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All I know about this is what I learned from Giles Bowkett: http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/#comment-555 http://www.ult

All I know about this is what I learned from Giles Bowkett: http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-at-gogaruco/#comment-555 http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-... who sounds dead-on correct to me: I put huge slides with four-letter words on the screen when I give presentations, but it never makes anybody feel uncomfortable. But that’s because there’s an art to these things, and I know every time I do it that I might go too far and have to eat my pride and apologize. You did it wrong. The fact that anybody blogged about it means you did it wrong. So you have to just accept that and be a man about it instead of arguing with her. If a woman tells you that putting giant sexually suggestive images in front of her made her uncomfortable, you don’t get to bicker about that. It's not so much that the Rails community has a particularly unusual problem with women. It's that, when one tone-deaf guy lights a match at a Rails conference, apparently nobody knows how to put out the fire before it burns down the community. It's a shame.

joecode 18y ago
"If a woman tells you that putting giant sexually suggestive images in front of her made her uncomfortable, you don’t get to bicker about that." Isn't this a sexist viewpoint itself? As if a woman's reasoning doesn't matter, just that you have offended, oh my, a female?
- raganwald 18y ago
  One could equally say that if I tell you that putting the word "Nigger" in a slide makes me feel uncomfortable, you don't get to bicker about that. It's just one of those things that matter if other people's feelings matter. I discovered this the hard way when I repeated a joke about Jews to a Jewish friend. As she put it, "Jokes are all in the delivery, and you have to be Jewish to deliver that joke."
  - joecode 18y ago
    No, its not really the same thing. Because there is a very obvious reason that people are upset by that word. My point is merely that you need to explain your reasons, not merely point out your skin color or gender, as if that itself were a reason. Your Jewish friend, for example, has given a very good reason for why jokes about Jews by non-Jews are generally offensive. In fact, there are cases where using that word in a presentation would be perfectly legitimate, i.e. in a presentation about racist epithets. If someone objected to that, I would bicker with them, regardless of their skin color.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - raganwald 18y ago
      Your Jewish friend, for example, has given a very good reason for why jokes about Jews by non-Jews are generally offensive By way of conversation, not argument, I will share that at the time, her explanation was unsatisfying. I felt that she was saying "You Can't Say That" arbitrarily. Why was it ok for one person to tell that joke and not another? I didn't feel she was explaining the reasoning behind the rule, just telling me the rule. But time has passed, and now I understand that a joke about cultural stereotypes often means one thing when told by an outsider, another thing when told by an insider to an outsider, and a third thing when told by an insider to another insider. And of course, outsiders are sometimes oblivious to the nuances.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I have no idea what you're talking about. But, nevertheless: It doesn't matter who you offend or why. If a person comes up to you and says "I'm not really a person; I'm really a tower of cats in a cunningly designed human suit, and your LOLcat photos offended me," the correct answer is still "Gosh, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I really had no idea that cats would take my presentation in that way." After which you back carefully away and hope they don't come to your next talk. You should not respond with a passionate defense of free expression unless the person who approaches you is a cop trying to arrest you. [1] In general, nobody is trying to deny you the right to advertise your beliefs out loud. When they complain, you should assume that they are merely inviting you to walk back what you said before they commence avoiding you like the plague. Of course, if you really hate cats, you can always just respond with "good, I'm glad I offended you, you terrifying feline monstrosity!" Because very few Rails consulting customers are cats, that might not cost you much. Although, come to think of it, some Rails customers probably do employ cats, or people who love cats and care about their feelings. And there are many others who will feel mighty uncomfortable when the managers of the framework that lies beneath their million-dollar website become more concerned with aggressively asserting the universal freedom to hate cats than with keeping people like Mike Gunderloy on the team. What kind of priority is that? Enough with the sophomoric flamewar, already! --- [1] In which case, of course, you still shouldn't respond with a passionate defense. You should call up your lawyer and let her respond.
  - joecode 18y ago
    That's pretty hillarious. But still I think it is useful when you offend a person to try to understand why. If there's something to it, then you apologize, and learn a lesson. But if you apologize wihtout learning anything, your apology is an empty one. Meanwhile, if they're just being hyper-sensitive for no good reason, I am quite happy to pop their bubble.
    - mechanical_fish 18y ago
      if you apologize wihtout learning anything, your apology is an empty one. Not at all. The apology -- which one should issue immediately and without hesitation -- is full of meaning. Very important meaning. Just not literal meaning. What is the apology saying? "I hear you and I understand that you were really offended." "I am trying to listen to you." "I am not trying to hurt you on purpose." "I am not trying to deliberately start a giant flame war that tears our community apart." "I am open to reconsidering what I said, and the way I said it, in light of your interpretation of my words." "I have basic social skills and recognize the role of Apologizer when I see it." (See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=240170 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=240170 ) What the apology is not: An admission of guilt, an admission that you did something illegal or even something wrong. You do not have to break down in tears. You don't have to agree with the complainer. You don't have to change your mind. What you have to do is signal some sympathy: That you're a civilized person who is open to "trying to understand" the offended person. That you want to de-escalate the situation rather than start a fight. That you're not a troll -- that is, someone who (a) deliberately introduces a topic that is likely to be offensive and then (b) continues to push the buttons of any offended people until a giant flame war breaks out.
Tichy 18y ago
What if that woman happend to be a member of an ultrareligious sect and has no humor whatsoever. What if other women don't mind at all? Don't know what incident happened (was there an incident?), but is it not yet another cliche that women in general have to be offended by certain pictures? What about the women IN the pictures, would they be offended? I don't want to recommend to use offensive pictures in presentations (some men might be offended, too), but I am pretty sure that such things are NOT the reason for "underrepresentedness" of women.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
  What if one of the women in the audience was your mom? What if one of the women in the presentation is your mom? What if you're the conductor of a train and you're approaching a fork in the track: If you steer one way, you'll run over five porn stars. If you steer the other way, you'll run into a presenter at RailsConf. What if this conversation never ends? What if we're all just living inside of a computer simulation? Woah.
  - joecode 18y ago
    You are. Just you, tho.

joecode 18y ago

"If a woman tells you that putting giant sexually suggestive images in front of her made her uncomfortable, you don’t get to bicker about that." Isn't this a sexist viewpoint itself? As if a woman's reasoning doesn't matter, just that you have offended, oh my, a female?

raganwald 18y ago
One could equally say that if I tell you that putting the word "Nigger" in a slide makes me feel uncomfortable, you don't get to bicker about that. It's just one of those things that matter if other people's feelings matter. I discovered this the hard way when I repeated a joke about Jews to a Jewish friend. As she put it, "Jokes are all in the delivery, and you have to be Jewish to deliver that joke."
- joecode 18y ago
  No, its not really the same thing. Because there is a very obvious reason that people are upset by that word. My point is merely that you need to explain your reasons, not merely point out your skin color or gender, as if that itself were a reason. Your Jewish friend, for example, has given a very good reason for why jokes about Jews by non-Jews are generally offensive. In fact, there are cases where using that word in a presentation would be perfectly legitimate, i.e. in a presentation about racist epithets. If someone objected to that, I would bicker with them, regardless of their skin color.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - raganwald 18y ago
    Your Jewish friend, for example, has given a very good reason for why jokes about Jews by non-Jews are generally offensive By way of conversation, not argument, I will share that at the time, her explanation was unsatisfying. I felt that she was saying "You Can't Say That" arbitrarily. Why was it ok for one person to tell that joke and not another? I didn't feel she was explaining the reasoning behind the rule, just telling me the rule. But time has passed, and now I understand that a joke about cultural stereotypes often means one thing when told by an outsider, another thing when told by an insider to an outsider, and a third thing when told by an insider to another insider. And of course, outsiders are sometimes oblivious to the nuances.
mechanical_fish 18y ago
I have no idea what you're talking about. But, nevertheless: It doesn't matter who you offend or why. If a person comes up to you and says "I'm not really a person; I'm really a tower of cats in a cunningly designed human suit, and your LOLcat photos offended me," the correct answer is still "Gosh, I'm terribly sorry. I didn't mean to offend. I really had no idea that cats would take my presentation in that way." After which you back carefully away and hope they don't come to your next talk. You should not respond with a passionate defense of free expression unless the person who approaches you is a cop trying to arrest you. [1] In general, nobody is trying to deny you the right to advertise your beliefs out loud. When they complain, you should assume that they are merely inviting you to walk back what you said before they commence avoiding you like the plague. Of course, if you really hate cats, you can always just respond with "good, I'm glad I offended you, you terrifying feline monstrosity!" Because very few Rails consulting customers are cats, that might not cost you much. Although, come to think of it, some Rails customers probably do employ cats, or people who love cats and care about their feelings. And there are many others who will feel mighty uncomfortable when the managers of the framework that lies beneath their million-dollar website become more concerned with aggressively asserting the universal freedom to hate cats than with keeping people like Mike Gunderloy on the team. What kind of priority is that? Enough with the sophomoric flamewar, already! --- [1] In which case, of course, you still shouldn't respond with a passionate defense. You should call up your lawyer and let her respond.
- joecode 18y ago
  That's pretty hillarious. But still I think it is useful when you offend a person to try to understand why. If there's something to it, then you apologize, and learn a lesson. But if you apologize wihtout learning anything, your apology is an empty one. Meanwhile, if they're just being hyper-sensitive for no good reason, I am quite happy to pop their bubble.
  - mechanical_fish 18y ago
    if you apologize wihtout learning anything, your apology is an empty one. Not at all. The apology -- which one should issue immediately and without hesitation -- is full of meaning. Very important meaning. Just not literal meaning. What is the apology saying? "I hear you and I understand that you were really offended." "I am trying to listen to you." "I am not trying to hurt you on purpose." "I am not trying to deliberately start a giant flame war that tears our community apart." "I am open to reconsidering what I said, and the way I said it, in light of your interpretation of my words." "I have basic social skills and recognize the role of Apologizer when I see it." (See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=240170 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=240170 ) What the apology is not: An admission of guilt, an admission that you did something illegal or even something wrong. You do not have to break down in tears. You don't have to agree with the complainer. You don't have to change your mind. What you have to do is signal some sympathy: That you're a civilized person who is open to "trying to understand" the offended person. That you want to de-escalate the situation rather than start a fight. That you're not a troll -- that is, someone who (a) deliberately introduces a topic that is likely to be offensive and then (b) continues to push the buttons of any offended people until a giant flame war breaks out.

Tichy 18y ago

What if that woman happend to be a member of an ultrareligious sect and has no humor whatsoever. What if other women don't mind at all? Don't know what incident happened (was there an incident?), but is it not yet another cliche that women in general have to be offended by certain pictures? What about the women IN the pictures, would they be offended? I don't want to recommend to use offensive pictures in presentations (some men might be offended, too), but I am pretty sure that such things are NOT the reason for "underrepresentedness" of women.

menloparkbum 18y ago
What if one of the women in the audience was your mom? What if one of the women in the presentation is your mom? What if you're the conductor of a train and you're approaching a fork in the track: If you steer one way, you'll run over five porn stars. If you steer the other way, you'll run into a presenter at RailsConf. What if this conversation never ends? What if we're all just living inside of a computer simulation? Woah.
- joecode 18y ago
  You are. Just you, tho.