>To let women know that they will be supported when speaking out against sexism. To let everybody know we defend our own. Unfortunately in this case it was als

>To let women know that they will be supported when speaking out against sexism. To let everybody know we defend our own. Unfortunately in this case it was also imperative not to give the impression that one condoned Richards's actions at the conference. >Keep looking, then. I've seen plenty of it. Your anecdote vs. my anecdote. Nobody wins this round. >That claim has been debunked First off, that blog post doesn't debunk anything. Everything Blum wrote still stands. Second, that wasn't what I was talking about. Try these: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/statuses/6039856858 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313946261055221760 https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313946261055221760 >I'm not seeing anything particularly horrible People shouldn't have to fear political zealots tarring and feathering them publicly without a chance for defence or private resolution. Foster a culture of civility, not trigger-happy ignorant activism. >Because of decades of effort to make tech, and everything else, less of an old boys' club As far as I know the first programming language ever was arguably written by a woman. Women have _always_ been in tech, always will be in tech. The barriers are so much lower than sensationalist ideologues would have us believe. Especially vis-a-vis other industries. Here if you have chops, you're in. The women making things happen at PyCon are evidence of this, are role models for tech-leaning young women to look up to; evil snake oil salespeople whose only real skills are yelling loudly, as we had in this case, have no place in tech and are themselves discouraging women from entering the field. >understanding why a sexually charged environment keeps women of merit out of tech Skilled women aren't running away from tech because men could possibly say "penis" within earshot of them. Someone who takes extreme offense at a dongle joke to the degree that it prevents them from working in their preferred industry probably aren't mature enough to live in the real world, much less hold down an actual job. There's nothing sexually charged about penis jokes. Penises are for urinating too.