> I see nothing but love for technically capable women. Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ...

> I see nothing but love for technically capable women. Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ... (I don't know toolz and a couple sentences written one Sunday on Hacker News don't represent him as a person. The following is only about the words, which are a good example to work from.) It's hard to escape our own perspectives; it's a skill that takes learning and work. For example, these words are meant well and on one level seem fine, but unfortunately in my experience they are just another roadblock: * "love for ... women": 'Love' probably isn't the best word to use in this context! Combined with the rest, it conveys that the women still are primarily objects of sex or romance, not engineers to be taken seriously, not people you respect and don't want to mess around with. * "I see nothing but love for technically capable women." This objectifies the women. (If you don't know the concept, it's one of the most powerful, important, revelatory ideas I've learned regarding understanding others.) First, someone else is taking a bunch of individuals, putting them in a box, and slapping a label on; whether it's a positive or negative label makes little difference. Imagine if someone said 'we love black people here', that would suck if you were black. Some people are assholes, some are funny, some flakey, some arrogant, some kind, some don't want your "love" ... form opinions on and relationships with one person at a time, just like guys. * "Sure, everyone loves to play immature every now and again and make crude jokes. This includes women ..." People make this mistake all the time. Yes, the minority laughs and say it's all right, but they have no choice. Nobody wants to be the one person complaining when everyone else is having fun (and usually it's fruitless anyway), nobody wants to be labeled a whiner or trouble-maker, and if you are in the minority your social status is tenuous anyway -- you have to constantly prove yourself to be 'one of the guys'. Object and will you find yourself on the inside on the next project? Promoted? Find someone who has been in that position, who would confide in you, and ask how they liked it; in my experience, they have not liked it at all. Also, people get their morals from their peers (we're sheep, we follow the herd; again, nobody wants to be the lone objecter). Every time you make that sexist joke and everyone laughs, it communicates a standard: It's ok to discriminate against women. I love crude jokes, but maybe play them on the majority or play non-gender-oriented crude jokes on the women (maybe a fart joke?).