<story><title>The Power of a Pronoun</title><url>http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spindritf</author><text>&amp;gt; while Isaac is a Joyent employee, Ben is not—and if he had been, he wouldn&amp;#x27;t be as of this morning: to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? And how do you square it with calling someone an asshole in the next paragraph? That passes as professionalism and empathy at Joyent?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>LeafStorm</author><text>&amp;gt; On the one hand, it seems ridiculous (absurd, perhaps) to fire someone over a pronoun -- but to characterize it that way would be a gross oversimplification: it&amp;#x27;s not the use of the gendered pronoun that&amp;#x27;s at issue (that&amp;#x27;s just sloppy), but rather the insistence that pronouns should in fact be gendered. To me, that insistence can only come from one place: that gender—specifically, masculinity—is inextricably linked to software, and that&amp;#x27;s not an attitude that Joyent tolerates.&lt;p&gt;They&amp;#x27;re not opposing the use of the word &amp;quot;he,&amp;quot; they&amp;#x27;re opposing him saying &amp;quot;no, go away, I don&amp;#x27;t see any reason someone could take offense&amp;quot; when the issue was pointed out instead of &amp;quot;thanks for the patch.&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>The Power of a Pronoun</title><url>http://www.joyent.com/blog/the-power-of-a-pronoun</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>spindritf</author><text>&amp;gt; while Isaac is a Joyent employee, Ben is not—and if he had been, he wouldn&amp;#x27;t be as of this morning: to reject a pull request that eliminates a gendered pronoun on the principle that pronouns should in fact be gendered would constitute a fireable offense for me and for Joyent.&lt;p&gt;Am I the only one who thinks this is crazy? And how do you square it with calling someone an asshole in the next paragraph? That passes as professionalism and empathy at Joyent?</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>na85</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not so crazy if you put down your pitchfork for a sec.&lt;p&gt;1)  Every employee is an ambassador of your company&amp;#x27;s brand, and Tech already has a sexism problem to begin with.&lt;p&gt;2)  It&amp;#x27;s not about the pronoun so much as it&amp;#x27;s about Ben &lt;i&gt;re-rejecting&lt;/i&gt; a patch that Isaac, the project lead, had already accepted, solely on the grounds of pronoun genders.&lt;p&gt;#2 really has no other explanation than sexism; and when his behaviour is conducted in public on the internet, where the &amp;quot;Joyent employs bigots&amp;quot; meme has potential to go viral, that&amp;#x27;d be cause for concern for any employer.&lt;p&gt;Now, I like to think that had Ben been a Joyent employee the author of this pieces would have had a standard &amp;quot;we have concerns with your conduct&amp;quot; meeting with Ben before reaching for the banhammer but we don&amp;#x27;t really have any way of knowing.</text></comment>