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I do not think that OP doubts the existence of harassment, I think he doubts the causes of it. The cause written, "this person received horrific threats because

I do not think that OP doubts the existence of harassment, I think he doubts the causes of it. The cause written, "this person received horrific threats because she's good at her job and out teaching others how to use an up-and-coming programming technology" does seem pretty unlikely. On one hand, this comes off kinda' bad, as if we're looking for the real reason this person is being harassed, looking if they deserved it or not. No matter what prompted this harassment, this is wrong, terrible and should not happen to _anybody_ no matter the sex, position or actions of that person. But, I still have my curiosity as to what reason these harassers might have. They might be simply sexist but that seems a little exaggerated, considering there are other women that have exposure and don't seem to suffer the same level of harassment. I enjoy greatly reading Julia Evans's posts for example, and I haven't seen signs of harassment over there - maybe I haven't been paying attention. There might be something specific that this person did that made the harassers angry - I repeat, this is not to incriminate miss Jessie Frazelle, and she might not have done anything wrong, but something made the attackers angry, maybe something complety ridiculous. What would that thing be? If there is a thing this person did, this harassment might have originated even if she were a man. Maybe it's not such a sex thing after all? It seems there are plenty of public people that get death threats and are harassed, and these things are generally tailored to the sex of a person - women get killed an raped, men get killed and told to suck a dick. I don't know, I'm just confused - it's true there aren't many women in tech, and I'm as welcoming as possible but there are certain issues that I don't understand and don't know how to approach, but trying to solve them requires actually understanding them beyond a short article and evasive tweets.

tomlock 11y ago
For me the problem is that gozur88 "just doesn't believe" this, that the article seems "fishy" and that "experience" tells gozur that these things just-don't-happen in the post 1850 world. These are all the smells of an argument driven by an intuition prioritized over and above the real experiences of women in tech. Again and again we see this. The article that quantifies the amount of speaking roles in movies by gender, or if women have been sexually assaulted at work or not, excluded some datapoint, had one poorly stated point, didn't cover x or y or z, and therefore can be discarded. The problem is that no amount of evidence seems enough to please these people, and that any amount of links or anecdotes or documented cases seems to be discarded as cherry-picked. And the conclusion drawn is that the problem is overblown, and doesn't need to be addressed. Its interesting to me that you mention Julia Evans. I've never encountered her writing, but she definitely has a belief in the truth of women's stories about harassment. See here: http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/03/06/women-only-spaces-are-a-hack/ http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/03/06/women-only-spaces-are-a-hack/ Perhaps Julia would respond better to a direct e-mail asking her if she'd share any of her experiences in tech! Might be worth a shot?
cyphar 11y ago
> On one hand, this comes off kinda' bad, as if we're looking for the real reason this person is being harassed, looking if they deserved it or not. Hence why I used scare quotes for "deserved". People don't deserve to be harassed. As for "something that made the harassers angry", eh. I don't know. But that's not the point. The fact that people are so happy to create a toxic environment for other people is something we should address.

tomlock 11y ago

For me the problem is that gozur88 "just doesn't believe" this, that the article seems "fishy" and that "experience" tells gozur that these things just-don't-happen in the post 1850 world. These are all the smells of an argument driven by an intuition prioritized over and above the real experiences of women in tech. Again and again we see this. The article that quantifies the amount of speaking roles in movies by gender, or if women have been sexually assaulted at work or not, excluded some datapoint, had one poorly stated point, didn't cover x or y or z, and therefore can be discarded. The problem is that no amount of evidence seems enough to please these people, and that any amount of links or anecdotes or documented cases seems to be discarded as cherry-picked. And the conclusion drawn is that the problem is overblown, and doesn't need to be addressed. Its interesting to me that you mention Julia Evans. I've never encountered her writing, but she definitely has a belief in the truth of women's stories about harassment. See here: http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/03/06/women-only-spaces-are-a-hack/ http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/03/06/women-only-spaces-are-a-hack/ Perhaps Julia would respond better to a direct e-mail asking her if she'd share any of her experiences in tech! Might be worth a shot?

cyphar 11y ago

> On one hand, this comes off kinda' bad, as if we're looking for the real reason this person is being harassed, looking if they deserved it or not. Hence why I used scare quotes for "deserved". People don't deserve to be harassed. As for "something that made the harassers angry", eh. I don't know. But that's not the point. The fact that people are so happy to create a toxic environment for other people is something we should address.