Hacker News Reader

Comment by ttt_ | Hacker News Reader

Two points:

1) I don't like when people are so sensitive that there's no room for a harmless joke.

The joke might seem harmless to you (because your are privileged[1] to think so), but it doesn't mean it is for everyone. Also, if the joke is based on any kind of prejudice (the teller being aware of it or not), it is in fact harmfull as it only helps the status quo, while a number a groups are putting tremendous effort to disrupt said status quo in order to do something about prejudice that is affecting them.

2) there's so much social ineptness

Social ineptness might explain it but it doesn't justify or excuse it.

[1]: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/03/11/faq-what-...

View on HN

Though I'm generally turned off by the use of the word "privilege", I actually don't disagree with you on either point.

1) I'm not saying this is a harmless joke. I'm saying that I'm afraid that actual harmless jokes will fall prey to the backlash against ones like this. I anticipate that there will be another story at some point where an actual funny, but edgy, joke will be told and I will have to find myself on the other side of the argument. EDIT: I guess I've been sortof inconsistent on this one. I forgot I said that this one was on the line. It's a stupid joke. I suppose it's harmful in the current atmosphere, I could see it just being stupid in a different atmosphere.

2) I'm actually sortof holding their ineptness against them. I think it's their responsibility to try to learn to understand people a bit better, or leave the jokes to someone else. I'm just trying to get to the root of the problem, rather than assuming it's rooted in actual sexism (and again it very well may be, it just seems weird to me).

Behavior and humor in professional, work environments need to be held to a different standard than what might fly just between a group of friends or in a bar. In such an environment even usually harmless jokes contribute to a subtle if not overt sexist atmosphere which discourages female participation. Sure, there are always going to be some aggressive, driven women who will enter the field anyways and excel, but there are lots of other women who will end up being turned away, believe it or not.

The tech sector seems to hate formality, I think this may also be part of the problem. But in this particular case, it's a hackathon, pretty informal to begin with. If this were a job description I'd agree that any sort of joke that relates to gender would be totally inappropriate.

> I anticipate that there will be another story at some point where an actual funny, but edgy, joke will be told and I will have to find myself on the other side of the argument

I think if there was an actual joke involved (a proper one, which was coherent and possibly even amusing) the reaction would be rather different.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com