
How I Deal with Sexual Discrimination in a Positive Way? - asanwal
http://www.tammycamp.com/2011/05/21/how-i-deal-with-sexual-discrimination-in-a-positive-way.html
======
jquery
It's hard to take this blog post at face value. My experience with the
industry has been that IT people are terrified of offending women and go far
out of their way to avoid being perceived as sexist. I do know a couple guys
that flirt with women at work but that's a far cry from sexual discrimination.

As long as we're sharing anecdotes:

* My girlfriend of 3 years also works in this industry, and she has never complained about an incident of any kind.

* I worked with a female developer who was fired and complained about discrimination. But this was not the case, she was fired because she was terrible at her job.

* I also worked with a gay developer who was fired. He complained loudly of homosexual discrimination... but I saw his check-ins (or lack thereof)--he was also terrible at his job.

So the two major cases of discrimination I personally know about in Silicon
Valley have both been frauds. Is discrimination real in Silicon Valley?
Certainly, yes, there's always a few bad apples in any large community. Is the
problem being blown out of proportion here? I think so.

~~~
tptacek
I'm married to someone who went on an IT job interview and was shown a naked
picture of the hiring manager, while he was interviewing her.

That's one of the stories I'm at liberty to share.

Happy to cancel you out!

~~~
jquery
Yikes. Maybe it was this guy? <http://onion.com/cGj5Xy>

~~~
tptacek
Am I supposed to find some clever cat picture to reply to you with?

~~~
jsprinkles
Would have been better than the snark. Lack of contribution to me is not
license to reply with even less contribution.

~~~
tptacek
"I'm sorry. I can't help but be amused that some opinion on a forum somewhere
has made your life a less happy place. The tiniest of my violins mourns your
loss."

~~~
jsprinkles
There was more substance to that comment than what you quoted.

~~~
jessedhillon
Jesus Christ this moron will never get it. He thinks it's all about him.

------
neilk
I think this post is mistitled. Sexual discrimination is about unequal
opportunities -- passing over women for promotion, asking inappropriate
questions in job interviews, etc.

The OP is describing something more like a _crime_. Extortion.

------
Meai
Okay, I'm going to reach far now: Sorry, but this is blogspam. You have to ask
yourself: What is the purpose of this post here? What exactly do you want to
achieve by posting it here? The answer is clear, this is posted here solely
for generating publicity. Now let's dig again: Why do you want publicity for
this? If there is a real issue here, take it up with someone who is actually
responsible for fixing it. If you want to publicly shame people, then keep
posting it on sites like HN.

99% of all the people visiting this site won't ever concern this issue, and as
surprising as it is to myself, I'm actually a little offended by your
insinuation that I should care about this. But that's not the actual problem I
have with your post. The real issue is that this kind of topic has been
discussed a million times, and therefore has no place on HN.

~~~
veyron
"If there is a real issue here, take it up with someone who is actually
responsible for fixing it." <\-- the problem is that addressing the issue with
the person who is actually responsible doesn't solve the problem.
Unfortunately, in many cases, some sort of public shame is the only real way
to rectify behavior. We see these issues of sexual discrimination and
harassment all the time, and even with years of lecturing people still don't
get the message.

"If you want to publicly shame people, then keep posting it on sites like HN."
<\-- Unfortunately, I don't think that was her point. If others are made aware
of the circumstances, and see that someone relatively influential is making a
comment about it, other women won't feel like they are alone. Having been on
the receiving end of other types of discrimination, I can empathize with the
feeling of loneliness and desire to keep quiet.

~~~
Tichy
What kind of helpful public shame is supposed to come about? Men who are not
pigs will probably just think "this doesn't concern me". Men who are pigs are
not shamed by the blog post in any way, so they are unlikely to change their
ways because of it.

Since no names were called out, there is nothing the innocent bystander could
do (like boycotting the conference).

------
haberman
A few days ago I ate at the Sales/HR cafeteria instead of the engineer
cafeteria. A table of HR people I didn't know that was 80% female invited me
to join them for lunch, and eagerly chatted me up for the next half hour.

This was a really illuminating experience that highlighted for me what an
impact the male/female ratio can have. Getting that level of female
friendliness/attention at work is totally foreign to me (I don't work directly
with many women), and was kind of nice.

I think there is a vicious cycle where women in technology get too much
attention from female-deprived men, which conditions them to have a
guardedness about them, which conditions the men to feel even more female-
deprived (and leads some of them to be creepy). It's unfortunate.

I'm not sure if this has anything to do with a conference organizer who
demands sex (it _certainly_ doesn't excuse it, even a little). But I do think
there are a lot of lonely guys in tech.

~~~
KuraFire
There would be a lot less lonely guys in tech if it wasn’t such a generally
female-unfriendly field in many areas.

Also, there is a fair bit of overlap between the “lonely guys” and “guys
causing this problem.”

------
sudonim
Any kind of accusation made public is a tricky beast.

There are 3 possibilities for the accusation: 1\. The accusation is correct in
it's entirety and should be taken at face value 2\. The basis of the
accusation is correct, but additional information casts it in a different
light. 3\. The accusation is false.

If you discuss it, publicly stating that option 1 is true is the only strategy
that will keep your reputation intact. Anything else makes you look like a
douche.

~~~
mkramlich
And 4. we do not and cannot really know whether the accusation is fully or
even partially accurate, and therefore should keep all our mouths closed about
it and let the legal system handle it.

"accusation == guilt" is never a smart default

~~~
KuraFire
It should be worth noting here that the accused have every bit the opportunity
to deny the claims. If a woman—any woman—were to absolutely falsely accuse
some guy of having raped her in a very public manner (with or without having
gone to the police beforehand), by what logic would the guy, who _knows_ he
didn’t rape her, not deny the accusations? He could deny them in equally
public fashion and/or go to the police himself.

The thing is: women _know_ that making such an accusation in public will get
them harassed for it, whether it's true or not. But it's really only worth the
immense vitriol that they will have to endure when their accusations are true.

Additionally, women also don't have some kind of weird "inherent motive" to do
this to men, but countless of reasons not to.

Stepping to the police is _always_ the right first move. Publicly outing
rapists is a brave (as it is dangerous) additional step to take which, among
other good things, will alert other women about the rapist.

Anyone who argues that it is unfair should shut the hell up and first think
about how fair it was to the woman that she got raped in the first place.
Hint: she didn't deserve what happened to her. The guy who did the raping?
Totally does.

~~~
mkramlich
Two quick comments.

1\. there are many possible motives for a false accusation; all kinds of
permutations have happened historically; it happens sometimes

2\. no rape mentioned or implied in the OA. just a refusal to have sex,
supposedly

~~~
KuraFire
1\. Yes, there are always possible motives. However, unless you have some data
showing there are more false reports of rape than truthful ones, or even that
the disparity between the two _isn't_ a night-or-day difference, that's not
something we ought to consider each and every case of doing.

2\. Correct; my response was more about the general discussion taking place
here than the specific OA one. That said, while not speculating on Tammy Camp
ever having been raped, these three men who have banned her from three
different conferences just for refusing to sleep with them sure are doing
their best to interfere with her career.

~~~
mkramlich
You're making assumptions again I think. She didn't say there were 3 different
conferences and 3 different men. Merely, that something "similar" has happened
3 times in the last year. Technically, it could all involve the same
conference and same person. And it might not have even been a tech conference
or industry related at all, who knows. Maybe, but not specified.

Assumptions are what put innocent people on death row. And what drive people
to break out the pitchforks and torches. They're not a mark of modern
civilization. I hope. :)

~~~
KuraFire
I'll agree that there was some level of assumption involved, but it's pretty
clear this was not "the same conference and same person" given that _that
doesn't make logical sense_.

How could she have been banned three times from the same conference, and why
on Earth would she have written this post the way she did if it had been the
same person three times in a row?

------
steve_b
"Never speak ill of the wrong or negative person. It takes you down to their
level."

If someone is trying to force you into sex, and you stay silent about it,
they're probably going to do it again. At some point you have to speak up.

But being a guy, I have no idea how hard it would be to come forward with such
allegations. I've never done anything comparably brave.

~~~
gscott
If I were a woman I would take a picture of the guy and post it to my blog and
just let it out. There isn't enough for anything to be done otherwise it will
get worse if the person is just left to do it again without any consequence...
even if the only consequence is a blog post.

It does appear all of the guys decend upon the women and try to take them
apart but they have nothing to gain in this... well except for hopefully the
next woman in line hopefully won't get harassed (and excluded) in such a way.

~~~
X-Istence
Yeah ... not a good idea: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2571972>

------
sgentle
Wow, lots of hysteria. I was hoping to find a comment that said something like
the following:

It sucks that things like this still happen. I've seen or heard about a few
stories like this and it's heartbreaking to think that the industry I love can
cause such pain to people. Worse still is the thought that these incidents
punish everyone, from the women who are turned away to other, less risky
fields, to the managers who struggle to find competent female hires, to the
other men who get unfairly tarred for just being in the same gender.

I understand it's tempting to say "but this might be made up!" - yes, it
might. We don't have any facts and we should be cautious not to use it as an
excuse for a witch hunt. But would you be surprised if it was true? Put-money-
on-it surprised? If not, that's problem enough. These things happen and we
know it.

The thing that gets me is that theoretically HN is a place for people who
aren't satisfied with "oh well, that's how it goes", who instead disrupt and
innovate, who find novel solutions to problems nobody thought solvable (or
even worth solving), and who change the world for the better in the process.
Where's that spirit now? Surely we can find a way to make things like this
less frequent or less damaging?

~~~
jgesture
I definitely found reading posts in this thread rather bizarre. This has
become more of a spectacle than an event that happened to an actual human
being.

------
Tichy
Does "one of the organizers" imply that the other organizers know of the
reasons for the ban and play along with it? Obviously there are many jerks in
the world, but I admit I find it hard to believe that there could be such a
random concentration of jerks. Or were they all jerks who bonded through their
jerkiness and then decided to launch a conference?

~~~
gscott
Your logic is that another organizer would step in when probably they won't
because they have enough people to pull from they don't really have to battle
it out to get any one person in over another persons objections. And the
person with the objection isn't going to say outright what the vetting process
was, just that there were other people he thought would be better (after
passing her over for the lack of sexual exchange).

------
stcredzero
_This past week I was banned from one of my favorite conferences because I
wouldn’t have sex with one of the organizers._

This makes me wonder about all the quips like, "Who do I sleep with at [ ] to
get featured in [ ]?"

A part of the public image of companies like YC and Berkshire Hathaway
involves their associating with _good people_ \-- because good people tend to
produce real value. Likewise, if the Silicon Valley startup scene is more than
just a hollow reputation market, then there is some real value on which a real
stand for values can be based.

Conversely, I feel that such behavior is one symptom of the economics of a
possible reputation bubble at work.

------
arkitaip
It's embarrassing for the entire industry that men act like this. I can't
imagine devoting yourself to the business of software with all your heart only
to be treated like a piece of meat. Must have taken a lot of courage to write
this.

I would like to know who the conference jerks are, though. If you by 2011
haven't learned to treat women decently, you need to be publicly shamed and,
if possible, brought to justice; anti-discrimination laws exist for a reason.

~~~
jsprinkles
It is not embarrassing for the entire industry and any attempt to paint this
as an industry-wide issue is insulting to those of us who do not behave like
this.

~~~
j_baker
Whether you like it or not, whether it's true or not, computing has a
reputation for being a mens' club. And things like this don't help. So yes,
this _is_ an embarrassment to the industry whether you're directly responsible
or not.

~~~
jsprinkles
Again, wrong. _The work force_ has a reputation for being a mens' club. There
is nothing specific to computing about it.

Please do not disrespect the industry you and I are a part of by kidding
yourself that we are different and somehow a problem.

~~~
jamesaguilar
Actually as far as I can tell computing has a reputation of being _especially_
this way.

Personally I don't really understand why you'd want to defend the "there's
nothing wrong, ignore this woman" point of view. You acknowledge there's a
problem, although you don't think it's specific to this industry. Why take the
course of action/defend the point of view least likely to improve the
situation?

~~~
jsprinkles
And your sweeping generalization of computing is based on? Some things you
read on the Internet? A story you heard once from a female coworker?

I don't know how your shop is but in my shop this shit does not happen because
we are overly selective with our hiring and extremely quick to fire. One
tactic we have in interviews is to take the applicant to dinner and get him
drunk with a female colleague present. Multiple otherwise-awesome applicants
have earned a circular file at dinner.

~~~
jamesaguilar
> And your sweeping generalization of computing is based on?

The same thing as yours. My personal experiences and what I've heard. You have
no more evidence that there is nothing especially wrong with computing than I
have that there is.

> "but in my shop this shit does not happen"

That you've heard about. Although I suspect that if you share the same kinds
opinions around your coworkers as you are sharing here, you've made a fair
number of your feel uncomfortable and unwelcome without ever realizing it.

> One tactic we have in interviews is to take the applicant to dinner and get
> him drunk with a female colleague present.

Wow. IANAL but using a female coworker as a honeypot is probably opening your
company up to liability. The standard for harassment or unfriendly working
environment is what a reasonable person would consider the same. I'd vote in
favor of the plaintiff if a colleague of yours asked to perform this duty ever
sued your company. As a matter of policy you're knowingly putting an employee
in a situation where they are more likely to be harassed specifically for the
purpose of seeing if they get harassed.

Well, it's your ass on the line and not mine; for that I am thankful.

~~~
jsprinkles
You're right, you're not a lawyer so you should be less willing to throw the
word 'liability' around. You're armchairing your way to a legal conclusion
based on two facts and a situation you're unaware of. Namely that this
colleague was the one who came up with the idea and enjoys the responsibility.
Look at her angle. She gets a less hostile workplace by helping screen out the
creepers who will come after her later.

Feel free to armchair lawyer someone else because you really suck at it.

~~~
stcredzero
_Feel free to armchair lawyer someone else because you really suck at it._

Armchair lawyering -- from my experience it usually looks and sounds much
better to the practitioner than it does to any trained lawyers. Those
practicing it are often _convinced_ that they speak with authority, even
though they're laughably wrong.

------
enneff
How does this even work? I'm not accusing Tammy of making it up, but how does
this even come about? The mind boggles.

~~~
jsprinkles
Just enough details to start a flame war but really convey no context
whatsoever. Cool huh?

~~~
ascendant
The second you provide context you start providing clues that can be used to
piece together the person allegedly responsible for this, and then once that
cat is out of the bag it turns into a full blown he-said, she-said thing with
legal ramifications.

------
softbuilder
And... crickets.

I know she's going for the high road but it seems like the most good would
come from naming names or at least naming the conference.

~~~
pquerna
You should read this thread, about an incident last fall:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1875718>

She named names, and was given so much grief because of that.

~~~
veyron
I think the issue really stemmed from outing individual people. The problem
with that approach is that it boils down to a he-said-she-said, and its
natural in such a situation to side with the more prolific character.

If Tammy were to out the organizations, I would know which groups not to
donate money to

------
anonymous_disc
Sex appeal has been repeatedly demonstrated to yield significant advantages.
Discrimination, although contemptible, is just the other side of the coin.

~~~
MoreMoschops
Does that mean we should accept it? Does that make it OK?

~~~
ciupicri
No, but it means women aren't _always_ discriminated in favor of men.

------
Mz
I've been "banned for life" from things having nothing whatsoever to do with a
sexual situation. I've chosen to walk away from other things where sexual
stuff (including but not limited to discrimination) was a big part of the
problem. I'm wondering if anyone else here can raise their hand and say "yea,
verily, I am also banned for life from something and it had nothing to do with
sex/gender". I'm sorry for this person's experience and I don't wish to talk
bad about them but I really think folks blow some things way out of proportion
and make it about "I'm female" or "I'm black" or "I have X issue and
everything in life that goes wrong is about that issue". Just looking for some
perspective.

------
jules
Go to the police, writing about it like this on a blog doesn't solve the
problem.

~~~
MoreMoschops
It's been a crime for years and the police don't seem to have been able to
stamp it out. Gosh, it's almost as if they can't be everywhere at once and
that citizens will have to take some responsibility themselves for what
constitutes acceptable social behaviour. Writing about it on blogs and news
aggregates and raising awareness is the only way the problem will get solved.

~~~
jules
Stealing has been a crime for years, and the police haven't been able to stamp
it out. Is that a reason for not reporting it? If victims weren't reporting
stealing to the police, that wouldn't be helping in any way.

What good does writing a blog post that as far as we can tell doesn't contain
any checkable evidence do? (and I'm _not_ advocating publicly shaming the guy
-- again, the legal system is the established road for crimes, and this is no
exception).

------
BasDirks
This does not tickle my intellectual curiosity. The issue is a very important
one, but HackerNews isn't god_damn Oprah. Bring on the downvotes.

------
blumentopf
It is appalling that sexual harassment and discrimination is not outlawed in
this industry. Florian Leibert, the harasser who was identified in the
incident last November is still working at Twitter. Why haven’t the founders
and/or executives at Twitter taken any consequences?

~~~
tzs
Why should they take consequences for what is quite possibly a false
accusation?

------
sp332
Maybe people aren't speaking up because they don't know what to say. If I
witnessed this, what could I do? I'm looking for specific ideas here.

------
Ratufa
For the people saying she should go to the police about this: what crime
(meaning something that would be criminally prosecuted as opposed to something
that might be the cause of a civil suit) do you believe has been committed in
this case (I'm not a lawyer; I don't know)? There was no mention of physical
assault in the blog post. Even if this incident broke some law, how would
there possibly be enough evidence to prosecute?

Wrt the argument that these things happen because guys will be guys or because
nerds have grudges against women: That may be a reason, but it's not an excuse
for this sort of behavior. People should be expected to act professionally
when in a professional context.

As for whether publicly naming names accomplishes anything: If a person's
sense of professionalism (not to mention simple human decency) is low enough
to engage in blatant sexual harassment, they clearly need some external
incentive to not behave in this way. How does that incentive get provided if
the people being harassed keep it to themselves?

~~~
KuraFire
> _For the people saying she should go to the police about this: what crime
> (meaning something that would be criminally prosecuted as opposed to
> something that might be the cause of a civil suit) do you believe has been
> committed in this case (I'm not a lawyer; I don't know)? There was no
> mention of physical assault in the blog post. Even if this incident broke
> some law, how would there possibly be enough evidence to prosecute?_

Imagine a store owner standing by his entrance, letting people in one by one
without even batting an eye. Then a woman approaches, he likes the look of
her. He holds up his hand and says “Hold it! You may not enter unless you have
sex with me.”

That doesn’t sound like extortion, sexual coercion and unlawful discrimination
to you? Well, it does to any sane judge.

As for evidence: testimonies and/or email trails can produce plenty of
evidence, easily.

~~~
Ratufa
I'd rather not "imagine" anything or speculate what a "sane judge" would
think. What criminal law is being broken, given what we know? If you think
it's obvious consider that sexual harassment in the workplace is usually
considered a civil, not a criminal matter (though, in some circumstances it
can be criminal).

As for the evidence, we don't really know what evidence exists in this
particular case, but it seems premature to assume an e-mail trail or testimony
other than the "he said/she said" variety.

~~~
KuraFire
It seems premature until you read the comments in her thread, wherein Tammy
points out that she has received “an alarming number of emails” from other
women who experienced the same or similar things.

And while I'm neither a lawyer nor that intimately familiar with US or
California laws in particular, I'm _fairly_ certain that this falls under
extortion laws, as it is a form of oppressive exaction.

------
shaunkoh
Don't you guys see that she's writing for other women – and anyone else that's
encountered some form of ugly discrimination?

She spends most of her post describing what's it like to be on the receiving
end, and more importantly, what she's done to deal with it.

------
essayist
I'm sorry that this happened to Tammy Camp, for her, for the other organizers
of the conference, and for the attendees.

Regarding many of the HN posters here who argue that Camp shouldn't have
blogged about this, or that she must be lying: why assume that it's about you?

As another comment notes, what happened to Camp is attempted extortion. If
you've not done this to someone, Camp's blog post is not about you.
Presumably, you're able to read about someone's experience of burglary, non-
sexual assault, or other crime without immediately impugning the victim's
motives or truthfulness, arguing that the crime was an isolated incident, or
requesting that the victim just shut up. Camp deserves the same respect her,
unless you can demonstrates she is lying.

And for those who doubt that Camp's blog post can achieve anything: it's not
about HN. This thread demonstrates, mostly, the same tired back and forth. But
there is a whole world beyond HN (really).

In that world, if you've experienced something like what Camp went through,
you've just discovered an ally, and maybe the world feels a little less
lonely. A win.

And if you have ever been the perpetrator of this kind of extortion, you know
not to try this with Camp - a win for her - and maybe the world feels a little
less safe for you and your crap. A win for all of us.

Not bad results for a simple blog post.

------
lukejduncan
I don't know this person, but it can't be that hard to actually deduce the
conference...

------
jasonmcalacanis
What conferences are there next week?

~~~
vellum
There are quite a few of them:

<http://lanyrd.com/places/usa/>

------
jackie_singh
I can't believe she edited my original comment on her site.

------
jsprinkles
I'm looking forward to the absolutely riveting discussion that will take place
on this submission. Remember Noirin Shirley naming the Hadoop committer who
fucked up at ApacheCon? Here's how this conversation goes and I remember
because I was involved in one during that fallout:

\------

She should name names.

 _Why?_

Good to shame the asshole and get it overwith.

 _And what good does accusing someone of something like this with an entirely
one-sided account in public do for anyone?_

It lets other women know he's a scumbag! Why are you fighting this? You must
be a chauvinist.

 _No I just think everyone should be spared from trial by Twitter because
character assassination is kind of a big deal and there is always the chance
that facts are being misrepresented by either side. We do not have the full
story but it will not matter because one story has already been presented and
conclusions drawn. Any comeback the accused has is already lost._

You're a pig and the problem with men in IT.

 _It has nothing to do with gender or sexual assault and everything instead to
do with having a chance to defend yourself._

It has EVERYTHING to with gender and sexual assault.

\------

Seriously, save yourself the involvement in this thread. We all know it
happens but anything objective you have to say about the accusation or the
person making the accusation will be drowned out by misandry. Do not read
anything below my post. It is a complete and utter waste of time.

Personally I think shit like this should not be blogged at all but whatever. I
am not ready to fight this battle again.

~~~
potatolicious
What is the alternative - accept that victims of sexual discrimination and
harassment stay silent?

If they don't name names, nothing changes; if they do name names, they're
accused of submitting someone to trial-by-Twitter. A catch 22 if I've ever
seen one!

As to your "shit like this shouldn't be blogged about" comment, that seriously
bothers me. Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that victims of sexual discrimination
stay silent? Jesus tap-dancing Christ, the Rapture came and somehow I got
teleported to the 50s.

~~~
jsprinkles
Wrong: if they do name names nothing changes. And I am suggesting that your
first thought after being the victim of any crime should not be to broadcast
it publicly on your blog. Blogs change things for the worse in a lot of cases
and this is one of them. How can you expect an impartial trial when the victim
has already laid out the entire crime publicly? This is why some civilized
countries have insane legal controls on broadcasting a trial in progress.

Seriously I am not going to fight this battle again only in the end to be
accused of being a woman-hater.

~~~
crux_
> be accused of being a woman-hater

This only seems fair, as your opening salvo began with accusing anyone who
disagrees with you a man-hater.

I seriously doubt that a blog post was the "first thought" in any of the many
prominent incidents of this nature. It's a very serious, very personal topic,
after all; and I've seen no evidence whatsoever that putting it up on the
internet for all to see was a 'first thought'.

What you really mean in your suggestion is that these women should _never_
make a blog post.

One compelling reason for publicity is that these problems go beyond
individual occurrences and permeate the startup/IT culture. No number of quiet
police reports or settled lawsuits will bring about changes to that culture,
but a glaring spotlight may have an effect.

~~~
Hawramani
It doesn't seem fair. We are intelligent entities who can isolate the
different points he makes and decide for ourselves whether they make sense or
not.

 _these problems go beyond individual occurrences and permeate the startup/IT
culture_

Can you provide some dependable data to support this? My experience is that
most IT people are terrified of being considered sexist and would go out of
their way to be fair and just to women.

In fact, my experience is that women get much better treatment in IT than men
any day. The few cases where this does not happen are exceptions, not the
rule, and this shows the anti-male perspective of people like you, who
carelessly accuse the entire IT culture of being sexist when the truth is that
our culture couldn't be farther from that.

~~~
jsprinkles
What I walk away from discussions like this with is:

 _Everybody in IT is like this so my behavior is justifiable._

That's the only explanation that makes sense for the sweeping generalizations
of men in computing.

------
PaulHoule
If you want improvement in this area get your daughter to date a nerd in high
school.

Men who go into technical fields suffer serious scars from social rejection
that's every bit as painful as apartheid. Considering that techie men spend
their sensitive formative years being completely shut out and excluded from
the company of women, a woman is pretty presumptuous to think she will be
treated fairly by technically oriented men.

~~~
arkitaip
As a coder and geek I find it horrible that I'm not expected to treat women
like an equal simply because I might have been "excluded from the company of
women". The idea that techies somehow are entitled to women is sad and
pitiful.

~~~
Tichy
Maybe it was not a feeling of entitlement but rather a problem with dealing
with rejection that caused the problem - like a nerd could hurt and hence find
it unbearable to be around the desired woman. That would take some practice.

~~~
arkitaip
But that's very different from the situation which Tammy Camp found herself
in, i.e. requested to have sex or leave the conferences. Being socially inept
is one thing, being a discriminating douchebag quite another.

~~~
Tichy
Honestly, I don't think we really know that. We only know Tammy's
interpretation. I think there must be some background story at least? Or do
conference organizer just go through the photos attached to applications and
say "hey, she's hot, let's blackmail her for sex"?

