Hi. I'm someone's mom, and both of us understand this. When you use mothers as a metonym for people who don't understand technology, think about who you are assuming is your audience, and who are you are excluding and insulting.
Many vital, important moms were pioneers in computing. My mom taught me how to use a computer and write code, and she was self-taught.
Part of the implication here is that the people who are more likely to handle domestic work are likely less intelligent. That's bullshit.
Can I get your permission to laugh at the link's title or do I need to be wildly offended?
Someone took a moment to explain --- very correctly --- that using "mom" as a metonym for "technically naive" is inaccurate, dismissive, and exclusionary. That comment didn't accuse anyone of intending to do any of that. It simply pointed out the outcome of the wording. The very same comment could have been written about "grandfather" and ageism.
Nobody asked you to be offended, or to take offense.
Now pay attention to the timestamps and see who's introducing it. The only person to use the word before you was carefully explaining that they were not taking offense. You responded to them by accusing them of being "primed and ready".
Please, please stop doing this to HN threads. What you're doing on this one is poisonous.
I am not ranting & raving. I am having a logical conversation. Stop treating me like I am out of control. I am happy to have a logical conversation, but your numerous "please, please stop" replies are non-contributory and demeaning, so... please stop. :)
Just because I disagree with you, you think you can bully me with nonsense rather than having a conversation? Whatever. You win.
I was pleased when I opened the comment section to see this as the top comment.
I want to live in a world where being kind, respectful, understanding, and caring are the highest of virtues. In that world, hopefully all people will work toward working together to understand others and appreciate our many wonderful differences instead of insulting them, even in a micro-aggression, this might be funny, yet deprecating sort of way.
Although I personally don't often spend much time being offended by these culturally accepted deprecating statements, I have recently started to wonder if it is contributing toward the public policies that attempt to marginalize and discriminate against any group of people.
Moms build things. Girls build things. Women build things. I build things.
That's cool and stuff, but the humankind as a huge organism doesn't work like this and will never as long as we don't start genetically modify humans at scale to be engineered that way when hatched. We're still just "animals" or low-power carbon based computers if you prefer that phrasing.
Also, I perceived the joke to be making fun of the elderly, not women. Honestly, you post seems like you were primed & ready to be offended by the slightest thing, which has more negative social impact than the light-hearted title of the linked article.
If it wasn't historically pervasive, yet false to declare that women are not tech savvy, I likely would not have said anything, however, this is a technology focused community and thus it seems relevant to not promote that unfortunate typecast.
I was unaware that Moms were considered elderly - I had my first child at 25, is that old? I guess that's another case in point why not to use 'Mom' in this sense, it comes off insulting to some and also is perceived to mean multiple, possibly unintended things.
Look for ways to be offended, or look for ways to understand. You seem to be doing the former, which is wasteful.
I fear we are entering the spiral of pointing fingers at one another.
As a mother and thoughtful human being, this is when I would suggest to my children they walk away from the situation at hand and I will thus follow my own advice.
Also, the person to whom you're responding had, when you wrote this, one carefully worded comment on the thread. "Primed and ready"? Clearly, the person on the thread most fitting that description is you. Please stop doing this.
Any jokes about my particular demographic will be allowed without criticism and I may even laugh at the joke myself.
It's a reason tech was/is a boys' club for men and has kept talented people from contributing to the field.
I only see ageism.
Change it to Dad then. I'm someone's Dad, have a Dad, and none of us feel excluded or insulted. It's a figure of speech.
So, saying you're a Mom and offended is a valid argument, but that you're a Dad and not offended isn't?
Yep, that sounds about right for one of these arguments.
Sounds right for any rational argument.
Of course, having established that offence is occurring, it still leaves open what the appropriate response is.
Singling out some group as symbolic of something negative (in this case, ignorance about technical matters), is unnecessary and likely to offend.
Ask a simple question, get a simple answer.
Whether the implication was intended to be negative... I dunno.
Sorry about my sub-par manners today.