10 ms·

In what way is this sexist? There is not a single word of disparagement on that site. Nobody in their right mind would say that the word "bro" is sexist unless

In what way is this sexist? There is not a single word of disparagement on that site. Nobody in their right mind would say that the word "bro" is sexist unless they're explicitly looking to be offended. (IE: picking a fight)

mkdir 13y ago
It's offensive in the same way it's offensive for a young man to attend a computer science class. It increases the maleness of a space.
glesica 13y ago
It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. This isn't just me and a few people making shit up, read my comment, it's obvious that the authors knew they were on shaky ground. They tried to defuse the situation with a cute little comment, but it would have been better to just change the name. Read this comment for a better explanation if you're actually confused: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121717
- Crake 13y ago
  >It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. Are you kidding? Maybe if they named it bitchpages instead of bropages. Bro is used in many ways, one of which is as a term of endearment. Even if you take it in the brogrammer context, it's still a derogatory name for men, not women. TIL that insulting men is misogyny. I guess it's like how when men die in wars, the real victims are still the women safe at home.
- rds2000 13y ago
  What creates a hostile environment for woman is where a sector, made of predominately men is scrutinized with a hysterical "boy who cried wolf" mentality. It's a vicious cycle. 1. First there is a tiny group of feminists, mostly consisting of marketers, call themselves coders, but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. They seem very happy to stir indignation. 2. Then, people in positions of power bend toward the illegitimate trolls who cried wolf. I'm talking, the word "meritocracy" being offensive by github CEO [1], python board members referring to geekfeminism.org as a charter [2] for pycon conferences. Pack up and go home, these are the leaders, the chiefs, the alphas of engineers - and they are cowing down to politically correct trolls on twitter, who aren't even participants to the causes. Twitter and blogs allow anyone to claim to be anything. You used to need a degree to Marketer! Now any girl with an iPhone can be one! Twitter lets anyone call themselves a programmer. However, Github holds people accountable for actually having to program - funny how meritocracy came up as a bad word to these people! What is really creating a hostile work environment for woman? I can tell you, men who stay silent watching this bogus stuff happen, woman with legitimate skill and talent may be cast off as a liability. Consider this: if you are a woman, and you would let a bad joke ruin someone's life, or abuse politically correct sympathy as a female to get benefits - is that going to help your cause? If you are a leader or boss, and you let these trolls shape you - You lack backbone. I feel this is a lack of integrity, and they're not fit to lead. I hope leaders set an example and not feed these attention trolls and call their crap out. These are woman creating a hostile environment for woman who would otherwise feel grateful to earn their way and belong. [1]: https://twitter.com/defunkt/statuses/426104782894284800 https://twitter.com/defunkt/statuses/426104782894284800 [2]: http://jessenoller.com/blog/2012/12/7/the-code-of-conduct http://jessenoller.com/blog/2012/12/7/the-code-of-conduct
  - Crake 13y ago
    >These are woman creating a hostile environment for woman who would otherwise feel grateful to earn their way and belong. EXACTLY THIS. Listen up, white knights, and please--knock it off.
    - KuraFire 13y ago
      You are such an embarrassing cliché, I don't even know where you would have to begin to gain some perspective. Primary and secondary school history lessons, probably.
      - Crake 13y ago
        "How dare you disagree with me!"
  - ceol 13y ago
    > but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. The irony of this comment being in a long-winded post on Hacker News is lost, perhaps? You do realize the vast majority of "programmers" aren't building 100% of the time. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias.
    - rds2000 13y ago
      I don't want to make personal examples, if you compare the look at the replies to @defunkt's twitter post, the females cheering - who even go so far as to overly call themselves feminists - have basically no engineer cred to speak for. Not on github, not on LinkedIn. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias. Bias? Feminists on twitter? Hypersensitivity and hysteria about sexual harassment at conferences? Spooking male engineers into special consideration just because they're girls? Geekfeminism.org being mentioned by the pycon organizer? Merit being a taboo word? In engineering culture, we consider this disruptive behavior disruptive and call it trolling. Our consumer culture makes everything so easy and convenient. Our compassion to woman and how nice we are to them allows some of them to take advantage. This is a case of it. In any case, removing merit from the dictionary won't get you into an engineer position. These tricks and trolls may have worked for special treatment before, but programming will take honest, hard-work and effort.
- ElComradio 13y ago
  Can you, or somebody, explain to me why it is either a responsibility or moral imperative to make HN, tech, the corner store, or anywhere else, a welcome environment for any particular set of people?
DerpDerpDerp 13y ago
I don't think it's sexist; I'm still turned off by the word "bro".
Steuard 13y ago
The term "bro" has been closely associated in the tech world lately with things like "brogrammer" culture. I don't know whether that was the intended reference in this case (though it seems pretty likely to me that something of the sort was on the authors' minds when they chose the name: why else would the term feel relevant?). But the real issue isn't "What did they intend?" in any case: it's "What impact might this have on others in our community (or thinking about joining it)?" And intended or not, the name of this tool will call to mind the "brogammer" image for a lot of people. And that image is a significant part of what makes the tech community feel hostile to a lot of women. And as I've said elsewhere, these issues aren't about people feeling offended. They're about people feeling excluded. There's a tremendous difference.
- overgard 13y ago
  Here's the problem with your argument: since there's nothing actually hostile towards women on that page, what you're basically saying is that any expression of male culture at all is "hostile". It's like saying "stop being men! it's chasing all the women away!".
  - glesica 13y ago
    His whole point was that what is on that page IS hostile to many women in the community or thinking about joining it. You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people. If the authors had wanted this to be a cute in-joke for the bros, then why did they publish it to the entire world? Why not just send it around to their male friends, but use a more appropriate (and they KNEW the name wasn't appropriate because they tried to cutely head off controversy in their examples) name when they launched it to the public?
    - overgard 13y ago
      > You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people But you do? Or do we live in a society where whoever is the most offended gets to make the rules?
joe_the_user 13y ago
In the off-chance that you somehow don't get the really basic implications here, let me explain it on a simple level. "Bro Pages" associate this piece of software with bros, men. Such an association can imply that the creators and/or user of the pages will be "bros", men, as opposed to women. That could be "just a joke" if you didn't have a significant, visible people of guys who are obnoxious and immature enough to actually be hostile to women participating in programming. When you have a hostile atmosphere, an overt (if ambiguous) statement that something is for someone else enhances, increases that hostility. A woman who is already facing hostility is certainly not "picking a fight" when she notices that naming something "bro pages" isn't a friendly gesture towards welcoming her. In fact, it is the opposite. -- And that's not even touching the way "bro" has become synonymous lately with snicker, immature, sexist guys. Even "guy pages", "dude pages" or "pages of men" would be bad.
- ebfe 13y ago
  Ah, that makes sense. Now I understand why Julia is created and used mainly by women, and men who work in majority women environments find /sys so intimidating.
- mscarborough 13y ago
  Apparently a more informative name for a good idea would be bad, because IT males can be prone to persecution complexes over simple questions. Hell, we IT folks are defensive enough when questioned about bugs that we are responsible for, much less anything more meta about what we do. And yes, there is that hostile, defensive atmosphere on full display here.
  - girvo 13y ago
    We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
- LinXitoW 13y ago
  how are "man" pages better?
  - 13y ago

mkdir 13y ago

It's offensive in the same way it's offensive for a young man to attend a computer science class. It increases the maleness of a space.

glesica 13y ago

It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. This isn't just me and a few people making shit up, read my comment, it's obvious that the authors knew they were on shaky ground. They tried to defuse the situation with a cute little comment, but it would have been better to just change the name. Read this comment for a better explanation if you're actually confused: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121717 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7121717

Crake 13y ago
>It is offensive because it has high potential to create a hostile environment for women. Are you kidding? Maybe if they named it bitchpages instead of bropages. Bro is used in many ways, one of which is as a term of endearment. Even if you take it in the brogrammer context, it's still a derogatory name for men, not women. TIL that insulting men is misogyny. I guess it's like how when men die in wars, the real victims are still the women safe at home.
rds2000 13y ago
What creates a hostile environment for woman is where a sector, made of predominately men is scrutinized with a hysterical "boy who cried wolf" mentality. It's a vicious cycle. 1. First there is a tiny group of feminists, mostly consisting of marketers, call themselves coders, but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. They seem very happy to stir indignation. 2. Then, people in positions of power bend toward the illegitimate trolls who cried wolf. I'm talking, the word "meritocracy" being offensive by github CEO [1], python board members referring to geekfeminism.org as a charter [2] for pycon conferences. Pack up and go home, these are the leaders, the chiefs, the alphas of engineers - and they are cowing down to politically correct trolls on twitter, who aren't even participants to the causes. Twitter and blogs allow anyone to claim to be anything. You used to need a degree to Marketer! Now any girl with an iPhone can be one! Twitter lets anyone call themselves a programmer. However, Github holds people accountable for actually having to program - funny how meritocracy came up as a bad word to these people! What is really creating a hostile work environment for woman? I can tell you, men who stay silent watching this bogus stuff happen, woman with legitimate skill and talent may be cast off as a liability. Consider this: if you are a woman, and you would let a bad joke ruin someone's life, or abuse politically correct sympathy as a female to get benefits - is that going to help your cause? If you are a leader or boss, and you let these trolls shape you - You lack backbone. I feel this is a lack of integrity, and they're not fit to lead. I hope leaders set an example and not feed these attention trolls and call their crap out. These are woman creating a hostile environment for woman who would otherwise feel grateful to earn their way and belong. [1]: https://twitter.com/defunkt/statuses/426104782894284800 https://twitter.com/defunkt/statuses/426104782894284800 [2]: http://jessenoller.com/blog/2012/12/7/the-code-of-conduct http://jessenoller.com/blog/2012/12/7/the-code-of-conduct
- Crake 13y ago
  >These are woman creating a hostile environment for woman who would otherwise feel grateful to earn their way and belong. EXACTLY THIS. Listen up, white knights, and please--knock it off.
  - KuraFire 13y ago
    You are such an embarrassing cliché, I don't even know where you would have to begin to gain some perspective. Primary and secondary school history lessons, probably.
    - Crake 13y ago
      "How dare you disagree with me!"
- ceol 13y ago
  > but if you were look them up, they're twittering and having fun more than building. The irony of this comment being in a long-winded post on Hacker News is lost, perhaps? You do realize the vast majority of "programmers" aren't building 100% of the time. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias.
  - rds2000 13y ago
    I don't want to make personal examples, if you compare the look at the replies to @defunkt's twitter post, the females cheering - who even go so far as to overly call themselves feminists - have basically no engineer cred to speak for. Not on github, not on LinkedIn. Judging by that and the fact you throw out "feminist" like it's an insult, I'm going to say you've got some pretty heavy bias. Bias? Feminists on twitter? Hypersensitivity and hysteria about sexual harassment at conferences? Spooking male engineers into special consideration just because they're girls? Geekfeminism.org being mentioned by the pycon organizer? Merit being a taboo word? In engineering culture, we consider this disruptive behavior disruptive and call it trolling. Our consumer culture makes everything so easy and convenient. Our compassion to woman and how nice we are to them allows some of them to take advantage. This is a case of it. In any case, removing merit from the dictionary won't get you into an engineer position. These tricks and trolls may have worked for special treatment before, but programming will take honest, hard-work and effort.
ElComradio 13y ago
Can you, or somebody, explain to me why it is either a responsibility or moral imperative to make HN, tech, the corner store, or anywhere else, a welcome environment for any particular set of people?

DerpDerpDerp 13y ago

I don't think it's sexist; I'm still turned off by the word "bro".

Steuard 13y ago

The term "bro" has been closely associated in the tech world lately with things like "brogrammer" culture. I don't know whether that was the intended reference in this case (though it seems pretty likely to me that something of the sort was on the authors' minds when they chose the name: why else would the term feel relevant?). But the real issue isn't "What did they intend?" in any case: it's "What impact might this have on others in our community (or thinking about joining it)?" And intended or not, the name of this tool will call to mind the "brogammer" image for a lot of people. And that image is a significant part of what makes the tech community feel hostile to a lot of women. And as I've said elsewhere, these issues aren't about people feeling offended. They're about people feeling excluded. There's a tremendous difference.

overgard 13y ago
Here's the problem with your argument: since there's nothing actually hostile towards women on that page, what you're basically saying is that any expression of male culture at all is "hostile". It's like saying "stop being men! it's chasing all the women away!".
- glesica 13y ago
  His whole point was that what is on that page IS hostile to many women in the community or thinking about joining it. You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people. If the authors had wanted this to be a cute in-joke for the bros, then why did they publish it to the entire world? Why not just send it around to their male friends, but use a more appropriate (and they KNEW the name wasn't appropriate because they tried to cutely head off controversy in their examples) name when they launched it to the public?
  - overgard 13y ago
    > You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people But you do? Or do we live in a society where whoever is the most offended gets to make the rules?

joe_the_user 13y ago

In the off-chance that you somehow don't get the really basic implications here, let me explain it on a simple level. "Bro Pages" associate this piece of software with bros, men. Such an association can imply that the creators and/or user of the pages will be "bros", men, as opposed to women. That could be "just a joke" if you didn't have a significant, visible people of guys who are obnoxious and immature enough to actually be hostile to women participating in programming. When you have a hostile atmosphere, an overt (if ambiguous) statement that something is for someone else enhances, increases that hostility. A woman who is already facing hostility is certainly not "picking a fight" when she notices that naming something "bro pages" isn't a friendly gesture towards welcoming her. In fact, it is the opposite. -- And that's not even touching the way "bro" has become synonymous lately with snicker, immature, sexist guys. Even "guy pages", "dude pages" or "pages of men" would be bad.

ebfe 13y ago
Ah, that makes sense. Now I understand why Julia is created and used mainly by women, and men who work in majority women environments find /sys so intimidating.
mscarborough 13y ago
Apparently a more informative name for a good idea would be bad, because IT males can be prone to persecution complexes over simple questions. Hell, we IT folks are defensive enough when questioned about bugs that we are responsible for, much less anything more meta about what we do. And yes, there is that hostile, defensive atmosphere on full display here.
- girvo 13y ago
  We are our own worst enemy sometimes.
LinXitoW 13y ago
how are "man" pages better?
- 13y ago