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Fork My Dongle

forkmydongle.com

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Re: Fork My Dongle

#211
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you feel that way. There was really no intention to be mean spirited. As a software engineer myself I definitely want to see more women in tech. I've seen a lot of interest in the donglegate story over the last couple of days and just saw an opportunity to shift focus onto a worthwhile cause.

"Male geeks are sad, fragile virgins." Hey! I'm sorry if that made you feel uncomfortable. There was no intention to be mean spirited!

Didn't make me feel uncomfortable in the slightest.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we care about donating money to Girls who Code? I'm not a girl and I don't see any reason why I should support them, particularly when the only time I hear anything about girls who code is when they're causing some drama. You know what girls who code should do? They should write code and be humble instead of forming a group called Girls Who Code in order to get attention and hand-outs. To be clear: I'd rat…

See you're one of those guys that's ruining it. It's just a cause, it's just a group of people with similar desires. It's no different than black entreprenuer clubs or jewish groups. They're not asking for a hand out they're just working together.

Yeah, but I was responding to someone who was browbeating someone else because their tee-shirt didn't support Girls Who Code.

I have no problem with the group itself, but if you start acting like people are bad if they don't support the group then I'm going to call it out.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess, you think it's racist to have "master" and "slave" databases.

Me personally? I'm a young straight cisgendered white guy. I love dirty jokes. I like talking far nastier than mere "dongle" jokes, I assure you. I enjoy my wild and crazy give-no-fucks lifestyle. The "master-and-slave" thing was mentioned in that MetaFilter discussion I linked you to, by the founder of MetaFilter no less! He talked about how a friend of his did find the terminology offensive, because he was black, a…

Yep, dongle jokes in a conference audience--and priggish overreactions to them--are a serious issue for sure. It's practically on par with nuclear proliferation and childhood obesity.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#215
post #190
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a woman I'd probably be afraid to wear a "Fork my Repo" shirt. I think you can guess why. Just some food for thought...

I see other women wearing shirts that say "kiss me, I'm Irish", and other such suggestive quotes on them, and people still don't really kiss them any more than people not wearing such a shirt. Just offering another data point.

Sure, other people may be comfortable wearing those clothing. I'm just saying that I, personally, would not feel comfortable doing so. Unfortunately, the "did you see what she was wearing? she was asking for it!" line of thinking still exists with some people :/

Re: Fork My Dongle

#216
post #133
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a woman I'd probably be afraid to wear a "Fork my Repo" shirt. I think you can guess why. Just some food for thought...

Why? (not why as "I don't see anything wrong" but why as "I really don't know, please explain")

In addition to the points made by unalone, I'll just add that oftentimes rape apologists will blame the victim with phrases like "Look at her outfit, she was asking for it" type of reasoning. It makes me really self-conscious of what I wear, even though I know it shouldn't matter.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#217
Funny, given all the insanity of the past week, that this hasn't caused much of a stir in all the years github has been around:

http://shop.github.com/products/fork-you-shirt-mens-medium

I also remember having a laugh over their “fork queue” feature, which has since been spring-cleaned.

https://github.com/blog/270-the-fork-queue

Re: Fork My Dongle

#218
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to take it in the context, and the point of these tees is taking side in a sexual harassment dispute. (Racist or homo jokes are sometimes witty too, and get under the skin of many. That something's funny is irrelevant.)

Funny is relevant. As you say, sexist, racist and homo jokes are sometimes witty too - so unless they are explicitly used to demean and hurt someone, people should be free to joke about all such things. Including jokes about a gay jewish pope eating dead babies, or whatever combination of things offensive to racial/religious/gender/ethnical/etc groups people may think of. In the Pycon case, my greatest surprise when…

> people should be free to joke about all such things.

Agreed. But let me disagree about your first sentence. Actually, I think you just showed that funny is orthogonal. The salient point, as you pointed out, is for people to mind their own business about other people's business. This would have applied if the comments between those men were a silly joke or more of a bitter complaint. There would've been far less funny in the 2nd situation, but you still would've had the same result.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I will forever remain at a loss about how dongle jokes perpetrate injustice. I wasn't talking about the present situation. I have to speak out against the notion that laughter = good. It's not. It's orthogonal. I see so many young people use the good feeling of it to convince themselves they're doing right, though. > All I know is that they really got under the skin of an all-too-serious, uptight prig, and the over…

I think you're attributing opinions to me that I never expressed. I'm just saying that poking fun is a perfectly appropriate response to this particular absurd situation.

> I think you're attributing opinions to me that I never expressed.

It was because of the "always." Seems like you meant that more as "most of the time."

> I'm just saying that poking fun is a perfectly appropriate response to this particular absurd situation.

With that, I'll entirely agree.

Re: Fork My Dongle

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Things like this" aren't an issue. Dongle jokes are not a social injustice. Feminists often do a good job of identifying social injustices and when they do, it's worthwhile to treat those injustices seriously. This is not one of those times.

I've heard from many women in the last few days that they are , in fact, made uncomfortable by the overt sexualization that happens in programmer culture. This comment on MetaFilter [ http://www.metafilter.com/126184/Furore-over-sexism-being-ca... ] made its point in a way that was particularly uncomfortable for me: > Oh let's even forget code and the "fork" jargon and whatnot. Let's talk about hardware engineering.…

> I've heard from many women in the last few days that they are, in fact, made uncomfortable by the overt sexualization that happens in programmer culture.

If straight guys in SF would like to get some perspective on this, imagine working 8 hours a day in The Castro in one of the more highly sexually charged environments there. I bet you'd definitely notice that. Being there also gives you a different perspective on what you thought were innocuous things like posters, let me tell you.

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