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Slashdot is a technology news site founded in the late 90s. Many people believe that Slashdot and the community of commenters there are sexist.

Issues[]

  • Invisibility -- the readership are assumed to be male geeks, and women are frequently excluded in the language of articles
  • Pigeonholing -- many articles pigeonhole women's contributions
  • Essentialism -- many articles support the idea of innate differences between men and women when it comes to technical ability
  • Online harrassment, Body image, Sexualized environment: comment threads, in particular, can be harrassing to women and often focus on their sexual availability or attractiveness

Slashdot articles about women[]

"which no geek argues with in theory, we just never be able to find girl geeks of our own ;)" -- because all geeks are straight men, of course.

Sexist articles on Slashdot[]

"Most recipes are designed for women, and their funny way of looking at the world. These are very different and instantly understandable for tech geeks like us." -- "tech geeks" are by definition men, of course.
"Now I'm sure that no Slashdot reader will intentionally watch any "sport" that has judges determine the winner, but their wives/girlfriends might seize control of the remote because they want to know who is the best at that ribbon-twirling thing." -- again, "we" are men.

Articles about sexism on Slashdot[]

"A few months ago, an article of mine was Slashdotted. But instead of resulting in a lively debate about technology and social justice, it instead produced a popular thread in the "comments" area about whether I was too fat to be considered attractive. At that point, I vowed to stop reading Slashdot."