Isn't the solution to the whole thing just Postel's law?
Be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others.
There are Ladies Present
91–100 of 113 posts
Re: There are Ladies Present
#92This is very simple. Women have an instinctive revulsion of anything that could be construed as sexual. This is no doubt a relic of our early days as a species, where a sexual context that a woman had not pre-approved could mean a costly nine month pregnancy. This is why its not just dick jokes that women consider offensive, but even something as simple as calling a hat cute. If it can be construed from your words th…
> Women have an instinctive revulsion of anything that could be construed as sexual.
Do you have a source for this information, or is it, as it appears, complete rubbish?
Re: There are Ladies Present
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Ellen Degeneres or The Voice or any of the other false equivalences you're desperately reaching to make is not the professional technical workplace. If you run in any of my technical circles, put on a technical presentation, or otherwise represent at a technical conference, and you make "jokes" that are sexual innuendos of any kind or are otherwise unprofessional.... You will be gone. Gone. Count on it. The tech…
Let me ask you: Guy calls a hat cute, he... Woman calls a hat cute, she... Which one is more offensive? What exactly did men do that was so terrible to women -- in this industry -- that you feel like everyone has to make amends, and anything that "could" be a sexual joke should result result in the drama bomb we just seen or any ultimatums? I did NOT suggest that you should be making bathroom jokes on stage. I DID su…
I think you left out some context there.
Grace Hopper, one of the most accomplished computer scientists not just of her day but ever. Rose to dizzying heights in the US military because they needed her so much. A towering giant of the field. So when the picture of her comes up on screen, does the speaker say any of this? Does he acknowledge her greatness? No. He says she's wearing a cute hat. All her accomplishments and ability reduced to how she looks in a hat.
The problem here has absolutely nothing to do with the hat.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#94I went to school for a female-dominated profession (yes, there are quite a few out there where the balance goes the other way). I can assure you that if you find the things men say offensive, you haven't heard anything... I want to add the caveat that I am NOT attempting to appeal to hypocrisy. While I agree that there is a limit, I don't see how calling languages "estrogen" is offensive and I don't understand how ca…
No. Ellen Degeneres or The Voice or any of the other false equivalences you're desperately reaching to make is not the professional technical workplace. If you run in any of my technical circles, put on a technical presentation, or otherwise represent at a technical conference, and you make "jokes" that are sexual innuendos of any kind or are otherwise unprofessional.... You will be gone. Gone. Count on it. The tech…
I was presenting at a tech conference last year and was trying to discuss the essence of PHP, and I accidentally uttered the phrase "php-ness". Accidental, it got a small chuckle, and we moved on (8:30am session time IIRC - not enough coffee yet). I'm glad someone didn't record it and sue the organizer or try to get me fired over it.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#95> Men, can you imagine how hard it would be if all the women were constantly, and openly, talking about tampons, cramps, yeast infections, cheating, being cheated on, Trichomoniasis, faking-it, etc? I don't know about you, but It would make me feel out of place. You're right--you don't know about me. I fully wish this were the case! The place I want to work is the place where people are people , not separately "men"…
> Men, can you imagine how hard it would be if all the women were constantly, and openly, talking about tampons, cramps, yeast infections, cheating, being cheated on, Trichomoniasis, faking-it, etc? I don't know about you, but It would make me feel out of place. I've been the only male in a female dominated IT department before, and you know what... it does feel a bit awkward being a minority. It's not fun, and you a…
Not in an IT dept, but when I was going to school, I worked in a restaurant where I was the only male most of the time. Well, I was a shift manager, and all the shift managers and store manager were females except me (4-5 others). I got the crap shifts, had my schedule changed on a whim by others, and was often given crap tasks - moving/unloading stuff "because you're the man - I can't lift that!" It was funny for about a week, but never got any better. Regional manager gave me no support - he didn't want to be seen as disciplining any of the female staff for fear of some sexism/discrimination lawsuit. Eventually I left, but not soon enough.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#96I agree with this, fully and unequivocally. I have to wonder if "there are ladies present" might also be construed as sexist. Maybe we just shouldn't use toilet humor in situations where we're not absolutely sure everyone will find it appropriate. Warning: offensive, but to demonstrate a point... I once interviewed a guy who decided to wear a t-shirt to the interview that read "Thousands of my potential children died…
Serious question, and I don't mean this disrespectfully to you, but why did you not turn him away immediately and proceed to waste everyone's time?
At the time, I was young developer being asked to interview a somebody. If I'm honest, I was a little prideful that I was interviewing him, and not one of the other, more mature developers, so I took him through the process.
I think, knowing what I know now, and feeling confident in who I am as a developer, I'd probably at least ask about it in the interview. I'd say "Why did you choose to wear that shirt today?" Serious question. I'd be interested. Maybe the answer is "Because I don't really want this job" and then it's clear. Maybe it's "Because I don't want to work at a place that gets offended easily" or maybe it's "Because I didn't have any other clean laundry." I cannot think of a valid reason to wear that shirt to an interview, but I'd at least be interested in his reasoning (though he's still not getting the job).
Re: There are Ladies Present
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"women have already gotten a raw deal by being socialised to find sex uncomfortable" The counter to this is that they should be made more comfortable by not ~forcing~ them to pretend to be comfortable with awkward conversations in professional situations. Some things aren't as progressive as you imagine.
How is that a counter? It follows directly!
Right, but plenty are attempting to sidestep this comfort level and any contextualization, demanding that women enjoy lame dick jokes for the comfort of the men around them.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Serious question, and I don't mean this disrespectfully to you, but why did you not turn him away immediately and proceed to waste everyone's time?
At the time, I was young developer being asked to interview a somebody. If I'm honest, I was a little prideful that I was interviewing him, and not one of the other, more mature developers, so I took him through the process. I think, knowing what I know now, and feeling confident in who I am as a developer, I'd probably at least ask about it in the interview. I'd say "Why did you choose to wear that shirt today?" Ser…
Thanks! I've contributed to an interview or two, but I haven't yet been tasked with the responsibility to cut one short if a serious red flag like that came up.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#99A question for the guys of HN who know their movies: what would your reaction be to a service called Treehorn with a client program called LogJammer? I only found out where those names came from much later.
Do you mean, what would their reaction would be upon recognizing where those names came from? My reaction, in order, was (1) ugh, gross; (2) whoever named the service were being douchey idiots; (3) how much I dislike this aspect of the porn generation; (4) I would not feel comfortable using that software.
It was a logging service at Google back when I was working as a pager monkey. There were some people who really wanted me to get it integrated with one of our tools.
I didn't know anything about the movie at the time and so didn't get the reference.
Re: There are Ladies Present
#100This is very simple. Women have an instinctive revulsion of anything that could be construed as sexual. This is no doubt a relic of our early days as a species, where a sexual context that a woman had not pre-approved could mean a costly nine month pregnancy. This is why its not just dick jokes that women consider offensive, but even something as simple as calling a hat cute. If it can be construed from your words th…
> Women have an instinctive revulsion of anything that could be construed as sexual. Do you have a source for this information, or is it, as it appears, complete rubbish?
All pop (and most academic) evo-psych is absolute rubbish.