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Do a lot of guys approach coding with a conquest mentality? I found this sentiment particularly interesting. I've always had a more creative / constructive mindset while coding and curious / scientific mindset while debugging. As a male programmer, I'm curious if I live out in the tails of the distribution, or if Uncle Bob is less average than he assumes.
Women are humans. Some of us (humans) find toilet humour funny and a great way to escape situations, some of us dislike it and find it unprofessional, some of us just don't give a fuck.
Just talk like you talk, be aware of alienating people you care about, fuck those you don't, and do cool shit.
I like toilet humour. It is silly and fun and stupid. It is ironic and whatever fucking poops. Fuck off telling me and other humans how to be.
Immature people can appear sensible and be totally professional in their language. Some of the most interesting, awesome, intelligent and mature people I know are fans of toilet humour.
Shut the fuck up, don't alienate awesome people (by putting tits in slide shows, duh), and keep making awesome code.
I agree with this, fully and unequivocally. I have to wonder if "there are ladies present" might also be construed as sexist. Maybe we just shouldn't use toilet humor in situations where we're not absolutely sure everyone will find it appropriate. Warning: offensive, but to demonstrate a point... I once interviewed a guy who decided to wear a t-shirt to the interview that read "Thousands of my potential children died…
That's just unbelievable.
Do a lot of guys approach coding with a conquest mentality? I found this sentiment particularly interesting. I've always had a more creative / constructive mindset while coding and curious / scientific mindset while debugging. As a male programmer, I'm curious if I live out in the tails of the distribution, or if Uncle Bob is less average than he assumes.
Do a lot of guys approach coding with a conquest mentality? I found this sentiment particularly interesting. I've always had a more creative / constructive mindset while coding and curious / scientific mindset while debugging. As a male programmer, I'm curious if I live out in the tails of the distribution, or if Uncle Bob is less average than he assumes.
I don't. I am guessing most don't either, but all I know are people I've worked with.
I agree with this, fully and unequivocally. I have to wonder if "there are ladies present" might also be construed as sexist. Maybe we just shouldn't use toilet humor in situations where we're not absolutely sure everyone will find it appropriate. Warning: offensive, but to demonstrate a point... I once interviewed a guy who decided to wear a t-shirt to the interview that read "Thousands of my potential children died…
It's so easy, too. To be transgressive by attacking women within an environment where there aren't many powerful ones around. Why not racial humor? I'm sure there are many ways to brag about humiliating different racial groups.
I'm far from a prude, but there are women out there trying to make a living in this world. I don't think it's a lot to ask that people keep this kind of shit at home, even if they think it's funny.
> Men, can you imagine how hard it would be if all the women were constantly, and openly, talking about tampons, cramps, yeast infections, cheating, being cheated on, Trichomoniasis, faking-it, etc? I don't know about you, but It would make me feel out of place. You're right--you don't know about me. I fully wish this were the case! The place I want to work is the place where people are people , not separately "men"…
Would. Not. Give. A. Fuck. Talk to me about whatever shit is bothering you, make jokes about it. The time I start thinking you are a self-absorbed douchebag is when you act like a self-absorbed douchebag.
Even more draining is the 'treat the customers like sheep' sneering Wall street trader attitude that some of my coworkers seem to have, and which seems to be subtly propagated via attitudes about using analytics and machine learning. We can herd our customers through subtle cues established through artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques. Nearly every day there's discussion about manipulating process and appearance and verbiage to get a 1 or 3 or 2.5% higher conversion ratio, or cultivating a community via social media through keeping up appearances - schedule your tweets, re-tweet funny things, know your audience, etc. Analytic your customers 'till the cows come home to understand which navigation items to put where and see 'how' your customers user the 'product.' Create your own market. Etc. But it's all so artificial. I can't remember the last time anybody seriously posted anything looking at fulfilling an actual meaningful need, or their customers as actual people.
Even for employees I think it's very disconcerting to have a public pitch about how you care about customers and are part of a community, then behind closed doors stereotype them like they're some sort of bovine herd who can't tell alfalfa from the compost bin and joke about it. (Maybe this isn't normal? But it feels normal in my experience. To a certain extent I can't even help but participate. What can you do but joke about people still using IE 6 or 7 or who think the Internet's 'Turned Off' or whatever the random point of tech ignorance is for the day? When so much of the world relies and depends on the Internet without understanding it or having a clue or realizing how they're tracked or what legal protections they don't have for their Facebook posts and more, it's really hard to have respect even if you can pay it lip service.)
Quite frankly, I think things might be so bad that plenty of men find things off-putting. But it does fit in pretty well with a narrative of slavery/conquest versus nurture.
(If you're going to downvote maybe say why you think differently? I hate it when it's left as a mystery.)
I want to add the caveat that I am NOT attempting to appeal to hypocrisy.
While I agree that there is a limit, I don't see how calling languages "estrogen" is offensive and I don't understand how calling a hat "cute" is offensive.
Maybe its because I grew up in the 90s, when the world starting embracing the insanity that is the PC revolution. We've (and I mean "White Men") made it a point to relabel and rename everything to be non-offensive. Blacks are no longer African Americans. Indians are now Native Americans. The guy cleaning your toilet is not a Janitor, but a Maintenance Technician. The Secretary is now a Front Office Assistant. Parents started raising their children on Barney the Dinosaur and that is pretty much when it all fell apart.
For golly, people. We've created a purely insane world, where even mild jokes have become Purely Offensive and Crude. We have to bite our tongues and be careful of everything we say, and I hope you can see how that this attitude has created an unhealthy ecosystem for everyone involved, including the well-meaning welcomers and the curious, ultimately destroying any ability to progress past 2001.
I really don't want to believe that the programming world is so pent up about sexuality. I want to believe the industry as a whole is highly intelligent and mature, and if a women goes on stage and says something silly about a Cute Cowboy Hat some dude is wearing, we don't see it something offensive or threatening to men.
I can't imagine that other industries go through this so much. Certain branches of marketing, spas, hair cutting, anything to do with writing, fashion, among many other professions are female-dominated. The men who enter simply enter and understand that they are entering into a world where yes, they will be told in no uncertain terms that she is not feeling well and just started her period. He will be told in no uncertain terms that size does matter. He will be told things he cares to never hear about again, but he joined into that smallish arena so he has to accept it.
It's all an illusion, people. Men and women both talk smack and say gross stuff. We can't whitewash everything and pretend that we will never say something stupid but if it isn't something that would be offensive on Ellen Degenerous or The Voice -- which say way worse things than you'd hear at a conference -- then it should be fair game to say in your presentation: the trash those people say on those TV shows are more offensive than anything any presenter would consider saying. I'm not saying the PyCon should be Married with Children the Sequel. I'm just saying to let small stupid words go by and don't hang onto every small word as an offense. You can create drama anywhere, and it just so happens that programming is an easy target to fuss up and create drama because the men are so convinced that they are wrong that they've allowed themselves to be put on the defense at all times, and there is really no logical or good reason for it, no matter how much you write about the justifications of this attitude.
Vanilla jokes are exactly that: Vanilla jokes.
Do a lot of guys approach coding with a conquest mentality? I found this sentiment particularly interesting. I've always had a more creative / constructive mindset while coding and curious / scientific mindset while debugging. As a male programmer, I'm curious if I live out in the tails of the distribution, or if Uncle Bob is less average than he assumes.