No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit You already have plenty of women in your replies telling you this is ridiculous and shameful but I'd like to add one more.
Pretending our anti-AI convictions are sexist is insulting.
Pretending AI is as useful as my vacuum cleaner is laughable.
Pretending we need this technology is embarrassing.
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit hi ptorrone! are you tired of ban-evading and harassing people yet?
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit@fosstodon.org Have you lost your fucking minds?
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@adafruit@fosstodon.org Shit like this is why I can't upgrade my NAS this year. The machine which stores the VM where my local git server lives, and the pool which contains the repos themselves.
Its why replacing broken parts cost more than buying brand new hardware did two years ago.
Why so many of our fellow open source developers are getting absolutely bombarded by useless pull requests.
AI companies are the reason women like me are gatekept from the tools they need to create and share their creations.
https://mashable.com/article/ai-hard-drive-hdd-shortages-western-digital-sold-out
https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/Look for recertified or reconditioned drives 🙂
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@adafruit hard agree. Thanks for writing this up. Same ethics “experts” seem awfully keen to take away these tools from the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged too.
Whilst these tools exist, why not take the fight to the rich and powerful doing the actual bad stuff? It’s a lot harder than writing hateful internet messages to people just trying to get by.
As usual, women are taking the brunt of new technology job losses. Translators, educators, customer support. Deny tools = deny work.
@renedudfield @adafruit Ah yes, all of those economically disadvantaged people spending $200 a month to generate anime girls with three breasts. "You wouldn't take away someone's wheelchair, would you?"
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit Like RaspberryPi, Adafruit is leaving my favorites list for shopping sites.
Holy hell did this miss the mark. Millions of women's works are slurped up by AI everyday and regurgitated at will by an unthinking LLM engine. Recast as a "thinking machine's result" with no renumeration to female artists, authors, and creators. This couldn't be a more masculine way to rob women of their life's work and agency. Even if given for free or under Creative Commons, stripping a project from it's authorhood when a woman made it should be appalling enough.
Please reconsider this position.
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit y'all don't seem to play the woman card when you're doxxing, harassing, and block-evading
anyway, good luck not blowing up boards
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@adafruit Using fake feminism and a bunch of invalid comparisons to defend a technology that men are more likely to use than women ( https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.06556 ) and which use consolidates all power and money into the hands of a few billionares (all men).
No. No collaboration with LLMs, no credibility for LLM defenders, no fascist AI future. And no more Adafruit orders from me
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit the hilarious assumption that a man could try to sell AI generated slop on the fediverse with no pushback 😂 as if we aren't bullying LLM bros on here daily
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit Do you and Mozilla use the same Denny's placemat PR firm?
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@adafruit hard agree. Thanks for writing this up. Same ethics “experts” seem awfully keen to take away these tools from the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged too.
Whilst these tools exist, why not take the fight to the rich and powerful doing the actual bad stuff? It’s a lot harder than writing hateful internet messages to people just trying to get by.
As usual, women are taking the brunt of new technology job losses. Translators, educators, customer support. Deny tools = deny work.
@renedudfield @adafruit "As usual, women are taking the brunt of new technology job losses. Translators, educators, customer support." And this is a defense of the machine they're being replaced with... how? Women are facing more harm than men from the LLM hype cycle, so the solution is to keep it going???
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
Not every tool is good
One of my heatguns was recalled for fire risk
I sent it in
It was a bad tool
LLMs, Gemini included, are also bad toolsIf I had to double check my cake mix for poison every single time I used it I wouldn't use that cake mix
Or eat a cake made from itYou're failing to recognize WHY people are rejecting LLMs and things made with it
They're bad tools
If a robot vacuum cleaner does a good job but has a 1% chance of eating my cat it's not allowed in my house
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit amusingly though: @cstross blocked me a couple years ago, because he was (if I recall correctly, can't be arsed to dig up the toot but it's back there somewhere) either boosting or else posting AI slop images and laughing at how bad they were. I had been an avid follower, but I expressed my surprise that he, an author no less, would be playing with the plagiarism machine in public.
As much as I tend to agree with the mob that using this planet killer was a terrible idea that you should be ashamed about, rather than what you're doing right here, Stross seems like he's mostly concerned with building up some sort of "profile" on here, and does not like to have his hypocrisy pointed out.
I think there are going to be some incredible strides made in education with this tech, but not until these psychopaths are devoured by angry street mobs and we start using it judiciously and without murdering towns and communities.
People in America have brown tap water so you could avoid work of which you are perfectly capable. You didn't need the help. There's no justifying it. Brown tap water.
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit worst fucking take bestie
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@adafruit hard agree. Thanks for writing this up. Same ethics “experts” seem awfully keen to take away these tools from the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged too.
Whilst these tools exist, why not take the fight to the rich and powerful doing the actual bad stuff? It’s a lot harder than writing hateful internet messages to people just trying to get by.
As usual, women are taking the brunt of new technology job losses. Translators, educators, customer support. Deny tools = deny work.
@renedudfield @adafruit All of the fields you list have faced these massive quantities of job losses specifically because of LLMs replacing humans. "AI" is overwhelmingly being used as a tool by the ownership class to skip human labor, not by workers to chase already endless and exploitative efficiency targets -
Look for recertified or reconditioned drives 🙂
@simonzerafa @magic_smoke @adafruit I don't think she's looking for solutions. But also, a mere six months ago, we didn't need to dumpster dive for consumer tech that used to cost peanuts.
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No Tools for You: A Century of Men Policing Women’s Tools
In 1925 a doctor said vacuum cleaners will make women lazy. In 2026 mastodon dudes said the same thing (and worse) about a woman engineer using a tool to make a CAD part.
https://blog.adafruit.com/2026/02/16/no-tools-for-you-a-century-of-men-policing-womens-tools/
@adafruit this is like the worst fucking response to this situation
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@renedudfield @adafruit Ah yes, all of those economically disadvantaged people spending $200 a month to generate anime girls with three breasts. "You wouldn't take away someone's wheelchair, would you?"
@theorangetheme @renedudfield @adafruit right, because a lot of people use a tool for frivolous things, that means there's no use case that could actually be valid or accommodating of disability.