I've had this in my head for a while, and couldn't decide if I was being too critical. I truly don't mean to overact. But I think it might be time we discuss something, and decide if it's something we, the developers of the world, should address.

Are we promoting sexism with some of our naming conventions?

Here's two examples:

1. Mustache. The defacto way of web templating, whether its with the Mustache engine or another similar implementation. Even Angular devs might verbally say "use mustache notation". It's defacto, and the { character does somewhat resemble a mustache. I'm not offended by this, but I'm starting to wonder if this terminology is further hindering equality in the field. Women (in general) don't grow mustaches, obviously. Men do. It's a masculine name, playing on a masculine joke, stemming from a similar crowd as the Brogrammers. I don't think anyone is offended by this, nor do I think anyone should be. But we're building culture here, and integrating an idea into it that only applies half the population. Same deal applies to similar names, i.e. beard(.*).

2. Tuxedojs. It's on the front page of Hacker News right now, and looks like a solid library. "It is like React, but with more bowties.". It's meant to be classy, sexy. But tuxedos are the masculine formal wear. That doesn't mean women can't wear them, but in general, women don't. It's not something you associate with women, certainly. The marketing is solid, my brain associates their framework with class. But why can we successfully name a library "Tuxedo" but not "Black dress"? Why can it be with more bowties and not more earrings or perfume? Why is it okay to put only men in the header image, and ignore the efforts we all nod to that try to help the females in or pursuing the field feel accepted?

I don't mean to bash Tuxedo in general. I'm sure they mean no harm. But that's exactly the point. None of us mean harm, but I think it's time we have a discussion on whether we need to think more about what we name our projects.

Search for "mustache", "beard", or "bro" on GitHub.