Thank goodness you didn't call it "reverse-racism" or "reverse-sexism" or you would have triggered me to rant. Racism is racism, no matter who is discriminating against who.

While it is pretty clear that men and women are different, it is not clear how much of the difference is cultural vs biological. To the extent that we culturally exclude people from desirable work, we are failing to support individual liberty.

If a career is seen as female only (say nursing), a man may not be actively excluded in training or recruitment programs. However, if all his co-workers are women, then you will naturally be excluded. Many people will move on to a more welcoming work site or career. If you can get a small group of men working in that same position, then the exclusion effect is lessened. It becomes easier to recruit and retain men into that role.

It works the same way with primarily male or racially monolithic work environments.

There may be nothing (except perception) preventing a woman from choosing to work in IT, but there are plenty of things encouraging them to move on to another profession.

Quotas and affirmative action are difficult subjects. Racism and sexism in any form is offensive. Yet, if a career is seen as exclusively male or white, it can be extremely difficult to overturn those notions so that the *ist inequality (the cultural component of the disparity) is addressed. Mechanisms like social proof and in and out group biases help to keep mostly single race/gender occupations segregated. To overcome these forces some sort of blunt instrument is needed.

So, while affirmative action rankles, I don't know a better solution. I'd love to hear one suggested, actually.

But this topic isn't even about AA, its about what is NSFW and why. Some people are over-sensitive. If I had to explain what the `goatse` operator was to someone who I thought would be easily offended, I would say:

It is named after a disgusting shock image that was commonly posted to internet sites in the late 90s. If you want to know more I suggest you google it on your own time, but be warned that it is very shocking and is of a sexual nature.

If you work someplace with a strict filtering policy, and they churn alarms at you for stumbling upon a naughty word in a post at PM, as long as you have a good work related reason to be here, then you will be fine. I'd go so far as to mention the incident to my supervisor. However, if you jump up and down and make unwelcome, sexually explicit comments about the goatse operator and spread-eagle to your coworkers (whatever their gender), then you have a problem.

It's amazing how much of what troubles people can be solved by mere politeness. Name calling and exclusionary tactics (such as standard, PC nonsense) don't solve anything.