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Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

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Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#131

Post by DiabloD3 »

michaels0620 wrote: post #116
DiabloD3 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support equal rights. If a guy fell for troll bait, I say hes stupid for falling for it. If a woman does it, should I not treat her the same way? If I did, I myself would be undermining woman's rights. There is also insufficient proof such things happened. If they did, why has she not gone to the police and legally pursued it? I'm not seeing that she has done so at all.

I guess I am stuck on what it is you mean by "falling for troll bait". In my mind it means that you get sucked into an internet argument by someone who clearly just wants to cause trouble, not have discussion. The fault for this guy's escalation to the point of calling people's place of business , etc.lies entirely with him. So I'd agree that you treating men and women equally, but I would argue that you would be equ…

MikeeUSA is a troll. He has no means to actually harm anyone, and he does it purely for the lulz.

Thus, MikeeUSA trolled a woman, and she took the bait. I just don't get why this is news, I've been trolled before, I don't get a news story.

This isn't blaming the victim, this is blaming someone who allowed a troll to win and just made it that much harder for every other woman on the Internet to be taken seriously.

And yes, I have a problem with that. I would love to see more women involved in FOSS, and Skud's actions have only served to scare more women away and make them think and guys in FOSS are are trolls and/or potential rapists.

People need to grow a backbone and stand up for themselves. This advice is equally as valid for both men and women.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#132

Post by DannoHung »

ugh wrote: post #64
[deleted] wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I don’t want to live in a society where unnecessary perilous violence is the norm. Is that a good enough reason for you?

So why do you support his right to make threats to undeserving people? Isn't the threat of violence injurious?

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#133

Post by peterwwillis »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #107
peterwwillis wrote: post #89

A couple of points if I may: 1. If you speak at conferences, especially about a non-technical subject like "women in FOSS projects" (which is more likely to get sexists riled up), you are going to get unwanted attention. Pretty much every speaker who speaks on a controversial, or non-technical, or just media-glamorized topic is going to get harassed - if not hacked. It happens all the time to men and i'm sure it happ…

If the only reason there weren't more women in tech was because they didn't want to be there, what you say about fixing tech would be true, but it's not. Women are significantly discriminated against, from the day they start engineering courses. I don't believe you are sympathetic at all. More importantly, you've shown no empathy. I'm assuming she started speaking at conferences because she enjoyed it. Some jackass t…

....I don't know how to fix the problem. Will empathizing more fix it? If so, i'll empathize like crazy. But I seriously doubt it will create change. Instead I try to point out what I see as some of the contributing factors to the problem in this particular case. I'm sorry I can't fix sexism, and i'm sorry i'm not being humbling and emotive enough to express that I find sexism wrong. But I don't agree that I am illustrative of the problem.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#134

Post by Aloisius »

floatboth wrote: post #124
Aloisius wrote: post #117

Can someone please tell me why quitting the tech community would stop someone from harassing you because you are a woman? If anything, you'd think bringing it up to the community and get help tracking down the person would work better. That or public ridicule/shaming. Something proactive. I mean, isn't feminism about fighting back against these degenerates?

She quit a tech job, not the geek femininsm community.

Yes, but why would that stop this person from targeting her? If anything, her geek feministing makes her a much bigger target. I guess I don't follow the logic unless she believes this person is someone she worked with and even then, I don't see someone who is truly obsessed from stopping.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#135

Post by Rariel »

I've worked in IP Law and for the Senate and I've never really experienced overt sexism so I kind of thought it was on the decline in the work place. Imagine my surprise when I started joining tech/start-up communities (like this one) and witnessed unparalleled sexism and ignorance. I mean attitudes that make you think you're in the 1800s (once had somebody on HN tell me that women are genetically less likely to want to do tech![!!!!!!!]).

I'm still pretty shocked by it and also curious as to why this industry is so antiquated with regard to its' attitudes about women. There are a lot of women who want to distance themselves from the argument. At a SXSW session there were women extremely opposed to even acknowledging the discrimination for fear they'd be labeled a complainer and be seen differently than their male counter-parts (which unless you're an idiot you can see the difference between a man and a woman). I didn't consider myself a feminist before but the tech industry has made me up my feminism...

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#136

Post by tekromancr »

ugh wrote: post #64
[deleted] wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

I don’t want to live in a society where unnecessary perilous violence is the norm. Is that a good enough reason for you?

I don't think he was advocating /actual/ violence.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#137

Post by dreww »

peterwwillis wrote: post #133
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the only reason there weren't more women in tech was because they didn't want to be there, what you say about fixing tech would be true, but it's not. Women are significantly discriminated against, from the day they start engineering courses. I don't believe you are sympathetic at all. More importantly, you've shown no empathy. I'm assuming she started speaking at conferences because she enjoyed it. Some jackass t…

....I don't know how to fix the problem. Will empathizing more fix it? If so, i'll empathize like crazy. But I seriously doubt it will create change. Instead I try to point out what I see as some of the contributing factors to the problem in this particular case. I'm sorry I can't fix sexism, and i'm sorry i'm not being humbling and emotive enough to express that I find sexism wrong. But I don't agree that I am illus…

empathy will fix it.

you are illustrative of the problem because you are a) ignorant of what harassment is really like b) apparently unwilling to imagine it and c) BLAMING THE HARASSED

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#138

Post by ugh »

tekromancr wrote: post #136
ugh wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to live in a society where unnecessary perilous violence is the norm. Is that a good enough reason for you?

I don't think he was advocating /actual/ violence.

While better than actual violence I also don’t want to live in a society where threats of violence are common. That seems like an irrational and barbaric way of solving problems.

Violence is a tiny bit too serious for to just discount the threat of it as a nice rhetorical flourish.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#139

Post by dreww »

davidhansen wrote: post #79
GiraffeNecktie wrote: post #8

It distresses me that "political correctness" has become a dirty "four letter" word rather than simply a shared understanding that people who address others in a hate-filled, bullying, disrepectful and demeaning way should be actively shunned and censured (i.e. not "censored").

Well, the general reason for this attitude goes back to the old phrase "sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never harm me". When someone initiates physical force against you, it is an action being done to you, the consequences of which you cannot avoid due to the laws of physics. We take actual threats of physical violence seriously because of this. When someone says mean things, the above attitude pr…

the daily life of most women is filled with navigating a hostile space that may break out into sexual violence at any time.

having an obsessed troll on the internet following you around, or threatening you before you show up to a conference, goes way beyond what you're talking about here.

your whole point comes from a place of the privilege of relative security. imagine that is not the case.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#140

Post by dreww »

cube13 wrote: post #75
scott_s wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? At what point do you stop calling someone a "troll" and start calling them a "stalker"? Perhaps the harassment she received was so much that changing her whole life greatly improves her quality of life. Is she still "just supporting negative stereotypes" then?

If it's at that point, wouldn't it be more prudent to get the police involved? Restraining orders exist for this exact reason. The article(and blog post) imply that this has been a long-term issue, and the level of threats are pretty terrible, even to the level where most good forum admins would seriously think of tipping off the police if these messages were brought to their attention.

your faith in the police to protect women is almost charmingly naive.
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