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From: brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton)
Subject: Re: Assumptions about sex (Was Re: Recursion Summary)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Distribution: uw
Date: Thu, 25 Oct 90 20:55:09 GMT
Message-ID: <1990Oct25.205509.29590@looking.on.ca>
References: <1990Oct23.211651.10227@contact.uucp> <1990Oct25.030752.6568@watdragon.waterloo.edu> <1990Oct25.145511.13202@mks.com>

But is it bias?  (in the negative sense?)  Assuming that one is referring
to a person of unknown sex, and one is one of those conditioned not to
use asexual pronouns, is there an evil in taking the best guess?

Perhaps, but it is not the evil one would normally associate with the
word bias -- where people might assume that a woman should not or could
not be a manager/programmer/etc.

People who don't know Linda probably call her Mrs. Carson or even Mrs.
Gardner from time to time.  I get phone calls for "Mr. Hardman" myself.

One does not assume that these people are doing this for any bad reason,
just that they are making a wrong guess based on ignorance.  If somebody
insisted on calling you Mrs. Gardner after they knew your name is
Carson, that would be bad.

(Footnote of course.  Most of the people who call or write to any of
the above names *are* evil, since they're usually trying to sell you
something.  But they are evil for the solicitation, but because they
don't yet know the form of address you like.   So I am usually rude
to anybody who calls me Mr. Hardman.)
-- 
Brad Templeton, ClariNet Communications Corp. -- Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473