4 ms·
Sexism and PHP
- vilda 14y agoIt's fair so say that those girls are authors of that t-shirt. It was they idea. And they are not dumb at all - they are editors of Webandphp.
- onemorepassword 14y agoIf this mildly juvenile t-shirt is the worst to come out of the PHP community, then I would say it's not doing too badly. The t-shirts themselves are not that bad, they just shouldn't have been distributed by a sponsor at a conference. I am surprised however it hasn't been dealt with on the spot. It's not like PHP hasn't had it's share of incidents similar to other communities before, but the prominent role of women in PHP usually ensures that for instance speakers using sexist imagery in slides will be torn a new one on the spot instead of it becoming a blogosphere and twitter drama afterwards.
- lmm 14y agoIf you're interested in constructively changing things rather than just looking good for yourself, it's worth contacting people directly before you shout to the internet at large.
- saurik 14y agoI tried to find a picture, and came up with something that was clearly some previous t-shirt; an additional five minutes of scavaging around, and I'm still not finding it (although webandphp.com seems to have some iPhone-specific website which may be blocking me). Given that the premise of "Google juice" is flawed (what happened to rel="nofollow"?), would someone mind providing the context for this (as in, the shirt)?
- mobweb 14y agoI think this is the shirt the OP is talking about: https://twitter.com/webandphp/status/261241003204300801 https://twitter.com/webandphp/status/261241003204300801
- mike_esspe 14y agoCan you explain? :)
- mobweb 14y agoI also didn't get it at first, but I am not a native English speaker. I think it's a play on the phrase "Enhance your penis" that is typical for spam emails trying to sell dubious medication. I understand that, but I fail to see how it's especially offensive women? I consider it primarily against good taste. ;)
- onli 14y agoIt is not offensive at all (i agree it is bad taste, though i didn't understand the joke). It is sexism if you understand sexism and genderism in its strictest sense: That there is no difference between man and woman - sex is a thing imposed by society - and mentioning things like the penis, the biological difference between man and woman, constructs that change, thus is sexism. Yeah, as crazy as it sounds.
- largesse 14y agoJuvenile, yes. But offensive toward women? How?
- liljimmytables 14y agoI'm just throwing out my own intuition here, but I think that firstly, there's an implication that you have a penis. You don't? Odd one out. Secondly, if a woman were to say that verbally to a man, there would be a flirtatious connotation, which would lead women to feel uncomfortable wearing a shirt saying the same and hanging around with a load of strangers.
- largesse 14y agoI saw a woman wear a "Byte Me" t-shirt at the last conference I went to. Who do I talk to about fixing this? :)
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- kalmar 14y agoI came across this: http://storify.com/elazar/sexism-and-php http://storify.com/elazar/sexism-and-php
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- Tehnix 14y agoSo what? It's a penis joke? What is so bad about that if it's the case? Honestly, the only thing this (the article) accomplishes is making it appear that women have no humor... If people are offended by this, I simply would not care. I mean, there is nothing more I'd love than to have more women in the programming world, but having people with no humor? Nah, I'd rather pass that then. (If this comes off as sexist or anything, it isn't, it's not a thing against gender, it's a thing against peoples attitude)
- nigelsampson 14y agoI must be getting old, or it's late here but I didn't get the "penis" joke till you mentioned it.
- Tehnix 14y agoWell, considering the phrasing is a bit like what you might see in a viagra add, and the fact that if you say it out loud the Pness part in PHPness is almost literally pronounced penis. Either way, I would have given it any second thought if it weren't for the article, so I know what you mean.
- DanBC 14y agoI remember a time when shirts and ties were expected clothing for work. Wanting the right to wear penis joke t-shirts while not allowing others to have the right to complain about those t-shirts feels surprising. I happily accept that many places just wouldn't care about this t-shirt. It seems pretty harmless.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- PeterisP 14y agoIt's not even a penis joke - I and many others didn't notice the penis reference until it was pointed out. This is just begging for a t-shirt that contains: a) a male insult, female insult and transgender insult; b) a christian insult, muslim insult and an atheist insult; c) a white-trash insult, a black insult and an asian insult; and a caricature of killing babies for fun to top it off. So that everybody is offended equally without discrimination and we can leave it that.
- tanepiper 14y agoStorm in a teacup IMHO
- drivebyacct2 14y agoWould it be more acceptable if there was a "female version" of this shirt? I'm glad we're examining this at a meta level more often, and I can see how this is exclusive, certainly. Would it become (more) inclusive or even "ok" if there was some other jokey concept for women as well?
- tuturu 14y agoTIL making a joke about a male body part is misogyny.
- rooshdi 14y agoOh hey look, another dick joke on a t-shirt promoting programming to the masses. How funny, right? Hur, hur, hur. At this point, I don't know what's more of a joke, this type of marketing or the joke itself.
- kirualex 14y agoI'm pretty sure this is the kind of article that is doing a lot more harm than good to the female gender by shifting the focus from real issues (pay inequality, harassment and such) to trivial and harmless puns. I sometime wonder if these people (like the author) are just trolls waiting for a good useless polemic to arise in order to shove down our throat how well behaved they are. Pathetic.
- kirualex 14y agoI'm pretty sure this is the kind of article that is doing a lot more harm than good to the female gender by shifting the focus from real issue (pay inequality, harassment and such) to trivial and harmless puns. I sometime wonder if these people (like the CalEvans) are just trolls waiting for a good useless polemic to arise in order to shove down our throat how well behaved they are. Pathetic.
- antihero 14y agoThis is utterly ridiculous. In reality there is street harassment FGM, pay gap, domestic violence, rape, politicians attacking bodily autonomy...but god forbid someone makes a dick joke. It's bullshit like this that means more and more people are a) not taking feminism seriously any more (women included), and b) leaving the damn movement (my girlfriend and I used to be fairly hardcore feminist activists, but we're so sick of all this shit that our interest is waning. Which is awful, as we genuinely care about equality and smashing the gender divide, but the movement is so plagued by pointless bickering and crap like this, it's an uphill battle).
- captoffendo 14y agoThe t-shirt is neither sexist or offensive, nor particularly funny. People, please spend your moral outrage on real issues. Honestly, PHP as a language is way more offensive than the shirt is.