What do you think to this statement+ are you as confused as me?

[SaffySaffron]

How would you interpret the following statement? Does it make sense?

Jo works as part of a team. They often cause problems for another member of the team by failing to clean up the shared kitchen after they have used it. Jo knows their behaviour represents a lack of concern. Jo is blameworthy for the problems they cause to others. Jo is the only woman in the team and though others are blameworthy for the same thing she is singled out for blame. Is this fair?

It seems perfectly understandable to me.

It depends on if you read ‘they’ to mean Jo or to mean the team.

Jo works as part of a team.

Jo often causes problems for another member of the team by failing to clean up the shared kitchen after using it.

Jo knows this is wrong, but does it anyway.

However, Jo is not the only team member who does this.

However, she is the only woman, and is the only one singled out for blame.

Is this fair?

It’s appalling badly drafted and use of “they” when sex is relevant is unhelpful.

I would assume that English is not the authors first language.

Blameworthy is a really weird turn of phrase in this context and the whole problem is unclear and lacking in specificity.

I assume the problem is: the team share a kitchen. All team members fail to clean up after themselves. Jo is the only person to be challenged over the failure to clean up. Jo is the only woman

To me it doesn’t make sense at all unless Jo is the “they?” Not the team is the “they.”

I assume the person who wrote the training slide is getting so tied up with using the correct pronouns so as not to offend anyone, that the training slide has been rendered unintelligible with the stupidly unnecessary ‘theys’. So try hard. So typical of the nonsense (literally) which is commonplace now. He/She/They (plural). There, fixed that for you.

This is exactly as I understood it.

That is a terrible paragraph - it confers blame thus pre-judges the situation and uses emotive language like singled out, which also pre-judges the readers response - which is terrible if it is a training course (unless it is a course about how to avoid pre-judgement and this is being used as an example of what not to do)

It should be kept more factual:

Jo works as part of a team in which she is the only woman.

Problems are caused for another member of the team when the shared kitchen is not cleaned after use. Not cleaning the kitchen after use is something both Jo and other colleagues do.

Jo acknowledges her behaviour shows a lack of consideration for others. Jo is the only person to be approached about this behaviour.

Is this fair?

If it is about getting people to think about equalities, I would not even mention she was a woman at all and would use a gender neutral name as I would want them to consider why Jo was being singled out to see if they asked whether they were male or female.

Badly written but basically they should all clean up their own mess.

@SaffySaffron

"She often cause problems for another member of the team"

"Jo is the only woman in the team and though others are blameworthy for the same thing she is singled out for blame.

The implication is that the whole team are slobs by failing to clean up the shared kitchen but because Jo is a woman, she is "somehow" more blameworthy!

edited to clarify

There's a problem with pronouns and also inconsistency as to whether the problems affect one person or more

Jo works as part of a team. They often cause problems for another member of the team

I interpreted 'They' as referring to Jo in a gender neutral way but at the end of the paragraph Jo is referred to as 'she'. So is 'They' referring to Jo or the team?

"They often cause problems for another member of the team" but "Jo is blameworthy for the problems they cause to others"

How many people are being affected by these problems: one team member or multiple?

It's badly written but I understand it

The answer is obviously it's not fair several people are responsible for the messy kitchen. Jo is apparently meant to be tidy because she is female, men are not.

English is the author's first language. It read to me that the rest of the team are causing the mess, which is why he (it was a man presenting) used they, when he meant one individual (Jo).

I think your interpretation is the least likely. If he meant the team were creating the mess it would have read

Jo works as part of a team. They often cause problems for other members of the team by failing to clean up the shared kitchen after they have used it.

Not

Jo works as part of a team. They often cause problems for another member of the team by failing to clean up the shared kitchen after they have used it.

but use of they for the singular is really unhelpful

edited to say:

although no one would actually write it the way I suggested. I’m just trying to explain why your interpretation makes least sense.

if it was the team that were messy it’d be written as

Jo works as part of a team. The team often cause problems for each other by failing to clean up the shared kitchen after they have used it.

Mind you, I was a bit confused by 'what do you think to this statement' , rather than 'about' , so I got off to a bad start anyway.😊

That’s what I get from it. She’s singled out for being a woman despite everyone else leaving a mess