4 ms·

It kinda pisses me off that the second line of the body became a sexist joke phrase title in hacker news. If you're not clued in on sexism: The stereotype rein

It kinda pisses me off that the second line of the body became a sexist joke phrase title in hacker news. If you're not clued in on sexism: The stereotype reinforcement that women are dumb with technology is the punchline. It doesn't matter that there was actually an issue with the pipeline from OpenOffice -> Cups, but the hacker news title was cleverly crafted to reinforce a stereotype. I don't care that this will be downvoted to oblivion, but the seeds of sexism exist everywhere.

jpleclerc90 7y ago
I think that the only stereotype held by most people on HN is that 99% of people, both genders indiscriminately, are dumb with technology.
jessaustin 7y ago
In general I agree with you that "unconscious" sexism is common, but TFA is not an example. TFA describes a user who has accurately isolated the conditions that generate errors. That is a capable user. Arguably, the title would be improved by adding the third sentence as well...
majos 7y ago
A while back I read a little theory that the reason "so easy your mom can use it" is a thing is that older men are less likely to experiment with new stuff in the first place than older women. I have no evidence for this beyond second-hand anecdotes about who shows up to free computer education classes at their local library.
beshrkayali 7y ago
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you're overthinking this. I personally read it this morning and honestly it didn't register to me in the way you're describing at all. I did not use the title as a sexist joke as you're saying, nor did I think that his wife is "dumb" because she thought that something is wrong with OpenOffice. The joke (if there's one) is that there's a twist, which is that programmers expect the worst description from non-technical users when explaining bugs, and "something doesn't work on Tuesdays" sounds a little absurd at first (like most interesting bugs). But even if it had occurred to me, omitting it just for the sake of not having the potential negative connotation is even worse imho. I haven't seen a single comment in this entire thread that addresses the issue as you're suggesting, not even hinting at it. Just because you thought that it could possibly have that implication doesn't mean that it actually does.

jpleclerc90 7y ago

I think that the only stereotype held by most people on HN is that 99% of people, both genders indiscriminately, are dumb with technology.

jessaustin 7y ago

In general I agree with you that "unconscious" sexism is common, but TFA is not an example. TFA describes a user who has accurately isolated the conditions that generate errors. That is a capable user. Arguably, the title would be improved by adding the third sentence as well...

majos 7y ago

A while back I read a little theory that the reason "so easy your mom can use it" is a thing is that older men are less likely to experiment with new stuff in the first place than older women. I have no evidence for this beyond second-hand anecdotes about who shows up to free computer education classes at their local library.

beshrkayali 7y ago

Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you're overthinking this. I personally read it this morning and honestly it didn't register to me in the way you're describing at all. I did not use the title as a sexist joke as you're saying, nor did I think that his wife is "dumb" because she thought that something is wrong with OpenOffice. The joke (if there's one) is that there's a twist, which is that programmers expect the worst description from non-technical users when explaining bugs, and "something doesn't work on Tuesdays" sounds a little absurd at first (like most interesting bugs). But even if it had occurred to me, omitting it just for the sake of not having the potential negative connotation is even worse imho. I haven't seen a single comment in this entire thread that addresses the issue as you're suggesting, not even hinting at it. Just because you thought that it could possibly have that implication doesn't mean that it actually does.