| HN Mirror

GP isn’t necessarily assuming bad faith. Suggesting that women are any more or less likely to be offended by something is Considered Harmful because it enforces gender binaries and stereotypes.

Most people don’t have malicious intent. The biggest reason that the tech industry is so infamously misogynistic is because people don’t actually know much about the issues of gender, and don’t really know what is misogyny.

Let me make this a little clearer and more to the point: suggesting that a company of 80% women would appreciate a mild dick joke in the context of whether or not the joke is safe for work is enforcing a gender binary that both separates women from men (by suggesting that there’s different senses of humor between them) and erases non-binary people. If you can think about it this way I’m pretty sure you can see why it’s also misogynistic even if you’re being “positive” towards women, as well as problematic in general, without GP needing any malicious intent whatsoever. And it could be avoided just as easily by being educated and aware.

This isn’t some sort of “snowflake” shit, either. We just live in a society that perpetuates these harmful gender stereotypes even during water cooler chit-chat, and the only way to change it is to point it out.

Please also assume good faith.

Edit: I don’t like the tone that I wrote this comment in, and so I want to make myself clear that I’m not trying to attack anybody either. My point is really that comments can be harmful without being written with malicious intent, and pointing it out when possible is important if anybody wants to see that aspect of society change.