Speaking up • Hacker News Board

Re: Speaking up

#161

Post by tedks » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:31 PM UTC

mnicole wrote: post #98

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #75

Is there becoming a general consensus on what to do about a problem we are becoming aware is worse than most of us thought? I glean the following from a few of these threads 1. Conferences, conventions, hackathons all should have published "acceptable behaviour" statements, and possibly a red / orange / green card system that everyone understands 2. online examples get red / orange carded though a bitly link posted o…

I read that the card system turned into a running joke at DEFCON (people giving their buddies cards at the slightest insinuation), which could lead to watering down the purpose or making it somewhat of a joke to receive one in a literal sense. Do any other conferences have in-the-moment/non-confrontational methods of calling people out?

In activist circles, getting called out for racist or sexist behavior means you're kicked out, immediately, no questions asked.

Based on my understanding of it, the red/yellow card system is largely an effort in self-policing, in that they're based on the assumption that someone who receives a red card will learn and change their behavior.

This seems like a bad assumption. A better system might be to have a simple mobile app or website, run by the conference, that allows women (and only women) to report harassment by a particular person, causing that person to be immediately blacklisted.

This is severe enough that you won't see it being used as a joke, and it'll be effective at removing scuzzy people from conferences.

Re: Speaking up

#162

Post by nollidge » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:33 PM UTC

gavanwoolery wrote: post #147

mtrimpe wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how many speakers have porn created of them distributed during conferences? And when that happened would you expect at least a small percentage to secretly have a little laugh at it? There was another post on the front-page just minutes ago called The Distress of the Privileged [1] and it makes the very good point that these things are about a difference of scale . On the one hand we have one of the most high-pro…

Yes, people are going to attack women in very different ways then men. I can't imagine that many people would want to create nude pics of a guy to insult him. But that's not what I am getting at -- I am trying to say that this incident does not reflect the majority of males, nor does it make the whole IT industry sexist. You can't start saying that everyone/everything is sexist just because one incident of it occurre…

Nobody said it reflected the majority of males. Nobody said it makes the whole industry sexist. Nobody said everyone is sexist. Nobody is basing their opinion on one incident.

Tell me more about this "straw man fallacy", though.

Re: Speaking up

#163

Post by rdl » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

mwetzler wrote: post #131

h2s wrote: post #2

Are there any high profile women in this industry who haven't been treated like shit in some way such as this? What a nasty bunch of people we are. Are we (developers) the douchey 80s guy of the 21st century?

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

I obviously never get comments like this (being a man in a male-dominated field), but I hear about some women in the industry getting it more often than others. I'm sure there's reporting bias, but at least some of the women I've talked to seem to think it's not a common problem for them at least (but happens to others).

I wonder if there are specific things which make it more likely for some women to be harassed like this. And, is relatively mild stupidity like this correlated in any way with more serious issues (either assault or serious job discrimination)?

Re: Speaking up

#164

Post by nollidge » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:35 PM UTC

gavanwoolery wrote: post #144

nollidge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For glob's sake, I wish people would stop saying "I'm not sexist BUT..." or "I'm not racist BUT..." or "I'm not a homophobe BUT..." Because: A) You're setting yourself up for failure. B) Show, don't tell. but most importantly C) it's hardly ever useful to denote any one person as racist or sexist or whatever. It's thoughts and ideas and biases which are much more usefully labeled so. So, great, you are not sexist: yo…

No buts, I just wanted to make it apparent from the start that I am not sexist. "Equality" is all that I want, and it bugs me when people start saying things like "the industry is filled with sexism" or "sexism is the norm" or "most males are sexist" because it is simply not true. Or it is true, and 99.999 women just choose to be silent about their cases of sexism. It is insulting when people attack males as a single…

> Or it is true, and 99.999 women just choose to be silent about their cases of sexism.

They are far more silent that you think. Ask some actual women about it some time.

> It is insulting when people attack males as a single group based on some edge cases.

You're right, that would be insulting, if it were at all what was actually happening in this plane of reality.

Re: Speaking up

#165

Post by hagios » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

cllns wrote: post #92

DasIch wrote: post #89

Sexist misogynistic asshole on a project? Take away his commit access and ban him from all channels of communication, if you have the power and if you don't, don't contribute to the project anymore, make the reason public and create an alternative if possible. In daily life I don't hang out with those assholes, do you? If not, why the fuck are you doing it online? Just because they have decent skills? How many people…

Worth noting that outing someone requires an immense amount of courage. I think the more privilege you have, the less courage it takes.

This is absolutely true. It's almost always easier (and certainly less emotionally taxing) to just walk away entirely--especially when [the perception is that] the community will be either passive or against you after you act.

Re: Speaking up

#166

Post by dangerf » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:37 PM UTC

gavanwoolery wrote: post #144

nollidge wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For glob's sake, I wish people would stop saying "I'm not sexist BUT..." or "I'm not racist BUT..." or "I'm not a homophobe BUT..." Because: A) You're setting yourself up for failure. B) Show, don't tell. but most importantly C) it's hardly ever useful to denote any one person as racist or sexist or whatever. It's thoughts and ideas and biases which are much more usefully labeled so. So, great, you are not sexist: yo…

No buts, I just wanted to make it apparent from the start that I am not sexist. "Equality" is all that I want, and it bugs me when people start saying things like "the industry is filled with sexism" or "sexism is the norm" or "most males are sexist" because it is simply not true. Or it is true, and 99.999 women just choose to be silent about their cases of sexism. It is insulting when people attack males as a single…

Of course it's true that sexism exists - plenty of women do choose to be silent on issues of sexism. It is an incredibly hard to bring up such a personal thing when you want to be taken seriously professionally.

Re: Speaking up

#167

Post by h2s » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

dgrnbrg wrote: post #156

h2s wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about Tim Pope, whose work includes vim-foreplay, vim-scriptease, vim-eunuch, vim-speeddating, and hookup?

I am talking about Tim Pope. I have forked his code and renamed it, but instead of the community helping me, I've received a lot of negative feedback about "fragmenting the community" for trying to maintain and evangelize a non-sexist version of the plugin. It is difficult to continue in the face of so little support, but I believe in what I'm doing, and all of my male and female developer friends agree with me.

I think you're right that it's a less overt form of sexism, but I support what you're doing and I hope one day this clicks for Tim and he sees what a minor concession this is and what a positive thing it would be.

I'm a Vim user myself, and a big fan of his work. It's not nice to mention his name in a thread like this, however tangentially related. But given the topic, I thought for once it might be forgiveable to err on the side of those without male privilege.

Re: Speaking up

#168

Post by Tichy » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

nollidge wrote: post #139

detst wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know the motivation of this person? Every time one of these stories come up, someone tries to call other people out for rationalizing. It's not rationalizing, it's calling it as they see it: someone being an asshole. If you want blatant sexism, FTA: "no offence, I just don’t relate to girls speaking about the industry at all, I learn better from guys". That's sexism. It's not denial if you don't know the m…

Do you legitimately think we could remove gender from the situation and it would've played out in the same way?

Cases of men being stalked do exist.

Re: Speaking up

#169

Post by mwetzler » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:51 PM UTC

rdl wrote: post #163

mwetzler wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On Friday I pitched my company to a room of 150 developers, since my company was a hackathon sponsor. I was the only female speaker out of about 15. Afterwards, a well-known, elite developer asked me if I programmed. When I said yes, he said that made me 50% less attractive. Then he asked me if I cooked and cleaned. To my face. You don't have to be high profile to deal with this stuff. Just being in a room where you'…

I obviously never get comments like this (being a man in a male-dominated field), but I hear about some women in the industry getting it more often than others. I'm sure there's reporting bias, but at least some of the women I've talked to seem to think it's not a common problem for them at least (but happens to others). I wonder if there are specific things which make it more likely for some women to be harassed lik…

I think two things make it more likely for me to encounter incidents of sexism:

1) I do some programming for my job, but a majority of it involves going out and meeting other developers, learning about their work, and seeing how we can make our API better for them. I live in SF so I can't get a coffee without bumping into another developer. I bet I have many more interactions than someone who is developing full time in their home or office. More interactions increases chances for good and bad types of interactions.

2) Since I have been researching sexism in the industry, I have started to notice small slights and snubs more. I went for years brushing off countless minor incidents. I still don't get offended easily, but I do notice things more. For example, checkout the gun.io landing page right now (Beards of Experience). I like gun.io, but their homepage is definitely not female-friendly, and I noticed it immediately.

I'd wager that people who have had some kind of experience that really bothered them, or ones who have recently started learning more about gender bias, will suddenly start to notice all the little "micro agressions" more. Even my male colleagues have started noticing them more since we have been discussing it recently.

One of them even said "it's like when you get a new car, you suddenly start to notice how many people drive the same car as you do".

Re: Speaking up

#170

Post by Tichy » Mon, Feb 04, 2013, 7:53 PM UTC

zamryok wrote: post #130

timsally wrote: post #90

Whenever an instance of blatant sexism comes up, an attempt is invariably made to rationalize away the fact that a sexist act has actually occurred. We have had two such attempts made here so far and I expect more. One commentator is attempting to advance the baseless theory that the bully did not care about the sex of his victim. This particular individual even goes so far to say that "the biggest problem" is the al…

Furthermore, it seems clear that the way she was attacked was specifically designed to exploit at least the following : - the fact that she is a woman adressing a predominantly male audience (the fake porno) - the ambient objectification of women in society How can that not count as sexist?

Excuse my ignorance, just wondering: is it established that porn is sexist? Are they demeaning to the male actors in porn, too? Or is the underlying value that it is demeaning for a woman to have sex? It seems to me a universal judgement isn't easy to come by?