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This is beyond disgusting. How did the people in the room not simply walk out? ETA: Scripts are good for these things. It's difficult, in the shock and confusi
by MBlume 14y ago
This is beyond disgusting. How did the people in the room not simply walk out?
ETA: Scripts are good for these things. It's difficult, in the shock and confusion of the moment, to decide what to do. So, here's one script. When you're in a presentation, and a speaker starts talking like this (or talking about "gang-bang interviews" or whatever else) you stand quietly, and you leave. You tweet what happened. If there isn't a clear apology (and we haven't heard one from Dell yet) you don't attend the conference the following year. This is how we, as a community, communicate to one another what kind of behavior is and is not acceptable.
- polemic 14y agoAfter a recent experience of being confronted with sexism and, ultimately, not handling it how I feel like I should have, I think this is a really good idea. Having a script (or at least thinking about what I would do, in advance) would've made a big difference. A lot of the time, our natural response is to freeze or act as if it didn't happen, and that's not ok. Raging on twitter after the fact is not nearly as effective as direct and immediate feedback.
- Lanzaa 14y agoI don't think leaving and tweeting about how you feel is a very useful response. It could lead to a form of evaporative cooling[1] and cause the behavior of the group to worsen. It may be better to put pressure on the group to change. Find someone who is in charge and complain about the behavior you find inappropriate and encourage other people who find the behavior inappropriate to complain as well. [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beliefs/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/lr/evaporative_cooling_of_group_beli...