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It is hardly “some random bar encounter”. This is the latest in a string of publicly described issues with sexual harassment in the tech community, both at conf

It is hardly “some random bar encounter”. This is the latest in a string of publicly described issues with sexual harassment in the tech community, both at conferences and elsewhere. The same rule applies here as with bugs reported by users: if one person is talking about this out loud, it means dozens are probably running into it and staying silent. That is unacceptable. And to consider conference organizers responsible for expelling people who are tarnishing the experience of their conference is hardly out of line. Conferences are not something that stops when you leave the conference area, because people travel to them. They are social experiences both on the conference grounds and outside of them. Nobody is saying it should be illegal for a conference organizer to allow people like this. But it's perfectly fair as a developer going to a conference or as a company sending developers to a conference to require that they have a policy of banning such members. Oh, and “he was drunk” is not an excuse. It is never an excuse. It is never an excuse for anything. I cannot stress this enough. Drunkenness is an excuse only because we allow it to be, not because there is any legitimacy to it. If you know you're an ass when you're drunk, well, it turns out, you can work on not being an ass when you're drunk, or, alternatively, you can simply not drink. If you do neither of these things, then you are responsible for every stupid thing you say and do while drunk. To be clear, I am aware you did not explicitly mention drunkenness as a valid excuse; however, your phrasing strongly implied it by correlating the saying of stupid things with being drunk at a bar. As such, I picked at that point because it's an attitude I've seen before, and I think it's a problem. My apologies if you didn't explicitly mean it that way.

stfu 14y ago
The drunk aspect was more to contrast the context. It just seems ridiculous to me to apply the same standard of sexual harassment at a bar scenario as the one that is in place in a work environment. Some cheesy pickup line might loose someone his job at day but get laid at night. It is clearly about context and social appropriateness. Both people in the story are in my opinion having some odd expectations in that regards.
- jakobe 14y ago
  The blog post was clearly not talking about "a cheesy pickup line". Please don't make a pretty obvious case of sexual harassment seem harmless.
- lambda 14y ago
  This went far, far beyond a cheesy pickup line. This was repeated harassment far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, even at a bar. She made it very clear that she wasn't interested, and he continued. She moved away, and he followed her and continued. She brought up the fact that he was married, and he continued. She brought up his daughter, and he made sexually disparaging comments about his own daughter. We should not confuse ambiguous situations in which someone makes a slightly off-color joke with serious, repeated harassment. That does nothing to help the situation.
Jach 14y ago
The other uncharitable interpretation is: "What did you expect when you get drunk men and women together at a bar?" But focusing on the GP's general point, I feel like this was more of a failure of the bar (shouldn't they be on the lookout for these things?) than the conference. Also, if you're being harassed at a bar, why don't you immediately tell the bar owner/tender/bouncer or police instead of waiting a full day before telling the conference organizer? (You can do the latter too, but the former was left out of the given narrative which makes me think it wasn't done.) [Edited for clarity.]
- neilk 14y ago
  The OP doesn't specify, but her alleged harasser is well known in the community already. So I would assume he's not just a regular conference attendee; he's probably got some technical reputation, and may be a featured speaker. That's usually what makes these things extra extra difficult. As for whether the bar is really part of the conference, I agree it's a bit of a grey zone. But in every such gathering, the unofficial parts are where most of the important stuff happens. If you have a conference where the women feel unwelcome doing that stuff, you don't really have a woman-friendly conference.
- wpietri 14y ago
  Perhaps you can tell us about the times you've been sexually harassed and immediately reported it? Having never been harassed like that, I don't know quite what I'd do. But I can think of any number of times I've taken a little while to go from "what the fuck just happened?" to feeling confident enough in my analysis to raise a ruckus.

stfu 14y ago

The drunk aspect was more to contrast the context. It just seems ridiculous to me to apply the same standard of sexual harassment at a bar scenario as the one that is in place in a work environment. Some cheesy pickup line might loose someone his job at day but get laid at night. It is clearly about context and social appropriateness. Both people in the story are in my opinion having some odd expectations in that regards.

jakobe 14y ago
The blog post was clearly not talking about "a cheesy pickup line". Please don't make a pretty obvious case of sexual harassment seem harmless.
lambda 14y ago
This went far, far beyond a cheesy pickup line. This was repeated harassment far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior, even at a bar. She made it very clear that she wasn't interested, and he continued. She moved away, and he followed her and continued. She brought up the fact that he was married, and he continued. She brought up his daughter, and he made sexually disparaging comments about his own daughter. We should not confuse ambiguous situations in which someone makes a slightly off-color joke with serious, repeated harassment. That does nothing to help the situation.

Jach 14y ago

The other uncharitable interpretation is: "What did you expect when you get drunk men and women together at a bar?" But focusing on the GP's general point, I feel like this was more of a failure of the bar (shouldn't they be on the lookout for these things?) than the conference. Also, if you're being harassed at a bar, why don't you immediately tell the bar owner/tender/bouncer or police instead of waiting a full day before telling the conference organizer? (You can do the latter too, but the former was left out of the given narrative which makes me think it wasn't done.) [Edited for clarity.]

neilk 14y ago
The OP doesn't specify, but her alleged harasser is well known in the community already. So I would assume he's not just a regular conference attendee; he's probably got some technical reputation, and may be a featured speaker. That's usually what makes these things extra extra difficult. As for whether the bar is really part of the conference, I agree it's a bit of a grey zone. But in every such gathering, the unofficial parts are where most of the important stuff happens. If you have a conference where the women feel unwelcome doing that stuff, you don't really have a woman-friendly conference.
wpietri 14y ago
Perhaps you can tell us about the times you've been sexually harassed and immediately reported it? Having never been harassed like that, I don't know quite what I'd do. But I can think of any number of times I've taken a little while to go from "what the fuck just happened?" to feeling confident enough in my analysis to raise a ruckus.