10 ms·

Being an asshole does not make you awesome

31 points by llamataboot 13y ago

ryanbrunner 13y ago
This article is more than a little hyperbolic. The "perform like a porn star" deck was the "only time someone reacted to the fact that women are generally treated differently in the Rails / Ruby world"? Really? It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community. The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
llamataboot 13y ago
Mostly posted to highlight the response of the Ruby facebook admin. Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet and whose comments are, quite frankly, part of the problem of misogyny in tech.
- roarroar 13y ago
  It is extremely dishonest of you to accuse this person of _hating women_ based upon his dislike of particular kinds of activism within the programming field.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    Here's some more evidence for you, from his public facebook posts[0]: "Fuck women, they are coddled and have their needs met their entire lives so they never see past their own needs to empathize with others." [0]: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 [1]: imgur version for non-facebookers http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm
    - roarroar 13y ago
      I guess I was wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt after all. Nonetheless his post from the OP makes a perfectly valid point.
  - lambda 13y ago
    Misogyny is not necessarily hating women, but can also mean fearing, disliking, distrusting, and otherwise treating women as fundamentally different and inferior to men. Claiming that a man asking that people not be immature assholes means that "a progressive movement is being coopted by women who want to make it about their vagina" is pretty much a textbook example of misogyny. Claiming that software engineering is a "male space" (so, what, do that make the female software engineers I work with some kind of intruders on my "male space"?) is also a textbook example of misogyny. What is it going to take for you to accept that this guy is a misogynist? Actually physically harming women? There are a lot more ways to spread fear, distrust, and hatred than just physical harm.
    - roarroar 13y ago
      Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of language won't help you. Also, I don't care if the guy is a misogynist or not. There are plenty of hateful people in the world. I hate lots of people (women are nice though). What I do care about is the fact that his _post_ has had a label thrown on it to neutralise it when it contains a valid point. You've imbibed too much Kool-Aid, my friend.
      - lambda 13y ago
        Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of language won't help you. We don't speak ancient Greek. In modern English, misogyny means hatred, distrust, contempt towards women. Reacting to a post from a man asking "could we be more respectful and inclusive of others" with something about being "coopted by women who want to make it all about their vagina" definitely expresses a distrust and contempt towards women. Of course, you can always parse semantics apart and say "well, he didn't say all women". That's not the point; misogyny doesn't require that you qualify all hateful statements to include every woman in existence. But that quote, in response to a man asking if we could be nicer and more inclusive, definitely states a fairly contemptuous attitude towards women. when it contains a valid point It has no such valid point. No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code. And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary. He is dismissing in one fell swoop all of the women who do code, who are part of the community. Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
- lucisferre 13y ago
  Agreed based on that and some cursory reading of that group and Aaron's own public timeline he's doing us all an incredible disservice.
  - pekk 13y ago
    And not representing many of us, let alone all of us.
- jamesbritt 13y ago
  Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc. Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so. This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.
paulwithap 13y ago
Foul language!???!? SOMEONE WRITE A BLOG POST TO PROTECT THE HELPLESS WOMEN!
- ndespres 13y ago
  There's a big difference between "foul language" and that which is offensive, inconsiderate, exclusionary, and generally sexist, having the result of making women feel unsafe/unwelcome in this space. Check your privilege, dude.
  - pekk 13y ago
    You are agreeing with the person to whom you are responding, that foul language is not sexism. "Check your privilege" is virtually never a helpful thing to say.
    - ndespres 13y ago
      The person to whom I responded feels, as evidenced by his sarcasm, that the entire issue is trivial. We clearly do not agree. You're both unable to see the other side of it. I can see from your other comment on this thread that further discussion on this with you would be an uphill one so I'm signing off now.
      - pekk 13y ago
        If you think I'm a sexist, then I think you're an idiot. You know nothing about me.
        quinnchr 13y ago
        Well I've seen your comments such as "Men are raped too" in reference to women being raped, which says to me you're goal is to marginalize women's issues, which seems pretty sexist to me. If you'd like to defend pointing out that men are raped too in reference to women being raped I'd be happy to point the sexist and misogynistic aspects of your opinions, which sadly, should be blindingly obvious.
anonymoushn 13y ago
Hoe is a gardening implement. Like rake.
- D9u 13y ago
  Where I come from, the word "hoe" is a verb, meaning, "to paddle," as in a canoe.
duairc 13y ago
That's pretty funny from the admin guy. He describes the person who posted the piece as "politically correct thought police", and then right afterwards threatens to ban them if they post anything else "like this", i.e., anything whose politics he disagrees with.
- muzz 13y ago
  Instead of "funny" you could also say "hypocritical"
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - duairc 13y ago
    Yes, I could. I don't like the word "hypocritical" though, because it implies that contradicting oneself like that is the moral failing of an individual. But really, we all contradict ourselves all the time, and we don't even realise it. These types of contradictions are interesting not because they show that the person who makes them is bad or stupid, but because they reveal the ideologies that structure their thoughts, behaviours and actions, and the contradictions embedded therein. In fact "ideology" itself can be thought of as a kind of blindness to contradictions. In this particular case, the admin guy is probably not stupid. I'm sure he sees the contradiction in (p ^ ¬p). But he also is a man, and obviously feels threatened by feminism because it seeks to take away his male privilege (in this case, the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining^), and thus is motivated by ideology to defend his male privilege. This ideology is powerful enough that he can blatantly contradict himself and not even see that he's done so. ^ I know the admin guy wasn't misogynist himself, or at least the original article wasn't about his misogyny, I am just saying that male privilege generally grants men the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining (certainly in the "male spaces" that the admin guy is talking about), and feminism threatens to take that right away from him.
thetrb 13y ago
Wow, what an idiotic response by the FB group admin at the end of the post.
throwaway86 13y ago
Yes. Filter gem names to block terrible, woman-hating names like retarded, therapist, hoe, and sex. A rake is an immoral pleasure seeker[1], better get rid of that one too! That will fix your community's problems, Ruby, because that's totally what the problem is! You nailed it! Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!" [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.
- hobs 13y ago
  To be fair, rape-me is over the top. Sex being bad though? Do women hate sex? When did sex become misogyny? :(
  - yaddayadda 13y ago
    I'd add bitch and recursive_pimp_slap to the clearly over the top list.
    - hobs 13y ago
      Oh yeah, I don't mean there were not more that were over the top, I just thought the point was better made in brief.
  - throwaway86 13y ago
    I agree with you on rape-me, which is why I left it out. There's an American breed of thought which says that the mere mention of anything related to sex demeans women and objectifies them, which comes from puritanical sensibilities. I've been in a meeting where someone discussed something sexual which was actually in-context to make a point about a product, and someone interrupted him and said "let's not discuss sexual matters, there are women present." Smoked a cigarette with the woman in question later that day and she basically rolled her eyes about it.
polarix 13y ago
It's not clear that sexual or vulgar language (not sexist, generally, just sexual) is really the most important thing at stake for women in the profession. Probably they're more concerned with sub/unconscious bias, impostor syndrome, or, you know, actual outright abuse. Just a guess.
haberman 13y ago
From the Facebook post: "However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"." I'm amazed that someone would say this. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes. This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."
- roarroar 13y ago
  You are misrepresenting what he said. Programming is primarily a male activity. That is fact. He is pointing to the attempts to co-opt the programming landscape "out-of-band" by activism - as opposed to simply taking control of and starting new projects. Your post is a perfect illustration of this sort of activism; you have put words right into the guy's mouth because you don't want to be surrounded by men.
  - jacalata 13y ago
    Really? How do you know that? You appear to be attributing intentions to him that are not actually demonstrated by his words. [edit for clarity: him = the facebook admin]
    - roarroar 13y ago
      My interpretation is far closer to his words than the GP, and I am giving the speaker the benefit of the doubt. So please be consistent and reply to the GP pointing out his mistake. Oops, you just revealed your bias.
      - jacalata 13y ago
        Yes. My bias is that when people say something horrifically bigoted, I believe that they mean it. If they didn't, then it's on them to prove that if they need to, I see no need to give the benefit of the doubt. I suspect that our different approaches here reflect a different base level of belief in the existence of real bigotry, and hence the likelihood of such statements reflecting real bigotry rather than being the ironic/trolling type.
zenogais 13y ago
I think this article radically blurs the line between personal and professional space. Is the entire gem repository a professional space or a personal space? To my mind it's a bit of both. If you believe that self-expression is allowed in software development then I see no reason to constrict the entire space of gem names to those allowed in the author's conception of the professional realm. That's just silly. To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.
- quinnchr 13y ago
  I completely agree that it's the combination of social conditioning, selection bias, etc that contribute to gender bias. But you can't just throw up your hands and accept the status quo because it's ingrained in our society. The sad thing is women have been talking about this for decades, and no one wants to listen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._social_theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._socia...).
  - zenogais 13y ago
    Well aware of the concept of patriarchy and the literature on the topic. No one's throwing their hands up. I just thought the article was terribly reductionist. All we can really say is "the activity of software development mirrors trends in the society it occurs within". Not really something earth shattering or sensational.
Houshalter 13y ago
Some of those aren't even bad words like "therapist" and "hoe", and "ASS" appears to just be a poorly chosen acronym. "childlabor" doesn't offend any specific group and the name makes sense in context ("ChildLabor is a gem that helps manage child processes.") Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically? And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words. And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?
- bradleyland 13y ago
  Hoe is a garden implement. I'm really surprised that the author included it in the group. Specifically, the hoe gem is a tool for building gems. The utility uses other farming/hoeing metaphors like sow. I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.
  - Houshalter 13y ago
    You can say the name was inappropriate, to suggest it was sexist is ridiculous though. And the world is moving beyond the whole "porn is a sin" garbage.
fatman 13y ago
A few months back, while sitting in another company-wide, mandatory sexual harassment seminar, I figured that, for 90% of the audience, the entire presentation could be replaced with a single side: "Don't be an asshole." However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.
danso 13y ago
Jesus, seriously? Rubygems has 64,000 gems and as far as I know, there's no policy to give gems prior review. So the fact that a few people over the years have decided to troll Rubygems lack of Apple-like barrier means that the Ruby community has a sexism problem? That, and something that happened in 2008? Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world... This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.
zainny 13y ago
This entire post is absurd. It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'! Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Can we please go at least one week without being hypersensitive postmodernists about everything? It seems that men complain about the lack of women in computing more than women do. When did trolling become a social justice issue suddenly?
llamataboot 13y ago
oh look! flagged off the front page as per usual on hacker news.
- throwaway86 13y ago
  Did you stop to consider why I (and others) flagged it, or did you just skip straight to a Hacker News conspiracy?
justintocci 13y ago
Official downloads from official websites probably should have a filter. I don't see those names as useful. They are a dark pattern, forcing you to click on the package because the name gives you no hint as to their function. If a cop plants evidence why discuss his choice of cocaine over heroin? Peer pressure = bullying. I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.

31 points by llamataboot 13y ago

This article is more than a little hyperbolic. The "perform like a porn star" deck was the "only time someone reacted to the fact that women are generally treated differently in the Rails / Ruby world"? Really? It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community. The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

llamataboot 13y ago

Mostly posted to highlight the response of the Ruby facebook admin. Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet and whose comments are, quite frankly, part of the problem of misogyny in tech.

roarroar 13y ago
It is extremely dishonest of you to accuse this person of _hating women_ based upon his dislike of particular kinds of activism within the programming field.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Here's some more evidence for you, from his public facebook posts[0]: "Fuck women, they are coddled and have their needs met their entire lives so they never see past their own needs to empathize with others." [0]: https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 [1]: imgur version for non-facebookers http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm
  - roarroar 13y ago
    I guess I was wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt after all. Nonetheless his post from the OP makes a perfectly valid point.
- lambda 13y ago
  Misogyny is not necessarily hating women, but can also mean fearing, disliking, distrusting, and otherwise treating women as fundamentally different and inferior to men. Claiming that a man asking that people not be immature assholes means that "a progressive movement is being coopted by women who want to make it about their vagina" is pretty much a textbook example of misogyny. Claiming that software engineering is a "male space" (so, what, do that make the female software engineers I work with some kind of intruders on my "male space"?) is also a textbook example of misogyny. What is it going to take for you to accept that this guy is a misogynist? Actually physically harming women? There are a lot more ways to spread fear, distrust, and hatred than just physical harm.
  - roarroar 13y ago
    Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of language won't help you. Also, I don't care if the guy is a misogynist or not. There are plenty of hateful people in the world. I hate lots of people (women are nice though). What I do care about is the fact that his _post_ has had a label thrown on it to neutralise it when it contains a valid point. You've imbibed too much Kool-Aid, my friend.
    - lambda 13y ago
      Sorry, misogyny means hating women. Perversion of language won't help you. We don't speak ancient Greek. In modern English, misogyny means hatred, distrust, contempt towards women. Reacting to a post from a man asking "could we be more respectful and inclusive of others" with something about being "coopted by women who want to make it all about their vagina" definitely expresses a distrust and contempt towards women. Of course, you can always parse semantics apart and say "well, he didn't say all women". That's not the point; misogyny doesn't require that you qualify all hateful statements to include every woman in existence. But that quote, in response to a man asking if we could be nicer and more inclusive, definitely states a fairly contemptuous attitude towards women. when it contains a valid point It has no such valid point. No one is coming into the Ruby community, or the programming community, and trying to make it "all about their vagina". In fact, they're asking the opposite; that there's less emphasis placed on their vagina, and more on their code. And calling programming a "male space" is inherently exclusionary. He is dismissing in one fell swoop all of the women who do code, who are part of the community. Asking that people be nicer, and maybe consider the effect that gems named "rape_me" and "retarded" might not really reflect well on a community, with a defensive knee-jerk reaction about "politically correct thought-police safe spaces" is not a "valid point".
lucisferre 13y ago
Agreed based on that and some cursory reading of that group and Aaron's own public timeline he's doing us all an incredible disservice.
- pekk 13y ago
  And not representing many of us, let alone all of us.
jamesbritt 13y ago
Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc. Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so. This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.

paulwithap 13y ago

Foul language!???!? SOMEONE WRITE A BLOG POST TO PROTECT THE HELPLESS WOMEN!

ndespres 13y ago
There's a big difference between "foul language" and that which is offensive, inconsiderate, exclusionary, and generally sexist, having the result of making women feel unsafe/unwelcome in this space. Check your privilege, dude.
- pekk 13y ago
  You are agreeing with the person to whom you are responding, that foul language is not sexism. "Check your privilege" is virtually never a helpful thing to say.
  - ndespres 13y ago
    The person to whom I responded feels, as evidenced by his sarcasm, that the entire issue is trivial. We clearly do not agree. You're both unable to see the other side of it. I can see from your other comment on this thread that further discussion on this with you would be an uphill one so I'm signing off now.
    - pekk 13y ago
      If you think I'm a sexist, then I think you're an idiot. You know nothing about me.
      - quinnchr 13y ago
        Well I've seen your comments such as "Men are raped too" in reference to women being raped, which says to me you're goal is to marginalize women's issues, which seems pretty sexist to me. If you'd like to defend pointing out that men are raped too in reference to women being raped I'd be happy to point the sexist and misogynistic aspects of your opinions, which sadly, should be blindingly obvious.

anonymoushn 13y ago

Hoe is a gardening implement. Like rake.

D9u 13y ago
Where I come from, the word "hoe" is a verb, meaning, "to paddle," as in a canoe.

duairc 13y ago

That's pretty funny from the admin guy. He describes the person who posted the piece as "politically correct thought police", and then right afterwards threatens to ban them if they post anything else "like this", i.e., anything whose politics he disagrees with.

muzz 13y ago
Instead of "funny" you could also say "hypocritical"
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- duairc 13y ago
  Yes, I could. I don't like the word "hypocritical" though, because it implies that contradicting oneself like that is the moral failing of an individual. But really, we all contradict ourselves all the time, and we don't even realise it. These types of contradictions are interesting not because they show that the person who makes them is bad or stupid, but because they reveal the ideologies that structure their thoughts, behaviours and actions, and the contradictions embedded therein. In fact "ideology" itself can be thought of as a kind of blindness to contradictions. In this particular case, the admin guy is probably not stupid. I'm sure he sees the contradiction in (p ^ ¬p). But he also is a man, and obviously feels threatened by feminism because it seeks to take away his male privilege (in this case, the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining^), and thus is motivated by ideology to defend his male privilege. This ideology is powerful enough that he can blatantly contradict himself and not even see that he's done so. ^ I know the admin guy wasn't misogynist himself, or at least the original article wasn't about his misogyny, I am just saying that male privilege generally grants men the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining (certainly in the "male spaces" that the admin guy is talking about), and feminism threatens to take that right away from him.

thetrb 13y ago

Wow, what an idiotic response by the FB group admin at the end of the post.

throwaway86 13y ago

Yes. Filter gem names to block terrible, woman-hating names like retarded, therapist, hoe, and sex. A rake is an immoral pleasure seeker[1], better get rid of that one too! That will fix your community's problems, Ruby, because that's totally what the problem is! You nailed it! Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!" [1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.

hobs 13y ago
To be fair, rape-me is over the top. Sex being bad though? Do women hate sex? When did sex become misogyny? :(
- yaddayadda 13y ago
  I'd add bitch and recursive_pimp_slap to the clearly over the top list.
  - hobs 13y ago
    Oh yeah, I don't mean there were not more that were over the top, I just thought the point was better made in brief.
- throwaway86 13y ago
  I agree with you on rape-me, which is why I left it out. There's an American breed of thought which says that the mere mention of anything related to sex demeans women and objectifies them, which comes from puritanical sensibilities. I've been in a meeting where someone discussed something sexual which was actually in-context to make a point about a product, and someone interrupted him and said "let's not discuss sexual matters, there are women present." Smoked a cigarette with the woman in question later that day and she basically rolled her eyes about it.

polarix 13y ago

It's not clear that sexual or vulgar language (not sexist, generally, just sexual) is really the most important thing at stake for women in the profession. Probably they're more concerned with sub/unconscious bias, impostor syndrome, or, you know, actual outright abuse. Just a guess.

haberman 13y ago

From the Facebook post: "However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"." I'm amazed that someone would say this. I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes. This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."

roarroar 13y ago
You are misrepresenting what he said. Programming is primarily a male activity. That is fact. He is pointing to the attempts to co-opt the programming landscape "out-of-band" by activism - as opposed to simply taking control of and starting new projects. Your post is a perfect illustration of this sort of activism; you have put words right into the guy's mouth because you don't want to be surrounded by men.
- jacalata 13y ago
  Really? How do you know that? You appear to be attributing intentions to him that are not actually demonstrated by his words. [edit for clarity: him = the facebook admin]
  - roarroar 13y ago
    My interpretation is far closer to his words than the GP, and I am giving the speaker the benefit of the doubt. So please be consistent and reply to the GP pointing out his mistake. Oops, you just revealed your bias.
    - jacalata 13y ago
      Yes. My bias is that when people say something horrifically bigoted, I believe that they mean it. If they didn't, then it's on them to prove that if they need to, I see no need to give the benefit of the doubt. I suspect that our different approaches here reflect a different base level of belief in the existence of real bigotry, and hence the likelihood of such statements reflecting real bigotry rather than being the ironic/trolling type.

zenogais 13y ago

I think this article radically blurs the line between personal and professional space. Is the entire gem repository a professional space or a personal space? To my mind it's a bit of both. If you believe that self-expression is allowed in software development then I see no reason to constrict the entire space of gem names to those allowed in the author's conception of the professional realm. That's just silly. To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.

quinnchr 13y ago
I completely agree that it's the combination of social conditioning, selection bias, etc that contribute to gender bias. But you can't just throw up your hands and accept the status quo because it's ingrained in our society. The sad thing is women have been talking about this for decades, and no one wants to listen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._social_theories http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._socia...).
- zenogais 13y ago
  Well aware of the concept of patriarchy and the literature on the topic. No one's throwing their hands up. I just thought the article was terribly reductionist. All we can really say is "the activity of software development mirrors trends in the society it occurs within". Not really something earth shattering or sensational.

Houshalter 13y ago

Some of those aren't even bad words like "therapist" and "hoe", and "ASS" appears to just be a poorly chosen acronym. "childlabor" doesn't offend any specific group and the name makes sense in context ("ChildLabor is a gem that helps manage child processes.") Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically? And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words. And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?

bradleyland 13y ago
Hoe is a garden implement. I'm really surprised that the author included it in the group. Specifically, the hoe gem is a tool for building gems. The utility uses other farming/hoeing metaphors like sow. I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.
- Houshalter 13y ago
  You can say the name was inappropriate, to suggest it was sexist is ridiculous though. And the world is moving beyond the whole "porn is a sin" garbage.

fatman 13y ago

A few months back, while sitting in another company-wide, mandatory sexual harassment seminar, I figured that, for 90% of the audience, the entire presentation could be replaced with a single side: "Don't be an asshole." However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.

danso 13y ago

Jesus, seriously? Rubygems has 64,000 gems and as far as I know, there's no policy to give gems prior review. So the fact that a few people over the years have decided to troll Rubygems lack of Apple-like barrier means that the Ruby community has a sexism problem? That, and something that happened in 2008? Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world... This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.

zainny 13y ago

This entire post is absurd. It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'! Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".

vezzy-fnord 13y ago

Can we please go at least one week without being hypersensitive postmodernists about everything? It seems that men complain about the lack of women in computing more than women do. When did trolling become a social justice issue suddenly?

llamataboot 13y ago

oh look! flagged off the front page as per usual on hacker news.

throwaway86 13y ago
Did you stop to consider why I (and others) flagged it, or did you just skip straight to a Hacker News conspiracy?

justintocci 13y ago

Official downloads from official websites probably should have a filter. I don't see those names as useful. They are a dark pattern, forcing you to click on the package because the name gives you no hint as to their function. If a cop plants evidence why discuss his choice of cocaine over heroin? Peer pressure = bullying. I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.