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Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

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241–250 of 345 posts

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#241
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same reasoning, we could argue that thieves and murderers are almost as old as civilization and we should just get used to it. Sorry, but no. They will always exist, sure, but the only thing we should get used to is hunting them fiercely. I will not surrender my right to be happy, productive, and helpful because a minority of socially-dysfunctional people are trying hard to ruin it for me and for others. Nobod…

Would you be OK if people often called you an abuser of women? MikeeUSA is not (as far as we know) an abuser of women. He is a person who sends unpleasant nonthreatening emails while peacefully sitting in his home. Your attempt to conflate people who initiate violence and people who express unpleasant opinions is dishonest. Further, you don't have any "right to be happy". No one does. You have the right to pursue hap…

MikeeUSA is not (as far as we know) an abuser of women.

I understand that people usually think of abuse as sexual abuse, especially if it is toward women. But verbal or moral abuse is abuse just the same.

To express an opinion is what we're doing right now, as civilized people, openly, in a mildly non-anonymous way. To harass anonymously, without giving the other part the chance to reply and playing on their weaknesses is violence. For me, at least, it is.

Further, you don't have any "right to be happy".

I do have, as we all do. You are mixing the right to be happy with the right of being granted happiness unconditionally. Maybe it's just semantics. I would also say that everyone has the right to drive a car, expecting that I'm not implying that they can bypass the necessary tests. There is a "potential tense" that gets lost in translation.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#242
post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

W T F ? "Actually happened: an interviewer displayed a picture of himself not wearing pants." How many people even have a picture of themselves without pants on at their fingertips, ready to display at a moment's notice?

Presumably they had this prepared knowing a woman was coming to interview. I would have gone directly to the police over this incident.

I too wondered why police or some other legal mechanism wasn't involved. That's what they're there for, and it doesn't get much blatant than this.

I guess it could devolve in to a he said / she said of "well, she told me to bring nude pictures of myself". Maybe that'd fly?

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#243

Last year at FooCamp I went to a panel about women in tech (I believe I was the only guy) for two reasons: 1) I have no qualms about offending people if I feel my point is valid, and in fact enjoy being in situations where I risk such things (I find it incredibly rewarding to have meaningful discussions about things that are considered taboo). 2) To find out what the problem was Let me clarify #2: I didn't see a prob…

Damn: I missed the edit timeframe on my comment. I just realized that Skud was actually at the panel I went to. She was one of the main people I had this discussion with, and I have a "geek feminism" sticker from it sitting on my desk. Small world!

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#244
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....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

If the only harassment you know is digital I would suggest you don't know either what it is like. Not that I do.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#245
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever…

Women get a whole other dimension of online harrasment that men don't.

For a gaming-centered sample, look at http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ .

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is a stupid debate and it should stop here. Nobody is beating anyone, no matter what the Internet tough guys say.

You are right. Casual threats of violence get me about as riled up as casual sexism so this was both a perfect storm and an overreaction on my part. I should have silently grumbled and ignored it.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#247

After doing some reading about the issue, I'm wondering - what's stopping people from posting the harassment they receive online? Some sort of centralized registry of inappropriate emails - I don't see any reason to NOT publicly shame the kind of people that send these disgusting messages. Even if it's only a pseudonym, or a disposable email, it's better than silently taking it, IMHO.

You're onto something with this idea.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ok, I believe I now understand what you believe to be the problem: many people disagree with you on what should be the boundary of free speech. It's a little unkind to categorize disagreement as "the problem", but whatever.

If that's what mootothemax and airlocksoftware meant, then I'd suggest they are wrong. Most of the people reading this page do "get it", but disagree because they assign a higher value to free speech than mootothemax and airlocksoftware do.

This is good - we are all on the same page regarding the facts, we merely disagree on the underlying values.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

....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…

...I don't really care to understand. What little i've read on feminism leads me to think that modern feminism is a passe joke. My guess is modern feminism doesn't connect well enough with the average woman who doesn't complain when the boss grabs her ass or passes her up for the unqualified white male in the boys' club. They need a new strategy and better marketing. Most of all they need solidarity. And maybe a less antagonistic approach to equality, like "human equality" instead of "women's equality." But everybody just defends their own kind I guess.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#250
post #245
post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ever…

Women get a whole other dimension of online harrasment that men don't. For a gaming-centered sample, look at http://fatuglyorslutty.com/ .

Yeah, men have absolutely never been accused of being fat, ugly, or accused of having a societally unacceptable number of sexual partners.

What exactly is wrong with the idea that we shouldn't harass anyone?

What is wrong with the idea that all people are created equal and that people don't need special privileges or protections based on gender/race/sexual orientation?

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