Why? His attitude seems perfectly in line with the rest of dA's staff, so I guess he left of his own free will? (GODS THAT THERE IS STAFF LIKE THIS ANYWHERE WTF.)
And I was last active on dA in August of '05, and until then had never had any run ins with the staff--only what I'd heard about their completely homophobic and mysogynistic definitions of what is and isn't pornography.
Somewhere in all that dreck, the asshole says something about there being a multitude of possible reasons, the site's automatic pronoun usage being only one of them. He doesn't, from what I saw, go on to explain any others.
However, there has been a great deal of speculation about the use of stereotypical, sexist advertising (because all women are interested in shoes and weight loss, and all men are interested in cars and sports, and never the two shall meet) as a possible reason.
Am I suddenly the devil if I say I kind of agree with him? Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of complaints about biases on DA, and true, I am comfortable with my own gender status, but... outrage over a small thing on a website? It's like being a super super mega-fan of something, so much so that you find a way to bring it up in every conversation, or your interests involve nothing but this thing, and all that narrow focus just makes you less of a person. I believe I'm in the camp of those who think gender identity (etc) should not be the most important thing about you. And a website change of this relative unimportance on a site that shouldn't be about focusing on anyone's gender suddenly prompting a platform debate like this? It just seems a little excessive.
You can hate me now. I'm not trying to spark a huge debate like that one or anything, and I have do respect that this is a sensitive issue for many. I just can't see how DA is the place to freak out over it. Again, I mean no disrespect.
I don't hate you, and a couple of years ago, I might've agreed with you. And... to be honest, I'm not sure I'm the right person to explain it, considering I'm also comfortable in my gender identity, which happens to match my biological sex.
But... well, the change is relatively unimportant to you because it doesn't directly affect you. It does directly affect a surprising number of people, and to those people it isn't unimportant at all.
The way I see it, the day it isn't appropriate to fight for this (or any) kind of equality is the day there's no need to fight for it. Getting a website on the Internet to change something to be more inclusive may seem small to you, but it's a small part of something much bigger, just like the very fact the website felt comfortable at all being less inclusive is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
Also, the awful part about that person's words isn't only what he's saying, but how. He's being an asshole about the whole thing, really, and he doesn't have to be.
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And I was last active on dA in August of '05, and until then had never had any run ins with the staff--only what I'd heard about their completely homophobic and mysogynistic definitions of what is and isn't pornography.
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However, there has been a great deal of speculation about the use of stereotypical, sexist advertising (because all women are interested in shoes and weight loss, and all men are interested in cars and sports, and never the two shall meet) as a possible reason.
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You can hate me now. I'm not trying to spark a huge debate like that one or anything, and I have do respect that this is a sensitive issue for many. I just can't see how DA is the place to freak out over it. Again, I mean no disrespect.
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But... well, the change is relatively unimportant to you because it doesn't directly affect you. It does directly affect a surprising number of people, and to those people it isn't unimportant at all.
The way I see it, the day it isn't appropriate to fight for this (or any) kind of equality is the day there's no need to fight for it. Getting a website on the Internet to change something to be more inclusive may seem small to you, but it's a small part of something much bigger, just like the very fact the website felt comfortable at all being less inclusive is a symptom of a much bigger problem.
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