"However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"."
I'm amazed that someone would say this.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes.
This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."
This kind of made me think about something I've wanted to ask for a long time but could never really crystallize until now.
I'm probably kicking a hornet's nest here, probably because I'm going to word this in a way that gives an impression I do not actually have, so, fair warning. I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt here that I'm not, in fact, a bigoted sociopath.
This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is hostile to women and I like it that way."
That's not what I gathered from that post.
I read it as an understandable (note: understandable means comprehend-able, not acceptable or appropriate) overreaction to a certain faction of extremists who want the focus to become about feelings and PC rather than doing cool things and getting shit done. To an extent, I sympathize with those who are scandalized when they hear the whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists, or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing from earlier in the year. Such things come off very much as an attempt to hijack or attack the culture.
Two questions.
At what point is it socially acceptable to express exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it? (Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any '$minority rights' group behaving badly)
At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in that people are going to go out of their way to offend you, but in that people have better things to spend their time on than measuring their every word for the slightest hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you, and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?
</post>
I don't know, am I the only person that enjoys the somewhat acerbic nature of software engineering on the internet and doesn't want it to change all that much?
I trust you that he said this, but that doesn't mean he represents the whole industry or even a significant part; that's a ridiculous conclusion for you to draw. I've never heard anything like this.
I read him as brilliantly trolling Elad with everything that would trigger him to be pissed off. Simply a flawless troll against the social justice types, meant to be completely politically incorrect to infuriate the kind of person who would post with Elad did, and it seems like everybody here is biting too.
Given that Elad's reaction was to run here and post it, I'd say it worked. Most successful and subtle troll I've seen in a long time.
You are misrepresenting what he said. Programming is primarily a male activity. That is fact. He is pointing to the attempts to co-opt the programming landscape "out-of-band" by activism - as opposed to simply taking control of and starting new projects. Your post is a perfect illustration of this sort of activism; you have put words right into the guy's mouth because you don't want to be surrounded by men.
Some of those aren't even bad words like "therapist" and "hoe", and "ASS" appears to just be a poorly chosen acronym. "childlabor" doesn't offend any specific group and the name makes sense in context ("ChildLabor is a gem that helps manage child processes.")
Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically?
And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words.
And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?
Hoe is a garden implement. I'm really surprised that the author included it in the group. Specifically, the hoe gem is a tool for building gems. The utility uses other farming/hoeing metaphors like sow.
I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.
Mostly posted to highlight the response of the Ruby facebook admin. Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet and whose comments are, quite frankly, part of the problem of misogyny in tech.
Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet
Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc.
Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so.
This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.
It is extremely dishonest of you to accuse this person of _hating women_ based upon his dislike of particular kinds of activism within the programming field.
I think this article radically blurs the line between personal and professional space. Is the entire gem repository a professional space or a personal space? To my mind it's a bit of both. If you believe that self-expression is allowed in software development then I see no reason to constrict the entire space of gem names to those allowed in the author's conception of the professional realm. That's just silly.
To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.
I completely agree that it's the combination of social conditioning, selection bias, etc that contribute to gender bias. But you can't just throw up your hands and accept the status quo because it's ingrained in our society.
That's pretty funny from the admin guy. He describes the person who posted the piece as "politically correct thought police", and then right afterwards threatens to ban them if they post anything else "like this", i.e., anything whose politics he disagrees with.
This article is more than a little hyperbolic. The "perform like a porn star" deck was the "only time someone reacted to the fact that women are generally treated differently in the Rails / Ruby world"? Really?
It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community.
The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.
It's not clear that sexual or vulgar language (not sexist, generally, just sexual) is really the most important thing at stake for women in the profession. Probably they're more concerned with sub/unconscious bias, impostor syndrome, or, you know, actual outright abuse. Just a guess.
It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'!
Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".
A few months back, while sitting in another company-wide, mandatory sexual harassment seminar, I figured that, for 90% of the audience, the entire presentation could be replaced with a single side: "Don't be an asshole."
However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.
Official downloads from official websites probably should have a filter. I don't see those names as useful. They are a dark pattern, forcing you to click on the package because the name gives you no hint as to their function. If a cop plants evidence why discuss his choice of cocaine over heroin?
Peer pressure = bullying.
I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.
There's a big difference between "foul language" and that which is offensive, inconsiderate, exclusionary, and generally sexist, having the result of making women feel unsafe/unwelcome in this space.
Jesus, seriously? Rubygems has 64,000 gems and as far as I know, there's no policy to give gems prior review. So the fact that a few people over the years have decided to troll Rubygems lack of Apple-like barrier means that the Ruby community has a sexism problem? That, and something that happened in 2008?
Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world...
This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.
Yes. Filter gem names to block terrible, woman-hating names like retarded, therapist, hoe, and sex. A rake is an immoral pleasure seeker[1], better get rid of that one too! That will fix your community's problems, Ruby, because that's totally what the problem is! You nailed it!
Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!"
[+] [-] haberman|12 years ago|reply
"However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"."
I'm amazed that someone would say this.
I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes.
This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."
[+] [-] Karunamon|12 years ago|reply
I'm probably kicking a hornet's nest here, probably because I'm going to word this in a way that gives an impression I do not actually have, so, fair warning. I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt here that I'm not, in fact, a bigoted sociopath.
This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is hostile to women and I like it that way."That's not what I gathered from that post.
I read it as an understandable (note: understandable means comprehend-able, not acceptable or appropriate) overreaction to a certain faction of extremists who want the focus to become about feelings and PC rather than doing cool things and getting shit done. To an extent, I sympathize with those who are scandalized when they hear the whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists, or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing from earlier in the year. Such things come off very much as an attempt to hijack or attack the culture.
Two questions.
At what point is it socially acceptable to express exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it? (Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any '$minority rights' group behaving badly)
At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in that people are going to go out of their way to offend you, but in that people have better things to spend their time on than measuring their every word for the slightest hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you, and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?
I don't know, am I the only person that enjoys the somewhat acerbic nature of software engineering on the internet and doesn't want it to change all that much?[+] [-] pekk|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway86|12 years ago|reply
Given that Elad's reaction was to run here and post it, I'd say it worked. Most successful and subtle troll I've seen in a long time.
[+] [-] roarroar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tfinley|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Houshalter|12 years ago|reply
Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically?
And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words.
And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?
[+] [-] bradleyland|12 years ago|reply
I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.
[+] [-] llamataboot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesbritt|12 years ago|reply
Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc.
Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so.
This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.
[+] [-] lucisferre|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] roarroar|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zenogais|12 years ago|reply
To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.
[+] [-] quinnchr|12 years ago|reply
The sad thing is women have been talking about this for decades, and no one wants to listen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._socia...).
[+] [-] duairc|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] muzz|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanbrunner|12 years ago|reply
It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community.
The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.
[+] [-] polarix|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zainny|12 years ago|reply
It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'!
Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".
[+] [-] thetrb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] anonymoushn|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] D9u|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fatman|12 years ago|reply
However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.
[+] [-] justintocci|12 years ago|reply
Peer pressure = bullying.
I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.
[+] [-] unknown|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] paulwithap|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quinnchr|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ndespres|12 years ago|reply
Check your privilege, dude.
[+] [-] vertr07|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|12 years ago|reply
Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world...
This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.
[+] [-] vezzy-fnord|12 years ago|reply
It seems that men complain about the lack of women in computing more than women do.
When did trolling become a social justice issue suddenly?
[+] [-] llamataboot|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway86|12 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwaway86|12 years ago|reply
Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!"
[1]: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo
Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.
[+] [-] hobs|12 years ago|reply