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We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

blog.sqoot.com

11–20 of 81 posts

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#11
I don't undertand why people are intent on burying these guys for a poorly written flier with one mildly misogynistic joke in bad taste. The whole sanctimonious/lynch mob mentality of this reminds me a lot of reddit.

There is so little of substance to be angry about here that people are now more interested in criticizing the quality of their apology. I think they've learned their lesson.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#12
There is another aspect of the apology that seems to be forgotten around here. Forgiveness.

Yes, maybe they screwed up (I screw up more by 7am than most people do all day), but when someone apologizes the decent thing to do is accept it and move on with your life (and let them do the same).

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#13
What exactly was sexist about what they did?

"""Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you."""

Perhaps the quote is missing context, I found it here: http://philomousos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-apologize.h...

To me it doesn't even make sense. What is this 'Women:' bit about?

If you discount the 'Women colon' I think if anything it offends programmers. Are we really so geeky that we would go to an event just to get a beer from 'female' event staff?

Perhaps they think their audience is locked in some underground lair 364 days of the year and women have become nothing but a mythical creature to a programmer. The promise of seeing this rare and mysterious creature serve beer would make someone like me want to go? I think not.

There are 3 things that bug me about this.

1) The quote makes no sense and if you try to rationalise it attendees should be most offended.

2) People have got into such a kerfuffle which in scheme of things shows the inexperience of the hosts rather than their malace.

3) The event might not go ahead at all because of this... which seems like a bit of a shame.

This looks like a storm in the tea cup brewed by people who don't get out enough.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#14
This kind of attitude SERIOUSLY hurts the industry as a whole. Two of the very best programmers I know are women, and blatantly sexist remarks are not the way to get good programmers to attend your event. In fact, why would you even want people who are drawn towards those kinds of perks ANYWAY? Whoever came for the perks of "women" are obviously not the kind of people that you want to associate with. This type of attitude (I remember reading an article about "brogrammers" on HN too) is not acceptable in the hacker community.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#15
I'm obviously the minority here but I feel that this backlash is way over the top. Sure, the comment was sort of stupid and shouldn't be a part of any official communication from a company (although part of what I love about startups is that the communication is more human and doesn't feel like it's been screened by legal and marketing before published).

To me, it pokes more fun at geeks than anyone else. "A real woman!" The idea that the underlying message is that women are supposed to be servants to men and that's all they are good for is imo quite a stretch. Does anybody really believe that they meant something like that?

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#16
post #4

Second comment puts it perfectly: "Could you please explain how your "humor" was designed to call attention to the male-dominated world and was intended to be inclusive? How is inclusive to say that one of the perks were "women" and that one of your female event staff can fetch the boys some beer?" Claiming humorous irony is a very thin get-out clause in this kind of situation. You can't say "we were advertising our…

What is the big deal. People get way to offended this day in age. It's almost as if people are waiting for someone to say something offensive just so they can jump on it acting all high and mighty.

Sexism (specifically in tech) is the new racism. If you go down that path of anything remotely sexist, expect to be torn to shreds just as quickly as if you made a racist remark. If people didn't get offended, then people like Sqoot will feel like it's totally OK to belittle women, even if they would never think to include racist jokes.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#17

Second comment puts it perfectly: "Could you please explain how your "humor" was designed to call attention to the male-dominated world and was intended to be inclusive? How is inclusive to say that one of the perks were "women" and that one of your female event staff can fetch the boys some beer?" Claiming humorous irony is a very thin get-out clause in this kind of situation. You can't say "we were advertising our…

Women - did you know that on golf courses the attendant who serves you beer is commonly referred to as a beer girl? Did you know that it describes the attendant perfectly because she is in fact a girl who is serving beer.

What if, the attendants at the hackathon were in fact an all lady staff?

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#18

What exactly was sexist about what they did? """Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you.""" Perhaps the quote is missing context, I found it here: http://philomousos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-apologize.h... To me it doesn't even make sense. What is this 'Women:' bit about? If you discount the 'Women colon' I think if anything it offends programmers. Are we really so…

In context, the "Women:" part denoted the title of a perk in a bulleted list of perks, which absolutely makes this more offensive. The idea that you would put "Women" in the same list of perks as "Food", especially in a widely public way, is sort of mindblowing.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#19

Second comment puts it perfectly: "Could you please explain how your "humor" was designed to call attention to the male-dominated world and was intended to be inclusive? How is inclusive to say that one of the perks were "women" and that one of your female event staff can fetch the boys some beer?" Claiming humorous irony is a very thin get-out clause in this kind of situation. You can't say "we were advertising our…

Women - did you know that on golf courses the attendant who serves you beer is commonly referred to as a beer girl? Did you know that it describes the attendant perfectly because she is in fact a girl who is serving beer. What if, the attendants at the hackathon were in fact an all lady staff?

I don't think that the backlash would have been as strong if they had mentioned it in the way that you are suggesting. But they listed Women in a bulleted list of perks next to food. It is 100% objectification.

Re: We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot

#20

What exactly was sexist about what they did? """Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you.""" Perhaps the quote is missing context, I found it here: http://philomousos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-apologize.h... To me it doesn't even make sense. What is this 'Women:' bit about? If you discount the 'Women colon' I think if anything it offends programmers. Are we really so…

"(female) event staff get it for you" == "They're less likely to dose it with roofies than a man would be."
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