[durandal1]

I generally agree, I really do. However, I also feel that the entire article shares a very personal perspective of running a home lab - and that personal perspective is probably having a wife which sometimes gets annoyed by blinky stuff in plain sight. And when we remove that personal perspective, we also lose..personality which I desperately appreciate in a world where most things are hyper professional and polished to the point where it feels...soulless and bland.

I would would have have no problem reading an article which makes jokes about the husband being driven to insanity by home server, I would have appreciated the diversity of perspective.

[jijijijij]

Yes, of course, there is a chance that's "just" the experience. But these remarks tend to fall into the always same sexist, normative stereotypes - usually the only occurrence of "woman" in the story. In any case, the author does know he isn't exactly the first one to make that joke... In the end his experience may be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Communication does not happen in a vacuum, how something could be perceived usually is considered on some level - the author may not have seen it as a problem... which kinda is the problem.

Honestly, I wouldn't want for anyone to act the way pro forma either, or think the author has done anything wrong, or even misogynistic, as others have suggested.

It isn't something wrong, it is unfortunate. I think these jokes are sad, because any author would have an imaginary reader in mind, someone who might find the joke funny. And I don't think that imaginary reader is a woman, here - and it shows. So, for any woman reading these "boy's club" guides and write-ups, they will always feel othered, always have to overcome these tiny, but omnipresent obstacles in the way of their (new & fragile) interests. (Radiolab's 'Alone enough' episode comes to mind[1])

I just wish, people would introspect their motivations and intentions behind those remarks some. And especially when writing a guide, maybe consider if the take is worth discouraging even one girl's newly found interest in computers and blinky chaos, because her projected role as the opposition has just been reproduced sufficiently to stick. I wish authors would be aware of the problem implicitly alienating some readers by these reproductions, so writing welcoming texts to everyone would be intrinsic motivation.

[1] https://radiolab.org/podcast/alone-enough