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Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

esquire.co.uk

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Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#441
post #436
post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Code of conduct for 2013 US Pycon https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/ > All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. > Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racis…

> All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks. That does really not fit well with playing CAH...

I was wrong about PyCon, but I stand by my position that these events aren't actually treated as purely "professional" even if there are minimum standards of behavior. People wouldn't go if they were. But she wasn't playing Cards Against Humanity _at_ PyCon. Arguably because she represented Sendgrid, she should have been more professional on her Twitter, though.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#442
Threads like this are why I will discourage my daughter from working in the tech industry.

It's an incredibly toxic blend of misogyny, racism, and entitlement, and doesn't even have the self-awareness to understand that about itself.

Congratulations to user interpol_p who is valiantly trying to educate people, but it's far too much of an uphill battle.

If any of you ever decide to do something about it, you have a leading example to follow in the sci-fi/fantasy fandom world, which has had the exact same problems as the tech industry and for the same reasons, but which in recent years has made great strides (not without some reactionary pushback). If you ever want to grow up, just check out what the fantasy geeks have done and are doing.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#443
post #253

Please excuse my ignorance, but could someone explain to me how the joke about a big dongle was threatening or sexist? A lot of people seem to just be accepting that at face value and I'm having issues understanding why that joke in particular would make her feel unsafe or uncomfortable. It just doesn't strike me as anything that could come across as such.

Some people believe everyone should have the right to not be exposed to sexuality of any sort at any time unless they choose to be. This is a more sensitive topic for women because they are subjected to sexual harassment their entire lives. It is threatening because she is a woman, who is sensitive to the topic, and works in an industry filled with people who don't understand this issue very well. It doesn't help being in a room of 800 people when almost all of them also don't understand this issue.

When the large majority of your experiences with sexual topics in life are related to people sexually harassing you, you might become sensitive to any topics of sexuality that you aren't personally consenting to be a part of.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#445
post #228

This debacle was a helpful reminder that we all do things that, out of context, can look really awful, and should be mindful of this when calling people out publicly. Neither of them deserved to be fired or harassed over this. Personally, I have trouble seeing how a lewd joke about one man forking another man's repo (and following up with dongle jokes) involves or threatens women in any way, but I wasn't there. I alm…

But... but... you're blaming her for the harassment she's facing. (Actually, "Hank" didn't face any harassment. We don't even know his name.)

[deleted]

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's this concept of Dane Geld, popularly known also as "not negotiating with terrorists". If you show that you're willing to bow down to a random DDoS attack and fire someone as ransom, it only validates this method of action against you.

I think you might have that concept backwards. Danegeld was payment to "terrorists" presumably arrived at through the pragmatic notion that paying for protection was better than being dead.

When people say "dane geld", they often refer to the poem of R. Kipling, "Dane-geld", which explains why you should not pay it. That's what I was referring to.

http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poems_danegeld.htm

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#448
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your post makes me severely question your grasp of the legal system in the United States. Question away, I don't live in the US and I have no intention to. I was under the impression that this could, indeed, be handled by a court of law or the police; today I learned, I guess :) but even so, I don't think it takes away my point. Racism and sexism are very legal around here as well, because they are personal opinion…

> That this is not what happened in Hank's case. This was a private conversation that was overheard. Have you honestly never cracked a sexist joke with a friend in a bar? A racist joke? You sure you never laughed a bit too hard at that picture about Irish yoga? Alcoholism is no joke! Sexist and racist jokes? No, I don't, and I don't associate with people who use them. Now, and this is important: I didn't call Hank's…

> Sexist and racist jokes? No, I don't, and I don't associate with people who use them.

I'm sorry, but I find that very hard to believe. Of course, I'm sure that you don't associate with people who routinely crack sexist or racist jokes (neither do I, and I think we have the same reasons), but "never laughed at a racist joke" is unlikely to be true, even if you so much as watched Tom and Jerry when you were a kid.

I'm sure you never laughed in good humour at something you perceived to be racist, but are you so certain that there is no one who holds the bar as low as you do? For everyone? Remember that scandal with the Super Bowl commercial, where they sang America the Beautiful in nine languages, and every ultra-conservative man was offended? Were they wrong?

> Now, and this is important: I didn't call Hank's joke "sexist"

You didn't, but I'm pretty sure the accusations brought to him were of "sexism", not "sexualization".

> But Hank needs to understand that a joke like this with a sexual context, in the absence of mitigating factors, does contribute to that just-us-guys, implicitly-othering culture that doesn't need to outright say "no girls allowed" to make it feel that way.

"Was a private conversation" is a pretty mitigating factor in my book. Even in a professional setting.

> It's important for me to stress that this is not to say that you cannot joke about sex or race. But it's not funny when you punch downward. Louis CK is a wonderful example of this. His jokes reference women and minorities all the time--but the jokes aren't about them, they're about him and his reactions to them based on his own personal context.

I'm preeeetty sure Hank's point was also not offensive towards women, either. He literally made a joke about cocks. Should I also be offended, because he was kind of implying that, as a man, I'd probably stick it everywhere? Come on...

> When it's the result of four hundred years (and more, really, but let's just be geographic here) of concerted activity on the part of society to constrain and hurt the people we consider less privileged today, I think it's not unreasonable to expect understanding and respect on the part of the people who've profited from it.

I don't think you are wrong, I just think that woman's interpretation of this was extremely hypocritical. I cannot sympathize with that washed out a reaction. Throughout her life, and that of her mother, and that of her grandmother, women have had pretty much equal rights. Everyone she can remember has literally had more rights in her own country than my grandfather had in his (for political and historical reasons). If she claims to be offended by this kind of stuff, she is the one who's being an asshole, exactly like that kid in school who was butthurt by everything that didn't fit his temper was an asshole.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#449
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being excluded in a field She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed. If the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis!" then the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. That's all it does by itself. All that about being offended and excluded and threatened, that is all baggage that she brought with her int…

> She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed. Unfortunately that isn't how she felt. Her feelings should matter to us just as Hank's feelings matter. > the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. No one is arguing that the joke is not innocuous, or that the joke is somehow sinister. I've been in Hank's shoes, I've…

"Unfortunately that isn't how she felt."

So ... a man's behavior made her feel a certain way, such that she bears no responsibility for her reactions and their consequences?

What is felt or what can be said is dependent on the circumstances of your birth, chromosomes, and DNA?

Take your argument and spin it, and you're allowing that women are responsible for men's actions based on how the women act and behave.

Or you can allow the one and deny the other. That's a hell of a double standard.

My read, from the original airing of this, and from Ron Johnson's interviews here, is that Adria Richards absolutely wasn't suited for her job. She's overtly racist and sexist, ascribing people traits, or passing judgement on what they can or cannot do or say, based simply on race and gender.

She's got something of a history of this, as Amanda Blum has pointed out: https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

She took what was, at the very worst, a slightly immature situation, and made it far, far worse. And continues to.

I've seen plenty of behavior from men (or boys) that makes me cringe. I've called it out at times. I've also seen (or received) it from women. And, for that matter, men. Truth is we're sexual creatures, and the boundaries between professional and personal do get crossed. Failure to recognize that (and behave accordingly) is a problem.

I've also had my own issues with behavior of others from time to time. Sometimes I'll comment, but if I'm at at a structured event that doesn't work (and I've met plenty of people of various stripes and persuasions who seem dead-set on finding an argument), I'll find someone who can intermediate -- an arbitrator frequently does blunt the emotions of to principle antagonists.

Could there be reasons for Adria's behavior in her own personal history? I'm not a psych professional, but I've had my own personal experiences (some extremely painful, damaging, and expensive) and done a fair bit of reading (including of psych texts and manuals). Seems valid to me to conclude that it very well might. And that if she does in fact have a history of such behavior, she'd do well to receive some sort of assessment and therapy for it. And I wish that she lived in a society which made such treatment far more accessible. Her behavior certainly has interfered with her professional and personal relationships, from the evidence I've seen.

But people own their own responses and feelings. An irrational or aberrant response is just that: irrational and aberrant. A person with a mortal fear of snakes shouldn't work in a reptile exhibit, a pyromaniac shouldn't work at a firehouse. And a woman who's constitutionally hostile to white men should probably find herself a position where she's not called on to deal with them diplomatically and spread corporate good-will.

Someone whose response to everyday situations gets other people hurt, or fired, or threatened, isn't behaving normally. Adria's response in this regard is no more valid than the road-raging executive, the raving street person who attacks someone for no reason, the child who throws a tantrum, or the jilted lover who goes into a screaming rage encountering an ex on the street.

Was she rightly fired? Absolutely. Ideally she wouldn't have been hired for the position in the first place.

The threats she's received since? Uncalled for.

Her failure to own her own actions and recognize her error? Inexcusable.

Oh, and the answer to men and their behavior around women dressing or acting provocatively? That's something the men own.

Re: Jon Ronson: How a Tweet Can Ruin Your Life

#450
post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> being excluded in a field She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed. If the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis!" then the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. That's all it does by itself. All that about being offended and excluded and threatened, that is all baggage that she brought with her int…

> She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed. Unfortunately that isn't how she felt. Her feelings should matter to us just as Hank's feelings matter. > the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. No one is arguing that the joke is not innocuous, or that the joke is somehow sinister. I've been in Hank's shoes, I've…

Well, to me her feeling are irrelevant. She could've have been feeling fear, anger or may even enjoyed the joke and tried to share it and it's creator.

All this happened because of what she _did_. And doing is different of feeling. You don't choose your feelings, but you choose your actions.

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