Comment by glesica
11 years ago
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.
>I just don't associate man pages with gender.
You should ask yourself why this is. Would that be the same for an outsider who is trying to find her way around programming?
You don't associate man with gender because in your mind is associated with documentation. The usage of it in that context for X years has superseded the default association with gender. Eventually the same will happen for bropages. Either way, newcomers do not have the luxury of this association so will have to deal with the gender reminder from man and bro pages. Would you be in favor of eliminating the term man pages in favor of making programming more welcoming to women?
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With this much concern in the community a fork actually isn't a silly idea. Anyone prepared to actually fork this thing? Anyone have other name suggestions?
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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.
People nowdays get offended about pretty much anything. I refuse to pay Dane-Geld[0] to them by worrying about every single word I use, because otherwise they'll never shut up.
[0] - http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/kipling/dane_geld.html
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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.