

A Selection Of Thoughts From Actual Women (regarding GoGaRuCo) - sant0sk1
http://hackety.org/2009/04/29/aSelectionOfThoughtsFromActualWomen.html

======
jgrahamc
How about a thought from an actual man? Me.

I've flipped through the slides and if I'd been in that presentation I would
have had a very low opinion of the speaker. Not because I've got a problem
with pornography, but because his presentation shows a complete lack of
judgment.

If you are making a public presentation you need to realize that your
standards are not shared by everyone in the audience so you need to tailor
your presentation to them. There were probably plenty of people happy to see
softcore pornography that day, some people who wished it had been hardcore,
and others who felt uncomfortable. There's not an obvious male/female mapping
to those categories.

Suppose it hadn't been pornography, but had been slides making fun of
Christianity, or slides showing graphic depictions of surgery, or jokes aimed
at a minority based on skin color. You can imagine the audience splitting into
groups that were happy with that, unhappy and indifferent.

But why split your audience? They were there to hear about CouchDB, not to
understand the speaker's personal beliefs or preferences.

In addition to having a low opinion of the speaker, I would have been
uncomfortable with the images knowing that others in the audience were likely
offended and didn't say anything.

And lastly, his metaphor is broken. So CouchDB performs like a porn star? Good
to know. To me performing like a porn star means pretending to do something
and not doing the real thing. I guess CouchDB is some sort of phony database
that looks good at first glance but is just faking it.

~~~
sethg
Interesting comment quoted here: <http://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2009/04/28/how-
to-be-edgy/>

_It’s not about whether it’s porn or not porn. Those commenting on people’s
supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the
point. It’s about presenting women as ‘the other,’ not ‘us.’ It would have
been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in
aprons, shaking their fingers and threatening with rolling pins._

~~~
anigbrowl
It wasn't about women (to me) - I would have had the same reaction if it was
gay porn. Or if it was a talk on security and featured photos of real life
cops and criminals breaking the law. I'm sure it's a great database, but the
visual baggage wound up being a major distraction.

------
jimbokun
"Titillation is certainly good marketing, but frankly, if you can’t find a way
to make your presentation interesting that doesn’t include thonged asses, your
presentation isn’t interesting."

I found this the best summary.

~~~
tannerburson
I think it goes just a bit further than this, but not a lot. He tried to play
off of the "rock star" persona that surrounds the Rails community in an over
the top and humorous way. He failed, miserably.

Those he was satirizing thought it was great, and those who should have
appreciated the satire were offended. It showed a complete lapse of judgment,
and frankly professional taste.

But the amount of hype this whole drama has received is yet another mark
against the Rails community. Maybe Zed was more right than everyone thought.

------
jdminhbg
The one thing I do have to say is:

> What about a presentation about writing code on deadline: “Delivering Like a
> Birth Mom.” Or how about graphic images of up-close breastfeeding in a talk
> titled “Nursing Your Projects Along.”

I don't think this would upset many male attendees, nor would it upset me.
That doesn't necessarily mean that "Perform like a pornstar" was ok, but this
analogy doesn't really hold. I think most guys would find the birthing/nursing
metaphors funny, and I don't think you'd see any complaints afterward. Unless,
of course, it was a guy who gave the talk.

~~~
marcusbooster
I think she's alluding that _a lot_ of guys, when they see a mother breast
feeding in public will roll their eyes in disgust, "does she really have to do
that here?" Hence the big Facebook controversy a few months back - is it
appropriate to post breast-feeding pics on the site?

I don't have an answer to that, but I understand how I might feel
uncomfortable if I had to watch a presentation about breast-feeding for 30
minutes when I was expecting something on CouchDB. Swap that out for something
potentially more inflammatory and you get the disaster we see now.

~~~
axod
>> "a lot of guys, when they see a mother breast feeding in public will roll
their eyes in disgust"

Seriously? In US I assume?

I'm in the UK and have never had such an impression. Old people seem to
sometimes get offended at such things, but certainly not the general
population.

~~~
gabriel
Yeah, it's a US thing and it happens exactly as quoted. And it actually gets
the same reaction from both men and women.

The exceptions are men and women who have realized that it isn't easy to
control infants and a good mother will do what has to be done. Not so
disgusting from my point of view (and I'm a guy in my 20's with no kids).

~~~
axod
Can't think of many things more natural than a woman feeding her baby.

~~~
jdminhbg
Lots of things are natural that you wouldn't want to see.

I personally have no problems with breastfeeding, and I'm dubious of the "omg
Americans flip out when they see it" implications above, but "naturalness" is
not not really the reason something is ok to do in public or not.

~~~
axod
Perhaps it's more related to the religiousness of the US?

~~~
marcusbooster
Kinda, but I think it's more of a question of "tact" from a US'ians point of
view. There's a high priority placed on politeness (real or not), service, and
ultimately obedience. While this conservatism may have it's roots in religion,
the attitude permeates through the rest of the culture.

The US is a country of immigrants, and if you look at the history - immigrant
groups tend to be pretty dang religious. Pilgrims and Puritans, Africans
embraced Christianity with zeal because of their circumstances. Later waves:
Irish & Italian Catholics, German Protestants, European Jews; all very
religious. And modern immigrant groups, Latin Americans, Koreans, Indians,
etc. can all be quite conservative. Religion and culture intertwine because
people tend to hang out with their own in the beginning - and the place to
find them is usually at a church/temple/whatev. I guess it's like the old
lunch table theory, you'll prefer to hang out with people that you think are
more like you.

[edit] And to extrapolate this to the current topic, the presenter's greatest
sin in the eyes of many US'ians is not his gratuitous use of sexual imagery to
convey a point, but his complete lack of tact when doing so.

------
asb
Danny O'Brien has picked out a great quote on this issue:

> "It’s not about whether it’s porn or not porn. Those commenting on people’s
> supposed hypersensitivity to nudity or bodies are completely missing the
> point. It’s about presenting women as ‘the other,’ not ‘us.’ It would have
> been just as offensive if all the women shown were domineering mothers in
> aprons, shaking their fingers and threatening with rolling pins."

<http://www.oblomovka.com/wp/2009/04/28/how-to-be-edgy/>

------
jwr
I really don't see why people make this into a gender thing. Because there
were more women in the photographs than men?

The speaker showed very poor taste. Such illustrations are totally
inappropriate for a public presentation. But this has nothing to do with
gender, so I don't see why women were more offended than men.

------
knieveltech
You know, the Drupal community is always looking for talented developers and
to date I've yet to see any pr0n embedded in a presentation I've attended.
Just sayin...

------
yef
Why is there so much drama in the Ruby community?

~~~
octane
Because it's a scene.

------
huherto
I do not think the presentation was particularly offensive; but he tried to be
funny and failed. He should have apologized and move on. But he didn't and
that is what caused all this. Just poor judgment followed by poor damage
control.

------
peregrine
Again _why blows the discussion out of the water, sets it down and makes
everyone in the room feel like a child for his foresight and wisdom.

Thanks _why.

~~~
petercooper
He has foresight and wisdom in spades but this is just an objective list of
quotes :)

~~~
eru
What use is a good quote, when you can't change it?

Really: Selecting the 'objective information' is still judgement.

~~~
petercooper
I meant his choice of quotes is objective. The quotes themselves are not
objective. That said, he seems to have quoted pretty much all of the women
who've said anything about it. A great move, but not exactly collating the
Bible.

------
mattmcknight
I get why the presentation/presenter was ineffective for some audiences. I get
that there are various assorted prudes that need to be marketed to. I don't
get why everyone has to have an opinion about it.

Has no one heard the term "booth babe" before? Been to car show? Turned on the
television and seen a beer commercial? Watched a race car driver endorse a
domain name registrar? Sure it sucks that marketing and sex are intertwined.
Read this:
[http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/04...](http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2009/04/spent-
sex-evolution-and-consumer-behavior.html)

Then can we please shut up and get back to coding?

~~~
diN0bot
What do car shows and beer commercials have to do with intellectual discourse?

yeah, base advertising works. on the other hand, if going to work was like
being in a car commercial i doubt we'd produce anything constructive.

~~~
diN0bot
in fact, here's a good quote for that:

> "Victoria Wang: DHH’s attitude seems to say that the more we lower ourselves
> to the most base level of marketing scum in the name of entertainment, the
> better, even if at the end of the day there are no more women, or anyone
> worth knowing, in the room. It kind of makes me want to never touch Rails
> code again."

~~~
plinkplonk
"It kind of makes me want to never touch Rails code again"

Don't.

It is a free world out there and there's a _lot_ of competing frameworks and
languages. I seriously doubt _any_ framework or language designer sets out to
have "more women in the room" and neither should they.

DHH made his code available for anyone else to use _if they wanted to_. That
doesn't mean he abdicated his values or thought process to to what the rest of
the world dictates.

He is not an _elected_ leader, who you expect to at least pretend to share
your values. He happens to occupy a leadership position because he
_contributes code_. Contributing code shouldn't have to imply political
correctness in thought and speech.

I think all these complainants should really walk away from Rails (vs blog
about it or whine about it day after day after day ) if they are so offended
that DHH (or other people) don't share their prejudices on how the world
should think.

Just. Walk. Away.

And how many people will do that (as compared to running a torches and
pitchforks type campaign on blogs and twitter)?

Not many I would think.

And how much difference would it make to Rails if they did walk away? I have
no idea though I think, maybe not much.

All this looks increasingly like a storm in a teacup.

~~~
mechanical_fish
I can only hope that this one comment will not come to represent the
prevailing attitude in the Rails universe. Because "if the Rails community
behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just walk away" is _not_ a
sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who wants a website.

Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by a
friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to
recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who
can be hired to maintain your site over the next decade". Anything else is
poison.

Yeah, nobody is forcing the Rails community to be polite. It's an open-source
project. Nobody is going to get fired. But it's up to the community to decide
how big it's going to be at equilibrium, and whether or not it will contain
any customers who have money.

~~~
plinkplonk
@mechanical fish,

""if the Rails community behaves too erratically for your taste, you can just
walk away" is not a sentence I can afford to say to a prospective client who
wants a website."

Fair Enough. But

(a)no Open Source community in the world has any guarantee on not "behaving
erratically" in the future. All OS guarantees is that if the community goes in
a direction different from what you think appropriate, you still have the
code. So your client still only has _that_ to fall back on in the ultimate
analysis.

(b)"Clients want to hear "your site is built on a platform that is managed by
a friendly, responsive team, with a long history, that is dedicated to
recruiting an ever-growing, diverse community of developers and designers who
can be recruited to maintain your site over the next decade".

I agree. But it is not necessarily the project founders concern that _your_
clients hear what you want them to hear. he could just be sharing some code
with no worries about what anyone says or does.

(c) Just to be clear, I speak for _me_ , not "the community".

I just think it is unfair of people to demand that the presenter apologize
just beacuse some people chose to be "offended". To me, this line of argument
is similair to those put forward aginats the Mohammed Cartoons.

I also think it is unfair of people to project _their_ notions of what
"leadership" should be on to DHH and then complain he doesn't meet _those_
standards. This is an Open Source project. If you are dissatisfied with the
leadership, step up and lead.

Fwiw, I don't think the presentation was a very cool one. I just support the
presenters right to make his presentation in any manner he see fit (and the
audience's right to walk away ). I am just wary of some claims of moral
superiority.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_If you are dissatisfied with the leadership, step up and lead._

What do you think that process would look like in its first few days, if not
like this?

------
jnovek
Where are all the comments about evolution, biology and women as programmers?
This group of HN commenters really bothers me -- the armchair biologists who
declare that women keep away from programming and startups because evolution
rather than socialization tells them to.

I have a pretty strong opinion that runs counter to that one, so I want to see
a response from this group! Here we have a lot of women talking about how
macho-ism and the locker room mentality makes them less comfortable. How does
this fit in with the question, "Why are there so few women developing
software?"

~~~
axod
>> "Why are there so few women developing software?"

You don't need permission to develop software you know... Just go ahead and do
it. If you get good enough at it and make some cool stuff, people will hire
you.

~~~
jnovek
My question isn't clear -- a better question is, "Why do so few women want to
develop software?"

I think it has a lot to do with the software-development culture. And I think
that the comments that these women made back up that position. Software
development -- especially in startups -- has developed a "macho" culture. And
that's a shame because it excludes.

~~~
axod
I disagree completely. I think women don't want to develop software because
they in general like doing other things. The sexes are hard wired totally
differently.

How many girls spend their 13-16 years hunched over a home computer hacking
away?

Personally, I don't think there's any issue with the culture. It's a matter of
what girls like doing, and what boys like doing. At early ages. We shouldn't
try to 'fix' things that aren't broken.

My daughter loves dancing dressing up and singing. My son likes playing cars
and power rangers. Those aren't learnt things, they're instincts people are
born with.

~~~
jnovek
I'm not certain how dancing or playing with cars is anything but cultural. I
mean, aren't these products of years of culture, including the gender roles
assigned to them? What makes dancing girly and cars boyish?

"The sexes are hard wired totally differently."

The thing is, I can get behind this statement. If you zoom out further, and
say, "Boys are different from girls." you can even say, "duh".

I'm pragmatic; I would accept biological evidence suggesting that men are more
biologically inclined to be programmers. But how likely is it that that gap
reflects the gender ratio that we see in software developers today?

It's possible, but I think it's unlikely.

I think that a much LARGER force is the perpetuation through behaviors like
this presentation that developing software is a "boys only" club. If women
want to play, they have to "man up". Creating a female-unfriendly culture is
still gender discrimination, even though there's no one person doing it.

~~~
axod
Absolutely not IMHO. It's a product of evolution. Caring vs hunting etc

~~~
cjbos
How can you argue that working as a programmer is more a hunter role than a
gatherer/care giver role?

Lack of role models at the young age is a more likely cause imo. Who do young
girls in the 12+ age group have to look up to in our industry or in pop
culture? In the comedy "Big Bang Theory" about 4 male Nerds, the female lead
character is the dumb blonde next door.

~~~
axod
Programming, especially at the start, is a very solitary thing usually. You
sit hunched over a computer bashing out code. That really suits some people
and not others - in generalities, I'd say it suits Men more than Women.

Just like a hunter, you're alone, competing with several other lone
programmers/hunters.

I'd say roles that Women excel at in Tech are PR, design, managing
communities, etc where art, communication and caring are more important.

In general Women are far better at communication than men IMHO.

~~~
menloparkbum
LOL. since this topic is making HN worse than reddit anyway, I'll post a video
link. Your comments remind me of David Wain's speech in this episode of Wainy
Days:

[http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Wainy_Days/Season_1/6AWomansTou...](http://www.mydamnchannel.com/Wainy_Days/Season_1/6AWomansTouch_393.aspx)

~~~
axod
Sorry... I forgot it's un-politically correct to point out obvious differences
between people. Just like there can be no losers at sports day any more...

[http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-
ho...](http://www.cerebromente.org.br/n11/mente/eisntein/cerebro-homens.html)

<http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/heshe.html>

[http://library.thinkquest.org/26812/gather/cgi-
bin/messages/...](http://library.thinkquest.org/26812/gather/cgi-
bin/messages/4.html)

If you'd rather pretend we're exactly the same, up to you :)

~~~
menloparkbum
That's not the point I was making but it would be impolite of me to make a
"woosh" post two days in a row.

------
Tichy
Could one problem with the discussion be that people talk about different
things?

a) was the presentation very tasteful and/or funny? (most would probably agree
that it wasn't)

b) was it an unforgivable affront against women? (some think no, and end up
defending the presentation even though they might not even have liked it
much).

I must admit I have troubles understanding some things, like the thong picture
making a woman feel unwelcome.

~~~
Ardit20
_I must admit I have troubles understanding some things, like the thong
picture making a woman feel unwelcome._

I am not a woman, but some of the comments on that site made me understand.
Perhaps you would too, Imagine the conference was attended by only 6 guys and
all the others were females, the one giving the presentation is female, and
the pictures on the presentation are of men depicted sexually. Now imagine
that some of these females might have the opinion that males inherently are
inferior intellectually than females. Now imagine that this minority situation
continues in the work place and these men are seen as a strange oddity by the
females. It wouldn't feel nice to have a presentation which sort of harnesses
the feelings of these females.

~~~
Tichy
"Now imagine that some of these females might have the opinion that males
inherently are inferior intellectually than females."

With what justification do you add that to the story? And if that would have
been the case, wouldn't that be the problem, rather than the pictures?

I can imagine a minority situation feeling strange and uncomfortable, but it
seems a bit unfair to blame the men for that - as a man, the only way to tilt
the gender balance would be to not attend the conference.

~~~
Ardit20
I don't think the controversy is about the gender balance. From my
understanding it seems to be about antagonising these females.

I added the inferiority thing to show that these females might feel they are
undermined and might perhaps feel some sense of discrimination. From my
understanding basically it is a power possession issue. They might feel that
they are not on equal standing with their male counterparts and that such
presentation only serve to legitimise and create a culture of harnessing such
perceived or real inequality by further creating a sense that this
presentation is only aimed at guys as most of the pictures were of females.

I mean how would you feel if all those pictures were of men rather than women,
it would just be weird.

~~~
Tichy
But it happens every day, I remember advertisements going both ways. I don't
watch much TV, but already a couple of years ago there was the Coke advert
with the well trained building worker.

------
bena
I think next year, a woman should give a presentation at a Rails/Ruby
conference that had nothing but slides of penises for visual aids (or muscled
men in seductive poses and scant clothing).

I'm sure a metaphor could be worked in that would fit a stack of penises.

Then see what the community has to say about that presentation.

Because I think that's the biggest problem here, they aren't considering what
it would've been like if the presentation had contained something that
extremely marginalized them in the same way this woman felt. The community is
saying "Whatever, boobs are fine. Fuck professionalism.", but they are only
considering it in the context of what they saw and what they are comfortable
with.

And from what I've seen, the Ruby community is championed by a bunch of self-
important douchebags. And because of them, I'll probably never become
interested enough to learn Ruby. It's that huge a turn off, I don't want to
associated with that. Level of success/fame/money is unimportant because by
that same metric, Bill Gates is an awesome guy and Microsoft one of the
coolest companies around.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The original presentation was not "nothing but slides of vaginas for visual
aids". It was a normal tech presentation, but with LOLCAT FAIL replaced by
ugly porn stars, and EPIC WIN replaced by pretty porn stars.

If the same presentation were made, but with LOLCAT FAIL -> ugly man in
seductive pose, EPIC WIN -> muscled man, I doubt many men would be offended. I
certainly would not be.

In my opinion, women (at least the ones who complain about such things) are
simply less tolerant of edgy material than most hackers.

Also, the original presentation showed no full nudity. I don't think your
comparison to a "stack of penises" is apt.

~~~
bena
But it's not really about the degree of nudity, but the degree of
uncomfortableness felt by the audience. That's what DHH, the presenter, and
you are getting wrong. You are arguing about the wrong thing. It's not so much
about the content of the slides, but how that content made that lone woman
feel in a room full of men.

~~~
yummyfajitas
My main point is that most men (particularly most hacker men) would probably
not have chosen to be offended under the same circumstances. I certainly would
not have. I believe the mainstream of hacker man is simply very tolerant of
differences.

Several people here and elsewhere have come up with "what if the shoe were on
the other foot" examples (stacks of penises, breastfeeding, images of surgery,
etc). In each case, I had varying reactions from "clever" to "confusing" to
"meh" (1). In no case would I choose to be offended.

(1) I laughed at "Deliver like a Birth Mother." I'd probably be confused by
images of good and bad breastfeeding technique.

~~~
ericb
>> would probably not have chosen to be offended under the same circumstances.

It is easy not to be offended when you are in the majority!

Let's try yet another empathy experiment--although I suspect empathy cannot be
taught. Imagine going to a professional conference where you are the minority.
For example, if you're white, imagine everyone else is black or vice versa.
Now imagine the presentation is filled with slides portraying your race in a
demeaning or comical way.

When you say this made you uncomfortable, the community leaders say "get over
it."

How welcome do you feel? Are you going to tell me with a straight face your
answer would be "very welcome!"

~~~
yummyfajitas
Or how about I'm an academic, and also a political conservative/libertarian.
That's an extreme minority.

If someone includes an anti-conservative joke on a slide (which has happened),
I'm not offended. I have better things to worry about than bad (and sometimes
good, but offensive) jokes in a presentation.

~~~
ericb
Rather than switch to a different example that is not outwardly visible nor
nearly so divisive, please answer the original question. Do you feel "very
welcome" in the given scenario?

~~~
yummyfajitas
I switched to that example because it is real. But no, I don't think I'd be
offended by a racist joke in a set of slides. For instance, comparing one
database to a short white basketball player and another database to Shaq?

In this case, there isn't even a sexist joke. The slides say nothing in
particular about women. All they did was compare one database to a fat woman
dressed as wonder woman and another to a beautiful woman in a bikini. What
statement does this make about women?

~~~
philwelch
"What statement does this make about women?"

Your example implies that white people are bad at basketball, just as the
slides imply that _fat_ women are unattractive. But implicitly, the standard
of comparison makes a statement, too. It makes the statement that women are
sex objects who should be judged only on their most superficial
characteristics. Men can be judged on their ability to play basketball but
when it comes to women, the only standard of value is how sexually attractive
they are.

~~~
yummyfajitas
The presentation doesn't make the statement that _women_ should be judged by
their sexual attractiveness. It makes the statement that _porn stars_ should
be.

------
vinutheraj
WOW it seems really surprising to me that some pr0n images on some
presentation has got 124 comments from people. This doesn't seem good for HN.
I think it will be better to talk about some technical issue than this.

Anybody downvoting this, can you just clearly explain to me why what I have
stated needs downvoting ( or why I am wrong ... please !! )

------
diN0bot
this is an interesting one. i didn't realize that people voted without seeing
the content. i guess they were just voting for topics or titles?

> "I voted for it, actually, because CouchDB is one of those things that’s the
> new hotness and I haven’t had a chance to play with it, and besides, he
> wouldn’t actually put porn in the slides. Right? […] I’m a minority in this
> community. I know that, and generally I can ignore it and go along thinking
> it’s a meritocracy of ideas and code. Then I encounter a woman’s thonged
> rear on the screen at a conference, 20 feet tall, and I remember, oh yeah,
> people like me don’t belong here. To most of these men around me, I am, at
> best, an oddity, and at worst, a sexual target. I feel a little less safe."

~~~
Tichy
There was no porn in the slides. (Edit: to be more specific, the "thong"
picture on the front page was the most explicit one of the slides, and that
looks more like an ad out of a women's magazine, maybe for underwear or
perfume. Might be a better place to look for roots of sexism.).

~~~
Ardit20
_maybe for underwear or perfume. Might be a better place to look for roots of
sexism_

How is presenting underwear for women on a woman sexism?

~~~
Tichy
The offending image of the presentation was a female torso with underwear,
that looked like a typical advertisement for underwear. If you say that is
sexism, how can you at the same time say the same picture in a women's
magazine is not sexism? I just wanted to point out that women consume that
kind of images on a daily basis and never seem to freak out about it.

------
axod
This reminds me of the Janet Jackson superbowl debacle. The attitude to sex in
the US is just bizarre.

------
ahoyhere
The root of the problem? Broken funny bone.

This is something that sounded funny in the head of the presenter, but he
didn't have the comedic chops to carry it off. Just like that Giles Bowkett
"lynch him" brouhaha.

Matt is a good man, but a very bad comedian.

I left a lengthier comment on _why's post.

I get away with off-color humor in my talks in the "Ruby Community" all the
time and nobody's bitched. Maybe it's cuz I've got breasts! Or, more likely,
it's because I know how to gauge the audience & carry it off.

Alas.

The true problem will never get addressed.

------
octane
Honestly I don't care if women are offended by this or not, but it's awfully
embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer programmer. Sigh.

~~~
jamesbritt
" ... but it's awfully embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer
programmer. "

Why? Matt's not you, doesn't speak for you, doesn't claim to represent you. Or
would any reasonable adult think that.

One person did something, others have their reactions. Let them sort it out.

~~~
octane
You've never sat in an audience and felt uncomfortable/embarrassed when the
presenter or speaker started making a fool of himself?

What the fuck are you, some kind of robot? You're full of shit.

~~~
jamesbritt
"[A]wfully embarrassing to me as a man, and as a computer programmer" is quite
different from "felt uncomfortable/embarrassed when the presenter or speaker
started making a fool of himself".

I can feel basic empathy for someone's situation without it being
"embarrassing to me as a man."

And thanks for the gratuitous vulgarity, it really added to the discussion.

------
access_denied
Do you that one speech from Joe Spolsky? Where he shows _one_ slide with a
scarcely dressed women on it to make a point about attention? If I remember
correctly he held that speech on a prior Rails Con.

I guess that was an "inspiration" for Matt, wasn't it?

------
kentf
A great impartial commentary on this entire situation.

~~~
jgrahamc
How is commentary from women (subgroup of entire population) who chose to
comment (selection bias) impartial?

------
yummyfajitas
I've noticed a very unpleasant trend in some of the complaints (both here and
in similar discussions). A couple of examples:

 _Ruby (and Rails in particular) loves the rock star image...It’s also a
significant barrier to adoption for people who aren’t already a part of this
culture, and don’t find it appealing._

 _As a young women in tech, ... I would be extremely uncomfortable in a
classroom of thirty young men and me if an instructor used sex as a metaphor
for teaching._

In short, "I'm a girl, I don't like the existing culture, it should change to
accommodate me."

I could make a similar statement about the culture I'm currently working in:

 _As a macho libertarian hacker type, I would be extremely uncomfortable in an
extreme liberal, PC-gone-wild culture which glorifies east coast
pseudointellectual preening. Therefore, the culture of modern universities
should change._

Most communities have a preexisting culture, and you are not a good fit for
all of them. But demanding that a culture change to be more palatable for you
is the height of arrogance. I don't demand that academic culture change, I
just fit in as best I can. Sooner or later I'll probably move on to a place
where I fit in better.

[edit: I've been refreshing the page, this post seems to be getting a lot of
both upmods and downmods. I'd be curious to hear responses.]

~~~
raganwald
_Most communities have a preexisting culture, and you are not a good fit for
all of them. But demanding that a culture change to be more palatable for you
is the height of arrogance._

I grew up in a culture where people of colour were not welcome. Others fought
and actually died so that I could write about Ruby and programming and have
people include me or argue with me on the basis of my ideas and not my skin
colour. In my own lifetime, I have witnesses the exact same struggle over
sexual orientation.

If giving one's life to change the world in this manner is "the height of
arrogance," I welcome it.

<http://members.shaw.ca/cartermyths/Pics/jamesmeredith.jpg>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbbcjn4d1cE>

~~~
yummyfajitas
As I already clarified, I'm not defending active discrimination. I'm simply
claiming you need a stronger argument than "As an X, I'm offended, so the
world should change."

Acting like a rock star != discrimination against women. Women may
disproportionately dislike geeks acting like rock stars, but that doesn't make
it discrimination.

It is simply wrong to compare actively harming a group of people (segregation)
to a group of people disproportionately disliking a certain culture.

~~~
raganwald
I don't know any rock stars. Is objectifying women a necessary component of
acting like a rock star? When someone is described as a "Rock Star" developer,
does this mean that soft-core porn is an inevitable metaphor for their work?

I don't know how to debate whether acting like a rock star is discriminatory
against women, because I don't know what "acting like a rock star" means. I do
know that a certain presentation offended a non-trivial number of people and
did so in a manner that was entirely unrelated to its technical content.

Asking that this sort of thing be avoided is rather specific and says nothing
about rock stars or any random thing that may irk any random person.

Why don't we discuss the specific incident rather that (a) trying to
generalize it, and then (b) disputing the argument on the basis of an invalid
generalization?

~~~
yummyfajitas
I'm using "rock star behavior" to describe the macho culture found in the RoR
community.

Lets talk about the specific incident. Some people were offended by a joke.
The joke did not say that women were unwelcome or say anything about women
specifically. It did not say or do anything to negatively affect women.

Women may have disproportionately disliked the joke and the culture which it
exemplifies. That's all. That's simply a complaint that "I and people like me
don't like this, therefore the world should change." I believe my
generalization is fair, certainly more fair than your comparison to _active
legal discrimination_.

~~~
raganwald
_Lets talk about the specific incident. Some people were offended by a joke.
The joke did not say that women were unwelcome or say anything about women
specifically. It did not say or do anything to negatively affect women...
Women may have disproportionately disliked the joke and the culture which it
exemplifies. That's all. That's simply a complaint that "I and people like me
don't like this, therefore the world should change." I believe my
generalization is fair, certainly more fair than your comparison to active
legal discrimination._

You know, your statement pretty much sums up your perspective on the issue and
quite frankly, I see no reason to dissect it. I think there is enough in this
thread for people to read what you have just written and decide for themselves
what to think of your point of view.

