871–880 of 1001 posts
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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…
Her post is quite good, and provides a very good argumentation for her actions. For a moment, I almost agreed with her. Then I realized the problem, the same one that feminists are facing more and more; women want to be equal, but they want to keep certain privileges. They want to be accepted by men in tech as equals, but be spared sex jokes (that, btw, have nothing to do with tech, but have a lot to do with men; in…
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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…
Indeed, I am really puzzled as to why these "jokes" are supposed to be offensive to women. They might be offensive to people raised in some cultures / subcultures, and they don't sound like they're great jokes in any culture, but nobody ever told me about the meeting where women decided knob jokes were offensive. In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago.
It's a signifier between two friends that they are relaxed enough to make retarded jokes. So they weren't being childish, it's normal behavior for sophisticated people to occasionally deliberately make stupid jokes.
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…
Not being able to make sexually explicit jokes in private at a public conference is absolute ludicrous. No question that the offender here is the person posting this out of context and seemingly out of spite.
In this case, the conference had an explicit policy prohibiting sexually explicit jokes. You can read the policy here: https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/
Note specifically the wording "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue" and "Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon."
Expecting attendees of the conference to obey the conference rules in the crowded auditorium during a presentation seems quite reasonable to me. I am not sure violating it is a firing offense, but I cannot blame the person posting it for writing honestly about their own experience.
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Normally I would agree with you but I heard someone on HN posted her address and said they were going to "slit" her. The situation has escalated quite a bit and includes actual violent threats against Adria.
Yeah, I thought about it a bit more and was going to edit to say (textually) crucify, but it was past the edit window. I really don't understand WTF is with people. Some guys were mildly to moderately objectionable, to the point where I would have glared or asked them to grow up, and "counseled" them if they worked for or with me. Hypersensitive person goes nuclear in parallel with using appropriate channels (for wha…
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Indeed, I am really puzzled as to why these "jokes" are supposed to be offensive to women. They might be offensive to people raised in some cultures / subcultures, and they don't sound like they're great jokes in any culture, but nobody ever told me about the meeting where women decided knob jokes were offensive. In fact a female friend texted me one about an hour ago.
Imagine this situation: You are walking down the street. It starts to rain, so you duck into the nearest business, a bar. You order a beer, and realize that you have stepped into a gay bar. The table behind you starts making jokes about how virgin anuses are the best. They are pretty big guys, leather daddies. You worry they're talking about you, about your anus. You worry. That feeling of discomfort? The way your he…
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What is indecent is that Adria Richards completely invented the bit about forking being a sexual reference ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 ), escalated her discomfort to the level of internet drama, got her employer SendGrid to support her, and didn't exactly go out of her way to petition PlayHaven to unfire one of the two guys involved. And she's now sticking to her guns even after profusive apologies…
You write: > All she had to do was turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. But I think one of the important points here is that women should not NEED to turn around and ask the guys to stop making sex jokes. The need to ask (or resign oneself to putting up with the hostile environment) is itself a burden. Would it be acceptable to make "dumb nigger" jokes as long as anytime an African American asks you…
Let's be honest, political correctness culture is here to stay. The accused will be accused by the accuser who feels that they are standing up for racial/gender/sexual orientation equality. Then, there'll be a backlash against affirmative action/preferential treatment for those who feel that they are not privileged and have been reverse-discriminated. Publicly shaming this black woman is like condemning a person with…
> just be superficial and PC in public This sounds like a frightening world. Eh, freedom in America has had a good run.
To everyone angry at Adria for not "just asking them to stop": I am a female developer that attends 4-5 conferences per year. I have had experiences similar to that of Adria's, and I pretend I can ignore them. Why? Because confronting a guy (or guys) I don't know, in a room where my gender is clearly in minority, and explaining why I found something offensive is not an action I have been brave enough to take. I appla…