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swcarpentry
Amending Gendered Language in Episode 8
In Episode 8: Collaborating, there are many gendered pronouns that should be changed to better fit with the model of inclusivity that the Carpentries has built.
To accept access to the Owner’s repo, the Collaborator needs to go to https://github.com/notifications. Once there she can accept access to the Owner’s repo.
- The second sentence is a bit vague so could be rewritten as "Once there, the Collaborator can accept access to the Owner's repo." Though the thought is a bit redundant so it would read better if the second sentence was dropped all together.
Next, the Collaborator needs to download a copy of the Owner’s repository to her machine. This is called “cloning a repo”.
To clone the Owner’s repo into her Desktop folder, the Collaborator enters:
The Collaborator can now make a change in her clone of the Owner’s repository, exactly the same way as we’ve been doing before:
- In all three instances her should be changed to their as to not introduce any potentially demotivating language particularly to gender non-conforming learners.
@OMahoneyM I like this suggestion. I'd like to emphasize (for future reference) that since Dracula is gendered male, we need to be careful that we do not eliminate all female references, but add non-binary ones so everyone is represented in the lesson.
@jrfep those changes look good to me. Would you like to open a pull request so that they can be accepted (or receive more comments from others)?
Rather than tying ourselves up in knots about which specific genders we represent, why don't we use singular 'they', 'their' and 'them'? That way we represent everyone by default. For example,
"The Collaborator doesn’t want to overwrite her own version of ..."
Becomes
"The Collaborator doesn't want to overwrite their own version of..."
And so on. This is a natural expression of the English language where gender is unknown, and so removes any need for pointedly re-balancing genders.
Also, using names such as 'vlad' for user names, well, why not simply replace it with "my_username" (or similar)? This kind of thing has been done in technical documentation in IT circles for decades, and would suit the rightly gender-neutral approach in The Carpentries.
