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Because it needs to be said

blogjustine.wordpress.com

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Re: Because it needs to be said

#31

Post by konstruktor »

We have a culture of alcohol being involved in most team interactions outside of work. Those mostly take place in the evening, a time when, usually, private socializing, including mate seeking behaviour, happens. That alone would be quite a fertile ground for sexual harassment, if you add a few females to a group mostly consisting of men. Then add companies where people work long hours and have little life outside of work. And now consider conferences, where people are away from their regular social circle for extended periods of time.

I would not want to be a young, attractive female working in this environment.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#32

Post by cegev »

milesf wrote: post #2

The assault was evil enough, but the vilification of Justine in the comments by some makes my blood boil. The best antidote to fight darkness is to bring it out into the light. Thank you, Justine, for your ongoing courage to speak out. I cannot say I understand what you're going through, but I'm sure there are (too many) others out there who do. Surround yourself with friends and supporters who will stand with you. Y…

The comments are... odd. I can understand leaving comments open as an illustration of the backlash that results from trying to talk about these matters, but at some point, banning particular people makes sense: the majority of the comments there are vile primarily because the majority of comments have been made by one apparently obsessed person making utterly ridiculous comments in a deranged tone.

I fear that the shock of those comments hides what I consider the more important, problematic vilification going on in the comments, which is the argument made by a few sane people that talking about this, rather than keeping it a private matter, is not appropriate, and that Justine should have stayed silent and only gone to the police. This is perhaps more harmful, as it comes from people who aren't obviously deranged or trolling.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#33

Post by konstruktor »

ck2 wrote: post #22

This isn't her fault at all but I have to say this: Hang around people doing drugs (large amounts of alcohol) and bad things are guaranteed to happen sooner or later.

Cool advice. Now please tell me about an industry where "drinking with the guys" is not a central part of the networking/socializing needed to have a career.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#34

Post by milesf »

ggreer wrote: post #24

We, as a community, are simply incapable of discussing this subject responsibly.[1] Similar stories have been posted before. Some people are outraged at the incident. Others are outraged that the author publicized the incident. Others question the author's account. Others are outraged at the outrage of the second group and/or the skepticism of the third group. Et cetera. The ultimate result is this: Endless angry com…

Not true. There have been issues at conferences that have been talked about on places like HN, and now many conferences are adopting anti-harassment policies, like at the Cascadia Ruby Conference http://cascadiaruby.com/policies

It's a mess, yes, but change does happen.

There are many people who are very skilled at talking about tough issues like this one who simply need to be given an opportunity to address the community. I for one hope the Ruby community steps up and changes, for the better, because of this one.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#35

Post by sneak »

ggreer wrote: post #24

We, as a community, are simply incapable of discussing this subject responsibly.[1] Similar stories have been posted before. Some people are outraged at the incident. Others are outraged that the author publicized the incident. Others question the author's account. Others are outraged at the outrage of the second group and/or the skepticism of the third group. Et cetera. The ultimate result is this: Endless angry com…

The world is full of evil.

Not talking about it allows it to continue unimpeded.

Most people are not angry at the person shining the light on evil, just a tiny and vocal minority.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#36

Post by sneak »

hawkharris wrote: post #25

My ex-girlfriend wrote a blog post similar to this one, accusing me of sexual assault. I volunteered to take a police polygraph test, hired a lawyer and initiated a libel suit. Fortunately, I didn’t need to go further because she suddenly changed my name & her story. But the experience was still stressful and scary. Many commenters vilified me because they assumed her information was true. Prior to being falsely accu…

Unfortunately, private citizens cannot initiate criminal trials, and most police do not take reports of sexual assault very seriously, if indeed they do anything at all.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#37

Post by steveklabnik »

AlisdairO wrote: post #29
milesf wrote: post #2

The assault was evil enough, but the vilification of Justine in the comments by some makes my blood boil. The best antidote to fight darkness is to bring it out into the light. Thank you, Justine, for your ongoing courage to speak out. I cannot say I understand what you're going through, but I'm sure there are (too many) others out there who do. Surround yourself with friends and supporters who will stand with you. Y…

There's absolutely no excuse for such behaviour - the man should be prosecuted. I wish Justine a lot of luck getting her life back on track. It's worth mentioning (since the volume of comments doesn't make it obvious) that it appears to be a single commenter doing the vilifying.

> it appears to be a single commenter doing the vilifying.

It may appear to be that way, but many people have stated various things. If you haven't been following this on Twitter for the last few weeks, it can look different.

It is certainly not just one person.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#38

Post by sdoering »

sneak wrote: post #17
erikpukinskis wrote: post #15

One thing we can all do: Start asking before you touch in situations where you know you don't have to. I know it's awkward. But the reason people like Joe think they can put their hands down someone's pants is because we don't have a cultural practice of "ask first". They see you put your arms around that friend of yours who doesn't mind at all, and they think "Ah, cool... so you can just sense if she's cool with it…

I think a much more workable solution would be to collectively attempt to abandon the shitty American brand of alcohol culture that seems to be a fairly common contributing factor in a lot of these stories about rape and assault. Alcohol makes one stupid, not cool. I have no idea why it is held in such high esteem in the US tech industry.

I'm so with you. After reading this (and a lot of similar) account, I knew, that I would never(!) enter any conference like that, regardless, where it is held.

An drug-induced culture like that is just hurtful/unhealthy. Regardless of the drug they put into their bodies, I have an internal policy never to mix with druggies.

I am really shocked, that it seems so normal to drink that much booze. Hey, I really like a glas of wine here or there, a glas of good scotch once in a while. But I am not 15 (coming from Germany) anymore. I do not have to be dumb playing cool drinking booze.

So I really hope for the OP, as I really hope for the american tech-conference culture. For the first: I wish her the utmost and very best. For the second: Grow up!

Re: Because it needs to be said

#39

Post by ryan-allen »

konstruktor wrote: post #13
ryan-allen wrote: post #7

Sexual assault is a crime, and she should report this to the police and press charges. A blog post isn't going to get justice, but the courts might. Internet mob justice isn't justice.

According to the story, the other person involved was allowed to leave the company, saying it was his own decision. Nobody forced him to blog about it. He, however, chose to take the topic of his leaving the company public, in a way that one can easily see would sound like derision to somebody who was a victim of assault: http://objo.com/2013/01/31/funemployment/ So now it's internet mob behaviour if she posts her si…

Last time I checked there was this thing called "due process". There were two witnesses to the alleged assault and I say alleged because in the eyes of the law it is alleged until tried in a court, and you are an idiot if you don't know this.

You don't even know if the assault happened and you are judging this man without a trial. You are a a goddamn imbecile. There were two witnesses, that's pretty clear cut.

His blog post has nothing to do with the alleged assault and you produce that as evidence of his guilt? I'm glad you're not running the legal system.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#40

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #21

This is a body shot for those who don't know. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBPT6AUnUnI | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKP99wrx6Sc | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBbz6hhoKbg Open-Minded Alternative-Understanding Scenario time: You're a male with your male gay friends at a gay bar. They're taller than you as they are gays of the muscle bear variety. You're the only one who's straight but you want to show them you…

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