301–310 of 375 posts
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Simply having a Tumblr account you post thoughts to is being "in the public eye"? If so, then that category must include nearly everyone who works in tech.
Where did Tumblr come from?
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A "relaxed" office culture means that "dick/sex/insulting/racist/etc jokes" are acceptable? This might be the most amazingly asinine comment I have ever encountered on HN. The type of "jokes" you refer to are usually not only not funny to the people who have to listen to them, they can create huge liabilities for the companies dumb enough to employ the out-of-touch fool who thinks he's the office's Dave Attell. "But…
Please show me precedent of a successful discrimination suit based on nothing more than a joke.
http://www.boardmanclark.com/reading-room/it-was-just-a-joke...
http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/home/161026
http://www.fox19.com/story/26069939/wings-with-a-side-of-rac...
Please note that the vast majority of employment lawsuits settle before they ever go to trial.
I'm a male in the software industry, and I never really know what to make of these sorts of articles. It's terrible that someone should have to go through this. The anonymity of the internet is a great and terrible thing -- some people really get off on being horrible to people, and unfortunately when that person is a male, and they know they're talking to a woman, the low-hanging fruit is base sexism. But what is su…
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I think that in a lot of companies, this would be a terrible approach to take. By not standing up against such things, you could easily destroy the cohesion in a company. Maybe if you have a very homogenous company then noone will be there to take offence (that doesn't make it right), but the fact is that most companies are becoming more diverse and it is in their interests to support all members of the company to re…
I totally agree with all that you said, the thing is that I don't think that racist jokes mean that someone is a racist, and joking about one's girlfriend doesn't make a man sexist. I don't think those make for a toxic culture, only for a relaxed culture. But then again, I'm from Europe - I understand that Americans are quite a bit more puritanical about certain things (e.g. sex, cursing and race), and maybe less abo…
what else could it possibly mean?
Wow, I'm really glad I read this. I'm making a video game myself right now, and this such a relevant issue that I never even thought about. It never occurred to me that women in the gaming industry were mistreated, but it kind of makes sense-- video games often cater to young males, and often the easiest way to cater to those young males is by over-sexualizing women. I'm not going to say that that strategy doesn't wo…
> I think the over-sexualization of women in games and in other places often makes men think with their penises instead of their brains. Why do you think so? Personally, I think it's the other way around - the cause is that people (not just men) respond better to "shallow" things - i.e. pretty things/landscapes/photos/people, which is why marketers/companies create things that are pretty. If your target audience is m…
I disagree. The reality is that if anyone has a critical opinion and expresses it online, you will get harassed. As a test, go on Reddit, pretend you are a guy, and post a critical opinion in one of the gaming subreddits.
The problem is that the Internet has given everyone a voice, and a public email address or twitter feed means anyone, with almost no effort, can send you a message, and try to get to you.
"I've personally never heard of a man in the games industry getting rape threats for having an opinion."
I have..and much worse.
"When a woman criticizes me, it goes to a different part of my brain than when a man on my team does. I get defensive really quickly. I’m trying to get better about it." I don’t think his is a unique experience."
Nobody likes criticism..and most peoples reaction is to get defensive..it doesn't matter who is giving it.
"One of the consequences is that men are extremely sensitive to being criticized by women"
Based on what evidence? Your friend saying it? I see no direct evidence in your entire blog post besides hearsay.
"Women in the games industry get special treatment for being women, and your life can be made easier by your looks"
This is a fact in any industry. Women (and men for that matter) that are attractive get treated better (there have been numerous studies on this). To change this would mean changing human nature..which isn't happening any time soon.
"A look at the YouTube comments for her 2010 PAX East panel is stomach-churning. A shocking number of them personally attack the women of Girlfight."
I will give you some advice: ignore Youtube comments. Trolls on the Internet will say anything they can do destroy you and make you break down. It seems to be working.
While we are on the topic, it is getting pretty scary how we are moving toward mob Internet justice. Look at the number of people that were fired, had their careers ruined, or were forced to step down due to mob mentality on the Internet.
The ex-Mozilla CEO is a good example of this.
"I have yet to talk to a man who has had to call a police officer due to a stalker, only to be told nothing can be done until they are physically assaulted. "
Are you kidding? I know plenty of men that had to call the police about a female stalker/ex-girlfriend and were told the EXACT same thing.
"Growing a thicker skin isn't the answer, nor is it a proper response. Listening, and making the industry safer for the existence of visible women is the best, and only, way forward."
Growing a thicker skin is the answer. Have you ever played any Xbox live game online with a headset? What do you hear? Teenage boys calling each other the worst names imaginable. I just turn it off and keep playing.
You are an adult (I presume) trying to change the gaming culture of teenagers and trolls on the Internet (some of which aren't even located in the US). This is futile and will most likely never change unless there are serious restrictions put on the Internet, worldwide.
It sounds like you don't like the gaming culture. I don't like it either, but it has little to do with men being sexist and more to do with trolls and children harassing anyone online because it's easy.
The people that succeed learn to ignore the noise and concentrate on what matters.
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My point is that a comment filtering system is consciously based on the identification and exclusion of a group, which we'll call the out group. Of course it's limits will be debatable, just as the definition of spam is debatable. If what you're excluding is political speech of a sort, then someone is going to be able to accuse the system of censorship, no matter where the line is drawn. It's inherent in the system's…
I have just noticed that in many online communities, you couldn't easily filter on extremism because, based on the community values, expressing the wrong opinion is "trolling" but responding to that opinion "die in a fire you fucking asshole" is a top-rated comment. I don't even think these are outliers, a lot of communities are run like this. Also, possibly this comment would be a false positive in some places becau…
Applying r/SRS standards to r/RedPill would be an extreme example of this, and a good thought experiment. Could you model what kind of karma score a RedPill post would get on SRS? How would it change what a discussion page looked like?
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That is correct. Abusers, whether male or female, will find their target.
That's not quite true. Women are much more likely to receive threats because they are more vulnerable. Just like bullies pick on those they perceive to be weak, abusers target those they perceive to be easy targets.
So you are saying that women are different and need to be treated in a different way than men? I thought we were trying to avoid this and treat women the same as men?
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as an anonymous woman in tech, I guess what he is trying to say that women need to stop thinking that all the unfairness in the tech world is directed to them. Men suffer too. Yes, women mostly suffer because they are women and because stereotypes suck. But that doesn't mean that women should be segregated as a group that is the only victim of harassment.
Hopefully you don't mind me responding here. I appreciate your attempt to understand what I was saying but I was only saying that the experience of an anonymous woman in tech is going to be different from the experience of a public writer on the Internets, when it comes to abusive language. What is your day-to-day like?
It's just like any other IT guy's day. Go to work, do your job, fuck up a bit, say sorry, give others a hard time when they fuck up :P But seriously, no difference apart from the fact that I can see men at work are very cautious around me as far as cracking jokes is concerned. But I can't really blame them with all these sexual harassment out of nothing stories floating around everywhere now, can I?
"The Reality: If you are a woman in the industry with a critical opinion, you will get a disproportional amount of criticism, hostility, and scrutiny compared to men." I disagree. The reality is that if anyone has a critical opinion and expresses it online, you will get harassed. As a test, go on Reddit, pretend you are a guy, and post a critical opinion in one of the gaming subreddits. The problem is that the Intern…