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Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

itwire.com

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Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#101

Post by CJefferson »

peterwwillis wrote: post #89

A couple of points if I may: 1. If you speak at conferences, especially about a non-technical subject like "women in FOSS projects" (which is more likely to get sexists riled up), you are going to get unwanted attention. Pretty much every speaker who speaks on a controversial, or non-technical, or just media-glamorized topic is going to get harassed - if not hacked. It happens all the time to men and i'm sure it happ…

I just want to address your first point.

The harassment women get is much, much worse than men.

Me and my wife are both computer scientists, and have both given talks at many conferences. My wife and our female friends consistently get much more, and much worse, harassment than me and our male friends. There is no comparison, and over time I've seen it grind several women down to the point where they just give up (fortunately not my wife yet).

I think everyone should help to reduce the often hostile attitude in IT and FOSS in particular, and a fairly obvious part of that is to stop treating women so badly. Just treating them like everyone else would be a fine start.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#102

Post by kenjackson »

cube13 wrote: post #75
scott_s wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? At what point do you stop calling someone a "troll" and start calling them a "stalker"? Perhaps the harassment she received was so much that changing her whole life greatly improves her quality of life. Is she still "just supporting negative stereotypes" then?

If it's at that point, wouldn't it be more prudent to get the police involved? Restraining orders exist for this exact reason. The article(and blog post) imply that this has been a long-term issue, and the level of threats are pretty terrible, even to the level where most good forum admins would seriously think of tipping off the police if these messages were brought to their attention.

Restraining orders don't work. They're rarely enforced. Police don't have the bandwidth, at least in the US, to care. As a friend in law enforcement told me -- restraining orders exist as a paper trail for police to be able to point out how bad the person was when something does happen. It's not there to actually protect the victim.

The fundamental problem with stalking is no one in law enforcement cares until you're actually dead or physically hurt. If I were the potential victim I'd probably care at a slightly earlier stage.

With that said, mocking the police online will get you a fullscale investigation: http://www.kirotv.com/news/28758502/detail.html

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#103

Post by DiabloD3 »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #94
pnathan wrote: post #59

I read a private blog of a lady in the games industry, and the level of ordure and harassment she gets is simply unbelievable. It's well beyond anything in the 'people are jerks, suck it up' level. I can well believe Skud got sick of it and is doing other things with her life. I'm going to come right out and say it - if you, or someone you know - has a penchant for writing these sorts of harassing emails, it needs to…

Foul language and harassment in the games industry? I'm shocked. Perhaps it's just due to white male privilege that I've never been called a "gaaaayyyy nig faggz" while playing online games? [edit: sarcasm. Like anyone who's ever delivered a headshot, I've been told "fu homo chink".]

No, I'm white, male, and straight, and I get that about once every ten frags or so, more so if I shut out the round.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#104

Post by burgerbrain »

rickmb wrote: post #77
uriel wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welcome to the Internet. As Paul Vixie pointed out ages ago: "The Internet is not for sissies." Trolls are almost as old as the net, and they are not going to disappear without something short of a big-brother state that makes the Great Firewall Of China look like kids play. So better get used to it. Also remember: "Liberty resides in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious." — John Stuart Mill [Di…

Harassment goes well beyond trolling, and so does the specific targeting of women.

Whether or not it compares to standard trolling, it still is trolling. You're not going to fix it by complaining.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#105

Post by andos »

uriel wrote: post #63
alttag wrote: post #17

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this sort of reprehensible behavior has cost the tech community good talent. Kathy Sierra comes to mind. Other notables (male and female) have recently removed their presence from the internet. Although it isn't always clear why, I'd speculate some sort of harassment was at play there too.

Welcome to the Internet. As Paul Vixie pointed out ages ago: "The Internet is not for sissies." Trolls are almost as old as the net, and they are not going to disappear without something short of a big-brother state that makes the Great Firewall Of China look like kids play. So better get used to it. Also remember: "Liberty resides in the rights of that person whose views you find most odious." — John Stuart Mill [Di…

By the same reasoning, we could argue that thieves and murderers are almost as old as civilization and we should just get used to it. Sorry, but no. They will always exist, sure, but the only thing we should get used to is hunting them fiercely. I will not surrender my right to be happy, productive, and helpful because a minority of socially-dysfunctional people are trying hard to ruin it for me and for others. Nobody should.

Moreover, to equate harassment of women to mere trolling is of complete ignorance. The fact that you accept the label of "troll" just reinforces that you should not put the two in the same level. Would you be OK if people often called you an abuser of women?

The women involved in this shitty situation have already written pages and pages of how terrible it is—particularly for women—to be the target of harassment. If anyone cannot understand that, they must be really stupid.

Also remember:

"A witty saying proves nothing." — Voltaire

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#106

Post by andos »

rsanchez1 wrote: post #61

I was going to start a rant about how this behavior is encouraged by the macho men online, but this was just one guy harassing her. "Due to harassment" reads as due to harassment from the community, but she gave in to one idiot. She let him win.

The downplaying of the repeated incidents might be encouragement enough, I think.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#107

Post by SoftwareMaven »

peterwwillis wrote: post #89

A couple of points if I may: 1. If you speak at conferences, especially about a non-technical subject like "women in FOSS projects" (which is more likely to get sexists riled up), you are going to get unwanted attention. Pretty much every speaker who speaks on a controversial, or non-technical, or just media-glamorized topic is going to get harassed - if not hacked. It happens all the time to men and i'm sure it happ…

If the only reason there weren't more women in tech was because they didn't want to be there, what you say about fixing tech would be true, but it's not. Women are significantly discriminated against, from the day they start engineering courses.

I don't believe you are sympathetic at all. More importantly, you've shown no empathy. I'm assuming she started speaking at conferences because she enjoyed it. Some jackass takes that away from her and you call her out. That couldn't be more illustrative of the problem.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#108

Post by monochromatic »

plam wrote: post #71
monochromatic wrote: post #52

Trolls exist on the internet. Bayley is just supporting negative stereotypes about how women can't handle the pressure when she lets a troll get the best of her and changes her whole life because of him.

We don't know the full details. There're probably more going on in her life than just the stated incidents in this one article. Your argument, however, is blaming the victim for her unsolicited suffering.

I'm not blaming her. Dude sounds like a dick.

But there are dicks out there in the world. How we deal with them is indeed up to us.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#109

Post by mtoddh »

maximusprime wrote: post #70
scott_s wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Excuse me? At what point do you stop calling someone a "troll" and start calling them a "stalker"? Perhaps the harassment she received was so much that changing her whole life greatly improves her quality of life. Is she still "just supporting negative stereotypes" then?

I think the point is that men have to put up with such shit all the time online.

Got any links/citations that support this assertion? Specifically, cases where men in the FOSS community are being harassed because of their gender.

Re: Female FOSS dev quits tech industry due to harassment

#110

Post by floatboth »

nadam wrote: post #31

"quits tech industry" Quits tech industry because of one troll??? Does this mean she will never hack or never program (for money)? Interesting. I have seen lots of trolls and falemwars on the internet but I could not quit programming for thousands of trolls. This is the only thing I am good at, this is what I fell in love at 12, this is what I do to earn money to support my family... Also trolls have nothing to do wi…

She will program. For music. http://skud.dreamwidth.org/10449.html
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