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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

#861

Post by Karn »

The founder's wife sounds like she was threatened by JAH being an attractive and presumably smart woman being around her husband. The founder sounds like a pussy-whipped loser who doesn't know how to set boundaries for his wife. Most of what JAH describes is unfortunately very believable. I've had resentful coworkers delete/overwrite my work in the past.

That said, complaining about men staring at hula hoop dancers just sounds really odd to me. If someone is hula hooping in a non-private space, of course people are going to stare. Being geeks/nerds/people who generally tend not to have the most highly developed social skills, some of those stares may be awkward. Get over it. She wasn't even the one being stared at.

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

#862

Post by Dylan16807 »

brongondwana wrote: post #853
Dylan16807 wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please, just delete this comment. Yeah oh my god that sentence could be interpreted wrong. We don't need a tangent about it. The real meaning has absolutely nothing to do with subordination. It's a simple matter of keeping your friends/relatives/partners out of your job. They don't work there, they shouldn't be interfering. Also, shame on anyone that upvotes such a derail just because they agree with the words.

You fucked up, you got called on it. Stop blaming the person who pointed out your mistake.

What? Is this comment in the right spot?

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

#863

Post by iamwil »

grifpete wrote: post #845
iamwil wrote: post #251

Does it seem like it's not the whole story? It seems like there's a piece of the story missing from before the wife's chat over beers. It doesn't seem like the wife of a boss would ask a specific employee to one-on-one beers, unless she had a specific topic in mind. And boasting about pulling strings at Github seems like an unlikely purpose. To me, it sounds like something happened that was unmentioned. And the wife…

I have a hypothesis but it's probably bullshit. If a) Horvath had felt for some time that she was in a hostile work environment and that she was being subjected to pressures that a male employee would not have to endure (ie sexist discrimination, and b) the company senior management / founder(s) felt that there was a risk that she was going to leave and go public with her allegations of sexism, then c) it makes a twi…

Your hypothesis was what I was thinking, and that a) was the part of the story that wasn't being told.

Like you, I have no idea what's actually going on, but the way the story was told, either by Horvath or the TC writer, the details didn't quite add up. I guess we wait until Github comes out with a statement.

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

#864

Post by MartinCron »

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…

This is not a gendered problem, this is a 'loud brash people' versus 'quieter nicer people' problem

It's my hope that having a more diverse workplace will help the "quiet nice people" with and without Y chromosomes.

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

#865

Post by ebfe »

ZoF wrote: post #860
tomp wrote: post #598

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that entire paragraph not just objectify the wife Objectify is a really overused term that has lost all relevant meaning. How can saying that someone is better than you at something possibly objectify that person? Maybe I'm overly sensible as well, but it's really sad that this is where PC has led us.

"...one of your most valuable business resources is your wife." That's the objectifying part imo.... Would you disagree?

"...one of your most valuable business resources is your accountant"

Do you consider that statement equally objectifying? If not, why?

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

#866

Post by MartinCron »

pbateman wrote: post #118
bitops wrote: post #53

As usual, another HN thread that perfectly exemplifies victim blaming and a collective burying of heads in the sand. There's a few people on here who seem to get it, but most don't. I'm sick of it. Goodbye, Hacker News.

I'm sick of it. Goodbye, Hacker News. I know this is going to come across as unfriendly, but I'm always bemused when people make these little plays for attention. It's a massive site, you're not one of the notable commenters, if HN isn't delivering value why not just stop reading it quietly rather than announcing it to the world?

How dare someone try to improve the discourse in a community they care about!

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

#867

Post by Allan_Smithee »

buro9 wrote: post #433
logicchains wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really surprises me that somebody can get away with such destructive behaviour as reverting someone else's commits without reasonable cause. What justification is there for not firing on the spot anybody who puts their own personal vendettas over the good of the project?

I once quit a senior dev role as the tech architect at the company had veto power on all code and blocked my work because I'd spelled the word dialog the US way, rather than the UK way (dialogue). This was not in a public interface, this was in variable names. Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program. We were deadlocked for weeks, with him refusing to ship working code that fulfi…

"Ignoring that every word in programming is in US English: color, gray, program."

The parochialism of the wannabe "hacker" (entreprenerd) here used to be cute.

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

#868

Post by theorique »

abalone wrote: post #816
mst wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The point is, in the lean management organization you don't really have someone to take you aside and tell you to stop being a dick. This is especially problematic when trying to overcome culturally calcified gender discrimination. What you're describing as being a "blunt bastard" could very well come off as male-privileged locker room talk. In the sports world there have been numerous attempts to contort locker room…

But how do we distinguish between this possibility, and the possibility that we are treating women as delicate flowers who can't deal with 'bad words' or blunt criticism?

In the Victorian era, until relatively recent times, men were expected to refrain from swearing or discussing 'serious' subjects such as war or politics when 'ladies were present'.

The usage (or not) of blunt words of criticism or profanity in informal company documents (e.g. code comments, pull requests) isn't necessarily a gendered thing. It speaks to the company's culture, but it nevertheless feels like a step backward to suggest the corporate equivalent of "gentlemen need to mind their language when ladies are around".

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

#869

Post by sizzle »

grifpete wrote: post #756
einhverfr wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The founder's wife story also reminds me of episodes I've heard involving the wife cabal. It's nothing as sinister as the GitHub story, but I see a lot of the same structural issues reflected in these telling anecdotes. If you are male and a founder, one of your most valuable business resources is your wife. People will call me sexist for saying this, I expect, but women think socially with a level of complexity th…

"I see nothing wrong with the involvement of founders' wives in the business" This is nuts. If person A works at a company then obviously their significant other (male or female) will likely talk with them about work situations and that may be more or less helpful to A and the company. But the idea that as a general rule a female significant other's contribution will be so significant just by virtue of the "level of…

therom reading the article, I got the vibe that the wife may have felt innatelyterritoriallyly?) threatened by the thought of a (pretty) female in the company getting close with her founder husband in a more intimate, rather than professional, typofof way. Thoughts?

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

#870

Post by sizzle »

From reading the article, I got the vibe that the wife may have felt innately (territorially?) threatened by the thought of a (pretty) female in the company getting close with her founder husband in a more intimate, rather than professional, type of way. Thoughts?
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