5 ms·

Agreed. Even though I'm sure Adria has been putting up with tons of real sexism over the years in the tech industry, and that this may have been the figurative

Agreed. Even though I'm sure Adria has been putting up with tons of real sexism over the years in the tech industry, and that this may have been the figurative straw on the camel's back, this is definitely the wrong thing to focus on. Sex jokes are definitely not necessarily sexist. These guys were perhaps a little crude, and their puns maybe horrible, but they were essentially harmless and at worst, just annoying. What we should focus on is the terrible response from the tech community towards Adria. There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry. Let's focus on that and denigrate those comments, not some random crude comments a couple guys said in private.

WalterSear 14y ago
Not puns - just one pun. The repo forking was, though informal, a thoroughly unpurient and non-sexual comment that she read meaning into.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Repo forking is kid stuff. Back in my day, we fscked and we meant it.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    I'm curious - did you consider whether mentioning the name of that filesystem check utility in a public forum might be considered inappropriate? I'm really (honestly) not judging either way, I'm just curious as to whether you checked yourself before posting?
    - michaelochurch 14y ago
      I'm just curious as to whether you checked yourself before posting? Between the anti-authoritarian and cynical writing, the 2002-10 trolling habit (long story; kids, don't fucking troll), the leak of Google's "calibration score" mess, the liberal use of profanity, the knowledge of altered consciousness (looked into doing a startup helping treat addictions w/ binaural beats), the blog post that cost VC-funded startups millions, and the fact that the CEO of a prominent startup made a personal campaign out of ruining my reputation (for, one year ago tomorrow, refusing to perjure myself on his behalf)... I don't think Michael O. Church is worried about saying fsck on the Internet. Chaotic good FTW. Except for the trolling, which was halfway between chaotic neutral and chaotic stupid.
  - samiur1204 14y ago
    not to mention piping those tty's... (I just had to, I'm sorry guys)
  - WalterSear 14y ago
    You are fired and please leave. Don't tweet about it.
- samiur1204 14y ago
  She's allowed to be offended with those comments (or single pun), but the method of communicating her offense was definitely not called for. And honestly, even if it were sexual, it isn't sexist. I think that's a distinction that certainly needs to be made. Calling Adria a c*nt and other horrible things online definitely is sexist though.
  - Draco6slayer 14y ago
    Is insulting a female inherently sexist? I wouldn't call someone a sexist if they called me a dck or a son of a btch. Obviously the response here is sexist, but calling somebody bad names is not sexist, regardless of their gender.
    - WalterSear 14y ago
      IMHO, sexualized epithets are sexual. It's more productive not to muddy the waters though: it's not like there are only a handful of ways to insult someone.
      - Draco6slayer 14y ago
        I don't know. Some words are just attached to each sex, and that's just a part of language. We don't say waitperson over waiter or waitress. Something that is both attached to a gender and insulting is by no means insulting someone for their gender or insulting a gender overall. English is definitely one of the least sexualizing languages of the Romance Languages. In French or Spanish, everything would be attached to a gender, but that doesn't mean that the words define the gender themselves. Nobody in Spain thinks that chairs are 'where women belong' or anything like that.
        geoelectric 14y ago
        Well, no, we say server, because server is gender-neutral. Compare steward/stewardess with flight attendant. And some servers will get mighty angry if you call them a waitress. I don't necessarily think that response is justified when no offense is actually meant. But the point is that there has been an identifiable trend in our language towards moving away from gender-specific terms for roles that shouldn't otherwise have a relevance to gender. I'd argue this movement is overdue for epithets. I think "asshole," "asshat," "assclown," really anything in the venerable ass family, makes for an ideal gender-neutral epithet. We should use these more often! Edit: typo
- konstruktor 14y ago
  Or, to be more straightforward, she sexualised the comment.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
niggler 14y ago
" There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry." Exactly. Which is why I'm happy this is playing out now, because I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time.
- incongruity 14y ago
  FWIW, PyCon and the PSF have really tried over the last five years or so to consider gender issues and I think they've had a good start – I believe I heard PyCon had women accounting for around 20% (edit: corrected thanks) of total attendance. That's pretty cool considering how much lower the numbers were a decade ago.
  - vellum 14y ago
    It was 20%. https://twitter.com/doughellmann/status/313319682943905793 https://twitter.com/doughellmann/status/313319682943905793
    - incongruity 14y ago
      thanks for the correction. fixed to reflect your more accurate numbers/not my clearly horked brain's recollection.
- MartinCron 14y ago
  I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time I value industry introspection as much as the next person, but these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me.
  - niggler 14y ago
    "these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me." That's a sign you are doing it right
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
Semaphor 14y ago
> What we should focus on is the terrible response from the tech community towards Adria. I still believe (hope?) that those horrible things posted are not from the tech community but rather from a few random trolls and groups like militant mens right people.
belorn 14y ago
> There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, So long those posts get down voted, the community is actually dealing with the bad comments.
gbhn 14y ago
Yes. This is what I find horrifying and humiliating. The person experiencing this kind of thing is the best judge of appropriate escalation, but if you think she over-escalated, then stop escalating even further! And much of the resulting furor has been way, way worse than that. It would have been nice to see the original apology/explanation without any firings involved anywhere. It'll take someone cleverer than me to think how to bring where we are now to a better place. I'm discouraged about how awfully my colleagues are behaving.

WalterSear 14y ago

Not puns - just one pun. The repo forking was, though informal, a thoroughly unpurient and non-sexual comment that she read meaning into.

michaelochurch 14y ago
Repo forking is kid stuff. Back in my day, we fscked and we meant it.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  I'm curious - did you consider whether mentioning the name of that filesystem check utility in a public forum might be considered inappropriate? I'm really (honestly) not judging either way, I'm just curious as to whether you checked yourself before posting?
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    I'm just curious as to whether you checked yourself before posting? Between the anti-authoritarian and cynical writing, the 2002-10 trolling habit (long story; kids, don't fucking troll), the leak of Google's "calibration score" mess, the liberal use of profanity, the knowledge of altered consciousness (looked into doing a startup helping treat addictions w/ binaural beats), the blog post that cost VC-funded startups millions, and the fact that the CEO of a prominent startup made a personal campaign out of ruining my reputation (for, one year ago tomorrow, refusing to perjure myself on his behalf)... I don't think Michael O. Church is worried about saying fsck on the Internet. Chaotic good FTW. Except for the trolling, which was halfway between chaotic neutral and chaotic stupid.
- samiur1204 14y ago
  not to mention piping those tty's... (I just had to, I'm sorry guys)
- WalterSear 14y ago
  You are fired and please leave. Don't tweet about it.
samiur1204 14y ago
She's allowed to be offended with those comments (or single pun), but the method of communicating her offense was definitely not called for. And honestly, even if it were sexual, it isn't sexist. I think that's a distinction that certainly needs to be made. Calling Adria a c*nt and other horrible things online definitely is sexist though.
- Draco6slayer 14y ago
  Is insulting a female inherently sexist? I wouldn't call someone a sexist if they called me a dck or a son of a btch. Obviously the response here is sexist, but calling somebody bad names is not sexist, regardless of their gender.
  - WalterSear 14y ago
    IMHO, sexualized epithets are sexual. It's more productive not to muddy the waters though: it's not like there are only a handful of ways to insult someone.
    - Draco6slayer 14y ago
      I don't know. Some words are just attached to each sex, and that's just a part of language. We don't say waitperson over waiter or waitress. Something that is both attached to a gender and insulting is by no means insulting someone for their gender or insulting a gender overall. English is definitely one of the least sexualizing languages of the Romance Languages. In French or Spanish, everything would be attached to a gender, but that doesn't mean that the words define the gender themselves. Nobody in Spain thinks that chairs are 'where women belong' or anything like that.
      - geoelectric 14y ago
        Well, no, we say server, because server is gender-neutral. Compare steward/stewardess with flight attendant. And some servers will get mighty angry if you call them a waitress. I don't necessarily think that response is justified when no offense is actually meant. But the point is that there has been an identifiable trend in our language towards moving away from gender-specific terms for roles that shouldn't otherwise have a relevance to gender. I'd argue this movement is overdue for epithets. I think "asshole," "asshat," "assclown," really anything in the venerable ass family, makes for an ideal gender-neutral epithet. We should use these more often! Edit: typo
konstruktor 14y ago
Or, to be more straightforward, she sexualised the comment.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

niggler 14y ago

" There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, and it just brings to light the pervasive sexism in our industry." Exactly. Which is why I'm happy this is playing out now, because I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time.

incongruity 14y ago
FWIW, PyCon and the PSF have really tried over the last five years or so to consider gender issues and I think they've had a good start – I believe I heard PyCon had women accounting for around 20% (edit: corrected thanks) of total attendance. That's pretty cool considering how much lower the numbers were a decade ago.
- vellum 14y ago
  It was 20%. https://twitter.com/doughellmann/status/313319682943905793 https://twitter.com/doughellmann/status/313319682943905793
  - incongruity 14y ago
    thanks for the correction. fixed to reflect your more accurate numbers/not my clearly horked brain's recollection.
MartinCron 14y ago
I haven't seen the industry introspect on gender issues in a long time I value industry introspection as much as the next person, but these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me.
- niggler 14y ago
  "these last 24 hours have been actively painful to me." That's a sign you are doing it right
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

Semaphor 14y ago

> What we should focus on is the terrible response from the tech community towards Adria. I still believe (hope?) that those horrible things posted are not from the tech community but rather from a few random trolls and groups like militant mens right people.

belorn 14y ago

> There is horrifying sexism in the comments that have been posted over the past 24 hours, So long those posts get down voted, the community is actually dealing with the bad comments.

gbhn 14y ago

Yes. This is what I find horrifying and humiliating. The person experiencing this kind of thing is the best judge of appropriate escalation, but if you think she over-escalated, then stop escalating even further! And much of the resulting furor has been way, way worse than that. It would have been nice to see the original apology/explanation without any firings involved anywhere. It'll take someone cleverer than me to think how to bring where we are now to a better place. I'm discouraged about how awfully my colleagues are behaving.