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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

#881

Post by maxcan »

sizzle wrote: post #871
maxcan wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

That raising "threatened wife" motif is actually quite sexist. Its entirely possible that the founder may have felt that his wife could relate better to the accuser but that their meeting may not have went well and the wife felt that the accuser was behaving as inappropriately as the accuser felt about the wife. Furthermore, accusing someone of "sitting near me to intimidate me" is quite vague and bizarre.

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

#882

Post by maxcan »

grifpete wrote: post #755
maxcan wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

I don't pretend to have any info on what truly happened. But the story doesn't have to be 'completely accurate' for it to be disturbing. A company can't have family members browse around company offices and imposing themselves on employees with whom they have no professional or personal relationship. I find it very hard to understand how the wife's repeated presence can be favorably interpreted if it did indeed upset…

it could have been well intentioned. bringing in an pseudo-outsider may not be the smartest move but its also not necessarily evil at all. the founder may have felt that his wife could relate in some way. until more evidence is given, we should withhold judgement.

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

#883

Post by einhverfr »

ZoF wrote: post #517
einhverfr wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The founder's wife story also reminds me of episodes I've heard involving the wife cabal. It's nothing as sinister as the GitHub story, but I see a lot of the same structural issues reflected in these telling anecdotes. If you are male and a founder, one of your most valuable business resources is your wife. People will call me sexist for saying this, I expect, but women think socially with a level of complexity th…

This post really bothers me somehow. Edit: Figured out why. I don't understand why saying, "people will call me sexist for this" immediately validates your statement as "not intended to be sexist". >"If you are male and a founder, one of your most valuable business resources is your wife. People will call me sexist for saying this, I expect, but women think socially with a level of complexity that I think most men ne…

To be honest, I am living in a very different culture now from the US culture where social gender roles are more significant but also somewhat flexible. I do expect the post to bother Americans because it goes against what I call the myth of interchangeability, the idea that gender equality necessarily reduces to the idea that the sexes are interchangeable. I don't believe this and I think that equality has to be more substantive than this because interchangeability tends to mean that a male-normative model gives you hidden sexism. Exhibit A is Marissa Mayer's maternity leave duration. There is nothing equal about that.

The point is that when you look cross-culturally and cross-historically, where you don't have women certain things like rule of law don't happen (you see this develop in the American West for example as gender rates stopped being so lopsided).

I would suggest that recognizing that the genders do have differences in terms of social aptitudes and needs, and different positions relative to life choices is the first step in reducing the male-normative view on our economic model (i.e. "if you work like a man, and wait to have kids like a man, you will get paid like a man").

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

#884

Post by phillijw »

makomk wrote: post #856
MarkTee wrote: post #821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not sexism; he was acting maliciously because she turned down his advances, not because she was a woman.

The fact he expected to get away with it and thought it was a reasonable thing to do has, alas, quite a lot to do with both his gender and her gender.

If he was gay and she was a man, would it still be sexist?

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

#885

Post by ithkuil »

grifpete wrote: post #760
a3n wrote: post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The founder accused Horvath for bringing love affair into the company because she was/is dating an employee. The founder has a good point: try to avoid dating someone working with you. It's a beautiful story; but you can cause all sorts of mess. That's between the two people. Period. If they become problem employees, then they are problem employees, not two people who date. The problem behavior that happens on the…

Didn't the founder bring his love affair into the company? I assume he loves his wife?

but his wife doesn't work there apparently.

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

#886

Post by nailer »

greenrd wrote: post #401
Systemic33 wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ye, calling this sexism, is either an editorial edit by TC, for reasons I can only assume is high clickbait title, or JAH has some issues herself, which it seems like considering that she thought watching girls hulahoop is sexist.

The article, strangely, begins with JAH already having an unspecified grievance against GitHub and the founder's wife pleading with her not to leave GitHub and blog publicly about it. It's strange that at no time has JAH specified what this grievance was, but my educated guess based on her tweets and her blog post from a year ago would be, previous additional incidents of sexism or perceived sexism.

I suspect the nature of the founder's wife is that the founder and his partner decided that a female was the best person to handle the omitted original issue.

Since the wife may have been there when it was just three guys, the non-employee boundary might not be there as with other staff partners. She probably thought she was helping.

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

#887

Post by nailer »

hluska wrote: post #121
LockeWatts wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, what does the noun change? You completely lost me.

The term 'girl' refers to a female between birth and when she reaches the age of adulthood. I'm pretty sure both parties in this case are adults, so I assume that's the reason behind the correction.

So HBO 'Girls' is using an offensive term for young women and trying to... reclaim it?

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

#888

Post by nailer »

prezjordan wrote: post #571
AgathaTheWitch wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet that rug really tied together the room too... All joking aside, that rug thing is pretty silly. "Meritocracy" is not code for "Straight White Males only." Nevertheless Horvath being feminist does not invalidate any unfair treatment she may have experienced should her claims be substantiated.

Let's go ahead and assume GitHub is a meritocracy. If you "succeed" and do "well" on GitHub (what metric can we use? Lots of a stars? Getting your name out there?), what does that actually prove? If GitHub is a meritocracy, what have the "winners" done to set them apart from the rest, and how does that translate into the professional world?

Making something new that customers like and pay for with a minimal amount of resources?

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

#889

Post by tiredoflurking »

discardorama wrote: post #595

I'm curious about the "hula hoop" issue that Julie is referring to. As a male nerd, I will admit that my social skills are a bit lacking. However: I don't see the problem with staring at women who are putting on a show which is clearly unrelated to their work. If 2 women started making out in the break room, I'm ashamed to say that I might just linger longer than usual.

You do have to realize the difference between hula hooping and making out. Hula hooping isn't even a slightly sexual act. Furthermore, objectification is a huge issue in the lesbian community, so in both the hula hooping and making out scenario, gawking is not okay and contributes to an already sexist power structure.

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

#890

Post by nailer »

ZoF wrote: post #578
nailer wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does that entire paragraph not just objectify the wife and establish differences between the sexes based on anecdotal experience? Re objectification: couples get advice from their life partners. That doesn't mean this is their life partners only goal. Re: 'establish differences between the sexes based on anecdotal experience' is there anything ethically wrong with this? Would you prefer a citation be added, eg, 'ne…

>Re objectification: couples get advice from their life partners. That doesn't mean this is their life partners only goal. Completely true, valid point. >Re: 'establish differences between the sexes based on anecdotal experience' is there anything ethically wrong with this? I would argue that there is something ethically wrong with this. Take this statement: >" women think socially with a level of complexity that I t…

>> Would you prefer a citation be added, eg, 'newborn female infants stare at faces more often than male newborn infants'?

> Do you have a source stating that females raised in the same environment as males exhibited a higher level of social complexity? '?

Yes, I have a source stating precisely that newborn female infants stare at faces more often than male newborn infants (Baron Cohen at Cambridge):

http://www.dailymotion.com/playlist/x1xv47_BrainwashingInNor...

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