I've tried to be quiet about these kinds of issues. Out of fear for my professional reputation, out of fear that the social backlash for speaking up would be too great. All too often I've watched as any male who questioned anything about contemporary feminists was metaphorically tarred and feathered. And also out of fear that my criticism would be misused, that feminism's political opponents might take my criticism as support for their misogyny.
Let me begin by saying that for years I identified as a feminist. In college I had an amazing professor who taught me that feminism was about empowering women, giving women the same rights and privileges that I, as a man, enjoyed. That was something I could get behind completely, and without hesitation. I believe most thoughtful men of my generation would agree. I still have massive respect for her, as she opened my eyes to an issue I had previously been blind to. One of the amazing things about her was that she was incredibly positive about sex. Before taking classes with her, I had a vague notion of feminists as angry women who wanted to demasculate men. I learned that this was not true. She respected masculinity and male sexuality, and helped me understand that working towards a world of equality did not threaten either of those things.
When I chose a new career path a couple years ago, and began the process of integrating myself into the community of software developers, I noticed something odd. There was a very vocal movement, a movement that labeled itself feminism, which was working to bring women into tech. I had noticed the strange lack of women in technology, and thought this was a noble cause. I still do. But for some reason, many of the people involved in this movement, seemed threatened by male sexuality. It was incredibly frustrating for me to find myself in a culture where a very important part of my identity, the part that enjoys a good dirty joke shared with co-workers (male and female alike), flirts shamelessly (but remains respectful of boundaries), and revels in punnery and innuendo, was considered something bad, something to lock away, something I must hide. I had previously worked in fields where genders were more balanced, or even during my brief time as a teacher, in a field where I was the minority. Yet never had I been told, or felt, that this aspect of my personality was problematic, or something bad, or hurtful. In those environments, women were just as likely to tell a tawdry or ribald joke as the men, were often the first to initiate flirting, and as likely to ogle any attractive men around them as the men were to ogle them.
The last time I'd felt like this, actually, was my childhood. I was raised in a very conservative Christian church until I was about ten years old. A church where pre-marital sex was a sin, and married people were only supposed to be having sex in order to procreate, not to enjoy it. The kind of impossible standard no one could possibly live up to. The kind of standard intended to make all people feel shame and guilt.
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Anonymous2015-12-22 21:25
>>39 I refuse to believe you are being unironic about feminism on a shithole like /anus/.
>>33 You are absolutely correct that harassment does not start until one party expresses that they would like whatever specific actions or behavior to stop, according to the letter of the law. I would argue that propositions for intimacy at work are harassment in at least 80% of cases, and it's debatable, but I'm not even really talking about that:
I'm talking about appropriateness and professionalism, things that draw an entirely different line, one that you've crossed long ago by the time you're making dick jokes at work.
Having a pink colored lynch mob and saying it is to please to a woman is sexist. Why something for women has to be pink?
What if my girlfriend hates pink? What if I have a boyfriend? Should I use blue colored pitchforks?
I just said that I'm a male because, sadly if a woman complains about things like that, they usually are insulted.
And I agree, pinkish theme is not sexist, but the color associated with the description and the name are.
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Anonymous2015-12-27 3:45
Why something for women has to be pink?
Because their pussies are pink.
Men get blue because that's the color of the bruises they leave on women when they beat them.
All in the natural order.
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Anonymous2015-12-27 15:14
>>41 Being unironic about wanting more girls in CS isn't that far fetched. Wanting your dating pool to grow is only natural as an heterosexual male. The boys-club culture is Reddit shit too.
That said, women should also do their part by not being so fucking dumb and vapid.
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Anonymous2015-12-27 15:31
>>45 If your dating pool is defined by the set of people who work in CS, you are a pretty pathetic loser.
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Anonymous2015-12-27 17:03
>>46 Why would you date anyone outside STEM fields? Do you have a fetish for braindead girls?
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Anonymous2015-12-27 19:03
>>47 Your medieval, conceited guild elitism further proves what a pathetic loser you are.
What the fuck, this is not the progressive Reddit you're thinking of. Do you also suffer because C is sooo hard? Would you rather smoke weed? Have fun with your burger flipping girlfriend.
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Anonymous2015-12-27 20:19
>>49 No, I just know that there are stupid people within STEM fields as well as intelligent people outside of them.
>>39 Does she tell young, inexperienced coders and interns that they've broken the Code of Conduct, then use that to blackmail them into coming to her dad's cabin and fucking each other in the boipussy?
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Anonymous2015-12-28 23:22
Realtalk, teams of combined men & women do bring more to the table in terms of finding better ways to solve problems than just men or just women. There's complementing interaction between the different ways men & women tend to think.
FYI, reddit is le STEM circlejerk "DAE women studis is stoopid???". Most of you would fit in right there, you're just a bit of jargon away from literally being reddit.
It might be best not to use the letter "C" here, as it's often considered to be an ableist slur. I think "Haskell" gets the desired idea across better.
More like generate profit your feudal lord you call your boss, right? It's a good thing that your entire value system is shaped by an elite that will never be reciprocate towards you. Sure makes it easier to exploit you in multiple ways. Remember to never question the system you're in, and keep making those web pages, you lousy monkey!
>>61 You want Marxism so you can be employed on the public's dime for use ypur nigger studies degreee to call whites racist. This is not useful, and I would rather have literal feudalism than live in a world where people like that got any respect. Those who do not work, should not eat.
Your value system oriented completely towards generating profit pleases your feudal lord. You're ``valuable'' and ``appreciated', simian.
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Anonymous2015-12-29 20:07
IIT: The guy from Neurotypical Idiots and the 4chan alpha monkey. Please go back to /lounge/ and your cage, respectively.
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Anonymous2015-12-29 21:10
>>63 Fuck off with your non-existent value judgments. Building cool shit is where it's at. Go do your gender-based navel gazing on the surface of the sun.
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Anonymous2015-12-29 22:22
>>46,48,50,54,61,63 Did 2 years of English in a shitty community college after realizing Women Studies would be a better choice
>>47,49,51,58,62 Dropped out of SE after reading a post on reddit about curryniggers getting a whopping $20k/yr for sucking hipster dick in shitty startups
You say that but you're going to end up building websites for transactional services or e-commerce solutions, because invariably, what you think is cool does not overlap with what money-holders deem useful. Which also might not overlap with what's useful for society. I'm actually tossing up whether to save up for post-graduate CS or just ditching CS altogether and studying an English major or some other humanities bullshit. Most recent CS graduates won't "build cool shit". I posted that marxist rant half-jokingly, but I'm actually really disheartened about the panorama as some average CS graduate. It's a shit world out there, and no one cares about you feeling fulfilled at your job. Certainly not your future employer.
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Anonymous2015-12-29 23:52
Don't Major In Computer Science
Major in Something Else and then Apply Computers
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Anonymous2015-12-30 1:34
>>54 Have you ever considered the people who don't want to live in a totalitarian society where they have to watch what they say lest someone be offended? Have you ever considered that maybe the reason the Thought Crime Police idea hasn't become so widespread and accepted by all (and with many people opposing it!) is because a majority of people don't wish to live in such a society?
I like my tech culture to be open. If you're offended, so what? Maybe I want a culture where people aren't so easily offended by every little thing and can learn to take a joke?
Have you ever thought about people like me? Or, because my opinion differs from yours, am I an immoral monster that should be ignored because your selfish wants and desires are superior to my own?
What about the people discouraged from joining the tech community because the loudest members are part of the San Francisco Thought Police and they don't want to be ostracized or ridiculed for their beliefs? Do THOSE people not matter?
Your opinion is just that: your opinion. Those who disagree with you aren't inherently wrong, they just have a different opinion than you.
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Anonymous2015-12-30 2:07
>>28 My apologies, I too am a bit flabbergasted how events in this thread turned out. The topic started as an innocent chatbot experiment, and somehow mutated into a containment place for all our new reddit friends and ni/g/ras.
While there's this blunt trauma for progriders, it might have interesting applications in the realm of computational linguistics (spam, shilling) so I politely ask to bear with the pain. Again, I'd like to profoundly apologize to progriders for the harm resulting from this reckless experiment.
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Anonymous2015-12-30 6:16
>>67 What do you mean I'm "going to end up building [shitty shit]"? I'm already building awesome stuff. Fuck you if you're too shit to get into cool stuff or forge your own, and fuck you if you're too stupid to leave a dead-end, soul-sucking company for greener pastures.
Have you ever considered that maybe the reason the Thought Crime Police idea hasn't become so widespread and accepted by all
I'm considering the idea that you people don't leave your basements, that's what I'm considering. I don't even know what would it be like to have my vision of the world so utterly crippled beyond remedy.
Truly, having the concept of the world being shaped solely by pseudonymous pundits on youtube and anonymous posts on Internet boards must be quite a sad thing to experience.
>>74 I read your argument, and I have to say I'm thoroughly impressed. Your sarcasm and the way you brought up the fact that I don't leave my basement really convinced me and now I am ready and able to accept your opinions and political ideology as my own. Thank you so much, for showing me the light. I don't know what I would have done without you.
>>75 It isn't even an argument, as much as it is a statement of facts.
I'm going to explain my post to you, because you're pretty dense: thinking that reddit is a representation of the population at large is laughably wrong. While it's certainly much larger than this piece of shit board, they represent but a segment of a very particular niche, namely white suburban tech-savvy males aged somewhere between 15 and 30 years old. To anyone viewing from the outside, the sort of people that frequent this place and the sort of people that frequent reddit are practically indistinguishable from one another, so using it as a basis for arguing that "THOUGH CRIME POLICE" is a "widespread" and "accepted by all" idea is pretty fucking retarded and only shows how horribly narrow your world vision is.
Thank you so much, for showing me the light. I don't know what I would have done without you.