“bro” has a gender problem | Hacker News Reader

“bro” has a gender problem

bugzilla.mozilla.org

19 pointsTomte21 comments

So to successfully contribute to US based open source projects you need intimate familiarity with US culture and politics not to make a linguistic faux-pas? Got it... but it doesn't feel inclusive to me.

Inclusivity is making sure no open source anywhere features a shortening of the word 'brother'. If people outside the US don't understand why that's offensive I guess they're bigots.

In all seriousness, this has to be the height of meddling for the sake of meddling.

> If people outside the US don't understand why that's offensive I guess they're bigots.

Yeah look at this bigoted Swedish wikipedia article https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bro

> In all seriousness, this has to be the height of meddling for the sake of meddling.

For me it is not only meddling. The abbreviation was changed without proper explanation. "I have asked a feminist friend from the North American culture-sphere, and she advised against bro." is devoid of any actual information why it is important to change. I think reasons of "misogynistic" and "offensive" is not enough.

Because if we look at the other offensive and unacceptable words I'm aware of I know why they are loaded and how they are perceived badly.

I think the problem is more general than that, and it has to do with the fact that "SJWs" (for lack of a better term) assume that social justice should be the primary concern of all organizations.

In other words, it's not enough to make a good faith effort to be inclusive and kind -- you have to make their kind of absurdly extreme effort, at the expense of an organization's primary operational goal.

I think the only appropriate response to this kind of demand is a polite but firm "no".

So the passive aggressive bullying in this thread for a fairly polite "not interested in this merge" can be the result. https://github.com/joyent/libuv/pull/1015

Yes the problem is a little general than that. "SJW" are not seeing the problem with behaviour they have, that it can be experienced as exclusive behaviour by those who don't have the appropriate cultural context.

Oh yes. I'm familiar with that pull-request, but there's no point in being aggressive and combative first. Cross that bridge when you get there.

I'm not planning with being combative about it. If it ever happens to me I'll just throw up my hands and walk away. I really love creating software and it is big part of my life. But I will never personally engage in this type of discussion after witnessing this happening in other places in other forms. Those who pick these fights will not see my point of view ever and it will be big waste of energy, which I'll rather spend on creating software.

The reason I engage in this now is that I'm at the periphery only observing. It doesn't take that much of my time and energy to write a small commentary on it.

Those who pick these fights will not see my point of view ever and it will be big waste of energy, which I'll rather spend on creating software.

The reason I engage in this now is that I'm at the periphery only observing. It doesn't take that much of my time and energy to write a small commentary on it.

I think we're actually in agreement -- I could have written those exact words.

If it happens to me, I'll politely say that I'm not interested in making the change, and I'll be ready to shut down the project and move onto something else. Call me vindictive, but I don't particularly feel like yielding, either.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I fully expect to be downvoted to oblivion for pointing this out, however it seems to me that the supposition that the word 'bro' is inherently 'misogynistic' is not only absurd (bro is simply a shortening of the word brother, after all) but it also reveals a deep-seated devaluation (and even demonization) of maleness which I find disturbing.

Meanwhile "She++" [1] is perfectly okay, it seems.

[1] http://www.sheplusplus.org/

Reminds me of the guy being called out on irc for accidentally writing "jap" (German version of "yep", literally putting a "p" at the end of the translated "yes")

According to that logic we can also go ahead and ban all products that rely on the chemical element Bromine.

Seems like an eminently sensible outcome. The fact is, regardless of context, a word that has a derogatory or inflammatory meaning in a separate context will always be questioned. It doesn't matter if you find it acceptable; this is about respecting other people's boundaries.

Substitute "bro" for any word that you would find inappropriate and the problem becomes obvious.

Do you realize that your reasoning can be extended ad nauseam to everything, all the time? So much that you will find yourself spending more time on finding a name that actually building anything.

Should Coq - the proof assistant - be renamed to something else, because it is pronounced like "cock"?

Yes? Even though it is a project of the INRIA (One of France's Computer Science research institute) and means "rooster" in French.

This overly fixated attitude toward "respecting other people's boundaries" is very much begging for mockery. Perhaps as much as it is intellectually dishonest because it leaves so many questions, and unknowns unanswered.

How do you know what are the others' personal boundaries? Is there group whose boundaries does not matter> Does this rule extend to any creative work? Should existing projects be renamed? Are boundaries dynamics? Can someone be offended by this rule? Or are there rules about things that you can be offended about, or not?

There are so many issues with this paradigm of thinking.

Let me suggest an alternative: common sense.

And one comment even pointed out perfectly good reasons not to consider br - "'br' is already an abbreviation for Brazil and is the HTML tag for linebreak".

The same comment suggested "bti" as a sensible alternative, though.

Do you realize that your reasoning can be extended ad nauseam to everything, all the time?

I really wouldn't defend intellectual honesty with a slippery-slope argument.

I don't think it was intended as a slippery-slope argument, but rather as a demonstration that the proposed method was inherently indiscriminate.

In other words, it amounts to "stop doing things I don't like", and doesn't take into account the reasonableness (or lack thereof) of the person taking offense.

But what if I find "br" inappropriate?

Yeah, like what if it was racist?

From Urban Dictionary: "ii)Br: A dumbass online gamer who also hails from Brazil but is ignorant of rules and disrespectful of fellow gamers. Uses his or her lack of knowledge of the English language to try and get away with breaking rules"

Hmm.

>this is about respecting other people's boundaries.

This is about those boundaries being completely unreasonable. We're talking about the homonym of a gendered noun -- not even the (otherwise neutral) noun itself!

>Substitute "bro" for any word that you would find inappropriate and the problem becomes obvious.

Replace any loving, sensible statement with "black people should be lynched" and the problem becomes obvious.

Give me a break.

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