Accidentally Sexist | Hacker News Reader

Accidentally Sexist

epicodus.com

25 pointsmichaelrkn26 comments

I would call this more "accidentally realist" than "accidentally sexist." I know for a fact that even though I am not a great coder (not a huge part of my job currently) I could get hired over more qualified men because I'm female. I've talked to women who know they got hired in tech because they are women, not because of the skills/experience they have. I know women working current jobs where it's obvious they are not qualified for the job they have (of course, that happens with men too). I've had people at colleges tell me that if only I wanted to do Computer Science I'd be guaranteed a scholarship because I'm female, but there are not the same scholarships for me. All of that, in my opinion, is very sexist against men.

> I was chatting with a friend of a friend the other day who mentioned she was thinking about taking Epicodus. Out loud, I said "Oh, that's awesome! I really hope you do it." But in my head, I was worried. What if she wasn't good at programming? What if she didn't do well in the class? What if she didn't get a job afterwards?

I have that feeling whenever I commend _anyone_ for planning to learn to code. I don't know the specifics of this case, and whether the author would have been unreservedly gung ho about a guy talking about his plans to learn to code, but under the impulse to have faith in my empathetic capabilities, I generally resist the author's thought process as a kind of self-indulgent false modesty, rather than true insight. This might sound like a kind of "I'm not racist, I'm xenophobic" reasoning, but as a lot of people on this forum believe: learning to code is really hard and we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves when we are skeptical of others' abilities to learn how to do it.

I (successful man in tech) was talking to successful woman in tech a few weeks ago about her experiences and how I could better encourage my young son and daughter and their peers to consider science/engineering as normal.

At one point in the story of her journey, she noted with pride, "That was the ballsiest thing I've ever done." Even after I pointed out her words, it took her a second to realize what I was talking about.

It runs deep.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure if every use of language that can somehow be etymologically linked to a questionable cultural norm is worth expunging. Human languages are such that many expressions mutate to points where they entirely shake off original meanings. For instance, in some Slavic languages to this day it is perfectly normal and mundane to refer to Germans and the German language as "nemci," which literally means "mute people". It might have been intended derogatorily, but after centuries of use it has become neutered and most people don't even realize the etymology, nor do they say the word with any negative intent.

To tilt too much in the other direction is to preemptively assume the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis as an objective reality, when it is nowhere near that strong.

Exactly. When the negative intent is absent or entirely of a casual "in fun" nature, our language and meanings can flex, borrow and outright steal for the occasion at hand. For the context at hand.

Timing is everything though. Where and when words are used matter a lot. Not everyone will always agree on that.

Dare I say it, but this happens with the word "faggot" in certain places such as violent online game chat. Terrible word in almost all circumstances. But in some violent action games where all the virtual characters are male, you may wish to sledge an opponent with something stronger than "sissy". Suggesting the opponent does not meet the standards of the male gender role, requires a word fit for that occasion. "Faggot" steps up, phonetically punchy, scalding, indecent, it is for a moment free from the usual derogatory swipe against homosexual men, and for a second inspires fun and laughs. It can't be over-used however. But with the right timing and placement, it can be used by all in the game, male, female, gay or straight, without repercussion or the burden of having done a bad thing.

I suppose it reflects just what a desensitized and putrid person that I am when I find the words "fag" and "faggot" so mundane due to their highly frequent usage that has eroded them to the point of being akin to grunts. I've seen a lot of usage by openly gay and trans individuals, as well.

(Fun fact: Faggots are a traditional British dish made from meat offal. Its existence frequently horrifies Americans when they first learn of it.)

Brits are also less shocked by "fag" because of its use to mean "cigarette." In college I had a French teacher who scandalized her American class by casually dropping the word into conversation. Turns out she had learned English in England, and was unaware of the American usage.

I can't count the number of times in a public conversation I've heard people say, "well maybe I'm just being anal." Gah. That isn't a homonym people. You are literally referring to your asshole - or more precisely, a post-infantile stage of your development in which you developed a predilection for holding your shit in because you experienced conflict during toilet training. Which, for the record, has pretty firmly been debunked as some of Freud's more ridiculous "pop" science.

It drives me nuts, but I'm well aware of how deeply that idiom has sunk its fangs into the English language. So I subconsciously roll my eyes and make a little wish that we could come up with a better idiom for describing fastidiousness and move on. Some things in life are not worth protesting...

> I can't count the number of times in a public conversation I've heard people say, "well maybe I'm just being anal." Gah. That isn't a homonym people. You are literally referring to [...]

Er, no. I'm pretty sure most people using that phrase are not using it literally, and I don't think any honest listener ever confuses the usage for a literal one.

While not a homonym, it's still an effective word because of it's less than tasteful association. I don't think it's used often, but when it is, everyone knows what is meant.

Perhaps the distastefulness of the word might even encourage us to improve upon the character traits of "anal", so that we may avoid hearing the word.

It's an ugly word. But that's the point. The behaviour it refers to is ugly.

"Ballsiest" runs deep? Come on, the expression is now acceptable casual language to use when talking to friends - men and women. It's light-hearted, funny, silly, whatever-language. No need to be so serious and reduce everything to the paranoid question "is it sexist and is it harmful to society and the planet".

Our society will be better off if we relax about actual real differences between the sexes, between cultures and races, and have a bit of fun about the differences. As comedians do all the time. It seems like as soon as someone says anything even approaching a casual reference to these natural differences, out comes the sexist/racist red card, followed by a lecture about how we all should know better.

It's not clear if you've missed the point or not (edit: reading your other response on this sub-thread it appears you and the point are on different planets, so this response probably wasn't worth typing).

If "ballsy" is a positive description and you literally don't have balls, then it can be seen as obliquely ruling you out from ever really behaving in that way.

Whether it's something you'd say in a business setting is a different conversation entirely.

I was trying to find an example of a part of anatomy being used that only applies to women, but could only come up with the negative example of "hysterical".

> If "ballsy" is a positive description and you literally don't have balls, then it can be seen as obliquely ruling you out from ever really behaving in that way.

Well, lots of things "can be seen" in lots of different ways; that doesn't speak to how reasonable such behavior is. If you said Merry Christmas to me, I "could see" it as religious bigotry, were I so inclined.

Don't get me started on 'gutsy'. Skinny people can be brave too no matter what deeply held stereotypes persist in our fatriarchal society.

By that logic, "Dutch courage" rules most of us out from that sort of courage.

"Ballsy" when used to describe courage, is as removed from the actual body part as "bosom of civilisation" is to a woman's breasts.

Googling "ballsy" returns dictionary examples such as "she was a cool, ballsy woman".

Some even assert the anatomy of men and women are different! Even successful people can harbor such ideas. Hard to overcome.

A public confession of thoughcrime is an important first step, combined with consequences of some sort.

On the one hand, applying valid generalizations is not bias. On the other hand, when dealing with individuals, one rarely has to rely on generalizations. On the gripping hand [1], treating individuals fairly can look like bias when iterated over a large enough sample size.

The solution: be rigorous about treating individuals fairly, be willing to apply valid generalizations cautiously and only when necessary, and remember that seemingly biased results might simply be reflecting real differences between groups. (This last point can be grokked by meditating, Zen koan–like, on the question "Are women underrepresented in the NBA?"—a question to which both the answers "yes" and "no" are defensible.)

[1]: http://catb.org/jargon/html/O/on-the-gripping-hand.html

By the title alone I was expecting a depressing post by a men's rights activist about how terrible it is to be called out.

This post is not that! I was pleasantly surprised to find a post about someone who is self-aware enough to realize that sexism exists, saying sexist things is wrong, and that these things are so deeply ingrained in our society that not everything we say or think is entirely unique: some of it is learned and habitual.

Good first step, author! Now continue along and do something about it! We need to redefine normal.

Interesting, company I work for has had Epicodus interns, when interviewing there were two women and two men that applied for my company for an internship. Seemed like they're doing well to get women into to tech, as a 50/50 split is pretty unusual.

Recognizing that you're accidentally/subliminally sexist or racist is good. But you should also recognize that those have had an effect on the world, and knowingly attone by spending some of your privilege. A sudden self awareness that leads to just a blog post isn't really anything special. A sudden self awareness that leads to action is meaningful.

(before I get asked "what was my action", I'm still trying to figure out how to spend my privilege for others benefit in a way that's more than just donating money to appropriate causes - which I already do. I'm not thinking big enough yet.)

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