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Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

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Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#111

Post by toomuchtodo »

nirvdrum wrote: post #82
toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if it doesn't offend them? Just because it offends you doesn't mean it should condemn them. Men like women. Men are, speaking factually, the extreme majority in the tech industry. Don't be shocked if your values don't match those of others.

Upvoted. And I just wanted to give some encouragement. It's become commonplace here to get downvoted not because you're belligerent or off-topic, but simply because you hold an opposing viewpoint. Please don't let that discourage you from participating in conversations here.

Thank you!

I don't feel like I'm being sexist at all. Scoot didn't say "HEH! We have naked women bringing you beer!" They said "We're having women server you beer". This is a perk for some men. What's the problem? Women coders/developers are sexist and don't want to be served beer by women? So be it. I, as a man, will happily serve those women who feel offended in the same garb the women will be serving men.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#112

Post by nirvdrum »

cjbprime wrote: post #92
toomuchtodo wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if it doesn't offend them? Just because it offends you doesn't mean it should condemn them. Men like women. Men are, speaking factually, the extreme majority in the tech industry. Don't be shocked if your values don't match those of others.

I don't think I understand your point, but to be clear: I'm a man, and I like women. My like of women extends to not wanting them to be treated like beer-servants and told that they aren't welcome as equals at a coding event, because it would make me feel awful if someone did those things to me. Empathy allows you to try to work out how something might feel from someone else's perspective, and is what should be used…

There's a big difference between understanding how something might offend someone else and equally being offended by it. I wasn't offended by this. I ran it by my wife, who happens to also be a programmer, and she wasn't offended by it either. Are we wrong or bad people? I mean, we see how others might be offended by it, so there's some level of empathy, but we're not grabbing our pitchforks over it.

On the other hand, we have friends that love bartending. The insinuation that they're not as good or equal to someone who wants to go into programming, or are nothing more than "beer-servants", could be construed as offensive as well. I'm guessing you're drawing from different experiences, so I'm not going to attribute malice to it. But these sorts of things have the ability to spin rapidly out of control.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#113

Post by bermanoid »

tptacek wrote: post #32
ellyagg wrote: post #29

Whenever people get outraged about things like this, it interests me. I like looking at attractive women. I like programming. Would it be possible to have an event where I could program and look at attractive women at the same time? Or does enjoying seeing attractive women in public make me a bad person? As a man, is this my original sin? In fact, I've even been known to flirt with attractive women in public--perhaps…

What the hell are you talking about? Medical doctors are not "mostly men". Roughly 50% of all medical students are women, and current trends have women overtaking men in the profession long term. "I very much doubt the dearth of women in technology is because men are sexual predators". Sheesh. I agree. Comments like this do the job just fine, too.

What the hell are you talking about? Medical doctors are not "mostly men". Roughly 50% of all medical students are women, and current trends have women overtaking men in the profession long term.

Hiding somewhere in the rest of that somewhat nonsensical comment (ellyagg's, I mean, not yours, tptacek) is the kernel of a fairly good question, related to what you're saying here: why is it that in almost every other once-male-dominated profession, the ratios have been rapidly approaching parity, whereas in programming, the separation maintains itself quite rigidly?

Male doctors, lawyers, and bankers tend to be a super scummy bunch assholes as far as women are concerned. Anecdotally speaking, guys in any of those professions are far more blatantly sexist towards women than your typical programmer is, and based on non-anecdotal data, the wage gap in each of those fields is worse than it is in programming (I don't have the refs at hand for that, but the conclusion is pretty solid, from what I remember programming is one of the fields with the smallest wage gap, especially for more recent grads).

I can't help but wonder how much stuff like the asshattery that's on display in this article is really the cause of the lopsided sex ratio in this field, and how much is a side effect of the fact that so few women are around in the first place. You'd think if sexist attitudes of men in a field really had such a huge impact on whether women wanted to enter the field or not, women would rarely go into medicine, law, or finance, but over time, they've flocked to each of them in much greater numbers than they have to programming, putting up with tons of abuse in the process (don't get me started on finance, oh, the stories I could tell...).

Not that it matters when sexist crap comes up - it's wrong, full stop, and if we really want women to enter the field we are right to make every effort to stamp it out.

I'd just be wary of accepting too easily that this is the whole story, or even the most important part of it; it's certainly a piece of the puzzle, but I find that I've got to squint harder than I'm comfortable doing to imagine that it really makes everything else fit together. [edit: just to be clear, I'm not saying that you or anyone else specifically claimed this here, but it's a common enough sentiment that I'm addressing it anyways]

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#114

Post by marshray »

javadyan wrote: post #106
marshray wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see any evidence that they were just trying to be humorous. "Women" is listed right after "booze". If they were joking by advertising "women" as "perks", then they should have understood that most people are not going to find that particularly funny. They advertised "friendly female event staff to get you a beer". Any reasonable person would believe that they were intending to follow through on that.

Well, did you expect to see a "WARNING! WE NOW WILL ATTEMPT A POTENTIALLY OFFESIVE JOKE" written in red print? Those things are supposed to be spontaneous, you know.

It looks to me like a well planned document, not a spontaneous remark. They could have quickly retracted it if they didn't mean it.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#115

Post by toomuchtodo »

natep wrote: post #77
toomuchtodo wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech population =! world population. To not recognize that the tech population is dominated by men is to put your head in the sand. I like to code, I like to look at scantily clad women, and I fully believe they're just as equal as men. EDIT: Downvote away. You don't have to believe in fact for it to exist.

So, the tech industry is dominated by men, and this announcement was intended for the tech industry, so it's fine by you that it was addressed exclusively to men? It's OK that any techy woman reading it might stay clear so that they are not mistaken for being a server and/or don't have to put up with sexism like this? In what other situations do you not feel that the minority do not have rights?

Yes, because you clearly have no rights if you're mistaken for an employee at an event.

How does offering to have women bring you beer at an event take away your rights? Shall we be boycotting Oktoberfest next?

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#116

Post by natrius »

javadyan wrote: post #81
waterlesscloud wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree it was a poor attempt at humor, but it was an attempt at sexist humor.

So? It's not hurting anyone. You know, there is a difference between an ad for a geek event that no one cares about and a woman not getting a job because she's a woman. These are not the same things.

I can imagine many women feeling unwelcome at an event that was advertised in that way. I don't want women to feel unwelcome at tech events for many reasons.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#117

Post by natrius »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #111
nirvdrum wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Upvoted. And I just wanted to give some encouragement. It's become commonplace here to get downvoted not because you're belligerent or off-topic, but simply because you hold an opposing viewpoint. Please don't let that discourage you from participating in conversations here.

Thank you! I don't feel like I'm being sexist at all. Scoot didn't say "HEH! We have naked women bringing you beer!" They said "We're having women server you beer". This is a perk for some men. What's the problem? Women coders/developers are sexist and don't want to be served beer by women? So be it. I, as a man, will happily serve those women who feel offended in the same garb the women will be serving men.

It's not an inclusive way to advertise an event. Making a minority in a community feel like an event isn't really intended for them is bad.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#118

Post by Czarnian »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #61
cjbprime wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The alternative is to realize why it was offensive instead of just that people got offended in some abstract sense that is unrelated to anything you can comprehend. For bonus points, further show enough empathy that you realize that what you said now offends you , too, culminating in some kind of "Damn, I don't know what I was thinking when I wrote that" apology.

And what if it doesn't offend them? Just because it offends you doesn't mean it should condemn them. Men like women. Men are, speaking factually, the extreme majority in the tech industry. Don't be shocked if your values don't match those of others.

You are correct. Most men like women. However, there is a time and place for men to express their admiration for women. An event like this (as represented to prospective sponsors) is neither.

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#119

Post by byrneseyeview »

jballanc wrote: post #102
reinhardt wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"...but if it weren't for you being offended there would be nothing wrong with this." Is this statement even controversial? The only reason someone issues an apology (honest or not) is because one or more others were offended. If nobody is offended, by definition there is nothing wrong with it.

What you're describing is moral relativism. If I kill someone that everyone hates, is that wrong? If I kill a homeless person that had no friends and no family so nobody notices they're dead, is that wrong? The real question here is would you stand in front of the mirror, with no one around, and say to yourself "The women at this conference are a great perk!" without feeling bad? It's tempting to think "I have these…

Offensive comments are morally relative, though. Someone has to be offended, right?

In your examples, the victim certainly notices and cares; if they get a vote, they're going to vote "immoral." But if you did something "murderous" in absolute privacy--like, say, doing some target shooting--I don't think it would be considered equivalent to murder. Similarly, if you do something "offensive" and nobody is there to get offended, I don't see what the crime is.

Would it upset you if people were saying offensive things quietly to themselves in the privacy of their own homes? How would you propose to deal with that?

Re: Heroku Pulls Sponsorship After Boston API Jam Publishes Sexist Eventbrite

#120

Post by StavrosK »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #62
rauljara wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marketing material assumed that the people reading it would be heterosexual men, and gave no consideration to the idea that a woman might actually want to attend an event. Finding women attractive is not a sin. Assuming the whole world should revolve around what you find attractive without giving any consideration to the other half of the world's population is sexist. Not "I hate women" sexist. Just "women don't…

In addition, the marketing material assumed that the people reading it would be drinkers, and gave no consideration to the idea that a non-drinker might actually want to attend. In addition to sexism, the marketers seem to believe that "teetotalers don't really qualify as people in the same way drinkers do, and no I've never really thought very hard about it". (They also seem to feel the same way about people who don…

The objection is more about equating women with cupcakes, I should think.
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