Slashdot Mirror
A Software Project Full of "Male Anatomy" Jokes Causes Controversy
An anonymous reader writes with the story of a Github user's joke repository that is causing some controversy. "There's no question that the tech world is an overwhelmingly male place. There's legit concern that tech is run-amok with 'brogrammers' that make women programmers feel unwelcome. On the other hand, people just want to laugh. It's at that intersection that programmer Randy Hunt, aka 'letsgetrandy' posted a 'project' earlier this week to software hosting site GitHub called 'DICSS.' The project, which is actual free and open source software, is surrounded by geeky jokes about the male anatomy. And it's gone nuts, so to speak, becoming the most trending project on Github, and the subject of a lot of chatter on Twitter. And, Hunt tells us, the folks at Github are scratching their heads wondering what they should do about it. Some people love DICSS ... and some people are, understandably, offended. The offended people point out that this is exactly the sort of thing that makes tech unwelcoming to women, and not just because of the original project, but because of some of the comments (posted as "commits") that might take the joke too far."
Actually find the male anatomy to be hilarious...
Since when is it the task of others to make one feel comfortable? Do alcohol jokes make recovering alcoholics uncomfortable? Do displays of wealth make the poor feel uncomfortable? Do candy aisles in supermarkets make dieters uncomfortable? Do dogs make victims of dog-attacks uncomfortable?
Why do women constantly get to claim they feel uncomfortable and expect the world to rush in and see to it that reality meets with their expectations?
She keeps wanting me to write a new operating system called PENIX.
It's not so much a brogrammer thing as a controversy between us low brow folks and snooty people who pretend that our dick jokes and fart jokes aren't hilarious.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I feel like that it is borderline in this case, it is not a commercial product but an open source project, you may not agree but shouldn't they be able to run their own project how they want ?
Does this infringe some kind of law in the US ?
Don't you know it is now both immoral and criminal to think beyond the next quarterly report?
http://theshake.com.au/wp-cont...
People need to lighten the hell up.
Yes, we should make women welcome in FOSS. That doesn't mean we can't enjoy a good laugh at the same time. We all need to stop with this BS #activistmorality
Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
Taking offense has become a powerful political tool.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
A little dirty humor "is controversial" in the United States and probably would be in, say, Iran. But there are cultures that consider talking about sex totally harmless. I know that's a foreign idea in a country where you can lose your job or, conceivably, end up in court or even prison for making a harmless joke at the wrong time or in front of the wrong person. Cultures that aren't so uptight are superior to ours.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding
I'd encourage you to listen to the story as well.
> can you please explain why it is so difficult to refrain from inappropriate jokes in an office environment?
A project on github, put together by people who are not being paid, is not an office environment.
As someone who has worked in more than just the IT industry...
Your argument (TL;DR): IT is not respected because of "crap like this" and extrapolate to sexual harassment in the workplace.
1. It is humans across all industries that do this. IT is actually one of the better ones. Try working as a construction worker or in a law firm or hedge fund, or a flight attendant.
2. I used the word humans in point 1, because it is not just across industries, it is BOTH genders. Women objectify men all the time as well.
3. Your leap from harmless juvenile jokes to overt harassment is a lovely slippery slope fallacy. Juvenile humour (especially self mocking humour) and gender bias are quite independent of each other. Both women and men make dick jokes. If you don't know any then congratulations on having such a mature social circle, you must be proud.
This is a hard topic which should be discussed at length!
Should we have a vagina joke project too?
A software project, absolutely not. But a Broadway show would be OK.
There is no right to create a hostile working environment for women.
A 'random' github repository isn't a hostile working environment. For that matter, why do we automatically assume that sexual jokes are 'hostile' towards women? Even when they're for anatomy that women typically don't have?
Why do we assume that women don't have a sense of humor and men aren't offended, apparently, by anything?
Many of the women I've worked with are just fine with a certain amount of humor. Dick jokes all day would get boring quickly, but if you have a 'joke of the day' board that pulls from a list of jokes that include everything from 'why'd the chicken cross the road' to 'your mama' to George Carlin thoughts, to 'How NOT to get your ass beat by the police', and containing about 1% jokes that can be considered sexual, is 3-4 sexual jokes a year creating a hostile environment? Or perhaps I should say, would preventing those 3-4 jokes a year going to create a more hostile environment?
As for your frat house arms race - yeah, that's going overboard, ala my 'dick jokes all day' example. Extremism is bad, everything in moderation(including moderation).
I don't read AC A human right
There is no right to create a hostile working environment for women.
I remember a workplace turned into a nightmare for men - at least the normal guys. The guys everyone knew harassed women? not a change.
After being told that "Whatever a woman considers Sexual Harassment is sexual harassment turned the workplace into one where men avoided women at all costs, had witnesses to protect themselves, and made the US-Russia cold war look like a honeymoon, What manner of workplace was that?
All came to a head one day, when HR came down to tell a machinist he had to remove the photo of a cheerleader he posted on his toolbox. Apparently it was offensive to some women.
He refused. Was that sexually objectifying women, and therefore offensive?
It was his daughter, who was a cherleader in high school.
Now as apocryphal as that sounds, it did happen. And a not too long later, they made the harassment guidlelines much more realistic. Apparently most of the women really hated them as well. THey had interesting commentary on the women who were originally in charge of the program, one that you might think only evil men would make. But even that is telling.
This is why blanket statements as "creating a hostile work environment for women" is so broad as to be unworkable. Two of my friends at work were the dirtiest minded, crude sexual innuendo joke telling women I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. Both found the draconian regulations very very uncomfortable. And if you thik that seeing a acronym makes for a hostile work environment, try working in a place where everone is scared shitless of you, finding you the equivalent of a hand grenade with the pin already pulled.
So what you are really saying is that we should not be allowed to make the workplace hostile to women who are offended by any mention of sex. It's really catering to the thinnist skinned individuals when you make acronyms illegal. There is a fundamental problem of catering to the lowest denominator.
I wonder if we should make the workplace less hostile to Muslim men who are offended by seeing women not in Burkhas? Are they not just as offended and is it not about sex?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Or, maybe you could just be a little bit professional and don't use software projects to make jokes about anyone's anatomy.
Not all software projects are professional ones. There are projects "just for fun", as well. I think that's where this project lies.
Nobody should use it as-is for a professional project.
If you want to do that, then fork it first and clean out the inappropriate comments.
What you want is an environment that is hostile to men. Offended by this project? WTF are you doing nosing around the project? Offended by strippers? WTF are you doing nosing around strip clubs and the like? Offended by foul language? Why are you listening? Offended by... well, you get the idea. You don't like something, don't pay money for it, don't support it, don't publicize it, don't bother with it, etc. Find something you DO support and do something you find to be positive. Otherwise, yes, you're going to be offended, and it's your own stupid fault.
Until someone messes with your wallet, your person, your reputation, your family in like manner, or your property, your right to exert control ends on property you have control of (which usually means you own or rent it.) Other than that, you can say anything you want, anywhere you want but on property others rent or own where you are not, and should not be, in control, and sane people will roundly ignore you.
Because there truly is not, and should not be, any right "not to be offended." Pull up your big girl panties and buck the heck up. The world is not made of sugar and spice, and every effort you undertake to make it so is a Very Bad Idea.
Push your controlling ideas too far, and someone will eventually push back. Odds are you really won't enjoy it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.