> What happened at PyCon has cast a spotlight on a range of deep issues and problems in the developer world.
What happened at PyCon was nerds making nerd jokes. People talk to each other at public events, even with people on stage, and the appropriate thing to do is turn around and ask them politely to keep it down. That is all there is to say on that matter.
What happened because of what happened at PyCon was the result of people who have nothing better to do than form at-the-minute internet mobs of hate. While we have a lot of growing to do as a community, it continues to disappoint me that the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory as it relates to this situation keeps being strictly applied to developers who I would wager were actually a very small percentage of the actual trolls involved in harassing her. Trolls that have been actively harassing anyone they so please for years.
The best thing about situations like this is that they give you a good excuse to disconnect. To go off-the-grid to try to find yourself again. I would love the opportunity to do such a thing myself and I think we all should; the internet is a quickly moving rapids and it is easy to get sucked under. And while I agree that maybe there should be a group that acts as a safe place for people to shed light on their experiences and try to figure out how to combat them, I don't think now is the time for her to try to say that she should be an "integral part" of such a group. Especially because she used what could have been a perfect opportunity for her to officially apologize to state how hard of a week it has been for her, personally, and not for the man who lost his job and the countless females for whom she claimed to be acting on behalf of.
> and the appropriate thing to do is turn around and ask them politely to keep it down
there's been a rebuttal to this concept in the form of the #iaskedpolitely tag on twitter. Not everyone is comfortable with direct confrontation in situations like these.
Without going to get into the specifics on how to handle situations that make you uncomfortable, there is always someone you can go to, whether it be event staff, venue staff or higher authorities if you really feel it warrants it. That said, if your anxiety prevents you from standing up for yourself in the first place, then that problem exists outside of the realm of this individual situation and perhaps it is in your best interest to figure out why that is the case and what you can do about it because this will not be the first, last or worst of what life will deal you. Living in fear is the worst way to live, something I am aware of first-hand. It should not hold you captive in your own life. I wish the best to all of those struggling and hope they can find the courage within themselves (and this is not to say there aren't some situations where you're truly better off not saying anything to the accused at all).
That said, PyCon had specifically appropriated their CoC to ensure that people had avenues to communicate problems they were having. The argument was then "But I'm the victim, why should I have to get up and do something about it when I did nothing wrong?" which just kind of boggles my mind. Do you or don't you want to make the effort to report this? You will inevitably have to spend time going over it face-to-face with event staff anyway, digging into time you wanted to spend doing something else, so you might as well just get it over with. Fortunately at events, someone will probably have recorded the talk and you can just watch it later.
Hopefully next year there will be a way to report via SMS, although I suspect that the ease-of-use that provides will bring about its own set of problems.
> Without going to get into the specifics on how to handle situations that make you uncomfortable, there is always someone you can go to, whether it be event staff, venue staff or higher authorities if you really feel it warrants it.
correct, talking to event staff is absolutely what someone should do if they feel uncomfortable directly confronting someone. I just hope that people feel comfortable doing this at next years Pycon, without fear of being ostracized for "not asking directly first". I'm disturbed at the level of anger over the idea of someone not being comfortable with direct confrontation.
Before you bring out the pitchforks, taking a photo and tweeting is entirely the wrong move and I am not defending that action in any way. I'm only referring to the concept that a safe conference place should be OK with people talking directly to event staff.
> That said, if your anxiety prevents you from standing up for yourself in the first place, then that problem exists outside of the realm of this individual situation and perhaps it is in your best interest to figure out why that is the case and what you can do about it because this will not be the first, last or worst of what life will deal you. Living in fear is the worst way to live, something I am aware of first-hand. It should not hold you captive in your own life. I wish the best to all of those struggling and hope they can find the courage within themselves.
I have a lot of background in this area as well, and while it's always great if people can learn to overcome all their issues and glide through all social situations in an impressively adept style in all cases, it's not very realistic. Everyone is only capable of being exactly where they are at in their lives, and that should not be a reason to avoid conferences. (Edit: nor is it realistic to assume that someone who is afraid to confront someone even has a problem - fear is not intrinsically a disease, it is a mechanism that very necessarily exists to protect the species from harm - it is only excessive and unfounded fear that is a pathology. Direct confrontation is absolutely not advised in many, many cases, and I'm sure you've had your own experiences where this approach goes terribly wrong.)
Not a single line of apology to a man's career she ruined, his family's welfare, and damaging influence she's had on female developers and developers in general. This reads like she's making martyr out of herself fighting for some greater cause. I cringe of deceit and sheer lack of conscientiousness.
She was just trying to increase her branding, something to blog about, something to attract page views, create a name for herself (and by proxy for Sendgrid).
She doesn't care whose (or is it who's?) toes she steps on.
That was her goal from the beginning, people like that don't really care, for them it's a hustle.
This person was jaded to begin with. With her blog domain "butyoureagirl". She's gonna cash in heavy on the whole ordeal of sexism in our field. She was prepared.
It's odd, though, as a developer evangelist you'd assume she would have her Github on "Connect with me" widget on the site.
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and even Youtube. But no Github.
"... she work to promote inclusivity within the developer community"
Yeah people like that aren't here for the code, they're here to cash in. Branding baby.
The term conference hoe' comes to mind, you know, all gender neutral and shit.
"Not a single line of apology to a man's career she ruined, his family's welfare"
Agree. But would like to point out that most likely the developer I will assume admitted to readily (and honestly) what he had actually said.[1] He may not have thought it was so bad -or- he simply underestimated the reaction of his employer. Hard to believe that if he had hemmned and hawed a bit and put off saying anything (giving himself a chance to think it through) that the employer would have fired him a) based on what a friend or third party reported or b) based on what Adria Richards did.
[1] Remind me of the scene in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" where Judge Reinhold (the fast food clerk in the particular scene) admitted being surly with a customer and was fired by the manager on the spot.
what's worse is that once you cut through all the politically correct bullshit that is being spewed on this subject you find that this was caused by a joke.
> I cannot comment at this time on the specifics of what occurred at PyCon on March 17, and the subsequent events of the following days, but I can offer some general thoughts.
It definitely sounds like she is either in the early stages of a lawsuit or in the process of bringing one against SendGrid. With her argument being that 'conference spaces are work places' and that she was fired because she reported something that happened while at work.
This statement seems very pruned compared to her previous writing and blog posts.
Although I'm kind of happy that this fiasco has shed some light on sexism in technology, I'm glad to see that it has stopped snowballing into a circus.
The conference spaces are work places is an interesting angle, but would it hold in her favor? Had she informed pycon sans tweets and blog posts I think it'd be an easy win in her favor, but unfortunately that's not really all she did.
Consider a workplace scenario:
Employee A is unhappy about coworker B. Instead of discretely talking to management about it, Employee A publicly shames B. B is fired. There's a big hoopla about it outside the company. Employer fires A stating that A can no longer perform their job due to the way A handled B.
I would hope that a wrongful termination suit fails for the reasons you mentioned, that doesn't mean it will though. I also don't think the conference spaces are work places comment holds any water. If tickets to the conference are open to the public then it is a public event. If your employer purchases your ticket to a public event you may still be bound by workplace conduct rules but should also have no expectation that other attendees will.
I was just thinking that her language indicates a lawsuit at hand, but I wasn't thinking that she was the one who might bring a lawsuit against SendGrid, though that's obviously been a possibility. Certainly, SendGrid's timing of the dismissal has been criticized:
1. They didn't dismiss her until several days after the incident and at a time when SendGrid was being attacked by a DDoS, an attack that Richards may argue was a misogynistic retaliation.
2. Several days, especially when at least a couple of those days were during a company-wide emergency, is a pretty short time to decide on a public dismissal of an employee. What are the chances that some things were not properly lawyered or that email communications were less than flattering on SendGrid's part during this hectic time?
So, she could try suing SendGrid for some type of wrongful termination and try for punitive damages. SendGrid could sue her for the actual (and potential) losses she caused them by her actions. Again, the only winners in this whole thing is going to be the lawyers.
I don't think that she has grounds for suing SendGrid. It's pretty clear that she was fired for cause. Her job was to be a "developer evangelist" and she was probably paid by SendGrid to be at the conference, representing them in an official capacity. Going out of her way to alienate the very developers that it's her job to sell to indicates very poor judgement about how her actions might affect her employer's reputation.
If there's a lawsuit brewing, it's also possible that she's the one being sued by the developer who got fired due to her actions.
I'm skeptical she'd take this kind of action, but maybe Adria is more naive than I thought. First she is shocked at the reaction of her public ostracization, then she thinks suing an ex employer is within her best long-term interests? Even if she wins (not likely, contrary to the legal opinion submitted here last week) and gets a few hundred thousand dollars she'll be even more blackballed by the rest of the industry than she already is.
Her ONLY safe play, long-term, was to apologize for how she handled the issue (which was not exclusive to pointing out the inappropriate commentary!) and make a lateral career shift of some sort.
if you can't do, sue. Seriously how has she been representing developers? i'm a developer and i'd rather be represented by someone else
Edit: Saddam Hussein is Not better
I'm tired of reading about Adria. She messed up at PyCon by publicly shaming the same people that she was supposed to be attracting to her company.
Was she fired for reporting sexual harassment? No. She was fired for making it into a failed personal publicity stunt at the expense of her employer.
In an office environment, if you are the recipient to sexual harassment and you don't feel comfortable confronting the individual, you go to HR or your boss and discuss it. You do not send a company wide email telling everyone what occurred.
Also, in an office environment, a single offensive remark, or even asking a co-worker out on a date, generally doesn't qualify as sexual harassment; the offender would have to repeat his or her behavior after being asked to stop. (The exception would be someone's manager asking them on a date, which would probably be against company policy from the beginning.)
As a woman working in the tech industry (though I am not a developer), I really agree with Amanda Blum's take on this situation. We are all damaged by events like this.
It's a prime example of what happens when we defend and escalate an uncomfortable situation rather than face it. Adria is definitely guilty of that, having taken the issue public so quickly. But I am very confident that the two men whose verbal comments prompted her response also allowed the situation to escalate before changing their behavior.
I'm pleased to see those involved address the situation directly, honestly and maturely. That's the only rational way to handle this sort of thing.
Thank you for being a voice of reason. Adria Richards is clearly trying to redefine the narrative in her favor, and the broader impact on the dialog in our industry is unlikely to be a positive one.
Honestly and maturely? By completely refusing to talk about the incident directly and only speaking about it 'in general' terms? That sounds like backhanded honesty to me and nothing in the realm of maturity.
"Those who know me well in the the developer and tech community recognize that I have always tried to conduct myself in a way that builds bridges for everyone."
I couldn't get through the first sentence without laughing. How does shaming two men by posting their picture on Twitter qualify as "building bridges for everyone"? I think she is lacking in self-awareness.
For her it's all about branding and cashing in. Even her blog domain suggest that she's not here to code, but to create a name for herself in terms of "sexism at workplace".
Anyone else feel like this is going beyond political correctness? The article, and her statement, are oozing with spineless statements. What happens when you get offended? Nothing.
Regardless of what you think of Adria's actions, it's not hard to imagine that the last two weeks must have been hellish for her.
I think it's brave and noble for her to make (what seems to me) to be an attempt at civil dialogue.
In effect she's saying: I want to keep talking about this, and including everyone in the conversation. After all she's been through. That's an impressive thing to say. Regardless of how many lawyers it got filtered through.
wow. She is the political beast! plays the color, minority and gender card, prepares a lawsuit and plants the seed for a next career move.
I don't know anything about sendgrid, but the fact that they put up with someone like this is much more of a turn off for me than the fact they mob fired her
That is a remarkably level-headed statement considering all that's gone on. I can already see the rage brigade firing up the oven, but maybe some good discussion can happen here.
I'm glad she didn't do a point-by-point rebuttal. At this point, most people either agree, disagree, don't care or are sick of it all - or some combination thereof. (I must admit, I do like the way she worked in "conference spaces are work places".) Now I'm going back to my place almost on top of the fence. . .
Another reason I'm happy to be self-employed. It's just as likely to be me making those dongle jokes, and I certainly won't be firing myself for doing it.
The outpouring of misogynist hatred may or may not have been triggered by internet trolls, but the tech community has demonstrated a decided imbalance in its allocation of outrage:
I think it's not as simple as you make out. There's little to say about the abuse. Once you've said it was terrible, you've pretty well said all you can say.
As for the incident itself, however, it's clearly possible to have different opinions, which is why you see a lot more conversation about it. It's actually the more interesting topic of the two.
Most of the conversation hasn't been very interesting though. I'd rather see discussion of what people think is appropriate behavior in a public setting like a conference.
When is it O.K. to at least make someone else aware that they are making you uncomfortable? Is it a good idea to create situations where bringing in a third party is an acceptable response to a situation? What is a constructive way to handle situations where someone feels aggrieved but few people agree with them? And so on.
Instead, we get lots of picking at the details of this incident, or uninteresting analysis of what motivates Adria Richards (most of us are flawed enough that we are not fully aware of our own motivations, never mind those of a stranger).
I suppose there is at least some contingent that would point at the legal system and say "There's your guide to behavior, right there." I also suspect that there would be a majority that disagreed with them.
I think this is an interesting comment, because I find the opposite. I've seen a great deal of debate about what people think is appropriate behaviour at a conference.
The debate I've seen includes, amongst other positions:
a) It's work, so needs a professional attitude
b) It's just a joke, so should be forgiven
c) It lowers the tone
d) It makes a hostile atmosphere for women
e) It was a private conversation
f) It was a public space
g) It's against the conference policy
h) The problem wasn't the policy, but the public outing
You're right, there has been quite a lot of discussion along those lines. I do think statements like "It's just a joke" fall under picking at the details of the incident, I'd like to see the debated hoisted up a bit from there. Meaning, do the people who think such a joke isn't a big deal think there is any verbalization that would be inappropriate in that setting? How far would the people who claim the conversation was private extend that context? Stuff like that, where the details are set aside and people look for where the interesting lines are.
I think it's pretty clear that there are some things that would be inappropriate. The interesting thing here is that you wouldn't ordinarily expect two people to lose their jobs over a crap joke and a twitter photo.
it appears to be a perfect storm, where the deviations from what might be acceptable are minor, but the results are huge. One thing I take away is that if something isn't done* to deal with the tendency of the internet to make something viral, everyone will be walking on eggshells ... whether making a joke or posting something on twitter.
There's not a lot to say about the fact that every time a woman speaks up about inappropriate behaviour, she receives an avalanche of insults, death threats and harassment?
But the "discussion" about whether Richards did the right thing hasn't been a debate - it's been a general piling-on with a generous helping of condescension and chauvinism. There has been only a smattering of disagreement and it has been summarily dismissed with a combination of the most perfunctory hand-waving and sheer shouting down.
The tech community immediately and decisively latched onto a convenient portrait of Richards as an underhanded, incompetent, cowardly, race-baiting, gender-baiting fraud with a manipulative agenda to aggrandize herself at the expense of everyone around her.
No amount of counter-evidence could make a dent in this depiction, a depiction that is immediately slapped onto every woman who dares to speak up about gender issues in the tech industry [1]. Everyone read and referred to the Amanda Blum post [2], but totally ignored a detailed review [3] of the instances Blum cited that cast them in a far more detailed and less sinister light.
No matter how you try to parse it, it's unambiguously clear that our community whipped itself into an apoplectic firestorm of outrage when a woman complained about behaviour in a conference that violated the conference's code of conduct, but at best shrugged and at worst said she deserved it when that very firestorm of outrage turned into an outpouring of the most vile, vitriolic and disgusting abuse, insults, threats and mockery against her.
That says something most disturbing about our community, and the collective unwillingness even to acknowledge it, let alone come to terms with it, should be all the evidence we need that our blind spot on gender issues is as pervasive as ever.
Pargraph 4: unambiguously clear, whipped itself into an apoplectic firestorm of outrage, at best shrugged, firestorm of outrage, outpouring of the most vile, vitriolic and disgusting abuse, insults, threats and mockery
Paragraph 5: disturbing, unwillingness to even acknowledge it, blind spot on gender issues.
Look, I will simply point out, again, that I disagree with the abuse that Adria has had to suffer.
However, I think that there are also interesting things that can be said about what is or is not acceptable at a conference, and that that debate is ongoing.
What happened at PyCon was nerds making nerd jokes. People talk to each other at public events, even with people on stage, and the appropriate thing to do is turn around and ask them politely to keep it down. That is all there is to say on that matter.
What happened because of what happened at PyCon was the result of people who have nothing better to do than form at-the-minute internet mobs of hate. While we have a lot of growing to do as a community, it continues to disappoint me that the Greater Internet Dickwad Theory as it relates to this situation keeps being strictly applied to developers who I would wager were actually a very small percentage of the actual trolls involved in harassing her. Trolls that have been actively harassing anyone they so please for years.
The best thing about situations like this is that they give you a good excuse to disconnect. To go off-the-grid to try to find yourself again. I would love the opportunity to do such a thing myself and I think we all should; the internet is a quickly moving rapids and it is easy to get sucked under. And while I agree that maybe there should be a group that acts as a safe place for people to shed light on their experiences and try to figure out how to combat them, I don't think now is the time for her to try to say that she should be an "integral part" of such a group. Especially because she used what could have been a perfect opportunity for her to officially apologize to state how hard of a week it has been for her, personally, and not for the man who lost his job and the countless females for whom she claimed to be acting on behalf of.