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This Industry is Fucked

blog.jessfraz.com

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Re: This Industry is Fucked

#71

Post by nmrm2 »

obstacle1 wrote: post #57
Kapura wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not common?" Really? This SEEMS pretty common. And while I believe it's true that not every woman in tech gets harassed, it's obvious that a much higher percentage of them get this sort of shit than men. And it only gets worse as they get more visible for the good work that they're doing. You say you're tired of this shit. How do you think these women feel? It's not you writing the tweets and emails, but if you beco…

>it's obvious that a much higher percentage of them get this sort of shit than men No, it isn't obvious, since even in the case of women all we have are lots of really visible anecdotes, not statistics. It could easily be the case that the number of death threats received by males heavily outweighs the number of death threats received by females. I know that I don't write reactive blog posts every time some troll thr…

It is not normal or okay to receive death threats after presenting at a professional conference. I've presented several times and have never received a threat. I can't even imagine that happening.

Maybe there are some subcultures where this behavior is something "Everyone" experiences. Certainly that's not the case in mainstream tech.

(As an aside, techies aren't the only people who use the internet, and I'm pretty damn sure that receiving death threats via email after presenting at professional conferences isn't a thing.)

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#72

Post by yoshuaw »

mholt wrote: post #54
Kapura wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Not common?" Really? This SEEMS pretty common. And while I believe it's true that not every woman in tech gets harassed, it's obvious that a much higher percentage of them get this sort of shit than men. And it only gets worse as they get more visible for the good work that they're doing. You say you're tired of this shit. How do you think these women feel? It's not you writing the tweets and emails, but if you beco…

> if you say "that's just how it is some times" you are a part of the problem. Come again? How is astrocyte part of Jessie's problem? People are responsible for their own choices, not the choices of others. > Never say it's OK. Although I agree, I don't think astrocyte is saying that harassment is OK. (I assume that's what you're referring to.)

To put it bluntly Astrocyte is telling Jessie to shut up. They aren't saying harassment is OK, it just shouldn't be talked about.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#73

Post by MarkPNeyer »

aaronem wrote: post #46
MarkPNeyer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

here is my solution : https://github.com/neyer/respect

Got something for those of us who aren't mathematicians? I mean, I appreciate you've put a lot of thought into this and I'm sure it seems perfectly sensible to you, but expecting us mere mortals to determine our response to a given situation by matrix multiplication is maybe expecting a little more than our capabilities can afford.

the matrix multiplication will be done behind the scenes; you can just pay attention to the output: a number for each other person, saying how much you are likely to respect them, given who you say you respect.

it's like a count: how many friends respect this person, how many friends of friends, how many friends of friends of friends, etc.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#74

Post by rodgerd »

obstacle1 wrote: post #35
aaa667 wrote: post #9

And people ask why more women don't speak at conferences or at meetup groups or contribute to open source software, or even publish blogs. It's because we are SCARED. We know what the consequences of making our voices heard can be, and it's terrifying, and we question whether it is worth the risk.

I think you're being a bit overbroad in speaking for all women (that's the kind of thinking which leads to sexism in the first place). Frankly the 'consequences' here are receiving a bunch of unsavoury PMs. i.e., there are no real-world, physical, dangerous consequences. So the fear of contributing to a community because of it is unfounded. It's just a side-effect of Internet culture, and it happens to men too.

> there are no real-world, physical, dangerous consequences

Tell that to Val Adams or other women who have been sexually assaulted at tech conferences.

> and it happens to men too

My mistake. I thought you were serious, not that redpill was leaking.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#75

Post by obstacle1 »

qmalxp wrote: post #60
obstacle1 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being a bit overbroad in speaking for all women (that's the kind of thinking which leads to sexism in the first place). Frankly the 'consequences' here are receiving a bunch of unsavoury PMs. i.e., there are no real-world, physical, dangerous consequences. So the fear of contributing to a community because of it is unfounded. It's just a side-effect of Internet culture, and it happens to men too.

If someone sent you an email every day from different email addresses with the same text saying they were going to rape and murder you, and included your home address, pictures of your family and pictures of weapons, that wouldn't bother you? How do you know there are no real-world consequences? You're just gonna assume it's some 14-year-old kid trolling you and not one of the many insane people in this world who mig…

>You're just gonna assume it's some 14-year-old kid trolling you and not one of the many insane people in this world who might actually do something? Based on a hunch?

Based on evidence and reasoning through probability. Thousands of Internet trolls send tens of thousands of death threats every day. On a given day, the probability that even one of those death threats is acted upon is a sliver greater than zero. As in, maybe there are one or two cases per year worldwide where a troll brigade carries out some real-world action corresponding to its threats. Though even that, I suspect, is an overestimate.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#76

Post by jdub »

astrocyte wrote: post #27

This is not common and, given her focus area in tech, it just happens to be more pronounced among those individuals. Ever heard of 4chan? All it takes is one post of your info and you'll get a swarm of people descending on you... Linux/open source is full of such individuals. They do it to get a rise out of people and the internet is a nice anonymous vehicle to do it under. Has nothing to do w/ the broader industry o…

"This is not common…"

It's fucking outrageously common. It might not be in your face, but it's an insidious and unrelenting horror to everyone it does affect.

It happens to be particularly bad in the tech world for a bunch of reasons, but women have a shitty time pretty much everywhere. On social media (mansplaining, innuendo, inappropriate messages, stalking, trolling, death threats), on the street (catcalling, abuse, stalking), in their homes (partner abuse)…

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#77

Post by baudehlo »

chipx86 wrote: post #39
thedudemabry wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to avoid addressing the community-created offender registry idea, because like you I'm not sure how to even begin evaluating its potential harms. But I think that law enforcement will inevitably create something of the sort. Like John Oliver's harrassment video from a few weeks ago described, these are real crimes being committed and the state has an interest in solving them. The current weak link in prosec…

Yeah, there is a lot of potential for abuse. Mostly hoping that it would spur on some additional thinking in this area. John Oliver's segment was great. What I'm unsure of, though, is how much a cop can really do? The offenders are not necessarily going to be in the same general area. They may not be in the same country. This would need to be handled internationally, in some way, wouldn't it?

John Oliver's segment massively downplayed the fact that men also get harassed online, to the point that I lost a lot of respect for it. It effectively made online harassment a female only problem, which it most definitely is not. This is an issue without gender. A perfect example is reddit's Unidan, who has received multiple death threats.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#78

Post by [deleted] »

astrocyte wrote: post #27

This is not common and, given her focus area in tech, it just happens to be more pronounced among those individuals. Ever heard of 4chan? All it takes is one post of your info and you'll get a swarm of people descending on you... Linux/open source is full of such individuals. They do it to get a rise out of people and the internet is a nice anonymous vehicle to do it under. Has nothing to do w/ the broader industry o…

[deleted]

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#79

Post by bcg1 »

You can say 'this isn't a problem with our industry, it is just internet trolls' but people outside our industry aren't going to docker conferences or paying attention to presenters at them.

It might not be YOU that does this type of thing, but someone you work with is. You know who I'm talking about and you don't shun them or expose them... and until you do, author is correct, this industry is fucked.

Re: This Industry is Fucked

#80

Post by alaroldai »

Every time I see posts like this, I see people commenting on it with varying statement to the effect of "that's a shame, but most people in tech aren't like that", or "I'm so tired of seeing posts like this, quit making a fuss."

And that makes me so angry.

Sure, maybe not everyone in the industry is an arsehole. But enough people are, and those people are vocal enough, that a significant number of people feel disgusted and threatened. That should be enough to tell you that even if the majority are lovely people, the industry as a whole still has a problem.

(also, for anyone wondering whether the number of people affected really is "significant", I would consider even one person to be a significant number)

I also get really angry at posts like "This has never happened to me, so I'm sure it's all ok". This may come as a surprise, but individual experiences are not universal. That something has never happened to you doesn't mean it's never happened to anyone else.

And if you're getting tired of seeing posts like this, don't complain about the people making the posts. Complain about the people harassing them. It may seem counterintuitive, but the fastest and most effective way to stop posts like this turning up is actually to make more of them, until the harassment and abuse stop.

"This happens all the time" is never a valid excuse.

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