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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

#231

Post by gldalmaso »

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…

The contributing factors you pointed out seem to signal the message that minorities should expect hatred and suck it up. That's a normalization of the status quo and does not address the issue, it's just being complacent with behavior that should be reprimended but is often taken with the same lack of empathy and thus is ignored.

Most men can't empathyze because they are priviliged (as in, they do not suffer from the same kind of sexism) and completely miss the point.

If you want to understand, truly understand, then read more on feminism, read everything on Geek Feminism and then read on feminism from other sources (they link great sources).

If you reach a point where you you realiza that you ARE privileged and take for granted simple things, that men make the world UNFAIR to women and rile them for being oversensitive, then you may have just grown a bit.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#233

Post by [deleted] »

drhayes9 wrote: post #182
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…

Your first two points are classic victim-blaming. "You are going to get unwanted attention." Well, yes: there are assholes out there. But you seem to be implying that she is at fault for attracting the assholes, rather than saying there shouldn't be assholes in the first place. We should focus on rooting out the assholes rather than throwing up our hands and saying there's nothing we can do. I admit there's a fine li…

[deleted]

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#234

Post by roel_v »

pnathan wrote: post #59

I read a private blog of a lady in the games industry, and the level of ordure and harassment she gets is simply unbelievable. It's well beyond anything in the 'people are jerks, suck it up' level. I can well believe Skud got sick of it and is doing other things with her life. I'm going to come right out and say it - if you, or someone you know - has a penchant for writing these sorts of harassing emails, it needs to…

OK, so give me some real examples of what she/you consider 'harassment' and 'ordure'. Maybe I live in a bubble, I don't know, I just can't picture things that I would qualify as such and that wouldn't be illegal.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#235

Post by fleitz »

mcantor wrote: post #181
airlocksoftware wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely believe the things I'm reading on this page. Lots of comments similar to "It's just trolling, get over it." And "she's just reinforcing negative stereotypes of women by not being strong enough to handle the internet." And "men deal with negative comments all the time and don't whine about it." These are the exact attitudes that are the problem! Why can they not see this?

By definition, privilege is a lack of perspective--that includes [straight] [white] male privilege. That's why it's so hard for many guys (not just programmers) to understand.

I'm pretty sure the definition of privilege is not lack of perspective.

Maybe Zed Shaw should quit too, he seems to get a lot of online harassment, too bad his white straight male privilege isn't stopping it. There are a lot of shitty things in any community, lets focus on fixing the community and not trying to figure out which genders / sexual orientations / races are to blame.

Maybe people should stop trolling everyone and not just women.

Have you considered that the troll is anonymous because the community would never put up with this kind of behavior? This isn't an issue of community standards, it's an issue of someone being an asshole who possibly happens to share a gender / race with myself.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#236

Post by roel_v »

flatline wrote: post #189
endtime wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(once had somebody on HN tell me that women are genetically less likely to want to do tech![!!!!!!!]) Are you trolling? That does not seem to be a sexist or retrograde statement.

I think this highlights the problem nicely: the recipient of the comment took it that way, and you don't seem to understand her response.

Yeah well if the recipient is stupid, that doesn't make whoever said it an asshole, does it?

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#237

Post by peterwwillis »

drhayes9 wrote: post #182
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…

Your first two points are classic victim-blaming. "You are going to get unwanted attention." Well, yes: there are assholes out there. But you seem to be implying that she is at fault for attracting the assholes, rather than saying there shouldn't be assholes in the first place. We should focus on rooting out the assholes rather than throwing up our hands and saying there's nothing we can do. I admit there's a fine li…

See here (http://hackerne.ws/item?id=3164269) on why i'm not victim-blaming. I am not trying to imply anything. I'm simply pointing out what potentially motivates sexist assholes.

I only advocate a "grin and bear it" attitude when it comes to getting trolled on the internet in relation to publishing material you know some people will disagree with greatly. You can not wipe out sexists completely just like you can't wipe out racists and religious extremists. These people will always exist. I AM NOT SAYING YOU HAVE TO TOLERATE IT. I am saying, expect it, don't sit there with your head in the sand pretending they don't exist. I'll say it again for dramatic effect: I AM NOT ADVOCATING PRETENDING SEXISM DOESN'T EXIST, I AM ADVOCATING PEOPLE USE COMMON SENSE AND EXPECT EXTREMIST ASSHOLES TO ACT LIKE EXTREMIST ASSHOLES, THEN DEAL WITH THEM ACCORDINGLY

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#238

Post by roel_v »

dreww wrote: post #139
davidhansen wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

If you live in a warzone in Africa, maybe. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're talking about. I'd ask the women around me if they feel that way but I'm afraid they'll think I'm nuts if I were to ask them such clearly outrageous things.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#239

Post by anigbrowl »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #214
airlocksoftware wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can barely believe the things I'm reading on this page. Lots of comments similar to "It's just trolling, get over it." And "she's just reinforcing negative stereotypes of women by not being strong enough to handle the internet." And "men deal with negative comments all the time and don't whine about it." These are the exact attitudes that are the problem! Why can they not see this?

Could you clearly state "the problem"? Based on what has been posted, it's hard for me to clearly see a problem beyond "in a society with free speech, some people will speak in ways that others dislike." That is a legitimate (unsolvable) problem, but I don't think it's the problem you are referring to.

The problem is people's unwillingness to acknowledge the fact that free speech has boundaries, and that some people abuse their free speech rights in ways that go far beyond being disagreeable. For example:

Go to the local women’s group office and liquidate it (kill the feminist women there). Wear a dark suit and drive an expensive car (these are more likely not to be suspect). Continue destroying the people who have helped to destroy countless of your fellow Men untill you are killed. Go from women’s rights organisation’s office to women’s rights organisation’s office, maybe throw in a few domestic violence shelters and abortion clinics if you wish.

This isn't illegal speech, but it's getting perilously close to that threshold. If similar sentiments were sent via email rather than posted on a blog, it would be reasonable to classify it under 'death threats,' and that does cross the threshold of criminality in some jurisdictions. Free speech is not unlimited, either in theory or in practice.

Reading a variety of MikeeUSA's online proclamations suggests he's a rather disturbed, and disturbing, individual. I'm not a psychiatrist, but he presents as someone with a high potential for violent behavior. It's a problem to dismiss that behavior or insist that it be tolerated in the name of free speech. In the US, the constitution protects him from governmental censorship, but it does not mean he's entitled to a platform for promoting his themes of violent aggression or that other people's concern about the dangers he presents is dismissable. Sure, there is lots of sexism on the internet and much of it is silly, harmless, and ultimately inconsequential. But there's a significant qualitative difference between sexism of the 'LOL boobs' variety and indirect threats of terrorism. To pretend that the latter is of no more concern than the former, or that the concept of free speech validates all utterances equally, is to provide such threatening language with your implicit endorsement.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#240

Post by [deleted] »

roel_v wrote: post #236
flatline wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this highlights the problem nicely: the recipient of the comment took it that way, and you don't seem to understand her response.

Yeah well if the recipient is stupid, that doesn't make whoever said it an asshole, does it?

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