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"How I Explained REST to My Wife" taken down because of gender-oriented nature

42 points by bmaeser 14y ago

klrr 14y ago
I don't get who go around and take these "gender issues" seriously. Is it femenists, males, females, trolls? (or something else not listed of course)
- coldtea 14y ago
  My take is that it's people that like to get upset for non issues, while avoiding all the real issues that require personal commitment. That, and people going with the flock.
  - klrr 14y ago
    You mean unconsciously wanting to get upset about it, or do they really just go around trying to find stuff to hate on?
    - coldtea 14y ago
      The second, I think. They have some personal issues, from not having slept well to more deep rooted stuff, and they take it out on the internet on whatever attracts their attention and can justify some "hate". I doubt if perfectly normal people care if Ryan used "to my wife" or "to my spouse" etc. If someone wrote "How I explained Monads to my husband" I could not care less normally -- but on a bad day, I could take offense for similarly BS stuff, like "how dare you write that shit about Apple", etc.
hackmiester 14y ago
Here's a mirror I pulled from cache and reformatted a bit: http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ
richo 14y ago
Sigh, so an interesting and thought provoking article is taken down because it could have been percieved as sexist? Why not just s/wife/partner/g and call it a day? I don't think that it was inflammatory. Maybe it's due to wildly unchecked privilege, but I read it as "A way to convey the REST metaphor to a nontechnical person". I didn't see it as "women are stupid and need handholding to understand technology".
- brazzy 14y ago
  > I read it as "A way to convey the REST metaphor to a nontechnical person" How exactly did you read it that way without any knowledge about his wife's background? By implicitly assuming "wife => woman => nontechnical", that's how. That's really what makes the title work.
  - __david__ 14y ago
    No. Picture the title being "How I explained REST to my brother." That still conveys the exact same sentiment, which means the "wife" part is just a red herring.
    - brazzy 14y ago
      > That still conveys the exact same sentiment No, it doesn't. Could be a little brother who's just written his first PHP script. Could be a big brother who's worked for 20 years as DBA. Lots of articles out there trying to explain REST to such people. But wife? That means "nontechnical" - just look at the comments here.
      - __david__ 14y ago
        I so disagree. This is basic English: the "Explaining REST" part of the sentence is the part that implies that the explainee isn't technical (else why would they need to have it explained to them?). Making the subject "brother", "sister", "mom", "dad", or "husband" has the exact same meaning to me--they are all anonymous relations and so the "non-technical" implication still carries. The subject the author chose was "wife", presumably because this was based on an actual conversation with his wife. The subject does have a chance to turn the implication around. If your brother worked for 20 years as a DBA then the title would have to be "Explaining REST to a DBA" to get the correct implication.
Zariel 14y ago
I find it sad that this has happened, sexism in technology is a problem but this sort of this is people taking offence at the most ridiculous things. Does it matter that the example he used was explaining REST to his wife? If the roles had been reversed would be in the position we are now? Gender roles within technology wasn't the point of the original post, it was about explaining a piece of complicated technology to someone who had no prior understanding of it, it was circumspect that the person being explained to was a woman. Again I find it sad that if the gender roles were reversed or if the other people was male that we probably would not be in this position as no one would object to a man explaining to another man about some technology that he does not under, is that sexism?
Millennium 14y ago
It's a conversation that actually happened, between two people who happened to be of opposite gender. There is no reasonable way to read gender messages into something like that.
Joeboy 14y ago
This story is about an author deciding to remove an article from his website in 2004. Edit: I am wrong, at least partly and possibly wholly.
- phpnode 14y ago
  no. This is a story about an author succumbing to pressure to remove an article 9 years after it was written.
  - Joeboy 14y ago
    Ah, OK, apparently you're right about the 9 years after it was written. Do you have anything to back up the "succumbing to pressure" bit? It sounds pretty consensual from the text.
- darklajid 14y ago
  This story is about an author deciding to remove an article that was posted (and upvoted!) to HN multiple times. I'd say it was good content and personally liked the article. In addition this story shows that 'sexism' (think PyCon etc.) is not easy to identify and no objective rules seems to be agreeable enough. For me, this article wasn't even remotely sexist and even if the author himself got convinced, I fail to see a reason to take it down and cannot see anything offending about it. In fact, I discussed that very article with my own wife multiple times.
bmaeser 14y ago
archived version from 16.01.2013 http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com...
oellegaard 14y ago
I'm sorry to hear this. This so-called gender issue is becoming a big loss for the community. I think people need to realize that there are differences between facts and being gender discriminating. Transcribing a conversation with your wife, wherein the wife in this case is the non-technical part is not discriminating - it is a fact. No-one would have said anything if a woman posted "How I explained REST to My Husband". Please, stop this overreaction to the so-called gender issues.
- seivan 14y ago
  I wonder if anyone would have been upset if it was called "How I explained it to my partner"
  - petercooper 14y ago
    Single people.
  - dgesang 14y ago
    Or if PETA would've shown up if he'd "explained it to his dog".
- arethuza 14y ago
  I'm tempted to ask my wife to write a blog post on "How I explained different kinds of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms in the construction industry to my husband". I'm lucky enough to be married to an expert in her field so I get to learn lots of cool stuff just by asking!
  - oellegaard 14y ago
    Sounds pretty interesting, if you do, please post it on HN :)
    - arethuza 14y ago
      Every time she mentions that stuff I have to be careful not to say "Arbiter, cool - just like Halo!" [although I always think it].
throwaway125 14y ago
Thanks to the internet archive we can still enjoy this article: http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...
- tehwebguy 14y ago
  I read this, the whole time thinking "please don't make a cooking or cleaning analogy", no such luck. The conversation wasn't nearly what I expected, it goes into more detail than I expected but there are a few points, like the sweeper thing, that were probably big triggers.
  - precisioncoder 14y ago
    That and the fact that the headings of the two members of the conversation are: Ryan and Wife. Giving her a name probably would have helped...
    - mpyne 14y ago
      Maybe she didn't feel like having her identity plastered all over the Internet just because she happened to be married to Ryan? I would never release personally identifable information about my wife on the Internet without getting her permission first.
      - vidarh 14y ago
        It took years before I referred to my wife as anything but "my wife" even at work, because most people didn't know her, and so didn't know here name and it was simply easier to refer to her that way.
        mpyne 14y ago
        At this duty station I'm the same. No one here knows my wife so I don't refer to her (or even my children) by name. At my first duty station it was much more tight-knit; we knew each other by first name, met off-hours as a group (including spouse and children), etc. So there it wasn't unusual to refer to someone's wife by first name. Now I can see why people would be offended about referring to "the wife" (and it's less savory alternates), as if you were resigned to torturing yourself once you got home and not actually in a committed relationship with a human being. But that's not what is happening when talking about your actual wife, just as it's considered perfectly acceptable to refer to one's mother, brother, father, or sister by role instead of name.
twerquie 14y ago
Does anyone else feel like the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite direction? We're over-compensating here.
- johnward 14y ago
  Yes, but then I will be considered sexist. I understand there are issues of gender discrimination, but taking down a post from 2004 because it mentioned a "wife" is crazy.
- kahawe 14y ago
  I know this will not be the most popular opinion to voice but you know what? I call major first world problems. By now women (thankfully!) have the right to vote, to study, to pick and divorce their partners as THEY see fit, they are allowed to drive, to drink, to be artists, to be engineers, scientists, to be anything they want, there are extremely influential political and economic positions held by very capable women. Now, I am NOT saying we are perfect and women should just stop complaining - but I AM going to say let's just be happy for a moment we made it this far because there are still quite a lot of countries in this world where all the aforementioned are denied to women and splitting hairs on comparatively petty subjects like the stereotypically non-tech "grrrls" seems like a waste of everyone's time and effort. Better focus on subjects that actually matter instead of wasting it on over-compensating and über-political-correctness. I may not be working in the most hip and trendy kind of places so YMMV, in my own experience the IT industry I have seen so far definitely IS predominantly male to the point having 1/3 female colleagues would seem like the maximum I (n)ever (even) encountered. In the university where I studied they were trying hard to attract female students, we started with maybe 1/3 or so female; then came the programming lessons and unfortunately those mainly got rid of most of the girls. At the end, there were just a couple of girls left who finished their degree. IT is not for everybody and there are a lot of guys who just cannot do it either, why is it such an atrocity to say the same about girls? Nobody would cry murder if the article was explaining it to "my little brother".
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
johnward 14y ago
I understand where feminist come from on the issue, but I do think that sometimes they take it to far. His wife is obvoisly non-technical. It's not about "omg these womenz don't get tech". It's more about this is how a conversation went between a technical and non-technical person, who happen to be husband and wife. I know that people feel that using "wife" enforces stereotypes, but I really don't see it in this post. Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes it very hard to identify with your cause.
- fennecfoxen 14y ago
  "Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes it very hard to identify with your cause." This. Because you're taking an informative, factual statement describing a particular relationship (husband working with technology, wife with limited relationship to technology), and saying that it's not any good to describe this fact, because other people who want to have a different sort of relationship might feel outnumbered or something. People who are interested in actually doing something about gender-related issues in technology should consider that at a certain point, it's less productive to whine about something and more productive to ignore it and cope so you can fight bigger battles. I think we passed that point on the way to this article, and then went on to enter the zone where people stop even respecting that you're fighting...
JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
What? My take on the article was the knowledge transfer of a REST developer to a non-developer. His wife was only a figure relative to his position; the genders could have been swapped and it wouldn't change the context of the article...? I would have kept the article up purposely as my belief that it isn't offensive and that people are ignorant and arrogant.
- sdoering 14y ago
  Having studied literature, I really feel, that wife in this context was a fictional character, solely for the purpose of giving an audience that is not that technically experienced something/-one to relate to. That on the other hand just makes this case a case of misinterpreting fiction for reality. Reminds me of a story the acclaimed author Umberto Eco once told about his book "Foucault's Pendulum": His main character walks through a named street in Paris and sees a burning hotel ... and so on. Eco receives a letter, in which a reader accuses him of not getting the facts right, as there never was a hotel in this street. So is Eco discriminating hotels in Paris with this book?
savrajsingh 14y ago
A dark matter physicist friend of mine created a blog called "physics for my mom." He faced similar issues, but simply said "No, I'm honestly writing this for my mom--she's not a physicist. It's my personal blog."
davidradcliffe 14y ago
Sad. It wasn't even about gender!
quesera 14y ago
Sometimes, reality reinforces stereotypes. I don't blame Ryan at all for not wanting to be part of that conversation. It's a huge toxic distraction. Still, it was a valuable article. I hope he will neuter it and re-post.
- johnward 14y ago
  Honestly it seems like he could just change "wife" to any random name or even person #2 and it would be ok.
  - sdoering 14y ago
    No, actually that would not be ok. The way he dealt with it was his way. And it shows how wrong the whole gender-discussion has become. Some overreacting (or say very sensitive), but very loudly "screaming" (aka blogging/tweeting/et al) voices (female and male) have hijacked a very legit discussion for womens rights, womens equality, womens chances in this world and made a mockery out of it. what these voices did imho, was a disservice to the just cause for equality between all genders (perceived or biological).
    - johnward 14y ago
      Yeah I agree. I'm saying if you read the article and replace wife with anything else it still makes sense. So it's not sexist in anyway.
      - sdoering 14y ago
        OK, in this regard, I am totally with you.
- ubersoldat2k7 14y ago
  Actually, I think the stereotype he was targeting was that of software nerds who are married with non-technical women. This is my case and my wife isn't offended. I don't have the data to backup this, but from my personal perspective, all the male software and IT people I've meet enough to know if they were married, were with a non-technical partner (yes, even gay couples). And this is not an issue, I wouldn't want to state in my divorce papers: "she's an emacs poweruser".
drucken 14y ago
Unless there's a "How I Explained X to My Wife" meme going around, I'm not sure I understand the point of this. It clearly was never intended in such an offensive direction (not even lightheartedly) and it's descriptive usefulness seems to far outweigh such concerns! Of course, if Tomayko did not actually have this conversation with his partner, then that could explain much and make the decision to remove the content more understandable.
dlsym 14y ago
Collateral damage of Shitstorm-Net-"feminists"-Hysteria. This is just sad.
- seany 14y ago
  it's also why mens rights type things are sprouting up to balance things out.
as_if 14y ago
I still think learning shouldn't slowed down by stuff like this. If someone writes about quantum mechanics and is a sexist, but he's the only one who can write it in a manner that I understand it, I'm SO gonna read it...
Semaphor 14y ago
I wonder why he didn't just replace "Wife" with "Non-technical acquaintance of indeterminate gender" for a maximum of PC.
- brazzy 14y ago
  Because being maximally PC is not something he wants to be, not even out of spite (and that latter option would not have done anything to improve the situation).
cpfohl 14y ago
Could you just change the word 'wife' to 'spouse' and put it back up? It was an awesome article.
maarten-pi 14y ago
I've sit back and seen so many posts lately about gender-issues. Is it really necessary? I understand that woman feel discriminated and I see some pretty aweful examples where guys are doing all the wrong things. In the case of the woman who got fired, I felt it was unjust from sendgrid. It shows how badly some guys copy with the issue. So that doesn't help. The baseline should be that we're all equal. What are the arguments against that? I feel it's kind of sexist to assume that an article might be offensive to woman, because well, they might just take offense. That implies that woman are very sensitive to these articles, which reinforces the stereotype... Doesn't that belittle woman infinitely more? It just reaches the opposite effect. The original author didn't think: "Let's belittle woman as much as possible just for the fun of it", that thought (I am pretty sure) never crossed his mind. The article could also have referred to, my father or my cousin.
tomelders 14y ago
Women are allowed to not understand things, just as much as men.
ranza 14y ago
%s/wife/friend/g Fixed it for you. I really liked the post. I even read it sometimes just to keep my mind fresh on the REST idea. I dont understand why people would be offended that you used your wife as the other person. Its perfectly normal to explane your wife what you do.
neya 14y ago
You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to explain the same thing to my mom and my grandma and every other non-technical female out there and publish a post with a similar title and will never take it down. Because, this kind of feminism movement is dangerous and someone should put an end to this "blind" feminism. A technical person explaining something technical to a non-technical person isn't sexism. I'm sure this wouldn't have been an issue if a woman had written 'How I explained cooking to my husband'. One word - EGO. It's amazing how much it can screw up constructive processes within a community.
- brazzy 14y ago
  And your "what I'm going to do" plan doesn't have anything to do with ego AT ALL, right?
  - neya 14y ago
    YES, it exhibits my ego, but I'm certainly not stupid - There is a difference between being a sexist and being labelled as a sexist for no apparent reason by some feminist on rage. Well, so you expect me to sit silently in a corner and watch this happen? What happened to the author today is also what will happen to me tomorrow, so I'm no way going to give way for random feminist/extremist to screw me like that.
    - brazzy 14y ago
      That the reason is not apparent to you doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist or is invalid. You don't solve issues by assuming the other side is acting in bad faith, fabricating strawmen and indulging in revenge fantasies. The only one here who is "on rage" is you.
artied 14y ago
Can't it just be re-titled "How I explained REST to My Spouse". Anyone complaining is clear 'projecting'....
darkxanthos 14y ago
Here's a good test: Would the article have been just as compelling and informative if he had written it to his husband? Everything the same except replace the word "wife" with "husband". Yes it would have. Just because his partner is a woman this article can't be written this way. That upsets me.
temphn 14y ago
Might men and women actually be neurologically different? Louann Brizendine and Doreen Kimura (neuroscientists both) sure think so, and present copious evidence to that effect: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920104 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920104 http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=10 http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=10 Men and women have systematically different muscle masses, lifespans, even organs. Yet it is taboo to imagine that their brains might be different too, on average. Indeed Ryan is persecuted for the indirect implication that women, on average, might be less technically inclined! If this generalization was actually untrue it would not be necessary to scream at people like Larry Summers to "disprove" it. The zeal of people invested in the denial of biology is astonishing; they seek to personally destroy anyone who even indirectly endorses anything related to gender difference.
- coldtea 14y ago
  Men are more aggressive (and stupid), live 5 years less on average, are taller and more muscular, are more hairy, cannot have babies, and can tolerate less pain (random facts verified by science) -- but GOD FORBID if men and women also have any differences in how they approach professions or cultural issues. Despite the fact that fashion is a trillion dollar industry for women but most men could not care less if their sock are of a slightly different color. If you want to fight "sexism", go fight Cosmopolitan. Or not -- ever stopped to consider it might be OK for women to like this stuff, like it's OK for men to like "Cars and Gadgets" magazines?
  - marknutter 14y ago
    I looked into the pain tolerance point you made a while back and it's not really confirmed one way or the other which gender deals with pain better.
    - coldtea 14y ago
      Yes, could be, it was only a research I've read, so nothing 100% conclusive. (OT, In general I think you cannot take research results published on journals for granted until they are at least 10 years old and have been included in undergraduate syllabus. Else you get all the mixed "coffee causes heart attacks", "coffee is good for your heart" papers alternating every other week).
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dgesang 14y ago
Ask HN: How can this post end up on page 3 so quickly (just refreshed the page) and still have increased in value (more points)?
coldtea 14y ago
>After receiving a number of reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of this article from people I respect very much, I've decided to take it down for good. Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue against the flock. It might not be what Ryan means (I can't speak for him), but it sure is what many people mean when having to take down something because of PC complaints. This thing is getting out of hand. It's the first world idea of a "cause" by people whose idea of "revolution" and "making society better" is blog posts and twitter snark. The very first programmer was a woman. For a lot of time, computer operators were mostly women. There are not many things stopping women at entering IT, and sexism sure is not one of them. Women thrive at other places with much more deep and inherent sexism (or, to put it better, with actual sexism, instead of mere tit jokes, which is what is mostly mistaken as sexism in the tech community). I attended uni 15 years ago for Comp Sci. On my year we were like 70% men and 30% women. Not because they feared for sexism (actually there was nothing of the kind -- students were either good or bad at lessons, regardless of sex). We all had fun together, in large mixed groups. Sexism never was an issue, and I've never heard any woman complain about it in the university. Other fields were like 70% women 30% men (Applied Math, Medicine, Biology, etc). Men mostly wanted to get into comp sci because they liked games, programming and this internet thing already. Women avoided the Comp Sci not because of some fear of sexism and such, but because it was considered to have bad work prospects (times/salary/etc), whereas biology was considered to be "blooming" at the time.
- brazzy 14y ago
  > Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue against the flock. Which part of "reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of this article [..] from people I respect very much" implies that to you? > This thing is getting out of hand. This isn't helping.
  - coldtea 14y ago
jerrya 14y ago
"Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals." "Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. "Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me." The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of trap-drums, tom-toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it. Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these." "Yes."
Shorel 14y ago
"How I explained REST to my liberal arts significant other" Fixed. No need to take it down for trendy political correctness.
marknutter 14y ago
This gives me an idea: a podcast or blog post series in which I explain technical concepts to my non-technical wife. I know I'm not the only one whose significant other has a hard time relating to the work I do and the hobbies I pursue, and it would be nice to provide them with some context. I know I enjoy learning about the nuances of my wife's work (early childhood education) and it gives me a better appreciation for her talents when I'm given the nitty-gritty domain specific details of her job. Just the other day I was trying to explain the term "meta" to my wife and having a hard time of it. Trying to put it into terms that didn't involve programming was an interesting mental exercise.
seany 14y ago
I'd actually never seen the original article before. Glad it's still on the wayback machine. http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...
sluu99 14y ago
Rename the article to"How to explain REST to non-techies, my wife for example?"
norswap 14y ago
If I had received complaint, I'd have replied with a big flaming "fuck you" (well, I'd probably have worded it somewhat diplomatically). Fighting sexism and discrimination also means fighting zealots on the other side. People who'd complain about this are typically "feeding the troll", and while it's not as bad as "trolling" (used here as an euphemism for discrimination) itself, we have a much better handle on that.
vectorpush 14y ago
Consider this for a thought experiment: "How I Explained REST to My Teenage Daughter". Same exact gender, except the response would be positive since in this case he'd be perceived as encouraging technical literacy in a young woman.
jeremy6d 14y ago
This is not only stupid but expressly counter to social justice ends. The whole argument that society is riddled with privileges is not supposed to be an indictment of individuals. By it's very nature, privilege means that you don't have it because of something you did or are as an individual. It's a systemic feature of society, not some personal moral failing. So if Ryan's article evinces sexism (and I question that greatly) the proper response is not to harangue him into self-censorship. This just bullies him for something he is not personally responsible for while driving the systemic problem deeper down. What we should be doing is having an open conversation about it. But now we can't, because it's so objectionable to reflect the sexism we all have within us that we must pretend we're beyond it. How is this in the interests of genuine egalitarianism?
cupcake-unicorn 14y ago
I'm not sure why people are so outraged about this. It was the author's choice, and he came to it after having arguments posed to him that made him rethink the way it came across and how he uses things like, "Explain it to my wife" in every day language. I for one, applaud someone him for being willing and open to criticism which he personally came to the conclusion he was not comfortable with. No one hacked his site and defaced it and took it down, no one complained to his hosting company...It was his choice, because he apparently cares about how he comes across, and was moved by valid arguments from others. Things like this that are more subtle are honestly the most important to address. Since people tend to not call other people out on them, they'll go on using latently sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. phrases and language and not understand what impact that makes. Many people, like this author, are really reasonable and it gives them something to think about - especially if you come to them about it in a reasonable way, which I'm assuming some people did. As for the issue of the person in the dialog, perhaps it could be replaced with something like a kindergartener, generic male buddy, or even make things fun like Plato/Aristotle or what they did in GEB with Achilles/Tortoise. I really applaud the author for making this change. The article was a bit uncomfortable for me as a woman in tech. And as a side note: If you think this is an "overreaction" (which I don't think it is), there's way worse stuff out there to be outraged about. I got banned on a (biological) woman's health board for using the word "female" because not everyone identifies as female and apparently I offended some people. It felt like something from the Women's First bookstore sketch in Portlandia :)
olgeni 14y ago
"How I explained REST to a beautiful cloud in the sky, while being sheltered by a tree born out of Mother Gaia's infinite love, yes, a cloud in the sky, no! actually it was about to rain, so the cloud wasn't exactly white and... well... never mind, just learn REST by yourself."

42 points by bmaeser 14y ago

klrr 14y ago

I don't get who go around and take these "gender issues" seriously. Is it femenists, males, females, trolls? (or something else not listed of course)

coldtea 14y ago
My take is that it's people that like to get upset for non issues, while avoiding all the real issues that require personal commitment. That, and people going with the flock.
- klrr 14y ago
  You mean unconsciously wanting to get upset about it, or do they really just go around trying to find stuff to hate on?
  - coldtea 14y ago
    The second, I think. They have some personal issues, from not having slept well to more deep rooted stuff, and they take it out on the internet on whatever attracts their attention and can justify some "hate". I doubt if perfectly normal people care if Ryan used "to my wife" or "to my spouse" etc. If someone wrote "How I explained Monads to my husband" I could not care less normally -- but on a bad day, I could take offense for similarly BS stuff, like "how dare you write that shit about Apple", etc.

hackmiester 14y ago

Here's a mirror I pulled from cache and reformatted a bit: http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ http://ompldr.org/vaHp4NQ

richo 14y ago

Sigh, so an interesting and thought provoking article is taken down because it could have been percieved as sexist? Why not just s/wife/partner/g and call it a day? I don't think that it was inflammatory. Maybe it's due to wildly unchecked privilege, but I read it as "A way to convey the REST metaphor to a nontechnical person". I didn't see it as "women are stupid and need handholding to understand technology".

brazzy 14y ago
> I read it as "A way to convey the REST metaphor to a nontechnical person" How exactly did you read it that way without any knowledge about his wife's background? By implicitly assuming "wife => woman => nontechnical", that's how. That's really what makes the title work.
- __david__ 14y ago
  No. Picture the title being "How I explained REST to my brother." That still conveys the exact same sentiment, which means the "wife" part is just a red herring.
  - brazzy 14y ago
    > That still conveys the exact same sentiment No, it doesn't. Could be a little brother who's just written his first PHP script. Could be a big brother who's worked for 20 years as DBA. Lots of articles out there trying to explain REST to such people. But wife? That means "nontechnical" - just look at the comments here.
    - __david__ 14y ago
      I so disagree. This is basic English: the "Explaining REST" part of the sentence is the part that implies that the explainee isn't technical (else why would they need to have it explained to them?). Making the subject "brother", "sister", "mom", "dad", or "husband" has the exact same meaning to me--they are all anonymous relations and so the "non-technical" implication still carries. The subject the author chose was "wife", presumably because this was based on an actual conversation with his wife. The subject does have a chance to turn the implication around. If your brother worked for 20 years as a DBA then the title would have to be "Explaining REST to a DBA" to get the correct implication.

Zariel 14y ago

I find it sad that this has happened, sexism in technology is a problem but this sort of this is people taking offence at the most ridiculous things. Does it matter that the example he used was explaining REST to his wife? If the roles had been reversed would be in the position we are now? Gender roles within technology wasn't the point of the original post, it was about explaining a piece of complicated technology to someone who had no prior understanding of it, it was circumspect that the person being explained to was a woman. Again I find it sad that if the gender roles were reversed or if the other people was male that we probably would not be in this position as no one would object to a man explaining to another man about some technology that he does not under, is that sexism?

Millennium 14y ago

It's a conversation that actually happened, between two people who happened to be of opposite gender. There is no reasonable way to read gender messages into something like that.

Joeboy 14y ago

This story is about an author deciding to remove an article from his website in 2004. Edit: I am wrong, at least partly and possibly wholly.

phpnode 14y ago
no. This is a story about an author succumbing to pressure to remove an article 9 years after it was written.
- Joeboy 14y ago
  Ah, OK, apparently you're right about the 9 years after it was written. Do you have anything to back up the "succumbing to pressure" bit? It sounds pretty consensual from the text.
darklajid 14y ago
This story is about an author deciding to remove an article that was posted (and upvoted!) to HN multiple times. I'd say it was good content and personally liked the article. In addition this story shows that 'sexism' (think PyCon etc.) is not easy to identify and no objective rules seems to be agreeable enough. For me, this article wasn't even remotely sexist and even if the author himself got convinced, I fail to see a reason to take it down and cannot see anything offending about it. In fact, I discussed that very article with my own wife multiple times.

bmaeser 14y ago

archived version from 16.01.2013 http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20130116034443/http://tomayko.com...

oellegaard 14y ago

I'm sorry to hear this. This so-called gender issue is becoming a big loss for the community. I think people need to realize that there are differences between facts and being gender discriminating. Transcribing a conversation with your wife, wherein the wife in this case is the non-technical part is not discriminating - it is a fact. No-one would have said anything if a woman posted "How I explained REST to My Husband". Please, stop this overreaction to the so-called gender issues.

seivan 14y ago
I wonder if anyone would have been upset if it was called "How I explained it to my partner"
- petercooper 14y ago
  Single people.
- dgesang 14y ago
  Or if PETA would've shown up if he'd "explained it to his dog".
arethuza 14y ago
I'm tempted to ask my wife to write a blog post on "How I explained different kinds of Alternative Dispute Resolution mechanisms in the construction industry to my husband". I'm lucky enough to be married to an expert in her field so I get to learn lots of cool stuff just by asking!
- oellegaard 14y ago
  Sounds pretty interesting, if you do, please post it on HN :)
  - arethuza 14y ago
    Every time she mentions that stuff I have to be careful not to say "Arbiter, cool - just like Halo!" [although I always think it].

throwaway125 14y ago

Thanks to the internet archive we can still enjoy this article: http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...

tehwebguy 14y ago
I read this, the whole time thinking "please don't make a cooking or cleaning analogy", no such luck. The conversation wasn't nearly what I expected, it goes into more detail than I expected but there are a few points, like the sweeper thing, that were probably big triggers.
- precisioncoder 14y ago
  That and the fact that the headings of the two members of the conversation are: Ryan and Wife. Giving her a name probably would have helped...
  - mpyne 14y ago
    Maybe she didn't feel like having her identity plastered all over the Internet just because she happened to be married to Ryan? I would never release personally identifable information about my wife on the Internet without getting her permission first.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      It took years before I referred to my wife as anything but "my wife" even at work, because most people didn't know her, and so didn't know here name and it was simply easier to refer to her that way.
      - mpyne 14y ago
        At this duty station I'm the same. No one here knows my wife so I don't refer to her (or even my children) by name. At my first duty station it was much more tight-knit; we knew each other by first name, met off-hours as a group (including spouse and children), etc. So there it wasn't unusual to refer to someone's wife by first name. Now I can see why people would be offended about referring to "the wife" (and it's less savory alternates), as if you were resigned to torturing yourself once you got home and not actually in a committed relationship with a human being. But that's not what is happening when talking about your actual wife, just as it's considered perfectly acceptable to refer to one's mother, brother, father, or sister by role instead of name.

twerquie 14y ago

Does anyone else feel like the pendulum is swinging too far in the opposite direction? We're over-compensating here.

johnward 14y ago
Yes, but then I will be considered sexist. I understand there are issues of gender discrimination, but taking down a post from 2004 because it mentioned a "wife" is crazy.
kahawe 14y ago
I know this will not be the most popular opinion to voice but you know what? I call major first world problems. By now women (thankfully!) have the right to vote, to study, to pick and divorce their partners as THEY see fit, they are allowed to drive, to drink, to be artists, to be engineers, scientists, to be anything they want, there are extremely influential political and economic positions held by very capable women. Now, I am NOT saying we are perfect and women should just stop complaining - but I AM going to say let's just be happy for a moment we made it this far because there are still quite a lot of countries in this world where all the aforementioned are denied to women and splitting hairs on comparatively petty subjects like the stereotypically non-tech "grrrls" seems like a waste of everyone's time and effort. Better focus on subjects that actually matter instead of wasting it on over-compensating and über-political-correctness. I may not be working in the most hip and trendy kind of places so YMMV, in my own experience the IT industry I have seen so far definitely IS predominantly male to the point having 1/3 female colleagues would seem like the maximum I (n)ever (even) encountered. In the university where I studied they were trying hard to attract female students, we started with maybe 1/3 or so female; then came the programming lessons and unfortunately those mainly got rid of most of the girls. At the end, there were just a couple of girls left who finished their degree. IT is not for everybody and there are a lot of guys who just cannot do it either, why is it such an atrocity to say the same about girls? Nobody would cry murder if the article was explaining it to "my little brother".

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

johnward 14y ago

I understand where feminist come from on the issue, but I do think that sometimes they take it to far. His wife is obvoisly non-technical. It's not about "omg these womenz don't get tech". It's more about this is how a conversation went between a technical and non-technical person, who happen to be husband and wife. I know that people feel that using "wife" enforces stereotypes, but I really don't see it in this post. Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes it very hard to identify with your cause.

fennecfoxen 14y ago
"Sometimes picking on these very tiny issues makes it very hard to identify with your cause." This. Because you're taking an informative, factual statement describing a particular relationship (husband working with technology, wife with limited relationship to technology), and saying that it's not any good to describe this fact, because other people who want to have a different sort of relationship might feel outnumbered or something. People who are interested in actually doing something about gender-related issues in technology should consider that at a certain point, it's less productive to whine about something and more productive to ignore it and cope so you can fight bigger battles. I think we passed that point on the way to this article, and then went on to enter the zone where people stop even respecting that you're fighting...

JimmaDaRustla 14y ago

What? My take on the article was the knowledge transfer of a REST developer to a non-developer. His wife was only a figure relative to his position; the genders could have been swapped and it wouldn't change the context of the article...? I would have kept the article up purposely as my belief that it isn't offensive and that people are ignorant and arrogant.

sdoering 14y ago
Having studied literature, I really feel, that wife in this context was a fictional character, solely for the purpose of giving an audience that is not that technically experienced something/-one to relate to. That on the other hand just makes this case a case of misinterpreting fiction for reality. Reminds me of a story the acclaimed author Umberto Eco once told about his book "Foucault's Pendulum": His main character walks through a named street in Paris and sees a burning hotel ... and so on. Eco receives a letter, in which a reader accuses him of not getting the facts right, as there never was a hotel in this street. So is Eco discriminating hotels in Paris with this book?

savrajsingh 14y ago

A dark matter physicist friend of mine created a blog called "physics for my mom." He faced similar issues, but simply said "No, I'm honestly writing this for my mom--she's not a physicist. It's my personal blog."

davidradcliffe 14y ago

Sad. It wasn't even about gender!

quesera 14y ago

Sometimes, reality reinforces stereotypes. I don't blame Ryan at all for not wanting to be part of that conversation. It's a huge toxic distraction. Still, it was a valuable article. I hope he will neuter it and re-post.

johnward 14y ago
Honestly it seems like he could just change "wife" to any random name or even person #2 and it would be ok.
- sdoering 14y ago
  No, actually that would not be ok. The way he dealt with it was his way. And it shows how wrong the whole gender-discussion has become. Some overreacting (or say very sensitive), but very loudly "screaming" (aka blogging/tweeting/et al) voices (female and male) have hijacked a very legit discussion for womens rights, womens equality, womens chances in this world and made a mockery out of it. what these voices did imho, was a disservice to the just cause for equality between all genders (perceived or biological).
  - johnward 14y ago
    Yeah I agree. I'm saying if you read the article and replace wife with anything else it still makes sense. So it's not sexist in anyway.
    - sdoering 14y ago
      OK, in this regard, I am totally with you.
ubersoldat2k7 14y ago
Actually, I think the stereotype he was targeting was that of software nerds who are married with non-technical women. This is my case and my wife isn't offended. I don't have the data to backup this, but from my personal perspective, all the male software and IT people I've meet enough to know if they were married, were with a non-technical partner (yes, even gay couples). And this is not an issue, I wouldn't want to state in my divorce papers: "she's an emacs poweruser".

drucken 14y ago

Unless there's a "How I Explained X to My Wife" meme going around, I'm not sure I understand the point of this. It clearly was never intended in such an offensive direction (not even lightheartedly) and it's descriptive usefulness seems to far outweigh such concerns! Of course, if Tomayko did not actually have this conversation with his partner, then that could explain much and make the decision to remove the content more understandable.

dlsym 14y ago

Collateral damage of Shitstorm-Net-"feminists"-Hysteria. This is just sad.

seany 14y ago
it's also why mens rights type things are sprouting up to balance things out.

as_if 14y ago

I still think learning shouldn't slowed down by stuff like this. If someone writes about quantum mechanics and is a sexist, but he's the only one who can write it in a manner that I understand it, I'm SO gonna read it...

Semaphor 14y ago

I wonder why he didn't just replace "Wife" with "Non-technical acquaintance of indeterminate gender" for a maximum of PC.

brazzy 14y ago
Because being maximally PC is not something he wants to be, not even out of spite (and that latter option would not have done anything to improve the situation).

cpfohl 14y ago

Could you just change the word 'wife' to 'spouse' and put it back up? It was an awesome article.

maarten-pi 14y ago

I've sit back and seen so many posts lately about gender-issues. Is it really necessary? I understand that woman feel discriminated and I see some pretty aweful examples where guys are doing all the wrong things. In the case of the woman who got fired, I felt it was unjust from sendgrid. It shows how badly some guys copy with the issue. So that doesn't help. The baseline should be that we're all equal. What are the arguments against that? I feel it's kind of sexist to assume that an article might be offensive to woman, because well, they might just take offense. That implies that woman are very sensitive to these articles, which reinforces the stereotype... Doesn't that belittle woman infinitely more? It just reaches the opposite effect. The original author didn't think: "Let's belittle woman as much as possible just for the fun of it", that thought (I am pretty sure) never crossed his mind. The article could also have referred to, my father or my cousin.

tomelders 14y ago

Women are allowed to not understand things, just as much as men.

ranza 14y ago

%s/wife/friend/g Fixed it for you. I really liked the post. I even read it sometimes just to keep my mind fresh on the REST idea. I dont understand why people would be offended that you used your wife as the other person. Its perfectly normal to explane your wife what you do.

neya 14y ago

You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to explain the same thing to my mom and my grandma and every other non-technical female out there and publish a post with a similar title and will never take it down. Because, this kind of feminism movement is dangerous and someone should put an end to this "blind" feminism. A technical person explaining something technical to a non-technical person isn't sexism. I'm sure this wouldn't have been an issue if a woman had written 'How I explained cooking to my husband'. One word - EGO. It's amazing how much it can screw up constructive processes within a community.

brazzy 14y ago
And your "what I'm going to do" plan doesn't have anything to do with ego AT ALL, right?
- neya 14y ago
  YES, it exhibits my ego, but I'm certainly not stupid - There is a difference between being a sexist and being labelled as a sexist for no apparent reason by some feminist on rage. Well, so you expect me to sit silently in a corner and watch this happen? What happened to the author today is also what will happen to me tomorrow, so I'm no way going to give way for random feminist/extremist to screw me like that.
  - brazzy 14y ago
    That the reason is not apparent to you doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't exist or is invalid. You don't solve issues by assuming the other side is acting in bad faith, fabricating strawmen and indulging in revenge fantasies. The only one here who is "on rage" is you.

artied 14y ago

Can't it just be re-titled "How I explained REST to My Spouse". Anyone complaining is clear 'projecting'....

darkxanthos 14y ago

Here's a good test: Would the article have been just as compelling and informative if he had written it to his husband? Everything the same except replace the word "wife" with "husband". Yes it would have. Just because his partner is a woman this article can't be written this way. That upsets me.

temphn 14y ago

Might men and women actually be neurologically different? Louann Brizendine and Doreen Kimura (neuroscientists both) sure think so, and present copious evidence to that effect: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920104 http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0767920104 http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=10 http://www.science.ca/scientists/scientistprofile.php?pID=10 Men and women have systematically different muscle masses, lifespans, even organs. Yet it is taboo to imagine that their brains might be different too, on average. Indeed Ryan is persecuted for the indirect implication that women, on average, might be less technically inclined! If this generalization was actually untrue it would not be necessary to scream at people like Larry Summers to "disprove" it. The zeal of people invested in the denial of biology is astonishing; they seek to personally destroy anyone who even indirectly endorses anything related to gender difference.

coldtea 14y ago
Men are more aggressive (and stupid), live 5 years less on average, are taller and more muscular, are more hairy, cannot have babies, and can tolerate less pain (random facts verified by science) -- but GOD FORBID if men and women also have any differences in how they approach professions or cultural issues. Despite the fact that fashion is a trillion dollar industry for women but most men could not care less if their sock are of a slightly different color. If you want to fight "sexism", go fight Cosmopolitan. Or not -- ever stopped to consider it might be OK for women to like this stuff, like it's OK for men to like "Cars and Gadgets" magazines?
- marknutter 14y ago
  I looked into the pain tolerance point you made a while back and it's not really confirmed one way or the other which gender deals with pain better.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Yes, could be, it was only a research I've read, so nothing 100% conclusive. (OT, In general I think you cannot take research results published on journals for granted until they are at least 10 years old and have been included in undergraduate syllabus. Else you get all the mixed "coffee causes heart attacks", "coffee is good for your heart" papers alternating every other week).

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

dgesang 14y ago

Ask HN: How can this post end up on page 3 so quickly (just refreshed the page) and still have increased in value (more points)?

coldtea 14y ago

>After receiving a number of reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of this article from people I respect very much, I've decided to take it down for good. Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue against the flock. It might not be what Ryan means (I can't speak for him), but it sure is what many people mean when having to take down something because of PC complaints. This thing is getting out of hand. It's the first world idea of a "cause" by people whose idea of "revolution" and "making society better" is blog posts and twitter snark. The very first programmer was a woman. For a lot of time, computer operators were mostly women. There are not many things stopping women at entering IT, and sexism sure is not one of them. Women thrive at other places with much more deep and inherent sexism (or, to put it better, with actual sexism, instead of mere tit jokes, which is what is mostly mistaken as sexism in the tech community). I attended uni 15 years ago for Comp Sci. On my year we were like 70% men and 30% women. Not because they feared for sexism (actually there was nothing of the kind -- students were either good or bad at lessons, regardless of sex). We all had fun together, in large mixed groups. Sexism never was an issue, and I've never heard any woman complain about it in the university. Other fields were like 70% women 30% men (Applied Math, Medicine, Biology, etc). Men mostly wanted to get into comp sci because they liked games, programming and this internet thing already. Women avoided the Comp Sci not because of some fear of sexism and such, but because it was considered to have bad work prospects (times/salary/etc), whereas biology was considered to be "blooming" at the time.

brazzy 14y ago
> Possible translation: after a lot of people with nothing better to do took offense at a tech article, I took it down because: 1) I don't want to be hated, 2) I don't want to lose my job, 3) I can't be bothered to even argue against the flock. Which part of "reasonable complaints about the gender-oriented nature of this article [..] from people I respect very much" implies that to you? > This thing is getting out of hand. This isn't helping.
- coldtea 14y ago

jerrya 14y ago

"Bigger the population, the more minorities. Don't step on the toes of the dog-lovers, the cat-lovers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, chiefs, Mormons, Baptists, Unitarians, second-generation Chinese, Swedes, Italians, Germans, Texans, Brooklynites, Irishmen, people from Oregon or Mexico. The people in this book, this play, this TV serial are not meant to represent any actual painters, cartographers, mechanics anywhere. The bigger your market, Montag, the less you handle controversy, remember that! All the minor minor minorities with their navels to be kept clean. Authors, full of evil thoughts, lock up your typewriters. They did. Magazines became a nice blend of vanilla tapioca. Books, so the damned snobbish critics said, were dishwater. No wonder books stopped selling, the critics said. But the public, knowing what it wanted, spinning happily, let the comic-books survive. And the three-dimensional sex-magazines, of course. There you have it, Montag. It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick, thank God. Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics, the good old confessions, or trade journals." "Yes, but what about the firemen, then?" asked Montag. "Ah." Beatty leaned forward in the faint mist of smoke from his pipe. "What more easily explained and natural? With school turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word `intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be. You always dread the unfamiliar. Surely you remember the boy in your own school class who was exceptionally 'bright,' did most of the reciting and answering while the others sat like so many leaden idols, hating him. And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beatings and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for there are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior; official censors, judges, and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me." The door to the parlour opened and Mildred stood there looking in at them, looking at Beatty and then at Montag. Behind her the walls of the room were flooded with green and yellow and orange fireworks sizzling and bursting to some music composed almost completely of trap-drums, tom-toms, and cymbals. Her mouth moved and she was saying something but the sound covered it. Beatty knocked his pipe into the palm of his pink hand, studied the ashes as if they were a symbol to be diagnosed and searched for meaning. "You must understand that our civilization is so vast that we can't have our minorities upset and stirred. Ask yourself, What do we want in this country, above all? People want to be happy, isn't that right? Haven't you heard it all your life? I want to be happy, people say. Well, aren't they? Don't we keep them moving, don't we give them fun? That's all we live for, isn't it? For pleasure, for titillation? And you must admit our culture provides plenty of these." "Yes."

Shorel 14y ago

"How I explained REST to my liberal arts significant other" Fixed. No need to take it down for trendy political correctness.

marknutter 14y ago

This gives me an idea: a podcast or blog post series in which I explain technical concepts to my non-technical wife. I know I'm not the only one whose significant other has a hard time relating to the work I do and the hobbies I pursue, and it would be nice to provide them with some context. I know I enjoy learning about the nuances of my wife's work (early childhood education) and it gives me a better appreciation for her talents when I'm given the nitty-gritty domain specific details of her job. Just the other day I was trying to explain the term "meta" to my wife and having a hard time of it. Trying to put it into terms that didn't involve programming was an interesting mental exercise.

seany 14y ago

I'd actually never seen the original article before. Glad it's still on the wayback machine. http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com/writings/rest-to-my-wife http://web.archive.org/web/20110225075111/http://tomayko.com...

sluu99 14y ago

Rename the article to"How to explain REST to non-techies, my wife for example?"

norswap 14y ago

If I had received complaint, I'd have replied with a big flaming "fuck you" (well, I'd probably have worded it somewhat diplomatically). Fighting sexism and discrimination also means fighting zealots on the other side. People who'd complain about this are typically "feeding the troll", and while it's not as bad as "trolling" (used here as an euphemism for discrimination) itself, we have a much better handle on that.

vectorpush 14y ago

Consider this for a thought experiment: "How I Explained REST to My Teenage Daughter". Same exact gender, except the response would be positive since in this case he'd be perceived as encouraging technical literacy in a young woman.

jeremy6d 14y ago

This is not only stupid but expressly counter to social justice ends. The whole argument that society is riddled with privileges is not supposed to be an indictment of individuals. By it's very nature, privilege means that you don't have it because of something you did or are as an individual. It's a systemic feature of society, not some personal moral failing. So if Ryan's article evinces sexism (and I question that greatly) the proper response is not to harangue him into self-censorship. This just bullies him for something he is not personally responsible for while driving the systemic problem deeper down. What we should be doing is having an open conversation about it. But now we can't, because it's so objectionable to reflect the sexism we all have within us that we must pretend we're beyond it. How is this in the interests of genuine egalitarianism?

cupcake-unicorn 14y ago

I'm not sure why people are so outraged about this. It was the author's choice, and he came to it after having arguments posed to him that made him rethink the way it came across and how he uses things like, "Explain it to my wife" in every day language. I for one, applaud someone him for being willing and open to criticism which he personally came to the conclusion he was not comfortable with. No one hacked his site and defaced it and took it down, no one complained to his hosting company...It was his choice, because he apparently cares about how he comes across, and was moved by valid arguments from others. Things like this that are more subtle are honestly the most important to address. Since people tend to not call other people out on them, they'll go on using latently sexist/racist/homophobic/etc. phrases and language and not understand what impact that makes. Many people, like this author, are really reasonable and it gives them something to think about - especially if you come to them about it in a reasonable way, which I'm assuming some people did. As for the issue of the person in the dialog, perhaps it could be replaced with something like a kindergartener, generic male buddy, or even make things fun like Plato/Aristotle or what they did in GEB with Achilles/Tortoise. I really applaud the author for making this change. The article was a bit uncomfortable for me as a woman in tech. And as a side note: If you think this is an "overreaction" (which I don't think it is), there's way worse stuff out there to be outraged about. I got banned on a (biological) woman's health board for using the word "female" because not everyone identifies as female and apparently I offended some people. It felt like something from the Women's First bookstore sketch in Portlandia :)

olgeni 14y ago

"How I explained REST to a beautiful cloud in the sky, while being sheltered by a tree born out of Mother Gaia's infinite love, yes, a cloud in the sky, no! actually it was about to rain, so the cloud wasn't exactly white and... well... never mind, just learn REST by yourself."