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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#711

Post by jessedhillon »

s_baby wrote: post #702
jessedhillon wrote: post #621

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major factor you have to always consider when reading HN comments on stories like this -- and I'm not even kidding here -- is that a large percentage of the HN population has no idea how to convince women to have sex with them. I mean, among online forums, I would place good money that HN's readership has one of the highest ratios of adult virgins (non-elective, i.e. not by choice) Why do I think this? Because I've…

>A major factor you have to always consider when reading HN comments on stories like this -- and I'm not even kidding here -- is that a large percentage of the HN population has no idea how to convince women to have sex with them. I mean, among online forums, I would place good money that HN's readership has one of the highest ratios of adult virgins (non-elective, i.e. not by choice) And all feminists are just angry…

Well the most obvious difference would be that I'm describing an objectively verifiable condition whereas you're proposing something between a subjective assessment and a psychological diagnosis.

I'm proposing that there is a willful misunderstanding of a completely reasonable response inline with the HR policies of any established company, and that misunderstanding is pervasive among this crowd. Given my experience with people here, and engineer/hacker types in general who have espoused to me beliefs similar to those expressed here, I'm stating a personal observation/hypothesis:

The reason why so many people here are able to come to the same bizarre conclusion is that they have a shared set of assumptions about the world, what motivates certain people, and what's fair. In this case, the assumption is, essentially, that women are bitches who get everything in the world handed to them and have no reason/right to complain about reasonable behavior by well-intentioned, misunderstood men (with wives and kids, no less!) who were just trying to have a good time.

And this root assumption, in my opinion, is derived from a lifetime of not being able to communicate effectively with women. The culmination of that inability is, of course, sexual frustration.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#712

Post by shardling »

angersock wrote: post #693
shardling wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be an ideal situation in a world that isn't sexist. But since our society is , we have to deal with the consequences of that power imbalance. And a lot of things that should in the abstract be harmless are not in reality. Pretending otherwise is just silly -- or defensive, in the case of a lot of folk in this thread.

Mind backing up either of your points? I pull two things from your post: a) Somehow a world with sexism can't enjoy a simple dirty joke. b) We each have a personal duty to avoid dirty jokes due to a "power imbalance". c) There is indeed some sort of power imbalance worth correcting which is not already being corrected. d) Some generic abstract thing is harmless, but really it actually isn't ~-=in the real world=-~. e…

You, err, have trouble counting to two. :P

My post is responding to this statement of yours:

>we should treat sexually explicit jokes as something not worth getting bent out of shape about

That sounds reasonable. But it ignores the fact that this isn't how sexually explicit jokes are used. They often are, in fact, specifically used in order to harass women. And historically it has been extremely difficult for women to do anything about this type of harassment, exactly because that isn't how most men perceive that type of joke. It was viewed as harmless by the people with power, because their experience hadn't exposed them to the negative aspects of it.

The reaction of someone to this type of joke exists in exactly that context. And yes, I am definitely saying it is silly to ignore that context!

Re: The PyCon Incident

#713

Post by sophacles »

revelation wrote: post #263
djcapelis wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In that role, your twitter account is very much an extension of your job. I'm not sure I agree with you, but I think this is an interesting point in the debate and wanted to acknowledge that even though I don't have a snappy response for you at the present time. Hopefully other people engage this point. It seems worth talking about.

Maybe what you are getting at is "are we okay with jobs where your personal social media account is a job function?". I personally think no, but at this point, we can't put the "social media" genie back into the bottle, and it is only going to get worse with products like Glass. Many journalists nowadays have a twitter account because of their work, and news websites syndicate from their personal accounts.

The distinction between "professional life" and "personal life" is artificial anyway. Business connections are regularly between people who are friends outside of business. The way you act at the bar may be seen by business contacts. Reputation gets around. Social media is just making it more apparent.

Some things are different in because of it - but honestly if you care about your public image, you shouldn't share 'private ' jokes on a very public medium.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#714

Post by geekam »

I was wondering that what happens if you are standing with a couple of people and one of them drops a sexist joke. You did not have anything to do with it, and you do not support that behavior but you just happened to be standing there. In that case that picture that Adira took, would get you in trouble as well. Won't it?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#715

Post by wpietri »

songzme wrote: post #181
outside1234 wrote: post #143

I don't get it. Are there folks amongst us that really so socially inept that they think its ok to make a dick joke at a conference regardless of context? Its a professional conference and that is not professional behavior.

If women sitting behind me makes a period joke I'd be totally fine with it. People attend Professional conferences and people have personality. I'd rather to go to professional conference and meet people for who they are and not their professional facade.

I understand why you think reversing the genders is a good way to have an intuition about whether this is reasonable.

But it's not, because you still bring along a lot of your experience with you into the hypothetical. You're used to being in the majority. You are unlikely to have experienced unwanted sexual advances, sexual harassment, or sexual assault. You are at low risk of those happening in the future.

So a period joke (which isn't sexual) wouldn't phase you. Even some joke that does sexualize the context probably wouldn't bother you. You'll still feel as safe and respected as before. But that's not true for a lot of women.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#716

Post by ceol »

katbyte wrote: post #607
ceol wrote: post #577

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, I'm wondering what world you all live in where posting a photograph of someone with no name or identity attached is "publicly shaming" them.

well i could be a smart ass and say a world with face recognition & the internets. Or just point out that in the photo https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464/... you can clearly see both their badges (with names) and their are wearing their companies t-shirt. Also she really should have cropped it because the poor man on the left is going to be mistaken for the one of them now.

"Alex" something? I can't read that.

And I think their company might have more than one bearded guy on staff, so it's hardly obvious.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#717

Post by bmjunk »

Now this is funny. I just expressed my opinion on the PyCon incident on Twitter where I wanted SendGrid to take strict action on Adria for abuse of power and also stated that it sets a scary precedent if they turn a blind eye to this. And what happens in like 5 minutes? I get added to long list of people in a Twitter list by this lady @estellevw. The list is called "Priviledged Asshats" (No idea if the spelling is intentional). https://twitter.com/estellevw/priviledged-asshats You heard it right folks! Someone has painstakingly created a list and is scanning Twitter for tweets and is adding them to the list. Pretty much over the top reaction to a balanced statement made on Twitter. Just as over the top as Adria's childish actions.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#718

Post by ulyssesgrant »

btilly wrote: post #541
peterhunt wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was a private conversation between two friends, none of whom referenced her or even knew she was listening.

This was a private conversation between two friends, none of whom referenced her or even knew she was listening. Are you sure? How do you know? If my reading of her article is correct, and she was telling the truth, then she did not think so. That does not mean that she was correct. And with a he said, she said situation there is no chance of sorting things out. But your unsupported assertion of fact is not necessari…

Don't you think you're reading between the lines a bit too much here? Don't you think that if Adria really felt they were addressing her, she would have explicitly stated that as it would completely change the context of the situation?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#719

Post by sp332 »

groby_b wrote: post #469
sp332 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 con…

I'm also not exchanging soup recipes, beauty tips, or nutrition experiences, because they're not appropriate either.

Would you ask a conference organizer to remove people from the room for making bad soup jokes? "My vichyssoise has sprung a leek!"

I'm pretty OK with how she handled this situation, except for posting the issue publicly on twitter. Her complaint was calm, personal, went through proper channels, and was clearly in line with this particular conference's attitudes and culture... except the public shaming of the dudes on twitter.

I've worked in software for about 10 years, and I'll admit there are a lot of guys with a 14-year old sense of humor in the field. But I've only seen one who didn't take people's feelings into account and tone things down if anyone, especially a woman, was uncomfortable. Clearly I'm going to the wrong conferences.

Edit: Just found this quote, "You know how movies always have sex scenes and the studios say that is because sex is part of life and movies should be lifelike? So why don't movies have more soup scenes? Soup is part of life; no one was ever too tired to have soup." -Jackie Mason, The World According to Me

Re: The PyCon Incident

#720

Post by rdl »

grogenaut wrote: post #553
rdl wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also got one. I think it's just ddos right now from everywhere.

I think it's just the much lauded cloud flare showing their true colors.

Indeed -- defending a blog (effectively, and for free) against a moderate DDoS :)
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