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Sexist culture and harassment drives GitHub's first female developer to quit
- NathanKP 13y agoIt makes me sad that a community that I'm part of and am passionate about has such negative behavior towards female members. I think it would be extremely positive for the developer community as a whole if there were more female developers, but I'm not sure how we go from the male centric community that exists today to one that accepts female members as equal peers. I'd like to think that the dev team at my startup would be welcoming and accepting of a female dev, but the truth is I have no idea, because we only ever had one female developer interview, and she had only a rudimentary understanding of HTML and JS, so we did not hire her. Does anyone out there in the startup community have a more integrated dev team? And if so how did you attract female devs and guide the team culture to make them feel welcome and accepted?
- lettergram 13y ago"It makes me sad that a community that I'm part of and am passionate about has such negative behavior towards female members" I haven't seen any actual evidence of this in the link, so where are you getting it from?
- NathanKP 13y agoIf you are interested in investigating there has been quite a few articles I've seen over the past few years on Hacker News and Reddit by female devs highlighting their experiences with how they have been treated by the dev community. Here are a few interesting articles to get you started: https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/6efcedf483bd https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/6efcedf483bd http://www.dailydot.com/business/hacker-news-justine-sexual-assault/ http://www.dailydot.com/business/hacker-news-justine-sexual-... http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/24/business/la-fi-tech-sexism-20131024 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/24/business/la-fi-tech-...
- lettergram 13y agoWe are talking about this case, not other cases. Each case is unique, you cannot assume sexism because you have seen it before.
- NathanKP 13y agoFirst of all my original post was not focused on this case alone. I'm interested in the general pattern of the problem, of which this appears to be just one instance. I'm also interested in how it can be solved to increase the participation of females in the development community. But with regard to this specific case, since you say that you see no evidence at the original link, I would urge you to think about the fact that you evidently do not consider Julie's own words that she has been harassed to be evidence enough. Denying that there is an issue, or that the complaints of women like Julie are legitimate is part of the problem in the first place. Personally I see a consistent pattern of low participation of women in the industry, and regular instances of women complaining about sexist treatment and not being taken seriously. I therefore see no issue with taking Julie's words at face value because I see plenty of evidence that this is a legitimate problem.
- camelite 13y ago>But with regard to this specific case, since you say that you see no evidence at the original link, I would urge you to think about the fact that you evidently do not consider Julie's own words that she has been harassed to be evidence enough. That's a bit rich, coming from rapist like you.
- NoahTheDuke 13y agoThe aforementioned situation this article is about? Or is this a case of, "Well, this one obviously doesn't count. And that one doesn't count. So I've seen no actual evidence!"
- ciupicri 13y ago> I think it would be extremely positive for the developer community as a whole if there were more female developers Why having more women would be extremely positive?
- kanja 13y agoI think we're all in agreement that increasing the diversity of viewpoints going into a decision will lead to an overall stronger result.
- ciupicri 13y agoYes, that would be possible. Thought on the other hand, women are supposed to be like men (equal?), so where would the diversity be?
- kybernetikos 13y agoIn this context equal does not mean the same.
- Mz 13y agoI just tried to submit this. Too slow, as usual. Excerpt: She's not alone in her frustration. Last fall, a community member of GitHub's code base, Ruby on Rails, blogged about being sexually harassed by her own boss while attending a Ruby conference. She later deleted her post due to receiving an onslaught of victim-blaming, rape, and death threats. Yeah, there's a lot that needs to change. Sigh. A lot.
- isaacb 13y agoIt becomes a problem when vitriolic responses like that (death threats, etc) are taken as indicators of the entire community. It absolutely needs to stop, and we all need to work together to stop it. However, most people aren't insensitive, sexist assholes, and that's important to keep in mind (I'm not saying you claimed otherwise).
- Mz 13y agoMost people aren't that kind of openly hostile extreme asshole. But I left HN for 18 months in part because it was clear to me that being a "prominent" (by karma score) female was a problem for me. And HN has been an extremely poor networking opportunity for me. I have mostly kept my mouth shut about how negative my experience here was for a time because I did not feel that would help me. I felt it would just make my situation worse. Given that I am homeless in part because of my inability to effectively network and turn my online projects into an income stream, I feel very strongly that you don't have to threaten rape or murder to quietly and politely do egregious harm to a woman's life. Anyway, time for me to go to lunch. Later.
- dominotw 13y ago> But I left HN for 18 months I dont mean to sound rude but I was curious what made you come back.
- Mz 13y agoI happened to be moving a blog and reposted the new urls to a few things that had previously been posted here, thinking a few folks might be interested. To my shock, they were better received than the first time around, it got genuinely discussed and I made the front page three times. So I stuck around and tested the waters and it seems to be a different environment than the one I left. I didn't really want to leave, so I am glad to feel more comfortable at the moment than I did previously. HN doesn't really have any competition. One reason I am not real keen on naming names, linking to public assholish personal attacks, etc is because I don't think that furthers any of my own goals. I would like to be able to participate productively here -- because, frankly, this is where the money and the power is for some of the things I want to accomplish. I have no desire to be relegated to a pink collar ghetto (btdt). I think most of the women who air a lot of dirty laundry are probably doing themselves more harm than good. But when I try to talk about things I think are very basic concepts in that regard, I get accused of "victim blaming" and crap like that. So I say relatively little compared to what I think about such things.
- strict9 13y agoFor so long I tried to convince others (even females) that sexism and casual sexism wasn't a thing in software development. I tried to project an image of guys who were introverted and shy around women, and that so called "brogrammers" were in the extreme minority. But those same women I tried to convince gave me concrete examples, sometimes even in the companies I worked for. Things I might have ignored or looked past were seen in a different light from their perspective. When you are in the minority somewhere, even small things are personal and cut deeper. A fact that many in the tech industry seemed to have forgotten from high school, if they were there in the time before being a computer geek was considered cool. As I said in the related thread on this event, let's stop with the victim blaming and personal insults when someone makes claims of being harassed. We pride ourselves on being intelligent and tolerant. Let's act like it and put down those who don't live by it.
- johnbm 13y ago"Victim blaming" implies you know for sure who the victim is. Given that this is nothing but one big he-said-she-said, I will instead reserve judgement. We have someone who's been accused of being unable to take criticism and being vindictive. She responds by throwing a public tantrum and blaming all of Github for it. If the shoe fits... Why is she so convinced that post is about her anyway? Unless there was some truth to it. The tech feminists never seem interested in taking the high road, and instead optimize for maximum drama. Don't complain about being a public figure when you broadcast your life on Twitter.
- marcusestes 13y agoIt doesn't sound like you've reserved judgement at all.
- johnbm 13y agoI can criticize the way she's handling this without having to believe she's guilty.
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- WizzleKake 13y agoTypically one would take harassment issues in the workplace to HR. Is there a stigma attached to this?
- emonk59 13y agoshe tweeted that she has been documenting this to github hr for 'years': https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444887201935945729 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444887201935945729
- joesmo 13y agoGoing to HR, wether by choice or not, is the last, optional step before one needs to leave a company, regardless of fault. HR isn's some magical department that can fix such issues, and they're not likely to help. That's not their job. Their job is to minimize the impact of anything that might or might not have gone on the company, especially the legal impact. Sure, in theory, one could go to HR and work things out, but in practice, one will not be welcome at a company after doing so. HR does not work for the workers, it works to protect the company and executives. In a situation where one is up against more established employees, it's guaranteed to backfire. HR looks to minimize the damage, and that will usually not be in favor of the person claiming harassment.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Typically one would take harassment issues in the workplace to HR. HR exists to protect the company. In a large company, where both the victim and the harasser are relatively small in the overall scheme of things, HR is (assuming the department is somewhat competent at its job) likely to be somewhat useful to a victim, simply because the downside risk to the company of not dealing with harassment is probably much greater than the value of even a supervisory employee. Even with a higher-level harasser, in a large company the firm is more likely to have established protocols, the violation of which would increase the risk to the company, which might make HR more useful to victims. At smaller companies, its less likely that HR will be useful, and, at any company, its a given that HR's primary interest isn't protecting the victim its protecting the company (including, especially, against a potential lawsuit by the victim). And, all that aside, yes, there is often a stigma attached to reporting the kind of things which constitute sexual harassment (a stigma which is reinforced by a society which engages in victim-blaming and slut-shaming), and, despite the laws against such, a very common fear of retaliation.
- emonk59 13y agois there any proof other than an anon Secret post? also, if the secret post is true... julie is a pretty terrible coworker.
- rchiba 13y agoI hope GitHub issues a public apology and a statement that can help frame her accusations and bring more light to what actually occurred. The article unfortunately did not offer the specifics of what happened, but it is unfortunate and unacceptable that gender continues to cause conflicts in workplaces for our industry.
- nailer 13y ago> The article unfortunately did not offer the specifics of what happened Yes, we don't know who is right or wrong right now. > I hope GitHub issues a public apology How do you know they are in the wrong?
- facepalm 13y agoWe don't need the specifics, do we? A woman was wronged, that means war!
- dominotw 13y agoI am not sure about an apology yet but it would be interesting to hear their side of the story
- Tohhou 13y agoShe is a person who thinks that Adria Richards of donglegate did nothing wrong. She is public friends with a group of high functioning SJWs (and for this reason stay the fuck away from them unless you want to be character assassinated - they are throwing that around a lot right now) who think GitHub of all places is the pinnacle of misogynistic, explicitly female hating culture. If that's GitHub then truly tech is doomed, but then again this is SJW world where any mostly male environment is a hostile work environment, where things like libertarianism is hated because they don't value equality of opportunity and instead demand equality of outcome irregardless of merit. They think that feelings, that status matters more than results... you know, building things, making the world a better place one little thing at a time instead of always being on complaining. Internet trolls being assholes has nothing to do with sexism. People who feed the trolls, who are male and female, get burned. Let the idiots burn. And yeah I've been called a gender traitor by the SJW idiots because I don't agree with their idea that feminism = females.
- smegel 13y agoWas she claiming sexual harassment or just harassment and bullying in general?
- emonk59 13y agofrom what i can tell.. just harassment. she tweeted the following: https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444902730629271552 https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444902730629271552
- lettergram 13y agoI am against harassment of any kind (race, sex, looks, etc), however as far as I can see, there has been no harassment... All I ask for is evidence. If there was some evidence I could believe it, all we have is someones (clearly hot headed) claims. I have worked with many women programmers in school and on the job and have never seen sexism. I have however heard multiple woman complain about not having enough women in tech, as well as complain about sexism. Yet, they always seem to be treated fairly. If women did not complete her job on time she was forced to stay after, same with the men. If a woman didn't know how to answer a question she missed the points, same with a man. Further, I fail to see any justification for sexism. Not only is there no evidence, but there is no reasoning as to WHY they were sexist (besides giving her bad performance reviews, which may or may not be deserved).
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- greenyoda 13y agoPrior discussion (129 points, 130 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405325 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405325
- jrochkind1 13y agoThis article is leaving me really confused if she is/was an employee of Github, and if it/she is talking about sexism at Github the company -- or in the "Github community" (meaning the collection of people using github I guess?)
- booruguru 13y agoThat article was really vague. Can someone provide some specifics on this story...especially the part about "aggressive criticism"?
- krick 13y agoObviously I don't know what happened there, but after scrolling through her twitter, well… My imagination shows me somebody, be it male or female, I cannot really like or sympathize. Maybe it's more about personality than "sexism" sometimes?
- lexcorvus 13y agoI see two basic solutions to these issues: 1. Purge every company of assholes 2. Allow complete freedom of association #1 is hard to implement because assholes are everywhere. #2 is the obvious solution, and in fact it is so obvious that Julie Ann Horvath's actions implicitly endorse it—don't work for companies filled with assholes. Alas, the obvious solution is illegal under US federal law. Asshole-filled companies are required by law to hire the kind of people assholes love to harass. In other words, the very laws designed to promote the interests of asshole-targets guarantee that they will come into contact with assholes. (Medical geeks might recognize this as iatrogenesis.) Of course, there's always: 3. Convert all assholes to non-assholes This can be considered a special case of #1, and would be the best of all possible worlds. Indeed, a great deal of energy goes into achieving it. But it essentially reduces to "eliminate the existence of assholes". It doesn't take a particularly subtle grasp of human nature to understand why this doesn't appear to be working. In sum, the obvious solution is illegal and the desirable solution doesn't work. Is it any wonder this conflict seems never-ending?
- nso95 13y agoWhy is no example of the actual sexism provided? I would like to know, what specifically makes them sexist.
- ryan-allen 13y agoWhoops, gonna need to get a new rug again.