Manholes are gender neutral now

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

A teacher, told a parent that his daughter was very good at maths for a girl, implying that out of all the girls in the class she as exceeding the average.

Boys and girls are different and have different aptitudes when grouped together. Obviously there will be outliers that buck the trend but on average, the teacher must have observed that boys tend to do better than girls at that age, at that subject.

The fact that anyone would choose to find a way to make that sexist is telling.

And your hypothetical is not relevant without context. If I was in a class in a country which has been known for exceeding the Irish aptitude for mathematics, then yes, I would rationalise it that way.

Oh right. You know more details of the class than I do so I can only defer to you on the details. You know whether she was ahead of the other girls or not. Fair play on inventing details that suit your point. I'm.a but hamstrung because I can only work from the details I know and from those it's unclear what the teacher meant.

In my hypothetical, Wouldn't you assume you were better at maths than the other Irish people in the English person's experience? Funny how you invented details for the first instance but wrote the second instance off as irrelevant.

El_Duderino 09

Luxxis wrote: »

If its not a big deal then why are people calling for the change? It not a big deal right....

Yeah not a big del at all as far as I'm concerned. But try explaining that to those who oppose the change.

A few pages ago they were claiming it was erasing gender. Then they said the government was forcing people to use certain words or face sanction. Hysterical nonsense

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Oh right. You know more details of the class than I do so I can only defer to you on the details. You know whether she was ahead of the other girls or not. Fair play on inventing details that suit your point. I'm.a but hamstrung because I can only work from the details I know and from those it's unclear what the teacher meant.

In my hypothetical, Wouldn't you assume you were better at maths than the other Irish people in the English person's experience? Funny how you invented details for the forest instance but wrote the second instance off as irrelevant.

Not at all. He was told she was very good for a girl. It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination or logic to assume (from the details you supplied) that the teacher was stating that the girl was very good at maths, compared to other girls her age.

In fact, that can be the only thing that "she is very good at maths for a girl" could mean. I'm not inventing anything.

In your hypothetical, does the English person work as a teacher and have they taught enough irish people to come to a reasonable conclusion that I was above the average?

Because im sure your friend's child's teacher does.

kikilarue2

Bob24 wrote: »

If we can’t agree on the fact that there are many groups around western society which are lobbying for language changes due to offence caused by those words in light of their ideology, we can can just agree to disagree.

You're claiming this change is happening because people got offended, but you can't say who got offended, or when, or why?

You are making a bunch of assumptions to fit your point of view, which is fine. Indeed, we'll agree to disagree - I'll continue basing my opinion on the facts that have been presented and you can infer whatever you think is happening based on your worldview with little to nothing to back you up.

I'm always happy to agree to disagree in such circumstances.

Let me know if you find that "small group of people" who got offended and precipitated this change.

Bob24

kikilarue2 wrote: »

You're claiming this change is happening because people got offended, but you can't say who got offended, or when, or why?

Let me take a step back and revert to you initial post.

kikilarue2 wrote: »

Being offended by the term manhole and being offended by the decision to update the terminology to maintenance hole are both ridiculous and snowflake-y as f**K. Anyone who has time to worry about this stuff is a lucky human being indeed.

So you were saying that:
- someone who has an issue with the term manhole in the first place is a ridiculous snowflake who has too much time on their hands
- someone who has an issue with the terminology change also is a ridiculous snowflake who has too much time on their hands

However, following this I can see many of you posts whereby you spent quite a bit of time to explain why you have an issue with people who have a issue with the terminology change because people had an issue with the original word (phew, if the previous 2 levels are snowflaky time-wasting, how do you call level 3?). I detect quite a bit of hypocrisy here: if someone found the initial behaviour so futile and time wasting, they wouldn’t invest even more of their own time to criticise that behaviour - and investing that much time tells me the person cares a lot more about the issue than they originally stated and it might be a bit more significant than mentioned in the original post trying to downplay it.

And btw I had indeed quoted one of the offended person who drove the change in my previous post, who stated the term is not “consistent with the principle of inclusion” (ie the term as it has existed until now offends them as the don’t find it inclusive).

kikilarue2

Bob24 wrote: »

Let me take a step back and revert to you initial post.



So you were saying that:
- someone who has an issue with the term manhole in the first place is a ridiculous snowflake who has too much time on their hands
- someone who has an issue with the terminology change also is a ridiculous snowflake who has too much time on their hands

However, following this I can see many of you posts whereby you spent quite a bit of time to explain why you have an issue with people who have a issue with the terminology change because people had an issue with the original word (phew, if the previous 2 levels are snowflaky time-wasting, how do you call level 3?). I detect quite a bit of hypocrisy here: if someone found the initial behaviour so futile and time wasting, they wouldn’t invest even more of their own time to criticise that behaviour - and investing that much time tells me the person cares a lot more about the issue than they originally stated.

And btw I had indeed quoted one of the offended person who drove the change in my previous post, who stated the term is not “consistent with the principle of inclusion” (ie the term as it has existed until now offends them as the don’t find it inclusive).

Anyone who has time to discuss this kinda stuff on Boards has too much time on their hands, myself included. So I suppose you win that round? I'm not offended by the term manhole or put out by the term maintenance hole though, it has no impact on my life whatsoever, I'm just having a discussion.

I take it you've conceded the substantive points I've been making though, since you don't seem to have any response to those?

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

Not at all. He was told she was very good for a girl. It doesn't take a huge leap of imagination or logic to assume (from the details you supplied) that the teacher was stating that the girl was very good at maths, compared to other girls her age.

In fact, that can be the only thing that "she is very good at maths for a girl" could mean. I'm not inventing anything.

In your hypothetical, does the English person work as a teacher and have they taught enough irish people to come to a reasonable conclusion that I was above the average?

Because im sure your friend's child's teacher does.

Are you totally dismissing even the possibility that the teacher Was demonstrating an implicit bias about girl's maths ability? Like I said, you seem to know more about the details than I do. Fairly clumsy way to phrase it if that's all that's what they meant to say.

To give context to the hypothetical. You work in the UK, your manager tells you you're good at maths for an Irish man (insert attribute to suit your profession if you like) Presumably they have worked with Irish people before.

Bob24

kikilarue2 wrote: »

I take it you've conceded the substantive points I've been making though, since you don't seem to have any response to those?

Nice try ;-) We’ll let other posters go through the thread if they wish to and make their own opinion on which one of us did indeed address the points the other one raised.

kikilarue2

Bob24 wrote: »

Nice try ;-) We’ll let other posters go through the thread if they wish to and make their own opinion on which one of us did indeed address the points the other one raised.

You mean your point about an imaginary campaign by an imaginary group of people that you think is toxic? If it helps, you could just stop making this stuff up in your head and then there's no reason to be upset

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

Are you totally dismissing even the possibility that the teacher Was demonstrating an implicit bias about girl's maths ability? Like I said, you seem to know more about the details than I do. Fairly clumsy way to phrase it if that's all that's what they meant to say.

To give context to the hypothetical. You work in the UK, your manager tells you you're good at maths for an Irish man (insert attribute to suit your profession if you like) Presumably they have worked with Irish people before.

It may have been clumsy. It may not. It all depends on how you want to take it. I don't see that it was a bad thing to say. If you choose to read into it as sexism, that's on you.

Onto your absurd hypothetical, I would imagine that any situation that wasn't an assessment of my mathematical ability (which the parent-teacher meeting was) wouldn't warrant such a comment. If it was said however, I would assume that he must have worked with Irish people with exceptionally poor maths (as I am in no way above merely competent in that subject) and ask him if that was the case.

I wouldn't immediately jump to "racist/sexist/xenophobe/anti-Irish" mode.

Bob24

kikilarue2 wrote: »

You mean your point about an imaginary campaign by an imaginary group of people that you think is toxic? If it helps, you could just stop making this stuff up in your head and then there's no reason to be upset

You might have not noticed, but I tried to be civil and not to pick up personal attacks in the past few posts (which your posts include on quite a few occasions including this previous one). Hence why I said posters can go through the thread and make up their own mind about who is making things up.

Saying post after post that your point of view is fact based and that you are just casually discussing while people making a different case are not thinking rationally because they are supposedly offended doesn’t make it true - and certainly doesn’t allow for a proper discussion. Specific exemple of why discussion is not possible: you keep saying I didn’t address your question about who was offended although I did (including at the end of this post as well as going through the specific activist language used to justify the change in a previous post); while on your side you still haven’t explained why you believe according to me all language changes are motivated by offence (which according to you is my mistake here).

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

It may have been clumsy. It may not. It all depends on how you want to take it. I don't see that it was a bad thing to say. If you choose to read into it as sexism, that's on you.

Onto your absurd hypothetical, I would imagine that any situation that wasn't an assessment of my mathematical ability (which the parent-teacher meeting was) wouldn't warrant such a comment. If it was said however, I would assume that he must have worked with Irish people with exceptionally poor maths (as I am in no way above merely competent in that subject) and ask him if that was the case.

I wouldn't immediately jump to "racist/sexist/xenophobe/anti-Irish" mode.

LOL. You'd need more information in the hypothetical. But you an only see one way It could possibly be interpreted in the instance of my colleague's daughter.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

LOL. You'd need more information in the hypothetical. But you an only see one way It could possibly be interpreted in the instance of my colleague's daughter.

Of course I need more information on the hypothetical as it isn’t a real incident. The fact that I need more information should tell you how ridiculous a comparison it was. I haven’t made up anything. I am going by the only information I have, which was supplied by you.

A teacher, employed to teach and grade children, spoke to the child’s parents at a parent/teacher meeting (which by it’s very definition is where the progress of a child is to be relayed to their parents).

This teacher (who again, is qualified to give their professional opinion) relays the information to the parents, (who are there for the express reason to know how their child is progressing) that the child is very good at maths when compared to other girls her age.

If you chose do, I suppose you could call it sexist and that the teacher should ignore the differences between the two genders, but I for one am glad they don’t.

Sir Oxman

I think the 'pregnant employee' bit is being massively overlooked here.
Nevermind the petty manhole/fireman/fireoman shtick.

Also, it is without a doubt driven by a tiny, influentially placed idealogical stance which has turned into a cult.

Bob24

Sir Oxman wrote: »

I think the 'pregnant employee' bit is being massively overlooked here.
Nevermind the petty manhole/fireman/fireoman shtick.

Agree, that one is a lot more ideological.

And anyone who thinks those are just technical changes with no ideology behind it should just listen to the person who initiated the change in the city council: "There is power in language". That is one point of agreement I have with that person, and while I don’t agree with the change I respect the fact of being upfront about their intentions and not trying to disguise it as an insignificant admin change.

hatrickpatrick

Sir Oxman wrote: »

I think the 'pregnant employee' bit is being massively overlooked here.
Nevermind the petty manhole/fireman/fireoman shtick.

Also, it is without a doubt driven by a tiny, influentially placed idealogical stance which has turned into a cult.

If you publicly deny the idea that sex and gender are separate entities, your life will be destroyed. They will dox you, they will put pressure on your workplace to fire you, they will put pressure on every platform imaginable to censor you, etc. And this is over a subject on which the mainstream radically changed its opinions only five or six years ago, yet people are expected to eschew decades of convention about what gender actually means, without question, or face the wrath of the mob.

I don't deny that gender dysphoria is a real thing and that some people do need to have surgery to transition. But the idea that it's an even more abstract and fickle concept such that people can switch from one gender to another and back again over a period of time ("genderfluid") or not 'identify' as either a man or a woman ("genderqueer") is in my opinion, putting a biological label on a societal issue. What they mean is that they don't want to act like a stereotypical man or woman, but the solution to that is to get rid of the stereotypes, not to literally get rid of the very basic concept that gender simply describes the difference between an individual with two X chromosomes and an individual with one Y chromosome.

It's part of this wider movement that everyone has to 'identify' with a "herd" or "pack" in demographic terms - and that there is a whole pile of baggage one automatically inherits by doing so.

I said a long time ago that as the list of letters in the LGBT acronym gets longer and longer over time, what I believe is actually happening is that a very large contingent of narcissists are getting involved and saying "look at me, I'm different to everyone else - I should get a label so I can be part of identity politics, too!"

In my opinion, we already have those labels - they're called names. That's literally why different people have different names. But names don't entitle one to a political movement to lobby on one's behalf or pay special attention to someone, so in the minds of narcissists, they're not sufficient to demarcate individuality.

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

Of course I need more information on the hypothetical as it isn’t a real incident. The fact that I need more information should tell you how ridiculous a comparison it was. I haven’t made up anything. I am going by the only information I have, which was supplied by you.

A teacher, employed to teach and grade children, spoke to the child’s parents at a parent/teacher meeting (which by it’s very definition is where the progress of a child is to be relayed to their parents).

This teacher (who again, is qualified to give their professional opinion) relays the information to the parents, (who are there for the express reason to know how their child is progressing) that the child is very good at maths when compared to other girls her age.

If you chose do, I suppose you could call it sexist and that the teacher should ignore the differences between the two genders, but I for one am glad they don’t.

Isn't it at all interesting to you that you can assume all the things you need in the first case, but you can't do the same with the hypothetical about your boss? Presumably your boss is in a position to assess your work. But you need all kinds of other info to avoid the question. It's a simple analogy. Teacher - student. Boss - employee. You assumed all the info in the first case. You assumed where the girl ranked in relation to other girls in the class.

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote:

Isn't it at all interesting to you that you can assume all the things you need in the first case, but you can't do the same with the hypothetical about your boss? Presumably your boss is in a position to assess your work. But you need all kinds of other info to avoid the question. It's a simple analogy. Teacher - student. Boss - employee. You assumed all the info in the first case. You assumed where the girl ranked in relation to other girls in the class.

Isn't it at all interesting that the first place you jumped to was implicit bias and sexism?

I've assumed it? The teacher explicitly said that she was very good for a girl. That means that she is surpassing the teachers expectations for female students. Christ almighty.

And it is teacher - parent. Not teacher student.

Your analogy doesn't work.

Enough of taking this off topic.

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

Isn't it at all interesting that the first place you jumped to was implicit bias and sexism?

I've assumed it? The teacher explicitly said that she was very good for a girl. That means that she is surpassing the teachers expectations for female students. Christ almighty.

And it is teacher - parent. Not teacher student.

Your analogy doesn't work.

Enough of taking this off topic.

I doubt the teacher tells parents their child is good at maths... for a boy.

The analogy is self explanatory enough. The choice to ensure not to answer it is interesting.

stampydmonkey

GreeBo wrote: »

hu-person, sheesh theysh!

You win

El_Duderino 09

El_Duderino 09 wrote:

I doubt the teacher tells parents their child is good at maths... for a boy.

Probably not. But using your logic, you don't know that. So why are you so sure that he doesn't? Why are you ruling it out. You know nothing about this etc etc.

I did answer your flawed analogy. Read up.

El_Duderino 09

Deleted User wrote: »

Probably not. But using your logic, you don't know that. So why are you so sure that he doesn't? Why are you ruling it out. You know nothing about this etc etc.

I did answer your flawed analogy. Read up.

that's why I said "I'd I doubt..." Not that I'm "so sure". Since you agree with me in doubting the teacher relkd parents their child is good at maths for a boy, why do you agree with that? What's the difference?

You're not going UK answer the question so forget it. Not engaging speaks for itself

Plopsu

They should rename 'manholes' to 'access holes'. Then they can just shorten it to 'a-holes'. :pac:

Ethereal Cereal

Sir Oxman wrote: »

I think the 'pregnant employee' bit is being massively overlooked here.
Nevermind the petty manhole/fireman/fireoman shtick.

Also, it is without a doubt driven by a tiny, influentially placed idealogical stance which has turned into a cult.

Yes, I agree a change of terminology from "Pregnant Woman" to "Pregnant Employee" would be a great change to introduce.
Pregnant Woman implies a woman fell pregnant as part of their gender normative "woman" lifestyle
Pregnant Employee implies someone who made a decision to parent a child during their career. Its a much more powerful term.

blinding

And yet you very rarely get a woman down a man hole ; Ooh er Missus:cool:

2019newspeak

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

So language does Change for whatever reason. I suppose it was a terrible injury when the dreaded 'N' word was phased out of normal usage due to PC gone mad. Or calling Irish people "Paddy" or "Mick" was phases out by the PC brigade.

Language changes, usage of words change. The fact that you or I like the set of words we currently use and don't want anything to.cha ge, is beside the point. Things will change regardless. It's really not worth getting upset about.

As I said Language changes naturally it rarely changes because someone is upset the use of word "Manhole".

Calling Irish people "Paddy" or "Mick" was always degortary, to even compare "Manhole" to the N word is just over the top.

I use the word manhole so little to even think about an alternative word is just crazy.

It is really not worth getting so upset about the word "Manhole" that you'd have employ someone to come up with alternatives.

My OP was agreeing that Lanuage changes.

2019newspeak

Ethereal Cereal wrote: »

Pregnant Employee implies someone who made a decision to parent a child during their career. Its a much more powerful term.

And if someone becomes pregant when not employed? or out of work.

lbc2019

2019newspeak wrote: »

And if someone becomes pregant when not employed? or out of work.

On boards? They are called a leech or out for a free gaff and a drain on the system

blinding

lbc2019 wrote: »

On boards? They are called a leech or out for a free gaff and a drain on the system

There is a kind of entrepreneurial side to it that doesn’t get much recognition !

El_Duderino 09

2019newspeak wrote: »

As I said Language changes naturally it rarely changes because someone is upset the use of word "Manhole".

Calling Irish people "Paddy" or "Mick" was always degortary, to even compare "Manhole" to the N word is just over the top.

I use the word manhole so little to even think about an alternative word is just crazy.

It is really not worth getting so upset about the word "Manhole" that you'd have employ someone to come up with alternatives.

My OP was agreeing that Lanuage changes.

The cause of a word changing isnt that important.

Paddy and Mick weren't always derogatory. They were just how people referred to Irish people. Intention to offend was separate. Irish people almost always saw it as offensive. Likewise the word "negro" for black person wasn't always offensive. It was just the word for black person. It became offensive to black people and it became unacceptable. It's actually the exact same as above. Whether the word is intended as an insult or not isn't t actually the only point. The point is also how it's perceived. See "mentally retarded", see "spastic" see "coloured" see "queer". All terms that have changed or changed meaning and not for the same reason.

You might use manhole infrequently but a city council will use the term every day. Specifically the sewers and drainage parts of the council business. So it makes perfect sense for them to use an accurate, agreed term.

It's Important to remember that the article wasn't asking normal people to use the agreed terms, it was for city business. So nobody has suggested you change anything.