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Because it needs to be said

blogjustine.wordpress.com

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Re: Because it needs to be said

#41

Post by steveklabnik »

cegev wrote: post #32
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 sh…

Consider that the person who would be doing the banning is the victim, which means that she would have to read all of those shitty comments, continually, in order to determine who to ban.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#42

Post by sgentle »

I'm glad this is out there. It's a tragedy that it happened at all, but it would be an even bigger tragedy if nobody else knew the consequences. I think everyone experiences that moment sometimes where you think "is this okay? should I say something?" And after you waver for a second, your decision reinforces itself and you end up doing nothing at all. Maybe you can even convince yourself that it was all okay in the end. After all, the consequences are invisible. Well, not this time.

I found two other perspectives on the story:

http://theotherzach.com/writes/2013/10/9/events http://blog.matt-darby.com/essays/i-am-the-other-developer

I'm particularly heartened by Zach's account. The police can prosecute assaults, absolutely, but they can't stop them before they happen. The community can. By setting clearer expectations of behaviour, recognising potentially dangerous situations and taking steps to ameliorate the risk, and by being willing to step in before anything goes off the rails, the community can stop this from happening again.

And, thanks to Justine, maybe they will.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#43

Post by iMark »

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.

You believe people should go to bars with the expectation they'll be sexually assaulted?

Re: Because it needs to be said

#44

Post by ryan-allen »

steveklabnik wrote: post #23
ryan-allen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, what was I thinking. You definitely should never, ever, report crimes to the police. Especially if there were two witness bar staff!

It is possible that, in the moment, that would have made a difference. Remember this assault occurred almost a year ago. Furthermore, I didn't say 'crimes,' I said sexual assault. Again, I am not being abstract: if you talk to anyone who works with sexual assault victims, you know how futile that course of action is. Let's not forget that lawyers cost money, for example.

Statue of limitations on sexual assault is longer than 9 months. Two witnesses that can be tracked down. You are advising against not even trying to press charges?

Character assassination without trial is better? The courts exist for a reason and there were two witnesses.

Do you have any citations for the futility of reporting a crime with two witnesses?

Re: Because it needs to be said

#45

Post by NhanH »

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…

Exactly how would you ask that questions? (I'm honestly asking, I grew up in a country where personal space are quite strongly respect - even hugging between close friends are almost nonexistent.)

Re: Because it needs to be said

#46

Post by ryan-allen »

wilkie wrote: post #30
ryan-allen wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, what was I thinking. You definitely should never, ever, report crimes to the police. Especially if there were two witness bar staff!

This is the painted lie that her company allowed him to make: http://objo.com/2013/01/31/funemployment/ This is the reality. I don't hold too much optimism that the police would somehow solve this problem considering the damage done and the lack of any support to go back to.

THERE WERE TWO WITNESSES. His blog post is irrelevant to his guilt or innocence based on a blog post of another individual.

Two witnesses is pretty clear cut. It's called 'corroboration', you should look it up and learn something perhaps!

Re: Because it needs to be said

#48

Post by sneak »

steveklabnik wrote: post #27
sneak wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree, but a prosecution is unlikely to undo the damage that was done. Google is more powerful than you may think. This is not an empty gesture.

> This is not an empty gesture. Neither was the assault.

Yeah, I really wish we lived in a world where pigs take sexcrime seriously. :(

I think police attitudes toward this stuff are probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks on the path to eradicating it. Think of how much progress could be made if reports were taken seriously and actually investigated with the levels of effort they put into investigating murder or drug trafficking.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#49

Post by cefarix »

As an aside, why is alcohol such a big part of things like tech meetups, etc? I've been to a few and there is always alcohol being served and people drinking it. As a Muslim, I've never touched alcohol and never will, and I don't understand the need to "alcoholize" everything. Why can't there be a culture of having just good clean fun, no alcohol, no drugs, no sexualizing? And what place does alcohol even have at tech events?

Re: Because it needs to be said

#50

Post by obstacle1 »

milesf wrote: post #34
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 comm…

Lest we mention PyCon...
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