Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

"company culture" is what she was trying to fix. If someone has a TWSS bot, I'm guessing there are some more serious bias issues, perhaps like the author said, that people aren't even aware of.

"because they tend to be" is the type of excuse/rationalization that starts these problems. Of course men, on average, are stronger, but 99% of the time a woman can help you just as well. Making a decision based on someone's gender is sexism whether there is scientific data or not.

We're in a field that has the potential to be the most meritocratic field out there, and we do a disservice to everyone involved not to embrace that.

> don't worry about minor things when there are important things that mess with your life and your society

Important things like women making less money than men, being more subjected to media objectification, being the target of laws that want to deny them rights because we still have a problem accepting that women are exactly equal to us? Important things like us dismissing their complaints about this shit without it occurring to us that perhaps our dismissal is exactly the problem?

> Really? That must be way every fifth post is about how to focus, how the "get things done", etc. Well, if we are "capable", we sure don't seem like it. Check those kinds of blogs: people that post on such things rarely post on more important issues.

Learning how to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, that's important. Learning what's wrong with our culture and how we can help fix the problem, that's important too. There are people who write about both subjects at the same time, but I see nothing wrong with people finding their niche. In any event, the focus of Hacker News is discussing relevant issues, and this is a doozy of a relevant issue.

> It's not a serious issue in its manifestation or it's consequences at all.

Countless women who have been affected by this would disagree with you. Countless men too.

> As for women in IT, well, ever considered they just don't like it that much?

Ever considered they don't like it because people like you see no problem with treating them this way?

> society also shapes men and women differently.

Exactly!

> For example, women being given barbie dolls and men Lego by their parents might be a much more important reason for them not liking IT, than any sexism in the IT industry.

Err... not exactly! Or rather, gross oversimplification!

There's a problem with women being conditioned not to think of themselves the same way that men do. But there's also a problem with men being conditioned to think of women the wrong way. Ads that tell women they need to look pretty to attract men also tell men that it's okay to think of women this way.

Even if the problem was as simple as "women don't like IT because they're given Barbies," the solution is not to shrug your shoulders and say "it's society, nothing we can do about it," because we are society. The solution is to listen to women when they complain about things and realize that the reasons they give for not liking this bullshit are very, very, very, very, very good reasons. That yes, we were conditioned to behave in shitty ways, and that we should stop behaving so shittily.

See, that link should be nearer the top of this thread. That's food for thought right there.

On the other hand, "The only people trying to argue "lighten up" are anti-feminists" is a nasty false generalisation -- it ignores apath-feminists (damn, that doesn't work nearly as well as 'apatheists'); those who are thinking "can't we all just get along?", with absolutely no motive to stymie feminism; those who've never done the research, who think feminism's all well-and-good, but tell themselves they're too busy worrying about other things; exactly the sort of people who would find that article insightful, and who might be pushed toward feminism by it.

I fear you risk scaring them off by lumping them in with 'anti-feminists' and its implications of misogyny, and may taint that link by association.