Inappropriate comments at pycon 2013 called out

Well, I would certainly expect the 'attempt at informal logic is ... laughable'. I wrote it to be ridiculous.

I guess I shouldn't have bothered with the reply, as it appears to have triggered a pissing contest over Logic technicalities. Or perhaps you think a dispute on mechanics is going to erase the problems inherent in the idea that selective power assignments to individual agents based on uncontrolled genetic factors is required to determine whether or not an act of sexism is verifiable sexism.

The efforts to redefine sexism/racism/etc as power-dependent are philosophically problematic. I'm rather uncertain we'd get anywhere on the issue.

I doubt that one guy joking about dongles constitutes a sexist comment. Also 25% of people who drive have been in a car accident. So should I think "Maybe some of the people sitting next to me have been in car accidents, and me talking about cars might remind them of a traumatic experience?" While what the men did was immature and inappropriate it didn't require the response it did. Also 20% of men have also been sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, also it been shown that men are a lot less likely to report it then woman so we can only guess how high that number is. So men can also be looking over their shoulders. All the things you're saying can also be flipped around to men. We should be aware of offending anyone not just women. I don't think you should use the phrases "known space" and "absolutely" those aren't proved facts. The bottom line is that, that one guy was being immature, but it didn't constitute him getting fired he never mentioned females in any offensive manner.

(Read your post and thought I would comment here)

I am a male. I have worked in 2 small Indian companies (I wouldn't call them startups) over the past 2 years. A year at the first and 6 months at the second. Almost all guys/girls in early 20s (I will be 23 next month).

We have a kind of unfriendly-to-women culture here in India, so I thought I would tell you what I think. Though reading about the current saga has made me think if this cultural thing exists here only or...

We had a girl in a team of 7-8 developers at my second company, and she was good at work. I have seen a kind of disdain for her as a female colleague, in the sense that her successes were obvious (easy task/project etc) and hence ignored, and her failures (at the milestone level or the occasional short term project) were obvious too, but not ignored between the males (including me to at least some extent).

About once a week or so, someone would say some double-meaning thing in her presence (99% unknowingly, or I am too naive), and she would laugh it off mostly, or simply ignore it. This made us respect her more, since she was letting us be ourselves (however stupid we were).

I think she made the males like her because of her good work and great nature. When a common friend (same team) asked me if he should get her to moonlight with him on some contracting work, I told him I would love to work with a developer like her. Since this was kind of illegal with our company, so me recommending her meant that I liked her as a developer and trusted her as a fellow professional/person.

However, she is just one person. There are many others too, and each of us, male or female or other has the right to think what we think and say what we want. In addition, we have the right to not listen to bullshit from others. The definition of bullshit varies according to the person, just like beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. I appreciate your point of view, but we have to appreciate Adria's point of view and feelings too. If she did not feel right about something, then that was that, and all she did was to get the (accused) guys away/quiet. What happened on the internet after that is, IMHO, a large slugfest, nothing more and nothing less.

Lets just change the perspective a bit.

I do not smoke, and will not appreciate people smoking near me. So, if you and your friends love smoking and you guys are smoking within a couple feet from me in a public place, I have the right to tell you guys off. If due to some reason, I feel that I should get someone in authority to help, say the police etc., then too I am not in the wrong. Because it might be harmless fun for you and your friends, but it is not the same for me and as a human I have the right to make it right for myself.

Yes, I do not like the way girls talk about shopping and little children etc., and I positively dislike the way a lot of them comment (without being mean) on my complexion or my big nose or (if they know me from school) the way I got defeated at judo once within 10 seconds, but I think the whole thing about Adria and the guy(s) got blown out of proportion. Probably because of her decision to take to a fully open medium like twitter. And two people have lost their jobs without too much of an issue.

It really is unfortunate that Adria didn't just reach out to you. I think we can all agree with that. At this point, it's clear to most of us that we all just need to be a bit more human with each other when running around at tech events. It's about intentions, you didn't intend harm; alas, it seems she did (no doubt to a much lesser degree than what actually happened).

It's classy to apologize when you think you've upset someone. And if that's how you're going to sleep at night, apologize.

What's awful at this point is the amount of hatred going around in regards to this situation. Here we have a sane response to an immature situation. Sine then, there is an army of commenters attacking Adria with hate on your behalf (something I know isn't your fault). People are sending Adria pictures of chopped up bodies with threats that she's next. They're asking for her to be raped, or threatening to do it themselves. She's been called every word in the book, with the worst intentions ever.

Seems Adria got her feminist conversation, but not in the way she had intended. There are some really really horrible people out there in internet land.

If you read the PyCon public release, they did. She complained to the organizers, who did the right thing. They privately brought the two sides (don't know if in the same room, same time, etc) to address the issue. They privately resolved it and decided no further action was needed. It was taken to a whole new level when she decided to publicly publish the picture and one side of the story.

She has no class in my opinion. You scold in private and praise in public. Sociopaths get this reversed.