Gender Benders, ageism, grocery shopping, and a technical communi cation conundrum

Subject: Gender Benders, ageism, grocery shopping, and a technical communi cation conundrum
From: Jason Willebeek-LeMair <jlemair -at- ITEXCHSRV2 -dot- PHX -dot- MCD -dot- MOT -dot- COM>
Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 11:55:01 -0700

As I left the store (Safeway, if you must know) the other day, the clerk
beamed at me and, after bagging my groceries and handing them to me
politely, said with obvious sincerity "Have a great day, sir."

I was highly offended and immediately took my concerns to the manager.

First of all, I was enjoying a rather bitter mood. My mother-in-law came to
visit for a few weeks 6 months ago and never left. I had spent the day in
delightful grumblings about how my life sucked. Suddenly, this person comes
along and wishes a good day upon me, lifting the black mood I had been
thoroughly enjoying, a mood, I might add, that is my right, under all the
laws of the land, to have.

Secondly, this clerk called me "sir," which we all know is a term of respect
for older, male members of society. At the tender young age of 30, I was
rather offended to be addressed by this ageist appellation. My father and
grandfathers are sir, I, however, am dude.

Luckily, the manager understood my plight and dismissed the miscreant on the
spot.

Morals: 1) Someone, somewhere will always be offended. 2) Know Your
Audience, and Communicate to Them (it?)

But, I have an actual technical communication question. How far do we go?
For example, say you do a thorough audience analysis (and we all do before
we begin, right?), and you discover that your captive, internal audience of
20 men and women have no problem reading "he" as a neutral pronoun (how you
discovered that, I do not know), and are in fact used to it. Or perhaps you
find out that they don't give a rat's ass so long as the instructions are
correct. Do you write at that level? Or, do you take it upon yourself to
take the higher ground and still strive for gender neutrality? Would
deadline pressure change this?

What do you do if you are writing to all males (Instructions for Just For
Men moustache dye)? What if someday a female might be added to the staff
(or decides to use Just For Men)?

Questions, questions. I have no answers. For now, I will let my audience
decide. And attempt to offend the least amount of people as possible.

Now, where is that letter from the person in Iowa who was offended because
they thought that the line drawing of the P2 adapter board in my manual
looked like a phallic symbol...

Jason


From ??? -at- ??? Sun Jan 00 00:00:00 0000=



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