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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#891

Post by jeltz »

tadfisher wrote: post #183
llimllib wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 is indeed a comment by the person who lost his job, then it does not seem to be.

> While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and I had decided forking someone's repo is a new form of flattery (the highest form being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenters projects; a friend said "I would fork that guys repo" The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us.

That is my reading too. Still misunderstanding does not make something a lie.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#892

Post by doktrin »

mwetzler wrote: post #752
mamoswined wrote: post #249

Earlier 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…

I am not keeping an eye on Twitter, but I can only imagine the tone and content of certain responses is beyond base (hence, part of the reason I actually don't really "do" Twitter). No one, ever, should be subject to the level of vitriol sometimes on display there.

However, she chose to make this public. That was an overt action, and she (as a semi-public pseudo-PR person with over a thousand twitter followers) should know how the internets can operate. This is compounded by the fact that the action she took was completely unnecessary.

She has my sympathy by virtue of the fact that no one should be subject to the lowest common denominator hate mongering that sometimes rears its ugly head (in society / the internet / etc). However, based on her actions I can sincerely say I do not applaud or condone her, and quite frankly think very little of her handling of this entire situation.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#893

Post by mercurial »

mcherm wrote: post #868
katbyte wrote: post #812

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the majority of criticism is that she escalated things so rapidly to publicly shaming people who didn't deserve it costing a man his job over a silly dick joke that that majority of women wouldn't have batted an eye over. If she didn't publicly identify him, no one would have cared. If she had simply notified the conference staff, no one would have cared. She took it to extremes, and now the internet is respo…

Adria did NOT fire this man. As far as I can tell, she never ran a campaign to get him fired. What she did was to report what occurred, including the names of those involved. If your local newspaper ran an article exposing a scandal, and the participants in the scandal got in trouble because it came to light, would you blame the newspaper? If this was a minor offense that no one should have cared about, then reportin…

What she did was to make a mountain out of a molehill by playing Internet vigilante. I could have understood her attitude if she had found herself to be the object of sex(ist) jokes, but taking offense because two guys, who apparently are paying no attention to her, are sharing a not-so-funny vaguely sexual joke, does not warrant the Internet equivalent of burning them at the stake.

Comparing her to a reporter is disingenuous. That's hardly a fair and balanced piece she has written. More importantly, if my newspaper started behaving like the Sexual Temperance Society, I would promptly cancel my subscription.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#894

Post by njr123 »

jamesaguilar wrote: post #198
rmk2 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fefe is by no means "most Europeans", though he is quite well known as a ("political nerd") blogger in Germany. His comment on the matter, however, is less that of pointing and laughing and more that of worry, especially considering that there were some mild(er/ish) issues along similar lines in the wake of the 29C3. As a quick and dirty(!) translation of this blog post: http://blog.fefe.de/?ts=afb76b8d "The 'sexual…

> Smaller cons might possibly not admit women anymore LOL? Is he serious here? If so I have to say he is misguided about how cons weigh of priorities. No con could get sponsors while denying admittance to all females.

I think that might be more of a problem with translation? I read it more as 'the smaller cons might prefer not to have women attend', not that they would ban them. But German is not my native language, so can't say for sure.

Original German: Womöglich werden kleinere Cons lieber gar keine Frauen mehr reinlassen

Re: The PyCon Incident

#895

Post by doktrin »

mcherm wrote: post #865
georgeorwell wrote: post #470

Earlier 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…

You write: > All she had to do was turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. But I think one of the important points here is that women should not NEED to turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. The need to ask (or resign oneself to putting up with the hostile environment) is itself a burden. Would it be acceptable to make "dumb nigger" jokes as long as anytime an African American asks you…

> I am not arguing that they WERE making sex jokes, or that it rose to the level of a firing offense, just that "she could have asked us to stop" is not a good argument.

What was the appropriate response, then? I honestly think assertive and honest feedback is often the most effective way to curb unwanted behavior.

> But I think one of the important points here is that women should not NEED to turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes.

Most of the time they don't. We're talking about exception handling, here. Just because a situation is less than ideal (i.e. two guys making phallic jokes at a conference) does not automatically validate a DEFCON 4 response.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#896

Post by jasonlotito »

Joeboy wrote: post #887
jasonlotito wrote: post #866

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a professional setting, you should apply the "would I tell this joke to my mother" rule. It might not be your mother, but someone else, like your grand parent or a situation where lewd jokes are inappropriate, like a job interview or a new client. > In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago. A friend. Being female has nothing to do with it.

> A friend. Being female has nothing to do with it. Yes, that's kind of my point. Some people obviously have a problem with these kinds of jokes, some people don't. It's a cultural thing. This morning on Facebook, a friend posted a picture of the cover of "Cockhandler" magazine, a supposed magazine about chicken farming (as it happens, it's fake). This has so far been "liked" by six women and two men. I don't know al…

> I don't think it's particularly because they're women.

Beautifully put. I'm going to remember how you eloquently put that. =)

Re: The PyCon Incident

#897

Post by homosaur »

This is more typical ignorant blogger mentality where you feel every slight is an excuse to get on your dumb social soapbox. She should apologize to these folks and the community at large to be honest, or this is always going to be in my mind when her name comes up.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#898

Post by mamoswined »

mwetzler wrote: post #752
mamoswined wrote: post #249

Earlier 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…

> Some truly horrific things are happening to her as a result of this tweet

I've been the subject of very public rape threats myself. That is the consequence of misogyny, which is a real problem. I fully support the fight against misogyny and would rally against that. Women should not be subject to rape or death threats ever, no matter what they do. It doesn't require me to agree with her about other things.

I said "eew" because I feel the "women in tech" community frequently does not represent the views of women who do not agree with a certain type of feminism.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#899

Post by vacri »

mcherm wrote: post #870
katbyte wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone can be made uncomfortable by anything, and most people will try and not make people uncomfortable, but until they know your bothered by it they can't do anything.

This was not "just anything", and all conference participants were on notice that this SPECIFIC behavior was prohibited at PyCon. Read the code of conduct for PyCon: https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/ Not specifically the lines "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue" and "Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon."…

Just curious - do you read every word of every EULA you come across, or do you just get the gist of it?

Also, "Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon" doesn't appear to have anything to do with what the men said, though perhaps you quoted it for the subsequent harassment on twitter?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#900

Post by cliffu »

mcherm wrote: post #865
georgeorwell wrote: post #470

Earlier 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…

You write: > All she had to do was turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. But I think one of the important points here is that women should not NEED to turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. The need to ask (or resign oneself to putting up with the hostile environment) is itself a burden. Would it be acceptable to make "dumb nigger" jokes as long as anytime an African American asks you…

Can't we please advance women's rights without criminalizing sexuality by likening it to a racist hate crime? And also can we stop advocating this notion that women are delicate flowers whose fragile ears need to be protected from any mention of sex whatsoever?
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