I stumbled upon a business book by Guy Kawasaki called,”The Art of the Start“, and surprisingly began to read it. A rare event for me (not the reading part, rather the topic) and I assure you I didn’t get very far.
The author used to be some Apple guru with a dozen other successful businesses under his belt. He was successful, good for him. I got as far as the fourth page (the 1st two pages being pictures, of course)
Then I read:
“The truth is that no one really knows if he (1) is an entrepreneur until he becomes one—and sometimes not even then.”
And then at the bottom is the explanation for the (1):
“(1) If only defeating sexism were as simple as throwing in an occasional he/she, she, her, or hers. I use the masculine pronouns merely as a shortcut. Successful entrepreneurship is blind to gender. Donʼt look for sexism where none exists.”
Don’t you think one sentence would be explanation enough? Maybe two, just for safeties sake? I understand that there are some feminisits who can really get their panties in a bunch over gendered pronouns (trust me, I know! One of my shining moments in college was writing a stellar linguistics essay about adopting a gender neutral English pronoun.) But we don’t need a baby talk explanation trying to convince his readers that he isn’t sexist.
Instead of just leaving it alone (or at least just creating a single statement that acknowledges his choice in a pronoun), the author comes off as defensive, flustered, and (above all) lazy.
Needless to say, it was enough to make me close the book which is a shame because I felt like perhaps there is good material in there. Maybe next time I’ll just skip page four completely.
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3 Users Responded in " …hear me roar "
Always skip page 4. I do, and it works!
Jami, Perhaps the book is a poor attempt at a comical look at the business world?
Sounds like instead of leaving well enought alone. He just stuck his foot in his mouth. Someone should clue him in.
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