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Comment by mobweb | Hacker News Reader

I think this is the shirt the OP is talking about: https://twitter.com/webandphp/status/261241003204300801

I didn't get any relation at all between this pic and the article until reading some comments.. Ok, some juveniles might interpret it in a funny way, but I mean, in the same manner half of real surnames can be made into crude puns.

Could someone explain it, please? I don't know if I should read "PHPness" in a different way, or is there some context missing? I just don't get what's wrong with that text.

@viraptor: PHPness sounds like P-H-penis. "Enhance your penis" is a common spam email subject line.

(This is, in fact, the shirt I came across; I didn't get this at all. Combined with that tweet being from October, is why I said it must have been an old shirt.)

OK guys, no more penis jokes. Will offend women.

Can you explain? :)

I also didn't get it at first, but I am not a native English speaker. I think it's a play on the phrase "Enhance your penis" that is typical for spam emails trying to sell dubious medication.

I understand that, but I fail to see how it's especially offensive women? I consider it primarily against good taste. ;)

It is not offensive at all (i agree it is bad taste, though i didn't understand the joke).

It is sexism if you understand sexism and genderism in its strictest sense: That there is no difference between man and woman - sex is a thing imposed by society - and mentioning things like the penis, the biological difference between man and woman, constructs that change, thus is sexism.

Yeah, as crazy as it sounds.

Juvenile, yes. But offensive toward women? How?

I'm just throwing out my own intuition here, but I think that firstly, there's an implication that you have a penis. You don't? Odd one out.

Secondly, if a woman were to say that verbally to a man, there would be a flirtatious connotation, which would lead women to feel uncomfortable wearing a shirt saying the same and hanging around with a load of strangers.

I saw a woman wear a "Byte Me" t-shirt at the last conference I went to. Who do I talk to about fixing this? :)

i'm pretty sure that choosing to wear a t-shirt that suits your own personality is totally okay, and indeed kind of the point

I'm pretty sure women are not forced to wear those shirts in these conventions, but then again I might be wrong.

That's as may be, by making their event t-shirt, they're saying "our demographic is people who would wear this." If you're not in that demographic you feel isolated.

Thing is, on the internet, penis is kind of a different concept, and not limited to men.

i would wear a t-shirt that said that :)

It's not offensive toward women in itself, but in the context, being distributed at a developer conference to promote a magazine, it's sexist.

It marks the territory as a boys club. It basically says "for brogrammers only".

That strikes me as a very patronizing attitude toward women.

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