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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#701

Post by agentultra »

Posted anonymously.

It sounds like those involved were spoken to and the issue was handled. Good.

Sexism doesn't belong any where. Believe it or not but I experienced it myself at Pycon. Private conversation with a male colleague became weirdly sexual and offensive. I had to point out that it was inappropriate and end the conversation. I urge everyone to not tolerate this kind of behavior. It's not appropriate to be making dongle jokes in a public, professional setting period. Deal with it.

A "private" conversation is one where the participants are alone. These two people clearly were not.

Yes getting fired over this sort of thing is rather extreme. Does that make Adria wrong and this stupid post worth getting up in arms over? No. I think SendGrid is right to back her and they would be crazy not to. The Pycon organizers handled the situation appropriately and I think the attention it has drawn is a good thing.

I hope that this sort of incident will become less prevalent in the future. With more outreach and good work perhaps my daughter won't have to "get used to" this sort of thing when she grows up.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#702

Post by s_baby »

jessedhillon wrote: post #621
ryguytilidie wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

A major factor you have to always consider when reading HN comments on stories like this -- and I'm not even kidding here -- is that a large percentage of the HN population has no idea how to convince women to have sex with them. I mean, among online forums, I would place good money that HN's readership has one of the highest ratios of adult virgins (non-elective, i.e. not by choice) Why do I think this? Because I've…

>A major factor you have to always consider when reading HN comments on stories like this -- and I'm not even kidding here -- is that a large percentage of the HN population has no idea how to convince women to have sex with them. I mean, among online forums, I would place good money that HN's readership has one of the highest ratios of adult virgins (non-elective, i.e. not by choice)

And all feminists are just angry because they're ugly and emotionally damaged. How is my statement any different from yours? How is your language somehow not worthy of being terminated while these men are offensive?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#703

Post by wpietri »

jetsnoc wrote: post #439

Didn't she violate the spirit of the PyCon 2013 Code of Conduct? Here's the relevant quote from the CoC: "Note: Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such actions out of respect." We're trying to build a strong community here. I personally think she handled this poorly and should be dealt with by the PSF for live tweeting images of attendees…

That doesn't strike me as a violation of the code of conduct. The CoC says PyCon won't participate in public shaming, but it definitely doesn't forbid attendees from talking about things they experienced at PyCon.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#704

Post by wpietri »

takluyver wrote: post #507
jasonlotito wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PyCon has a code of conduct. The write up regarding this specific incident is here: http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop... People are allowed to make offensive jokes. Except when they agree not to. By attending PyCon, you are making that agreement. In the end, the result was resolved well by all 3 parties. The issue is that one of the parties got fired. An overreaction by his ex-employer. In…

The employer certainly bears some responsibility. But it also seems that Adria could have handled this better. Taking pictures of people without their consent is against the PyCon code of conduct, and it also advises against public shaming.

Could you show the bit where taking photos is against the CoC?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#705

Post by ensignavenger »

shardling wrote: post #456
pizzeys wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She didn't use the exact word 'sexism', but her blog post very much made it out to be a sexism issue.

Did she? I just read the entire post, and I disagree. http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont... It certainly exists within the context of gender issues at a tech conference, but she didn't even go so far as to label the jokes sexist -- just something that would make some women uncomfortable. (Which is obviously true, given her response!)

Yes, she did- "this wasn't the first time that day I had to address this issue around harassment and gender."

She clearly states in her blog she felt it involved "harassment and gender", which is often referred to as sexism.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#706

Post by ensignavenger »

shardling wrote: post #366
BrianEatWorld wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The office I work in is entirely male, myself included, and just because don how I was raised, these types of jokes make me uncomfortable. However, after I said something about the issue, my coworkers, like most human beings, made an effort to check themselves. However, until you say something, they can't do anything about it. I agree its a decency issue and not a sexism one.

Adria did not initially raise this as a "sexism" issue from what I can see -- just something the made her uncomfortable.

She clearly states on her blog that

"this wasn't the first time that day I had to address this issue around harassment and gender."

Generally speaking, I think "harassment and gender" going together make it fit the definition of sexism.

Regardless, she does classify it as "harassment".

Re: The PyCon Incident

#707

Post by devilshaircut »

wpietri wrote: post #650
Joeboy wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the feeling of being scared, but I don't understand why a joke about a dongle would provoke it. It seems to me that the level of threat from a room full of people who are not joking about dongles is exactly the same as the level of threat from a room full of people, two of whom are joking about dongles. I am obviously not arguing that it would be impossible to tell a joke with scary content, but I haven'…

Hi! Thanks for the civilized reply. I understand you don't get it. I'm saying that's partly because you don't have a visceral fear of sexual assault. You also probably don't have much experience with unwanted sexual advances. And you've probably never been sexually harassed. You also may not have experienced being a visibly different minority in a situation where that raises your risk of unpleasantness or violence. I…

Your invocation of some obscure situation where you would feel legitimately threatened in a sexual way has nothing to do with the reality of what happened. It's true that women can be put into sexually threatening situations. It's patently false that what happened at Pycon is an example of one.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#708

Post by anigbrowl »

stephengillie wrote: post #266
Joeboy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I am really puzzled as to why these "jokes" are supposed to be offensive to women. They might be offensive to people raised in some cultures / subcultures, and they don't sound like they're great jokes in any culture, but nobody ever told me about the meeting where women decided knob jokes were offensive. In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago.

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.

I see your point, but I'm really not clear if the joking here was sexist or mere crude humor. By 'crude' I mean body humor - jokes about farts or smelly gym socks etc. are wholly unfunny to me and generally make me want to exist the conversation ASAP. I can't say I find them offensive as such, just stupid and gross - a matter of taste rather than ethics, so to speak.

So I can imagine sexist-seeming jokes about robots with dongles, but I can also imagine stupid ones about robots with butts or whether car exhaust counts as a robot fart. The sad thing is that we have no way to tell whether the remarks in question were sexist or just stupid, and that has encouraged a lot of folk to just project their own preconceptions onto the entire incident.

This sort of thing is exactly why I don't like using Twitter.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#709

Post by tadfisher »

wpietri wrote: post #250
tadfisher wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we need to remain eternally vigilant of the thousands of years of sexism during our day-to-day dealings? We need to be constantly thinking of the women and minorities in the room before we say anything? How is this being gender-neutral?

You should always think about the impact of what you're saying. What is the point of saying something but to have an effect on your listeners?

I don't like this train of logic. How can I read minds? What if I bring up something about my dog, and trigger someone in the room who was the victim of a dog attack?

So dick jokes are off the table, I get that. What about "your mom" jokes? Or blonde jokes? What is the invisible line that I dare not cross?

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