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Subject:Re: Hypothetical Un-PC Questions.... From:Matt Ion <mion -at- DIRECT -dot- CA> Date:Thu, 8 Jun 1995 15:00:48 EDT
On Wed, 7 Jun 1995 15:48:00 PDT you wrote:
>In a "Programmer's Guide" that is to be used by future maintenance
>programmers documenting the database. The database field name is
>"indian_tribe" and the field description is "Indian tribe blah-de-dah".
>Should the writer tell the database guy that the database field name needs
>to be changed because it isn't "Native American"?
How about "Indiginous Peoples" or "First Nations Subdivision"? Personally,
this is one area I think has gotten out of control. My wife, her parents, and
half her grandparents were born in the USofA. How many generations does one
have to go back before being "native"? My mother's family can be traced back
to the McCoys (of "the Hatfields and the McCoys" fame). But, sorry ma, yer
not really American, yer still an immigrant.
I suppose, given the mistaken origins of the term "Indian" (for anyone who
doesn't remember, the original explorers of N.A. called the native people
Indians because they thought they had finally circled the globe and actually
reached India), something better could be found. Whether "tribe" is a proper
term though, I don't know. I don't suppose most of them live in "tribe"
situations anymore though.
>On a "button" in an application used by Field Engineers: "Men/Equipment".
>Should the writer advise the team that the button name should be changed so
>as not to discriminate against women?
I think the very concept that it "discriminates against women" is pure BS.
I'm sure it was foremost in the writer's mind: "I'll put MEN in there because
I don't think women could do that job even if the silly bitches wanted to."
However, other words can be used with equal effectiveness. I'm not taking
about the wholly (in my mind) degrading, homogonizing term "persons", but
perhaps "workers", or "laborers"?
Actually, "workers" would probably be better anyway. "Men" could just be a
buncha guys standing around. "Workers" would (or should) actually be DOING
something.
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