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Because it needs to be said

blogjustine.wordpress.com

111–120 of 635 posts

Re: Because it needs to be said

#111

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…

> I applaud the author for sharing her experiences. This post is eloquent and courageous. Having said that, a blog post is not the right place to seek justice. In fact, the information here may interfere with a trial. I encourage her to delete this post and initiate a criminal trial in order to hold the perpetrator accountable.

It's pretty clear to me that the author is not interested in seeking justice and is more interested in letting people know what the heck happened to her. She's not obligated to press charges, no matter how much you think she should. It is absolutely not your call.

> I volunteered to take a police polygraph test, hired a lawyer and initiated a libel suit.

Unless the woman involved was lying about having two supportive eyewitnesses (and those guys are lying about BEING eyewitnesses on their blogs) this is woefully beside the point. I'm sorry for what happened to you but I wonder why you brought it up.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#112

I am fairly certain that the events that Monday in January ruined me for the rest of my life Is this typical? I've read a fair amount of stories from rape victims, and yet here we are to understand this woman's life has come completely unhinged and ruined for good by something... I don't know, somewhat less dramatic than a rape. If I hadn't read the story of the event itself, I'd have honestly thought it was about a…

Yes. The relevant concept, as much as I _hate_ to link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_trauma

As well as http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_trauma_syndrome

Re: Because it needs to be said

#113
post #71
post #49

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 tec…

As a non-believer, I've never touched a sacred book and never will, and I don't understand the need to "indoctrinate" everything. Why can't there be a culture of having just good clean fun, no religion, no wars, no oppression in the name of a virtual god? (point being: blame the perpetrator, not the substance)

Religion and alcohol are not the same. Are trying to say that religion is like a rapist? But even if I continue with your horribly broken and anti-religionist analogy, I could say: I don't bring religion into my work/meetings so why bring alcohol into it?

Re: Because it needs to be said

#114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a recent PyCon a couple of attendees made a weak joke about forking a repository that came off as sexual humor (I don't know if it was intended that way or not). Someone was offended by it and tweeted a picture of them rather than approach the conference organizers. Things escalated from there. As I recall it, by the end of everything, the jokesters had been asked to leave the conference and subsequently lost thei…

This is inaccurate. The individuals making comments were not ejected from the conference, they were informed that their words were having effects they might not be intending, they apologized, and returned to the conference. I can in no way speak for anyone's employer, but it's worth noting that only one of the individuals lost their job. I currently serve as the co-chair for the PyCon Program Committee, and as a dire…

I think I'd already noted part of this (that there were 2 job losses not 3), but Adria Richards' job certainly counts as part of the fallout from the whole thing as well.

Thanks for what you do for Python.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#115
post #17

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.

What is different about non-American alcohol culture?

Re: Because it needs to be said

#116
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to my community, apparently. :'(

No, this is not the community I have loved and been a part of for 8 years. This kind of behaviour - assault, companies covering up the matter, bullying - is NOT acceptable! I will stand up, all 445 pounds of me, to anyone who thinks this matter should just go away. We need to talk about this, and minds need to be changed so that our community will improve.

You should consider loosing weight.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#117

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…

> I applaud the author for sharing her experiences. This post is eloquent and courageous. Having said that, a blog post is not the right place to seek justice. In fact, the information here may interfere with a trial. I encourage her to delete this post and initiate a criminal trial in order to hold the perpetrator accountable. It's pretty clear to me that the author is not interested in seeking justice and is more i…

> It's pretty clear to me that the author is not interested in seeking justice and is more interested in letting people know what the heck happened to her.

For those playing along at home, Justine raised this issue almost two weeks ago, but the deluge of people saying "I need more details before I believe you" forced her to actually post this. She didn't even want to be this explicit about it, but the community made her.

She refers to this at the end of the post:

> I’m extremely upset I had to write this post. That it wasn’t simply enough to finally, after 10 months have the courage to say Joe O’Brien sexually assaulted me. But if this is what has to happen this is what happens.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#118
I think there's a deeper cultural problem here: that the behavior of Joe had that much of an impact on Justine's life in the first place. There are women that would experience the same thing, but would not retreat into themselves in this extreme way. There are even women that would shrug it off. However, the response of Justine matches ancient societal expectations: if a woman has been violated, she loses all value.

Why would anyone still believe that in our modern society? Because like the vilification of gay people ('gay' and 'faggot' are still a word used by virtually everyone to put things down as 'unmanly' or generally 'shameworthy') it has has entered the undertow of culture, where it is less apparent, but just as strong.

When someone is raped, we say we understand that her life is shattered, that she will never recover. It's part of a general acceptance that certain events mean someone's life is 'over' (death of a child, significant other) and that they may never recover. This acceptance implies expectation. Stronger women are questioned, seemingly admiringly, but actually judgingly: 'How can you just continue living after this?' with a hidden 'you are supposed to have broken!'.

It's easy to say that being raped should be like breaking a leg: an unfortunate event that can happen during a lifetime in human society with all its strange and from which you can recover after some pain and trouble. The difference is of course that one was inflicted on purpose by someone in your social group, while the other is usually self-inflicted or at least accidental. That this makes a difference is actually part of the same problem: that if you've been bested by another in your social group, you lose status and value. This also has ancient origins and as a result has deep roots in our minds. A chimpanzee with a broken leg doesn't lose status if humans take care of its leg. It only loses status if it loses a fight.

What is the way out of this? Make a conscious effort not to believe these things anymore. Raise your children not to believe these things. Don't participate in them and scold everyone that does them. Teach them it doesn't matter if someone has asserted dominance over them and that their lives are no less valuable as a result of it.

Justine, please seek professional help. Find a therapist that will work on changing the beliefs that have caused you to experience this event so strongly and caused it to have such an influence. There are lots of women on whom a similar experience had a weaker effect. This is not because you are weaker: it is because of what you were taught during your life, because of your beliefs. It is hard to change beliefs. There are many emotions connected to them, which makes you recoil from touching them. A professional therapists will enable this process, after which I hope you will look back and think "why on earth did I believe those things so strongly that a single event could have such a strong influence on my life?!"

Re: Because it needs to be said

#119
post #49

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 tec…

There's a long history of alcohol being used as a 'social lubricant' in European cultures. It reduces inhibitions, initially to a point where everyone's having a better time than if they were stone cold sober, but with increased consumption, to a point where Bad Things™ are almost guaranteed to happen.

As a fellow fan of 'good clean fun' but as someone who can also tolerate a pint, I totally see your point and think good clean fun is more appropriate for professionally-aligned events.

The thing is, there are levels of drinking. There's having a few beers in a group to get the laughs rolling (which is still reasonably clean fun and many non-drinkers are OK in this environment).. and then there's the raunchy American style "party" drinking (i.e. doing lots of shots, beer pong, getting drunk as fast as possible). Non-drinkers will not fit into that sort of environment at all.

The drinking in the story here sounds more like the latter and IMHO is rarely appropriate, especially at a professionally-aligned event.

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