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Comment by k_sze | Hacker News Reader

"One could say that GNUstep is a very nice woman, but without proper make-up and with a shabby dress. Although the expert eye could see the star sparkle, the average person maybe would prefer a more normal female with choosen make-up and dress."

I'm sure everybody here will appreciate this nice nugget of gentlemanly wisdom.

(Should I add </sarcasm> here?)

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Comparisons like this always make me cringe. Do we have to use women as the comparison for things like this?

As a woman in tech, this kind of comparison almost always makes me want to disengage.

As a man in tech I still had the same reaction. At best it just screams amature hour. At worst it is downright misogynistic. Frankly, to me it comes off a little of both.

The only redeeming thing here is that quote wasn't made by the GNUstep maintainers but from the comments section on the blog. However the GNUstep maintainers should have known better than to include said quote on their homepage.

As a person in the world I had the same reaction!

As man in tech, that had the pleasure of working with very good fellow technical females, I fully agree with you.

We don't need stuff that turns good professionals away from our field.

Don't blame you a bit. I do dismiss people like this - life is too short for dealing with them, even the ones who are clueless rather than actively hostile.

Suggestion for clueless men who think this makes you look worldly or cool: if you can easily substitute inanimate objects in your metaphor that otherwise involves the dehumanizing half the planet, do so. You might eventually become actually worldly and cool someday if you start practicing now. If, on the other hand, the esteem and praise of 14 year old boys and men who still act like them is all you care about, please, by all means, keep it up. It makes my life easier when people I don't want to be around advertise.

You're free to make your own comparisons to whatever you want. He obviously likes women. Woops.

We've banned this account for posting trollish flamebait. These threads are toxic enough without people pouring toxins in on purpose.

It makes me cringe too. How deaf and gross.

GNUstep is like a barn find Corvette. Sure it has rust on the frame and the paint is ugly and the upholstery ruined. However, it's low miles on the original engine. With a bit of work could be an extremely valuable show car.

I feel like cars make a better analogy.

if you dont mind i can take your comparison to replace the other...

Expresses the precisely same sentiment while objectifying, you know, an object instead of a person.

Comparisons like this always make me cringe. Do we have to use cars as the comparison for things like this?

As a person who identifies as a car in tech, this kind of comparison almost always makes me want to disengage.

Yes, I find that quote quite offensive.

This page is not from the official GNUStep project, and doesn't seem to be written by a GNUStep developer. However the quote is from a comment by web developer associated with GNUStep. That's unfortunate.

Wow, just wow.

If I was trying to offend my wife, writing a joke sexist piece, I don't think I could do better.

This should be cut ASAP. There are other ways to get this idea across without making it weird.

> the average person maybe would prefer a more normal female

So there's two categories here, "person" and "female"? What are we, Ferengi?

My favorite part is the writer self-implicating they are an "expert" in looking at women.

It just reeks of "nasty little schoolboy". You could almost wish the author will learn better when they eventually grow up, except of course we know they haven't.

As if make-up or a dress is required for a woman to look good.

That's really not the point. Women's looks just shouldn't be part of the conversation at all. It's completely irrelevant to the issue at hand and it being part of the conversation in any sense can only be offensive. That's why you're being downvoted, not by me but I completely get why people are doing it.

I respectfully disagree. I find it extremely relevant. It underlines the misogyny.

This became part of the discussion the moment GNUstep added that to their website, and a user here quoted it (without being downmodded).

The user obviously quoted it because he or she disagreed with it, and no doubt the upvoters felt the same way.

I think it's fair to add that the maintainer heard the point and (rightly) said he would change that paragraph.

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