

Ways men in tech are unintentionally sexist - deverton
http://notapattern.net/2014/10/14/ways-men-in-tech-are-unintentionally-sexist/

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msie
I agree with most of what is said but:

 _An unsolicited “I find you attractive!” remark isn’t a compliment, it’s a
note from a boner._

That certainly would be bad when the environment is work-related, but I hope
it is allowable under some circumstances?

I might have said a car was "hot" once, a long time ago, but it didn't imply
that I was sexually attracted to it. I guess I said it because that's what
people generally said to describe enthusiasm about something. I didn't know I
was seriously making women uncomfortable.

~~~
dubfan
> I didn't know I was seriously making women uncomfortable.

The vast majority of women are not hypersensitive. You're probably fine, and
when dealing with someone hypersensitive, you can never really know what will
make them uncomfortable. It's just best to not even talk to them.

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serf
I'll keep saying guys in a gender-neutral fashion, and plenty of my software
is sexy.

'Sexy' has nothing to do with sexism. 'Guys' I can understand, but i'm old
fashioned and i'll stop when my female counterparts stop.

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ZenoArrow
I agree with a lot of what you said, aside from the first point. Is "guys"
really that bad? People do use it in a gender-neutral way regardless of the
word origin, and the alternatives given were all cringeworthy (IMO). If
there's a better catch-all then I'll try to switch to it.

~~~
pc2g4d
The (Shorter) Oxford English Dictionary says of "guy": 3\. A man, a fellow; in
pl. also (chiefly N. Amer.), people (of either sex). colloq. (orig. N. Amer.).

One of the main situations I've seen "you guys" used is actually women
speaking to women. I can see how some women would take offense at it in their
dialect "guy" can only mean "A man, a fellow". I personally think the non-
gendered plural use of it provides an important grammatical function in a
language lacking a second-person plural pronoun. In the southern U.S. they
have "y'all", in Pennsylvania they have "yinz", in Elisabethan England they
had "ye", but my dialect of English has nothing---except "you guys".

It is what we make of it---if we want to be an offensive, sexually
scandalizing term then we can have it that way. If we want it to be a useful
second-person plural pronoun then we can make it that. I'm hoping for the
latter.

