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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

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Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And being male is part of being an individual. We're against individualism now?

That could be interpreted to mean women are not individuals, which is probably not what you meant :-) Fortunately, individuality is not like fire - it won't flicker out and die just because you turn it down a bit sometimes. I'm a guy too, and I find dick jokes annoying sometimes. Depending on the context, I might ask someone to settle down or indicate that I was finding such humor tedious.

Depending on the context, I might do the same thing. What I wouldn't do is act as though I was the defender of a righteous cause and that the guy making the dick joke was somehow oppressing my . Dick jokes may be in bad taste, but they are not oppression.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#582
post #476
post #429

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Case in point: There weren't making belitting jokes about women. Making jokes about "dongle" sounding like "dong" or about "forking the repository" of a male speaker? Where is making fun of women in there? Pretending like something else happened because it fits your narrative sounds extreme, not reasonable.

Often sex jokes and sex discussion in some communities only consist of one thing: men do the f ing, women are f ed. Treating women are sex sex objects, is a way to belittle and exclude women. (these jokes also affect some men too you know. Gay men are sometimes told they aren't real men because they do something only women should do, namely be the receptive sex partner (sometimes)). As a result many tech conferences…

In THIS case (the one we are talking about), the sex joke consisted not in that one thing. There was no women being fed involved. There were talking about the repository of a male speaker. Don't you see that this is exactly the kind of "spreading the humor" that transcends the usual stereotype of a women being fed..? If you think that joke (which was supposed to be a sign of admiration for the guys code and I don't think anyone could misunderstand that part) implies him "being a women" (?) then I think you are reading a lot into it. Which is my exact point: you are not reasonable. You make the facts fit your agenda. You are being extremist.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#583
post #474

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Wrong. The joke was not sexist in any way - to call it so is a deliberate misrepresentation of the situation.

There are varying definitions of the word sexist that complicate the issue -- but here it doesn't matter! Because Adria didn't call them sexist, certainly not in the twitter or blog posts I've read. She just said it made her uncomfortable.

She made allegations of harassment and alluded to gender issues. Most people accept that "sexism" was at issue here, and she herself doesn't dispute this. There's no sense in nitpicking on minor semantics.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#584
post #515

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You forgot to make a point. You only listed facts.

Point: She singled out two guys at a conference, provided no evidence/proof while burning them at the stake online, and was fired for it.

You seem not to understand words, logic, or evidence.

edit: That is, what you are saying does not accurately characterise what happened at all, and is also not really a point that follows from your previous post. Like, at least have premises, the application of logical laws, and then a conclusion.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#585

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Some people use different definitions of those words; and under those definitions, it is not true that anyone can be racist. When they talk about racism or sexism, they are talking about their manifestation in society , which is not an action one individual can take. In this context, saying that something/someone is sexist or racist says nothing about intention, only the effect of the behavior or social structure. Fu…

From the wiki: "Some sociologists have defined racism as a system of group privilege." That i can understand, Its racism. no argument there. So your changing the context of the word so the intent does not matter but the effect does? that's outrageous. Racism is all about the outcome AND intent. why do all these mental gymnastics just so you can say X cannot be racist towards Y? Why even say something like that? I can…

> Racism is all about the outcome AND intent.

Agreed, but individual's acts of racism don't exist in a vacuum. The aggregate effect those racist actions and attitudes creates systemic power imbalances. This wiki has starting material about the institutional and systemic effects of racism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism.

> why do all these mental gymnastics just so you can say X cannot be racist towards Y? Why even say something like that? I can't see if having any positive outcome.

You have to remember that for someone who is black, the institutional racism in the US effects them daily and that such institutional racism is orchestrated by the white patriarchy that is US society. For such a person, what does it mean when a white person tries to call them racist while ignoring the racism that said white person benefits from every day? Often I will see a white or white passing person call a person of color racist when the situation they are talking about is actually caused by the systemic racism that they benefit from.

> You can find areas of the world where almost any given race has the power/upper hand and are "racist" towards them.

That is true, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the context of this discussion. Racism in different societies are not interchangeable in most discussions of racism.

> My point is you cannot simply say X cannot be racist towards Y because it can, has and will happen and all levels

This is not true. Black people will never be able to exercise systemic racism against white people in US society. Black people will never be able to create an environment where white people are imprisoned more than any other group by proportion, denied access to jobs, denied access to self determination, target white people with racist law enforcement, have over-representation in government, etc.

> Either at an individual level, a social group level (X friends won't be friends with Ys) or a social/society level anyone race CAN be racist towards another.

Racism at a society level different compared to individual acts of racism. Net social aggregate effects are what racism at a society level look like. Black folks in the US are incarcerated and killed disproportionately in the US, they as a group simply cannot apply that same socially and institutionally backed violence to white people.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#586

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> Sure, and that is a legitimate problem that everybody has to face. "How much should I let myself be offended before I speak up about it?" For someone in a marginalized group, they hear constant micro-aggression from a large amount of people daily. Each one of those comments and encounters builds that feeling of not belonging and resentment. That is the context in which folks have to deal with this kind of thing, so…

That's not excuse for snapping and overreacting to the extremes she did. There were avenues for her to express her discomfort and she op[ted for the most extreme and disproportionate option.

This doesn't make sense to me. Tweeting a pic and complaining to pycon staff are not extreme in any way. Blogging about that experience to share information about what kind of micro-aggressions someone may face at a con is not extreme.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#587
post #502

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I'm not really sure what you are arguing here. 2nd wave feminism has problems for sure, but they also got a lot right and and 2nd wavers have helped shaped the state of society today. Heck, some prominent woman suffarage folks in the late 1800s/early 1900s were eugenics advocates (which is super messed up), but that doesn't negate the positive things woman's suffrage accomplished. If you want to talk about the specif…

>Heck, some prominent woman suffarage folks in the late 1800s/early 1900s were eugenics advocates (which is super messed up), but that doesn't negate the positive things woman's suffrage accomplished. This is still true today. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Daly#Views_on_men >If you want to talk about the specific things you think that 3rd wavers are getting wrong about 2nd wave feminism, you'll have to be more sp…

> First and foremost is the double standard afforded to 2nd wave bigotry. The smallest sexist offense incites a twittersphere rabble. Where is the rabble against transphobia taught by 2nd wave professors? Where is the rabble against the blatant misandry? Where is the rabble against anglo-centrism? All I've ever seen is a token effort. If these 2 men deserve to be kicked out of the convention, fired, and shamed then that more than equally applies to the bigots harbored by gender studies institutions. There's no good reason for such double standards.

Misandry isn't a real thing men as a whole suffer from. Works about anglo-centrism have been around for a while, although it was not a prominent part of the white mainstream feminist movement decades ago. If all you've seen is a token effort, it seems like you, like many folks, haven't had a chance to access to various material about those issues. As for gender studies, I don't know what you are even saying since I'm pretty sure bigots exist in every studied discipline and gender studies is not a bigoted discipline.

> 3rd wave feminists will defend the inclusion of such bigotry through the lense of postmodern relativity but again such inclusion is not afforded to "outsiders" and the distinction between in-group and out-group is arbitrary.

In what I have seen and read there is been a big increase in the criticism leveled at the big name feminist academics and writers for their moments and instances of bigotry. Exclusion of outsiders is still a problem and there is a way to go before feminism is actually inclusive or accessible for various communities.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point: She singled out two guys at a conference, provided no evidence/proof while burning them at the stake online, and was fired for it.

You seem not to understand words, logic, or evidence. edit: That is, what you are saying does not accurately characterise what happened at all, and is also not really a point that follows from your previous post. Like, at least have premises, the application of logical laws, and then a conclusion.

Did she not single out two male developers at a conference for something that they said without speaking to them whatsoever? Take their picture and put it on twitter in an inflammatory way? And then get fired by SendGrid for the resulting situation?

Don't be a dick.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem not to understand words, logic, or evidence. edit: That is, what you are saying does not accurately characterise what happened at all, and is also not really a point that follows from your previous post. Like, at least have premises, the application of logical laws, and then a conclusion.

Did she not single out two male developers at a conference for something that they said without speaking to them whatsoever? Take their picture and put it on twitter in an inflammatory way? And then get fired by SendGrid for the resulting situation? Don't be a dick.

No. That isn't what happened at all. (Specifically, she didn't 'single two male developers out'). Also, that characterisation does not match up with your previous characterisation without applying rather more charity than one should be expected to ('provided no evidence/proof while burning them at the stake online' is not the same as 'Take their picture and put it on twitter in an inflammatory way', 'was fired for it' is not the same as 'then get fired by SendGrid for the resulting situation').

So, you demonstrate (at the very least) sloppy thinking.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Men don't get rape threats from women, I think is the key take-away. I'm sure you can find an example of it happening but it's not a regular occurrence.

I don't agres with you, but I'll grant it. So let's say that men don't get rape threats. Are rape threats inherently more worthy of our scorn than murder threats?

No, but they are different. And women get murder threats as well.

Additionally most things posted on the internet by a man is simply a post on the internet. Anything posted on the internet is a post by a woman on the internet.

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