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Child's play

devreaction.blogspot.com

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Re: Child's play

#41

to be honest I find it hard to take writing that uses "females" as a synonym for "women" super seriously

I have actually noticed this becoming more common. “Females” is what you refer to as strictly cis-females, where as women generally means a mix of transgendered and cis-females. So if a man’s dating profile says “females only”, you know what he’s talking about.

like omg that's so ableist!

What if I were a trans-woman and wanted to be called female??

This horrible trans-normative oppression needs to stop!

I am going to go protest at a starbucks.

Re: Child's play

#42

If you don't want to be infantilized, don't go to the conferences where you feel infantilized and don't find your jobs through contracting firms that treat you like an infant. You are not powerless in your situation. Stand up for yourself.

Bingo! Vote with your feet.

Re: Child's play

#43

to be honest I find it hard to take writing that uses "females" as a synonym for "women" super seriously

In current culture, especially SV, not all women are female. It is necessary to specify female if one is actually referring to biological sex instead of cultural gender. Some find this an annoying distinction but it is the cultural norm in an increasingly growing number of places.

gender is not a theory.

'identifying' as another gender means wearing a stereotype.

Re: Child's play

#44

I do wonder why something so serious has turned into something so childish. But then the other day I got a haircut and while waiting to pay spied a shelf full of beard products in that cute, hipster art style, the whole display blending in perfectly with all the other hair products. It's difficult to watch something we have defined as the apex of manliness (beards) being treated with the same tone of voice as cosmeti…

But even those cases where the beard products are on wire shelves with minimalistic old school labels, that's still just a marketing trick where someone did analysis and thought that strategy would be better for their demographic.

If you want to escape infantilisation, you need to in many ways escape consumerism and go back to the days of just whipping up your own beard oils.

Re: Child's play

#45

> "I hate being called 'IT'" Oh man I hate this. An "IT" job to me just means an admin job where the subject of the admin tasks happens to be computers. It's worse when "IT workers" try to lump actual technically-skilled roles in with them, like it's just another task to be performed.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way. I have nothing against actual IT workers, but grouping developers under "IT" is like referring to ER surgeons as EMTs. IT also gives people the impression that one is a "computer expert", which can't be further from the truth for many developers. I happen to have a relatively detailed understanding of how computers work, but I'm by no means an expert on hardware, sett…

Yeah, it works both ways. "No, Auntie Susan. I have no idea how to fix your printer. Never call me again."

Re: Child's play

#46
There's a big difference between "childlike" and "childish." I see nothing wrong with professionals that engage with media and culture that stokes our childlike sense of wonder and play, and I count us fortunate indeed to live in a time and place where such luxury exists. It never ceases to astonish me just how far geeky interests have invaded the mainstream over the years.

A danger is the potential exclusion of people who do not participate in that specific culture, and that's something I'm more cognizant of now than I was in the past. If you should have a concern about the interweaving of tech professions and geek culture, I figure this is the most important one.

As an adult, my relationship to comics and geek culture has definitely changed enormously from where it was when I was a child, a teenager, or a college student. Things I thought were awesome I now see as cheesy, trite, or problematic. Things I didn't appreciate earlier on have come to take on new resonance. A few things have remained constant. The opening fanfare to Star Wars, for example, when infrequently presented in a dark theater, will probably never stop sending shivers down my spine.

The trick, then, is to approach the intersection of tech professions and geek culture as grown-ups, shrugging off the (usually blatant) attempts at manufacturing hype, and enjoying the real connection that our culture affords, without pursuing it to exclusion.

Re: Child's play

#47
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In current culture, especially SV, not all women are female. It is necessary to specify female if one is actually referring to biological sex instead of cultural gender. Some find this an annoying distinction but it is the cultural norm in an increasingly growing number of places.

Yet is still a very small minority, and it appears that you are needlessly seeking out ways to be offended when no offense was meant.

Not sure what in my post indicated that I was offended. The cultural context of the industry might be apparent to you from within that context but not everyone who reads Hacker News lives in that same context. That biological sex and cultural gender are not the same is not something that is held to be true everywhere. Explaining the context we live in is not the same thing as being offended that some either don't understand or dislike that part of our culture. Or to put it another way, don't shoot the messenger.

Re: Child's play

#48

> "I hate being called 'IT'" Oh man I hate this. An "IT" job to me just means an admin job where the subject of the admin tasks happens to be computers. It's worse when "IT workers" try to lump actual technically-skilled roles in with them, like it's just another task to be performed.

Um wow there's a lot wrong with this comment. But that aside, what if I told you programming was just modern accounting, glorified data entry? All programmers do is put code into repositories. Very very few people are actually inventing new systems and algorithms. If you're a "framework programmer" you know what I mean.

Anyway point is it's a spectrum. Yes some "IT" labor is menial, but I also know IT people who know way more about security and networking and identity etc. than most software engineers will in their entire career.

Re: Child's play

#49
The consulting shops get a hefty cut of the pay (and it's hard for them to find and place talent too), so they feel compelled to do everything they can to make things work. Not to say these things aren't patronizing/infantilizing and due to be shut-down, but until the supply/demand situation works itself out, we'll likely just replace one weird attention/talent-grab gambit for another.

Another possibility would be for these companies to just pay more and "cut the crap". If companies paid more, there would be more talent on the market (presumably) and companies wouldn't need to put on the dog-and-pony shows to attract and retain because the economics are doing that for them.

(And of course there are people who like the dog-and-pony shows and the 'un-corporate' vibe of these things. Power to them, but at least personally it would be nice for the "cut the crap and pay more" idea to be more common.)

Re: Child's play

#50

to be honest I find it hard to take writing that uses "females" as a synonym for "women" super seriously

In current culture, especially SV, not all women are female. It is necessary to specify female if one is actually referring to biological sex instead of cultural gender. Some find this an annoying distinction but it is the cultural norm in an increasingly growing number of places.

I do not think that was the intended usage.
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