Sexism in Tech. Or: CloudMine pulls its sponsorship of API Jam.

FWIW, I still feel constrained by the hetero-normal taboos of our society, and the fact is that this happened after I was already married and was reading while caring for my second child. However..... I was spending two hours a day reading while taking care of my second child (feeding him, holding him while he was asleep, etc. Wonderful times.

Anyway, I was reading Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgas" where he talks at length about sexuality in ancient Sparta. Plutarch is a witty and very interesting ancient author. I have enjoyed reading most of the works I have read by him. Anyway, he talks at length about the social functions of pederasty (from other sources, presumably non-penetrative) and wife-swapping in ancient Sparta, and the upshot is that both of these have to be seen, if we take him seriously, as back-bone institutions on which Sparta's political structure was built (reading van Gennep's "The Rites of Passage" has only further solidified this view in my head btw).

Anyway, this brought up an interesting question for me. In our culture we say that sexual orientation is something people are born with but is that really true? How fluid is this really? Logically, the only answer I could provide given the material I had read was that it had to be fairly fluid, and that if I was born in such a society, I would probably be happy living out these norms. That puzzled me for a bit.

But then the realization hit, and that was that these things are deeply fluid. You can't cure someone from being "gay" and make them "straight" because these are both artificial restraints. And all the sudden, the male body became erotic for me. The female body never lost the eroticism attached, but I began to see how sexualized the male body could be also.

So I don't know what these categories even mean anymore.

According to the Department of Labor, Microsoft is doing worse than the field as a whole.....

Source: http://www.dol.gov/wb/factsheets/hitech02.htm

1) Why do words matter so much? I often use derogatory terms to refer to people, even my friends. I do it for fun (like black people calling each other "niggas" (at least in the movies, I assume also in real life))! I often do it to apparently offend someone, just to reverse it immediately after that by saying/doing something positive. Actually, I would be really offended if someone would put so much emphasis on my words as to completely disregard my actions! Sure, as you say, it can make some people feel unwelcome, but in reality, I sometimes want them to feel unwelcome, not because they are different, but simply because they prefer words over actions. I don't want to be around such people.

2) Sometimes, people just are different, and it's really strange to deny that. I live in Slovenia, and black people are really rare here (as are Hispanic; Asians are less rare, they come as tourists a lot). That means that when I see a black person, he will be different. I will almost certainly stare at him, maybe even comment that he's black. That doesn't mean, however, that I will treat him any differently when it comes to business. When I studied in England for a year, I didn't feel that black people were different. I actually had a black man as a roommate, and it was really great to see that his skin color didn't matter to him in any essential way, just as it didn't to me. (Attractive women are different too, I like watching them and doing things with them! But it has nothing to do with being her a woman, it has everything to do with her being attractive.)

3) If I understood you post correctly, pointing out that one of your fellow hackers also has an MBA would be something he would be ashamed of... The thing is, I think you cannot really make other people feel bad, you can only make them feel worse, when they already feel bad. An MBA person could also be proud of his MBA, and then nothing anyone would say could insult him; he wouldn't even interpret this as insults! I sometimes feel this about fat people... I have nothing against people being fat - be my guest, it's your body! However, only when they are perfectly OK with it! But I'm really annoyed when someone is fat and is whining about how they can't lose weight no matter how hard they try... Well, guess what, you didn't try hard enough (there are other priorities that are more important in your life). So, either try harder (get your priorities straight), or accept yourself (accept that losing weight is not your priority). Again, it doesn't matter if someone's fat or not, what matters is their lack of resolve.

You can however make them feel unwelcome. By continually hassling someone about their MBA (or race or gender or sexual preference or how they dress or whatever) you are effectively saying that you'd rather have someone without that particular feature, but for now we're stuck with you so we'll have to make do until we can fix that problem.

Feeling like no one in you group really wants you around, but are forced to put with you, will quickly break down most people.

If I'm the only one in my company that does martial arts, I can expect jokes about having to be careful when having an argument with me. If you have a nest of pet snakes or always cook the same lunch or have an MBA, you can expect specific jokes, when contextually relevant. These things differ from being Asian or a woman in the fact that they are choices people made and that these choices can be considered reflections of this person.

Of course you can take the pointing out of such differences too far, to the point where it seems you feel this person is defined by a specific difference, as you constantly point it out. In acceptable quantities, making jokes and laughing together is quite healthy and it would be a shame to do without, even if you are yourself the subject of the joke.