TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Subject:Re: Response to Documentation Girls Flaming From:Nora Merhar <nmerhar -at- CHARLESINDUSTRIES -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 11 Aug 1998 12:25:55 -0500
Seems to me that this is an issue of audience awareness. Your document
control group's official title is not "Documentation Girls" is it?
Then why not use their proper title?
If you have spent any time on this list at all, you have every reason
to *know* that "Documentation Girls" would be offensive to a majority
of the people on this list. If the users of your documentation found
such language offensive, you wouldn't tell them "Hey--deal with it"
now, would you? As it is, your use of this term has distracted us so
that you are not getting the kind of answers to your questions that
you might have hoped.
I say this as someone who has occasionally been referred to as a
"girl" by my boss, who is male and 60-something. I don't have a
problem with it because of his age, but if one of the engineers
referred to me as a girl, I would correct him or her promptly and (I
hope) courteously. It helps that I am part of engineering and have the
same title structure as the engineers (so I am Senior Member Technical
Team--Technical Writer, just as they could be Senior Member Technical
Team--Mechanical Engineer or whatever).
Nora Merhar
nmerhar -at- charlesindustries -dot- com
