Hacker News Reader

The article itself notes that not all of these things are problems to/for all women/people. At some point you have to take that at face value. The writer finds these to be problems. Take it as a point of information.

Similarly, your 50+ year old coworker's use of "girls" is a point of information. I find it very weird and creepy when an older female co-worker calls me a "girl" in front of my boss, or says something like "We girls just need to do things a little differently, you know!" Weird and creepy, and no less sexist because it's from a lady.

(Apparently women her age, on the other hand, find "lady" somewhat... inappropriate....?)

Re: dark UI patterns and more, making things better for women makes things better for all users. Glad you seem to have noticed that. If you don't see why it should disproportionately drive off women, you should read/listen up a bit. For instance, direct messages on Twitter are different experiences for women and men: http://blog.ameliagreenhall.com/post/the-hand-on-the-knee-a-...

> The article itself notes that not all of these things are problems to/for all women/people...The writer finds these to be problems.

Excellent, looks like we all agree. These are specific problems faced by the writer. Then why on earth is the article titled "Ways Men in Tech are Unintentionally Sexist", rather than "Problem I have Faced in Tech and that Made Me Specifically Uncomfortable"?

> I find it very weird and creepy when an older female co-worker calls me a "girl" in front of my boss,

Yes, and I find it vaguely disquieting that feminists are trying to ban the word "sexy" in the workplace. That doesn't mean I'm going to write a hyperbolic article titled "Why Feminists in Tech are Extreme Puritans".

> (Apparently women her age, on the other hand, find "lady" somewhat... inappropriate....?)

Haha, one place where we agree totally. I have no idea. My quick guess is, being an older lady, it gives her a comfortable sense of youthfulness to say "Us girls", when she is slowly heading towards 60, and being called "Grandma" at home. But I think it's her choice, and I accept it as such.

> making things better for women makes things better for all users. Glad you seem to have noticed that.

Nope, I said quite the opposite. All users face these problems.

> For instance, direct messages on Twitter are different experiences for women and men: http://blog.ameliagreenhall.com/post/the-hand-on-the-knee

That post in itself opens a can of hornets, so I'd like not to go too deep into it. Twitter has an option to stop DMs from people you don't follow, and that article does nothing to educate people about that option. Instead, it makes the sexist, ageist, Puritanical statement that "older men DM'ing younger women on Twitter is 'creepy'" with quasi-religious fervour.

> 4. Using a default male avatar How do you decide if an avatar is male? Jeans and T-shirts do not a male make in this day and age. I am not quite certain how you would distinguish between a non-gendered and gendered avatar.

If you can't tell the difference, then there is no problem. Obviously that is not the concern here. The human brain has evolved for millions of years the ability to distinguish gender and understand iconography. Maybe you should actually think about the problem before dismissing it with a straw-man.

> 5. Describing software or algorithms as “sexy”, “hot”, etc. According to the author, this creates a "college frat-boy environment". I would argue that outlawing normal adult words like "sexy" and "hot" creates more of an infantilized classroom environment where you are essentially saying "Hey, don't say that bad word in front of the girls, or you'll get punished." Using "sexy" to refer to a well-designed, sleek new website is, in my opinion, perfectly reasonable.

It's called professionalism. Do you know what that word means?

> 10. Using dark UI patterns. This is a problem for all users. I don't see why this should disproportionately drive women off. If it is, the solution lies in more privacy education and outreach, not bashing people who write the software.

This is addressed in the article. If you force people to use their real names and women are already disproportionately the target of privacy violations, then it does more damage to women than to men to have such a UI. If someone is being heckled or stalked and they can't shut that down efficiently, then they will stop using your service.

> Maybe you should actually think about the problem before dismissing it with a straw-man.

This is not a straw man. There has been at least one event where Adria Richards, a well-known feminist, mistakenly started a witch hunt by incorrectly assuming that the stick figures drawn by a (female) designer were specific genders. [1][2]

> It's called professionalism. Do you know what that word means?

Yes, to the average person it usually means "Yawn, I'm going to have to sit through a 2-hour lecture from someone telling me not to say 'sexy' in front of my co-workers. What is this, 1842? Meanwhile I wish we'd replace our piece-of-crap JSP website with something sexier." That is the sense in which sexy is used. It's not about sex.

> women are already disproportionately the target of privacy violations

This is a sweeping, and in my opinion incorrect, assertion. I would like to see some data on this. Just having the media write stories about women being harassed on Twitter because it makes good copy, doesn't mean that men aren't harassed too, in equal measure.

----------

[1] http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/comment-page-1/#com...

[2] https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

I've never actually heard the term "mom" or "grandma" used in that case. Why not just "non-technical user," "less savvy user," "our average user," etc? I don't understand the point of bringing up the specific example.

People do it because it's shorter and more colorful. Count the syllables in your suggestions.