> Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, There are some things that can be dealt with more appropriately at a different level than

> Demanding stronger sexual harassment laws is a legitimate request, There are some things that can be dealt with more appropriately at a different level than the legal level. In the US, we have a fairly strong concept of freedom of speech. There are certain hurtful, hateful things that you are legally allowed to say. But that doesn't make them welcome at a private event. And that doesn't mean that people who say them to other people at a bar meetup related to an event should continue to be welcome at that event. We can put higher standards on what is acceptable behavior than merely that which is legal. > but trying to paint the tech community as misogynist because of some random bar encounter is in my opinion unacceptable. I am very unclear where you saw anyone painting the tech community as misogynist. One person complained about one event, and the fact that the organizers didn't have an effective policy in place for how to deal with that situation. She is recommending certain changes that could avoid this problem in the future, and her employer is supporting her by lending some weight to her complaint. This isn't painting the tech community as misogynist, and if we want to solve these kinds of problems, we need to avoid making those kinds of sweeping generalization and brushing off real problems just because someone misperceives a fairly narrow complaint as painting an entire wide group of people as misogynist.