Comment by spyhi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by spyhi | Hacker News Reader

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This reminds me of an extremely eloquent comment I saw over on Reddit a while ago about how men being assholes to each other is actually a form of male bonding, and there is a delicate nuance to our rough-edged camaraderie. [1] I was raised in a gentle household by a nerd and a feminist, so when I joined the Army as an infantryman, I absolutely had to learn how this worked and can absolutely attest that it's a real thing. Given the later apologies, it sounds like it's possible the office was bro-ing it up with her and may have even thought they were welcoming her into the tribe, so to speak. (Of course, they could have all just been misogynist assholes, too...sad how there can be little difference)

Thing is, most women absolutely DO NOT respond well to that kind of male bonding. And, honestly, they probably shouldn't--I think this "emotional sonar" is a maladjusted response to men being told they can't express their feelings. Given this, we probably shouldn't be exposing women to that kind of environment either.

I guess this kind of underscores why you need women in the workplace. It's too easy for an all-male space to fall into this kind of emotional language and interaction framework, which is "hostile but comprehensible" to those in the culture, but completely alien to those who aren't--women and foreigners alike. At the very least, we (meaning everyone, not just men) should try to be aware that not everyone bonds the same, and bonding activities for some people and genders may be anti-bonding and hostile to others.

I want to make clear, I'm not trying to justify what happened, but I feel like often these articles are kind of one-sided, which can make it difficult to diagnose what's going on. The problem with saying "don't be misogynist" is I suspect few people identify as one but, on the other hand, we can identify our baggage and try to examine critically how it affects others.

Either way, sorry OP had to experience that, whether mismatched bonding attempts or actual hostility and misogyny.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskWomen/comments/5dpezd/girls_what...

I think a good example is the "Our app is huge, like my dick." line.

As a guy, this line was pretty funny, and I could see myself saying it (on an all male team). I might not say it in front of female coworkers though, but if I worked closely with one I may say it within earshot without thinking about it. It certainly wasn't an attack on the poster.

Are we just not allowed to talk about genitalia? I guess as a baseline rule it's inappropriate, sure, but he's not being suggestive or soliciting. As described, it's obviously a joke. Not sure where the offense is here other than he said "dick" in the workplace within earshot of someone who doesn't want to hear that.

I'll finish by saying that the rest of it was certainly uncalled for, but this one instance doesn't really stand on it's own as offensive.

Nah man, we don't talk about our genitals at work, that's just basic level professionalism.

Also, do you really think that's a funny line? To me, it sounds like the type of joke where the room rolls their eyes and cringes. It's not at all clever or original, it's the type of joke made by people who think they're funny but everyone actually thinks they're annoying. I mean shit, at least make some kind of allusion to your genital size through inference, just coming out and saying "LOOK AT THIS BIG THING, MY DICK IS THE SAME SIZE AS THE BIG THING LOL" is about is unfunny as it gets.

I have teammates and we curse/swear/foulmouth/trashtalk like a deployed infantry unit, but sometimes we have clients/partners/friends over, and we somehow make it through without any fucks or other expeltives. Pretty magical, huh?

It's social aptitude, some people just have less of it. (No wonder they hadn't become lawyers, doctors, politicians.)

Basic rule is try to accomodate others if it's no problem for you. If it is, discuss it, and settle on the professional/formal way if others feel your preferences are too far from theirs.

Constantly monitor others' well being. For most people it's automatic, for some autists it's literally impossible.

Again, it's a safe default to be formal/professional, and then ease up, if all parties feel okay with that.

If we lived in a world where everyone was capable of assessing and respecting appropriate boundaries we wouldn't need professional standards at all, the entire point of professionalism is to remove the ambiguity so that these types of issues can be avoided. The swearing/foulmouth/trashtalk culture does not scale, you need to be able to bring on new employees and not worry about them getting cursed out because someone misjudged their comfort levels; and contrary to what you seem to be implying, you don't need to be autistic to misjudge someone's comfort levels, people are complicated and at some point, someone will get it wrong, and then you have a ton of wasted productivity while harmless jokes become office drama.

Also, there is a big distinction between an environment where moderate but restrained use of profanity is accepted as normal adult language and an environment where your co-workers are discussing their genitals and other sexual topics.

I know I (and anyone) can and someties do misjudge others' comfort level. But part of becoming a team means getting to know each others' stregths, weaknesses, preferences and so on. And communication about communication is important too. Taking into account authority is important too. (A team lead or any higher up has to be very sure about the above not to misjudge the appropriate language used.)

So, yes, drama drains productivity, but being a faceless cold drone hurts it too. Team fit is important. (And it's very important to recognize that there's a difference between communication style and abuse, disrespect, lack of empathy, etc. And discussing sexual topics might be ok, might be not. I've seen/heard it done in a fun way and too many times in a cringeworthy way. Luckily, I haven't seen/heard it in a seriously bad/offensive/harrassing way.)

There are some topics we can keep off limits in the workplace without causing our employees to be "cold faceless drones". You can have lots of fun in the office without bringing sex into the mix, it causes more problems than its worth. I'm not saying that any mention of sex ever should be cause for firing, and obviously if you have a couple good friends in the office and you make some risque jokes at your own risk assuming only they are within earshot, by definition there will be no consequences for it, but if someone overhears your dick jokes and feels uncomfortable, that's your fault. It doesn't matter if the uncomfortable person is a prude, a religious nut, a super-sensitive SJW or just someone that finds sexual topics distracting, there is no reason why sex should be discussed in the office. There is a large breadth of sexual topics that very subjectively range between "totally just a joke" and "totally disgusting", and I can guarantee there are lines of sexual discussion that you might find disgusting that others might find acceptable.

> there is no reason why sex should be discussed in the office.

real life people work there and they might want to discuss it. that doesn't mean they can ignore the fact that they might be causing discomfort to others, and since it's a workspace where people go to work, other people's comfort in those cases trumps their desire to dicuss whatever.

> I can guarantee there are lines of sexual discussion that you might find disgusting that others might find acceptable.

yes, no surpirse there, but part of working with others involves being able to signal to them what's not okay to you, and it involves (on their part) the unquestioning acceptance.

> Are we just not allowed to talk about genitalia?

In a work environment, if there isn't a solid work-related need to make a literal (not metaphorical) reference to genitalia, it's a good idea not to refer to genitalia. I wouldn't say “not allowed”, but it wouldn't be the worst idea to treat it that way.

> As a guy, this line was pretty funny, and I could see myself saying it (on an all male team). I

As a guy, this line is the kind of thing I would have found funny the year I started high school, but found obnoxious by the time I finished.

> I guess as a baseline rule it's inappropriate, sure, but he's not being suggestive or soliciting.

Perhaps, but while those things would make it more inappropriate, there absence doesn't make it appropriate.

> As described, it's obviously a joke.

Sure, but being intended as a joke doesn't make it appropriate either. Particular jokes, despite being jokes, can be inappropriate for work.

As a straight male developer who (usually) doesn't identify as a feminist, I must say: that's cringe-worthy, unprofessional, and honestly not funny at all.

And thinking such a comment is funny (and acceptable) at workplace could limit your career in the future. Most good developers don't want to work with someone "joking" about their dicks at work.

Well, I might have found it funny when I was 17. So reserve that kind of joke for a beer night with your high school friends.

* Besides, what kind of developer wants to boast their app is "huge"?

If a coworker says "Our app is huge, like my dick", I'd say that gives his implicit consent for others to use his dick for comparisons, at least for a while:

"The bug was just a small one, like <coworker>'s dick".

"We missed processing the event because it came too soon, like <coworker>'s dick".

"Dammit...I need to reset this router and don't have a pin to poke the reset hole. <Coworker>, can you use your dick to do it for me?"

Being the butt of dick jokes for a week (especially if some of these making them are women) will probably strongly discourage <coworker> from making future comparisons to his own dick.

This used to be acceptable in many smaller places, even ones with women because it was a much harder burn coming from them. These days you have to just go to work and avoided any sort of socializing or non-work related discussion, keep work life and social life completely segregated and hope that's enough (it isn't always). This is the world political correctness (or professionalism if you prefer) has created.

Best to avoid eye contact too, someone could misinterpret that as flirting.

This is a truly terrible idea

Woof, a lot of reply's to this one.

Everybody's taken this to mean that I'd just go around yelling "Dick" every hour on the hour, or that I would be describing last night's penetration to everybody. Of course not.

Yes you would read the room first, but I still think you should have the freedom to express yourself if you're not harming others. Just because you don't like swear words, and you hear one from me, doesn't mean that I'm harming you.

People calling it unprofessional are likely browsing HN or Reddit while at work. Not sure how much that aligns with being professional. By the way, if you're not wearing a suit right now you're being unprofessional. Maybe getting your work done is the only baseline to being professional, and saying "dick" doesn't stop me or you from getting work done.

To the people who don't think dick jokes are funny. I do. You don't. shrug

Protip: When a lot of people disagree with you, you could either say nothing, say "I might be wrong, so let me think over it," or simply agree to disagree.

But please don't say stuff like "if you're not wearing a suit you're being unprofessional": that's absurd false equivalence, and the only thing it signals is that you're a person who hates losing an argument so much that you will pick up any argument you can think of.

It's all fine here at HN, where only imaginary internet points are at stake, but as I have said, earning such a reputation at workplace will hurt your career.

> To the people who don't think dick jokes are funny. I do. You don't. shrug

Right... this is the reason we have professional standards, because humor is not universal and some people aren't cool with certain sexual topics. Some people think scat and rape jokes are funny too, but just because they do doesn't mean it should be permissible discussion in the office. In a professional environment we keep sexual discussion to the absolute minimum necessary because sex is a controversial topic that is completely irrelevant to the job (in 99% of jobs).

As a man, even on an all-male team, I don't want to hear that sort of thing. And it doesn't help if it's intended to be a joke.

> Are we just not allowed to talk about genitalia?

Yes. It's highly unprofessional.

You are not allowed to talk about genitalia at work. There are literally laws about this in the US. It is mindblowing that you find this an unacceptable restriction.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Rw1cdRew-Zg

That comment you linked is incredible. I just wanted to point it out to make sure everybody reads it, very high quality.

Yep, it really explains the strangeness of men's interactions very cogently. It's nearly a year old, but it's stuck with me because it was so good. Also shows how repressed most of us are, that our way of figuring out how our friends are feeling is to attack them--in game design terms, our "verb" for loving is the same as the "verb" for hurting, which might explain why so many women in a male-dominated workplace feel attacked.

i know what you mean--100%--from having spent four years in as an enlisted grunt in a Marine infantry battalion (2/5).

I remember sitting at the back of the squad bay playing poker with a group of 4-5 other jarheads, and occasionally, the OOD (duty officer) who would periodically walk through the command's barracks, would be a WM (woman marine). First time it happened, one of the corporals said in essence, to avoid saying anything related to sex, male, or female body parts, etc.

It would have been simpler to just tell us to shut the hell up, because take those words away, and we had no other way to express ourselves (apparently). We all just remained completely completely silent from the moment she entered the squad bay on one end until she left out of the hatch on the other end.

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