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I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? People sa

I would feel really uncomfortable if I was in the same room as this person. What if I accidentally say something that she finds offensive? Am I next? People say the same things all the time in companies where women complain about inappropriate sexuality. "What if I say something that offends her?" Most of us are good, inoffensive people. We are saddled with growing up in a world that is changing. It used to be acceptable to have a topless woman on a calendar in your locker at the factory. Not any more. Men used to take each other to strip clubs for business entertaining. Not outside of Oracle. We all deal with the fact that we're in the middle of change, and it isn't always comfortable. Just as it wasn't comfortable for people dealing with the acceptance of homosexuals: I think everyone accepts that the word "faggot" is no longer appropriate. It would be far, far easier for everyone if they just, well, shut up. But these things are hard, and it's up to our generation to carve out new social norms so that our children will reflexively and automatically act in ways that don't offend anyone. I feel for you, there's absolutely zero wrong with you having and expressing these concerns. My message to you is that we men can come together and support each other and be a generation that others look back on with respect, just as we look back on the generations that broke the colour barriers with respect.

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- raganwald 14y ago
  Reminder: She didn't "get anyone fired." Two employers chose to fire employees.
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- rmc 14y ago
  The problem here is that the jokes were so innocuous that it would be difficult to tell just what would set her off and potentially get you fired. It's very easy actually. Sexuality jokes. That's it.
- king_jester 14y ago
  > The problem here is that the jokes were so innocuous that it would be difficult to tell just what would set her off and potentially get you fired. That's the thing, depending on your background and experience with sexism will depend on how confused you are about what may be construed as sexist or inappropriate for the workplace. If anything, the whole pycon incident shows the need for more information, education, and formal sensitivity training in the workplace, not firing people every time HR thinks its time for some CYA-style action. Suffice it to say though that dick jokes contribute to a sexist atmosphere and can contribute to impostor syndrome and are often outright transphobic.
- neilk 14y ago
  In my opinion, it was a misjudgment, but think about what using Twitter is like. Something ticked her off. She snapped a picture of it, as she had done dozens of times per day probably. She probably had no idea of the consequences. Even if you have 10,000 followers, most tweets are like that - you like something, snap a pic and share, you hate something, snap a pic and share. I don't get the sense that she expected there to be such serious consequences. For her, tweeting might have been a reflex action. It wasn't a good decision, but let's be clear about how easy it is to lapse like that.
  - katbyte 14y ago
    > It wasn't a good decision, but let's be clear about how easy it is to lapse like that That doesn't make it OK, we all should be aware of the potential consequences and permanency of publicly posting something.
jack-r-abbit 14y ago
> these things are hard BOOM.. fired! See what happened there? You said it. I overreacted. You were fired. It actually is a real fear that something you say will unknowingly offend someone and get you in trouble. This has less to do with gender and sexism and more to do with just too many people being incapable of getting along. > automatically act in ways that don't offend anyone. Impossible. Everything is capable of offending someone. And everyone is offended by something. I would rather strive for a future generation that was not so easily offended.
- jmagoon 14y ago
  This is what's commonly known as the ignorance of privilege. It's white people saying, "Why can't I make jokes about black people, when black people can make jokes about me?" It demonstrates a total ignorance of what it means to be a discriminated against demographic.
  - jack-r-abbit 14y ago
    I'm confused. Are you saying that just because a person is white they are not allowed to be offended by stuff and not allowed to question the validity of others who are offended?
    - pifflesnort 14y ago
      Well, according to Adria Richards: "Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power". http://imgur.com/xPztO6k http://imgur.com/xPztO6k I don't think Adria represents women in the industry, or anyone other than herself. I feel sorry for SendGrid, PlayHaven, the developer who lost his job, and the fact that this is distracting from the real issues of sexism in technology. I don't feel sorry for Adria. She represented her company in a grossly unprofessional manner by publicly naming, picturing, and shaming (including the use of "ass clowns" to describe them) two developers. You don't have to be sexist to be unprofessional. I just hope SendGrid has their lawyers ready to deal with the potential fallout of firing her.
Tichy 14y ago
You assume that taking offense is always reasonable, or whoever feels offended is always right. Also, playing the emotion card (it hurts my feelings/sensibilities) is a way to excert power and control.
- alxp 14y ago
  > It isn't always reasonable, being called out for shitty behaviour is step one, step two is either you apologize because you realize you were in the wrong, or you have a discussion and hopefully both parties understand each other better at the end. The idea that women have a hot branding iron with them where ever they go that they can use to permanently stamp the word 'sexist' onto whomever they like at the slightest offense is utterly silly - doubly so when it reverses the actual power dynamic that women deal with when in a room full of men.
  - Tichy 14y ago
    Yeah, utterly silly, just like dongle-gate.
lifebar 14y ago
"My message to you is that we men can come together and support each other and be a generation that others look back on with respect, " >>"we men can come together and support each other" Do you believe in that yourself? 90% of men when in situation where woman accuses other man of sexual harassment that they know he did not commit WILL SUPPORT WOMAN. 1. they are bunch of white knights that wants to look good in the eyes of women (10$ bet you are in this group). 2. less rivalry if one man goes down.
largesse 14y ago
We all deal with the fact that we're in the middle of change, and it isn't always comfortable. Just as it wasn't comfortable for people dealing with the acceptance of homosexuals: I think everyone accepts that the word "faggot" is no longer appropriate. Nope. That is not it. Men and women joke together freely with innuendo throughout society and most of the time it is not considered a problem. She did that exact thing on Twitter. To somehow say that a physical conference space is sacrosanct in a way that Twitter is not is ridiculous. I think that if you look carefully, what you see is that what we term political correctness today is in actuality a new label on the old idea of chivalry. It aims toward a norm of social behavior where women are seen to require special protection in a way that men are assumed not to. They can toss away that protection and engage in banter, but men can not. This has been the norm in polite society for at least 500 years. Today, it just has different ideological window dressing.
- flaviusb 14y ago
  No, context matters. Just as it is fine to be undressed when you go to bed but not when out on the street, it is fine to engage in innuendo with friends if that is what you and your friends do, or to be crass on Twitter to your followers who presumably opted in to reading your crassness (but not in @replies to people who don't follow you), but not at a professional conference in a public space. Can you understand that these situations are different?
  - largesse 14y ago
    Nope. I don't consider PyCon a "professional conference." Programming is not accountancy, or medicine. "Professional" is a word that people use to lull people into circumspect behavior leaving their basic humanity aside. Sometimes there is a good reason for it but often there isn't. In any case it's not a way of being at ease. When I am with my close friends at a conference we speak however we like. It isn't church and it shouldn't be. But I'm sure now that I'll never go to PyCon. It's drowning in the crazy. My sense is that this is largely generational and geographic. There's a strain of political correctness in the California area that is rampant among people in their 20s. I don't see it elsewhere in the US although I have seen it in Canada. PyCon is definitely a California conference. I'm sure the educational system has something to do with it. It's a trend that rode the general trend in education in the 90s toward making people believe that feeling good was more important than anything and that their sensitivities were positive demands on other people's behavior. That's subsided since then in elementary education so I think this drama may be a blip.

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raganwald 14y ago
Reminder: She didn't "get anyone fired." Two employers chose to fire employees.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
rmc 14y ago
The problem here is that the jokes were so innocuous that it would be difficult to tell just what would set her off and potentially get you fired. It's very easy actually. Sexuality jokes. That's it.
king_jester 14y ago
> The problem here is that the jokes were so innocuous that it would be difficult to tell just what would set her off and potentially get you fired. That's the thing, depending on your background and experience with sexism will depend on how confused you are about what may be construed as sexist or inappropriate for the workplace. If anything, the whole pycon incident shows the need for more information, education, and formal sensitivity training in the workplace, not firing people every time HR thinks its time for some CYA-style action. Suffice it to say though that dick jokes contribute to a sexist atmosphere and can contribute to impostor syndrome and are often outright transphobic.
neilk 14y ago
In my opinion, it was a misjudgment, but think about what using Twitter is like. Something ticked her off. She snapped a picture of it, as she had done dozens of times per day probably. She probably had no idea of the consequences. Even if you have 10,000 followers, most tweets are like that - you like something, snap a pic and share, you hate something, snap a pic and share. I don't get the sense that she expected there to be such serious consequences. For her, tweeting might have been a reflex action. It wasn't a good decision, but let's be clear about how easy it is to lapse like that.
- katbyte 14y ago
  > It wasn't a good decision, but let's be clear about how easy it is to lapse like that That doesn't make it OK, we all should be aware of the potential consequences and permanency of publicly posting something.

jack-r-abbit 14y ago

> these things are hard BOOM.. fired! See what happened there? You said it. I overreacted. You were fired. It actually is a real fear that something you say will unknowingly offend someone and get you in trouble. This has less to do with gender and sexism and more to do with just too many people being incapable of getting along. > automatically act in ways that don't offend anyone. Impossible. Everything is capable of offending someone. And everyone is offended by something. I would rather strive for a future generation that was not so easily offended.

jmagoon 14y ago
This is what's commonly known as the ignorance of privilege. It's white people saying, "Why can't I make jokes about black people, when black people can make jokes about me?" It demonstrates a total ignorance of what it means to be a discriminated against demographic.
- jack-r-abbit 14y ago
  I'm confused. Are you saying that just because a person is white they are not allowed to be offended by stuff and not allowed to question the validity of others who are offended?
  - pifflesnort 14y ago
    Well, according to Adria Richards: "Black people CANNOT be racist against White people. Racism is a position of the oppressor who has the power". http://imgur.com/xPztO6k http://imgur.com/xPztO6k I don't think Adria represents women in the industry, or anyone other than herself. I feel sorry for SendGrid, PlayHaven, the developer who lost his job, and the fact that this is distracting from the real issues of sexism in technology. I don't feel sorry for Adria. She represented her company in a grossly unprofessional manner by publicly naming, picturing, and shaming (including the use of "ass clowns" to describe them) two developers. You don't have to be sexist to be unprofessional. I just hope SendGrid has their lawyers ready to deal with the potential fallout of firing her.

Tichy 14y ago

You assume that taking offense is always reasonable, or whoever feels offended is always right. Also, playing the emotion card (it hurts my feelings/sensibilities) is a way to excert power and control.

alxp 14y ago
> It isn't always reasonable, being called out for shitty behaviour is step one, step two is either you apologize because you realize you were in the wrong, or you have a discussion and hopefully both parties understand each other better at the end. The idea that women have a hot branding iron with them where ever they go that they can use to permanently stamp the word 'sexist' onto whomever they like at the slightest offense is utterly silly - doubly so when it reverses the actual power dynamic that women deal with when in a room full of men.
- Tichy 14y ago
  Yeah, utterly silly, just like dongle-gate.

lifebar 14y ago

"My message to you is that we men can come together and support each other and be a generation that others look back on with respect, " >>"we men can come together and support each other" Do you believe in that yourself? 90% of men when in situation where woman accuses other man of sexual harassment that they know he did not commit WILL SUPPORT WOMAN. 1. they are bunch of white knights that wants to look good in the eyes of women (10$ bet you are in this group). 2. less rivalry if one man goes down.

largesse 14y ago

We all deal with the fact that we're in the middle of change, and it isn't always comfortable. Just as it wasn't comfortable for people dealing with the acceptance of homosexuals: I think everyone accepts that the word "faggot" is no longer appropriate. Nope. That is not it. Men and women joke together freely with innuendo throughout society and most of the time it is not considered a problem. She did that exact thing on Twitter. To somehow say that a physical conference space is sacrosanct in a way that Twitter is not is ridiculous. I think that if you look carefully, what you see is that what we term political correctness today is in actuality a new label on the old idea of chivalry. It aims toward a norm of social behavior where women are seen to require special protection in a way that men are assumed not to. They can toss away that protection and engage in banter, but men can not. This has been the norm in polite society for at least 500 years. Today, it just has different ideological window dressing.

flaviusb 14y ago
No, context matters. Just as it is fine to be undressed when you go to bed but not when out on the street, it is fine to engage in innuendo with friends if that is what you and your friends do, or to be crass on Twitter to your followers who presumably opted in to reading your crassness (but not in @replies to people who don't follow you), but not at a professional conference in a public space. Can you understand that these situations are different?
- largesse 14y ago
  Nope. I don't consider PyCon a "professional conference." Programming is not accountancy, or medicine. "Professional" is a word that people use to lull people into circumspect behavior leaving their basic humanity aside. Sometimes there is a good reason for it but often there isn't. In any case it's not a way of being at ease. When I am with my close friends at a conference we speak however we like. It isn't church and it shouldn't be. But I'm sure now that I'll never go to PyCon. It's drowning in the crazy. My sense is that this is largely generational and geographic. There's a strain of political correctness in the California area that is rampant among people in their 20s. I don't see it elsewhere in the US although I have seen it in Canada. PyCon is definitely a California conference. I'm sure the educational system has something to do with it. It's a trend that rode the general trend in education in the 90s toward making people believe that feeling good was more important than anything and that their sensitivities were positive demands on other people's behavior. That's subsided since then in elementary education so I think this drama may be a blip.