Bro pages: like man pages, but with examples only • Hacker News Board

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

#641

Post by Myrmornis » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 5:52 AM UTC

nacs wrote: post #295

glesica wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another offended man checking in. Why is it so hard to accept that sexist language and actions are offensive to men? I suspect that most people would agree that white people can be offended by the use of terms like "nigger", or jokes about slavery. So then why can't men be offended by misogynistic language or jokes that are likely to create a hostile environment for women? I clicked, I saw the name and was a little t…

> Another offended man checking in. And yet you typed out a racist, highly offensive word (far more offensive than "bro" I'm pretty sure) in your own 2nd paragraph.

He placed it in double quotation marks. That means that his reference was to the word itself as a syntactical construct. It carries no implications regarding the semantics of the word and does not imply any opinion on whether the word should be used in normal communication (i.e. without quotes).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use%E2%80%93mention_distinctio...

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

#642

Post by krstck » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 5:52 AM UTC

Token woman in tech here, with the disclaimer that I do not speak for "women" or anyone else but myself.

I am sensitive to the issue of exclusionary culture within tech. I think there are times when this is a necessary discussion to have. I want to see more women get involved in programming, and I am happy to point out instances of men perpetuating a sexist culture.

With that said, I don't see it here. I really don't. And I understand the concept of lots of little things adding up over time, where one joke would not be offensive, but a constant barrage would be. I think of myself as someone who isn't bothered at all by swearing, but I have a housemate who literally swears in every other sentence and it is the most grating thing to me. It's not once instance, it's the accumulation over time. But I don't think this is similar.

"Bro" being offensive seems very highly specific to particular subcultures that I guess I'm not a part of. I guess there are people for whom that word has some highly negative connotation, maybe the people who are called "bros" derogatorily, but I don't understand why this pun is offensive to women. Gender isn't some super shameful characteristic that I flinch at any reminder of its existence. If I used this tool, I guarantee you that I would not be subtlely reminded that I am an "other", that I am not a "bro"; I use git all day every day and I honestly forget that it has any other meaning.

I hate to say this, because women feeling excluded from tech is a big, real problem, but this conversation trivializes it. People who need to hear that this is a problem are going to see this discussion and think that women are being ridiculous. Women are not underrepresented in tech because of this. But thanks for contributing to the stereotype that women whine and complain about trivial stuff, bros.

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

#643

Post by res0nat0r » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 5:53 AM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #354

smokeyj wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a funny joke, I love the name. Change it. Women everywhere will appreciate your valiant display of chivalry. They shall chant "Thank you Pxtl, for saving us from male privilege!".

Your premise is flawed. For example, I don't give a damn what women think of my calling people out on misogyny. I am not pro-women, I am anti-jackass. Comments like yours are jackasstic. I can dislike them without a moment's consideration of what women think of your words.

The word 'bro' has nothing to do with women. There is too much internet dork white knighting going on in this thread.

I'd respect peoples opinion more in this thread if they said 'Hey! I know there is a small percentage of us guys who are offended by this rubygem name, and I dont like it! You should change it.' vs. trying to frame the argument that one is trying to save the poor helpless women from themselves.

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

#644

Post by eevee » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 5:58 AM UTC

rds2000 wrote: post #501

glesica wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. This isn't just me and a few people making shit up, read my comment, it's obvious that the authors knew they were on shaky ground. They tried to defuse the situation with a cute little comment, but it would have been better to just change the name. Read this comment for a better explanation if you're actually confused: https://ne…

What creates a hostile environment for woman is where a sector, made of predominately men is scrutinized with a hysterical "boy who cried wolf" mentality. It's a vicious cycle. 1. First there is a tiny group of feminists, mostly consisting of marketers, call themselves coders, but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. They seem very happy to stir indignation. 2. Then, people…

I can't imagine why this sector predominately consists of men.

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

#645

Post by theorique » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 5:59 AM UTC

KuraFire wrote: post #572

rds2000 wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want to make personal examples, if you compare the look at the replies to @defunkt's twitter post, the females cheering - who even go so far as to overly call themselves feminists - have basically no engineer cred to speak for. Not on github, not on LinkedIn. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias. Bias? Feminists on twitte…

Have you ever considered the idea that your apparent dislike towards all things and people described as "feminist" suggests that you have, over the course of your seemingly-angry life, adopted a huge amount of misogynistic perspectives on things? Because, hate to break it to you, but you were born a feminist. Everyone is. Every person that has ever lived on planet Earth was born a feminist. Because the idea that wome…

I'm not reading anyone saying that women are inferior to men here.

The only thing I'm seeing people say is that both sexes need to earn their stripes and credibility through effort - and this needs to be true in programming just like any other field.

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

#646

Post by velis_vel » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 6:00 AM UTC

rds2000 wrote: post #501

glesica wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. This isn't just me and a few people making shit up, read my comment, it's obvious that the authors knew they were on shaky ground. They tried to defuse the situation with a cute little comment, but it would have been better to just change the name. Read this comment for a better explanation if you're actually confused: https://ne…

What creates a hostile environment for woman is where a sector, made of predominately men is scrutinized with a hysterical "boy who cried wolf" mentality. It's a vicious cycle. 1. First there is a tiny group of feminists, mostly consisting of marketers, call themselves coders, but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. They seem very happy to stir indignation. 2. Then, people…

> However, Github holds people accountable for actually having to program - funny how meritocracy came up as a bad word to these people!

Uh, no it doesn't? There are plenty of reasons someone might be a programmer that doesn't have work on github. Maybe their employer has a really restrictive invention assignment agreement and they don't feel like giving them free code. Maybe it's their day job and they do other things with their free time, like paint. Maybe they don't have any free time because they're a single parent or whatever.

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

#647

Post by juridatenshi » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 6:03 AM UTC

rds2000 wrote: post #549

ceol wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. The irony of this comment being in a long-winded post on Hacker News is lost, perhaps? You do realize the vast majority of "programmers" aren't building 100% of the time. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias.

I don't want to make personal examples, if you compare the look at the replies to @defunkt's twitter post, the females cheering - who even go so far as to overly call themselves feminists - have basically no engineer cred to speak for. Not on github, not on LinkedIn. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias. Bias? Feminists on twitte…

::looks at responses to @defunkt's twitter post::

1) it appears to be a pretty even mix of men and women responding positively. 2) a huge number of the people who responded positively (male and female) are in fact software engineers, some of them fairly well known (e.g. conference speakers), several of which work at big name companies.

So, uhhhh, what the hell are you on about?

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

#648

Post by Myrmornis » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 6:07 AM UTC

I think that a command giving terse examples of unix command usage has the potential to be really useful, and I was excited when I saw there were 614 comments.

I'm very disappointed to see that the comments are full of do-gooders criticizing the author's choice of name for the command. She or he is free to call it what he/she likes. Maybe those do-gooders should look up `bro alias` and discuss the project itself instead of trying to sanitize the world to better fit their personal sensibilities.

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

#649

Post by theorique » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 6:08 AM UTC

sethammons wrote: post #611

theorique wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole bro humour is deliberately exclusionary, it is an in-joke for tying together small groups of (mostly) young males. That is what it is for. It's important to draw the distinction between the usage of the term to (1) describe oneself and one's peers and create an ingroup as opposed to (2) describe (and often criticize) others I don't see a lot of unironic usage of (1), aside from the odd tone-deaf fratboy. I…

I agree with (1) and (2). I know the first thought I had when I saw "bro pages" I thought is was a pun on "man pages." Turns out I was right. As others have noted, no one seems oppressed with "/sys" or that since jewelry is mostly a feminine product, that using "gem" is hostile. Or Julia. Etc. I'm sure the argument is something akin to being that because we are in a male dominated space, that feminine gendered words…

If I understand the outcry, it's something like this:

- programming is a male-dominated field

- that's not a good thing - we need more women because of some reasons

- to get more women, we need to show women that they are welcome

- a package name like "bro" references male things, and possibly even unfortunate stereotypes like "brogrammers"

- this is a bad thing

- therefore, we shouldn't call it "bro" because women in CS and programming will think of brogrammers and other male stereotypes in programming and feel unwelcome

Frankly, this sounds like quite a stretch to me too, but it's my best guess about what the problem is.

I think there are definitely package names that one could imagine that were sexist and truly inappropriate. This isn't one of them.

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

#650

Post by Myrmornis » Sun, Jan 26, 2014, 6:14 AM UTC

blahedo wrote: post #622

tokenizer wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought it was short for "bro"chure anyway. I ctrl+f'ed brother on every page of that site, and I couldn't find any. If anything, people are placing the gender connotation into this command, like people do with "man"ual... why is it the creator and the people who aren't mentioning gender who are being insensitive? I find this entire argument sexist against myself as a man, as the equivalent of this would be creatin…

From the webpage: curl --header "X-GirlsAreBrosToo: 1" www.bropages.org ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ooh, how terrible, they made a joke about girls and bros. Lighten up / don't comment in this thread if it is to start a political correctness fight rather than discussing the technology itself. This thread could have been about the development/benefits of a crowd-sourced initiative to provide a collection of example usages of unix commands. That's something I've always wanted -- when I read man pages I often just want to see examples.