Comment by overgard
11 years ago
Here's the problem with your argument: since there's nothing actually hostile towards women on that page, what you're basically saying is that any expression of male culture at all is "hostile". It's like saying "stop being men! it's chasing all the women away!".
So, we have enough issues with improving women's place in STE. It's not like we need to invent new ways to keep technology male.
I've helped different women with less experience in commandline stuff and linux/unix in general. In the workplace, and with tutoring middle/high school kids of both genders.
If I ever had to say "go check the manpage, and the bropage" I would feel like a huge asshole.
Why is the "man" page somehow better?
Because a shortening of "Manual" is not gendered. "Bro" is.
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It's at least short for manual.
Because of context.
I know that's lost on a lot of people here, but it's pretty important when considering things like this.
Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point.
So to the extent that the name of the "bro" command invokes that culture (and that's the point of the joke, right?), it reinforces the association between brogrammer attitudes and tech in general. Embedding that association into the tools we all use seems like a really bad idea. And yes, it could make programming feel one step more hostile for quite a lot of women (and men, for that matter).
Fundamentally, I don't think that either intensely male culture or intensely female culture (or for that matter intensely Democratic culture or intensely Republican culture or intensely Episcopalian culture or...) have any place in a professional environment (unless you're working at a Democratic campaign office or an Episcopalian summer camp or...).
> Brogrammer culture is hostile to women (at least in the sense that most women would feel less comfortable in a workplace dominated by that culture). It doesn't sound like you're arguing against that point.
I don't even know what that is. Outside the bubble of HN I doubt most people have even heard the phrase.
"Bro" for most people references dumb fratboys. Maybe it's a word that's offensive to fratboys, but I can't see why a woman would ever find it offensive.
I don't know that the problem is so much "offence" as it is reinforcing what has historically been an exclusive culture. As has been pointed out, regardless of the intent of the name, it is going to put off some people. Imagine sitting next to a friend, perhaps just getting introduced to the command line, and telling them, "Hmm... let's check what Bro says!" It just gives a certain connotation.
As a bit more extreme example, imagine a command line tool called "aryan". Sure, the name in and of itself might not be offensive, strictly speaking, but it's definitely something that would, and should, be frowned upon. The word has some important connotations.
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I can see two important things to say in response here:
1. I'm surprised that you don't know what "brogrammer culture" is, but that's okay. The point, though, is that for a lot of other people (particularly women) it is a familiar thing and it makes them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. You may not have had that experience, but part of having empathy for others is respecting that their experiences are still legitimate even if yours has been different.
2. It's been a lengthy discussion here, so maybe it's not repeating myself too much to say again that "offensive" really isn't an accurate characterization of the objections here. Plenty of people who have wonderfully off-color senses of humor might still consider this inappropriate. The issue isn't "this makes me feel offended", it's "this makes me feel excluded". That's a really important distinction.
(And to tie this in with point 1, even if you personally do not experience this sort of thing in a way that feels like it's excluding people, it's important to listen when substantial numbers of other people tell you that they do have that experience.)
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His whole point was that what is on that page IS hostile to many women in the community or thinking about joining it. You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people. If the authors had wanted this to be a cute in-joke for the bros, then why did they publish it to the entire world? Why not just send it around to their male friends, but use a more appropriate (and they KNEW the name wasn't appropriate because they tried to cutely head off controversy in their examples) name when they launched it to the public?
How about just: don't use it if you don't like it.
> If the authors had wanted this to be a cute in-joke for the bros, then why did they publish it to the entire world?
Are you suggesting that people should refrain from publishing things that are contrary to mainstream fashions? (I can't call all this let's-see-gender-issues-in-everything crap anything else than a stupid fashion that hopefully goes away soon)
Also, the joke is about the man pages. Not woman pages (though those exist in Emacs). I suggest we burn Unix and derivatives (and Emacs, this sexist bastard) on the stake of gender issues.
> How about just: don't use it if you don't like it.
But I want to use it, it looks like a great tool. Forking it just to use a different name seems unfair and waste of everyones resources.
> Are you suggesting that people should refrain from publishing things that are contrary to mainstream fashions?
It's not about mainstream "fashion", but about a certain cultural neutrality. I don't ask for this neutrality when you publish articles, essays etc., but when you write tools (or name tools for that matter) I greatly appreciate a mindset where you care about the vastly different context people might come from.
> Also, the joke is about the man pages. Not woman pages (though those exist in Emacs).
But - as said before - man pages have nothing to do with men and everything with manual. To underline the point: I didn't get the joke until I read the third Hackernews comment. I just don't associate man pages with gender.
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> You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people
But you do?
Or do we live in a society where whoever is the most offended gets to make the rules?
No, you don't.
Whether or not you choose to go ahead with something that will offend people is up to you, but you don't get to choose whether it will or won't affect people.
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> You don't get to decide what offends or hurts other people.
While this is of course true, I do not believe that what offends other people should dictate our actions. There is someone out there to be offended for everything you could imagine. Implying that homosexuality is OK or that the universe is billions of years old will offend literally millions of people in the US alone. Implying that women should be allowed to go to school or marry who they want is offensive to plenty of people in the wlrld too.
It would be ridiculous to cater to those people's sensitivities! And I feel that it is silly to worry about things like the word "bro".
>While this is of course true, I do not believe that what offends other people should dictate our actions
But it does. Every day. You'd have a pretty hard time if you had absolutely zero filter on what you said to other people and absolutely no concern for other people's feelings.
>It would be ridiculous to cater to those people's sensitivities!
You're comparing religious suppression of women and homosexuals to creating a conducive and friendly environment for women in technology. These are literally the opposite things.
It's like saying "we can't have laws against killing people just because we find it morally reprehensible! some people find allowing gay people to live morally reprehensible! any law at all just puts on a slippery slope toward executing homosexuals!"
>And I feel that it is silly to worry about things like the word "bro".
Again, it has nothing to do with what you find silly or frivolous. This isn't about you. Until you are truly able to understand that, you're never going to get anywhere on truly understanding issues like this.
Exclusion is a better word for what is going on than hostility. The name is based on the homonym between 'man' as short for 'manual' and 'man' as a synonym for 'male'.
Though a tool for manuals the author chose the namesake by the identification with males.
Do you see why this might make some people feel excluded, why if you want to make a tool to help people it's probably a good idea to not exclude people?
Are you saying the name is a good name? Or just defending the right to be exclusionary?