4 ms·

Have you ever worked in an office with all women? I did and the sexism and comments are worse because they know they can get away with it. Our world has becom

Have you ever worked in an office with all women? I did and the sexism and comments are worse because they know they can get away with it. Our world has become too politically correct. At one of my jobs, they brought all of the developers into a room and said that "something somebody said was offensive and we needed to watch our language". We're adults, not kids at school..but it sure doesn't feel like it because people seem to want to get another person fired if they are offended in any way. The result is that we can't be honest.

stfu 15y ago
That took some scrolling until I found a reasonable comment. Thanks for this. The other aspect is: Groups will always bond together in one way or another and emphasize their "superiority" over some other group. May it be because of gender, race, political views, intellectual views or just sports teams. The only difference I noticed from sometimes working with almost exclusive female teams is, that they are smarter in regards to "testing the water", i.e. those who don't share their sense of humor and are unable to cope with less appropriate remarks get isolate pretty fast. But I never understood why people get sensitive over things like these. In fact I would argue that the more something is a high pressure environment, the less PC the environment becomes.
MartinCron 15y ago
It's really easy to say that the world has become too politically correct when you're not the one offended. It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group. What's not too PC for you? Blackface minstrel shows? Cross burning? Swastikas? Effigy burnings? Many developers find stereotypes of "tech nerds" offensive. If the women in your office showed up with plaid shirts, pocket protectors, slide rules, and mocked your condescending whiny voice, would that not be offensive?
- paulhauggis 15y ago
  "It's really easy to say that the world has become too politically correct when you're not the one offended. It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group." This isn't true. When my co-workers have gotten into political discussions that were completely against my beliefs, I could have easily gotten offended. But you know what? I don't, because I'm an adult. Some people are going to say things you may not like. Just ignore them. "It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group." Women mostly work in Nursing and as teachers. If I were to go into either of these fields, I still wouldn't whine to my superiors about something my co-worker said or how they made me feel bad. "If the women in your office showed up with plaid shirts, pocket protectors, slide rules, and mocked your condescending whiny voice, would that not be offensive?" No, I would laugh. You need to be proud of what you are. I'm confident enough to know that a little mockery won't hurt me. Every company I have ever worked for has been so paranoid about sexual harassment and offending people I seriously doubt it happens as much as people would like us to believe. "What's not too PC for you? Blackface minstrel shows? Cross burning? Swastikas? Effigy burnings?" Why is it that in any conversation, the people that claim to be against discrimination bring up things like this? I don't agree with what you posted, but we should have the freedom to express our opinions. I'm tired of people trying to legislate personal opinions away. It's opinions like yours that allow special interest groups to get power in this country.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    You sound very secure and confident with who you are. Oddly enough, not everyone is, of should be, exactly like you.
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    Also, the reason "people like me" bring up the minstrel shows, swastikas, and burning crosses is to try to give context that there are a handful of things that many people, not just "thin-skinned women" or "overly-sensitive PC whiners" find offensive. I believe in your right to express yourself, but harassment in the workspace is not protected speech. be as un-PC as you want on your own time.
  - parfe 15y ago
    This isn't true. When my co-workers have gotten into political discussions that were completely against my beliefs, I could have easily gotten offended. But you know what? I don't, because I'm an adult. Some people are going to say things you may not like. Just ignore them. Wow, stop right there and reconsider political beliefs vs gender or race. If you don't want to be outed as a Ron Paul supporter you just keep your mouth shut. How does a woman stop coworkers from focusing on her breasts? Or the fact that she can become pregnant? Or that she's single? You don't have to be your political beliefs every moment of your life.
- mhartl 15y ago
  It's hard to know WTF is going to offend people. The result is a choice between potential opprobrium and insufferable blandness. This is how it happens: http://android.eonline.com/article.ftl?category=Latest+News&id=b302685 http://android.eonline.com/article.ftl?category=Latest+News&... I pretty sure DeNiro didn't burn any crosses.
  - mhartl 15y ago
    I'm
  - MartinCron 15y ago
    It's hard to know WTF is going to offend people Or, you can pay attention to what does offend people and not do those things again in the future. It's not realistic to expect to never offend people, but everyone has a responsibility to understand what their actions do for other people.
    - mhartl 15y ago
      you can pay attention to what does offend people and not do those things again in the future Yes, and following this course results in outcome #2: insufferable blandness. The range of things people find offensive is staggering. Indeed, many are offended by the notion that sometimes you just need to grow a thicker skin—which kind of proves the point.
      - MartinCron 15y ago
        Are you really saying that there's no middle ground between being actively offensive and being insufferably bland? Context matters, there's a difference between what's appropriate in a professional setting and what's appropriate in (for example) art. Please, be as edgy and un-PC as you want, just don't do it in the workplace.
        mhartl 15y ago
        Are you really saying that there's no middle ground between being actively offensive and being insufferably bland? The short answer is, yes, there is a middle ground, but it won't stay "middle" for long: the set of "offensive" things expands with time. Many jokes and phrases that were part of the inoffensive "middle ground" twenty or thirty years ago are now considered offensive. To the politically correct, this is mere progress, but to those who oppose political correctness it instead represents cultural and linguistic decline. I ran into a small example of this recently when discussing the movie "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle". Specifically, I wanted to refer to the ethnic background of Harold. I couldn't remember offhand exactly which country his ancestors came from, so I described him as "Asian". The problem is that, in the modern lexicon, Kumar (being of Indian extraction) is also "Asian". Thirty years ago I could have described Harold as "Oriental" without causing offense, but that changed some time in the mid- to late '80s. (I distinctly remember, some time around 1990, overhearing a high-school teacher instruct one of my Vietnamese classmates not to refer to herself as "Oriental". She was comfortable with the term; he was not. His side won, and we have lost some linguistic precision because of it.) To cite another example, from 1555 until the 1960's the word "Negro" was a neutral term signifying a person of black sub-Saharan African descent, at which point it was replaced by "black" (or "Black"). This lasted until 1988, when (in a domestic context) "African-American" became the preferred term. Meanwhile, "colored person" was also once a neutral phrase (as evidenced by the NAACP), but now uttering it in the workplace (or in a joke) can get you fired. In contrast, the term "person of color", which is almost semantically identical to "colored person", is not only inoffensive but is the preferred term among the PC cognoscenti. It's an achievement that Orwell himself could hardly have surpassed.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

stfu 15y ago

That took some scrolling until I found a reasonable comment. Thanks for this. The other aspect is: Groups will always bond together in one way or another and emphasize their "superiority" over some other group. May it be because of gender, race, political views, intellectual views or just sports teams. The only difference I noticed from sometimes working with almost exclusive female teams is, that they are smarter in regards to "testing the water", i.e. those who don't share their sense of humor and are unable to cope with less appropriate remarks get isolate pretty fast. But I never understood why people get sensitive over things like these. In fact I would argue that the more something is a high pressure environment, the less PC the environment becomes.

MartinCron 15y ago

It's really easy to say that the world has become too politically correct when you're not the one offended. It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group. What's not too PC for you? Blackface minstrel shows? Cross burning? Swastikas? Effigy burnings? Many developers find stereotypes of "tech nerds" offensive. If the women in your office showed up with plaid shirts, pocket protectors, slide rules, and mocked your condescending whiny voice, would that not be offensive?

paulhauggis 15y ago
"It's really easy to say that the world has become too politically correct when you're not the one offended. It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group." This isn't true. When my co-workers have gotten into political discussions that were completely against my beliefs, I could have easily gotten offended. But you know what? I don't, because I'm an adult. Some people are going to say things you may not like. Just ignore them. "It's easy not to be offended when you're not in an isolated or alienated group." Women mostly work in Nursing and as teachers. If I were to go into either of these fields, I still wouldn't whine to my superiors about something my co-worker said or how they made me feel bad. "If the women in your office showed up with plaid shirts, pocket protectors, slide rules, and mocked your condescending whiny voice, would that not be offensive?" No, I would laugh. You need to be proud of what you are. I'm confident enough to know that a little mockery won't hurt me. Every company I have ever worked for has been so paranoid about sexual harassment and offending people I seriously doubt it happens as much as people would like us to believe. "What's not too PC for you? Blackface minstrel shows? Cross burning? Swastikas? Effigy burnings?" Why is it that in any conversation, the people that claim to be against discrimination bring up things like this? I don't agree with what you posted, but we should have the freedom to express our opinions. I'm tired of people trying to legislate personal opinions away. It's opinions like yours that allow special interest groups to get power in this country.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  You sound very secure and confident with who you are. Oddly enough, not everyone is, of should be, exactly like you.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  Also, the reason "people like me" bring up the minstrel shows, swastikas, and burning crosses is to try to give context that there are a handful of things that many people, not just "thin-skinned women" or "overly-sensitive PC whiners" find offensive. I believe in your right to express yourself, but harassment in the workspace is not protected speech. be as un-PC as you want on your own time.
- parfe 15y ago
  This isn't true. When my co-workers have gotten into political discussions that were completely against my beliefs, I could have easily gotten offended. But you know what? I don't, because I'm an adult. Some people are going to say things you may not like. Just ignore them. Wow, stop right there and reconsider political beliefs vs gender or race. If you don't want to be outed as a Ron Paul supporter you just keep your mouth shut. How does a woman stop coworkers from focusing on her breasts? Or the fact that she can become pregnant? Or that she's single? You don't have to be your political beliefs every moment of your life.
mhartl 15y ago
It's hard to know WTF is going to offend people. The result is a choice between potential opprobrium and insufferable blandness. This is how it happens: http://android.eonline.com/article.ftl?category=Latest+News&id=b302685 http://android.eonline.com/article.ftl?category=Latest+News&... I pretty sure DeNiro didn't burn any crosses.
- mhartl 15y ago
  I'm
- MartinCron 15y ago
  It's hard to know WTF is going to offend people Or, you can pay attention to what does offend people and not do those things again in the future. It's not realistic to expect to never offend people, but everyone has a responsibility to understand what their actions do for other people.
  - mhartl 15y ago
    you can pay attention to what does offend people and not do those things again in the future Yes, and following this course results in outcome #2: insufferable blandness. The range of things people find offensive is staggering. Indeed, many are offended by the notion that sometimes you just need to grow a thicker skin—which kind of proves the point.
    - MartinCron 15y ago
      Are you really saying that there's no middle ground between being actively offensive and being insufferably bland? Context matters, there's a difference between what's appropriate in a professional setting and what's appropriate in (for example) art. Please, be as edgy and un-PC as you want, just don't do it in the workplace.
      - mhartl 15y ago
        Are you really saying that there's no middle ground between being actively offensive and being insufferably bland? The short answer is, yes, there is a middle ground, but it won't stay "middle" for long: the set of "offensive" things expands with time. Many jokes and phrases that were part of the inoffensive "middle ground" twenty or thirty years ago are now considered offensive. To the politically correct, this is mere progress, but to those who oppose political correctness it instead represents cultural and linguistic decline. I ran into a small example of this recently when discussing the movie "Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle". Specifically, I wanted to refer to the ethnic background of Harold. I couldn't remember offhand exactly which country his ancestors came from, so I described him as "Asian". The problem is that, in the modern lexicon, Kumar (being of Indian extraction) is also "Asian". Thirty years ago I could have described Harold as "Oriental" without causing offense, but that changed some time in the mid- to late '80s. (I distinctly remember, some time around 1990, overhearing a high-school teacher instruct one of my Vietnamese classmates not to refer to herself as "Oriental". She was comfortable with the term; he was not. His side won, and we have lost some linguistic precision because of it.) To cite another example, from 1555 until the 1960's the word "Negro" was a neutral term signifying a person of black sub-Saharan African descent, at which point it was replaced by "black" (or "Black"). This lasted until 1988, when (in a domestic context) "African-American" became the preferred term. Meanwhile, "colored person" was also once a neutral phrase (as evidenced by the NAACP), but now uttering it in the workplace (or in a joke) can get you fired. In contrast, the term "person of color", which is almost semantically identical to "colored person", is not only inoffensive but is the preferred term among the PC cognoscenti. It's an achievement that Orwell himself could hardly have surpassed.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]