
We Can Do Better: An Apology from Sqoot - ElliotH
http://blog.sqoot.com/we-can-do-better-an-apology-from-sqoot
======
iron_ball
Second comment puts it perfectly: "Could you please explain how your "humor"
was designed to call attention to the male-dominated world and was intended to
be inclusive? How is inclusive to say that one of the perks were "women" and
that one of your female event staff can fetch the boys some beer?"

Claiming humorous irony is a very thin get-out clause in this kind of
situation. You can't say "we were advertising our female beer-fetchers to
ironically draw attention to the male-dominated programming field, thus
showing solidarity with women." It just doesn't hold water.

For your own sakes, guys, grit your teeth, bite down on a piece of leather or
something, and _write a real apology_. This is so close! I know you can get
the last 5% of the way!

~~~
mbrzuzy
What is the big deal. People get way to offended this day in age. It's almost
as if people are waiting for someone to say something offensive just so they
can jump on it acting all high and mighty.

~~~
rmc
Or there is a legimate problem here?

~~~
timtamboy63
I personally don't think so. Everyone knows that Hackathons are widely male
dominated. Yes, the comment was a little out of line in a professional
content, but forgive them for trying to crack some humour and have some fun
with their ad. Have we become so politically correct that we can't let this
slide?

@rmc: Do you honestly believe that Sqoot is sexist because of that one joke?
That they look down on women, and think they shouldn't be working in the
industry? Really?

EDIT: I reread it, and I think the major issue was listing 'women' as a perk,
instead of something like 'beer'. Definitely out of line, but again, they
should be allowed to make up for it.

~~~
ianterrell
I think the argument that it was a joke is hard to swallow. It doesn't even
approach humor to me. A commenter on the apology got it right:

> From the original press release it sounded like you were just trying to
> throw a party with "hot waitresses serving drinks"

I'm not rmc and I won't answer for him, but I'll answer your queries from my
own point of view.

Do I believe that they're sexist because of that one statement? Yes, I do,
absolutely, but: does that imply that I think that "they look down on women,
and think they shouldn't be working in the industry?" No, I don't believe
their sexism is of that sort.

I think that most sexism in the US today is significantly more subtle than an
outright looking down on women. In this case, its subtlety makes it all the
more pernicious: it's harder to spot (even in one's self), it's harder to call
out, it's easier to excuse. Saying women are trash will make you into a
pariah, and no one will patronize your business. But what does a much smaller
objectification of women, like this case, do? It has a chilling effect and it
normalizes similar behavior; it contributes to the culture of sexism.

Are statements ("jokes") with such negative effects acceptable? It's hard to
argue that they are, and so it seems to me that the argument in defense must
be that the statement doesn't have those effects. And I think from the
backlash, well written comments on the apology, etc--I think that's a steep
hill to climb.

As for them personally: I don't think it should be judged that they're bad
people. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. I don't know. Are they sexist? I
said they were, absolutely, because their behavior was, which they're culpable
for. So they're sexist even if only partially and unconsciously. I'll give
them that benefit of the doubt, so it's an offense, but it's a forgivable
offense. There's a lot of sexism around. I've been guilty of sexist behavior
in the past, and I'm sure I'll be guilty of it in the future.

That's what happens when it's ingrained in culture and remains normal
behavior. And _that's_ what happens when statements like this are allowed to
slide. We do things without knowing their full weight, meaning, and impact.
And then we learn, and we adjust. And most importantly, through adjusting our
behavior we introspect to the causes, and so learn more about ourselves and
our world, and what makes it all tick, so that we can eliminate that which
doesn't live up to our ideals.

~~~
timtamboy63
You do make a really good point, and I definitely do agree with you. I just
feel like people overreacted, almost like they jumped on the holier-than-thou
bandwagon. When you consider events like CES and that one Yahoo Hack Day which
employed strippers, this isn't nearly as offensive.

Again, I definitely do see what you mean by it contributing to the culture of
sexist, and that simply isn't acceptable. However, I feel like the sponsors,
etc should have given Sqoot a chance to fix things before they resorted to the
moves they did.

------
kristiandupont
I'm obviously the minority here but I feel that this backlash is way over the
top. Sure, the comment was sort of stupid and shouldn't be a part of any
official communication from a company (although part of what I love about
startups is that the communication is more human and doesn't feel like it's
been screened by legal and marketing before published).

To me, it pokes more fun at geeks than anyone else. "A real woman!" The idea
that the underlying message is that women are supposed to be servants to men
and that's all they are good for is imo quite a stretch. Does anybody really
believe that they meant something like that?

~~~
xsmasher
Looking past the "women servants" message there's the implication that
"developers are men, and we'll have women there to serve them beer."

DO you think a female developer would feel welcomed by that message?

The servants bit is a joke, the unspoken assumption that devs are men is the
insidious poison.

------
soup10
I don't undertand why people are intent on burying these guys for a poorly
written flier with one mildly misogynistic joke in bad taste. The whole
sanctimonious/lynch mob mentality of this reminds me a lot of reddit.

There is so little of substance to be angry about here that people are now
more interested in criticizing the quality of their apology. I think they've
learned their lesson.

~~~
strawbucks
I would disagree: I think there is a point. The issue isn't necessarily the
wording of the joke or semantics in the apology. It's this idea that the
entire tech community is male and should be treated as such. It's not about
this being politically correct or agreeable, it's about the attitude being
insular. In my opinion, it would have been fine if they had said something
similar, yet gender-neutral. Comments can be sexy without being sexist.

------
bobbydavid
There are a couple forces at work here.

First, the tech/hacker world tends to be male-dominated, which creates a male-
oriented culture, which reciprocally draws more men, and the cycle continues.
We want to break that cycle, and a good way to do that is to snap at the heels
of people (like Sqoot) who are slow to get with the program. Overall, this
sort of admonishment improves the community. I'm glad it's happening.

Second, anyone who has first-hand seen or experienced being subjected to this
type of offensive comments will almost certainly have an emotional interest in
the matter. It feels pretty good to watch someone burn at the stake,
especially when day in and day out you watch others get away with making
similar comments. Just scroll through the comments on Sqoot's apology and
you'll find some pretty visceral remarks.

The problem is, it may feel good but it doesn't help. Here's why: As blatantly
offensive as the original comment was, it wasn't written with the intent of
bashing women -- it was just plain insensitive. Grossly insensitive and very
hurtful? Yes. But there's an important difference between being insensitive
and being malicious.

Why does it matter? Because if you truly have the goal of improving the
community, insensitive/ignorant behavior needs to be met with _education_.
Otherwise, all we get is an "Us vs. Them" mentality, which leads me to the
third force at work here: defensiveness.

Sqoot's initial apology, along with many of the comments on this new one, reek
of defensiveness. It's easy to see why: those people are most likely just as
oblivious as Sqoot, and they see themselves in Sqoot's behavior. Don't
alienate those people and don't put them on the defensive by being overly
harsh on Sqoot. That pushes people away from the conversation -- the very
people who most need to be educated.

There needs to be a clear distinction between Sqoot's words (not tolerated)
and Sqoot's mistake (mistakes must be tolerated).

------
squadron
There is another aspect of the apology that seems to be forgotten around here.
Forgiveness.

Yes, maybe they screwed up (I screw up more by 7am than most people do all
day), but when someone apologizes the decent thing to do is accept it and move
on with your life (and let them do the same).

~~~
aaronroyer
I was wondering about this as well. I did think that the advertisement was
sexist and made the hackathon seem exclusive to men. I don't know whether this
incident was just an isolated bonehead move or it reveals incorrigible bad
character in the people involved. I can see it either way depending on how I
stare at it, but I don't believe I have enough data to make a firm conclusion.
I don't have a pressing need to do so, so I will probably just leave the
question unresolved in my mind. But for the people that have made firm
conclusions, it seems like the apologies make no difference.

I would ask people that are unsatisfied by Sqoot's apologies: _Could they
issue any apology that would satisfy you?_

We are supposedly talking about how to apologize and whether they can/should
offer a better apology. But if nothing can change one's mind then we are
really talking about whether the offense is forgivable or not, irrespective of
the content of the apology.

~~~
tommorris
Yes, a decent apology needs to show some awareness of why exactly what they
did was wrong. A decent apology needs to show a little bit of soul searching,
and that they understand where people who were offended were coming from.

------
whalesalad
People need to fucking lighten up. I would not have said what they said on the
site, but it really was a stupid joke.

Everyone jumps to conclusions that we're all a bunch of misogynistic assholes.
The problem is, you can't understand someone over the internet. You can't
understand someone's apology or who they are or any of that. Worse, the
majority of these people calling this issue out online would NEVER confront
squoot in real life and raise these points. I make rude/crude/evil jokes to
people all the time. Especially women friends of mine. But it's all in the
spirit of being cocky/funny, and they love it.

Do I believe men and women were created equally? Yes. Do I believe a woman
should be able to do whatever the fuck she wants in this world, be it fighting
fires or curing AIDS? Yes. Do I feel bad that my sister is hurt by dickwad ex
boyfriends out there who lower her self esteem. Yes. Do I have 3 little
sisters and hope they all grow up to be strong and independent individuals?
Yes. But there ARE certain gender roles in this world, influenced not just by
our society but by many, many things. Testosterone? Yeah, I have a lot more
than most women. Why? I have a penis. We're different. We joke differently, we
think differently. We need to appreciate each other for who we are. Part of
that is realizing each others faults as well. If a bunch of girls started a
hackathon and listed one of the items as "$1 to the community bucket for
whoever doesn't put the seat down", I think I'd laugh at that (maybe a bad
example).

For the most part men and women are aware of their stereotypical flaws. Search
for "Shit girls say" on youtube and admire the view count. I don't know a
single girl who didn't completely piss her pants watching that. Sure, there
are things that people should not say/do regarding women. For example, I'd
beat the shit out of ANY guy I ever met who ever made even the slightest joke
about rape.

But then there are other things, like the stuff Sqoot said on their event
page. Psh, just a harmless JOKE. Pick your battles people.

Ugh. I'm ranting. This whole thing is just stupid though. Everyone needs to
relax.

~~~
donohoe
I'm sure on many counts you are absolutely right.

However there is a HUGE difference between what I say in person and what I put
in a a public invitation.

In isolation its "just a harmless JOKE" but it is not in isolation in the tech
scene. There is a long list of this behavior that makes this industry
uninviting (and in some rarer cases just damn hostile) to women.

I think in Startup culture we appreciate that its all in the nuance and little
details when it comes to success.

Small things like this add up. I'd argue that it is in dealing with matter
incidents like this that we make a larger change in the long run.

As for "Everyone needs to relax"... I have two daughters. When I don't have to
read about people like Sqoot then I'll relax.

------
VonLipwig
What exactly was sexist about what they did?

"""Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get
that for you."""

Perhaps the quote is missing context, I found it here:
[http://philomousos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-
apologize.h...](http://philomousos.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-
apologize.html)

To me it doesn't even make sense. What is this 'Women:' bit about?

If you discount the 'Women colon' I think if anything it offends programmers.
Are we really so geeky that we would go to an event just to get a beer from
'female' event staff?

Perhaps they think their audience is locked in some underground lair 364 days
of the year and women have become nothing but a mythical creature to a
programmer. The promise of seeing this rare and mysterious creature serve beer
would make someone like me want to go? I think not.

There are 3 things that bug me about this.

1) The quote makes no sense and if you try to rationalise it attendees should
be most offended.

2) People have got into such a kerfuffle which in scheme of things shows the
inexperience of the hosts rather than their malace.

3) The event might not go ahead at all because of this... which seems like a
bit of a shame.

This looks like a storm in the tea cup brewed by people who don't get out
enough.

~~~
danilocampos
> What exactly was sexist about what they did?

I came here looking for the standard, oblivious, "Hey, what's so sexist about
being completely sexist?" comment.

As usual, HN did not disappoint.

So let me explain:

"Women" are not a perk. Women are humans with as much value to contribute to
software development as men. To list them as a "perk" and to relegate them to
a service role minimizes women in two ways beyond the obvious, gross
objectification:

First, by saying "hey, all women are good for at this event is serving beer."

Second, and much more toxic, listing women as a perk reveals the unspoken
understanding that heterosexual males are the intended audience for the event
and that anyone else is secondary.

> I think if anything it offends programmers.

But yeah, by all means, muster up some indignation for all the poor,
privileged, over-represented _men_ who should be offended by this.

~~~
VonLipwig
pfft... like I said "What is this 'Women:' bit about?"

I didn't realise that they had listed women explicity as a perk. I just
thought it was a bad bit of copy. I didn't see their original site and as it
has now been taken down.

I thought they had listed it in a less obvious way noting the servers would be
women to bait males to attend.

Perhaps this is a bit more than a kerfuffle then.

While what they wrote turned out to be sexist I don't think at all this was
there intention. They fell into the trap of sterotyping their audience. If
your a hacker your probably a pale introvert with little access to women. The
trouble is a hacker/programmer/whatever is just a job title. The people who do
these jobs have variety personalities and genitals.

If anything they misunderstood their audience which is a shame really and
managed to generate some copy that could offend just about everyone.

~~~
thejefflarson
Are you serious? "Generate some copy?" Copy doesn't just appear out of
nowhere. Someone wrote that, and meant to write that, you're kidding yourself
if you think they didn't.

~~~
VonLipwig
I have no idea what you are on about to be honest.

Surely in this context generate == produce. I don't really get how you could
take what I wrote as 'these guys made content "magically appear" in their
event description'.

------
knowtheory
> _we used language that we now realize was reckless and hurt efforts to
> diversify gender in tech._

Hurting gender diversity isn't the issue. That's a _consequence_ of being a
jerk. The problem with being a jerk, is being a jerk.

------
mangoman
This kind of attitude SERIOUSLY hurts the industry as a whole. Two of the very
best programmers I know are women, and blatantly sexist remarks are not the
way to get good programmers to attend your event. In fact, why would you even
want people who are drawn towards those kinds of perks ANYWAY? Whoever came
for the perks of "women" are obviously not the kind of people that you want to
associate with. This type of attitude (I remember reading an article about
"brogrammers" on HN too) is not acceptable in the hacker community.

------
xibernetik
For those who don`t think this is offensive: Replace Women/Female with an
ethnic minority (e.g. Japanese, Hispanic) of your choice, and then think about
how someone of that background would feel reading that message. Then try it
with other minorities - lesbian or deaf people, for example.

Yes, it's blown up. Proportionally? I don't know.

A lot of the people who are saying "get over it guys, this really isn't that
bad" are the people who've never had to face continual prejudice regarding
their coding abilities or competence because of their genetics. It's difficult
to understand the perspective of a woman in tech unless you're experienced
that. When you've been receiving subtle indicators that "you're not really
part of this club", this sort of message can sting quite a bit.

------
rmc
To all the straight men here who can't see what the original problem with
including "Women who bring you beer" as perk, let me give you a little thought
experiment.

Imagine instead all the gendered terms were swapped in the original post, and
it read something like this:

Perks:

* Men. Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (male) event staff get that for you.

You hardly ever see that, and if you're used to the programmer culture, when
you read that you might mentally stumble and feel weird. Would you like to go
to an event like that? If you went, how do you think people would treat you.
This is what the subtle sexism feels like.

------
jshowa
People do realize that this is an apology right? You do realize that they did
this twice right?

Why in the world can't be just accept it and move on. It literally boggles the
mind that people ARE STILL OFFENDED after an apology.

Get over it! Geez...

~~~
donohoe
An apology is nice. They wrote a good one too.

However you do not have to accept an apology.

~~~
Gayle
They wrote two apologies. Their first one was pretty terrible and did not show
that they had actually processed why what they did was so offensive.

Their second apology was a bit better. But they claimed that their comment was
"aimed to call attention to the male-dominated tech world through humor and
intended to be inclusive."

Do they honestly expect us to believe that their comment was designed to be
inclusive, so that's why they offered women serving male coders as a perk?
(And this isn't just me reading into it. That's very literally what they
said.)

I would have much more respect if they just came out and said that, in an
attempt humor, they had made immature and sexist remarks and that they
understand that their comment was harmful not only to women, but to non-
straight men, and to hacker culture as a whole.

They're embarrassed, and rightfully so, but trying to BS around what they were
doing doesn't help. Admit your faults directly and people will be much more
forgiving.

~~~
donohoe
Agreed! You've put it much better than I could.

------
hkarthik
If they really mean what they say, they should work with the women in the NYC
startup scene (GirlDevelopIT and others) to launch a new more inclusive event.

------
nullsub
this sounds like limbaugh's apology the other day. "sorry that our WORDS made
our sponsors mad. we should have used different WORDS." missed the point.

------
jsavimbi
The only thing they're sorry for is the quick, efficient and brutal backlash
they were rightfully subjected to. All the "we wanted, we decided, we aimed"
self-centered nonsense only solidifies the belief that it's all about them and
they're unable or unwilling to understand why people are upset when being
known for having a loose atmosphere at their events was what they really
wanted in the first place.

And when I mean loose, I'm referring to the immature and douchebag activities
best represented in the bro-party video genre. In retrospect, they should've
doubled-down on stupid and pitched the event as being just that, instead of
employing the guise of a hack-a-thon. Although it would've gone a lot smoother
for them, it's obvious they would've failed there as well due to their
incompetence, but at least they wouldn't be known as a couple of liars for
some time to come.

Oddly enough, this blog post must be hard to find, as their website makes no
mention of their catastrophic implosion.

------
douglee650
these guys put a godhead on their website apologizing for this ... if you are
reading, sqoot, i would advise you actually hire a PR firm experienced in
these matters. they'll probably tell you to just go silent for awhile. that
would be "good advice"

