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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#461

Post by leetrout »

rhizome wrote: post #215
katbyte wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive joke. Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private conversations and not the speaker. Sh…

Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. My sense is that she herself didn't bat much of an eye until she decided that it was a problem. If you read her account, she acted in order to protect a photograph: I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop. I realized I had to do something or she would nev…

And her domain name is "butyoureagirl".

Predispositioned much?

Downvote away...

Re: The PyCon Incident

#462

Post by dsmithn »

ajross wrote: post #251
ubasu wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From this article: "I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop. I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so." Seems a tad melodramatic as a reaction to a private conversation. Seems to go with the Joan-of-Arc complex: https://twitter.com/adriarich…

From the same blog post you just quoted: > I agreed with [the guy behind me] ... He said he would be interested in forking the repo [...] That would have been fine until the guy next to him... began making sexual forking jokes I don't see how that constitutes a private conversation. The joke was apparently interjected into a discussion she was already part of . Now, I still don't think the "public shaming" attempt wa…

> That she got a little too hot-headed and posted a picture seems to be all anyone wants to talk about.

Because that's what got the guy fired. If she had just posted a tweet complaining, or just made a blog post talking about how those kinds of comments were offensive, people would have learned but nobody's life would have been ruined. Instead she choose to post their picture online AND continue to make a big deal about it. That's a personal vendetta.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#463

Post by takluyver »

obstacle1 wrote: post #323
pencilcode wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were being idiots and violating the code of conduct of pycon, and YES, it does apply to private conversations that others can't avoid hearing since they're in a public place. She shamed them rightly. As for them being fired, that was the company's call - who employed them. Now an anonymous guy posts this, she explains the whole sequence and in the end it's her fault. No, the responsability lies with who made the…

>She shamed them rightly No. The appropriate first course of action upon being personally offended is not to passive-aggressively take a picture of perceived offenders and create a vendetta on Twitter; rather it is to turn around, confront what/who offended you, and deal with the situation like an adult. Further this person's "shaming" was an abuse of her professional privileges and that alone warrants her firing.

And if you're not comfortable confronting them in person, tell conference staff, who'll talk to them. In fact, PyCon staff did talk to them, got an apology, and sensibly decided that was that:

http://pycon.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappr...

Re: The PyCon Incident

#464

Post by integraton »

jasonlotito wrote: post #329
integraton wrote: post #50

Her own phallus joke, as mentioned in the pastie, which she made on Twitter, a much more public venue: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 Incredibly hypocritical on her part.

PyCon has a code of conduct. The write up regarding this specific incident is here: http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inapprop... People are allowed to make offensive jokes. Except when they agree not to. By attending PyCon, you are making that agreement. In the end, the result was resolved well by all 3 parties. The issue is that one of the parties got fired. An overreaction by his ex-employer. In…

> PyCon has a code of conduct.

PyCon attendee procedure for handling harassment:

https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i...

"Report the harassment incident (preferably in writing) to a conference staff member - all reports are confidential...The staff is well informed on how to deal with the incident and how to further proceed with the situation...Note: Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such actions out of respect."

Re: The PyCon Incident

#465

Post by djcapelis »

obstacle1 wrote: post #445
pencilcode wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Single gender teams tend to achieve less in the long run so you basically get what you deserve.

We all know that you can't provide any evidence to back this up. What is your agenda? Why do you think we are stupid?

Try using google: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=single+gender+teams+perf...

I grabbed a couple citations while I was there because I was also curious:

* http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-0432.00129/a... - "Although generalizations from student-based studies to the workplace is problematic, the results indicate that groups may be more effective when women outnumber or equal men, especially in complex management activities requiring extensive information management and processing, planning and decision-making over protracted periods."

* http://sgr.sagepub.com/content/27/1/79.short - "Overall, in this study, gender diversity facilitated task performance for a male-oriented task[1] without sacrificing cohesion or at the expense of increased decision-making time." (From the full text of the paper, the last concluding sentence.)

So I'm not sure why you would assert:

> We all know that you can't provide any evidence to back this up

[1] I have no idea what they mean by this, but I'm going to guess "tech" would probably be classified as such.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#466

Post by ceol »

gfunk911 wrote: post #47

I want to make a point that may or may not be applicable to this situation. Talking about sex is not inherently sexist. Making jokes about sex is not inherently sexist. It's inappropriate in a large number of places, but that doesn't make it sexist.

You're absolutely right it isn't inherently sexist. However, when these types of jokes become so common, and are almost always made by men, and sometimes made towards women, it contributes to a sexist atmosphere.

I can't even use the example "What if you had to hear jokes about vaginas and breasts all the time?" since it doesn't carry the same weight for men as the opposite does for women.

I wish commenters here would realize this is supposed to be a professional convention, and these two were supposed to be representing their companies, so making jokes about their genitalia might be in bad taste. I really can't believe the comments here. Those remarks didn't happen in a vacuum. She had to deal with them multiple times beforehand. Her actions were not out of line.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#467

Post by reeses »

ajross wrote: post #95
SODaniel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal vendetta or not. A person that reacts to a private conversation (inappropriate or not) by posting hearsay about two co-workers to 1000s of followers the way she did is NOT a person I would want to work with, even less hire. She has at the very least shown very bad judgement and should not be commended nor rewarded for it.

To nit on terminology: testifying about what you heard yourself is not "hearsay", by definition. I agree her judgement was bad and she shouldn't have posted the image (she has every right to post about the incident, though!). But what I'm reading here is an awful lot of bile about this woman. She's being asked to answer for someone else's decision to fire someone (there's still no documentation or testimony about thi…

It feels uncomfortable. I think the reaction here is much more harassing than any dongle/fork/whatever jokes two guys would have made in a conference.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#468

Post by RougeFemme »

katbyte wrote: post #117
blhack wrote: post #7

I would also like a response from Sendgrid here. Somebody they sent to a conference, who was representing their company there, went on a personal vendetta against somebody and got them fired. That's awful, and I join the people I see online right now in saying that I cannot, in good conscience, ever do business with a company that supports that behavior. --And to how far Adria has set back womens' rights here-- The c…

as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive joke. Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private conversations and not the speaker. Sh…

I agree that she went too far. But. . .if guys are really extreme - in my subjective view - I can live with them not being able to totally relax. It's unfortunately, but I've worked with a handful who even made other men uncomfortable, but the other men were unwilling to say something. I was willing to allow a lot of latitude, but I did say there are some extreme lines that I'd rather you not cross. I can tune out a lot, but some things were beyond what I wanted to tolerate. So we compromised.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#469

Post by groby_b »

sp332 wrote: post #207
numbsafari wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really so hard to not make sexual jokes and references when in a public business forum that you would honestly stop attending conferences? What exactly do they add to the discourse on the actual technical issues being discussed?

It's a bit dehumanizing to be forced to act like sexuality doesn't exist. This wasn't propositioning anyone, it wasn't insulting anyone, it wasn't explicit. It was a few lame jokes. I (personally) have no problem watching myself in these situations, but it always feels artificial. I'm not sure what American society is doing to women, but it leaves some of them incapable of dealing with any amount of sexuality. (Again…

We're discussing Python at PyCon, no? I'm also not exchanging soup recipes, beauty tips, or nutrition experiences, because they're not appropriate either. Same goes for human sexuality. Not a relevant topic.

As for the "lame double entendre", and being capable of dealing with it - I (and most women, I suppose) can deal with one. Or with two. Or three. But that's usually just the first 5 minutes of the day. It's a constant barrage of low-level "othering". (I hate the word, but it describes the process)

It's not one comment. It's the fact that the tech industry often manages to feel like a permanent gathering of 14-year old adolescent boys. At some point, yes, it does make you uncomfortable, because everything is reduced to sexual references.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#470

Post by georgeorwell »

BrianEatWorld wrote: post #188
Joeboy wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, I am really puzzled as to why these "jokes" are supposed to be offensive to women. They might be offensive to people raised in some cultures / subcultures, and they don't sound like they're great jokes in any culture, but nobody ever told me about the meeting where women decided knob jokes were offensive. In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago.

The office I work in is entirely male, myself included, and just because don how I was raised, these types of jokes make me uncomfortable. However, after I said something about the issue, my coworkers, like most human beings, made an effort to check themselves. However, until you say something, they can't do anything about it. I agree its a decency issue and not a sexism one.

What is indecent is that Adria Richards completely invented the bit about forking being a sexual reference ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 ), escalated her discomfort to the level of internet drama, got her employer SendGrid to support her, and didn't exactly go out of her way to petition PlayHaven to unfire one of the two guys involved. And she's now sticking to her guns even after profusive apologies from the offenders. All she had to do was turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes.

This will blow over, the guy will get a new job, but my god, it's a pretty serious defect if an immature joke about penises overheard in public can get you fired.

The best thing to do is let SendGrid and PlayHaven know your thoughts:

http://sendgrid.com/contact.html

http://www.playhaven.com/contact

The only hope I have for a positive outcome here is for either company to step in and try to clean up the mess. If they don't, I'd recommend avoiding both of them. Someone that stands up for public humiliation is not somebody you want to work with.

Related submissions about this story:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399065

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