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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#81

Post by rmk2 »

whalesalad wrote: post #40

Most Europeans must just be laughing and pointing fingers at the insane political correctness in America and more specifically, the hacker community these days. I knew something was fishy from the get-go on this story but waited to see what else would come out of it. Thanks for this post, it articulates my feelings on the situation perfectly. People are outta control these days. We're turning molehills into mountains…

Fefe is by no means "most Europeans", though he is quite well known as a ("political nerd") blogger in Germany. His comment on the matter, however, is less that of pointing and laughing and more that of worry, especially considering that there were some mild(er/ish) issues along similar lines in the wake of the 29C3.

As a quick and dirty(!) translation of this blog post: http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=afb76b8d

"The 'sexual harassment'-story at US computer conferences is escalating further. This has poisened the climate to a degree where I fear the sentiment towards women is shifting from 'great, we need more [of them]' towards 'risk, risk, stay away, better not to say anything'. Smaller cons might possibly not admit women anymore [in the future], just to avoid being subject to such risks. This is all very unfortunate [or: distressing/regrettable]. (Thanks, Michael)"

Everything in square brackets '[' & ']' serves as clarification.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#83

Post by djcapelis »

peterhunt wrote: post #43
danilocampos wrote: post #22

Couple pieces to this. First – the fact that this guy's employer made a kneejerk reaction is no one's fault but the employer. Next – let's talk about this red herring of "sexism." Making a phallus joke might be sexist depending on context. Or it might not be. Sexism is not at issue here. The individual in question concedes that they did, in fact, make the joke. From PyCon's code of conduct: "All communication should…

I don't think anyone takes issue with talking to the PyCon organizers and even having them removed from the conference. The employer made a mistake for sure, but so did your friend. Skewering someone in public on the Internet like that is immature and irresponsible. There are a million better ways she could have dealt with this.

> Skewering someone in public on the Internet like that is immature and irresponsible. There are a million better ways she could have dealt with this.

I'm pretty sure relating and disclosing a situation that happened in a public place fully to the best of her ability shouldn't be something we call irresponsible. In fact, women who do otherwise are often asked to disclose in exactly the manner she did.

No matter how a woman chooses to address something like this, there's always someone who wants to talk about how she should have addressed it differently.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#84

Post by ludoo »

whalesalad wrote: post #40

Most Europeans must just be laughing and pointing fingers at the insane political correctness in America and more specifically, the hacker community these days. I knew something was fishy from the get-go on this story but waited to see what else would come out of it. Thanks for this post, it articulates my feelings on the situation perfectly. People are outta control these days. We're turning molehills into mountains…

I totally agree. It was a private conversation, a maybe gross but not offending remark, it should have been treated as such. Most women I know here (Italy), if offended -- very ulikely -- would have risen to the occasion and destroyed the guy with a casual joke. :)

Re: The PyCon Incident

#85

Post by wpietri »

moistgorilla wrote: post #36
ajross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's cool down a little here. An irresponsible tweet doesn't really constitute a "personal vendetta" (it's not even personal -- as far as I can tell she never knew their names). And while the post was (apparently, I don't know what the evidence here is) the proximate cause, you really can't say that she "got [him] fired", as she wasn't the employer nor did she advocate for his termination. It's just a bad situation…

She has thousands of followers. She is in a powerful position and she abused it. Just because she wasn't the employer doesn't mean her goal wasn't something along these lines. Why else would you post a clear picture of their faces up to a public lynch mob?

What's the abuse? She described what happened right next to her.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#86

Post by blhack »

eridius wrote: post #62
minimaxir wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Adria's post: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont... I stood up slowly, turned around and took three, clear photos. I said back down, did another gut check and started composing a tweet. Three things came to me: act, speak and confront in the moment. I decided to do things differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly. The true "forking" meaning was described in the HN p…

I don't want to take sides here, but I do take issue with the claim that the "forking" thing was fabricated, or was irrelevant, because the intent of the person who spoke it was not sexist or even meant as a joke. The fact is, the way language is interpreted by the listener is far more important than how it was meant by the speaker. And it should be pretty obvious that the phrase "I want to fork his repo" could be ea…

"Fork his repo" is a reference to git. There is nothing sexual about it.

Here's a repo for my hackerspace's website. At the top right of the page is the word "fork".

https://github.com/heatsynclabs/new-hsl

It's worth pointing out that Adria isn't a developer, and might not have realized that this wasn't a sex joke, he was talking about flattering somebody by forking their git repo.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#87

Post by tobych »

In her blog post, Adria writes:

"I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so."

Hey, that's a strong claim.

This sounds like an anger management problem to me.

She writes that she's been on the road for ages. Sounds like she's exhausted, and needs a break. I used to react over-the-top to stuff like this, and used to work with others who did. I think the more politically aware you are, and the more your ideals and goals are at odds with how much of society is, the more effort you need to put into being able to deal with the inevitably strong feelings that come your way daily, unless you choose to just avoid being around stuff that triggers you, assuming that's even possible.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#88

Post by jamesaguilar »

moistgorilla wrote: post #80
jamesaguilar wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it harmed someone enough that they were willing to complain to twitter about it. There have been a few good articles posted about why many women feel uncomfortable when the workplace is sexualized, especially in male-dominated industries. If you haven't read one, you may want to check into it.

This wasn't the workplace first of all. This was a conversation (albeit a dumb one) between two friends. Last time I checked, I didn't need to worry about everyone's delicate sensibilities when I was speaking with my buddies. Also, she wasn't harmed, the way you are using that word takes away all meaning it has. She was offended. That's it. I would understand if they were saying a sexist joke or saying a joke that pe…

I disagree with you on the harm point. Our legal system does too. Mental harms count. There are varieties of them that you are legally protected from. Work-context sexual offense is one of them.

Whether pycon is a professional context really depends on whose dime and at whose behest you are attending it, no? I don't know the details of this case. In any event, it's probable that PyCon has a harassment policy that could be interpreted as to bar sexual jokes around people who don't want to hear them, but I don't know for sure.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#89

Post by numbsafari »

blhack wrote: post #21
jamesaguilar wrote: post #13

I think there are a few points to be made here: - First-offense phallus jokes should probably not be dismissable. - Phallus jokes should probably not be made in professional, public contexts. - It would be surprising if the guy was a valuable member of the team and fired on this basis alone. - Adria's reaction probably didn't follow any principle of measured escalation. I take issue with folks who say "it's a harmles…

You know, I've been thinking... It's also pretty unprofessional to wear jeans to work, and beer after 4:00pm on Friday is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. Also the schedule that the developers keep is really unprofessional. If one of the accountants tried to show up at 11:00am, they'd be fired! I also saw some pictures of one of our devs at Burning Man last year. He was wearing some sort of black, canvas skirt, and…

So... what if the situation were just a tad different.. Let's say it was an Indian guy who is a tech evangelist for a successful startup and two guys behind him in a "private conversation in the middle of a crowded room" made jokes about how indian people speak or act.

Those are jokes, and totally unprofessional in a work environment where you are representing your company that is sponsoring the event, right?

But we should let that go because he was wearing shorts and t-shirt instead of a suit?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#90

Post by djcapelis »

sergiotapia wrote: post #17

I already sent SendGrid's sales department an email that I will boycott their company and recommend others do so as well moving forward. Where I work we were considering between SendGrid or Mandrill and this incident practically made our choice for us. We cannot and _will not_ support a company that backs[1] a person like this. [1] - https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328

Want to tell us which company you work for so we can all avoid doing business with firms who makes decisions about which technology to choose based on whether or not they like the recent tweets of a company's employees on their personal twitter accounts?
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