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That's a shame, I don't really see the need to rename it, but that's his choice. It's a clever name and naming a product after a hormone is not sexist (and if i

That's a shame, I don't really see the need to rename it, but that's his choice. It's a clever name and naming a product after a hormone is not sexist (and if it were, why does testrogen get her vote? That's just as bad). In my opinion, complaints like these cheapen sexism, which genuinely is a big problem in IT.

TheAmazingIdiot 15y ago
That's because sexism is about special rights towards women, and not equal rights. If women cannot find legitimate complaints (which do exist a plenty in computing), they manufacture complaints. Hence 'Testosterone' vs 'Testrogen'; which one did the woman say was correct, and which one did she say was incorrect? Hmm..
- Udo 15y ago
  That's because sexism is about special rights towards women, and not equal rights. That's where you're wrong. Sexism is a process of gender discrimination and it's tied to the cultural philosophy of the person doing it. The perception (or allegation) of sexism is comes from the feeling an action invokes in the mind of the recipient. I wonder if the sexism label is doing more harm than good when it comes to eradicating the underlying problem. When I read about the "manly testing interface for Python" I clearly got the feeling this was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, perhaps written by an adolescent after one beer too many. But yeah, at the same time I thought it was a really odd theme or identity for a programming project to have. I can see how it would be off-putting. It's often difficult to know how a written statement was meant to come out, especially if you don't know the author. My beef at this point would be with the project description not so much the name itself, because it seems to employ the tired cliche of hardcore things being manly. On the other hand, it's probably meant to be a joke. Which is all fine until a female developer comes along and interprets it as "fuck this, the author clearly doesn't want me to use it", or until a male developer reads it and thinks "screw this, I'm not taking lessons in gender identity from you"
zheng 15y ago
While in one sense I agree (testrogen is an awful name), would you want to use a test framework named "Estrogen - The girly testing framework"? Maybe it wouldn't matter to you (I don't think I'd care really), but imagine being one of the only male developers in a group of overly feminist "chickgrammers" (excuse the play on words) who all claimed that "Estrogen" made them feel super-girly, and let you know at every chance they got just how girly it made them feel. Even without the hypothetical situation, branding a framework as the "framework for [gender]" is going to implicitly exclude anyone who isn't of that gender. Not to mention those for whom gender isn't quite as binary.
- kaolinite 15y ago
  Sure, I agree with the "framework for [gender]" argument. I don't think that "the manly testing interface for Python" is too bad, but I can agree that it may put some people off - so dropping that is a good idea. Changing the name however is a bit dramatic, in my opinion.

TheAmazingIdiot 15y ago

That's because sexism is about special rights towards women, and not equal rights. If women cannot find legitimate complaints (which do exist a plenty in computing), they manufacture complaints. Hence 'Testosterone' vs 'Testrogen'; which one did the woman say was correct, and which one did she say was incorrect? Hmm..

Udo 15y ago
That's because sexism is about special rights towards women, and not equal rights. That's where you're wrong. Sexism is a process of gender discrimination and it's tied to the cultural philosophy of the person doing it. The perception (or allegation) of sexism is comes from the feeling an action invokes in the mind of the recipient. I wonder if the sexism label is doing more harm than good when it comes to eradicating the underlying problem. When I read about the "manly testing interface for Python" I clearly got the feeling this was meant to be tongue-in-cheek, perhaps written by an adolescent after one beer too many. But yeah, at the same time I thought it was a really odd theme or identity for a programming project to have. I can see how it would be off-putting. It's often difficult to know how a written statement was meant to come out, especially if you don't know the author. My beef at this point would be with the project description not so much the name itself, because it seems to employ the tired cliche of hardcore things being manly. On the other hand, it's probably meant to be a joke. Which is all fine until a female developer comes along and interprets it as "fuck this, the author clearly doesn't want me to use it", or until a male developer reads it and thinks "screw this, I'm not taking lessons in gender identity from you"

zheng 15y ago

While in one sense I agree (testrogen is an awful name), would you want to use a test framework named "Estrogen - The girly testing framework"? Maybe it wouldn't matter to you (I don't think I'd care really), but imagine being one of the only male developers in a group of overly feminist "chickgrammers" (excuse the play on words) who all claimed that "Estrogen" made them feel super-girly, and let you know at every chance they got just how girly it made them feel. Even without the hypothetical situation, branding a framework as the "framework for [gender]" is going to implicitly exclude anyone who isn't of that gender. Not to mention those for whom gender isn't quite as binary.

kaolinite 15y ago
Sure, I agree with the "framework for [gender]" argument. I don't think that "the manly testing interface for Python" is too bad, but I can agree that it may put some people off - so dropping that is a good idea. Changing the name however is a bit dramatic, in my opinion.