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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?"
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"
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.
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.
"Rocking the boar" sounds more interesting than any other part of this story.
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.
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.
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'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.
"One of these men lost his job as a result of this incident, and we are seeing numerous people blame Adria for that. This is a clear example of a culture we live in, where it is more appropriate to blame the victim than to blame any other offenders."
What the everliving fuck?
She wasn't a "victim" of anything. These guys didn't rape her. They didn't assault her. They didn't slander her, they didn't harass her they didn't DO anything to her. They told a joke meant for each other and happened to be within earshot of her. That was the reason she got fired. She's claiming to be some sort of victim and framing all women as victims of "this sort of behavior" and its just bullshit. You do not have a right to not be offended. As long as that person isn't directly talking about you, thats where your rights end.
Now if they had said "I bet this chick in front of us here would love it if the presenters had bigger dongles" or something of that nature, she'd have a bit of a case here as that could very easily be considered harassment.
And she wasn't a feminist
The term you're looking for is "feminazi"
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.
Someone is trying desperately to make this into something bigger than it is.
Absolutely this. Those guys told a tame (even boring) joke in the wrong place, she immediately went nutso-nuclear. One of the guys lost his job and so did she.
Case closed.
Aside from those two, there's no good reason anyone should avoid PyCon, and we all know it. If you can act like a normal adult, it's unlikely you'll have any problems with anyone.
I predict a resurgence in traditional men's clubs.
She gets the guy fired, and gets fired herself for her troubles.
Nobody wins, because feminism is in of itself, sexism at it's finest. Poor pitiful females that can't defend themselves. Bullshit. They have carved themselves a niche in popular culture that they are untouchable, and because of that they have adopted and invincible attitude, until they feel they have been somehow wronged, and then they turn on the tear-jerking water works about how defenseless they are. Comedian Bill Burr has it right...
People need to learn how to take a joke. HR departments need to be wiped out, because in this age, they have long since outlived their usefulness. They had their time, but it has since passed.
If women want equal rights, then there should be no feminists.
You're not paranoid if they really ARE out to get you...
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.
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.
a nosy bitch
lol, sexism. I thought information wanted to be free?
Not sexism at all. She was listening to a conversation that had nothing to do with her, hence "nosy". And her reaction to it clearly proves her to indeed be a "bitch".
The problem is that she handled it in an extremely immature fashion. I'm not necessarily saying that she should have let it go, but posting the pictures online without giving them a chance to explain, is rather poor form for an evangelist. And if she couldn't handle it with more grace, she should have left it alone, this kind of immature and self righteous behavior is not going to further women's rights, all it does is send the message that if you offend somebody, for any reason, you can lose your job. Not helpful. What's more, it sounds like it was just one joke about dongles and she was doing it for reasons other than being offended.
Or at least that's how I read her blog, it's pretty clear she was trying to advocate for people that weren't in the room at the time and without being asked to do so. What's more, she could very easily have caused her employer to receive a nasty libel suit as a result of this.
She was fired over the way in which she handled it. As an evangelist, she is probably being held to a higher standard than other folks, but she should have known that. She could have handled it in a way that at least allowed the individuals to apologize and or explain, tweeting it without even having her facts straight, is hardly conducive to building an inclusive community.
She also had the opportunity to just ignore it, which is what she should have done if she couldn't handle it in a mature way. Yes, it would have been less good than dealing with it, but as it stands, she's just another data point on the "why we shouldn't trust women" board.
If you speak in public, expect to be heard by others. If someone hears what you say, you have no right to force them to pretend they didn't hear it.
Yes, I hear many things in course of the day. I don't usually tweet about them. And not once did I feel an impulse to backstab by silently taking someone's pic and then tweeting "OMG, look at this jerk!" instead of discussing why is this a jerkish behaviour with said someone.
"Bitch" is not sexist in the same way that "nigger" is not racist.
Stop bitching about semantics, you pedantic prick. <-- see here, both "bitch" and "prick" have sex-related etymology, but neither "bitch" nor "prick" refer to your gender in this case. Do tell me more about inherent sexism.
If you eavesdrop on someone having a private conversation in a public setting, don't expect to hear a politically correct message. It amazes me that a "strong, independent woman" crumbles into this powerless victim once someone random makes a random comment. To name this event 'donglegate' is quite funny OTOH.
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.
If she gave up so easily, she probably shouldn't be a programmer, we all take a lot of torment. If I gave up on programming because of every time I was called a geek or nerd when I was 8, I'd be flipping burgers.
This situation has nothing to do with the women in the IT industry are treated. It has everything to do with one person involving themselves in a conversation they weren't part of and publicly shaming people who weren't talking to her and she couldn't even clearly hear. This could have happened in any busy public place and you might as well say that 8 year old gave up on her dream of being a stripper.
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.)
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.
Unfortunately, you're missing a third group: people who look to be offended so they can play a victim and get attention. Adria's in this last group.
The truly despicable part about this last group is that in the face of a true problem and real victims, this third group makes the problem worse for everyone. It detracts from the real victims' ability to stand up for their rights, reinforces the stereotypes held by the people causing the problem, and paints a larger group as aggressors because the group causing the problem happens to be a subset.
Luckily, while I'm a guy and risk being demonized, I'm saved by another geek stereotype of which I strongly adhere - I'm too anti-social to find myself in the position of making inappropriate jokes with anyone, and I care more about learning the technologies presented at conferences to be chatting during a talk even if I wasn't..
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
I applaud her for saying something about the stupid innuendos going on at these kinds of cons, but she shouldn't couch it in sexism.
Forking/Fucking is not degrading to women.
Dongles/Penises are not degrading to women.
If anyone thinks that sex is inherently degrading to women, or that penises are inherently degrading to women, they should seek counselling.
That said, the geek community is full of sexually inexperienced and frustrated people who say stupid and immature things. I seriously hope that the organizers simply would have told these guys in a sincere and compassionate way "you're in public, and your behaviour reflects on the community. This is a family-friendly event and a common problem but we need to change the geek culture. Your sexual innuendos are not in keeping with the environment we're trying to foster at this event and they contradict the code of conduct. Please stop yourselves, and stop your friends. Spread the word."
No need to degrade people who are already socially marginalized and awkward.
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.
The bigger problem is that she chose not to confront the people she felt offended by, because she "didn't want to have her experience denied". She was right about that, they would probably have apologized for the dongle joke but told her that the forking joke wasn't sexual at all, which would have been accurate but a denial of her "experience" (= her misinterpretation).
And then she chose not to wait for the PyCon organizers to handle it. This woman has a history. She had a hard childhood but that doesn't excuse her lashing out at innocent strangers. I have a hard time understanding why she even felt offended. These were two men joking among themselves about a male body part. Did she feel excluded? But she wasn't part of the conversation in the first place, she was just eavesdropping on them.
The summary should contain enough information to make me know if I'm interested. Is it more time efficient for one person to write "the sexist tweet scandal infamously dubbed donglegate" or for thousands of /. readers to have to individually follow the link to another (very brief) article summary?
Simply put: if the average reader doesn't know what the summary is talking about, the summary is no use at all.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
She was sexually harassing the men. She was not complaining that why made a penis joke. She was complaining that she did not find hot enough to make a penis joke. The fact hat at the exact same event she made made at least one public penis joke herself shows that beyond a shadow of a doubt, the joke was not the problem.
Calling here behavior immature is letting her off too easy.
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.
I'm a gay man. Adria's reaction was not "logical and expected". There is occasionally real hostility and real insults directed at minorities at tech conferences; this wasn't it. Adria's reaction to a harmless pun was merely the act of a professional publicity whore (and I'm using that term in a gender-neutral way), and she has hurt the cause of women and other minorities.
That said, the geek community is full of sexually inexperienced and frustrated people who say stupid and immature things.
That's a steorotype about 'geek culture'. The reality is that the majority of 'geeks' are past their twenties and get plenty of action (with real women, mostly). It's just demographics. From the ages 15-30 is only a third of the time from 30-60, and IT has been around long enough that there are still plenty of greybeards out there. So let's get real - 'geek culture' is a handy stereotype, but a stereotype nonetheless. Decisions based on a stereotype will always carry some degree of inaccuracy.
As an aside. What is interesting that the biggest promoters of the stereotype are marketing outfits that see the chique of geek and want to cash in. All sorts of outfits used to do this in the past too with science - from detergent ads where 'scientists' only wear white lab coats to 'Christian Science' that is anti-scientific superstition but appends the word 'science' to benefit from the cachet of the triumphs of reason. So, it's ok to accept the 'geek stereotype' as long as you also make a mental note that this is an approximation of reality and really only covers the 1/3 of 'new' geeks (those still excited about 'coming out' to self-identify as a geek comfortable with the label).
If she was like nosy bitch let me say...yay!
We really need to stand up and say "this shit is NOT gonna cut it" because a guy was FIRED for telling a joke TO HIS FRIEND and was overheard by a member of the politically correct brigade who then blasted their picture all over the interwebs with a "look at the dirty men" kind of deal.
Now imagine getting fired for telling a joke to your friend because some bitch you never even met took your picture and decided she was offended by something not directed TO her or AT her...that is fucked up folks and we need to tell the PC bitch and her ilk to STFU and get the 2x4 out of their asses. Since they were in CA which is a two party state he really needs to sue the bitch, I'd take every damned cent the woman has just to make a lesson for those that don't know how to act like a fucking civilized human being. All she had to do was tell the guys they were disturbing her and that would have been that, but oh hell no, then she couldn't play the victim...fuck her, I hope she has serious difficulty finding a job and ends up having to take a shit job for reduced pay, because she is a good example of what is wrong with the world right now.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Perhaps not in its original form, but these days it is. It used to be about tearing down the inequalities between men and women, and teaching women to feel empowered.
Now it's about women exacting revenge upon men for how women were treated for the last thousand years or so ("This is for our mothers and grandmothers!" -> Yeah, but none of those men were alive when those gender crimes occurred, so why are you punishing their descendents? Madness.), and about leaving men scared to be in the same room as women. It's essentially a religious crusade, in which the enemy is the enemy simply because they were born with a penis and a pair of testicles; their sole goal in life is seems to be to find and convince a man that he is wrong for existing.
Even a woman who went around picking up other women (who went on to write a book about it) pointed out how blind the female gender is to its own power / actions. At no point have they stopped to think that perhaps men have as many grudges against women as women do against men, but are simply more forgiving of them. But I digress, the die is cast, revenge is sought, history has been occluded, mistakes will no doubt be repeated.
I am John Hurt.
SendGrid simply read Blum's email as past behavior and fired Richards rather than taking Blum's constructive advice.
They also made a public statement about an employee termination in a way I thought was unusually descriptive.
I did appreciate Amanda Blum's take on this -- it was clear, almost wholly fact-oriented, and very informative.
The worst? As an "evangelist" she had the opportunity to use a "teachable moment."
The goal, I think we all want, is a workplace and community without gender conflicts. She could have led by example, talked to the guys about the need to be cognizant of the people around them, they would have learned something, and Richards could have regaled her audience with the tale of her enlightened diplomatic prowess so women everywhere would have another example of a peaceful resolution to gender communication issues in IT. But no, instead being a peacemaker and a bridge builder and leader she just threw a tattletale tantrum like a 4th grader and made it more difficult for men and women in IT (who are aware of this situation) to communicate in the future.
Way to be an evangelist, lady...
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.