Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon? 759
theodp writes "Its Code of Conduct describes PyCon as 'a welcoming, friendly event for all.' But will the post-conference fallout from this year's 'Donglegate' debacle and proposed remedies affect your decision — one way or the other — to attend next year's PyCon in ironically naughty Montreal? And even if not, could 'Donglegate' influence the-powers-that-be whose approval you'll need to attend? How about conference sponsors?"
What the hell (Score:3, Insightful)
is Donglegate?
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Funny)
A Donglegate is a novel biological gate revealed to the geeks from beyond the forbidden effeminate walls of feminism. This is a new mystery to geeks. They commented and were punished by god for eating the forbidden fruit. Along with the geek some others in the story were punished as well.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
She gets the guy fired, and gets fired herself for her troubles.
Nobody wins, because feminism is in of itself, sexism at it's finest. Poor pitiful females that can't defend themselves. Bullshit. They have carved themselves a niche in popular culture that they are untouchable, and because of that they have adopted and invincible attitude, until they feel they have been somehow wronged, and then they turn on the tear-jerking water works about how defenseless they are. Comedian Bill Burr has it right... [youtube.com]
People need to learn how to take a joke. HR departments need to be wiped out, because in this age, they have long since outlived their usefulness. They had their time, but it has since passed.
If women want equal rights, then there should be no feminists.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
She was fired over the way in which she handled it. As an evangelist, she is probably being held to a higher standard than other folks, but she should have known that. She could have handled it in a way that at least allowed the individuals to apologize and or explain, tweeting it without even having her facts straight, is hardly conducive to building an inclusive community.
She also had the opportunity to just ignore it, which is what she should have done if she couldn't handle it in a mature way. Yes, it would have been less good than dealing with it, but as it stands, she's just another data point on the "why we shouldn't trust women" board.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Informative)
I posted a bunch of details here [slashdot.org] but the main point is :
Richards had pissed off people by pulling similar publicity stunts before [wordpress.com]. Amanda Blum was one of those people Richard had pissed off. She sent a constructive email to SendGrid suggesting how one keeps such loose cannons under control. SendGrid simply read Blum's email as past behavior and fired Richards rather than taking Blum's constructive advice.
It's worth noting that Richard actions constitute libel in the U.K. I donno if her accusation of the forking remark constitute libel in the U.S., perhaps given that it's false. I'd assume that her accusation of the dongles remark does not constitute libel in the U.S., being true.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
SendGrid simply read Blum's email as past behavior and fired Richards rather than taking Blum's constructive advice.
They also made a public statement [sendgrid.com] about an employee termination in a way I thought was unusually descriptive [slashdot.org].
I did appreciate Amanda Blum's take on this -- it was clear, almost wholly fact-oriented, and very informative.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Interesting)
Her job was to evangelize for the community. Instead she decided to wage jihad against jokes she didn't like. She was a fool and her company was right that she was working against the goal they hired her for.
I find it funny that she disliked the way the men were talking loudly in their private conversation and could be overheard. Those guys must have been *loud*. I say this because as a Bloody Foreigner I find that all (US) Americans are enormously loud when they talk - all sorts of details of their private lives are shouted at each other at maximum decibels. However, as a quiet foreigner I don't feel the need to change their culture, I just mock instead :) Perhaps Richards should have been a bit more accepting of geek culture *while at a PyCon Conference*. Perhaps if the guys had been at a "Women against Domestic Violence" rally instead she would have been appropriate.
Incidentally, why do we need more women in programming? The ones that are there do a great job. The guys that do it also do a great job. So why do we need to change the entire technology culture to get a few reluctant girls to try it out? for what end? what is the problem we are trying to solve? is it just so we can satisfy some academic theory that there is equality in programing because the numbers by gender are more equal? well, that doesn't solve the problem that many girls at the start of their work career choose to things that they like - which is not creating hardware or software. Apart from a few ideologues one has a serious problem with the gender imbalance in nursing or teaching - so why should the gender imbalance in tech be a problem that requires warping the existing tech culture conform to their ideological wishes? If tech culture was "No girls allowed" then there would be a problem. If it was structurally sexist then there would be a problem - but to complain about tech culture (to the point of loss of livelihood) because some loud-mouthed guys make a joke intended to be kinda private too loudly? That is just silly.
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Informative)
We need to attract women like Adria because of their immense tech skills
http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/ [butyoureagirl.com]
The stuff about the dongles wasn't even logical and as a self professed nerd, that bothered me. Dongles are intended to be small and unobtrusive. They're intended for network connectivity and to service as physical licence keys for software. I'd consulted in the past with an automotive shop that needed data recovery and technical support. I know what PCMCIA dongles look like.
No wait, we need to attract them because of their superior people skills. Like tweeting a picture of someone and getting them fired over a stupid comment because they were too passive to confront them and too aggressive to just let it slide and then making up a bullshit but-think-of-the-children justification to make it seem like they were doing it for some higher purpose than self promotion.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
The worst? As an "evangelist" she had the opportunity to use a "teachable moment."
The goal, I think we all want, is a workplace and community without gender conflicts. She could have led by example, talked to the guys about the need to be cognizant of the people around them, they would have learned something, and Richards could have regaled her audience with the tale of her enlightened diplomatic prowess so women everywhere would have another example of a peaceful resolution to gender communication issues in IT. But no, instead being a peacemaker and a bridge builder and leader she just threw a tattletale tantrum like a 4th grader and made it more difficult for men and women in IT (who are aware of this situation) to communicate in the future.
Way to be an evangelist, lady...
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Feminism is not sexism at its finest - it's the logical and expected reaction of rational people who despise sexism against anyone. You making massive sweeping statements about women speaks volumes about how you perceive women. You have some serious issues to deal with, and with them I wish you luck.
While your central point has merit, "feminism is the logical and expected reaction of rational people who despise sexism against anyone" is patently false. I'm a rational person. I despise sexism. I am male. I am not a feminist. Of course, to me, "sexism" might not mean the same thing it does to you. To me it means overlooking the attributes and characteristics of a person as a whole because of their gender, applying stereotypes associated with that gender even if there is no evidence that they apply
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a gay man. Adria's reaction was not "logical and expected". There is occasionally real hostility and real insults directed at minorities at tech conferences; this wasn't it. Adria's reaction to a harmless pun was merely the act of a professional publicity whore (and I'm using that term in a gender-neutral way), and she has hurt the cause of women and other minorities.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps not in its original form, but these days it is. It used to be about tearing down the inequalities between men and women, and teaching women to feel empowered.
Now it's about women exacting revenge upon men for how women were treated for the last thousand years or so ("This is for our mothers and grandmothers!" -> Yeah, but none of those men were alive when those gender crimes occurred, so why are you punishing their descendents? Madness.), and about leaving men scared to be in the same room as women. It's essentially a religious crusade, in which the enemy is the enemy simply because they were born with a penis and a pair of testicles; their sole goal in life is seems to be to find and convince a man that he is wrong for existing.
Even a woman who went around picking up other women (who went on to write a book about it) pointed out how blind the female gender is to its own power / actions. At no point have they stopped to think that perhaps men have as many grudges against women as women do against men, but are simply more forgiving of them. But I digress, the die is cast, revenge is sought, history has been occluded, mistakes will no doubt be repeated.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Or you know - click on the provided links?
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
The summary should contain enough information to make me know if I'm interested. Is it more time efficient for one person to write "the sexist tweet scandal infamously dubbed donglegate" or for thousands of /. readers to have to individually follow the link to another (very brief) article summary?
Simply put: if the average reader doesn't know what the summary is talking about, the summary is no use at all.
Re: (Score:3)
Simply put: if the average reader doesn't know what the summary is talking about, ...
...welcome to slashdot.
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Informative)
My thoughts too. What the fuck is submitter talking about?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=donglegate [lmgtfy.com]
Basically, a nosy bitch at a tech conference overheard two guys make a "dongle" joke (and possibly a "forking" joke), and instead of acting like an adult and ignoring them or asking them to stop, or even complaining privately to the conference organizers, she took their picture, and tweeted it to the world.
Guys were kicked out, one was fired from his job. Upon hearing this, certain parts of the Interwebs that shall remain nameless (okay, it was 4chan) started DDOSing her site and the site of her employer. She ended up being fired herself.
Sheesh.
DUDE! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:DUDE! (Score:5, Insightful)
This situation has nothing to do with the women in the IT industry are treated. It has everything to do with one person involving themselves in a conversation they weren't part of and publicly shaming people who weren't talking to her and she couldn't even clearly hear. This could have happened in any busy public place and you might as well say that 8 year old gave up on her dream of being a stripper.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DUDE! (Score:4, Insightful)
Deluging her with death threats is wrong.
Deluging her with letters of disapproval (one sender at a time) is not: she is an activist and a media personality, and people have a right to respond to her.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
a nosy bitch
lol, sexism. I thought information wanted to be free?
Not sexism at all. She was listening to a conversation that had nothing to do with her, hence "nosy". And her reaction to it clearly proves her to indeed be a "bitch".
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
If you speak in public, expect to be heard by others. If someone hears what you say, you have no right to force them to pretend they didn't hear it.
Yes, I hear many things in course of the day. I don't usually tweet about them. And not once did I feel an impulse to backstab by silently taking someone's pic and then tweeting "OMG, look at this jerk!" instead of discussing why is this a jerkish behaviour with said someone.
"Bitch" is not sexist in the same way that "nigger" is not racist.
Stop bitching about semantics, you pedantic prick. <-- see here, both "bitch" and "prick" have sex-related etymology, but neither "bitch" nor "prick" refer to your gender in this case. Do tell me more about inherent sexism.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
If you eavesdrop on someone having a private conversation in a public setting, don't expect to hear a politically correct message. It amazes me that a "strong, independent woman" crumbles into this powerless victim once someone random makes a random comment. To name this event 'donglegate' is quite funny OTOH.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Informative)
Once a bitch always a bitch. Here's some backstory [wordpress.com] on the problem told from the perspective of a decent and respectable woman.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
I applaud her for saying something about the stupid innuendos going on at these kinds of cons, but she shouldn't couch it in sexism.
Forking/Fucking is not degrading to women.
Dongles/Penises are not degrading to women.
If anyone thinks that sex is inherently degrading to women, or that penises are inherently degrading to women, they should seek counselling.
That said, the geek community is full of sexually inexperienced and frustrated people who say stupid and immature things. I seriously hope that the organizers simply would have told these guys in a sincere and compassionate way "you're in public, and your behaviour reflects on the community. This is a family-friendly event and a common problem but we need to change the geek culture. Your sexual innuendos are not in keeping with the environment we're trying to foster at this event and they contradict the code of conduct. Please stop yourselves, and stop your friends. Spread the word."
No need to degrade people who are already socially marginalized and awkward.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
That said, the geek community is full of sexually inexperienced and frustrated people who say stupid and immature things.
That's a steorotype about 'geek culture'. The reality is that the majority of 'geeks' are past their twenties and get plenty of action (with real women, mostly). It's just demographics. From the ages 15-30 is only a third of the time from 30-60, and IT has been around long enough that there are still plenty of greybeards out there. So let's get real - 'geek culture' is a handy stereotype, but a stereotype nonetheless. Decisions based on a stereotype will always carry some degree of inaccuracy.
As an aside. What is interesting that the biggest promoters of the stereotype are marketing outfits that see the chique of geek and want to cash in. All sorts of outfits used to do this in the past too with science - from detergent ads where 'scientists' only wear white lab coats to 'Christian Science' that is anti-scientific superstition but appends the word 'science' to benefit from the cachet of the triumphs of reason. So, it's ok to accept the 'geek stereotype' as long as you also make a mental note that this is an approximation of reality and really only covers the 1/3 of 'new' geeks (those still excited about 'coming out' to self-identify as a geek comfortable with the label).
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Funny)
"sexually inexperienced and frustrated people who say stupid and immature things"
finger adria.richards
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Interesting)
[...] I seriously hope that the organizers simply would have told these guys in a sincere and compassionate way "you're in public, and your behaviour reflects on the community. This is a family-friendly event and a common problem but we need to change the geek culture. Your sexual innuendos are not in keeping with the environment we're trying to foster at this event and they contradict the code of conduct. Please stop yourselves, and stop your friends. Spread the word.
Leaving aside the, frankly, rather stupid stereotype you keep playing* there: This is precisely what went down. The woman reported them to staff, they were taken aside, they apologised. But oh, Missus Mighty Righteous could not leave it at that. No, she had to go nuclear on the two of them.
This has nothing to do with sexism, we agree on that. This is one person being an asshole.
* I do not know what the proper terminology for that is, but it is not all that different from sexism. Or racism, for that matter. "The geeks" are about as sexually inexperienced as "the women" are incapable of programming or "the blacks" are prone to stealing. I consider myself part of "the geek community", and so far I have seen a level of sexism on par with that in politics, business, academia and the Scouts but not exceeding it. It may well be more visible here, just as public name-calling probably is more rampant on FOSS mailing lists than in corporate boardrooms, due to the specific communicative culture and conventions. But that in and of itself does not mean it is worse than elsewhere.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
She wasn't eavesdropping.
Avdi Grimm [google.com] said it best:
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Political correctness is the worst travesty to ever have been foisted on western thought Ever.
Huh. So colonialism and fascism got bumped from the top by annoying busy-bodies that occasionally result in people losing their jobs...
Sit down and take a damn chill pill man. Passive aggressive people getting offended over stupid shit is nothing new and isn't going to go away. Deal.
Re:What the hell (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that she handled it in an extremely immature fashion. I'm not necessarily saying that she should have let it go, but posting the pictures online without giving them a chance to explain, is rather poor form for an evangelist. And if she couldn't handle it with more grace, she should have left it alone, this kind of immature and self righteous behavior is not going to further women's rights, all it does is send the message that if you offend somebody, for any reason, you can lose your job. Not helpful. What's more, it sounds like it was just one joke about dongles and she was doing it for reasons other than being offended.
Or at least that's how I read her blog, it's pretty clear she was trying to advocate for people that weren't in the room at the time and without being asked to do so. What's more, she could very easily have caused her employer to receive a nasty libel suit as a result of this.
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Insightful)
The bigger problem is that she chose not to confront the people she felt offended by, because she "didn't want to have her experience denied". She was right about that, they would probably have apologized for the dongle joke but told her that the forking joke wasn't sexual at all, which would have been accurate but a denial of her "experience" (= her misinterpretation).
And then she chose not to wait for the PyCon organizers to handle it. This woman has a history [wordpress.com]. She had a hard childhood but that doesn't excuse her lashing out at innocent strangers. I have a hard time understanding why she even felt offended. These were two men joking among themselves about a male body part. Did she feel excluded? But she wasn't part of the conversation in the first place, she was just eavesdropping on them.
Re:What the hell (Score:4, Insightful)
Calling here behavior immature is letting her off too easy.
Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Will you idiots stop with this "topic-gate" crap already? A feminist didn't like the jokes that a couple of guys were making. They got fired. Then she got fired for rocking the boar. Case closed.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Rocking the boar" sounds more interesting than any other part of this story.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
No. She got fired because of employee misconduct. She tried to make this poor family man feel ashamed about having a penis. She literally took food off the table of 3 children. All because she faux outraged that "dongle" sounds like "dong" and "fork" sounds like "fuck".
I'm so fucking glad she got fired. I hope she gets fired from life. People and their fake outrage can die in a fire, or a Walmart trampling.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Le sigh.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Too many people overreacted on this one. You did too. Congratulations.
Wait a minute. Because he said that they *can* die in a fire, not that they *should* die in a fire, maybe he is just saying that they are not superheroes, which is a valid piece of information that should be welcome in any serious discussion.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
And to answer the article's question: If I were a Python dev, I wouldn't attend. That would send a more clear message to everyone involved that those situations are ridiculous than a bunch of posts on random message boards.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
And she wasn't a feminist
The term you're looking for is "feminazi"
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perfect answer. She is the poison for events and employers and other women who actually want to make an honest living in the world.
Women have had this amazing free pass on their behavior for so long. I know women who are absolutely ashamed on behalf of these other women. We're afraid to complain about "these people." //What do you mean "these people"?!// You know what I mean and quit pretending to be semi-offended asking me to say something you can use against me.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if human societies behaved like dogpacks (which they don't), simply declaring yourself "alpha" wouldn't make you...
...but I guess we can't expect great logic from someone who's proudly declaring his believe in the Sunk Cost Fallacy (also hypocrisy, since *everything* includes genocide which you just condemned "jihadists" for).
Well, anyone who's ever seen the kind of total war you're promoting or gets caught up in one might dislike you for said promotion, which doesn't really strike me as particularly childish reason. Also, most people will probably not like someone who dismisses their culture, so add Muslims to the list. And I doubt scientists are happy with you trying to elevate their results into capital-T Truth, since that tends to hinder their work.
Don't vote for any politician unless they sound like they're paraphrasing Atlas Shrugged? Sorry, but no; having hundreds of millions of dollars does not mean you "generated" that wealth, it means that you are good at concentrating economic power into your hands - and even most often, than you were born rich.
What it actually achieved were a number of colonial empires. Those collapsed after two world wars caused by people who tried to be "alpha". Then people like you start twisting history to fit into your (totally non-racist, because you believe racism is wrong, and this all sounds exactly like classic racist spiel purely by accident) superhero fantasy, all because you want a strong leader who doesn't care about being liked to make you feel more like "alpha" - you know, coming to think of it, this is almost starting to sound like the prelude to one of those world wars.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why do pretty girls dress up as comic book characters and go to comic con? Because they are paid to.
Her job is to make a good impression for her employers with geeks, she doesn't need to be a programmer to do that.
She was there because that is where she could rub shoulders with exactly the sort of person her job needs her to make contact with... you know, the sort of person she got fired.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a significant and relevant story.
We know about race hustlers... people who like to twist any situation into a racist (against blacks) for their fame and profit. It's old news.
But we don't hear much about the more quiet problem... especially in the work place. The one quite a few of us in this demographic have suffered.
There are women out there who are equally prepared to play the sexism-card when it serves their interests. In this case, this woman is a pretty good example. People have been digging up her internet content everywhere exposing what she is and does. On one hand she has a clear history of sex related things. If she was so offended by sex related things, she has a weird way of showing it. So it wasn't the sex related things that bothered her. I have little doubt that she was harmed or offended by what she thought she heard.
She may have been annoyed by the cut-ups going on behind her. That's understandable. But instead of addressing the real problem, she made up a worse one. She created this drama. She got what she expected... at first. But then the community unexpectedly returned fire. Her employer couldn't afford to have her any longer. B'Bye bitch.
This is the unspoken reason there may be reservations about women in the workplace and especially in the tech fields. We're a BUNCH of immature geeks who care less about social crap and more about technical crap. When women enter the room, we're immediately terrified that our haven is being changed leaving us nowhere to go. The unspoken fear is that we know what women can and will bring. She is a perfect example of it. Once again, her self-documented history of sexy-flirty crap spins around in an instant to "I'm offended by this double entendre!!" And of course, everyone who seeks not to be branded "a part of the problem" is forced into doing whatever pleases her.
Nice play. For once it didn't work out quite as she expected. I wonder what she will advocate next? This geek crowd she offended? They are anonymous. They don't forget. They don't forgive. And she represents every woman in the workplace who has ever played that game. And I sincerely hope her hell will give other women cause to give a second thought about playing the sexism card like this.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Nice play. For once it didn't work out quite as she expected
Actually I think she knew exactly what would happen, the same thing as always, people rape threatning her and calling her all kind of things. Amanda Blum's excelent blog post [wordpress.com] highlights the problem with Adrias behaviour but hopefully give you some insight to the larger problem.
If this has thought us something it is that there are some serious problem with sexism at tech conferences, even if you don't like what she did the backlash kind of proved her point IMHO.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Informative link.
"Money Shot" does not mean porn. Yes. Porn made the term famous, but the meaning isn't quite "semen being ejected." It's "this is what people came here to see!" Steve Jobs holding up a new iThing was "the money shot."
The woman has a serious problem in that she makes her problem a problem for everyone else.
Very enlightening.
She was not going to be re-trained. And the blogger demonstrated that she has a history of choosing the stir up trouble rather than trying to work things out. Clearly the company that fired her made the right choice.
I'm rather surprised she even attended PyCon. After all, pythons and snakes in general are often used to describe penises.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The problem is that people like you cannot distinguish between sexism and dirtbaggery. The developers were crude, not sexist. Adria was a dirtbag, not a sexist. Sexism is wrong. Being crude in a professional setting is wrong. Being a dirtbag is wrong. Killing is wrong. Stealling is wrong. Just don't pretend that these are the same thing. The backlash simply proves that you have dirtbags wherever you have people. Not new news. Sexism may exist in tech conferences, but the backlash was not an
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet, we know the Internet mob is a fickle beast. She got the reaction she wanted - but - it also lashed back at her. They brutally attacked her.
Which, who knows, that could have been part of the scheme all along. She knew the Internet kids would strike back with real sexism and real attacks - validating the "hatred against women" she wants to perpetuate.
Live by the mob, die by the mob.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Then she got fired for rocking the boar.
Dude, what the hell goes on at PyCon?!
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
The whole thing is worrying.
I am a male lead programmer in China, I hire a lot of female programmers and extol the virtues of hiring female programmers to my Chinese peers who lead other projects, who have started hiring female programmers also, seeing my success in using female programmers to achieve good results. I think they are more consistent and reliable, about 10-30% cheaper then men and have better company loyalty than men. There is a surprising amount of coding that could do with a woman's touch. I like to have over 30% of my team to be women since in my experience if a woman has done something before, she's much less likely to make a mess of it than a man is, since men of above average IQ tend to get bored, lazy and arrogant the second time around. Women also don't like being assigned repetitive work, but even if they get angry with me, they generally still don't screw it up, though they will quit eventually if one exploits this too much.
My little sister and cousin are both female programmers in Australia. They are both excellent, consistent and make very few mistakes, my cousin even has some of the problem solving creativity that the women I've managed seem to lack and I'm optimistic about my sister developing that skill too with time. This high profile firing stuff makes me somewhat concerned for the careers of these two dear young ladies.
The thing is, in China, sexism is a non-issue, by which I mean, it exists in a huge way, but nobody talks about it. In the west, it's a big issue with big consequences, so I realised, if a manager was considering hiring a woman in Australia into an all male team, they would quite likely first measure up the probability and possible severity of a sexual harassment issue and offset that against her utility as an employee. For large companies who have various HR policies supporting diversity and for whom maintaining a completely male workforce would be utterly impractical anyway, this is a non issue, the risk is lower and the reward is higher. For smaller, up-coming companies with higher potential for growth but larger exposure to risk, this is going to really going to work against female candidates. This is somewhat irrelevant anyway, because these two young ladies both work for absolutely enormous multinationals, but for others, or in the future, who knows.
I completely agree that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace is bad and should be stopped. But for a manager, being forced to fire potentially crucial people for something unrelated to performance is extremely scary. If a manager looks at a candidate and has any niggling doubt that "HR has a remote chance of making me fire some people I need if I hire this person and something goes wrong" then it really doesn't help the candidate. I really do not think this helps women in the industry.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
You're deeply concerned about the careers of women, who you like to hire... because you can pay them less for doing more reliable quality work.
What a moving tribute to China's acceptance of the modern Western Capitalist workplace values.
Re: (Score:3)
Bazinga!
I'm offended that my sex has been characterized as "bored, lazy and arrogant"!!!!
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you hire more women cause you pay them less salary for the same work?
If a man and women are doing the same job at the same skill level (and by your own admission the woman does it better) and you are paying the women less only because of her genitals then you meet the very definition of sexism.
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Donglegate? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a difference be having a lot of support among women (what I said) and having at least some support from women (what you said).
Andrea Dworkin made her comments about sex in marriage being rape in the eighties, I'm pretty sure. It was highly controversial in the feminist community at the time, though, yeah, it had a few supporters. But it got airtime there because so many people didn't agree with her. (And, of course, what she was saying was much more nuanced than the short quote that is generally cited.) And you still have men now pulling it out as being representative of feminists all this time later. These days I only hear her brought up in feminist contexts in a historical context. She's just not that relevant. (I mean, really. Andrea Dworking for crying out loud.)
She's being brought up not because she has support from feminists, but because men like to bring her up to make feminists look bad. And in my experience, that's a fairly common tactic - look at all the invocations of feminazis and the like here, and all the "that's just what feminists are like!" comments. (And, for that matter, the nasty comments about women generally. And how people who have made civil and reasonable comments in support of women have been modded down as flamebait.)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
You are revealing that your world view includes a large group of men who make collective decisions and carry them through like an organized men's political interest group - for example influencing or planting reporters to focus on such stories and then use the stories to undermine feminism. Such a group doesn't exist. That your worldview includes such a group anyway shows a clear us-versus-those-pigs mentality that is more likely the true reason that men are disregarding your views. I just followed your lead in psychologizing about people I don't know.
Strawman. You're ignoring the concept of "emergent behaviour". Several agents acting independently of each other can act the same way, establishing a pattern of behaviour. That behaviour starts to become the engrained norm. People do it without thinking about it. For many people, it is an automatic reaction to make the same oppositions that they see all the time on the news, on the internet or from their friends, and one of the automatic responses to feminism is a strawman. While some extreme feminist
Put simply; yes (Score:4, Insightful)
She is a hypocrite troublemaker who is creating divisions in the dev community along gender lines for no good reason only her own need to validate herself out of victimhood. Next time a woman mentions at work how far along she in in her pregnancy, can she be reported for inappropriate comments?Because this is where this is all going.
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If you try to strike this woman down, every woman with a militant feminist agenda will stand up and scream 'patriarchy!'.
The best you can hope for is that ignoring her leads to the problem going away - because keeping her in the limelight is almost certainly going to result in people creating policies to 'protect' everyone, and the reasonable voices will be drowned out, partially because they don't make as good news copy and partially because the reasonable people generally have something other than 'advocacy' to engage in, and are busy with it.
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:4, Interesting)
If you try to strike this woman down, every woman with a militant feminist agenda will stand up and scream 'patriarchy!'. The best you can hope for is that ignoring her leads to the problem going away
Oh right, I'm supposed to just lay back and enjoy it? That's pure fucking bullshit, son. Every woman with a militant feminist agenda will stand up and scream patriarchy whether I hug a fluffy kitten or enjoy my morning constitutional or stay home and eat cheetos. Why should I not stand up for what I believe in?
I understand fully that there are those who stand up and say "See, look at this evil evil woman, she proves that women are evil" and I sure don't want to be conflated with them, but I'm conflated with them if I do anything other than parrot a party line, and even then some women will describe me as a rapist even though I haven't and won't ever because I find the very idea abhorrent in every way simply because I am a tripod. These women are very much in the minority, and that is the point. I'm not going to censor myself because they're loud, and suggesting that anyone should is pathetic at best.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Which will make these women notice the subconscious cues that they are unwanted and unwelcome because of what Adria Richards did, leading to a drop in women attendees, which people like Adria Richards will then blame on the overbearing masculinity of the leadership until the leaders are expelled for their non-existent problem with women so that people loyal to Adria Richards can take over the gro
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:4, Insightful)
THIS. I don't attend this conference but if I did I certainly wouldn't next year for fear that it would be invaded by others looking to make a splash just as she did. In fact the conferences that I DO attend are going to feel more hostile and I'm not sure I like that either. I'm not in the habit of making off color jokes generally but worrying that someone for whatever reason is going to decide to make an issue out of something and post pictures all over the place for their moment in the sun just sux. This woman was a drama queen but her erratic behavior is going to now have to be taken into account at other conferences too. If this woman thought she was advancing things she was sorely mistaken - she's done just the opposite. I wonder - would this have gotten nearly the attention had the gender roles been reversed? Had she commented on their small penis size, lack of stature, looks, affinity for anal sex with other men, whatever, would this have made so much as a blip? Would they have simply laughed it off or ignored her? How about had she been saying this quietly to another woman next to her? No one would be supportive of them taking such actions against her, no one would be screaming for ribbons.... Actually I think that guy's idea for ribbons is awesome and that every conference should do it. That way I'll know who to stay away from and just maybe by lack of uptake they would get a clue as to what folks thought of this commotion.
I hope like hell that anyone Googling for her former company or her name name comes across this incident and takes it into account before making any decisions. I hope that anyone considering going to work for the company that fired the conference attendee comes across this as well!
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Bit strong, but not too far from Amanda Blums's experiences with Adria Richards [wordpress.com].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"It will also put me off talking freely and in an unguarded manner in front of female attendees at any conference."
Oh, please. There is nothing quite so pathetic as the lament of someone in the privileged class. This particular story may involve a woman who gamed the system, but if you think women aren't generally discriminated against and made to feel uncomfortable with sexual innuendo then you are not paying attention.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:4, Insightful)
How about just make your "free" conversation in public devoid of constant dick jokes?
The people in question weren't making "constant dick jokes", they made only one, and indirect at that.
Re:Put simply; yes (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you know what someone will be offended by? Can you really moderate your conversation so that any third party that happens to overhear you (she wasn't involved in the conversation) gets to exercise their apparently god given right for no one else to ever say anything offensive at all...?
Imagine a world where... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pycon put out a statement that it was regrettable somebody was oversensitive and overreacted to something mildly offensive.
That under these particular circumstances it might have been best if the offended party had expressed the fact that she was offended directly to those offending her (as they were not the least bit threatening) or perhaps escalated it to Pycon security.
That Adria Richards was banned from all future events for violating Pycon privacy policies and making a hostile environment for all attendees, and the developers banned for a year for their part.
Imagine a world where Pycon did that, and stated that there would be no changes in policy as a result of the 'donglegate' effect, because no Pycon policy was an issue in the events as they unfolded.
Re:Imagine a world where... (Score:4, Informative)
Well they did update their code of conduct to disallow public shaming of anyone.
She did inform the organisers. They privately dealt with it, the jokers sincerely apologised, and the organisers left it at that. The tweeting of their photo was in addition to that.
I can't fault the PyCon organisers for anything in this. If anything, they now have a more robust code of conduct now. Future events should hopefully be free of any of this nonsense.
Nope (Score:5, Informative)
At least part of the reason I go to Pycon is for recruiting; that means that I wear a company-branded t-shirt, and -- obviously -- my name tag has my company's name on it. I expect that I should always behave in a way that is consistent with representing my company well, and part of that means keeping my conduct strictly professional.
I don't see anything here that makes Pycon less useful, or interesting, or relevant to me, nor do I see any action on the part of the Pycon folks that I disagree with. And, having just talked with my management last night about Donglegate, I know they feel the same.
Now, Pycon being in Montreal is a different matter -- I don't really want to cross borders for Pycon.
A distinction unclear by the rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Calling someone something they don't like, to their face and particularly with malicious intent, might be inappropriate but it is not harassment per se. Doing so after being asked to stop (refusing to stop if there is no malicious intent does not constitute malice) probably is harassment.
A joke that somebody doesn't like, particularly if it's not told *to* them, shouldn't be considered harassment and we should be wary of attempts to ban salty jokes.
I've been right all along (Score:3, Funny)
My decision, made many years ago, to remain a reclusive hermit who shuns contact with other human beings and only leaves his domicile to work and fetch food, is clearly shown to be correct by incidents such as this one. (It has, however, had the sad effect of making me communicate almost entirely in run-on sentences on internet web boards.)
Doesn't effect my view on it one jot (Score:3)
In as much as I view it as a self indulgent echo chamber where converts congratulate themselves on choosing the one true religion.
Python is just one tool in the box - sorry, one implement in the storage vessel. All single-language conference attendees really need to get over themselves.
Re: (Score:3)
Python is just one tool in the box - sorry, one implement in the storage vessel.
I'd like to put my implement in— well, you know the rest.
The truth is that anything can be dirty. To me that means at least two things. One, if you're in public, be as euphemistic as possible, it might help. Two, if you're offended by things people say, and you're not a captive audience, go listen to someone else and then you won't be offended. Spin on!
Yes -- B&B networking? (Score:3)
Chilling effect (Score:5, Insightful)
is put a chilling effect on developer conferences in general, and put pressure on conference staff to create policies that shouldn't even be necessary.
Talk freely and openly? Not anymore. Oh no! Someone said compile and link in the same sentence! I'm offended! As a female myself, now I have to worry that if I walk up to another developer, their first thought will be, "Oh shit, it's a woman. Gotta scoot!"
Do you have a smart phone? Sorry, you're not allowed to use it anymore because you might be taking photos of other people to post on your twitfaceplus feed in order to disrupt their lives.
This whole thing is a big pile of idiocy, and mindbogglingly poorly handled on ALL sides.
Re:Chilling effect (Score:4, Interesting)
"...chilling effect on developer conferences in general.."
Probable correct. This 'effect' for tech conference is an extension of the workplace enviroment.
My employer recently lost an excellant (female) engineer because she grew wreary of the social and professional isolation. An incident with a previous female employee had made some male employees somewhat paranoid. Perhaps a type of 'inverse discrimination', where the female becomes isolated because males become too risk-averse and actively avoid accupying same area as a female.
Re:Chilling effect (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the employers who made this so chilling by reaching for the pink slips. People ought to give that aspect more consideration. Send a message to the employers that termination over something like that is too extreme.
If not for the firings, this incident would be no big deal. Reprimand a few people, make sure they understand they acted inappropriately, and move on. Without the firings, the Twitter shaming would be the worst of it, for both sides, since it's nigh impossible to have things forgotten once they're online.
Re: (Score:3)
Si. Si!
I learned my lesson the hard way.
I keep my exposure to women at a minimum now. yuk, yuk.
Many have been raised to believe that they can lie or exaggerate a situation because they've been "discriminated against" for eons. Just not worth goofing with them.
Proposal: Sensitivity Hats (Score:5, Interesting)
The first group of people is not offended by jokes, including jokes influenced by sexuality.
The second group of people is offended by jokes, especially jokes influenced by sexuality. A subset of this group is offended by such jokes when spoken by members of a certain gender. Of course, this is discriminatory so we will ignore that aspect and categorize them as offended in general.
I think there is a desire to be respectful of the second group while avoiding strict censorship of the [majority] first group.
I suggest a clearly visible sign that someone is offended by jokes influenced by sexuality (or, perhaps broadening this to include all jokes?). Perhaps a yellow hat or something like that. People within earshot of such people should refrain from telling such jokes. People wearing the sensitivity marker who hear things offensive to them can raise the issue to convention staff who will attempt to deal with the issue. People wearing the "sensitivity" marker who make such jokes will permanently lose the right to wear them.
People not wearing the sensitivity marker who hear something offensive to them should either (A) indicate to the offensive person directly that their conduct is perhaps inappropriate, or (B) move away from the offensive person so that they are no longer offended. If (A) is ineffective and (B) is ineffective or impossible the convention staff can be notified and they may or may not choose to act; anyone not wearing a sensitivity marker who is upset is free to go put on a sensitivity marker.
People may wish to have activities which may include things that people find offensive, they are free to ban sensitivity markers. Additionally, "sensitivity-marker free zones" or "automatic sensitivity marker" zones could be created. Or even entire conventions where no sensitivity markers are allowed -- one would expect a crude joke convention to probably not cater to overly sensitive people.
Of course, in an ideal world, everyone would be adult enough to know to watch their language a little bit, and to not overreact a lot. But given that certain people are especially sensitive for various reasons, we should find a way to allow them to coexist with the rest of society.
Re:Proposal: Sensitivity Hats (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, you're missing a third group: people who look to be offended so they can play a victim and get attention. Adria's in this last group.
The truly despicable part about this last group is that in the face of a true problem and real victims, this third group makes the problem worse for everyone. It detracts from the real victims' ability to stand up for their rights, reinforces the stereotypes held by the people causing the problem, and paints a larger group as aggressors because the group causing the problem happens to be a subset.
Luckily, while I'm a guy and risk being demonized, I'm saved by another geek stereotype of which I strongly adhere - I'm too anti-social to find myself in the position of making inappropriate jokes with anyone, and I care more about learning the technologies presented at conferences to be chatting during a talk even if I wasn't..
Re: (Score:3)
Imagine 10,000 Adrias with Google Glasses! (Score:5, Insightful)
I predict a resurgence in traditional men's clubs.
Re: (Score:3)
Human Beings (Score:5, Insightful)
We are all at risk here. Even though we have freedom of speech, we run the risk of losing our livelihoods if we say something that might offend someone somewhere. Richards was being a real "bitch." I say "bitch" because it is a disparaging name for a female. Not because I wish to be sexist. If the perpetrator of this nonsense was a guy, I'd call him a real "bastard." Calling a woman a "bastard" doesn't seem to be the correct usage in the English language. If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one, but if it is not sexists to call a guy a bastard, I refuse to accept that there is no non-sexist name we can call a woman when we are condemning her and her actions, but I digress.
Seriously, I've been in the situation where I have been pulled aside by management for saying something offensive, but they won't say what, to someone, but they won't say who, and that I should stop it, but they don't say how. The whole harassment mentality is very kafka-esque. The REAL hostile work environment is created by zero-tolerance crap, which, by definition, means "intolerant."
Human beings are imperfect. "Appropriate" behavior is a myth of the modern workplace police. Human beings build relationships and we communicate. We are not robots. Humor is part of humanity, and sometimes humor is off color. There is a difference between saying, "Hey, my dongle is bigger than yours" and "Have sex with me or your fired."
Also, lets be honest here, if ms Richard heard these jokes from her friends at that conference, she would not have complained. She should try to understand and take to heart Voltaire's quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." An evangelist should stand for something besides her own notoriety. Gatherings of human beings are generally improved when we all try to be tolerant of one another.
Re:Human Beings (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Human Beings (Score:5, Informative)
If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one
There are plenty...'idiot' works for me. If you want extra strength, 'nasty, hypocritical attention-seeking idiot' would seem to apply in this case.
Why do you feel the need for something gender-specific?
Note that you can just as well call a female a 'bastard' if you like, it's just slang for 'illegitimate'.
Strangely enough, just about the stongest word you can use against a man in the English language is of course 'cunt'; go figure.
Overall, though, swear word tends to detract from the overall message. I once worked for a boss that I never, ever heard use a swer word.
But when he (rarely) felt he had to, he could take verbally take people to pieces like I've never seen.
Now get off my fucking lawn.
Re:Human Beings (Score:5, Insightful)
I won't go to Pycon. (Score:5, Insightful)
Certainly not if my job can be put at risk because some attention-seeker decides to be offended by an innocent remark I make in a private conversation that they happen to overhear.
I don't care if you're offended. There's a bunch of stuff that offends me but you don't hear me whining on about it, because I'm a grown-up and I have learned that other people think differently from me.
Montreal (Score:4, Informative)
I'm not sure what the "naughty Montreal" comment is about; Montreal is an ideal location to get over this episode. Women in general, and women in industry in particular, are treated fairly and equitably. While there aren't 50% female developers, the numbers are higher than I've seen elsewhere in North America.
I just hope conference attendees are ready for 51% of the sessions to be held in French, and all printed materials being predominantly in French, as required by law.
Not asking the right question (Score:3)
So I imagine there are tens of millions of refugees trying to get into neighboring states like Arizona, Nevada, or Mexico. I say we welcome them with open arms and help heal these terrible things that have happened to them.
Hell No. The incident is way overblown (Score:3)
Here's the best take I've read on what happened and what should have happened:
Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/ [wordpress.com]
Everyone involved could have handled the situation better. I'm annoyed that this one incident, important for those directly involved, got blown way out of proportion and has shit on all the great things that PyCon achieved this year. Adria Richards does not deserve the abuse she's received even if she handled the situation wrong.
Stupid Question (Score:3)
All the accounts I've read indicate that this was a problem between two or three individuals, and that PyCon handled the complaint they received professionally, reasonably, and quickly. Why would it affect anyone's decision to attend a future PyCon?
I would downvote the question if I could, as it seems to be about as useful as a "first post" comment. I wonder if the submitter just wanted to see himself published on slashdot.
Re:No dongles and connectors! (Score:5, Insightful)
"One of these men lost his job as a result of this incident, and we are seeing numerous people blame Adria for that. This is a clear example of a culture we live in, where it is more appropriate to blame the victim than to blame any other offenders."
What the everliving fuck?
She wasn't a "victim" of anything. These guys didn't rape her. They didn't assault her. They didn't slander her, they didn't harass her they didn't DO anything to her. They told a joke meant for each other and happened to be within earshot of her. That was the reason she got fired. She's claiming to be some sort of victim and framing all women as victims of "this sort of behavior" and its just bullshit. You do not have a right to not be offended. As long as that person isn't directly talking about you, thats where your rights end.
Now if they had said "I bet this chick in front of us here would love it if the presenters had bigger dongles" or something of that nature, she'd have a bit of a case here as that could very easily be considered harassment.
Re:No dongles and connectors! (Score:4, Insightful)
To be fair the Joker may have been belligerent and annoying. I don't like it when people talk during lectures either. It makes it hard to pay attention. To make it worse they were telling off-color, extra-annoying jokes. There's nothing necessarily sexist or anti-woman about making a dongle joke, but it certainly can make women (or men) feel uncomfortable. It very well may create less friendly environment to some women. That being said, the photograph/tweet response was not terribly appropriate. Neither is she to blame for the consequent firing of photographed employees (except maybe getting herself fired)
Her response could have been to turn around and nicely (or angrily) ask them to be quiet or leave. I don't agree with her approach to solving the problem, but I do not think it is her fault that one of the guys got fired. Perhaps he was otherwise incompetent or was always making stupid jokes that pissed everyone off? Perhaps the guys employer overreacted badly to this incident and then that is really unfortunate. In which case I guess she would share some of the blame with the employer.
So hopefully a good python dev can get a new job. I'm not sure what a technology evangelist does, but I hope she uses better judgement at dealing with similar situations in the future. This sucks. Whenever I go to a tech conference, I get very excited and inpsired by all the good work being done by other people. I will continue to attend conferences for sure and hope they can be a welcoming place for everyone.... even n00bs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They told a joke
...almost certainly equivalent to one she clearly has no problems with [twitter.com].
Interesting Twitter feed, as it were, full of sexism and racism.
But of course, it doesn't count - because she's black and female. And joking, clearly, oh, certainly.
Re:Donglegate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone is trying desperately to make this into something bigger than it is.
Absolutely this. Those guys told a tame (even boring) joke in the wrong place, she immediately went nutso-nuclear. One of the guys lost his job and so did she.
Case closed.
Aside from those two, there's no good reason anyone should avoid PyCon, and we all know it. If you can act like a normal adult, it's unlikely you'll have any problems with anyone.
Re: (Score:3)
And by the way, codes of conduct are essentially useless. Attendees either behave in a socially acceptable way or they got booted. And the convention orgranizers get to decide what is socially acceptable.
Codes of conduct inform attendees of what the convention organizers probably will decide is socially acceptable.
Re: (Score:3)
Her intentions are very suspect to begin with. There has been lots of speculation that career goals were her motive. Not to mention, she (apparently) has no remorse over getting a person (in this case a male) fired for her very unsubstantiated claims of "abuse".
Either she is a neo-feminist who has it out for males, or is just totally unaware of how society (and the real-world work). In the real world, sometimes people's feelings do get hurt. Launching a witch hunt against 1/2 the population because her