this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Upgrading to gender neutral language is important.
Having a reflex to avoid politics, especially when you live in an environment where concepts like gender aren't discussed, is understandable. It's an attempt to do no harm that doesn't have the expected impact. It still causes harm because simple problems like gendered language are treated with an allergic response. This is what happens when conservatives hyper-sensitize well-meaning people on social topics. Considering the world we live in, you can't expect everyone to know how to flawlessly navigate these issues on the first try.
Their policy of "no politics" was misguided, but understandable. Everything is political. It was fashionable for decades to pretend otherwise. Many people grow up in an environment that ignores social topics. They need to be accepted into spaces where social topics are discussed, not immediately ostracized for not knowing the rules to a game they are new to.
I would like them to neutralize gendered assumptions in their documentation and learn from the experience, but that can only happen if they aren't ostracized from the community. I want to give them a chance to learn and improve to disrupt Google's unhealthy monopoly in the browser space.
The PR in question is also in error. It claims that the documentation assumed the gender of the user or the developer. A close reading of the requested commit reveals that the documentation instead assumes the gender of an example user named "anon" whose permissions are being altered. The documentation's use of gender is in using a male as an example user needing their privileges deescalated. Still problematic, of course: not only men need their privilege checked from time to time.
Being female is not "political".
Being female is not "political".
Being female is not "political".
Being female requires a society that preserves the freedom to be female and for each generation to define what that means for themselves.
The rights of all are political and need to be at the forefront of politics. The rights of women being threatened politicizes them. The political constitution of the united states chose to clearly define rights that ought to be upheld. We seem to be losing them, as they fall through judicial cracks. They were only ever built by jurisprudence updating interpretations of old text to modern values (e.g. the weakly inferred right to privacy that needs to be more explicit, upon which Roe was founded). Now connotations are being stripped, and it will take political action to restore our rights. The US Constitution is almost 250 years old, and still says enslaved people get 3/5 votes. The 13th amendment says only criminals can be slaves. That means felons should have 3/5 of a vote, not no vote, right? Broken document in vital need of a reassessment of values. It's fallen apart and America needs a new one. It's time for a constitutional convention and for the country to vote on some amendments, or even a new document. A document that ensures free and fair elections, with independent primaries and ranked choice voting. A document that guarantees more explicitly our rights to privacy and to seek medical care. A document that upholds labor rights and reins in greed before it can choke the country with monopolies like Google has with Chromium + solely funding Mozilla. It's time for a new deal with the American people that can survive the courts for more than 80 years because anything we put in the new constitution will be constitutional by definition.
This is a political time. We are all political actors. We define how politics proceeds and decide whose rights are considered.
Good points.
I don't quite get how you find it "understandable" to have a reflex against human rights, but otherwise I think we're in agreement.
I think it's understandable to have a few allergic reactions in a new environment until you get a grip on it. Especially if it's not someone's native language.
Not a strategy I recommend, but one I see often enough and understand to be benign and correctable and not necessarily indicative of problematic beliefs. It is indicative of someone needing an introduction to a facet of their communication, not someone needing to be shown the door.
Ousting people and projects from community spaces makes them vulnerable prey to the capitalist vultures. Desperation fuels the labor pool of the very worst parts of our society. Ostracization should only be done in extreme circumstances, if at all. Please seek abolitionist restoration, not retributive punishment.