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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

#681

Post by jabelk »

VexXtreme wrote: post #671
jabelk wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobi…

I didn't find the bro thing offensive. What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia.

I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a parallel one, because an Asian in America is not really opposite to an american in asia): an Asian man in Africa would be treated differently. Just as an African man in Asia would be treated differently. In tech-related fields, women are treated differently. Everywhere. There is no anti-parallel universe (in tech) where women actually have the advantage, where women are making "sis" jokes about other women. That is the difference. We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.

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

#682

Post by Crake »

vinceguidry wrote: post #629
victorhooi wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose you didn't see the irony of you calling him an a*sehole? The fact that you did it in some round-about passive-aggressive way makes you look even more of one. You see how this just goes around in circles? Look, I think giving up is the wrong tact so I can politely disagree with his viewpoint - we should make an effort not to be dicks - but I certainly get what he's saying. And in my opinion, this stupid bike…

I don't think there's anything wrong with deciding in a particular case whether the complainants are being goobers or not. What I do see a problem with is just assuming that everyone trying to do their part to moderate culture so as to be more inclusive is just an Internet whiner. That's just anti-social and it perpetuates the problem of sexism in hacker culture.

>What I do see a problem with is just assuming that everyone trying to do their part to moderate culture so as to be more inclusive is just an Internet whiner.

This might have something to do with the fact that 99% of the time, they ARE internet whiners.

This is why no one wants to be associated with feminism anymore. An over fixation on censorship and a staggeringly low amount of self-awareness.

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

#683

Post by jabelk »

Crake wrote: post #680
jabelk wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ne…

>seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. You must lead a very privileged life.

Not really. It's just extraordinarily discouraging to be constantly reminded of a problem so deeply ingrained in millions of people that it couldn't possibly be completely addressed in my lifetime. It's pretty hard to stare into the abyss of those types of problems.

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

#684

Post by nostrademons »

Crake wrote: post #679
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…

In my experience, it's always about offending people. But only theoretically, of course. It's hard to find significant quantities of people who are actually offended, which is in itself deeply ~problematic.~ >their impression is that the community here closes ranks to shout her down rather than accepting the legitimacy of her experience It does say a lot about you and your friends that they assume that anyone who dis…

The risk isn't that someone gets all huffy and makes a big deal about being offended. It's that people who you would want to participate silently think to themselves "I don't want to deal with this" and then go away. It's explicitly not the oversensitive feminists I care about here; it's the reasonable, intelligent women and men who have a number of options on where to spend their time and choose not to spend it in communities where they feel unwelcome.

"Anyone who's offended by this isn't someone I want to spend time around anyway" can be a very effective way to filter your friends, but you have to be very careful that you apply it in a way that actually offends the right people. As an early-30s male in tech with a number of female friends and coworkers that I respect highly, I'll tell you that there are many people who my life has been quite enriched by who won't go near "brogrammer" culture or anything that sounds like it.

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

#685

Post by Crake »

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?

I'm sure some feminist somewhere is offended by it. I mean, we say that we use programming languages for things. So clearly using Julia is condoning rape of women, or some such nonsense.

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

#686

Post by adrienne »

smokeyj wrote: post #345
Pxtl wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point. It's such a shame that gender politics have created so many thorny issues in our industry, but you can't bury your head in the sand and pretend they're not there. If we had good female representation in the industry and we didn't have a small cluster of vocal misogynists, we'd be able to make cute jokes that play on gender. But sadly, we don't live in that world. Yes, we need to hold ourselves to a higher stan…

> 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!".

I get really fucking tired of seeing men who are helping derided as "white knights". Trust me, women can TELL when someone is putting us on a pedestal and deciding that we have to be defended because we're such delicate flowers, and we're quick to call that bullshit when we see it. Most of us actually appreciate when our ALLIES step up to talk about this shit.

It's not about "saving us" -- we aren't fucking damsels in distress, and yes, we can speak for ourselves. But assholes like you have made eminently clear that you don't actually LISTEN to women, and so it's nice to know that some men actually have our backs and are willing to do the utterly thankless work of trying to explain shit to you.

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

#687

Post by adrienne »

reallyseriously wrote: post #540
aiiane wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm a woman, and I've been in the tech industry for more than a decade. I avoid HN like the fucking plague, precisely because of the fact that it is so exclusionary and hateful toward women and other marginalized groups. (Tonight is absolutely the first time I have EVER commented in a thread.) So there's at least one data point for you.

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

#688

Post by Crake »

glesica wrote: post #331
overgard wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what way is this sexist? There is not a single word of disparagement on that site. Nobody in their right mind would say that the word "bro" is sexist unless they're explicitly looking to be offended. (IE: picking a fight)

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…

>It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women.

Are you kidding? Maybe if they named it bitchpages instead of bropages. Bro is used in many ways, one of which is as a term of endearment. Even if you take it in the brogrammer context, it's still a derogatory name for men, not women.

TIL that insulting men is misogyny. I guess it's like how when men die in wars, the real victims are still the women safe at home.

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

#689

Post by Crake »

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…

>These are woman creating a hostile environment for woman who would otherwise feel grateful to earn their way and belong.

EXACTLY THIS. Listen up, white knights, and please--knock it off.

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

#690

Post by Crake »

KuraFire wrote: post #568
rds2000 wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Hey dude, here's a hint: perhaps these women are arguing on social media because guys like you fail to give them the basic modicum of respect as a human being, and they have to spend time fighting to be respected, which takes away from their time to build stuff. Whereas, unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect, you have plenty of time to spend on doing things you en…

>Whereas, unlike your privileged life wherein people don't fundamentally deny you basic human respect, you have plenty of time to spend on doing things you enjoy, rather than getting people to treat you like an equal human being.

Making a lot of assumptions there about someone you know nothing about. How the hell do you feel you have any right to say these things? You are the one very clearly failing to give basic human respect here.

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