sex·ist [sek-sist]
adjective
1. pertaining to, involving, or fostering sexism: a sexist remark; sexist advertising.
sex·ism [sek-siz-uhm] noun
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.
I don't think the bot is exactly sexist. It's stupid, immature, and beats a dead horse, but actually sexist?
While you should probably have a talk with the supervisor, not the general office, about this issue, maybe polluting the chat space with yet another stupid bot isn't the greatest idea? "Annoying" your coworkers into compliance isn't a good strategy, as it will grow resentment towards you and mask the real problem.
> 1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles [...] devaluation based on a person's sex
Here're the categories you could argue the bot falls into. The point of the "that's what she said" is to point out when phrases sound like something a woman might have said in bed or during some sort of sexual activity, furthering the already staggeringly vast perception our society has of women as primarily sexual objects. It's not what I'd call "grossly" sexist, but if somebody's objecting to it, she absolutely has a reason to feel uncomfortable about it.
I disagree that the supervisor is necessary here. First off, that's making an appeal to authority and such appeals can be pretty irritating; second off, that's trying to solve the problem privately rather than in public space. By making this bot, Jessamyn says that her voice is as valuable as anybody else's voice. If somebody else wants to make a bot that makes crude sex jokes, she can make a bot that quotes notable women. And rather than making a bot that's irritating or one-note, it sounds like she made a bot that has a variety of colorful responses, to the point where one of her coworkers told her how much he appreciates it.
Remember that sexism is about the reinforcement of cultural stereotypes, rather than being just about gross bigotry or discrimination. What's sexist is that people assume, in a workplace, that jokes about what women say in bed are acceptable. Those jokes make me a little uncomfortable even in a casual environment; it's kind of gross that people are okay with them at work. The sexism isn't one person consciously thinking "Oh man let's women the butt of jokes about sex!", it's that women-as-sex-objects is such a pervasive trope that we don't notice it unless somebody like Jessamyn points it out to us.
Most slang words for penis (and other slang words describing men) are also normal words. (wood, hard, sausage, pork, balls) This is not the case with slang words for the female anatomy, which usually have no place in daily conversation. Google "slang for penis" and "slang for vagina" if you don't believe me/don't know very many slang words.
Consequently, something a women would say in bed is more likely to crop up in general conversation than something a guy would say in bed.
I really don't see this joke as being sexist at all, and it doesn't objectify women. Who cares if a woman might say that in bed? The fact that the woman is the one talking seems to indicate that she is less of a sexual object, not more of one.
About the sexism: She didn't make a big fuss. She just coded a neat funny bot that only talks when triggered by a certain joke. She's highlighting how tiresome some jokes are when repeated too often.
She's not say "Toxic Environment because of constant sexist remarks"; she isn't calling for anyone to be disciplined or sacked. She's just talking to people.
You just made an important logical error. You went from "I can't see X" to "X does not exist".
As a fellow guy, let me tell you: it is much harder to see something when it benefits you than when it hurts you. You may never notice two steps up to enter a building -- unless you're in a wheelchair. So you should never assume that sexism doesn't exist just because you haven't noticed it yet.
And your qualifications for being able to make this decision for us all are?
They wouldn't stop using the bot when she asked them to because it made her uncomfortable. It's been pointed out in these comments that she could have sued this company into a hole in the ground with a chat log and that fact. I think "Judge will probably say it is" says it's sexist.
That's not how logic works...
I don't mean to be condescending but, when a word has a specific definition, it's pretty straightforward to determine whether or not it accurately describes a situation. Consider it like a mathematical proof: credentials, judges, and everything else are irrelevant if you've shown the word doesn't apply.
The case is lost. You don't find many who would even bother to think about what you are saying, you will be just down-voted by knee-jerkers, who cannot be bothered by contemplating what is sexism, what isn't. They just know what's not acceptable and act accordingly.
HN is humor free zone, no matter what kind of humor that is.
The fact that the woman is only talking because she's in bed is what makes her a sexual object. The shes of this world say a whole lot more than cheesy bedroom euphemisms, you know. But the joke is situated on the premise that it's cool to brag about what a man's made a woman say while fucking her, or, its opposite, that it's embarrassing and unmanly if a woman's been disappointed by a man in the bedroom. In either case, the woman is reduced to the thing that is fucked; her only value is that she can tell the man how well he's fucking her, or how poorly.
I know plenty of slang words, thank you, because I'm more than twelve years old. And a part of the gender/sexism discussion revolves precisely around how male-gendered slang is used differently than female-gendered slang; think about how men insult men by saying they don't have balls, or that they're a pussy; the suggestion is that womanhood corresponds to weakness. The ways in which we learn to speak to one another is a key issue.
"The word itself makes some men uncomfortable. Vagina. Yes, they don't like hearing it and find it difficult to say whereas without batting an eye a man will refer to his dick or his rod or his Johnson."
>"The fact that the woman is only talking because she's in bed"
Maybe that joke is told differently where you're from, but I can't imagine how one could take that away from "that's what she said." Ignoring that both of our fictional characters in this scenario are in bed, the idea behind the joke is to make fun of innocent phrases that could be considered sexual. Not that it's cool to brag about what a man's made a woman say or any of that other nonsense.
To me, a younger guy in my 20's, your analysis (I don't mean this personally either, however I think yours is indicative of what a lot may thing) seems to be a case of older folk far over-analyzing a silly, immature joke that stopped being funny years ago.
> If they're actually funny (most of the "That's what she said" jokes are not), why not?
It depends on the audience. I think that sexist jokes are in as poor taste in a workplace as racist jokes would be. I'd also be against black jokes or Mexican jokes or Jewish jokes or jokes about Catholic pedophilia. Even if the extent of the joke was something like "I'm not going to the pub with you all, I'm such a Jew", I'd feel uncomfortable; if somebody wrote a bot that was designed to repeatedly make those jokes, I'd be upset.
As Jessamyn says:
> Now, I admit to having made this joke myself, at times. Once in a while, I even find it funny. What I don’t find funny is a bot we have in our general IRC channel at work, that has some basic AI devoted to determining when to interject TWSS into the conversation.
And the joke is not that women say funny things while in bed. The joke is, "Oh, that thing you just said reminded me of fucking a woman." It's funny in high school when everybody's a virgin, and I've found that as my college friends have gotten themselves laid, it's ceased to become very amusing. The same way I haven't heard a black or Mexican joke in a few years that managed to rise above its racism to become even remotely amusing.
Jokes about people having sex can be funny; "that's what she said" will always be a joke the brunt of which is the faceless fuck-object woman. Maybe that's fine in moderation, especially if "that's what he said" jokes are mixed in, but I think we all agree that if somebody's feeling upset by the jokes, it's not a huge loss to our comedic palettes to have to find another source of humor, right? We're all capable of rising beyond that?
> I think we all agree that if somebody's feeling upset by
> the jokes, it's not a huge loss to our comedic palettes
> to have to find another source of humor, right?
No. I strongly strongly disagree. I don't want a thermal dead of society, I don't want knee-jerk reaction to anything I say because I just mentioned some forbidden word, no matter with what intention and what context.
We are slipping toward the concept thought-crime, and I surely don't want what. Neither do I want to live in
the world where all must pretend, that genders don't exist.
You ar offended but what I say? To quote Stephen Fry: "So fucking what?".
To think that it is impossible to tell and be entertained by non-PC jokes is as moronic as thinking that you cannot write (or enjoy) crime fiction without being a murderer.
At the end, there will only be actually-amusing jokes, instead of cheap shots that are only found funny by people that think group X is enlightened normal people and everyone else deserves to be laughed at and ridiculed.
I think you can't make or enjoy snuff films without being at least really creepy. Crime fiction is far removed from the crimes it depicts: jokes are a vibrant part of the ongoing process that creates social norms.
I'm going to quote what I thought was an excellent idea on another (heated) thread.
"To think that it is impossible to tell and be entertained by non-PC jokes is as moronic as thinking that you cannot write (or enjoy) crime fiction without being a murderer."
What would make you change your mind about this statement? Would you be convinced if I presented peer-reviewed research that said that presenting sexist situations did affect people's view of the competence of the other sex, and more research that showed the opposite was true for more serious crimes?
As the cofounder of a startup, I agree that a no-bullshit attitude is important. However, respect for one's coworkers is definitely not bullshit. Startups are hard and they're a team sport. If you aren't continuously looking out for your colleagues, they company's probably fucked.
The point isn't "nobody can object". It's that nobody gets hurt. We laugh a lot at work, but it shouldn't ever be at the expense of somebody's feelings. Sexism is a real, actual problem. Reinforcing it, even accidentally, can be hurtful.
As for examples of better sorts of humor, consider Bill Bryson. Most of his funniest material is about himself. Or consider the show Archer. They work with a lot of edgy material, including some obviously sexist and racist bits. But they use that to call out and deflate the sexism and racism. Or watch Louis CK's bit on being white:
Fry was saying that in response to people who were offended by his being gay. I hope you find at least a little humor in the fact that you've taken a quote from a man trying to fight bigotry and used it to defend bigotry? No?
It's not thought-crime to say, "Hey, women are people too, and women are way more interesting when they're treated like people, not like sex toys." It's not gender-invisibility to say that there's more to a woman than her vagina, or even that there are funnier things about a vagina than your bragging about being in it. It's not political correctness to say, "When the things you say make women – not just a single anecdotal woman, but women plural, many women – uncomfortable, then probably you can find a better way to get laughs than through their uncomfortableness."
Humor is at its finest when it's used to prod those in a position of power. Satire, farce, bawdiness have all been used as tools to make the oppressed in society feel better about themselves, to make people who don't notice oppression realize that it's there, but to laugh at their own uncomfortableness. Humor's at its lowest when it's used to kick people who're already down. When it's used not to help humanity rise above itself, but to remind the lowly of their lowliness.
The great comedian Louis CK, of whom you've doubtless heard, has a routine where he goes after white people who get pissy about not being allowed to say the word "nigger". Like, it's racist that black people can use it, but not white people. And his response is: Dude, does it really matter that fucking much to you that you don't get to use a word? Is your being asked not to say "nigger" really as unjust as the fact that, fifty years after the Civil Rights Movement, we still have to have a conversation about why a word associated with lynchings and segregation is maybe not a word to be used lightly?
After decades of women fighting for equality, we still live in a society whose pop culture revolves around the sexualization and objectification of women. Where women make 81 cents to every man's dollar (source: narrowthegapp.com, made by Hacker News's favorite Gina Trapini). Where our government is primarily male, and its two highest positions have never been occupied by a woman. Where these male-dominated governments try to pass laws that deny women control over their own bodies. Where nearly every Fortune 500 company is headed by a man. Women have it better now than they had it, say, a hundred years ago, but that's not saying fucking much.
Do you really care so much about "that's what she said" that this is where you feel like making a stand? Buddy, it's a stupid joke, it exists only to make men feel manly for bragging about their penis, and it's not even very funny. Want funny? Watch Bridesmaids. There's a hilarious movie written by and starring some very funny women. They even make jokes about sex and vaginas! OMG so un-PC!
George Carlin once said, "Have you noticed that most of the women who are against abortion are women you wouldn’t want to fuck in the first place?" I'm going to paraphrase him: Have you noticed that most of the people who defend idiotic sexist jokes are people who aren't actually funny?
While I wholly agree with 95% of your post, especially your liberal use of comedians as references, I think the whole basis of this "that's what she said" is grossly misunderstood by those opposing it. It's a phrase that highlights innocent phrases that could have a sexual meaning. Generally, they would be something a woman could say, however I've heard many a "that's what he said" as well. It's a stupid, immature joke that I'm shocked would be propagated by anyone over 17 but let's not ascribe some deep Freudian meaning to something a 15 year old came up with.
Oh definitely! It's a silly grade-school joke. Which is one of the reasons, I think, why this conversation is so difficult: nobody's thinking "Let me go out and reinforce the patriarchy", twirling their evil mustaches, they're just making a silly joke that incidentally revolves around treating women like objects, TOTALLY UNINTENTIONALLY. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have an effect on society.
Part of my undergraduate thesis, which I'm currently working on, revolves around this idea that when systems break, it's rarely due to anything malicious. It's because life is really weird and complicated and it's hard to design bug-free social structures. But that's why we have to be aware that such bugs exist, and develop ways to fix them when they pop up.
Ah I wasn't aware the effect was so pronounced, although I can definitely see how that would happen. Out of curiosity, what's the consensus on how an overtly sexist or racist joke told among friends in a non-serious way affects social dynamics? I'm sure we're all familiar with this type of humor and I would hope that the joke would serve to make fun of the stereotype and not reinforce it but I'm not sure.
> Come to think of it, men are also under a lot of pressure in bed, so such jokes are just as in/appropriate as jokes about women in bed.
You're assuming that just because it's the same subject it has the same implications to both genders. There is no basis for making that assumption. Take, for example, the statement "X is a slut." Does that have the same implication for both genders? No. Because of our societal attitudes, it has much graver implications for a woman than for a man. Now, consider the statement "X acts kind of rapey." Does that have the same implications for both gender? Again, no. A woman can shrug that off easily. A man, meanwhile, would be legitimately upset about that statement.
Look up programming jargon in whichever dictionary you found this definition. Something with a common meaning, like 'domain', 'array', or 'tree'. How well does it apply?
Words like "sexist", "sexism", "homophobia", and "racism" are jargon for the folks studying gender, psychology, sociology. The common usage, the descriptive usage you see in dictionaries, is not appropriate and will only confuse things.
IANA sociologist, but I'd consider TWSS (or the much rarer TWHS) one of those "undertones" types of biases like always asking the female co-worker to take notes or the male co-worker to help you move your desk.
Anyways, I think her response was a good one. I would hope that simply asking whoever was running it to shut it down would be sufficient, but I think writing a bot was a good way of making your point in a group of developers as a respectful way of saying "I'm part of this group and I have something to say".
Undertones? You mean the classical 'you are guilty and won't admit it'?
As for when it should be shot down -- when a majority don't think it is funny. It is called company culture and unless you believe females should have special protection because they are an inferior sex they will properly have to get used to it.
And the reason we ask a male to move the desk is because they tend to be physically stronger (with exceptions, I couldn't lift myself of the floor). I haven't asked any females to write notes since grade school.
"company culture" is what she was trying to fix. If someone has a TWSS bot, I'm guessing there are some more serious bias issues, perhaps like the author said, that people aren't even aware of.
"because they tend to be" is the type of excuse/rationalization that starts these problems. Of course men, on average, are stronger, but 99% of the time a woman can help you just as well. Making a decision based on someone's gender is sexism whether there is scientific data or not.
We're in a field that has the potential to be the most meritocratic field out there, and we do a disservice to everyone involved not to embrace that.
One day I needed someone to help me move a heavy server. It took me about 15 minutes to find someone who hadn't blown out their back recently (or at least, claimed to have), and she was the one woman woman on the floor.
Most of the men probably injured themselves assuming upper body strength came with their gender, rather than were the product of actually exercising occasionally.
sex·ism [sek-siz-uhm] noun 1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles. 2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex, as in restricted job opportunities; especially, such discrimination directed against women.
I don't think the bot is exactly sexist. It's stupid, immature, and beats a dead horse, but actually sexist?
While you should probably have a talk with the supervisor, not the general office, about this issue, maybe polluting the chat space with yet another stupid bot isn't the greatest idea? "Annoying" your coworkers into compliance isn't a good strategy, as it will grow resentment towards you and mask the real problem.