

Atlassian developer apologizes to "all getting offended" by his sexist joke - Herkin
http://thetarah.com/2014/06/05/atlassian-developer-apologizes-to-all-getting-offended-by-his-sexist-joke/

======
heldrida
People who get offended with these sort of jokes, offend me. They must be
really sad people.

Stop saying sorry for this sort of things!

[http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2012/09/20/16180/why...](http://www.chortle.co.uk/correspondents/2012/09/20/16180/why_do_people_get_offended_by_comedy%3F)

[http://10cities10years.com/2012/07/10/so-youre-offended-
so-f...](http://10cities10years.com/2012/07/10/so-youre-offended-so-fucking-
what/)

~~~
parallel
Your links are about comedians getting into trouble by offending people. That
is a different issue to gender stereotyping in a professional environment.
People do have a right to be offended, call people out on it, and try to
improve the world they live in. I don't think that makes then sad.

~~~
heldrida
Yeah, the links are about stand up comedians, because he tried to relax a bit
and make the presentation fun!

"Professional environment", as in "Advertising a product". Take 10m and watch
some advertising. This is no better or worse!

The world don't need more Drama Queens.

Would it be sexist if this was "Boyfriend", this has nothing to do with
gender. The presenter could be a girl.

This "tech sexist" thing, is bullshit! Skills worth more than your balls. No
one cares about your gender.

------
davekeck
I'm trying to imagine the reverse situation with a female speaker playing on
negative male stereotypes with a primarily-female audience. E.g.:

X is my boyfriend: physically strong, just wants sex, doesn't do laundry,
generally messy, checks out my friends

Personally I wouldn't be offended if someone presented the slide above, and I
have a hard time imagining that there'd be an uprising about it. To me this
clearly indicates a double standard. So where should we draw the line on
gender stereotypes, to be applied equally to both sexes? I can't answer that,
but I think the above analogy shows that people are being hypersensitive.

~~~
mattzito
There is a double standard to a limited degree- I can't remember the source of
this, but a good explanation I saw described it thusly - it's the difference
between "punching up" and "punching down". When a woman makes a joke about a
male stereotype, it's "punching up", the classically lower status individual
tweaking the nose of those in power. When a man makes fun of a female
stereotype, it's punching down, or picking on someone.

That doesn't necessarily make it right in either direction or represents a set
of absolutes, of course, but it does explain the willingness of people to
excuse a certain amount of one type of stereotyping and not another.

------
hnnewguy
I don't get it. He made a marginally sexist joke, people took it too
seriously, and he apologized for it.

Was he to direct that apology at people who _weren 't_ offended?

~~~
parallel
Apologies are by definition when you apologies for your own actions. To claim
that it applies to people based on their reaction or is explicitly for people
who reacted a certain way is not IMHO a real apology. This type of conditional
apology (called the 'Carey' apology where I'm from
[http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/my-vile-
apology/story-e6frf...](http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/my-vile-
apology/story-e6frf7jo-1111119116136)) is an apology for the reaction in
others, not the act itself.

------
Navarr
I don't feel like this is incredibly sexist, but then again I'm male.

I don't think this objectifies or belittles women.. though I can see how it's
inappropriate in a professional environment. (And will be alienating to a
female audience - though honestly the same points might be brought up about
men).

I would ask tumblr which parts are offensive and why, but I don't feel like
getting death threats this week.

~~~
parallel
I think it's a worthwhile exercise to look at situations like this and
objectively asses the indiscretion. My first response was, 'that's fine, he's
just talking about his girlfriend, no issue'. This is an oversimplification.
The offence comes from the humour, which relies on the implication that all
girlfriends are like this. It's a little subtle but it's there.

I don't really like males (I'm male) being portrayed as domestic buffoons who
can't cook, are too lazy to clean, even in the context of light humour. It's a
false stereotype.

------
ldd-
It's an unfortunate situation. I wonder if perhaps it could have been
mitigated by small changes to the wording to make it gender neutral:

"A Relationship with Maven..."

\- Looks Great

\- Complains A lot

\- Demands Attention

\- Interrupts Us When We're Working

\- Doesn't Play Well With Our Other Friends

Of course, the photo to the right would need to be gender neutral, too.
Perhaps just the logo.

I can't imagine that such a slide would have any repercussions, but it would
get the same point across. It's often not hard at all to just be inclusive.

~~~
gojomo
A presenter _could_ do that, but the greater specificity – "my girlfriend" –
makes for a stronger, more relatable, and mostly _self_ -deprecating joke.
After all, he's not saying Maven is "like" his specific, real girlfriend, or
girlfriends in general. He's saying Maven "is" _his_ problematic girlfriend.

That makes it an embarrassing confession, about a universally-understandable
human situation – having some frustrations with a romantic partner. But he's
in a grating relationship with a software tool! The joke's on him!

There's no necessary implication _all_ girlfriends/partners, or _all_ women,
fit that model – just that it's a recognizable pattern. Anyone who's ever seen
a sitcom, family-comedy-movie, adult-comedy-movie, or stand-up-comic will be
familiar with the fact that some SOs/hookups/spouses can sometimes annoy, in
the manner of the bullet points.

------
argumentum
Every mainstream g-rated American comedy show has jokes like this about
husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends etc.

The new "rule" seems to be: don't try to be funny, or else.

------
anchises479
Offended?

~~~
EyesAndFear
HN isn't where we talk about this sort of thing.

