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Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

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Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#681

Post by escape_goat »

efuquen wrote: post #633
jd0 wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're taking what I said a little too literally. Take a look at my response to another commenter where I clarify my hula-hoop statement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7408735

You're avoiding what I think is the better point, the first one. Her mistreatment by an estranged wife of a founder, in and of itself, doesn't constitute sexism. If her problems with this were ignored because she was a female, that would be sexism. But I didn't see any evidence of that presented and to me it seems more likely they were ignored quite simply because it was the wife of an important person at the company…

I understand what you mean when you say that it "doesn't constitute sexism", and that's true for a definition of sexism as "acts or speech denigrating women on the basis of their gender."

I think what the prior poster is trying to express is that this is a situation, with the founder's wife, that could only occur to a female employee. The covert power of the wife over the complainant is based on gender, and her success in intimidating the complainant with bizarre behaviour -- to which the complainant had an entirely passive response -- is largely due to the social expectations that the complainant perceives, that as a woman she should not be confrontational nor assertive.

Given that I didn't see the hula-hooping incident myself, and only have the complainant's description of it, I cannot adequately address the question of whether or not the men involved were behaving improperly, or aggressively, or in a fashion such that I am sympathetic to the complainant's feeling that their attitude was demeaning to her female colleagues. Personally, I could happily watch attractive young women exercise for hours. But I would also sympathize completely with a young woman whom felt uncomfortable with that. From the complainant's description, it seems that her colleagues were hula-hooping together for fun, and that there was an abnormal number of male engineers sitting and watching them. The hula-hoopers were presumably aware of this. It spoiled the fun for the complainant, but how the hula-hoopers felt about it is still an open question.

I think you are absolutely right that the focus of discussion should be the founder and his wife. The situation sounds completely inappropriate, the HR response seems powerless and ineffectual, and whatever the other side of the story is, her resignation/dismissal occurred under entirely improper circumstances, and she probably deserves compensation for this.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#682

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

couchand wrote: post #677
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #625

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the question should be asked very loud and clear... "Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?" I am against using private github repos simply because: it's safe to assume that the NSA can access them via hardware backdoors on github's premises (as per many US ISPs), or by compromising crypto keys that github holds (as per lavabit). It's also safe to assume that github will be legally compelled…

Doesn't that apply equally to any shared hosting?

It applies to any shared hosting with servers in in the US that operates above a certain scale; yes. What that certain scale is who knows, but github the most visible hosting service so is certain to be above it.

Github is great for my open source work. Everyone's allowed to see that code, even the NSA. However you can find source to LOIC on github. I'm sure that who put that there and who worked on it when would be of interest to them and form a suitable pretext for a dragnet.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#684

Post by philwelch »

SolarNet wrote: post #185
Aqueous wrote: post #120

I'm not entirely sure the hula-hooping incident - merely observing girls hula hooping is not a crime, is it? - by itself constitutes a hostile atmosphere for women, unless inappropriate comments were being made. What we have here is some completely inappropriate, cloak and dagger, soap opera shit being perpetrated by the wife of the cofounder, who has no business meddling in the affairs of his employees. (If true, th…

I don't think it creates a 'hostile' atmosphere per say. Obviously if both parties are alight with the situation then it's fine for them. I think it's an inappropriate one for a workplace though. This comes down to company culture. The problem isn't the women hula hooping, a casual environment means such things will happen. People will exercise together, work on hobbies, etc. The problem is that in a work environment…

> To draw a parallel, if 7 out of 10 people at the office were having nerf gun fights, and it was disrupting other peoples work (because they are reflexively duck, etc) to the point where they can't work when there aren’t big nerf gun fights (but still one or two shots every now and then), then it's a problem, and destructive to a good work environment. This is where management needs to step in and say, "ok guys, I know we are pretty lax around here, but seriously cut this shit out". Obviously it isn't a perfect parallel.

If 7 out of 10 people at the office are having an epic nerf gun fight, who's to say the three outliers are in the right? I'm not sure what you're trying to illustrate with this analogy.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#685

Post by couchand »

greenrd wrote: post #561
logicchains wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm. I suppose that's a disadvantage of having a less formal code-review process, compared to one in which the reverter would have to specify a reason for each reversion, making it easier to detect spurious reversions.

You'd think that a site like GitHub would have mandated code review for all commits by now. Especially after that time a few years ago when they managed to accidentally delete all the pull requests in the entire site, or something like that! Wait, they're a ruby shop, they don't even believe in letting the compiler help you avoid making basic mistakes. dons flame-retardant suit

It should be obvious that that's a false equality.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#686

Post by 3minus1 »

dylanrw wrote: post #581

Based on this article I see a few things, and some alarming ones that make me question the source. Also, hopefully to prevent me from sounding like too much of an ass, I'll use the following as the definition of sexism: "Sexism or gender discrimination is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex or gender." - The wife situation: Awkward/horrible. Either the wife is crazy with jealousy issues or we're missi…

> The real major theme I see is, "I was treated poorly." Yes this happens

I agree absolutely, This article reads like gossip shrouded in the guise of an earnest discussion of gender issues.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#687

Post by danielweber »

UK-AL wrote: post #468
chii wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's why you have a probation period, normally 3 months, but longer if necessary.

Useless in the this case, because the fuckwits sounded like the founders/founders wife/

Yeah, I've been in a place where one founder's wife was the ex-gf of a second founder, and for no good reason whatsoever she was brought in to do the books, and kept on talking out loud about what the second founder was like in bed.

Some people use companies to work out their interpersonal problems.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#688

Post by dcope »

GitHub employs a handful of women.[1] Have any others ever spoken out about sexism internally? Out of all these women why was Horvath singled out? Maybe I'm missing something but it really seems that this isn't adding up...

[1] https://github.com/about/team

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#689

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

rdtsc wrote: post #253
chanux wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, as a male, try to avoid staring at another female because I fear someone like Horvath accuses me of sexism. This is, sadly, the best thing to do because you don't know who is going to take offense. PS: To avoid looking one-sided and narrow (which I believe I'm not) I really feel bad about this whole situation and the lady who had to go through that. Personally liked a github as a company.

> This is, sadly, the best thing to do because you don't know who is going to take offense. Then excessive avoidance gets reinterpreted as snobbishness, sexism, not wanting to be inclusive, and so on. "Men actively avoid me and sit father away during meetings, they don't invite me for beers after works, it is a hostile environment". Anyway it is a fine line. And one can interpret a lot of behaviors as stemming from s…

No, it's not a fine line at all. There is a huge chasm between ogling someone undertaking physical activity and excessively avoiding them. You probably behave toward your male colleagues in a way that would fit neatly somewhere between these two extremes. Is it particularly a US issue, this inability to behave like a grown-up at work? In the UK, in my experience, men and women tend to work together, on an equal footing, with no problem whatsoever.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#690

Post by inlined »

a3n wrote: post #643
yeukhon wrote: post #183

There seems to be several problems. Not entirely sexism. 1. Founder's wife asked Horvath out and gave her a lecture about who is the boss. Probably out of jealousy. 2. Founder's wife physically inanimate Horvath, making her unwelcome and scared. 3. Founder did not stop the wife and protect his wife. 4. Horvath was approached by a male co-worker and according to her her rejection had caused tension between her and tha…

> The founder accused Horvath for bringing love affair into the company because she was/is dating an employee. The founder has a good point: try to avoid dating someone working with you. It's a beautiful story; but you can cause all sorts of mess. That's between the two people. Period. If they become problem employees, then they are problem employees, not two people who date. The problem behavior that happens on the…

That's the part I don't get. "Don't date coworkers" is a heuristic/warning for self-guidance, not a dogmatic rule for management to impose. Aside from the typical "chain of command," rule it's none of my business. This heuristic is to help people avoid any actual or apparent nepotism while in a relationship and petty jabs afterwards, both of which Horvath ironically faced from people who didn't respect her relationship.
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