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Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

This woman

Could you clarify the meaning of your comment?

I found the use of "this woman" as the opening of the paragraph to be a tad offensive. To me, it felt like another form of the phrase "these people"

You should have clarified your intent in your comment (I did expect you to say this).

I understand your feeling, but you should let it go. You are imputing your own interpretation of their intent, without any data to support it. Just take the statement at face value.

The only correct grouping to use which avoids offending anyone is "This fucker, That fucker, These fuckers, You fuckers):

  This fucker was fired from Meta for posting a social media video about Meta’s "baby benefits". Now the fucker posts another video saying they were useless to the org for 2 years and liked that job. Do they fucking enjoy sabotaging their career for likes?

Now it is gender neutral, uses no identifying groups, and is acceptable grammar to a large majority of the population.

You are misinterpreting my comment. It does not matter that she is a woman. Examine what offends you. You can learn a lot about yourself and maybe grow. Being offended by what some random man on the internet writes must be tiresome for you. Try assuming good intent.

I mean this in a friendly, productive manner: I also once didn't see the issue with the sentence as you stated it. Regardless of intent, the common reading of your sentence is that her being a woman has a specific significance, and especially because "woman" is a very slight dog whistle when compared to "lady" or "gal". Imagine saying "This black person..." as an extreme and hyperbolic comparison. It's clearly drawing attention to skin color. While your sentence is nowhere nearly that intense, there's clearly a spectrum and gray area.

You could have easily said "this person" or "this recruiter" or "the subject of this article"

This is what I meant. Just felt so routinely disrespectful and condescending.

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