951–960 of 1001 posts
There is probably some measure of truth to it, but for it to be totally true would be a massive failure on GitHub's part.
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…
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 explic…
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…
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.
I find your use of 'more diverse' to mean 'more gender balanced' distasteful, because privileging gender roles as important like that is a huge part of the problem.
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…
Where there are problems that affect both genders, they should be tackled as that - treating a 'loud people' versus 'quiet people' problem as a male privilege problem is unbelievably problematic since it plays into the 'women just can't cope with men being honest' bullshit, and ignores the fact that men can be quiet and women can be loud. This devalues women's contributions and effectively silences discourse about how to deal with quiet men and loud women (and in this tale the latter was a big part of the problem), and basically is a net negative for everybody except the loud men, thereby reinforcing gender role designations and privilege structures.
> What you're describing as being a "blunt bastard" could very well come off as male-privileged locker room talk.
And in that case, once again, I've failed at "remember who you're talking to". The manner in which I LART somebody if it's necessary is tailored to the person, because people are all different.
> 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.
Given that Shadowcat has next to no hierarchy and yet we do have somebody - me - I'm not entirely sure how to respond to that except perhaps to say 'oh, bother' and disappear in a puff of logic.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This post really bothers me somehow. Edit: Figured out why. I don't understand why saying, "people will call me sexist for this" immediately validates your statement as "not intended to be sexist". >"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 that I think most men ne…
To be honest, I am living in a very different culture now from the US culture where social gender roles are more significant but also somewhat flexible. I do expect the post to bother Americans because it goes against what I call the myth of interchangeability, the idea that gender equality necessarily reduces to the idea that the sexes are interchangeable. I don't believe this and I think that equality has to be mor…
This always drove me insane - people seem to confuse value equality/congruence and strict identicality. The latter seems to either try to create a female default and punish men for not living up to it, or create some weird fuzzy default that nobody really fits comfortably.
What we want is to say that women are as valuable as men, and then let individuals figure out who they want to be.
The answer isn't to change the (currently relatively male-normative) norm, it's to defenstrate the idea that having a norm in the first place is a remotely good idea.
Looks to me that the wife of the founder was doing something that is common, 'protecting her man'. She was getting a bit carried away and using poor judgment and was apparently quite naive about business, but such things are not rare. So, it was two women fighting, very emotionally, and that's not rare either. The founder needed to keep his wife 'at home' or some such, but these days women resent such 'controls'. So,…
It may hurt githubs reputation a bit. I'm quite certain some women in technology will avoid them now but the reality is this has nothing to do with sexism. No guy would ever bother to create this much drama. This is clearly a girl problem. I got one thing to say to that github founder man up and keep your wife in check. What is she doing there to begin with anyway? Doesn't she have anything better to do then attempt…
Commonly wives help their husbands with the career or company of the husband with a lot of help for the husband and nothing wrong.
Of course, in this case the wife blew it, but maybe she was a pest mostly just for the woman of the OP so that others in the company didn't much care.
1. HR seems powerless and there seems to be a very immature culture, inapproriate non-employee influence, and communication at Github and given that it is mostly young-males, may have a (perhaps inadvertent) gender bias that they do not see motivated to fix. This is a big problem and I think there can be a balance between not being stuck up and removing the "fun," while also being decent, well-meaning human beings. I admit it's a very hard balance that I think everyone is still trying to figure out in this rebellious stage of the stodgy era.
2. While I believe Julie's basic observations are valid, I agree based solely on her account so far that she was being treated differently and that there were inappropriate behaviors going on, especially with the wife – I do get the sense that Julie was considering a lot of normal societal behavior with gender-specific contexts. "Oogling" people isn't good, but it's a fine line. People are going to find each other attractive. And I don't think it's wrong, either. As mentioned here, finding someone attractive doesn't mean you discard everything else about them as a person. These things can work both ways, she just may see it from a different perspective because she's outnumbered. But this supposedly was at a party and so I'd expect looser rules there as it's not in a professional setting. There's a difference between inappropriate and just being human.
All of this is a fine line and is why being human is hard and trying to manage people and create a positive, but also fun work environment is hard and we still have a lot to learn during these experimental phases. The issue really needs to be helping eliminate different treatment based on gender and sexuality rather than creating a specific type of culture. I do not necessarily believe we need to eliminate all sexuality or all fun or all emotions from a particular work environment. There can be different places and different people with different preferences can gravitate between them. I don't think going back to all stodgy, emotionless, and overtly-bureaucratic environments is a good thing.
Like everything in life it seems, there really is a balance.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I love github, but toxic cultures can happen anywhere. Github employees have been involved in commit abuse since the beginning https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...
Yet people wonder, mouth agape, why I prefer staying up in Seattle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doesn't matter how much equity she has. Or how much professional experience she has. She is not an employee and hence is not entitled to interfere in the internal affairs of the company without management oversight. If an appropriately senior office of the company invites someone (equity holder or not) to observe or participate in the internal affairs of the company then it is that officer's responsibility to make…
Again, try substituting "early investor and trusted advisor of" the founder for "wife of" the founder. Such people play important roles in startups all the time. It's not a matter of "entitlements", startups regularly accept help, and deep involvement from, interested associates of their founders and executives. In some suitably-informal workplaces, any employee could invite a trusted friend in for meetings, offer gu…