Ways Men in Tech Are Unintentionally Sexist (2014)
notapattern.net
notapattern.net
By sexualizing something that does not need to be sexualized, you’re creating a college-frat-boy type environment, as well as implicitly conflating quality with sexual attractiveness. If I work with you, I want to know that you’re enough of an adult to be able to appreciate something (or someone) without wanting to fornicate with it.
What? Are women not sexually aware now? Or are men the only ones who act immature?
I like some of the points, but this one is coated so thickly in irony I can't even tell if there's any substance at the bottom.
Honest to God, what's inherently male about calling an algorithm sexy? Why couldn't a woman do just that? Isn't the mere perpetuating of that idea exactly the type of "oh no think of the poor women" thinking that the article tries to dissuade?
Or is the irony all on me?
Truly I don't understand this one.
EDIT: Just to clarify: I'm not trying to advocate "calling algorithms sexy." If you don't like it because you think it's immature or unprofessional; well, it's not my cup of tea, either. But don't put that in a list about sexism. Conflating the two is precisely the latter.
It's no less insensitive just because women are also capable of sexualizing things, or because men may also find it uncomfortable.
"That car is sexy" = Could mean sexy as James Bond. It depends on the car, and the tone of person speaking, and who is saying it. You can't automatically assume it is sexualising women.
You can discuss whether saying such things is appropriate in the workplace but what the original comment say is this issue isn't related to discrimination against one particular gender, unless one is prejudicing one particular gender to be more prone to being uncomfortable with sexuality to begin with.
"It is just a matter of getting people aware and encouraging them to actively think about whether any things they do might be making women uncomfortable"
should be corrected to:
"It is just a matter of getting people aware and encouraging them to actively think about whether any things they do might be making people uncomfortable".
The former is gender discrimination, the second isn't. The former subtly suggests women are more prone to be uncomfortable, and can, for example, worsen the bias a potential employer may have against hiring women, for fear getting into trouble with women being easily uncomfortable in the workplace, because they're women. I am aware of this bias in mind consciously, already.
But if we want to be pragmatic, we can acknowledge that many women, disproportionately, confront sexualization and objectification throughout their regular daily experiences and that this therefore suggests that sexualizing things unnecessarily effects them disproportionately as well. And since we're all very aware of this imbalance, it's completely reasonable to suggest that the behavior is sexist.
If you want to be pragmatic about it - "have courage, and be kind".
More broadly, on average, men who are used to operating in all-male social groups are less likely to have thought about, and more likely to do, things that would make women uncomfortable in particular than things that would make anyone uncomfortable, because they wouldn't have gotten (as much, or any) negative feedback in the past. Therefore, while one should be concerned with anyone's discomfort, it makes sense for such people to give special thought to the former. That seems pretty obvious; I hardly think it constitutes discrimination. (And of course, you could substitute any common descriptor for "all-male", and stumble on other real issues, but writing like the present article provides evidence that today's tech culture has serious dissonance with gender in particular.)
For the record, one could also argue, like the argument you originally replied to, that people already set on edge by previous discomforting events are more likely to be negatively affected by additional ones - i.e. women (in tech) are more prone to be uncomfortable not inherently, but because of externalities only partially under any given person's control. That is not discrimination either, but a reason to be extra empathetic.
And here someone describes the concept of a "mental filter".
"Narcissists install a mental filter in our heads a little bit at a time. Before we know it, everything we do, say, or think, goes through this filter. 'Will he get upset if I do/say/think this? Will he approve/disapprove? Will he feel hurt by this?"
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolution-the-self/2014...
A person can perpetuate sexism without meaning to. It is just a matter of getting people aware and encouraging them to actively think about whether any things they do might be making women uncomfortable, and to try to be considerate.
This sounds like a rephrasing of what a narcissist might tell me, suggesting everything wrong to do with her is my fault and my responsibility.
The suggestions of advocates of feminism remind me of many aspects of that experience.
Serious question -- who determines if said sexualization is needless? We as a society seem to be generally headed towards hyper-sexualization. Today, men are strongly sexualized in advertising as well [1]. Seen the massive, chiseled male movie stars in movies today compared to, say, 20 years ago? It will take a while for us to acknowledge that sexualization, but it exists today.
Now the gender balance in the tech field means that on an average, a woman will be more sexualized than a man. This can be a runaway feedback loop, and to stop it, maybe we should clamp down a little on sexualization. But it would be wise to recognize this and cast it as a logical argument, rather than make blanket, Puritanical statements like "You're a man and you're needlessly sexualizing women! STOP IT!"
[1] http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/hunkvertisin...
The people being sexualized.
And maybe I just find myself in different circles than you, but I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe. Instead, I see and here statements that are more like "These are things that make me uncomfortable. Please consider them seriously."
That would be fair if the sexualization was direct e.g. Bert calling his female co-worker Linda "smoking hot". But if Bert says an algorithm is sexy, I don't know how exactly it sexualizes Linda. Society's sexualization can no longer be an excuse, because both men are women are now heavily sexualized in society.
> I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe.
The posted article is chock-full of such statements. I usually don't hear such statements from people I work with either.
It's when the eight guys at the table all sort of turn to look at the one woman when someone says "sexy," or conversely, all sort of titter nervously and carefully don't look at the one woman, or seven of the guys titter nervously and don't look at the one woman but the one creepy guy looks, for a little too long, with a little eyebrow wiggle.
It's not the words, it's the people.
I've never seen anything close to what you're describing. Believe it or not, 99.9% of adults have no problem saying the words "sexy" or "hot" without having whatever weird childish reaction you're describing.
Guy: "No one stares at my chest at conferences -- I'm sure it doesn't happen! How childish!"
Gal: ...
[0] http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/08/10/anti_feminis... (last two paragraph kind of sum it up.)
All these are non-sexism-related reasons not to throw around words like "sexy".
On the other hand, rather than simply saying, "this isn't sexist, women can use words like sexy, etc", have you ever talked to women friends of yours in the tech world about this? Have you ever asked a few of them, "what about sexism? What's your experience? What about juvenile words like 'sexy'?"
And...when you asked them, did you make sure to fully disengage your defensive circuits, so you could just listen and accept what they said, instead of leaping into the discussion at various points to say "but here's why you're wrong about ..."?
(The last part's the hard part.)
Good luck!
"You guys" is the most common form of "you" plural used in the mid-west and western United States. For those who were not taught English in a region where "you guys" is standard, I can assure you that we consider "you guys" to be completely gender neutral. I can see how this phrase would seem strange to someone from a region of the United States that uses "you" or "you all" or "ya'll" or "folks", but for us it is simply a phrase that is used by both women and men when addressing a group of people of any gender (all women, all men, mixed).
See you guys tomorrow != See you men tomorrow. Are you guys done yet? != Are you boys done yet?
Now, is the etymology of the word sexist, a la "mankind"? That I do not know (it probably is), but the intent of those of us who use it is simply that it is two words meaning "you all". We do not think about injecting gender at all into the conversation, in fact we use this phrase to avoid it (as silly as that may seem)! I would imagine that this phrase is more likely to turn heads when it is used in a region of The United States where it is not the normal linguistic way of saying "you" plural.
At the same time, bringing attention to the implicit sexism (a la 'mankind') is valid. It doesn't mean anybody has to shame themselves for saying 'guys', it just suggests that they might want to consider other word choices in delicate situations or when they've got the reserves to be a little more conscientious.
Seems mankind, from etymology, isn't sexist. It derived from the neutral word `mancynn` in a time when wer, and not man, was used to refer to males.
I did not say "mankind is fine" I said that it's etymology is not sexist. The word is not "mankind" because only men count, the word is "mankind" because when it was made up "man" included all people.
That said, it's frustrating when perfectly good words like mankind are labelled as offensive because people either misunderstand their origins, ignore the intent with which they are used, or are simply looking for reasons to be offended.
If you went into a restaurant with cutely-named bathrooms, and went into the "guys" bathroom, you would probably be surprised to find women in there. If someone described The Spice Girls as a "group of guys" that would likely be more confusing than someone describing The Beatles as a "group of guys"
It might sound completely normal to your ears to use "guys" in reference to any group of people because you're so used to responding to it (and, yes, I Internet-stalked you a bit to confirm your gender). Having never personally identified with the word "guy," however, I, at least sub-consciously, and sometimes consciously, think it's odd when someone calls me a "guy." I mean, I'll absolutely respond, and won't say anything to the speaker, but I'll feel a tiny bit put-off, and maybe a little self-conscious, because I'm the only person in my company who isn't actually a "guy"
Like the author also brought up, there are plenty of alternatives to "guys"
Controlling speech and avoiding saying 'guys' won't do much at the macro-level of women's rights. Hostility has never worked to foster equality.
However, if individuals and organizations promote cooperation, equality and respect, these micro-aggressions become even smaller and, eventually, disappear.
My original curiosity was from that of someone who wants to promote "cooperation, equality and respect" - and, to me, part of doing that is asking for, and being open to, what minor things I might be doing to marginalize others.
So perhaps you're right - in the long run, maybe if organizations promote respect without talking about little things people do wrong, we'll get further on equality. But I do see value in talking about little things that are systemically unequal, and I think we'll get to a better place faster by talking about even the little things.
Some women might be offended by saying "guys" but some others might feel that it's a term of endearment (as it is probably intended) and they might feel saying "men and women" is silly. But I don't know, because I'm a dude.
What I do know is that every single successful person puts up with crap. That crap is often months of working on a project with a manager you dislike or putting in extra time to get things done when you'd rather be sitting around eating Cheetos. Work is a constant struggle and if you're throwing in the towel on your passion because someone called something sexy, then you clearly weren't meant to work with people, let alone in tech.
Disagree with implied ideas that: because we can all only speak for ourselves, we shouldn't speak. Because everyone gets crap, we don't need to fight against shit. That guys feeling bad for microaggressions are stereotyping women's needs (?).
We're all jerks sometimes, and often we don't even know it. When we realize we did something that made someone else feel bad, it's natural to feel defensive and at the same time sorry. It's not stereotyping to listen honestly to someone's viewpoint and consider it. And not having time to eat Cheetos is not what women are facing, it's weird stuff like the boss never inviting them to beer or getting sexually explicit trolling. You've read the news; you know what's in the harassment lawsuits: retaliation for sexual relationships had or not had, promotions denied because of "fit", networking events that were male-only, and all the guys in the company going along. If a guy had practice saying, "Hey, let's not call that app sexy and then ask if grandma can use it," he might actually have the practice and the courage to stand up to some of this serious stuff.
That being said, I didn't say we shouldn't speak. I said we shouldn't speak for others. This article wasn't written as "here's how I feel when this happens" it was "here's how women feel when you do this". Generalizing in this way is just as sexist as any of the issues she brings up, if not more so, but because she wraps her sexism in good intentions we ignore it.
It's hard to qualify disliking certain adjectives as worse "shit" then anything else you have to go through as a professional. We're specifically talking about microagressions here, not firing someone for not sleeping with you, not excluding women from events, etc. These are not major issues, they are small things that make some people uncomfortable.
I understand it can suck when a company's culture doesn't fit, I deal with a fair share of bad culture fit as I consultant for many companies. I'm a 20yo male bisexual who doesn't drink or smoke. I just spent time with a company where the entire staff went to the bar and I wasn't just invited, but pressured to go and I felt very outside when I had to repeatedly refuse. I had a different client make unwarranted comments about us cuddling and he brought up multiple times who would be the big spoon (I'm unsure if he knew my orientation, I suspect he did). I later had a very negative falling out with him, was it because I ignored his advances? Who knows. My point is that we're all different and you're extremely unlikely to mesh perfectly with every member of a group, but being successful often means putting aside these things and doing business regardless. It sucks, but it's an issue that will always exist and isn't exclusive to women. It's not called work because it's super fun, it's called work because you put up with crap and all these "microaggressions" are on the level of all this other crap.
To your final disagreement about me saying that men feeling bad are stereotyping women's needs/issues, imagine you take what I've just told you about me and imagine we're hanging out one night and we're quite close, so you want to share some story about your sexual exploits from the night before. You start to tell your story but then think "well, he's bisexual, I probably shouldn't tell him this story because he's confused about his sexuality and trying to figure himself out". That's you stereotyping, obviously. It's no different than saying "she's a women, I shouldn't call this software sexy". If you knew me personally and I had said "don't talk about sex around me" then you would have grounds to think that. Similarly if I'm working with a women and she says "hey don't call me a guy" then I say okay and I don't do that anymore. But by assuming she'd be offended, I'm stereotyping.
The goal of communication isn't to make everyone feel great all the time, you shouldn't err on the side of inclusion, you should err on the side of openness, so if you say something that makes someone feel bad or out of place, they can say "hey bud, pls don't". By shuttering communication and wildly speculating about what all people of any group dislike or are offended by, you're belittling their individuality and overall moving communication in the wrong direction.
> Finally, this list is written for those who, like me, try to err on the side of being maximally-inclusive. Many of these things are common in our culture, and while I try to model good behavior, I don’t correct others’ usage unless they ask. I consider this an application of the robustness principle.
The author addressed the issue from the point of view of "Someone asked what things might marginalize, but not obviously so to the majority in the field", but many people have viewed the post as a line that others shouldn't cross. That's decidedly not the tone put forward.
Few HN users self-identify as "sexist." Yet reading this post, many of us will have done things that the author identifies as subtly sexist micro-aggressions. If you think that that makes you a sexist, well, you're right. All of us are. Sexism, like racism, is a societal problem, engrained in all of us. To try and shift away from our current sexist norms we need to redefine them, and that means recasting behaviors that many of us currently view as completely unoffensive.
Another common reaction is something like "these things aren't important, will never change, and feminists should pick their battles." But that's misguided - you're silencing and dismissing viewpoints that deserve to be heard. Just because a subtle but widespread societal norm isn't likely be fixed in the short term doesn't mean it shouldn't be discussed. We certainly have the ability to change own behaviors, and nudge those around us to do the same.
Are you trying to somehow imply everyone is racist? Are you further implying that everyone is sexist?
> ... a right to complain and be heard
I'm curious, who (in the US anyways) doesn't have that right. At this point I feel like I can get sued for calling a stop sign red. It's getting a little absurd.
Yes and yes. Much of our context for judging people comes from society, and society is both sexist and racist. Numerous studies have shown that even people who identify as being non-racist will shoot a black person more quickly, dismiss a resume if it contains a black-sounding name, etc:
More here: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/opinion/nicholas-kristof-i...
The same applies to sexism. You can Google your way to plenty of similar studies.
> I'm curious, who (in the US anyways) doesn't have that right. At this point I feel like I can get sued for calling a stop sign red. It's getting a little absurd.
It's true that people (mostly) have the right to free speech in the US. But there are two ways to prevent people from expressing their views: you can literally disallow them from saying something, or you can "silence" them by making them feel uncomfortable for having spoken at all. I'm talking about the latter.
Ditto racism.
> you can "silence" them by making them feel uncomfortable for having spoken at all. I'm talking about the latter.
Which is part of what happens when someone is called racist or sexist.
This is incorrect. There is no requirement to be free of some fault in order to be able identify that fault in others.
> Numerous studies have shown that even people who identify as being non-racist will shoot a black person more quickly, dismiss a resume if it contains a black-sounding name, etc...
Did those studies talk to every single person in the US? Or are you only concerned about white people being racist towards black people? That's how you're coming across, just so you know.
You can't acknowledge that you think 'everyone' is racist and then pivot back to society. You've just blanket accused every single person of being racist, and sexist. Are black women racist and sexist? Middle-eastern women? Its easy to stand on a soapbox and quote a study. It does not seem as though you've run this line of thinking to its conclusion, you stopped in the middle.
> It's true that people (mostly) have the right to free speech in the US. But there are two ways to prevent people from expressing their views: you can literally disallow them from saying something, or you can "silence" them by making them feel uncomfortable for having spoken at all. I'm talking about the latter.
Mostly have the right to free speech? Can you elaborate about that? I'm not sure if you're aware of how controversial the issue of 'free speech' has become. [0] Once again, its easy to soapbox and pick the parts you agree with.
We must not live in the same US (or perhaps you don't) if you think people are shamed into not talking out against racism and sexism. They're both wrong, and, compared to even 20 years ago, the US is making forward progress, leaps and bounds of forward progress. Then people come along and say things like you did, as if there isn't change.
It literally takes generations to wipe out hatred in the manner you're concerned about. Making blanket statements about everyone being a horrible, shitty person on the internet doesn't speed things up, and makes you look silly.
[0] http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Freedom+of+Spe...
I'm not sure by you think acknowledging that is problematic.
On your points about free speech: there are legal carve-outs from free speech in the US. You can read more about them here - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
And regarding silencing, sure, things are much better than they were 20 years ago. But that doesn't mean we should push for them to be better.
Also: please note that you're misinterpreting my words. I never said that anyone is a "horrible, shitty person." You can be a little racist and be a wonderful person. Those two things aren't mutually exclusive. Racism, is not an on-off switch, it's a spectrum.
Because most of the complaints enumerated in the article are tenuous and absurd?
> you're silencing and dismissing viewpoints that deserve to be heard.
There are many viewpoints that have more argumentative merit, and I have a finite amount of time to read blog posts.
"Hot" has many many meanings other than "sexy". When not referring to a person's attractiveness, it means "popular, being paid a lot of attention to" or "high in temperature", or "fast" or "contains a lot of energy".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You#Informal_plural_forms
Informal plural forms
Despite you being both singular and plural, some dialects
retain the distinction between a singular and plural you
with different words. Examples of such pronouns sometimes
seen and heard are:
...
you guys – U.S.,[2] particularly in the Midwest,
Northeast, South Florida and West Coast;
Canada, Australia. Used regardless of the
genders of those referred to
...
If you don't care about them and don't care if they're offended, keep on doing whatever.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/25680655/ns/us_news-life/t/univers...
I'd venture to guess you're also both rational adults, and you if care about someone, and they're offended at lots of different stuff (sexist language, passing clouds, the endless sea), then you could talk about why passing clouds and the endless sea offend them.
This really comes down to human decency; if you see women as people first, worthy of respect and care, then you'll probably want to minimize how much you offend them, instead of placing the problem of being offended on them.
Can you reconcile "I respect you" and "I'm not going to acknowledge your being offended, but instead will tell you how you're wrong"?
My neighbor responds, "because the blue-shirted security forces in the dictatorship where I grew up killed my family when I was young, and it's very troubling to be reminded of that, even now."
Done, I stop wearing blue shirts.
To continue with the stupid analogy, I'm crediting my neighbor with not being irrational, and putting in the effort to listen and hear them out.
Just like I credit women, back in the real world, with not being irrational, and I hear them out about their complaints/frustrations/laments about sexism in tech.
"I hope [they] would meet me in the middle ... by evaulating their overreaction"
It's your assumption that what they're doing is overreacting, that's the problem.
Certainly, my experience of America was that you guys say "you guys" all the time. The composition of the group is irrelevant. It transcends particulars.
But if you live in a subdistrict of California where "you guys" is taken completely literally, then by all means stop.
There will never be equal proportions of gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or culture in any group. In the interest of everyone being able to work together effectively, we all have a responsibility to draw a line between preference and abuse. People who become abusive should obviously be castigated or removed for the good of everyone. But if we place too much emphasis on appeasing the preferences of every group or individual, we'll be too busy focusing on choosing just the right word in every situation to get things done. Effective communication is hard enough as it is. Parsing every word because it might potentially offend someone only makes the problem worse. Everyone has a cross to bear and no one will ever feel that they fit in perfectly. Some times toes get stepped on, and that's ok.
I think the term "unintentionally sexist" says it all. There was a time when open and aggressive *-ism was common, but that kind of thing is generally no longer acceptable in polite or professional society. It seems like the best thing for all of us would be to focus on what we have and common and what we can do to get along, instead of publishing lists of "I hate it when group X says thing Y".
[1] clearly numbers 6, 9 and 10 on this list are right out. there are several others that might not be acceptable depending on the context/wording
It's completely reasonable for a person or group to describe behaviors that make them uncomfortable, and it's especially valuable for them to do so when those offenses aren't immediately obvious.
Listing these behaviors doesn't involve some fantasy that they'll all be eradicated tomorrow with subsequent violators ostracized and sent to prison. It's just sharing a real problem that's really experienced by someone.
In point fact, there's almost certainly debate to be had within a community about which items have broader import and which might just be personal issues to the individual who composed the list.
The value being offered to you is that you can read this and identify a few behaviors that do hurt some people, some times. And that -- as you're available and ready to exercise them -- you have a few specific changes you can make so that the people around you are more comfortable.
Which cannot be had as long as people feel justified in making personal attacks on the character ("racist!" "sexist!") of anyone who disagrees with them.
“Mom” as an example of a non-technical user.
Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc.
like lol, I am not sexist and I would love to have more females in engineering, but these pseudo-intellectual feminists do nothing but whine about the stupidest things
You could argue, as others have, that some of these objections aren't inherently sexist because they can apply to both genders (i.e.: sexualising things is a trait performed by both genders), but dismissing this list as you did does nothing except undermine your own statement of wanting more women in tech.
The position he has to argue whether the objections have merit is that he's a thinking, rational human who can objectively consider whether something is sexist or not.
Everytime I see this sentiment I always wonder how the author, and others like the author, feel about Spanish speakers and the language.
Now, some of the items on the list are quite good. My mom, for example, is just as technical, or more so, than my dad. She is not a good archetype of the non-technical user.
I'd preface my next statement with "all kidding aside" were I actually kidding, but as a male manager who has actually chastised males on my team for refererring to the females on that team as "the girls" (#2 on the list), I have to say "good luck" with getting that list implemented. I say that because even though I obviously agree with some of the items, I just internally sigh when reading half those items. Pick your battles, as the saying goes, and this list has a lot of metaphoric hills that aren't worth dying on.
RuntimeError: maximum sexism accusation depth exceededSource: I'm a man who programs all day.
I like to think I am not a sexist person (intentionally or not), but this is one I have to make an actual silent effort to get right. It's just that the statistics are unfortunately very skewed. Some 80%+ of software engineering roles at big companies go to men, but for non-technical roles it can be 50% women or more. So if you meet a woman it is more likely that she is not an engineer. But statistics don't make assumptions acceptable. I try to make sure I don't assume anything about people I meet around work (don't assume a man is an engineer, don't assume a woman is not).
Makes me cringe when I hear this conversation: Man: "So what do you do here?" Woman: "I'm a SWE on _______" Man: "Oh really?"
2 is a result of the fact that English diminutives apply to adults as well. I often say to my male friends "what's up, boys?"
For 4, UX designers should set this based on their expected userbase.
For 5, just because something is sexual does not make it sexist. There is nothing wrong with using sexual metaphor unless you have puritanical Victorian-era morals.
For 7, this goes for both genders... People use "cock", "dick", etc. as derogatory terms all the time.
10: This has nothing to do with gender. This might be the most tenuous claim in the entire article. Privacy is a good UX practice, but a lack of privacy doesn't hurt women in particular.
The persona for which you are designing your software is a cat? Are they going to chase the cursor? Are they illiterate? Do they lack color vision?
Similarly, "newbie" means something completely different from "my mom". A newbie is new to your software, or perhaps this class of software, but may be quite technical otherwise.
An Ubuntu user is far more technical than average.
This is an absurd level of political correctness that gets in the way of design by forcing designers to use language that's inconsistent with their thoughts. If this is really such a big issue, you can create a male persona and use his name to refer to this class of users.
> Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc.
Describing someone or something as sexy is by no means male-specific language.
Edit: Before more people react negatively... Have you tried explaining microagressions to someone who has never exprienced any before? It is not easy.
Edit 2: Focused campaigns such as Beyonce and co against the word 'bossy'.
Edit 3: want to see nitpicking in action? Read the other comments.
Doing so also helps me appear hostile to them, which distracts/sidelines the dialogue a bit.
(Also, I agree with your edits & comment re: caring fatigue.)
It's hard because the term itself seems designed to make it hard, in my opinion.
A microaggression is unintended, while aggression is very much intended. "Micro" + "aggression" should mean "a small aggression", but it means actually something very different. It's confusing.
I think avoiding overly academic terms like "microaggressions" would help here. Instead of explaining terms, just talk plain and to the point:
> "When you say 'Usually girls don't like [some geeky thing]', it can make the woman hearing it uncomfortable. It's factually true that few women are interested, but it's not cool to point it out, better to avoid saying it and not look like a jerk."
No need for new theoretical terms with confusing meanings.
Is anyone else waiting for a woman to point out the obvious stereotype of women (and then some men) writing tons of this stuff at similar points of mainstream integration in similar emerging industries... so men are finally free to mention it too?
>either, which is marginally better but
>still makes it feel like an afterthought.
>Try: “folks”, “y’all”, “everyone”,
>“team”, “channel”, or just “awesome
>people”.
Yall is too ghetto
Team is too corporate
Awesome people diminishes the value of the word awesome and also too long
Everyone would mean you're addressing everyone who can hear you say it...
Folks is too official.
Why not just people?
Also, girls/women even say dude and guys to each other. Would seem weird to not say it that way after they say it themselves. If someone acts too PC, people stop hanging around them.
Wrong.
I think you say "boys & girls" or "guys & gals," traditionally. Gals has fallen out of common use, but it's probably the most appropriate word if women are taking offense to "girls."
Wow. Women's clothing is so broken. (Maybe clothing in general.) The dual requirement of non-sexualizing women (or paying undue attention to their bodies) but also being able to provide flattering perfectly form-fitting t-shirts as swag.. wow.
I'd say just drop t-shirts entirely and go to patches, everyone brings their own blank shirt or vest or jacket or whatever that they like and have someone on hand at the event with a sewing machine to sew the patches on.
> 6. Assuming women they meet are in non-technical roles.
Yeah, monumentally stupid. I don't even understand the reason for this -- usually at any event I just straight up ask people what they do. Assuming something is pretty weird.
> 7. Fetishizing “hot geek girls”.
> 8. Denigrating things by comparing them to women or femininity.
Common sense. A desperate man slavering over a "hot geek girl" looks ridiculous, as does a man who talks about "manning up" or "hitting like a girl" in the workplace in 2015. Stop it.
--------------------------
Some rebuttals, or at least different perspectives on some of these points.
> 1. Using 'guys' to mean people
The majority of girls/women in college do this. In fact, anecdotal, but I have seen this used much more often by women outside the tech field. I cannot count the number of times I have heard "So where are you guys going out tonight" amongst an all-female college group. So I don't think men who use this term are being micro-aggressive, unless you count female usage of this term as a "micro-aggression" as well.
> 2. "Girls" for "women"
Similarly, unless older women are being micro-aggressive when they use this term, I don't see why this is micro-aggressive. One of my biggest surprises was hearing my 50+ female co-worker telling me "I'm a good girl, I pay all my bills on time."
> 3. "Mom" as an example of a non-technical user
I always use my dad as an example, even though my mom is the more non-technical person. But if "mom" is used way more often, maybe I can go along with this. Still, the suggestion therein to use "cat, non-technical user, Ubuntu user" is pretty silly in my opinion.
> 4. Using a default male avatar
How do you decide if an avatar is male? Jeans and T-shirts do not a male make in this day and age. I am not quite certain how you would distinguish between a non-gendered and gendered avatar.
> 5. Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc.
According to the author, this creates a "college frat-boy environment". I would argue that outlawing normal adult words like "sexy" and "hot" creates more of an infantilized classroom environment where you are essentially saying "Hey, don't say that bad word in front of the girls, or you'll get punished." Using "sexy" to refer to a well-designed, sleek new website is, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable.
> 10. Using dark UI patterns.
This is a problem for all users. I don't see why this should disproportionately drive women off. If it is, the solution lies in more privacy education and outreach, not bashing people who write the software.
Similarly, your 50+ year old coworker's use of "girls" is a point of information. I find it very weird and creepy when an older female co-worker calls me a "girl" in front of my boss, or says something like "We girls just need to do things a little differently, you know!" Weird and creepy, and no less sexist because it's from a lady.
(Apparently women her age, on the other hand, find "lady" somewhat... inappropriate....?)
Re: dark UI patterns and more, making things better for women makes things better for all users. Glad you seem to have noticed that. If you don't see why it should disproportionately drive off women, you should read/listen up a bit. For instance, direct messages on Twitter are different experiences for women and men: http://blog.ameliagreenhall.com/post/the-hand-on-the-knee-a-...
Excellent, looks like we all agree. These are specific problems faced by the writer. Then why on earth is the article titled "Ways Men in Tech are Unintentionally Sexist", rather than "Problem I have Faced in Tech and that Made Me Specifically Uncomfortable"?
> I find it very weird and creepy when an older female co-worker calls me a "girl" in front of my boss,
Yes, and I find it vaguely disquieting that feminists are trying to ban the word "sexy" in the workplace. That doesn't mean I'm going to write a hyperbolic article titled "Why Feminists in Tech are Extreme Puritans".
> (Apparently women her age, on the other hand, find "lady" somewhat... inappropriate....?)
Haha, one place where we agree totally. I have no idea. My quick guess is, being an older lady, it gives her a comfortable sense of youthfulness to say "Us girls", when she is slowly heading towards 60, and being called "Grandma" at home. But I think it's her choice, and I accept it as such.
> making things better for women makes things better for all users. Glad you seem to have noticed that.
Nope, I said quite the opposite. All users face these problems.
> For instance, direct messages on Twitter are different experiences for women and men: http://blog.ameliagreenhall.com/post/the-hand-on-the-knee
That post in itself opens a can of hornets, so I'd like not to go too deep into it. Twitter has an option to stop DMs from people you don't follow, and that article does nothing to educate people about that option. Instead, it makes the sexist, ageist, Puritanical statement that "older men DM'ing younger women on Twitter is 'creepy'" with quasi-religious fervour.
If you can't tell the difference, then there is no problem. Obviously that is not the concern here. The human brain has evolved for millions of years the ability to distinguish gender and understand iconography. Maybe you should actually think about the problem before dismissing it with a straw-man.
> 5. Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc. According to the author, this creates a "college frat-boy environment". I would argue that outlawing normal adult words like "sexy" and "hot" creates more of an infantilized classroom environment where you are essentially saying "Hey, don't say that bad word in front of the girls, or you'll get punished." Using "sexy" to refer to a well-designed, sleek new website is, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable.
It's called professionalism. Do you know what that word means?
> 10. Using dark UI patterns. This is a problem for all users. I don't see why this should disproportionately drive women off. If it is, the solution lies in more privacy education and outreach, not bashing people who write the software.
This is addressed in the article. If you force people to use their real names and women are already disproportionately the target of privacy violations, then it does more damage to women than to men to have such a UI. If someone is being heckled or stalked and they can't shut that down efficiently, then they will stop using your service.
This is not a straw man. There has been at least one event where Adria Richards, a well-known feminist, mistakenly started a witch hunt by incorrectly assuming that the stick figures drawn by a (female) designer were specific genders. [1][2]
> It's called professionalism. Do you know what that word means?
Yes, to the average person it usually means "Yawn, I'm going to have to sit through a 2-hour lecture from someone telling me not to say 'sexy' in front of my co-workers. What is this, 1842? Meanwhile I wish we'd replace our piece-of-crap JSP website with something sexier." That is the sense in which sexy is used. It's not about sex.
> women are already disproportionately the target of privacy violations
This is a sweeping, and in my opinion incorrect, assertion. I would like to see some data on this. Just having the media write stories about women being harassed on Twitter because it makes good copy, doesn't mean that men aren't harassed too, in equal measure.
----------
[1] http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/comment-page-1/#com...
I agree with the author that a guy is a man is a guy. Using 'guys' is a micro-aggression. A rather minor one, in my opinion, but if it's contributing to an unwelcome environment then we should try to cut it out. However:
> Relatedly, avoid assuming male users in your documentation. Just stop worrying and embrace the singular “they”.
I mean, no I'm not going to do that. Which is to say, I will not and do not assume male users in my documentation, and I will use singular they when appropriate. However I will also continue to use generic he from time to time, because this is a legitimate feature of the English language.
Singular they has been around for a really long time - for a lot longer than anyone has cared about feminism certainly (i.e. 600 years or so at least). So it is not, as is sometimes claimed, some sort of recent invention by feminists to change the English language from the top down. Rather, it has existed alongside the generic he for about as long as people have been speaking English. I use them both freely: in speech I probably use singular they about 95% of the time, in writing more like 75%. Sometimes one sounds better, sometimes the other does.
If he is a pronoun which is used by English speakers in both a gender specific sense and a gender neutral sense, then that's what it is. The argument against generic he seems to presume that in fact there is no generic he, and that all instances of generic he in speech and writing are in fact instances of presumed maleness. I've never really seen this argued though, it's just always taken as a given. I do not take it as a given - is it really so hard to imagine that a word would have two functions? Most languages do this all the time, and English is no exception.
When there are instances of sexism ingrained in our language we should make the effort to remove them, but this often-cited example of same does not foot the bill in my opinion. I will go to great lengths for the cause of feminism, but I will not needlessly degrade the beauty of my native tongue.
This depends on dialect, and saying that some dialects are wrong, or sexist, is bigoted in a "regionalist" fashion.
We're open to turning the flags off if people feel that the article and/or thread is particularly good.
Edit: Based on user feedback via email, I've turned off the flags. We've also closed the threads to noob accounts. I hate doing that, but sometimes it's the only way to deal with trolls. Anyone with a new account who wants to participate civilly in the thread is welcome to email us.
That said, unkilling this is just wrong. This sort of drivel is what I'd expect on Tumblr -- nit picking minor things, focusing on people's phrasing rather than meaning, not accepting common terminology as if that advances some sort of social justice, and asking people (inherently Bayesian creatures) to ignore their priors for the sake of "equality".
These articles detract from the real issues, and serve only to further separate women in technology, rather than integrating them. There's a reason this was flag killed (and it was not sexism).
Also it is discouraging people from calling software "sexy", and I support that -- because it is just annoying and sounds like something lame marketing people would say.
If only this were true.
But the community is divided on this issue. Many users flag these stories, but many other users care deeply about them. Those users are also a valuable part of HN. They argue that if we never turn off the flags then we are de facto taking this issue off the table (or allowing a segment of the community to do so). That may be a bit exaggerated—some stories about sexism and/or gender in tech do stay on the front page despite flags—but it's still a fair point. Whatever you think about these questions, they're not off-topic for HN the way most politics are. Moreover, many HN users who make this case are active members who participate in lots of threads. They're not just trying to use HN to further an agenda.
If we had better software, maybe it would all balance out in a way that didn't require any intervention, but that's not where we're at (and in fairness is a pretty hard problem). In cases where the software leads to unrepresentative outcomes, it's our job to adjust. Is this article the best one for that? I don't know, but given that the thread turned out to be a vigorous discussion that managed not to be horrible, I think it was an ok call.
Can you elaborate on why, given that apparently a large portion of the people who saw this flagged it (relative to most articles), you decided to override the flags? Would you do the same for an article which was misogynistic instead of misandristic? Or, if you don't agree with my labels, can you elaborate on whether this is a viewpoint-based unflagging, and whether promoting specific viewpoints is considered a part of HN moderation?
I do this accidentally all the time and really need to stop it.
I assumed it was just a change in the language, where "guys" was changing from meaning "men" to meaning "y'all" or "you people".
I see many men taking a stance of "I'm not sexist, this is not my problem", but really this is every man's responsibility. And it needs to stop. What are YOU doing about it?
thats essentially half of the comments in here.
If they have to spend time thinking about whether or not it was actually threatening or creepy they might be digging a little too deep to find those meanings.
Read the article, consider its merits, and do what you can when you can.