This reminds me of the Elon Musk NYT issue. He must have known he was wrong, but upped the intensity to defend his position instead of backing down. I'm sure Adria knows she effed up big-time, but pride won't let her back down. Had she turned around and asked them to stop, they would have been sufficiently humiliated to do so and perhaps learn a lesson, but not so much as to become unemployable. At this point, Adria could salvage some respect by apologizing, admitting she overreacted and expressing regret about the fact that they were fired.
The PyCon Incident
801–810 of 1001 posts
Re: The PyCon Incident
#802Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You should talk to more women about this. Here's a bit of free advice :) when you start to use this argument, consider that perhaps you've run out of good rhetoric. You seem a decent enough guy, if a little clueless, so I'll give you more advice if I may. Making lewd comments certainly might make others feel uncomfortable (male or female), but the fear factor comes from attitude and presence, not the words. For exa…
Hi, Tom. I have talked to actual women who tell me this. Why do you, as a guy, feel qualified to invalidate their experiences? I don't think Adira felt immediate fear for her physical safety, no. But I do think fear of sexual harassment and sexual violence are an important reason why it is very important that "harmless" sexualization of professional situations isn't harmless at all.
Just FYI: There are those of us reading this who understand your comments and agree wholeheartedly. The difficulty I think you're facing here in getting this point across is that people are angry right now. Angry mob mode is very much enabled, and it's a mode which reduces people's ability to empathise and change their minds.
Kudos for trying though.
Re: The PyCon Incident
#803[deleted]
Re: The PyCon Incident
#804Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is indecent is that Adria Richards completely invented the bit about forking being a sexual reference ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 ), escalated her discomfort to the level of internet drama, got her employer SendGrid to support her, and didn't exactly go out of her way to petition PlayHaven to unfire one of the two guys involved. And she's now sticking to her guns even after profusive apologies…
I'm waiting for the T-shirts about Forking and dongles to come out. This is going to be a meme now. Also, April 1st is around the corner. It would be classic if github removed the "fork" button in response to it being offensive.
The repo they use for demos at GitHub says something like "fork? fork you!"
Re: The PyCon Incident
#805Why wouldn't she approach them directly? This is such a weird interaction.
Because people don't respect those requests and just joke more, get hostile, mock us. It is not about personal publicity. The fallout from reporting incidents like this (or documenting them at all in public) is extreme. It isn't good for the reporter.
Your comment is obviously grossly disingenuous, lizzard, especially considering PyCon has officially documented procedures for exactly this issue:
https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i...
Re: The PyCon Incident
#806Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm surprised by the "eeew" attached to being a woman in tech. Is there really that much stigma with saying "I am a woman"? I get that we all just want to be technologists and not "female technologists" but it's a red flag that people use this kind of mitigating speech when sharing their views. It's unfair to assume Adria is "sheltered". In fact she has dealt with a great deal more than most of us, from domestic abus…
your twisting our words, its not being women in tech that's eeww, its the phrase "women in tech". it sounds so... i dunno, something that i can't put my finger on. I'm a women. I'm in tech. they are two separate things. i see no need to explicitly point out that i am a "women in tech" except when silly things like this happen and i have to.
I wouldn't judge her as sheltered, i know people who have gone through some horrible things who are just the same overreact at the drop of a hat. but i sure as hell judge her as oversensitive. And your right everyone is offended by different things, I'm offended by her response to his joke in the name of all women. But so what. I'm just mildly offended, it shall pass.
I've been through my own personal hell and get 'uncomfortable' (ie offended) by things no one would ever think offensive. But is it my right to impose this on everyone around me? no. I have no right to dictate other conversations that are not directed at, nor about me because who am i to say what is offensive and what is not, its bound to be different then most.
She probably does not deserve the reaction shes getting, but then she made a really poor judgement that got someone fired for something they shouldn't have been fired for. Maybe next time she will think twice and exercise some self control before doing something so wildly inappropriate. (he acted somewhat inappropriately to, but she was far far more so by posting that pic)
Re: The PyCon Incident
#807I am feminist. As a visible minority, heterosexual, cisgendered, able-bodied man I try to be acutely of my own prejudices and cognitive biases. I sympathize with women who experience hostility and chauvinism at tech conferences. "Brogrammers" and male-exclusive behaviour is bad for the industry and should be written about and exposed. What these two men did was not sexist. It was unprofessional but it was not exclusi…
It looks like those that say the goals of feminism are to create a privileged class of women have some evidence. Women can now rule men by right of whether or not they are "offended" (note, that only the offense of protected classes are holy, and men are not a protected class).
Quoting Adria from a comment in her post:
> I don't consider myself a feminist.
Re: The PyCon Incident
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I'm surprised by the "eeew" attached to being a woman in tech. Is there really that much stigma with saying "I am a woman"? I get that we all just want to be technologists and not "female technologists" but it's a red flag that people use this kind of mitigating speech when sharing their views. It's unfair to assume Adria is "sheltered". In fact she has dealt with a great deal more than most of us, from domestic abus…
Of course physical threats and misogynic slurs just show that we are not where we should be and there are a lot of sexist jerks in our industry.
The problem is that with overreacting to some tasteless but pretty harmless joke she started the vicious circle of jerkiness.
Sexist assholes felt their world view validated and in turn validate her out of line action by making her a martyr with their immature reactions.
Thank goodness this is just the cyberspace. The same dynamic at work can be witnessed in places where it Leeds to riots and deaths.
I would not want to work at SendGrid (I contemplated applying last week) as long as Adria does not see the error of her actions, it would make me feel uncomfortable.
However I would love to see everyone threatening or slurring Adria over this incident be fired. They deserve it (as opposed to the guy who was fired over this)
Re: The PyCon Incident
#809[deleted]
Re: The PyCon Incident
#810Didn'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.
Wrong. The CoC asks attendees not to participate in public shaming.
https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i...