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SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

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Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#481

Post by Domenic_S »

Steuard wrote: post #466
georgeorwell wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you just threw up two different straw (wo)men here. It's not sexist to make jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism. The examples you gave are sexism. If the two guys at PyCon had directed the jokes at Adria while also excluding…

"It's not sexist to make a jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism." I really have to disagree. Dick jokes are perceived to be almost exclusively a part of "guy culture". Want proof? Watch how fast a group of guys making those jokes suddenly cl…

> Dick jokes are perceived to be almost exclusively a part of "guy culture".

And? Guys partaking in guy culture, somebody stop the presses.

> So when guys at a conference routinely make dick jokes in public, that contributes to a sense that the conference is a male space.

So it's like a turd in a punchbowl then? Two dudes make a dick joke and now the whole conference is a male space? I would agree with you if it was a conference organizer partaking, or someone giving a talk made the joke, because it would imply some kind of conference dick-joke-sponsorship.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#482

Post by cjbprime »

georgeorwell wrote: post #435
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…

I'm sorry, but you just threw up two different straw (wo)men here. It's not sexist to make jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong". They sound pretty similar. It's not very funny unless you're bored stiff or in grade five, but nevertheless it's pretty harmless joke material, and it isn't sexism. The examples you gave are sexism. If the two guys at PyCon had directed the jokes at Adria while also excluding…

> It's not sexist to make jokes about the word "dongle" sounding like "dong".

It is sexist to create a sexualized environment at a tech conference, because the consequences of that environment hurt women much more than they hurt men; it's a failure to show consideration to women. mr-hank has admitted that he made a sexual joke about big dongles and apologized for it. Making sexual jokes about big dongles is creating a sexualized environment.

More evidence that a sexualized environment existed at PyCon (though I think the organizers were doing an awesome job and it was probably much better than other large tech conferences!):

http://ivory.idyll.org/blog/pycon-2013-and-codes-of-conduct....

"First, I came to PyCon with two women colleagues, one of whom was harassed nearly constantly by men, albeit on a low level. Both of them are friendly people who are willing to engage at both a personal and a technical level with others, and apparently that signals to some that they can now feel free to comment on "hotness", proposition them, and otherwise act like 14 year old guys."

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#483

Post by cbsmith »

ericabiz wrote: post #217
blhack wrote: post #20

I really wish that this whole thing could have ended amicably (perhaps with Adria apologizing to the devs [by the way, the guy who was fired has already publicly apologized]). It's too bad that sendgrid had to fire her, I would never wish that somebody had their livlihood taken from them like that, but her job was to be a developer evangelist, which is a job she isn't realistically capable of performing anymore. I wo…

> "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…

> 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 her a "cunt" and saying she should be raped (this I found on her blog, presumably before she had a chance to delete it.)

Hey, if you can't shoot the messenger, who can you shoot?

Oh wait...

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#484

Post by cube13 »

danilocampos wrote: post #456
anigbrowl wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Danilo, following up an argument from authority with an ad hominem attack is not constructive either.

It wasn't argument from authority – it was a response to a question as to whether I knew what these people said. I do . And it's not ad hominem to say there's no point to the conversation based on missing context. I'm reminded of when McCoy wanted to discuss death with Spock: "It would be impossible to discuss the subject without a common frame of reference." ... "You mean I have to die in order to discuss your insig…

> It wasn't argument from authority – it was a response to a question as to whether I knew what these people said.

For the third time in this thread:

What was said?

>And it's not ad hominem to say there's no point to the conversation based on missing context.

No, it's an argument from authority. You have the context, yet are not willing to share exactly what was said. The ad hominem came with the "If you had the empathy...".

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#486

Post by lucisferre »

Domenic_S wrote: post #471
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…

> What do I do? Do I call him out by name? Right now it's been a week and I'm still working out the best course of action. Seems like a lot of energy spent on a flippant remark. Those aren't restricted to men saying them about wives/women, either. I don't want to get into some kind of /r/mensrights foolishness here, but have you sat at a coffeeshop and listened to the kinds of remarks women make about their husbands/…

"Everybody Loves Raymond" is your evidence here. I'm not interested in arguing the point here, but come on. It's a show by a man, about a man, written by (mostly) men. How is that relevant?

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#487

Post by protomyth »

jsmeaton wrote: post #460
protomyth wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but males do get automatically suspected of being pedophiles. Companies / daycare / pre-k - 6 have a strong prejudice against hiring males in education. Insurance companies and some parents play a pretty big role in this situation.

I worked for 5 years looking after disabled children and had some parents absolutely refuse to leave their kids if there weren't any female staff members on for the day. That kind of makes you angry. What REALLY makes you angry though is when the female staff support that decision.

I'll say it again, "if you don't want your infant changed by a male, then you are part of the problem". I think your example is just as telling.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#488

Post by katbyte »

nashadelic wrote: post #344
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…

> Was Adria's reaction, to this as an isolated event, out of hand? Yes. No. Someone said something sexist in public. She put it out on Twitter. If you don't like that. You better watch what you say in public. We should back up people who stand against discrimination and support them. SendGrid firing her basically says she shouldn't have stood up for herself. Which is pitiful.

They said a inappropriate joke, not something sexist. There was nothing sexist about it. I repeat, she was not discriminated against. It was unprofessional and out of line, but what she did was far far more inappropriate and unprofessional.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#489

Post by katbyte »

neilk wrote: post #414
[deleted] wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

In my opinion, it was a misjudgment, but think about what using Twitter is like. Something ticked her off. She snapped a picture of it, as she had done dozens of times per day probably. She probably had no idea of the consequences. Even if you have 10,000 followers, most tweets are like that - you like something, snap a pic and share, you hate something, snap a pic and share. I don't get the sense that she expected t…

> It wasn't a good decision, but let's be clear about how easy it is to lapse like that

That doesn't make it OK, we all should be aware of the potential consequences and permanency of publicly posting something.

Re: SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

#490

Post by RyanZAG »

JohnBooty wrote: post #470
RyanZAG wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back up just a second there. As far as I can tell, posting jokes like that to twitter and hearing jokes like that at a conference are entirely comparable in every way. They're exactly the same thing - both are jokes of a sexual/race based background.

> As far as I can tell, posting jokes like that to > twitter and hearing jokes like that at a conference > are entirely comparable in every way. They're exactly > the same thing - both are jokes of a sexual/race based > background. You don't think that context matters at all when it comes to a joke? Do you just speak the exact same way everywhere, whether you're talking to clients, joking with your friends during an…

You seem to be jumping over the point here. Both the conference and twitter are public venues, and both the jokes are sexual in nature.

You seem to be arguing here that a joke at a public conference is a different situation to a joke posted publicly to twitter - I do not see the difference. Her twitter account is now irrevocably linked to Sendspace's image as she has claimed that Sendspace backs her views, which in turn claims that Sendspace is backing her sexual joke in a public space while also calling out a sexual joke at a conference. This is obviously paradoxical, and is also why I'm asking you to rethink your posts.

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