Prominent GitHub Engineer Julie Ann Horvath Quits Citing Harrassment 710
First time accepted submitter PvtVoid writes in with the story of Julie Ann Horvath alleging a culture of sexism at GitHub. "The exit of engineer Julie Ann Horvath from programming network GitHub has sparked yet another conversation concerning women in technology and startups. Her claims that she faced a sexist internal culture at GitHub came as a surprise to some, given her former defense of the startup and her internal work at the company to promote women in technology."
One side of the story (Score:3, Interesting)
So we know one side of the story. But what about the other side? Maybe she was really bad worker and used 'discrimination' card each time to defend her work? "You are saying that this code is bad not because of the code, but just because I'm a woman". It would be nice if somebody could anonymously 'leak' some of her pull requests plus entire conversation around it - and then we could see how much harrasment was from reviewer and how much unfair pushing from her side.
Problem is that GitHub is at lost position. However bad she was, they will be always painted bad boys for throwing dirt on her, so they will probably keep silent...
Re:One side of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:One side of the story (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
If I was a C-level guy at github, I'd come
Re: (Score:3)
Did you ever try to rewrite the git history so that really no trace of a commit can be found? Sounds interesting. I would like to know how this can be done.
Re: (Score:3)
It can almost be done by rebasing and replacing a central master. But this deteriotes the history and interaction with _every single cloned repository_ and is generally noticed quite quickly. The validity of all the potentially independent, separate cloned repositories is one of the very useful, decentralized powers of git.
Re: (Score:3)
In the end, Git is just a large amounts if bits.
So "yes", it can be manipulated.
It's not some easy database though; removing something from a Git repositiory without leaving a trace is very, very hard.
Git is also distributed, so it seems quite likely that there are many copies of the repository everywhere, including in her posession.
Each would have to be changed very meticulously in order to not look suspicious upon investigation.
It's not impossible, just something completely out of scope of anybody except
Re: (Score:3)
A push does not remove anything from history, nor does reverting a change or removing files.
Git has no "official" way of completely removing something from a repository.
Once something has happened to a repo, it can always be traced back.
Re:One side of the story (Score:5, Informative)
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OTOH, she only started badmouthing after she was being publically badmouthed.
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and if she hadn't said anything, nothing would have changed.It seems, from the CEOs response, that many things were very wrong at that place.
So you do badmouth your previous employer, its the way you do it that's important. You keep things as unemotional and factual as possible. Of course, you also have to consider suing to be "badmouthing" too, but with a nice payout at the end.
Re:One side of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
I would not hire her now for the sole reason that she seems to believe discretion and loyalty to a company becomes optional after you leave.
Pro tip: your company will never be loyal to you even while you are working there. They will fire you as soon as it matches their profit/cost equations. Don't expect to get anything from your loyalty.
Be loyal and cultivate relationships with people, not companies.
Re: (Score:3)
You do not badmouth your former employer, no matter what they did.
Your way creates a nation of slaves. I, personally, oppose slavery.
You may sue them or come to an agreement that makes suing them unnecessary.
Your way creates a nation of excessive litigation. I, personally, would prefer that the courts are used for those cases when where is no other recourse.
I would not hire her now for the sole reason that she seems to believe discretion and loyalty to a company becomes optional after you leave.
You would not hire her now for the sole reason that you could not subject her to abuse without her telling people about it. If you meant to behave honorably, you would not need to cherry-pick employees who will condone your bad behavior by not reporting it to those who wish to know: potential
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Except if somebody is ticked off or angry without the company being at fault. For example if they have unrealistic expectations, an unrealistic view of their skills, etc. A common situation. If that combines with them being unprofessional, that is a sure combination for causing serious problems.
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Re:One side of the story (Score:4, Funny)
What you describe (exaggerating a lot though) sound very much like the "drama queen" archetype.
Ironically, in workplace, all the drama queens I have met were male.
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Unfortunately, it is not exaggerated. A woman in a neighboring country was recently sentenced to 6 years because of a false rape claim she made to get rid of a competitor for a promotion. The poor guy spent 8 years in prison and she nearly got away with it.
Re:One side of the story (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why harassment continues. You're damned if you speak out, and damned if you don't.
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The articles seem to refer to her as Influential developer [readwrite.com].
I don't think that "really bad worker" is likely.
And her story isn't incredible. There is a lot of sexism in the industry.
Their response (linked by others) is probably the best they could
Re:One side of the story (Score:4, Insightful)
Their response (linked by others) is probably the best they could do. But also it looks like they are taking her allegations seriously themselves.
This is my point. Even if she is wrong, they would have to pretend she is right. There is no way of them saying "She overreacted and tried to play 'harrassed woman' card when in reality she was just bad'.
And regarding 'influential developer'... "influential developer known for helping make GitHub a more attractive place for women programmers to work". Sounds like she was known for being women activist and influencing the view of the company in female circles, rather than influencing the code base/architecture/whatever. She _might_ be a very good developer - I just don't see it claimed anywhere yet.
Issue is that it is not any longer possible to say "this particular woman is horrible and crap programmer" without being understood as "all women are horrible programmers and I'm chauvinist pig". And while I agree that industry is quite sexist and in many cases attacks are underserved, I refuse to give special handling to a worker doing bad job just because he/she comes from some opressed minority.
To be honest, I would find it a lot more sexist to give the hell to the guy producing bad code routinely, while being all time calm, smiling and forgiving to woman doing same thing. I'm probably 'chauvinist' enough to put a line at physical violence (like effectively defending myself against physical assault of man versus assult of women), but I'm not going to hold back on opinions just because of gender (or color of skin, disability or sexual orientation).
Again - not saying she is bad. I'm just stressing that in current PR climate, we will probably never learn, because it will be always better for company to sacrifice a good male programmer than try to fight to expose bad female programmer publicly.
Re:One side of the story (Score:5, Insightful)
And regarding 'influential developer'... "influential developer known for helping make GitHub a more attractive place for women programmers to work". Sounds like she was known for being women activist and influencing the view of the company in female circles, rather than influencing the code base/architecture/whatever. She _might_ be a very good developer - I just don't see it claimed anywhere yet.
Issue is that it is not any longer possible to say "this particular woman is horrible and crap programmer" without being understood as "all women are horrible programmers and I'm chauvinist pig". And while I agree that industry is quite sexist and in many cases attacks are underserved, I refuse to give special handling to a worker doing bad job just because he/she comes from some opressed minority.
Sorry, but that is complete bollocks.
Firstly she says that her code was deleted/reverted without explanation, or with hostile comments left. It doesn't matter how terrible a programmer she might be, that kind of thing is unacceptable. Criticism and reverts are fine, as long as they are constructive and don't amount to bullying.
You can freely criticise women as long as it is constructive, and the rule is the same for men and gay people and black people and every other minority. You don't have to treat women differently, just fairly as you would any other human being. Giving someone "hell" for writing bad code is rarely appropriate and unlikely to create a good, productive work environment compared to, you know, helping them improve. Arguably men are more likely to put up with it but that doesn't make it right.
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Firstly she says that her code was deleted/reverted without explanation, or with hostile comments left. It doesn't matter how terrible a programmer she might be, that kind of thing is unacceptable. Criticism and reverts are fine, as long as they are constructive and don't amount to bullying.
Yes, "she says". If you look at greenshirt post in their magic forum, it looks quite the opposite - he (or she?) claims that Julie has "history of raging against professional criticism" and other bad things. If what greenshirt says is true, then all of us are being just manipulated by drama queen.
Now, given that entry, ask yourself, why do you believe her side of the story by default?
1) Because she went to the press first and started smearing her coworkers in public, while they stayed on private forums?
2) B
Re:One side of the story (Score:4, Insightful)
Sexist claims aside, the critique that a non-employee is allowed to hang-out in the office and harass employees-- and is still there even after being repeatedly banned from that area of the building-- that is a real HR problem, and that alone would be enough for me to quit a company.
Not sexism, but bitchiness (Score:5, Insightful)
Her problem wasn't sexism, it was with the founder's wife (so she says). 75% of the article talks about her problems with the founder's wife.
So it's just a tale of one woman being bitchy to another.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So it's just a tale of one woman being bitchy to another.
That's a sexist remark, you know?
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Much less than her claim.
Re:Not sexism, but bitchiness (Score:5, Insightful)
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Asshole is gender neutral, bitch is a pejorative used exclusively for women. More over it has a history of being used in a sexist way, much like "nigger" has a history of being used in a racist way.
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You're still not getting it. Consider the original statement: Her problem wasn't sexism, it was with the founder's wife (so she says). 75% of the article talks about her problems with the founder's wife. So it's just a tale of one woman being bitchy to another. First of all, if 75% of the article is about her problems with the founder's wife, 25% is about the other problem. So turning the narrative to a stereotype about how some women behave toward other women would be bogus even if the 75% part was
Re:Not sexism, but bitchiness (Score:4, Insightful)
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Not really. If it was men, you'd say they were assholes too each other.
Stop trying to read more into it than there is asshole.
There are different terms used for people with differences ... and guess what no how much you like it, men and women are different from each other ... I know this because I Can't pass a bowling ball through my penis, yet my wife can spit out a baby (with a lot of effort!).
Pull your head out of your ass and stop acting like we're all exactly the same and you'll find yourself a lot le
Serious and Worth Reading (Score:3)
A bit slow Slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a party at Github headquarters attended by employees and their friends. There was music and probably alcohol. Also, hula hoops.
Yes, those MEN had the GALL to WATCH two women hula hooping. Which made her feel unsafe. In other words, she's a lunatic and you can safely ignore anything she says.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a party at Github headquarters attended by employees and their friends. There was music and probably alcohol. Also, hula hoops.
Yes, those MEN had the GALL to WATCH two women hula hooping. Which made her feel unsafe. In other words, she's a lunatic and you can safely ignore anything she says.
This is very strange. If you have activities like hula hooping, karaoke, etc. at a party then people do it because they want to be watched. If everyone looked the other way it would be very strange - if that's what they wanted they could have set out a "hula hooping cubicle" where people could do it in private - but its not very party like!
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I can see how a situation where female employees were encouraged to gyrate their bodies while the male employees watched and gawked at them could be off-putting. I'm male and I'd find that uncomfortable to watch.
If it was just a bunch of people of both genders hula hooping that would be fine, but it sounds like there was a very different atmosphere. Where do you draw the line? Most people would probably say that hiring strippers would be unacceptable, but there is a huge grey area of acceptable behaviour at
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:4, Insightful)
Too right, what next, dancing and showing their ankles? Parties and alcohol clearly need to be banned.
Note: you changed "were hula hooping" to "were encouraged to gyrate their bodies".
Drunk people are often embarrassing, but the uncomfortableness that is embarrassment is something that a reasonable adult puts up with when they see that the other people are having harmless fun.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
Note - I don't think she's a nutcase, I think she has been treated very badly and I hope she gets a sensible amount of compensation.
But at the same time, she wasn't being asked to hula hoop and she didn't say the woman didn't start hula-hooping of their own volition, some people like to be looked at, I don't think the men gawping is a big deal. I think by the time this happened she had gotten so sensitive to the harassment she had received that this was the final straw.
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The problem is, as I already stated in another comment, we don't know what happened. What I'm saying is that I can imagine a scenario where I would feel it was inappropriate, not that I know for certain that is what happened.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I decided to break with form and RTFA. It's not about sexism, it's about one of the founders and his wife being bonkers and victimising the woman, she probably has a good case of constructive dismissal.
The hula thing is a red herring and this amounts to victim bashing.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a red herring for the people who want to take a bash at Horvarth.
It may have been the straw that broke the camels back, but that's the point, she had been driven to the point where the straw became a back-breaker by the ill-treatment issue.
The whole point of the straw proverb is that it's not the straw that matters (red herring), it's the prior weight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Informative)
Julie Horvath complained and had removed a rug at GitHub which she objected to because of the word "meritocracy". As that would imply that the fact there were so few women in IT and in GitHub in general was because women were not as good as men.
She also headed-up a female-only lecture project within GitHub.
Take these facts into consideration when considering her claims of hula-hoop-sexism.
Source: http://readwrite.com/2014/01/2... [readwrite.com]
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Informative)
As that would imply that the fact there were so few women in IT and in GitHub in general was because women were not as good as men.
The article you linked to explains it far better than that. GitHub is saying that it isn't a perfect meritocracy yet and needs to do more to encourage women to join. It's just accepting the idea that there are women who want to work in IT but are put off doing so, and that GitHub can do something about it.
Also, from the Passion Projects (female speaker only lectures) web site:
Can I attend a Passion Projects talk if I'm not a woman?
Absolutely. The typical Passion Projects audience is usually split down the middle, half men and half women. And we wouldn't have it any other way. It's just as important for men to see these women as role models as it is for women to.
In other words they are just trying to help encourage women to give lectures on IT related subjects because they feel that they are otherwise under-represented. It isn't some rabid anti-man feminazi group, and more than scholarships for underprivileged students are run by rich people haters or support groups targeting black communities are racists.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words they are just trying to help encourage women to give lectures on IT related subjects because they feel that they are otherwise under-represented.
This misses the point of Jane Elliott's brown-eyes-blue-eyes experiment [youtube.com]. Women don't need separate-but-equal facilities to excel - there is no functional difference between a man and a woman in an IT role. Telling them they need a special venue is telling them they're not good enough for the "men's lecture". It's an insidious form of sexism.
Do individual women need encouragement? Of course - our culture favors quiet little mermaids, not bold warrior princesses. But do encourage those women who need the encouragement and *don't* tell them they're not good enough for the men's group, but also encourage the quiet nerdy guy who's terrified to speak in front of a group. And if you do encounter this fabled guy who is trying to keep women down in IT - kick 'em in the balls and tell him that women don't have that weakness.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Interesting)
There's more hints of this in her article. It starts out by complaining about "aggressive communication on pull requests" and how little the men respected her opinion.
In quite some years working in the software business I have occasionally seen men and women genuinely be dicks on code review threads, but I have never once seen an entire group of people be dicks simultaneously. What I have seen, repeatedly, is people who do not have any engineering background bump up against the no nonsense, no bullshit get-it-done-now attitude that is pervasive in the software world. This is especially a problem for people from fuzzy marketing-type backgrounds, which is what this woman has, and especially on code review threads, where reviewers always have a backlog and writing each line-by-line comment as if it were a formal business letter would waste staggering amounts of time.
My experience has been that men love it when a woman turns up and gets real, respectable work done! What men definitely don't love is when they reply to some request saying "That won't work because of X" and this is interpreted as aggressive by the person whose work was not up to scratch (whether it be men or women). If she couldn't get respect on her code review threads and perceived the communication as aggressive, I bet the real story is that nobody was being aggressive but her work simply contained lots of mistakes, and having them pointed out without any cushioning (as is normal) hurt her ego.
Reading this story has not made any difference to my desire to work for github. It has reminded me of other times in my previous job where similar issues cropped up, though not normally so publicly. The genuine fault ALWAYS lay with the complainer.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
To paraphrase Robert Heinlein, "if some men like to stare at women hula-hooping, then at least some women must enjoy hula-hooping while being stated at by men, otherwise there is something fundamentally wrong with the human species".
Being offended by proxy is a totally self-inflicted punishment. If that was the thing that made her leave (and not the behaviour of the co-founder's wife), then indeed she is a nutcase. If that wasn't the trigger, but it's what she's using as an excuse, then she's a manipulative hypocrite, trying to blame "sexism" simply because she hopes it'll get superficial readers on her side, and generate more bad press for GitHub.
Re:she's a nutcase (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish I could mod the parent up. Really, she was offended because men were men and woman were woman. If they didn't like to be the center of attention they should do their hula hooping exercises at home, with the blinds down, doors closed..... in the basement.
That being said, maybe she had some other more valid issues but it seems that this is a case where she blames the world for her own sensitivities.
Re: (Score:3)
She seemed to endure a great deal of harassment over things that had to do with who she was dating and who she didn't want to date. Would this have happened to a guy? I don't think so.
From the article: "Horvath later learned that the founder had a similar talk with her partner and demanded that he resign". So yes, it would also happen to a guy.
Sexism angle way overblown (Score:5, Insightful)
Having read all of that, it seems like maybe 10% sexism and 90% people just being horrible in a completely gender-neutral fashion. Inexcusable either way, but pitching this as a "culture of sexism" seems a bit over-the-top given that most of the negative interactions mentioned in the article are between two women.
Psychotic wife (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems the lion's share of the problem was a founder's psychotic wife, who basically stalked her - which doesn't seem to have anything to do with gender discrimination, and all to do with one person being a nut-job.
Of the other issues she raised:
* Another engineer made a pass at her, got rejected, and didn't handle the rejection will.
* Some girls were hula-hoop dancing, and guys were watching them
The first issue might have been a problem, but if it was at all proportionate to the page-space dedicated to discussing it, it sounds like a fairly minor issue, and one that should really be able to be solved by HR. The second is just, well, petty. Sounds like she'd made up her mind to hate the place by that stage, and was finding fault with every little thing.
Comment removed (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
I could be mistaken, but it sounds an awful lot like this is just a bad attempt to blame the big bad men for what the founder's wife did. She sounds like a bitch on wheels with a jetpack strapped to her for good measure. Sure, the one engineer was a problem, but if the wife wasn't involved and out to get her HR would probably have put him in his place if she asked.
It doesn't really matter _why_ there was a problem. It looks like the problems were in this order: 1. A "founder" who allowed a non-employee (his wife) to interfere with the company, and who didn't stop that non-employee in their tracks as soon as it was apparent that her interference caused problems. 2. A bitchy woman interfering with the company and causing problems. 3. HR not jumping on the fact that a non-employee was allowed in the company and causing problems. 4. An apparently insane male employee try
'twas the wife (Score:5, Interesting)
after reading the story it seemed to be almost nothing to do with sexism, and everything to do with the wife not liking the woman. women not liking women, news at 10.
What's the big deal (Score:3)
OK, I read the summary and realize the headline is inaccurate. What they meant to write was, " Prominent GitHub Engineer Julie Ann Horvath Quits, Citing Harassment" rather than the headline they did write. All I have to say is, "Commas, learn to use them."
Re: (Score:3)
"Let's eat Grandma"
Commas save lives
Women in the male-dominated workplace (Score:3)
I know exactly what happened. (Score:5, Insightful)
the wife went on to claim that she was responsible for hires at GitHub, and asked Horvath to explain to her what she was working on. The wife also claimed to employ “spies” inside of GitHub, and claimed to be able to, again according to Horvath, read GitHub employees’ private chat-room logs, which only employees are supposed to have access to.
This sounds like the founder's wife is a loose cannon with a her own little unofficial organization within the company. I have seen this before. This seems like the founder's wife was trying to recruit her into her network of spies.
Horvath called the situation, aptly, “bananas.”
Yeah, I can guess who the head banana is, the founder's wife
In her email to TechCrunch, Horvath says she felt “confused and insulted to think that a woman who was not employed by my company was pulling the strings.” She also said she felt bullied by someone with perceived power and influence over her personal relationship and her career at GitHub.
As anyone would be.
Horvath then told her partner, also a GitHub employee, about what was happening. She warned him against being close to the founder and his wife, and asked him not to relay information to them.
This was good idea.
According to Horvath, her partner “agreed this was best.” He had talked with the founder’s wife, who agreed to give Horvath space.
This is where things are going sideways and neither she nor her partner see what is going on. By Horvath's partner talking to the founder's wife, they both made it onto her enemy list and became targets.
Instead of the issue blowing over, Horvath received a meeting request from HR at GitHub, and was asked to “relay the details of that personal conversation that took place out of the office.” Horvath recalls that she was “uncomfortable with this but complied to the best of my ability.” Her partner was also asked to relay past events.
This is an indication that HR has been made aware of a situation and is investigating it. This was probably initiated by the founder's wife via the founder because of Horvath's partner.
Radio silence ensued for a month, according to Horvath, while rumors cropped up that the founder was asking other employees about her, as well as her relationship with her partner. To Horvath, the silence made her think that she was “being bullied into leaving.”
This is the investigation.
At this point, Horvath said she began to feel threatened.
Why exactly? Was it
She said that having her personal relationship dragged into her work life and put on show for her coworkers didn’t sit well with her.
That is always a danger when one dates or is married to a coworker. Or was it
The aforementioned wife began a pattern of passive-aggressive behavior that included sitting close to Horvath to, as she told TechCrunch, “make a point of intimidating” her.
Or was it something else? The fact that the founder's wife is sittng close to her raises the question of whether the founder's wife has an official capacity in the organization which would partially contradict what Horvath has said thus far.
This stalemate ended when the founder asked to see her. Horvath said that she “wasn’t going to put myself in a position like that, so I required HR be present if we were to meet.” The meeting did not go well.
If she thought it would, she was a fool
Engineer? (Score:5, Informative)
How is this person an engineer?
Her linkedin profile shows a degree in marketing and job titles in design and marketing. Not any engineering background to be seen.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ju... [linkedin.com]
Sorry, but no.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you suffer from poor reading comprehension?
I pointed out none of her job titles indicated any engineering responsibility. Not just her education is lacking, but work experience as well.
Come on man.
Women in Software Dev Jobs (Score:3)
Slashdot response to this article (Score:3)
From the book : The No Assholer Rule
Their (assholes) unpleasant behaviours were catalogued by Sutton as The Dirty Dozen:[6]
Insults
Violation of personal space
Unsolicited touching
Threats
Sarcasm
Flames
Humiliation
Shaming
Interruption
Backbiting
Glaring
looks like she pretty much got a clean sweep of all available asshole behaviors. That deserves some kind of award.
Sorry but her story has the ring of truth for anyone in the industry more than a five years. Companies are by and large run the way a pirate ship is run and guess what, they're happily populated by would-be buccaneers who have a pirate's lawless and coersive mentality. Arbitrary authority, nepotism, verbal abuse, threats, intimiddation, you know, the above list.
What's REALLY enlightening here its to filter slashdot comments by their ratings. Filtering for "5" comments yields not the usual collection of insightful or funny stuff you want to read and reflect on because it's obviously drawn from personal experience, but rather abusive and or jocularly dismissive "rebuttals" to her story, myopically focused on some detail (hula hoops !) many of them authored by Anonymous Cowards who, presumably, started with scores of zero and "earned" their way to the top, despite the self imposed filter bubble of most readers.
I take this to mean one of a number of things. Github aficionados friends and supporters know how to jack the ratings system of Slashdot when the cause suits them. Slashdot is primarily populated by just the kind of knuckleheads the article's author is complaining about or the article itself did not attract the attention of people who accepted the headline as truthfuil and accurate, as if the headline had been: "Politicians are liars" claims small time campaign donor !
At any rate, as it stands, it's an interesting glimpse into Slashdot "culture" as it presents itself in reaction to this particular article at least. Not my tribe, that's for sure.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a guy and after reading her story I would feel the same if I were in her shoes. This is not a gender problem, this is a people problem. A lot of people simply don't know how to behave civilized with other people.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately we don't have enough information to know if it is a gender discrimination issue or not. If she had to deal with this because she is female, if people treated her differently and if there are persistent problems for women then it is sexism. If not it's just a crappy place to work full stop.
Engineer? Are you serious? (Score:5, Insightful)
Horvath has a background in marketing and virtually no examples of code to be found anywhere. Being able to sprinkle a little script onto some markup does not make you an engineer.
And keep in mind that this is not the first time she's played the sexism card. Horvath led a 'geek feminism' campaign to get rid of a rug (yes, a rug) because she objected to the word 'meritocracy'. Because we all know that meritocracy is a myth and that everyone's contribution to Open Source is equally important. Focusing on the people who actually write code is just sexism. *Gag*
Re: (Score:3)
"I had a really hard time getting used to the culture, the aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion"
, I wonder how many men, if going away with perceptions like these, would be ready to ascribe it to some "them vs. me" issue. I mean, one can't conclude on basis of statements like these that some sort of improper discrimination wasn't going on, but neither can one conclude that it was.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
The actual sexism in it seems overblown at best. They had a party, girls were hulu-hooping, guys stared. She seems to somehow have been shocked and perturbed by this, which makes me wonder about her. Is she shocked and perturbed by the affects of gravity or the inverse square law as well? Yet this completely unremarkable scene is cited as the 'last straw' before she left.
For the most part the real problem appears to have been a founders wife. FTFA: "In her email to TechCrunch, Horvath says she felt "confused and insulted to think that a woman who was not employed by my company was pulling the strings." She also said she felt bullied by someone with perceived power and influence over her personal relationship and her career at GitHub."
Now I dont know about where Julia is from, but here on Earth a founders spouse having what might be technically inappropriate involvement in the company business is not exactly unheard of. It's also typical for that spouse to have what we gamers would describe as a great intrigue score - a manipulative deceitful personality that will bluff or lie about her current position in order to improve her position 10 moves later in her game, and who will use you up and throw you away without a hint of remorse if she sees a gain in it. This sort of woman is always scheming, and employees that just want to keep punching their clock and spending their paycheck have to be vigilant to avoid getting involved in her schemes, usually to their detriment.
Now I dont blame our heroine for being uncomfortable in that spot, Everyone is. I am just saying it's odd that she would actually be surprised by something so common, and odder still that she would attribute it to sexism.
Github indicates the spouse in question has been dealt with, so frankly it sounds like they may have won on both ends of the deal. Seems an easy bet that at least some of the employees are breathing much more easily in the office today with both of these ladies gone from it.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't forget that the founder's wife treated her the way she did, precisely because she couldn't see Horvath as an engineer, but only as a potential lust object for the founder. And the founder let her. And then there's the atrocious meeting incident, where HR also proved to be totally useless.
By themselves the points may not seem all that bad, but together they're more fishy, and when you put them in a context of a company with gender issues they're quite damning. This is one of the problems with cases like this: gender discrimination usually pervades the atmosphere of a company and provides the context in which events happen. (I've seen this myself at a Dutch IT service company. I'm a man and even I could see it, so I'm pretty sure the women must have felt it too.) The events themselves aren't that bad by themselves:
* A competent woman doesn't get promoted. So what, you cannot promote everyone. But the guy who didn't promote her, always promoted only men, and some of them were incompetent.
* A junior colleague jokes that rape is just a case of economics. The colleague was a guy who regularly mistreated women. Not so funny now, eh?
* There were no women in management. Okay, that happens sometimes, women like management less anyway, and some women preferred to promote out of the company. But when you know that management consisted of a bunch of sex-obsessed baboons who did nothing but continually laugh at each other's misogynistic ‘jokes’ the picture changes.
That IT company was sort of an extreme case, but I've since seen more subtle variants elsewhere. These things aren't always that easy to put in words, and every example you might cite will be wiped off the table by someone who doesn't want to understand that there is a problem, but they create an incredibly sickening atmosphere.
It's hard enough to take for a man; if I were a woman, I would have permanently left IT ages ago.
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By themselves the points may not seem all that bad, but together they're more fishy, and when you put them in a context of a company with gender issues they're quite damning.
What if, and I'm just posing a scenario here, the entirety of the gender issues consists of those points, and those points only? Are those points, themselves, enough to provide a damning context of gender issues?
I'm not denying that there are companies out there that are just horrible to women; usually they're just as horrible to men, but we're bred to take it with a grin and keep on going. What I'm asking is... Have we all become oversensitive?
Were they calling out *her* character on pull requests, or was
TechCrunch did NOT report the story accurately. (Score:4, Insightful)
(Should be "casual".) These things seem like a reasonable opinion:
1) A lot happened that Julie Ann Horvath is not mentioning. It is impossible to judge the situation with the small amount of information, especially since it comes from only one person.
2) The major incident mentioned in the TechCrunch story involves 2 women.
3) TechCrunch damaged its reputation by acting as though the story is extremely important when clearly the TechCrunch writer knows only one side. That story calls into question whether TechCrunch is adequately edited. Can we trust TechCrunch to be sure stories are reported accurately? Or is TechCrunch the Fox News of technology?
4) Many companies have a somewhat unhealthy social environment. Most men would just get a job elsewhere. At present, a woman can claim that there was discrimination against her, and people will say that the problems can be understood as men against women.
5) A book about feminism a woman friend gave me many years ago said, "In Italy feminism is pro-female. In the U.S. feminism is anti-male." The way the story in reported seems to indicate that Julie Ann Horvath was using the company as a target for her anger, anger that was there long before she joined the company.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
And the founder let her.
Isn't that statement a little sexist?
No. As an executive of a company, the founder has the responsibility to act to prevent anyone interfering with the company, either taking action himself or hiring someone to do it within legal means.
As his wife is doing the interfering, he himself is the most appropriate person to put a stop to it. By taking no action, he is "letting" it happen. "Let" not as "giving permission", but as "not taking action against", i.e. "let it happen".
Re: That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
That is classic Slashdot. Oversimplification and grand declarations regarding the behavior of others at the helm of businesses.
How about this: Social interactions, personal conflicts, and politics are all part of business (and, really, any team environment), and you'd better be ready for it or be ready to get out.
It is completely unrealistic to expect business to somehow be an antiseptic environment, like some ideal altar of pure motivation. When people hide behind claims of protecting shareholder interest, it's the same shit.
It's still a group of people, behaving like, shocker, people...
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There was no sexism at all, what my reading of the Techcrunch article which only presented Horvath's side of events. Her allegations of sexism are ridiculous and completely unfounded.
Mind you, I completely believe her version of the events as presented here. It's just that they're not "sexism", and I resent that card being thrown for things where it's not appropriate. It's just like how certain people will scream "racism!!!" for things which aren't racism, such as disliking Obama: "If you don't love Obam
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is not a gender problem, this is a people problem.
Quite.
THIS, as in this particular case, it is primarily obvious mobbing performed on her by the WIFE of one of the founders of GitHub.
Sure, there are other issues, like the other employee who came out of nowhere professing his love and then started to bully her passive aggressively for "rejecting him".
Though she was already in "a committed relationship" with another employee of GitHub.
But this is primarily mobbing, plain and simple. Done by the proverbial "bosses wife".
FFS - founder who's wife had issues with Horvath demanded her boyfriend to resign cause it was ",bad judgement' to date coworkers".
I.e. She was pressured by "the wife", while her boyfriend was pressured by "the husband".
That's NOT SEXISM. They clearly took precautions so it would not be seen as sexism.
Founder and his wife were MOBBING their employees.
false dichotomy - gender problems=people problems (Score:4, Insightful)
Gender problems are people problems you fool!
This false dichotomy you purvey, that this social situation is "either A or B" is reductive and shows how far our industry has sunk.
So, is murder not a violence problem, but just a people problem? Rape...by your logic not sexual in nature...just a people problem!
Racism? Naw...that's just a people problem...by your logic.
Your reductive contextualization **insures** that you will misidentify the cause of the problem and whatever you do as a fix *will not work*
Until *men* in the tech industry mature beyond adolesence we will have this problem. It's **our fault** and we must be **proactive** to fix the problem.
Re:false dichotomy - gender problems=people proble (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then you're a pretty drama queen kind of douche bag guy then.
I read her story and I see someone who can't accept the reality of working at most small companies - nepotism. Not exactly whats going on here, but close enough. Could be worse really, they could have just put her on the payroll, then Julie would have nothing at all to bitch about other than being naive.
She's pissed off because some women respected did some hula hooping and some guys watched them ... in public ... Jealous much? Thats what this
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the whole point. There is no "male culture." There's a number of "cultures" and men are not an homogeneous group that can be classified under just one of them. We're all mixed between different "cultures," spanning both genders.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4)
That's just a variation of the "no true Scotsman" argument. Of course there is variation, but there are a lot of common problems too.
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I guess you are referring to the recent call not to label girls who take charge as "bossy" [bbc.co.uk]. IMHO they have a point - men who take charge as seen as leaders, women are often derided as bossy for doing exactly the same thing. It's not just men saying it either, women call each other bossy just as much if not more.
But hay, a feminist said it so there must be some underlying man-hatred motive, right?
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh bull, quit sucking down the kool-aid
I've worked under the leadership of both women and men, good and bad. The only women I've seen labeled as "bossy" are the same kinds as men who would be labeled "bossy" - Middle management pointy haired people who feel they need to inject themselves into your work to validate their jobs instead of actually LEADING.
Good leadership is universal, regardless of gender.
This social engineering campaign doesn't serve women at all well and instead enforces the stereotype that women need to be coddled to be considered as equals.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not about people who behave like dicks, it's about a normal and generally good manager being called bossy because they are female. You have to remember that in the 50s the ideal woman was subservient to her husband and not too strong willed. We are well past that now, fortunately, but there are still some underlying issues around particular words.
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Honestly, if equality movements, be they gender, racial, or whatever else, want to be taken seriously, they need to crack down on this behavior. You can't have every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and their sisters, Tammy, Dottie, and Harriet, speaking in the name of your movement, saying things your movement doesn't actually stand for; and there needs to be some standard punishment for doing it, as well.
Women have every right to the same rights I have
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
If calling you bossy makes you not a leader, you aren't a leader in the first place.
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Feminism is real. Feminism is powerful. Feminism is something men can and should support. Feminism is also invoked by girls who h
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Wait. We do?
That said, there really and truly is nothing preventing us all from working together. Those wi
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You're a troll, and/or a moron, but I'll bite anyway.
one can see it could be eliminated if; we went back to older standards where men worked and women stayed home to nurture family
Your solution to women not being empowered to pursue personal achievement and happiness is to... revert to a culture which prohibited women from even getting to the first rung of the ladder? Right.
For some, the urge to attempt mating is periodically overwhelming and unwelcome sex talk happens.
You use for some as if there are unfortunate individuals out there who simply can't be blamed for behaving inappropriately in the workplace. Other than in the case of genuine disorders such as Tourettes, this is just nonsense - most people manage it perfectly fi
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Swapped X and Y by mistake.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why in civilised countries we have unions and employment law. If I have a grievance like she did with my employer, I go to my union, I don't resign. They understand employment law, contract law, case law, and I have a right to a union rep at meetings with management. Why resign? Does she have a legal case for suing the company? Because I know that's how you leftpondians prefer to do it.
HR is not on your side (Score:5, Insightful)
Which is why in civilised countries we have unions and employment law.
I was a bit sad when I read that she had to request HR to be present at a meeting with the boss, you need a union on your side when you have those conversations.
Re:That's capitalism. (Score:5, Interesting)
Right. Github is located in a civilized country that also has unions and employment law. Unions aren't active in every company, and not active in most for that matter. Gender discrimination and harassment is illegal pretty much everywhere if not everywhere in the US. IANAL and I'm not going to go check all of the jurisdictions to confirm.
Everyone who has an opinion about unions seems to have a strong one. My own was formed at my first job where I made around $4/hour and got 1.5x overtime over 40 hours. The union guys got a lot more than that, though in fairness they were experienced and I was a kid, so "more" was quite reasonable. They got overtime and double overtime (3x base rate, or what they called "golden time") if they worked something like > 12 hours in a day, which happened from time to time. None of that really bothered me. Obviously, they just negotiated from a stronger position.
What bothered me was that they could spend a significant amount of that time just sitting on their butts and no one could do a thing about it. They had a "supervisor" who literally sat in a car all day long "supervising". Eventually, the company managed to get rid of that particular leech and just made one of the regular guys a shift lead or some such, and we got along just fine. The leech's parting words of advice to me were to find a job that paid a lot where I didn't have to do anything. In other words, do exactly what he had done. And then there's seniority. With a union, it doesn't matter if you're any good at your job or not, the only question is how long you've been there. Unions, in my experience, promote mediocrity. Oh, and then there's double dipping. Our work was primarily moving freight from one mode of transport to another. Typically from a ship to a train or truck. One of the enterprising union guys figured out how to sign up to work two ships at a time and only show up for one. He got paid for both. It was widely known that he was doing this, but no one could fire him for what amounted to blatant fraud. Maybe it's more precise to say it wasn't worth the fight with the union to get rid of the guy. Those instances of brazen exploitation turned me off unions.
Unions do have their place. When employers are abusing the workers, unions can back them off. Unions have enough power, though, that they can also screw over the employers AND the employees, and unchecked, they do.
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In America, unions are too focused on political issues to worry about the little guy. That's why their membership is falling.
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Git doesn't rely on github, at all. It is also completely open source (GPL) so if you wanted to fork it for some reason, you could.
What would make a lot more sense would be creating a community run alternative to github itself. Something without a business behind it.
Re:Time to fork Git? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Maybe, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Men can be very rough to their coworkers and subordinates.
This doesn't say a hell of a lot for the traditional male dominant corporate culture, Even in professional sports there has been a push-back against this kind of adolescent behavior.