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

151–160 of 392 posts

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

#151

Post by zachinglis »

I think this issue is obviously on a per-company basis. We have a light-hearted attitude towards TWSS jokes here in the office because the female members are as just as bad as any one of the males. We also do Thats What He Said.

Jessamyn was obviously uncomfortable, and that's when it should have stopped. Without question. I don't think her gender was a deciding factor in that, more so sensibilities.

I appreciate her pro-active stance too. Rather than complaining she tried to beat them at their own game, though I'm not sure it'd help her in the long run. I think it'd piss the rest off - but saying that, is there any way around it? They obviously have not given her the respect she asked for when she told them it was offending her.

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

#152

Post by AkThhhpppt »

mseebach wrote: post #149
AkThhhpppt wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://fuckyeahdisingenuousliberal.tumblr.com/post/180255328... *Yes, people are so sick of "but I'm being ironic" there's Tumblr memes about it.

"People" are so tired of "i'm being ironic" that they made a tumbler full of "ironic" racism and sexism. Gotcha. I disagree with the assertion in the linked blog post that it's not possible to satirize -isms - in fact, I firmly believe it's necessary to expose the utter ridiculousness of these beliefs. Which, incidentally, is what the OP did with her anti-bot.

Yes, but satire has to be done well to work (see unalone's "We want" comment for an example). Auto-responding "that's what she says" isn't.

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

#153

Post by rmc »

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 can't think of an equivalent anti-female law with such devastating long-term impact on the woman.

* (In the USA) Have someone stick a thing up your vagina if you want a abortion (some sonogram laws)

* Raped? Some police officers (y'know people who should be prosecuting the people who raped you) think you shouldn't dress like sluts (and hence if you do dress like a slut, you were asking for it, so clearly can't have been raped) ( http://www.excal.on.ca/news/dont-dress-like-a-slut-toronto-c... which spawn the SlutWalk demostrations )

* Want to work in tech? Some tech promotional events will list "Perks: Women".

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by tomjen3 »

Man this proves that -women- python programmers have no sense of humor.

Yes it is a lame joke. Really lame and yes it should probably have been turned of.

But dammit that joke is not sexistic -- just because it involves naked women (and presumably the the guy) doesn't mean it is against women. The joke has been said plenty of times in response to 'it is very small and hard to find', 'it doesn't look like much yet', etc.

Go be a feminist somewhere else.

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

#156

Post by rada »

CompiledCode wrote: post #21

So how can I write a bot to fight the sexism in Microsoft's TV ads? You know the ones... where the husband is the bumbling idiot and the wife is the smart capable one who shuts down his plea to play golf on Sundays. I would love to set that bot loose on all TV shows and ads. So often, a flipped situation would cause outrage of being sexist, whereas if the man is put down, it's "funny." It really bothers me, especiall…

Oh come on. The "mansession" was a temporary phenomenon, largely due to the decline in higher paying jobs that are historically held by men.

Today, men's and women's unemployment rates are roughly the same:

http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/07/06/two-years-of-econo...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/06/mancession-to-h...

http://www.nwlc.org/resource/modest-recovery-beginning-women

http://www.thenation.com/article/166468/one-mancession-later...

Generally, I find complaints about mancession more than a little skewed. The victim card only works if you cherry-pick your numbers, narrow them down to exact months, and ignore key metrics such as compensation, benefits, etc.

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

#157

Post by unalone »

rimantas wrote: post #95
Strallus wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not calling her out for making a big fuss. I was just pointing out that, as far as I can tell, this joke really doesn't have its root in sexism. Other people are saying the joke is sexist, I'm saying it's not. That's all.

The case is lost. You don't find many who would even bother to think about what you are saying, you will be just down-voted by knee-jerkers, who cannot be bothered by contemplating what is sexism, what isn't. They just know what's not acceptable and act accordingly. HN is humor free zone, no matter what kind of humor that is.

I'm looking back through my comment history and most of my jokes are upvoted pretty highly. Like I said above, maybe you're just not very funny.

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

#158

Post by eaten_by_a_grue »

unalone wrote: post #110
woohoo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL - this is my fav comment on this thread. I feel like I have seen a shift in the comments on women in tech related articles on HN over the past few weeks. 2 weeks ago I had a really hard time reading the comments because they seemed either hate-filled or ignorant (like the comment above is mocking) but I feel like lately the discussion has become more intelligent. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

> I feel like lately the discussion has become more intelligent. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part? Knock on wood. (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAoh god damn)

How is it okay for you to respond to every comment in this thread decrying men for being unaware of the horrifying effect these comments have on women, and also make the exact same joke that caused the original complaint?

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

#159

Post by scythe »

woohoo wrote: post #84
unalone wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

LOL - this is my fav comment on this thread. I feel like I have seen a shift in the comments on women in tech related articles on HN over the past few weeks. 2 weeks ago I had a really hard time reading the comments because they seemed either hate-filled or ignorant (like the comment above is mocking) but I feel like lately the discussion has become more intelligent. Or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

It is better, but I am still disappointed.

What the author did was clever and interesting, and the reaction of this highest-ranked thread has been to steal the discussion from, say, the general application of a female hacker's idea and instead to focus on the psychological contusions of a group of guys we don't know, scarcely care about, and will probably never meet. And yet we are not even talking about how to convince them not to react like this: we have all established that their reaction is problematic, would someone mind suggesting a way to change it?

At least the problem is no longer sexism but laziness: changing people is hard, complaining about them is easy. Back to work! Jeez.

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

#160

Post by dpritchett »

leon_ wrote: post #109

> I would write my OWN bot, that responded to TWSS with a quotation from a notable woman. I'd write a bot that would answer with a TWSS-trigger and watch the IRC channel going up in flames :]

You can actually use a copy of her own talkbackbot to do just that. Just wire up your own trigger like so:

    def contains_twsrs_response_quote(chat_line):
        return bool(re.search(r'~ [\w ]+$', chat_line))
Edit: This presumes the responses you're trying to detect match the form "Quote goes here ~ Author of Quote" seen in her quotes.txt.
Post reply on HN