Register

Adv. Query

Q&A (4870)

Reviews (203)

Open problems (47)
Meta (439)

Site Statistics

205 submissions , 163 unreviewed
5,082 questions , 2,232 unanswered
5,353 answers , 22,789 comments
1,470 users with positive rep
820 active unimported users
More ...

Can we make the wording in speculative profiles gender neutral?

926 views

Some of the Physics Overflow profiles has the description:

(This user is not yet participating on PhysicsOverflow, but we hope he will)

If I was female, I'd find this extremely alienating and would prefer something like:

(This user is not yet participating on PhysicsOverflow, but we hope they will)

asked Aug 10, 2014 in Discussion by physicsnewbie (-20 points) [ no revision ]

We hope "they" will sounds a bit strange to me (as if there were several people behind one account/user). I would rather say we hope "he/she" will, if anything.

I am not a native English speaker, but I always thought that the "he" is related to the word "user" (which is rather masculin ?) which is just a neutral person that can be male or female ...

So it seems not that important to me.

commented Aug 10, 2014 by Dilaton (6,240 points) [ no revision ]

As a native speaker, 'they' is commonly used to refer to singular subjects today, and there is no universal agreement on whether or not this is good grammar. But to a native speaker, it makes sense:http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/he-or-she-versus-they

commented Aug 10, 2014 by physicsnewbie (-20 points) [ no revision ]

Good idea. I remember it used to be "they" in the past. @Dilaton I'm pretty sure non-gendered nouns don't have genders in English.

commented Aug 10, 2014 by dimension10 (1,985 points) [ no revision ]

Your comment on this question:

To answer, leave an answer instead. Comments are usually for non-answers.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
To alert a user, please use the "@" command and remove spaces from the username, example, the user "John Doe" should be pinged as "@JohnDoe", while the user "Johndoe" should be pinged as "@Johndoe". The post author is always automatically pinged (unless you are the post author).
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.

Live preview (may slow down editor) Preview

Your name to display (optional):

Email me at this address if a comment is added after mine:

Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.

Anti-spam verification:

[captcha placeholder]

Please complete the anti-spam verification

Your answer

Please use answers only to (at least partly) answer questions. To comment, discuss, or ask for clarification, leave a comment instead.
To mask links under text, please type your text, highlight it, and click the "link" button. You can then enter your link URL.
Please consult the FAQ for as to how to format your post.
This is the answer box; if you want to write a comment instead, please use the 'add comment' button.

Live preview (may slow down editor) Preview

Your name to display (optional):

Email me at this address if my answer is selected or commented on:

Privacy: Your email address will only be used for sending these notifications.

Anti-spam verification:

If you are a human please identify the position of the character covered by the symbol $\varnothing$ in the following word:
p$\hbar$ysicsOverfl$\varnothing$w
Then drag the red bullet below over the corresponding character of our banner. When you drop it there, the bullet changes to green (on slow internet connections after a few seconds).

Please complete the anti-spam verification

user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required

Your rights

...