Ways men in tech are unintentionally sexist | Hacker News Reader

Ways men in tech are unintentionally sexist

notapattern.net

12 pointsdeverton7 comments

I agree with most of what is said but:

An unsolicited “I find you attractive!” remark isn’t a compliment, it’s a note from a boner.

That certainly would be bad when the environment is work-related, but I hope it is allowable under some circumstances?

I might have said a car was "hot" once, a long time ago, but it didn't imply that I was sexually attracted to it. I guess I said it because that's what people generally said to describe enthusiasm about something. I didn't know I was seriously making women uncomfortable.

> I didn't know I was seriously making women uncomfortable.

The vast majority of women are not hypersensitive. You're probably fine, and when dealing with someone hypersensitive, you can never really know what will make them uncomfortable. It's just best to not even talk to them.

I'll keep saying guys in a gender-neutral fashion, and plenty of my software is sexy.

'Sexy' has nothing to do with sexism. 'Guys' I can understand, but i'm old fashioned and i'll stop when my female counterparts stop.

I agree with a lot of what you said, aside from the first point. Is "guys" really that bad? People do use it in a gender-neutral way regardless of the word origin, and the alternatives given were all cringeworthy (IMO). If there's a better catch-all then I'll try to switch to it.

The (Shorter) Oxford English Dictionary says of "guy": 3. A man, a fellow; in pl. also (chiefly N. Amer.), people (of either sex). colloq. (orig. N. Amer.).

One of the main situations I've seen "you guys" used is actually women speaking to women. I can see how some women would take offense at it in their dialect "guy" can only mean "A man, a fellow". I personally think the non-gendered plural use of it provides an important grammatical function in a language lacking a second-person plural pronoun. In the southern U.S. they have "y'all", in Pennsylvania they have "yinz", in Elisabethan England they had "ye", but my dialect of English has nothing---except "you guys".

It is what we make of it---if we want to be an offensive, sexually scandalizing term then we can have it that way. If we want it to be a useful second-person plural pronoun then we can make it that. I'm hoping for the latter.

I've heard from enough women to believe that it is not commonly thought to be gender-neutral by women. Like the post says, you can get used to something else if you use it enough -- it's a small thing to do.

I also use "staff a booth" rather than "man a booth".

Where I work we say "y'all". It's a useful word and I like it.

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