5 ms·
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
by stackghost 2y ago
Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"?
- the_gipsy 2y agoBecause they are subject both to sexual harassment and to higher expectations, including "professionalism" (not using profanity at the workplace in this specific case).
- b59831 2y agoThis isn't an answer to the question. Smug responses like this just means you don't actually have a point.
- the_gipsy 2y agoHow does it not answer the question "why would women avoid fu over foo"? I thought it was clear that "fu" means "fuck up" or even "fuck you", a sexual swear word, while "foo" means nothing at all.
- jckahn 2y agoIs it not clear what “f” and “u” is short for?
- stackghost 2y agoOf course it is. What's not clear is what that has to do with women.
- jckahn 2y agoI imagine that, due to the societal expectations historically placed on women, they’ve typically had to be “the adult in the room.” Contrast this with men historically being able to get away with acting childishly (or worse). So when terminology used in the workplace is particularly vulgar, it would follow that women would take more issue with it than men.
- the_gorilla 2y ago> due to the societal expectations historically placed on women This reads like aliens trying (and failing) to figure out why women act more like women than men do.
- jckahn 2y agoCan you elaborate on that? My goal was to be as clear as possible and leave minimal room for misinterpretation.
- b59831 2y agoThis is a sexist statement
- jckahn 2y agoHow so?
- danaris 2y agoDescribing the factual sexist environment that existed in a prior time (or, hell, the ones that exist today) is not itself sexist.
- cgriswald 2y agoIt’s a fact the environment was sexist. Everything else is speculation unless their is some evidence that women’s complaints were the driving factor of a change in policy rather than, say, the infantilization of women or a sexist expectation that women would take exception to it.
- kortilla 2y agoIt’s a discussion about a sexist environment. Catch up
- RichardCA 2y agoVery sexist. Women were not only expected to never cuss, but also to pretend as if they had never even heard such awful words. https://youtu.be/Cq-If5vVvcc https://youtu.be/Cq-If5vVvcc
- carlosjobim 2y agoPeople had different values than you do in the past. They also have different values right now.
- snypher 2y ago'F--- you'
- kevinventullo 2y agoIn this case the u stands for “up”: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fubar https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fubar
- the_gipsy 2y agoNo
- blahyawnblah 2y agoIt's clear. Fucked Up
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoIn the 60's the belief was that they could not tolerate profanity. Or maybe it was that they'd tattle on the rest of us.
- johnyzee 2y agoThere was a concept of treating women with respect.
- smcin 2y agoThat's a non-sequitur. There are plenty of other words that start with 'fu-'. It's also a loanword from Chinese. And even if not, I haven't heard anyone describe the coinage 'fupa' as offensive.
- smcin 2y agoTo the downvoters: I said I don't find merit in the suggestion that using 'fu' (or 'foo' as a function name) would be considered to constitute profanity. When learning programming, I simply learned 'foo, 'bar' and 'baz' as silly-sounding example function names. I didn't make any connection from 'foo' in the CS context to 'fubar' in US military slang till over a decade later. (Neglecting that there weren't many women in CS in the 1960s. I don't even see that the word-fragment would have been considered offensive in civilian context, esp. to non-US speakers of English)
- dragonwriter 2y agoIn the 60s, women were generally infantilized, but I suspect the “it was done for the women” explanation for the drift of “fu” to the already-existing term “foo” once separate from the other part of “fubar” is a just-so story, rather than a historical fact.
- symbolicAGI 2y agoBack in the 1960s United States, women were often perceived as more sensitive to public profanity, compared to men of the same age.
- bee_rider 2y agoI think it is actually a little funny, nowadays of course the assumption that we particularly should be less profane around women would be seen as old fashioned and kind of a bit sexist. But I guess at the time swearing less was probably seen as a way to make women less uncomfortable. And I’m sure in some cases it did help. An interesting example of the quirks we carry along with us, and the fact that the combination of behavior, intention, and interpretation can mix oddly.
- patrick451 2y agoI limit swearing in mixed company and I'm not even that old.
- bee_rider 2y agoI limit swearing among people I don’t know very well of either gender. Among my friends, I haven’t noticed any difference in who is bothered by it.
- Loughla 2y agoI only limit swearing in professional environments; meetings to be honest. Everywhere else gets the shit and hell and damn that I use in regular language. No slurs and no sexual words like Fuck. But that's just good manners. Curse words are like salt and pepper for the language. They're not necessary, but often add just the right amount of extra spice.
- bee_rider 2y agoOh, that’s an interesting thought, good point. I agree on the idea that slurs and sex-based stuff should be avoided (crassness should be fun for everyone, not exclusionary). I hadn’t put fuck in that bucket really, but of course it does have some sexual definitions.
- Spivak 2y agoAnd it's not that hard to understand, it wasn't as if women would faint at hearing the word fuck, but that casual swearing made an environment feel like a boys club which used to be strongly exclusionary. Go talk to your grandmothers about it, the 60s was the start of second wave feminism— we're not talking about "they said guys to refer to a mixed group" but "how dare a skirt talk back to a man" level sexism.
- greenthrow 2y agoThat part of the comment is not true.
- TacticalCoder 2y ago> Why would women in particular object to "fu" and not "foo"? Honestly I don't know pussy.
- riiii 2y agoBecause fu.