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Comment by sarah180 | Hacker News Reader

Is there a particular reason why it's women in Congress who make you skeptical? Is there some context I'm missing here?

I just try to use the terms interchangeably in hypothetical scenarios so that there isn't a sense of normal association. Sometimes I use Congressman, sometimes Congresswoman. Sometimes I use Congressperson as well. I think if people are noticing then that's a clear sign to keep doing it, because you probably had a prior bias that the person doing something wrong would have been a man.

“Congressmember” in the generic and “Representative” and “Senator” for the specific houses are widely accepted (standard and formally preferred for the house-specific ones) and gender neutral.

Yes, thank you for that. I'm specifically not using gender-neutral terms in this instance, actually. The goal is to muddy the associations that exist and unfortunately gender-neutral terms are unable to do that. They definitely have a time and place for use, though, and I do use them when I think it makes sense to.

Interesting approach, but what it reads like is that you are intentionally gendering the term for some purpose. I was trying to figure out if you meant Senator Warren specifically, because she has been behind a lot of this discussion.

You might be confusing your audience more than you are accomplishing your other objective.

Hey thanks for the feedback. Yea you're right that I was intentionally gendering the term here. My goal was to have someone notice that I used Congresswoman in a negative context.

But I definitely appreciate your comment here and it's something I'll continue to evaluate. On one hand it's shouting into the void. On the other... well... it's probably still shouting into the void.

On the third hand, you’re deliberately using sexist language to … secretly fight sexism? I think a continued evaluation is indeed in order.

Hmmm. Could you specify what sexist language I’m using? That’s quite the accusation.

> I was intentionally gendering the term here. My goal was to have someone notice that I used Congresswoman in a negative context.

The proper generic term is obviously "Congresscritter".

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