5 ms·

I can’t say much about the language, but I think the image at the bottom is somewhat inappropriate. Why is there a woman massaging a man while he uses a compute

I can’t say much about the language, but I think the image at the bottom is somewhat inappropriate. Why is there a woman massaging a man while he uses a computer? I understand that this is to illustrate comfort, but this is not an appropriate way to illustrate that

kensai 7y ago
Is this some kind of snowflake joke I don't get? These are cartoons. Jesus, have become so sensitive to everything? (forgive me in advance, but I don't understand what the problem is... a man massaging a woman would have been better? a man massaging a man? a woman massaging a woman? two robots perhaps? what would not make people more comfortable?)
- kybernetikos 7y ago
  In an entirely neutral culture it'd be fine. In a culture that says that women aren't programmers, it perpetuates a common narrative that women are for display and support but not for real work. It's not helped by the picture above it where the ballerina is pictured with batteries. Taken all together it seems to suggest that women are objects and that this is a product for men. Yes, we're all being hyper sensitive about it, and it's likely that nothing negative was intended but it's something that we could do with having a bit of sensitivity about, given that it costs us so little and our current level of sensitivity has made the culture so hostile to women.
  - Accacin 7y ago
    Eloquently put. I agree.
  - esyir 7y ago
    Jesus, that's my definition of oversensitivity. Literally everything, no matter how minor or insignificant gets turned into "this is driving women out of the industry".
    - kingjojo 7y ago
      Agree. I mean come on, then we could say the same about the ballerina pictured being a woman is driving man out of the ballerina industry. Stop being oversensitive about such minor things. I want to live in a society where there is no outcry over a chosen photo motive at all whether I want to picture a woman massaging a man or vice versa. Just let me choose the motive for a photo the way I think it fits.
      - kybernetikos 7y ago
        > we could say the same about the ballerina pictured being a woman is driving man out of the ballerina industry Maybe it is, I've got no problem if someone wants to make that argument. I don't know much about the Ballet world, so it's not something I'm going to raise myself. On the other hand I've got personal experience of talking to a young girl who was trying to understand gender roles and if it was acceptable for a girl to be interested in space or computers because of things people had said to her at school. If she'd been looking at webpages with these kinds of pictures, I'm sure they would have had an effect. > Stop being oversensitive about such minor things At some point the regress of people getting annoyed about other people getting annoyed becomes ridiculous. I'm not spending time in a state of rage about this, and you don't need to be in a state of rage about my opinions about this either. > I want to live in a society where there is no outcry over a chosen photo And I want to live in a society where people understand that communication involves two sides, and that if your speech / picture selection makes a significant number of people think you're sexist and you aren't then maybe you should improve how you communicate.
    - usrusr 7y ago
      It's surely not literally driving women from the industry, but it does make the product look outdated and the team behind it look insensitive. It's like doing a presentation with a prominent stain on your shirt: ideally the audience should be able to separate appearances from content, but the reality is that they can't.
  - mpweiher 7y ago
    > In a culture that says that women aren't programmers Culture doesn't "say" this, culture reflects the reality that this is mostly the case. If the reality changes, culture will adapt to that new reality. Thinking it is the other way around is a classic case of the "wet roads cause rain" fallacy[1]. See also Lee Jussim's work on Stereotype Accuracy, [2] is a good intro. [1] http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ [2] http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-res...
    - tobr 7y ago
      Unlike rain and wet roads, it’s not a one-way cause and effect. Skewed representation makes sexist stereotypes more likely, and sexist stereotypes contribute to more skewed representation. To break a vicious cycle we need to be sensitive to the things that feed it.
      - mpweiher 7y ago
        Except that it is. A one way street, that is. You are simply asserting that "sexist stereotypes contribute to more skewed representation", which is no better than asserting that wet roads cause rain. First, there is nowadays strong evidence that people generally do not hold explicitly sexist views. So the fact that people know that there are, for example, fewer female software engineers does not mean that they think women are incapable of being software engineers. Knowing that there are fewer female software engineers and therefore a software engineer you encounter is more likely to be male is not sexist, it is simple knowledge of the facts. So what about "implicit bias"? Well, the poster child for implicit biases, the Implicit Association Test, is actually highly dubious, as results (a) are highly inconsistent [the same person will get wildly different scores on different instances of the test] (b) quite weak and a bit different than reported and (c) do not predict biased behaviour. What do I mean with "a bit different than reported"? IIRC, it was reported that the IAT showed men being biased against women. Which was a bit of mischaracterisation: for male subjects, there was no difference in "bias" for/against women or men, but women had a positive bias towards other women. So there was a difference, but not quite what was reported. (This in-group bias was also discovered in a different study). Finally, what about the backwards causality? Let's take Stereotype Threat. Results were always weak and somewhat questionable, and basically crumbled in the replication crisis, the effect disappearing when controlling for publication bias. https://replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/ https://replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-repli...
  - megla_ 7y ago
    I'm sure hundreds of women won't go into STEM, now that this one new language has a picture of a ballerina with batteries giving a massage to some dude with a laptop. Maybe they should illustrate her putting batteries in a vibrator, so she can go fuck herself, just like you should.
    - dang 7y ago
      We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- smt88 7y ago
  There is controversy about literally this exact thing in China's software culture[1]. > Jesus, have become so sensitive to everything? What you call "being so sensitive" can also just mean that people are being considerate. The people suggesting the photo is inappropriate are not "triggered" or "offended" or whatever. They just seem to understand that the photo evokes real cultural problems and can easily be changed. Why do you seem to be so offended on behalf of the picture? 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-technology.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-tech...

kensai 7y ago

Is this some kind of snowflake joke I don't get? These are cartoons. Jesus, have become so sensitive to everything? (forgive me in advance, but I don't understand what the problem is... a man massaging a woman would have been better? a man massaging a man? a woman massaging a woman? two robots perhaps? what would not make people more comfortable?)

kybernetikos 7y ago
In an entirely neutral culture it'd be fine. In a culture that says that women aren't programmers, it perpetuates a common narrative that women are for display and support but not for real work. It's not helped by the picture above it where the ballerina is pictured with batteries. Taken all together it seems to suggest that women are objects and that this is a product for men. Yes, we're all being hyper sensitive about it, and it's likely that nothing negative was intended but it's something that we could do with having a bit of sensitivity about, given that it costs us so little and our current level of sensitivity has made the culture so hostile to women.
- Accacin 7y ago
  Eloquently put. I agree.
- esyir 7y ago
  Jesus, that's my definition of oversensitivity. Literally everything, no matter how minor or insignificant gets turned into "this is driving women out of the industry".
  - kingjojo 7y ago
    Agree. I mean come on, then we could say the same about the ballerina pictured being a woman is driving man out of the ballerina industry. Stop being oversensitive about such minor things. I want to live in a society where there is no outcry over a chosen photo motive at all whether I want to picture a woman massaging a man or vice versa. Just let me choose the motive for a photo the way I think it fits.
    - kybernetikos 7y ago
      > we could say the same about the ballerina pictured being a woman is driving man out of the ballerina industry Maybe it is, I've got no problem if someone wants to make that argument. I don't know much about the Ballet world, so it's not something I'm going to raise myself. On the other hand I've got personal experience of talking to a young girl who was trying to understand gender roles and if it was acceptable for a girl to be interested in space or computers because of things people had said to her at school. If she'd been looking at webpages with these kinds of pictures, I'm sure they would have had an effect. > Stop being oversensitive about such minor things At some point the regress of people getting annoyed about other people getting annoyed becomes ridiculous. I'm not spending time in a state of rage about this, and you don't need to be in a state of rage about my opinions about this either. > I want to live in a society where there is no outcry over a chosen photo And I want to live in a society where people understand that communication involves two sides, and that if your speech / picture selection makes a significant number of people think you're sexist and you aren't then maybe you should improve how you communicate.
  - usrusr 7y ago
    It's surely not literally driving women from the industry, but it does make the product look outdated and the team behind it look insensitive. It's like doing a presentation with a prominent stain on your shirt: ideally the audience should be able to separate appearances from content, but the reality is that they can't.
- mpweiher 7y ago
  > In a culture that says that women aren't programmers Culture doesn't "say" this, culture reflects the reality that this is mostly the case. If the reality changes, culture will adapt to that new reality. Thinking it is the other way around is a classic case of the "wet roads cause rain" fallacy[1]. See also Lee Jussim's work on Stereotype Accuracy, [2] is a good intro. [1] http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ http://larvatus.com/michael-crichton-why-speculate/ [2] http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-response http://www.spsp.org/news-center/blog/stereotype-accuracy-res...
  - tobr 7y ago
    Unlike rain and wet roads, it’s not a one-way cause and effect. Skewed representation makes sexist stereotypes more likely, and sexist stereotypes contribute to more skewed representation. To break a vicious cycle we need to be sensitive to the things that feed it.
    - mpweiher 7y ago
      Except that it is. A one way street, that is. You are simply asserting that "sexist stereotypes contribute to more skewed representation", which is no better than asserting that wet roads cause rain. First, there is nowadays strong evidence that people generally do not hold explicitly sexist views. So the fact that people know that there are, for example, fewer female software engineers does not mean that they think women are incapable of being software engineers. Knowing that there are fewer female software engineers and therefore a software engineer you encounter is more likely to be male is not sexist, it is simple knowledge of the facts. So what about "implicit bias"? Well, the poster child for implicit biases, the Implicit Association Test, is actually highly dubious, as results (a) are highly inconsistent [the same person will get wildly different scores on different instances of the test] (b) quite weak and a bit different than reported and (c) do not predict biased behaviour. What do I mean with "a bit different than reported"? IIRC, it was reported that the IAT showed men being biased against women. Which was a bit of mischaracterisation: for male subjects, there was no difference in "bias" for/against women or men, but women had a positive bias towards other women. So there was a difference, but not quite what was reported. (This in-group bias was also discovered in a different study). Finally, what about the backwards causality? Let's take Stereotype Threat. Results were always weak and somewhat questionable, and basically crumbled in the replication crisis, the effect disappearing when controlling for publication bias. https://replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-replication-failures-in-the-stereotype-threat-literature/ https://replicationindex.com/2017/04/07/hidden-figures-repli...
- megla_ 7y ago
  I'm sure hundreds of women won't go into STEM, now that this one new language has a picture of a ballerina with batteries giving a massage to some dude with a laptop. Maybe they should illustrate her putting batteries in a vibrator, so she can go fuck herself, just like you should.
  - dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
smt88 7y ago
There is controversy about literally this exact thing in China's software culture[1]. > Jesus, have become so sensitive to everything? What you call "being so sensitive" can also just mean that people are being considerate. The people suggesting the photo is inappropriate are not "triggered" or "offended" or whatever. They just seem to understand that the photo evokes real cultural problems and can easily be changed. Why do you seem to be so offended on behalf of the picture? 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-technology.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/24/business/china-women-tech...