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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

#621

Post by voidlogic »

Nursie wrote: post #335
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…

>>The founder has a good point: try to avoid dating someone working with you Could not disagree more. It's none of the founder's business and the culture in the US that tries to forbid this is sick.

Come let me exploit you and convince the meaningless amount of equity I give you is worth working 80 hours a week.

And, even though you don't have time to meet anyone, you can't form a life bond with the designer that you work with everyday- despite you mutually digg each-other and are best friends.

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

#622

Post by soheil »

robobro wrote: post #316

Hmmm. Here's my 2 cents. Every office has "that person" who causes/gets involved in drama, starts pointless arguments, or refuses to cooperate. Let's assume, just for entertainment' sake, that she got bored of working there, and asked herself, what looks better on my resume? Worked at GitHub, got bored/wanted a higher salary/wanted to do less work, left... or worked at GitHub and got bullied out of the marketplace fo…

Agree with you, although I still think you will get many "shouting responses like "Victim blamer!" or "Misogynist!""

"The aforementioned wife began a pattern of passive aggressive behavior that included sitting close to Horvath, to, as she told TechCrunch, “make a point of intimidating” her."

Get a freaking life, go sit somewhere else if you see her sitting close to you. And are you a mind-reader? What if she wasn't being "passive aggressive" and just wanted to sit there! Unbelievable how as soon as a woman is involved in tech industry everything blows out of proportion.

Again no one is winning, when a woman "stands for her rights", because when you stand up for your rights that means you have to be standing up against someone, that is a male or a female. If you're standing up against a female well you're not helping the women cause. If it's a male you make the industry look even worse than it is by portraying men as monster bullies who will do and say anything to destroy a "woman". The argument against men can only win if we keep repeating the same fairytales that we keep hearing from the likes of her.

Geeks building an amazing platform like Github are different than the sexy attractive guys that you see on TV. Their passion lies with technology they are not here to gossip or put anyone down intentionally. We simply have better things to focus on than caring about your petty feelings. We're men building shit! Unless what women see men as changes drastically I don't see how men in positions like this would take women as seriously as other men. And by that I mean you can't think the guy must have a six-pack, not be nerdy, talk to you about your feelings when you're down. This is not reality but this is what women are brainwashed to expect from men in order to even truly respect them as human beings. This is mainly the effects of watching TV and other media, etc.

Change your perspective about your enemy (stop calling men your enemies) and see if there is still such huge gender imbalance in tech.

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

#623

Post by cossatot »

facepalm wrote: post #372
harshreality wrote: post #190

The article quotes JAH's email as saying, "Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for…

I think it's really a huge stretch to go from oogling of hula hoopers to "feeling unsafe". What, after watching some women do hoola hoop men suddenly turn into rapists? That's 100% in her head and sounds slightly crazy to me, to be honest. Not even going to strip clubs turns men into rapists on a regular basis... I think that accusation is completely unwarranted (from the sounds of it).

Something that has become clear to me fairly late in life is how sensitive many women are to feeling sexually threatened, and I've noticed this even in my wife, who is an incredibly adventurous person (e.g. she has lead multiple months-long geological expeditions in Tibet where she is both the only woman and the only Westerner). I think it's a brain-stem type reaction, not a rational one, but once people begin to feel deep-seated fear, there's not a lot that can make it go away.

Although I agree that in many cases, such as this one by the sounds of it (limited information, though), there may be a very low degree of physical danger, I think it is best just to realize/accept that women have a deep-seated fear of sexual, physical and emotional aggression that many men do not have, and adjust one's behavior and expectations accordingly to try to make women feel a little safer. It's pretty rare that this causes any actual inconvenience, other than like not sharing a hotel room on a business trip.

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

#624

Post by glibgil »

buro9 wrote: post #293
sgentle wrote: post #235

Ouch. What a terrible situation. I'm holding out for the other side of the story, but unless you're willing to assume the entire thing is invented this is a major fuckup for GitHub. I think this is a classic problem with companies making the transition from small startup to regular business. Break down the barriers! Flat management! Kill bureaucracy and embrace no-politics DIY organisation! The article reads like an…

> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder? This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff. Even with allowances that company property remains company property and private chat rooms are in fact non-privat…

I love github, but toxic cultures can happen anywhere. Github employees have been involved in commit abuse since the beginning https://web.archive.org/web/20130117043748/http://sheddingbi...

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

#625

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

buro9 wrote: post #293
sgentle wrote: post #235

Ouch. What a terrible situation. I'm holding out for the other side of the story, but unless you're willing to assume the entire thing is invented this is a major fuckup for GitHub. I think this is a classic problem with companies making the transition from small startup to regular business. Break down the barriers! Flat management! Kill bureaucracy and embrace no-politics DIY organisation! The article reads like an…

> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder? This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff. Even with allowances that company property remains company property and private chat rooms are in fact non-privat…

> the question should be asked very loud and clear... "Who can access private company data, why, and for what reason?"

I am against using private github repos simply because: it's safe to assume that the NSA can access them via hardware backdoors on github's premises (as per many US ISPs), or by compromising crypto keys that github holds (as per lavabit).

It's also safe to assume that github will be legally compelled to either remain silent on this topic or lie and deny it.

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

#626

Post by [deleted] »

moron4hire wrote: post #579
parennoob wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The hula hooping moment was important because it visibly demonstrated her male coworkers lack of respect for women as people. They were unabashedly staring at their female coworkers as "eyecandy" in that moment and even defended their doing so. Totally disagree. If someone is hula hooping in a company that usually builds software to host version control repositories, they are doing something quite out of the ordina…

Your only source on this story is Horvath's recounting of it, and she says it was inappropriate. By what means do we have to question her assessment of the events? In questioning her, with no other information, you're saying "I don't believe you, you've irrationally overreacted". And that can only based not on the facts of the situation, but on your personal opinions of what "women" in aggregate are like. In other wo…

[deleted]

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

#627

Post by jusben1369 »

jessedhillon wrote: post #587
ZoF wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This post really bothers me somehow. Edit: Figured out why. I don't understand why saying, "people will call me sexist for this" immediately validates your statement as "not intended to be sexist". >"If you are male and a founder, one of your most valuable business resources is your wife. People will call me sexist for saying this, I expect, but women think socially with a level of complexity that I think most men ne…

I think it might bother you because the author assumes that's his own inability to navigate complex social relationships is innate to his maleness. In fact, many men are adept at understanding social and emotional subtexts very well. There's no magnitude-order difference in innate ability as described, or if there is, it's not a permanent, unlearnable gulf. This comment bothered me because OP is fetishizing and token…

Yes I think you nailed it. "I don't suck at this and can't improve at it because it's a male thing and I'm a male"

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

#628

Post by gress »

cossatot wrote: post #623
facepalm wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's really a huge stretch to go from oogling of hula hoopers to "feeling unsafe". What, after watching some women do hoola hoop men suddenly turn into rapists? That's 100% in her head and sounds slightly crazy to me, to be honest. Not even going to strip clubs turns men into rapists on a regular basis... I think that accusation is completely unwarranted (from the sounds of it).

Something that has become clear to me fairly late in life is how sensitive many women are to feeling sexually threatened, and I've noticed this even in my wife, who is an incredibly adventurous person (e.g. she has lead multiple months-long geological expeditions in Tibet where she is both the only woman and the only Westerner). I think it's a brain-stem type reaction, not a rational one, but once people begin to fee…

If it's actually a conditioned response, from experiencing a lot of unwanted attention from men over time, treating it as a 'brain stem' reaction will only prevent society from resolving the problem.

Women will forever be afraid of men, and men will forever be cast as bad.

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

#629

Post by voidlogic »

enneff wrote: post #220
[deleted] wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

> Men are worse than women at being able to effectively mediate conflicts between two members of the opposite sex. The poor emotionally-unequipped male is powerless to do anything! Do you realise how absurd this sounds?

I think this cuts both ways, I find women have a poor understanding of the dynamics's of men's relationships.

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

#630

Post by gruntmaster9000 »

clavalle wrote: post #523
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.

The assumption underlying this analysis is that no merit exists outside of subjective value judgement. Furthermore, subjective value judgments are biased in favor of the existing privileged groups. Do I have that about right?

Sort of. “Merit” is more a measure of those groups’ definitions of success. Calling it a meritocracy overly simplifies the circumstances for that success, often reinforcing the power relationships.
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