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Comment by flubert | Hacker News Reader

So could it have been out of concern of using the wrong choice of Mrs., Ms., or Mz.? Maybe the smart thing to do is to call everyone Dr.

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Or by their job title, in this context. "I have a question for the CFO" would work quite well. It's equally selective (there's only one CFO). Replacing the investor's two questions (one to "The Lady CFO" and one to "Mr. Drummond") with "The CFO" and "The Chief Legal Officer" results in a far less weird phrasing.

Imagine if someone said "I have a question for the black Chief Legal Officer" or "I have a question for the overweight professor" (ok, the latter hits too close to home -- darn free food at google). A superfluous specifier emphasizes the thing that's being specified.

Not really... traditionally, lady is the feminine equivalent of lord, both of which are technically granted titles. That said, no CFO would likely complain if you called them 'the Lord CFO'... it does have a nice ring to it.

'Ms.' would have been a valid choice, which the person correcting him used to little controversy. I think the problem was not using a gender specific pronoun and rather the way it was used. For example, directing somebody to a stranger and refering to them as 'the lady over there', is totally different than saying 'the lady CFO' as if it qualifies her title. Addressing her as 'Ms. CFO' would be appropriate, as is 'Mr./M(r)s. President' for example.

I fail to see how "Ms. CFO" and "the Lady CFO" are different, personally. What striked me as an issue is they didn't care to know or ask for her name - but knew Mr. Drummond's name. Everyone else seems to be ignoring that.

"Ms. CFO" is using CFO as a replacement for her name; it's awkward and non-standard in the case of CFO, because of the acronym, but it has precedent in other contexts ("Mr. President", "Mrs. Chairwoman"). This would typically be a first-person form of address. ("Mrs. President, could you explain...")

"The CFO" is using her title, as would be used as the object of a sentence ("I have a question for the CFO").

You wouldn't say "I have a question for Mr. President" - you'd say "I have a question for the President."

"Lady CFO" would be an archaic, first-person form of address. "Lady CFO, prithee explain to me what Alphabet did to mitigate the effects of foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations."

"The Lady CFO" is expanding the proper title by adding an extra term that's not necessary or typical. You can't combine the "the" and "lady" into a title without it making the title itself be weirdly gendered.

(I don't have anything intelligent to say about the second part of your comment - I'm curious to know how others view it.)

I don't see it as offensive, but it is an awkward and heavyhanded use of language which is why it drew attention. 'The Gentleman CFO' would sound weird as well.

It was an opportunity for a Google feminist PR cycle, that started with the followup comment from another investor who congratulated Google on diversity, the statements from the people on the dais, and the ladyday promotion.

The trigger event is just the stone in the stone soup, the macguffin, the tiny impurity that the crystal nucleates on. The specifics of the event have no relevance.

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