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The fight against sexism is not a free pass

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Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#21

Post by yeukhon »

trekky1700 wrote: post #16

Things that are obvious: 1. Gender neutral language is obviously and undoubtedly preferable. 2. The changes would have been incredibly easy to implement, the work was already done. I can't think of a good reason not to accept the pull request. It all seems like such a simple problem getting blown way out of proportion.

> 1. Gender neutral language is obviously and undoubtedly preferable.

To be honest, you'd find a huge discrepancy on this. If this were true, the pull request would not have been rejected.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#22

Post by overgard »

trekky1700 wrote: post #16

Things that are obvious: 1. Gender neutral language is obviously and undoubtedly preferable. 2. The changes would have been incredibly easy to implement, the work was already done. I can't think of a good reason not to accept the pull request. It all seems like such a simple problem getting blown way out of proportion.

There's a more subtle issue at play: accepting the pull request could be seen as "admitting" that the original phrasing was offensive. Perhaps they didn't want to do so because they disagreed with the premise. Accepting the patch isn't a neutral action, it also means implicitly accepting a certain world view.

The patch itself comes across almost as bullying: accept our view, or be publicly shamed as a misogynist.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#24

Post by stephp »

I definitely wouldn't have reacted if I was personally involved in this. However, I do think it's worth pointing out how masculine pronouns can wear a girl down over time / create general awkwardness (ie: Send your "web guy" over).

I'm generally not bothered by subtleties, but then I realize that what's subtle to me as a woman is entirely invisible to men.

If the guy prefers masculine pronouns, it doesn't make him a sexist exactly. But it would imply that he doesn't experience the subtle discomfort in his everyday life. So, it's worth pointing out. In a chill way, if possible.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#25

Post by rjknight »

CrLf wrote: post #15

I'm sorry to invoke Godwin's law on this, but this is beyond absurd... Stating that defending that pronouns should be gendered is a fireable offense is more than just ridiculous political correctness, it's criminalizing opinion. It's the Holy Inquisition.

You can only invoke Godwin's law after someone else draws a comparison to the Nazis. You cannot invoke it on yourself prior to drawing a comparison to the Holy Inquisition, no matter how far beyond absurdity the situation may be.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#26

Post by jnbiche »

Oh dear God. This is what we've sunk to? Saying we'd love to fire some "asshole" because he chose not to pull a pull request changing two instances of "him" to "they"?

First, let me get it out of the way that I actually agree with the pull request. In this day, the personal pronoun "they" makes a more inclusive pronoun that just "him". Zed Shaw's suggestion of "you" is also a good alternative, particularly if you're wanting to be less formal.

That said, let me note that many of us were taught in school that using "he" here is the preferred pronoun. And that's just one reason why I can imagine why someone would reject this pull request. Because as much as I agree with the PR, I have the ability to conceive of other perspectives. We have no idea why Ben chose to reject the request.

1. Maybe he thought it was incorrect grammar. I disagree, since there's a strong history of singular, third-person use of "they" in English. But it's what we were taught.

2. Maybe he's overwhelmed with issues and pull requests, and thinks this is too trivial of a matter and doesn't want to encourage this kind of contribution to the project.

3. I can think of about 3-4 other valid reasons, but I won't bore you.

Bottom line, this has all the characteristics of a witch hunt. Joyent is OK with taking away a man's livelihood because he chose not to accept a two-word commit, and one that didn't even deal with code? Not only that, but to publically call him an asshole?

I'm all for making small steps toward gender equality like this one, but calling someone who doesn't share that opinion vulgar names and wanting to fire them is an altogether inappropriate move.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#27

Post by rdtsc »

trekky1700 wrote: post #16

Things that are obvious: 1. Gender neutral language is obviously and undoubtedly preferable. 2. The changes would have been incredibly easy to implement, the work was already done. I can't think of a good reason not to accept the pull request. It all seems like such a simple problem getting blown way out of proportion.

One reason I can think of -- some people make small grammar and spelling changes just to get their name in the commit authors lists and in the THANKS file. Hey look, "contributer to the famous Node.JS project" on the resume.

It is of course good that they want to contribute but some requests generate more traffic around the request than the request itself. Not if this was a bigger improvement to docs, a project wide spelling fix, I would probably be better.

Anyway the reason this go blown up is because of the gender aspect. Ask yourself this, what if this was not influence by the gender and was instead a basic spelling mistake, how would this played out?

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#29

Post by nrodhn »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #5

Nice job by Joyent. A lot of people will feel that this firing is an overreaction, but this is how civil rights movements work. You inconvenience the apathetic until they realize that apathy is as unacceptable as anything else. This is the only way it can change the developer community. Don't be a sexist and you won't run into this problem.

I hear you, but not being sexist can be pretty hard. I always felt that obviously, I wasn't sexist: I like working with women in the workplace, I always figured we make software for everyone so it's probably best if everyone makes software, and so on. I've been fortunate to have female co-workers who I felt made terrific colleagues, both skills-wise and socially.

And yet one day one of them pulled me aside and explained to me what exactly I was doing that was making being at her job harder. It wasn't something I did intentionally, it wasn't because I thought ill of her, it was just that I didn't think much at all. I behaved differently toward her (and, I guess, other female developers) because I had a set of assumptions I automatically brought to bear against male developers I wasn't sure applied to her, and it affected my behavior in ways that kept singling her out and making her feel uncomfortable.

One of the most embarassing, humbling and in retrospect, valuable moments in my professional life.

I'm happy it went that way instead of a complaint followed by me losing my job. I think a lot of male developers don't want to be sexist, but we need to learn what that actually means in practice, and it's not as intuitive as you make it out to be. Wasn't for me at least.

Re: The fight against sexism is not a free pass

#30

Post by [deleted] »

CrLf wrote: post #15

I'm sorry to invoke Godwin's law on this, but this is beyond absurd... Stating that defending that pronouns should be gendered is a fireable offense is more than just ridiculous political correctness, it's criminalizing opinion. It's the Holy Inquisition.

[deleted]
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