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Player Gender
Keywords: Culture & History, SL description
At Sensei's Library we usually refer to White as "she" and to Black as "he" if the players are unknown. This simplifies the discussion of diagrams. See also: WikiEtiquette. Matt Noonan: I was under the impression that Black was typically called "she" and White was "he". Isn't this more in line with the gender/color relations in the yin/yang sense? MortenPahle: I asked this question over on RGG some time (about two years?) back. However, with Deja being taken over by Google, I cannot seem to find the posts anymore. I seem to remember that the 'normal' use is Black:male and White:female, but that Janice Kim consistently uses the opposite. There was also someone who linked the actual yin/yang colours into the discussion, but my memory doesn't quite stretch far enough .... Google is promising to bring the full archives back up, so maybe these fascinating posts can be resurrected... How's that for a useless comment ;-? Jonathan Cano: For what it's worth, Whole Board Thinking In Joseki (vols 1 and 2) by Yi-Lun Yang uses
(But more Chinese know that: Black =yin, White = yang and yin = female, yang = male.) I think I've seen this convention in one or two other published books so I think it is good to stay with color/gender choice. The only thing worse than a bad standard is a constantly changing standard. Kevin Greer: In the Translator's Preface for the book Essential Joseki by Rui Naiwei, 9 dan (who is a woman), the editor says that he reverses the Daoist convention of referring to the feminine as Black, as a way of honouring the author. Indeed, not many of us could play White against Rui Naiwei. Hu Of KGS: Why bother introducing gender and all its complications into an abstract game? Gender pronouns in Go are completely unnecessary and archaic. The convention is used one way in some books and the other way in other books. A duplicitous convention is worse than no convention. It is not hard to use gender neutral language:
Charles Matthews Well, I have written a whole book in gender-neutral language. It can be done, once you have the knack. More impersonal, though. I still like the SL convention. Bill Spight: Mathematical Go uses masculine pronouns for White and feminine for Black, only accidentally in tune with yin and yang associations. It associates Black with the Left player and White with the Right player, via Belle BLack and WRight White. ;-) It also uses feminine pronouns for players in general. This is a copy of the living page "Player Gender" at Sensei's Library. ![]() |