Today's gender enforcement rants

[firecat]

#1
When I went to my Facebook account just now, I was informed that my profile "might be confusing" and asked to click one of the following radio buttons:
"Stef edited her profile."
"Stef edited his profile."

Uh, no thank you. There was a reason I didn't provide a gender when I signed up for Facebook (although I do usually use standard gender pronouns, and plenty of my status messages include them).

#2
When I went to my gmail account, I had an ad from Sandlot Games for the "Girl Power! Value Pack". "This bundle combines 9 of the greatest Sandlot Games titles featuring female heroines." The games in question?

• Cake Mania
• Cake Mania: Back to the Bakery
• Cake Mania 2
• Granny in paradise
• Super Granny! Winter Winderland
• Super Granny 3
• Super Granny 4
• Eye for Design
• Burger Island

I gather that the Cake Mania and Burger Island games are about building food businesses, and the Super Granny games are about Granny rescuing her kitties. There's nothing wrong with those game genres, but when those are the only genres with female protagonists? Grump.

Comments

[laurenhat.livejournal.com]

I also find that Facebook question and phrasing annoying. I heard (from a Facebook blog post, I think? And/or maybe at Language Log) that what prompted it is largely that they were unable to translate gender neutral pronouns (they use "they" and "their" in English) into some other languages, and kept assigning the wrong genders to some people as a result on their foreign language sites. Why this means that they must universally force people to specify a gender, though, I don't understand.

[firecat]

I'm sure the advertisers would be happier knowing EVERYONE's gender as well.