Slashdot Mirror
SendGrid Fires Employee After Firestorm Over Inappropriate Jokes
tsamsoniw writes "Hoping to strike a blow against sexism in the tech industry , developer and tech evangelist Adria Richards took to Twitter to complain about two male developers swapping purportedly offensive jokes at PyCon. The decision has set into motion a chain of events that illustrate the impact a tweet or two can make in this age of social networking: One the developers and Richards have since lost their jobs, and even the chair of PyCon has been harassed for his minor role in the incident."
I think we nerds need to get more facetime access to the rest of the world. All these "stranger danger" kids are now stranger danger adults.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
I am pretty sure being a developer evangelist doesn't involve you alienating more than half of developers with your tweeting.
This is what happens in a culture where anything is offensive. Even a silly dick joke will get the hypocritical opportunists to raise a stink, and then everyone loses their jobs, and the companies get to hire younger staff at cheaper wages while hiding behind policies to be "wholesome" and "unoffensive". It's a wonderful game until you're the one who accidentally sneezes something that sounds a little like "penis" and end up on the cutting room floor.
Two men being immature at a conference and they lose their livelihood because someone quasi-famous tweeted about it? I'm sure many people would disagree but the tons of triumph in the reporting that they lost their jobs is very distasteful to me especially in this job market. I don't want to live in a society where everyone is so uptight that they don't say anything without 5 levels of mental filtering because other some random stranger can completely screw them over.
When your in public, behave like an adult.
We don't live in a world where you can get away with this nonsense anymore.*
*Unless you have enough money to buy a politician/law team.
We should all just stay at home and not speak to anyone.
It is completely unacceptable that good old double entendre comments, directed at no one in particular could lead to these people losing their jobs.
This over sensitive Twitterer needs to get a life! I think the Streisand effect will cause her to regret her tweets.
I think that he's right. In the time that it took to turn around and take that picture, she could just as easily have said "Hey, cut it out! Those kinds of comments are inappropriate, and I'm offended, okay?" This is a point where saying "don't make a federal case out of it" may be apropos. Does she want them to walk around wearing big "L" for losers on their foreheads, or "D" for "dicks" for what offensive things they said? Maybe she needs to reread that Scarlet Letter book.
The guys made jokes about 'big dongles' and 'forking a guys repo'. The jokes were stupid but not sexist at all.
*Joke about dongle*
*drama*
*Rocks fall, everyone gets fired*
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
It seems to me the real problem here is not the purportedly offensive jokes or the public tweet, but that people can actually get fired over a simple joke or tweet (and the law actually allows this).
...considered posting a comment in this, then stopped and deleted it just in case *your* employer takes offense?
Since the jokes were in reference to "big dongles" and forking a man's repo and made no references to women or female anatomy, it seems like Richards is actually being homophobic.
If sexism were to be defeated, it would mean hearts and minds would change and it would become a non-issue.
This is something very different. This is a chilling effect and a one-way weapon against males. The same would never happen if the roles were opposite. This is no different than the mentality we generally maintain that it's funny for women to hurt men but tragic and horrific for men to hurt women.
This doesn't "fight" sexism, it defines it. The worst thing is all of this harm is done without the benefit of a trial, a warning or any sense of fairness.
Boohoo. Go fork yourself you emasculated little shit with a tiny dongle.
My hat's off to SendGrid for having the fortitude to fire Adria Richards. The self-centered blowhard got precisely what she deserved. A strong dose of her own medicine.
Isn't the irony delicious, Adria?
period... or absolute lack of humor
and George Carlin saw it comin'
pc culture makes me shiver now... how bad will it be in 10 years?
This post is provided without warranty as to reliability, accuracy or otherwise or fitness for any particular purpose.
A woman complains about two adult males making sexist jokes near her and SHE gets fired? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
none
World is full of managinas now who will defend her now. She should have asked them privately to stop or lower their voice, and I am sure they would have.
Soon looking at a woman in the eye will be consider rape if we let things go the way they are.
I can't be myself around a woman anymore, I no longer know what might offend one. Adria shouldn't have been eavesdropping in the conversation.
It's well documented that sociopaths have no sense of humor.
In fact, it's the top indicator.
This woman should be institutionalized before she hurts anyone else.
...attempting to make me feel bad for being male, for being a geek, and for being a male geek. Not going to fly, Ms. Richards. You want to make it "us" vs "them"? Well, OK, but given the relative numbers I don't think you're going to win that one.
Good for her. She stood up for herself when she was threatened (triggered). What was the trigger? She saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop. She realized immediately that she had to do something or that little girl would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind her would make it impossible for the little girl to do so. What did these ass clowns do? They began making sexual forking jokes. What happened after the forking joke? A dongle joke. Incredible. Just like Popeye, she "couldn't stands it no more" and took action.
What did she do? She did what any hero would have done in her situation. She took a photo of the offending hipster males and posted it for the whole world to see. This was an outstanding, very brave effort for a woman who had just been triggered. She was applauded by the feminist blogosphere, and in the end was fired by a man in a position of power. The fucking patriarchy. Fuck them. Don't believe me, read the entire blog entry she wrote. It is all totally supported by the ideology that rules our campuses today. To quote her:
Classic. Who can read that without a tear? Can anyone provide a place that I can donate to her legal defense fund?
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Why is a joke about penises or sex in general offensive?
then the conduct should be professional.
she needs to get forked once in a while.
It is fucking impossible to even begin to sympathize with women's plight when they make people lose their job over stupid shit like this. Maybe women should lose their jobs for making "dumb husband" jokes?
Two people at a conference telling jokes you find offensive? Ok, say something to them. Her taking it to Twitter is no different than the faceless drones threatening her via twitter - too coward to confront someone face to face - instead attacking someone via the Internet.
She is a self described activist, who is too afraid to confront two nerds?
A bit of human decency, on both parties (aka: talking to another human being) would have mitigated this entire situation and two people would still have their jobs.
Come on you puritan sods! Grow a pair of balls.
Now if the developers made a sexual joke about that Adria woman , than I would consider this sexual harassment. But some wordplay? On Forking? And big dongles? What's next; "Oh no's, he said that we should go 'finger' the cullprit who broke into our unix account. Let's put tar and feathers on him and carry him around on a metal bar!"
I am goddamn happy I live on the ole' Continent where you can swear profanely on the workfloor when you break your skull underneath your desk while searching for that loose USB cable or make funny comebacks to loose the tension like that female developer who shouted "that's what he said" after the frantic cry of the assistant server-admin "i can't get it up!".
You are creating a generation of scared, stressed, puritan bastards. One visit to a Scottish , Flemish or Basque pub and they probably faint upon hearing the "feck this pissbeer" or "my, those are big jugs. No offense lady!"
Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording, sustained disruption of talks or other events, inappropriate physical contact, and unwelcome sexual attention.
There jokes did not break the policy. This isn't sexual harrassment, this is two people make a joke. Making a dongle/Penis joke is not sexual harrassment.
Also, have the backbone to tell them yourself.
Pycon through people out becasue one persons tweet, with no recourse. I'll be sure to remember that next time I see her and a conference.
These guys lost their jobs because of joking about the word dongle, something that every geek on the face of the planet has joked about. Forking and dongle are funny sounding stupid IT words, every profession has stupid words people joke about. If you are a female and you don't get invited to the after hours hang out where people goof around, make jokes, and talk serious business this is the kind of person you have to blame. What a horrible humorless human.
Don't think men with families they struggle to pay to feed their kids, and keep medical insurance don't secretly wonder if the female next to one of these females, and leave them out of the loop because of it. This is what causes the truly nasty life changing, paycheck shrinking discrimination, not stupid jokes.
Congratulations to her on the petty, bitter, shallow victory. and dinner alone. I wouldn't hire this wretch in a million years, I don't care if she is the most brilliant python developer in the world. No organization needs her poison in it.
a) A conference is a public place. Taking photos there is no crime and reporting what you could hear by natural hearing neither.
b) If you have twitter followers for some reason, what you write will be observed
c) If you are somewhere representing a company on social media, and you use this channel for other things, no matter if you did it for the best and the worst, and these other things start to interfere with your capability to efficiently represent the company in a solely positive way, you will be fired. And rightly so. A company does not judge if you are right or wrong in doing something. They see somebody who can create a positive image for them. If you have such a job, then you have to know that creating unwanted attention which prevents you from doing the job gets you fired. Sorry thatâ(TM)s life. If you have a Job behind a desk, programming, you can do whatever you want on twitter.
As a owner of a tech company I can say with all honesty that I don't discriminate at all when I hire. All I see when I am hiring is how much money you can make me. That is it. My employees are nothing more then an investment. That being said it is bullshit like this that makes me think twice about hiring women. When I hire a women I have to take into account the risk of a sexual harassment charge that does not really exist if I hire a male.
Is nonexistent, given the firestorm she has proven she can bring down on an employer, they'd be crazy to hire her.
I'd fire her for being poisonous to the work environment, and hire 10 easy going females who have senses of humor to replace her. This kind of wretch drags an entire organization down.
She overheard someone talking NOT TO HER, and tried to make sure they couldn't feed their families. That makes her a hero? Bullshit.
So their joking was about big "dongles" and "forking"... matters of taste and context aside, this is somehow now in the category of sexism and debasing to women? I was expecting a rape joke or something and was severely disappointed. Obscene jokes about lady bits, sure, but male body parts are now offensive to women. I can't make a private joke about my own body parts? Only women are allowed to now [ https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425 ]? I must have clicked through a hell of a license agreement to give that right away...
Anyone else remember when people had thick enough skins they could just roll their eyes, shrug their shoulders, and not give a crap about what other people were doing or saying (provided no one's really getting hurt)?
I am tired of everyone feeling so entitled - the whole world has to conform to their ideals, and if it doesn't then by Gawd they're going to bitch, complain, threaten legal action, and sue until they get what they want.
Shit like this just pisses me off no end and makes me pine for the days when the Internet was an exclusive club for us nerds (and perverts).
She was practicing cyberbullying. All that was warranted was turning around and making a comment to the offenders.
I'm not even sure the jokes count as "sexist". Even taking Adrias blog version of events the jokes were sexual double entendres, not sexist.
Her over the top escalation did cause one of the guys to be fired, apparently, and in addition caused the company she worked for to be severely DDOSed and presumably hit with a mountain of email. From what I can tell most people think she severely overreacted.
FWIW, women do have a right to expect not to be made the target of misogynistic jokes and have a right to be protected in the workplace from inappropriate comments. But that does NOT mean that two people cannot have a semi-private banter even in the workplace or at a conference.
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
There is *no* right not to be offended. US case law (and the First Amendment) is clear on this.
If the guys are being inappropriate, that is one thing, but no-one ought to claim they have a right to not be offended. What was offensive to Richards was clearly not offensive to many other people. Personally I find hyper-sensitivity to be somewhat offensive, yet I don't feel the need to wage jihad against her. I've seen this behavior before from women (including getting guys chucked out of university for chuckling at inappropriate jokes). If *she* was offended then it is up to *her* to point this out to the culprits - without doing so in an offensive way herself. That's what a mature person would do. She can't claim they were threatening in any way, because their apologetic posture shows they were probably approachable for a mature person to make their point to.
Furthermore, there are a number of troubling aspects to Richards' claim (and those that support her narrow-minded point-of-view):
Who gets to decide what is offensive or not?
Should government, the legal profession, or business decide what is an appropriate joke or not?
There is only one solution, Free Speech. Free Speech is not about stuff you agree with - it is a principle that protected stuff you don't agree with (provided it is not out-and-out hate speech; eg. such as the racist and anti-Semitic core doctrines of the political ideology called Islam).
The solution is for companies to say, "We did not mean to offend you. However, we stand up for Free Speech for all out employees and don't believe we have the right to dictate what they can think or say, provided it is legal.". Too bad the World is full of beta personalities who cower at the thought of causing offense, rather than alpha personalities who may be brusque, but at least they stand up for moral principals (even if this is unpopular).
So grow some 'nads by fellow Slashdotters. You are either for Free Speech, and would not fire these guys (even if you would take them aside in private to tell them to cool it off a bit), or you believe in Political Correctness where someone else may dictate what you can say, hear and think. The real problem with PC is not that it dictates and denies what people can say, it denies that multitude of other people the right to hear (what can often be unpleasant but truthful).
No, she was fired because she created a PR shitstorm for her company. You would possibly have a point if she was fired because a fellow employ harassed her and she was fired for reporting it to her boss. That was not the case.
Oh and [url=https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425]this[/url] makes it really hard to feel too sorry for her over the "sexist" comment.
How was their dumb, private joke sexual harassment? Did their lame, private dick joke grope every woman in attendance and tell them to call them "daddy"? Was her own tasteless dick joke exempt from this because she's a woman?
Seriously, what the hell is wrong with our society? Only women can joke about sexual topics in public now? Is a woman not a woman unless she's an attention-seeking misandrist who listens in on every joke that could feasibly be construed as "inappropriate" for some hypothetical creature that has no skin?
her actions constitute sexual harassment according to the sensitivity training i've recieved. if she had merely reported them to the proper authorities she would have been safe. stupid laws, stupid conduct.
Tell us more Benny- How did they sexually harass her?
Is the word dongle, seriously have you ever mentioned needing a dongle and not snickered?
This is ridiculous. Everyone in society has become so highly over-sensitive that everything that anyone says has to get posted and dissected on social media (ie. Twitter, Facebook, etc) by their pampering followers. This Richards chick took one little joke among some males, in a male-dominant occupation field, and had to blow it out of proportion so much so that one of the males lost his job; realize that male-dominant occupation fields are akin to a fraternity-like environment. I am sure there are analogous situations in sorority-like environments of the female-nature.
Bottom-line: if you dont like something, excuse yourself or politely let the individual or 2 or 100 know. Dont make it a scene. This is a professional situation, NOT high-school. Where have the times gone when individuals spoke face to face, instead of hiding behind texts and pics.
At least the employer fired Richards, as well. We dont need drama-queens in the working fields. Thanks. Efficiency is key.
I think the woman in this article was slightly overcompensating due to suffering "Impostor Syndrome". It's totally understandable, given the position of women in tech. So she triggered and went a bit too far, and that's grounds for her to be FUCKING FIRED by her male boss? What is Impostor Syndrome, you ask? I'm glad you asked, it's a chance for you to become educated with what the rest of the world thinks.
Impostor Syndrome describes a situation where someone feels like an impostor or fraud because they think that their accomplishments are nowhere near as good as those of the people around them. Usually, their accomplishments are just as good, and the person is being needlessly insecure. It's especially common in fields where people's work is constantly under review by talented peers, such as academia or Open Source Software.
Women experiencing impostor syndrome may be less willing to put themselves forward, feeling that they are not qualified, by eg:
For hiring managers, conference chairs, etc.
One woman's story about Imposter Syndrome and how it affected her geek career. This is serious stuff, people. If we can't overcome this, then women will never be accepted as equals in tech. :(
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
I think Adria is a loser who just set back women in Tech even further. I attend many conferences, (and yes Tech is a male-dominated field), and I routinely hear many levels of jokes. I've honestly never gotten offended, and laugh off some of the lamer comments. However, this helps me to bond and network with the males, and make great business connections. Now however, It'll be harder for me to connect at conferences since they'll all be shying away from any females. Pretty soon it will look like a Jr. High dance with women on one side, and males on the other.
If someone directly insults me, I have no problem telling them they are being a jerk. It's always ended well, and no need to get that person fired, and go on a net-wide rant of my hurt feelings.
She was fired for being a sanctimonious self righteous blowhard that turned every reasonable human being against her, and by association, the company she works for. Totally justified, in my not legal opinion.
I think it is worth noting that it is clear from her history (on various media) and from her approach that there was an axe to grind before any conference was announced.
This is simply a case of a border skirmish initiated by a party that thought they had the moral high ground and popular support backfiring into a full on conflict, the other party was seriously harmed and the initiator was brought to bear the consequences. Concurrently the "Victims of men in IT" circled the wagons, I can only assume those other men and women knew they were supporting an idiot but felt the cause was just.
It is a lesson about looking for a fight - don't - if you are out for one (like she was) it will find you, and THEN you can claim moral superiority.
Although I do sincerely hope the guy that got fired sues his former employer, as it seems to be a clear cut textbook case of wrongful termination.
Please, identify the target of the harassment.
The only harassment I see here is someone eavesdropping on a private conversation and secretly taking pictures of 2 individuals at a private gathering and publishing them online with a public defamatory statement.
An inappropriate joke about a "big dongle" is not sexual harassment, it is anatomical humour. It was not aimed at her, or her sex. It was certainly not appropriate for that setting, but not worth firing someone over.
She overreacted by publicly shaming them on twitter instead of just confronting them directly or complaining to the conference organizers (as per the code of conduct for the conference).
The employer of one of the developers overreacted by firing him.
There was a backlash against her for her actions, and so her employer felt that she could no longer do her job (developer relations) and fired her.
The conference organizers did the right thing...everyone else screwed up to varying degrees.
Her husband lets her do the Twitter from the kitchen.
Which fact are you people not clear on? Those guys are NOT victims. They ARE the perpetrators. They're being fired is a direct consequence of their BEHAVIOR.
Here's a simple diagnostic that you can take to help you decide if you have a difficult time or are simply unable to understand when a comment is inappropriate:
Here's Atriusofbricia sig line: "I was raised on the command line, bitch."
Do you see the problem with it? If the answer is yes, then you're capable of understanding when a statement is demeaning to women.
If the answer is no, then you may have a problem empathizing with women. I strongly encourage you to give some thought as to why you're having trouble relating to women.
It seems anonymous is was involved in her firing:
http://pastebin.com/ubmznGhn
Sexism is prejudice or discrimination based on a person's sex. I'm all for firing employees who do not stop behaving like that towards colleagues (after appropriate warnings).
But two guys making dongle jokes at a conference is not sexism.
"When I first heard Daydream Nation it quite frankly scared the living shit out of me." -- Matthew Stearns
So two guys can't make stupid jokes about dongles, but she is allowed to make comparable dick-size jokes in public? you should put something in your pants next time...like a bunch of socks inside one...large...sock. TSA agent faint. Fucking hypocrite. She's also been -very- selectively moderating the comments on her site. The above has been brought up a few times, but left either unanswered, or banned/removed. Nice.
Since when are all sexual jokes sexist? Sexism means discrimination based on someone's perceived sex or gender. A joke about "forking [a male person's] repo" might be offensive to some people depending on their cultural background, but it's nothing to do with sexism. A joke about a "big dongle" could be called sexist only in that it references male, not female sexual organs. So Richards might have felt excluded, but it wasn't directed at her anyway. She was just eavesdropping.
The worst part is how she decided not to confront them about the jokes she found inappropriate, because she didn't want to give them a chance to respond and "invalidate her experience" by discussing it. Instead she publicly shamed them. Not what you would expect of an "evangelist". It was childish and unprofessional behavior.
Anyone who compares herself with Joan of Arc, because she overheard a guy crack a joke about a dongle, deserves a lesson in history.
Yes, she did this _before_ she was fired.
Relational aggression:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relational_aggression
Richards didn't confront the people who allegedly offended her. She did nothing in person to convey that she found the comments made inappropriate. What she did was and use her influence to damage the commenters' social status. Basically, this is how females fight. Guys are fucking useless at this shit and don't understand it.
Starting a development company without an evangelist is like going to war without accordions.
This was an outstanding, very brave effort for a woman who had just been triggered. She was applauded by the feminist blogosphere, and in the end was fired by a man in a position of power. The fucking patriarchy. Fuck them.
First off, stuff the "triggering" bullshit - I'm getting really tired of people slinging that word around. Using the word to describe seeing an innocuous photo is an insult to people with PTSD.
Second: half the population is male. That means that there is a high likelihood negative decisions that impact women will be made by men, and for reasons that have nothing to do with gender.
Your comment is as stupid as a male programmer complaining that his female manager "hates men" when she fires him for insubordination.
Please help metamoderate.
As a woman, "self-proclaimed nerd", I am highly offended by the actions of Adria Richards. Her offense offends me. Did anyone commit any wrongs towards her? Absolutely not. These men weren't talking to her, or even about her. Now, if one of them had pointed at her and said something like, "I'd like to use my big dongle on her" or something, then perhaps it would make sense to be offended. Even if that were so, who cares? If she wants to label herself with stereotypes, "nerds" are generally classified as socially-awkward and sexually frustrated. Why was she so surprised by their conversation? They weren't even being sexually explicit, they were cracking puns. I wish that I had been at the conference with her and seen her tweet. I would have found her, sat next to her, and whispered to her asking her if she's seen any big dongles recently. It's honestly women like this that make people not want to hire women. I would have been angry with her even if she had tried to settle this woman-to-man, so to say. There was nothing to settle, nothing to fix. No one did anything wrong. Her passive-aggressive attitude led to the firing to people who didn't deserve it.
I don't see how I can give +1 Intentionally Ironic.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
They were fired for being overheard in (essentally) a public place. Being crass to a colleague who finds it funny - when there is nobody around who is bound to sit and listen to it who cannot effect a change - shouldn't result in losing your livelihood and possibly everything you own.
If they had pulled out their headphone jack while listening to a song exposing rape, should they have been *fired* or being offensive?
I suppose, in your world, driving 36mph in a 35mph zone is a license-revoking offense.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Go make yourself pretty with the other girls and learn Ruby and let us men brag with our Python.
I don't know where that came from. *sigh*
What part of two guys having a private conversation that she wasn't part of constitutes sexual harassment?
If we all have to filter everything we say just in case we might offend someone we don't know is listening in, then I say fuck it.
'Richards -- who has upward of 9,400 Twitter followers -- overheard a couple of unnamed developers in the row behind her engaged in a private conversation. One made an anatomical joke about "dongles," and the other made a comment about "forking."`
...
..
'Richards found their comments offensive, so she turned around, took their picture, and posted it to Twitter with the following text: "Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and 'big' dongles. Right behind me #pycon."`
The real story being Richards invading other peoples privacy
Ted: That's because their mouths were full of your wife's box
AccountKiller
someone drive a van to her house and blast the speeches of Hitler 24/7 @ 105dB
Let's say I'm a great technologist, awesome project manager and give good client-meeting, but when I hang out with my friends I refer to women as 'bitchez' and my favorite pasttime is thinking of them in the most physical way -- and on occasion penetrating said bitchez.
My general attitude is that if you're offended, then you offend me with your rigid mindset and efforts to control the way I act and think.
The basic problem here is that many feminists simply loathe male sexuality and its outward expression. They believe they have the right to determine what is 'acceptable' and what isn't.
How is that philisophically different from condemning homosexuality?
Easily offended people are the worst fucking people I deal with on a daily basis. This woman seems to be at the top of that mountain.
I cannot believe how many comments here are attacking Adria. Sure, she did an increadibly dumb thing by going straight to Twitter, and I can understand why SendGrid are distancing themselves from her, but I can completely understand why she did what she did.
Women are treated like absolute crap by most of the IT industry, I have worked in the field for years and now work as a IT teacher, most individuals are reasonably respectful, but by-and-large it does become a 'mens club'.
Adria was offended by what was said, whether that was right or wrong is not the issue, the issue was that as an attendee at PyCon and she was exposed to behaviour that had no place at a IT conference. And to be honest, I think people are understating how difficult it can be to confront people who cause offence. The best solution would be to talk to those who caused offence, but in some social situations that isn't the simple task most people here are making it out to be, are you all that socially capable?
The attitudes need to change, and that isn't going to just happen. Hopefully this serves as a example about what behaviour is expected by IT professionals when interacting with people. Given the comments made here I suspect that there is a lot of "But these women make my life less fun, and they souldn't be allowed too" and that only helps fuel this very problem.
Leg Godt!
Perhaps you would feel differently if you are ever loved by a woman other than your mother. BTW a big first to that love, stop being sexist.
They made comments of a sexual nature, they did not make comments of a sexIST nature - that is 2 entirely different things. Plus the way the woman name and shamed them and how she behaves on her blog? Sounds like justice was served to me.
It was whoever that posted that ridiculous Tweet that deserved to be fired for not respecting those guys privacy and posting their picture like that. How do you even know she isn't some nut job making that up?
And so what if they made jokes with a sexual connotation? The jokes where not personal or even something offensive... unless if you are some nut-job for whom the very mention of sex is offensive.
Get a grip on reality Adria Richards you should be ashamed for being a prick and getting 2 guys fired just because you have some puritan social disabilities.
I mean, who can get anything done in a day if they're sending bullshit tweets all day?
What a fucking waste of time.
Goldbricking, if you ask me.
Her comment smacks me of "Political Correctness" run amok. You're not in your office, you're in a conference hall. Did he physically assault you? No? Get over yourself you annoying person!
butthurt form anyone?
Man this has dug into my forking. Ive been following this all night. My take, I love women, I love smart women even more. I hope I never meet this one, in front or behind, up or down, back or front, side to side. This is a cry for help.
At first I thought that this was some epic sarcasm as I am a fan of the practice. However if you scroll down towards the bottom of the comments section, you can see that DNS posted this gem:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3570077&cid=43241181
After reading that, I am thinking that perhaps DNS was actually being serious. That post is also filled with what one might say was even more thickly veiled sarcasm but the post above has that final line which you and I thought clearly defined it as sarcasm. My linked to post does not have any final statement and actually empathises with women in tech:
"One woman's story about Imposter Syndrome and how it affected her geek career. [wikia.com] This is serious stuff, people. If we can't overcome this, then women will never be accepted as equals in tech. :("
That statement, to me, says that even though we thought he/she was being sarcastic here, that they are indeed siding with Adria and so the responses to DNS's post are quite on-topic.
If I were the guy that got fired I would go see a lawyer. I'm assuming the employer is covered as it's probably, however a civil case against her may be doable. I know it sounds a bit crazy, but you have NFL players who are convicted of crimes who fight bans from the NFL under right to work laws. No idea if legally it's plausible, but I sure would try. The argument can be made that this woman derailed someones career.
python za gud language
There ya go...
He has a daughter who was aspiring to be a programmer but now daddy doesn't have the money to send her to college and she's taken a job as Charlie Sheen's "assistant"
It wasn't funny.
Also, it was indistinguishable from rape.
While reading about all of this, my biggest issue was that I felt like I was lacking perspective. I was seeing a lot of arguments from various people but I didn't understand how anyone's perspective could lead to the given outcomes.
I found this post very helpful: http://griffin.oobleyboo.com/archive/on-pycon2013-and-equality/
It does a good job of moving you into someone else's shoes; some who is very different from you, whoever you might be. It was helpful. Viewing things from another perspective is NOT condoning actions. It's learning. Understanding. It's a step in the direction of addressing long-standing systematic issues. A first step.
Once more, some overly politically correct social justice warrior with a blog and constant craving for attention via playing the victim makes the world a little worse. Racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and everything else unbefitting a civilized society should be called out and fought against but political correctness is not that; it is just a scourge.
ts sad that someone lost their job because this person (who lets not forget made her own dick jokes, and also said that 'black people can't be racist,' which goes to show you her character) felt the need to take offense at the non-offensive, but at least some justice was done. People like this need to grow up. But you know they won't. She'll find herself the victim her, a noble martyr fighting against the [insert conspiracy here], and other overly PC nutbags will offer support.
What's unfortunate is that there are genuine lessons that could be learned here had the approach been different. People are blaming feminism or other isms for what happened, but this seems more like what happens when you incubate frustration in the rhetorical culture of america where only the most over the top perspectives reach broad audiences.
I think women working in the tech industry must be really on edge after enduring the boy's club at work where language and attitude may offend you and the people hiring and firing you may have assumptions about your gender that affect your financial and career success. It's not okay to say that women should adapt - it's a place of business, stop making dick jokes. I can only imagine how uncomfortable I would be at a baseline, especially when mixed with tech industry shit that women are forced to endure at tech conferences ("booth babes" being the obvious sexist trope that needs to die - women buy your products and work for you too and this by and large offends them).
On the other hand, the decent thing to do would be to give people some benefit of doubt and make the assumption that they're not a shitty person and are just not using their heads before making over the top posts about them.
Most people's perspectives in this incident lack empathy. Most people are just getting a hormone rush from arguing. Until we tune that shit out and have meaningful dialogue, the world is not going to get any better.
People take themselves way too freaking seriously. A joke is a joke. If you take offense at this.. then you got a problem. If I'm fat and I hear a fat joke and it's funny, I will laugh. If I don't like that I'm fat, I can always try and lose weight. But jokes are based on sarcasm, wit and ridicules. Tweak of the extreme so to speak. When a person hearing a sex joke gets offended, that's a PC, "Politically Correct" people and they are the worse hypocrites on the planet. There is a saying, "Don't take life too seriously, you'll die anyways"..
Not really... If he's in an at-will state, they can fire his ass for pretty much any reason except reasons relating to protected statuses (i.e. race, sex, etc.).
I sympathize with him and feel he shouldn't have been fired though.
We should just name and shame his employer for having no ethics.
When I first read this article today I wondered if SendGrid's site would be targeted. Status page: http://support.sendgrid.com/entries/23417077-21-Mar-Website-Down-Refusing-Mail
I've seen some negative comments directed towards SendGrid for firing her but their CEO's comments are IMO pretty classy: http://send.gd/11pgIMj
What we do not support was how she reported the conduct. ...
A SendGrid developer evangelist’s responsibility is to build and strengthen our Developer Community across the globe. In light of the events over the last 48+ hours, it has become obvious that her actions have strongly divided the same community she was supposed to unite. As a result, she can no longer be effective in her role at SendGrid.
And then gun the engine?
In the end, the consequences that resulted from how she reported the conduct put our business in danger. Our commitment to our 130 employees, their families, our community members and our more than 130,000 valued customers is our primary concern.
Maybe I don't understand how company policies are written, but this sounds like public advertisement of a private company decision. Even accepting that these would be the facts, I assumed that in many cases, people are given the option to leave with something noncommittal like, 'mutual parting of the ways'.
But broadcasting to the public that:
is unusually specific and, particularly with the last item, nothing short of damning. This comes from the CEO, too.
This is what happens when a society deifies a complainer, albeit a legitimate one.
How many Rosa Parks statues, roads, and schools do we have in this country? Is this the best we've got?
How many engineers or scientists are worshiped in this way? Is there one?
Fast forward to 2013 and at a *tech* conference, we have a modern day, twisted Rosa Parks wannabe and all of her unthinking followers on Twitter, when what should be happening is enrichment and engineering. This is the society we've built.
ive been around /. for a bit and this is about the the saddest shit ever. thats all
1) Be appropriate when on the clock, and...
2) Twitter / Facebook / Social Media shaming is a childish act.
The guy should have been respectful and appropriate, not made the comments.
But sorry, she's just as bad here. She could have spoken to them, or gone and told a representative directly to have them dealt with. But publicly shaming them, with photos, while *she* was on the clock, too... Not appropriate either.
Sorry lady, two wrongs do not make a right. Shouldn't have shamed them on twitter in the first place, and certainly not done so on the job.
This sig intentionally left blank.
If anything this actually hurts opportunities for females. All this has done was create an environment where females may end up excluded because anything a male says could be used against them to cost them their jobs. I don't think this person even understands the magnitude of what she's done. Job loss is a Big Deal (tm). Immature jokes entirely NOT DIRECTED at you or even your gender from behind you in a crowd is nothing. Unless they were directing these comments at her I don't even see how this got to this level. Is there something I missed here? How is this not misandry?
OMFG where have the times of the 60s and 70s gone?!!! Have the PENCIL-PUSHING PRICKS taken over HR now too? I remember the old days where your boss knew if you did a good job or not, and was able to substantiate that using proze and relevant examples that you didn't even knew (s)he knew about. Nowadays the pencil-pushing pricks have taken over, so they are staring over sheets filled with "metrics", comparing "actuals" to "targets". That's a trend going from the Top down, where the COO used to take over when the CEO stepped down; nowadays you will often see the CFO take over.... that's right, a glorified BOOK KEEPER running the company.
And now it trickled down to the HR department... terminating someone's employment over some innuendo in a JOKE? And firing someone for saying that they didn't think it was funny?
Do yourself a favour and go look at some videos from the late 60s, early 70s. How people rose up against the prude bourgeoisie. And in 2013 we're right back...
When the copyright term is "forever minus a day", live every day like it's the last.
I'm gay and put up with a lot. It's physical and verbal attacks that really piss me off. It is offensive to me to hear the shit that woman complain about having to put up with because its absolute BS. Guys are attracted to you for heaven sake. It's healthy sexual expression and to shun it because it offends a few nut jobs is ridicules. I'd much rather put up with a little "harassment" as a gay man than deal with the consequences of censorship of our personal feelings and expressions.
Python is already a sexist programming language.
I can't believe no one has posted this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAG39jKi0lI
1:50 is where the relevant dongle joke is made :)
This was a British comedy sketch that was extremely popular the other Christmas. These are two the best loved British comedians... but they managed kept their jobs.
Tell us more Benny- How did they sexually harass her?
Easy! They were:
A) Male
B) Existing
That's all the sexual harassment she needed!
Seriously, I've dealt with women who live their entire lives thinking any time spent with a male is an inevitable sexual harassment incident if not dealt with immediately. Yes, including women who've never been a victim nor knew any such friends. One person I used to know used to cheerfully remind me at any opportunity that 90% of all documented criminal cases of serial-murderer-rapists were men, therefore all men should be treated as potential serial-murderer-rapists*.
I never said logic was her strong suit.
*: I'm quite honestly convinced she only took a psych major on college so she could spend all day looking up case studies to creatively interpret just so she had an arsenal of anecdotes to quote, as this was most certainly NOT the only old chestnut she liked repeating, and she was pretty downright terrible at anything approaching understanding human psychology.
What a bitch.
It wasn't sexual harassment. She is just being an over sensitive uptight bitch - the type of employee that makes people look at the floor and not talk to anyone for fear of offending them.
It reminds me of a DBA who was "offended" at company policy about name tags because she claimed it would encourage men look at women's breasts. But, the feckless nitwits in HR changed the policy so that people had to start clipping their name tags to their collars, which was very annoying. Fortunately, she is now gone. But if you want to hear crude sexist jokes, hang around the female employees. They don't really worry since they're not ever going to get fired for it. The same is true for dress code violations.
You know, I try to avoid making comments on things I know are going to be controversial because I'm always going to piss off xx% of people, and I really don't set out to piss off anyone. (Except when I do...) But sometimes, something so heinously, irredeemably, goddamn stupid happens, and I have to vent or I'll simply explode. So here goes all my friggin' karma... PLEASE NOTE: My opinions are simply based on events as they have been described.
While I wish I could be all diplomatic and say that everyone involved shares the blame for this incident, that wouldn't be honest. He's a nerd, making nerd jokes, to another nerd, at a nerd convention. The stuff he supposedly said is just silly. Sure, there's SORT OF innuendo there, but it's like middle school stuff. There was nothing overtly-sexual or graphic about it, and he was having what he thought was an at least semi-private conversation. It was those two computer nerds in WarGames. It wasn't a truck stop on the Jersey turnpike.
I get that she found it offensive, and that's her right. But the fact that she was (supposedly) smiling as she took the damning TwitPic just seems... I don't know. Malicious? What was that supposed to be? "Heh, I'll fix YOU! I'm going to tell the INTERNET!" The whole thing just seems so damned petty.
Replace her phone with a gun, and now we're closer to what happened; *Bang!* There goes your job.
Let's take that analogy and run with it, as one might with a pair of scissors! (Well, as I might, anyway.) If I overhear someone making dumb comments behind me, I'm probably going to just roll my eyes. The most I might do, is tell them to shut up. I'm not going to turn around and SHOOT them. (Probably.)
She defends her actions, saying that in order to make the IT industry safe for women, she HAD to shoot him.
I really don't want to sound biased just because I'm a guy, because on its most fundamental level this has nothing to do with gender. Look at the situation; You have two people carrying on a private conversation, albeit a dumb and juvenile one. A third person overhears them, and instead of asking them to kindly shut the hell up snaps a photograph of them, grabs the internet bullhorn (With which they are apparently quite skilled), and says "Internet, you wouldn't BELIEVE what these two bozos just said!". Then one of those 'bozos' loses his job. Twitter shaming; No less asinine and juvenile than the dongle jokes.
I want to see more women in the tech industries, I want to see more female makers and tinkerers. Why? It's not just because I think we need more beauty to balance out the neckbeards. It's because I think technology and making things are TOTALLY FUCKIN' AWESOME and everyone deserves a turn!
This is not how that happens. This is how the gap gets bigger. Please stop. Sexual harassment is a completely reprehensible thing, and it happens way too often. In the tech industry, in every industry, in society in-general. But every time an incident like this gets ink, it only makes things harder on those experiencing legitimate harassment.
Okay, putting all that aside, so far, this has just been my reaction to what actually happened at PyCon. That was admittedly a very small slice of the pi--incident. (I couldn't go through with it, sorry.) Let's talk about the aftermath.
So, 'Mr-Hank' loses his job... That's really unfortunate... I think his employer overreacted, but the reality is, with the way everything goes viral these days, dropping him like he's radioactive and ON FIRE probably seemed like the best course of action from a PR standpoint, since it was like he was very publicly being accused of sexual harassment, and you don't play around with that. I even feel bad about his apology, because while it was ultimately the right thing to do, it just felt like too much for what he did, like it was just more shaming...
Ms. Richards loses her job, which is also unfortunate, but I can't say that I hold her blameless. Her employer had no choice but to fire her; they're a media
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
That lets bitches in. Stupid fucking bitches need to stay at home home or dont complain when exposed to real life.
fuck cant stand to work anywhere there are bitches. You cant talk how you want everything changes from when they are not there.
Not one fucking place admits it though facts are sexist.
I guess that was the point
See her YouTube channel, for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtOrq10PZVw
I've made the same dongle joke... I'm just so happy that I didn't get "caught" by someone who clearly cannot handle such a joke.
Even more evidence of Ms. Richards' tatics. This isn't the first time she's played games like this. See http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
I have evidence that Ms. Richards' has a screw loose. See her comments on this comic cartoon used on a T-Shirt http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/
To Adria Richards,
We all learn as kids how to behave in different situations. For example, we learn to be quiet at the movie theatre but we can be noisy and have fun at camp. Being at a professional conference is no different, everyone is expected to behave in a professional manner. In addition, you represent whoever paid for you to be there. For most people, this is their employer.
In my opinion, the guy's behaviour was crude, inappropiate, and unprofessional and that he should have been called out for it. That being said, it definitely does not rise to the level of sexual harassment, harassment, or any other seriously concerning behaviour as it was a private conversation not directed at anyone in particular. It was simply inappropriate. He basically said the wrong thing, at the wrong place, and the wrong time. We all have done it at one point or another. That doesn't absolve him from responsibility, though.
However, your response was also neither professional, mature, nor appropriate. My sister would have simply turned around, given them a good stare as said "stop acting like a two year old". I understand that you didn't feel comfortable doing this at the time, but there was nothing to stop you from being a professional and going to the back of the room and talking to one of the event personnel. You even had the professional and mature option to simply tweet that you needed to talk to someone from the event.
Instead, what did you do? You took their picture, and publically shamed them, causing one guy to lose his job, however indirectly. Honestly, this is the type of behaviour that I would associate with an immature teenager who is out to get revenge, not a professional.
Again, I agree that the guy's behaviour was inappropriate, but your actions left a lot to be desired as well. My mother always taught me to treat others as I would like to be treated. Is this truely how you would want others to handle your mistakes?
As one professional to another, please take the time to think through your actions and consider that maybe this could have been handled in a more mature and professional manner.
The test is surely, 'can she convince a jury'. It's more about how convincing a communicator she is, than the truth or rational about her argument. They can't risk a massive lawsuit, so claims like this have to be settled either with sackings or cautions.
There's a lot of parasites in the world trying to make a fast buck via the legal system. She may or may not be one of them, but they can't take the risk.
They sacked her too, because you can't have a potential parasite looking for opportunities to exaggerate for potential legal gain. There may be millions of chances in a company that she can portray as a pattern sexual harassment against herself. Better to get rid of her immediately.
I was joking around with the bar-man (a long time friend), I made this joke about the size of his nose, and did a swoosh sound as he turned his head.
The new bar woman got really angry, 'how dare I make fun on someone's appearance'. Both of us sort of looked at her like she was an idiot, but she persisted with it. Insisted I leave the bar or she'd call the police. Friend nodded to the door, better to go so as not to cause a scene, and looked at the back of her head like he wanted her to just drop dead.
What struck me is that she PRESUMED to be offended on behalf of SOMEONE ELSE. He's a long time friend, he was not offended, yet she overruled his choice and was offended on HIS BEHALF as if his opinion didn't matter! She was poison.
Sadly she's still there, the popular bar staff have moved on to new bars, and the bar turned into a restaurant to stay in business. If the owners were closer to the business they would have found a way to get rid of her quickly.
Many have been accused by Australians of "racism" for the heinous crime of criticising Australians -- or even being perceived to be criticising them -- even though 1) "Australian" isn't a race and 2) white Australians would have to be some of the most casually racist people anywhere.
Even more so since it seems like it was predicated on what sounded like an explicable, rectifiable employee mistake.
She posted an image of two guys and accused them of misogyny, then compared herself with Joan Of Arc when people started complaining she was out of line. THEN she claimed her company backed her, basically implying her company agreed with all of her actions and subsequent writing.
All of this pubic on the internet. How exactly do you "rectify" all that? You can't un-post everything, it's all way too public and endlessly re-quoted. Not possible.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the wikipedia page on Valerie Aurora has a bit about Noirin Shirley being attacked at ApacheCon. I had not heard about that. That was the only page I could find on wikipedia about it. Do you have some other links about it?
You are aware of the fact that an organization and/or script kiddie using a botnet to DDOS someone they have a vendetta against is not going to, nor should it, change their behaviour
Actually - yes, yes it does. If you are the very public representative of a company you do in fact moderate more of what you say on the internet, or in public, because it reflects on the company you work for.
Or at least you do if you are a professional.
It's called "self-restraint". And "being responsible".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I don't mind the girls checking me out, I'm quite encouraged by it (that they consider me a potential sexual partner is flattering.).
I don't see why joking about someones sexual attractiveness is somehow even a negative thing.
Also, does your opinion outrank mine? So do you think that if we work together and I'm fine with it, and you're not, that the woman should be fired? Because I *DO* take offense at that. If she's fine with it, and I'm fine with it, what business is it of yours to impose your own insecurity on us?
I'd hate to be in a meeting where I can't call your ideas crap and pick them apart, lest you go crying to the boss that I'm making you insecure!
That's what surprises me most, especially with America's free speech stuff.
What?
Freedom to speak does not mean freedom from repercussions of what you say. It means only that no-one has the right to prevent you from speaking in the first place.
Freedom is not possible without corresponding levels of individual responsibility, or all dissolves into chaos.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I'm sorry but there is a proper and improper way of dealing with things. She escalated matters too quickly without given them the chance to apologize or respond in anyway. I think she should also be fired for here jokes and for being a hypocrite.
I find her hypocrisy and misandry to be distasteful. I also find the reaction of the employer to be unfair and reactionary. They should have had the opportunity to explain themselves and apologize without being terminated. What is the name of the company so I can be sure to never give them my business?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
And you think you speak for society, just as Adria thinks she speaks for society?
Because I'm pretty sure you speak only for yourself. Men and women f***, its essential they do, and society is much more tolerant of discussing and joking about that these days.
And thank god for that! I'd hate the day when we can't joke with a women about our mutual sexuality as if it doesn't exist. Or that somehow the sexuality needs to be hidden for work to happen!
Should women dress in Burkhas at work? Surely if *words* can offend, then so can dress!
We should all boycott those companies until either Adria Richards is fired by Sendgrid for her hypocrisy, sexism and unprofessionalism or Play Haven does the rational thing and rehires the employee they fired with a reprimand instead.
I think Adria Richards should apologize for her behaviour and recognize that she overstepped sensibility and professionalism by "outing" those guys like some whiny teenager.
What the guys did was inappropriate and they should apologize for the comments but what Adria Richards did in response was even worse and she engaged in similar behaviour without any sort of reprimand. The reaction of their employer was reactionary and unwarranted.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Who would hire her knowing that any random remark she considered offensive would earn a lawsuit?
Some people are just born angry, and you are best off having nothing to do with them as much as possible.
And you can look forward to an employment discrimination lawsuit for that.
Better to risk that, than the certainly that she will sue your company for sexual harassment because some innocuous comment from a fellow employee "triggered" her again.
But the reason why there would be no such lawsuit is that it's not illegal to only hire people that aren't assholes. Not wanting to hire her has nothing to do with her gender or possible sexual orientation, it's simply that as stated her mindset is pure poison that will destroy any company into which it is introduced. That she is too toxic even for a company based in Boulder, tells you volumes. That she is a woman is beside the point; were she a man who did the same thing I'd have the same reaction.
"Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and "big" dongles. Right behind me"
:) geez] joke.
Well, lots will dismiss me as ehh-another-d*ck, but I have to say, this whole thing seems, looks, smells like one of the top10 stupid things I ever heard. Let me write this down: today you can loose your job for telling a "sexist" joke? Really? For talking about big dongles in the presence of a woman? Really? I'd say this really was a sexist move, but not from the guys. I know some really prude american women, but man, even they wouldn't do such a move over a big dongle joke or a forking [again: really?
And about tweets having power... some people having a large number of followers who pick up every crazy idea, scary stuff.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Some poor oppressed white male is being punished.
This story is not true, and it's easy to verify on blog posts. This was not done be a developer. The person fired and the person that said it was a recruiter. So the story headline should be: A company sends a recruiter to a tech conference. Hilarity ensues.
*making joke that caused you to feel uncomfortable? *
Where can I acquire this gypsy magic?
If I had the power to cause women to feel things, I would not be here talking to you chumps
http://www.awfullybigmoustache.com
She better have a REALLY good lawyer.
There was a much more informative post that got skipped :
http://slashdot.org/submission/2558213/pycon-twitter-callout-incident
A few details you might wish to know about the incident :
0. SendGrid is an email spammer. Yes, they only send legal spam, stuff the direct marketers want you to call bacn, but really most of the emails they send you do not want. Anything bad that happens to SendGrid is a good thing.
1. Apparently mr-hank only made one sexual crack, the dongles one. He apologized for that one quickly. Richards miss-interpreted his "forking" comment as sexual, actually homosexual. If you really believed she took offense to what he actually said, then you'd eventually conclude that she was a homophobe. That isn't correct. She simply miss-heard him.
2. Richards has pissed people off by pulling similar publicity stunts several times before :
http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
3. Ms Richards defense of her actions was completely fucking bonkers. Some girl "would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so." Really? Joan of Arc? Really? Pfff. She's simply grandstanding to her twitter followers.
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313442430848487424
4. Richards made a much worse joke about some guys balls much more publicly on twitter earlier in the day.
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425
5. PlayHaven isn't such a nice company either. In game micro-transactions sounds like your business is built upon ripping off poor people. It doesn't bother me as much as spam since I don't play any games like that, but worth mentioning.
Anyways I hope Mr-Hank and Richards find new jobs quickly and that SendGrid continues to lose business.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I'm sorry, but taking a snapshot and putting it up on twitter with a comment like that is something that should be illegal.. The developers never asked her for putting it in public, what I have to say to a collegue is non of her business even if it's offensive, and yes if it's offensive then she should SPEAK to the persons in question, not use twitter.. What ever happened to freedom of speech.. If the dev's were targetting her specifically with sexual comments, then it's a whole different matter..
There is a cute shirt about the incident here : http://forkmydongle.com/
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Adria Richards really should not have posted the photos of the people she was complaining about. As a private citizen she is entitled to do that of course, but I understand that she was there on behalf of her employer, who were a sponsor of the conference. Had she complained to the organisers and they then did nothing, she would have been perfectly entitled to call them out in a blog post. Just tweeting straightaway is really inappropriate.
Assuming the guy who got fired was there working (ie if his company paid for him to be there), of course they would have to fire him. They will have a policy about gender equality and anyone who breaches that policy when representing the company will face very severe sanction.
Some of the responses on here seem a bit hysterical to me.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
If their company paid for them to be there, they were "in their workplace".
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Nobody pays attention to the error messages until they're tweeted worldwide.
Sadly, this is *exactly* how the error messages from the Python code is managed in every Python based LAMP stack I've ever seen are handled. I don't know why Python is so special, but the coders never, never, *never* pay attention to stderr and error codes until they're blasted out worldwide in email and tweets to *everyeone*. I literally get 10000 blasts a day from the Python based monitoring at work and I'm supposed to "pay attention to the important ones". This has happened at *every single one* of the last 5 places I've worked, and it's repeatedly overwhelmed my phone services.
I put "Noirin Shirley assault" into google and it pulled up a bunch of relevant links - having not gone through them I'm not going to recommend one in particular. (I was recollecting from when it happened, she's a friend of several friends.)
There is such a double standard wrt harassment. I saw a male peer be asked to change his desktop background while our female superior had a "Penises of the Animal Kingdom " poster in her office.
Btw the desktop picture was the face of a woman, neck and up not an ounce of cleavage. So, yup as a man you have to be more careful than as a woman and that's not cool.
There are _no_ women apparent in the tweeted photo, among the roughly 100 attendees present. Where are you going to find the 10 easy going women, especially when your own employees are rude enough to be making that kind of joke in the audience at a professional conference?
Q - What do you call that useless piece of fat around a vagina?
A - Adria Richards.
Now we're getting somewhere....
I warn you, it can only get worse. Maleness is being redefined as pathological. The geek culture of males is no longer acceptible to females now that they are being forced into its ranks. Even the IEEE is thinking in terms of quotas. I saw an article on a woman engineer's dolls in a spectrum issue. Pathetic. The level of male aggressive creativity that has made us the technological driving force of the world will slow and stall finally under the onslaught of gynocentric special treatment and the forced imposition of female-friendly environments. Only males showing the proper genuflecting attitude toward females will be allowed into tech eventually, just as in the military now. You've been warned. How do you fight back and keep the male spirit alive? Exclude them deliberately from every private area of tech life that it is still legal to do so. Private, side meetings at tech conferences. Encryption to baffle the gynopolice. I'm not kidding. It is coming. It is here.
E Proelio Veritas.
just looking at Richard's site domain name told me she had an axe to grind.
This woman's job was to be a TECH EVANGELIST for a tech company. She wasn't the director of women's studies at some university. She was paid to be there to make people LIKE her company. She was AT WORK while she was there. Does she really think publicly shaming people -- even those she doesn't like--is part of her job? The only thing it might do is cause her company to lose customers. She is a terrible, awful person.
So Richards was fired for her role in the Twitter shaming? And the guy was fiored for making a dick joke?
Seems unreasonable to me AND my dongle.
I constantly wonder how these people get any work done given the amount of time they seem to spend on blatant self promotion.
Glad to see it sometimes backfires.
What exactly is this woman's job?
If you can't make a dongle joke at a Python convention, where can you make one, really? I personally appreciate a good penis joke now and again. Given her history of histrionics and her admission that she was essentially one stamp away from mayhem bingo at the time, I don't think it should be a surprise when the Internet took offense to the way she behaved. This is a spoiled child getting exactly what she deserves, if not what she planned.
For those using this as an excuse to bash feminists, please note that Richards says over and over in the comments section of the linked article (http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/) that she is not a feminist. Why she doesn't believe in equal rights for women, I am not sure, but this isn't the action of a feminist, ultra-liberal feminazi, modern feminist or any other kind of feminist.
In another life, Mrs Richards would have worked for the Stasi or the local committee of the Communist Party. In bad old times, your neighbor might be secretly spying on you and report any suspicious or deviant activities or conversations. Utterly bad consequences ensued for the "guilty" persons, with or without public shaming.
That people will do this to you with their cell phones is scary.. And in this case, the message with assorted photograph was posted to an actual worldwide audience without a second thought. Not even to "friends" or "friends or friends". I didn't know Twitter messages contained sneaked pictures, nowadays ; that made the story a lot worse.
I'm glad to have no Facebook account yet most every one has one.. In a few years, and years after that there will be a terrifying amount of Facebook and Twitter data for you to datamine and pinpoint what everyone does or think. If dictatorships arise in Europe or Northern America there will then be little hope of putting them down.
This is why you don't want women anywhere near where you're trying to have fun. 90% of them are fine, but there's always one of these puritans who can't stand anybody else having fun in a way they disapprove of.
One aspect I find troubling about all this is the response of the employers. 2 people were fired. Not just publicly reprimanded, not merely denied a raise, not put on unpaid leave for a week, fired. Guess finding replacements is easy. Must be a lot of skilled people out there who are unemployed. I note also that the employers aren't bothering to explain. They get to fire people without apology or transparency, and no one thinks anything of that. But if a peon makes some sexist crack, it's the firing squad. Sure, we all understand why they were fired, the employers don't have to explain that. What I'd like to hear is why they chose termination rather than some more mild punishment. Or am I out of touch, and being fired is not such a big deal these days? Last I heard, losing your job ranks up there as one of the top traumatic events of life, with the only clearly worse things being the death of a spouse or child, and I think that's still true, though much depends on the circumstances. If it was only some temporary, low paying job, it's not so bad. If it's something more but you didn't mess up, it's bad, but you still have your self-respect. What's horrible is to be judged and found wanting, and to see that they just might have a point or two, because you did screw up badly.
I wonder how significant this black mark is on their records. Will they ever be able to get another job in IT, or will they have to change careers? Ms. Richards is radioactive now. No one is going to want to be within a mile of her, let alone converse with her. Might cost you your job, and we all know how hard it is to get another job. How many men, and perhaps women as well, will feel now that if they see her at some conference, they should be careful not to be anywhere near her, and if she sits near them, they'll get up and move away. Unfair? She deserves some grief, particularly as I understand she even acted a bit smug about having gotten someone else fired. But if she ends up being driven out of IT altogether, then yes, I'd say that's unfair. The extreme reaction of the employers made the stakes way too high, makes being around her too dangerous. What will we have to say for ourselves if the ostracism gets so bad that she exercises the same option Aaron Swartz did?
Pro sports players do worse and get slapped around with a fine, and maybe have to sit out a game or three. Good athletes are valuable. Techies aren't.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
If their company paid for them to be there, they were "in their workplace".
That's fine but she was not in their workplace. She was essentially walking my their workplace and she heard one of them crack a joke. She was eavesdropping on their private conversation. She also handled the matter incorrectly and she was fired for it. Her actions were a clear violation of the spirit of the conference. The men making the jokes should not have been fired because the punishment did not fit the crime. The actions of their employer creates a chilling effect where humour is not tolerated because someone one with self esteem issues might be offended. I would rather starve to death than live in a world were every company was that anal.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Twenty years ago a new female programmer was eating lunch with the other programmers (and myself) in the employee lunch room. One of the guys (smart ass) tried to play around with innuendo (when asked what he brought for lunch) - he put his lunch bag in his lap and hid is hand in his lap and asked the new female programmer " If you guess what's in my hand I'll come over there and give it to you".
Without missing a beat - she said (while eating a sandwich), "If it only take one hand to hold - I'm not interested"
I married her
I'm actually more appalled by this comment of Richards's than by anything else:
Women in technology need consistant [sic] messaging from birth through retirement they are welcome, competent and valued in the industry.
With certain rare exceptions, men don't get that messaging, in any field. So you're basically asking for special treatment for women, whether you realize it or not.
It's such a typical example of the "women deserve to be treated like special snowflakes" attitude, and the funniest thing is that it's totally unconscious: for all the talk of "privilege" that tends to come out of women like her, they really don't realize the extent to which their expectations have been conditioned by a culture that treats women as unique and deserving of protection, vs. men as interchangeable and only meriting respect in proportion to their personal power.
So no, Ms. Richards, women don't deserve that. Either people do, or nobody does.
Just out of curiousity, does anyone know what the laws are regarding taking somebody's picture at a private event and posting them publicly without permission?
I commented on the woman's post as noted here (since likely the post won't pass moderation):
Not being there I don't have the right to second-guess the severity of your claims but having myself been a victim of women who have a hair trigger to "sexist" claims, I wonder if you just ruined the careers of a couple of equally tired and goofy nerdy males for no real benefit of anyone. Today in business many companies and their management have a high tendency to over-compensate for past "abusive men" and thus all women's claims must be considered more valid and important than any man's response (something I have seen multiple times women easily take advantage of in a shameless way), I have been a single parent and raised a girl, I've worked successfully with women in management many times so I get how women feel. But I've heard truck driver mouths on plenty of women and frankly I don't give a damn since it was not directed at ME. I certainly would not presume myself to be the person to "fix them".
BTW, the issue I was referring to personally was finally resolved and her false-claims were eventually refuted, but the sting is still there. Since I respect everyone equally, being falsely likened to a misogynist hurts like hell because I was the true victim.
Are you sure you weren't lashing out at men in general? Just saying....
Regarding Steubenville: was that due to her gender or due to the individuals accused being part of a *very* popular group (the athletes/stars/jocks whatever)?
If a similar incident had happened regarding sexual hazing of a male, or perhaps harassment of a homosexual male, do you thing that the reaction of the "sports-fans" would have been much different?
... and this was the opportunity. The complaint and tweet were completely appropriate; would a similar reaction to a couple of goofs making KKK or holocaust jokes or slurring some Middle Eastern religion in a public place have been acceptable? No. Both would have deserved the action the conference organizers took.
BUT loss of employment? You might expect a slap on the wrist, right? Unless the employer was looking for an excuse, say, the company was tired of similar behaviour in the workplace. Yeah, this was just an excellent opportunity to get rid of a workplace problem.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
She makes the case for becoming an independent business owner with one employee: yourself. No HR department to answer to, no behavior modification classes to attend, no draconian hyper-fems watching your every move.
I have been reading here for years. I have worked with more of you than I can count. So I know you aren't all stupid, vulgar, or insensitive. You must know that when you are at a professional conference, you are expected to behave as though you are at work, not at a backyard barbecue or strip club. You must have learned by now, since you are on the web, that women who speak up generally receive threats of death/violence/sexual assault that have to be taken at least somewhat seriously. You also have to know that there are men in the next cubicle who do mean it when they make sexual jokes or innuendo and want all women either sexually submissive in the workplace or gone. You don't wear safe/not safe identifiers, so get used to being polite adults. It is up to the men in this industry to fix this. Women cannot change men's behavior by dressing differently, pulling our forelocks in submission, or whatever today's blame the survivor theory may be. The ball is in your court. Do something.
Take a quick peek at this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiP1z9qfojA
Can you put yourself in that woman's place? Do you get why making inappropriate jokes behind a woman's back is intimidating and uncomfortable?
*Condense fact from the vapor of nuance*
I am an old school female geek, meaning I have hit the half century mark in life. This is one subject that has rubbed me the wrong way (oops that could be taken out of context)... for many years now.
If we go back a few years back to the days when there were only 3 channels on TV and censorship, well censorship in general was strict, while these type of things happened they didn't become issues especially in the public eye, censorship wouldn't have allowed it. I was a tomboy so most of my friends were male and a lot more fun than playing with dolls. I was also a geek however I had to keep that part a secret for that was a pass to beat up after school everyday.
I will now jump to when I was 13 at which time I began my professional drummer/percussionist position (oops that could be taken incorrectly too, shame on me). Well that most definitely was not the place for a girl, in the eyes of most males and some females, however it sold lots of tickets. I was having fun doing what I enjoyed and ticket buyers got what they paid for... a great band, awesome music, and to see a girl play better than most male drummers. More than once I was pulled off stage backwards, while I was playing, by some idiot who in his words said "Let me show you what girls are supposed to do" and he didn't have music on his mind. It happened twice, separate occasions, that a guy on got passed security and given I was tiny pulling me off stage fast was easy to do. I never made a big deal of it, in fact I simply got back on stage and said that concludes the dumbass portion of our show... and I didn't give it a second thought.
I have held various jobs throughout my life most of which were considered a "man's" job, actually they were geek jobs which were considered male jobs, with the exception of the very short term job I had working on an assembly line counting chicken nuggets into a bag. I hated that job more than anything and decided that my REAL job was finding a different job. The females on the line were far more raunchy than any male I ever worked with however that was OK and allowed, talk about double standards. I actually was laughed at because I didn't get some of the jokes, implications, snide remarks and so on. I lasted a month at that job after which I took a job as a draftsmen back when you had to actually draw on the board not CAD. Meaning you had to know what you were doing.
As time went on and CAD was beginning to take over board drawing I was one of the last to convert because I didn't want anyone to think I was a secretary, not that there is anything wrong with being a secretary, I just worked too hard to get where I was and my drawings were my legacy as nobody's drawings looked the same. Ironically Auto-Cad was what took me deep into the geek world as I no longer liked being a senior designer, I had advanced from draftsmen by this time, I wanted to pick apart what made Auto-Cad work. Again this was not a field for females and I took a lot of flack for it but it went in one ear and out the other.
Computers became my life with Linux being an obsession. It was made very clear I was not wanted in this field but that didn't matter to me all that mattered to me is it was where I wanted to be. All my life I have dealt with sex or sexual innuendo's and there were two ways to handle it, blow it off (oops dang I sure do say a lot of things that could be taken out of context), or be a cry baby about it. I chose the former because I liked my jobs, I do not get offended and if guys want to "fork" you with their "dongle" then hey that was a compliment.
The most memorable job where this type of thing would be an issue for most females these days, I was a Networking Systems Engineer so I was very upper management. All upper management had to take a sexual harassment class once a year. It was laughable at best but hey the food and drinks made it go by fast. I reported directly to the president of the company and he was completely computer stupid. To make a long story short he heard about
My goal is to learn at least one new thing before going to sleep and to wake up after each sleep cycle.
Starting a development company without an evangelist is like going to war without accordions.
Bad analogy. I mean come on, use your imagination, in the right hands accordions can be weaponized. Granted, such use is rarely fatal, but the amount of pain inflicted can be severe. I won't post a link, because basically I'm a pacifist at heart... But make no mistake, accordions are dangerous!
The problem is, people don't seem to see the difference between "gender equality" compared to "gender specific rights". Equality means, women are not allowed to be offended by things that men are not offended by. And vice versa. That's equality. If men are riled up by things women think are okay, it's not equality. Equality means women are held to the same standard that men are. And vice versa. The worst offender is the "parent" card. If you're not up to the task, don't do it. Who gives a flying "insert non offending word". If you're not up to the task, you're not. If you have a kid, it doesn't change the way your competence is measured (atleast it shouldn't). The last part means a child is not supposed to be considered a plus for you if you underperform. (and performance is compared to your workmates, not some general statistic. And this goes both for males and females. You getting fired should not have anything to do with your personal breeding) I know there's a history of preferring men over women. This still doesn't you make entitled to demands. If you want EQUALITY you take the jokes, and fire them back. (hint, if males are not offended and you are, it's not an EQUALITY problem) If you want gender specific rights, stop talking about equality. For example, breast feeding has nothing to do with equality. The first time i see an actual man (born as one) able to do that, i'll bow down and kiss the sky.
People who have a clean conscience are happy. People who don't have a conscience are the happiest motherfuckers alive.
If you can't take the heat... then stay out of the kitchen.
I don't understand why not being allowed to use bedroom or bathroom jokes in a professional or public setting is such a major issue for the slashdot crowd. Isn't this stuff we learned in kindergarten?
Ditto with hot button social issues. It just seems like common sense to me... and I don't feel like my rights are being trampled on.
Obviously political correctness can go too far somethings, but bedroom/bathroom humor, at least in my experience, has been a no no in most professional workplaces for a very long time. Isn't that what most parents teach their kids at around 3-4.... no boob/butt/etc... jokes in the supermarket (but you might let it slide, or even laugh at the joke when in the privacy of your own home). Everyone I know was raised that way.
She pretends to have reluctantly been driven to this complaint but history shows she's a shit stirring activist, "a bully who uses these instances to her personal gain" to quote Amanda Blum. Looking for issues where none existed. For example her bullshit anti-porn rant over the title of a talk that had NOTHING to do with port at all. Now she's been fired. I expect her employer will wind up getting sure for firing her over this and good riddance, apparently they're spammers.
your attempts at controlling what I have to say to be extremely offensive. It doesn't matter if you meant to offend, they till are. Please apalogise to me and everyone else for your offensive remarks and never do it again.
Fucking stupid. We're in the 21th century, and you still haven't got over sex? It's a part of life, and it's fun to joke about it. Women dress in sexy attires. Men tell dirty jokes. We each have our own way of expressing ourselves. If you can't handle a few dick jokes, then GTFO.
You say you want the world of coding to welcome woman. We do. But you want US to change our ways. You need us to accommodate everything to the "fragile" females, who can't handle reality? Dirty jokes are rape. Flirting is rape. Looking at you is rape. Woman ARE NOT FRAGILE. They can handle dick jokes, they can talk about sex, and if somebody flirts with them on the job, they can either fuck him or tell him to go away. They don't need protection. It's not Woman in general who are fragile and need protection, it's YOU. It's not a female issue, it's a YOU issue. YOU are fragile, and you have problems with your own sex life, so you can't handle people behaving in a NATURAL way. Go see a psychologist, so that YOU can change to accommodate the world instead of expecting we all change the world to accommodate you.
--
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
You make jokes about putting a HUGE sock in your pants and you're uncomfortable because of a joke about dongles? Strange.
But the thing about this whole thing that worries me the most, is the lack of humour of people and people getting fired because of that. What happened to "I'm sorry, I didn't meant to make you feel uncomfortable"?
Privacy is terrorism.
When people don't stand up for their rights, you're letting the Nazis win.
Godwin with the slam dunk!
The self-righteousness is beyond belief. Who knew that so many were so pure and wise ...........
A penis joke ???? - big fucking deal
hell hath no fury like that of a twitterati Black woman with a cell-phone camera and the need to drive traffic to her blog. Don't Hate The Playa Hate The Game: Do not fault the successful participant (or allow yourself to label the unsuccessful person a victim) in a flawed system; try instead to discern that aspect of its organization which allows or encourages the behavior that has provoked the situation.
Would she have done what she did to anyone other than white males ? Be honest , no else is looking, would she have ???????
That's not funny.
You can run your own company on whatever principles you like.
No, if you run it on wrong enough (according to the government) principles, the gov't will take your money and give it to someone else (civil lawsuits) or take your money for itself, lock you in a prison with people who will try to do you grievous harm, give you a criminal record which will cause people to hate or not trust you, and take some of your rights away, often for life.
Sometimes that is appropriate, but often it is NOT.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!