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Comment by Smithalicious | Hacker News Reader

I don't think "smol pp" is meant to be unfriendly to women, but it's telling that men are expected to self-police such utterly innocuous jokes when women are present even though you couldn't find a phrase less applicable to women if you tried.

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Oh I'm sure it's not meant to be unfriendly to women. It's meant to be unfriendly to men, who are the only people reading the article, in the author's mind. You do see the problem, yes?

...no? I'm pretty sure men don't have a problem putting down other men in front of women.

If you’re writing a piece like this, you’re naturally going to pick an insult that will land with your audience, right? If you read an article where the author says “that’s training bra thinking,” obviously the author is envisioning women reading the article. If you read an article where the author says “that’s smol pp way of thinking,” obviously the author is envisioning men reading the article. That was all I was saying: I was just reading along and suddenly I was reminded that I’m in an industry where men write articles for men, and any women who happen to show up really aren’t expected to be there.

> If you read an article where the author says “that’s training bra thinking,” obviously the author is envisioning women reading the article. If you read an article where the author says “that’s smol pp way of thinking,” obviously the author is envisioning men reading the article.

Again... no?

If you read an article where the author says "that's training bra thinking", the author is female.

If you read one where the author says "that's smol pp thinking", the author is male.

All right then. What a fascinating way of looking at the world.

If I make a joke about hammering a nail with a screwdriver in an article, I'd not feel like I'm implicitly excluding people who do not own a screwdriver.

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