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On Github and Speaking Out

59 points by jejune06 13y ago

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
vezzy-fnord 13y ago
Interesting. I didn't see that much negative attitudes after the story was cleared out, actually most were sympathetic. The main disagreements were how the story was massively pinned everywhere as one of sexism, when the main conflict involved another woman, and then the man who reversed Horvath's commits appeared to hold a grudge, not necessarily sexist attitudes. Sorry about the incident you describe, but I'm having a hard time extrapolating it to systemic racism. It appeared that it was an uneducated punk trying to impress a love interest through the only brutish way he knows: violence. He also needs to intimidate you somehow, and your race stands out. So what do you think he's going to do, in that case? Comment on your race, of course. People of lower caliber tend to focus on these superficialities. Oh, and they also tend to be highly effective insults. There's that, too. If your goal is to offend, racial slurs are an invaluable tool. But even if we were to assume that this arbitrary incident from over 25 years ago is evidence of current events, I still cannot take your claim that the tech industry is "as welcoming to women as medicine and law were a century ago" at face value. Secret WASP classes, indeed. Most higher education today is the polar opposite of that ideologically, but there you go.
- pron 13y ago
  > the story was massively pinned everywhere as one of sexism, when the main conflict involved another woman, and then the man who reversed Horvath's commits appeared to hold a grudge, not necessarily sexist attitudes. That is not true, that's just what the nitpickers here focused on. To quote the TechCrunch story: Horvath claims: “I had a really hard time getting used to the culture, the aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion,” she wrote in an email to TechCrunch. Why did Horvath work for GitHub? She “loved the idea of GitHub because it was the place people went to make things for people who make things.” In light of that, Horvath told us that she “participated in the boys’ club upon joining,” but when her “character started being discussed in inappropriate places like on pull requests and issues,” the situation changed. In short, Horvath said that she felt she was being treated differently internally simply due to her gender and not the quality of her work. She calls her colleagues’ response to her own work and the work of other female GitHub employees a “serious problem.” Despite GitHub hiring more female developers, Horvath said she struggled to feel welcome.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    Ah, I guess one could have an argument for that, in that case. It still sounds like it was just a very informal and competitive environment, much like Bungie, where there are no idols and people are free-for-all, but I can definitely see how some can be put off by it.
    - pron 13y ago
      Exactly: just like Horvath said – a sexist environment, and a sexist comment. Read here[1] on the definition of sexism. Notice especially how sexism explains itself away in naturalistic and/or neutral terms, like "free-for-all" and "competitive", while not so subtly shifting the blame to those who can't cope with such an "informal" environment. Usually, "informal" actually means that those who have power feel comfortable, while those who don't feel bullied. [1]: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/ http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-de...
      - reallyseriously 13y ago
        Informal at the places I've worked meant wearing silly shirts on Friday and harsh language was used if you screwed up. If a woman quit does that mean it was a sexist workplace? If a guy quit after being berated is that different? I don't think so. Also, you linked to a feminist site to provide the definition of a word. Is that normally how people cite the standard/objective meaning of a word or is this story a chance to talk about something you feel very strongly about whether it fits or not? Edit: just read the definition. Women can't be sexist? Hilarious. Let me guess, African Americans & Asians can't be racist either? Warped view of the world.
        pron 13y ago
        > If a woman quit does that mean it was a sexist workplace? No. But if she quits because she felt the environment was sexist, then yes. > If a guy quit after being berated is that different? I don't think so. Well, male-on-male bullying is also an interesting topic and subject to research, but the topic du jour is sexism, so let's stick to that. > Also, you linked to a feminist site to provide the definition of a word. Is that normally how people cite the standard/objective meaning of a word...? Well, I don't know if "sexism" has an "objective" definition, but yes, words are usually best defined by experts on the subjects. Just as gravity is best defined by physicists, sexism is best defined by feminists, who have studied sexism for the past few decades. I'm a newbie to feminism, so I defer to the experts. > or is this story a chance to talk about something you feel very strongly about whether it fits or not? It is something I feel strongly about because of this story and others like it. Because so far all evidence suggests that "it fits", I think those trying to make it look irrelevant are suspect.
- zorpner 13y ago
  Ah, HN. "I have a different interpretation of a situation which I was not involved in": check "You can't extrapolate from analogous situations over to tech": check "This wasn't sexism, it involved another woman!": check "Racial slurs are an invaluable tool": This is a new one to me, actually.
  - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
    I'm sorry, but if a person posts their article online up for debate, then yes, I will comment on how I interpret what they've given of their story. That's how public discourse works, I'm afraid. You can, but you need to have convincing argumentation. The statement that "tech treats women like medicine and law did a century ago" is a blatant provocation. Most of Horvath's story detailed a power struggle. If your goal is to offend. Context matters, people. Stop deliberately trying to get offended by everything, please. It's not that I agree with offending people, but it's what the person in the OP's story seemed to be going for, and since racial slurs are highly offensive, they are very useful in that.
    - zorpner 13y ago
      > since racial slurs are highly offensive, they are very useful in that. I agree! And the context of this is important, as you note -- as verbal constructions, racial slurs are more effectively offensive than pretty much any other available words, and one can often easily use them after just having looking at someone. And, after having these verbal weapons leveled at him, and being in a subsequent fistfight, he was essentially told that "boys will be boys". This should tell you something about how the power structures in play deal with minorities.
      - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
        Or perhaps it was simply them trying to brush off an inconvenient situation? That's something many institutions do, it's not just done exclusively when it concerns racial issues. Hell, the fact that it was a racial issue gives them more incentive to keep silence. As for his friends, they might have simply decided it wasn't worth expending energy on a lowlife punk.
akerl_ 13y ago
The initial premise of the article appears flawed. Based on my reading of the community response to Horvath's post and Github's response, most people were in the camp that the founder's wife's actions were outright ridiculous, the coworker's actions (reverting her commits) were asinine, but that the article did not appear to portray sexism, because her only provided example of sexism was ~"some women were hulahooping, I saw some guys gawking at them, the guys thought it was ok". If she had a case for more pervasive sexism at GitHub, I'd like her to lay it out in the open so we can address it. There's a minority of the community who are assholes and will always be assholes. Without becoming a censorship society we can't outright extinguish their ability to make noise. But the vast majority of responses I saw were sympathetic to Horvath's position, if not her sexism angle.
- pron 13y ago
  > If she had a case for more pervasive sexism at GitHub, I'd like her to lay it out in the open so we can address it. She did. Yet it seems like every effort is made not to address it, including flagging of two articles on HN today, both incidentally or not by women, so that they wouldn't make it to the front page (one did, briefly)[1], [2]. > But the vast majority of responses I saw were sympathetic to Horvath's position, if not her sexism angle. That's right. Many of the comments of HN were disappointingly sexist. Just to give you an example of how cleverly sexism can be masked (even, and especially, if it's unintentional masking of unintentional sexism), the very same people who were quick to assign blame in the NSA/Snowden story, or the Aaron Swartz story, all of a sudden called for restraint until further "data" is obtained in this case so they could form an "informed" opinion, while views supporting and expounding on the sexism claims were dismissed as "emotional". Actually this masking of sexism is so banal, that it is, in fact, anything but clever. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416189 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7418029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7418029
  - chc 13y ago
    I'm sympathetic to the problems women face in this industry, but the fact that HN did not leap to unwarranted conclusions in this case is something that should be encouraged, not shamed. Maybe people were able to show restraint in this case because they felt less close to the issue due to sexist tendencies, but the modicum of restraint shown is not itself sexism — it's what should be the ideal across the board. Also, neither of those articles are by Horvath and they barely even go into her accusation of sexism, so I'm not sure how they're supposed to illustrate that she did elaborate on her accusation. Are you sure you linked the right ones?
Bahamut 13y ago
I have experienced similar sorts of crap behavior in the past (racial, violent, etc.) - my only recourse in some cases were to respond to violence with violence unfortunately, although it did have a net positive effect that I somehow gained respect & the reputation that I would fight back, so that no one would mess with me. The downside is that sometimes you end up having to continually prove yourself at various points in your life. Violence is not my preferred method of retaliation though - violence in itself does not prove a point, except that I am not willing to be trampled on. It has also backfired on me in the past at times (ex. fracturing my hand while in boot camp from retaliating over getting punched in a stressful moment - the initial punch I took was due to some mythical blame that I was at fault for the platoon getting jacked up). Sometimes you cannot do anything else when a bully attacks you directly - the only thing such people understand is meeting power with power, that is the state of their brutish mind. They don't ascribe to the fundamental premise of mutual respect, even when you have not done anything that should have provoked it. You're just used as an excuse to vent out frustrations over self-deficiencies or failures. This is why we, the new privileged class of tech, should be doing everything to abet this behavior, and show that we should be welcoming - we should be showing that there is a better way than repeating the same old animalistic behavior in a new form. Behavior like this or what Julie experienced is abhorrent, and commentary should take into account that we are talking about people who have experienced what no one should experience ever.
hueving 13y ago
The second paragraph is a complete strawman of the discourse that occurred here. It's so unrepresentative of what I witnessed that I thought it was a joke. How can you post something like that and expect any of your post to be taken credibly after that?
programminggeek 13y ago
It seems like whenever something like this happens publicly in our industry, a lot of people get all up in arms for a few days on blogs and twitter and then people forget until the next one happens. I suppose that is the way of the world, but it seems like people are more invested in being upset by things like sexism, racism, spying, or whoever sold for a billion dollars than they are in doing anything about it. I think a lot of people like complaining and being unhappy, even if the problems of the day have nothing to do with them directly.

59 points by jejune06 13y ago

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

Interesting. I didn't see that much negative attitudes after the story was cleared out, actually most were sympathetic. The main disagreements were how the story was massively pinned everywhere as one of sexism, when the main conflict involved another woman, and then the man who reversed Horvath's commits appeared to hold a grudge, not necessarily sexist attitudes. Sorry about the incident you describe, but I'm having a hard time extrapolating it to systemic racism. It appeared that it was an uneducated punk trying to impress a love interest through the only brutish way he knows: violence. He also needs to intimidate you somehow, and your race stands out. So what do you think he's going to do, in that case? Comment on your race, of course. People of lower caliber tend to focus on these superficialities. Oh, and they also tend to be highly effective insults. There's that, too. If your goal is to offend, racial slurs are an invaluable tool. But even if we were to assume that this arbitrary incident from over 25 years ago is evidence of current events, I still cannot take your claim that the tech industry is "as welcoming to women as medicine and law were a century ago" at face value. Secret WASP classes, indeed. Most higher education today is the polar opposite of that ideologically, but there you go.

pron 13y ago
> the story was massively pinned everywhere as one of sexism, when the main conflict involved another woman, and then the man who reversed Horvath's commits appeared to hold a grudge, not necessarily sexist attitudes. That is not true, that's just what the nitpickers here focused on. To quote the TechCrunch story: Horvath claims: “I had a really hard time getting used to the culture, the aggressive communication on pull requests and how little the men I worked with respected and valued my opinion,” she wrote in an email to TechCrunch. Why did Horvath work for GitHub? She “loved the idea of GitHub because it was the place people went to make things for people who make things.” In light of that, Horvath told us that she “participated in the boys’ club upon joining,” but when her “character started being discussed in inappropriate places like on pull requests and issues,” the situation changed. In short, Horvath said that she felt she was being treated differently internally simply due to her gender and not the quality of her work. She calls her colleagues’ response to her own work and the work of other female GitHub employees a “serious problem.” Despite GitHub hiring more female developers, Horvath said she struggled to feel welcome.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  Ah, I guess one could have an argument for that, in that case. It still sounds like it was just a very informal and competitive environment, much like Bungie, where there are no idols and people are free-for-all, but I can definitely see how some can be put off by it.
  - pron 13y ago
    Exactly: just like Horvath said – a sexist environment, and a sexist comment. Read here[1] on the definition of sexism. Notice especially how sexism explains itself away in naturalistic and/or neutral terms, like "free-for-all" and "competitive", while not so subtly shifting the blame to those who can't cope with such an "informal" environment. Usually, "informal" actually means that those who have power feel comfortable, while those who don't feel bullied. [1]: http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-definition/ http://finallyfeminism101.wordpress.com/2007/10/19/sexism-de...
    - reallyseriously 13y ago
      Informal at the places I've worked meant wearing silly shirts on Friday and harsh language was used if you screwed up. If a woman quit does that mean it was a sexist workplace? If a guy quit after being berated is that different? I don't think so. Also, you linked to a feminist site to provide the definition of a word. Is that normally how people cite the standard/objective meaning of a word or is this story a chance to talk about something you feel very strongly about whether it fits or not? Edit: just read the definition. Women can't be sexist? Hilarious. Let me guess, African Americans & Asians can't be racist either? Warped view of the world.
      - pron 13y ago
        > If a woman quit does that mean it was a sexist workplace? No. But if she quits because she felt the environment was sexist, then yes. > If a guy quit after being berated is that different? I don't think so. Well, male-on-male bullying is also an interesting topic and subject to research, but the topic du jour is sexism, so let's stick to that. > Also, you linked to a feminist site to provide the definition of a word. Is that normally how people cite the standard/objective meaning of a word...? Well, I don't know if "sexism" has an "objective" definition, but yes, words are usually best defined by experts on the subjects. Just as gravity is best defined by physicists, sexism is best defined by feminists, who have studied sexism for the past few decades. I'm a newbie to feminism, so I defer to the experts. > or is this story a chance to talk about something you feel very strongly about whether it fits or not? It is something I feel strongly about because of this story and others like it. Because so far all evidence suggests that "it fits", I think those trying to make it look irrelevant are suspect.
zorpner 13y ago
Ah, HN. "I have a different interpretation of a situation which I was not involved in": check "You can't extrapolate from analogous situations over to tech": check "This wasn't sexism, it involved another woman!": check "Racial slurs are an invaluable tool": This is a new one to me, actually.
- vezzy-fnord 13y ago
  I'm sorry, but if a person posts their article online up for debate, then yes, I will comment on how I interpret what they've given of their story. That's how public discourse works, I'm afraid. You can, but you need to have convincing argumentation. The statement that "tech treats women like medicine and law did a century ago" is a blatant provocation. Most of Horvath's story detailed a power struggle. If your goal is to offend. Context matters, people. Stop deliberately trying to get offended by everything, please. It's not that I agree with offending people, but it's what the person in the OP's story seemed to be going for, and since racial slurs are highly offensive, they are very useful in that.
  - zorpner 13y ago
    > since racial slurs are highly offensive, they are very useful in that. I agree! And the context of this is important, as you note -- as verbal constructions, racial slurs are more effectively offensive than pretty much any other available words, and one can often easily use them after just having looking at someone. And, after having these verbal weapons leveled at him, and being in a subsequent fistfight, he was essentially told that "boys will be boys". This should tell you something about how the power structures in play deal with minorities.
    - vezzy-fnord 13y ago
      Or perhaps it was simply them trying to brush off an inconvenient situation? That's something many institutions do, it's not just done exclusively when it concerns racial issues. Hell, the fact that it was a racial issue gives them more incentive to keep silence. As for his friends, they might have simply decided it wasn't worth expending energy on a lowlife punk.

akerl_ 13y ago

The initial premise of the article appears flawed. Based on my reading of the community response to Horvath's post and Github's response, most people were in the camp that the founder's wife's actions were outright ridiculous, the coworker's actions (reverting her commits) were asinine, but that the article did not appear to portray sexism, because her only provided example of sexism was ~"some women were hulahooping, I saw some guys gawking at them, the guys thought it was ok". If she had a case for more pervasive sexism at GitHub, I'd like her to lay it out in the open so we can address it. There's a minority of the community who are assholes and will always be assholes. Without becoming a censorship society we can't outright extinguish their ability to make noise. But the vast majority of responses I saw were sympathetic to Horvath's position, if not her sexism angle.

pron 13y ago
> If she had a case for more pervasive sexism at GitHub, I'd like her to lay it out in the open so we can address it. She did. Yet it seems like every effort is made not to address it, including flagging of two articles on HN today, both incidentally or not by women, so that they wouldn't make it to the front page (one did, briefly)[1], [2]. > But the vast majority of responses I saw were sympathetic to Horvath's position, if not her sexism angle. That's right. Many of the comments of HN were disappointingly sexist. Just to give you an example of how cleverly sexism can be masked (even, and especially, if it's unintentional masking of unintentional sexism), the very same people who were quick to assign blame in the NSA/Snowden story, or the Aaron Swartz story, all of a sudden called for restraint until further "data" is obtained in this case so they could form an "informed" opinion, while views supporting and expounding on the sexism claims were dismissed as "emotional". Actually this masking of sexism is so banal, that it is, in fact, anything but clever. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7416189 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7418029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7418029
- chc 13y ago
  I'm sympathetic to the problems women face in this industry, but the fact that HN did not leap to unwarranted conclusions in this case is something that should be encouraged, not shamed. Maybe people were able to show restraint in this case because they felt less close to the issue due to sexist tendencies, but the modicum of restraint shown is not itself sexism — it's what should be the ideal across the board. Also, neither of those articles are by Horvath and they barely even go into her accusation of sexism, so I'm not sure how they're supposed to illustrate that she did elaborate on her accusation. Are you sure you linked the right ones?

Bahamut 13y ago

I have experienced similar sorts of crap behavior in the past (racial, violent, etc.) - my only recourse in some cases were to respond to violence with violence unfortunately, although it did have a net positive effect that I somehow gained respect & the reputation that I would fight back, so that no one would mess with me. The downside is that sometimes you end up having to continually prove yourself at various points in your life. Violence is not my preferred method of retaliation though - violence in itself does not prove a point, except that I am not willing to be trampled on. It has also backfired on me in the past at times (ex. fracturing my hand while in boot camp from retaliating over getting punched in a stressful moment - the initial punch I took was due to some mythical blame that I was at fault for the platoon getting jacked up). Sometimes you cannot do anything else when a bully attacks you directly - the only thing such people understand is meeting power with power, that is the state of their brutish mind. They don't ascribe to the fundamental premise of mutual respect, even when you have not done anything that should have provoked it. You're just used as an excuse to vent out frustrations over self-deficiencies or failures. This is why we, the new privileged class of tech, should be doing everything to abet this behavior, and show that we should be welcoming - we should be showing that there is a better way than repeating the same old animalistic behavior in a new form. Behavior like this or what Julie experienced is abhorrent, and commentary should take into account that we are talking about people who have experienced what no one should experience ever.

hueving 13y ago

The second paragraph is a complete strawman of the discourse that occurred here. It's so unrepresentative of what I witnessed that I thought it was a joke. How can you post something like that and expect any of your post to be taken credibly after that?

programminggeek 13y ago

It seems like whenever something like this happens publicly in our industry, a lot of people get all up in arms for a few days on blogs and twitter and then people forget until the next one happens. I suppose that is the way of the world, but it seems like people are more invested in being upset by things like sexism, racism, spying, or whoever sold for a billion dollars than they are in doing anything about it. I think a lot of people like complaining and being unhappy, even if the problems of the day have nothing to do with them directly.