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$10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

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Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#101

Post by pekk »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #64
smsm42 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story went a bit further than "attempts to bring people's attention". As it is pretty clear by now, Richards is a crusader, repeatedly blowing things out of proportion and raising big controversy out of most mundane things, and in this case it cost somebody his job. So while indeed she did nothing nothing comparable to death threats and other such filth, something more that "attempt to bring attention" did happen…

That's not clear at all. I highly recommend reading this essay for a more careful look at what Richards has actually done by way of promoting gender equality rather than what her detractors (both civil and hateful) are saying about her: http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-th... What is clear is that a huge number of people who thought it was totally unacceptable for Richards to identify inapprop…

I don't think anyone deserved to be fired or receive hate mail and I don't think it is wrong to address potty jokes in a proportionate way. But I can't say that 24 hours a day, there's not even any point.

The incident belongs to Adria because she is the one who chose to prematurely go public. And the way she played the incident was no service to feminists or women in tech, as this thread makes quite clear. Actually a lot of people beyond Adria are suffering on account of her lack of restraint.

I really don't care about idiot men who are enraged by Adria except that I have to be associated with them and backstop blowback from their stupid actions.

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#102

Post by illuminate »

Nordvind wrote: post #10
chill1 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Come on.. Even if you've only been half paying attention the last several days, you'd realize that this issue is quite serious and personal to a lot of people. If, when you saw this post, all that came to your mind was a smart ass comment.. Please, next time, keep it to yourself.

I find your comment offensive, given that I've right of free speech, which is guaranteed by constitution.

Can you just once read the Constitution you're attempting to quote?

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#103

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

illuminate wrote: post #97
jaibot wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just wrong as a matter of historical fact. I feel fairly confident in asserting that race-based slavery constitutes a form of racism, and predates affirmative action by several centuries. This is...almost certainly trolling, right?

Nope. Plenty of sincere MRAs in tech.

So everyone who doesn't believe in so called "positive discrimination" is an MRA automatically? Huh? You'll have to show me the logic you used to get from one statement to the other.

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#104

Post by MartinCron »

pekk wrote: post #59
AgathaTheWitch wrote: post #55

I respect their intentions and I am sure they are doing good work. Regardless as a matter of principle I do not donate to organizations that discriminate on the basis of sex.

To my knowledge, PyLadies has not engaged in discrimination. It isn't discrimination to make groups which encourage minorities to code or get involved in the Python community or whatever. Men are not being hurt by the existence of PyLadies in any way.

Men are not being hurt by the existence of PyLadies in any way.

It's so easy to see everything as a competitive zero-sum-game. So that anything that helps women must be hurting men, right?

It's wrong, but the idea is out there. Sigh.

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#105

Post by dougnap »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #87
steveklabnik wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the front page of http://www.pyladies.com/ : > Anyone with an interest in Python is encouraged to participate! You're making an unfounded assumption that PyLadies is women only.

Fine, so what if I created something with the goal of: > We are an international mentorship group with a focus on helping more men become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community. How do you think that would go down?

Similar to how the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) went down, I would imagine...

Or are you arguing that all organizations that have a focus on expanding the role of a minority in a community that are inclusive to all in that community should be shut down because you believe some people would complain about having one focused on the majority?

That is some twisted and messed up logic there.

http://wearebit.com/ has quite the presence as SXSW. Haven't heard similar complaints about that...

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#106

Post by trolley »

lmickh wrote: post #79
pekk wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my knowledge, PyLadies has not engaged in discrimination. It isn't discrimination to make groups which encourage minorities to code or get involved in the Python community or whatever. Men are not being hurt by the existence of PyLadies in any way.

Whether or not it hurts men has nothing to do with discrimination. If the group does not allow men to join or benefit from it's opportunities, it is discrimination. The question is whether or not PyLadies allows men to join as full members. I honestly have no clue. I'm sure it would be easy to see it that way since it is described as a group of women. Now the question of whether all discrimination is bad is much more…

> The question is whether or not PyLadies allows men to join as full members.

What exactly are you looking for? PyLadies is not a dues-paying organization. There's no screening process or special clubhouse. Local PyLadies groups organize events (like hackathons, workshops, or happy hours) and people show up. Nobody stands at the door and checks your secret decoder ring to see if you're allowed in or not.

This line from pyladies.org has already been mentioned above:

> Anyone with an interest in Python is encouraged to participate!

Nevertheless, it's still a fact that if you let people know "hey, there's going to be a hacknight this week, and most if not all of the attendees will be women" -- then many women would admit to feeling more comfortable in that sort of environment, and might subsequently be more likely to show up than they would otherwise.

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#107

Post by king_jester »

pifflesnort wrote: post #73
RyanMcGreal wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not clear at all. I highly recommend reading this essay for a more careful look at what Richards has actually done by way of promoting gender equality rather than what her detractors (both civil and hateful) are saying about her: http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-th... What is clear is that a huge number of people who thought it was totally unacceptable for Richards to identify inapprop…

This is a rhetorical device, intended to use an emotional argument ("hatred, rage, vulgar insults and detailed threads of rape, bodily harm, and murder!!!") to justify totally unrelated behavior of public naming and shaming for a mild offense. This is exactly the sort of virulent emotionally-driven argumentative behavior that I don't want to have become a standard fixture in the technology community. Issues like this…

> This is a rhetorical device, intended to use an emotional argument ("hatred, rage, vulgar insults and detailed threads of rape, bodily harm, and murder!!!") to justify totally unrelated behavior of public naming and shaming for a mild offense.

I do not agree that public naming and shaming is unrelated to this incident. You have to keep in mind that it is not unreasonable to see the penis jokes as a sexist microaggression [1], esp. if you are a woman of color working in a field where those kinds of jokes and microaggerssions happen a lot. To that end, sexism is reenforced and made more prevalent by those microaggressions. Sexism and misogyny in society does directly translate to outright physical violence and murder of women. So for a woman of color to confront that microaggression and then receive threats on her physical safety and life isn't just some idle trolling, it reflects a reality that this person may very well experience. Keep in mind that 1 in 5 women in the US will be sexually assaulted in their life time and that people of color, esp. black women, face a variety of forms of institutionally backed violence. Public naming and shaming is a valid form of defense against those conditions and kinds of violence.

> The whole thing was and is a ridiculous mess, and it all was avoidable by behaving like responsible adults.

I agree and it should be noted that being a responsible adult means avoiding penis jokes when representing your company at a conference they sponsored, esp. when said conference is working very hard on including women.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microaggression

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#108

Post by UnoriginalGuy »

dougnap wrote: post #105
UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fine, so what if I created something with the goal of: > We are an international mentorship group with a focus on helping more men become active participants and leaders in the Python open-source community. How do you think that would go down?

Similar to how the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) went down, I would imagine... Or are you arguing that all organizations that have a focus on expanding the role of a minority in a community that are inclusive to all in that community should be shut down because you believe some people would complain about having one focused on the majority? That is some twisted and messed up logic there. http://wearebit.co…

I think organisations have good intentions (reduce racism, sexism, etc) but in general unless they're very careful with their message they can do more harm than good.

They try to raise women up but often times manage to do so in such a way (special treatment, privilege) which eats away at the respectability of not only the women they're trying to raise up but other women who got there on their own merits.

I think we should do all we can to remove obstacles for women getting into tech', and that includes bad attitudes/sexism, however I think many of these organisations and "positive discrimination" are an obstacles that women unfortunately will need to overcome...

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#109

Post by zaphar »

UnoriginalGuy wrote: post #74
martythemaniak wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently sharing a joke with a friend now qualifies you as an "idiot".

And not even an offensive joke either. They literally made a juvenile penis reference. Who here hasn't made one? Even made one today?

Me. I don't think I've ever made one in a public setting. If I did it was long enough ago that I don't remember.

Call me a prude if you want but it does mean that I will likely never be in the position of the two men who achieved infamy at pycon. I may achieve infamy for other reasons but not that one.

Re: $10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013

#110

Post by pekk »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #96
pekk wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know anything about PyLadies? What led you to believe that PyLadies is about "virulent feminism" or is masterminding provocations?

Maybe he knows what Lynn Root did at last year's EuroPython[1][2] or how she complains about being only asked to talk about women issues[3] but when she got a spot in the lightning talk section she canceled it blaming the last day's "drama"[4]. [1] http://www.roguelynn.com/words/really/ [2] http://www.roguelynn.com/words/a-memorable-europython-for-th... [3] http://www.roguelynn.com/words/my-un-talk-at-djangocon/ [4]…

I don't know Lynn Root, but I don't see anything here for any mature man to be upset about. If Lynn Root complains or does or doesn't give a lightning talk (on the basis of her feeling bad that day, or not having prepared or whatever) that might be some kind of faux pas but honestly, who gives a shit. People cancel lightning talks. It harms nobody. It certainly doesn't make everyone involved with PyLadies (e.g. Hynek Schlawack) into an Adria Richards feminist monster ruining your life.

Tweet from your first link: "Sucked the marrow out of my osso bucco at dinner at #EuroPython. The waiter told me that I "will have very good orgasm." #Pyladies?"

Please explain why it is not offensive for this guy to call upon PyLadies for an orgasm...

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