Such proposals usually start with "self-evident" assertion of harm incorrect terminology causes, but is it actually measurable? Did anyone make research while isolating influence of such things? Sociology is such a shitshow
Of course not. Although this isn't sociology and shouldn't be blamed on the field. Yes, they have these guys, but it is a minority. It is just a silly group of industry partners.
If this terminology actually causes harm we should see trans people and groups propose such a change, not an industry group looking for a PR opportunity.
You're saying it should be reactionary, that someone should get angry first. You're also making assumptions about the people pushing for this. Why not pre-empt it and save everyone a lot of headaches? You don't need to be a victim or to be offended to realize a problem and work on a fix. I mean I'm not affected or offended by your comment, yet here I am.
I do make assumptions about people pushing this at this point. I don't realize the problem and nobody can explain it. I see this as PR and people falling for it that wait for empty promises about something.
You actually do, in this case. If using the terms "male" and "female" causes harm, the harm it causes is psychological. You can't really realize it from the outside. There is nothing to pre-empt here: These terms are already used to either they already cause harm or they won't start doing so. Which means there is no reason to effectively guess if they cause harm since you can actually ask someone who you think may be harmed. Solving a problem that doesn't actually exist is just a waste of time and resources. Moreover, it gives people the impression that "wokeness" in general is just pointless virtue signalling.
You're not calculating cost correctly. Think of it from an information theoretic point of view. You exist in a network that has already converged to a dominant representation. It's
essentially a nigh universally understood application of those terms in a technical context. Even more than an API, it could be considered a part of socio-technical ABI or calling convention.
Imagine if you will a world in which every individual starts changing what they call things on a whim every day. You run into a Tower of Babel problem, and one that at best, stabilizes to a dynamic equilibrium
i.e., the problem never stops, it just changes from thing to thing. Symbol changes have cost. That cost quickly amplifies in terms of required reconciliation and update of protocol across the entire human network. That means across languages, cultures, education systems, etc.
What you'll find, is this seriously grates against a bunch of people way more interested in getting work done and being understood without being on receiving end of This Week's Polemic at the same time.
This may sound callous or cold, but there is a reason society does not wholesale rewrite foundational communication structures/cultures/techné/art/etc... on a whim, and when it does happen, it's not just because a small group gets a marginal bump, but the change warrants such a bump in overall benefit or actualizable horizons of possibility, that it becomes worth the chaos of adapting to the change and shepherding it along.
Every individual may think they only have to pay or exact a one time cost but that quickly compounds.Think of all the times you end up saying "You know what I mean?" and the recipient goes on to demonstrate they do. This is one of those cases where one can only really justify change having a trivial cost in the presence of ascribing a value modifier of 0 or less to tradition, instead of actually accounting for all the instances of questions that don't need to be asked, because there is an instinctual, endemic response. While one or another person looking at themselves in isolation may see the cost as trivial to enact in their local sphere of influence, it exacts a non trivial cost in the overall context of human to human communication over time.
Note, I'm not saying no one should try to change these types of things. To do so, or try to is the essence of politics; I'm merely pointing out that the only way you see no cost is if you did count a whole lot of other implicit dependencies elsewhere as not significant.
You do you, but reality has a way of making it hurt when people do that.
absolutely agree. this feels like someone wants to do "something" but does actually nothing. this won't help or stop the abuse/hate/discrimination against women or trans (please dont hate me if i let someone out :()
Well such groups are praising the change, so it seems they support it. From the linked article
> “Shoutout to PAMA for introducing neutral language for the audio industry,” said Karrie Keyes, Executive Director of the women-in-audio advocacy group SoundGirls.org, as well as monitor engineer for Pearl Jam/Eddie Vedder. “This is a tremendous undertaking and is important to continue working toward meaningful changes in our industry.”
That's a feminist group, not a trans group, but point taken. Though that seems to be more of a group of female prudes. Unless female connectors/plugs are considered somehow inferior to male ones in the industry?
How could you isolate such an effect? I'm sure the problem is linked to society as a whole -- the words only make sense because people relate them to genetalia.
People have done research by asking people what they think about such gendered terms, and people in the less represented gender (in whichever situation you are talking about) tend to dislike them.
Who is outraged and who is bullying in this case? It looks like the industry is being proactive and is pre-empting outrage. Using gendered terminology is unnecessary anyway, to the point where it becomes childish (giggle, boy plug goes into girl socket and you get sparks)
Male/female terminology cuts through noise and using male/female for plugs translates to probably every language immediately if you are trying to convey what plugs into what.
I can see a possibility that it had real utility in communicating concepts across completely, different languages, where using the words socket and plug might have caused confusion and more time spent in translation.
Using gendered terminology is probably not harmful at all. Why should it be? This terminology was understood in almost all colleagues in nearly any languages. Most were men, yes, but that isn't the reason why women are underrepresentated.
