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The PyCon Incident

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Re: The PyCon Incident

#821

Post by camelite »

wpietri wrote: post #797
camelite wrote: post #772

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's fair to hold "witnesses" and "reporters" responsible for the consequence of what they say. The person responsible for the speech that was reported are the people speaking; the person responsible for the reportage of the speech is the person who did the reporting. The former resulted in a woman being uncomfortable while the latter lost a father of three his livelihood. You've got a problem with apposite…

I see. So in your view, she should have inquired how many children he had? Is she also obligated to consider that in reporting the incident to conference staff? Or mentioning it to a friend? After all, either one of those could also conceivably result in the guy losing his job. For the record, I should say that I agree that dongle jokes are not rape, and have never said otherwise.

i) The children don't come into it because she should have known that her actions were wildly disproportionate even if there were no dependents involved. Do you agree or disagree that her response lacked proportionality?

ii) Again, I'll point out that she did not in fact just report the incident to the conference staff. Any hypothetical scenario in which her response was not to publicise her grievance misses the main reason she deserves the harsh judgement she is receiving.

iii) You're presenting completely irrelevent scenarios as if they're relevant. Is the standard for responsible behaviour in the case of the gang rape of an unconscious teen different from the standard for responsible behaviour in the case of hearing a mildly risque joke by a guy in the row behind you at a tech conference? Is it very different? Is is very very very different? Is is perhaps so very different as to be utterly irrelevant?

Like I said, you have a problem with presenting apposite context and addressing proportionality. Try talking about what actually happened.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#822

Post by newnewnew »

shardling wrote: post #414
angersock wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go so far as to say that--sex and reproduction being the original design goal of any lifeform--we should treat sexually explicit jokes as something not worth getting bent out of shape about, provided they aren't interfering with the task at hand. A couple of dudes making stupid dick jokes to each other in hall of hundreds doesn't really seem to me to be that big an issue.

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.

>"But since our society is, we have to deal with the consequences of that power imbalance."

Who had the power in this situation? The propaganda and the reality are out of tune.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#823

Post by porker »

It would be interesting to know how companies in different countries could handle this. Is such a comment a fireable offence in them all, or would he have good grounds for an employment tribunal in a country other than the USA?

Re: The PyCon Incident

#824

Post by newnewnew »

edmond_dantes wrote: post #682
newnewnew wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like those that say the goals of feminism are to create a privileged class of women have some evidence. Women can now rule men by right of whether or not they are "offended" (note, that only the offense of protected classes are holy, and men are not a protected class).

What evidence did you find in my comment that privileged women over men? Adria was offended and I disagreed with her assessment of sexism and exclusion. What your describing isn't feminism, but some kind of matriarchy where we must appease and not offend the ruling class of women.

If a man gets offended, nobody gives a care.

If a woman gets offended, it's a corporate crisis and you have to fire the guy responsible and publicly apologize.

There's some real bad harassment and sexism out there. But we need to be careful what we label. The fact that someone took offense isn't the standard by which it ought to be judged.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#825

Post by tomp »

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…

> why do people still believe sexist jokes are cool?

Do you see a difference between sexist jokes and jokes about sex, or are these categories the same for you?

This question might sound provocative, "Are you and idiot or yes?" kind of question, but it really is not. Personally, I think there is a difference, but I'm rather unique in this regard, as I don't feel discriminated/excluded/offended if someone makes a joke about anything that I might identify it. I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from.

I believe there are jokes about black people that I wouldn't consider racist (although I don't know how black people would feel about them). For example:

> A black family is enjoying summer on the beach. The kid asks his father: "Daddy, daddy, can I play with your penis?" The father answers: "Ok, just don't go too far."

I find this funny, and to be hones, I would be flattered if people would make the same joke about my race (I'm white).

Re: The PyCon Incident

#826

Post by rye »

adamnemecek wrote: post #402

Someone on reddit dug up an old tweet from her. "Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power" https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858 Words fail me. (I realize that it's unrelated but it provides some insight into her mentality).

Lets make that one permanent, shall we? http://imgur.com/Lqa5NJS

Re: The PyCon Incident

#827

Post by newnewnew »

wpietri wrote: post #678
newnewnew wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So now we have license to police other people's conversations if we are members of a protected group?

Good news! You also can police conversations. Even when you're not a member of a protected group. That's especially true when the conference has a clear policy on the sorts of topics allowed. For example, it turns out white people don't have to just sit there when somebody's being racist. They can speak up just as much as a black person can.

It's kind of hard to figure out what to do. Harassment is obviously something I would speak out against. But when we define "harassment" to be whatever a minority member in earshot finds offensive things become murky. Perhaps I should constantly poll nearby women at a conference - "ma'am, has anybody said anything recently which you find offensive?"

There is such a thing as unacceptable behavior. But the measure of that is not whether some member of a protected group was offended. Nobody has the right to never be offended in a public place.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#828

Post by tiredofcareer »

fusiongyro wrote: post #782
tiredofcareer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you got from the quoted portion to your conclusion. I don't need to make dick jokes to write code. I'm not lamenting the loss of base humor. I'm lamenting the guerrilla campaign against it, such as considering it okay to take photos of someone and shame them publicly without even saying a word to them as if we live in 1984 . Notice I didn't type anything like "boy, I'll sure miss dick jokes," so I su…

Let's set aside the current situation. Surely you're not leaving your career because last week somebody indirectly caused some poor schmuck to get fired for being a goober at a conference you didn't even attend. Your complaints only make sense if you perceive the situational sum total of the sexism or plain offensiveness as being more similar to this event, rather than seeing this event as an anomaly. But this situat…

> Surely you're not leaving your career because last week somebody indirectly caused some poor schmuck to get fired for being a goober at a conference you didn't even attend.

I mean, if I were considering it with 30 units of determination and after this incident I'm considering it with 30.15 units of determination, it's certainly on the road. It wouldn't be the entire catalyst, but it's another let-down in a long line of being sad on Christmas from my chosen profession. Let's be serious, there are much worse potholes in our rear view.

I'm still not sure I agree that I'm desiring to be offensive with this line of thought, as my underlying goal. Just that I wish we'd talk to each other like, you know, adults. With words. In faces. I'm come to accept that I'm going to work with people that have terrible senses of humor. Shit, I do too. I'd rather we can work together instead of draw lines in the sand over feelings. We're all in this, learning, together. Cheesy song.

This will sound silly, but I just feel like the number of intolerable people in this industry is multiplying (sexist or otherwise; 'temperamental' is growing on my list, as is 'permanent contrarian', a couple rapid-growth archetype markets).

Thoughtful comment, thank you for replying so well.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#829

Post by _pmf_ »

copx wrote: post #362

Why does this always happen at Python or Ruby conferences? I have never heard of such ridiculous drama at C++ conferences for example. There seems to be a curious link between programming languages and culture. I mean people interested in Python can obviously start a major drama over a harmless juvenile comment like that. I remember seeing Andrei Alexandrescu (of C++ and D fame) joke about the double meaning of the t…

> Why does this always happen at Python or Ruby conferences?

A cynic observer might say this is because you don't see that many juvenile 'superstar' dickheads and no education-free 'tech evangelists' at, say, an embedded development conference.

Re: The PyCon Incident

#830

Post by coldtea »

What they said could have been sexist or whatever. If it was in the form of a joke, and not directed at some woman, it's their bloody right to say anything they want. Jokes are not supposed to be tame or PC. Real life is not the Disney channel.

Being a snitch and getting people fired (and for something they merely said --in JEST!) is far worse. What she did is so much more morally repugnant than being "sexist" that it's not even funny.

The Puritan heritage of USA somehow always lives on, even in supposedly "progressive" forms.

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