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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#611

Post by rmrfrmrf »

vor_ wrote: post #446
pencilcode wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were being idiots and violating the code of conduct of pycon, and YES, it does apply to private conversations that others can't avoid hearing since they're in a public place. She shamed them rightly. As for them being fired, that was the company's call - who employed them. Now an anonymous guy posts this, she explains the whole sequence and in the end it's her fault. No, the responsability lies with who made the…

Well, Adria's posting of the picture without consent was itself a violation of PyCon's code of conduct. Frankly, it's hard to understand her position when she made the same kind of dick joke on Twitter in public to a friend where everyone could see it. As it is, we have a situation where someone who makes dick jokes to her friends overheard someone else making a dick joke to a friend and intentionally shamed them by…

> Frankly, it's hard to understand her position when she made the same kind of dick joke on Twitter in public to a friend where everyone could see it.

Since when is Twitter the same thing as a professional conference? Why are the majority of the commenters on HN completely missing the point?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#612

Post by btilly »

katbyte wrote: post #609
btilly wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As she described it, he and his friend began their joking in response to her conversation to the man sitting next to them. So they were quite aware that she was there, had every reason to believe that she would be paying attention, and she had cause to believe that she was implicitly addressed. She may have misunderstood the situation, or inaccurately described it. But that was my understanding of the description tha…

the forking joke yea, but that was even more benign, the dongle joke occurred afterwards after i assume some time had passed.

Why do you assume that some time had passed?

I did not get that impression from her article. (But it is not specified either way, so time might have passed.)

Re: The PyCon Incident

#613

Post by jessedhillon »

mamoswined wrote: post #249
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…

as "a women in tech" (eeew) I also agree. It's like people don't know the difference between misogyny, which should be unacceptable, and bawdiness, which is a matter of taste. She must be really sheltered. But why did this person's employer fire them? I certainly wouldn't fire anyone for this reason and I would hire someone who made dick jokes for sure.

But why did this person's employer fire them? I certainly wouldn't fire anyone for this reason and I would hire someone who made dick jokes for sure.

Sorry, what? Two employees go to a conference, on paid time, wear your company's swag, and have around their necks badges which, if this is like other cons, has your company's name on it. Then they say something about big dongles and forking repos -- just gross -- at an audible volume, which has at least one person at the conference become upset to the point where she complains.

And you can't understand why a company would reconsider their employment? What's hard to understand about that?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#614

Post by wpietri »

potatolicious wrote: post #253
wpietri wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine this situation: You are walking down the street. It starts to rain, so you duck into the nearest business, a bar. You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry. That feeling of discomfort? The way your he…

> "You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry." Only if you live in a world where gay men are, by default, rapists. Are we seriously replacing sexism with homophobia? Your analogy is far more offensive than th…

You're missing the point.

Men aren't normally afraid of sexual assault, because most sexual assault is perpetrated by men on women. If you want to the feeling of fear that a potential victim feels, you have to imagine a situation where you feel at risk of sexual assault.

If that story doesn't make you feel sufficiently uncomfortable to have empathy for women surrounded by a bunch of men when the context suddenly turns sexual, I encourage you to make up your own story.

For what it's worth, when I was imagining the story, the guys talking in the bar hadn't even noticed the straight guy in front of them.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#615

Post by rdtsc »

mturmon wrote: post #341
rhizome wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a matter of fact, if you read her blog post about all of this, she recommends the same thing: What has to change is that everyone must take personal accountability and speak up when they hear something that isn’t ok. It takes three words to make a difference: “That’s not cool.” However, she appears to have not followed her own advice. I think it probably would have turned out differently if she had, though.

The conference organizers ask you to not handle it yourself: see https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i... , where it says: "Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff member" If she had asked them to quiet down, it could have turned into a pissing match. Or maybe they would have complied. You never know how it's going to play out.

Please be kind and indicate where conference organizers ask you to:

1) post the picture on a world wide forum (twitter)

2) contact them via public channel (twitter)

Thank you

Re: The PyCon Incident

#616

Post by wpietri »

steve19 wrote: post #265
wpietri wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine this situation: You are walking down the street. It starts to rain, so you duck into the nearest business, a bar. You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry. That feeling of discomfort? The way your he…

That is more a reflection on your personal insecurities than anything else. Two men, gay or otherwise, having a private conversation, probably don't know you exist and are almost certainly not planning on raping you. I have lived in parts of the world where there was a high chance of being attacked and needed to be aware of my surroundings at all times. Being followed or approached late at night by a group of potenti…

I'm not personally insecure about it. Because my risk of sexual assault is tiny.

My point is not that gay people are bad: they aren't. My point is that to understand why women are uncomfortable when things suddenly turn sexual, you have to put yourself in the place of a potential victim of sexual assault.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#617

Post by zem »

jessaustin wrote: post #600
zem wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

different how? you're holding them responsible for something adria did at pycon.

You don't see a difference between an employee losing her job and a company losing some business? You must be in management.

if the company were pressured into firing adria in order to get their customer base back, would you feel justice had been served?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#618

Post by [deleted] »

ldh wrote: post #343
stephengillie wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That "these jokes are sexist or offensive to women" was an axiom (in the logic sense) in my parents' religious household. It's incredibly confusing to see good and respectable people (like your friend) so eager to debase themselves with this humor.

It's not exactly great humor, but I'm confused as to why this is offensive to women specifically (let alone an axiom of sexism). Because it references male organs? They're not referring to females at all. Not to be too reductionist, but that leaves me thinking of two possible conclusions: 1. women are too delicate to handle any references to anatomy or 2. the "jokes" were simply crude and, while off-putting to anyone…

[deleted]

Re: The PyCon Incident

#619

Post by rmrfrmrf »

mistercow wrote: post #499
paganel wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're saying "private" is not in fact, well, "private". I grew up as a kid on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain, in Eastern Europe, where as it happens walls had ears and "private" was not in fact "private". To see this stuff repeating 25 years later in the free world is scary.

Yes, that's right. A privately run conference asking attendees to behave professionally around other attendees is exactly like the KGB, and is a sure sign that we are sliding downward into totalitarianism.

Thank you -- all of these hate-laden comments are making me lose my mind.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#620

Post by wpietri »

jules wrote: post #348
wpietri wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine this situation: You are walking down the street. It starts to rain, so you duck into the nearest business, a bar. You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry. That feeling of discomfort? The way your he…

This is the funniest comment I've read in a while, but it's also sad. You managed to insult women, gay men and the hacker news reader at the same time. I don't know which women you're basing this on, but the ones I know don't fear for their life when they hear a penis joke, even though it's distasteful. And I don't know which gay bars you frequent, but I've never heard anything close to that. Even if it were the case…

I wasn't drawing an equivalence between the situation I described and Adira's situation.

Joeboy said he couldn't understand why sexual comments could be a problem. One reason guys can't imagine that is that they don't see sexualized situations as risky situations. Many women do. Not always, certainly. But I know a number of women who have been raped, and I don't think I know a woman who hasn't been discomfited by unwanted sexual advances.

I invited Joeboy to put himself in the shoes of somebody who was scared. If the scenario isn't to your liking, go ahead and write a different one.

And as I've explained elsewhere: no, I don't think straight people should be generally scared of being raped by gay people.

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