A Difficult Situation

Also, the context is very different. You may think of PyCon as a social gathering, but it is in fact work-related for a lot of people (including, presumably, Adria in her role as a developer evangelist). What's acceptable in an informal, personal setting (e.g. jokes made to people who explicitly chose to view her personal twitter stream) may not be acceptable in any kind of professional setting.

First, because it demonstrates the extent to which a company can be brought to its knees by a group of hostile people organized online.

Second because hundreds and hundreds of men here and elsewhere seem quite happy to align themselves with an overtly sexist, violently threatening campaign against an individual whose views they disagree with.

I am not in a position to comment on the firing, or what qualifies someone to excel as an "evangelist." The statement is right that she probably couldn't do her job well anymore.

But this is a sad thing, not a victory, and the further abuse and ignorance happening and being up voted here is really unsettling. Why are so many really so angry? I promise it has nothing to do with this woman.

Taking a photograph of someone in a public place and reporting what they said within earshot, without any expectation of privacy, does not warrant vitriol.

Joking about big dicks and sex disruptively in the context of a public event held for a profession which continues to struggle with sexism and misogyny means something very different than joking to a friend, and those people who have chosen to listen to what you have to say, about pretending to have a big dick.

And guess what, her sentiment about racism, whether I agree with it or not, is shared by many scholars of American race relations who are decidedly more informed on the subject.

Instead of shaming a stranger who has a different frame of reference than you (assuming you haven't had much experience as a black woman) why don't we all take a deep breath and think about how we can protect against the kind of fear so palpable in Sendgrid's statement, the kind that cowed them so extremely?

1) Guys make inappropriate jokes

2) Adria feels offended. Doesn't matter if she "should" or "shouldn't". It happened. OK so far, different people have different opinions on acceptable behavior. This particular one is explicitly unacceptable in the rules of the conference.

3) Adria texts PyCon staff, and they act exactly as they did in this sitution.

4) Adria writes a blog post relaying the event. Basically even starting the same. Her comments even about maybe being frazzled from a rough travel schedule stay in. So do the parts where she decides she's not ok with it and decides it should stop. That is an OK position - I might not feel the same overhearing that conversation, but if she doesn't want to, she should not have to - it is off-topic for the conference (and honestly a freaking repost... forking and dongle jokes were old in the 90s when I first heard them). However instead of going to the hyperbolic bits, where she is saving women from developers[1], she instead writes about how the rules in place helped diffuse an uncomfortable situation, and how there are now two more people who have a better understanding of what is acceptable public behavior in a professional setting.

5) There would still be much internet hate. But now everyone involved could maintain jobs, the much needed [2] cause of sane gender policies would be advanced a lot.

6) The worst fears of people who are strongly apposed to gender politics would not have been confirmed in the crazy shitstorm, and rather than being a divisive event that caused near everyone (it seems) to polarize, it could have been a great example of meeting in the middle.

Unfortunately thats not the story. Instead we have this crazy mess.

I think SendGrid wrote the right piece. Under no circumstances is the correct action on their part to comment on a situation they were not present for. Taking sides in that is a terrible move - they need to support their employees rights to respond sanely without taking sides. They should in fact defer to the organizers/governance of the conference when it comes to everything that happened there. The do however have a right and responsibility to make sure their name is not associated with inappropriate behavior. The only inappropriate behavior they are associated with is an overreaction by Adria Richards. That is what they address. End of story.

[1] There is a time and place for articles on the scale of "seriously fuck this creeper". Unfortunately, those times and places are not uncommon - people act creepy at these conferences a lot. This was not one of them. It was at worst a medium offensive statement.

[2] There are a lot of people who oppose the idea of harassment policies. There are a lot of people who cry foul every time a woman mentions anything bad, uncomfortable, or inappropriate that happens around them. This attitude needs to go away, and the opposition to decent policies needs to stop. Examples of the policies working without crazy hyperbole and over-the-top responses on all sides is the way to get to sanity.

tl;dr - Everyone needs to take a fucking chill pill, and be reasonable.