Women of Computing

[Liam Proven]

On Sun, 5 Dec 2021 at 16:09, Doc Shipley via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> On 12/4/21 12:37, Josh Dersch via cctalk wrote:
> >
> > OK, Boomer.
> >
> There's really no call to be nasty about it.
>
> To those of us who are baby boomers, that usage is extremely offensive.

I suspect that was the plan.

Chris Long's email was nasty, unpleasant and a mean-spirited and
unpleasant thing to say. The fact that they felt the need to say it on
a public forum indicates either that they do not care what other
people feel, or that they wanted to cause offence.

When someone is so insensitive that they do not understand that their
words can hurt others, then sometimes, an effective way to show to
them that words can be hurtful and that they shouldn't say mean
things, is to say something that is hurtful to them.

This can illustrate to people who do not normally care about others'
feelings that they do not like it when their own feelings are hurt.

It is, sadly, a common attribute of a certain age group, especially of
old white straight men, to give little regard to others' feelings like
this. They typically consider a waste of time any kind of affirmative
action that helps, boosts, or engages with people who are not old,
white, straight and men.

This is a bad way to behave. Nobody should act like that. It violates
Wheaton's Law, which is a basic principle of how to be a civilised
human being.

"OK, Boomer" is just a succinct and clear way of saying "you are an
unpleasant old man and we do not need to listen to your useless
hurtful opinions."

If that sounds like you, then my advice to you is not to complain
about it, but to engage with it, and learn how not to be such a
person, and then go and teach other such folk how to be better people.

If it doesn't sound like you, then you should not be bothered by it.

-- 
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
Email: lproven at cix.co.uk ~ gMail/gTalk/FB: lproven at gmail.com
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