Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

Of course not. The only logical course of action is to post pictures of them on twitter and get them fired.

You can debate whether she should have been offended, but it's clear that she was offended. It's possible to offend people unintentionally.

Given that, her actions are totally understandable. I doubt that she intended to get the guy fired.

No.

>But understanding the root causes of inequalities--as opposed to merely pointing out instances of what appears to be inequality--is where the real work lies.

No, the real work is in removing inequalities. Talking about "root causes" of inequalities is only a method by which one denigrates the actual fight against inequality itself. There are countless deep and abiding inequalities which one can argue back and forth indefinitely about their origins, and this is especially true in questions of gendered inequality. Is this, that, or the other thing responsible? Here's an idea: who gives a shit? I no longer do.

For example, take the issue which finally broke my ability to take feminism: male rape victimization. Where does the purposeful ignoring of male rape victims come from? Feminists (when they admit that male rape victims exist in substantial quantities and deserve to be mentioned) would argue that the gender system produced by the Patriarchy refuses to recognize men as potential victims because that would feminize them and weaken their social position. Men's Rights Activists would argue that it is because our society systematically refuses to recognize male victimhood, period. I think the latter is a better position to take. The simplest explanation is best, and the solution is far clearer: stop that.

>If you're really interested in enhancing equality as a social good, you would do better to champion the cause of equality that is blind to biological and socioeconomic factors

There are issues that require a specificity of gender because they affect a specific gender. Discussing the development of a growth mindset in mathematics does require some discussion of gender because women and girls are much less likely to be encouraged to develop a growth mindset. Discussing rape certainly requires discussion of gender, since rape is considered as a gendered crime and the sex of the perpetrator and victim hugely affect how it is perceived. Discussion of virtually every single issue that the MRM touches upon requires a discussion of gender since they are about gender. When cops choose to apply different standards to men and women, you have to look at gender. Paternity fraud requires that one look at sex in order to be discussed because it only directly affects one. There are times and places where pretending that everything is solved is the optimal solution to a given problem; there are also times and places where it is not.

The idea that one should ignore socioeconomic and biological factors in championing the cause of equality is systematically wrong. Sometimes people suffer specifically because they are men. Sometimes they suffer specifically because they are women. You have to discuss this or you might as well not discuss anything at all.

I can sympathize that creating a hostile environment can be damaging and should be addressed. However, she was listening to a private conversation. These weren't the speakers, they weren't addressing large crowds, they weren't even making jokes publicly online. They were two friends talking amongst themselves.

Which still wouldn't be acceptable, except they weren't actually saying anything offensive per se. Your charge is that they're creating an environment where women feel unwelcome, one in which they feel uncomfortable because it is implied that the audience is male (I'm assuming you agree with the article you linked). But the thing is, the entire audience was composed of males because the entire audience was limited to the one person each man was talking to. It's impossible to make the claim that they're alienating people by creating an implied homogeneous culture when they're speaking privately.

Think about a comparable situation. If a man is reading in a break room with two women talking to each other about how periods suck, are they alienating him? Are they creating an environment in which in which one has to be a biologically typical female under the age of 45 to feel accepted? Or are they just talking about issues which affect them and not worrying about who might be eavesdropping? It should be obvious that it is the latter. The case in which Adria is involved is no different. "Addressing" the situation as she did does nothing but create a polarized, vitriolic atmosphere and makes people less likely to get involved when there actually is real sexism present.