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Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

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Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#131

Post by antihero »

kabuks wrote: post #17

If you are a man reading this, I invite you to: a. Resist the urge to pick apart the OP's life and criticize how/what she said. b. Honestly reflect, without shame or blame, about what you know of sexism. What do you understand of it? What do you understand it's roots are, and how it works? What do you think your responsibility is, as a man, and as a member of this community? I invite you to do this, because it's a ch…

Honestly, reading this the only thing I wish is to have been at 29c3 when whoever made the creeper card image did that so I could give them a piece of mind.

I wonder if we couldn't have some sort of allies/mentoring system for people (of either sex) who are confident/connected that are volunteering to be around if someone's having issues - just as a fall-back. I mean ideally it'd be great if every woman had the confidence to chew out creepy fucks, but they shouldn't have to. It's definitely something I'd be cool with doing if it enabled more women to be able to attend conferences and have confidence.

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#132

Post by antihero »

w1ntermute wrote: post #107
bobwaycott wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or at least that's how I see it. This is perhaps the most cunningly dangerous thing you could allow yourself as a response. In the case of any kind of discrimination or behavior that is experienced by someone else, please start working to taboo your acceptance of and reliance on "how you see it". It won't help you understand someone else properly. It won't help you spot this kind of situation as clearly whenever yo…

> This is perhaps the most cunningly dangerous thing you could allow yourself as a response. You're reading far too much into "Or at least that's how I see it." My sole point with that statement, as you can see in the following sentence, is that the author seemed to be suggesting that sexism was behind most of what happened to her, rather than just saying that sexism was an issue, along with other things that could h…

I think you're missing firstly how dangerous the sentiment of your initial response was - it reeks of complete ignorance of what women face, and is at points flat our victim blaming "she brought some of it upon herself".

> and the project developed on Twitter during an open conversation. You seem to have conveniently ignored that part of the post.

No, they were pointing out that they were an organiser not a technical person.

> it only takes one or two people for that sort of thing to happen.

Does. Not. Matter. The fact is that when one or two people do it and it isn't met with outright condemnation and vitriol from the other 99%, it feels like this sort of thing is accepted or event silently celebrated.

Fuck passive observers.

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#133

Post by antihero »

It might be nice to sit around on the throne of privilege and gaze over the people with their problems, seeing simple solutions to all their petty seeming squabbles, but until you feel the anger, dismay, and emotion that comes of being on the ground, in the thick of discrimination and oppression, of not only seeing those problems but having them affect you and those that you love, you cannot "rationally judge" or "objectively assess" such events, because true understanding requires not only reason but experience, and emotional experience is one of those things.

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#134

Post by w1ntermute »

antihero wrote: post #132
w1ntermute wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is perhaps the most cunningly dangerous thing you could allow yourself as a response. You're reading far too much into "Or at least that's how I see it." My sole point with that statement, as you can see in the following sentence, is that the author seemed to be suggesting that sexism was behind most of what happened to her, rather than just saying that sexism was an issue, along with other things that could h…

I think you're missing firstly how dangerous the sentiment of your initial response was - it reeks of complete ignorance of what women face, and is at points flat our victim blaming "she brought some of it upon herself". > and the project developed on Twitter during an open conversation. You seem to have conveniently ignored that part of the post. No, they were pointing out that they were an organiser not a technical…

> I think you're missing firstly how dangerous the sentiment of your initial response was - it reeks of complete ignorance of what women face

Well, your thinking is incorrect. If you had bothered to actually read my initial post, you'd know that I clearly stated that "sexism is clearly an issue in the hacker community that needs to be tackled".

> is at points flat our victim blaming "she brought some of it upon herself".

Yes, she did bring it upon herself in the sense that she was inexperienced, something that had nothing to do with her gender. If a male had the same level of experience as her and tried to pull some of the shit that she did, he would have gotten his ass kicked out, no questions asked. Such incidents just never get attention, since they're a regular part of the tech industry - you're incompetent, you're out.

To reiterate, I am not suggesting that she should be blamed for the sexist comments she was faced with. That is a separate issue and one that clearly needs to be dealt with.

> No, they were pointing out that they were an organiser not a technical person.

Wrong again, bobwaycott repeatedly referred to her as a "founder". There's a big difference between an "organizer" of a loosely organized internet project and a "founder". And the organizer of a loosely organized internet project can't claim credit for having come up with the idea for it, as bobwaycott credited the author with in his post.

> The fact is that when one or two people do it and it isn't met with outright condemnation and vitriol from the other 99%, it feels like this sort of thing is accepted or event silently celebrated.

Blatant strawman. I never suggested that it should be accepted or "silently celebrated". Do you actually bother to even read what you've written before hitting the reply button?

All I'm saying is that for men, when we're at a conference with 1% of the attendees being women, we may never even see this harassment going on, since the harassers and the victims together may only make up 2% of the total attendees. How are we supposed to stop something that we don't even see happening?

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#135

Post by bconway »

rachelbythebay wrote: post #42

>> He sat in on the crowd-sourced process of writing of the application, contributing nothing except criticism to anything I wrote for hours. That's the part of this post which really grabbed me. I went through the same sort of thing in a corporate environment not too long ago. I had suffered through discovering a massive security hole on an internal system, managing disclosure to just the right groups, writing the f…

There was nothing sexist in this post.

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#136

Post by anewguy99 »

thejsjunky wrote: post #128
anewguy99 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly certain that a black woman going to a high school where 90%+ of graduates are going to university will have many more advantages in life than a white boy attending a high school where ~10% of graduates go to university. I don't think people understand just how dismal such places are. And yet, geographic prejudice abounds, people say things about "ignorant hicks" that they would never say about a class bas…

I think you are not entirely understanding the concept of privilege in this context, or it's purpose. It's a common problem. You seem to regard it as some sort of insult or badge of shame, which is understandable. As I said before, privilege is something basically everyone has. In any situation it's likely that both sides have some privilege. > I am fairly certain that a black woman going to a high school where 90%+…

Disparate impact is certainly a component of systematic bias. It may be true that a white American with a prestigious college degree has advantages in life compared to an Asian American with a prestigious college degree. But the fact that a far higher proportion of Asian Americans receive prestigious college degrees in the first place points to biases earlier in the educational system (Asians are 8x more likely than non-Jewish whites to attend Harvard, for example, compared to their proportion in the population).

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#137

Post by TheZenPsycho »

w1ntermute wrote: post #109
w1ntermute wrote: post #5

The problem with this woman's story is that she takes a few cases of explicit sexism and extrapolates them as the reason why everyone is saying rude things to her. Or at least that's how I see it. Perhaps she is just commenting on the general douchebaggery of the community, but even then much of the criticism she received could be seen as fair if she was actually in the wrong. Although sexism is clearly an issue in t…

Here is a mirror of the original blog post, in case it gets taken down or is changed: In image format: http://i.imgur.com/YBRgZ.png In text format (with links to in-line images, rehosted to imgur): http://pastebin.com/GDVSsj8V

So it did get hacked by some butt-hurt sad individuals, and forwarded on to a flash that falsely implicated Austrian Anonymous. Thanks for the mirror.

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#138

Post by steveklabnik »

anewguy99 wrote: post #89
thejsjunky wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's inherent to the concept of "privilege"; the understanding is that the people with the most "privilege" in the western world are men who are white. If you are making a point that a group has "privilege", it makes sense to point out they are mostly white since it affects the amount of "privilege" they have. That said, that particular remark seems to be imbued with some bitterness and desire to wound; which may be…

I've always found concepts of privilege to be lacking explanatory power. A European-derived culture is dominant in America, but east-Asian Americans still manage to do better than whites in education and in earnings. If racial privilege is powerful, it is not all-powerful. At the same time, I find the focus on race and class privilege to be incomplete. A poor white boy growing up in Appalachia has less privilege than…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersectionality

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#139

Post by raganwald »

etherael wrote: post #127
lukev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we can't know the true motivation of any of the parties involved. But as big a problem as this has obviously become, I'd rather err on the side of calling out apparent sexism when I see it rather than giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and giving sexists the impression that this shit is ok. And if I'm wrong, oh well. Worst case, some people might stop to think about the language they use and how it af…

Worst case; in a field where logic is paramount, emotion trumping it on a political correctness card starts to creep into the culture, poisoning everything it touches and slowly bleeding it into just another mostly political, messy, emotional human endeavour. Honestly, if that's what it takes for women to feel accepted in this field I would prefer they were not. I sincerely don't believe that to be the case though, i…

"a field where logic is paramount" Which field is that? The field that produces Hacker News threads? The field where Academic Politics are vicious?

Re: Dear Hacker Community – We Need To Talk

#140

Post by mr_eel »

etherael wrote: post #127
lukev wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course we can't know the true motivation of any of the parties involved. But as big a problem as this has obviously become, I'd rather err on the side of calling out apparent sexism when I see it rather than giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and giving sexists the impression that this shit is ok. And if I'm wrong, oh well. Worst case, some people might stop to think about the language they use and how it af…

Worst case; in a field where logic is paramount, emotion trumping it on a political correctness card starts to creep into the culture, poisoning everything it touches and slowly bleeding it into just another mostly political, messy, emotional human endeavour. Honestly, if that's what it takes for women to feel accepted in this field I would prefer they were not. I sincerely don't believe that to be the case though, i…

You're gonna tell me you never got cut up about the way people treated you? You let cool logic rule you instead?

Bullshit! It's a basic fact that most people don't like being routinely belittled and side-lined. That's got nowt to do with gender. The difference is that women suffer it more often and gosh should they have the temerity to complain, suffer a further avalanche of abuse under the guise of cool, logical criticism.

"emotion trumping it on a political correctness card"

Political correctness is just short-hand for "don't be racist, don't be sexist, don't be a prick". Pretty simple.

It's naive to think that politics and emotion can somehow be kept out of any human endeavour. So, the _logical_ course is to have a open discussion about how we can maintain respect and encourage all who are interested and able to contribute. That's what is best for the field.

You've got such an undeveloped idea of gender equality that when someone directly talks about it, you want to label it 'sideline histronics'.

You, yes YOU, the individual using the handle etherael are part of the problem.

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