Re:Ask HN: As a female/minority, how do you vet a company be...
by minnca on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @06:42PM
(#19854114)
> "that is a {guy|lady} that I work with."
"Person" also works in this case. +1 for they. "Lady" seems patronizing to me - would you call someone a "gentleman"? To me, "lady" describes a woman who is "traditionally feminine" – I get that when people use "lady" today they don't typically mean "traditionally feminine," but "lady" is still evocative of a time when women were seen as delicate/demure/less than men.
Re:Ask HN: As a female/minority, how do you vet a company be...
by sethammons on Tuesday May 07, 2019 @06:48PM
(#19854159)
Language changes and evolves. I don't think that it means "feminine" as much anymore and is less paired to "gentlemen;" instead, I think most people use it as a drop-in replacement for woman, girl, etc. Similarly, "gay" has gone from "happy" to a self-describing word for homosexual men, to a pejorative, to a stand in word for "dumb" (man, that field-trip was gay), and now is more towards a non-negative way to refer to homosexual males. All that aside, I'll take the opportunity to reflect on my use of "lady" and I'll ask some of the woman I work with on the side what their opinion is. Thanks for the food for thought.
How do you filter the people who hold the door for everyone vs the ones that are only doing it for ladies? Or for those fellas who where told countless times as a youth to hold the door for a woman. Because someone is polite, that is a red flag?
As for calling a woman a lady this one is new to me, and I don't think I've ever used the word "colleague" aloud in my life. I would say, "that is a {guy|lady} that I work with." I've never been made aware previously that referring to a woman as a lady would be taken negatively. I had only heard that some woman don't care for ma'am as they can feel that is a title for an older woman. fwiw, I do tend to use gender neutral words like "they" or "them" over he/she when writing.