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I'm trying to understand here- are you basically arguing that the use of "man" and "woman" is woefully inaccurate, and had "male" and "female" been used instead, you'd have been onboard?

Because that sounds pretty damn nitpicky to me.



The original title: "Is the Oculus Rift Sexist?"

To the GP: Which word(s) should be used to describe differences in people due to hormones and biological factors?

Using that particular word in the title does seem a bit keen on generating controversy, but the ideas presented are interesting and I don't think the article should be flagged.

To the author: If we agree that systems and institutions often include these biases and might be correctly described as "sexist" then what can or should be done in this particular case? It is probably possible to develop better technology which handles all the factors involved in 3D vision, but if for example a male researcher is testing a new VR system and he is biologically predisposed to notice/optimize for certain factors, is it unreasonable to expect that the finished product will work better for men than women on average?

And is that not a good reason for more women to develop or help develop these technologies?


People who have the chromosomes that correspond to the uterus and other related reproductive parts should be described as "female" people. People who have the chromosomes that correspond to the testes and other related reproductive parts should be described as "male" people. People who have chromosomes and reproductive parts that don't match classic sex dimorphic binary (the thing that allows humans and other mammals to breed and evolve over time) are called "intersex" by the medical community.

Queer Theorists have somewhat popularized the edgy notion that the above knowledge is socially constructed (read: in people's heads as a collective cultural meme) because, well, it sounds nice. A trend called Queer Politics takes this idea like a new toy and says people who use terms like "female biology" are bigoted. There is no need to cater to this temporal fashion produced in academia, a thing that does observably nothing to help gender-nonconforming people or explain the social forces that cause marginalization and violence against them.




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