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All about Love! How many geekesses are there really?
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Author | Topic: How many geekesses are there really? |
macman Neat Newbie Posts: 12 |
posted January 28, 2002 06:39
I've been snooping around the forums a bit, and I've noticed that while there are a lot of geeks out there, there seems to be a certain lack of geekesses. Are geekesses a rare species, do they not konw about the forums, or do they just all live in some sort of geek utopia, separate from the world? ------------------ IP: Logged |
EngrBohn Highlie Posts: 686 |
posted January 28, 2002 08:22
Macman, I think you're mistaken. I'd be surprised if fewer than a third of the regulars here are women. I'd be very surprised if it's fewer than a quarter. I think it's fair to say that many of the women here are not obviously women except where it's mentioned in maybe one percent of their posts. There are even a couple that I knew were women but would forget until the next time it was mentioned or hinted at. For most discussions here (the "love" forums comprising most of the exceptions), the sex of the posters really doesn't matter. ------------------ IP: Logged |
Akira Super Geek Posts: 182 |
posted January 28, 2002 10:23
Also, I know many female geeks that prefer to remain anonymous of that identifier in Internet forums because there are certain hazards associated with it -- namely tons of horny male geeks constantly barraging you with requests for cybersex. Granted, this is less of a problem in this specific board than in...well, really, than in *any* other I've encountered to date, but the fact that it's so prevalant elsewhere conditions many women to just not mention that they are women. And really -- outside of the specific context of the Looking for Love categories, why does it really matter? Discussion boards are about words and ideas, and both men and women, given sufficient intelligence, are capable of stringing those together in interesting ways. ------------------ IP: Logged |
macadddikt18 SuperBlabberMouth! Posts: 1126 |
posted January 28, 2002 12:56
Just to echo that thought. a person is a person. not to be judgemental, but why does physical apearance and repuctive ability have to limit anything? It really is about words. Our words reflect who we are on the inside, and really, what else matters? Nayt ------------------ IP: Logged |
Geordie Super Geek Posts: 148 |
posted January 28, 2002 18:04
quote: Because English does not have an accepted gender neutral third person pronoun. IP: Logged |
Demosthenes Assimilated Posts: 372 |
posted January 28, 2002 18:58
quote:i notice that, too. not as much on these forums, but in real-life, there seems to be a much lower concentration of female geeks. no wonder the vast majority of my friends are male. i've always wondered why. hmnh. IP: Logged |
macadddikt18 SuperBlabberMouth! Posts: 1126 |
posted January 28, 2002 19:06
Maybe it is because you are looking in the wrong place. One trip to the local college reveals that they are out there. Walk into the engeering building and find the computer floor. There are tons of girls there. This may be a somewhat crude method though. nayt ------------------ IP: Logged |
caleb Maximum Newbie Posts: 18 |
posted January 28, 2002 19:59
well, I dunno about that.. at my college there dont seem to be many girls anywhere near the computers =P my c++ class has about 20 guys and I think, 3 girls, 2 of them seem to be over 40, which doesnt quite interest me..(im 18), although the thought of an older girlfriend seems nice sometimes hehe... so many girls my age are, or at least act really immature. anyone read "A widow for one year" by john irving? I remember reading about it in some post a while back here... so I read it, it was really good, especially the earlier part of the book, for some reason I kinda liked that idea of eddie and marion, im weird I guess =P And anyway, ive gotten way off track... but umm as I was saying, I have 3 computer classes, average girl to guy ratio I would say is 1 to 7 hehe... isnt it sad =( IP: Logged |
jherazob Geek-in-Training Posts: 32 |
posted January 29, 2002 05:56
quote: Heh, reminded me of this: IP: Logged |
Xanthine Highlie Posts: 513 |
posted January 29, 2002 20:33
quote: No kidding. I've cauhgt people referring to me as a "he" at least once. Guess that's what I get for naming myself aafter a chemical! ------------------ IP: Logged |
homesalad Super Geek Posts: 216 |
posted January 30, 2002 12:36
quote: I made one up once, it was tra. It worked pretty well, but usually I forgot to use it. Saying he/she never really worked for me. IP: Logged |
TrygveLode Neat Newbie Posts: 13 |
posted January 30, 2002 14:33
quote: At least partly, it's just statistics conspiring against you. Even if the male:female ratio were 1:1, the average person, regardless of sex, would feel left out in the cold. The math is simple enough. Suppose you divide a population with equal numbers of men and women into groups of three. One eighth of the groups will have three women, three eighths will have two, three eighths will have one, and one eighth will have none. Fully one quarter of the women in our artificial example will be in a group with no men. Half the women will be in a group where they outnumber men by 2:1, and only a quarter will be in a group where they are outnumbered by men 2:1. (Obviously no women will be in an all-male group.) So, only a quarter of the women see the male:female ratio skewed in their favor, and fully three-quarters see it skewed against them. The men have the same problem. In real life, it's not nearly that extreme, and social groups do tend to be bigger than three, but the tendency of couples to pair off makes the effective group size smaller again so most single people are still likely to see more single people of their own sex than of the opposite sex in their social groups. ------------------ IP: Logged |
Akira Super Geek Posts: 182 |
posted January 30, 2002 17:28
quote: Someone I went to college with assured me that the "accepted" gender neutral pronouns were "sie" for she/he and "hir" for his/her. Used them religiously in all her essays, too. Drover a couple professors nuts. IP: Logged |
EngrBohn Highlie Posts: 686 |
posted January 31, 2002 05:15
- homesalad - Someone I went to college with assured me that the "accepted" gender neutral pronouns were "sie" for she/he and "hir" for his/her. I've heard of "hir", its etymology is fairly self-evident, and it works equally well for his/her and him/her -- at least in writing (it's a one-off spelling of any of those pronouns). Verbally, it comes across too much like "her" (or at least it does for us lazy pronouncers who rarely distinguish between a soft "e" and a soft "i"). "Sie" is a new one to me, and its only obvious etymology is from German, but there it's the feminine pronoun (IIRC -- too many years since my one semester of German); isn't "es" the neuter pronoun? Okay, here's a question: how is this issue handled in languages where *everything* has an explicit gender? ------------------ IP: Logged |
macadddikt18 SuperBlabberMouth! Posts: 1126 |
posted January 31, 2002 05:58
Ahh, i just stick with WE. Nayt ------------------ IP: Logged |
annie Super Geek Posts: 241 |
posted January 31, 2002 08:32
quote: Well that should be pretty obvious. You simply use whatever's appropriate for the noun your using. For singular, the way you do it (at least in Bulgarian), if you are talking about a person (any person), the word person is masculine so you use that form. If you are talking about a nurse, the general form of the word nurse is feminine so you use that form. Much less ambiguity.(and you can see where some prejudice comes in) ------------------ IP: Logged |
Oldguy geek Alpha Geek Posts: 306 |
posted January 31, 2002 10:39
quote: In German 'sie' is the polite form for both masculine and feminine pronoun (like 'you' in English, if I remember my high school German right) and also the pronoun for feminine gender (like 'she'). I've always found these latter day constructs of 'sie' and 'hir' in English (almost exclusively American English) to be silly in the extreme. IP: Logged |
EngrBohn Highlie Posts: 686 |
posted January 31, 2002 12:35
Annie, that's also how I learned it, but as we all know there's a difference between how things are taught and how things really are. So if there were non-USAmericans had the same wish to spay/neuter their language, I was curious how they handled the explicit-gender aspect. ------------------ IP: Logged |
Evilbunny Highlie Posts: 614 |
posted January 31, 2002 18:13
First of all, I am female, and I like German. There is he, she, and neuter. I like that much better! I mean, here I am trying to write a psychology book and my sentences get lost in all of the he/she he/she crap! I get REALLY annoyed! IP: Logged |
TrygveLode Neat Newbie Posts: 13 |
posted January 31, 2002 19:54
quote: In German, "Sie" [capital "S"] is the formal second-person pronoun ("you"), which is gender-neutral, but I can't think of any Western language that has different forms of the second-person pronoun(s) depending on gender. (I don't think either the Germanic or Romance languages do.) "sie" [lower-case "s"] is both the singular third-person feminine and the gender-neutral third-person plural. whew! (Obviously, German pronouns are very versatile...and that was just covering the nominative case. ) ------------------ IP: Logged |
Pete Gas Newbie Posts: 5 |
posted January 31, 2002 23:46
quote: er, well Transgender humans kinda have this problem - like if they havent *completely* changed - I often revert to 'human', or use (semi) accepted pronouns like SHe and Hir ..Ooops, sorry I came in late here,(started firing off & didnt read the whole topic) - yeah I guess finding something thats *phonetically* gender neutral is kinda tricky {( I do remember approaching a pretty velvetty oriental human in a club once (I'd done some work for this place - bit frustrating though, so I thought I'd return to party and dance afterwards) and it was a little strange linguistically (etc!), wondering is SHe or isnt SHe ? IP: Logged |
Oldguy geek Alpha Geek Posts: 306 |
posted February 01, 2002 06:03
quote: Thanks, it's been more than 30 years since I studied this stuff, and I am surprised I remembered it as well as I did. IP: Logged |
Geordie Super Geek Posts: 148 |
posted February 01, 2002 18:21
OK I knew I was lying when I said there is no gender neutral third person pronoun. The oldest one I knew of is Thon. Other sources of info are UPENN or if you really want to geek out GENDER-NEUTRAL PRONOUN FAQ but by far my favorite is epicene pronouns for its great chronology of gender neutral pronouns and the immortal line quote:
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