Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

amandablumwords.wordpress.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 395 posts

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#121

Post by qdog »

ramblerman wrote: post #31

Without 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…

Adria stated they had been talking for a while, indicating there were previous comments.

PyCon determined the guys had said something offensive.

So, either PyCon lives in fear of Adria, or other people also found the comments to be overtly sexist/sexual.

Unless PyCon publishes an investigative report, I doubt we will get the entire story.

If you personally don't find the things they said offensive, that's fine, but they were there in a professional representation, not a personal one. If PyCon and their employer both felt the guys said something clearly outside the guidelines represented to them by PyCon, that's the issue. Whether it was about dongles or donkeys doesn't matter.

EDIT: Originally I stated PyCon removed them from the conference, as a followup pointed out this was incorrect.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#122

Post by konstruktor »

WalterSear wrote: post #94
samiur1204 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. W…

Not puns - just one pun. The repo forking was, though informal, a thoroughly unpurient and non-sexual comment that she read meaning into.

Or, to be more straightforward, she sexualised the comment.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#123

Post by takluyver »

Nursie wrote: post #21

Good article. I agree there is rampant sexism in tech, and in society in general. I've seen it, lots. I'm not convinced a couple of guys chuckling at "Big Dongles" is sexism, though it is inappropriate for a professional event. But now we get the picture of Adria Richards and it does seem to be one of someone looking out for ways to be offended and publicise herself with them. And then there's the DDoS and the threat…

> There's not really anyone that comes out of this looking good.

In my opinion, the PyCon organisers handled things well. They acted on the complaint, explained to the jokers why it was inappropriate, got an apology, and left it there, without publishing names.

Unfortunately for them, popular perception of PyCon is probably somewhat tainted by this whole messy incident anyway.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#124

Post by kefka »

cglee wrote: post #59
ramblerman wrote: post #31

Without 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…

And I've always found that self-proclaimed feminists are _always_ offended and loud about it when they are. A few I know go to the point by saying females are better and that all masculine references should be eliminated. They need to vote with their pocketbooks: don't pay for a ticket, and don't attend.

I went to a 'con recently: The Midwest RepRap festival. I heard no references to sex, sexuality, race, or anything of the sort. One sales person came around, got argumentative once we said we were not interested, and started to try to argue religion. That was perhaps, 10 minutes tops. Everybody else stayed absolutely professional about everything.

Now, the last thing I want to hear at a tech conference is another tiring sex joke. It may be funny, but that's not why I'm here.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#125

Post by Nursie »

takluyver wrote: post #123
Nursie wrote: post #21

Good article. I agree there is rampant sexism in tech, and in society in general. I've seen it, lots. I'm not convinced a couple of guys chuckling at "Big Dongles" is sexism, though it is inappropriate for a professional event. But now we get the picture of Adria Richards and it does seem to be one of someone looking out for ways to be offended and publicise herself with them. And then there's the DDoS and the threat…

> There's not really anyone that comes out of this looking good. In my opinion, the PyCon organisers handled things well. They acted on the complaint, explained to the jokers why it was inappropriate, got an apology, and left it there, without publishing names. Unfortunately for them, popular perception of PyCon is probably somewhat tainted by this whole messy incident anyway.

Yes, actually, of all the actors in this weird online play they did seem to behave reasonably and decently throughout.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#126

Post by WalterSear »

Draco6slayer wrote: post #117
samiur1204 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's allowed to be offended with those comments (or single pun), but the method of communicating her offense was definitely not called for. And honestly, even if it were sexual, it isn't sexist. I think that's a distinction that certainly needs to be made. Calling Adria a c*nt and other horrible things online definitely is sexist though.

Is insulting a female inherently sexist? I wouldn't call someone a sexist if they called me a d ck or a son of a b tch. Obviously the response here is sexist, but calling somebody bad names is not sexist, regardless of their gender.

IMHO, sexualized epithets are sexual.

It's more productive not to muddy the waters though: it's not like there are only a handful of ways to insult someone.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#127

Post by rdl »

michaelochurch wrote: post #45

Let'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…

Apparently it's ok to post offensive jokes/sexual innuendo if you're a woman (http://www.flickr.com/photos/adriarichards/sets/721576169418...) or (https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425), just like you can only be racist if you're white (https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858)

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#128

Post by Semaphor »

niggler wrote: post #32
pyre wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

| For the life of me cannot fathom why PlayHaven | went to the extreme step of firing the dev in | question. | | What he did was certainly wrong, but certainly not | a firable offense. A stern warning from HR | would've sufficed. - The ultra-conservative approach is to distance yourself from anything that could be construed as being supportive of a "boys' club" in tech. - According to CrunchBase, PlayHaven only has 5…

"They could have paid for his PyCon expenses (therefore he was there representing the company), and they felt that he did a poor job representing the company." Doesn't explain why one person is still an employee while the other gentleman was canned. "It's possible there were other reasons they wanted to fire him before PyCon, but this became a good excuse to act on them." I strongly suspect this happened, given the c…

> Doesn't explain why the other gentleman was canned.

Which other gentleman got canned?

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#129

Post by michaelochurch »

niggler wrote: post #107
michaelochurch wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, sexual harassment laws that actually exist are reasonable and conservative. There are a few women who try to sue over dick jokes, and "men's rights" characters who make a big deal out of it when that happens-- just like people blow the McDonalds case out of proportion (short synopsis: McD was in the wrong for bad cup design and serving over 160F/70C, the court assigned her partial blame, and she originally…

"No court would consider him guilty of anything for a joke about a dongle." I'm not an employee of playhaven, but I'm sure new employees sign employment agreements. Usually those agreements reference standards of conduct and that violations can result in termination. The court would have to establish that the employment agreement is null and void, which is a much harder challenge. "I doubt his company had a sexual ha…

PlayHaven implied strongly that:

(a) mr-hank did or said something sexually inappropriate. (He lost ground by admitting some degree of guilt on HN. Otherwise, it'd all be hearsay and he could say he was just talking about a literal dongle.)

(b) mr-hank's conduct was so bad that there was no choice other than to fire him: "having to let this employee go". It wasn't we decided to fire him. It was we had to fire him. Important distinction, and quite likely, technically false. They probably fired him to save face, not because of an objective violation of any law or ethical principle that left them no other option.

It's not a clear-cut case, and it's less so in the light of his HN admission, but he can certainly argue that the press release (a) misrepresents his behavior, (b) in a way that will damage his reputation and future employability.

He has a lot of options here. He may settle for an amazing reference and introductions to investors. Or he might get a six-figure sum out of it. Or he might walk away. Depends what he wants.

PlayHaven fucked up big time. These companies (especially PlayHaven; SendGrid has more of a case) should be more embarrassed than the people involved.

Re: Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

#130

Post by samiur1204 »

WalterSear wrote: post #118
samiur1204 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's allowed to be offended with those comments (or single pun), but the method of communicating her offense was definitely not called for. And honestly, even if it were sexual, it isn't sexist. I think that's a distinction that certainly needs to be made. Calling Adria a c*nt and other horrible things online definitely is sexist though.

Is she? 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 jok…

I'm not saying that getting offended is the right response, I'm just saying she has the right to be offended. I get offended by people walking slowly in front of me. They're not doing anything horribly wrong, I'm just annoyed. Again, I understand her being offended, but do not excuse it, as you say.
Post reply on HN