Comment by belluchan
11 years ago
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.
As soon as I saw the title I knew there'd be this brouhaha. For over twenty years my circle of male friends have been calling each other "bro", my female pals call their brothers "bro". All this was way before "bro" was misappropriated as a term of offence just because of one word - "brogrammer". This thread has seriously deviated into the twilight zone of reductio ad absurdum.
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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!
I can't tell if people here are being intentionally thick or not.
"Is bro supposed to be sexist or is it meant to be ironic?"
"Man referred to manual, not men!"
I can't even imagine many of you people watching a stand-up comic. Your heads must verge on exploding. The diagram for the pun/humor here would be about as simple as a diagram could be.
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Yes, I was kidding about 'man', but my point is that 'bro' isn't that exclusionary.
In fact, I think the problem here is that a lot of geeks don't like 'bros' and I am doubting that they're hated by women as much. Personal opinion here, but: a lot of women have friends that are bros; a lot fewer geeks have friends that are bros.
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Exactly...this is merley trend_bastardization...not original thinking.
...but hey #1 on HN...
Let's call it a "growth hack", bro ;D
> Was man also misogynistic?
man is short for manual. What is bro short for?
Brochure. Which, despite the tounge-in-cheek joke I was trying to make, actually tends to be a shorter and more example driven document about a product.
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Brother.
(I couldn't resist.)
Same as chairman, they're all short for manus, which is 'hand' in Latin.
it's actually the first thing a feminist programmer adds to her .bashrc:
alias woman="man"
Please, "their .bashrc" :-)
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!
Just imagine how upset people would get if you referred to a mixed gender crowd as "ladies"
"come on now ladies lets move the tour along" "Who you calling 'lady'!?"
Guys really is just a historically ingrained shorthand. I don't think I've ever heard it used in this sort of context to cause harm. Using "Ladies" in this way, on the other hand, could cause yourself harm.
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"Guys" to include a mixed audience is how we get shit like "he" as default pronoun.
Oh no!!! That's literally rape, omg.
"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.