Comment by overgard
11 years ago
My argument is that women have a sense of humor and we don't have to infantilize them by acting like they can't take a joke. Clearly I'm a patriarchal monster. Thank god we have all these social justice warriors to protect women from the word bro.
Yes, women have a sense of humor, and in general they're really good at taking a joke from time to time.
But if you keep your eyes open, you'll eventually notice that women (especially in tech) wind up having to "take a joke" all the friggin' time. And that gets really old.
I mean, seriously, look at this very example. Imagine that the "bro" command became a standard tool. Now picture a woman being stuck typing "bro" on a regular basis during her working day. It's never a big deal, obviously. But she still has to type it again, over and over, taking a tiny but not quite negligible emotional hit of feeling excluded every single time. It's not the end of the world, sure... but why would anybody choose to make things that way if there's another choice?
I type on a regular basis the word "woman" in emacs.
Do I take a tiny but not quite negligible emotional hit of feeling excluded every single time for doing that? what about people who program ada and type the name each day? Do you think most people even will notice that the 3 letter actually represent a name, a person, a woman, each time?
Context matters. I take it from your comment that you're a man. If you were in a female-dominated profession like nursing or elementary school teaching then yes, I think things like that would wear on you pretty quickly after a while. Every time, it would be a tiny little reminder that no matter how hard you try or how successful you are, you'll still be a bit of an outsider.[0]
Some people would probably be more consciously aware than others of the fact that the 3 letters "bro" are a reference to "bro culture". Here are a few groups of people whom I think would be most likely to notice: People new to tech; women who've had bad experience with "brogrammer" types; "brogrammer" types themselves. It seems like a bad idea to adopt any policy likely to make the first two of those groups uncomfortable while signaling approval toward the third.
[0] Side notes: 1. Those professions are making a real effort to change these patterns to be more inclusive, too. And 2. Gender inequality in tech is nevertheless a more pressing problem than gender inequality in nursing, because tech is considered a higher status career.
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Except: the joke isn't even directed at women. Women aren't being asked to "take the joke" here because it has nothing to do with women. The only tie to women here is from self proclaimed social justice warriors decrying the fact that someone might call something "bro".
Ok, you've got me confused now. You just said, 'Women aren't being asked to "take the joke" here'. But in your previous comment that I was replying to, you said, 'My argument is that women have a sense of humor and we don't have to infantilize them by acting like they can't take a joke.' Which is it?
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"But she still has to type it again, over and over, taking a tiny but not quite negligible emotional hit of feeling excluded every single time."
The idea that a woman would literally be repeatedly emotionally traumatized by typing a three letter combination would be hilarious if it weren't so blatantly misogynistic.
All programmers should realise that being _forced_ to type a word that is loosely tied to a gender that isn't your own is a crushing emotional hit, probably comparable to rape.
I feel ill all of a sudden thinking about all the disabled graphic designers that are forced to use GIMP every day.
Please read this blog post, "Lighten Up": http://therealkatie.net/blog/2012/mar/21/lighten-up/
In it, Katie Cunningham explains the problem with the "it's just a joke" sentiment. Specifically, the cumulative effect.
Genuine question:
Is it never appropriate to tell a woman to lighten up?
Answer: yes, of course it's sometimes appropriate.
But if you're having a serious conversation with someone on the subject of privilege, and you're on the privileged side (and they're not), the likelihood of you accurately identifying when they should lighten up is so vanishingly small (I keep finding my blind spots in spite of years of being attentive to this kind of stuff...), and the chance that they might actually benefit from that sort of comment from you in that moment is so ridiculously tiny, that you're better off holding your tongue.
Let someone else guide them if they are indeed going too far (let's pretend you're right, for the point of discussion) -- someone who they can trust more, for example.
EDIT: just to add -- the problem with these situations is that your instincts (even usually-reliable instincts) are almost certainly wrong. You may be smarter & more articulate; you may be able to debate them into the ground without breaking a sweat; but if you're on the privileged side and they're not, you're probably still wrong in this discussion, and you're not going to help that situation at all by being articulately wrong.
Just speaking for myself -- and I'm on the "winning" side of almost every privilege imbalance I can think of -- but it is not really possible for someone like me to get an natural grasp of what I'm really gaining. I can't help but forget, much of the time. It's like walking through life in a world with frequent, deafening shrieking noises that are just above my range of hearing, but most of the people around me can at least some of them, and are constantly knocked off-balance, disturbed, upset.... I can argue persuasively that with good concentration habits, an occasional shrieking noise shouldn't affect your life much, but I've never heard it once; maybe an echo here or there, that's it.
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