It’s actually exactly the same, but not rude to people who take things offensively. It’s cool that you’d appreciate that option, but not everyone would like it expressed that way and websites have to appeal to everyone.
FWIW, at least as far as the US govt is concerned and these statistics are required for diversity data, “Prefer not to say” is counted as Male.
My wife has worked HR roles in government agencies, though I don’t think this information is any secret. They need to know for diversity reasons, so they need to default it to the “least diverse” option. Same with prefer not to say for race defaulting to white.
They are used for demographics that are required by federal law for some business’, for example filling out an application for a loan, they have to collect this information so they can prove they offer services to everyone regardless of race or gender. I realize that this is a joke from but most of the list include Male, Female, Other (with an input field), and prefer not to say. In case you wanted to know.
In Sweden there’s a restaurant franchise called Pinchos that only takes orders through a mobile app. When you register for an account you are asked to choose gender between “Male”, “Female”, “Other” and “Whatever 🖕” (i.e. the middle-finger emoji). I picked the last one.
~~Even the joke ones don’t provide a “none of your business” option.~~Why are web forms so obsessed with gender?
I just pick one at random, 99.9% of the time these websites have no need to collect this info in the first place.
Edit: image got cropped, my mistake
It literally says “prefer not to say” at the bottom.
Which is totally different from “none of your business”
It’s actually exactly the same, but not rude to people who take things offensively. It’s cool that you’d appreciate that option, but not everyone would like it expressed that way and websites have to appeal to everyone.
FWIW, at least as far as the US govt is concerned and these statistics are required for diversity data, “Prefer not to say” is counted as Male.
Wow that’s interesting! How did you find that out?
My wife has worked HR roles in government agencies, though I don’t think this information is any secret. They need to know for diversity reasons, so they need to default it to the “least diverse” option. Same with prefer not to say for race defaulting to white.
They are used for demographics that are required by federal law for some business’, for example filling out an application for a loan, they have to collect this information so they can prove they offer services to everyone regardless of race or gender. I realize that this is a joke from but most of the list include Male, Female, Other (with an input field), and prefer not to say. In case you wanted to know.
I think it was for early demographics data collection. Same with asking about skin color, age, etc.
(Btw I identify as “household pet walking across the keyboard - other” with pronouns get/down)
In Sweden there’s a restaurant franchise called Pinchos that only takes orders through a mobile app. When you register for an account you are asked to choose gender between “Male”, “Female”, “Other” and “Whatever 🖕” (i.e. the middle-finger emoji). I picked the last one.
Screenshot for reference