[hammerdr]

Just as an opposite anecdote, I find that I run into it all the time. Sometimes, its from people that are outside of the tech industry itself. Sometimes, it is from people that don't realize that they are saying such a thing. Sometimes, its from people of different cultural background (e.g. Chinese developers). I see this in SF, saw it in Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta and in the various countries I've worked in.

I also recognized that it has took me a lot of time and a lot of effort to get to a point where I recognize it. 10 years ago, many of the things that would set off the "Hey; that does seem right" alarm bell would be unconsciously ignored and taken at face value.

If I may presume, I'm going to suggest that your experience may be because you're more 'attuned' to racism than you are to sexism. For me, at least, it takes effort and willful learning to come to better grips with sexism, racism, ageism, etc. It's hard work!

[byerley]

Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?

The concept seems so outlandish to me that I'm not sure how to word the question more politely, sorry.

[erikpukinskis]

For me it was just that I had a bunch of experiences where I hurt people and had no idea, only much later finding out, by essentially hearing from a third party about a fourth party doing exactly the same thing I did.

And it was clear that I wouldn't have heard those stories unless I had gone out of my way to understand what the "angry" people were mad about, and waded through quite a lot of background material. It was clear that no one would've trusted me with that kind of story until after I demonstrated that I had done some work to learn the basics of "offensiveness". Which, I had honestly only really done because I was in love with this girl who was into it. Kind of ironic really. I think that's how a lot of how this stuff grows though, you're a homophobe until someone you love turns out to be gay and then all of the sudden you figure it out.

Anyway after hearing enough stories about people like me carelessly, unknowingly fucking up other peoples' days, it clicked that I could never really know how many people I was hurting. And that knowledge just bugs me. I don't just want the illusion I'm being good to the people around me, I really want to feel secure that I'm doing a good job of that. It's how my Dad felt, not that he (or I) are necessarily the best at it. It's just my personality. And that provides the motivation to slow down and try to understand train wrecks that I could easily scoot on right by.

[gnaritas]

> Can you elaborate on why spending time and effort to find offensiveness in things makes sense to you?

Offensive things exist, it's simply a matter of whether you want to be aware of things that offend others or not. You can not put in the effort and walk around ignorant of behavior that offends people, or you can put in the effort because getting along with others generally requires not offending them.

For example, if you don't see sexism all around you, you aren't paying attention. If you don't see racism all around you, you aren't paying attention; our society is littered with both and women and minorities don't have the luxury of ignoring them.

[candu]

In a strict game-theory sense: if you're aware of what might cause offense to others, you'll inadvertently offend others less frequently, and your conversations/negotiations/etc. will have higher average outcomes.

Of course, I wouldn't usually phrase it in such a coldly logical way, so here's a practical example: when I meet someone in a professional context, I usually ask about background/expertise early on. This way, I avoid making unconscious assumptions like "she probably isn't an engineer" or "these people will all grok the super-technical explanation I'm about to launch into".

Another example: some of my relatives are more religious/traditional, so I avoid topics and words that wouldn't go over well when around them. Or: I'm in Greece, so I don't ask for Turkish coffee. And so on.

[eropple]

It's not about "spending time and effort." It does not require "time and effort" to see injustice, if you have an understanding of what it looks like and (this is important) the causes of it. It's about coming to grips the world as it treats people who are not like you--and a side effect of that is seeing that the deck is stacked and the dice are loaded and that things are much more grim than they appear to people like--well--you or me.

Instead of looking for wrongs, they become apparent to you, and there's a moral duty to not look away.

[jameshart]

There's something weird about the way you phrased this. You're aware that what you said was impolite, but you can't think of a way to be more polite. I think this might be related to the fact that you find the idea of seeing how things that you don't find offensive might be offensive to other people 'outlandish'.

What it suggests is a lack of empathy, which extends to your assuming that other people are also incapable of empathy. Sorry, I'm also not sure how to word that more politely.

Imagine, for a moment, that other people are honest in their assertion that they are offended (for example that women find some common, everyday behavior offensive and sexist).

Imagine, for a moment that other people are capable of feeling empathy for those people (for example, that they have learned, through empathy, to notice the same sexist behavior and find it offensive, even though they are not women).

Then you might realize that they are not 'spending time and effort to find offensiveness', but just capable of empathy. Sorry if that seems outlandish, but.. it's the truth, sorry.

[michaelt]

Personally I don't spend time and effort to find offensiveness in things - but I'm interested in being informed about the world around me.

For example, I've always found it easy to hail a taxi; it wasn't until a few months ago I learned it can be hard to get a taxi when you're black.

That's information that can be useful if I'm travelling with a black friend or colleague; or discussing the merits of electronic taxi hailing, or the place of taxis in a public transport system.

[jacalata]

Why would you bother to learn how to identify security flaws in code? Because you think a system without security flaws would be better and you can't prevent or fix them without seeing them.

[zxcvcxz]

Can you give an example of this 'coded' sexism that's hard for regular people to spot?

[mrrrgn]

It's pretty mild; but someone sent me a twitter message after finding my GitHub account (hey nice projects, etc....) The left was my profile pic at the time, and the right is their final message. The fellow with a beard is my little brother. :) http://i.imgur.com/UuQMpi2.png