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Me. Right here. I am a woman and while I can obviously recognize that it is a joke, seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. Readi

by jabelk 13y ago

Me. Right here. I am a woman and while I can obviously recognize that it is a joke, seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. Reading tech news, browsing this site, and on every other technology related site, 10+ times every day I am inundated with these hilarious "jokes" implicitly suggesting that this community, this interest, is for a specific group of people that I am not, and will never be, a part of. It sucks. Like others are saying, it's not that I can't recognize it as a joke or that I feel "offended," it's just simply exclusionary. Actually, it's not even exclusionary by itself. Which is probably why so many people can't recognize this issue. It's the fact that I wade through DOZENS of these types of things every day, and they all add up.

VexXtreme 13y ago
Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobic east Asian country and if I cared about every time I'm treated differently, I'd go nuts. And since I am a white person living among a bunch of Asians, trust me when I say that I get treated differently all the time. People often start acting differently when I enter the room, store clerks and waiters often treat me a bit different than the locals etc. And you know what? Most of that is not even intentional. It's just the way humans are and that's ok. You can't force people to give up every single piece of their identity and what makes them different in order to fit this new politically-correct bland mold of people who all act and think the same so that no one feels "excluded". As humans we are different, diverse, have different types of humor depending on the geography, age, gender, subcultures etc. Being able to cope with that is part of being a mature, well adjusted person. All this PC "let's-all-be-the-same-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya" crap is getting tiresome. It goes against everything that makes us human, different and unique. If that's the world you want to live in - fine - keep going with your crusade and feeling indignant every time someone shows a trace of uniqueness and being different. I for one refuse to live in such a suffocating colorless world. I love being different from other people because everyone is more interesting that way, and yet at the end of the day I can still find a way to relate to others. The world owes us nothing. If you decide to take away positive aspects from your daily experiences, that's what you'll get. If you decide to feel miserable and angry when people don't act the way you want them to act, then sadness and misery is what you'll get. Since I know that some blockhead is going to try to strawman me, I will preempt that by saying that I don't believe we should start calling black people "niggers" or take away women's right to vote. Just saying that if people manifest their diversity in a way that's not harmful to others, there is no reason to get upset.
- jabelk 13y ago
  I didn't find the bro thing offensive. What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia. I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a parallel one, because an Asian in America is not really opposite to an american in asia): an Asian man in Africa would be treated differently. Just as an African man in Asia would be treated differently. In tech-related fields, women are treated differently. Everywhere. There is no anti-parallel universe (in tech) where women actually have the advantage, where women are making "sis" jokes about other women. That is the difference. We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
  - VexXtreme 13y ago
    > What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia. This comment pisses me off. Living in a foreign country and being marginalized is completely different from being a woman in the tech field in a first world western democracy. I get reminded of the fact that I'm different literally every time I leave my apartment and deal with another human being, whereas for you it happens when you open HN and see a joke about bros or something to that effect. I have literally been denied housing multiple times on the account of not being a local and that fact wasn't even hidden from me. Do I care? Not really, I just went elsewhere and sorted it out. As I said, you can't change people but you can choose who you deal with and how you perceive the world. >We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live. You are literally complaining about something that is a first world problem and completely blowing it out of proportion. People like you give female and minority tech workers a bad name. What employer wants to hire someone who is going to cause a shitstorm and potentially threaten with lawsuits every time someone cracks a well meaning joke. I for one would now be very wary of hiring you for the fear of you not tolerating other people at the office, or even worse, suing me and my company. Good job sister. You sound like tons of fun to be around.
Crake 13y ago
>seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. You must lead a very privileged life.
- jabelk 13y ago
  Not really. It's just extraordinarily discouraging to be constantly reminded of a problem so deeply ingrained in millions of people that it couldn't possibly be completely addressed in my lifetime. It's pretty hard to stare into the abyss of those types of problems.
  - jacobtracey 13y ago
    It must be tough, doing your internship, dealing with all these bros that are making apps and giving them away for free and calling them whatever they want. You need to reevaluate your perspective. There are people starving to death, dying of cancer, mass riots in the Ukraine as we speak and this is to you, I quote, "literally the worst part of my day".
    - Crake 13y ago
      These people have 0 perspective whatsoever. I would kill to have, say, encountering a chemistry website called "cispages" be the worst thing I have to deal with in life.
    - hobbit125 13y ago
      What a great argument. "There are other more serious problems going on, therefore this one is completely irrelevant."
aragot 13y ago
As read in an earlier HN post, being a programmer is all about having been socially excluded from evry circle. At 7 yo, excluded from football. At 8 from the local bike boys. At 16 from any group at high school. At student age because I'm a nerd. At 29 because a woman stepped ahead for the management job I hoped for. Do I look unhappy? I still have the best job someone could hope for. And tolerant friends. Part of the happy programmer's life is, being socially excluded and building a potentially successful life for above social considerations.
- grkvlt 13y ago
  Amusingly, wasn't the original 'brogrammer' pitch used to describe programmers that were not excluded from the rest of male culture; that fitted in with the 'usual' non-nerdy male fraternity stereotypes - athletic and sporty or physical - but also intelligent...?
- acjohnson55 13y ago
  A similar experience of being an outsider also pushed me into programming. I think it's sad that although so many in programming can directly empathize with feeling excluded, there's such a push to protect exclusionary aspects of the programming world. Congrats to us, we've paid forward the insults, instead of making a better space.

by jabelk 13y ago

VexXtreme 13y ago

Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobic east Asian country and if I cared about every time I'm treated differently, I'd go nuts. And since I am a white person living among a bunch of Asians, trust me when I say that I get treated differently all the time. People often start acting differently when I enter the room, store clerks and waiters often treat me a bit different than the locals etc. And you know what? Most of that is not even intentional. It's just the way humans are and that's ok. You can't force people to give up every single piece of their identity and what makes them different in order to fit this new politically-correct bland mold of people who all act and think the same so that no one feels "excluded". As humans we are different, diverse, have different types of humor depending on the geography, age, gender, subcultures etc. Being able to cope with that is part of being a mature, well adjusted person. All this PC "let's-all-be-the-same-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya" crap is getting tiresome. It goes against everything that makes us human, different and unique. If that's the world you want to live in - fine - keep going with your crusade and feeling indignant every time someone shows a trace of uniqueness and being different. I for one refuse to live in such a suffocating colorless world. I love being different from other people because everyone is more interesting that way, and yet at the end of the day I can still find a way to relate to others. The world owes us nothing. If you decide to take away positive aspects from your daily experiences, that's what you'll get. If you decide to feel miserable and angry when people don't act the way you want them to act, then sadness and misery is what you'll get. Since I know that some blockhead is going to try to strawman me, I will preempt that by saying that I don't believe we should start calling black people "niggers" or take away women's right to vote. Just saying that if people manifest their diversity in a way that's not harmful to others, there is no reason to get upset.

jabelk 13y ago
I didn't find the bro thing offensive. What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia. I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a parallel one, because an Asian in America is not really opposite to an american in asia): an Asian man in Africa would be treated differently. Just as an African man in Asia would be treated differently. In tech-related fields, women are treated differently. Everywhere. There is no anti-parallel universe (in tech) where women actually have the advantage, where women are making "sis" jokes about other women. That is the difference. We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
- VexXtreme 13y ago
  > What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia. This comment pisses me off. Living in a foreign country and being marginalized is completely different from being a woman in the tech field in a first world western democracy. I get reminded of the fact that I'm different literally every time I leave my apartment and deal with another human being, whereas for you it happens when you open HN and see a joke about bros or something to that effect. I have literally been denied housing multiple times on the account of not being a local and that fact wasn't even hidden from me. Do I care? Not really, I just went elsewhere and sorted it out. As I said, you can't change people but you can choose who you deal with and how you perceive the world. >We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live. You are literally complaining about something that is a first world problem and completely blowing it out of proportion. People like you give female and minority tech workers a bad name. What employer wants to hire someone who is going to cause a shitstorm and potentially threaten with lawsuits every time someone cracks a well meaning joke. I for one would now be very wary of hiring you for the fear of you not tolerating other people at the office, or even worse, suing me and my company. Good job sister. You sound like tons of fun to be around.

Crake 13y ago

>seeing these "jokes" everywhere is literally the worst part of my day. You must lead a very privileged life.

jabelk 13y ago
Not really. It's just extraordinarily discouraging to be constantly reminded of a problem so deeply ingrained in millions of people that it couldn't possibly be completely addressed in my lifetime. It's pretty hard to stare into the abyss of those types of problems.
- jacobtracey 13y ago
  It must be tough, doing your internship, dealing with all these bros that are making apps and giving them away for free and calling them whatever they want. You need to reevaluate your perspective. There are people starving to death, dying of cancer, mass riots in the Ukraine as we speak and this is to you, I quote, "literally the worst part of my day".
  - Crake 13y ago
    These people have 0 perspective whatsoever. I would kill to have, say, encountering a chemistry website called "cispages" be the worst thing I have to deal with in life.
  - hobbit125 13y ago
    What a great argument. "There are other more serious problems going on, therefore this one is completely irrelevant."

aragot 13y ago

As read in an earlier HN post, being a programmer is all about having been socially excluded from evry circle. At 7 yo, excluded from football. At 8 from the local bike boys. At 16 from any group at high school. At student age because I'm a nerd. At 29 because a woman stepped ahead for the management job I hoped for. Do I look unhappy? I still have the best job someone could hope for. And tolerant friends. Part of the happy programmer's life is, being socially excluded and building a potentially successful life for above social considerations.

grkvlt 13y ago
Amusingly, wasn't the original 'brogrammer' pitch used to describe programmers that were not excluded from the rest of male culture; that fitted in with the 'usual' non-nerdy male fraternity stereotypes - athletic and sporty or physical - but also intelligent...?
acjohnson55 13y ago
A similar experience of being an outsider also pushed me into programming. I think it's sad that although so many in programming can directly empathize with feeling excluded, there's such a push to protect exclusionary aspects of the programming world. Congrats to us, we've paid forward the insults, instead of making a better space.