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fatherland anyone?

@ezpickins, That's only for Deutschland, though, right?.

As for the thread topic, I think it's just tradition to use he for situations like this. Boats are women, game players are men. I'm sure chess magazines use he, too, when they're talking about hypothetical games. It's sexist, but convenient alternatives are all clunky or ambiguous, unless you know the person's gender for sure.

Probably because 95% of the players on here are men.

I believe the Swedish national anthem is "Sverige, Sverige Vaterland"

Diplomacy is all about history, not herstory

Isn't Germany as fatherland as well?

"Diplomacy is all about history, not herstory"

I'll try to remember that one :P
For now you get a +1

I'd fall in love with a girl dip player

And then you'd ruin it by stabbing her in the back over two SCs. :D

on this site its impossible to know who is a guy and who is a girl, but I am willing to be that somewhere between 80 and 95% are guys.

On the other hand, back when I played on facebook diplomacy, since you know the name of your opponents (their facebook name) you could tell if they were a boy or a girl and the few times I played girls I did use the female pronouns.

@Hollywood that was fantastic! Problem solved.

But I guess I'm just wondering if we actually know who's male and who's female? I mean, it's been a while since I made my account, but I don't recall filling out a gender box when creating it.
Also, I just called the thread "Sexism in Diplomacy" to draw attention to it... Creative naming haha

It's a shame we can't add polls to these threads. There are lots of things I'd like to survey people on, least of all gender... Anyone good at coding? We got +1s, polls can't be terribly hard. I wonder what would happen if I tried to insert a polldaddy poll...

@Alcuin I just wanted to correct the Swedish national anthem. It's Du gamla du fria not Sverige, Sverige Vaterland the last part would be faderland in Swedish. Du gamle du fria is translates to You old, you Free.

@Samhain - fair enough, my knowledge of Swedish and Sweden came from a text book belonging to my father and published in the 1920s. I don't know if it even said Sverige Sverige Vaterland was the national anthem now that I think about it. Sorry.

The reason he or him is used because it's rude to call some one an "It" and the majority of players on the site are most likely guys. I prefer to refer to a player as them, or some other non-gender pronoun, so no one is to be offended.

At one point we had 3 confirmed(people who announced that they were) females. at least 2 of those 3 have stopped playing or are only on occasionally. So unless there are more that just have not disclosed their gender, we have 1 female who may still be active on the site... so it's just easier to say "he" when referring to another player :P

Who's that female then? :P

I think women would make excellent dip players, they are good at stabbing(in the back), devising devious plans to conqueor, I know for a fact because I am married. ;)

So is it a good marriage? :P

depends which one you ask, husband or wife ;) yes it is, but she taught me alot about diplomacy?

@Alcuin no worries! Time to get a new book, and no there has never been a Sverige, Sverige vaterland as anthem. And to join the main debate I have played Diplomacy with two female friends. And obe of them have been in the top three every time we have played.

I'm female and I party semi regularly on this site. I'm much more active on the other WebDiplomacy site.

Party = play silly autocorrect

The problem stems from a lack of a term that is gender neutral for referring to people in third person. I believe Nordic language was the last to use a non-specific (Thon, if my memory serves correctly ), but it is obviously cumbersome.

"Behave Thonself! "

They and them are widely accepted as gender neutral. Snooty english teachers will say that they can't pertain to singular people and only to groups, but they are incorrect, because language can be used however you like.

@Steephie- She answered your question for you. haha.

@Buggy Virus, Temple weight staplered magnet tape. Pens bear red green a with George Washington. Pamphlet transgendered warbling yodel swingset Mongolia.

I think there are limits to how language can be "properly" used, although I do think "they" and "them" are correct for gender neutral singular third person. I mean, Shakespeare used it: http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002748.html I think by definition, anything Shakespeare did is grammatically correct...

Well the reason it technically is not grammatically correct is because during the beginning of the women's movement English parliament passed a bill to make them and they an incorrect word grammatically, as to keep it from being used in legal papers so "He, and Him" would stay the default. And now have doomed us to people saying him/her is correct, when they is fine.

In Old English 'mann' meant 'person'. This term was then accompanied by other distinct forms which marked differences in gender: 'wer' (adult man); 'wif' (adult woman); 'wæpman' (adult male person); 'wifman' (adult female person)

I believe it was an act of parliament around 1850 that declared that words that imported to the masculine gender should be deemed to be taken to include females. Hence the generic 'man' - ie. mankind

Yes, which to some isn't appropriate, to others is a big issue. The biggest point is though, 1800s English Parliment shouldn't be in charge of language.