SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas • Hacker News Board

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#321

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #269

camus wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think women are having hard time in tech ? then you sure dont want to be black like me ,with people refusing to work with "niggers" ...

Discrimination is not a zero-sum game. Just because people are talking about the way women are treated doesn't mean that people don't care about or are ignoring how black people are treated. Your experience does not negate the offenses directed at women, nor does their experience negate yours. It's unacceptable to treat people like this full stop, whether you're in tech or not.

[deleted]

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#322

Post by rmc » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

WalterSear wrote: post #271

blhack wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the way, this isn't exclusive to tech. Women [unfortunately] face this in every male dominated field . It sucks, I know. My girlfriend works in a traditionally male dominated field, and she has to deal with this sort of thing constantly. But that interaction where the person assumed you weren't a dev[1] is only made worse by things like what has happened here. The signal to the dev community from Adria's reaction…

It also happens to men in female dominated fields and social enviroments. It's not inherently sexist - humans use stereotypes to categorize everything and everyone, and we haven't, as a society, codified how we should navigate these kind of conflicts without butthurt.

Sure, it happens to men in the much smaller number of much less well paid jobs that are female dominated.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#323

Post by eropple » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

itsprofitbaron wrote: post #311

eropple wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of two minds here. Normally, I would agree that it's an innocuous thing to say; I mean, I use the phrase all the time at conferences! That said, I am not so sanguine here; between Ms. Richards's bad faith actions (and you may disagree that she dealt with them in bad faith and that's fine) and her non-apology (I think this is fairly inarguable), I think that it's not unreasonable to infer a negative connotation to…

FWIW I think that the "See you next year" comment was in response to the fact that he (the guy who was fired) said he will be at pycon in 2014[1] and before stating his side of the story, he said that he defended her position[1]: "First of all I'd like to say I'm sorry. I really did not mean to offend anyone and I really do regret the comment and how it made Adria feel. She had every right to report me to staff, and…

Yeah, I read it it the first time it came up. Doesn't really change how it reads to me; IMO at least it becomes so ridiculously difficult to not dig an even deeper hole that comments like that really can't be taken at face value. Maybe he's the rare exception for which it is, but on the occasions where I've had to eat dirt for a screwup like that I'm pretty sure I wasn't thinking "man, I hope I see this person again!".

Or maybe I'm the weird one. Who knows? =)

(EDIT: I'd also like to note that that is a pretty well-written apology. It's also, you know, an apology. Which Ms. Richards's is not; hers is more of a "non-apology apology", an "I'm sorry that you X" which we really, really need to stamp out as a "thing".

Good on him.)

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#324

Post by zevyoura » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

rmc wrote: post #315

zevyoura wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experiences sound awful and truly disheartening, and I hope we can move towards a better and more inclusive future for everyone. However, I do feel compelled to make one point about this part: >Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that…

However, I don't think it's fair to attribute them to the 'tech community.' Really? People seem quite willing to ascribe to "feminists" all the negative attributes they can find. Is that OK? Why it OK to lump all feminists into one group but unfair to do it to "tech". Also, despite what mad conspiracy theory people say, there aren't really many "extremists" on the "pro-equality" side of the gender issue. There are pe…

Please don't put words in my mouth.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#325

Post by jmagoon » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:08 PM UTC

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #305

raganwald wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? People say the same things all the time in companies where women complain about inappropriate sexuality. "What if I say something that offends her?" Most of us are good, inoffensive people. We are saddled with growing up in a world that is changing. It used to be accept…

> these things are hard BOOM.. fired! See what happened there? You said it. I overreacted. You were fired. It actually is a real fear that something you say will unknowingly offend someone and get you in trouble. This has less to do with gender and sexism and more to do with just too many people being incapable of getting along. > automatically act in ways that don't offend anyone. Impossible. Everything is capable o…

This is what's commonly known as the ignorance of privilege. It's white people saying, "Why can't I make jokes about black people, when black people can make jokes about me?"

It demonstrates a total ignorance of what it means to be a discriminated against demographic.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#326

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #168

salman89 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next?" I'm not agreeing with anything Adria did, but the issue of being labeled as the "tattletale" probably plays a big part in most women's reluctance to report real harassment.

I'm honestly curious what this even has to do with women. That's what puzzles me most about this whole incident. Maybe I'm insensitive or ignorant. I'll admit it if that's the case and learn. Right now, though, I just don't get it. I just don't see how a dongle joke is sexist. It's anatomical . It might have some mild sexual undertone, but there's a huge difference between sexism and a sexual undertone--they aren't t…

[deleted]

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#327

Post by runevault » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #225

adamnemecek wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I said, "If you let your toddler play in a tiger cage, you are crazy." would you ask me "Why do you want toddlers to get mauled by tigers"? Maybe I wouldn't want it to happen, but it would regardless of my desires. I was just stating a fact about what will happen, whether you or I agree with it or not.

Mm. A lot of these comments preclude the possibility that Adria might grow, change, or rehabilitate herself. And as such, these come off very much as if they're putting nails into her coffin. There are people who do deserve to be run out of their industries, Stephen Glass, or Jonah Lehrer come to mind immediately. That is not a proportionate or reasonable response to what has happened here, but then, nothing about th…

The question isn't so much "can she grow and change" as "will the wider world let go of her mistake?" People as a group seem prone to not let things go if they get out of hand past a certain point (which this seems far past whatever that point might be).

Is it fair? Not really. Does that change the fact she's potentially damaged her ability to get another job like the one she was just let go from permanently? No it doesn't. Mistakes have consequences whether it is fair or not, and it will likely take a LOT of work to undo what one stupid tweet just did to her life.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#328

Post by rmc » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

camus wrote: post #259

ericabiz wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Most [all, actually] of the women I've talked to about this are furious with her over how badly this portrays women." Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that has spewed forth online to her is what takes my breath away. Comments calling…

You think women are having hard time in tech ? then you sure dont want to be black like me ,with people refusing to work with "niggers" ...

Let's not play Opression Olympics here.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#329

Post by zevyoura » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

king_jester wrote: post #314

zevyoura wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your experiences sound awful and truly disheartening, and I hope we can move towards a better and more inclusive future for everyone. However, I do feel compelled to make one point about this part: >Okay, time to speak up! Hi, I'm a woman in tech. And this upset me, but not for the reasons you think. I agree that Adria went too far in publicly Tweeting and "name and shaming" these guys. But the vitriol and hate that…

> I agree those comments are absolutely horrifying, and the act of people I would never associate with. There is no way you could know this. People you associate with may be misogynistic or engage in trolling on the internet but they don't tell you or you aren't around to experience it. Bottom line is that the tech community does have issues with misogyny along with the rest of western society, although you are right…

You're absolutely right, to be more accurate I should have said that if I witnessed someone performing those acts I would dissociate myself from them.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#330

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Mar 21, 2013, 8:09 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #168

salman89 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next?" I'm not agreeing with anything Adria did, but the issue of being labeled as the "tattletale" probably plays a big part in most women's reluctance to report real harassment.

I'm honestly curious what this even has to do with women. That's what puzzles me most about this whole incident. Maybe I'm insensitive or ignorant. I'll admit it if that's the case and learn. Right now, though, I just don't get it. I just don't see how a dongle joke is sexist. It's anatomical . It might have some mild sexual undertone, but there's a huge difference between sexism and a sexual undertone--they aren't t…

You're correct. This isn't about women, just one woman in particular.

If there's one thing women don't like, it's being lumped together and generalised... :P