7 ms·

I am just afraid there is going to be a retaliation against Ben. Remember what happened early this year at PyCon? Honestly, people need to stop acting like anim

by yeukhon 13y ago

I am just afraid there is going to be a retaliation against Ben. Remember what happened early this year at PyCon? Honestly, people need to stop acting like animals and stop bash him out. There are other contributors who can rule him out and we don't need those hash comments. Sexism is not about woman. When we call a country "she" we are making a female description of what a country is: nurturing her citizens. And since there are more and more single fathers we should be allowed to call a nation "he" instead of "she". I often write in HN with the phrase "but your average uncle joe..." and this is sexist. So one day I will be asked to write "your average auntie Mary" or better yet "your average consumer." Freedom of press should be honored. If I were an author and I like to write with "he" instead of "they" I should have that freedom. Yes, the project is owned by contributors. So like I said, let other contributors rule him out. And why do we have sexism in the first place? Because we all assume to have some roles in this society. Today women want the same rights that men do, but there are also rights that men don't get easily (or assume to have less). For example, raping a woman is a big crime but raping a man, have you ever heard of that? Sure. But to some people that's less severe than raping a woman. I am just stating the obvious. In some countries, raping a man is a less severe crime. And law is making a sexist decision. I believe in people's performance over gender. All points from either side will draw to the same root cause: we want to be superior. We want to demonstrate that we are superior. We don't really want to be equal, we just want to be superior. If you think about it a moment - that's really where sexism lies. Because there are fewer woman in engineering, we ought to demonstrate our success and ability too. I have bias, yes, because I am a man. Who doesn't? But I see performance. My sister is very capable and more capable than I am. I always look up to her. And yes, the solution is to make gender neutral but we are looping between anti-sexist and feminism. There is often a confusion between what a feminist, a sexist or an anti-sexist person would do... We need Yi-Yang logo here. -- EDIT -- I just thought this is a legitimate question to ask: any difference between an anti-sexist and a feminist? Do feminists prefer gender neutral or do they prefer to have "she" instead?

yapcguy 13y ago
Any reaction should be towards Joyent - not Ben. What we have learnt is that the CEO of Joyent is prone to over-reacting and will fire people over nothing. So don't work for Joyent as there is no job security when you can be fired for a commit. If you're a Joyent employee and you're not part of the Node.js groupie love-fest, better spend your holiday looking for a new job. Imagine a lunch-time conversation over the Affordable Care Act, would you dare voice your opinion? To Bryan Cantrill, just because you're the boss doesn't mean you can fire at will, without cause, and ruin a programmer's life, unless that is you like the idea of a lawsuit and getting into the press since literally nobody is talking about Joyent and SmartOS anymore.
- smtddr 13y ago
  I don't agree with you at all. Ben's dismissive attitude, and yours, is exactly the issue tech-communities needs to tackle & extinguish. No, sed 's/him/them/' isn't going to suddenly make the world a better place but it's the thought that counts. Every small step counts. Ben's attitude about it, just closing the PR and claiming not to be concerned with trivial matters is something that at least needed a serious HR sensitivity discussion. Firing Ben for it is extreme, but not unreasonable if a company wanted to send a pro-diversity message; albeit extreme. These kinds of actions also provide a good filter for future employees. If you're so bothered by Joyent's blog post that you won't work there and you tell others to quit, it's probably better for Joyent not to have you as an employee to begin with. +1 on that PR and on Joyent's blog post. EDIT: Stories about sexism & racism, minor or major, in the tech-scene almost always disappear off HN's front page in like 2 minutes. That's another symptom of a problem as far as I'm concerned.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    I think you have a fair point. HR issue. For an employee this is a big red flag - now Ben's employer will probably receive some angry emails this weekend and Ben will probably face some angry comments this weekend too. Nasty situation. If we do let Ben be a good man as he claims to be, then maybe it was a stupidity to rule out the ticket so quickly. How would a clever "sexist" person do? This "sexist" person would probably say "well, I don't like they. Not the way my teacher taught me grammar. Rephrase the whole sentence." Or just don't bother deal with any pull request related to sexist. But I agree with the parent. The CEO is afraid of any negativity. This is a typical way people handle crisis - find someone responsible and fire that person. A true heroic responsible CEO should first accept / address issue with the PR, then if the community thinks "YES DO IT" then accept the pull request and requires at least 2 contributors with sign off privilege to accept a pull request from that point onward. Firing someone quickly is the worst way to be a boss.
  - yapcguy 13y ago
    I'm not talking about the pronoun issue, I'm focusing on the hypothetical firing. It's completely unreasonable to fire someone over what in essence is reversing a commit. It might warrant a discussion with a manager, it might warrant an official warning, and perhaps some other measure but summary dismissal? No way. In my opinion, this is Bryan backing Isaacs, perhaps in a clash of egos with Ben, and grand-standing over an issue which he believes will earn Joyent brownie points. I don't want any developer to work in an environment where the CEO openly boasts about firing people, so in summary, I guess, fuck Joyent.
stephp 13y ago
Saying "your average uncle joe" does not ring sexist to me? You're drawing a comparison, to whomever you want to, and not making any radical assumption about a specified group of people. As for your rape anecdote... I hope you'll give the mechanics of that a bit more thought? And also consider the type of physical injury. (Many rape victims suffer damage to their internal organs and/or lose the ability to conceive.)
- Crito 13y ago
  I think his point is that it was not too long ago that saying "him" did not ring as sexist to most people. If the standards of language are changing, then we have to decide what punishment, if any, we deal out to those who don't keep up quickly enough.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Here is one. Not very long ago did our definition changed the way we interpret male rape. Of course how we rule male rape in court is a different story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-dept-expands-definition-of-rape-to-include-other-forms-of-sexual-assault/2012/01/06/gIQAbM7CfP_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-dept-expands-...
- reeses 13y ago
  Male prison rape is a joking matter in many places. "Pound me in the ass prison" is well-known in the hacker community. Think before you react.
  - stephp 13y ago
    To state the obvious: female rape jokes are everywhere, all the time. Both are terrible, of course.
    - reeses 13y ago
      Indeed. However, you tell a rape joke about women and someone should (and very likely will) tell you that it's not funny. Comments like,"Don't drop the soap," are so benign in our culture that you would have to be in a hypersensitized environment to be concerned about repercussions of any sort. How many people feel as if justice is served when a male prisoner is raped to death, à la Jeffrey Dahmer. In fact, many would not call Dahmer's homicide a rape, but switching genders would absolutely qualify it as such. I'm sounding as if I'm on a soapbox about this, but I'm not defending female rape in any way or the power imbalance of gender in most of the world.
ben0x539 13y ago
> I just thought this is a legitimate question to ask: any difference between an anti-sexist and a feminist? Do feminists prefer gender neutral or do they prefer to have "she" instead? Feminism is about equal rights, don't worry.
- thescribe 13y ago
  Citation needed.
  - ceautery 13y ago
    Just about anything by bell hooks. But if you want a specific starting point, try "Feminism is for Everybody".
    - thescribe 13y ago
      Ok, on your recommendation I found a copy of the book and read it for the last three hours. I am significantly less convinced of the thesis "Feminism is about equal rights" after reading this book. "Most women in the United States do not even know or use the terms colonialism and neocolonialism." I found this statement to be emblematic of the issues this book has, it is right around 125 pages of assertions and 0 pages of proof, data, reasoning, or any sort of factual grounding beyond the implicit goals of the author. "Future feminist studies will document all the ways anti-sexist male parenting enhances the lives of children" This is a second thing the book frequently proposes, while feminism doesn't have an answer today, we're sure we'll have an answer tomorrow. The book itself had a deceptive title, it should be titled "Feminism is for marxists who claim to have all the answers but hand wave giving any".
      - ceautery 13y ago
        That title would be too long.
nslater 13y ago
> When we call a country "she" we are making a female description of what a country is: nurturing her citizens. This is an example of gender stereotyping.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  But to how many people we need to use a gender neutral pronoun in this context?
  - Crito 13y ago
    I don't think your explanation for why we refer to countries as though they are females is necessarily complete or correct. In English, countries and ships are both "she". German famously has countries as male ("Fatherland"), but that is by no means the only example. In Russian, and I believe Portuguese, ships are male ("He's a good ship.")
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      Interesting to know. Thanks. Though does this have anything to do with culture? I honestly don't know. I use that as an example to ask myself whether sexism is conditional or not. You can use "it" or "she" to refer to a country (or a land if you enjoy poem hahaha), but I supposed most people will not find that sexist. So sexism is condition and has to do with the story (the context in which the pronoun is used).

by yeukhon 13y ago

yapcguy 13y ago

Any reaction should be towards Joyent - not Ben. What we have learnt is that the CEO of Joyent is prone to over-reacting and will fire people over nothing. So don't work for Joyent as there is no job security when you can be fired for a commit. If you're a Joyent employee and you're not part of the Node.js groupie love-fest, better spend your holiday looking for a new job. Imagine a lunch-time conversation over the Affordable Care Act, would you dare voice your opinion? To Bryan Cantrill, just because you're the boss doesn't mean you can fire at will, without cause, and ruin a programmer's life, unless that is you like the idea of a lawsuit and getting into the press since literally nobody is talking about Joyent and SmartOS anymore.

smtddr 13y ago
I don't agree with you at all. Ben's dismissive attitude, and yours, is exactly the issue tech-communities needs to tackle & extinguish. No, sed 's/him/them/' isn't going to suddenly make the world a better place but it's the thought that counts. Every small step counts. Ben's attitude about it, just closing the PR and claiming not to be concerned with trivial matters is something that at least needed a serious HR sensitivity discussion. Firing Ben for it is extreme, but not unreasonable if a company wanted to send a pro-diversity message; albeit extreme. These kinds of actions also provide a good filter for future employees. If you're so bothered by Joyent's blog post that you won't work there and you tell others to quit, it's probably better for Joyent not to have you as an employee to begin with. +1 on that PR and on Joyent's blog post. EDIT: Stories about sexism & racism, minor or major, in the tech-scene almost always disappear off HN's front page in like 2 minutes. That's another symptom of a problem as far as I'm concerned.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  I think you have a fair point. HR issue. For an employee this is a big red flag - now Ben's employer will probably receive some angry emails this weekend and Ben will probably face some angry comments this weekend too. Nasty situation. If we do let Ben be a good man as he claims to be, then maybe it was a stupidity to rule out the ticket so quickly. How would a clever "sexist" person do? This "sexist" person would probably say "well, I don't like they. Not the way my teacher taught me grammar. Rephrase the whole sentence." Or just don't bother deal with any pull request related to sexist. But I agree with the parent. The CEO is afraid of any negativity. This is a typical way people handle crisis - find someone responsible and fire that person. A true heroic responsible CEO should first accept / address issue with the PR, then if the community thinks "YES DO IT" then accept the pull request and requires at least 2 contributors with sign off privilege to accept a pull request from that point onward. Firing someone quickly is the worst way to be a boss.
- yapcguy 13y ago
  I'm not talking about the pronoun issue, I'm focusing on the hypothetical firing. It's completely unreasonable to fire someone over what in essence is reversing a commit. It might warrant a discussion with a manager, it might warrant an official warning, and perhaps some other measure but summary dismissal? No way. In my opinion, this is Bryan backing Isaacs, perhaps in a clash of egos with Ben, and grand-standing over an issue which he believes will earn Joyent brownie points. I don't want any developer to work in an environment where the CEO openly boasts about firing people, so in summary, I guess, fuck Joyent.

stephp 13y ago

Saying "your average uncle joe" does not ring sexist to me? You're drawing a comparison, to whomever you want to, and not making any radical assumption about a specified group of people. As for your rape anecdote... I hope you'll give the mechanics of that a bit more thought? And also consider the type of physical injury. (Many rape victims suffer damage to their internal organs and/or lose the ability to conceive.)

Crito 13y ago
I think his point is that it was not too long ago that saying "him" did not ring as sexist to most people. If the standards of language are changing, then we have to decide what punishment, if any, we deal out to those who don't keep up quickly enough.
yeukhon 13y ago
Here is one. Not very long ago did our definition changed the way we interpret male rape. Of course how we rule male rape in court is a different story. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-dept-expands-definition-of-rape-to-include-other-forms-of-sexual-assault/2012/01/06/gIQAbM7CfP_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/justice-dept-expands-...
reeses 13y ago
Male prison rape is a joking matter in many places. "Pound me in the ass prison" is well-known in the hacker community. Think before you react.
- stephp 13y ago
  To state the obvious: female rape jokes are everywhere, all the time. Both are terrible, of course.
  - reeses 13y ago
    Indeed. However, you tell a rape joke about women and someone should (and very likely will) tell you that it's not funny. Comments like,"Don't drop the soap," are so benign in our culture that you would have to be in a hypersensitized environment to be concerned about repercussions of any sort. How many people feel as if justice is served when a male prisoner is raped to death, à la Jeffrey Dahmer. In fact, many would not call Dahmer's homicide a rape, but switching genders would absolutely qualify it as such. I'm sounding as if I'm on a soapbox about this, but I'm not defending female rape in any way or the power imbalance of gender in most of the world.

ben0x539 13y ago

> I just thought this is a legitimate question to ask: any difference between an anti-sexist and a feminist? Do feminists prefer gender neutral or do they prefer to have "she" instead? Feminism is about equal rights, don't worry.

thescribe 13y ago
Citation needed.
- ceautery 13y ago
  Just about anything by bell hooks. But if you want a specific starting point, try "Feminism is for Everybody".
  - thescribe 13y ago
    Ok, on your recommendation I found a copy of the book and read it for the last three hours. I am significantly less convinced of the thesis "Feminism is about equal rights" after reading this book. "Most women in the United States do not even know or use the terms colonialism and neocolonialism." I found this statement to be emblematic of the issues this book has, it is right around 125 pages of assertions and 0 pages of proof, data, reasoning, or any sort of factual grounding beyond the implicit goals of the author. "Future feminist studies will document all the ways anti-sexist male parenting enhances the lives of children" This is a second thing the book frequently proposes, while feminism doesn't have an answer today, we're sure we'll have an answer tomorrow. The book itself had a deceptive title, it should be titled "Feminism is for marxists who claim to have all the answers but hand wave giving any".
    - ceautery 13y ago
      That title would be too long.

nslater 13y ago

> When we call a country "she" we are making a female description of what a country is: nurturing her citizens. This is an example of gender stereotyping.

yeukhon 13y ago
But to how many people we need to use a gender neutral pronoun in this context?
- Crito 13y ago
  I don't think your explanation for why we refer to countries as though they are females is necessarily complete or correct. In English, countries and ships are both "she". German famously has countries as male ("Fatherland"), but that is by no means the only example. In Russian, and I believe Portuguese, ships are male ("He's a good ship.")
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Interesting to know. Thanks. Though does this have anything to do with culture? I honestly don't know. I use that as an example to ask myself whether sexism is conditional or not. You can use "it" or "she" to refer to a country (or a land if you enjoy poem hahaha), but I supposed most people will not find that sexist. So sexism is condition and has to do with the story (the context in which the pronoun is used).