Comment by VexXtreme
11 years ago
Rather than forcing the entire world to change to fit your world views and personality, it's always a better idea to simply stop seeking validation from the world and stop caring about things like this. If you are feeling excluded it's because you are choosing to feel excluded, not because anyone is deliberately trying to make you feel that way. I am a western person living in an incredibly exclusionary and xenophobic east Asian country and if I cared about every time I'm treated differently, I'd go nuts. And since I am a white person living among a bunch of Asians, trust me when I say that I get treated differently all the time. People often start acting differently when I enter the room, store clerks and waiters often treat me a bit different than the locals etc. And you know what? Most of that is not even intentional. It's just the way humans are and that's ok.
You can't force people to give up every single piece of their identity and what makes them different in order to fit this new politically-correct bland mold of people who all act and think the same so that no one feels "excluded". As humans we are different, diverse, have different types of humor depending on the geography, age, gender, subcultures etc. Being able to cope with that is part of being a mature, well adjusted person.
All this PC "let's-all-be-the-same-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya" crap is getting tiresome. It goes against everything that makes us human, different and unique. If that's the world you want to live in - fine - keep going with your crusade and feeling indignant every time someone shows a trace of uniqueness and being different. I for one refuse to live in such a suffocating colorless world. I love being different from other people because everyone is more interesting that way, and yet at the end of the day I can still find a way to relate to others.
The world owes us nothing. If you decide to take away positive aspects from your daily experiences, that's what you'll get. If you decide to feel miserable and angry when people don't act the way you want them to act, then sadness and misery is what you'll get.
Since I know that some blockhead is going to try to strawman me, I will preempt that by saying that I don't believe we should start calling black people "niggers" or take away women's right to vote. Just saying that if people manifest their diversity in a way that's not harmful to others, there is no reason to get upset.
So, I'm male and I'll confess that if this debate had happened a year ago I would've been firmly on your side, arguing that the onus is on the offendee not to be offended.
I think that's what's changed for me is the recognition that we're all imperfect, we're human, and sometimes we'll offend people by accident but that doesn't excuse us from trying to change things for the better once we realize we've offended someone. The reason I'd argued that "you're going to get offended, deal with it" was because I felt that if I didn't believe that, I'd be on the hook for every possible minor offense I might cause, and there's no possible way that I could know of or predict all of them beforehand. But eventually I realized that that's not what people are asking: they just want you to understand that from the POV of someone marginalized, such comments are exclusionary, and to do your best not to make them in the future. It's not about censoring every possible utterance you might make in the future, it's about self-censoring this one.
Nobody's asking you to give up your identity. But the thing is - is being able to use the word "bro" such a core part of your identity that avoiding it means giving up your identity? Could you just avoid it as a favor to the people out there who feel bad when they hear it?
> Nobody's asking you to give up your identity. But the thing is - is being able to use the word "bro" such a core part of your identity that avoiding it means giving up your identity? Could you just avoid it as a favor to the people out there who feel bad when they hear it?
I would avoid it if it was a slur that belittles other people. So no. If you choose to be offended by a word that young men in North America men use to fraternize, it's your problem. I'm not even American and I really couldn't care less when my American coworkers call me "bro".
Let's say I find dogs offensive and dog owners alienating. Is it reasonable for me to ask the society to be more mindful of my feelings and make people stop walking dogs while I'm out? No, and I think we can agree that a person making such a request would likely be borderline mentally ill, or at the very least, unadjusted to living in the society. So where do we draw a line between mental illness and a simply asking not to be excluded? If everyone's opinion is equally respected, who is the authority that decides what's reasonable and what's not? Let me guess, you? Because it furthers your purpose right?
In fact, I've just remembered we have a git branch at work called "bro". Makes me realize the dire implications of a simple joke like that - we could potentially get sued by an intolerant employee. No wonder companies have started looking for culture fits these days, it's become very risky and expensive to hire people who are different because there is a good chance they will sue over frivolous reasons. Not saying I am like that, but can you see where I am going with this and how this mindset is actually damaging to minorities? Can you see how many employers would just choose to not hire a minority person simply because they are afraid of the implications? This way of thinking does MORE DAMAGE than good. Does what I wrote make sense?
Not everything has to fit into a giant unified philosophical framework. It's okay to avoid things simply because they make people unhappy. It's also okay not to have a single arbiter of "right" and "wrong" and just to think in pragmatic terms of "will my words attract the type of people I want to attract, or repel people who I might otherwise want to work with?"
Anyway, I'm not offended. I can see why some other people would be. My purpose with this comment thread is just to explain why and how my opinion has shifted over the past year, and possibly provide a different perspective. What you or any bystander chooses to do with that information is up to you.
No one is asking anyone to stop using the word bro. It is about context. As in, being mindful about using the word bro when both men and women are involved in a field where women are actively discouraged from participating in the first place.
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I didn't find the bro thing offensive. What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia.
I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a parallel one, because an Asian in America is not really opposite to an american in asia): an Asian man in Africa would be treated differently. Just as an African man in Asia would be treated differently. In tech-related fields, women are treated differently. Everywhere. There is no anti-parallel universe (in tech) where women actually have the advantage, where women are making "sis" jokes about other women. That is the difference. We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
> What I DO find offensive is you marginalizing gender issues by comparing them to your experience vacationing in Asia.
This comment pisses me off. Living in a foreign country and being marginalized is completely different from being a woman in the tech field in a first world western democracy. I get reminded of the fact that I'm different literally every time I leave my apartment and deal with another human being, whereas for you it happens when you open HN and see a joke about bros or something to that effect. I have literally been denied housing multiple times on the account of not being a local and that fact wasn't even hidden from me. Do I care? Not really, I just went elsewhere and sorted it out. As I said, you can't change people but you can choose who you deal with and how you perceive the world.
>We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
You are literally complaining about something that is a first world problem and completely blowing it out of proportion. People like you give female and minority tech workers a bad name. What employer wants to hire someone who is going to cause a shitstorm and potentially threaten with lawsuits every time someone cracks a well meaning joke. I for one would now be very wary of hiring you for the fear of you not tolerating other people at the office, or even worse, suing me and my company. Good job sister. You sound like tons of fun to be around.
The fact that you're being discriminated against and keep saying that "it's just human nature" and you "don't mind" doesn't mean that other people can't campaign against discrimination. Unless you are actively supporting it? Is your argument that we should have more discrimination, or just that we should turn a blind eye?
PS - this sort of thing is ingrained in everything technology related. Not just in HN articles about bros.
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