Blatant racism & sexism in open source code

http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-sexist-language-in-github-code

by SPSteinbeck • 13 years ago

2 3 13 years ago

coldtea• 13 years ago

Yes, I can see how using "buttfuck", "fag" and "bitch" in your source code is "blatant sexism".

After all, as we all know, all coders are mature 30+ year old professionals, that if they use a swear word they REALLY mean it, and use it to further their agenda and their bigotry towards women/homosexuals/etc. Instead of, you know, all kinds of immature teenagers that watch South Park and Family Guy until their late 20s, enjoy fart jokes and think they're grown up when they swear, etc.

Wanna fight sexism? How about you go fight Hollywood, music industry videoclips or the fashion industry? That's 90% of established sexism right there. And it involves women in sexy lingerie doing dance moves (as if women are sexual merchandise), not some code on GitHub with a "bitch" variable.

They do have a point with "nigger" word though (or not -- as a European without a colonial past --the reverse in fact-- I fail to see why the word guilt trips the very society who not only committed but still commits crimes against their black people. Sounds quite hypocritical to me: "OK we do all this horrible stuff to blacks as a society and we don't even blink about it, but god forbid someone says the n word, we'll lynch him on the spot.").

noja• 13 years ago

Some of these could be acronyms, but that's not the point: intent is. Your nickname might be faggot, your intent is not to insult someone or denigrate a group of people. The word bitch is offensive when used negatively against a woman. It's not sexist to call a friend a "silly bitch" is a playful way, nor is it negative to refer to a female dog as a bitch.

Richard Dawkins was not being sexist when he said "Science works, bitches".

I am not being sexist when I name a library BITCH_H, or an IRC client BitchX.

The point here isn't that this is what they are doing in the code, the point is that intent is important.

DanBC• 13 years ago

What people do in their local groups is up to them.

But when you post code to an international audience your intention doesn't matter. Bob may use the word nigger all day every day and none of Bob's friends care; but if Bob goes to Hackney he better be careful about who he calls nigger or he's going to get stabbed.

And I don't care if people are trying to be offensive by using such language in their code. Go ahead. Freedom of speech and stuff. (It's perfectly possible to be horribly racist and not use any of that language, and that's perhaps a bigger problem.)

But some people might just not be aware of the consequences of this language; how it might affect their future job prospects; how other people will view them.

There's a kerfuffle in the UK at the moment. A young person was employed by Kent Police Force to be a 'Youth Adviser' - she got opinions from local youth and passed them back to the Police Force. Unfortunately, no-one checked her twitter account. After she got the job a bunch of journalists had a look and she'd made some unfortunate posts. (She's young; young people are stupid. They should be allowed to make mistakes.) Many people are now calling for her to lose her job, and the force that employed her is investigating whether a criminal offence has been committed.

Intent is important when you're on the receiving end, but it is not at all important when you're on the giving end. Unless you are trying to cause offence you should avoid certain language choices.

Blatant racism & sexism in open source code

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