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by rmrfrmrf 4838 days ago
> While I agree that there is a limit, I don't see how calling languages "estrogen" is offensive and I don't understand how calling a hat "cute" is offensive.

To be frank, you don't see these things as offensive because you're ignorant. I grew up in the same era as you did, and I'm guessing you just had the misfortune of not being asked to walk in another person's shoes. You go ahead and enjoy all that delicious privilege.

> I don't see how calling languages "estrogen" is offensive

When I first read this in the article, I cringed. Then, when he further tried to 'explain himself' with, "I was mostly making a joke about how seriously C++ programmers take themselves compared to Java programmers," I cringed even harder. IT'S OFFENSIVE TO SAY THAT ONLY MEN TAKE THEMSELVES SERIOUSLY IN PROGRAMMING. It boils down to men = serious and women = emotional, flippant, hysterical, etc. It's a horrible horrible analogy and quite frankly I'm surprised that didn't blow up in his face even more than it did.

> I don't understand how calling a hat "cute" is offensive.

Again, ignorance. Would you tell a male admiral that his hat was "cute"? This is a classic case of infantilizing women, which makes it seem like Grace Hopper's brilliant, groundbreaking work was just another finger painting that can be tacked onto the refrigerator. "Aww, look at what the cute little girly did! Go run along now and put away your EasyBake Oven."

5 comments

>> To be frank, you don't see these things as offensive because you're ignorant. I grew up in the same era as you did, and I'm guessing you just had the misfortune of not being asked to walk in another person's shoes. You go ahead and enjoy all that delicious privilege.

Amazing how you can write such stuff about someone that you never met. I'll just say you're dead wrong and not bother extrapolating.

The rest of your comment is representative of the very crap I am railing against. You're reading way to much into it and now you want to create drama and tons of deeper meaning into something means almost nothing at all.

EDIT: I just read your comment downstream about Affirmative Action. Fwiw, I am a white guy that went to an all-black school. When I say that, I mean, I was like 1/3 of the entire white population. Regardless, blacks didn't like AA either. I'll let you figure out why.

While we're enjoying our "delicious privilege", I hope you're similarly enjoying your oh-so-righteous victimization complex. Taking offense when no offense is intended is the very picture of being the fun police. You're the kid on the playground who would beg to be let into the game, but then run, crying, to tell his/her (see how neutral I'm being?) mother as soon as he/she got fouled, and then would complain when no one wanted to play with him/her. No one likes that kid.

>> It boils down to men = serious and women = emotional, flippant, hysterical, etc. It's a horrible horrible analogy and quite frankly I'm surprised that didn't blow up in his face even more than it did.

While perhaps not the most innocuous choice of words, testosterone is associated with aggression and strength because testosterone makes you aggressive[1] and strong[2]. Strictly speaking, his statement is not even talking about genders, it's talking about hormones.

[1] http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=tes..., among many others

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20061435 among many others.

Please be civil. I asked you nicely when you were complaining about death threats and you ignored it. I've flagged that comment and the three comments since then. This isn't the place for sarcasm, all-caps, insults, or flame wars.
>When I first read this in the article, I cringed. Then, when he further tried to 'explain himself' with, "I was mostly making a joke about how seriously C++ programmers take themselves compared to Java programmers," I cringed even harder. IT'S OFFENSIVE TO SAY THAT ONLY MEN TAKE THEMSELVES SERIOUSLY IN PROGRAMMING.

Disclaimer: not defending dizzystar.

The way I interpreted it was that, compared to Java programmers, C++ programmers have a "macho" attitude about being "real programmers," which as a phrase is riffing on the idea of the "real man." Again, not that women don't possess the quality "real" in any way whatsover, but just that I can't even think of what the female equivalent of macho is. Perhaps Bob Martin would have done better to say that the C++ community suffered from excessive testosterone. That's what I believe he was implying, but as he says, we're both just Wilson talking over the fence here.

Check your privilege