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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#721

Post by SilasX »

rhizome wrote: post #215
katbyte wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

as "a women in tech" (god i hate even saying it like that lol) i totally agree. i think what she did was absurd. It wasn't even a lewd or offensive joke. Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. If it was bothersome in anyway it was they were so loud she was paying more attention to them and they private conversations and not the speaker. Sh…

Maybe its my social group but something like that would even cause any of us (more women in tech) to even bat an eye. My sense is that she herself didn't bat much of an eye until she decided that it was a problem. If you read her account, she acted in order to protect a photograph: I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop. I realized I had to do something or she would nev…

I want to understand Richards's perspective, but that post is about 99% indignation about how important it is not to have a discouraging environment for women, and about 1% actual description of what happened. All I got out of those ~600 words was that the joke involved forking and dongles "in a sexual way".

That's one step removed from being asked to take your word on what happened; that's asking to accept your interpretation. For all I know (from that post), he was joking about how you'd need a huge dongle to fork anything of theirs because of how protective their are of their IP, and then Richards pattern-matched it to a common meme.

If it's important enough to broadcast, it's important enough to get the details straight and not have to rely on someone's interpretation.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#722

Post by shardling »

adamnemecek wrote: post #675
mynameishere wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Words fail me. Words fail you? That view is establishment orthodoxy. Were you seriously not aware of that?

I was not, no.

It's pretty simple when you strip away the rhetoric, and let go of preconceived notions of what the words mean.

Racism can kind of exist on an individual level between any two people. (X refuses to serve Y because they're from New Zealand.) But racism is only a social problem when the people with racist views have the power to enforce them. The power is key to the social dynamic; without power, what large scale effect does racism have?

Now social scientists (and a lot of other academics) care about racism only as a social problem (that's their field of study!); they define racism in a way that makes sense in that context. Racism is a set of cultural behaviors that has the effect of oppressing a particular racial group. Sexism is behavior that has the effect of oppressing women. (Note that the definition is based on effect, and not intent. From a social perspective, intent doesn't really matter.) This isn't some insane world view. It's jargon, just like the word momentum means something a bit different in the context of physics than it does in politics.

Unfortunately, for whatever reason, a lot of people will argue on the internet about racism/sexism/etc without even checking whether they're using the word the same way. :( People like you maybe haven't been exposed to this other definition, but I have no idea why social justice types aren't more careful to avoid misunderstanding.

But please, don't write off the fundamental ideas behind this particular use, just because it surprises you. There are a lot of valid ideas there even if you don't like the particular set of terms associated with it.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#723

Post by geekam »

shardling wrote: post #456
pizzeys wrote: post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She didn't use the exact word 'sexism', but her blog post very much made it out to be a sexism issue.

Did she? I just read the entire post, and I disagree. http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont... It certainly exists within the context of gender issues at a tech conference, but she didn't even go so far as to label the jokes sexist -- just something that would make some women uncomfortable. (Which is obviously true, given her response!)

I think there are tougher but better ways to deal with the issue (like facing the two men) than to hide behind your twitter followers.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#724

Post by flyosity »

jasonlotito wrote: post #281
sergiotapia wrote: post #17

I already sent SendGrid's sales department an email that I will boycott their company and recommend others do so as well moving forward. Where I work we were considering between SendGrid or Mandrill and this incident practically made our choice for us. We cannot and _will not_ support a company that backs[1] a person like this. [1] - https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/314452708549603328

So, just to be clear, you are boycotting a company that employees someone who upholds the code of conduct agreed to by all attendees of pycon, but make no mention of the company that actually fired the guy. Gotcha.

Actually, she broke the code as well by taking someone's photo without their consent.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#725

Post by discodave »

vilda wrote: post #486
hythloday wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The results of two experiments supported the hypothesis that, for sexist men, exposure to sexist humour can promote the behavioural release of prejudice against women." http://psp.sagepub.com/content/34/2/159.abstract Women are tangibly harmed by sexist jokes.

"for sexist men, exposure to sexist humor can promote the behavioral release of prejudice against women" Am I reading it right that this makes the study irrelevant? Isn't it like "for violent men, playing violent games makes them violent"?

More like "for violent men, playing violent games makes them MORE violent"

Re: The PyCon Incident

#726

Post by hazov »

danilocampos wrote: post #22

Couple pieces to this. First – the fact that this guy's employer made a kneejerk reaction is no one's fault but the employer. Next – let's talk about this red herring of "sexism." Making a phallus joke might be sexist depending on context. Or it might not be. Sexism is not at issue here. The individual in question concedes that they did, in fact, make the joke. From PyCon's code of conduct: "All communication should…

The fact that someone post photos of others to her twitter's followers is also no one's fault but your friend, this along with the dick joke triggered everything, it was a poor decision making just like telling dick jokes in the middle of the crowd, I do give her the benefit of doubt believing she intended no harm, but something happened and now a guy have no job, I think at least should acknowledge that.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#727

Post by stdgy »

groby_b wrote: post #623
tomp wrote: post #546

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm also not exchanging soup recipes, beauty tips, or nutrition experiences, because they're not appropriate either. "Oh, man, you gotta try that new Mexican restaurant down the block, it's delicious." "Let me tell you about this new anti-herpes product, it might help you." ... I can totally imagine such statements being spoken amongst friends (not on stage, though), and nobody getting fired.

I'm not commenting on the "getting fired" part. That's a tricky decision, but keep in mind the people in question were there as "Evangelists". Which means you really want to watch what you say. If you spoke about the cool Mexican restaurant during the presentation, I'd sure as hell call you out on it. But it's still different from the jokes in that it doesn't make anybody feel excluded. Sexual jokes do - they signal…

But it's still different from the jokes in that it doesn't make anybody feel excluded. Sexual jokes do - they signal clearly to women that they are an entertainment object.

I certainly agree that certain types of tasteless jokes can, and often do, objectify women. But what about a dongle/dong metaphor objectifies women? That's a rather severe overreach.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#728

Post by mamoswined »

jessedhillon wrote: post #700
mamoswined wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't find that comment "gross" at all. If I fired everyone who said "gross" things at work or at conferences, we'd have no employees, but we clearly have different definitions of gross. I would however, be annoyed if someone said those things to a client. But I bet you wouldn't even bat an eyelash if I made those jokes and sometimes I worry I have gotten into bad habits with my language because of who I am. I conf…

Actually, what I meant by gross was just the idea of these guys sitting around making innuendo within earshot of a public audience. Not the specific joke, do we even know what it was? Frankly, I have a hard time believing your position is genuine and well-considered. On the one hand, you understand why you wouldn't want employees talking this to a client. But as a walking billboard for your company in front of a rand…

"Actually, what I meant by gross was just the idea of these guys sitting around making innuendo within earshot of a public audience. Not the specific joke, do we even know what it was?"

I guess you should read about the issue you are arguing about?

"In front of a random audience," I mean come on, it's not like they were on stage. Maybe they were a little inconsiderate, I've said maybe kind of offensive things and then realized people around me could hear. You probably have too. But it's like the secret police and you can't slip up anymore I guess.

And what I meant is that gross is pretty subjective, so I don't go around rejecting people who I feel are "gross" or who do "gross" things. Misogyny is a terrible problem, being "gross" is just a social issue that I should let people know about. This whole conversation just underlines to me that this is social bullying masquerading as feminism or "professionalism."

IT is a hugely diverse field. When I worked in academia it was an environment where I could not have the jokey environment you might have at a small startup, so that's also something to be mindful of.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#729

Post by scintill76 »

rmrfrmrf wrote: post #611
vor_ wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Adria's posting of the picture without consent was itself a violation of PyCon's code of conduct. Frankly, it's hard to understand her position when she made the same kind of dick joke on Twitter in public to a friend where everyone could see it. As it is, we have a situation where someone who makes dick jokes to her friends overheard someone else making a dick joke to a friend and intentionally shamed them by…

> Frankly, it's hard to understand her position when she made the same kind of dick joke on Twitter in public to a friend where everyone could see it. Since when is Twitter the same thing as a professional conference? Why are the majority of the commenters on HN completely missing the point?

> Since when is Twitter the same thing as a professional conference?

First, she mentioned PyCon in that Twitter conversation[1]. If she had hashtagged it, there would be a stronger argument, but either way we might say she's having an "inappropriate conversation" in the "vicinity" of the conference. People searching about conference might see this, just like people at the conference might have heard the same inappropriate joke.

If we look deeper I think "but she made similar jokes" has other merit. What's the point of having "professionalism" rules at a conference? Because everyone is there publicly representing a company, and because they don't want distractions from the purposes of the conference.

Adria is a public representative of her company, and apparently uses her Twitter account in connection with that. Why does she get to mix her personal life into a public-facing account, complete with "overhearable" unprofessional jokes, but two friends in the same room with her can't do the same?

The only good reason I can think of is "because the conference rules say so, and they all agreed to them." Any other reason for her getting to be offended about a joke quietly exchanged between two well-acquainted professionals but overhearable in public, is hypocritical, because she set up the exact same situation on Twitter. When you consider her inappropriate, overreacting, passive-aggressive response, and calling them "ass clowns" on her blog[2] (it's at least partially profesionally-oriented, by the way), it just gets more frustrating.

1: https://twitter.com/skwashd/status/312260981914992640

2: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont...

Re: The PyCon Incident

#730

Post by adamnemecek »

shardling wrote: post #722
adamnemecek wrote: post #675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not, no.

It's pretty simple when you strip away the rhetoric, and let go of preconceived notions of what the words mean. Racism can kind of exist on an individual level between any two people. (X refuses to serve Y because they're from New Zealand.) But racism is only a social problem when the people with racist views have the power to enforce them. The power is key to the social dynamic; without power, what large scale effec…

Sounds like a pretty US-centric idea, yet it makes somewhat broad statements.
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