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Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

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Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#531

Post by yeukhon »

aiiane wrote: post #519
yeukhon wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, risking a crusade comes to my doorstep and downvote me to the minimum, here is a true rant: I want to express my paranoia here. I really hate when people have to bring up this gender issue in every discussion a name that sounds male-only. I am just saying: "stop raising the issue like we are on a crusade." The author has the right to choose a name and it can be that the author's geninue intent to use the name…

> No I am not ignoring sexism, I am saying the only reason we have sexism is because we are so conscious and so paranoid about it. So if we just stop complaining, things will magically get better.... because that has worked so well for marginalized groups in the past.

No. I said it is ridiculous to turn everything into a sexism discussion. Look, I said if people are making fun of female, like "sudo make me sandwich" that's sexist and we better make sure we correct that idea. It might be okay with a close friend but a public statement like that is obviously not acceptable.

bro-page is not in the same category as "sudo make me sandwich". There is no sexism in that name. Just because it is named "bro" doesn't mean it's sexist. We have girls who like to be called bro. I remember in one of the earliest episode in Family Guys, Lorie said "I respect your feminist initiative and being feminist means I have a choice and I choose not to be like you."

If you force people to feel like the name is sexist, you are making it sexist. If you are so paranoid about sexism that's because we have made many things sexist. Do people ever call a poem using masculine words sexist when some are just completely fine and have nothing to do with people degrading female or male? Ever heard of that?

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#532

Post by reallyseriously »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #505
reallyseriously wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, contexts were definitely conflated, sloppy reasoning. A better example would have been a programming language or software tool with a female name or slang. Of course, that wouldn't be sexist by definition and I wouldn't find it exclusionary either. But, the word "bro" in this thread has been compared to racial slurs so someone out there would probably have an issue with it.

Seriously? You genuinely think that 'software tool with female name' is as 'bad' as 'software tool with male name'[0]? And you can't work out why it isn't? Here's a clue: the software industry (along with many other industries, sadly) has a certain misogynistic element that discourages women from taking part, and humanity loses out as a result. That is why perpetuating the male-centric, frat-boy atmosphere is bad on…

"You genuinely think that 'software tool with female name' is as 'bad' as 'software tool with male name?"

No, I said that a software tool with a male or female name would not be sexist by definition and I wouldn't find them exclusionary either. Edit: So yes, I'm equally unoffended by both.

As for the rest of your comments, I'm in a thread about a software tool named "bro". I understand the word "bro" to be a casual greeting, predominately male in nature (like "dude"). Looked it up in Merriam Webster[1] & it says something similar. So, when I read "misogynistic", "humanity loses out", "male-centric", "frat-boy", "oppressed" in the span of a couple sentences in reference to my non-offense at gender specific names for software, I think it's fair to say we're probably not going to be able to have a rational conversation.

[1] —used as a friendly way of addressing a man or boy

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#533

Post by Steuard »

overgard wrote: post #440
Steuard wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point. So to the extent that the name of the "bro" command invokes that culture (and that's the point of the joke, right?), it reinforces the association between brogrammer attitudes and tech in general. Embedding that as…

> Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point. I don't even know what that is. Outside the bubble of HN I doubt most people have even heard the phrase. "Bro" for most people references dumb fratboys. Maybe it's a word that's offensive to fratboys, but I can't…

I can see two important things to say in response here:

1. I'm surprised that you don't know what "brogrammer culture" is, but that's okay. The point, though, is that for a lot of other people (particularly women) it is a familiar thing and it makes them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. You may not have had that experience, but part of having empathy for others is respecting that their experiences are still legitimate even if yours has been different.

2. It's been a lengthy discussion here, so maybe it's not repeating myself too much to say again that "offensive" really isn't an accurate characterization of the objections here. Plenty of people who have wonderfully off-color senses of humor might still consider this inappropriate. The issue isn't "this makes me feel offended", it's "this makes me feel excluded". That's a really important distinction.

(And to tie this in with point 1, even if you personally do not experience this sort of thing in a way that feels like it's excluding people, it's important to listen when substantial numbers of other people tell you that they do have that experience.)

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#534

Post by deevus »

overgard wrote: post #216
blahedo wrote: post #99

Great idea; shame about the name. Here's the problem with using words like "bro" (however jokingly): the problem is not with what you [0] are thinking when you read the word "bro", but with what other people , especially newcomers, are thinking. The locker-room atmosphere that stuff like this creates is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people, women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficu…

Absolutely, lets throw away our sense of humor and wordplay because there are theoretically people that might be offended (maybe, kindof. You know. In theory.). (N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..) Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?

I never understood the idea of being offended. It's probably because I'm nigh unoffendable (?).

Also, I share the sentiment of Steve Hughes - "So what? be offended! nothing happens!"[1]

[1]: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=b48_1305790944

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#535

Post by KVFinn »

anon4 wrote: post #413
blahedo wrote: post #99

Great idea; shame about the name. Here's the problem with using words like "bro" (however jokingly): the problem is not with what you [0] are thinking when you read the word "bro", but with what other people , especially newcomers, are thinking. The locker-room atmosphere that stuff like this creates is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people, women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficu…

I'd have named them "spartan" pages. The name is a LOT more sexist, but few people would realise (spartans famously didn't think highly of wom ¹), but it also has the metaphorical meaning of being b ¹-bones, which is what these pages are. But that name is seven whole letters and that's harder to type than m ¹, so I'd abbreviate it to sprn, which also stands for s y¹ p n¹, both of which are way, way more sexist than b…

>The only way to fight moralfags

That does wonders for your argument.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#536

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

endymi0n wrote: post #47
lhnz wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you winding me up? Was man also misogynistic? Besides: curl --header "X-GirlsAreBrosToo: 1" www.bropages.org

it's actually the first thing a feminist programmer adds to her .bashrc: alias woman="man"

Please, "their .bashrc" :-)

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#537

Post by aaren »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #511
donotsurveil wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

English is not my mother tongue so maybe that's why I don't get the humor here, what wordplay are you talking about ? man is short for manual following a unix tradition, bro is a word associated with despicable attitude and stupid behavior holding those as life goals which has absolutely no link with its actual use. There is no way I'm sharing my library of command examples I built for myself over the years with this…

As far as I (from the UK) can tell, this is largely a US (North American?) term, rather than one with much use in any other English-speaking country. Some example usage: the phrase "bro's before hoe's" is a hilarious exchange amongst a group of 'men', implying that men are to be valued above women, who are all sexually promiscuous anyway (and, by the way, that's bad when it comes to women, as opposed to being somethi…

I had actually taken 'bros before hos' as a reminder of the importance of maintaining your long term friends whilst romantically engaged, expressed through the medium of gender-loaded words that rhyme and assuming the heteronormative paradigm.

My interpretation was that there was no value judgement being made and that this could be equally well articulated using any rhyming words that could indicate a romantic coupling (I've also heard 'chicks before dicks'). That was how I thought about it, but I don't get to choose who feels offended or marginalised by my usage.

Thinking about it now though I've also heard 'mates before dates' which I take to be neutral. Is that a safe way to express the pithy sentiment of prioritising your friends?

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#538

Post by vinceguidry »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #435
Bockit wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, you don't. Whether or not you choose to go ahead with something that will offend people is up to you, but you don't get to choose whether it will or won't affect people.

People nowdays get offended about pretty much anything. I refuse to pay Dane-Geld[0] to them by worrying about every single word I use, because otherwise they'll never shut up. [0] - http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html

I'm not saying you're an asshole, I don't know enough about you to make that call, but comments like this really make you sound like one. You're basically saying, "I refuse to even try to live harmoniously with others because they're just going to keep demanding shit from me."

If you don't want or care to examine your thoughts and actions, that's fine, but getting all high and mighty about it by invoking Kipling and comparing them to marauding Vikings is just silly.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#539

Post by aiiane »

cbhl wrote: post #14
dewitt wrote: post #4

Is the "bro" intended to be ironic, or are the creators actually not aware that the term is used to represent the worst (most misogynistic, most crass, least mature, least dependable) people currently flocking to the industry? It is by its very definition exclusionary. I suppose "brogrammers" might be a target audience, but the concept of the tool itself is pretty good for just about anyone. Shame about the name.

I suspect it's supposed to be a pun on "man". The only other tool in this space that comes to mind is GNU's "info"... What name would you have given the tool?

tinpages. That way the tools do what they say on the tin.

Re: Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only

#540

Post by reallyseriously »

aiiane wrote: post #510
reallyseriously wrote: post #448

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"How very odd that despite all of our behaviour being so non-offensive and non-exclusionary, we don't seem to have any women who want to hang around this forum with us..." Correlation -> Causation? Is that seriously why you think there aren't more women on HN? Because it's offensive and exclusionary against women?

I can think of a number of my colleagues who specifically avoid HN because of that very reason, so, yes.

Is this the part where I should say something about how they need to "toughen up" and they must be "too sensitive"? jk. That's actually a real shame. I'm not going to venture a guess at the % of threads that any woman would find offensive but always thought HN was roughest on people's work when seeking feedback, etc.
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