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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

#781

Post by droopybuns »

Eliezer wrote: post #644

Ooh! The media! We're supposed to blindly trust their reporting even though they get wrong everything we know about personally, right? Clarification from Julie Ann Horvath describing everything TechCrunch misrepresented in 3... 2... 1... (The real situation may be better or worse. TechCrunch may have left out info that helps or damns GitHub. But you're naive if you think a journalist would report on a story like this…

It would be enlightening to see case studies of instances where anyone in tech tried leveraging journalists to solve career problems.

Over the long term, I am suspicious that volunteering yourself as a subject in someone else's narrative does not do you any favors. It'd be nice to see an analysis on how this kind of response benefits or hurts the subject personally, professionally or emotionally.

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

#782

Post by bsder »

pjc50 wrote: post #385
shadowmint wrote: post #371

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've always been broadly under the impression that the HR department was a waste of air, but I suppose conflict resolution is perhaps something they'd be useful for. ...maybe.

HR, legal, finance and IT are all unpopular for the same reason: it's part of their job to stop you doing things that may get the company in trouble later. Of course, this means they may be at times too conservative in the interests of having an easy life. Doesn't mean they're not useful at all.

IT isn't unpopular when done right. IT exists to help people get shit done, and they need to explain clearly when they can't why they can't. And can't better have a business reason (higher priorities, funding channeled elsewhere, etc.).

The problem with legal is that the safe position is always "no". So, finding legal who understands that businesses sometimes have to take a risk, and we need to know if this is "illegal" as opposed to "inadvisable, because it's going to cost money" as opposed to "inadvisable, because it might cost money but might be worth the payoff" is not easy.

HR is simply useless. It's only useful tasks are all effectively part of "legal". It can't make useful decisions on hiring and actually gets in the way. Any employee with a genuine grievance knows that HR is the companies rep, not yours. Oh, and they generally have access to a whole bunch of things that stir up hideous amounts of politics (salaries, reviews, promotions, etc.) So, what's left that's useful? Nothing.

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

#783

Post by tw268 »

eruditely wrote: post #83
agf wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the implication is that none of this would have happened, or at least would not have been tolerated, if she was male. And it sound like the basis of her relationship with the founder's wife being "crazy" was that she was a female employee. So I'd say sexism played a significant role here.

Uhm, it was female on female. Is male on male intimidation, sexism? Because men are the primary victims of violence, and their sex being highly relevant to that, is that sexist? I don't think you would say that in this case it is. Not to say there can't be girl/women on girl/women sexism.

The facts get you the first 200 upvotes. Accusations of "sexism" get the next 500.

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

#784

Post by facepalm »

blahedo wrote: post #696
wyclif wrote: post #469

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that episode terribly confused, and I never understood the rationale behind it. Isn't "meritocracy" a value and environment that feminists have told us over and over again is a positive development for women? Don't women want to work in a "meritocracy" precisely because their work will be valued and appreciated not because they are women but because excellence at work knows no sex, colour, or creed?

It's certainly something to aspire to. But think about it this way: if someone is claiming that you are already a meritocracy, but their upper management are almost entirely white and male, what subsidiary claim does that seem to be making? Essentially, use of the word as a description (rather than an aspiration) packages up a whole bundle of problematic claims of the form "we're not sexist, we would have more women…

So by removing the rug she already told the management what she thinks of them. No wonder that love didn't really grow between them...

I also don't agree the inverse conclusion (upper management must be all male because women don't have merit) really follows. What if the women in upper management simply work elsewhere? Where there even any women who complained that they weren't in upper management at GitHub? Do they even have a better/worse hierarchy for people so that people not in upper management should feel like losers?

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

#787

Post by mtrimpe »

Udo wrote: post #413
anthonyshort wrote: post #181

Probably worth mentioning that the hula hoop dancing happened at a Github party with a lot of people not from Github. It was also super badass hula hooping, not just regular dancing. Everyone was looking, men and women, because it was pretty awesome.

This info makes the last item of the article even more bizarre. I'm starting to think this was reported inaccurately by TC. Maybe she was really referring to a separate incident that happened at the hula dancing event, an incident we don't have any information about. Otherwise, this makes no sense.

He probably just asked what the straw was that broke the camel's back.

They tend not to be all that huge, being straws and all.

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

#788

Post by bsder »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #398
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).

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…

This bothered me the most:

> Despite its generally female-friendly environment, Horvath claims: “I had a really hard time getting used to the culture, the aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion.”

What? Um, you're the new hire. Demonstrating your worth is a standard phase that even men go through. If the pull request communication is too aggressive, tough. The company does not owe you a change of culture.

Overall, the environment strikes me as not terribly friendly. Okay. That's a culture misfit. Big time.

But why would you stay? Why would you recommend this to other women when you were having such a hard time yourself?

Jesus, I won't recommend companies or people unless I've got a really clear idea that there is a really good fit. It's like being a personal matchmaker, there's not a lot of upside and there is a lot of downside.

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

#789

Post by lnanek2 »

greenrd wrote: post #407
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).

If her problem with it was that some random other guy openly finding some random other girl attractive in her workplace "makes her feel unsafe", then that would be highly hypocritical, as she admits she was dating a coworker and that other coworkers knew this, which can only encourage others to think it's OK to make romantic advances to coworkers. I mean, you can't have it both ways. If you think men and women should…

By the way they kept saying partner I was under the impression she was dating a woman. In which case she could theoretically hate males looking at women and still date a woman on the team.

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

#790

Post by facepalm »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #747
facepalm wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me the issues are less with her stories than with her interpretation of sexism. I haven't seen anybody claim "she's lying" yet.

A lot of people are saying "we have zero evidence, so we must assume that both outcomes are equally likely" which I think is equivalent. It's saying that her words don't carry any weight as evidence unless there are also words from the other parties that confirm.

That's just common sense, though, to wait until you have heard both sides of a story? I don't think it is the same as implying somebody is lying at all.

Experience shows that probably both parties will think their version is the truth. It's just that they will both have selective memories.

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