Personal pronouns, gender, equality, etc.

Johnstaf If a woman wants to be a miner she should have that choice.

Of course. But there is difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome.

If a woman is strong enough, so that she can dig coal as much as an average male, then she can become a miner, why not? That's equal opportunity and I am OK if there are regulations that can prevent employers from disallowing women to apply for a job.

However if a woman is tiny and small, she shouldn't expect to be hired at a mine when there are hundreds of strong man looking to get the job, right? Women shouldn't expect that there are 50/50 quotas in the mines, or in other words an equal outcome.

And to put things into perspective, this is not just some dry theory. In our company and many other IT companies nowadays, especially American ones, there's this initiative to bring more women in the IT and for instance they would pay a higher hiring bonus for women or require that you have interviewed an equal number of man and women. This is where it approaches socialism. I don't know other countries but I've been interviewing applicants for the last 15 years for different companies and I've never seen even the slightest hint at discrimination against women applicants. We have open positions, we accept all CV-s and we invite all people. It's just that we get much more male applicants. Many explanations can be given to that but ultimately I believe more men are interested in studying and working in the IT than women. If you then enforce a recruitment process that interviews the same number of women as men, when you don't have that equality in the applications, you are enforcing equal outcome which is wrong.

I am late with this comment, but I am probably the only Spaniard here right now (that should change as forum grows)

Well, here the politicians (and only from one side of the politics spectrum, you can guess) are forcing people to talk using artificial gender-free words or adding always both genres. Or adding new ones.

Some example:

Todos (all, which used to cover both feminine and masculine)

Todas (which is only feminine)

Todes (linguistic aberration to include also LGTB+++)

So one of those people could begin a discourse addressing people as: "Buenos días a todos, todas y todes" (Good morning to…). And everything should be talked that unnatural way.

It is a so ridiculous and unnecessary way of destroying a wonderful language and making talking extremely slow and dense… but the majority voted them, so enjoy your choice!

CyberGene We have open positions, we accept all CV-s and we invite all people. It's just that we get much more male applicants. Many explanations can be given to that but ultimately I believe more men are interested in studying and working in the IT than women.

Same here. I'm working as a project manager in a software company, have over 20 years of experience in development and have had exactly three female software developers in all that time. There are about 45 people working in my current company. Two of them are chief executives, ten are working as supports and the rest are developers.

We don't have a single male employee in the hotline and one single female employee as a developer who is transsexual (male to female, so basically (and biological) male). We simply get no female applicants for software development and vice versa.

I'm sorry for posting a link to a German video on YouTube, but it is a ridiculous over-the-top example of using woke language. It's a German politician making a speech in the German parliament, or actually he really only gets to greet the other members of that house, but invokes every conceivable version of greeting to avoid leaving anyone out. He is most assuredly doing so for satirical purposes.

QuasiUnaFantasia

At this point, however, it must not be concealed which political party this politician belongs to. -> "AFD" The actual background for this "satirical" greeting is completely different.

You mean I should add that the politician is from the party that all the other parties have ganged up on? But at any rate, the speech itself is specifically an illustration of wokeness taken to a ridiculous extreme for satirical purposes. I dont know what the topic for the debate, in which this speech was given, actually was. But that does not seem relevant here either.

QuasiUnaFantasia You mean I should add that the politician is from the party that all the other parties have ganged up on?

No, it wasn't my intention that you should mention this. Incidentally, this party is definitely not the one that everyone else has joined.

I only wanted to clarify for those who are not familiar with the German political landscape by whom this "satire" was pronounced.

Wiki.org about AFD:

…Alternative for Germany (German: Alternative für Deutschland; AfD, German pronunciation: [aːʔɛfˈdeː] (listen)) is a German nationalist and right-wing populist political party,[9] ^known for its opposition to the European Union[28] ^{and immigration}.[29] ^It is on the radical right or far right of the political spectrum.[22]^

The concepts of "right wing", and "radical right" are not truly meaningful, since they do no connect to the historical concept of "right wing politics", nor do they say anything specific about political views. So how about just calling things by their most obvious names: The AfD is essentially defined by being anti-EU and anti-immigration, and since recently anti-government COVID policy. Wouldn't you agree that this captures fairly accurately what the AfD is?

And just another thing: why would it matter at all who created that satirical stunt? From my perspective the satire itself is the only thing of importance. Think about the music of Richard Wagner: by most historical accounts Wagner was, on the personal and social level, a really nasty piece of work. But his music is still wonderful, and loved the world over. Should people stop loving his music, because he was an unpleasant person?

QuasiUnaFantasia Wouldn't you agree that this captures fairly accurately what the AfD is?

Unfortunately I cannot agree with this definition of the AFD party.

Unfortunately, this definition does not fully describe the political goals of the party.

How do you rate the statements of a leading AFD politician (Gauland)? .... That national socialism is just a "bird shit" in 1000 years of German history. .... This belittling of one of the greatest crimes of mankind testifies to the ideas that this party pursues.

MBiG I don't approve of his vulgar language, but he has a point, considering national socialism existed as an important factor in Germany for only a tiny fraction of those 1000 years. (And let's not forget that during many of the rest of those 1000 years other forms of terror plagued Germany, so national socialism, as terrible as it was, does not stand as the single bad political event in an otherwise unblemished country).

Everybody keeps saying that the use of non-binary pronouns is an abuse of language.

Now while I also don't agree with the reasons for this particular change of language like most people here, the evolution of language and grammar has been ongoing forever, and that in itself is nothing out of the ordinary. So even if it sounds weird or unpleasant to us now, it will be normal use of language in some years. When it comes to language, usage is the final arbiter.

QuasiUnaFantasia

The (his) attempt (Mr. Gaulands) was clearly made here to play down the Nazi era in the context of German history. As a German who is well aware of his historical responsibility, I think differently about it.

MBiG well aware of his historical responsibility

How do babies become burdened with historical responsibility? You, along with most of the rest of the German population were born after the national socialist era, and none of you can by any stretch of the imagination be claimed to hold any responsibility for a past you could not affect, because you did not exist at the time. Are the grand children of murderers guilty by blood relation?

Monoch Now while I also don't agree with the reasons for this particular change of language like most people here, the evolution of language and grammar has been ongoing forever, and that in itself is nothing out of the ordinary. So even if it sounds weird or unpleasant to us now, it will be normal use of language in some years. When it comes to language, usage is the final arbiter.

I think it's all good when language evolution is not forced and happens naturally. Otherwise, we just happen to come a step closer to Orwell's 1984.

I lived in Soviet Union, where everything, including language, was censored and forced upon people. I can see similar trends creeping in into everyday lives of people living in modern western countries, unfortunately.

A lot of times it's being justified by "greater good" for society or some groups of it. And all you have to sacrifice is a bit of your own personal freedom.

QuasiUnaFantasia

Of course, we Germans as persons are not responsible for the crimes of the previous generations. Likewise, I would not hold anyone from any country responsible for crimes in that country's history.

But the German state, to which I also belong, is responsible for the fact that this part of the story is not played down.

I only say …. lessons learned.

Bad things don't have to happen again, neither in Germany nor anywhere else.

So let us remain critical and vigilant.

MBiG So let us remain critical and vigilant.

Absolutely, I couldn't agree more!

But let's keep everything in perspective, so as to not focus entirely on one historical bad deed, when others also exist.

Please don't go off-off-topic with that AfD crap. Keep the discussion back to off-topic to the previous nonsense! Consider yourself warned! Next time the Banhammer will crush skulls!

On PW we would have been banned into oblivion for this OT. 😆

I agree… One nonsense OT in each nonsense OT thread (wait a minute… Was this thread on topic or off topic to begin with???).

Now seriously: PianoClack is a "piano" forum, and is in serious need of piano-related discussions. I know this is the silly season of piano announcements (no new models will be announced until Christmas, NAMM may be cancelled or reduced, the seasoned PW members that packed and moved their tent here are not going to post something like "Help! suggestions for a digital piano with real action and Steinway tone under 200 dollars… Any ideas?"), but any post somehow related with piano (heck, even pivot length!!!) is needed in order to keep the momentum going. My 2 cents…

Drew-r homo

That's what the diverse, tolerant, peaceful, educated, non-judgmental liberal (I'm independent by the way) do, they label everyone; xenophobe, homophobe, racist, sexist, etc…

The very thing they are against!