At the end of the day, they both did it to themselves and they only have themselves to blame.
Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
81–90 of 395 posts
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#82Without tumbling deep into a flame war, I'd like to ask a sincere question. I have trouble understanding the sexism behind the remarks, and why the instigator needs to apologize (for sexism). People get offended for all kinds of things, nobody can claim a monopoloy on that. ( http://imgur.com/EX5v4 stephen fry quote) - If they would both have been gay and talking about a homosexual topic, someone in that room would b…
If you assume that all women are Victorian-era pearl-clutching girls for whom anything remotely sexual is scandalous, it makes a lot more sense.
The subtext is "women must be shielded from the world".
On the other hand, for people who have actually met women raised, say, post-1940, it's pretty bizarre.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#83"In attempting to unveil casual misogyny in the tech field, Adria has accidentally revealed the actual misogyny that lies in our industry, and there's nothing casual about it."
I think even "casual misogyny" is hyperbole, given the original comment that sparked this whole mess. I think the worst you can say about it is that it was crude and unprofessional.
The hateful aftermath, though, clearly should not be tolerated.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#84Without tumbling deep into a flame war, I'd like to ask a sincere question. I have trouble understanding the sexism behind the remarks, and why the instigator needs to apologize (for sexism). People get offended for all kinds of things, nobody can claim a monopoloy on that. ( http://imgur.com/EX5v4 stephen fry quote) - If they would both have been gay and talking about a homosexual topic, someone in that room would b…
She's not offended by sexual overtones, and neither is her employer. She published this joke about sexual humiliation from the same conference:
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425
And the company she was envangelising for on that twitter feed thinks that a visual joke about photocopying your genitals is not inappropriate for their jobs pages:
http://i.imgur.com/uWc8P39.png
I understand that speaker and context make all the difference, but she made a joke about sexual humiliation, and then, at the same conference, got offended by a joke conflating dongles to genitals.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#85"Because of my experiences growing up, I have triggers. This means that I’m always scanning for danger; for situations that seem like something from the past that could hurt me. When I recognize something that matches, I can overreact and feel intense fear, anger or anxiety. This is something I’ve worked on a lot. It’s much better now than 10 years ago but there are some things that send me over the edge." http://but…
Great catch.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#86I think the most interesting part of this post was a simple observation that I, for one, hadn't seen elsewhere: We don't know why PlayHaven fired the dev in the first place. Sure, the controversy undoubtedly played a role. But we don't know if the dev was on the ropes, if he wasn't pulling his weight, or if his boss simply didn't like him. This may have been a gross overreaction, or it may have been the straw that br…
By the same token, we don't really know why SendGrid fired Adria. The post mentioned that SendGrid failed by not immediately making a statement (or forcing her to publicly apologize), then over-reacting by firing her too late. But we really don't know what was going on at SendGrid behind the scenes. Maybe they were trying to work with her and she wouldn't change her position, or maybe they just didn't know what to do.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#87Without tumbling deep into a flame war, I'd like to ask a sincere question. I have trouble understanding the sexism behind the remarks, and why the instigator needs to apologize (for sexism). People get offended for all kinds of things, nobody can claim a monopoloy on that. ( http://imgur.com/EX5v4 stephen fry quote) - If they would both have been gay and talking about a homosexual topic, someone in that room would b…
Discussions like this seem to always come back to a sense of "fairness". It's not about being fair, but about how situations make people feel. Majority-group members tend to brush away the sensitivities of minority-group members. If you're straight, you can walk hand-in-hand with your spouse without issue. You may even be able to embrace publicly, and kiss, hug and display all kinds of PDA. Gay couples can't do that…
> crass comments about/towards women
I think the original comment is raising the point that the comments were crass, but did not appear to be about or towards women in the slightest.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven went to the extreme step of firing the dev in question. The appearance of bringing negative publicity to your employer will often get you fired. Make the complaints sexual in nature and you can probably kiss that job good-bye, this is how society handles these things basically everywhere. She brought negative publicity on her company, so she also risked her position. >…
>Oh pull your head out of your ass Do you really need to use abrasive language like this to get your point across? This isn't Reddit. >People acted angrily with the tools they knew best. Yes, the people who were looking to get her fired did so, and succeeded very well. Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS?
> Do you seriously believe the female or feminist tech community has the resources to perform DDoS?
You don't??!
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#89Without tumbling deep into a flame war, I'd like to ask a sincere question. I have trouble understanding the sexism behind the remarks, and why the instigator needs to apologize (for sexism). People get offended for all kinds of things, nobody can claim a monopoloy on that. ( http://imgur.com/EX5v4 stephen fry quote) - If they would both have been gay and talking about a homosexual topic, someone in that room would b…
Discussions like this seem to always come back to a sense of "fairness". It's not about being fair, but about how situations make people feel. Majority-group members tend to brush away the sensitivities of minority-group members. If you're straight, you can walk hand-in-hand with your spouse without issue. You may even be able to embrace publicly, and kiss, hug and display all kinds of PDA. Gay couples can't do that…
"At a tech conference, women are in the minority, and so crass comments about/towards women are not perceived in a safe way."
Which didn't happen in this case.
Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost
#90Let's simplify the rules to basic decency. Don't Be a Dick. Oh wait, I guess I can't say that now. Well, fuck me. Whoops, can't say that either. I hope mr-hank gets a huge severance out of PlayHaven. (At-will employment is not as simple as employers like to say it is.) At this point, he has position for something substantial, given that they discussed the termination in the public (disclosing an opinion that he is gu…
Agreed. Even though I'm sure Adria has been putting up with tons of real sexism over the years in the tech industry, and that this may have been the figurative straw on the camel's back, this is definitely the wrong thing to focus on. Sex jokes are definitely not necessarily sexist. These guys were perhaps a little crude, and their puns maybe horrible, but they were essentially harmless and at worst, just annoying.
What we should focus on is the terrible response from the tech community towards Adria. There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry. Let's focus on that and denigrate those comments, not some random crude comments a couple guys said in private.