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by malandrew
5159 days ago
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Do brogrammers really exist, or at least exist in any number great enough to worry? I've been to many software engineering meetups and whatnot and I have yet to meet anyone I would call a brogrammer. This stereotype feels more like a joke that has taken on a life of its own and the media likes to write about it like it is a legitimate widespread phenomenon, kind of like they like to portray climate change deniers as an equally large contingent within the scientific community as those scientists who support climate change theories based on human impact. |
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My take was that the 'brogrammer' joke was supposed to be a humorous way to conflate sexist geek boys-club culture with sexist frat boys-club culture. Relying on the stereotypical geek instinctive dislike of stereotypical bros to make them feel shame for being sexist jerks.
In that sense, 'brogrammers' don't really exist, but the undesirable behaviors absolutely do and absolutely are a problem.
I think the problem is that the joke was really immature and stirred up a lot of the "us vs them" social nonsense that isn't true and wasn't really necessary.
Plenty of geeks work out and do physical activities. Plenty of geeks were in fraternities. Plenty of geeks enjoy the socializing that gets lampooned as stereotypical frat-boy-stuff. And they may well not be 'brogrammers' in the sense of being discriminatory dicks - but we're on our way to making them an out-group and excusing stereotype reinforcement.