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Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost

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

#161

Post by Draco6slayer »

WalterSear wrote: post #126
Draco6slayer wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know. Some words are just attached to each sex, and that's just a part of language. We don't say waitperson over waiter or waitress. Something that is both attached to a gender and insulting is by no means insulting someone for their gender or insulting a gender overall.

English is definitely one of the least sexualizing languages of the Romance Languages. In French or Spanish, everything would be attached to a gender, but that doesn't mean that the words define the gender themselves. Nobody in Spain thinks that chairs are 'where women belong' or anything like that.

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

#162

Post by georgeorwell »

rdl wrote: post #127
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 )

Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is a fallacy, but this annoys me too. The pictures she took at PyCon of her playing a game of Cards Against Humanity are perhaps the most galling:

https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards

e.g. the one on March 14th where she's holding a card that says, "Eating all of the cookies before the AIDS bake-sale."

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

#163

Post by ceol »

belorn wrote: post #153
ceol wrote: post #135

Aside from the personal stuff between her and Adria, I think she has a good grasp of the situation. (i.e. I agree with her) However, I find one thing troubling: > Adria reinforced the idea of us as threats to men, as unreasonable, as hard to work with… as bitches. (From here addressed to Amanda, should she be unlucky enough to stumble upon this thread) I don't believe you should be worrying about whether what you do…

Before you accuse everyone on HN to be sexists, please provide evidence that her gender is the cause of the comments. If a guy would had overheard two women, and found what they said to be offensive and hanged them out on twitter, would people send him roses instead? Say one of the women got fired. Everyone would cheer right? The DDoS and the personal attacks are horrible, wrong, and just plain bad, but I serious dou…

I don't have the effort to link every single comment, but please go into any of the major discussions (that have since been removed from the front page) and ctrl+F "feminist". Go and look at the vitriol being directed at her, look at the specific insults used (that Amanda mentions in her post.)

If it didn't start because of her gender, it most certainly became about her gender.

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

#164

Post by mkr-hn »

brador wrote: post #104
ChuckMcM wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was hilarious: http://bigbangtheory.wikia.com/wiki/The_Beta_Test_Initiation

Who's writing all that content for Wikia (a for profit wiki)? it's starting to rival wikipedia.

The people turned off by overzealous culling at Wikipedia.

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

#165

Post by girvo »

georgeorwell wrote: post #162
rdl wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 )

Tu quoque (appeal to hypocrisy) is a fallacy, but this annoys me too. The pictures she took at PyCon of her playing a game of Cards Against Humanity are perhaps the most galling: https://www.facebook.com/adriarichards e.g. the one on March 14th where she's holding a card that says, "Eating all of the cookies before the AIDS bake-sale."

I honestly didn't know Appeal To Hypocrisy was a fallacy! Probably one I'm going to continue to make; hypocrisy is the one thing that drives me insane.

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

#166

Post by incongruity »

vellum wrote: post #159
incongruity wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, PyCon and the PSF have really tried over the last five years or so to consider gender issues and I think they've had a good start – I believe I heard PyCon had women accounting for around 20% (edit: corrected thanks) of total attendance. That's pretty cool considering how much lower the numbers were a decade ago.

It was 20%. https://twitter.com/doughellmann/status/313319682943905793

thanks for the correction. fixed to reflect your more accurate numbers/not my clearly horked brain's recollection.

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

#167

Post by raganwald »

Udo wrote: post #115
raganwald wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly how rape trials used to be conducted. The victim would be put on the stand and critiqued about every single relationship she had ever had, with the defence bringing all of her skeletons out in a manner carefully calculated to seem reasonable, fair, and balanced. I'm fifty. I could put together two blog posts about myself, one of which would make me seem like a saint, the other a demon, and both would…

This line of rhetorics is exactly the reason why I said that a character critique is unhelpful here, so I'm not sure what your point is but I'm choosing to interpret this as agreeing with me. ;)

That's how I interpret my remarks too :-)

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

#168

Post by vellum »

cobrausn wrote: post #73
redthrowaway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways. All I get from that is that it played a role. In fact, their statement is tacit support of the argument that the controversy wasn't the only factor in their decision.

I agree - there were multiple factors. But... PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. Notice the result of this investigation part. Maybe this guy ha…

Maybe he was more junior. If you look on Alex Reid's linkedin, it says he's a core engineer. I don't see anyone else in Playhaven with that title.

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

#169

Post by TheCapn »

cobrausn wrote: post #73
redthrowaway wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways. All I get from that is that it played a role. In fact, their statement is tacit support of the argument that the controversy wasn't the only factor in their decision.

I agree - there were multiple factors. But... PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. Notice the result of this investigation part. Maybe this guy ha…

Without knowing PlayHaven directly in this context its hard to say what those words mean. They come off as PR for covering their ass. I'd be surprised if any thorough investigation could be concluded so quickly.

The fact that they state employee privacy is of importance yet clearly outline he was dismissed also sends flags up for me. To specifically say their decision goes beyond privacy when he is clearly identified through the picture and other channels is to say "we fired mr-hank" a point that is already covered within this thread of discussion. To say "we have investigated the complaints and taken appropriate action" is a safer bet legally.

These are just speculation, but my interpretation is that the response was a hasty PR damage control rather than a rational response.

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

#170

Post by josephlord »

If your job is evangelism and you get to the point where you are claiming in a tweet that your employer "supports" you there is a real risk that you are asking them to evangelise you rather than the other way round and then your position is likely to be precarious.

When you are employed, particularly in a PR or role or any other where you speak for your employer your speech is not fully free. Even when in your own time on private accounts if you claim views and opinions as your own rather than your employer's it can still have an impact. Anonymity is valuable if you have something that you want to say without bringing your employer into the issue.

This is not to deny that there may be sexism or that it may be right to publicly stand against it but when in controversial territory speak for yourself and let PR or the CEO back you publicly if they want to and do consider the affect on ability to fulfil role and then balance the need to make a societal impact against that (or quit and speak freely).

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