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Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

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Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#331

Post by natep »

mkramlich wrote: post #284

I hereby move that all further article submissions focused on gender roles or "sexism" be banned from HN. They aren't intellectually interesting, they aren't productive, they tend to bring out the worst in terms of quality of discussion. Yes, I know some of you may disagree with me, but that does not make me evil or less enlightened than you are, so spare me the downvotes. For those of you that do agree with me, I re…

We shouldn't stop following the guidelines just because you don't like the subject. This was clearly a social hack.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#332

Post by [deleted] »

mkramlich wrote: post #284

I hereby move that all further article submissions focused on gender roles or "sexism" be banned from HN. They aren't intellectually interesting, they aren't productive, they tend to bring out the worst in terms of quality of discussion. Yes, I know some of you may disagree with me, but that does not make me evil or less enlightened than you are, so spare me the downvotes. For those of you that do agree with me, I re…

[deleted]

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#333

Post by groby_b »

hosh wrote: post #161
hythloday wrote: post #16

"It has been fascinating to watch the ongoing reactions. There have been complaints that we have too many bots in the channel now. There have been complaints about it spamming the channel. There were several “Make them shut up!” responses. These are not reactions I have seen the other bots elicit, certainly not with such intensity. One person even complained about the name being too long, though to his credit he real…

"... something is making them uncomfortable, and so they attack it on 'rational' grounds. Most likely, they aren’t even aware of the gut reaction fueling their logic." Twenty years after writing Snow Crash , Neal Stephenson, the Arbiter of Badassness, wrote in Reamde : "It was then that she cut him off in midsentence and said that it was over. She said it with a certainty and a conviction in her voice and her face th…

At least partially that might well be because society perpetuates the stereotype that gut-reactions are a female thing, guys are really bad at listening to their heart, and in general emotionally stunted. At some point, it becomes internalized - and you see men simply ignoring emotions and feelings that they're well aware of.

Sure, it's dressed in sugar coating ("guys are rational!"), but it's still affecting behavior. That's the thing with gender stereotypes - they actually hurt both sides, just in different ways.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#334

Post by xycombinator »

unalone wrote: post #185
scythe wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is better, but I am still disappointed. What the author did was clever and interesting, and the reaction of this highest-ranked thread has been to steal the discussion from, say, the general application of a female hacker's idea and instead to focus on the psychological contusions of a group of guys we don't know, scarcely care about, and will probably never meet. And yet we are not even talking about how to convi…

Good point. I was aiming, with my comment, to pre-empt a lot of the responses which usually show up in a discussion like this. I don't think what I said was a derail: The biggest obstacle in these discussions is simply that people don't realize this is a problem. Nobody wants to be sexist, and nobody responds well to suggestions that their behaviors were unintentionally sexist, especially if they don't immediately se…

>Nobody wants to be sexist, and nobody responds well to suggestions that their behaviors were unintentionally sexist

Maybe some of Jay Smooth's TED Talk on racism (http://tedxtalks.ted.com/video/TEDxHampshireCollege-Jay-Smoo... apply to sexism.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#336

Post by eaten_by_a_grue »

unalone wrote: post #203
eaten_by_a_grue wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like most people caught out doing something wrong, now you are trying to make "rational" arguments against it.

I thought my joke was lighthearted enough, and metatextual enough, that it wouldn't offend anybody or make anybody feel uncomfortable. If my joke made anyone feel like their voice wasn't welcome in this conversation, then I apologize, and I'd like you to tell me so that I don't make this mistake in the future. My apology does not extend to you, eaten_by_a_grue, because you're not complaining about my joke, you're cal…

Not only are you a hypocrite for earlier claiming that all such instances of the joke are inherently objectifying women;

> Remember that sexism is about the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes, rather than being just about gross bigotry or discrimination. What's sexist is that people assume, in a workplace, that jokes about what women say in bed are acceptable. Those jokes make me a little uncomfortable even in a casual environment; it's kind of gross that people are okay with them at work. The sexism isn't one person consciously thinking "Oh man let's women the butt of jokes about sex!", it's that women-as-sex-objects is such a pervasive trope that we don't notice it unless somebody like Jessamyn points it out to us.

What was it you said, again? Oh, right;

> "that's what she said" will always be a joke the brunt of which is the faceless fuck-object woman.

So if it's so heinous a joke, what is your meta-joke? Oh I thought about thinking about a faceless fuck-object woman? And you consider that harmless?

And you sure do feel free to address anyone that dissents with you as trivializing the issue or telling women to "lighten up." Once a woman has decided something referring to women is sexist we cannot say otherwise lest we be branded sexist ourselves? I agree that TWSS is a stupid joke and I wouldn't want to see it at work and Jessamyn was all of more mature, rationally trying to solve her complaint, and clever. But I will never agree that it is inherently sexist.

You imagining the joke in the way you want to and then claiming that everyone else feels the same. But then when you feel free to re-use it in a slightly different manner you are unequivocally being a hypocrite.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#337

Post by fusiongyro »

sp332 wrote: post #243
schmichael wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you just compare a workplace to a frat house party? Unreal...

Its an analogy, not a comparison. Different workplaces have different cultures and different standards of behavior. Startups in particular are known for having unique work environments, and how well you fit into the culture of any business is an important part of determining if you should be hired there. e.g. http://dondodge.typepad.com/the_next_big_thing/2010/09/how-t...

Another difference, of course, is that when you casually walk into a frat house, there is no contract between you and the frat. There is an appropriate time to discover a cultural mismatch: the job interview. Once there is an employment contract, the law is involved and the law in this country is rather precise about what may not constitute part of your workplace culture.

I have never worked at a company in which the workplace culture really achieved anything like the kind of professionalism my peers in other fields seem to have, but that's irrelevant to the law. If your workplace is perceived hostile, the onus is on the employer to fix it, or face legal repercussions. If you and your two friends form a startup and make life hard on your first employee, that means you--there is no "oh, but if you're a software startup, then your culture is more important" clause.

I think we should endeavor to appreciate the broadness of this protection rather than complain about having to grow up just because in our particular industry, we haven't had to yet. If you still need an outlet for your "culture," form a private club (analogous to a frat) and invite your buddies from work, but keep it out of the workplace.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#338

Post by fusiongyro »

mseebach wrote: post #117
illumin8 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize this is just a startup, and many things that wouldn't fly at a large company are considered fun, however, the founders should really think twice about even having a TWSS bot. They are basically providing documented proof in writing of a hostile work environment. Sure, this employee handled it well and had a little fun with it, but there are many more litigious employees that will take your company to the cl…

It bears mentioning that the TWSS bot itself is probably meant ironically - it's satirizing the fact that some people almost mechanically tags on TWSS to anything remotely relevant by actually doing it mechanically. https://github.com/bvandenbos/twss

It was meant ironically but offended anyway, and they didn't fix it when she complained. "We were being ironic!" is a lousy defense when all they had to do was turn it off when she asked.

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#339

Post by vaurora »

oinksoft wrote: post #93
3pt14159 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably found the wrong person. I know the author personally, she is a great hacker and worked for FreshBooks for years before moving to her current job.

Maybe I did! It seemed the posting account was a "Denise", and recent changelogs on the project website only attributed documentation changes to her. Her approach to "hacking" sure differs from mine ... from using "#!./tbenv/bin/python" (rather than "/usr/bin/env python" which will find the virtualenv link) making the code unusable for most people out of the box, to requiring a bunch of third-party libs to complete a…

Er, while trying to research Jessamyn, I think you instead tracked down the leader of the Dreamwidth project, Denise Paolucci. Yes, she updates the Dreamwidth documentation, among other things...

Re: Jessamyn Smith: Fighting sexist jokes with a Python bot

#340

Post by agateform »

wpietri wrote: post #297
agateform wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I agree that men generally don't mind Bob with his hourly cracks about women (and maybe gays). I'm male and certainly mind very much! I tend to find people that make cracks about woman not very smart. I also can't stand misandry which goes completely unnoticed by society. >That's why men swear up and down that they've never seen sexism in their workplaces. Because we simply can't see it. (And our society is sexi…

I strongly disagree that the notion of patriarchy is inherently biased. It's a reasonably neutral description of a social system. For example, the Patriarch of Constantinople apparently likes the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_of_Constantinople Also, patriarchy doesn't imply that all men have incredible power, any more than institutionalized slavery meant that all white people had incredible power. Patr…

Sorry for the large reply but please bear with me.

>Also, patriarchy doesn't imply that all men have incredible power, any more than institutionalized slavery meant that all white people had incredible power. Patriarchy also misuses men who step outside their role in the system, in the same way that white anti-slavery and anti-segregation activists were treated poorly.

You are comparing patriarchy to slavery which implies that husbands have incredible power as slave lords of their wifes and that husbands are evil.

Even if you look at the past, by comparing husbands to slave lords you are forgetting that husbands where required to work to provide, care of wife and children, be legally accountable if their wifes committed a crime for their entire lives all by them selves. Wifes also had much more rights then slaves.

Although there are differences between how man and woman suffers in a patriarchy, its safe to say that in a traditionalist patriarchy both man and woman are less free.

I think instead of assuming that woman has it worse all the time we should take in consideration all gender and sex issues. You can look at my recent post for some examples of mens issues https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3768116

Please watch the Girl Writes What videos that I linked. While I don't agree with everything she says her videos are quite insightful.

>It's true that critique of feminism is not necessarily anti-woman. Many feminists sometimes critique parts of feminism. However, when some guy turns up and turns a discussion of an actual woman's actual bad experience into a discussion of how oppressed he is by feminism, I'm still going to make some assumptions.

This is the right time and place to discuss misandry since misandry and misogyny often happens in such discussions and is not out of topic.

You are making assumptions because I'm "some guy" how is that not sexist? How is comparing husbands to slave lords not sexist? Why do you despise and distrust your own sex?

In a previous discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3745578 you mentioned that only extremist feminists are sexist. I'm still not convinced that feminists are generally not sexist.

I don't agree that because there is misogyny we should forgive/turn a blind eye to misandry.

Please note that my posts are sincere and I'm open to different ideas and opinions.

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