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Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

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Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#421

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

adriarichards wrote: post #27
mr-hank wrote: post #23

Hi, I'm the guy who made a comment about big dongles. 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 I defend her position. However, there is another side to this story. While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes…

Hey, Thanks for speaking up, contributing your viewpoint on HN and not attacking me. I'm sorry to hear your employer deciding to not to work with you on this and I hope they reconsider, bring you back on and dealing with it constructively. For context, I'm a developer evangelist. That means I'm an advocate for developers, male and female. While I hear abou demanding bosses with impossible deadlines for product launch…

Why can't you just turn around and say one of the following:

Shhhhh.

Take it outside.

You're not funny, and I can't hear the talk.

I'm going to call the conference police if you don't quiet yourselves.

Or something to that effect? If somebody persists after you ask them to quit, fine, blast away.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#422

Post by truthtacular »

incongruity wrote: post #278
antihero wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tits in slides make a sexist environments. Blonde jokes make sexist environments. Groping makes sexist environments. Light innuendo does not create sexist environments. This woman publicly humiliated someone and lost them their job for doing absolutely nothing wrong. That is fucked up.

(nit-pick) There's a difference between sexist and sexualized . FWIW, I'm not sure where I fall on all of this – but my hunch says there's a bunch to be unhappy about all around. Having said that, I'll throw this out: In my experience, men (I am one) tend to be more okay with a small amount of sexualization in conversation. Women tend not to be. (extreme generalization, but a real distinction, I believe). Say what yo…

I dunno if you're right about the difference between men and women. I do know that there's a difference between a professional and a non-professional environment. If you're talking about sexy stuff in a professional environment where you don't really know all the people within earshot, at the very least you're exhibiting some fairly poor judgment. And, at worst, you might be making some of the strangers around you very uncomfortable.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#423

Post by truthtacular »

sha90 wrote: post #181
colabug wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but this makes no sense.

Here let me help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex-positive_movement -- "sex-positive" is a term describing a movement meant to embrace rather than repress sexuality. The play on words of "sex-negative" refers to the opposite of sex-positive, ie., sexual repression. OP is saying that you are sexually repressed because sex jokes make you uncomfortable. This is a good point, because dongle jokes are actually not "sexis…

Do you make sex jokes at work?

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#424

Post by rdtsc »

adriarichards wrote: post #27
mr-hank wrote: post #23

Hi, I'm the guy who made a comment about big dongles. 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 I defend her position. However, there is another side to this story. While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes…

Hey, Thanks for speaking up, contributing your viewpoint on HN and not attacking me. I'm sorry to hear your employer deciding to not to work with you on this and I hope they reconsider, bring you back on and dealing with it constructively. For context, I'm a developer evangelist. That means I'm an advocate for developers, male and female. While I hear abou demanding bosses with impossible deadlines for product launch…

> Thanks for speaking up, contributing your viewpoint on HN and not attacking me.

No but I will be speaking up and attacking you.

> bring you back on and dealing with it constructively.

And by constructively you mean maybe they'll post his picture on the billboard and call him publicly an "ass clown".

So yeah, how about them insults? Is PyCon a conference where taking face shots of attendees and posting them for the whole world to see then calling them ass clown?

> to not to work with you on this and

Not to work with him on what. What kind of double speak is that? "Don't use toilet humor when talking to your co-workers at a conference". Yes, I hope his employer 'works' hard with him on that.

> I also hear about the experiences of women working at startups.

Do you hear about backstabbing, public humiliations and taking advantage situations for personal profit at the expense of other's lives?

> Sometimes the answer is our API or not answering email after 7pm while other times it about being assertive and shedding impostor syndrome.

Sometimes the answer is public flogging in a middle of the street.

> The forking joke set the stage for the dongle joke.

You are a developer's evangelist and you don't know what "forking" a repo is. You might consider filing a lawsuit against Github and Linus Torvalds because that's all they do. One invented it then other place is where forking happens all day every day.

> It sounds like if I'd said something about the forking you would have denied it having a sexual association.

And that is because ... it doesn't. Your title has 'developer' in it, you should at least find out what forking really means.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#425

Post by truthtacular »

colabug wrote: post #76
jorgenev wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I, a female geek, was an outcast too and participated in many of the activities you mention, yet I came out mature. Perhaps you should try being less insufferable. The reason why no one should ever give in to this women in tech nonsense is that because the complaints are mostly just a projection of the complainer's own social awkwardness -it is easier to blame other people, and to join causes that attribute your (s…

Can you please explain why you have declared me insufferable? Surely it couldn't be the simple act of sharing my view and expressing a differing option based on my own experiences with sexism and victim blaming. This is classic derailing: "You Just Enjoy Being Offended" http://birdofparadox.wordpress.com/derailing-for-dummies-goo... P.S. It always warms my heart to hear phrases like "women in tech nonsense."

Awesome site!

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#426

Post by chrisfs59 »

bobwaycott wrote: post #206

Seriously, Adria (and all of you who are defending her actions)--you got this one wrong; it was a false positive on your sexism scale. As a philosophical Marxist, I count myself among those who not only inherently support gender equality, but are from the thought tradition that started the damn movement. In graduate school, my thesis focused on the Southeast US from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Act of 1964…

There is an amazing amount of splitting hairs and diversions in this post. Trying to say that it's an anatomical vs sexist joke, as if that made a difference, that's ridiculous. A big dongle refers to size of the male organ, big male organs refer to sex, (not your prowess at the urinal...) The issue that they might have been homosexuals and how that gives them a pass is baseless as well. For someone who has spent years supposedly studying this and who in the end agrees that it was inappropriate, you are certainly going out of your way to argue otherwise.

This is sadly a typical response to any time a women makes claims about sexism in the Internet. It's predictable that there will be a response that says that A) the act was not sexist B) she over-reacted C) and anyways women are sexist too. The first two are made without the person in question having witnessed the incident at all. The third is a meaningless point. Even if it were true, so what? that other people are sexist, does not excuse inappropriate behavior for anyone. I can't hit someone and then say it's ok because other people hit people too. For all your supposed Marxist/progressive credentials, you are making the same tired argument made by every idiot on the internet

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#427

Post by hatsix »

zer01 wrote: post #391
mcherm wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [...] you are a moron Please go away and take your name-calling someplace else. I prefer Hacker News to be a location for civil dialog.

Seriously? You're going to let the fact that he called someone a moron overshadow the fact that he points out her blatant hypocrisy over this entire thing? It's apparently alright for women to make sexual references in a public setting (e.g. Twitter), but when men do it amongst themselves in a crowd it's just wrong? Did she ever once say "Hey guys, can you keep it down?" or how about "Your jokes are making me un-comf…

Yes. He escalated in the same manner that she did. He made a personal attack.

The ends do not justify the means... especially when that one sentence was completely unnecessary. He could easily have taken a more civil tone... maybe said "Your pandering to her makes me feel uncomfortable"... the same way that you are suggesting that she approach the topic.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#428

Post by law_mclawyerson »

jodrellblank wrote: post #172
drridta wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I would be Mr Hank I would go and sue Adria as she took a photo of him and distributed it without his consent. This is a serious privacy issue. I would like to read her post after she gets fired in a similar way because of a photo. I'm sure she would feel the pain.

And you would lose. > In the United States [..] consent is not as a rule required to photograph people in public places and publish those photos. Hence, unless there are specific local laws to the contrary, overriding legal concerns (e.g., defamation) or moral concerns (e.g., picture unfairly obtained) [..] http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Photographs_of_ide...

False, false false!

Try getting away from Wiki and read your local laws. PyCon happend in California, which is so ubersensitive about privacy that even call centers and debt collectors have to inform you and recieve consent to record your conversations.

Having been a vidographer and photographer for bands in and around California, it's a pain in the ass all the legal forms and releases you need to obtain in order to publish the likeness of someone. There's a reason "extras" are paid in California.

First, for taking his photo without consent, then turning around and using it in an official disciplinary capacity - totally against the law. Whatever his wages were, she may be liable for paying him out of her pocket as a result.

Second, she even admitted here in this thread - she took something as being sexual that totally wasnt - so she's made up her mind that this was offensive and inappropriate. Shame on her, and I do truly hope that she joins the ranks of unemployed soon for her actions (turnabout is fair play after all, arent we trying for equality?)

Lastly, she admits in her blog post that they were talking amongst themselves and she overheard something and decided arbitrarily and without invitation to join the conversation. Having done so, it's also your responsibility, not the trade show organizers, to attempt to resolve the situation which she clearly refused to and even refuses to acknowledge - she should have asked them to knock it off.

Instead, she chose to rally the troops instead of talking with authorities directly and skip the step of asking them to knock it off - it's only harassing if they persist.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#429

Post by uchi »

mkr-hn wrote: post #360
uchi wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case it actually does. There's absolutely no need to change strawman to strawpeople, other than the necessary implied injustice that you feel for the fact that the word contains 'man', and therefore must somehow be corrected to contain both sexes. It's a silly changing of nomenclature for no other purpose than to generate a feeling of self congratulatory accomplishment over a wrong that doesn't actually exist…

I use it because I think it sounds better, not out of whatever you tried to get at in all those screedy words. But you go ahead with your attempt at mind reading.

Using it because it sounds better can sometimes run contrary with the word and its meaning. In this case being confused with a pretty bitchin' New Zealand band. But let's be honest here, with the sprinkling of select phrases in other posts, we both know exactly what you meant and why you used it.

Re: Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

#430

Post by cheez »

camperman wrote: post #346
adriarichards wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, Thanks for speaking up, contributing your viewpoint on HN and not attacking me. I'm sorry to hear your employer deciding to not to work with you on this and I hope they reconsider, bring you back on and dealing with it constructively. For context, I'm a developer evangelist. That means I'm an advocate for developers, male and female. While I hear abou demanding bosses with impossible deadlines for product launch…

Care to explain why you're allowed to make dick jokes but they can't?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equity_and_gender_feminism#Gend...
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