After reading this I don't like Adria Richards very much. She seems very self involved with a persecution context. However, she is still very much a victim of sexist online culture. Bad people can be victims too.
A man makes a mildly sexist unfunny joke and the result is a woman is unemployed for six months and fears for her safety. That is 'not cool', and ironically only reinforces her and other women's belief that there is a patriarchy out to get them.
I'm not seeing any overt or implicit sexism either. Not even when she provides context, really:
> She explained the background – how she was a “developer evangelist at a successful start-up” and that while the men had been giggling about big dongles the presenter on stage was talking about initiatives to bring more women into the industry. In fact, he’d just projected onto the screen a photograph of a little girl at a tech workshop.
> “…I stood up slowly, turned around and took three, clear photos. There is something about crushing a little kid’s dream that gets me really angry. It takes three words to make a difference: “That’s not cool.” Yesterday the future of programming was on the line and I made myself heard.”
So "Hank" made a couple of suggestive jokes unrelated to the topic at hand, and just because the talk was about women in tech he's sexist and crushing a little kid's dream? Would that have made him a climate change denier had it been on global warming?
Maybe I'm missing something, because Adria's actions and reactions make very little sense to me.
One thing that confuses me is that series of events:
1)There was a speaker on the stage talking about women in the industry.
2)He happened to bring up an image of a girl in a tech shop.
3)Hank and his friend had several exchanges with the sexual jokes.
The timeframe doesn't seem right. For one, they were talking and giggling while someone was presenting? Is this a common thing? Another is that they were speaking louder than a whisper. Really? Making sexual jokes while someone is presenting in a louder than whisper volume? I don't know. It doesn't add up. Maybe they were really being that immature or your first quote is dramatized.
Sexual != sexist. I feel like this concept needs more attention. Anecdotally, I hear just as many sexual jokes from females as I do males - the concept that "they feel comfortable" and happen to be surrounded by similar people (while/male) does not make it sexist, or even threatening.
What if the picture on screen was a woman saying 'I want to be judged on my merits not my gender' and the guys were saying 'Nice tits' out loud and laughing? Would that be sexism?
I'd unequivocally say yes and, while inarguably less offensive, the dongle joke was still similarly sexist.
What if the picture on the screen was a male, and they cracked a joke about his "package" - who should be offended then? The presumably straight women listening in the next row? Any gay men within earshot? Everyone?
The game of what is considered sexually "offensive" or sexist gets very complex when you start considering sexuality outside the "norms". Suddenly, traditional "sexism" and the assumption that everyone is a straight male and straight female seems laughably archaic in a discussion of modern ethics.
As a bisexual gender dysphoric man and I can tell you that this strawman of alternative sexuality doesn't hold up at all.
What people who don't fall within the norm are mainly concerned with is ridicule, condemnation, threats, abuse and violence from those considered 'normal.' Whatever part of your identity is non normative doesn't significantly change that.
The main thing that changes is that the degree of disdain/disgust/superiority towards your group tends to determine how severe the abuse is; leading to statistics such as that 1 out of every 8 black transgender men end up being murdered.
Tragically enough nerds are also definitely on that spectrum yet somehow the abuse they suffer often doesn't translate into empathy for those even further down the food chain.
Where in the article were they directing it at the talk? I didn't catch that happening anywhere? It seemed like the two guys giggling amongst themselves to me.
I can buy that the joke was just inappropriate, and no doubt that she massively overreacted.
However, she was the one who ended up with the death threats. It's hard to reassure women that they're safe at tech events if the result of them making a social faux-pas are threats to their safety.
Have any white men on this site ever been on the receiving end of a campaign of intimidation and fear? I sure haven't. We then complain that women have an irrational fear of violence and intimidation? Sounds like a lack of empathy on our part.
> Have any white men on this site ever been on the receiving end of a campaign of intimidation and fear?
Yes. I find our macho, heteronormative culture very intimidating at times. Just asking someone out comes with the risk of assault (or worse). It's not a campaign, exactly, but it is something a lot of guys go through because of how they were born.
Intersectionality is a valuable concept because it handily avoids pointless discussions over who has it worse. We all find ourselves in situations where whatever privileges we have because of how we were born are meaningless.
You get fucked over constantly. This eventually builds up. When you lose your livelihood through no fault of your own but have no power to react.
Then you see it happen to someone else, over of all fucking things a dongle joke.
You unleash that fury onto someone that is deserving of ridicule, but not the extent to which some people take it.
My philosophy has become avoid everyone always and forever, it never works out in your favor. I'm great at establishing a rapport and being friendly with people, you just have to always keep it superficial except with your close friends and family.
> A man makes a mildly sexist unfunny joke and the result is a woman is unemployed for six months and fears for her safety.
No, the reason for her unemployment and harassment was not the private joke between two friends, but her handling of the situation (i.e., the public shaming via Twitter).
A man makes a mildly sexist unfunny joke and the result is a woman is unemployed for six months and fears for her safety. That is 'not cool', and ironically only reinforces her and other women's belief that there is a patriarchy out to get them.