Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit • Hacker News Board

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

#871

Post by sizzle » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 12:58 AM UTC

maxcan wrote: post #738

buro9 wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nebulous semi-employee with unspecified responsibilities related to a founder? This is the point that stands out for me. That the wife is not an employee of Github but claims to be able to access private company chat records, and also is able to "work" from within the office and interact with the staff. Even with allowances that company property remains company property and private chat rooms are in fact non-privat…

> The wife, and the husband (founder), have displayed an incredible lack of professionalism here. That assumes that the story, as told in the accusation, is completely accurate. One could envision a scenario where the founder felt his wife may be able to relate to the situation better and could actually assist the accuser. However, in spite of best intentions, its possible that the wife's actions were misinterpreted…

from reading the article, I got the vibe that the wife may have felt innately (territorially?) threatened by the thought of a (pretty) female in the company getting close with her founder husband in a more intimate, rather than professional, type of way. Thoughts?

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

#872

Post by jessedhillon » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:02 AM UTC

johnbm wrote: post #847

jessedhillon wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it might bother you because the author assumes that's his own inability to navigate complex social relationships is innate to his maleness. In fact, many men are adept at understanding social and emotional subtexts very well. There's no magnitude-order difference in innate ability as described, or if there is, it's not a permanent, unlearnable gulf. This comment bothered me because OP is fetishizing and token…

See, the problem is that the people who complain about this are also the ones who say it's valuable to add women to a group of men (or indeed the reverse), because it results in more balanced decision making. It can't be both. Either men or women are (as groups, i.e. averages) innately differ on the social vs analytical axis, and diversity is a net plus, or gender is entirely socially constructed, and adding women to…

So your demand of advocates of inclusiveness is to either a) concede that their support for female participation stems from a belief in the existence of a sensory mode or organ which only females have; or b) concede that women have nothing to offer which cannot be replicated by men and therefore there is no need to include them?

You can't see a third possibility in between those two?

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

#873

Post by sizzle » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:03 AM UTC

A coworker told me of his nightmare story from his previous job, where he was accused of sexual harassment by a fellow female co-worker. The crazy part was the HR process, where he was not told who made the complaint, or what was specifically said- so he could not defend/explain himself, let alone know if it was a lie. They did an internal investigation, sided with the female and he was fired. Is this a common HR process?!

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

#874

Post by sizzle » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:03 AM UTC

A coworker told me of his nightmare story from his previous job, where he was accused of sexual harassment by a fellow female co-worker. The crazy part was the HR process, where he was not told who made the complaint, or what was specifically said- so he could not defend/explain himself, let alone know if it was a lie. They did an internal investigation, sided with the female and he was fired. Is this a common HR process?!

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

#875

Post by sizzle » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:04 AM UTC

A coworker told me of his nightmare story from his previous job, where he was accused of sexual harassment by a fellow female co-worker. The crazy part was the HR process, where he was not told who made the complaint, or what was specifically said- so he could not defend/explain himself, let alone know if it was a lie. They did an internal investigation, sided with the female and he was fired. Is this a common HR process?!

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

#876

Post by abalone » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:05 AM UTC

abalone wrote: post #816

mst wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> keep pull request comments professional Actually, this struck me as purely a "remember who you're talking to" problem - the team were used to a more aggressive level of language than the new hire was, so what should've happened is that the team should've learned to make the same strength of point with less aggressive words and the new hire should've worked to take aggressive words less to heart. Being as I'm a blun…

The point is, in the lean management organization you don't really have someone to take you aside and tell you to stop being a dick. This is especially problematic when trying to overcome culturally calcified gender discrimination. What you're describing as being a "blunt bastard" could very well come off as male-privileged locker room talk. In the sports world there have been numerous attempts to contort locker room…

theorique, it's like asking whether complimenting someone passing on the street is a nice sweet thing to do or outrageously sexist. You could come up with rationalizations either way. But it's ultimately about the environment that it creates and how women (or minorities) feel in it. And that's up to the women, not the dudes rationalizing the status quo.

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

#877

Post by graycat » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:07 AM UTC

Looks to me that the wife of the founder was doing something that is common, 'protecting her man'. She was getting a bit carried away and using poor judgment and was apparently quite naive about business, but such things are not rare.

So, it was two women fighting, very emotionally, and that's not rare either.

The founder needed to keep his wife 'at home' or some such, but these days women resent such 'controls'. So, the wife was a loose cannon on the deck of GitHub.

Maybe actually the wife was not a big problem except for the one woman in the OP. So, the situation was allowed to continue too far.

And the woman in the story may have been a bit overly emotional about some parts of the story.

Did the founder, the rest of management, HR, etc. do well? Nope. But who other than the founder was going to apply 'discipline' to the wife of the founder? Likely no one.

So, there was some office politics, some clashes of personalities, some social discord, etc. Expect something else? Usually don't expect anything that looks, so far, this bad.

But GitHub apparently has decided not to say anything until they have developed some good plans and a careful statement, and that might take a while. And in the meanwhile, the case will likely leave the headlines.

I expect that the case will 'blow over' with relatively little long term harm to GitHub.

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

#878

Post by Crito » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:07 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #769

xacaxulu wrote: post #551

It's a shame that crying sexism is beginning to take on the trappings of Salem Witch Trials. Simply implying that what happened was the result of sexism seems to be enough proof that sexism was the cause. This is a nuanced case that probably has much more to do with managerial mistakes. The sexism angle in this story seems very forced and sort of used as a last minute boost to an otherwise boring story of bad managem…

How is the current situation like the Salem Witch Trials? My memory is that in that situation people were burned at the stake for allegedly doing things that are actually physically impossible to do. Like casting spells on children. In this case, an employee has accused other employees of several fireable, if not illegal, actions. No one has been burned, or is in danger of being burned. Possibly some people will be f…

During the 20th century, references to the Salem witch trials were used extensively to refer to hunts for people accused of doing things that were possible. Namely being a communist.^ Unlike witches, it actually is possible to be a communist, and it actually is plausible that there were communists in the Federal government.

Comparing such communist hunts to witch hunts is not about comparing the nature of the accused crime, but rather about comparing the nature of the so called investigation.

I have seen this explained numerous times on HN in discussions similar to this one. Several times I have explained it myself. I don't know if it is feigned ignorance and purposeful obtuseness/offense seeking, or if people are genuinely unfamiliar with the history of the term "witch hunt", but either way this is getting rather tiring.

^ The most prominent example of this is Arthur Miller's The Crucible.

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

#879

Post by MartinCron » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:07 AM UTC

enneff wrote: post #214

nknighthb wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being ridiculous. Emergency reverts are normal and expected when production systems are down. I'm willing to stipulate this person's specific actions were probably hostile and unwarranted, but some sort of blanket "no revert without discussion" rule is just a way to cost your employer customers. Context is important, and we don't have enough of it to be certain of what happened.

You're right, context is important. But where I work we provide an explanation when a commit is reverted, emergency or not.

Yeah, I can't imagine not giving context for an emergency revert. That's the time when clarity of intention is most important!

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

#880

Post by MartinCron » Mon, Mar 17, 2014, 1:11 AM UTC

LockeWatts wrote: post #81

csense wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point. What probably needed to happen was whoever was in charge of that project should have recognized these two employees now didn't get along, and reassigned one or both of them away from the project.

Guy also probably deserved a good reprimand. Messing with code because of personal issues is a great way to tank your reputability as a developer.

If I ever saw this happen, I would reprimand the developer in the parking lot while the HR people were bringing his personal belongings down in cardboard boxes so he could go away and never ever come back.

Seriously, some professionalism here, people.