Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit • Hacker News Board

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

#711

Post by gaius » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:24 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #707

jrockway wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you live in the UK where people are still people that have rights The right to be sued for libel whenever they write something that someone else doesn't like?

Actually, we have no written Constitution, and very little in the way of actual rights in the sense that if a Constable asks us to move or go home or to search our bags, we have to let them. Employment rights however are slightly better. The employee interviewed in the OA would have recourse to an employment tribunal for what used to be called 'constructive dismissal' - the terminology may have changed recently. The…

You do have certain rights for stop and search: https://www.gov.uk/police-powers-to-stop-and-search-your-rig...

Get all their details, and complain if you think you were treated unfairly.

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

#712

Post by quinnchr » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:25 PM UTC

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #566

alxjrvs wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive. When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind…

Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) a…

People do say they are proud to be white all the time, just in a different way. I hear "I'm proud to be Irish!" all the time. The thing is "white culture" isn't really a thing, "white culture" is simply the dominant culture in our society that we tell other cultures they should adapt to.

No one is saying white people can't be proud of their heritage. They can be proud, and they do celebrate their heritage all the time. Acknowledging someone's race isn't extending racism, it's embracing them and their culture.

To be honest I used to think similarly, I never got why people had to be proud of their race, or why it was part of their identity. Eventually I realized it's because the dominant culture is white, I don't have to ask myself what it means to be white or what it means to be american. It is part of my identity, I just have the luxury of not having to think about it.

Anyway, I would highly recommend watching "The Color of Fear", it changed my mind on a lot of stuff I'd never thought about critically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vAbpJW_xEc

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

#713

Post by snowwrestler » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:25 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #190

The article quotes JAH's email as saying, "Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for…

I think you have to consider the story as a whole. If everything else was great, I'd agree with you that getting upset at this little scene might be over-sensitivity. But from the author's perspective, everything else was not great. Far from it.

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

#714

Post by Kiro » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

prezjordan wrote: post #481

mwhite wrote: post #34

Well, there are only three Github founders, and a quick search seems to indicate that Tom Preston-Werner is the only one with a wife, Theresa: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/27/omakase-charity-tech-indust...

This isn't important.

Why not?

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

#715

Post by erikpukinskis » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:36 PM UTC

ebfe wrote: post #660

cossatot wrote: post #589

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I seriously hope you consider rethinking this position. There are a tremendous number of incredible women in the world, and most of them are not looking for a sugar daddy. Many women also work hard for their careers, passions, or some combination of both, and understand that both success and failure happen. I will also say that in many instances, if you have this opinion about women (or any group of persons), it's pr…

What advantages would marriage provide over a non-legal partnership? The latter seems to carry all of the benefits of marriage without any of the risks.

If one person is drawing a paycheck and another is supporting them in that role, then the supporter is putting in a ton of resources, but if the marriage ends, the breadwinner owns the entire "career". So the breadwinner reaps the long term benefits of the career, and the supporter loses everything but whatever skills they gained.

For the supporter, the advantage of legal marriage—where the supporter owns half the assets plus some rights to future earnings—is obvious. Smart, capable supporters know this, and won't make that investment without legal protections. Anything else would be reckless.

The advantage to the breadwinner is that this is a way to get a smart, capable supporter. If you're not willing to provide the legal protections, you're just going to get someone who doesn't really understand the situation and doesn't understand the risks. There's some chance you could find someone who was generally capable, but who was naïve on this point, but that's a smaller dating pool. And I'd argue it's ethically wrong, and the unfairness will eventually degrade the quality of the relationship.

People think alimony is just someone sucking someone dry while doing no work, but it's really just a dividend being paid out from a shared venture that you were both equal partners in.

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

#716

Post by icco » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:45 PM UTC

keithpeter wrote: post #361

buro9 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder? This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff. Even with allowances that company property remains company property and private chat rooms are in fact non-privat…

"Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?" This seems to me to be the major takeaway for organisations outside github from this sorry affair. I'm sort of surprised you are the only person to raise this so far. In the UK, the employee who resigned could have a successful day in an employment tribunal. And one aspect of the hearing would be privacy and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act pr…

I am not a Lawyer, but I'm pretty sure in the US, she could sue as well.

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

#717

Post by erikpukinskis » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:46 PM UTC

mst wrote: post #700

abalone wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may well be that the greatest damage to GitHub here is not on the issue of sexism so much as their advocacy of lean management and organizational "freedom". Although it may have sounded like the "cool teacher" way to address things by having your wife take an employee out for drinks to discuss grievances, clearly this should have been handled in a professional setting according to a clear grievance process. That c…

> keep pull request comments professional Actually, this struck me as purely a "remember who you're talking to" problem - the team were used to a more aggressive level of language than the new hire was, so what should've happened is that the team should've learned to make the same strength of point with less aggressive words and the new hire should've worked to take aggressive words less to heart. Being as I'm a blun…

I don't think it matters whether it was reported. Unless the founder gives his wife an explicit role and tells employees where he ends and she beings, it's fair to assume that low-level employees are going to assume he is fully aware of her interactions, and she is acting as his right hand.

I realize that's a lot of assumptions, but that's why the founder needs to get out in front of these things and make them explicit.

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

#718

Post by oneeyedpigeon » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #710

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #689

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 footi…

> There is a huge chasm between ogling someone undertaking physical activity If anyone -- attractive man, unattractive man, attractive woman, unattractive woman -- started hula-hooping in the middle of the office I would expect people to stare. Not because it's sexual, but because it's peculiar. The gap between "stare" and "ogle" is hardly objective, let alone a "chasm."

Julie described the group of men as 'gawking'; as far as I'm aware, this is more or less interchangeable with the term 'ogling', in common use here in the UK. This is significantly different from just staring - it implies a sexual undercurrent, i.e. paying particular attention to someone's physical characteristics. Maybe this is a cultural thing, but the clear implication in the original report was that the staring/ogling was inappropriate, particularly because it was undertaken by a group solely consisting of men.

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

#719

Post by joyeuse6701 » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:47 PM UTC

Talk about double standards. Get chastised for relationship with co-worker, When other co-worker impedes company growth (reverting commits) out of spite for rejection, they do nothing? Holy crap.

It's hard to imagine this level of social dysfunction. Doesn't help for the reputation of engineers and technology being socially inept.

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

#720

Post by allochthon » Sun, Mar 16, 2014, 6:50 PM UTC

Without saying anything about the question of sexism at Github (which I know nothing about), I get the sense that Horvath is a complex character. It is difficult to know what is fact and what is spin.