"Wife Acceptance Factor"

1st Official Post

    This is gonna sound petty, and I don't wish to point fingers or blame at anyone.

    I'm a happy LibreELEC user, love the project, and thank the developers for all their hard work.

    Nevertheless, in some release posts, the term "Wife Acceptance Factor" is used, for example, in the latest Alpha announcement:

    Quote

    If you have no idea what a debug log is or “wife acceptance factor” is critical, these builds are not for you.

    I think the usage of this term - although I understand where its origins lie and that it might not be its intended goal - is not good practice. There are some good writeups online on why that is, but it boils down to this: the WAF was a derogatory way of marketing products to women, who were implied to be "gatekeeper" of what is acceptable tech equipment in the house. The term is arguably archaic and misogynistic.

    I think it would be nice to replace the term with something that is not rooted in this stereotype.

    It's a small thing, but it can make a big difference in perception.

    What are your thoughts?

    Agree. I am not one of the "Political Correctness" brigade, but having worked in the semiconduction industry for some years, where there were quite a few wives in the business who were more capable engineers than I, I am of the view that the expression is due for retirement. In most cases that I can think of, the terms "not very user friendly" or "may present technical challenges" can be worked into a sentence just as readily, and they are probably less ambiguous to users who do not have a knowledge of such English colloquialisms .

    Edited once, last by S80_UK (October 2, 2018 at 1:58 AM).

    I would prefer to see words such as 'misogynistic' not continually misrepresented and completely misunderstood.

    Firstly, in reference to the term wife acceptance factor, we should first look at what it refers to.

    "an assessment of design elements that either increase or diminish the likelihood a wife will approve the purchase of expensive consumer electronics products such as high-fidelity loudspeakers, home theater systems and personal computers."

    It implies no such derogatory statement about women.

    It is simply a tongue in cheek reference to something that many men may well have experienced when going out to buy their beloved tech.

    The really bad practice seems to come from people who are unable to balance a sense of humour with ethical and moral thinking that matters and seek to ban anything that they decide is offensive, without really looking at the larger picture.

    Look at 95% of humour and you will find it aimed at somebody, often taking a stereotype and exaggerating it.

    Be careful what you wish for because you may find others picking holes in what you find amusing, dissecting it to fit in whatever they decide should be right and wrong for today, or turning your own arguments around to make you face your own morality to make it appear that you want a cake and eat it kind of scenario.

    That's my tuppence worth on the subject.

    • Official Post
    Quote from Forceflow

    This is gonna sound petty

    Yes, it is. (IMO)

    The first comment to your 'writeup' URL comes from someone saying "Thank you! I've always cringed whenever I've seen that term thrown around", yet he/she(?) dares to use the nickname "KikassAssassin"?!? It sums up the whole problem to me. It comes across like a tough person (assassin) who apparently is afraid of something like ... a mouse in the kitchen?

    Quote from S80_UK

    In most cases that I can think of, the terms "not very user friendly" or "may present technical challenges" can be worked into a sentence just as readily

    For me, it all comes down to people becoming so afraid these days to hurt other people's feelings or get hurt in every way possible. Things need to be said as-is. Like in George Carlin's piece, where he spoke about the direct impact war condition "Shell shock", which later became "Battle Fatigue", then "Operational Exhaustion" and ended as today's "Post-traumatic Stress Disorder", a wording that drifted away far from the original term and lost its impact along the way. Who knows what the next brain-dead replacement term will be... The impact from the original description/word gets so flat-lined, people's brains themselves get numbed along with it to a level where no expression will be acceptable. Like people won't accept spicy meals anymore, but only meals with dull and flavorless stuff.

    But also, kids today are being so overprotected by over-caring parents in cleaned home environments, that their body system get confused by just the slightest imbalance. Kids are also not allowed to hurt themselves anymore during physical exercises at school, and the parents will blame the PT teacher for the band-aid on their kid's knee if they do get hurt. In the end, nothing will be allowed anymore. People are becoming wusses.

    Some things used to be simpler and better IMO in the early days, so for your own good I'd suggest you grow a pair of cojones... I'm joining Ozarks' stance on this.

    Also, as this thread has nothing to do with actual technical features or requests, I'm moving the thread to the Off-topic section.