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Prominent GitHub Engineer Julie Ann Horvath Quits Citing Harrassment
First time accepted submitter PvtVoid writes in with the story of Julie Ann Horvath alleging a culture of sexism at GitHub. "The exit of engineer Julie Ann Horvath from programming network GitHub has sparked yet another conversation concerning women in technology and startups. Her claims that she faced a sexist internal culture at GitHub came as a surprise to some, given her former defense of the startup and her internal work at the company to promote women in technology."
Trade is by definition objectification, as you're reducing people to what they can do for you. Of course it's in men's interest to keep women subordinate so they can be more easily exploited (and it would be in women's interest to do the same to men, which is why you have "feminism" going far beyond simply asking for equality).
This is really bad, especially given the high adoption of Git. I really like Git, but being so closely connected to GitHub will probably make a lot of projects move to competing version control systems if this type of behaviour continues. Anyone know how much of Git's source code that is open, can it easily be forked to rely less on GitHub?
So we know one side of the story. But what about the other side? Maybe she was really bad worker and used 'discrimination' card each time to defend her work? "You are saying that this code is bad not because of the code, but just because I'm a woman". It would be nice if somebody could anonymously 'leak' some of her pull requests plus entire conversation around it - and then we could see how much harrasment was from reviewer and how much unfair pushing from her side.
Problem is that GitHub is at lost position. However bad she was, they will be always painted bad boys for throwing dirt on her, so they will probably keep silent...
Men can be very rough to their coworkers and subordinates.
Women often think that the rough behavior they're enduring is specific to their sex. It's not. If gender is involved at all it's simply as a pretext. It could just as well have been height, hair length, or anything else that makes one a little different from the crowd.
The ruthless men (and a few women) of the business world only care about gender or race or any other difference only to extent that it helps them climb the ladder to the top.
This attitude seems foreign to most women.
If you really want to know how bad it can get, watch Glenngarry Glen Ross.
Her problem wasn't sexism, it was with the founder's wife (so she says). 75% of the article talks about her problems with the founder's wife.
So it's just a tale of one woman being bitchy to another.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
It would be funny, if it was not true. BUT, i know about even worst examples of men abusing women at work, in more obvious ways, and in more subtle ways....
The article details some serious allegations, and is worth reading in it's entirety. I'm eager to read github's side of the story as well. Some of the claims ought to give users pause about trusting their private data with github. That's hugely problematic. Other claims show an unprofessional and hostile environment, and a company whose HR department (if they have one) is screwing up very badly. I hope they are able to resolve all of this, as I am a very big fan of git, and of github. But at the moment the claims sound plausible and distressing.
There's already an update to this story here: Update on Julie Horvarth's Departure
There was a party at Github headquarters attended by employees and their friends. There was music and probably alcohol. Also, hula hoops.
Yes, those MEN had the GALL to WATCH two women hula hooping. Which made her feel unsafe. In other words, she's a lunatic and you can safely ignore anything she says.
Having read all of that, it seems like maybe 10% sexism and 90% people just being horrible in a completely gender-neutral fashion. Inexcusable either way, but pitching this as a "culture of sexism" seems a bit over-the-top given that most of the negative interactions mentioned in the article are between two women.
but people watching the spectacle with interest is not?
Oh wait, she didn't actually fucking work there. Lmao.
When I first read the title, I thought it mean she has stopped citing harassment as the reason for her quitting. Instead it means the opposite of that: she quit and is claiming harassment as the reason why. Well, assuming harrassment is supposed to be harassment...
What I don't understand stand in these situations is why don't the people wear a wire and record the harassment, then sue the company and/or person. That's a valid reason for suing. Instead they rage quit without providing specific details so we're left to wonder if their claims are true, embellished, revenge driven, taken out of context, or poor communication between workers. The people doing the harassment keep their jobs, become better off, people mimic them to become their buddies and get ahead, and ultimately hurt the reputation of the industry.
Since I had to wait to post this as AC I've read the article and she does point out some specifics. Good for her. Though one of the main people in this affair is another women.
I take offense to that statement and politely request that you keep her out of mine!
Sincerely
A Male Chef.
If they'd averted their gazes away from the two possibly drunken hula-hooping dancing girls due to vast amounts of DO NOT WANT (or even just vastness), she would have been doubly as insulted.
It seems the lion's share of the problem was a founder's psychotic wife, who basically stalked her - which doesn't seem to have anything to do with gender discrimination, and all to do with one person being a nut-job.
Of the other issues she raised:
* Another engineer made a pass at her, got rejected, and didn't handle the rejection will.
* Some girls were hula-hoop dancing, and guys were watching them
The first issue might have been a problem, but if it was at all proportionate to the page-space dedicated to discussing it, it sounds like a fairly minor issue, and one that should really be able to be solved by HR. The second is just, well, petty. Sounds like she'd made up her mind to hate the place by that stage, and was finding fault with every little thing.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I could be mistaken, but it sounds an awful lot like this is just a bad attempt to blame the big bad men for what the founder's wife did. She sounds like a bitch on wheels with a jetpack strapped to her for good measure. Sure, the one engineer was a problem, but if the wife wasn't involved and out to get her HR would probably have put him in his place if she asked.
Shoulda just made out with the wife, that's all she wanted. Just a little petting goes a long way for the wife of a flounder.
It wouldn't be the first company to have disappeared into its own fantasy world like that, especially one with ridiculous amounts of spare seed funding they don't actually need.
The hula hooping episode could have been dismissed as some high jinx but taken into account with everything else, no.
I don't understand the clamour to define this as sexism when 90% of the alleged harassment was from the founder's wife. Simply watching someone hula-hoop in public at a works party is not harassment and paints "Julie" in a bad light when she compares it to a strip-club and that she felt "unsafe".
Females.... They are never satisfied.
Your dick's to short
after reading the story it seemed to be almost nothing to do with sexism, and everything to do with the wife not liking the woman. women not liking women, news at 10.
This sounds more like that founder's wife had it out for her and was doing what I can only describe as the kind of hatred I have only ever witnessed amongst women. Not that men are not vindictive and petty but this specific kind of abuse and picking an "arch enemy" for petty reasons of "status" and "I am the founder's wife", I have only seen amongst women. The "old boys" would do it differently.
The "sexism" part is just an add-on to give it more news potential and really had nothing to do with the actual thing at hand: incredibly unprofessional work environment.
What I am wondering: how can you land a job at a hot-shot place like GitHub and be so completely gullible and defenseless and clueless how to protect yourself? Founder's wife is abusing you and threatening you daily at your desk? Hold a camera in her face, let's see her do it then. Whole company seems abusive? Lawyer up! Get everything you can in writing and audio proof along with it.
I must have read a different article then some of the other people on this forum. A culture that allows a rejected suitor to vindictively punish a woman would certainly qualify as sexist. A culture that allows a bench full of men to gawk and stare at co-workers would qualify as sexism. That the majority of the issues were caused by one of the founder's wife is irrelevant to whether there is a sexist culture. You could take it out of the article and there would still be enough to suggest that github has trouble treating women with respect and dignity.
Since I do not recall seeing articles about her citing harassment, I don't understand why it is such a big deal that she isn't doing so any longer.
OK, I read the summary and realize the headline is inaccurate. What they meant to write was, " Prominent GitHub Engineer Julie Ann Horvath Quits, Citing Harassment" rather than the headline they did write. All I have to say is, "Commas, learn to use them."
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Article read like a day in junior high school. GitHub needs adults.
Everything I've read on this subject sounds like a prima donna drama queen. Good riddance.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Don't be so quick to judge the founder's wife. We have only Horvath's version of the story, and I got to admit I become a little skeptical of her because of her hula-hoop bashing. That seems a little like grasping at straws for something to smear the company with. Men gawked at women who were voluntarily hula-hoop dancing in the context of a party? Really.
Females.... They are never satisfied.
Your dick's to short
And he only uses his tongue to whine.
Which is why in civilised countries we have unions and employment law.
I was a bit sad when I read that she had to request HR to be present at a meeting with the boss, you need a union on your side when you have those conversations.
That doesn't seem to be claimed. You have to remember, some people like to show off and have fun. Back in my partying days I saw all kinds of people, men and women, do all kinds of things that they enjoyed doing, but also with the intention of having an audience. That was part of the reason they were doing them at a party, in public. They wished for an audience. Also people usually did watch because, well, when something is going on it is natural to watch. One of my friends loved to breathe fire, he'd get some 151 in his mouth, hold a lighter near it, and spew it out, causing it to catch fire. Looked pretty impressive and always drew a crowd.
So ya, if the women were pushed in to then and/or if men were making inappropriate comments then I see a problem. However if the women decided it would be fun to do and the men watching because it was something going on then I don't see a problem.
I'd say I personally want more information before determining who is the psycho. I have on more than one occasion seen a person claim that they have a psycho who is out to get them, only to discover that the person making the claim is the one who's psycho, not the person who's allegedly out to get them. Or, sometimes, both are psycho.
There's a situation like that where I work. One of the advisers HATES the head secretary. She will tell anyone who will listen about what an evil bitch the secretary is and so on and so forth. Ya well, observational evidence does not bear this out. In fact it shows the opposite is true, the adviser is the source of the issues and is the one who's being a jerk.
So not claiming that this lady's story is untrue, but I'm not willing to believe it without some more verification. Particularly in light of the other trivial issues like the hula-hoop thing. Often a sign of psycho behaviour is making a big deal out of little things.
This is a tough one. I had the privilege to work for exceptional men and women in male-dominated industries, such as finance. Yes, there is sexism. Women are propositioned, stared at, condescended to, recipients of sexist comments and so on. I have seen some women capitalize on this and turn it to their advantage. I also observe other women who obsess over the power dynamic to the point where they are always checking, verifying and asserting their power. This usually causes resentment. A leader is not effective if s/he keeps asserting 'I am in charge'. Then there are some women who 'just get on with it'. They are there to do business and get the job done effectively. Politics, stares, sexism are like water off a duck's back. They are focussed on their work and getting the job done. Now this is in an arena among the 'captains of industry' types. Imagine an arena of shy and awkward geek boys who obsess on code? No everyone has the strength to get past such environs and 'just get on with the job'. Horvath tweeting about office politics is a bad move. You cannot express much in a tweet. It is a poor way to explain situations. I feel bad for the next woman, who will probably be treated like a vial of nytroglycerine.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
In retrospect, Horvath said she feels like she should have handed in her resignation following the episode..
Yes, she should have.
If GitHub is really run the way she claims, they are doomed already. If women refused to be treated like this (and I know many that would) companies that allowed this kind of behavior would find them selves lacking in a very large section of the talent pool.
She goes out of her way to say that the wife invited her for drinks (presumably while before any of these issues appeared and she was happily employed) and then uses that meeting to tell her not to smear the company when she quits.
Founder's wife then becomes enemy number one for the rest of the article.
So I'm being asked to believe that a psychotic wife of the founder daily harasses a poor innocent female employee (which is certainly possible) or is it more likely that Ms. Horvath was already having conflicts with the workplace AND THEN the conversation happened?
THEN a jilted suitor rips her code out (a true professional issue) but she goes to HR about the wife's discussion "off company time"?
And THEN the hula-hooping is what finally made her feel unsafe?!
I'm not denying that she doesn't feel she's been wronged - But given the story and the responses from the employees on the secret message board - I suspect there was really a *non-sexual* power play going on here.
...if she walked around showing off her cleavage....or wearing tights as pants in the workplace....what did she expect?
She says many women joined GitHub after her.
Let's check their story of perceived sexism. If all women feel their is somewhat a culture of sexism, than she's right.
...to turn this into a feminism issue.
The whole hula hoop thing feels like "we don't have enough to make sexism sound reasonable, so let's just throw this in,"
The coworker thing is a coworker from hell, but nothing big. Don't accept other projects with this guy, devote less time to the projects with this guy and more time to other projects.
The wife thing. Oh she sounds like a real harridan. Acting to cover her husbands back like other some other evil wifes, what were their names? Oh yes. Rosalind Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama. Just be nice and don't hang around her too much.
So it's either sexual harrassment OR just a crappy place to work???
Not a chance, AmiMoJo...both go hand in hand...sexism in the workplace is a **symptom** of a greater problem...it's **one way** unprofessionalism can be expressed. These things do not happen in compartmentalized little spaces...it's a sign of institutional rot.
This woman was an **engineer** she's one of us. She obviously is trying to use careful language to not seem inflamitory...if anything, she is ***downplaying*** the level of sexism in her workplace...like a humble geek/engineer would!
from TFA:
Horvath told us that she “participated in the boys’ club upon joining,” but when her “character started being discussed in inappropriate places like on pull requests and issues,” the situation changed.
I object to the notion that because she sent tweets, when she *first started working* about how she liked her job, that means we should some how be critical of what she is saying now...things change at a job after the first few months, everyone knows this.
Thank you Dave Raggett
Gender problems are people problems you fool!
This false dichotomy you purvey, that this social situation is "either A or B" is reductive and shows how far our industry has sunk.
So, is murder not a violence problem, but just a people problem? Rape...by your logic not sexual in nature...just a people problem!
Racism? Naw...that's just a people problem...by your logic.
Your reductive contextualization **insures** that you will misidentify the cause of the problem and whatever you do as a fix *will not work*
Until *men* in the tech industry mature beyond adolesence we will have this problem. It's **our fault** and we must be **proactive** to fix the problem.
Thank you Dave Raggett
When this issue comes up, people more often than not shove the accuser into the 'hysterical' category, forget the whole thing and never consider how gender discrimination harms them or society.
It is the same social mechanic that works against 'whistleblowers', 'snitches', 'activists' or anyone else who exhausts their ability to change a destructive situation and is forced seek mediation outside of 'channels'.
When organizations are no longer capable of receiving feedback from their own people, they're dying and unfortunately it's usually a lingering death that destroys a lot of good work and lives.
She's just playing the sexism card after the company got sick enough of her to finally fire her. And you see from the colleagues reaction that many, many are happy for her to finally leave.
AC for obvious reasons
I don't comment on the rest, but this part cracked me up:
"Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them."
So the women were hula hooping at the office, but the men are inappropriate for staring...
If I started hula hooping at the office, people would be staring too (I am a guy), not because they are sexist, but because a person doing this is a weirdo...
Unions are never on your side. They are on their own side.
Reading the story though, and looking at how responsive the company has at least attempted to be, it doesn't seem like this is a gender based issue, but a personality based issue. Julie had a lot of power, which rubbed some people the wrong way, same as it does for men. I'd just say to Julie, that's exactly what happens to men too, so it's definitely harassment, definitely not cool, but gender related, no the evidence you presented doesn't make it appear that way from the outside, though i can see how it could appear that way from the inside. Julie should continue her evangelism, as it seems she really genuinely did good, but I agree with you and think she should use a bit more discretion because the way that she did this caused her to lose a lot of respect from the people that she needs to convince that there is a problem. I can understand her frustration, and possibly desperation, but Twitter isn't the place to air your dirty laundry, a well written blog post would have done far better to address the issues and given more space to given a well thought out response.
the wife went on to claim that she was responsible for hires at GitHub, and asked Horvath to explain to her what she was working on. The wife also claimed to employ “spies” inside of GitHub, and claimed to be able to, again according to Horvath, read GitHub employees’ private chat-room logs, which only employees are supposed to have access to.
This sounds like the founder's wife is a loose cannon with a her own little unofficial organization within the company. I have seen this before. This seems like the founder's wife was trying to recruit her into her network of spies.
Horvath called the situation, aptly, “bananas.”
Yeah, I can guess who the head banana is, the founder's wife
In her email to TechCrunch, Horvath says she felt “confused and insulted to think that a woman who was not employed by my company was pulling the strings.” She also said she felt bullied by someone with perceived power and influence over her personal relationship and her career at GitHub.
As anyone would be.
Horvath then told her partner, also a GitHub employee, about what was happening. She warned him against being close to the founder and his wife, and asked him not to relay information to them.
This was good idea.
According to Horvath, her partner “agreed this was best.” He had talked with the founder’s wife, who agreed to give Horvath space.
This is where things are going sideways and neither she nor her partner see what is going on. By Horvath's partner talking to the founder's wife, they both made it onto her enemy list and became targets.
Instead of the issue blowing over, Horvath received a meeting request from HR at GitHub, and was asked to “relay the details of that personal conversation that took place out of the office.” Horvath recalls that she was “uncomfortable with this but complied to the best of my ability.” Her partner was also asked to relay past events.
This is an indication that HR has been made aware of a situation and is investigating it. This was probably initiated by the founder's wife via the founder because of Horvath's partner.
Radio silence ensued for a month, according to Horvath, while rumors cropped up that the founder was asking other employees about her, as well as her relationship with her partner. To Horvath, the silence made her think that she was “being bullied into leaving.”
This is the investigation.
At this point, Horvath said she began to feel threatened.
Why exactly? Was it
She said that having her personal relationship dragged into her work life and put on show for her coworkers didn’t sit well with her.
That is always a danger when one dates or is married to a coworker. Or was it
The aforementioned wife began a pattern of passive-aggressive behavior that included sitting close to Horvath to, as she told TechCrunch, “make a point of intimidating” her.
Or was it something else? The fact that the founder's wife is sittng close to her raises the question of whether the founder's wife has an official capacity in the organization which would partially contradict what Horvath has said thus far.
This stalemate ended when the founder asked to see her. Horvath said that she “wasn’t going to put myself in a position like that, so I required HR be present if we were to meet.” The meeting did not go well.
If she thought it would, she was a fool
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
How is this person an engineer?
Her linkedin profile shows a degree in marketing and job titles in design and marketing. Not any engineering background to be seen.
http://www.linkedin.com/pub/ju...
Sorry, but no.
Did she quit her job because she was being harassed, or did she stop asserting that she was being harassed. (I'm not a grammar Nazi, but the headline did confuse me).
They didn't know how to talk to girls in H.S. and they don't know how to talk to them at work now.
Have you ever read women's magazines, watched television, been part of real life? The way women interact is different than the way men act. That's a fact. Women tend to be more passive aggressive, men tend to be more aggressive and domineering. Does that preclude one from acting like the other? Nope. Is that sexist? Nope. It's just how some things are, and why we are a species and a culture are continuing to get better. I'm not saying it's okay and shouldn't change. I'm not saying that it's right, but it is how things currently are and things don't change overnight. That doesn't mean it's sexist to say two women being bitchy or two men being douchey is inherently sexist. Two men can be bitchy, it's a term that describes a specific way of interacting regardless of gender, but happens to describe something that is more commonly ascribed to how women interact. This kind of tone about things makes me lose so much respect for the community saying women are being excluded, because it shows that you only see things painted in the color you happen to be able to see. Everything about the founder's wife shows classic power struggle. The creepy brogrammer isn't uncommon and was probably being addressed, but proper HR can take a while to create a paper trail, even in large companies.
yet another example of why
they do half the work
they cry when they are criticized
they claim harassment to get what they want
if they are in their 20s its an almost guarantee they will get pregnant at some point and be even more of a drain
No false dichotomy there. Gender problems are people problems, but people problems are *not* gender problems. This was not a gender problem, but it was, and is, a people problem.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Female engineers and executives are normal and plentiful here.
(Should be "casual".) These things seem like a reasonable opinion:
1) A lot happened that Julie Ann Horvath is not mentioning. It is impossible to judge the situation with the small amount of information, especially since it comes from only one person.
2) The major incident mentioned in the TechCrunch story involves 2 women.
3) TechCrunch damaged its reputation by acting as though the story is extremely important when clearly the TechCrunch writer knows only one side. That story calls into question whether TechCrunch is adequately edited. Can we trust TechCrunch to be sure stories are reported accurately? Or is TechCrunch the Fox News of technology?
4) Many companies have a somewhat unhealthy social environment. Most men would just get a job elsewhere. At present, a woman can claim that there was discrimination against her, and people will say that the problems can be understood as men against women.
5) A book about feminism a woman friend gave me many years ago said, "In Italy feminism is pro-female. In the U.S. feminism is anti-male." The way the story in reported seems to indicate that Julie Ann Horvath was using the company as a target for her anger, anger that was there long before she joined the company.
Her Encyclopedia Dramatica entry.
yes, thanks for verifying you're sexist
So, it was time for a job change, and what better way than to be paid -- "on leave" -- to search. Plus, getting your name in the press helps with self-promotion. What's not to like?
news at 11
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
The link you provide also indicate something overly suspicious about this rug story: "One employee, Horvath says, thought she was rejected for membership in Double Union, a feminist hackerspace, because of the rug. Double Union did parody the rug on its crowdfunding page, but denied that it would reject a possible member because of the rug."
Maybe now that she's no longer citing harassment they can get to the heart of why she left.
Horvath has a background in marketing and virtually no examples of code to be found anywhere. Being able to sprinkle a little script onto some markup does not make you an engineer.
And keep in mind that this is not the first time she's played the sexism card. Horvath led a 'geek feminism' campaign to get rid of a rug (yes, a rug) because she objected to the word 'meritocracy'. Because we all know that meritocracy is a myth and that everyone's contribution to Open Source is equally important. Focusing on the people who actually write code is just sexism. *Gag*
According to her Twitter profile, she listens to rap music. 'nuff said.
Sounds like a lot of scumbags worked there. The guy who professed love for Horvath and then ripped out her code when she rejected him ought to be fired. If HR there is like most HR departments, they're completely worthless when it comes to protecting workers from harrasement. Their inability to protect her from her stalker and the founder's wife (who had no business being there since she's not an employee) are pretty typical. Horvath needs to lawyer and sue Github and file a complaint with the EEOC.
What is it with Women who work in Software Dev? They seem to think that men just sit around making generalizations about them...... oh wait
Has anyone else noticed from all the comments here that everyone's first reaction is to try and find a reason why there was no sexism going on?
Cue the "I'm not sexist but..."
Blaming the harassed for being harassed: story at 11.
Cunts like Horvath always ruin situations.
I bet the people at GitHUb are glad she is gone.
I looked at their website, and then wished I hadn't.
Their whole concept of a "feminist hackerspace" goes completely against the whole idea of what a hackerspace IS.
PROTIP: hackerspaces are for PEOPLE. ALL people. Going "wurr burr we ban men lolololol because SUM MEN AER BAD" makes you exactly the equal of the kind of men you seem to loathe so much.
Grow the fuck up and live in the real world, "Double Onion".
First assholes would appear to be boss + boss's wife. It's amusing this is painted as some sexist outrage when the prime mover seems to be the boss's wife, a woman.
Second asshole would seem to be the jilted co-worker, if her allegations are true. What kind of misfit weirdo just goes up to a co-worker and starts blathering about his love. Learn social cues, you neckbeard loser. If she's interested in you it will be apparent at least to some degree, respond in kind.
Third asshole would seem to be Horvath. The whole "meritocracy rug" incident proves this out. More than likely she's a mediocre engineer at best and blames the lack of people worshiping her code on "teh sexism".
None of this really surprises me. People are just assholes, and yes men are pigs. But really I would chalk a lot of this up to people being young. I was (an even bigger) asshole until I hit about 30. So in a company of young neckbeards and chip-firmly-on-shoulder Feminists I can't imagine things working out well.
All gender problems are people problems, but not all people problems are gender problems. Come on, this is logical reasoning 101, chapter 1. When he says "this is a people problem, not a gender problem", he is not saying "gender problems are not people problems", he is saying "this belongs only in the super set of people problems, but outside the subset of gender problems."
Work on your reading comprehension.
The reminded me about the way scientology seeks to 'manage' their members' relationships, even so far as dictating who they can and cannot marry.
Why is it okay to mistreat non-engineers? Why does job title make any difference?
you had me at #!
I am not saying my experience is despositive, but i have never worked with a group of developers in which assholism was not the order of the day. Since sexism is a form of assholism, then it's not surprising this is what she experienced.
And it's not just developers. When NASA sent up astronauts in the beginning, one of the first theigs they discovered was that sending up teams of three was a mistake *because two of them would would gang up on the remaining one* .and that represents the behavior of high functioning , high intelligence success stories.
AFAIK no one has stuidied how to identify and join groups which are not domionated by assholes or how to stop your group from devloving into a pit of vipers. aIt's a topic worthy of investigation, that's for sure. I know people who joined non- profits just to try to get away from assholism. I don't know if it worked or not for them.
For the record, assholism has been given a two part test (from Wikipedia's article on the book "The No Assoles Rule"
1 After encountering the person, do people feel oppressed, humiliated or otherwise worse about themselves?
2 Does the person target people who are less powerful than him/her?
We'll have to see what she does in the future to asee how she solves this problem for herself. I have no solutions except two-person companies. I wonder if any readers who share this interpretatiion of these events have ideas.
The best
Chances are this behaviour goes on with lots of people there. More than just herself.
The wife of the executive sounds to be a completely raging jealous type, whose relationship with her husband, she was very protective.
The Hula Hooping thing at the end, seems something dumb to add on. She had no problem with women hula hooping in the office, but the *MEN* oh those *MEN* how dare they not avert their eyes. Seriously ladies? If they didn't want to be seen hula hooping, they should have gone to a private conference room, or better yet, not done this in the office. Otherwise yeah men are going to look. I know women would like the office to be a sexually free place, but if that is so, then women have to do their part too. Don't wear clothes with a deep diving neckline, and not expect some glances. Don't dance to music (or hula hoop,) in the office. Yeah these may not seem like sexual things to a woman, but you have to remember men are not women. We are completely driven by visual stimuli. So don't fucking put on a show.
From the book : The No Assholer Rule
Their (assholes) unpleasant behaviours were catalogued by Sutton as The Dirty Dozen:[6]
Insults
Violation of personal space
Unsolicited touching
Threats
Sarcasm
Flames
Humiliation
Shaming
Interruption
Backbiting
Glaring
looks like she pretty much got a clean sweep of all available asshole behaviors. That deserves some kind of award.
Sorry but her story has the ring of truth for anyone in the industry more than a five years. Companies are by and large run the way a pirate ship is run and guess what, they're happily populated by would-be buccaneers who have a pirate's lawless and coersive mentality. Arbitrary authority, nepotism, verbal abuse, threats, intimiddation, you know, the above list.
What's REALLY enlightening here its to filter slashdot comments by their ratings. Filtering for "5" comments yields not the usual collection of insightful or funny stuff you want to read and reflect on because it's obviously drawn from personal experience, but rather abusive and or jocularly dismissive "rebuttals" to her story, myopically focused on some detail (hula hoops !) many of them authored by Anonymous Cowards who, presumably, started with scores of zero and "earned" their way to the top, despite the self imposed filter bubble of most readers.
I take this to mean one of a number of things. Github aficionados friends and supporters know how to jack the ratings system of Slashdot when the cause suits them. Slashdot is primarily populated by just the kind of knuckleheads the article's author is complaining about or the article itself did not attract the attention of people who accepted the headline as truthfuil and accurate, as if the headline had been: "Politicians are liars" claims small time campaign donor !
At any rate, as it stands, it's an interesting glimpse into Slashdot "culture" as it presents itself in reaction to this particular article at least. Not my tribe, that's for sure.
Explains it.
its sexism
when a man is treated poorly its life and we move on and harden the fuck up.
i don't see any references to actual sexism just a woman who doesn't play well with others grasping at any reason other than herself for an excuse
The more I read, the more I think that it's less a problem that Github is "a sexist environment", and more likely that GitHub is an *unprofessional environment".
Hula hoops at the office? Give me a break.
If you haven't read the TechCrunch story, you don't know what you're talking about and should shutup. The woman was clearly harassed. If it were me I'd have gotten punchy and fucked up someone at the company before leaving. She's way too kind.
is bored today
however you arrange it, the distinction is not helpful to this discussion whatsoever...what you say makes sense logically but in application its nothing more than an excuse to minimize sexism
sexism is a huge problem...whatever words you use...the actual behavior needs to change
seriously, the choice to contexualize the question as being dependent upon different "types" of problems is reductive and stupid
Thank you Dave Raggett
GitHub considered her an engineer.
Your assertions demand evidence, espcially this one:
I saw this article: http://valleywag.gawker.com/st...
Doesn't mention Horvath...***does*** mention other employees who didn't like the rug
Your bullshit is piling up fast...unless you have any evidence whatsover you're just a dumb troll
Thank you Dave Raggett
WTF you're an idiot.
You have to do some serious linguistic gymnastics to infer that from my comment.
She is *not* being inflamitory...she is using careful language.
Some have accused her of using inflamitory language to describe non-sexism...others have said she should have "spoken up sooner" citing her tweets from her first days at work saying she liked the job
whateverthefuck you thought i was saying is wrong
Thank you Dave Raggett
you missed my point entirely
sexism is **a problem for everyone**...it is *not* a singular behavior but an expression of selfishness & narcissism
if a team of coders has one woman who endures sexist comments & actions there is one *victim* but ***ITS A PROBLEM FOR THE WHOLE COMPANY***
In fact it's our whole industry.
And this doesn't even touch male/male or female->male sexism.
Thank you Dave Raggett
I would hate to see the quality of their code.
Glad I host my FOSS stuff on BitBucket. Atlassian is a very well-organized company.
Of course, only an idiot uses Git for commercial code, but, as these companies show, there's plenty of those. I know of at least a couple of Fortune 100 companies that use GitHub as their primary source code repository.
I use Perforce for the code that I get paid to write.
It is VERY necessary to be excellent at non-verbal communication. The little we know about the communication indicates that Julie Ann Horvath was angry and already thinking about leaving before the angry incidents, of which there were apparently MANY.
If you are at all involved with women from the U.S. culture, you should be aware that the woman culture in the U.S. is going through some very unhappy decades. If you want to learn more about that, you could read the book Learning to Play With a Lion's Testicles. The woman who wrote it is angry toward her family and toward a man in Africa who hosts volunteers. She is also angry with an elephant that doesn't like her. Later in the book, after many pages of calling her host a "Neanderthal" she is sexually attracted to her host. Typical confusion.
You said, "Uh, yeah, whatever. I thnk not." That's verbal and partly non-verbal communication. It shows disrespect for the person with whom you are communicating. It indicates that you feel disrespect and that you think only you know the answers.
I'm guessing that you don't do well with women in the U.S. culture. When they feel crazy, they don't want to be with someone who thinks that it is okay to be crazy. They want help.
How does pointing out that this may or may not be sexism at work minimize sexism? Calling something that is not sexism does nothing more than dilute the meaning of the word and the power of the concept, thereby trivializing and minimizing it. Calling into question whether an act is truly sexist actually does the opposite, as does making the effort to accurately define the concept.
When you paint everything the same color, that color begins to lose all meaning, as that color becomes normal, and normal is acceptable. Do you want sexism to become acceptable? If not, you'd best make sure you're not calling out normal and/or otherwise non-sexist behavior as sexist. That, my friend, is precisely why the distinction is not only helpful, but essential.
Point to the sexism, here, and back up your position. My ears and eyes are open.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Filtering for "5" comments yields not the usual collection of insightful or funny stuff you want to read and reflect on because it's obviously drawn from personal experience, but rather abusive and or jocularly dismissive "rebuttals" to her story, myopically focused on some detail (hula hoops !) many of them authored by Anonymous Cowards who, presumably, started with scores of zero and "earned" their way to the top, despite the self imposed filter bubble of most readers....I take this to mean one of a number of things.
You missed the obvious one. The folks being rated +5 are the same folks that get +5 ratings in every other topic, but they've learned that suggesting that sexism isn't the #1 problem in IT is a fast-track to never getting another job.
Political correctness is alive and well in IT.
Boo hoo hoo.
I'm a strong woman but the boys are so mean.
Woe is me.
I quit.
I wonder how many men, if going away with perceptions like these, would be ready to ascribe it to some "them vs. me" issue. I mean, one can't conclude on basis of statements like these that some sort of improper discrimination wasn't going on, but neither can one conclude that it was.
Not many, for much the same reasons that polls show that white consider us to be living in a post-racial worlds while nearly everyone else in America disagrees strongly.
You don't generally notice discrimination if you're not the one being discriminated against, since most of it will happen out of your sight. You may have some awareness that "some people" still act that way, but it will seem remote to you and likely overblown.
Does no one remember what it was like to be a geek or nerd in high school? Sometimes people act against you with open, gleeful hostility, but most of the time, it's just a subtle undercurrent of preconceived notions and dismissive attitudes. Guess what? It doesn't really go away when we get older. It just happens to different people.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
you can't point out the obvious and then make it seem like you're representing a "side" of the argument
***of course*** the behavior described could be misrepresented...pointing that out is redundant
***if the allegations are true*** then it is *sexism* by the Federal workplace standards
Thank you Dave Raggett
your link mentions the rug but not in any way that proves your point...
Thank you Dave Raggett
show it...I read the article, it doesn't claim what you say it claims..
copy and paste the applicable text, if it's so blantantly obvious to you it should be easy for you to demonstrate
Thank you Dave Raggett
Calling it a 'feminist' hackerspace does not deflect from the simple fact that it is in itself sexist.
Are you saying that another employees wife was harassing her and yelling at her for being a bad employee? What the fuck are you talking about? Read the fucking article!
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
"In short, Horvath said that she felt she was being treated differently internally simply due to her gender and not the quality of her work. " Pfft chicks and their hormonal issues, they always screw everythings up, from the article, it seems even the boss's wife contributed in making the situation... messy.
According to Horvath: “I met her and almost immediately the conversation that I thought was supposed to be casual turned into something very inappropriate. She began telling me about how she informs her husband’s decision-making at GitHub, how I better not leave GitHub and write something bad about them, and how she had been told by her husband that she should intervene with my relationship to be sure I was ‘made very happy’ so that I wouldn’t quit and say something nasty about her husband’s company because ‘he had worked so hard.’”
That's a face palm!
+pc
If you're deterred from leading by someone calling you bossy, you're probably not suited to be the Boss.
She sounds like a bitch on wheels with a jetpack strapped to her for good measure.
This woman was not an employee. Her abusive - dictatorial - power came solely from being the founder's wife ----
and the men who let her run riot,
Thank you. I needed to see that someone else was opposing the views of the that seem so prevalent in this thread. Your post and it's karma level have restored my faith in the goodness of some of the members of slashdots
I read the article on TechCrunch and going on the premise that it's factual (since it's the only source of info beyond comments here that I have) I find the behavior of the founder's wife to be completely unacceptable. HR should have stopped this when they first got wind of it. The founder's wife had no business being in the work place let alone intimidating Julie Ann. I won't comment on the hula hoop behavior other than to say it doesn't shock me as these guys probably don't get out much. If it's in front of them they're gonna look. That issue muddies the waters here and if anything HR should have stopped the activity if it was a problem. Sorry, it's a business and if something like that is distracting it has to move elsewhere. Julie Ann being intimidated and treated the way she was is unacceptable. The co-worker that was rebuffed that constantly changed her code and worked against her should have been dealt with sternly. Doesn't matter if he was well liked or not. He overstepped his bounds and should have been warned and possibly let go if his behavior didn't change. It's a shame this came down to a harassment issue as this is more of an unhealthy work environment issue where she as an employee wasn't taken care of as a priority.
I didn't see any serious allegations, just some picayune nonsense and hurt feelings. She's upset by "aggressive communication" on pull requests. The founder sends his wife around to have a chick-to-chick talk to see if there's anything to be done about keeping her happy. She blows up at that and complains to the net.
It's not enough to be a brilliant engineer and designer these days. You also need to exhibit some semblance of social skills, tact, and etiquette. Despite all the general dislike creative designers often harbor towards management personnel, there are equally brilliant and effective management staff capable of preventing the issues alleged to have happened at GitHub. Whether it's a large corporation that requires a dedicated managerial department or a small team of 20 designers, someone has to step up and control negative office politics. Some of the alleged behaviors from other team members is simply unacceptable and indicative of extremely ineffective and totally incompetent management.
+1
how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion
I don't value dipshits who don't know what they are doing, regardless of gender.
Basically, she is shit and wants to blame others.
Fuck that. I hope she never gets a job in the IT sector again.
If you can't stand the heat, get back in the kitchen.