Friday, May 1, 2009
Girls On Rails
Martin Fowler has a nice essay about a recent controversy in the Rails community: A presenter gave a talk from a slide deck garnished with scantily clad pretty women. The Rails community, he notes, eschews typical corporate values. But they can't ignore decades of professional discrimination against women.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Maybe there's some value to be had in describing things like this not as "offensive" but as "tacky, annoying, and unhelpful to those of us who are concerned about women in the software dev community."
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point. If we describe things like this in perjorative (but true) terms, we essentially set up a social shunning that isn't tied to the complicated notions of offensiveness and political correctness.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand, I think Fowler is British, so he may not be able to write "tacky." :)