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Will Donglegate Affect Your Decision To Attend PyCon?
theodp writes "Its Code of Conduct describes PyCon as 'a welcoming, friendly event for all.' But will the post-conference fallout from this year's 'Donglegate' debacle and proposed remedies affect your decision — one way or the other — to attend next year's PyCon in ironically naughty Montreal? And even if not, could 'Donglegate' influence the-powers-that-be whose approval you'll need to attend? How about conference sponsors?"
is Donglegate?
Will you idiots stop with this "topic-gate" crap already? A feminist didn't like the jokes that a couple of guys were making. They got fired. Then she got fired for rocking the boar. Case closed.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
s/boar/boat/;
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
No. I will leave all the dongles and connectors at home. Oh wait, I can't ... This is confusing. This is why we exclude girls from our tree computer club! Damn.
Someone is trying desperately to make this into something bigger than it is.
I never went, and I never will, and I have no nice job to be unfortunately fired from, but even if that weren't the case, I wouldn't let it affect my decision. It's an unlikely thing to happen, and the simple fact is that shit happens. You'll miss a lot of good things in life if you're never willing to take even the slightest risk.
It will also put me off talking freely and in an unguarded manner in front of female attendees at any conference. Who knows which one will want to be the next twitterverse celeb getting notoriety by making a big thing out of nothing. That victimhood addict who reported those 2 guys for "inappropriate" comments went on to make very inappropriate comments herself about those guys (search for her TSA socks stuffing comments).
She is a hypocrite troublemaker who is creating divisions in the dev community along gender lines for no good reason only her own need to validate herself out of victimhood. Next time a woman mentions at work how far along she in in her pregnancy, can she be reported for inappropriate comments?Because this is where this is all going.
Rocking the boar: sounds like some sort of porcine fashion statement :)
Pycon put out a statement that it was regrettable somebody was oversensitive and overreacted to something mildly offensive.
That under these particular circumstances it might have been best if the offended party had expressed the fact that she was offended directly to those offending her (as they were not the least bit threatening) or perhaps escalated it to Pycon security.
That Adria Richards was banned from all future events for violating Pycon privacy policies and making a hostile environment for all attendees, and the developers banned for a year for their part.
Imagine a world where Pycon did that, and stated that there would be no changes in policy as a result of the 'donglegate' effect, because no Pycon policy was an issue in the events as they unfolded.
DONGLEGATE?! Really?! I thought I made that up, as a joke! People are actually calling it that? Oh man, haha...
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
"Rocking the boar" sounds more interesting than any other part of this story.
At least part of the reason I go to Pycon is for recruiting; that means that I wear a company-branded t-shirt, and -- obviously -- my name tag has my company's name on it. I expect that I should always behave in a way that is consistent with representing my company well, and part of that means keeping my conduct strictly professional.
I don't see anything here that makes Pycon less useful, or interesting, or relevant to me, nor do I see any action on the part of the Pycon folks that I disagree with. And, having just talked with my management last night about Donglegate, I know they feel the same.
Now, Pycon being in Montreal is a different matter -- I don't really want to cross borders for Pycon.
And you don't make loud penis jokes at a conference. It's that simple. And if you get fired for a similar triviality, it's for the better they didn't deserve you anyway.
Calling someone something they don't like, to their face and particularly with malicious intent, might be inappropriate but it is not harassment per se. Doing so after being asked to stop (refusing to stop if there is no malicious intent does not constitute malice) probably is harassment.
A joke that somebody doesn't like, particularly if it's not told *to* them, shouldn't be considered harassment and we should be wary of attempts to ban salty jokes.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
My decision, made many years ago, to remain a reclusive hermit who shuns contact with other human beings and only leaves his domicile to work and fetch food, is clearly shown to be correct by incidents such as this one. (It has, however, had the sad effect of making me communicate almost entirely in run-on sentences on internet web boards.)
In as much as I view it as a self indulgent echo chamber where converts congratulate themselves on choosing the one true religion.
Python is just one tool in the box - sorry, one implement in the storage vessel. All single-language conference attendees really need to get over themselves.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
No. She got fired because of employee misconduct. She tried to make this poor family man feel ashamed about having a penis. She literally took food off the table of 3 children. All because she faux outraged that "dongle" sounds like "dong" and "fork" sounds like "fuck".
I'm so fucking glad she got fired. I hope she gets fired from life. People and their fake outrage can die in a fire, or a Walmart trampling.
Germaine Greer don't like it
Rock the cis-boar
Rock the cis-boar
I might have been interested in attending PyCon to learn more about Python and to network, but rather than being "offended at sexist remarks", I take the B&B comments as indication of the caliber of people I might have met at a PyCon. It may not be true, but that's the perception I have now, and I'm now more likely to attend data analytics or HPC conferences where Python happens to be discussed.
Don't!
Alternatively, pay attention to the real speaker - just kidding.
The internet just makes it easier to share our outrage. Sometimes good, sometimes bad and sometimes unnecessary.
Also, can we just start calling this 'c*ck-gate', then we can have a 'c*ck-gate-gate' ...
Also, what's with the code of conduct? I don't mean the content... it's a Saturday, so I'm being shallow... the so-called short version is about the same length as the long version.
I don't know, I found the title funny -- which was probably the editor's intention in the first place. And she wasn't a feminist, that word has a real meaning that I'd rather we didn't dilute; she was a prissy, attention whoring, holier-than-thou, PC bitch.
And to answer the article's question: If I were a Python dev, I wouldn't attend. That would send a more clear message to everyone involved that those situations are ridiculous than a bunch of posts on random message boards.
It'd be best to avoid phrasing this in a way that suggests that any other feminist would be the same; feminism is a very diverse movement, and there are flavours (like mine) that are very anti-PC-policing.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
It doesn't change much for me since I already avoid events that are dominated by men or women. For some reason, behavioural expectations tend to be ignored in those situations.
The reason being is that ignorant twat
AC # 43256649 was then reassigned to gender re-education encampment #67, funded by the Protect America's Women Act of 2014.
Calling any situation *-gate would be appropriate only if Watergate had been about water.
Call out idiocy whenever you see it. It's gotten a pass from far too many people, far too many times.
Every year, two attendees will be randomly drawn to be fired from their jobs.
"Sorry you didn't win one of the iPads, but second place is you're fired!" (after Alec Baldwin in the movie "Glengarry Glen Ross").
After all, people came to the event expecting something completely different.
The way you act in public represents not only yourself but your company. If you're not mature enough to keep your dumb and offensive comments to yourself, then you're no different than an internet troll.
You have all the freedom of speech in the world in America but that doesn't stop you from others judging you as an idiot. The lady isn't a troublemaker; rather, she's bringing your outdated industry's chauvinistic attitudes to the 21st century. Seriously, other companies and industries have already figured this out, why are tech "bros" like yourself so stupid to learn this?
If you're terrified at communicating with a woman, then learn to treat them like a human being instead of a lesser gender.
-a man.
It's a significant and relevant story.
We know about race hustlers... people who like to twist any situation into a racist (against blacks) for their fame and profit. It's old news.
But we don't hear much about the more quiet problem... especially in the work place. The one quite a few of us in this demographic have suffered.
There are women out there who are equally prepared to play the sexism-card when it serves their interests. In this case, this woman is a pretty good example. People have been digging up her internet content everywhere exposing what she is and does. On one hand she has a clear history of sex related things. If she was so offended by sex related things, she has a weird way of showing it. So it wasn't the sex related things that bothered her. I have little doubt that she was harmed or offended by what she thought she heard.
She may have been annoyed by the cut-ups going on behind her. That's understandable. But instead of addressing the real problem, she made up a worse one. She created this drama. She got what she expected... at first. But then the community unexpectedly returned fire. Her employer couldn't afford to have her any longer. B'Bye bitch.
This is the unspoken reason there may be reservations about women in the workplace and especially in the tech fields. We're a BUNCH of immature geeks who care less about social crap and more about technical crap. When women enter the room, we're immediately terrified that our haven is being changed leaving us nowhere to go. The unspoken fear is that we know what women can and will bring. She is a perfect example of it. Once again, her self-documented history of sexy-flirty crap spins around in an instant to "I'm offended by this double entendre!!" And of course, everyone who seeks not to be branded "a part of the problem" is forced into doing whatever pleases her.
Nice play. For once it didn't work out quite as she expected. I wonder what she will advocate next? This geek crowd she offended? They are anonymous. They don't forget. They don't forgive. And she represents every woman in the workplace who has ever played that game. And I sincerely hope her hell will give other women cause to give a second thought about playing the sexism card like this.
Le sigh.
I don't see any point in attending Pycon. It's a development language that i may or may not choose to use, depending on the application. I see zero value in attending a convention about it. Would you attend a C language convention?
But, that doesn't mean that the past two incidents haven't tainted my opinion of Pycon. I have found the "outrage" and the reaction to the "offended" rather polarizing. Whereas I was previously completely indifferent on matters of sexism or sexual harassment, I have now formulated the opinion that Pycon is attended, and more tremblingly operated, by a bunch of prudish, overly politically correct, whiny bitches(regardless of gender). I am reminded of homosexuals and the homosexual movement, constantly grinding their ax and whining about the cruel persecution that they supposedly suffer constantly.
This image is not a favorable one. It does not further their causes, in my mind. It creates an urge in me to directly oppose their views whereas before I was completely indifferent and didn't give it a thought.
I think it would serve Pycon far better to focus on Python, and leave the social and political aspects to someone else entirely. Their attempts at political correctness are to their detriment, in my opinion.
Flame away.
she ever thought about that? women usually just tell whatever they got
And she wasn't a feminist
The term you're looking for is "feminazi"
Talk about a tempest in a teapot! The principals in this kerfuffle should have all gotten a good dope slap, and it should have been left at that! The fact that a couple of people lost their jobs? Their "superiors" should have lost their jobs for going this far!
s/boar/boat/;
s/boat/dongle
is put a chilling effect on developer conferences in general, and put pressure on conference staff to create policies that shouldn't even be necessary.
Talk freely and openly? Not anymore. Oh no! Someone said compile and link in the same sentence! I'm offended! As a female myself, now I have to worry that if I walk up to another developer, their first thought will be, "Oh shit, it's a woman. Gotta scoot!"
Do you have a smart phone? Sorry, you're not allowed to use it anymore because you might be taking photos of other people to post on your twitfaceplus feed in order to disrupt their lives.
This whole thing is a big pile of idiocy, and mindbogglingly poorly handled on ALL sides.
Nice play. For once it didn't work out quite as she expected
Actually I think she knew exactly what would happen, the same thing as always, people rape threatning her and calling her all kind of things. Amanda Blum's excelent blog post highlights the problem with Adrias behaviour but hopefully give you some insight to the larger problem.
If this has thought us something it is that there are some serious problem with sexism at tech conferences, even if you don't like what she did the backlash kind of proved her point IMHO.
The first group of people is not offended by jokes, including jokes influenced by sexuality.
The second group of people is offended by jokes, especially jokes influenced by sexuality. A subset of this group is offended by such jokes when spoken by members of a certain gender. Of course, this is discriminatory so we will ignore that aspect and categorize them as offended in general.
I think there is a desire to be respectful of the second group while avoiding strict censorship of the [majority] first group.
I suggest a clearly visible sign that someone is offended by jokes influenced by sexuality (or, perhaps broadening this to include all jokes?). Perhaps a yellow hat or something like that. People within earshot of such people should refrain from telling such jokes. People wearing the sensitivity marker who hear things offensive to them can raise the issue to convention staff who will attempt to deal with the issue. People wearing the "sensitivity" marker who make such jokes will permanently lose the right to wear them.
People not wearing the sensitivity marker who hear something offensive to them should either (A) indicate to the offensive person directly that their conduct is perhaps inappropriate, or (B) move away from the offensive person so that they are no longer offended. If (A) is ineffective and (B) is ineffective or impossible the convention staff can be notified and they may or may not choose to act; anyone not wearing a sensitivity marker who is upset is free to go put on a sensitivity marker.
People may wish to have activities which may include things that people find offensive, they are free to ban sensitivity markers. Additionally, "sensitivity-marker free zones" or "automatic sensitivity marker" zones could be created. Or even entire conventions where no sensitivity markers are allowed -- one would expect a crude joke convention to probably not cater to overly sensitive people.
Of course, in an ideal world, everyone would be adult enough to know to watch their language a little bit, and to not overreact a lot. But given that certain people are especially sensitive for various reasons, we should find a way to allow them to coexist with the rest of society.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
In 3 Words: No, it wont!
I attended PyCon this year. I thought it was really awesome to see that many women in our field.
I support the mission of the open source community, and not only will I be attending in 2014,
I also plan on speaking at the conference.
For all the women in the open source community, I'd like you to know that most of us guys are
not sexist. We appreciate the contributions that anyone provides regaurdless of sex, race, favorite
sports team or preference to dogs or cats. I'd like more of you to attend PyCon next year.
The 'reaction', 'fallout', and ddos that occurred was a result of idiots hiding behind a glowing rectangle
unfortunately you get the same thing when they hide behind a windshield. Those guys are not a true
reflection of all of us.
This mess was an overreaction by everyone. Lets leave this for what it is:
def bad_decision():
return bad_decision()
And lets get back to what really matters:
writing open source software and bringing developers together.
and if we cant do that, lets get back to posting pictures of dinner on facebook, and photoshopping pictures of kittens
See you all in 2014!
It's unfortunate that PyCon is being dragged into something that could have happened at any tech conference. I think the conference organizers handled it well considering all of the drama happened outside their realm of responsibility.
Will I go next year? Absolutely!. PyCon is on of the best conferences on my yearly schedule.
Le sigh.
Well, at least we know now that she committed trespassing and theft.
"I don't know, I found the title funny -- which was probably the editor's intention in the first place. And she wasn't a feminist, that word has a real meaning that I'd rather we didn't dilute; she was a prissy, attention whoring, holier-than-thou, PC bitch. "
In other words... she is a feminist.
She used the exact same tactics that feminists have always used. It backfired on her because due to widespread social media these days men are finally realising that it's the same cynical power game played time and time again by feminism and women.
Organisations tend to accommodate feminists because they play the victim and stir up publicity. We need to make sure that these organisations can't take the easy way out by letting them blame a man and get him fired. We need to make them understand that their lives will a lot more difficult if they continue to pander to this sort of bullshit.
It's not diluting feminism.. it's exposing it for what it has always been: bullshit, victimology and letting women use their massive societal privilege to ruin innocent men's lives.
I predict a resurgence in traditional men's clubs.
The facts that are known.
1) after hearing part of a conversation behind her, a "developer evangelist" decided to take a picture of the two guys and twit it out to her 10,000 followers. The tweet was "Not cool. Jokes about forking repo's in a sexual way and "big" dongles. Right behind me. #pycon ".
2) the convention organizers responded to this twit, and spoke with all three parties.
2) After these events, one of the guys was supposevely fired by his company and she was supposevely fired be her company.
Beyond that, no one really has said exactly why the parties may have been fired.
**
And by the way, codes of conduct are essentially useless. Attendees either behave in a socially acceptable way or they got booted. And the convention orgranizers get to decide what is socially acceptable. Behaving badly may be one example of socially unacceptable behaviour, so might making unwarrented complaints about other attendees.
His post is significant and should be read through twice, as it is heartfelt (not a troll) and seems to represent a lot of thinking here.
Although it is really sad:
This is the unspoken reason there may be reservations about women in the workplace and especially in the tech fields. We're a BUNCH of immature geeks who care less about social crap and more about technical crap. When women enter the room, we're immediately terrified that our haven is being changed leaving us nowhere to go. The unspoken fear is that we know what women can and will bring.
Dude, you're saying is that you are a loser with no social skills. But that that's OK because there are plenty of others just like you and you'll all engage in this bullying of women who venture into a tech field without knowing their proper place, which is to be quiet and submissive, ignore the bad behavior and don't try to advance in your career.
This geek crowd she offended? They are anonymous. They don't forget. They don't forgive. And she represents every woman in the workplace who has ever played that game.
That's exactly what black people had to deal with during the Jim Crow era of this country, and are still dealing with in some parts of the rural South. Be happy you haven't been chased out of here and shut up. Congratulations, you just revealed that in another place and time you would have been part of the oppressive majority.
s/Submit/Preview/;
If God forks the Universe every time you roll a die, he'd better have a damned good memory.
We are all at risk here. Even though we have freedom of speech, we run the risk of losing our livelihoods if we say something that might offend someone somewhere. Richards was being a real "bitch." I say "bitch" because it is a disparaging name for a female. Not because I wish to be sexist. If the perpetrator of this nonsense was a guy, I'd call him a real "bastard." Calling a woman a "bastard" doesn't seem to be the correct usage in the English language. If someone can come up with a disparaging name to call a female that is not sexist, please suggest one, but if it is not sexists to call a guy a bastard, I refuse to accept that there is no non-sexist name we can call a woman when we are condemning her and her actions, but I digress.
Seriously, I've been in the situation where I have been pulled aside by management for saying something offensive, but they won't say what, to someone, but they won't say who, and that I should stop it, but they don't say how. The whole harassment mentality is very kafka-esque. The REAL hostile work environment is created by zero-tolerance crap, which, by definition, means "intolerant."
Human beings are imperfect. "Appropriate" behavior is a myth of the modern workplace police. Human beings build relationships and we communicate. We are not robots. Humor is part of humanity, and sometimes humor is off color. There is a difference between saying, "Hey, my dongle is bigger than yours" and "Have sex with me or your fired."
Also, lets be honest here, if ms Richard heard these jokes from her friends at that conference, she would not have complained. She should try to understand and take to heart Voltaire's quote: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." An evangelist should stand for something besides her own notoriety. Gatherings of human beings are generally improved when we all try to be tolerant of one another.
Why punish the Pycon organizers because of the actions of one radical feminist? She freaked out over a single dongle comment that was made by one person in the crowd. The Pycon staff dealt with the situation appropriately and it only escalated because of radical feminists on Twitter and the backlash from /b/. She even compared herself to Joan D'Arc and said that "the future of programming was on the line" all because one person in the crowd made a single dongle joke while he was talking to his male friend. She wasn't even involved in the fucking conversation and doesn't even know what forking a repo actually means.
That's not feminism. Feminism, the one you encounter in "gender studies" or whatever you want to call them are a single obnoxious, ridiculous type, which goes around demanding special treatment and blaming men for everything they don't like, including how people look at them, and everything is rape. That is the common, modern Feminist. And the rest of the ones who are a bit less crazy not only do not call these idiot women on their public and academic behaviour, but also sit quietly in the back and reap the benefit that the shock trooper Feminists achieve for women in prejudice of men. Nor they see issues when they see posters about domestic violence but is always conextualized as it coming from males.
Diverse movement my ass. If it were you would not have tolerated the crazy idiots that define the word at the moment.
What those guys did was immature but let's be honest they weren't trying to cause harm to anybody. They may have been trying to be offensive or not, but even then if something somebody says gets you upset that's on you not them. But what she did was just wrong why try to hurt someone's career because they dared to say something she found offensive not to mention they were not even speaking to her. And for all her efforts at least she got one of them fired, and herself too. Funny how the universe works.
Disgusting isn't it?
Certainly not if my job can be put at risk because some attention-seeker decides to be offended by an innocent remark I make in a private conversation that they happen to overhear.
I don't care if you're offended. There's a bunch of stuff that offends me but you don't hear me whining on about it, because I'm a grown-up and I have learned that other people think differently from me.
Then she got fired for rocking the boar.
Dude, what the hell goes on at PyCon?!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
I'm not sure what the "naughty Montreal" comment is about; Montreal is an ideal location to get over this episode. Women in general, and women in industry in particular, are treated fairly and equitably. While there aren't 50% female developers, the numbers are higher than I've seen elsewhere in North America.
I just hope conference attendees are ready for 51% of the sessions to be held in French, and all printed materials being predominantly in French, as required by law.
Here is karma in action: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57575905/techie-adria-richards-fired-after-tweeting-about-mens-comments
Pal you are the only one with a small bird besides your name in the whole page. Did you really post that from Twitter? What is happening, is the internet leaking?
lucm, indeed.
White ribbons? Is this what the world is going to be like now that the children of the politically correct 90s have grown up and now are in charge? Here’s a wake up call from someone a generation older: My rights don’t end where where your feelings begin. If you overhear a sexual reference to a computer component, don’t fall to pieces. Toughen up for crying out loud. The world doesn’t revolve around you.
Here’s something else I propose: Someone invite a large group of Muslim women in full burkas to the next meeting. Let them report every woman wearing makeup, showing their face in public, having physical contact with men, etc. as being offensive. Maybe then people will get the picture.
She took food off her own table too: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-205_162-57575905/techie-adria-richards-fired-after-tweeting-about-mens-comments
Too many people overreacted on this one. You did too. Congratulations.
Wait a minute. Because he said that they *can* die in a fire, not that they *should* die in a fire, maybe he is just saying that they are not superheroes, which is a valid piece of information that should be welcome in any serious discussion.
lucm, indeed.
That's what happens when you let women into the internet.
Informative link.
"Money Shot" does not mean porn. Yes. Porn made the term famous, but the meaning isn't quite "semen being ejected." It's "this is what people came here to see!" Steve Jobs holding up a new iThing was "the money shot."
The woman has a serious problem in that she makes her problem a problem for everyone else.
Very enlightening.
She was not going to be re-trained. And the blogger demonstrated that she has a history of choosing the stir up trouble rather than trying to work things out. Clearly the company that fired her made the right choice.
I'm rather surprised she even attended PyCon. After all, pythons and snakes in general are often used to describe penises.
Crossing between the US and Canada is no big deal...biggest trading partners in the world, people cross all the time.
No. The problem is that people like you cannot distinguish between sexism and dirtbaggery. The developers were crude, not sexist. Adria was a dirtbag, not a sexist. Sexism is wrong. Being crude in a professional setting is wrong. Being a dirtbag is wrong. Killing is wrong. Stealling is wrong. Just don't pretend that these are the same thing. The backlash simply proves that you have dirtbags wherever you have people. Not new news. Sexism may exist in tech conferences, but the backlash was not an example of it. Trying to say that it is, is a perfect example of why people are so outraged: because the pendulum has swung too far, and the term "sexism" is starting to look like an absurd and meaningless term. Nice try.
Actually I think she knew exactly what would happen, the same thing as always, people rape threatning her and calling her all kind of things
I don't know, at this point I'd be looking for serious citations, police reports, the works from any of these people on claims of threats. Their word just doesn't seem in any way trustworthy.
%s/boar/hippopotamus/g
if he can rock a boar, he has a chance at something bigger
@http://butyoureagirl.com/
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?
Absolutely I would still go! As a slick, laid-back TCL cat, I feel that "donglegate" has blessed me and my brethren with a way to break the ice with extremely high-strung Python developers. At a convention in the past one of us suggested that it was okay to follow a CR/NL with only one whitespace character and he got stabbed.
An 8 year girl just gave up on becoming a programmer, because of you.
I used to be
She wasn't even involved in the fucking conversation and doesn't even know what forking a repo actually means.
Wait, wait wait, if she doesn't even know what "forking" means, what the hell is she doing at a conference targeted at people who do!?
Why would anyone go to PyCon. It's clearly a worthless conference is the audience is so rude they spend their time ostensibly tweeting and looking at their cell phones to signify their boredom to the speaker. Even worse, there were clarly two men talking while the speaker was talking thus disrupting the talk. This is clearly unacceptable behavior.
topic-gate is a specific name for a specific scandal that either escaped my attention, hasn't happened yet, or hasn't been given this name yet.
Did you mean to use the term in a "meta" sense? If so, topic-gate, __TOPIC_GATE__, topic-gate, or something similar would have been clearer.
captcha: protests
That's true, and unfortunately, the ones that get the headlines tend to be misogynistic and generally misanthropic.
They'll likely end up being sued by her and losing, even though it's very clear that the way in which she chose to deal with the quasi-legitimate complaint was completely inappropriate. What would have happened, had she misheard what they were saying? I remember years back having somebody complain about something he thought I had said, it turns out that he had severe hearing loss and had chosen to think I said something that I hadn't said.
It is the best thing to happen to any conference. A clear message that this mysognistic brogrammer crap is unacceptable.
Professionalism and free speech are different things, get over it.
And maybe you're an idiot, without whom the world would be a better place (note that I'm merely voicing the possibility of idiocy, not actually claiming that you are an idiot).
In reality - she wanted it both ways. She leveraged the Internet mob (her twitter followers) on the two guys that "offended" her.
Yet, we know the Internet mob is a fickle beast. She got the reaction she wanted - but - it also lashed back at her. They brutally attacked her.
Which, who knows, that could have been part of the scheme all along. She knew the Internet kids would strike back with real sexism and real attacks - validating the "hatred against women" she wants to perpetuate.
Live by the mob, die by the mob.
This is about a group of people who wish to impose their code of conduct -- which is basically "no talking or doing anything related to sex, ever, especially if you're male" -- on others. I think they're picking on geeks partially because they see geeks as a soft target; we know we're not in the social mainstream, so when these people proclaim a radical code of conduct we're supposed to follow and claim it's merely "professional standards", we might actually believe them.
Of course, this is bullshit. Their code of conduct is not what other professionals follow either. People who put on a suit every day still make dick jokes. Lawyers, doctors, bankers... all of them. Well, I'm not sure about accountants. And then there's salespeople. Maybe these people wouldn't make such jokes at a formal staff meeting (and maybe they would), but a conference isn't such a formal occasion; there's a strong social as well as professional element to them, which these radicals want to excise.
Sadly, Pycon has, for whatever reason (perhaps legal, perhaps harassment from the radicals), bought into this agenda with their code of conduct which forbids "sexualized" anything. That's reason enough not to go.
It's a dive bar in Winnipeg
Well, yes. But the reason they get the headlines is not because they are either particularly common, or that they have a lot of support among women, but because it give men an excuse to disregard what women say more generally. Caricature feminists and then diregard them.
"brogrammer"?
Now that sounds sexist and hardly "professional".
Oh, please, enough women buy into that crap without needing men to help them buy into it. It wouldn't get any coverage without at least some support from women.
Hearing loss is surprisingly common in young people these days, especially the bracket the grew up with ipods. I am just 10 years older and have been going to loud concerts since I was a kid and I am shocked at what they cant hear. Get ready for more of this.
she got fired for rocking the boar.
Now is that the same thing as 'porking'?
I'd go if Richards is banned from attending along with anyone else who can't keep their nose in their own business.
The whole brogrammer thing is a hoax (and an obvious one; the concept is that there's a whole subculture of nerds who act like stereotypical frat boys except that they also write code) that the tech press has picked up on as a real "thing". It's actually pretty funny that some radicals who constantly decry male geeks as the most misogynistic cusses on earth have picked up on it as a real thing.
The whole thing is worrying.
I am a male lead programmer in China, I hire a lot of female programmers and extol the virtues of hiring female programmers to my Chinese peers who lead other projects, who have started hiring female programmers also, seeing my success in using female programmers to achieve good results. I think they are more consistent and reliable, about 10-30% cheaper then men and have better company loyalty than men. There is a surprising amount of coding that could do with a woman's touch. I like to have over 30% of my team to be women since in my experience if a woman has done something before, she's much less likely to make a mess of it than a man is, since men of above average IQ tend to get bored, lazy and arrogant the second time around. Women also don't like being assigned repetitive work, but even if they get angry with me, they generally still don't screw it up, though they will quit eventually if one exploits this too much.
My little sister and cousin are both female programmers in Australia. They are both excellent, consistent and make very few mistakes, my cousin even has some of the problem solving creativity that the women I've managed seem to lack and I'm optimistic about my sister developing that skill too with time. This high profile firing stuff makes me somewhat concerned for the careers of these two dear young ladies.
The thing is, in China, sexism is a non-issue, by which I mean, it exists in a huge way, but nobody talks about it. In the west, it's a big issue with big consequences, so I realised, if a manager was considering hiring a woman in Australia into an all male team, they would quite likely first measure up the probability and possible severity of a sexual harassment issue and offset that against her utility as an employee. For large companies who have various HR policies supporting diversity and for whom maintaining a completely male workforce would be utterly impractical anyway, this is a non issue, the risk is lower and the reward is higher. For smaller, up-coming companies with higher potential for growth but larger exposure to risk, this is going to really going to work against female candidates. This is somewhat irrelevant anyway, because these two young ladies both work for absolutely enormous multinationals, but for others, or in the future, who knows.
I completely agree that inappropriate behaviour in the workplace is bad and should be stopped. But for a manager, being forced to fire potentially crucial people for something unrelated to performance is extremely scary. If a manager looks at a candidate and has any niggling doubt that "HR has a remote chance of making me fire some people I need if I hire this person and something goes wrong" then it really doesn't help the candidate. I really do not think this helps women in the industry.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
There's a difference be having a lot of support among women (what I said) and having at least some support from women (what you said).
Andrea Dworkin made her comments about sex in marriage being rape in the eighties, I'm pretty sure. It was highly controversial in the feminist community at the time, though, yeah, it had a few supporters. But it got airtime there because so many people didn't agree with her. (And, of course, what she was saying was much more nuanced than the short quote that is generally cited.) And you still have men now pulling it out as being representative of feminists all this time later. These days I only hear her brought up in feminist contexts in a historical context. She's just not that relevant. (I mean, really. Andrea Dworking for crying out loud.)
She's being brought up not because she has support from feminists, but because men like to bring her up to make feminists look bad. And in my experience, that's a fairly common tactic - look at all the invocations of feminazis and the like here, and all the "that's just what feminists are like!" comments. (And, for that matter, the nasty comments about women generally. And how people who have made civil and reasonable comments in support of women have been modded down as flamebait.)
s/Submit/Preview/;
No, that's what he did to get in trouble in the first place!
Perfect answer. She is the poison for events and employers and other women who actually want to make an honest living in the world.
Women have had this amazing free pass on their behavior for so long. I know women who are absolutely ashamed on behalf of these other women. We're afraid to complain about "these people." //What do you mean "these people"?!// You know what I mean and quit pretending to be semi-offended asking me to say something you can use against me.
i will not go because python sucks dongles.
I'm never going to get my dongle out in public again....
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
What they should be asking is whether anyone will ever live in the state of California (where this most notorious of conferences happened) again. One can't be human and live in such a state. It would warp the body and destroy the very soul to try.
So I imagine there are tens of millions of refugees trying to get into neighboring states like Arizona, Nevada, or Mexico. I say we welcome them with open arms and help heal these terrible things that have happened to them.
"Sexism" means women are involved. Racism means black people are involved.
Sexist behavior means someone offended someone else and that it was a woman. Women can't be sexist. Black people can't be racist. It's a power struggle.
(If what I wrote up there sounds pretty ridiculous, I agree. If it still rings true somehow? Well... there you go.)
Make a video recording of all communications with militant feminists. You may need to produce this if falsly accused of 'harrasment'.
Sexist joke' web developer whistle-blower fired
AccountKiller
To respond to the original question, yes, this episode has definitely turned me off from going to PyCon. I go to events like these to learn and to make new contacts in my field. Being in a situation where I have to very carefully evaluate every word that comes out of my mouth and basically not be myself interferes with both of those activities.
I've never had a problem working with women, nor interacting with them in a professional setting. I was raised believing that women were the same as men in their capacity to perform and achieve. I've never given a damn about a coworker's or colleague's gender, all I care about it whether or not they can get the job done and how well they can do that now.
Episodes like this make me question that attitude. I head up a team of developers and I try to provide a relaxed, easy-going atmosphere, because the work we do is hard enough on its own. It's clear from previous tweets (including one written *that same day*) that the instigator here had no problem with jokes concerning sexuality. Finding good developers is hard enough, but if anyone thinks I'm going to risk my own livelihood or any of my team by sending myself and/or them into this sort of environment has another thing coming. The potential to lose someone from my team with years of experience working on our products by sending them into an environment where someone with an agenda can make a public relations debacle over something so silly as an overheard joke about "dongles" -- forget that!
In professional contexts, I always keep my language professional and dress conservatively, and I don't have a problem in principle complying with the PyCon code of conduct. But the fact that the conference has to have such a code of conduct tells me that the conference organizers are incapable of dealing with problems in a professional manner and that there is a problem with the crowd of attendees (perhaps in part, the fact that there is a "crowd" to begin with). And the fact that non-technical marketers like Adria even attend tell me that the conference is spiraling down the drain. Women are welcome at technical conferences; marketers and social activists are not, even if they happen to be women. I haven't been to Python conferences in a while, but looks like I won't be going again.
I agree: she is highly hypocritical. Adria's work seems to be primarily in marketing, not technology, so she isn't exactly a poster girl for women in technology. And she is using sexual innuendo, unprofessional dress and gestures, and controversy over feminist causes as part of her image and work.
Huh huh....."dongle". LOL.
"And she wasn't a feminist, that word has a real meaning that I'd rather we didn't dilute; she was a prissy, attention whoring, holier-than-thou, PC bitch. "
She was directly acting upon principles laid out by various feminists, especially the ones who invented the whole concept of political correctness, and especially the notion of a crusade against an oppressive male patriarchy.
That she is also self-serving and attention-whoring just makes her a particular personality type that is not unique to feminists, but it also doesn't exclude her from being a feminist.
You are literally killing baby kittens when you complain about such usage of this word. If a wordsmith like Mark Twain can use it as an intensifier, so can AC.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
is the way to go?
Le sigh.
You're literally sighing in French!
Facebook and Pinterest are not really part of internet, fool
lucm, indeed.
The top brass in my company have declared to us that we won't be fired for minor infractions. They appreciate our work enough to tolerate a minor mishap. If I slip up and act a bit immature, it won't cost me my livelihood.
I will, however, continue to be annoyed at people who talk during presentations, and will continue to tell them to pipe down. I will continue to not take it personally when the coder girls giggle and tell jokes in the cafeteria line-ups.
In short, I'm cool with it. This incident has only served to remind everyone involved that they need to be a bit more mindful of their situation in the spacetime continuum, because there are always immature jerkwads who can't see the hypocrisy in their own actions.
But the reason they get the headlines is [...] because it give men an excuse to disregard what women say more generally. Caricature feminists and then diregard them.
You are revealing that your world view includes a large group of men who make collective decisions and carry them through like an organized men's political interest group - for example influencing or planting reporters to focus on such stories and then use the stories to undermine feminism. Such a group doesn't exist. That your worldview includes such a group anyway shows a clear us-versus-those-pigs mentality that is more likely the true reason that men are disregarding your views. I just followed your lead in psychologizing about people I don't know.
Why do pretty girls dress up as comic book characters and go to comic con? Because they are paid to.
Her job is to make a good impression for her employers with geeks, she doesn't need to be a programmer to do that.
She was there because that is where she could rub shoulders with exactly the sort of person her job needs her to make contact with... you know, the sort of person she got fired.
These comments are my personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the other voices in my head.
- How many feminists does it take to screw a light bulb?
- That's not funny!!!
Boycotting it and any other organization with such knee-jerk reactions.
Yeah, unfortunately, you're correct. On the rare occasion where I go to a concert, I bring ear plugs. It's no good seeing a great act, if doing so means that you damage your hearing. And some of those bands play extremely loud.
The point also is that for those who have lost hearing for any reason, to realize that what people are saying isn't necessarily what you're hearing.
It doesn't actually affect my decision to not go to next year's PyCon, because there are already other factors in play that override it. I can't go. But the initial attempt at a code of conduct, and the response to things blowing up (i.e. refining the code of conduct), certainly make me more interested, if only to encourage this line of action. That's not to say the system is perfect even now, but it continues to evolve in a positive direction.
Minor one first
WHAT WERE THE ACTUAL COMMENTS??? Can anyone tell me? I've taken comments out of context before and been offended only to be embarrassed when I finally understood the context. In this case, I'm not given the chance to come to my own conclusions as no one is posting the actual comments, only how others perceived them.
Next...
I have to wonder if this may be a watershed event for the public shaming response. Part of the utility of a justice system is enforcing proportional response/punishment for various crimes. Manslaughter warrants less of a penalty than murder, yet in both cases the victim is dead. What offense would warrant the the punishment of a public shaming as widespread as this one is? And if your answer is that it's OK here as it will also serve as a deterrent to others then what was your opinion of the RIAA suing a woman for $222,000?
She's playing the victimhood card blah blah bitch blah blah.
Us men can't say whatever we want anymore blah blah and these feminist bitches are ruining it for everyone blah blah IT'S NOT FAIR blah blah. Sincerely, Anonymous Coward.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
While sometimes there are guys who really don't dig when you can tell a little dirty yet tasty joke and when you have to tone down it a bit (and communities have list of examples when someone clearly has crossed the line), this is rare example of
other side abusing common sense.
Sometimes we don't see point of joking that way, but then we have that luxury just shrug it off and move on. I see reason to report something that is openly offensive, but it's very clear that it's not in this case.
So while I won't judge any side in this conflict, in my opinion it was overreaction - and not only from woman's side. Requesting a simple apology would be enough - if you really offended.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
A few immature people at pycon got modded off-topic and were escorted out. That's it.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Accussing of literally taking children's food off their table? Quite fitting with her accusatory overreaction, if you ask me.
Well some feminist is not going to like this rocking the boar.
You will be blamed for rocking the board gate.
They even didn't like forking.
Will you idiots stop with this "topic-gate" crap already?
I for one am very concerned about the rampant application of the suffixal appellation "gate." This linguistic travesty, henceforth known as "Gategate," must be stopped before it enables anyone with a keyboard to elevate any petty concern to the level of an international scandal.
#gategate
No because I wouldn't go anyway.
Adria Richards is not a feminist, fyi: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/
Long standing members of the python community may find themselves in a tight spot. The mess made by these dongles may prove sticky for all involved. However Pycon still seems to be the best way of bring people regularly and repeatedly together.
You're deeply concerned about the careers of women, who you like to hire... because you can pay them less for doing more reliable quality work.
What a moving tribute to China's acceptance of the modern Western Capitalist workplace values.
It was one minor incident in a conference full of win. I didn't even hear about it until the conference was over. 20% of the 2500 attendees were women. There were people from 41 countries. There were quite a few young programmers in attendance as well because of the education track. PyCon and the Python community has made great strides in outreach. In attendance, there were for organizations for women in tech: Pyladies, LadyCoders, Women Who Code, and CodeChix.
Here's the best take I've read on what happened and what should have happened:
Adria Richards, PyCon, and How We All Lost http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
Everyone involved could have handled the situation better. I'm annoyed that this one incident, important for those directly involved, got blown way out of proportion and has shit on all the great things that PyCon achieved this year. Adria Richards does not deserve the abuse she's received even if she handled the situation wrong.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Adria should have little difficulty getting a job at the Ada Initiative.
And yet her making tiny penis jokes is apparently okay. She's nothing but a hypocrite.
Yes, I went last year and it was just OK. I'm so tired of this. If I was at a medical convention and someone overheard someone else make a joke to a friend would this stuff happen?
Since Montreal is just up the road it would be silly to miss the fun. I hope they hand out free bootable dongles with PyOS or some such on them.
Bazinga!
I'm offended that my sex has been characterized as "bored, lazy and arrogant"!!!!
Why didn't she say something to the jackasses rather than running to mommy and telling her how the mean boys offended her?
lose != loose
There are a small group of females that have a scary attitude of sexism towards male geeks. They believe that male geeks, in general, are sex-starved, socially awkward potential rapists who prey on any and all females they come into contact with at Geek conventions.
This attitude needs to change. When one lone female can wreak havoc on a large group of male geeks, who have done nothing wrong, there is a problem with our society. The managers & organizers come down hard on a large group of people, who have done nothing wrong, because of political correctness.
Looking through these comments and the response to the incident, I can only come to the conclusion that the issue at stake is maturity, not sexism. A mature adult would be expected to have turned around and asked the two to be quiet during the event. But, after having worked in this industry of up to 20 years, I can also relate to her hesitancy to not confront the "developers" directly, lest she become the direct topic of innuendo.
You will not find issues this deep or well tred in most other industries, saving manual labor. The real victims are the people who believe in their work and want to do a good job. Until the industry finds ways to cross this chasm, most of you will be swimming in a monoculture of underdeveloped egos.
Seems Adria thinks 'sexual humor' is funny sometimes (watch the last video in her playlist)
And that is one reason why men have an excuse to disregard what women say.
is my decision to wear my employer's logo in public.
Just keep that in mind. Often 4Chan prides itself to be the asshole of the internets. Attention whore behaviour that harms others puts a huge bullseye on you.
It's not diluting feminism.. it's exposing it for what it has always been: bullshit, victimology and letting women use their massive societal privilege to ruin innocent men's lives.
When feminists were asking for the right to vote, was that "bullshit, victimology and letting women use their massive societal privilege to ruin innocent men's lives"?
When feminists were asking for the right to medical treatment without requiring spousal consent, was that "bullshit, victimology and letting women use their massive societal privilege to ruin innocent men's lives"?
When feminists were (and still are) asking for the right to wage parity, was (is) that "bullshit, victimology and letting women use their massive societal privilege to ruin innocent men's lives"?
There is a hardcore of militants that are often refered to as "feminazis", but they are not the mainstream of feminism -- far from it. Feminism is about stopping us guys using our massive societal privilege to ruin women's lives. Me, I want a wife that is my equal, not some subjugated slave.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
All the accounts I've read indicate that this was a problem between two or three individuals, and that PyCon handled the complaint they received professionally, reasonably, and quickly. Why would it affect anyone's decision to attend a future PyCon?
I would downvote the question if I could, as it seems to be about as useful as a "first post" comment. I wonder if the submitter just wanted to see himself published on slashdot.
ABSOLUTELY! This is supposed to be a developer's conference. This "woman" has never written a LINE OF CODE in her life. Her public github shows two commits--a file name change and a comment! https://github.com/OpenScienceFramework/citations/commits?author=adriarichards Tech Conferences should have a NARROW focus. On the technology. It's not a place for broad-spectrum political activism. It's not an "Occupy" demonstration. Professional Victims should not attend
Lemme guess, you're one of those "it was hard to write, so it should be hard to read" programmers, arencha? ;)
You are revealing that your world view includes a large group of men who make collective decisions and carry them through like an organized men's political interest group - for example influencing or planting reporters to focus on such stories and then use the stories to undermine feminism. Such a group doesn't exist. That your worldview includes such a group anyway shows a clear us-versus-those-pigs mentality that is more likely the true reason that men are disregarding your views. I just followed your lead in psychologizing about people I don't know.
Strawman. You're ignoring the concept of "emergent behaviour". Several agents acting independently of each other can act the same way, establishing a pattern of behaviour. That behaviour starts to become the engrained norm. People do it without thinking about it. For many people, it is an automatic reaction to make the same oppositions that they see all the time on the news, on the internet or from their friends, and one of the automatic responses to feminism is a strawman. While some extreme feminists do indeed harp on about patriarchal society as though it's a conspiracy, the leading thinkers acknowledge it as a mindset, and they're looking to change that mindset.
Consider also that there wasn't any great conspiracy to treat black people as lesser human beings -- our ancestors just happened to be very, very racist and actually believed that the colour of your skin dictated your value as a human being. It took conscious and concerted effort to change that mindset, and it has taken and will take more conscious and concerted effort to give women truly equal rights to men.
Including a conscious and concerted effort not to overcompensate in certain areas given rise to claims of overprivilege.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
The way I see it. There are two more people to fire and they are the person who made the decision to fire dude and the person who made the decision to fire chick. This did nothing but add to the bad decisions that had already been made and escalated it into a flame war. Of course they'll probably both be quietly hired back and we'll never hear about it as that's not a story.
Why did your bug fix take away a feature?
"Money Shot" does not mean porn.
Sure, the term has gained a broader meaning, but come on, it originated from porn.
The whole event has probably driven so much traffic to her site she can now become a professional blogger and just find a single topic of outrage a week to keep the ad income flowing. In a year se'll have 52 chapters of the soon to be best seller "Outraged - not really" subtitled "How I retired before 35"
> I think [women] are more consistent and reliable, about 10-30% cheaper then men and have better company loyalty than men.
So, you're saying that you discriminate against women? Got it.
Let's just cut to the chase and fire everybody. Then we can start over. Fair enough?
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
What the fuck are you talking about?
I'm pretty sure everything you said is intended to be some sort of rhetorical, ironic statement that attempted to get people to re-evaluate themselves; but you just come off as a crazy person; however, I'll bite.
Anyone can be sexist; anyone can be racist. racism has very little to do with power, and it has no direction with respect to the color of the skin of the speaker, nor the color of the skin of the receiver. There is no one group that can be insulated from, and generally accepted to be allowed, to say and do whatever they want without some sort of consequences.
So you hire more women cause you pay them less salary for the same work?
If a man and women are doing the same job at the same skill level (and by your own admission the woman does it better) and you are paying the women less only because of her genitals then you meet the very definition of sexism.
Then those women's voice should be heard! I do not think I am alone in favoring anyone who enjoys some degree of jocularity, especially when it is not at the expense of others.
I am John Hurt.
Well, this situations don't really inspire much trust to attend to such events; I've been in a few in the past from linux distributions or PostgreSQL, and often we find a lot of people with we interact in other environments. For example playing online games.
So here's a metaphor: Image me and Johnny play Battlefield 3 on a competition environment. We both share some love for Python and we meet on PyCon. Since we live in different countries, we meet in person and start discussion on a game related issue and someone says: "we just raped those bitches" (being in the context of game play, this is very common in competitive gaming environments). Some ultra-feminist ears that and doesn't care for the context... In the next day we loose our jobs and we're officially known by everyone as rapists ?
Come on... the should be some good sense applied here. I'm happy the drama queen lost her job, a well deserved fate for creating drama. I for sure will think twice about participating in this events, it's not the first time I see people getting serious problems (professional life) because of stupid things that any mature person would deal in a completely different way.
By no means I hold anything about women; this is just about fanaticism and extremism, something we all condemn.
Citation definitely needed.
This is a pointless comment because (a) this was not in the UK, (b) English and Welsh Law jurisdiction does not extend to the United States, and (c) English and Welsh libel law is not normative for the United States. So why make the observation?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Show me a feminist actively petitioning for mandatory selective service registration for women, and I'll accept that there's the possibility of there being at least one feminist who's actually interested in "equality."
Probably for as long as it takes to get her to admit she supports one of the myriad other one-sided, gender-discriminating laws.
I am close to giving up on Slashdot because it seems more and more filled with the rants of angry right-wing men. Is this because Rupert Murdoch's organs are now paywalled? Or is the United States slowly turning into Saudi Arabia, only without burkhas?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Lol. Brilliant!
Her job is to make a good impression for her employers with geeks, she doesn't need to be a programmer to do that.
Bang-up job!
I hope she gets fired from life.
I really wanted to keep out of this shitstorm, but seriously mods ... how the hell can you call crap like that 'Insightful'?
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
The us is too Puritan not enough women in programming an in general, it's a us problem, and the solution in the us phyco society is to blame the men, everything in the us is men's fault, not the companies that drive women away for lack of rights or the us government that gives no rights, but it's all the men's faults, and the woman and the men fall for this
I am close to giving up on Slashdot
Fair enough since I already gave up on women. :)
Honestly, they're just too much of a problem now.
Look at the marriage stats.
Really, who do you think is making the decision to not marry anymore?
Women?
hahahaha.
Mission accomplished for this publicity stunt, since I'd never heard of PyCon. Look, I got into computers to get away from juvenile drama. I wish they'd fire the whole lot of them and expunge them from the Internet.
That would send a message? Really?
BTW - the PyCon code of conduct was updated so that publicly shaming anyone is now a breach of it.
Show me a feminist actively petitioning for mandatory selective service registration for women, and I'll accept that there's the possibility of there being at least one feminist who's actually interested in "equality."
Stop turning this into an "Us vs. Them".
Many feminists are pacifists (I consider myself both) and rather than foolishly argue women should be forced to register with the US selective service would argue (as I do) that registration with the selective service should be abolished for everyone.
If a draft were to be implemented today, you can bet many of us feminists (women and men) would be among the first to resist.
blog
This isn't a PyCon problem at all. By all accounts, the staff and management of PyCon did everything correctly and by the book. It was an *attendee* problem.
Should the jokes have been made? No. Should someone have said something? Yes. Should PyCon staff have been alerted? Should a picture have been taken, published to the public internet? No. Should anyone have been fired? No. Should this have been handled privately? Yes.
I'd never heard of any of the parties involved until 2-3 days ago. But I agree that we all lost. And if the reported interactions in there are true (and, honestly, I can't see why someone would fabricate that when it's so easily verifiable), then the first party seems to have a history of *not* dealing with things with the people in question, but instead screaming to the rest of the world to incite massive action. It just seems to have eventually backfired this time.
Frankly, I don't care either way. I don't think the word "dongle" was ever even uttered in my workplace until this week. Forking was, but that's what happens with developers and public repos. If I were a Python developer, I'd consider going to PyCon. Just like if I were an active Ruby developer, I'd consider RubyCon despite similar issues in the past. I think I recall a PHP one, too. It's not the con, the organizers, or the sponsors who are to be blamed for these things, especially when they have publish codes of conduct.
"The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." --H.L. Mencken
This is supposed to be a TECH CONFERENCE. The organizers of Pycon wants to make it a open-forum for any progressive and radical cause. That's just stupid.
Then don't be afraid. Try not to insult anyone, but if you do, simply point out you didn't mean offence and move on.
Fellow Slashdotters we have to stop cringing for our values ("beta" behaviour) and be proud of what we believe in ("alpha" behaviour). If you believe in something then stand up for it. I believe in Enlightenment values; I believe in the values of the US Constitution (and I am not even a US citizen); I believe that Israel has a right to exist and a right to defend itself from jihadis whose stated goal is genocide; I believe in small government and economic prudence (if your tax revenue can't afford it, don't fsking keep borrowing for *optional* social programmes); I believe in nations working together in mutal defence; I believe that there is no substitute for victory, of you start a war you do *everything* in your power to win; I believe that Scientific Method gives Truth and religions once served a purpose but no longer do; I believe that Enlightenment values are superior to Islamic Sharia; I believe that the collective good should not override personal freedom; I believe nuclear weapons serve a purpose (deterrence of rational actors); I believe in working hard so that I have a surplus for others; I believe racism is wrong - although criticism of cultural characteristics is a Free Speech right; I believe political correctness and the political ideology called Islam are the enemy of liberty and free men; I believe in self-pride in backing yourself, but not to the point of arrogance or closed-mindedness;
In the modern progressive man they would not promote those views because they would be afraid of being criticised. I am not afraid of being criticised. No matter what point of view you take someone will dispute it and may even (childishly) not like you as a result. That's ok. I may be wrong, and if I do I accept the new data and change my mind (that's the Scientific Method in action).
Because of these views I live for my fellow man and please myself. Be confident Slashdotters! Stop apologising for who you are or the values you hold. Let no one tell you what you can or can't say (although always use personal discretion - don't be a jerk, k?); not your Government, not your employeer, not your wife, and certainly not some ill-informed muppet with an axe to grind (as Richard's was).
I hope that helps some folks out there. The fatal weakness of the current US President is he is trying to be liked and wants the US to be liked. So he apologises to enemies and betrays allies (eg. missile shield sell out etc.). He, and every US President should stand up for the values of liberty and justice for all - and make it clear that the US will always back those who seek the same values. Instead we get simpering where the US backs down all the time and even opposes Free Speech (eg. Hillary Clinton's utterly immoral co-sponsoring of anti-Free Speech UN HRC Resolution 16/18) and doesn't even rescue US citizens under fire from Al Qaeda for *eight hours* despite having aircraft based nearby (eg. the shame of Benghazi). Stand up for what the Enlightened World believes in! Do not vote for a politician of any party anywhere until they sound like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wgxlp2UJI5I
Once upon a time the West felt it could do achieve any goal - at it nearly could. We have lost our mojo because we keep listening to the "beta" message: be nice, make everyoine like you, get along. Well, we can and should still do that - but let's set our horizons a little bigger. Per Ardua Ad Astra.
The GP is wrong of course - feminism started with admirable goals, and had a lot of really great successes. I'm male, and I'm completely convinced that feminism changed our society for the better. I wouldn't want to go back to the 1860s, or the 1960s.
Modern feminism seems to have a problem though. It's achieved most of its laudable goals, and the rest look like they'll be achieved very soon. Overall wage parity hasn't been achieved but wages are essentially equal for those entering the workforce now. Women look likely to be much more successful than men in the not too distant future. Women earn more degrees and the differential is increasing in their favour.
The problem with modern feminism is that it's a rebellion that has achieved it's goals. But as a large political movement it can't just disband. Dedicated feminists have to find sexism to fight, even if they have to exaggerate problems, pervert the definition of sexism, or even manufacture it themselves.
That's silly. She pissed a bunch of people off and got some anonymous hate mail. She's a woman so some of it was rape threats. If she had been male they would have been death, bodily harm, or prison rape threats.
All anonymous messages prove is that a few blowhards (of undetermined sex) are justifiably afraid to put their names to their stupidity.
Sorry, but it already is "us vs them," and that's the way it's going to be as long as the SOP of feminism is to mirror Orwell's "Napoleon."
If you choose not to recognize that, that's your right. Just as the regular folks in the Tea Party are free to choose to fight against their own interests, the "White Knights" have the same right.
You can't force someone to stop taking what they're told at face value and question things.
[0]"All animals are created equal. Some are just more equal than others."
Yup, i will learn python this year just to go next year
Sexism may exist in tech conferences, but the backlash was not an example of it. Trying to say that it is, is a perfect example of why people are so outraged: because the pendulum has swung too far, and the term "sexism" is starting to look like an absurd and meaningless term. Nice try.
Which is clearly exemplified in that time a man did something controversial in the tech community and got tons of rape threats.
Oh wait, that never happened.
Australia lags the rest of the developed world by about 25 years in relations between the sexes. China? Maybe more like 50.
http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
Oh, it seems this woman has a HISTORY of blowing things out of proportion. In fact the woman that threatened to boycott a talk and instead lectured about p0rn awhile ago that I vaguely recall hearing about? It was HER! Why am I not surprised? What a scary hypersensitive shrinking violet she must be. why would anyone want them in their workspace poisoning things?!
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
Just as well you are not coming to open source days in Copenhagen. One of the main sponsors is the power company Dong Energy, I shit you not. We're constantly charging our device up with dong energy, for real!
litÂerÂal (ltr-l)
adj.
1. Being in accordance with, conforming to, or upholding the exact or primary meaning of a word or words.
2. Word for word; verbatim: a literal translation.
3. Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or embellishment; factual; prosaic:
By getting him fired, she has removed his source of income. No income = no money. No money = no food. Thus, she has "Avoiding exaggeration, metaphor, or embellishment" removed food from his kids table.
Seems to me there were only three people at the tech conference involved. It hardly indicates a large scale problem. Seems like you're trying to represent the majority with a minority.
Did the extreme backlash (rape threats and such) really come from those attending the tech conference? Or did she have to take it to the WORLD WIDE WEB to get that kind of backlash. Show me that the rape threats came from participants of the conference. She went to the web because she knew that there are sexist assholes in the world that would respond. She got what she went looking for. Boo-fucking-hoo.
While posting the photo to twitter was over-the-top it is something that happens frequently around bad/weird behaviour. More tellingly Adria contact the PyCon staff who got a hold of the man in question. He fully agrees with Adria's right to call him on the joke, apologized for it, and felt PyCon's response was appropriate. They both walked away from the situation feeling like things had been handled adequately. *THEN* his boss fired him, and *THEN* her boss fired her. These basic facts are being lost in a lot of hyperbole and hate.
Most people you meet at confs are wonderful people, it's just that their creepy side can be very obvious around women. That said the Ada Initiative and PyLadies were at the conference and had a great time, so yes there aparently were lots of nice people there. Are all of them nice, hopefully, did someone behave creepy, and make stupid jokes about rape, most probably.
Those guys were making a joke... and it isn't even sexist as my description of you certainly is.
the Con is about my Py
I'm pretty sure this would have played out differently if a man had posted that picture (that's an opinion btw), but hopefully you have ample examples of men receiving death threats. I can just say in my experience the women who write on the net get more rape/death threats, than men.
But you are right a male would probably have received death threats, that's something we can agree on.
1. The only pay gap between men and women is the one showing that women get paid MORE per hour... when you take into account things like part time work. It's the worst kind of statistics abuse to claim that women lose out on pay compared to men. Stats abuse is a speciality of feminists - see also domestic violence.
2. Women have ALWAYS had massive privilege in society - "women and children first" wasn't invented by feminists. It was men...
3. The pussy pass. Women routinely avoid prison sentences or lower sentences for the exact same crime committed by men - who are jailed for years.
This bizarre alternate reality invented by feminists in which the world's power was divided into men and women - UNTIL the 60s - has gone unchallenged for too long because men want to get laid.
Times change. It's time men started fighting back against the massive amounts of lies and slander that have been used against them in the last 50 years.
[..] She knew the Internet kids would strike back with real sexism and real attacks - validating the "hatred against women" she wants to perpetuate.
You can read about that in the blog post I linked.
Basically what she posted was one of those "prominent person makes bad joke", which seems to be very news worthy, if I'm going to judge from what you see in the papers. What happened, i.e. being fired doesn't seem like a clear consequence.
The GP is not wrong.... wanna know why.. because the suffragettes didn't call themselves feminists. They wanted the right to vote - they didn't want to give up any of the enormous collection of special privileges they enjoyed. Just the right to vote.
"Feminism" came along later... and claimed the suffragettes as part of their man hating female supremacist movement.
Slashdot quote at the bottom of this discussion as I type this:
"I'll show you MY telex number if you show me YOURS ..."
Better not say that at the next conference you attend!
Or was it "forking" the boar?
Her resume has a "Special Skills" section with the following two items:
This is the real issue.
Pycon seems to be about socio-political causes and issues more than about Python. The attendees, like Richards are a problem and the Pycon organizers that respond to those types of people and "issues" make it far worse. This is not the first Pycon wrapped up in artifical furor over sexism or someone getting their oversensitive feelings hurt.
Nut up or GTFO!
I'll admit, I have done some soul searching since I heard about donglegate about whether I would attend PyCon 2014. I hear other responses saying things like "If I were a python dev, I would ...", so let me be clear here: I have commit privs to Python core (though I don't exercise them as much as I'd like), I'm involved in the conference (again, not as much as I'd like). I say this to make it clear that when I say I was seriously considering not going to 2014, it's somewhat of a big deal. I'm involved, however this is in no way an official statement from PyCon, these are my thoughts and my thoughts alone.
But here's the thing... Not going doesn't really send a message to the conference organizers, or at least it doesn't send the one you think it does. More on that in a moment. What it *DOES* send is a message to people who will take any opportunity to grandstand on their agenda, that they can find an audience at these conferences, to the extent that it goes on for multiple years. It doesn't matter whether the actions taken here were grandstanding or not. Irrespective of her intentions, many people are seeing it as such, so I think it's fair to say it can send a message to others who would, without speculating on the intentions that started this.
If conference attendance were way down next year, the story would be about how donglegate caused it, and it would be feeding all the horrific sentiments behind this. If, however, attendance is up next year, the story will be how despite this the Python community remained strong, shutting down the bad sentiments and making it into a positive story.
Unfortunately, I and a number of folks are expecting attendance to be down next year, before any of this donglegate stuff came out. PyCon tends to lose attendees every time it moves cities -- though moving to Santa Clara didn't suffer from that. Moving it such that a significant number of Americans need passports, who haven't in the past, may reduce attendance. On the other hand, there may be people who come from around the world who didn't want to deal with the TSA... It's all speculation, but an informal poll I took showed about half the people were expecting it to be smaller.
So why doesn't it send a useful message to the organizers? Because the conference organizers did all they could about this incident. When the incident was reported, they acted swiftly (by all accounts), spoke to the 3 involved, apologies were given and apparently accepted, and everyone went away happy. No complaints were filed about the posting of the photograph.
Everything that happened that is making this show up on slashdot happened *OUTSIDE THE CONFERENCE*. The incident itself happened, I believe, in the last hour of the conference (her blog post sounds like it happened during the closing Lightning Talks, the last session of the conference). But in any case, the firing and rage happened largely on the Internet, in response to her post of that picture.
What can the conference do? Ban any of them from the show in future years? The only official complaint to the conference was handled to the satisfaction of all involved, at the time. Excluding someone from the conference without any complaint would lead to another storm...
As I said in the subject, PyCon is a wonderful thing. I've been to 10 of them, I've only missed one. PyCon has been working hard to include more diversity, and this year we had around 20% women. I remember when we literally had a hand-full of women at PyCon, and I was married to one of them. In order to get here PyCon has had to do a lot of outreach and take reports of harassment and the like very seriously. The community is stronger for it. And we now have experience dealing with someone tweeting "shame photos"...
Retaliating against the conference for this is going to do more harm than good. Plain and simple.
Am I going to PyCon 2014? Absolutely!
Deal with it.
I don't believe they are gay. But what I read of their conversation would not be sexist (to a woman) if the context was switched. I wonder if adria thought of that. Probably not.
Even if human societies behaved like dogpacks (which they don't), simply declaring yourself "alpha" wouldn't make you...
...but I guess we can't expect great logic from someone who's proudly declaring his believe in the Sunk Cost Fallacy (also hypocrisy, since *everything* includes genocide which you just condemned "jihadists" for).
Well, anyone who's ever seen the kind of total war you're promoting or gets caught up in one might dislike you for said promotion, which doesn't really strike me as particularly childish reason. Also, most people will probably not like someone who dismisses their culture, so add Muslims to the list. And I doubt scientists are happy with you trying to elevate their results into capital-T Truth, since that tends to hinder their work.
Don't vote for any politician unless they sound like they're paraphrasing Atlas Shrugged? Sorry, but no; having hundreds of millions of dollars does not mean you "generated" that wealth, it means that you are good at concentrating economic power into your hands - and even most often, than you were born rich.
What it actually achieved were a number of colonial empires. Those collapsed after two world wars caused by people who tried to be "alpha". Then people like you start twisting history to fit into your (totally non-racist, because you believe racism is wrong, and this all sounds exactly like classic racist spiel purely by accident) superhero fantasy, all because you want a strong leader who doesn't care about being liked to make you feel more like "alpha" - you know, coming to think of it, this is almost starting to sound like the prelude to one of those world wars.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Then she got fired for rocking the boar. Case closed.
I think she didn't get fired for rocking the boat, she got fired for creating a hole in the boat by setting off hidden explosives, intended to send two sailors into the sea, because she was too cowardly to complain to them, and ask them to stop an annoying behavior.
I'm hoping she'll get a new job, but that it won't have anything to do with Python, or programming.
She seems like a repeat offender, so if she's allowed back into such a conference again, or to confer with developers again: I'm afraid the same behavior might be repeated.
Fired from life is too harsh. Exile from the community she doesn't understand is OK.
Show me a feminist actively petitioning for mandatory selective service registration for women, and I'll accept that there's the possibility of there being at least one feminist who's actually interested in "equality."
You're right of course... Where is the masculinist movement petitioning for equality regarding selective service registration?
I think what he's saying is he's too much of a wimp to handle APL, Forth, OCaml, or Haskell. Unless he writes exclusively with templates, none of those Algol-likes are more than middling difficult.
Won't someone rid me of this meddlesome slashdotter?
There was one huge fact that everyone missed This woman's photo featured not only the person she believed was acting inappropriately, but some people who even by her account were uninvolved. In fact, the person in the center of the photo, smiling, had nothing to do with what the person seated next to him allegedly said. The Pycon organizers should have immediately escorted this woman outside and banned her from coming in. She should be banned for life for trying to ruin an innocent person's reputation. (By her OWN ACCOUNT, all the people in the photo weren't saying these things.) This is independent over whether she was in fact wronged. She had NO RIGHT to involve innocent people. Pycon is also at fault for making their conference an umbrella organization for all causes. It should be narrowly focused around the use of Python in computing. Period. If I want to go to a political rally, I'd go to one. We will NEVER waste our time at a Pycon again. Ever. All of us at our company feel the same way.
The backlash you're speaking of didn't happen at the conference and there's no evidence that it came from the conference attendees. It proves nothing about sexism at tech conferences. The backlash proved something about the internet not tech conferences.
The fact that she found some allegedly sexist asshole at the conference may say something about tech conferences. The fallout from her taking it to the internet? Doesn't say a fucking thing other than that 4chan exists. Get over it.
They're just getting ready for next year's event at Montreal.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The man encouraged us to deal with any situation by whipping out the Python.
If a man and women are doing the same job at the same skill level (and by your own admission the woman does it better) and you are paying the women less only because of her genitals then you meet the very definition of sexism.
What if he pays them less because they are willing to work for less?
Some guy makes an adolescent joke. Some bozo tweets about it. Why did the guys company fire him? What is the name of the guys company? I never want to work there. Might also think twice about buying their products.
And we are back to feminist rule number one: everything is men's fault. Bunch of feminists is talking crazy? Of course it must be patriarchal conspiracy to weaken feminists and oppress women!
This is the dumbest shit I've ever heard of.
Oh no, how can I possibly risk going to Pycon? The Thought Policy will find me and turn my every word against me! My career will be in tatters! No I shall hide in my basement and think safe thoughts!
No, really I love events like Pycon. Pycon is run by volunteers and the attending community are by and amazing human beings. The reason the code of conduct even exists is because theres is an extreme disproportionate lack of diversity within. We're mostly populated by white males like myself. We (or at least the software community I network with) want to encourage diversity and thus become stronger. Part of that is dealing with some unfortunate ugly truths, one of which is that there is a geniune harassment problem in our industry and it needs to be stomped out.
And of course donglegate had nothing to do with diversity or conduct policies. The transgression would have taken 5 minutes to resolve peacefully between adults. But instead somebody wanted to pick an internet fight and misery ensued. Nobody involved won on that day but I personally think Pycon was one of least deserving victims of that particular train crash. They ran yet another a fantastic event but all the outside world is going to hear is about donglegate
It only rings true because we let the "minorities" get away with it.
Why is it that whenever the subject of an article is a woman in the tech industry, the misogynists show up in droves? Those of you calling her a bitch and making disparaging remarks about feminism are doing well to convince me that when I graduate not so near in the future I should steer clear of tech jobs. The rotten dark side of the industry is alive and well.
If you think Adria Richards does not understand that community, you should read how the story is told by two female reporters, Dana Liebelson and Tasneem Raja, on Motherjones.com:
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/pycon-2013-sexism-dongle-richards
According to that version, "Richards' termination triggered its own surge of support, from passionate tweets with the hashtag #SupportAdria to a DDoS attack on SendGrid that crippled their website for a good chunk of the workday on Thursday". That is the first version I read where it is said that the DDoS was caused to *support* Adria Richards.
Also the post of a female blogger who sheds a very interesting light on Adria Richards as a repeat offender (including a whole section called "An Established Pattern of Action") is summarized in a biased manner.
https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
To anyone who has a minute to spare I strongly suggest to read the Amanda Blum post. As for the masterpiece from Liebelson & Raja, well it shows that some people don't let the facts in the way of promoting an agenda (and/or a career).
lucm, indeed.
And to answer the article's question: If I were a Python dev, I wouldn't attend. That would send a more clear message to everyone involved that those situations are ridiculous than a bunch of posts on random message boards.
at last, someone actually answers the question posed in the article.
Is this because Rupert Murdoch's organs are now paywalled
What's "paywalled" a euphemism for? Either way your post has hurt my feelings and I think you should be fired.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
TWANNGGGG
^ The sound an analogy makes when you stretch it past breaking point.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
Wow. Mission accomplished, I guess.
And the fact that this was moderated +5 Insightful shows why the industry has such a long way to go
A comment on Slashdot shows why the industry has such a long way to go? Interesting.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Being crude in a professional setting is wrong.
It all seems like ambiguous nonsense to me. From the looks of it, what those two things mean is subjective, and whether or not what you stated is actually wrong is also subjective.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
All anonymous messages prove is that a few blowhards (of undetermined sex) are justifiably afraid to put their names to their stupidity.
Or perhaps they're just not complete imbeciles (Okay, granted that in this case I think that's a little unlikely...)? Who would give their information away needlessly? Not doing so doesn't mean you live in fear or don't really believe in what you say.
Submitter is an idiot and Timothy should be embarrassed for posting this.
So after all that, she took the last piece of pie and didn't even offer to split it? THAT BITCH!
Right here:
http://www.avoiceformen.com/a-voice-for-men/ncfm-calls-for-equality-in-selective-service/
Talking about dongles makes one a "misogynistic brogrammer"?
Can you explain THAT to me?
"Sexism" means women are involved. Racism means black people are involved.
Sexist behavior means someone offended someone else and that it was a woman. Women can't be sexist. Black people can't be racist. It's a power struggle.
(If what I wrote up there sounds pretty ridiculous, I agree. If it still rings true somehow? Well... there you go.)
Unfortunately, this is so very very true.
Don't knock it too much. It's a lovely example of how capitalism works against sexism. If women are paid less than men, because of sexism rather than any difference in their productivity, then companies that choose to employ women will get more work per dollar. This increased demand then drives up women's salaries until they equalise (in terms of productivity per dollar).
If you can persuade people to fight against sexism by showing that it's in their own financial interest, rather than appealing to high-sounding principles, you might meet with a surprising degree of success.
Even if human societies behaved like dogpacks (which they don't), simply declaring yourself "alpha" wouldn't make you...
I think he was referring to the development stages: alpha = very unfinished product, beta = almost finished product which only needs a bit of bug fixing. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Even if human societies behaved like dogpacks (which they don't), simply declaring yourself "alpha" wouldn't make you...
Not dogs you ignoramus, primates. Primates societies exhibit this behaviour whether your jelly-kneed self wants to accept it or not. We are all wired for it, especially our females.
Well, anyone who's ever seen the kind of total war you're promoting or gets caught up in one might dislike you for said promotion, which doesn't really strike me as particularly childish reason
The commitment to win a war does not mean waging war against the Geneva Convention. What it means is getting the politicians out - like the ridiculous Rules of Engagement in Afghanistan. Like the lawfare where the US cannot even extradite a Syrian who aided and abbetted the 9/11 hijackers. The US has turned into a pussy country that is losing credibility all over the World. Clearly you agree with this policy because you believe the World can be healed by dialog and everyone holding hands and singing Kumbaya around a campfire. Meanwhile, Iran has installed over two dozen Shahab-3 missiles in Venezuela, is patiently working with North Korea to develop longer range missiles and the nuclear weapons to go with them. Meanwhile the current Administration has purged all training manuals of any reference to jihad (even if someone like Major Hussein goes on a rampage screaming "Allahu Akbar!" it the official report doesn't seem to know hios motivation because it is not politically correct to mention it). When Iran does strike the US, as it says it will daily, I hope they don't get the city you are in - that way you can see what a damned fool you are in this very critical juncture in history as people from the 21st Century struggle to confront a violent death-oriented ideology from the 7th.
...but I guess we can't expect great logic from someone who's proudly declaring his believe in the Sunk Cost Fallacy (also hypocrisy, since *everything* includes genocide which you just condemned "jihadists" for).
You win with the least amount of force that you have to - but you still win. Doesn't mean you start off with genocide because someone intends to do the same to you. So stop with the ridiculous projection, muppet.
Also, most people will probably not like someone who dismisses their culture, so add Muslims to the list
I have zero problem with Muslims (who are mostly goodm if misguided people). I have a complete problem with the totalitarian political ideology of Islam that is: oppressive toward women; discriminatory towards non-Muslims; anti-homosexual rights; against Freedom of Speech; against Freedom of Religion; is openly and explicitly genocidal against Jews; commands that all able bodied men conduct jihad; promotes polygamy; legalizes sexual relations with children and animals; is anti-science thanks to the mad doctrines of Al Ghazali etc etc.
Unlike wimps, I don't care what Muslims think. This is my whole point. I believe in Enlightenment values. Cultural Relativism as a much a bunch of bullshit and a menace to the continuation of liberty as Political Correctness is. Got that?
And I doubt scientists are happy with you trying to elevate their results into capital-T Truth, since that tends to hinder their work.
Before moving into the lucrative field of IT I was a practicing science (Astrophysics, if you must know) - so I don't share your "doubt" about science. Science is the evidence-based pursuit of Truth. Go and watch Richard Dawkins a bit, you will hear him repeatedly state that the only thing he cares about is Truth - it is what motivates most scientists.
Sorry, but no; having hundreds of millions of dollars does not mean you "generated" that wealth, it means that you are good at concentrating economic power into your hands - and even most often, than you were born rich.
Ah,
There are still some really difficult issues that need to be tackled. Motherhood in relation to your career is one of the big ones, along with body image (which affects men too but not to anything like the same degree).
We are getting there but your there is still ffurther to go than you think.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Or, based on the example of more advanced capitalist societies (e.g. the U.S.A.), capitalism helps lock sexism in. Now, instead of simple crude ignorant misogyny by the ruling male class (which can slowly be fixed by education and living proof that women, too, have fully functional human minds), the managerial class has a *profit motive* for intentionally keeping women marginalized and unequal. With 20-30% wage cuts at stake, the "enlightened-self-interest" profiteer will gladly hire obedient, compliant (desperate) women --- so long as they make no attempt to rock the boa(r|t) and fight against discriminatory wages. That's an extra 20-30% from each workers wage now placed in management's pocket, available to buy government support and propaganda campaigns to teach everyone how grateful women should be for their new positions (and how men should lower their wage expectations if they expect to compete).
The 20-30% wage differential for equal work is actually not just in China --- approximately the same level exists in the USA. Of course, in the USA, managers know better than to openly talk about their discriminatory practices. But, so long as everything is done with a proper level of plausible deniability, and the occasional sacrifice of a low-level scapegoat for high-level problems, the real practice of gender wage discrimination contributes significantly the country's ever-widening gap between the working class and management/investment elites. After all, the USA is a "post-feminism" country, where "women already have equal rights," so "there's no real problems for whiny bitches to complain about"; people complaining about gender inequality "are just man-hating feminazis," who earn lower wages "because they just aren't as good workers."
Language changes. You can't describe things as "gay" without homosexual connotations any more. I think money shot is pretty much lost to us now.
BTW, Sheldon Cooper, is thar you?
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Seriously.
It's a convention full of nerds. Silly "forking" and "dongle" jokes will be made. Lady needs to get a grip
So you hire more women cause you pay them less salary for the same work?
No. He hires more women because he can pay them less salary for better work.
If a man and women are doing the same job at the same skill level (and by your own admission the woman does it better) and you are paying the women less only because of her genitals then you meet the very definition of sexism.
It depends. If he does so because he thinks women deserve it that way, he's a sexist. If, however, he does so simply because he can save money that way, and would as well hire more men for lower wage if he could, he's just a capitalist using the sexism of his society to better exploit women.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
If what I wrote up there sounds pretty ridiculous, I agree.
Adria agrees with your satirical position, non-satirically:
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Don't think I'm not grateful for this, since it helps to mask the fact that I've not actually bothered to wipe my ass since 1987.
Just thought I should clarify. Have a nice day!
-- Ethanol-fuelled
Spoken like someone who can't get past "On your knees!" and "Spread 'em!" as pickup lines... and can't seem to understand that they just don't work very well (much less why).
Thank goodness you can now just stay home on Saturday nights and download yourself a date, eh? For you, I think I'd recommend Riley Shy. She specialises in portraying the extreme submissive, which should be right up your alley.
Yes anyone CAN be sexist and anyone CAN be racist but in our society, you ARE only racist and sexist if you are a white male.
It's why white people have to dance around saying "n word" while black people can spout off all the racist BS they want and the reason we have cities full of "womens programs" which men can't access, but you try to make a male only club and some woman can sue and be admitted without issue.
Pyco is dead. It just has not realized it yet. The body is moving around, twitching, but that's all.
Everyone knows that the convention will be filled with the next feminist (and yes they pretty much all are like Richards) looking to get someone fired by claiming offense, with the help of the Convention.
Most guys (and the overwhelming number of both programmers and star programmers are MALE) will figure their careers and bank accounts are better off including themselves out. But hey, the Pyco folks catered to a feminist. So there's that.
The biggest problem is of course, men playing White knight to various feminists and allowing this passive aggressive stuff to go on, also with gays and other minorities. Who are in the tech field at least as useful as a three legged mule. Being both rare and generally talent-less compared to the straight guys who built the modern tech industry. Never understimate the desire of more powerful men to punish less powerful ones to cater to female (or gay and other minority) attention seeking and victim playing.
And yes ladies this is YOUR problem. By failing consistently for decades to police this, you've guaranteed the result that men fearing firing will simply shun you and give you the big old silent treatment. Since they have no way of knowing if your are a Richards or not, and the vast majority of you have enabled, cheerled, and encouraged Richards and her ilk for decades. Even if you are not a Richards, chances are good (in the 90% range) that you're one of her enablers. Better to have as little to do with you as possible.
Wow - almost EVERY SINGLE comment is 4+ "insightful" or "interesting". The level of discussion must be incredible.
the managerial class has a *profit motive* for intentionally keeping women marginalized and unequal.
You seem to have gotten muddled between two different effects. Businesses have an interest in keeping wages down for *everyone*, not just for women in particular. The only reason they ever offer higher wages is to attract the talent that will help them beat the competition. If men are getting paid $100k/year, and women are getting paid $70k/year, then a company that offers $80k/year can hire all the top women in the field, and pay less in salary than its competitors as well.
Obviously, there's still a salary differential despite that. This may be due to some combination of different career choices made by men and women, misogyny by employers, and lack of competition to cause the effect described above. But these are all reasons why we're failing to realise the advantage that capitalism can offer us - not ways in which capitalism is "lock[ing] sexism in".
Ultimately, if you think that the salary differential is due to misogyny, you're free to start your own business with egalitarian hiring practices, making use of this advantage to beat your competitors. And people are doing this every year - and this, largely, is why the salary differential is declining.
(Addendum: seriously, you're treating "capitalism" the same way that right-wing nuts treat "communism" - as a bogeyman that's responsible for all that's wrong with the world. Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Working towards greater efficiency, including eliminating inefficiencies like sexism, is one of the advantages of capitalism.)
That's not true. You can't sum up all of a diverse movement with such a curt dismissal and expect it to be convincing.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
True! Words come from all manner of strange places...
For example, 'decimate' originated with the Roman practise of punishing disloyal or cowardly units by executing 1 man in 10.
I'm sorry... what was your point again, exactly?
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
This is nothing more than adolescent word/mind games that play right into the hands of the oppressing classes. Insightful it is not.
Mods on crack today are.
I'm not muddled --- of course businesses want to keep wages down for *everyone*; starting with half the population willing to work for lower wages is very helpful for achieving that end (and a long-term strategic investor class will want to keep it that way, not kill the golden-egg-laying goose).
Your analysis specifically assumes that labor is a limited supply pool that can drive up competitive prices. China has over a billion person population, largely employed in rural situations (e.g. a huge pool of potential technology workers, with just a little selection/training to skim 10,000,000+ top-1%-intelligence candidates from the rice paddies). Likewise, in the USA, unemployment is ~8% among people actively looking (and much higher counting the underemployed and given-up-trying). "Competition" in this situation isn't to drive up employee wages by offering just enough more to get your competitor's workers to switch: instead, the competition is to offer as much less as you can, while telling your employees how grateful they should be to get anything in this tough economy (despite record-breaking profits for their overlords).
Note a key distinction: I don't think "the salary differential is due to misogyny" at its root --- misogyny is an effect (useful to those benefiting), rather than a cause. The love of money (the profit motive) is the root cause, that makes maintaining institutionalized misogyny a multi-trillion-dollar prize.
As to "you're free to start your own business with egalitarian hiring practices," no --- that's a completely empty freedom for me and the overwhelming majority of working-class stiffs in this country who don't have a couple hundred thousand spare dollars lying around to start up ventures. I'm equally "free to buy the Empire State Building" (if I only had a zillion dollars) --- but, even if my buying the Empire State Building would somehow usher in heaven on earth, it ain't happening. The Capitalist system selects for viciously amoral profiteering sociopaths to end up with most of the wealth (i.e. resources for shaping future change) in the world, e.g. the sort of people who are overjoyed to continue exploiting gender wage differences. Even if I was a freak millionaire with a social conscience, my one-man-crusade for an equal wage workplace wouldn't make a dent; I'd just run myself bankrupt competing against the more profitable louts.
"this, largely, is why the salary differential is declining.": No, the salary differential is largely declining because male workers are getting lower and lower pay (thanks to stagnant or declining wages despite growing labor productivity and profitability); not because working women are being raised up. Yay!??
Capitalism isn't "responsible for all that's wrong with the world" --- but I am going to hold it responsible for the wrongs in the large portions of the world under its thrall. Remember, "greater efficiency" in Capitalism only directly means "greater efficiency at stuffing the pockets of the already wealthy," which is undoubtedly happening. You've been conned into assuming this is equivalent to, or at least necessarily causative of, improvements for everyone else. The real world record indicates otherwise.
Yeah, I know what you mean. The ones that don't end in divorce usually ends with someone dying!
The ones that don't end in divorce usually ends with someone dying!
I think I dodged a bullet (literally) by moving 1000 miles away before I filed. :)
Look the correlation. Percent of population married has declined steadily since 1970,
inversely related to rise of feminism.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/blackwhiteandgray/2012/05/marriage-and-divorce-statistics/
"In 2010, the ratio stood at 1.89-to-1, compared to 2.05-to-1 in 2000. Not a radical shift, but a notable one. The action is largely on the marriage side of the equation: the marriage rate has dropped 17 percent in 10 years, while the divorce rate has dropped 10 percent. The two tend to rise and fall together, but clearly not tightly so. People are being more selective about marrying, likely, and as a result there are fewer divorces"
They brutally attacked her? Really? Is she clinging to life in some hospital ICU? No? You mean lots of people wrote nasty things about her and DDOSed her website. That's not being brutally attacked. With her karma, she probably will be though.
And you're still wrong, because you've been taken in by a latent psycho who's playing you (and anyone else who's naïve enough to believe her) for a fool.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
It's the internet and more precisely slashdot.
Men are men.
Women are men.
And 8 year old girls are really FBI agents.
Yes I know the joke never actually applied universally but there are still a pile of men pretending to be women on the net. Personally I think we should be giving 8 year olds LOGO to program with - give it not very many years and they'll be amazing us with what they make with 3D printers even if they have to get their head around G codes to do it.
Le sigh.
Is that agreement or a sigh at the fact that she did not "literally" take the food off a table the children were at, but indirectly did it?
There's little latex things that let you preview instead of submit.
In well run places it takes a lot more to get fired than what any of these three did. Either it was the latest of a long run of mistakes or their management in both places is clueless MBA's with nothing else to add a spine.
Yes I heard about that too from another virgin when I was about twelve, but then I grew up and found out that male virgins don't know a lot about women. Who would have thought?
She'll be happier working in a Diversity office, where all her colleagues will have the same opinions that she does.
Diverse movement? LOL.
Diverse like the white supremacist. You can't sum up all of that diverse movement with terms such as bigoted and racists and expect to be convincing.
Feminism is women supremacist. Nothing more, nothing less.
No. The problem is pretending to be a "pussy country" while really being a weasel that slinks around the back to kill the chickens. The USA is busy climbing out of that but it's going to take a long time especially since rogue agencies act at cross purposes with each other, the Judicary, Congress and the Executive branch. The head of the FBI just knocked off the head of the CIA on "moral grounds" FFS - it's a farce and is going to take decades to undo the damage of having a playboy prince in the chair for years letting it all go to hell while he takes another vacation away from his White House vacation. Obama, McCain, that Goldman Sachs guy that lost, and even baby Bush don't want the TSA squeezing your balls while they are in charge becuase it makes them look bad. However so much control has been lost that whoever is in charge can't stop them squeezing your balls without tearing down a lot of things and building them up again while fighting with backstabbing weasels from rogue agencies - which should be done but is going to take a very long time.
Language changes. You can't describe things as "gay" without homosexual connotations any more.
In the 90s maybe? Yes, language change. Gay and fag can be use without homosexuality connotation now. Like 'bad' use to mean 'good', gay now mean boring. A fag is a member of clic or specific interest group. It can be use as a suffix. eg: a moralfag, someone that shove his or her moral value into other.
To apply 'fag' in the context of homosexuality you could use 'homofag' to designated a man that enjoy penises.
At least he's honest. It's called reality, and you're not liking it doesn't make it go away. The original post is 100% correct that her play hurt women in the workplace, bigtime.. as long as it's a dumbass American woman like her who makes a permanent sideline out of being offended and getting rewarded for her agony.. instead of just focusing on DOING HER JOB. DOWN with the armies of the American Offended.
I think we have no choice but to punish them for even beginning to play ball with this vicious, petty woman. Allowing her to even get near first base with such a blatant attempt to play the tired, but hugely destructive, victim card, shows an unacceptable willingness on the part of PyCon organizers, to either be cowed (very likely they acted out of fear) or to buy into this kind of bullshit, anyone-who-is-offended-is morally-correct-by-default mindset. I'm not a huge python fan anyway, but I won't go.. at least for one year.
Chickens? I think they are crocodiles that intend to eat you.
I agree. Both parties were in the wrong: the men should have shown more consideration for others and self-awareness than to tell off-colour jokes in situation like that; she was wrong to publicly escalate the issue the way she did. This philosophy of "I should be able to say what the f#$k I like, and you should just deal with it" is really wrong, especially when you're in a work or semi-work situation. This isn't a freedom of speech issue, but about respect and care for your fellow man (or woman).
You're deeply concerned about the careers of women, who you like to hire... because you can pay them less for doing more reliable quality work.
If all companies did this, they'd end up competing for women and their salaries would be driven up until the discrimination disappeared. Arbitrage can only exist for so long.
Instead of arguing about metaphors think back to the extreme rendition debacle (still relevant in messing up current actions since Syria was one of the destinations). They were not all crocs, but of course any decent attempt at getting it right would be the role of professional military or professional law enforcement instead of a bunch of filing clerks playing at being toy soldiers with James Bond fantasies.
She did not get him fired. His company fired him in either a case of massive overreaction or (more likely) due to additional things going on behind the scenes of which we are not aware...
Ok, so we've established it's "you" vs "them". Don't try to speak for anyone else, ok?
Because that's what generate clicks and ads. Haven't seen a pattern, news about how Canonical is ruining Linux, before it was how Suse/Novell was a treator to the greater good, and before, how Red Hat Linux broke everything with gcc 2.96 ? Each time, a huge controversy, each time, this generated clicks, people viewing ads, and finally, enough money to sustain the web site.
So being controversial is a way to generate more controverse, more money. We are voting with our wallets, except that our wallet is replace by our attention. Hack, MSNBC do less facts and more opinions, like fox news, and they survive, that's the same problem.
And if people think that's normal, nice, but I do not think that should be.
Should I be surprised that most postings here try to avoid bashing women in general but make stupid comments on feminism. If Donglegate proves anything then that any group of men is only too willing to blame a woman for either being a woman or trying to be treated as eual to men. Without feminism the West had the same partriarchalic structure like the Muslim world. And behold, the West looks down on those poor unenlighted souls. So please, stop making stupid jokes and whining if someone is unhappy about being the target of those oh-so funny jokes.
word games? Is it really?
You can't refute it or even attempt to argue against it. Instead you go after the source.
If it's wrong, tell me why it's wrong.
Please do give up on Slashdot.
PyCon 2013 was my favorite conference I've ever attended. This incident has been overreacted to by everyone from Richards on down to the hordes of trolls getting on her case. There's some food for thought here but jesus christ people, calm down and use your brains a bit.
There are no victims here just two people who both demonstrated poor judgement at a moment in time. The developer apologized. On the other hand, Richards has continued her Twitter rant in a misguided attempt to justify her malice (posting the developers picture and details of the incident). Her actions demonstrate she has low social maturity and no insight into what went wrong in the totality of the incident. I suspect this will be tried in a court of law. When posting on Twitter, Richards knew or should have known there would be a certain level of negative outcome when she took a private matter global. That negative outcome can have legal consequences. The developer has a measurable loss, his job and reputation. Posting the event on Twitter is similar to sending a company wide email of a personnel complaint against a colleague - it will get you fired.
What? It is literally. It is not figurative.
No it won't, I wasn't going and I'm still not going.
Seriously, I used to think I wanted more women in Computer Science. Stuff like this makes me change my mind.
Thought whoever was still reading this might be interested in this video from Richards in 2011 about dating in the Bay Area.
A lot of insight into her personality.
Kind of sad, actually, in light of the controversy.
She just doesn't have much life experience,
I wouldn't be surprised if her sexual experience is pretty limited.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF2rq6WaC_4
Care to be more specific?
I don't think this is a sexism-related issue, or at least not one involving men. Studies show that the overwhelming driver behind unrealistic female body image is... women. Men consistently rate themselves as most attracted to women with healthy body weight while women consistently rate underweight women as most attractive. If feminism transitioned into a movement to improve women's self esteem (or better, everyone's self esteem) that would be great, and more moderate feminists seem to be focusing in that direction. But the hard core of feminism I was referring to seems to like the women versus men paradigm.
Sure. Here are a few that come up on Google:
This guy pissed off some animal rights activists and they threatened to use pliers on his testicles, disembowel him and use napalm on him. Among other things. Incidentally, it was a woman who ran the organization that sent the threats, and was sentenced to jail for it. That one isn't even anonymous!
Gay blogger gets death threats.
This guy tracked down the sender of his death threats.
Here's a story about a guy who sends death threats to people who debunk the paranormal. Some blog authors, mostly male, were targeted.
Here's a guy who pissed off 4chan by making a movie. Here's one who wrote a book. If you want to do an experiment go post something they find offensive there and see how many death/rape/mutilation threats you get.
A Slashdot story about a guy getting death threats from some scammers he exposed.
Browsing Slashdot at -1 can be pretty enlightening too.
If you want to really get some threats, piss off some religious people.
Whenever there is a stupid little thing like this at a Ruby-based conference, all the idiots come out frothing at the mouth about how it is a programming languages fault.
Crickets for Python.
This is yet another shitty Python person, with Zed Shaw still leading the pack.
Basically her job involves pimping around for some shit :P
It's likely to have a chilling effect on those attending conferences generally, that someone can snap a phone photo, and assert with no proof that they made a joke that was off-colour/sexist, whatever, and then you get fired as a basis of that assertion. What next, you get fired from behaviour in the post-con drinks session?
boar was funnier, IMO. First, there was cow-tipping. Now, it's boar-rocking.
It sounds like you were paraphrasing Adria Richards.
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/6039856858
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
Finally, a post that deserves its 'score 4, Insightful' header.
the stars must align for a clusterfsck this big:
1) polemic agitator in attendance, in propinquity
2) opportunistic exploitation of overheard conversation occurs, twitter shaming to ten thousand
3) polemic agitator doubles down with histrionic blog post when twitter shame draws doubts and disapproval (this would be a crime in EU)
4) overly sensitive, over reactive start-up employer over compensates with firing, leading to social media furor, fanning flames
5) classy apology asking for less nuclear resolutions ignites the firestorm, critical mass achieved
6) juvenile hordes exact retribution on employers servers, DDoS'ing to oblivion until terms met
7) capitulation to vigilantes in a sea of misunderstanding drives media to madness
Ma'm/Sir, you made me squirt my breakfast out of my nose. Thanks for bringing an extra ray of light into a rainy monday morning!
Ma'm/Sir, you made me squirt my breakfast out of my nose
Ah. You must be the warm-up act.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The only party involved in this shitstorm that came out clean are the PyCon organizers. They did the right thing consistently, don't punish them by not attending.
Yes.
Sometimes I really forget how blessed I am.
When Argumentum ad Hominem falls short, try Argumentum ad Matrem
"It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended at that.' as if that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more .. it's simply a whine. It's no more than a whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning. It has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I am offended by that,' well so f*cking what?" - Stephen Fry
I've never heard of her until this story. I don't follow Twitter, I don't follow a lot of the technical blogs because I'm happy to be subject matter specific after 20 years of doing what I do.
From reading the various comments and TFA I've come to the conclusion that the men were being a bit out of line by talking during a presentation and then engaging in a conversation as well. That's impolite to the speaker and to the attendees around them who were trying to listen. But that happens all the time at conferences.
What took it over the edge was her taking offense at comments that were pretty harmless in context. We don't know what the full range of the conversation was and she may well have encouraged them to speak freely thinking they were talking to a reasonable person. Yes, I said both 'reasonable' and 'person'. Gender is NOT an issue here. A man may well have been equally offended by the comments that got blown out of proportion.
Being a female in the tech industry for this long means I've seen a lot of sexism in the workplace. I've developed a pretty thick skin to minor work-inappropriate comments and jokes because they don't bother me since they're not directed AT me. If I do feel that things are getting close to crossing a line I'll either ask them to tone it down (not stop, mind you) or I'll leave the conversation depending on the circumstances. I'm not one of the boys nor do I ever wish to be. I'm a valued co-worker who happens to be of the female gender. I don't expect anyone to walk on eggshells around me but to maintain a professional attitude.
If I did find myself in a more serious situation my company has channels to follow for dealing with harassment and hostile work environments. I would have no problem using those resources and feel that I would be taken seriously. I won't use them to deal with petty annoyances or as retaliation. That kind of thing is what harms women - abuse of the process to do real harm to another employee.
Do I think she should have been fired? Based on what I've read I think her company did the correct thing if she was not doing her job of representing them to the community in the manner she was hired to do. If this had been a singular event then my opinion would probably be different.
Do I think one of the men involved should have been fired? No. He apologized for his behaviour and it seems like it was a real apology, not one made because he had to do it. If he had done the same thing she did - created an artificial furor over a minor transgression - then it may have been different.
He's a victim of one person's need to feel superior and need to try to shape public opinion to her match her own. I can't see how this kind of thing would discourage any female from wanting to enter the industry. If anything what she did would make me less apt to want to work in a highly female environment because of the possibility that more fanatics were just waiting to pounce on anything that made them 'feel uncomfortable'.
Won't attend a conference where my job could be put at risk by zealots.
about 10-30% cheaper then men
I found that comment a little confusing as well. I'm hoping he means they're cheaper because of less overhead rather than cheaper because they're paid less.
If women come ahead in factors such as sick-days, completion time, etc, I could see if being the latter. For example either
A team of 7-9 women complete a project in the same amount of time it takes a similar male team
or
A team of 10 women complete a project in 70-90% of the time it takes a similar male team
I haven't really found much a difference in gender in my own experience (worked with some lazy men, some lazy women, and hard-working individuals of either gender), but in some cases perhaps the above would apply to correspond with the GP's comment.
So you got brutally beat down by ultranova. After reading your post I too offer a rebuttal, albeit a slightly softer one. Your main message, "be bold" is actually good advice. Standing up for what you believe in is a good message. And you temper your own advice so as not to look like a crazy extremist. That's good.
But you go off the rails in certain places.
First off, you've got beef with Islam. Whoa dude, whoa. I mean, you're an atheist, and that's fine, but if you're going to rally against religions, calling out one specific group isn't the best way to go about it. Lamenting irrational behavior? Good. Saying religion is an outdated concept? Fringe. A lot of people still need religion. As long as it doesn't affect us, it's cool. Calling out a specific religion as an "enemy of liberty and free men"? Dude, that's the sort of over the top blanket statement that's applying to too many people yet not broad enough to be against the concept.
You rally against political correctness, and decry others telling you to temper you're talk, but temper it with "(although always use personal discretion - don't be a jerk, k?)". That's... you know... being politically correct. It's a bit of a contradiction. You also have a self-contradicting statements of "I'm telling you to say things" and "Don't let others tell you what to say". And just to let you know, by hating on all of Islam, you're kinda being a dick.
As for Israel, I'd agree that they have the right to defend themselves. Just like the Palestinians do. I don't believe we should be allies with either of them. And I REALLY don't believe in the idea of mutual defense pacts. Dear god, that's how WWI got started. We don't need to be dragged into anyone's business. And we certainly don't want anyone to act like they have the full force of the US military behind them.
I'm certainly a bigger fan of my current internationally friendly president as opposed to the international dick-head president who invaded two nations despite everyone telling him it was a bad idea. And we've got PLENTY to apologize for. We've been MASSIVE dicks in the past. We're working on that. There are most certainly times when the US needs to back down. Because we're wrong. You know that "I may be wrong and accept new data and change my ways" thing you were talking about? That works on the national level as well.
Personally, I'd like the "Enlightened World" to be a bit more enlightened before I blindly trust it to be the world police. Seriously, the religious right has sunk it's teeth DEEP into the GOP. The warmongers lead us in to two quagmires and supported torture. We've pissed on the 4th and 5th amendment by ushering the word "terrorism". I'd be a bigger fan of Obama if he worked on fixing that.
But no, somewhere between the start of your post and the end, you've gone off into a really bad direction. The path to hell is certainly paved with good intentions.
Responding to trolling with virgin shaming! How original!
"Money Shot" does not mean porn.
Sure, the term has gained a broader meaning, but come on, it originated from porn.
Incorrect. The phrase originates from the movie industry, but not necessarily the porn industry. It refers to a shot that is much more expensive to produce (think effects clips included in trailers) such that a decent amount of film budget goes into producing the shot. That's why it's called a "money shot," because a lot of money went into it. That was incorporated into porn lingo, but the phrase has long been used in the movie industry in general.
They brutally attacked her.
Naughty words and meaningless "threats" made by some randoms on the internet does not constitute brutal attack in any sense of the term.
Why do you think that?
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
Most people you meet at confs are wonderful people, it's just that their creepy side can be very obvious around women.
Jump straight to creep shaming. Yep. Feminist.
Could it be that a) some of these people may not have that much experience around women, and b) are afraid that anything they say, no matter how innocuous, could prompt an Elevatorgate or Donglegate?
The funny thing is that you'll probably also call the confident guys who just go out and chat up ladies assholes/players. It's great that no matter how you act, you're conforming to a stereotype that feminists can judge you by!
Jesus was a liberal
This may be hard for you to understand and may even seem contrary, but that use of literally is correct. Literally has been used as an intensifier since at least the 16th century.
If you ignore ACs because they are anonymous - you're an idiot.
So, you're saying it's been used incorrectly for 400 years? Fascinating. :)
I'm not at all inclined to pay conference fees, travel and lodging expenses to go to any conference where I am going to be made uncomfortable by anyone behaving badly. The incident of two guys making inappropriate jokes is not, in of itself, enough to make me leery of attending a tech conference. Seeing people react in negative ways to women who call out this bad behavior -- sometimes preserving the anonymity of the perpetrators and sometimes not -- is enough to encourage me to invest my money in activities other than tech conferences.
Sojourner Hardeman
Adria was the only one who should have been fired. Her job was to evangelize SendGrid and make them look good, but she has a history of overreacting and pissing off lots of people. Her repeating that behavior pattern at PyCon proves that she has not matured, and has not learned from her past mistakes. SendGrid got mountains of bad publicity from this event, and they had no reason to believe that this would be the last time. As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you..... "
She didn't deserve to have her firing be quite so public though, in my opinion. But that's a minor point, considering she was the one who decided to take the episode public to begin with.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
It'd be best to avoid phrasing this in a way that suggests that any other feminist would be the same; feminism is a very diverse movement, and there are flavours (like mine) that are very anti-PC-policing.
Most everyone is "feminist" in the sense that they favor equality amongst the sexes. That's equivalent to "not being an asshole".
I believe in equality too, but I doubt I'd be very welcome in a modern Women's Studies department.
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
Women can't be sexist. Black people can't be racist. It's a power struggle.
(If what I wrote up there sounds pretty ridiculous, I agree. If it still rings true somehow? Well... there you go.)
I feel like I've heard that before somewhere. Where could it be? Thinking.. thinking.. OH, that's right! It's from Adria herself!
Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power
I guess you were right!
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock