[DarkShikari]

Othering. Get that word into your head, and keep it there. Othering.

Othering is when you make someone feel as if they don't belong in a community, that they're different from other people there. Making stupid (racist) Asian jokes about the only Chinese-American member of your team. Writing flyers that assume that your entire audience consists of a certain type of heterosexual man. Even something small, like constantly poking at the fact that one of your fellow hackers also has an MBA. The list is endless.

Usually it's best to not call attention to such things at all, even in a positive way. Telling someone how awesome they are for being different is still making a big deal about how different they are, as opposed to helping them fit into your group.

All of these things make those people feel as if they don't belong on your team or in your community. It doesn't matter if you think it's "in good fun" or "just a joke". It doesn't matter if you think "oh, it's not really sexist". It makes people feel unwelcome. It's dumb, pointless, and it's the responsibility of any hacker to just not do it.

Othering can happen in any community that is dominated by a relative homogenous group. It turns off many hackers who might want to work with you. There is nothing inherently "straight upper-middle-class Caucasian male" about wanting to build a working product; stop acting like there is.

[Volpe]

I think you need to moderate this view slightly.

Whilst yes, ostracising people doesn't help. Humour and sarcasm are effective team building/social tools, and "sledging" or "poking fun" are effective ways to build long term teams. Just spend time in any sports team (male/female/mixed) and you'll see this kind of joking around is abundant, and actually helps the team (not hinder it).

I think it is more nuanced than you say, humour has to be combined with empathy to make sure you aren't offending, but at the same time, making light of differences with people helps people see past those difference (obviously within reason).

[ironchef]

OTOH, if it's the same humor and sarcasm towards the same "target" groups, it gets old fast...and can be seen as systemic.

[bdr]

Well said. I think there can be an element of subconscious, monkey-brain motivation behind that kind of behavior. Less status for them means more for you. At least sometimes — this flyer looks more just plain dumb.

[Confusion]

I mostly agree: I just think you are taking this attitude too far with the example of the MBA, unless you very consciously included that word 'constantly' there.

If I'm the only one in my company that does martial arts, I can expect jokes about having to be careful when having an argument with me. If you have a nest of pet snakes or always cook the same lunch or have an MBA, you can expect specific jokes, when contextually relevant. These things differ from being Asian or a woman in the fact that they are choices people made and that these choices can be considered reflections of this person.

Of course you can take the pointing out of such differences too far, to the point where it seems you feel this person is defined by a specific difference, as you constantly point it out. In acceptable quantities, making jokes and laughing together is quite healthy and it would be a shame to do without, even if you are yourself the subject of the joke.

[chernevik]

No. I have no need of your specialized political vocabulary. The literature of our culture are way ahead of you: "Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Exodus 23:9

[MartinCron]

Thanks for sharing this word. Like the similar term "microaggression", HN is the first I've heard it, and it really helps to illustrate the fallacy of the "oh, it's not a big deal if we have women bring us beer" crowd.

[srl]

Take what I say with a few grains of salt - I'm one of those weirdos whose always tried to be at least a little bit different - to avoid ever becoming wholly "in". But, in my experience, othering isn't going to drive people away, not in any significant numbers. Sure, it can make people feel uncomfortable in the wrong context, and cause social tension, but so can criticizing ideas, or mocking political parties. What you call "othering" can just as often help people feel that they /do/ fit in, by demonstrating that what makes them "different" does not in fact make a difference to anyone else.

Look at it this way: differences do exist, and they're going to be acknowledged, even if they're totally inconsequential. Artificially suppressing occasional acknowledgment of differences - race, height, gender, religion, and sexual orientation being, I think, the "big five" - isn't going to do anyone any good. I would make the case that jokes about these are in fact important in any "accepting" (or whatever buzzword we're using today) culture, and that failing to ever acknowledge them in "polite conversation" only teaches that these differences are a bad thing. Which isn't the right message.

I think you're probably (P =~ 70%) talking about the qualitatively different phenomenon in which a single member is repeatedly singled out for othering on a daily basis - but it's easy to confuse the two, especially when focusing on something as subjective as language and social interactions. However, the latter (let's call it "bigotry", shall we) tends to come with other symptoms that do more direct harm - let's address them directly.

[DarkShikari]

But, in my experience, othering isn't going to drive people away, not in any significant numbers.

Are you a straight white male? If so, you probably shouldn't be generalizing your own experience to everyone who isn't.

Try talking with some people who aren't. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one of many examples of people who have spoken out on this topic, and there are many open source advocates who can give you their own experiences. Lydia Pintscher of the KDE project (and author of "Open Advice") has much experience with communities and such problems.

Artificially suppressing occasional acknowledgment of differences

Nobody ever asked you to do that.

only teaches that these differences are a bad thing.

If someone wants to make a point of a difference they're proud of, they'll do it themselves. Don't force it upon them!

[srl]

> Are you a straight white male?

Close. Bisexual. Good guess though. /sarcasm

> If someone wants to make a point of a difference they're proud of, they'll do it themselves. Don't force it upon them!

I fundamentally disagree with this. That's not to say that people should be dragged kicking and screaming into acknowledgment of trivial differences, but occasionally being reminded, in a friendly environment, that those differences do exist - and more importantly, that nobody cares - is incredibly important.

(Of course, some people do care, and that's a problem. But you don't get it fixed by attacking the surface symptoms!)

This is the sort of argument liable to rapidly descend into flaming, and I'm happy to leave it here if you are. ;-) (Although I will bring it up again the next time another one of these links is posted.)

[einhverfr]

Ok, I am going to share my story here regarding the comment below that got downvoted.

FWIW, I still feel constrained by the hetero-normal taboos of our society, and the fact is that this happened after I was already married and was reading while caring for my second child. However..... I was spending two hours a day reading while taking care of my second child (feeding him, holding him while he was asleep, etc. Wonderful times.

Anyway, I was reading Plutarch's "Life of Lycurgas" where he talks at length about sexuality in ancient Sparta. Plutarch is a witty and very interesting ancient author. I have enjoyed reading most of the works I have read by him. Anyway, he talks at length about the social functions of pederasty (from other sources, presumably non-penetrative) and wife-swapping in ancient Sparta, and the upshot is that both of these have to be seen, if we take him seriously, as back-bone institutions on which Sparta's political structure was built (reading van Gennep's "The Rites of Passage" has only further solidified this view in my head btw).

Anyway, this brought up an interesting question for me. In our culture we say that sexual orientation is something people are born with but is that really true? How fluid is this really? Logically, the only answer I could provide given the material I had read was that it had to be fairly fluid, and that if I was born in such a society, I would probably be happy living out these norms. That puzzled me for a bit.

But then the realization hit, and that was that these things are deeply fluid. You can't cure someone from being "gay" and make them "straight" because these are both artificial restraints. And all the sudden, the male body became erotic for me. The female body never lost the eroticism attached, but I began to see how sexualized the male body could be also.

So I don't know what these categories even mean anymore.

[einhverfr]

"Are you a straight white male?"

I can't speak for the other guy but I was until I discovered through reading history how artificial a concept that was.....

[einhverfr]

A couple points.... Keep in mind that I may be different because I start to worry about the people I am with if I fit in too much. I actually prefer to be a liminal figure (look it up).

First, humor is a way of managing tensions. It can create, dissolve, and transform tension from one form into another.

One of the real problem trends in America today, IMO, is rewarding hypersensitivity to taking offense. The problem is that it is possible to deconstruct a sufficiently large corpus by anyone to find something arguably worth taking offense to by today's standards. Thin skin should not be rewarded, but that's what happens when we focus on the negative side and place all the onus for change there.

A better approach is focusing on the positive side. Welcome people to your team and empower them. Trust them. Where they have relevant differences (that MBA on your hacker team) take that into account perhaps making him a go-to-person for business questions relating to the software? Focus on being what you want to be, not avoiding bat things. That means that jokes, etc. are far more likely to be offered in good faith and taken in good faith than they are if tensions are already of a bad kind.

LedgerSMB under my leadership has done quite well with a very diverse group of contributors. Nearly a third of our committers and contributors over the history of the project are women (noteworthy because that approaches commercial software development gender gaps rather than the larger gaps of open source), and we have people contributing from at least 5 continents (none from Africa yet to my knowledge). In the process we've had contributors whose countries were talking about going to war with eachother a few years ago (Colombia and Venezuela).

Moreover one could take your approach to othering to the other extreme, welcoming a talented woman as "one of the guys." Even assuming this has a welcoming effect, would this really reduce the level of sexism in place if the environment is male-normal?

[srl]

More good points, from a more practical, small-scale perspective than I can give. Thank you.

I find it interesting that you describe yourself as preferring to be a liminal figure, as do I (know that I know the word - which my spell-checker still does not), and we're both getting DV'd to oblivion on this one.

[einhverfr]

Being liminal can be lonely, but it is also powerful.

Have you read Victor Turner's works on the subject btw?

[srl]

No - thanks for the pointer. (Typo in my last comment - s/know that I know/now that I know/.)

[sneak]

Obligatory link to Harrison Bergeron: http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html

[tomp]

On some level, I agree with you, but on some, I don't... I'm actually really confused about what to think/what is right, I hope to clarify my mind by writing this down.

1) Why do words matter so much? I often use derogatory terms to refer to people, even my friends. I do it for fun (like black people calling each other "niggas" (at least in the movies, I assume also in real life))! I often do it to apparently offend someone, just to reverse it immediately after that by saying/doing something positive. Actually, I would be really offended if someone would put so much emphasis on my words as to completely disregard my actions! Sure, as you say, it can make some people feel unwelcome, but in reality, I sometimes want them to feel unwelcome, not because they are different, but simply because they prefer words over actions. I don't want to be around such people.

2) Sometimes, people just are different, and it's really strange to deny that. I live in Slovenia, and black people are really rare here (as are Hispanic; Asians are less rare, they come as tourists a lot). That means that when I see a black person, he will be different. I will almost certainly stare at him, maybe even comment that he's black. That doesn't mean, however, that I will treat him any differently when it comes to business. When I studied in England for a year, I didn't feel that black people were different. I actually had a black man as a roommate, and it was really great to see that his skin color didn't matter to him in any essential way, just as it didn't to me. (Attractive women are different too, I like watching them and doing things with them! But it has nothing to do with being her a woman, it has everything to do with her being attractive.)

3) If I understood you post correctly, pointing out that one of your fellow hackers also has an MBA would be something he would be ashamed of... The thing is, I think you cannot really make other people feel bad, you can only make them feel worse, when they already feel bad. An MBA person could also be proud of his MBA, and then nothing anyone would say could insult him; he wouldn't even interpret this as insults! I sometimes feel this about fat people... I have nothing against people being fat - be my guest, it's your body! However, only when they are perfectly OK with it! But I'm really annoyed when someone is fat and is whining about how they can't lose weight no matter how hard they try... Well, guess what, you didn't try hard enough (there are other priorities that are more important in your life). So, either try harder (get your priorities straight), or accept yourself (accept that losing weight is not your priority). Again, it doesn't matter if someone's fat or not, what matters is their lack of resolve.

[dagw]

you cannot really make other people feel bad

You can however make them feel unwelcome. By continually hassling someone about their MBA (or race or gender or sexual preference or how they dress or whatever) you are effectively saying that you'd rather have someone without that particular feature, but for now we're stuck with you so we'll have to make do until we can fix that problem.

Feeling like no one in you group really wants you around, but are forced to put with you, will quickly break down most people.