Removal of gender-specific pronouns from core

IMO it's a bit pathetic to replace all instances of his into "his of her", but let's see what the community thinks. The following modules also have strings with a single 'his':

 modules/blog.module:76
 modules/statistics.module:53
 modules/user.module:1995
 modules/user.module:2017

From The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, p60,

The use of he as a pronoun for nouns embracing both genders is a simple, practical convention rooted in the beginnings of the English language. He has lost all suggestion of maleness in these circumstances. The word was unquestionable biased to begin with (the dominant male), but after hundreds of years it has become seemingly indespensible. It has no perjorative connotation; it is never incorrect.
...
If you think she is a handy substituite for he, try it and see what happens.

Interesting. Both White and Strunk were men, Strunk dying in 1918. Anyway we can all have a view on the rights and wrongs of this, the point is we need to have Drupal configurable to that we don't have to have these arguments and we don't need to offend valuable clients if we don't have to. So you should put the patch in.

I'm not sure whats the probem, but AjK you are free to improve the helptexts yourself and submit a patch if this is bothering you or you would like to see this changed..

The fact that it has taken Drupal 5 years until such a discussion popped up shows me that a) either most users are male (probably true) and b) not too many of the females care about this.

Personally, I prefer unencumbered language over political correctness.

Because of this, I set it to "won't fix" again and invite people who disagree to use the locale module to change the texts to their liking.

Just a note on his/their usage... For the number of the subject/pronoun to be in agreement, the pronoun needs to be singular. The subject of the sentence is "each" and would be incorrect if paired with "their."

I'm going to be bold and throw my name into the fray as a female who cares about this issue. :P Both arguments raised against this type of rewording have quite frankly been completely absurd.

However, this patch needs some work:

a) There are gender-specific pronouns all over Drupal and they should all be fixed as well. But it might be easier to do this one file at a time so you may choose to ignore this point. ;)
b) Rather than doing "his or her," which as mentioned uses only slightly less sexist language, the best solution would ultimately be to find another way to phrase the sentence in such a way that we avoid the need of pronouns altogether. This is not a bad idea since to the average user, "tightly coupled" means about as much as "asdkfhskjdhfksdf" ;)

So how about something like:
"A blog is a regularly updated journal or diary made up of individual posts, with the newest on top. Each member of the site may create and maintain a blog."

I also remember there being another issue going a couple years back with several dozen replies around this topic which had a patch that applied to all of core, but I can't seem to find it anymore.

Here's a patch attempting to re-word those places to remove the gender-specific language. Patched:

* blog.module -- used the second sentence from webchick's example
* statistics.module -- 'you prevent his IP address' -> 'you prevent the visitor's IP address'
* user.module -- 'No participant can use his own name' -> 'Users of the site may not use their own names'

(there's another bit of text with 'his' in it in user.module, but it's an example, using "Joe." Safe to call him a 'he') :)

Umm, please review. :)

whatever comes out of this, I want to point out that I won't commit it to 4.7 since it is not strictly a bug and will break translations.

killes: Yes, that's a fair point. 4.7 users will have to use locale module.

eafarris: those changes look fine to me. Marking RTBC.

I am a writer - I get paid for my way with words.

This is a style issue. There are many style and language issues in ANY text and ultimately what matters is the intended AUDIENCE.

Drupal already contains a solution for this - the language mod. I have used this to change Drupal English to my own, to suit the readership of the site in question.

So - Mod Developers should use whatever style they like, and those who are designing sites with a sensitive readership can amend accordingly.

However note that in many cases sentances with he/she issues can be written either in a way that makes no reference, or uses they/their or talks about The User or Users. If anyone does want to rejig Drupal English, this is the way I'd suggest going. Do not do a "he or she" job.

Next up, the apostrophe, and with that parting shot, he leaves.

@iandickson: sorry, that's a ridiculous argument against this patch. site maintainers *of english-based sites* shouldn't have to setup the (fairly complex) locale.module and "translate" their site to remove male-specific references in the UI.

frankly, i think drumm + killes "arguments" against this patch are nearly as ridiculous, though i can (grudgingly) agree with killes on the not-in-4.7 problem about breaking existing translations.

@ajk, eafarris, webchick: right on. ;) patch from #14 is RTBC.

thanks,
-derek

This is a style issue. There are many style and language issues in ANY text and ultimately what matters is the intended AUDIENCE.

I completely agree. Drupal's audience is a large spectrum of people that cover the gamut of genders, political beliefs, nationalities, interest areas, and so on. That's because it's a framework that can be used on literally any type of site, broadcast to literally any type of audience.

Therefore, it makes much more logical sense to lean toward the use of gender-neutral pronouns rather than presuming wrongly that only males will ever see this text, just because there are more male Drupal *developers* than there are female Drupal developers.

However note that in many cases sentances with he/she issues can be written either in a way that makes no reference, or uses they/their or talks about The User or Users. If anyone does want to rejig Drupal English, this is the way I'd suggest going. Do not do a "he or she" job.

Yes, that's exactly what I and others have advocated, and the language that is used in the most recent patch. In fact in many cases the reworded text can be clearer without reference to the pronouns.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about this subject, if you want to spend ten minutes read the following:

http://www.friesian.com/language.htm

"The theory of "sexist language," however, is no credit to feminism, for it is deeply flawed both in its understanding of the nature of language and in its understanding of how languages change over time. Since the ideology that there is "sexist language" seeks, indeed, to change linguistic usage as part of the attempt to change society and forms of thought, the latter is particularly significant."

lennart: Yes, you can find arguments on all sides as to whether it should be "he," "he/she," or even "ze."

The patch removes all references to gender-specific pronouns, either male or female, rendering any such argument moot, and not bothering anyone on any side of the argument. It's win-win.

webchick -- fine with me

As long as we do not subordinate aesthetics too much to political moralism.

Maybe we should be pragmatic about this. For aesthetical reason I would prefer 'her' over 'his or her' or 'their'

But what about consistency? I think parts of OG uses 'her'?

Use of the male pronoun as universal is imprecise, exclusionary and just bad writing. To make Drupal the best possible product it can be, this should be changed.

Use of the male pronoun as universal is correct and valid standard English and has been for centuries. Use of "their" as a neuter third person singular (and then using plural conjugation) is a very common colloquialism in American English, but I am not sure of the rest of the world.

I actually find "his or her" or "he/she" or "s/he" and so forth to be offensive, because it is butchering the language and breaking the flow of the sentence solely for political reasons. Swapping between them in different places is even worse.

That said, I am OK with dodging the issue with "the user" and other reworking, provided it does not hurt the understanding of the sentence. So +1 to the patch in #14.

slavery was standard, accepted practice for centuries -- that didn't make it right, either.

can we please leave behind the false notion that always reading "he" or "his" is somehow "universally accepted"? clearly, the existence of this thread should be enough evidence that it's not "universal" at all... some people are unconscious of such things or don't care, others care, some care a lot. that's not open to debate, it's an obvious fact.

and, if you read the patch (and the new title of this issue) there's no "he/she", "it", "(s)he" or any other clumsy, awkward thing -- the patch removes *all* gender-related pronouns and makes the resulting wording more clear and less potentially offensive.

enough already. Dries/drumm, please commit this and put this issue out of its misery, already! ;)

thanks,
-derek

Let's think a little more broadly for a moment. I'm an editor and not a developer, so I realize this approach may not work here in a thread about patches and such, but I vote for someone (dries, sepeck--or whoever is appropriate) making an executive decision on the drupal way of addressing all questions of style and usage (called a house style guide) and then we all get on with our drupaling lives. The standard practice for businesses and communities is to acknowledge that style and usage questions--not just this particular one--are just part of the grey areas of English and settle on a house style (and usually a thick style manual like Chicago or AP and a usage manual too). Otherwise there is no consistency within the organization.

I realize pronoun gender is an issue most people have an opinion on, but it's really inconsistent to have a position--if we can arrive at one--on just one usage question and leave all others to individual interpretation: we could have patches for using a comma before "and" in a series or the singular "they" that's already been mentioned. I'm mostly kidding, but there's a reason why organizations settle all matters of usage with a house style guide.

Besides, though this is an interesting discussion, on questions of usage, there IS no consensus except within groups of experts, and so you just have to choose the most appropriate group of experts for your organization. Or I suppose you can leave it to the community to argue over indefinitely and have different usages all over drupal depending on who is writing. Maybe for a community of English speakers this diverse, that's what we should do--just as long as someone makes an executive decision that no house style is the drupal house style so we're all on the same page and patches or modules can be submitted without unending debate because there is no consensus. Whew!

The patch in item 14 changes three lines. (Only three?). A style guide doesn't have to be a heay tome. I belive one of webchick's phrasing above may be suitably modified into 2-3 paragraph and added to the developers handbook.

Something with this as a basis

Drupal's audience is a large spectrum of people that cover the gamut of genders, political beliefs, nationalities, interest areas, and so on. That's because it's a framework that can be used on literally any type of site, broadcast to literally any type of audience. Therefore, it makes much more logical sense to lean toward the use of gender-neutral pronouns where reasonable.

Of course that leaves out examples in documentation. Perhaps agree on 'Joe User' for specific user examples? We should not bend our phrasing into complications to convey an example of use, etc. This would further complicate translation efforts.

sepeck: Yes, only three. In another thread AjK listed four instances of male-specific phrases in Drupal core. One of these in user.module uses "Joe" as an example user, so my patch did not address him. If there are others in core, enlighten us and we'll modify the patch. I did not go hunting for more when I posted the patch in #14.

Contrib should be addressed, too (iirc OG uses some female-specific phrases), but only after a handbook policy is accepted, as you suggest.

@all: to further reiterate, as there seems to be lots of confusion on this issue: this patch does NOT resort to 's/he' 'him or her' or other such 'language hacks.' This patch, as suggested by webchick in #13, replaces the phrases so that such pronouns are unnecessary.

I would only add my two bits that, if it is just a matter of style, then gender-neutral phrasing would seem to be the appropriate default, and let "style" preferences for male- or female-assumptive phrasing be achieved using locale/translation, if unique situation calls for it.

I vote for a 'politically_correct-english' translation for and by those who have the time and interest for such things.

Committed to HEAD.

thanks, drumm! committing a non-critical core patch within 24 hours of the issue opening... you rock. thanks for "putting this thread out of its misery", as i said. ;)

cheers,
-derek