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Subject:Re: Gender Bias In Re Apostrophes Within Pr From:"Dave L. Meek's User Account" <dave -at- ROGUE -dot- DISCORP -dot- COM> Date:Mon, 18 Dec 1995 10:13:55 -0800
In reply to Kendall Scott, Beryl Doane writes:
Technical communicators are nothing without an audience. Ignoring that 50%
of your audience is female is ignoring 50% of your audience.
How do you know that 50% of your audience is female? If you are
targetting your material to your specific audience, I doubt very
much that you'll have such an equal division of male and female
readers. Reason dictates that one sex or the other will
predominate in your audience, especially in technical writing.
This is not to say you should ignore whatever minority exists
within your audience, but it does give rise to the question of
how much do you wish to do to placate that minority, whatever its
size and composition.
Is there any audience that is 50% men and 50% women? Aside from
the average newspaper, I can't think of any publication that has
such a readership.
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| "I'll drive off that bridge when I come to it!" EK |
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Dave Meek
