[belluchan]

I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things."

Using "bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender. It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic. You're not taking this serious. I'm guessing because you haven't any idea of how soul crushing it can be to see this kind of behavior in the workplace when you're at the other end. It fucking sucks.

[pstack]

Now, we're just being pedantic. I guess this is what we do on a lazy Saturday morning when we all just have to be offended and aghast at something.

I don't even know what you're talking about with "soul crushing it can be to see this kind of behavior in the workplace". What behavior? naming a tool "bro"? Are you serious?

I work with grown ups. Men and women of every age, background, and geography. They would take issue with cat-calls, gross innuendo, propositioning, and many other things. Not a single one of them would lose their shit over "bropages". You know, because we're all adults and have developed this sense of "things that matter" and "things that are trivial" and "things that don't even register".

Of course, this seems to be half the current content of HN. Every day, long diatribes about the horrors of sexism that restate the same old bullshit and gets everyone worked up with no further understanding or patience derived from them.

[reallyseriously]

You've nailed it here. Sexism and racism, etc. are serious issues but some people, for whatever reason, have lost all sense of perspective.

[FreezerburnV]

To be fair, some people actually use "bro" as an neutral term. I call my wife "bro" all the time, she called one of her (female) students bro, etc.

And I'm not trying to downplay any bad behavior by people you've had to interact/work with. Pretty much anything can be used in a negative way in a specific context, and people can be huge jerks. I'm merely trying to say that words which you think are offensive to one gender, can be used as a completely neutral term without any subtext other than friendliness. It's really a shame that this word has become so negative to you.

[chrisrhoden]

It's really a shame that in the community with which you are currently participating, the word has acquired so many negative associations; I agree.

I also call my (female) SO "bro" – in addition to a broad range of friends and family – in specific contexts. But I would never consider the word neutral or inclusive in the context of the tech community. Too much baggage. If any of the people I call "bro" were programmers plugged into the same world we are currently plugged into, I would not do it, period.

The fact that everyone in this thread came into this with knowledge of the term "brogrammer" suggests to me that there shouldn't be much of an argument, but I guess that's just wishful thinking.

[teh_klev]

As soon as I saw the title I knew there'd be this brouhaha. For over twenty years my circle of male friends have been calling each other "bro", my female pals call their brothers "bro". All this was way before "bro" was misappropriated as a term of offence just because of one word - "brogrammer". This thread has seriously deviated into the twilight zone of reductio ad absurdum.

[oneeyedpigeon]

I'm pretty sure the term "bro" was being used in particularly boneheaded circles as a term of misogynistic 'banter' way before the word 'brogrammer'.

[teh_klev]

Must be an American thing then, I'm European, for me "bro" is just short for brother and it is a term of endearment. It's not hard for english speaking humans all around the world to arrive at a natural abbreviation such as "Bro" without being exposed to isolated pockets of misuse. We certainly did.

I'll continue to use the word "bro" because in my timezone (and on a few on either side) it's not a term of offence.

[Niten]

I appreciate your intent, but this line of reasoning about the implications of the term "bro" seems like a huge stretch to me. Being a male, should I likewise feel personally offended by the Emacs woman command, which is a similar and equally "exclusive" pun on man pages?

http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/woman/ind...

[lhnz]

Are you winding me up?

Was man also misogynistic?

Besides:

    curl --header "X-GirlsAreBrosToo: 1" www.bropages.org

[mtrimpe]

You're shitting us right? Manpages referred to manuals, not men.

But given that I'm obviously swimming against the tide here at HN I'll just cave .....

Word, brah! Like, totally right on! We should be making like 'sispages' next with like only explanations and shit. Get it? For like the sissy-grammers! Awesome dude. You da bomb!

[pstack]

I can't tell if people here are being intentionally thick or not.

"Is bro supposed to be sexist or is it meant to be ironic?"

"Man referred to manual, not men!"

I can't even imagine many of you people watching a stand-up comic. Your heads must verge on exploding. The diagram for the pun/humor here would be about as simple as a diagram could be.

[neumann]

Well, bad comedy is still bad. Much like the naming of this idea.

The term is already reserved for a subgroup that celebrates itself for being exclusionary, crass and insistently unreflective about its privilege in society.

[pstack]

It has been a casual term of friendship and acknowledgement between guys for even longer than it has been a douche-bag-frat-boy-sleazy-programmer reference, however. There's not really any need to associate every occurrence of the word "bro" with that, unless it is clearly intended to do so (which, maybe this is, I wouldn't know).

I just know that getting irate over this, at the moment, is like losing your crap over someone including a "manifest" file with their software.

People gotta calm down and not be so jumpy. There's enough intentionally offensive and exclusionary stuff going on in our world without assuming everything else is, too.

Not to say I disagree with you about the way it is often used, though. Nothing more grating than playing a game and hearing a bunch of teenagers say "bro" and "brah" thirty-seven times per minute.

[nknighthb]

> It has been a casual term of friendship and acknowledgement between guys for even longer than it has been a douche-bag-frat-boy-sleazy-programmer reference, however.

In my entire life, I have only heard "bro" come from the mouths of bullying douche-bag frat-boy sleazes, usually while telling me the assault they just committed against me was "just a joke". It has never come from anyone I would willingly subject myself to.

[reallyseriously]

One of the top headlining comedians in the US talks about this. Some people will be having a great time at his show and laughing at everything. But, then when it comes around to something about them, all of the sudden it's not so funny anymore. If you don't understand how absurd that is, you don't understand comedy.

Hopefully you realize that your personal experience and everything you load into the word "bro" is not universal.

[dreamfactory2]

Do you have any sources for the existence of this subgroup you could share?

[smtddr]

>>I can't even imagine many of you people watching a stand-up comic.

For the record, I think comedians like Louis CK & Dave Chappelle do society a disservice by making serious issues into trivial jokes but that's just me. So yeah, there are some people out there who can't watch those types of stand-up comics. I also believe the term "brogrammer" and the issues of sexism in tech has pretty much taken over the term "bro" whether you like it or not. The word "gay" originally means "happy", but it would be absurd to use it today and expect people to interpret it with that definition now. In the world of sports, "bro" probably still just means "Come on, bro!"... but in tech, the term has taken a new definition. To officially use that term in the tech-sphere and pretend you don't know the negative ideas it brings to mind is ignorant/insensitive at best, or just plain terrible & purposely malicious at worse.

____

Disclaimer: I'm not going to debate this so don't bother replying me asking pedantic questions or setting up hypothetical situations. Everyone has a bar for sensitivity & respect. I think yours is too low, you probably think mine is way too high. I'm sure you have a bunch of friends/coworkers that agree with you and I have a bunch that agree with me. Don't know where that leaves us... but there you go. Just adding a data point. Off I go...

[wonderzombie]

Why should anyone's head explode? A stand-up comic who isn't funny pisses off the audience, it's incredibly painful to watch, and the comic doesn't get invited back.

[ItendToDisagree]

Seems to work for Dane Cook pretty well doesn't it?

Ba Dum Chhhh!

In all seriousness though "funny" is in the eye of the beholder. Jon Benjamin and Mitch Hedberg both tell what amount to non-jokes and have intentionally unfunny standup on occasion and that's actually their whole gig.

[wonderzombie]

This is in part why I inserted the "invited back" clause. :)

[DanBC]

I have this really funny cat picture. We'll vectorise it and use it for the logo. Because, lol, funny, right?

[lhnz]

Yes, I was kidding about 'man', but my point is that 'bro' isn't that exclusionary.

In fact, I think the problem here is that a lot of geeks don't like 'bros' and I am doubting that they're hated by women as much. Personal opinion here, but: a lot of women have friends that are bros; a lot fewer geeks have friends that are bros.

[couchand]

Curious that you seem to think that women and geeks are mutually exclusive groups...

[lhnz]

No I didn't say that. I think that is completely false.

>> A lot of geeks don't like 'bros' and I am doubting that they're hated by women as much. Personal opinion here, but: a lot of women have friends that are bros; a lot fewer geeks have friends that are bros.

I think women that are geeks also have fewer 'bro' friends.

Geek is a property of men and women, it is not a mutually-exclusive group.

Nice try, trying to implicate me in sexism but I do not like it when people try to read things into what I say that I've never implied. I intended one thing, stop trying to use it against me...

What I am saying is that I think a group of non-genderised geeks define the label 'bro' by its negative connotations more so than the greater super set of non-geeks (even those which are of the female gender.) It's a case of a new set of people 'bros' joining another set of people 'geeks'; it's exactly the same group behaviour as you see when people from different cultures immigrate into a country; same us-vs-them group behaviour; same magnification and amplification of negative connotations.

A bro is just a stereotype. People are people and you should get to know them first before rejecting them (and especially if there are negative behaviours that you want to treat.)

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

If people are often reading sexist intent into your words maybe you ought to consider the possibility that the things you are writing are, in fact, sexist. Or be more careful.

[wildgift]

Yes. Geek culture isn't about being a bro. When I think about "bros" I think about guys who party, and then let someone else do the work. It's about power disguised as being carefree. Geek culture is about a kind of unification of mind and action. It's also about creativity within traditions.

[001sky]

Exactly...this is merley trend_bastardization...not original thinking.

...but hey #1 on HN...

Let's call it a "growth hack", bro ;D

[chrisrhoden]

> Was man also misogynistic?

man is short for manual. What is bro short for?

[cdcarter]

Brochure. Which, despite the tounge-in-cheek joke I was trying to make, actually tends to be a shorter and more example driven document about a product.

[zhemao]

That's actually hilarious. Very clever. I don't think the people complaining about the name in this thread will appreciate the joke, though.

[dictum]

Brother.

(I couldn't resist.)

[nailer]

Same as chairman, they're all short for manus, which is 'hand' in Latin.

[endymi0n]

it's actually the first thing a feminist programmer adds to her .bashrc:

alias woman="man"

[oneeyedpigeon]

Please, "their .bashrc" :-)

[antihero]

My female friends and I all call each other "bro" "dude" and "guys".

[koala_advert]

Do you also get mad when people use the word "guys" to refer to more than one person of either sex?

[theorique]

This may be a joke, but a lot of people actually do get upset by this!

[ItendToDisagree]

Just imagine how upset people would get if you referred to a mixed gender crowd as "ladies"

"come on now ladies lets move the tour along" "Who you calling 'lady'!?"

Guys really is just a historically ingrained shorthand. I don't think I've ever heard it used in this sort of context to cause harm. Using "Ladies" in this way, on the other hand, could cause yourself harm.

[theorique]

Back in school, my sports coaches would sometimes refer to all male groups as "ladies". However, I suspect this is not what you're talking about ;)

As much as anything, I've heard many women refer to mixed gender groups as "guys" or "dudes". A lot of this "definition creep" is actually due to women themselves. Probably this is because the male identity is viewed as a source of power, and women seek this out and aim to identify with it.

In other words, I don't think the use of "guys" generically is being driven by sexist men. I think it's being driven by blurring of gender roles and definitions, and adoption of these generic terms by women.

[roel_v]

Wtf are you talking about? People do that all the time.

[GFK_of_xmaspast]

"Guys" to include a mixed audience is how we get shit like "he" as default pronoun.

[Crake]

Oh no!!! That's literally rape, omg.

[DonGateley]

"Using "bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender."

You must have a huge problem with "him" then.

[mietek]

How have you been dealing with the existence of man pages thus far?

[Crake]

>"bro" is offensive because it excludes others by their gender. It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic. >You're not taking this serious.

Well gee, I wonder why.

[Killswitch]

broseriously.

[benihana]

>It's an awful exclusionary term and you shouldn't think it funny or ironic.

"Don't like things I don't like under any circumstances."

[Dewie]

> I have found out in life that women can also be dependable, fun to hang out with, and not "complicate things."

And there's nothing contradictory about that. Just because 'bro' is a man who might be all of that, doesn't mean that a woman can't be the same thing. Maybe she will not get the same nickname or term of endearment, but neither does that imply that she is qualitatively different from a 'bro'.

[fleitz]

Thankfully we live in an age where gender is independent of sex so anyone can be a bro if they want to.