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Software Engineer Liz Bennett Talks About Being a Woman in a Nearly All Male Workplace (Video)
This conversation was generated by a post Eric S. Raymond published on his "Armed and Dangerous" blog that said, "...if you are any kind of open-source leader or senior figure who is male, do not be alone with any female, ever, at a technical conference. Try to avoid even being alone, ever, because there is a chance that a 'women in tech' advocacy group is going to try to collect your scalp." Eric later wrote a post about how Social Justice Warriors may be more of a problem than the problems they complain about.
Whoa! Predatory women in tech trying to entrap people like (and including) Linus Torvalds the way an old-time private eye got the goods on an errant husband as part of a divorce case? Scary! And worrying about thoughtcrime, too? Oh my! But Liz Bennett is an actual software engineer who works at Loggly in San Francisco. She writes for her company's blog when she's not writing Java code, has a (not very active) GitHub account, and plays bassoon. And her attitude is similar to the one espoused by ESR in the second post (above): write great code -- and if you do, they (for any value of they) have no right to be negative about you, period. And, she says, before you take a job you should be sure the company is a good "fit" for you and doesn't harbor people who will work to bring you down -- which is great advice for anyone, in any field of endeavor.
Whoa! Predatory women in tech trying to entrap people like (and including) Linus Torvalds the way an old-time private eye got the goods on an errant husband as part of a divorce case? Scary! And worrying about thoughtcrime, too? Oh my! But Liz Bennett is an actual software engineer who works at Loggly in San Francisco. She writes for her company's blog when she's not writing Java code, has a (not very active) GitHub account, and plays bassoon. And her attitude is similar to the one espoused by ESR in the second post (above): write great code -- and if you do, they (for any value of they) have no right to be negative about you, period. And, she says, before you take a job you should be sure the company is a good "fit" for you and doesn't harbor people who will work to bring you down -- which is great advice for anyone, in any field of endeavor.
The whole summary was disgusting. Roblimo kept trying to bait her into talking about sexism during the interview, and she wouldn't go for it. Then he turns the whole thing into a statement about ESR. If I was Liz I would be pissed.
The problem is that for so many women, they have to write BETTER code than their male peers to be considered on the same level. They are put upon to bust stereo-types. And that may be harder for some women to do in work environs which, many times, cater explicitly to male employees.
Yes, this is an indirect response to the video, but the summary and the slant of the question suggest that the interview is as much about grinding a particular axe as interviewing Liz Bennett.
What was the purpose of the first paragraph?
Provocation. This is the new SlashDice.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
(WTF?)
Very simple. From now on everyone submitting the link with a real comment will get the information that it's already been posted. By posting like this, the get to avoid ESR. ESR is more than a bit controversial and says some (many) stupid things, however he's got some really important points now. Roblimo is closing down the debate.
See: Rebecca Watson, Emma Sulkowicz, Connie St. Louis... the list goes gone. It's a perfectly fair fear, the consequences to women who aren't part of that malicious cult aren't fair, but as feminists are so fond of telling us everyone is "schrodinger's person".
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
You're using his code every day, and so are billions of other people.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Liz here. I knew what the interview was going to be about going in to it (even the part about ESR) so, for the record, I'm not annoyed. I was happy to talk to Roblimo about it.
Whilst I'm not sure anyone has been the victim of unfounded allegations by the "womens rights" lot in the IT industry, it has happened elsewhere in science - remember Professor Tim Hunt who spoke at a women's science conference, 3 sentences of his speech were tweeted by a SJW-type and next thing you know, he's out of a job (curing cancer no less) and widely criticised for being a misogynistic white male ba****d.
Turns out the truth is nothing like how its all been blown up to be, but that hasn't got him his job back. I think this is the real issue ESR is talking about, even if he's doing a poor job of highlighting it.