The Myth of the Non-Technical Startup Employee

Isn't that the point of many beer invites? It's a chance to socialize, and if you don't have an established relationship, it's a chance to establish one.

> If you think you might be in a grey area, maybe err on the side of making it feel safer by making it a group outing rather than putting them on the spot.

Safer?

I'm sorry, are we talking about children or adults? If someone can't manage a potentially ambiguous beer invite -- for instance, by inviting other people along themselves -- they ought to keep it to themselves and just say "no thanks"

> That's really the exception rather than the rule, however, and the real-life consequences happened in both directions.

Yes, it is the exception, but angry rhetorical baseball bats like "mansplaining" and "privilege" are being plastered all over the tech community these days, and it stops seeming like the exception.

I already feel uncomfortable attending an event that has adopted Ada Initiative-derived code of conduct, or otherwise aligned themselves with that vocal sector of the technology community.

It's clear that focus is being redirected to politics, and when people start using hostile language to describe my gender and race in broad strokes, I'm clearly in the cross-hairs for a small, vocal, and highly volatile minority; there are safer and more comfortable places for me to be.

> I'm sorry, are we talking about children or adults? If someone can't manage a potentially ambiguous beer invite -- for instance, by inviting other people along -- they ought to keep it to themselves and just say "no thanks"

I was responding to someone who was acting as if he had to be on his toes any time he invited a woman for a beer, as if he'd be immediately be branded a sexist for ever thinking about inviting her for beer.

Yes, I'm making this sound childish, because his complaint was childish. I was giving him some advice, in case he actually believed that there was a risk of being branded a sexist for inviting someone to a beer, for how to resolve such situations that he seems to be so afraid of safely, without any potential hint of ambiguity. I was only half serious. It is fine advice if you really are so socially inept as to not know where that line is; however, I suspect that his argument was more of a strawman, built up so he could complain about some perceived wrong online, rather than an actual legitimate explanation for why he thinks that men frequently ignore women at technical conferences.

> Yes, it is the exception, but angry rhetorical baseball bats like "mansplaining" and "privilege" are being plastered all over the tech community these days, and it stops seeming like the exception.

Hm? The fact that people are bigger assholes online than they are in real life is news to you? I was pointing out that real life consequences are relatively rare, while online rhetoric can be much more heated, so your response about heated online rhetoric doesn't really contradict what I was saying.

And think about this for a minute. People who are criticizing sexism online and go over the line use such horrible "rhetorical baseball bats" as "mansplaining" and "privilege", while those who criticize perceived over-sensitivity to sexism use things like murder and rape threats: http://www.dailydot.com/news/adria-richards-fired-sendgrid-v... If you are going to complain about "rhetorical basebal bats", I think that death threats are a bit more severe than being accused of "mansplaining."

> I already feel uncomfortable attending an event that has adopted Ada Initiative-derived code of conduct

Really? This code of conduct makes you feel uncomfortable?

https://us.pycon.org/2012/codeofconduct/

What part of that makes you feel uncomfortable? I think it's pretty unobjectionable.

> when people start using hostile language to describe my gender and race in broad strokes, I'm clearly in the cross-hairs for a small, vocal, and highly volatile minority

No, you really aren't in any cross hairs. Come on. Unless you are actively harassing people, or making inappropriate jokes in professional venues, there is no one who is against you or out to get you.

None of the people proposing these codes of conduct are against white men at all (I'm assuming that's the "gender and race" you are referring to, please correct me if I'm wrong); if they were, why would they be going to programming conferences in the first place, which are full of white men? What they are looking for is recognition that there are other people at the conference, who may not feel the same sense of safety as you do.

One problem is that without a code of conduct, it can be hard to know where to draw the line, or hard to adequately enforce that line as there is no written guideline for how to deal with such situations. With the code of conduct, it becomes more clear; blatantly sexual language is over the line, and it can be dealt with by expulsion from the conference. It's simple, and it lets you not worry about it; as a conference organizer, you don't have to worry about how prominent in the community someone is when they make a porn-based presentation, you can just firmly say "no."

The article's author is simply a victim of statistics. If at the conference there is 150 "booth babies" and 300 male engineers, but in one booth there is a female engineer, people make educated guess, based on statistical inference, that this must be 151 booth baby.

I think nobody is to blame here. And, in fact, articles author might turn that whole confusion to her advantage (out of 150 other booths, that one surely will be remembered by potential customers). As a matter of fact it has happened already, I guess it is not that easy to hit top rank on Hacker News.