[rayiner]

I feel that to an extent the above article misses the point. It strains to draw this distinction of "remember that women want to be treated like people in a work context but also that women are different than men and you should remember that too." Its exhausting and puts the emphasis on the wrong place.

You know why people like Adria Richards are hypersensitive about dick jokes? Because women are a minority in programming and being a minority sucks. If there were as many female CEOs as male CEOs in tech and we knew as little about Marissa Mayer's child-care situation as we do about Jeff Bezos's, nobody would give a fuck about dick jokes. Women aren't the minority in tech because men make dick jokes--(some) women are sensitive about men making dick jokes because they are in the minority. When people don't feel awkwardly self conscious about their place in the power dynamic, they are free to laugh at jokes like a normal person.

Fix the representation problem and all of this will take care of itself.

[azov]

I still don't understand your logic. What is it about being a minority that makes one sensitive to dick jokes?

[nilkn]

I think he's saying that being a minority and feeling like a minority makes you sensitive to basically everything. Dick jokes just happen to get included in that.

Not sure I agree, but that is how I interpreted his post anyway.

[azov]

There are many other minority groups who seem to be perfectly ok with locker room humor.

[baby]

> being a minority sucks

Well that's the thing with this community. We think we're clever enough to avoid basic human nature and NOT discriminate a minority. I believe this can happen with dedication and extreme stories like the pycon's one to remind us of how being a minority sucks when people act too human.

> Fix the representation problem

You mean fix the mentality.

[joshontheweb]

No, I think he meant what he said. If there wasn't an unbalanced representation of genders, the sensitivity would be less because there would be less self consciousness about your gender in the situation.

[baby]

You can't always fix the numbers. There will always be a minority, women, black people, blue eyed people...

[rayiner]

You can fix the numbers for gender, considering they are in fact the majority of the population. There is no associated power disparity for blue eyed people. Racial minorities will always present a problem.