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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#211

Post by tiredofcareer »

kstrauser wrote: post #182
tiredofcareer wrote: post #32

I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem. However , the environment in 2013 and the way, as a whole, it seems that we have gone about countering it is roughly equivalent to napalming six city blocks to get rid of bedbugs in an apartment. (Edit: On reflection, a better analogy would be napalming New York City to eradicate bedbugs. I am aware of the scope of the sexism problem.) This little sa…

> The decision to ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who I smoked pot with at PyCon 2012. I've said this elsewhere, but: The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal conference late one evening. I don't think anyone complained that pot was smoked at all. They complained that it was smoked inside a crowded room. I would've been as personally annoyed if someone lit a tobacco cigarette in th…

Indoors? Okay, yeah, that's stupid. I rescind some of my amusement.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#212

Post by lizzard »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #37
moistgorilla wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who got harmed by this joke being told? No one, thus it's harmless.

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.

Women in this field keep explaining how this sort of thing harms them. But when we complain we are "no one"!

Re: The PyCon Incident

#213

Post by 89vision »

Regardless of how you feel about this incident, the hate filled comments and threats Adria is receiving on her facebook are absolutely disgusting and aren't helping the cause.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#214

Post by josh-j »

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…

"Sexism is not at issue here."

I got the impression reading Adria's blog post that she thought she was responding to sexism. Sexism is what most everyone is responding to in this event -- real or imagined.

The problem is that the way Adria responded, in part, harmed people that didn't deserve harm (and if they did deserve it, it shouldn't be up to her to mete it out -- which by taking it public she is effectively doing). She should have kept their identities anonymous unless it was necessary to do otherwise.

In a culture that strives to be politically correct (no negative connotation intended), any egalitarian issue can be wielded like a weapon. I think Adria was aware of that, and so I think she deserves a fair amount of blame for the events that followed her actions.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#215

Post by rhizome »

katbyte wrote: post #117
blhack wrote: post #7

I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. --And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here-- The c…

as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive joke. Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private conversations and not the speaker. Sh…

Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye.

My sense is that she herself didn't bat much of an eye until she decided that it was a problem. If you read her account, she acted in order to protect a photograph:

I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop.

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.

The details in her account are very interesting, given the putative motivators behind her actions.

http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont...

Re: The PyCon Incident

#216

Post by djcapelis »

px43 wrote: post #176
lazugod wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DefCon?

One nice thing about defcon is that people WILL get kicked out for taking pictures of others without permission.

Actually this is no longer true. Last year DefCon recently changed this policy because they kind of recognized the world has kind of changed and moved in a pretty fundamental way and maybe it wasn't the most valid thing anymore.

There's still some sorts of "it's not super cool to take pictures of specific people" vibe going on, but it's definitely no longer a "no pictures allowed" type of situation.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#217

Post by katbyte »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #37
moistgorilla wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who got harmed by this joke being told? No one, thus it's harmless.

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.

Anyone can be harmed by anything. I'm a female and those kinda jokes do not make me uncomfortable at all, however some other non-typical random things do that i can never expect anyone to know about. i understand its my responsibility to handle my own emotions and feelings

Re: The PyCon Incident

#218

Post by lizzard »

paranoiacblack wrote: post #178
katbyte wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive joke. Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private conversations and not the speaker. Sh…

But you really shouldn't have to make politically incorrect jokes and references to make yourself fit in because of your gender. People who feel like they can't be themselves around you because of your gender have other hangups that are unrelated to you. If they truly believe that they can't joke around women, that's a failing of social understanding. It doesn't really matter if the joke was lewd or offensive or if y…

Apparently the con agreed that it was offensive behavior, and so did the employer.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#219

Post by ryguytilidie »

djcapelis wrote: post #60
blhack wrote: post #7

I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. --And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here-- The c…

> I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. I think we need to stop doing this bullshit in general. I'd much rather have our community check each other and shame each other on Twitter than having employers step in and decide that thing X or thing Y is not okay for their employees to say in their personal capacity at a conference or on Twitter. As far as I've heard, Adr…

So it is now "insane" to hold a company responsible for the actions of someone who was specifically representing that company in an evangelist role at an event? I can't believe this point even passed through your head much less ended up being typed out and passed off as a logical statement, where you are actually, get this, attempting to mock someone else. wtf man...
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