Ada Initiative Organization To End, But Its Work Will Continue

An anonymous reader writes: Today the Ada Initiative announced that the nonprofit will shut down in mid-October. Founded in 2011, the Ada Initiative is a nonprofit feminist organization created to help improve open source culture and build a more inviting, productive, safe environment for women. In this interview with Opensource.com, the co-founders look back at the organization's successes, and the work that still needs to be done.

Comments

Good

[Intrepid imaginaut]

The Ada Initiative is a hardcore feminist organisation whose conference guidelines were used to justify the expulsion and subsequent firings of two engineers in the donglegate debacle. Despite claiming to be non violent, apparently they aren't bothered by suggestions to hand out the S.C.U.M. Manifesto at conferences - that would be the Society For Cutting Up Men - whose deranged author had attempted to murder Andy Warhol. They were also responsible for shutting down a well known and respected speaker at another conference.

These sorts of parasitic strident supremacist organisations aren't helping women, they're actively trying to damage men, and the sooner they are revealed for what they are the better. The extent to which this diseased movement has made its way into many parts of society will, for future generations, become a matter for horrified fascination, an education in mass institutionalised fraud and hysteria, an object lesson in the ease with which a moral panic can be raised.

And don't even bother with accusations of misogyny. Seriously, it's a sad and transparent attempt to shame the voices of truth into silence.

Re:Good

[Intrepid imaginaut]

You think that a comment with no replies means that the organization isn't bothered by it? If you're not a hypocrite, go read Slashdot at -1, and make those same accusations about the crowd here.

Slashdot deliberately exercises very little editorial control, I would certainly expect a professional organisation to police the commentary on its website.

... who was going to give a talk about sex, rape, and the use of drugs to obviate consent, at a computer security conference. And it wasn't the Ada Initiative that "shut it down", but rather, the conference organizer decided to shut it down because 'the talk included "discussion of date rape drugs"'. In fact, contrary to your accusation, the Ada Initiative suggested ways that the speaker could still make the presentation, specifically doing a video of the talk or as an after-con talk. As the organizer states, "I have since reached out to Violet about recording her talk so we can put it up on our video site."

Trying to rewrite history doesn't work very well on the internet, you know.

I arrived at the Security BSides venue half an hour before my talk was set to begin, and I tracked down the main organizer to get connected with the speaker wrangler. I found him next door at DNA Pizza, where he was talking with this person. I apologized for the interruption, the organizer told me where to wait, and the woman he was talking to smiled at me. I smiled back.

The organizer came into the LockSport Lounge around 10 minutes later and asked if he could speak with me. I asked Eric Michaud to join me.

The organizer said, “So, I need to ask you: is there any rape in your talk?”

I said, “Is there any WHAT in my talk?” I was shocked.

“Well, there’s been a complaint about your talk.” He continued, “It’s from someone who is a rape survivor and they said they will be triggered by your talk if there’s any rape in it.”

“No, no, there’s no rape in my talk. I talk about human sexual systems and the effects drugs, including caffeine and alcohol, affect the performance of these systems and the dangers of mixing different things. What’s going on here?”

He replied, “Someone has said they will be triggered by your talk, and they’re a rape survivor.”

“Okay. In the talk I do cover ‘date rape’ drugs, and I explain their actions and how they’re dangerous.”

Then he said, “Do you describe how to use date rape drugs? They said that if you are going to tell people how to use date rape drugs then it’s the same as rape, and there’s going to be a problem.”

I told the organizer, “Wow, this really sucks - I know it’s not your fault. Well, how about if I shift the talk to a different room? We could put it on the smaller stage where the room has doors that close, or I could do it in the LockSport Lounge. Hell, I can even present it at the afterparty, it’s no problem. What is going to be easiest for you? It looks like you’re in a shitty position.”

“No, they’re here and they’re not leaving. They told me they’ll make it into a bigger problem if you do your talk.”

I paused for a minute. I said, “Okay. I guess I won’t give my talk, then. I don’t want this to be a problem for you, you’re in a shit position. It sounds like this person is going to make it into a bigger problem no matter what you do. It’s no big deal, don’t worry about it. Maybe I can do a video of the talk and BSides can have it as an after-con talk.”

The way the organizer looked at me, I knew that wouldn’t happen, either.

I said,

Re:"save environment for women"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't feel harassed or oppressed when people suggest I shouldn't abuse women.

Similarly, black people shouldn't feel harassed or oppressed when people constantly remind them that they shouldn't steal things.