[Noisebridge-discuss] XY Combinator

[Tom Cauchois]

Everybody who's getting defensive about this: think for a second about why
you're getting defensive about this :P.

On Tue, May 24, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Christopher Rasch <crasch at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes!  Exactly what I was thinking.  As one of the few guys in tech, it's
> really annoying when female coders objectify me.  I'm more than my
> knowledge of the Unix command line, ladies!  What about my rippling
> abs?  My luscious head of hair?  Sure, I like discussing the merits of
> Ubuntu vs. FreeBSD as much as next female coder, but when that's all you
> want to do, night after night,  I feel used.  Maybe if women started
> treating men as something more than a brain with legs, we'd see a few
> more men in tech.
>
> Chris
>
> On 5/23/11 11:02 PM, Liz Henry wrote:
> > Obligatory feminist analysis.
> >
> > I don't think it's funny at all and will happily explain why. The joke
> > rests on several stereotypical ideas -- that hardworking geeks are all
> > men, that women are commodities, and that men are entitled to sexual
> > access to women. I could unpack more but that's plenty to go on.
> >
> > That to me combines into a "joke" that is merely a re-stating of
> > misogyny and in fact is one side of the coin of rape culture. Men are
> > taught that women are commodities. Women and girls are positioned in the
> > "joke" as if they hold immense power (here, actual "capital" which  is
> > coded as "access to a vagina"). The rape culture aspect here is that men
> > are also taught that they should and can feel resentment and rage for
> > not "having" automatic access to women's bodies (and labor,
> > incidentally). It doesn't do men any good either for geeky guys to be
> > positioned as ungendered men who need to be taught how to be more
> > masculine, because then we end up with geeks who are constantly trying
> > to do macho posturing and prove even harder they're not like women --
> > geeks who have to perform misogyny in order not to be the targets of it.
> >
> > I like to pretend sometimes that I get to be just human, but am sadly
> > aware that no matter what, under patriarchy, I have a dual status as
> > person and as currency. Since that's what I live under, I don't have any
> > fucking patience with this sort of joke and with ironic hipster sexism.
> > No... your ironic hipster sexism doesn't get a free pass to funny. It's
> > actually just the same to me as previous generations' asinine har-haring
> > over Dagwood or The Lockhorns in the funny papers...
> >
> >
> >
> > - Liz
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On 5/23/11 9:41 PM, Griffin Boyce wrote:
> >> That is a pretty funny joke =)  The idea isn't bad though - lots of
> >> totally-dateable guys have startups or tech projects but no
> >> girlfriend/boyfriend.
> >>
> >>
> >> "Testimonials:"
> >>
> >> "Before I found XY Combinator, I was lonely. Now I have a girlfriend!"
> Kevin
> >> R [ose]
> >>
> >>   "Thank you so much for giving me a chance at a social life!" Mark Z
> >> [uckerberg]
> >>
> >>   "That was the best rejection I've ever had. Very professional!"
> Richard N
> >> [ixon]
> >>
> >>
> >> On Mon, May 23, 2011 at 5:42 PM, aestetix aestetix<aestetix at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> >>
> >>> Looks like an interesting site. Are there any other similar "demo day"
> >>> oriented dating sites?
> >>>
> >>> http://www.xycombinator.com
> >>>
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> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
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