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Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

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Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#611

Post by tomp »

a1a wrote: post #526
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a double standard. Its allowed to assume the worst motives in male behavior, always gets a pass. Its forbidden to call out despicable behavior in females. And now, it seems its forbidden to explain male behavior as anything but evil. Because they are 'predators' by default. Resorting to these "PC rules of engagement" ends rational discussion. Reducing this to the choir preaching to one another.

I don't believe this story is on "male behavior" nor an attack on every male in the world. It's an story on predators that happen to be male (and female for that matter). Your answer is kind of what I expected: You believe sexism is an attack on men, and therefore need to be on the defense.

> It's an story on predators that happen to be male (and female for that matter).

Don't you think it's then disingenuous to call it sexism?

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#612

Post by muglug »

czzarr wrote: post #603
muglug wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the point she's making that she didn't fit the culture primarily because of her gender? And that any work culture where one's gender matters is a toxic culture in itself? A workplace just filled with happy young male developers is not necessarily a healthy environment, or one that necessarily has a good culture.

Define good culture. Why would you assume to know what a good culture is? Why would a workplace filled with happy young males be necessarily a bad culture?

> Why would a workplace filled with happy young males be necessarily a bad culture?

That's not what I said.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#613

Post by tomp »

muglug wrote: post #545
dclowd9901 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading the article, it became pretty clear to me that whatever manner of "culture" github appears to be permeating internally, she was very far from it. This indicates she was a bad hire from the get-go. Hiring isn't just about talent, it's also about cultural fit, and while it's difficult to know with precision who fits a cultural dynamic, 1) such an issue is bound to arise as a company grows and 2) there had…

Isn't the point she's making that she didn't fit the culture primarily because of her gender? And that any work culture where one's gender matters is a toxic culture in itself? A workplace just filled with happy young male developers is not necessarily a healthy environment, or one that necessarily has a good culture.

> Isn't the point she's making that she didn't fit the culture primarily because of her gender?

It is, but the point a lot of people are making here is that maybe she sees the situation in a wrong way, as her perspective is a reflection of her gender, so she cannot really judge if the problems happened primarily because of her gender. Actually, the fact that the other female employees felt secure and relaxed enough that they were hola-hooping in the office suggests otherwise.

> A workplace just filled with happy young male developers is not necessarily a healthy environment, or one that necessarily has a good culture.

It's also not necessarily an unhealthy/toxic environment.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#614

Post by lutusp »

tomp wrote: post #611
a1a wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe this story is on "male behavior" nor an attack on every male in the world. It's an story on predators that happen to be male (and female for that matter). Your answer is kind of what I expected: You believe sexism is an attack on men, and therefore need to be on the defense.

> It's an story on predators that happen to be male (and female for that matter). Don't you think it's then disingenuous to call it sexism?

>> It's an story on predators that happen to be male (and female for that matter).

> Don't you think it's then disingenuous to call it sexism?

Not if each group unfairly characterizes the other based solely on gender traits. Sexism is a two-way street -- if a man says, "All women are dumb", that's very clearly sexist. If a woman says, "All men are rapists," that's equally sexist.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#615

Post by efuquen »

yeukhon wrote: post #183

There seems to be several problems. Not entirely sexism. 1. Founder's wife asked Horvath out and gave her a lecture about who is the boss. Probably out of jealousy. 2. Founder's wife physically inanimate Horvath, making her unwelcome and scared. 3. Founder did not stop the wife and protect his wife. 4. Horvath was approached by a male co-worker and according to her her rejection had caused tension between her and tha…

> See this childish engineer who was rejected by Horvath became angry at her and started ripping her code out.

How does not allowing dating between employees solve this situation? Regardless of whether Horvath was seeing anyone or not she could have rejected this person because she wasn't interested and the same things could have happened. If anything her trying to avoid dating anyone in the office would have led to the same result, so how exactly would a rule like that have helped in this situation?

I think the general mentality of don't date anyone from work is silly, you can't just sweep under the rug any emotions or relationships that might happen to develop with people you work with 5 days out of the week. The important thing is to make sure that no conflict of interest issues develop and make sure these relationships are known so HR can handle them properly.

Of course there are a lot of complicated scenarios that can develop, but like someone else said, we're all adults here. People should be able to handle these things in a professional manner and if they can't then really the company needs to question whether they should be working there in the first place.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#616

Post by gress »

vezzy-fnord wrote: post #566
alxjrvs wrote: post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"PC, overprotective upbringing, and I'm offended by that" are not some new horrible plague - they are attempts to let underprivileged voices and opinions survive. When a black person says that they are proud to be black, they are expressing that they feel a certain pride in their race, which exists in this country thus far as a marginalized and underprivileged set of humanity. Saying you are "Proud to be white" kind…

Judging by your comment history, you do appear to have internalized your ideology very thoroughly. But, no. First of all, your example is biased towards Western society. Expressing white pride in an Eastern Asian society would be absolutely fine, according to your logic. Here's the issue, however. Even though black people have been historically marginalized in the USA (as I'm implicitly assuming this is US-centric) a…

You make it sound as though racism against black people is a largely resolved old issue rather than an active and present problem.

I invite you to take a walk around Oakland and SF and see if you think that is still true.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#617

Post by gruntmaster9000 »

ebfe wrote: post #540
gruntmaster9000 wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Klabnik explains it well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405881 In short, it’s a not-really-present ideal that’s often used to mask the existing power relationships that are really responsible for people being promoted/demoted to where they are.

I love this line of reasoning. X isn't perfectly Y, so let's get rid of it in favor of something that's even farther from Y!

It’s not “get rid of meritocracy” but rather “recognize that it isn’t really meritocracy and it’s preserving problems”.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#618

Post by mattdeboard »

Let's not be too quick to make this an indictment of no-management businesses.

Even if you dismiss the hula-hoop stuff, the involvement of the wife, the lack of grievance resolution, & the under-involvement of HR all point to a serious lack of leadership. It doesn't take a management structure to have good leadership at an organization. It takes leaders.

I have seen the "wife wearing the husband's rank" so much in my life. I spent a decade+ in the Marines, it's very common. I extrapolate from that that it's common in the world. The fact this was allowed does point to an environment where HR was either ignorant, complicit or complacent, otherwise they would have stopped this shit cold.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#619

Post by GFK_of_xmaspast »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #431
gojomo wrote: post #288

While the 'wife' aspect has drawn a lot of attention, it seems that through her marriage she may essentially have a founder's level of equity in the company. I don't know the personalities involved, but she might also have relevant professional experience, and/or have been genuinely helpful in handling thorny issues in the past (even if this case clearly escalated into many kinds of mutual suspicion and recrimination…

> it seems that through her marriage she may essentially have a founder's level of equity in the company What about the founder's mom? Or the founder's father? Or the founder's children? Or the founder's dear grandma? There's a reason why equity and investor/adviser roles should be clear and formalized. Bringing cookies at your spouse's work place doesn't entitle you to anything more than polite greetings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_property

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#620

Post by gress »

wmkn wrote: post #332
jd0 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To clarify for many of you, you don't need someone shouting "I HATE WOMEN" for sexism to be occurring. The sexism in this scenario is subtle and persistent, something that likely tainted all of the workplace interactions at github, allowing a female employee's problems at work to be continually ignored. This eventually built up to the issue most people are focusing on, a founders spouse being allowed to harass an emp…

> The hula hooping moment was important because it visibly demonstrated her male coworkers lack of respect for women as people. Maybe hula-hooping is a common occurrence in Silicon Valley offices, but if my co-workers would be hula-hooping I would be looking as well (regardless whether they are male or female). Probably I would be thinking 'why on earth are you hula-hooping in you workplace instead of working'. I gue…

Hula-hooping is an especially complex example because it sounds like a strip-club kind of activity, but is also a kind of reclaimed hipster activity like knitting or roller-derby.

The connotations depend a lot on the context.

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