Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

geekchick77.dreamwidth.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 392 posts

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#131

Post by yummyfajitas »

AkThhhpppt wrote: post #99
pyre wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the difference between those solutions really just because she's a woman? I'd like to believe that they are just differences of opinion on the best way to deal with issues. Some people prefer to appeal to authority, while others feel it's better handled by routing around authority and 'handling it yourself.' Depending on what she did, she would be criticized by one group or the other. On the other hand, since this…

We'd all like to think that. Unfortunately, there's a pretty widespread tendency to tell people who bring -ism issues to attention that they're Doing It Wrong, You Should Do It This Way That Wouldn't Upset Me Instead. So while they might be reacting with their opinion of a better solution, there's a lot of form of using that exact form of argument to attempt to silence. Also, she was the one in the situation; perhaps…

This sort of bikeshedding shows up all over HN and on all sorts of non-ism issues. For example, infinite scrolling vs pagination:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3759101

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#132

Post by ugh »

CompiledCode wrote: post #125
raganwald wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument says "since (unfair child support laws) then (men treated unfairly) thus not(sexist anti-women culture)" The problem with your argument is that you are not espousing a widely held belief about child support laws being "unfair to men." Thus, a discussion about your argument is likely to devolve into long exchanges about children's rights and anecdotes about ridiculous edge case judgments on both sides. W…

I actually think that "A" is beyond dispute. Your married partner cheats on you, divorces you, marries the biological father of the child, and you are still on the hook for child support? I can't imagine someone NOT thinking with every moral fiber of their being that this is wrong. Regardless, I think my point is already self-evident in the answers. Which is: we accept without second thought that (A) our society is s…

Is it really the case that someone has to pay child support for a child that is proven to be not theirs?

I did some superficial googling and found the case of one man who has to pay child support even though a DNA test proved he is not the father, because he missed all the deadlines for challenging the ruling. That seems like an unfortunate edge case to me, not some general pattern one has to be worried about.

I think you might be mistaken about the legal situation, but I’m more than happy to be proven wrong.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#133

Post by rada »

CompiledCode wrote: post #43
rmc wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, ads (etc.) that portray people as bad based on their gender are wrong. However men are still in an advantageous position. widespread anti-male laws They are small in number compared to the widespread anti-female laws and customs.

Can you give an example? In almost all states, if the wife gets pregnant by another man, the man is still on the hook for child support for the next 18+ years... even if she divorces him and marries her lover. I can't think of an equivalent anti-female law with such devastating long-term impact on the woman. I know this message might be off tangent for the HN board. But if we're discussing anti-female sexist culture…

I understand why you would see the particular law you are describing as "anti-male" - however most laws related to children are the way they are because they are not about the welfare of the adults at all.

The law is thinking something along the lines of: children need to be taken care of; the government doesn't have the money; whoever happens to be sitting on the musical chairs the first several years of the child's life, pays. The buck has to stop somewhere.

(On the flip side of the same law, a non-biological father would be awarded custody if they have formed a parental bond with the child).

Some more things to consider before you call the law "anti-male". One, if it were not the custodial parents, it would have to be the even more random taxpayers. Two, non-biological mothers pay too. Three, these laws are flawed for historical reasons, and these same reasons have impoverished women far longer than men.

There are bona fide inequalities, of course. For example, men tend to pay significantly more child support than women. However, given how men make more in general, even that still leaves men better off on average. For example, average income for non-custodial mothers is $15k/year, average income for non-custodial fathers is $40k/year.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#134

Post by Prophasi »

One potential reason the guys in the channel get irritated with it, apart from them being actually sexist and therefore uncomfortable/guilty, is that your starting assumption that they WERE sexist was wrong.

To have a preachy bot post nominally inspirational quotes from women, with the ostensible goal of demonstrating with child-like simplicity that women are people too, would get on my nerves for two immediate reasons:

1) I get it, I get it! How many cliches do I have to scroll past before we reach mission accomplished?

2) Someone really thinks I'm stupid.

It's propaganda, but worse than that, it's propaganda with an assumed audience of evildoers to thwart -- and I'm included.

I get the frustration with the male-centric dev culture and I'd fight back on that for sure, but this kind of holier-than-thou brute force attack levels a possibly undeserved accusation at everyone forced to read it, and it also flouts some of the most basic aspects of psychology in its strategy.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#135

Post by wpietri »

rimantas wrote: post #92
unalone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they're actually funny (most of the "That's what she said" jokes are not), why not? It depends on the audience. I think that sexist jokes are in as poor taste in a workplace as racist jokes would be. I'd also be against black jokes or Mexican jokes or Jewish jokes or jokes about Catholic pedophilia. Even if the extent of the joke was something like "I'm not going to the pub with you all, I'm such a Jew", I'd fee…

And in the end there will be no jokes. > I think we all agree that if somebody's feeling upset by > the jokes, it's not a huge loss to our comedic palettes > to have to find another source of humor, right? No. I strongly strongly disagree. I don't want a thermal dead of society, I don't want knee-jerk reaction to anything I say because I just mentioned some forbidden word, no matter with what intention and what conte…

> And in the end there will be no jokes.

Not at all. This like saying "If we can't say anything hurtful, what is there left to say?"

You can be funny without being an asshole. And in a professional context, you shouldn't be an asshole at all.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#136

Post by cantastoria »

unalone wrote: post #28
oskarth wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find the most fascinating is that she did everything exactly right and people still feel like she did something wrong. She didn't go to her supervisor and she didn't turn it into a drama. Instead she fought the problem in its own arena by making a IRC-bot to combat the problem, and not only that: the IRC-bot is only selectively used in the exact situation that is seen as problematic and it does so by writing e…

Really? What do you want? We want women to shut up and stop telling us that there's a problem with how we behave, because it's rude to tell people there's something innately wrong with their behavior. Also it takes so much time and effort on our parts to try and behave like better people that it hardly seems like we should bother. The problem, for many people, is not that the issue is being handled indelicately. It's…

Dear Sir,

We noticed you have made some potentially inflammatory comments directed towards women. We have started to monitor your account and will shut it down if you continue to use this type of language. Please read the following guidelines that explain how to correctly discuss and think about these issues:

"What things are most useful for men to keep in mind when discussing theories or topics relating to gender?" http://www.quora.com/What-things-are-most-useful-for-men-to-...

"Derailing for Dummies": http://derailingfordummies.com/

We hope we will not have to contact you again about further violations.

Thank you.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#137

Post by paulhauggis »

She has a huge problem with "that's what she said", but no problem with using the term “brogrammer culture”.

If she was a co-worker and used that term, I would go to HR because it offends me. Why? to make a point about the ridiculousness of our society. You get the least bit offended and instead of just ignoring it, you need to make the person go away/get fired.

It reminds me of Elementary school. When is this bullshit going to stop?

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#138

Post by rada »

ugh wrote: post #132
CompiledCode wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think that "A" is beyond dispute. Your married partner cheats on you, divorces you, marries the biological father of the child, and you are still on the hook for child support? I can't imagine someone NOT thinking with every moral fiber of their being that this is wrong. Regardless, I think my point is already self-evident in the answers. Which is: we accept without second thought that (A) our society is s…

Is it really the case that someone has to pay child support for a child that is proven to be not theirs? I did some superficial googling and found the case of one man who has to pay child support even though a DNA test proved he is not the father, because he missed all the deadlines for challenging the ruling. That seems like an unfortunate edge case to me, not some general pattern one has to be worried about. I thin…

It depends on your definition of "not theirs". The law doesn't look at biology only. (Same gender parents, adoptive parents, grandparents as primary caregivers, etc).

If you accept a child as your own for several years, the law is likely to look at them as yours regardless of DNA. I think that in the majority of cases, this probably works out for the better.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#139

Post by wpietri »

mcherm wrote: post #11

What a BRILLIANT social hack. Jessamyn Smith, I am thoroughly impressed.

Absolutely. It's also a fantastic resume piece. Two of the things I look for in a resume are a) contributions to an open source project, and b) ability to take a problem and solve it from beginning to end. As a bonus, she's clearly aware of workplace culture and committed to making it better. All good signs, especially for the startup context.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#140

Post by krupan »

pyre wrote: post #80
olalonde wrote: post #54

I have noticed an interesting double standard on HN: while working in porn is perfectly fine, saying TWSS jokes is sexist because it objectivizes women as sexual objects.

The difference is that working in porn is a choice to make yourself a sex-object, while objectifying women with sexist jokes is not a choice by the people affected (women). To retain the same context, it would be the difference between choosing to work in porn vs. that choice being made for you.

So if the woman in the jokes was assumed to be a specific woman that said she was OK with it, then the jokes would be all good?

"Don't worry, these jokes/pictures/movies don't apply to you specifically. They don't affect my atitudes or emotions towards you at all."

Really?

Post reply on HN