Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by bruce511 | Hacker News Reader

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Voidr,

>> I get the feeling that some women just can't take a joke.

Your sentiment will no doubt be shared by many. The point with offense though is it's not up to the joke-teller to determine if a joke is offensive or not. It either offends a group, or it does not.

You're right, Adam just made a silly joke. You see it as a silly joke. However, and this is the point, now that you've been educated to the fact that the joke was offensive, what is your response?

Your reaction, that they should not have been offended, is unreasonable, because the joke was not at your expense. Would you become the aribter for racial jokes? Native American jokes? How about child pornography jokes? Religious jokes? Why then jokes about a minority gender group?

I suspect, and I mean this with respect, we could find some sensitive area in your life, or anyone's life which would be "just a funny joke" to some, but which are deeply offensive to others. Yes, we live in a "politically correct" world, but there are still lines as to what is ok, and what is not.

And the receiver is the one that determines those lines, not the sender.

How do you propose a world will look, where we have gone so far, that offending other people is made taboo?

I honestly propose that some people should realize, that life is not all unicorns and cute puppies.

Or as it goes: If you think that I have an attitude problem, perhaps you should check that you don't have a perception problem.

There's a pretty strong distinction between generally offending people in a social situation and specifically offending a minority in a professional situation. Life's not all unicorns and cute puppies. But when someone goes to a professional event, they shouldn't be told that some aspect of their biology makes them less capable in that field.

I disagree with you that the barometer of offensive is simply whether someone was offended. I think a good argument can be made that the sexist statement was objectively wrong. This argument has been made elsewhere much more eloquently than I can, so I won't try to repeat it.

But I think the fear behind "political correctness", which I used to share, is that whether one's behavior is rude is arbitrary and completely decided by other people.

I think "you've been educated to the fact that the joke was offensive" is misleadingly simple. What's true is that many people, including me, think such jokes are offensive. But more importantly, one can think about these issues from a neutral point of view. When I was prodded, as a teenager, to think deeply about such issues, consider other points of view, and talk to a lot of people about sexism -- I agreed with the conclusion that these jokes are indeed offensive. I believe that anyone who goes through the same process will inevitably reach the same conclusion.

That said, as with any contentious issue, in the end it's everyone's privilege to decide for themselves.

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