4 ms·

I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem. However, the environment in 2013 and the way, as a whole, it seems that we have gone about c

I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem. However, the environment in 2013 and the way, as a whole, it seems that we have gone about countering it is roughly equivalent to napalming six city blocks to get rid of bedbugs in an apartment. (Edit: On reflection, a better analogy would be napalming New York City to eradicate bedbugs. I am aware of the scope of the sexism problem.) This little saga merely reminded me that I'm walking from computers after my next position. Gone. Before 35. I'm going to go a career that isn't completely nonsensical, like fishing. I can't imagine I'm the only one. The overcompensation and hypersensitivity to combat sexism in technology is, rather amusingly, making technology even more hostile and demoralizing. I don't want to read the fallout from a conference any more. This PyCon was apparently so much of a shitshow that I'm glad I didn't go. The decision to ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who I smoked pot with at PyCon 2012. This fucking industry. So many double standards and emotional children. It's like I never left high school.

GuiA 14y ago
> I'm going to go a career that isn't completely nonsensical, like fishing. I can't imagine I'm the only one. I fully intend to do the same. I'll likely always keep programming open source stuff etc. on the side, but the tech industry is so fucking weird and immature on stuff like that. (and also the fact that I don't see myself living the startup life when I have kids, at least not in the first few years of their lives)
throwawayhooray 14y ago
"I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem." I'm working in an office without any African American males or Hispanic American males. Does technology have a racist problem?
- tiredofcareer 14y ago
  I think it does, but that's not necessarily the reason why you don't work with diverse races. If I hire five white people, that doesn't mean I'm racist. If I hire five white people in preference to five black people, that means I'm racist. The sexism angle here is similar. I also disagreed with shaming the conference that scheduled all white male speakers, as it was very likely unintentional and indicative of nothing larger except incompetence. People look for any reason to turn something into a Big Deal.
  - fatjokes 14y ago
    > If I hire five white people in preference to five black people, that means I'm racist. Only if the five black people were at least as competent as the five white people.
    - tiredofcareer 14y ago
      Well, in preference being the key phrase there, which is why I left out the part about capability or qualification. I suppose my original point was missing an implied "due to race". You are correct, though. Regardless of the white person being more competent or less competent, preferring him due to color is a no-no.
- protomyth 14y ago
  Well, since technology projects keep naming themselves after Native American tribes and register the websites, IT might be a tad insensitive.
fusiongyro 14y ago
> The overcompensation and hypersensitivity to combat sexism in technology is, rather amusingly, making technology even more hostile and demoralizing. I find this attitude really strange, as if you need to make dick jokes to write code. Sorry to lose you, but if basic manners are an insufferable encroachment on your style and abilities, maybe we'll just have to find a way to get along without your talent.
- tiredofcareer 14y ago
  I'm not sure how you got from the quoted portion to your conclusion. I don't need to make dick jokes to write code. I'm not lamenting the loss of base humor. I'm lamenting the guerrilla campaign against it, such as considering it okay to take photos of someone and shame them publicly without even saying a word to them as if we live in 1984. Notice I didn't type anything like "boy, I'll sure miss dick jokes," so I suspect you're either projecting or misunderstanding what I wrote. What's next, a Web site with 'mugshots' taken by people who walk around conferences listening for inappropriate jokes? For a group of people that fears the Orwellian, some sure are applauding this action. When did we lose, as a culture, the basic ability to open the hole that words come out of and tell someone that we're offended by them, and please stop it so I can pay attention to the talk? Basic manners, indeed.
  - fusiongyro 14y ago
    Let's set aside the current situation. Surely you're not leaving your career because last week somebody indirectly caused some poor schmuck to get fired for being a goober at a conference you didn't even attend. Your complaints only make sense if you perceive the situational sum total of the sexism or plain offensiveness as being more similar to this event, rather than seeing this event as an anomaly. But this situation is really quite anomalous. Even setting aside Adria's histrionics, we still have a situation where the online response was overwhelmingly out of proportion and either nobody did much in person or it was completely resolved in person, depending on which comments above were true. This stands in sharp contrast to the other five or six of these fiascos from the last year, where in nearly every case the offended parties tried to be polite and were shrugged off, told to get a sense of humor or not take things so seriously or told they should have been approached in private rather than publicly. In other words, this is the first fiasco we've had in recent memory where the response actually was out of proportion—prior, NYC got napalmed because the bed bugs were still there after trying everything else. I find it disingenuous to rewrite history from this single event to paint the sexism problem in our industry as being an overreaction by people who didn't speak up in person when this is really the only example of that. You must have real reasons for leaving the industry that don't have anything to do with this. I just find it hard to believe that someone could love programming and yet be so unwilling to avoid being offensive—or so afraid of being persecuted for it—that they leave the career for just this one reason.
baitshopowner 14y ago
Nice to meet a fellow future bait shop owner. I plan to have a mechanical cash register, cash-only. Maybe electric lights.
- ntumlin 14y ago
  Would the lights dangle from the ceiling?
kstrauser 14y ago
> The decision to ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who I smoked pot with at PyCon 2012. I've said this elsewhere, but: The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal conference late one evening. I don't think anyone complained that pot was smoked at all. They complained that it was smoked inside a crowded room. I would've been as personally annoyed if someone lit a tobacco cigarette in the same close quarters. It stunk. Badly. I also imagine that PyCon _had_ to say and do _something_ lest they get a reputation for condoning illegal substance abuse in the middle of open sessions. Note: I'm just a bystander, a regular attendee like everyone else. I didn't report or complain about the pot smoker even though it reeked. The reaction of everyone around me wasn't anger, but sheer disbelief that someone would be that stupid.
- tiredofcareer 14y ago
  Indoors? Okay, yeah, that's stupid. I rescind some of my amusement.
- necaris 14y ago
  > The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal > conference late one evening. I don't think anyone > complained that pot was smoked at all. They complained that > it was smoked inside a crowded room. I was there too. They were being obnoxious by stinking up the place (it didn't help that they got louder & less funny, i.e. more obnoxious, through the evening), and that is what got people's attention. Anything that happens on the official premises of a professional, heavily sponsored and highly scrutinized conference is to some extent the responsibility of the organizers. They _had_ to do something.
- protomyth 14y ago
  I guess the assumption that if its inappropriate to smoke a cigarette then it is inappropriate to smoke anything else isn't obvious.

GuiA 14y ago

> I'm going to go a career that isn't completely nonsensical, like fishing. I can't imagine I'm the only one. I fully intend to do the same. I'll likely always keep programming open source stuff etc. on the side, but the tech industry is so fucking weird and immature on stuff like that. (and also the fact that I don't see myself living the startup life when I have kids, at least not in the first few years of their lives)

throwawayhooray 14y ago

"I think all of us would agree that technology has a sexism problem." I'm working in an office without any African American males or Hispanic American males. Does technology have a racist problem?

tiredofcareer 14y ago
I think it does, but that's not necessarily the reason why you don't work with diverse races. If I hire five white people, that doesn't mean I'm racist. If I hire five white people in preference to five black people, that means I'm racist. The sexism angle here is similar. I also disagreed with shaming the conference that scheduled all white male speakers, as it was very likely unintentional and indicative of nothing larger except incompetence. People look for any reason to turn something into a Big Deal.
- fatjokes 14y ago
  > If I hire five white people in preference to five black people, that means I'm racist. Only if the five black people were at least as competent as the five white people.
  - tiredofcareer 14y ago
    Well, in preference being the key phrase there, which is why I left out the part about capability or qualification. I suppose my original point was missing an implied "due to race". You are correct, though. Regardless of the white person being more competent or less competent, preferring him due to color is a no-no.
protomyth 14y ago
Well, since technology projects keep naming themselves after Native American tribes and register the websites, IT might be a tad insensitive.

fusiongyro 14y ago

> The overcompensation and hypersensitivity to combat sexism in technology is, rather amusingly, making technology even more hostile and demoralizing. I find this attitude really strange, as if you need to make dick jokes to write code. Sorry to lose you, but if basic manners are an insufferable encroachment on your style and abilities, maybe we'll just have to find a way to get along without your talent.

tiredofcareer 14y ago
I'm not sure how you got from the quoted portion to your conclusion. I don't need to make dick jokes to write code. I'm not lamenting the loss of base humor. I'm lamenting the guerrilla campaign against it, such as considering it okay to take photos of someone and shame them publicly without even saying a word to them as if we live in 1984. Notice I didn't type anything like "boy, I'll sure miss dick jokes," so I suspect you're either projecting or misunderstanding what I wrote. What's next, a Web site with 'mugshots' taken by people who walk around conferences listening for inappropriate jokes? For a group of people that fears the Orwellian, some sure are applauding this action. When did we lose, as a culture, the basic ability to open the hole that words come out of and tell someone that we're offended by them, and please stop it so I can pay attention to the talk? Basic manners, indeed.
- fusiongyro 14y ago
  Let's set aside the current situation. Surely you're not leaving your career because last week somebody indirectly caused some poor schmuck to get fired for being a goober at a conference you didn't even attend. Your complaints only make sense if you perceive the situational sum total of the sexism or plain offensiveness as being more similar to this event, rather than seeing this event as an anomaly. But this situation is really quite anomalous. Even setting aside Adria's histrionics, we still have a situation where the online response was overwhelmingly out of proportion and either nobody did much in person or it was completely resolved in person, depending on which comments above were true. This stands in sharp contrast to the other five or six of these fiascos from the last year, where in nearly every case the offended parties tried to be polite and were shrugged off, told to get a sense of humor or not take things so seriously or told they should have been approached in private rather than publicly. In other words, this is the first fiasco we've had in recent memory where the response actually was out of proportion—prior, NYC got napalmed because the bed bugs were still there after trying everything else. I find it disingenuous to rewrite history from this single event to paint the sexism problem in our industry as being an overreaction by people who didn't speak up in person when this is really the only example of that. You must have real reasons for leaving the industry that don't have anything to do with this. I just find it hard to believe that someone could love programming and yet be so unwilling to avoid being offensive—or so afraid of being persecuted for it—that they leave the career for just this one reason.

baitshopowner 14y ago

Nice to meet a fellow future bait shop owner. I plan to have a mechanical cash register, cash-only. Maybe electric lights.

ntumlin 14y ago
Would the lights dangle from the ceiling?

kstrauser 14y ago

> The decision to ban someone for smoking pot really cracked me up, given who I smoked pot with at PyCon 2012. I've said this elsewhere, but: The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal conference late one evening. I don't think anyone complained that pot was smoked at all. They complained that it was smoked inside a crowded room. I would've been as personally annoyed if someone lit a tobacco cigarette in the same close quarters. It stunk. Badly. I also imagine that PyCon _had_ to say and do _something_ lest they get a reputation for condoning illegal substance abuse in the middle of open sessions. Note: I'm just a bystander, a regular attendee like everyone else. I didn't report or complain about the pot smoker even though it reeked. The reaction of everyone around me wasn't anger, but sheer disbelief that someone would be that stupid.

tiredofcareer 14y ago
Indoors? Okay, yeah, that's stupid. I rescind some of my amusement.
necaris 14y ago
> The pot smoker was a few feet from me in an informal > conference late one evening. I don't think anyone > complained that pot was smoked at all. They complained that > it was smoked inside a crowded room. I was there too. They were being obnoxious by stinking up the place (it didn't help that they got louder & less funny, i.e. more obnoxious, through the evening), and that is what got people's attention. Anything that happens on the official premises of a professional, heavily sponsored and highly scrutinized conference is to some extent the responsibility of the organizers. They _had_ to do something.
protomyth 14y ago
I guess the assumption that if its inappropriate to smoke a cigarette then it is inappropriate to smoke anything else isn't obvious.