Comment by nothrabannosir | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nothrabannosir | Hacker News Reader

5. Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc.

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.

You don't think that needlessly sexualizing things might be insensitive to people who are themselves subject to exactly the same kind of needless sexualizing?

It's no less insensitive just because women are also capable of sexualizing things, or because men may also find it uncomfortable.

That argument does not counter his point this isn't a sexism thing.

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.

Using sexual language to describe a non-gendered object in the workplace is a different issue to sexism.

"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.

If the important thing is to be pedantic, I guess you win?

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.

Women are one of the groups who have particular bad experiences in society in their day to day lives. Other such groups include the elderly, children in dysfunctional families, adults with abusive parents, illegal immigrants, the socially inept, the autistic. Each of these groups are disproportionately confront a specific problem aspect of society, every hour of the day.

If you want to be pragmatic about it - "have courage, and be kind".

Of course the meaning of any particular instance of language depends on context, but the most common case of a straight man (for this is about behavior by men, and most men are straight) calling something sexy without additional context is unlikely to be interpreted as "sexy like James Bond".

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.

I don't know if you've ever met a narcissist in your life, I have been involved with a narcissistic woman before.

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.

> people who are themselves subject to exactly the same kind of needless sexualizing?

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...

> who determines if said sexualization is needless?

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."

> The people being sexualized.

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.

Yeah I guess this is about casting down damnation on any words or phrases that have in any way bothered the author in the past. It is a totally out of context assertion, I would say. I describe things that I like as being "sexy". It hardly is a term that only applies to women :P

On the one hand, I agree with you: there are lots of good reasons not to call algorithms sexy, e.g. it sounds stupid and makes the speaker sound stupid, it belies a poverty of language and imagination, it's immature and unprofessional, etc.

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.)

That's a good idea, I'll give it a try.

It's really hard! It takes a lot of attentiveness to how we're thinking/reacting, to undo our tendency to want to be right, not back down, not be humble or show weakness, etc.

Good luck!

To take it slightly farther, the whole idea that women (and only women) should take offense to that is sexist in and of itself.

Feminism, among other things, likes to control the idea of 'sexy' and 'sexuality' [0]. Somehow, the idea of being 'sexy' no longer seems to apply to men. Sex is seen as a commodity? ... wat?

[0] http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2011/08/10/anti_feminis... (last two paragraph kind of sum it up.)

Thank you for highlighting this. Also there is a highly heteronormative bent to this entire article which is incredibly jarring considering the author is supposedly trying to stop normative tropes.

There is nothing inherently wrong with calling the software or algorithm sexy or hot.

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.

Perhaps, then, the article should have said anything resembling that. Then we could address how absurd that complaint is.

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.

That's what you think, because they're not looking at you!

Guy: "No one stares at my chest at conferences -- I'm sure it doesn't happen! How childish!"

Gal: ...

We can't have a discussion if you assume that everyone who disagrees is only disagreeing because they don't have your precise life experiences, or the life experiences you assume someone else has had.

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