Here's the problem with using words like "bro" (however jokingly): the problem is not with what you[0] are thinking when you read the word "bro", but with what other people, especially newcomers, are thinking. The locker-room atmosphere that stuff like this creates is a huge barrier to entry for a lot of people, women especially, who infer that on top of all the technically difficult stuff that everyone has to learn to be CS types, they'll also have to deal with a constant barrage of "you're not our kind" flung at them by the in-group. You personally may not be intending that as your message, but I assure you that your personal intent does not matter when you are using language that has been associated with exclusion and discrimination.[1]
The problem here, if this program is actually intended to be used, is that just typing in the command would be a constant reminder of an entire subculture that is widely seen as[2] putting up walls and doors that say "NO GIЯLS ALOUD" around the programming profession, an attempt to preserve privilege. Those of you suggesting an alias are either being disingenuous or missing the point entirely.
[0] Meaning individuals, of whatever gender/race/class/whatever, that are likely to be reading HN.
[1] If you don't believe me, ponder for a moment sentences like, "But I like Negroes just fine!" Language matters.
[2] Again, you might not mean to reference that when you use words like "brogrammer". But it's how an awful lot of us read it.
EDIT: Rereading other posts on this page, I should add that I almost certainly got the phrase "shame about the name" stuck in my head from reading dewitt's post. Four words, such a concise summary of my attitude! :)
EDIT 2: "they'll have" -> "that everyone has" to clarify argument. Thx vezzy-fnord.
(N.B. the people that seem to be offended so far are offended on other peoples behalf..)
Isn't it way more offensive to assume that women are such dainty delicate creatures that like, they won't get the joke?
I suspect that most people would agree that white people can be offended by the use of terms like "nigger", or jokes about slavery. So then why can't men be offended by misogynistic language or jokes that are likely to create a hostile environment for women?
I clicked, I saw the name and was a little turned off but thought maybe it was just a clever shortening of a reasonable word I hadn't thought of (the way "man" is short for "manual").
Then I saw the "girls are bros too" thing and I realized that nope, the authors are just insensitive at best, jackasses at worst. They saw the complaints coming, but they thought it was more important to make some sort of off-color joke than to have their product taken seriously as the useful tool it could be.
But the real issue isn't "What did they intend?" in any case: it's "What impact might this have on others in our community (or thinking about joining it)?" And intended or not, the name of this tool will call to mind the "brogammer" image for a lot of people. And that image is a significant part of what makes the tech community feel hostile to a lot of women.
And as I've said elsewhere, these issues aren't about people feeling offended. They're about people feeling excluded. There's a tremendous difference.
So to the extent that the name of the "bro" command invokes that culture (and that's the point of the joke, right?), it reinforces the association between brogrammer attitudes and tech in general. Embedding that association into the tools we all use seems like a really bad idea. And yes, it could make programming feel one step more hostile for quite a lot of women (and men, for that matter).
Fundamentally, I don't think that either intensely male culture or intensely female culture (or for that matter intensely Democratic culture or intensely Republican culture or intensely Episcopalian culture or...) have any place in a professional environment (unless you're working at a Democratic campaign office or an Episcopalian summer camp or...).
I don't even know what that is. Outside the bubble of HN I doubt most people have even heard the phrase.
"Bro" for most people references dumb fratboys. Maybe it's a word that's offensive to fratboys, but I can't see why a woman would ever find it offensive.
1. I'm surprised that you don't know what "brogrammer culture" is, but that's okay. The point, though, is that for a lot of other people (particularly women) it is a familiar thing and it makes them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. You may not have had that experience, but part of having empathy for others is respecting that their experiences are still legitimate even if yours has been different.
2. It's been a lengthy discussion here, so maybe it's not repeating myself too much to say again that "offensive" really isn't an accurate characterization of the objections here. Plenty of people who have wonderfully off-color senses of humor might still consider this inappropriate. The issue isn't "this makes me feel offended", it's "this makes me feel excluded". That's a really important distinction.
(And to tie this in with point 1, even if you personally do not experience this sort of thing in a way that feels like it's excluding people, it's important to listen when substantial numbers of other people tell you that they do have that experience.)
I personally find it EXTREMELY offensive that you assume women have such delicate sensibilities that they wouldn't find this funny or simply see it as a joke. What do you think they are children or mentally incapable of processing wordplay? In this context, "bro" is an obvious pun on "man", what more needs to be said about this?
I don't know a single woman who would feel excluded by this but know plenty who would find it offensive that a random white knight is getting offended on their behalf and creating a huge fuss assuming they are weak little creatures that don't have the basic social skills to process this as a joke.
Am I also supposed to be offended because I'm not American and the word "bro" is so specific to the American frat boy culture and doesn't exist anywhere else in the world? Should I get upset and walk out of the room in indignation every time my American coworker calls me "bro"? Am I supposed to feel excluded by that? Would you like to get offended on my account as well?
Get real man. It really takes a mind of special caliber to even connect something like this with gender issues and I'm sure most women would agree.
Actually, it's not even exclusionary by itself. Which is probably why so many people can't recognize this issue. It's the fact that I wade through DOZENS of these types of things every day, and they all add up.
You can't force people to give up every single piece of their identity and what makes them different in order to fit this new politically-correct bland mold of people who all act and think the same so that no one feels "excluded". As humans we are different, diverse, have different types of humor depending on the geography, age, gender, subcultures etc. Being able to cope with that is part of being a mature, well adjusted person.
All this PC "let's-all-be-the-same-hold-hands-and-sing-kumbaya" crap is getting tiresome. It goes against everything that makes us human, different and unique. If that's the world you want to live in - fine - keep going with your crusade and feeling indignant every time someone shows a trace of uniqueness and being different. I for one refuse to live in such a suffocating colorless world. I love being different from other people because everyone is more interesting that way, and yet at the end of the day I can still find a way to relate to others.
The world owes us nothing. If you decide to take away positive aspects from your daily experiences, that's what you'll get. If you decide to feel miserable and angry when people don't act the way you want them to act, then sadness and misery is what you'll get.
Since I know that some blockhead is going to try to strawman me, I will preempt that by saying that I don't believe we should start calling black people "niggers" or take away women's right to vote. Just saying that if people manifest their diversity in a way that's not harmful to others, there is no reason to get upset.
I am not "miserable" or "angry." I was trying to let you know why women have a problem with this type of thing. Nowhere did I say everyone should be the same. But usually, there is a balance to the "jokes". To use your example from your time in Asian (or rather a parallel one, because an Asian in America is not really opposite to an american in asia): an Asian man in Africa would be treated differently. Just as an African man in Asia would be treated differently. In tech-related fields, women are treated differently. Everywhere. There is no anti-parallel universe (in tech) where women actually have the advantage, where women are making "sis" jokes about other women. That is the difference. We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
This comment pisses me off. Living in a foreign country and being marginalized is completely different from being a woman in the tech field in a first world western democracy. I get reminded of the fact that I'm different literally every time I leave my apartment and deal with another human being, whereas for you it happens when you open HN and see a joke about bros or something to that effect. I have literally been denied housing multiple times on the account of not being a local and that fact wasn't even hidden from me. Do I care? Not really, I just went elsewhere and sorted it out. As I said, you can't change people but you can choose who you deal with and how you perceive the world.
>We are, to use your analogy, white people living in Asia except there is nowhere else to live.
You are literally complaining about something that is a first world problem and completely blowing it out of proportion. People like you give female and minority tech workers a bad name. What employer wants to hire someone who is going to cause a shitstorm and potentially threaten with lawsuits every time someone cracks a well meaning joke. I for one would now be very wary of hiring you for the fear of you not tolerating other people at the office, or even worse, suing me and my company. Good job sister. You sound like tons of fun to be around.
PS - this sort of thing is ingrained in everything technology related. Not just in HN articles about bros.
Of course not, I never said that. I don't support discrimination in any way. I love different people and all the diversity living in such a society entails. I love living in such a vastly different world and interacting with different people on daily basis, even if it sometimes causes misunderstandings to happen. I am just asking everyone to check their emotional baggage at the door and act like mature well adjusted individuals and stop pretending that well meaning cultural references/jokes/memes are the same thing as discrimination/racism/sexism etc. There IS a difference. Let's stop acting intentionally obtuse and conflating these things.
> Is your argument that we should have more discrimination, or just that we should turn a blind eye?
You are attacking a strawman. I neither said that we should have discrimination nor that we should turn a blind eye to it. I hate discrimination with a passion. But I am equally against people who think they can fight discrimination by forcing everyone to hide any signs of cultural identity. Do you realize that those things kill diversity worse than any discrimination? Do you have any idea how harmful it is for diversity, creativity and the society as a whole when everyone starts acting the same in fear of being labeled a bigot/racist/sexist? Blatant discrimination and your way of fighting discrimination have exactly the same effect of suffocating diversity - they just happen to be placed on the opposite sides of the spectrum.
Anyway, I'm done having a discussion here because no matter how reasonable I am trying to be here, you are still sticking to your extremist attitudes and failing to see my point. Good luck.
To me, that sounds a lot like you "not really caring" about "prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their actual or perceived membership in a certain group or category" which is the wikipedia definition of discrimination. So I'm not seeing the strawman here.
It's not about whether or not you find it offensive or exclusionary. It's about whether or not many others would reasonably find it offensive and/or exclusionary. And it asks so little of you too. It's such a small consideration to choose a name that wouldn't contribute toward reminding women that technology/software is a "man's world."