4 ms·

I do think sexism exist, but I think the MAJOR problem is as...ole men. I am not a full gentleman but let's think: 1) I think some woman attractive. I will not

I do think sexism exist, but I think the MAJOR problem is as...ole men. I am not a full gentleman but let's think: 1) I think some woman attractive. I will not touch her as first move or even approach or stand too near. 2) There is better ways to extend the conversation instead of inviting to my 'bedroom'. 3) No or other excuses means no, thanks and farewell. 4) conferences are professional places, no place for flirting (they invented bars for that). 5) Ring on the finger? SHE is NOT interested. Somehow some men think that if the woman is NOT interested she has be 'wrong' or deserve more 'strong' signals. I support more woman at the conferences and I wish more woman take some stand at this cases and say it loud: 'TAKE OUT YOUR FILTHY HANDS from me' Saying that loud will teach a great lesson and avoid some posts. The main problem is not sexism is lack of politeness and manners.

blablabla123 14y ago
I think the point is more this: everything is optimized for men, it's like a self-amplifying loop. Sure the things you mention are also a problem, but women face that everywhere.
eightpersimmons 14y ago
Lack of manners and as..ole men are enabled by a sexist environment. These are symptoms of an underlying problem. Women don't feel safe in these environments because of the behavior of a relatively small number of individuals, but these individuals are enabled by a system problem in which their behavior is rationalized and ignored as just s social faux pas.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >Women don't feel safe in these environments Women don't feel safe in tech conferences? Like it's south central Los Angeles or something? I've attended several tech conferences, with women colleagues and friend, and I've not seen all this hoopla people constantly bring up on HN. Heck, those things don't even happen on Linux and OSS conferences, much less in business tech meetings. Groping a woman? WTF have you witnessed that? I don't know, maybe it's that conferences in Europe are different.
  - steveklabnik 14y ago
    http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
    - coldtea 14y ago
      Not much pertaining to Europe (if anything), plus a lot of unrelated incidents among the list. I mean, how does this qualify: "An offensive tweet was made against the PyLadies group at EuroPython 2012. Lynn Root (a keynote speaker and founder of PyLadies) blogged twice about the incident." Really? One can find thousand of offensive tweets for anything, from your choice of programming editor, to Mac vs PC, to politics, to Twilight, to Coke Light vs Zero. And an "offensive tweet" somehow deserves to be in a list about "sexist incidents"? Other stuff is nearly as lame. Judging from the above list, and compared to, e.g. the fashion or the journalism industry, the tech industry seems comparatively sexism free.
npfmn 14y ago
Why is it the responsibility of women to take the stand? Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop and silent bystanders to tell them so? Why is a professional conference ever even thought of as a venue for making advances? I don't understand why you think this is not sexism.
- lmm 14y ago
  As a bystander who becomes aware of such behaviour of course it's your responsibility to get involved. But if we're talking, as the article does, about a woman and one man alone in an elevator, and that man happens to be an asshole, what can the rest of us realistically do to prevent this happening?
  - npfmn 14y ago
    As the article says: "Be better about putting guidelines in place to show zero tolerance for harassment or inappropriate behavior. Train your staff to be on the lookout and how to handle situations. Respect female attendees by not letting booth babes walk the expo floor and not hanging women from your ceiling and calling it entertainment." It's about creating a positive environment. Of course there will be isolated incidents, but can we really resign ourselves to doing nothing?
- chc 14y ago
  > Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop Well, yes, but if your plan to stop sexism is something along the lines of "Wait for jerks to suddenly become good people," you're doing a disservice to their victims. > and silent bystanders to tell them so I don't feel like it is my business to step in and speak for a woman who has not implicitly or explicitly asked me to do so. That seems like a really degrading viewpoint. If she clearly wants the guy to go away and he won't, yes, go up and help her. But the idea that it's my job to run around policing women's sexuality is just antediluvian.
  - npfmn 14y ago
    I don't see why it's degrading for a victim to have someone else (publicly or privately) tell their agressor to stop.
autarch 14y ago
I agree with most of your points except for #4. There's nothing inherently wrong with flirting at a conference. Flirting is a very natural type of interaction for people, and asking people to not do it at all doesn't seem realistic. However, men should not assume that flirting means that a woman is inviting you to touch her or sleep with her. In fact, she may not even be flirting. Men often misinterpret simple friendliness as sexual interest. Be conservative in what you say and do. At a professional event, it is far better to miss an opportunity for a casual hook up than to be aggressive and make the conference an unwelcoming place for women.
- npfmn 14y ago
  If women say there is something wrong with flirting at a conference, then there is something wrong with it. It's a professional event. Why is a professional event even seen as "an opportunity for a casual hook up"? To say that flirting is "natural" is quite a claim; while it might be prevalent in our culture, that doesn't mean it's natural.
  - autarch 14y ago
    At the last programming conference I attended, I saw a man and woman holding hands. These two people had not, to the best of my knowledge, met before the conference. I don't know how far this relationship went (not that it's my business), but it was clearly mutual, and it started at the conference. Conferences are both professional and social. In fact, it's hard to think of anything that is purely professional. People form short- and long-term relationships through all sorts of initial meetings. I don't see any women saying "all flirting all is wrong at a conference". I see them saying they don't want to be harassed. The two things are not the same. I've talked to women at length about these issues and I've championed the adoption of strong anti-harassment policies at conferences I speak at (http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-considered-crucial/ http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-c...). Maybe we just have different definitions of flirting. To get back to the original article, the Twitter exchange that it highlights is not flirting. It's just a man being an asshole. I also note that the article makes no mention of the word "flirt". It talks about "harassment", "groping", and "sexism".
dsr_ 14y ago
Your primary problem is when you think of "women in tech" as being "sexually interesting people in tech" instead of "people in tech". All the rest follows from that. When you meet somebody at a professional conference, ignore their gender and treat them the way you would want to be treated. Also, a nice person who is rude to the waiter (or barista, or retail clerk, or...) is not a nice person.

blablabla123 14y ago

I think the point is more this: everything is optimized for men, it's like a self-amplifying loop. Sure the things you mention are also a problem, but women face that everywhere.

eightpersimmons 14y ago

Lack of manners and as..ole men are enabled by a sexist environment. These are symptoms of an underlying problem. Women don't feel safe in these environments because of the behavior of a relatively small number of individuals, but these individuals are enabled by a system problem in which their behavior is rationalized and ignored as just s social faux pas.

coldtea 14y ago
>Women don't feel safe in these environments Women don't feel safe in tech conferences? Like it's south central Los Angeles or something? I've attended several tech conferences, with women colleagues and friend, and I've not seen all this hoopla people constantly bring up on HN. Heck, those things don't even happen on Linux and OSS conferences, much less in business tech meetings. Groping a woman? WTF have you witnessed that? I don't know, maybe it's that conferences in Europe are different.
- steveklabnik 14y ago
  http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents
  - coldtea 14y ago
    Not much pertaining to Europe (if anything), plus a lot of unrelated incidents among the list. I mean, how does this qualify: "An offensive tweet was made against the PyLadies group at EuroPython 2012. Lynn Root (a keynote speaker and founder of PyLadies) blogged twice about the incident." Really? One can find thousand of offensive tweets for anything, from your choice of programming editor, to Mac vs PC, to politics, to Twilight, to Coke Light vs Zero. And an "offensive tweet" somehow deserves to be in a list about "sexist incidents"? Other stuff is nearly as lame. Judging from the above list, and compared to, e.g. the fashion or the journalism industry, the tech industry seems comparatively sexism free.

npfmn 14y ago

Why is it the responsibility of women to take the stand? Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop and silent bystanders to tell them so? Why is a professional conference ever even thought of as a venue for making advances? I don't understand why you think this is not sexism.

lmm 14y ago
As a bystander who becomes aware of such behaviour of course it's your responsibility to get involved. But if we're talking, as the article does, about a woman and one man alone in an elevator, and that man happens to be an asshole, what can the rest of us realistically do to prevent this happening?
- npfmn 14y ago
  As the article says: "Be better about putting guidelines in place to show zero tolerance for harassment or inappropriate behavior. Train your staff to be on the lookout and how to handle situations. Respect female attendees by not letting booth babes walk the expo floor and not hanging women from your ceiling and calling it entertainment." It's about creating a positive environment. Of course there will be isolated incidents, but can we really resign ourselves to doing nothing?
chc 14y ago
> Isn't it the responsibility of the people making unprofessional advances to stop Well, yes, but if your plan to stop sexism is something along the lines of "Wait for jerks to suddenly become good people," you're doing a disservice to their victims. > and silent bystanders to tell them so I don't feel like it is my business to step in and speak for a woman who has not implicitly or explicitly asked me to do so. That seems like a really degrading viewpoint. If she clearly wants the guy to go away and he won't, yes, go up and help her. But the idea that it's my job to run around policing women's sexuality is just antediluvian.
- npfmn 14y ago
  I don't see why it's degrading for a victim to have someone else (publicly or privately) tell their agressor to stop.

autarch 14y ago

I agree with most of your points except for #4. There's nothing inherently wrong with flirting at a conference. Flirting is a very natural type of interaction for people, and asking people to not do it at all doesn't seem realistic. However, men should not assume that flirting means that a woman is inviting you to touch her or sleep with her. In fact, she may not even be flirting. Men often misinterpret simple friendliness as sexual interest. Be conservative in what you say and do. At a professional event, it is far better to miss an opportunity for a casual hook up than to be aggressive and make the conference an unwelcoming place for women.

npfmn 14y ago
If women say there is something wrong with flirting at a conference, then there is something wrong with it. It's a professional event. Why is a professional event even seen as "an opportunity for a casual hook up"? To say that flirting is "natural" is quite a claim; while it might be prevalent in our culture, that doesn't mean it's natural.
- autarch 14y ago
  At the last programming conference I attended, I saw a man and woman holding hands. These two people had not, to the best of my knowledge, met before the conference. I don't know how far this relationship went (not that it's my business), but it was clearly mutual, and it started at the conference. Conferences are both professional and social. In fact, it's hard to think of anything that is purely professional. People form short- and long-term relationships through all sorts of initial meetings. I don't see any women saying "all flirting all is wrong at a conference". I see them saying they don't want to be harassed. The two things are not the same. I've talked to women at length about these issues and I've championed the adoption of strong anti-harassment policies at conferences I speak at (http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-considered-crucial/ http://blog.urth.org/2011/09/05/conference-code-of-conduct-c...). Maybe we just have different definitions of flirting. To get back to the original article, the Twitter exchange that it highlights is not flirting. It's just a man being an asshole. I also note that the article makes no mention of the word "flirt". It talks about "harassment", "groping", and "sexism".

dsr_ 14y ago

Your primary problem is when you think of "women in tech" as being "sexually interesting people in tech" instead of "people in tech". All the rest follows from that. When you meet somebody at a professional conference, ignore their gender and treat them the way you would want to be treated. Also, a nice person who is rude to the waiter (or barista, or retail clerk, or...) is not a nice person.