User talk:Cowperson Jamie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Can you please be so kind as to respect the consensus of the horse article editors to move toward non-gendered language (he or she, or use of plural forms, etc.) , and not the generic "he." There is one editor who wrote many articles, using "she" on purpose, apparently taking the position that about 90% of people doing things with horses these days are women anyway. Given the grammatical issues that has raised, since that time we have been slowly working to make the language non-gendered. Please make your edits in a gender-neutral tone from here forward. Montanabw(talk) 18:54, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your note. I take it that the 90% figure you referred to is meant to be taken as a rhetorical flourish. The vast majority of riders worldwide are male (see the FEI General Assembly 2005 "Room to Grow" report on increasing the sport's reach). It is only in the USA, Eastern Canada, and parts of Western Europe that women are in the majority.
In any event, it is grammatically incorrect to use the female pronoun for the generic case, as was happening in every instance that I have corrected. The person or people using this pronoun was/were sacrificing grammatical correctness to make some sort of social or political point. Not only is this a violation of the Wikipedia community's foundational NPOV, it also flies in the face of the actual participation figures.
I have effected my own changes to undo the ungrammatical exclusive use of "she" to improve what was there previously, but I do agree that using the gender-neutral "he or she" would be the best option. I hope that this discussion will help encourage this.
Cowperson Jamie 19:12, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
I used a rhetorical flourish, but you have no statistics, either...at least no link to find the basis of your FEI claim (and trust me, plenty of women in Western Canada ride...where did THAT one come from??) The point is, there is a consensus amongst the horse article editors to move to non-gendered language, and simply replacing "he" with "she," while grammatically still acceptable in some circles, is anachronisic. So if you must edit, then please edit to a non-gendered language ideal in line with the consensus of the editors who have been doing most of the real work on these articles. I fixed a couple, I do what I can when I have time, but to just put in "he" is offensive to the millions of women who support the horse industry. See also Gender-neutral language in English. This is more than a "good idea." It is professional use. But frankly, just fixing the second person "you" where it occurs to the third person anything is another job that needs to be done. Montanabw(talk) 19:25, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
If you are interested in the statistics of the FEI report, you are welcome to write to them and request a copy. More importantly, if using "he" is offensive to the unspecified millions of women who ride, imagine how much more offensive the exclusive use of "she" must be to the far greater numbers of men who ride. I note that in several equestrian articles, you appear to have either used or edited while leaving intact the exclusive "she"; your arguments about gender-neutral language would be more convincing if you practised what you preach.Cowperson Jamie 21:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

If you cannot properly cite the report, then I assume it doesn't exist. I fixed a few articles for non-gender language, and simply reverted the articles I did not have the time to fix. They'll get fixed eventually. Now chill out. Montanabw(talk) 22:19, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I wrote many of these articles using "she" because, as Montanabw stated, the majority of riders in the Western world are women. I also don't think the FEI statistics are necessarily accurate: the ratio of men to women evens out as you move up the levels, but the lower levels (all those riders who dont compete internationally) have a much higher proportion of women. And since this the English Wikipedia, I imagine that the majority of "horse people" reading it would be women. So feel free to make it gender neutral, but I see no reason to change everything to "he." And if you're looking to fix grammatical errors, I promise my articles have much bigger problems :) Eventer 03:57, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


Thanks for the note (and incidentally, I have enjoyed many of your articles).
Another editor's clear inaccuracies notwithstanding, you may have a point about the FEI "Room to Grow" report. I was at the General Assembly where it was tabled, and to put it charitably, many countries had interests in overstating or understating their levels of amateur and professional participation (that was the year of the "development" debate over creating a focus on extending the sport to new areas). Nevertheless, I think it clearly demonstrates that while in countries like the United Kingdom and the United States it is easy to believe that the majority of riders must be women, on a global scale, this is at the very least an open question, if not conclusively inaccurate.
Moreover, irrespective of the proportion of female riders in the UK and US, I am not certain that I agree with your conclusion that the majority of readers of horse articles in the English Wikipedia must be women: both India and Pakistan (with more than a billion people between them) have English as an official language, and the two countries' equestrian federations (whose statistics have always been sound) report far more male riders than female, at every level. In any event, (with apologies to all my French-speaking friends) English has become the lingua franca of the internet.
The key issue for me, however, is neither a question of grammar (though grammar is important to me), nor a question of the ratio of male to female riders (though accuracy rather than the concocted "90%" statistic is also important to me). As a mother of a sports-mad family, I am well acquainted with the effects on both sports and the children who play them of pigeonholing some sports as being "for boys" and other as being "for girls". It always surprises me, however, that my daughter who plays football (American soccer) has much, much less difficulty than my sons who ride, whether for something as simple as finding kit or as something as serious as being allowed to participate at certain events or clubs.
It strikes me that too many people who mouth the words of "gender neutral" language and "gender equity" are not really interested in equity, but instead are using a noble idea to mask the selfish and hypocritical pursuit of their own personal interests. I was curious to see what would happen if I changed the exclusive use of "she" to the exclusive use of "he" in the horse-oriented articles; "he" is no more gender-specific than "she", but it is grammatical and therefore a marginal improvement. The reaction from at least one person was, sadly, what I had expected. In many (though not all) cases, this person expressed outrage phrased in terms of "gender neutral" language, but then went on to revert to the exclusive "she" instead of the inclusive "he or she". I think this clearly gives the lie to any claim that people like this care about gender equity, instead of being just a different flavour of sexist.
I have not changed and would not change any of the "he or she" phrases, but I have changed the exclusive use of "she" and will continue to do so. You are correct when you write that there are more important grammatical issues in Wikipedia. However, as a mother of both girls and boys, I hope that you will understand why I have made this one issue my own.
Cowperson Jamie 13:59, 13 September 2007 (UTC)


Thank you for explaining your obvious bias to the rest of us. We now know that you also have a POV and clearly have no objectivity on the issue. You seem to be attributing motive to others and I for one do not appreciate your misrepresentation of what I said. I happen to write professionally much of the time in real life and prop use of non-gendered language is something I use daily. I protected Eventer's choice of "she" as she is the creator of these article, pending work to improve the articles overally to add non-gendered language and other style tweaks. I was quite fascinated to note that in your obsession to make things male-gendered, you used search and replace to insert "his" in some locations where "him" was more correct. It appears that, in spite of your protestations to the contrary, your own ideological obsession overrides your grammatical common sense. I also find it amusing that my original "rhetorical florish" is now a "concocted statistic." The 90% comment was actually neither, it was a deliberate exaggeration for the purpose of humor. However, it is obvious that you have none, so let me only remind you to not violate wikipedia's three revert rule, and if you disrupt the articles in the name of "grammar," then simply insert equally bad grammar, that could become WP:Disrupt and subject you to warnings. At least, remember: wikipedia is not a soapbox. Montanabw(talk) 21:47, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, Montanabw, now I know why your writing is so much more eloquent than my own. And now I don't feel so bad (haha!) :) My oldest brother is the natural writer in our family. He's the one I send all my writing to for editing, much to his dismay.

Well, honestly I can't say this issue really upsets me. It annoys me, yes, but if you change "she" to "he" I'm certainly not going to go back and revert it all. Given a choice, I'd like the articles to be gender neutral, but oftentimes it results in a very awkward read (overuse of the word “rider,” for example). I'll admit that I am also sick of riding being considered a "girl's sport" over here in the US (and, therefore, easy or non-athletic), especially all "English riding" disciplines, but I'm not going to get off onto that topic because it will result in a very, very long vent. However, I don't think using "he" on Wikipedia is going to change anyone's view on whether or not riding is a "man's sport" or "woman's sport." And, at risk of sounding incredibly childish, I think the grammatical rule requiring either “he” or gender neutral is stupid. I’m far from a bra-burning feminist, but hey, it’s the 21st century. On the other hand, Wikipedia is free to edit, and if this is the “correct” way to do things then who am I to say no?

One of my English teachers back in high school said that it is correct to use both he and she, as long as the use is relatively equal (funny, that’s one of the few things I remember from that class). Perhaps we could try that.

On the other hand, I do strongly oppose any effort to us the “animals must be referred to as “it” rule.” And I will revert those back.

Montanabw, you aren’t a villain ;) Eventer 01:38, 14 September 2007 (UTC)