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Comment by mfringel | Hacker News Reader

It does not appear that you are wondering. It appears that you are making assertions, while using the word 'wonder'.

No, I am wondering.

Yes, it seems likely to me that talking about underwear color would prevent some students from using the list and those students would disproportionately be likely to be female, based on my own experiences in engineering school. But I posted what I did specifically because I wanted to see if my suspicions were correct.

I personally think this is probably intended to be just a funny tradition (and hopefully taken in that spirit by most students, of either gender). However, I think is fair to wonder about possible side-effects. The fact that the question gets downvoted here makes me, if anything, more likely to believe someone raising the issue within MIT, or choosing to send something like "unspecified"/"E_NO_ANSWER" to the mailing list,might receive, at best, an unkind response.

>unkind response

Some of responses in this comment thread look very much like blatant schoolyard bullying behaviour manifesting. "Why take things so seriously" "Spoilsport" et cetera ...

Partake in the hazing rituals, or else.

18-22 year olds are all about hazing each other...

It's not like you have to be honest about what you're wearing, you could say any old thing - the email list police aren't spot-checking you to make sure you are indeed wearing yellow rubber ducky underpants.

I'm sort of surprised that there was not a sizable proportion of jokers that wrote-in "skidmarked"

Or perhaps, "don't wear it!"

"Commando" and "naked" are both represented :)

How is this hazing?

I mean technically this would be considered hazing. According to the "student handbook" of my alma mater hazing was defined as "making someone do something they do not want to do as requirement of membership" (paraphrasing here).

Personally, as a previous member of a greek organization, I find the definition ridiculous as it would qualify having prospective members study/be tested on the history of the organization as hazing.

Yeah, that definition is overly broad. Hazing requires harassment, embarrassment, or some other kind of abuse. Asking someone's underwear color is only harassment if they've got a history of inappropriate behavior, and embarrassment only if they've got serious socialization problems. Neither of which would reasonably be expected to be accounted for when asking the question in this situation.

> Asking someone's underwear color is only harassment if they've got a history of inappropriate behavior,

Try it work and see how far you get.

I was commenting more the reaction the HN crowd seems to present when someone dares to say this sounds like something they would be uncomfortable with, because that's very much the same one I remember from school. Of course in school you can't downvote, but the responses and dismissing attitude ("there's nothing wrong with the practice if you're not having fun with it") are eerily similar.

The horror.

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