Hacker News Reader

Comment by nl | Hacker News Reader

Soon, one it will occur to one of the men who think that they could consider hiring a woman. Or maybe not.

Really? Downvoted? Did no one else find the sexism in that poster as noticeable as I did?

I suppose you object to the phrase "Men who do nothing but think"? While sexism might have been prevalent in most companies during the time of this ad by modern standards, this phrase is not necessarily sexist. Sure, if you'd publish this ad today the silhouette would depict a woman and the text would be different, but "men" can be used in a gender neutral way [1] as in "All men are created equal". Take it as an artifact from a different time and don't read too much into it.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender-neutral_pronoun#Historic...

You first argue that it isn't sexism, because 'men' may be used in a gender neutral way. Then you continue to argue that 'it is an artifact from a different time', which is a way of explaining the fact that it is sexist.

I fully agree that it is an artifact from a different time. It wasn't considered to be sexist at the time and it wasn't intended to be sexist, but from todays point of view, it's definititely sexist.

It's interesting how our minds work alike in the same wrong ways, because I had pretty much the same train of thought.

Sorry for the confusion. It's an 'artifact from a different time' in the sense that you'd use different words today. Not because the copy is sexist (which i still think it isn't) but because you'd try to avoid even the appearance of sexism.

I believe it came from a time when American women didn't work in offices.

We've always had secretaries!

If you find it so noticeable, maybe it's because this is a problem for you specifically. Just sayin'.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com