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The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

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Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#211

Post by calebgilbert »

bostonvaulter2 wrote: post #202
calebgilbert wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, actually - we all, at some point, get to be the final arbiters of deciding whether what what we said was offensive or not. (which I suppose also means that everyone else gets to decided to the final arbiter of whether they're offended or not - a right some have proven time again that they're not giving up) So again - I guess my bottom line is, if I didn't mean to offend a person, and they want to get offended an…

I'd like to give you a mantra that I try my best to live by. "Judge others by their intentions and yourself by your actions". That is to say that other people can and will interpret your actions in ways other than how you intended.

I do actually live by that myself, but there's also people who just can't give anyone a break ever and want others to defer, defer, defer to their whining and complaining. I allow myself to draw a line too. For every time there is a season. :)

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#212

Post by MoreMoschops »

calebgilbert wrote: post #210
MoreMoschops wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"My bottom line is this - if I say something to someone and did not mean any offense/harassment, did not consider it to be offensive/harassing - and someone else still wants to cry about it, then f-*ck them." Hurting people accidentally and not caring at all. What is that level of lack of empathy and non-caring? Is that autism, or is it some kind of sociopathy or psychopathy?

You hurt me with you whining comment. See how being hurt can be subjective?

"See how being hurt can be subjective?"

Oh yes, that completely destroys my claim that being hurt is not subjective. I'd best go back and edit that out.

Oh, wait a second. It seems that I made no such claim and you've delivered a total non sequitur that has nothing at all to do with the topic at hand. I'm as astounded as you are, which is why I doubled-checked, but it came out the same; it seems that rather than read other people's comments, you're just guessing what they might have said.

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#213

Post by forgotusername »

trevi wrote: post #182
forgotusername wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, next time I'll uses "forumses". Damn ecomony got all these morans backs up!

You're implying that fora is the only acceptable way of writing the plural of "forum". That's nonsense, forums is perfectly valid English. My point was: why forum/fora? Why not creditor/creditores, or abdomen/abdomina?

I'm honestly not sure. Perhaps this topic would be more appropriate for a linguistics forum?

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#214

Post by vaurora »

hugh3 wrote: post #128
gacba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact you personally didn't receive any unwanted advances is not proof that they never happen.

No, however the fact that she didn't is a useful data point in itself. It puts some sort of upper bound on the extent of the problem.

An upper bound of N - 1, where N = number of all women in tech. Work hard on that and you should be able to get it down to at least N - 1000 or so.

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#215

Post by vaurora »

robryan wrote: post #75

An interesting question would be if those men which did the wrong thing were regulars to these conferences or new to the scene? From similar things I have been to I just couldn't imagine a community in which the core regulars would have anyone doing these kinds of things.

Have you met any of the "core regulars" in the Linux community?

The short answer is that the people who do these things include both regulars and newbies. I have personally been groped or fondled by two "core regulars."

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#216

Post by enneff »

c00ki3s wrote: post #209
enneff wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it sounds ridiculous, but now I am having a hard time thinking of an appropriate example of sexual language at a tech conference. These rules set clearly defined boundaries that even the most tactless, socially inept people can understand and abide by.

"Fuck I dropped my laptop" ?

"Fuck" as an exclamation is not sexual language. You could argue otherwise, but you'd just be being literal-minded.

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#217

Post by enneff »

jules wrote: post #180
enneff wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it sounds ridiculous, but now I am having a hard time thinking of an appropriate example of sexual language at a tech conference. These rules set clearly defined boundaries that even the most tactless, socially inept people can understand and abide by.

A joke perhaps? It is ridiculous also because the punishment is far too severe.

A sexual joke would be appropriate? Not IMO.

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#218

Post by brazzy »

sliverstorm wrote: post #191
robg wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by a "pass". Asking a woman if you can kiss her may feel hard, but looking back on my single teenage years, that's a whole lot easier than "going for a kiss".

Asking a woman if you can kiss her may feel hard, but looking back on my single teenage years, that's a whole lot easier than "going for a kiss". On the other hand, if you can pull off just going for it and she digs it, that makes you look really good.

And that's how it always works in movies. Which is probably a big part of the problem (for both girls and guys).

Re: The dark side of open source conferences [about women being harassed]

#219

Post by mcantor »

mcantor wrote: post #195
angumagu wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mirror-world example leaves one important factor out: context. That is, the larger social context is a world of unequal gendered power dynamics. I think your thought experiment is accurate in its depiction of what that flipped situation would look like, but you are implying the difference is in sensitivity or disposition. I think the difference is actually that men can laugh at that stuff because a) it's ironic…

I wish I could take every upvote I've ever given to someone else on Hacker News, and put them all on this post instead. But, I can only upvote it once. So it'll have to do for now.

A downvote...?

Should I have e-mailed the parent commenter instead of posting publicly how strongly I agreed...?

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