male and female websites

Originally Posted by mike_g

This can be determined with a get sex calculator. Just plug in the username:

Code:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

int getSex()
{
    char name[100];
    fgets(name, 100, stdin);
    int i, sex=0;
    for(int i=0; i<strlen(name); i++)    
        sex += name[i];
    return sex & 2; 
}

int main()
{
    if(getSex())
        printf("Is man!");
    else
        printf("Is woman!");
    getchar();
    return 0;
}

This makes me wonder if you tested is right
Enter name: Prelude
Is a man!
Hehehe.

Some people who are actually she can take offense at being called he. Happened once here on cboard, as I saw it. Probably happened more times, as well. Might even work the other way around.
So the golden rule is: don't assume gender; use gender neutrality.

Yes. I could take offense at people taking offense of such a common blooper.

But my position on these things is to never take them seriously, even at the face of an angry mob if needed be. I will never understand that kind of people. Male or female. Who cares if someone takes me for a female? I will not fell less a man if it happens.

Don't feel you owe anything to someone who gets offended if you make such a mistake.

Originally Posted by Corbin Dallas

Uh, negative, I am a meat popsicle.

Does the quality of the answer somehow change if the person has certain anatomy? Makes me wonder whether we should trust hermaphrodites now... *nervous look*