DC sucks! Some woman with two huge bags shoved me into the corner of the elevator. No respect for space! #dclife
After all, when something annoying happens, the first impulse is to gripe about it online, right? LOL.
But I stopped myself, and not because I'm trying to gripe less online (although that is a factor). Rather, I asked: was the person's annoying behavior gender-specific? No, it wasn't. So why would I write "Some woman" when I could write "A person", and still get my point across?
I try not to use gender-specific nomenclature to describe behaviors and persons, especially annoying behaviors and/or persons, unless the gender is particularly relevant. Usually, the annoying behavior I encounter is simply human behavior, and not specifically male or female. Rarely is it gender-specific.
So why would I choose to be cautious about mentioning the gender of a person exhibiting annoying behavior? Simply this: I don't want to reinforce negative stereotypes. If I say, "Some woman" did X which I hate, there's a very good chance I or someone hearing what I say/reading what I wrote will think, "Yeah, and women can be such b*s!" And so I've reinforced a negative stereotype. The point isn't that women can be such b*s, or men can be such d*s, but that human being can be jerks. And when they're jerks, it rarely has to do with their gender; it has to do, instead, with their humanity.
IMHO, we need to think carefully about how we use gender in conversation (and online), and work to avoid reinforcing negative stereotypes. I'm not saying there is no gender-specific annoying behaviors (just this morning I remarked that men can be real pigs about sexuality and attractiveness), but usually even those behaviors are culturally conditioned rather than biologically inherent. Even the tendency for men to be pigs, LOL.
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