Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

Let me tell you what sexism means nowadays: saying or doing anything that makes a woman that is concerned with gender equality feel uncomfortable at all, even if it has nothing to do with sexism, discrimination, or even your own gender. It's maddening.

Nothing. Maybe she was offended, I can't speak for her, however there's no such thing as a right not to be offended. Her racist sanctimonious posturing is disgusting. We have real issues of race and gender in the US, but this? This woman is why guys like me tend to simply not care that much about these issues. There are too many people who make it their mission to be offended just so they can get back at the 'man.' As far as Sendgrid, I would bet money that this woman wasn't fired exclusively because of a DDoS ransom. She likely was a pain in the ass because I'm certain working around her in a constant state of eggshell walking.

Anyone have her Github? Is she even any good? I would expect with the size of the chip on her shoulder it would be difficult to work.

I don't know her but her issues seem to be deeply psychological. I would be afraid to work anywhere near her brand of hatred. Ironically, according to the article, she posted a penis joke. The gent in the store merely used a puerile entendre and she flips out? I suggest that she seek professional help.

She sounds a bit sociopathic, really. Maybe she can be helped, but in the meantime I, at least, would stay very far away from her.

Eh, why can't people be nice....

What Adria did was not OK. She could have addressed Hank and his friend, and talked to them. Tell them she overheard and it was offensive to her. Engage in discourse. Educate them about how their remarks come across.

Instead, she chose to deny them the right of any defense, and publicly shamed them on the Internet, including their picture. And somehow, this is supposed to be OK? Why? Because she's part of certain minorities, as she's so keen to point out (jewish, black)? Because of her gender?

If a "white male" had done anything like this, how do you think the world would have reacted? He would have been labeled as a "hacker", "doxing" an innocent and defenseless minority member and as opening the flood gates for anonymous online assault and abuse.

Obviously, what happened in retaliation by the anonymous legions of idiots on the Internet is terrible and even worse than what happened to Hank, and she certainly didn't deserve anything like this.

I realize this is a publication targeted towards a male audience, and it is clearly coloured to favour Hank's side in this. But if the depiction of Adria in this article is even close to genuine, I have a very hard time feeling bad for her. Some of her quotes are just out of this world, and often based on nothing but conjecture:

- Quote: "Maybe it was [Hank] who started all of this. No one would have known he got fired until he complained. Maybe he’s to blame for complaining that he got fired. Maybe he secretly seeded the hate groups." - Without giving any kind of tentative evidence, she's accusing him of funding hate groups, and downplaying her fault in his bad fortunes.

- She claims she feared for her life after hearing Hank make a silly forking joke. In a crowded audience, she thought he was going to kill her, right there. What the hell is that about?

- Quote: "Hank’s actions resulted in him getting fired, yet he framed it in a way to blame me. If I had two kids, I wouldn’t tell ‘jokes’" - Seriously, if every father who ever told a mate a poor joke with some sexual innuendo were to get fired, we'd all be out of a job. Let him who is without sin throw the first stone.

- She snarkily claims that Hank is devoid of sympathy or empathy towards other human beings, while ironically being incapable herself of empathizing with his plight. She just goes on to repeat that all of this is his fault, including both of them losing their job, and all the threats she has received.

- It also sounds (especially at the end) like she blames him personally for being born into an unfair world, where he was born with more privilege and opportunity than her, but that's bringing us a bit to far off topic.

I'm pretty conflicted about this whole thing, and was back then, too.

I try to be supportive of anybody, and generally go out of my way to be inclusive. I also make really stupid, juvenile jokes, although I am audience-aware.

In this case, his audience was the guy he was sitting next to, and there was nothing overtly threatening in the joke. In fact, if anything, it'd indicate he was gay and not at all interested in the woman in front of him who overheard him.

Ultimately, and this will likely get me in trouble, but I think she handled this in the absolute wrongest way possible.

(Reading the old https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ response post largely sums up why I think it was wrong, but I wasn't aware of the other times she didn't bother trying to resolve things in a way that might actually produce positive results.)

The threats made toward her are obviously reprehensible; I don't understand that reaction either.