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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

#651

Post by theorique »

glesica wrote: post #253
overgard wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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…

I clicked, I saw the name and was a little turned off but thought maybe it was just a clever shortening of a reasonable word I hadn't thought of (the way "man" is short for "manual").

It's really just one of those clever little puns that Unix is known for.

e.g. "more" is a paging utility ... "less" is an alternative one, even though it doesn't show you less of the file.

"elm" is a mail reader, "pine" is a different mail reader, and they are both trees.

"man" is short for manual. Man is also the word for a male human being. "Bro" is another, affectionate word to describe a male human being.

Just another pun, not a dark scheme to alienate women from the programming world. And certainly not misogynistic language or jokes that are likely to create a hostile environment for women.

There are some possible package names that would be sexist and anti-women. This isn't one of them.

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

#652

Post by mafuyu »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #246
ilyanep wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Not_a_woman http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/You%27re_the_sexist#.22Ta...

Someone should coin an analogue to Godwin, where linking to the Geek Feminism Wiki is seen as an instant loss of credibility. The wiki is hugely anecdotal beyond all reason, poorly written, often incoherent and their editorial guidelines clearly show that they have virtually no standard as long as the content fits under a vaguely feminist or social justice-oriented perspective. ( http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Me…

Godwin's Law doesn't say anything about credibility. It just states the probability of a Nazi reference approaches 1, but many people incorrectly use it to attack the credibility of a statement.

That said, the Geek Feminism Wiki is a specific website which can be shown to be credible or not.

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

#653

Post by Myrmornis »

natch wrote: post #214
BadCookie wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, taking everything so seriously can make the situation worse. I'm a woman in tech, and I don't want the men in tech to feel like they have to walk around on eggshells so as not to offend me. I think that the name "bro pages" is kind of funny, for what it's worth, and all of the protest against the name is the only thing making me uncomfortable.

Just keep in mind, for every comfortable woman in tech, there are many uncomfortable women who stayed out of tech. because of the stuff that for whatever reason doesn't bother you, but does bother them. Their voices are not represented here. And the tech world is the poorer for it.

Woman are not in tech because we fail at the high school education phase: we need to do better at encouraging women to study STEM subjects at university. I don't believe the current environment at tech companies is the problem. If it is a rather male dominated culture that is the effect, not the cause.

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

#654

Post by wiredfool »

AndyKelley wrote: post #496
Steuard wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "bro" has been closely associated in the tech world lately with things like "brogrammer" culture. I don't know whether that was the intended reference in this case (though it seems pretty likely to me that something of the sort was on the authors' minds when they chose the name: why else would the term feel relevant?). But the real issue isn't "What did they intend?" in any case: it's "What impact might this…

What's wrong with gendered things? The programming language Julia is female, and nobody seems to have a problem with that. What's wrong with a tool that has a male gendered name?

It's also the last name of Gaston Julia, who has a set named after him.

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

#656

Post by chipotle_coyote »

mkdir wrote: post #619
jtheory wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Answer: yes, of course it's sometimes appropriate. But if you're having a serious conversation with someone on the subject of privilege, and you're on the privileged side (and they're not), the likelihood of you accurately identifying when they should lighten up is so vanishingly small (I keep finding my blind spots in spite of years of being attentive to this kind of stuff...), and the chance that they might actuall…

You're fighting to create a world in which the intellectual currency is not reason, evidence, or logic; it's self-proclaimed victimhood. If I claim I'm a victim in a way that you're not, it becomes literally impossible for you to prove me wrong. If I go on to claim that we need new policies to protect me from (and/or compensate me for) that victimhood, you can't disagree. You can't do anything other than supplicate.…

"If I claim I'm a victim in a way that you're not, it becomes literally impossible for you to prove me wrong."

This is a very ungenerous reading. (Ungenerous readings are very common in 'discussions' like this, on both sides.)

You're translating the claim to a nebulous sense of victimhood, but that's not really the context, is it? Instead, the example should be that you're claiming to be subject to discrimination that I am not based on a quantifiable categorical difference between us -- you are gay and I am straight, you are a woman and I am a man, you are black and I am white. Given that context, the question becomes whether I should give you a benefit of the doubt in your claim based on that experience.

When a woman claims that "brogrammer culture" is insensitive and indeed exclusive to the point where the phrase "bro pages" really does come across as twitch-inducing, she's not making that claim based on "self-proclaimed victimhood." She's making it based on experience that you not only do not share, but that it is literally impossible for you to share. You can't be subject to the same kind of discrimination she is.

And yes, it's patronizing for men to come in and make that claim on her behalf. But isn't it even more patronizing for men to come in and say that she has no basis to make that claim? It seems to me that a lot of comments here are on the edge of (or over the edge of) "women who want to be treated equally to men shouldn't complain that language can ever make them feel unwelcome." And that sounds uncomfortably like we're saying to women: you can't disagree. You can't do anything other than supplicate.

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

#657

Post by Steuard »

overgard wrote: post #625
Steuard wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about offending people. It's never about offending people. Plenty of people could have delightfully off-color senses of humor, love playing Cards Against Humanity, and still find this name highly problematic. It's actually about the signals that we send by using language closely associated with groups or attitudes that have long histories of excluding women or others from our culture and community. And just…

"Signals". Ok. So what's the signal being sent to women by a bunch of men that think that women are so weak that a mild mild MILD joke about fratboys is going to chase them away? (A lame joke that doesn't even involve women directly). Do you really think they're that emotionally fragile? Don't you see how incredibly patronizing this discussion is towards the people it's supposedly benefiting? Which do you think is mo…

It's difficult for me to see how you read my post as suggesting that the awesome women I know (or women in general) are emotionally fragile. I really tried to go out of my way to avoid giving that impression; that's why I called them "unflappable", among many other things.

I do understand the point you're aiming for here. But when the premise of your objection is so explicitly at odds with my actual words, it might be a good idea to ask yourself whether you really understand the point that I'm trying to make. (And not entirely succeeding in making, clearly!)

The biggest problem with your objection, to my eye, is that you're only talking about this as one isolated joke, while I'm trying to consider it as part of a broader pattern. The really frustrating part of this discussion, for me, is that I already made exactly that clarification to you (in more detail) nine hours ago in this same thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7122412). You didn't address that point then, and in writing what you have here you make it clear that it's still not something you're thinking about.

The pattern is the point. The cumulative impact of culture is the point. It's not calling women fragile to say that a lot of them get awfully sick of being peppered with these little signals of not-belonging hour after hour, day after day. Some may be fine with it, but many others clearly aren't. So why is it controversial to say "Ok, let's not do that"?

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

#658

Post by jude- »

rds2000 wrote: post #584
KuraFire wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Please understand, Sympathy, courtesy, favors and censorship can't substitute the effort to learn programming and build.

They don't substitute them, but they do complement them. Software engineering is an inherently social process--unless you're a self-employed lone wolf who doesn't interact with customers, you have to work with other people to build and program. That means you should work to create an environment of mutual respect, inclusion, and professionalism, and that requires a degree of sensitivity and empathy on your (and your teammates') part. Otherwise, why would anyone want to work with you? Especially if you could be replaced by someone who's just as talented, but more socially professional?

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

#659

Post by spikels »

raganwald wrote: post #392

My experience is this: Some time ago, I wrote a post about CoffeeScript. As you may know, CoffeeScript is a whitespace-specific programming language. I am black, and there is a small cultural wiggle-room when it comes to black people making fun of colour-based cultural issues. So I thought I could get away with calling my post "White Power." The response was immediate and scathing. Regardless of whether I was persona…

Oh oh! Did you really just say "A few people continued to RAG me about it"? I know you think you are very language sensitive and not a mysoginst. But to use the word RAG!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rag

So how do you plan to repent! First beg for forgiveness until everyone agrees you have begged enough. Second make some pledge for the future. Of course you will never use that word again but how about donating money to a charity or hiring some women. Third and most important think twice before you accuse anyone ever again of saying something offensive because it might have been a simple mistake.

Maybe we could all be a little more gracious and assume the best of our fellow human beings. I think life could be a lot more pleasant for all of us. We might even be able to get more good done too.

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

#660

Post by jabelk »

VexXtreme wrote: post #612
Steuard wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 legitima…

> "this makes me feel excluded" I personally find it EXTREMELY offensive that you assume women have such delicate sensibilities that they wouldn't find this funny or simply see it as a joke. What do you think they are children or mentally incapable of processing wordplay? In this context, "bro" is an obvious pun on "man", what more needs to be said about this? I don't know a single woman who would feel excluded by th…

Me. Right here. I am a woman and while I can obviously recognize that it is a joke, seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. Reading tech news, browsing this site, and on every other technology related site, 10+ times every day I am inundated with these hilarious "jokes" implicitly suggesting that this community, this interest, is for a specific group of people that I am not, and will never be, a part of. It sucks. Like others are saying, it's not that I can't recognize it as a joke or that I feel "offended," it's just simply exclusionary.

Actually, it's not even exclusionary by itself. Which is probably why so many people can't recognize this issue. It's the fact that I wade through DOZENS of these types of things every day, and they all add up.

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