
Still Here, Part 1: A Memoir - panic
http://randi.io/wp/archives/86
======
song
I have a seething hatred for weev, his clique and anyone who behaves
similarly. I hope to think they're a small minority of people but it's amazing
how many women they've tried to turn off tech with their idiocy, their
defamation, their death threats and their abuse.

When I see what happens to women in tech and a lot of the abuse they have to
withstand, I admire those that can stand the trolls. I don't think I would be
this resilient faced with this abuse.

I wish we could be in a world where everybody would be accepted in the tech
community regardless of gender, race or sexual orientation. I hoped before
that due to the relatively higher education level of tech workers, people
would be more tolerant but it seems that's not the case.

PS: Now, in the case of weev and his AT & T conviction, I of course support
reversing it and support the work that EFF is doing defending him but that's
despite weev. It's because, in this particular issue, he's innocent. That
doesn't stop him from being an horrible person.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I wonder though, has he actually turned a statistically significant number of
people off?

Suppose field X had a crazy person so dedicated that he shot a US president in
order to send a message to a woman working there (far more than Weev has
done). Suppose that pervert letters to women in field X were completely
expected and commonplace, and had been for many years. Would women flee from
X?

Surprisingly, acting has no shortage of women. Pervs sending creepy letters is
a topic of humor:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmeh7EHpIE0)

Journalism has similar issues. Still plenty of women. Seems like there must be
something else at play.

[edit: replaced the word "anyone" with "a statistically significant number".
This better expresses what I meant to say.]

~~~
jxf
That's survivor bias [0]. The point isn't whether there's still at least one
woman in the field, or whether there's "plenty of women" (what does that even
mean, anyway?). The point is whether anyone was _stopped from entering the
field at all_.

The ones who are still in the field are the ones most resilient to the abuse.
But you miss out on the contributions of all the people who left and did
something else. How much farther along might we be in software engineering, or
sculpture, or architecture, or <insert your favorite field here> \-- had the
toxic environment not been present in the first place?

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)

~~~
yummyfajitas
_" plenty of women" (what does that even mean, anyway?)._

Not really sure - I don't personally view a lack of $GROUP as a problem. If
you feel similarly then disregard my entire post - it's premised on the idea
that the reader does view a lack of women as a problem.

There are two claims here. One is that bad behavior exists. The other is that
this bad behavior plays a significant causal role in keeping women out of
tech.

The latter is what I'm questioning. Since large number of women seem to want
to enter acting in spite of it having a far worse reputation (never heard of a
"casting couch" in tech), it seems that bad behavior alone is a poor
explanation for the lack of women.

~~~
purerandomness
Basically, you want a formal proof that "bad behavior plays a significant
causal role in keeping women out of tech" is a valid hypothesis?

While scientifically interesting, I don't see the utillity for that, honestly.
Do we really not agree that this has to stop? Does it really matter how many
people harassment would keep out of the business? While skepticism has its
place, harassment is not a technical, but a social problem, and I, for one,
can bring up enough empathy to not need the scientific method to want to stop
harassment.

As to the casting couch, I don't know how it's where you live, but here in
Europe, while everyone in the acting and music community is familiar with the
term, the "casting couch" exists merely as a myth, not an actual thing
preventing women to begin working in acting. Besides, the acting/music
community is _far_ beyond the 1/10 (or whatever) gender split in the tech
community, so even if someone would try to establish the casting couch as a
de-facto gate-keeping procedure, female members of the in-group would call it
out, ending this phenomenon much sooner than would be possible if the gender
gap in those communities were to be as it is now in tech.

Even then, you wouldn't bring up statiscics how many women were entering the
acting field by "passing" the "casting couch". So I'm confused and would like
to know what your point really is.

~~~
yummyfajitas
No, I'd like to see evidence of some sort that the effect is significant
before concluding it plays a significant role in keeping women out of tech.

If you want to tackle the problem of crazy people trolling public figures, be
my guest. I don't see any reasonable steps that we could take that wouldn't be
oppressive, but maybe you have more imagination than me. Just don't be
surprised if you solve this problem but tech remains 25% women.

~~~
purerandomness
We're not discussing "crazy people trolling public figures" here. No one wants
to do anything about your favourite sunday newspaper cartoonist and his daily
Obama caricatures. We're not talking about your neighbour kid playing phone
pranks on you.

What we're talking about here are death threats, sexual harassment, and
calling your boss to get you fired. Deliberate, organized hate. Effective and
planned activities to harm an individual who doesn't represent the in-group
you're happening to be in.

I couldn't care less how the gender distribution remains after we've solved
THAT issue. This is a showstopper bug that has to be solved BEFORE we even
begin to debug the gender gap.

Anything else would be ridiculous: "Yeah, we're trying to find ways to get
more women in tech, but since we don't have any scientific evidence to back up
that the harassment, hate and verbal abuse against women in tech is a root
cause of too few women in tech, we're still investigating and solving other
possible causes"

If you were a woman (I suppose you aren't), would you want to work in an
environment that is obviously this toxic?

~~~
yummyfajitas
_If you were a woman (I suppose you aren 't), would you want to work in an
environment that is obviously this toxic?_

I don't think tech is "toxic".

I've put as much of my money where my mouth is as my plumbing allows. I
recently (read: past few months) did everything I could to help a girl I care
about get into tech. I think she'll be happier in the field than in her
various alternatives.

~~~
purerandomness
Well, that's because I assume you're a decent human being, and that's great -
and I try to do the same (while not having experiences specifically with
girls, I try to support women in tech where I can)

We both are fortunate to not see a problem in our specific peer groups, but
strangely seem to disagree that the problem still exists for some other peer
groups, and that we should do anything possible to stop that toxicity.

------
Bahamut
I will say this, from the perspective of someone who has been around online
communities for approaching 20 years and moderating in various online mediums
for 10+ years - women get harassed online far too much in most communities.
The extent some of the harassment goes is mind boggling.

One of my good friends had a beastiality erotica written about her as part of
a campaign to defame her, where the people involved went as far as taking the
ip addresses of the moderators and redirecting them to a harmless image
whenever they attempted to load the actual image. The primary reason is
because a group of people didn't like how she acted, including dating the
founder for a short while of the site the community was based on.

Another member of the community was naively coaxed into sending someone else
some pictures of her naked, which was then gathered up and used to slut shame
her - she was not even 18, which made it distribution of child pornography.

I have had to ban countless harassers who would go on a public TF2 server I
run and immediately try to harass the women who had the gall to use a
microphone - I take a zero tolerance attitude towards this behavior,
harassment of any kind is unacceptable. Whatever positive contributions some
of these people might have, it certainly isn't worth accepting that sort of
behavior as the norm, driving away good people who did nothing wrong.

~~~
thyrsus
Your individual actions are laudable. Is responsible moderation the only way
to create welcoming communities, or are there ways to scale that?

~~~
Bahamut
I'm of the opinion that it always starts at the top - even silence can be the
wrong action, especially with behavior that normally gets decried as
unacceptable at large.

Moderators have such large power to influence the directions communities go -
in a way, moderators are like unofficial judges. Bad decision making ruins
everyone's quality of life who participates. This is in large part what makes
places like 4chan and Reddit not great in my eyes. Some of the moderation
policies here on HN are also highly suspect as well, and it is reflected in
some of the comments you see here and in some other posts.

Communities have often proven bad stalwarts of proper decorum and
respectfulness - you can see it quite often in forums or boards of various
types and various subjects. 4chan, Reddit, HN, sports forums, video game
forums, etc. More community run forums tend to devolve into chaos, where many
otherwise good people who would normally stand up to abusive behavior end up
leaving since they get drowned in a sea of mob rule. The only way I have been
able to see this situation get stopped is by strong moderation, since they
have special authority to make or break situations. However, moderation also
has to be mindful of the community as well - some actions, even if right, can
drive away people. Communities can mold around how a moderator behaves, so one
has to be careful not to be too strong armed.

It's a delicate tightrope one has to walk as a moderator, and one managing
moderators.

------
freshflowers
I'm tired of the fact that this debate has deteriorated into sides lead by
extremists.

On the one side there is the gamergate crowd, who despite their constant
denial are fundamentally sexist and misogynistic in pretty much every second
sentence they utter. And the existence of these pricks serves as a cover for
the ubiquitous but much more subtle sexism in the tech industry. Which in turn
is being denied by the people smack dead in the middle of it (this thread to
will see a lot that kind of denial).

On the other side however are the consummate activist, the ones the bigots
refer to as "Social Justice Warriors" who see sexism in everything, stifle any
debate with finger pointing, bullying and witch hunts (as recently
demonstrated with "shirtgate"). These people are no better than the pricks
they claim to be fighting. They don't just fight sexism and inequality, they
want to bury anything they are uncomfortable with, including basic human
desires and freedom of any kind of non-politically correct form of expression.

And from the tactics used and the collateral damage caused, I find it
increasingly difficult to tell the two sides apart except for the the
symbolism and rhetoric.

~~~
rmc
Here's a hint. One side is threatening "the greatest school shooting in
American history"

~~~
Igglyboo
By one side you mean one person who affiliates with that chosen side, trying
to say that all the SJW's or GamerGate people support murdering children is
ridiculous.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It was actually woman and feminists specifically they were vowing to kill, not
schoolchildren. It's "School" as in "college".

------
JonnieCache
I stopped hanging around on IRC because of people always being weird to women,
it's just depressing to watch. Maybe I should have stayed and made a stand...

~~~
FoeNyx
I rarely see people being weird to women on IRC, but I guess it's as IRL:
there are good places and bad places.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
It may depend a lot on the IRC network and channel. IRC these days seems to be
confined to open-source software discussion, so the communities are more
helpful.

~~~
JonnieCache
This was on freenode, on the channel for a development tool. I'm not going to
name names because the people involved weren't actually members of the project
IIRC, just regulars on the channel.

It wasn't nasty or anything, just... weird. It gave me an overpowering urge to
uninstall irssi and go outside.

------
unimpressive
This is a good post, I want to make that clear because that's about all I'll
say about the rest of it beyond the second part being marred by a flaw that
deeply bugged me:

Idle speculation about 4chan causing the Pilchuck shooting was uncalled for,
and as somebody who lives fairly close to the events very insensitive. It's
one thing to talk about Elliot Rogers where it was made very clear that his
motivations were pertinent, but turning whatever shooting tragedy into a
political billiard ball is one of those things that we should stop doing
because it's not improving discourse.

------
cousin_it
> _When a woman publicly tells her story and a man tells her that her
> experiences are invalid_

That's what happened with Zoe Quinn, except gender reversed. Her ex told the
story of how she abused him, and it got censored and slammed everywhere.

Edit: I'm a bit freaked out by the downvotes. What's wrong with my comment?

~~~
paddyoloughlin
I have not downvoted you, but the zoe post wasn't slammed because its author's
experiences were considered invalid but because it is a textbook example of
slut-shaming. And now you are saying that the target of this was an abuser.

And it's a stretch to say thezoepost was censored. It's still available at its
original location.

~~~
tomp
> a textbook example of slut-shaming

Accusing someone of cheating on you is slut-shaming?

~~~
paddyoloughlin
That's a very generous description of the zoe post.

If Eron wanted to only accuse Zoe of cheating on him, he could have done that
and left it there.

~~~
tomp
He accused her of being a shitty human being - lying, cheating, denying the
above, deceiving the author to have unprotected sex with him (should she be
locked up in an embassy?), having double standards/no principles... Still, I
can see no slut shaming in the text.

------
Tryingtofeel
As an outsider reading this, I feel like there is a missing side of the story.
Did those people really do all those things for no reason? What prompted them
to harass her? Edit: I'm not saying there are ever circumstances where what
they did is warranted. The story just seems to be so one dimensionally against
her, couldn't help but feel something was missing.

~~~
aw3c2
Careful, that question is forbidden. You will probably be accused of "victim
shaming" in a minute.

Sadly most people seem not interested in the psychological or sociological
motivation of those abusers. There is always something that triggers abuse
(no, I am _not_ saying that it must be something the victim did). I wish we
would investigate into that and help people stay clear of the psychopaths that
way.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Kathy Sierra suggests that the fact that she was listened to by many people
was what triggered the hatred for her:

[http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-
point/](http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/)

 _" I now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility
is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”,
“favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have
(in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid”. Apparently, that just can’t be
allowed."_

Read the whole thing, it's heartbreaking and eyeopening. It also involves some
of the same people that attacked the author of the current post.

So whatever these two woman did to "incite" this harassment was shared by at
least two kinda-succesful woman in tech.

------
inglor
It's very hard not to sympathize with this as most of our generation who went
to tech are "misfits". As a minoroty that's even harder.

I don't understand why randy would focus on making tools for blocking people
on Twitter though - writing about it is more effective and less 'ragey'.

It would also be nice if she adds how to help.

~~~
freebsdgirl
I told myself that I wouldn't comment on any of this, but goddamnit. MY NAME
IS RANDI. IT IS LITERALLY PART OF THE URL.

~~~
inglor
Sorry :) An honest DYAC mistake.

------
aw3c2
To maybe save some from reading through this rambling who like to stay away
from the topic: It does not seem to be about women in tech generally but seems
to boil down to the work of a few socio-/psychopaths caught in a feedback
loop.

~~~
nounaut
You sound like you're probably part of the problem.

~~~
lost_my_pwd
Please don't do that; a hit and run labeling does nothing to improve the
situation.

If you think the grandparent poster is part of the problem, at least explain
your reasoning. Without that, there's no chance of them correcting their
behavior or, at the very least, seeing things from a new perspective.

Not saying I do or do not agree with your assessment; just hoping for more
constructive discourse and positive criticism on HN going forward.

~~~
calibraxis
The world does not owe misogynists infinite amounts of patient one-on-one
education. Expensive labor. The linked article is more than sufficient.
Public, contemptuous dismissal is the correct response.

(Or how much money are you willing to pay to fund this education you expect
others to provide?)

~~~
aw3c2
Are you calling me a misogynist? How on earth did you get to that incredible
insult from my initial post?

This kind of abrasive behaviour is exactly why discussing these issues seems
impossible. This is why people like me get sick and tired of it. Please
educate! Please give me objective education, I crave it!

~~~
paddyoloughlin
Your post seeks to minimise the issue (it's not about tech in general/just a
few bad apples) something which is directly addressed in Part II of the
original post:
[http://randi.io/wp/archives/91](http://randi.io/wp/archives/91)

I think the reasoning basically goes that trying to minimise the problem of
misogyny is a symptom of misogyny.

~~~
aw3c2
I am sorry but I do not see that directly addressed at all. I have now read it
3 times. There are selected examples, personal experiences, the Gamergate
shitstorm which is beyond the point of sanity by a long shot and a lot of
rambling. And that lead to my conclusion of being not something one has to
read if one is interested in making the situation for women in tech better.

~~~
paddyoloughlin
This is the part I meant:

> What’s even more troubling than the abuse, however, is that so many people
> are oblivious to these issues. Even after Kathy was brave enough to post her
> personal story, people think she’s a statistical abnormality. Since I’ve
> started talking more openly about my experiences, a staggering number of men
> that I know and respect have spoken to me privately, apologizing because
> they didn’t know this was happening. I’ve related those conversations to
> other women, and they were shocked. They didn’t understand how men could not
> see these problems, but it’s because so many of us are being so goddamn
> quiet.

But on re-read, I accept that it was too strong of me to say 'directly'.

Anyway, the "it's only a few bad apples" response is common enough to have
been addressed many times by essays on sexism in tech. It's akin to the "not
all men" narrative.

~~~
aw3c2
Thanks! Still reads as mostly anecdotes to me. I know enough women who are not
subject to such abuse to know that it is a tiny minority that is. Or maybe
they are not parts of communities where this is more normal? (Obligatory
disclaimer: Not victim blaming for being in certain communities.)

I wish oblivious (apparently) responses like mine would actually get valid
feedback/criticism instead of being swept under the rug on an instant. I have
learned nothing today except to never ever participate in a discussion of
these issues. Instead I felt a lot of anger and hatred against the

I really wish people would concentrate on finding out what motivates people to
harass and abuse instead of directing their anger at those who question their
methodics and tactics.

~~~
freebsdgirl
>I know enough women who are not subject to such abuse to know that it is a
tiny minority that is.

Are these women really not subject to abuse? Is it possible that they just
haven't felt like they could talk about it? Could it be that they don't
realize that some of the things they've experienced constitute as abnormal
behavior? It took me a long time to figure that one out. It wouldn't be
unreasonable to think that others would have the same problem.

~~~
aw3c2
It could very well be but I am very close to some of them and am confident
that they are neither oblivious nor feeling like they have to hide anything.
They are well respected in their respective communities.

~~~
JoshTriplett
Your anecdotes do not support your stated conclusion that "it is a tiny
minority"; at best, even if your data is actually accurate, you've gathered
evidence to support the conclusion that there exist people who have not been
harassed or abused. Likewise, there is more than enough evidence to support
the conclusion that there exist people who have been, and more than enough
evidence to infer that those aren't just "isolated incidents"
([http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Isolated_incident](http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Isolated_incident)).

------
ivanca
You had been target of completely sexist discrimination and many of the
perpetrators should be on Jail, but Annita Sarkeesian and a few like her are a
completely different subject:
[http://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI](http://youtu.be/WuRSaLZidWI)

We always look for people with the same motivations and the same struggle than
us so I blame no one who relates to her.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Anita Sarkeesian isn't a completely different. She is a woman in tech (more
specifically, video games) who is harassed for speaking out about sexism in
video games. Perhaps some of her essays have inaccuracies, but none of this
justifies the horrible abuse she gets on a constant basis.

Also, Thunderf00t's videos on her seem to focus on single details as if her
entire argument would fall down, when it wouldn't, and by repeating something
enough times until it seems to be true. I'm hardly the best person to talk
about these, though.

~~~
geographomics
Totally agree. Personally I think Anita provides quite a fresh look at the
portrayal of women in video games and other pop culture, and it's interesting
to hear her perspective even if one disagrees with it.

It just seems thoroughly unhinged to mount a campaign of sexual harassment and
death threats in response, rather than countering with a reasoned line of
argument, or simply just shrugging it off.

~~~
XorNot
I haven't found Anita's videos particularly compelling as unique analysis, but
that's become an utterly tertiary issue to the completely insane crap which
has happened to her, and started happening, at the mere _idea_ that she would
make them.

~~~
ivanca
No, you don't understand, the crap that has "happened to her" is how she is
making a living out of it, unlike the poster of this article and anyone
actually suffering from it.

