Care to share any anecdotes that make sweeping generalisations based on gender that paint female engineers in a bad light instead? Nope, didn't think so ...
Without generalization we are lost in paralyzing (and inane) case by case judging of everything. In CS terms, generalizations are basically pattern recognition.
Can they be bad? Sure. But not because they are generalizations.
I'm not even sure what you're getting at. That you can find all kinds of types in either group? I don't think anybody disagrees.
A generalization is still valid though if it recognizes larger tendencies in each group (where there's lot of overlap, but e.g. different peaks at different approaches).
Is your position that it's illogical to even consider this? Because a lot of scientific research (never mind the parent's empirical observations) disagrees.
The key is not to not make generalizations, but to try to make their as good as you can, and to not insist to apply them to some individual instance that doesn't match them. One should also improve their generalizations over time, as new data come in.
I don't think its against site rules to state personal experiences, actually it's the basis of healthy debate.
If I said something along the lines of "all female engineers" without the context I provided; i.e its most of the female engineers I personally work with, then yeah I could see how that would be construed as virtue signalling. I assure you that's not my intention, and apologies if it comes across that way.
In any case, no need to apologise - from your other comments I don't think we're on diametrically opposed sides in this particular political tussle. Go in peace.
Some of it is due to a fashion though. At some point the bias towards what you say end would look as quaint as the bias against women in the 50s or so.
People will get to view at the behavior you describe in the same way people looked at hippies after their fashion was gone...
> Almost every female engineer I work with writes and communicates in this fashion and I really bloody wish more of my male counterparts
That's just reporting facts about the specific people he happens to work with. It would be generalization if just said "female engineers," without the qualifiers "almost every...I work with."
I guess you could claim that he's implying a generalization, but that's a claim someone could make about any reporting of specific facts.
Also note how almost every female engineer he works with writes communicates in that style, but somehow his wish for others to communicate in that style only extends to his male colleagues.