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I'm always hesitant to bring my fiancee to hacker conferences, but she wants to support me and understand "what I do," so she has been to DEFCON the past three

I'm always hesitant to bring my fiancee to hacker conferences, but she wants to support me and understand "what I do," so she has been to DEFCON the past three years. Yeah, she gets hit on. A lot. Mostly by drunk, smelly guys, and then proceeds to tell me how much it sucks. Her ass was grabbed several times at DEFCON events. My understand is that it's not an altogether pleasant experience for a non-totally-nerdy girl to spend any length of time at security conferences... and what with BSides and DEFCON, we were there a week. But here's the thing: girls are going to get hit on at a drunken Black Hat party at PURE just as much as they'd get hit on at a drunken normal night party at PURE. Yes, it's hackers, and you'd maybe expect better behavior (unless you've been to a lot of these things), but is the behavior worse than any other night club? I'm not a lady, but based on what I've heard, not really. Las Vegas is a dirty, "sinful" place, and any moderately attractive woman going out to a bar or club there is going to get hit on. Now, when we're talking about disgusting, incessant harassment, that's different. And that is the line I think we need to draw. Sure, it's difficult because many of these "hackers" are severely lacking in the "social skills" department, but walking up to a woman and grabbing her boobs is going to get you slapped and probably arrested. Anywhere. Personally, I didn't see a lot of that... just a bunch of nerdy, socially awkward guys trying (and failing) to pick up women.

DividesByZero 14y ago
"but is the behavior worse than any other night club" So what? Other nightclubs aren't representing the hacker community. This sort of behaviour ought to be attacked anywhere anyone has the power to attack it.
- cantankerous 14y ago
  The underlying point is that this is part of a systemic, larger problem with many men and how they relate to women..hacker or no.
TillE 14y ago
> Her ass was grabbed several times at DEFCON events. > but walking up to a woman and grabbing her boobs is going to get you slapped and probably arrested. Anywhere. Personally, I didn't see a lot of that... just a bunch of nerdy, socially awkward guys trying (and failing) to pick up women. ...what?
knowtheory 14y ago
Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers and colleagues, there is a certain level of respect and decorum that I would like to assume would be present amongst a community that aspires at least to some modicum of collegiality. You can say that the security community (which granted isn't particularly my scene) is rough and tumble, but surely there should be some expectation of some basic human respect. I guess put more succinctly, just because it's held at a night club, doesn't make a conference party any less a conference related function.
- ricardobeat 14y ago
  Isn't his point that a party is a party? Being a party at a night club, conference or not, makes all the difference.
- obituary_latte 14y ago
  It's not just a conference, but a conference of mostly socially inept and humanly horny gentle(or less-so)men. Not at all to excuse the behavior, but as always, buyer beware. Perhaps a partial solution would be to have a track dedicated to social relations (not engineering!). Maybe include some of the finer points of a stay in Las fucking Vegas. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough, I'm not excusing inappropriate or damaging behavior. It is important, though, that situational awareness be accounted for. In a conference for cops, of course this behavior wouldn't be expected. In a conference of mostly lonely males... What I'm saying is that perhaps education may warrant a better outcome rather than furthering the perpetrators into a social black hole. That is if we are talking about otherwise "normal" folk in a drunken state rather than something more pathological--which I think we are. Goons can should an do deal with those others handily afaik. -- Edit: here we go with the downvotes. If you feel that way, and read past the first paragraph, please expand beyond an anonymous click of the mouse. How do you ever expect anything to progress without discussion? I may very well be far off base, and am more than happy to discuss. I'd also be more than happy to admit I'm wrong if that's the case. But please, I beg of you, let's talk about it.
  - 14y ago
rdl 14y ago
I agree that verbal hitting on isn't per se offensive, even if it's not something I'd do or suggest at a professional event (unless you know the person, odds are very high that a female at a hacker related party is either really on guard due to the 50 other people who have hit on her, or is someone's girlfriend or spouse, or both. Not a very productive environment.) If people are grabbing your fiancee's ass at events, either you or she should be talking to the conference organizers. I assume none of this happened at BSidesLV. (Personally, I'm waiting for someone to go reaching for a female attendee's ass and brush up against her M11, due to being from OSI or whatever and attending for work. I suspect hilarity would ensue...)
johnbender 14y ago
I might be reading this wrong but let me paraphrase your argument or rather what I read as its implication: "Guys sexually harass women in other contexts so that means it's really not that bad at DEFCON. It's just equally bad." To which I would reply that this behavior needs to change regardless of whether it's DEFCON or a "regular" night at a club. We just happen to be discussing it in context here.
pbiggar 14y ago
I don't think this affects your point, but on a random night in Pure, women will outnumber men by maybe 4-to-1, and the same is true of (I believe) most Vegas nightclubs.

DividesByZero 14y ago

"but is the behavior worse than any other night club" So what? Other nightclubs aren't representing the hacker community. This sort of behaviour ought to be attacked anywhere anyone has the power to attack it.

cantankerous 14y ago
The underlying point is that this is part of a systemic, larger problem with many men and how they relate to women..hacker or no.

TillE 14y ago

> Her ass was grabbed several times at DEFCON events. > but walking up to a woman and grabbing her boobs is going to get you slapped and probably arrested. Anywhere. Personally, I didn't see a lot of that... just a bunch of nerdy, socially awkward guys trying (and failing) to pick up women. ...what?

knowtheory 14y ago

Honestly I don't think you're operating from the same baseline for behavior that I and others do. If you're at a conference, you're there amongst your peers and colleagues, there is a certain level of respect and decorum that I would like to assume would be present amongst a community that aspires at least to some modicum of collegiality. You can say that the security community (which granted isn't particularly my scene) is rough and tumble, but surely there should be some expectation of some basic human respect. I guess put more succinctly, just because it's held at a night club, doesn't make a conference party any less a conference related function.

ricardobeat 14y ago
Isn't his point that a party is a party? Being a party at a night club, conference or not, makes all the difference.
obituary_latte 14y ago
It's not just a conference, but a conference of mostly socially inept and humanly horny gentle(or less-so)men. Not at all to excuse the behavior, but as always, buyer beware. Perhaps a partial solution would be to have a track dedicated to social relations (not engineering!). Maybe include some of the finer points of a stay in Las fucking Vegas. Again, and I can't reiterate this enough, I'm not excusing inappropriate or damaging behavior. It is important, though, that situational awareness be accounted for. In a conference for cops, of course this behavior wouldn't be expected. In a conference of mostly lonely males... What I'm saying is that perhaps education may warrant a better outcome rather than furthering the perpetrators into a social black hole. That is if we are talking about otherwise "normal" folk in a drunken state rather than something more pathological--which I think we are. Goons can should an do deal with those others handily afaik. -- Edit: here we go with the downvotes. If you feel that way, and read past the first paragraph, please expand beyond an anonymous click of the mouse. How do you ever expect anything to progress without discussion? I may very well be far off base, and am more than happy to discuss. I'd also be more than happy to admit I'm wrong if that's the case. But please, I beg of you, let's talk about it.
- 14y ago

rdl 14y ago

I agree that verbal hitting on isn't per se offensive, even if it's not something I'd do or suggest at a professional event (unless you know the person, odds are very high that a female at a hacker related party is either really on guard due to the 50 other people who have hit on her, or is someone's girlfriend or spouse, or both. Not a very productive environment.) If people are grabbing your fiancee's ass at events, either you or she should be talking to the conference organizers. I assume none of this happened at BSidesLV. (Personally, I'm waiting for someone to go reaching for a female attendee's ass and brush up against her M11, due to being from OSI or whatever and attending for work. I suspect hilarity would ensue...)

johnbender 14y ago

I might be reading this wrong but let me paraphrase your argument or rather what I read as its implication: "Guys sexually harass women in other contexts so that means it's really not that bad at DEFCON. It's just equally bad." To which I would reply that this behavior needs to change regardless of whether it's DEFCON or a "regular" night at a club. We just happen to be discussing it in context here.

pbiggar 14y ago

I don't think this affects your point, but on a random night in Pure, women will outnumber men by maybe 4-to-1, and the same is true of (I believe) most Vegas nightclubs.