[huxley]

The phrases have different connotations, so they aren't actually true opposites.

Take a different example, say you described Git as:

* a man's version control system

or let's say you described it as:

* a woman's version control system

The male/female "binary" doesn't make them opposite and using one doesn't cancel out the sexism in the other, they just are sexist in different ways.

[vectorpush]

Your example is not the same because your phrasing carries the implicit assumption that the version control system has qualities that make it explicitly suited for use by a specific gender. The two HN headlines are each describing parents; a group who are stereotypically characterized as being out of sync with the latest and greatest trends and advances. The reader has to take the extra step to interpret the headline as a subtly sexist chide, because there is nothing sexist about VCS and there is nothing sexist about the implication that your mother or father uses an outdated version of VCS software.

The male/female "binary" doesn't make them opposite

Yes, you're the best kind of correct, but let's not get caught up in semantics, the binary you so aptly point out is exactly what I'm taking about, 0 is the opposite of 1, and mom is the opposite of dad.

and using one doesn't cancel out the sexism in the other, they just are sexist in different ways.

This is only true if the use of feminine and masculine descriptions when discussing tech is inherently sexist, otherwise I don't see what either headline has to do with sex. Take your logic a little bit further and you might as well label gendered pronouns as sexist since they imply the sex of the subject.

[huxley]

I can't even begin to parse what you're saying here.

Mom is not the opposite of dad, they are just paired ideas. This isn't semantics, this is plain simple reality. We sometimes think of them as binaries but they aren't actually so.

The opposite of a Mom is a not-Mom, a concept which can include Dad but can also include a woman who hasn't had children.

"This is only true if the use of feminine and masculine descriptions when discussing tech is inherently sexist"

I wasn't arguing about anything being inherently sexist, I was arguing that it was contextually sexist. If you don't understand that words have connotations, people's reactions to sexism will always seem mysterious and arbitrary to you.

"Take your logic a little bit further and you might as well label gendered pronouns as sexist since they imply the sex of the subject"

You obviously don't understand my logic and are arguing about something completely different.

[meric]

It can also be sexist in different ways depending on the context in which the phrase is said.

A radical feminist programmer saying "Now THAT is a woman's version control system."

A brogrammer saying "Pshh. That's a woman's version control system."