[CarolineW]

I hate to be "that person" ... but what is it in this paper that makes it appropriate to label it "The boy's guide ..."

Answer: nothing. Nothing at all.

Words matter, role-models matter, names matter, and this is just completely tone-deaf in today's world.

Men (and boys) may scoff, but seeing the title is seriously off-putting. Unnecessary, inappropriate, and the problem is that the author probably has no clue.

I've not looked too closely yet, and I will, but it appears accessible, accurate, informative, and useful. It may even prove to be actionable. I just wish the title was different.

[trepanne]

It is a form of dry pedantic humor. In early 20th century USA, there were a lot of instructional books marketed at children with titles like this... "A Boy's Guide to Fishing", and so on.

The author, who wishes finance students to remain focused on the fundamentals rather than getting lost in esoterica, chose a title that harkens back to these plain-spoken primers. I suppose he didn't stop to think that most of his audience wouldn't get the reference.

It's about as un-PC as "The Dangerous Book for Boys", really (which my daughter read without being noticeably triggered).

[Luc]

I understood the reference straight away, but that doesn't reduce how unfortunate it is when one of thousands of other titles could have worked just as well.

Especially since the contents don't continue with the 'boys' theme.

[mlevental]

that might be true but don't you realize that those titled themselves are offensive? because the books weren't for children equitably but for boys.

[inflatableDodo]

To be fair, people on here would lose their shit if it had been called 'The girls's guide to pricing and hedging'. Interestingly it would be largely a different set of people.

[totalZero]

Who cares? Stop trying to police everyone else's diction.

"Men (and boys) may scoff" because this kind of criticism is totally irrelevant to the actual ideas being discussed. I know from experience that just about any person (man or woman) who has done a trading job professionally has had to put up with way worse in the time required to learn how to make money.

And in "today's world," a lot of us don't care about the politics of jealous misandry.

[paulgb]

> just about any person (man or woman) who has done a trading job professionally has had to put up with way worse in the time required to learn how to make money.

Whether or not this is the case, it shouldn't be, and little things like this title subtly reinforce a culture where it is ok.

[Luc]

You care enough to comment that someone else shouldn't care enough to comment, hmmmmm.

[merpnderp]

The title is obviously tongue in cheek and meant to be light hearted. I mean the article's first sentence is "There is an unfortunate strain of pedantry..." And given that in 2019 you can't use the joking title "A boys guide..." to anything anymore, the world has become much more pedantic. Humor will no longer be tolerated if even a single person doesn't think it is funny.

[usgroup]

I think it’s just a title in the British style from the 40s where there were lots of books with “for boys” in the title.

It usually implies a gloss over some otherwise serious subject: camping, survival, the universe, etc.

[grey-area]

Agreed, and it's disappointing that you're getting downvoted for pointing this out.

It's probably an attempted play on words based on guides for boys, but yes, it's pretty tone deaf for something published anytime in the last 50 years or so.

[totalZero]

To be fair, tone is in the ear of the beholder. Not to be disparaging, but I see your comment and the parent comment to be tone-deaf. I think it's just a difference of perspective.

[spzb]

I agree. The only thing I can say in its defence is that it's from 2003. Not a million years ago but I'd like to think we've moved on a bit in 16 years.

[ysr23]

i agree wholeheartedly with you but just to point out it does look like this is from 2003

[rongenre]

In 2003, steampunk was really big, and this seems like a throwback to that neo-victorian terminology.

[bcx]

I could understand this excuse if instead of 2003 it was written in 1920.

That said, it only contains the word "boy" once in the entire article, and only in the provocative headline.

I think we can all look past the provocative headline.

[dmos62]

Are you giving the parent comment a soviet communist spin?

[dmos62]

Is "the boy" a patriarchic stand-in for the word "child", or what? It seems like some kind of in-group slang. Reminds me of the British expression "old boy", meaning "man".

[rpiguy]

I am so glad several other commenters here have pointed out that boy's guides were fairly common and this is a cute reference to that genre of book. There were girl's guides too. It is not the least bit offensive nor meant to cause offense.

[onorton]

The first thing I thought of was a callback to those old books targeted at near-adolescent boys e.g. The Boy's Own Guide to Fishing.

Obviously, it comes off as clumsy and inappropriate today or 16 years ago judging by the date on the footer.

[belorn]

Articles with gender in the title tend to get complaints. If it has women, men, boy, girl, male or female in the title, there is almost always a comment complaining to that fact.

I think it would improve the comment environment if HN had a title policy against using gender in it unless the article is clearly focused on it and has something new to contribute on the topic of gender. A lot of article titles would benefit by simply removing it.

[magashna]

If you can't get over a word being used in the title then how can you be expected to grasp the content? Child-proofing the internet is absurd

[stronglikedan]

Or, ya' know, you just move past it like a normal person and comment on the actual content.

[praneshp]

> I think it would improve the comment environment if HN had a title policy against using gender in it

Then dang and co will end up writing articles like this one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19971454

[TheAdamAndChe]

Ignoring gender and gender dynamics on social media will not solve the issue in real life, it will just further the perception that social media is disconnected from reality. In my opinion, it would do more harm than good.