

Being an asshole does not make you awesome - llamataboot
https://devandpencil.herokuapp.com/blog/2013/10/09/being-an-asshole-does-not-make-you-awesome/

======
haberman
From the Facebook post:

"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."

~~~
roarroar
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.

~~~
lucisferre
No I'm pretty sure the guy just hates women.

[https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426](https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426)

~~~
roarroar
It turns out he might be a bit of a jerk after all. Nonetheless that is not
the post the GGP was responding to. And your tactic of discrediting the guy
rather than looking at what he actually said in the current thread is reactive
behavior.

~~~
lambda
What he said about women trying to make a progressive movement all about their
vagina? What is that even supposed to mean? How is the ruby community a
"progressive movement" (yes, he was just quoting someone, but it doesn't even
make sense in that context).

This was in response to a man asking that people not act like assholes and
name things immature sexual names.

There was no point here. He was just lashing out at something he's afraid of
and frustrated by. Asking that people act nicer does not make something a
"politically correct thought police 'safe space'". And claiming that asking
that people act nicer is "co-opting of male spaces" is a pretty pathetic
attempt to play the victim card while simultaneously trying to exclude and
marginalize women who have contributed tons to the tech industry.

~~~
pekk
I don't defend the guy, but here's a hint: what are some of the basic
differences between men and women?

The whole concept of 'male space' is a big troll

~~~
lambda
Yes, I'm familiar with basic anatomy.

Dismissing someone by comparing a man who is asking for there to be less
sexualized and derogatory language in a community to "women who want to make
it all about their vagina" is nonsense on several axes. For one, the person he
was attacking is a man. For another, the whole point of the argument is for it
to be less about vaginas, or other sexual differences. Bringing up sex (and
especially in violent and derogatory terms, like rape-me and
recursive_pimp_slap) can make an environment uncomfortable for people who
already feel marginalized in a community.

------
Houshalter
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?

~~~
bradleyland
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.

~~~
Houshalter
You can say the name was inappropriate, to suggest it was sexist is ridiculous
though. And the world is moving beyond the whole "porn is a sin" garbage.

------
llamataboot
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.

~~~
roarroar
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.

~~~
jacalata
Here's some more evidence for you, from his public facebook posts[0]: "Fuck
women, they are coddled and have their needs met their entire lives so they
never see past their own needs to empathize with others."

[0]:
[https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426](https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426)
[1]: imgur version for non-facebookers
[http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm](http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm)

~~~
roarroar
I guess I was wrong to give him the benefit of the doubt after all.
Nonetheless his post from the OP makes a perfectly valid point.

------
zenogais
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.

~~~
quinnchr
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.

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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._social_theories)).

~~~
zenogais
Well aware of the concept of patriarchy and the literature on the topic. No
one's throwing their hands up. I just thought the article was terribly
reductionist. All we can really say is "the activity of software development
mirrors trends in the society it occurs within". Not really something earth
shattering or sensational.

------
duairc
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.

~~~
muzz
Instead of "funny" you could also say "hypocritical"

~~~
duairc
Yes, I could.

I don't like the word "hypocritical" though, because it implies that
contradicting oneself like that is the moral failing of an individual. But
really, we all contradict ourselves all the time, and we don't even realise
it. These types of contradictions are interesting not because they show that
the person who makes them is bad or stupid, but because they reveal the
ideologies that structure their thoughts, behaviours and actions, and the
contradictions embedded therein. In fact "ideology" itself can be thought of
as a kind of blindness to contradictions.

In this particular case, the admin guy is probably not stupid. I'm sure he
sees the contradiction in (p ^ ¬p). But he also is a man, and obviously feels
threatened by feminism because it seeks to take away his male privilege (in
this case, the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining^), and
thus is motivated by ideology to defend his male privilege. This ideology is
powerful enough that he can blatantly contradict himself and not even see that
he's done so.

^ I know the admin guy wasn't misogynist himself, or at least the original
article wasn't about _his_ misogyny, I am just saying that male privilege
generally grants men the right to be misogynist without anybody else
complaining (certainly in the "male spaces" that the admin guy is talking
about), and feminism threatens to take that right away from him.

------
ryanbrunner
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.

------
polarix
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.

------
zainny
This entire post is absurd.

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
Wow, what an idiotic response by the FB group admin at the end of the post.

------
anonymoushn
Hoe is a gardening implement. Like rake.

~~~
D9u
Where I come from, the word "hoe" is a verb, meaning, "to paddle," as in a
canoe.

------
fatman
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.

------
justintocci
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.

------
paulwithap
Foul language!???!? SOMEONE WRITE A BLOG POST TO PROTECT THE HELPLESS WOMEN!

~~~
quinnchr
So you don't think there's any merit to the argument that women might not want
to work with a piece of software called rape-me?

~~~
kawsper
Why would anyone want to work with a piece of software called rape-me?

~~~
quinnchr
Ask the man who wrote it.

~~~
pekk
Ask the person who wrote it. Whether he was a man is irrelevant. Men are also
raped. Any person's motivations for naming their software something offensive
are personal and not representative of an entire gender.

------
danso
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.

------
vezzy-fnord
Can we please go at least one week without being hypersensitive postmodernists
about everything?

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
oh look! flagged off the front page as per usual on hacker news.

------
throwaway86
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!"

[1]:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo)

Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.

~~~
hobs
To be fair, rape-me is over the top. Sex being bad though? Do women hate sex?
When did sex become misogyny? :(

~~~
yaddayadda
I'd add bitch and recursive_pimp_slap to the clearly over the top list.

~~~
hobs
Oh yeah, I don't mean there were not more that were over the top, I just
thought the point was better made in brief.

