Google, the Girl I Used to Know | Hacker News Reader

Google, the Girl I Used to Know

thadailygeek.com

7 pointssilkodyssey12 comments

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"Google reminds me of that one girl in each generation we all know. She slept with everyone at college to advance herself, now she has a husband, two kids and is now the choir director at church singing about the goodness of God’s love. You just chuckled because a name popped into your head. Take your time, reflect."

Sigh. Wasn't there a damn discussion on bros and what it means to be a decent person today?

Off topic here, but author could have just as well used the word "person" instead of "girl". My two cents.

Not really. The first sentence sets up the analogy:

>Google reminds me of that one girl in each generation we all know. She slept with everyone at college to advance herself, now she has a husband, two kids and is now the choir director at church singing about the goodness of God’s love.

Clearly he's referring to some sort of cultural archetype that is inherently female. That said, it's not one I'm personally familiar with, and the concept has no resonance with me, but it's possible I have a very unusual social circle.

"inherently female", with the exception that it's not anatomically connected to the female gender. Could also have been a male.

Just comes off incredibly sexist somehow.

> "inherently female", with the exception that it's not anatomically connected to the female gender.

Its a reference to a supposed real phenomenon that is sex-specific, so whether it is anatomically connected to a particular sex is irrelevant.

> Just comes off incredibly sexist somehow.

That's because, while it purports to be a reference to a real sex-specific phenomenon, its actually a reference to a stereotype that is sexist on multiple levels (notably first, the presentation of it as particularly female without any empirical basis, and, second, the fact that the whole reason it even exists and is notable is gender asymmetry in sexual behavior norms.)

So, you can't really replace "girl" with "person" and maintain the reference intended, but the intended reference is deeply sexist.

The reason this _must_ be a woman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slut-shaming

What a terrible article. This guy needs to look in the mirror and reflect on his sexist bitterness.

I didn't really read very far before I discovered an incredibly sexist comparison and decided to stop reading. I'm sorry but if you were looking for a comment with worth this certainly isn't it.

It's really too bad the author couldn't come up with a better analogy and conclusion. The majority of the article had nothing to do with the intro or conclusion and was actually a decent highlight of android history and some theories into Google's thought process. But the obvious misogynistic references in the title, intro, and conclusion pretty much ruin the entire thing.

7/7 comments pointing out why this article is incorrigibly bad, but with 5 points the article is frontpaged.

dang, the ranking algorithm is weak.

I always say that what our industry needs is more incoherent misogyny.

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