This is a stupid article, and is exactly the reason why the Adria Richards incident has such a negative impact on the tech industry when it comes to equality.<p>People were NOT pissed because a feminist spoke up. Nor were they pissed that someone was punished for making a sexist joke. People were pissed because the joke was NOT sexist, in any way shape or form, and the guys who made the jokes were unnecessarily shamed in public.<p>The articles premise is that the joke was sexist, and it simply wasn't.<p>Worse yet, it talks about HN as if there was all of this sexism going on in the comments for the articles that were posted here. There really wasn't. There was a lot of valid discussion on the subject that I don't think was particularly sexist. And Reddit? Reddit has SRS. These two websites are not some bastion for sexist pigs. They were not responsible for the death threats and abuse that she got.<p>This article is a perfect example of how overreacting to trivial things will take attention away from legitimate sexism. All it does is slow down the move towards equality.
There is a lot to like about the article and it makes some great points, but it also does a lot of 'wild leaps' when they favor the argument the article is making.<p><i>In short, it requires geeks to re-examine their own revenge fantasies of being outsiders who now rule the world and admit that they might, themselves, be actively excluding others.</i><p>Right, sure.. there couldn't be any other reason than some type of strange 'revenge'. And I'm sure feminists are all about just getting 'revenge' for when some guy dumped them.<p><i>This is why seemingly tiny, individual acts of sexism — like innocent dongle jokes – matter. Such “microaggressions” combine to reinforce structural sexism.</i><p>There is probably sexism in the tech industry (and in every other industry too), but making a dongle or fork joke is in no way sexist. It is immature, but there is definitely nothing sexist about it. It's akin to Shakespeare having his characters make a joke or two about needles. Or is Shakespeare now sexist too? (Let me guess, he is?)<p>I think it's important to realize that there is nothing unique here about the tech industry. The same types of jokes are made every day in schools across the world - and the most sexist areas I have ever been in have been the mining and physical labour industries in Africa. The pre-school industry is most developed countries is equally sexist, with every male teacher viewed as a sexual predator. The tech industry is amazingly non-sexist compared to that.<p>If you want to convince people with your points (I was fairly convinced up till around half way through your article) - you need to stick more to actionable reality.
What this fails to mention is the _way_ that Adria handled it.<p>If she hadn't conducted a massively public shaming exercise, rather than saying "Shut up, I'm trying to watch a conference and listening to your dick jokes isn't helping." and then escalated to the conference organisers if that hadn't helped, and _then_ escalated to a public name/shame if _that_ hadn't helped, then I think people would be much happier with the situation.
It's funny how I agree with most of what the article has to say only be thrown by the conclusion that "Sadly, what happened to Adria Richards tells women they’re only welcome in technology if they keep their mouths shut.", which clashes with the premise that the author would not attempt to "discern whether Richards was in the right or the wrong". Clearly, if her only tort is make herself heard, she must be in the right?<p>That said, there are clearly, in the "tech community" at large, a fair number of misogynistic cowards, which find it a lot easier to issue death threats from behind their keyboards. This does translate into "most of the tech community hates feminists", especially given how PyCon was actually trying to encourage women to get into tech.
I think this is a really well argued article. There is a problem in the technology community and its not just a minority of people. There is a pervasive acceptance of misogyny. Its not just the cowards typing death threats its the casual remarks that build up into an environment that isn't welcoming to women. Collectively we need to find ways to improve ourselves, our communities and our workplaces that make them welcoming to a more diverse group of people and not break down into bitter arguments over the suggestion of unfairness.
Really? Another re-hash of this incident by someone outside of the development community with an biased agenda?<p>Painting the everyone in the technical field with a broad brush doesn't fix any problems. Especially insulting the people who are professional, respectful and trying to fix some of the problems.
Wait, what?<p>I have never heard of Men's Rights Activism - and suddenly HN is a active example of such misanthropy?<p>Is this a different HN to this one? Or am I missing something?
This article is vitriolic.<p>> One reason for this is the growing popularity of “Men’s Rights Activism” (MRA) — groups of men who refer to feminism as “misandry” and advocate vociferously that men face more discrimination than women.<p>It is a misrepresentation of MRA. Discussing about discrimination practices against men does not make all feminists automatically the enemy. MRA is about real issues that need attention, affecting boys, fathers, husbands and men in general.<p>This line from the article throws blame without any justification, discredits a movement similar to feminism as mere slander against feminism and frames the issue as a contest "who's suffering the most, women or men?". What if both suffer?<p>> Men’s Rights Activism sort of makes sense in a culture where masculinity places just as many limitations on men as femininity does on women.<p>So, men can't complain as long as the total suffering of women is greater than the total suffering of men. It's one or the other, not both, according to OP. Only one group is entitles to complain.<p>I'd comment more but I'm too angry after finishing the article. She just dismisses men's issues wholesale.
I really take issue with the article's title. The tech community doesn't have a problem with feminists. It has a problem with dingbats who make a mountain out of a molehill in order to garner attention for themselves.
I don't really like this article, and I think it draws too many conclusions that are indefensible.<p>However, I do think there was a great deal of misogyny associated with one aspect of this entire debacle: the DDOS on SendGrid.<p>It's one thing to unleash outrage against Richards via social media (although posts threatening her with violence are disgusting and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law). But to take it to several levels of indirection and to target her employer with a DDOS to me is misogyny.<p>Where was the outrage and the DDOS on Playhaven for originally firing the developer? The Internet Mob completely forgot about Playhaven's role in this entire thing, and clearly focused on Richards and wanted her and everyone associated with her to pay on every level they could. If I remember correctly, there was a petition that was asking Playhaven to reinstate the fired developer. There were no violent tweets to Playhaven or the CEO, from my understanding. There was no such petition to fire or reprimand Richards, there was only threats of violence and a complete shutdown of her employer.
"If we admit there are structural barriers to entry, and a culture that actively discourages and women and men of color from participating, then it logically follows that technology is not a meritocracy."<p>Why would we admit such a thing? There is no evidence presented in the article to support the idea that there are structural barriers or that there is a culture that actively discourages participation. A lower level of participation in itself isn't evidence that either of these exist.
Just another attempt of the (liberal, regrettably) media to morph the story in something that is not.<p>The incident name (by consensus) is not "Female activist is exposed to techies' hate" but "Grandstanding blogger doxxes fellow developer, falls on own sword." Shifting focus and sweeping inconvenient facts under the rug is not going to make them go away.<p><a href="http://t.co/Be9d7ISHlu" rel="nofollow">http://t.co/Be9d7ISHlu</a>
I agree with everything said, except this:<p>> to a more inclusive one where penis jokes and booth babes are no longer acceptable<p>I'm on board with no booth babes, but what's wrong with penis jokes? It's not like women never make jokes about bodily functions/parts.
First they came for the penis jokes, and I didn't speak up ... etc etc.<p>This situation touches on subjects that are very emotionally charged and, whatever side one is on, we'll have visceral reactions confounding us. I propose a mental exercise, hoping it would clear the air, if that is possible. Reverse everything having to do with gender and sex about the situation. Eg, two women at a stereotypically women-dominated career conference make a cringe worthy vagina joke. Male activist overhearing them takes offense and goes on public shaming offensive via social media. Is this mirror situation the functional equivalent ? Would it get the same public reaction ? Would the same two people lose their jobs and their reputations ? If no, why not ? If yes, why ? Cui bono ?<p>PS: not disputing anything about the trolls sending threats to Adria Richards. They are the lowest of the low, and their reactions were surely sexist.
I think the best parts of the article don't deal with gender or with Donglegate at all.<p>""When considering the dismal numbers of women (as well as African-American and Latino men) in tech, the meritocratic presumption is that these minorities aren’t good at or interested in technology; otherwise, there would be more of them.""<p>She has a point in that minorities are also heavily under-represented in tech. I want to put aside the gender politics for now because that's not where I feel the author is strongest. I feel that she's making a good point by pointing out essentially: okay, you guys claim you aren't sexist. That you treated Adria poorly because she was an attention whore and not just a woman.<p>But what explains the under-representation of other minorities in tech? Why aren't there as many African America n or Latino American programmers?<p>I feel like she's right in saying the tech world isn't truly meritocratic.
It's interesting to me that none of the "mainstream" (Mashable, TechCrunch, Wired) articles have discussed her public shaming of the two programmers, or how she dealt with the issue in general (i.e., not confronting them directly). In fact, most of these articles focus on the "rape and death threats" that Adria received which I'd like to think are the at the fringe of this discussion. They're nothing to take lightly, but I don't think it's fair to say they're representative of the tech community at large.<p>Public shaming is a method of cyber-bullying, and in this scenario, I think that label fits Adria's actions. While cyber-bullying is also a hot topic these days, it seems to be completely overlooked in this matter.<p>I'd hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but I can't help but think Adria got her friends in the media to write some fluff pieces.
Is it just me or is the entire article premised on this sentence:<p>"If we admit there are structural barriers to entry, and a culture that actively discourages and women and men of color from participating, then it logically follows that technology is not a meritocracy."<p>However, she fails to demonstrate/prove this fact. So if one doesn't admit it, the whole opus is hard to take seriously.