[parennoob]

> people who are themselves subject to exactly the same kind of needless sexualizing?

Serious question -- who determines if said sexualization is needless? We as a society seem to be generally headed towards hyper-sexualization. Today, men are strongly sexualized in advertising as well [1]. Seen the massive, chiseled male movie stars in movies today compared to, say, 20 years ago? It will take a while for us to acknowledge that sexualization, but it exists today.

Now the gender balance in the tech field means that on an average, a woman will be more sexualized than a man. This can be a runaway feedback loop, and to stop it, maybe we should clamp down a little on sexualization. But it would be wise to recognize this and cast it as a logical argument, rather than make blanket, Puritanical statements like "You're a man and you're needlessly sexualizing women! STOP IT!"

[1] http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/hunkvertisin...

[tannk11001]

> who determines if said sexualization is needless?

The people being sexualized.

And maybe I just find myself in different circles than you, but I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe. Instead, I see and here statements that are more like "These are things that make me uncomfortable. Please consider them seriously."

[parennoob]

> The people being sexualized.

That would be fair if the sexualization was direct e.g. Bert calling his female co-worker Linda "smoking hot". But if Bert says an algorithm is sexy, I don't know how exactly it sexualizes Linda. Society's sexualization can no longer be an excuse, because both men are women are now heavily sexualized in society.

> I rarely see or hear blanket Puritanical statements like you describe.

The posted article is chock-full of such statements. I usually don't hear such statements from people I work with either.

[4ydx]

Yeah I guess this is about casting down damnation on any words or phrases that have in any way bothered the author in the past. It is a totally out of context assertion, I would say. I describe things that I like as being "sexy". It hardly is a term that only applies to women :P