Comment by lhnz
11 years ago
Brogrammer is just a stereotype, brah.
Not everybody that wears shades, doesn't take life seriously and speaks with an accent is misogynistic, crass, less mature than you and difficult to depend on.
That's not really fair. To a bro the word just means 'friend' - somebody that's dependable, fun to hang out with and that won't over complicate things.
Those descriptions seem more in line with the tool.
I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things."
Using "bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender. It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic. You're not taking this serious. I'm guessing because you haven't any idea of how soul crushing it can be to see this kind of behavior in the workplace when you're at the other end. It fucking sucks.
Now, we're just being pedantic. I guess this is what we do on a lazy Saturday morning when we all just have to be offended and aghast at something.
I don't even know what you're talking about with "soul crushing it can be to see this kind of behavior in the workplace". What behavior? naming a tool "bro"? Are you serious?
I work with grown ups. Men and women of every age, background, and geography. They would take issue with cat-calls, gross innuendo, propositioning, and many other things. Not a single one of them would lose their shit over "bropages". You know, because we're all adults and have developed this sense of "things that matter" and "things that are trivial" and "things that don't even register".
Of course, this seems to be half the current content of HN. Every day, long diatribes about the horrors of sexism that restate the same old bullshit and gets everyone worked up with no further understanding or patience derived from them.
You've nailed it here. Sexism and racism, etc. are serious issues but some people, for whatever reason, have lost all sense of perspective.
To be fair, some people actually use "bro" as an neutral term. I call my wife "bro" all the time, she called one of her (female) students bro, etc.
And I'm not trying to downplay any bad behavior by people you've had to interact/work with. Pretty much anything can be used in a negative way in a specific context, and people can be huge jerks. I'm merely trying to say that words which you think are offensive to one gender, can be used as a completely neutral term without any subtext other than friendliness. It's really a shame that this word has become so negative to you.
It's really a shame that in the community with which you are currently participating, the word has acquired so many negative associations; I agree.
I also call my (female) SO "bro" – in addition to a broad range of friends and family – in specific contexts. But I would never consider the word neutral or inclusive in the context of the tech community. Too much baggage. If any of the people I call "bro" were programmers plugged into the same world we are currently plugged into, I would not do it, period.
The fact that everyone in this thread came into this with knowledge of the term "brogrammer" suggests to me that there shouldn't be much of an argument, but I guess that's just wishful thinking.
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I appreciate your intent, but this line of reasoning about the implications of the term "bro" seems like a huge stretch to me. Being a male, should I likewise feel personally offended by the Emacs woman command, which is a similar and equally "exclusive" pun on man pages?
http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/woman/ind...
Are you winding me up?
Was man also misogynistic?
Besides:
You're shitting us right? Manpages referred to manuals, not men.
But given that I'm obviously swimming against the tide here at HN I'll just cave .....
Word, brah! Like, totally right on! We should be making like 'sispages' next with like only explanations and shit. Get it? For like the sissy-grammers! Awesome dude. You da bomb!
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> Was man also misogynistic?
man is short for manual. What is bro short for?
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it's actually the first thing a feminist programmer adds to her .bashrc:
alias woman="man"
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My female friends and I all call each other "bro" "dude" and "guys".
Do you also get mad when people use the word "guys" to refer to more than one person of either sex?
This may be a joke, but a lot of people actually do get upset by this!
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"Guys" to include a mixed audience is how we get shit like "he" as default pronoun.
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"Using "bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender."
You must have a huge problem with "him" then.
How have you been dealing with the existence of man pages thus far?
>"bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender. It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic. >You're not taking this serious.
Well gee, I wonder why.
broseriously.
>It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic.
"Don't like things I don't like under any circumstances."
> I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things."
And there's nothing contradictory about that. Just because 'bro' is a man who might be all of that, doesn't mean that a woman can't be the same thing. Maybe she will not get the same nickname or term of endearment, but neither does that imply that she is qualitatively different from a 'bro'.
Thankfully we live in an age where gender is independent of sex so anyone can be a bro if they want to.
I'm not sure where you got this idea that bro means "friend". To me it's more like what the urban dictionary says http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=bro
1. Obnoxious partying males who are often seen at college parties. When they aren’t making an ass of themselves they usually just stand around holding a red plastic cup waiting for something exciting to happen so they can scream something that demonstrates how much they enjoy partying.
2. An alpha male idiot. This is the derogatory sense of the word (common usage in the western US): white, 16-25 years old, inarticulate, belligerent, talks about nothing but chicks and beer, drives a jacked up truck that’s plastered with stickers, has rich dad that owns a dealership or construction business and constantly tells this to chicks at parties...
Before all you youngsters and your urban dictionary came along, it meant brother or friend. Thanks for ruining another word.