Rolling 'this is sexist' thread

the other thing getting lost in the description of this whole thing is that, as far as I can tell from the accounts floating around, she turned around to have a conversation with one of these dudes and the guy who got fired joined in by making stupid sex jokes, which he then kept doing after she disengaged

so, it's not like she was sitting there and overheard someone saying something gross; dude introduced himself into her conversation with something gross

ugh I just spent too long reading about this instead of doing any lol coding and I still don't know where I stand on this

I mean out of context it sounds an overreaction but I've certainly been in situations in the er "tech community" where such a remark would be, you know, straws, camels; and no, the actual joke itself doesn't seem that offensive but it's definitely immature (this guy is a father of 3?) and this brand of humour can be quite othering.

I do think it's not cool to take photos of other people to put on twitter with a note that they did something you didn't like, and that instead of doing so with a hashtag you hope the conference organisers will see, maybe you should just email said organisers privately, at least as a first resort? But yeah, my own biases etc etc

(off-topic, but I was livid the other week when I got photographed in public and said "hey I hope I wasn't in that photo" to the photographer who just stared right past me as if there had been a strange noise but nothing capable of sentient thought was in sight. When I think of all the subreddits my fat late-for-doctor's-appointment likeness might be gathering negative comments on right now...)

(about a billion xposts which I'm not going to read until after posting or there'll be a billion more)

Adria OTM in the comments: "They felt safe being anonymous in a crowd. I changed that power dynamic and this is what the uproar is really about."

you would think, given the special snowflakism of 90s/00s child-rearing, people would be celebrating the realization that they are never really anonymous

xp True.

Xp to djp, thks, then yeah he's a dick, still disagree with twitter as public complaints mechanism tho

I mean this is probably a side-effect of living in the US as a minority and actually understanding the ramifications of slavery and how it directly impacted my family tree but anyone who expects a right to privacy in this country is deluded

in orbit, we're talking past again. I used the phrase because that is exactly the standpoint these people are projecting on her. I do not believe she has "a chip on her shoulder," these individuals are saying exactly what you defined. I'm saying that their accusations hold no weight to me, because what they paint as overreaction I say is sadly needed.

i hope ppl can understand how "she should have confronted them directly first / she reacted the wrong way" is incredibly patronizing argument right

But, yes, I'm not allowed to reclaim this for anyone, sure

I would like to think confronting them directly, or even just going back to the staff and saying "these guys said something offensive" would have done something, but I think that maybe letting this dialogue play out where it's publicly visible has some definite pros

I know you don't believe that!! Jeez, you're not a monster. Just that even bringing the language into a discussion sets up a straw man, that she IS prejudiced in her interpretation even if you support her. She might be or she might not be, but we don't need to know that to rule sexual comments indefensible.

true, no need to give the haters any weight by using their language

Xp to djp, thks, then yeah he's a dick, still disagree with twitter as public complaints mechanism tho

I don't think disagreeing with her posting to Twitter is inherently wrong or problematic. I do think that different people handle situations in different ways and it's very telling to me that the dude who got fired is more upset about his characterization than the fact that his picture was posted.

Dude was a moron who should have shut up. I am semi-shocked, though, that any credible US company wouldn't put him through the probation wringer before termination, particularly since that's the type of HR policy expressly designed to deal with situations like this, which points back to this dude being Villain of the Week and his company being the Big Bad that both fostered his behavior and then terminated him over it with little to no warning, unless of course dude was already on probation for some bullshit like this in which case lol.

Surely there's a small gap btwn 100% cheerleading and 'incredibly patronizing' elmo?

i don't really have a problem with twitter-shaming someone over a bad joke, regardless. but also i have no idea how this would spiral beyond this. its not coming from the podium or anything, and dumb puns are a huuuge world away from really violating any serious code of conduct.

so there's a v. important tool for theorem proving out of france that is called 'coq' and pronounced just how one would imagine. it is actually a clever pun on someone's name plus a tradition of naming certain software after animals plus a common abbreviation for the 'calculus of constructions (coc)'. there are conferences that are full of stuff done with coq, etc. and it is just impossible to have conversations about this without completely inadvertently introducing dumb jokes all over the place. there's like an elaborate etiquette about how to try to avoid doing it too much, and since its so easy to accidentally say something risque, the idea of doing it on purpose is really frowned on since it basically shows you haven't been working with this tool long enough to be sick of those jokes. but at the same point, if someone does say something accidentally quite dirty, there's no shame in sort of making some gesture towards pointing it out.

the same thing happens often to mathemeticians who work with p-adic numbers, since there's a thing that people refer to as the 'p-ness' of the number, and it takes freaking forever to get over laughing when it comes up. that one is arguably easier to describe differently, but i think people even when they don't find it hilarious, like silly names, and so they really don't try to.

To confront ppl, esp in public, you have to either feel powerful enough that you feel confident of winning, or you have to be so desperate that you don't have anything to lose. The situ is by definition not the first, and NO ONE should be in the second in a professional capacity. Or in life, one hopes, but... To suggest that the "correct" or better solution to a problem is the confrontation one assumes that the person has, and *feels they have*, enough power to be taken seriously, backed up by bystanders, which is assuming a lot considering the assailant felt comfortable making the joke in the FIRST damn place.

I was going to try to guess whether the fired guy worked at a larger company or a start-up, but the gold sponsor list is huge: https://us.pycon.org/2013/sponsors/

idk, i mean if i were at a tech conference i would think posting a hashtagged tweet would be a pretty effective way to get the organizers' attention, and it worked. she used the resources available to her to address the issue and to not further disrupt the event she was attending

putting the burden of responsibility on ANYONE to confront & police the people who make them uncomfortable is a grossly unfair stanard imho.

in orbit OTM xp

occasionally people will joke about meetings devoted to coq as a 'coq-fest' but you can basically only make that joke once or twice a year and nobody is allowed to do more than politely chuckle.

Surely there's a small gap btwn 100% cheerleading and 'incredibly patronizing' elmo?

I recognize my ego well enough to know that most if not all of the time when I am thinking "that person shouldn't have done that" what I actually mean is "I wouldn't have done it that way" because obviously the way I handle things is 100% correct and unimpeachable and ppl who deviate from my eminently sensible plans are really taking their lives into their own hands

I also recognize how much of that is informed by social construct and how accidents of birth and social status have placed me in different places in that social construct depending on the audience because I try very hard not to let my ego make me into a raging dick

the person has, and *feels they have*, enough power to be taken seriously, backed up by bystanders

Actually I should have added, "or will make the behavior/abuse WORSE by confronting it" because sometimes the worst fear is that the thing you already find embarrassing, offensive, or intimidating will be ratcheted up by your complaint. Which as you can imagine happens COMMONLY.

Agree totally that she shouldnt have been expected to confront him/them fwiw, xps to in orbit throughout

re s. clover's coq/p-ness examples: IMO the reason those are funny, though, is because they sound like something they aren't (ditto Uranus humor). Going out of your way to make labored coq jokes both leeches the humor from the statement and introduces the gross power dynamic.

One of the funniest stories ever told to me by one of my college choir directors was about an experience he had directing a high school girls' honor choir put together for an ACDA convention many years ago; dude's method for teaching music was to use percussive syllables like "doo" and "pum" to get to the core of the rhythm and tuning of the music and then put the text back in once the foundation was solid. He also had the bad habit when demonstrating this technique of arbitrarily switching back and for between nonsense syllables and lyrics, which wouldn't be a big deal were it not for the song he was rehearsing containing the word "happiness" and well I think everyone can see were this is going.

lol wait did she fp them from their jobs

The other day I actually got mocked by an older female partner for being too delicate when discussing the allegations of a sexual harassment lawsuit that had been in the news. Then again, an older male partner cornered me and another associate and said stuff like "let's face it, women under 25 are dumb" and "come on, you can't consent and then change your mind"

In conclusion, I'm glad to be working in the 21st century, and it will hopefully be even better when that generation dies.

are we no longer allowed to make jokes about uranus?!?

uranus maybe, not mine

get real, there has never been a planet called 'mine'

myanus

lol wait did she fp them from their jobs

in essence yeah, for the dude who was being dumb

so there is a story about cathy o'neil giving a talk where she's talking about the p-ness of numbers and sort of enjoying the puns a great deal and somebody asks her if she can change the notation, so she says 'how about we replace the p with an a'.

sorry for gumming up the thread with terrible puns.

haha amazing

uranus maybe, not mine

― ☠ ☃ ☠ (mh), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 11:39 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But if there were a fur involved, you could joke about uranus ermine

"she reacted the wrong way" is incredibly patronizing argument right

Hm. I guess so. Trying to work out if I have any reason other than hypocrisy to see men policing her emotional response as derailing but still (as a woman and within the same industry fwiw) feel that she should've lodged a complaint some other way.

I mean I do see that without the public tweet and the photo this would not be a viral/teachable moment and maybe those quiet unteachable moments I am apparently so keen on happen every day without me even knowing and what does that even help, etc.

I have to admit my unease in this is partly that there are so many really obvious gender imbalances in IT that making a fuss about a dongle joke will make the stereotypical male coder less interested, not more, in conversation about equality. But I do know there are many things wrong with this thought: 1. who made me, or anyone, universal arbiter of what should or shouldn't be talked about? 2. if anyone takes away from this "bitches can't take a joke", well, fuck them forever anyway; 3. shouldn't people see the little papercuts we get a thousand of every day as well as the big - uh - this sentence is heading dangerously close to a vulval innuendo, reverse, reverse

tl;dr still conflicted, taking everyone's points that my reservations are inherently narcissistic and entitled, but also wondering whether it's OK to express any doubts about anything within that framework

taking everyone's points that my reservations are inherently narcissistic and entitled, but also wondering whether it's OK to express any doubts about anything within that framework

absolutely because the beauty of that framework is that, since you are the most important person in the universe, your doubts have Meaning

i hope ppl can understand how "she should have confronted them directly first / she reacted the wrong way" is incredibly patronizing argument right

― open the blood gates (elmo argonaut), Wednesday, March 20, 2013 11:15 AM (44 minutes ago)

so...she turned around, said something to them, and snapped a picture, all with them knowing. i'd say she confronted them

i mean they were sitting BEHIND her. i think physically turning around and taking their picture counts as a 'confrontation'

she turned around to engage one dude in a conversation related to the conference and the dude who got fired chimed in with gross dick jokes, which led to her taking the picture if I'm reading the order of events correctly

i'm sort of lost as to whether she told them to shut up first or just went straight to picture-taking, but my question is if you're going to gather the (considerable!) courage to take the idiot's picture and post it to twitter, why not just turn around and tell him to shut up first? i mean if i were in the audience near them and she told them to grow up or shut up or whatever, i'd be like "otm", but if she just turned around and snapped a picture i'd be more like "huh, that just happened"

xp

right, i just think there's this unjustified assumption that if she said e.g. "excuse me but your jokes are crude and distracting and are making me uncomfortable, please stop" that the dude would have actually stopped, and further that she was somehow *obliged* to do this first before any other response

right maybe not "obliged" in the formal sense but more, you're an adult, come on

and again the details of what actually happened are a little hazy so who knows

like i am fairly confident in assuming certain that she AT LEAST gave him the stink eye

ha yeah

but more, you're an adult, come on

This is exactly the patronizing part. Why is it on an affected bystander to tell someone who is supposed to be "an adult" in a professional environ to stop being unprofessional/offensive/puerile in the "right" way? Even before starting to unpack the part where she's a woman confronting a man in public.

her account of what happened is here: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/

afaict the dude who got fired is not disputing this order of events, so right now I believe that she was having a conversation with one dude who made a comment that dumbass then used to make a sexual joke off the phrase "forking the repo"; she broke off the conversation and dude continued making dick jokes about dongles while the speaker onstage was talking about reaching out to young women to get them interested in coding at a young age

not only by telling her to just confront him directly are we making an assumption that it'd do anything, we're ignoring the fact that maybe she's done this in the past, or she wanted to make this a situation more about the tone of the conference than about a particular individual's mediocre judgment. One guy making a comment isn't really an issue, but bringing it to the attention of the conference makes it their call, not her's.

fwiw he claims that "I'd fork his repo" or whatever was not a directly sexual joke but rather a slangy approval, but otoh admits to the dongle thing

and doing it publicly, like I mentioned before, allows others to see how the conference organizers react and keeps the whole thing above the table