
Prominent GitHub Engineer Quits, Alleging Gender-Based Harassment - dkasper
http://recode.net/2014/03/15/prominent-github-engineer-julie-ann-horvath-quits-claiming-gender-based-harassment/
======
apetresc
How can I take the article seriously when it says that "GitHub has been
embroiled in a series of diversity controversies, such as programmers adding
racial and sexist slurs into their code", which links to an article where
someone took GitHub search and found random people putting bad words into
their public repos?

This author can't seem to distinguish between the code employees at GitHub
write, and code users put onto GitHub.

~~~
rdtsc
Interesting point.

Let's say I am an open source developer and I put some crazy stuff on Github.

Some journalist does a profile on me. Am I a "Github Software Developer" to
them?

* Google Name -- "aha, link to Github"

* Find crazy stuff checked into Github repos.

* Google Github -- "aha, technology company something something distributed ... eyes glaze over technical mumbo jumbo".

* Claim I am a "Github Engineer"

It is obvious to us how it works, but say someone who has no idea about repos
or open source will not quite understand the separation between user content
and platform.

~~~
patrickaljord
That's like saying you find a racist post on facebook and conclude it's
written by a "Facebook Poster". Also, I would expect better from a site called
_recode.net_

~~~
mst
The stupid article is on gizmodo and was merely linked as github-and-gender-
related drama. Which it was. Crappily written drama, but drama nonetheless.

------
chimeracoder
I have no idea whether her claim is true or not, and what the culture is like
at Github. But from even reading the title, I do know one thing - Julie is
about to get a _lot_ of negative attention directed at her _personally_ , both
publicly (e.g. on Twitter) and privately (e.g. email). I don't envy what she's
about to go through[0].

Ignore for a moment the company (whether it's Github, Google, or Gawker).
Isn't it sad that speaking out about (perceived) harassment carries a near
100% chance of inciting exponentially _more_ harassment?

[0] Perhaps I'll be proven wrong; I'd like to be. Unfortunately, reading the
article and then the comments, that's looking less likely.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
> I have no idea whether her claim is true or not

The Internet has worked very hard in the last couple of decades to make the
truth, the _actual_ truth, completely nonexistent in our lives. It's a
discouraging threshold to realize that it doesn't even matter if what she is
saying is true or not. I'm serious. It doesn't. Those days are over.

There is no truth any more. We now live in an age where one's interpretation
of what is said first is the truth for them and they act accordingly. Some
will interpret it as "pissing on a parade," as you see here, and will harass
her. Some will interpret it as God's honest truth and will advocate
accordingly. As a species, a lot of thought leaders have patted humanity on
the back for how well-connected and well-informed we are with the Internet and
24/7 mentality being such a focused point of our lives, when in fact I think
the truth is we're now a post-fact species.

Observe the reaction to @LeaVerou's timeline in the last couple of hours to
see what I mean, in particular Ashe Dryden's condemnation of her (reasonable)
position. We've long passed the era of human history wherein reserving
judgment until all the facts are known was the most ideal course of action for
all parties. We're never getting it back, either, and we have to live with
that now. I can think of unbounded examples of this. Sunil Tripathi is the
first to spring to mind.

As for the topic at hand, my cynicism tells me that I'd bet the farm on
everything she's said being accurate. I do, however, wish to withhold judgment
on both sides without being accused of enabling the decried behavior. That's
an alarming trend from a certain vocal group in this industry, a "with us or
against us" mentality that bothers me a lot. I've been called a "rape
apologist" in the past for simply saying I didn't have enough information
about an alleged rape to reach a conclusion.

I have to be honest, it's discouraging to be intelligent enough to see this,
because it makes life feel hopeless. I can see what the old idiom about
ignorance and bliss means now.

~~~
md224
I sympathize with your position and the uncertainty it brings; I myself have
struggled with these issues, which is what got me interested in epistemology.

Sadly I think, if anything, your position is still a bit naive; the Internet
may have exacerbated the problem of truth by giving everyone a soapbox to
spout their own version, but I think this problem has always been with us,
since the dawn of human communication. While we gain some information through
first-hand experience, a great deal of our knowledge comes from cognitive
authorities[1] who we rely on for second-hand knowledge. So a significant
portion of our knowledge rests upon our faith in the testimony of others.
Granted, we can take steps to try and minimize our chance of error, such as
consulting multiple sources, but it's hard to eliminate that leap of faith
entirely.

But it's worse than that. Even agreeing on the "facts" is not enough to
guarantee a unified interpretation. Different people may view a singular event
through different lenses, based on how that event fits into their own personal
narrative; this becomes especially apparent when dealing with contentious
political issues.

So yeah, I agree: the Internet has made it more difficult to get a firm grasp
on the truth. But when it comes to matters outside our own immediate
experience, that grasp has always been nothing more than a useful fiction.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_authority](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_authority)

~~~
jsmthrowaway
You concluding that I was blaming the Internet in obliviousness to all the
rest of the points you shared (which I already know but deemed out of scope
for my specific complaint) is, in itself, a misinterpretation. That you then
built upon that misinterpretation to call my position naive is a very
interesting comment in light of what I'm saying.

Before computing, I was a journalist. Nothing you said is news to me, though
you used some epistemological concepts to make a similar point to my own.

~~~
md224
Sorry if the suggestion of naivety came across too harshly; didn't mean to
imply you didn't know what you were talking about. I just find this topic
really interesting (competing narratives, the Lippmann-Dewey debate, etc.), so
I jumped at the opportunity to ramble about it.

Again, my apologies.

~~~
jsmthrowaway
No worries. I'm not offended, I just noticed the interesting irony.

I learned long ago to not be offended by things people say on the Internet,
along with my ability to stomach images that would probably make anybody else
pass out. I'm not convinced all of the Internet's effects on me as a human are
good.

------
natural219
It seems increasingly clear to me that there is a concerted effort to paint
some tech companies as more sexist than they are. Don't get me wrong, there is
definitely a problem of gender imbalance and harassment in our industry that
needs to be addressed. But I have heard this "Github is sexist" meme in half a
dozen of different contexts, but every time I investigate an incident it's
some semantic squabbling about the word "meritocracy" or some idiot reporter
who searched for racial slurs on a huge public corpus of user-submitted
content, forgetting that the exact same argument could be applied to Youtube,
Facebook, or literally any website.

It's equally frustrating because if Github (and others) actually do engage in
despicable sexist behavior, I want to hear about it and adjust my views of
them accordingly. However, when reporters, bloggers, and commentators flood
the internet with harassment stories accompanied with such vitriolic language,
it's harder for me to tell the actual stories apart from the bombastic
linkbait.

~~~
rm999
Honest question: how does a prominent person quitting publicly make it more
clear that there's a concerted effort (which insinuates an arranged effort,
basically a conspiracy) to mislead people? If anything I took it as the
opposite, that there is likely some incident(s) that concretely points to
sexist behavior. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it seems to me that the
simplest explanation is that Julie Ann Horvath quit because she was fed up,
not to harm her ex-employer for a bigger cause.

I just realized you may mean the author of the article is trying to harm
github's image, which I agree is possible. But the real story to me is Horvath
quitting, not someone writing an article about it.

~~~
droopyEyelids
Disclaimer: I am speaking of the general case here... NOT about J.A.H.

But what you're missing is that people sometimes crack up. We're all a little
unstable. You see two choices: The person is harassed out by the conspiracy in
their company, or the person quits to fuel the conspiracy they're a part of.

I say there is a third choice: The person freaked out, or was under too much
stress, or had a period of mental instability, and 'flamed out'. This actually
happens to prominent people pretty frequently, hell it happens to most people
at some time in their life. I've done it before. Fortunately I wasn't in a
public position.

------
leokun
Eh, publicly shaming doesn't work without considerable and undeniable proof.
It will just backfire into internet rage and dossing ala dongle gate. If there
is real harassment best just make it hurt through state harassment
arbitration. When they get tired of paying through the nose for all the stupid
insensitive things naive and oblivious coworkers are bandying about, maybe
they'll get serious.

Start writing things down and then contact a local equal opportunity office
and start the process. It will not be cheap for them. If people keep doing
this they'll change their ways.

Going public on Twitter or Hacker News though hasn't done much other than
bring out nasty and unproductive fights between Social Justice Warriors and
Men's Rights fanatics. They make everyone look bad and we all walk away
feeling like maybe we've lost faith in humanity when in reality a serious
problem just stems from mostly unintentional, but hurtful ignorance.

~~~
mbrameld
This is exactly what I don't understand. If I was being harassed to the point
that I was considering quitting my job, I would simply gather all the evidence
I could (she mentions emails, I would also carry a voice recorder) and hire an
attorney. I wouldn't tweet about it, I wouldn't write a blog post about it or
give a talk about it. None of those things are going to fix the problem. File
the lawsuit and let the facts speak for themselves.

~~~
melindajb
That's what Ellen Pao did. She got shit too, including being fired. Let's see
how it pans out for her.

~~~
zaidf
Counterexample: Pao's husband sued his employer for discrimination and made a
sweet million:

 _Fletcher sued his employer, brokerage Kidder Peabody, for discrimination and
won $1.3 million in 1991._

Read more: [http://www.businessinsider.com/kleiner-perkins-ellen-pao-
law...](http://www.businessinsider.com/kleiner-perkins-ellen-pao-lawsuit-sex-
scandal-silicon-valley-2012-6?op=1#ixzz2w5LxBZr1)

~~~
melindajb
what does that have to do with anything?

------
patrickaljord
FTA: "Nonetheless, GitHub has been embroiled in a series of diversity
controversies, such as programmers adding racial and sexist slurs into their
code"

This links to a gizmodo article linking to random open source code on Github
written by random people on the internet containing slurs. How is that
Github's fault exactly? Should they censor "git push" with anti-slurs filters?
This even links to a repo containing a list of words that should not be used
by the user [https://github.com/hhzl/Cuis-Smalltalk-
StyledTextEditor/tree...](https://github.com/hhzl/Cuis-Smalltalk-
StyledTextEditor/tree/fe8aa4a8459618feae1d1bd615c8938b7ad0a866/scowl-7.1/misc)

Ridiculous. No idea about the rest of the accusations though.

~~~
alanh
Oh, cool. I just realized I am lucky to not be listed in Leslie Horn’s
terrible "article" [1]. I forked a URL shortener a few years ago. One feature
I added was to avoid auto-generating offensive short URLs, which is on GitHub
[2]. (In the early days of URL shorteners, TinyURL used a simple increment
function to generate URLs (aa, ab, ac, …), and someone waited until "the C
word" was up next and pointed it at the then-First Lady's website, apparently
as a joke. Okay, that's easy enough to learn from.)

[1]: [http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-
sexis...](http://gizmodo.com/5980842/there-is-blatant-racist-and-sexist-
language-in-github-code)

[2]:
[https://github.com/alanhogan/lessnmore/blob/master/-/banned_...](https://github.com/alanhogan/lessnmore/blob/master/-/banned_words.php)

------
geoka9
> Prominent GitHub Engineer

When I read the title (having never heard of Julie Horvath before), I expected
the article to explain her technical contributions. However, there seem to be
none that would make her a "prominent github engineer".

I think that singling out people as "prominent engineers" just because they
are women is sexist and does a disservice to the equality cause.

Equality cuts both ways: people shouldn't be harassed because they are a
minority. But they shouldn't be put on a pedestal just because of it, either.
Because it defeats the whole purpose of equality by making them "more equal"
than others.

~~~
jkrems
She was responsible for organizing the pretty awesome "Passion Talks" series
at Github. So she was definitely more famous than the average developer
working at Github. She did not invent Map/Reduce, but we are talking about
Github here, not Google/Amazon/etc..

------
strict9
When a person makes a claim of intimidation or harassment, that person should
not be judged on traits that have nothing to do with the claim.

Insulting a woman in the tech industry after making statements of suffering
from harassment is a very tiring theme that occurs over and over again. Even
on forums that pride themselves on being intelligent and tolerant.

Let's change this and stop with the insults and victim blaming.

~~~
jpwright
Yes, thank you!

It seems like every time this sort of issue comes up, a large number of men
both (a) take it as a personal attack, and (b) decide that the best way to
handle this attack is to counter-attack someone's character with random
accusations (like that they weren't a good enough engineer to talk about
harassment in the workplace).

Really, really shameful to see it unfold every time.

------
codelap
I've worked in healthy and unhealthy work environments, the healthy ones have
ample diversity, and the unhealthy ones were heavily male dominant. When I
worked for Dell, it was so heavily skewed that several of the female workers
felt unsafe, and I would walk them to their cars. Little boys who would
otherwise sit in the corner at the bar and completely avoid actual interaction
with women get very brave when they have 30 of their friends backing them. It
was disgusting. You do what you can, but senior leadership is ultimately
responsible for the tone and the hiring/firing. I on several occasions brought
complaints from what I had seen, I know the women had as well, and not a
single person was ever fired for this.

~~~
hackinthebochs
> I on several occasions brought complaints from what I had seen, I know the
> women had as well, and not a single person was ever fired for this.

Can you give more detail on what you had seen that you felt justified being
fired over?

~~~
codelap
Well, anywhere from unwarranted sexual touching (ass slaps), to coming up from
behind and cozying up to a woman at her cubicle. These were all after the
women had made it clear that this was inappropriate, though this shouldn't be
required. Language was often beyond condescending, and often abusive and
dismissive. One individual was particularly bad, he would get really upset if
his advances (which could only have been learned from bad porno, they were so
clueless and inappropriate), he would travel straight to verbal abuse and
threats. The language was simply degrading.

This same individual, was in the elevator when my friend who worked at another
company, but same building. He got into the elevator with his wife, and the
individual said something along the lines of "I bet you'd like it if I bent
you over now. Let everyone here have a turn" to his wife. My buddy showed far
more restraint than I would have.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Somehow I was imagining something entirely different. That company should have
been sued out of existence for allowing that to go on.

------
chacham15
I dont know much of the circumstances, but I feel that this particular article
hurts Julie Ann Horvath more than it helps. First, it presents a series of
tweets, each more vicious than the previous. Then it presents a blatantly
wrong example of Github accepting racial slurs and its ilk. However, it
continues to talk about how GitHub has actually been improving the culture and
that more women have been joining. Next, it presents a rather weak example of
'harassment' that I can even see as the manager trying to do the right thing
in his own view but presenting it entirely in the wrong way. Finally, it ends
with a tweet that Julie Ann Horvath wants secret to remove a post about her
(is anyone else angry about the implicit censorship here?).

Again, I do not know what is happening here, but the article has at the least
made me mad that people are resorting to censorship to solve their disputes.

~~~
djur
Censorship? Slander is illegal.

~~~
renata
Slander turns out to not be covered under the DMCA, so the hosting site is
under no obligation to remove a post after a notice and no trial or court
order.

~~~
djur
But it might be in their best interests to take it down regardless. The fact
that they're not legally compelled to do so makes it even less like
censorship.

~~~
renata
You don't think it's censorship if at any time, for any reason, someone can
induce them to take down any post by claiming libel? Well, I might agree with
that, but it would also make every site useless.

------
spikels
Yay! More pointless division that will improve nothing and probably make
things worse. Good work people!

Now that she's gone does this mean that GitHub can get that cool carpet back?

[http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-
rug#awesm...](http://readwrite.com/2014/01/24/github-meritocracy-
rug#awesm=~oyBwPeBjuhShE4)

~~~
mason240
That's unbelievable. I never would have guessed feminists would be actively
fighting against meritocracy.

~~~
steveklabnik
It's actually "fighting against the idea that we actually live in a
meritocracy, because we don't."

You may also want to look into the history of 'meritocracy':
[http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-we-came-to-
misunderstan...](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/how-we-came-to-
misunderstand-meritocracy)

~~~
mason240
So I guess we should get rid of the term "equality" as well, right?

In all seriousness though, entirely scrapping a noble idea because it isn't
yet 100% realized is beyond ridiculous and is an example of why many people
can't take modern feminists seriously.

You are supposed to work toward realizing goals, not destroying them.

~~~
pron
Meritocracy isn't an ideal – it's a joke, and everyone should be fighting it.
(Quoting another comment of mine:)

Meritocracy is not a desirable state of affairs, because it should be obvious
that "merit" is a false currency used to justify what is, rather than work
toward what should be. It is the quintessential naturalistic fallacy. By
definition, an is-ought fallacy such as Meritocracy can not be an ideal (if
you misunderstand meritocracy to mean "everyone gets what they deserve" that
cannot be an ideal either, as it would be no different from "a world ruled by
God", which is an imagined state rather than an ideal).

It amazes me time and again how people can take the term seriously, which only
demonstrates how dangerous it is. Such a blatant, perverted joke, a dystopia
that some intelligent people mistake for a utopia. Wikipedia says this:
"Although the concept has existed for centuries, the term "meritocracy" was
first coined in the 1950s. It was used by British politician and sociologist,
Michael Young in his 1958 satirical essay, The Rise of the Meritocracy, which
pictured the United Kingdom under the rule of a government favouring
intelligence and aptitude (merit) above all else... In this book the term had
distinctly negative connotations as Young questioned both the legitimacy of
the selection process used to become a member of this elite and the outcomes
of being ruled by such a narrowly defined group."

I still can't fathom how meritocracy can be taken as anything but a negative.
I mean, the first question that comes to mind (or, rather, the second after
"what is merit") is, "who has merit and why, and who does not?" Once this
question is asked, it is immediately apparent that any attempt to paint
"meritocracy" in a positive light is ludicrous.

~~~
facepalm
I don't understand you. Are you saying nobody has merit?

That somebody wrote a parody about it doesn't prove anything.

It's also not obvious that it would cement a status quo: people can still
strive to have merit? And does the concept forbid helping people to acquire
skills? You can perhaps say Meritocracy is not the whole story (because of the
self-sustaining elites problem), but it could be part of the solution,
together with the usual efforts to give everybody a chance.

~~~
pron
Meritocracy, like all real or imagined power systems, isn't about merit,
though – it's about power. Power is real, so who gets it in a meritocracy?
Let's say it's _people with merit_. Alright then, imagine this poor black girl
growing up in the projects. She sees drug abuse all around her, but she stays
away from it. She grows up and tries really hard to get her kids out of
poverty. While she takes two jobs and sits with her kids for hours every day
to tutor them, she fails as bad influence proves too strong. Now imagine this
boy growing up in Manhattan to rich parents. They send him to all the right
schools and make sure he takes part in all the right extracurricular
activities. He works hard and gets into Harvard, where he continues to study
hard to get his Comp Sci degree. A meritocracy grants power to those with
merit: which of these two people will have power?

One of the reasons meritocracy is a joke is that merit cannot be measured;
only success. Those who claim to believe in meritocracy think it simply means
removing power from those who've gained success without merit (say, through
connections and/or inheritance). But that doesn't really change the picture
much, because the biggest bias is against those who haven't had success at
all, in spite of their merit.

Like I said in my previous comment, when considering meritocracy, you should
ask yourself "who does not have merit and why?"

~~~
facepalm
Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl from
the slum instead of the Harvard comp sci major because the girl never had a
chance to learn comp sci? I don't think such a rule would be beneficial for
society. If comp sci doesn't convince you, imagine you are seriously ill. Who
should be your physician - somebody who studied medicine at Harvard, or
somebody who never had a chance to study medicine?

As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution. I
don't think it implies that society shouldn't try to give people a fair chance
all along the way. It doesn't even define what kind of merits should be
rewarded. Perhaps "helping people to achieve their potential" would be the
merit regarded the highest.

And if you dismiss Meritocracy on those grounds you mentioned, aren't you
straight back in communism territory? You probably wouldn't be allowed to pay
the comp sci major more than any other unskilled worker, either. Otherwise it
would be unfair, right?

~~~
pron
> Still, you can not seriously ask of tech companies to hire the poor girl
> from the slum

True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are.

> As I said, I don't see why Meritocracy could not be part of the solution.

Again, how is meritocracy different from the status quo, then? But the reason
your meritocracy is a problem more than a solution is twofold: first, it
focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit)
rather than those who need society's help. If your system is first let's
wrestle power from those who have it without merit and only then turn our
attention to the real problem, then your priorities are messed up. Second, it
does all this by believing it somehow rewards merit while it really rewards
privilege combined with some merit. A system not calling itself a meritocracy
at least acknowledges its own unfairness.

~~~
facepalm
"True, but that doesn't make meritocracy an ideal. It's just how things are."

What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies, too?

Even if you say they should hire less skilled people and try to train them,
that demand sounds like a tax to me. So perhaps it would be better to simply
use taxes to train people, rather than burdening companies with something they
are not specialized on? To start a company to cure cancer, you would then not
only have to be an expert in curing cancer, but also in teaching people
skills. That would raise the bar for creating successful companies
significantly.

"it focuses effort on the wrong people (those who have success without merit)"

Ah, now we arrive at a crucial point: the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to
think privileged people can never have merit. So if a Harvard graduate cures
cancer, it counts less than if a girl from the slums does it. In fact a
Harvard graduate doesn't deserve any recognition at all, he/she should
probably be ashamed for curing cancer, thereby robbing the slum girl of her
chance to do so.

I don't think such a value system can ever provide good results. Why not
simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth to me",
rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on
people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the
opposite of that?

~~~
pron
> What principle should tech companies use for hiring? And other companies,
> too?

Whatever works for them. But companies, at least in America, are not in the
business of fixing society but that of making profit. As long as they remember
that's what they're doing it's OK. I just think it makes them look stupid if
they consider themselves to be some sort of utopia.

> the anti-meritocracy crowd seems to think privileged people can never have
> merit.

No. But "merit" is the least contribution to success. Otherwise, you'd think
all merit is concentrated in about a billion people living in the West. Most
success is 90% luck and 10% merit. Also, calling people "anti-meritocracy" is
kinda funny, as meritocracy was intended as a parody of society. It was never
intended to be taken seriously. I'm not against any kind of parody. I'm
certainly pro-meritocracy: I think it's funny as hell.

> Why not simply stick to the facts "cancer was cured, how much is that worth
> to me", rather than making moral judgements on the people who cured it?

I'm not making a moral judgement. I just don't think that people lucky enough
to have opportunities should be worshipped as being more than that. But most
importantly, I'm not sure why that would necessarily mean they're the best
people to rule society.

> Also, how can you argue against meritocracy with the argument it "focuses on
> people who have success without merit", when Meritocracy demands exactly the
> opposite of that?

Again, meritocracy is a parody. It demands nothing other than your laughter at
our society's hypocrisy. But if I imagine how people who think it was meant as
anything other than a joke take it to mean, I think: okay, so how does
meritocracy differ from the system we have now in the eyes of people who don't
see it as a joke? I mean, that Harvard guy already has the power. The answer
is that these people think that if you're well-nourished, well-educated and
study hard at Harvard, then you're fundamentally more deserving than someone
who's well nourished and well educated, but gets into Harvard because his
parent are super-rich and make a big contribution. Meritocracy implies that
the second guy has less merit than the first, while the truth is that they're
both mostly lucky, only the first guy works hard in addition to being lucky.

Any system that focuses on taking power from the vanishingly small number of
people _more_ fortunate than its believers is, in my opinion, seriously
flawed. I prefer systems that focus on those less fortunate than me.

~~~
facepalm
I tried to look up the original parody. Apparently it describes the
meritocracy as people constantly being evaluated by IQ tests. That's not
really what the current idea of Meritocracy is - I'd assume it would build on
actual achievements, not potential skills. So your reference to the parody is
really quite useless.

The criticism that there is no objective measurement might still apply,
although I'd say sometimes there is. If cancer is cured, it is cured.

"you're fundamentally more deserving than someone who's well nourished and
well educated"

I'd say he is more deserving because he can cure cancer - if I am looking for
somebody to give my money so that he cures my cancer.

I agree that everything is luck. But I still want the cancer gone. What
solution do you propose?

It seems to me the privileged people should receive even less credit, whereas
I propose credit should be given for results. You can't blame the slum person
for being born in a slum, but you also can't blame the rich person for being
born rich.

~~~
pron
> but you also can't blame the rich person for being born rich.

I don't. But I don't want to idealize his luck either. If it all comes down to
luck, I see little difference between giving power to those lucky enough to be
born relatively rich as well as intelligent so that they can cure cancer, vs
to those even luckier to be born extremely rich. If luck is your ideology,
discriminating between different kinds of luck seems sheer jealousy.

------
colechristensen
Whether or not her allegations turn out to have merit, blasting them out on
Twitter without having gone through the appropriate channels inside and
outside the company first shows a distinct lack of professionalism.

There are plenty of professional responses when there is conflict with your
coworkers and attempting to publicly shame them is very far from any of them.

~~~
kevingadd
Oh, I see, it's the victim's fault because she didn't engage with systems
_created by the harassers_ to your satisfaction. Such elegant logic: no matter
what, somehow it's the woman's fault.

~~~
renata
If she doesn't want to go through actual channels, she could write a blog post
with actual meaning instead of tweeting vague accusations.

------
petercooper
Valleywag did a more neutral job IMHO: [http://valleywag.gawker.com/github-
engineer-quits-after-alle...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/github-engineer-
quits-after-alleging-gender-harassment-1544559154) .. just a shame they are
permanently shitlisted on HN because their quality has really gone up in the
past six months.

~~~
ohsnapman
I agree that Valleywag was more neutral, but I disagree that the quality of
Valleywag has gone up. Does anyone remember the old Owen Thomas/Nick Denton
era of Valleywag, when they would actually get insider scoops? Sam Biddle and
Nitasha Tiku are nothing more than glorified repost kids trying to squeeze out
pageviews.

~~~
theorique
_Sam Biddle and Nitasha Tiku are nothing more than glorified repost kids
trying to squeeze out pageviews._

Agreed, to say nothing of the extreme left-wing bias that they bring to the
table - wealth is automatically bad and suspect; startups are toxic, evil, and
sexist; business needs to get out of San Francisco which would otherwise be a
prosperous socialist paradise ...

It's getting harder and harder to read it on a full stomach.

~~~
crassus
I consider it performance art.

It's the legions of +1 commenters that are depressing.

------
mikejholly
_But, even in a January interview with ReadWrite about how progressive the
company had become, she noted some lingering issues: “I recently got an email
from a middle manager that began, ‘So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?’ I
said, ‘You should ask them’.”_

Umm, maybe I'm misinformed, but from what I've read Horvath was a bit of a
evangelist for women in tech at GitHub. So why is it problematic to assume she
might have her finger on the pulse with regard to GitHub's female employees?

Also, if you've "been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years" why
not stand up for yourself and put the jerks in their place, or talk to a
lawyer? Why take to Twitter like a child and post a spate of accusations?

~~~
tesseractive
Being an evangelist for women at a company is actually not the same thing as
having the right to speak for all of them any more than a "developer
evangelist" has a right to speak for all the developers.

~~~
mikejholly
I didn't mention anything about speaking for them.

And wouldn't a developer evangelist have an opinion on developer culture
_within_ the company?

~~~
scintill76
Exactly. One thing, in her defense, is that the email sounds a little flippant
(at least the one-sentence quote we get secondhand!) I'll give the emailer the
benefit of the doubt and assume it was meant as an insensitively playful but
well-intentioned query.

When she's positioned herself as an advocate for women in the company, why
would she get so offended when someone asks how that's going? Maybe she's
upset about getting the "special treatment" of being asked after specifically
-- well then, she already does "special treatment" of her own by starting
Passion Projects, "Talks From Incredible Women In Tech."

"You should ask them." In a perfect world, sure, but is she seriously saying
Mr. Middle Manager should walk around the cubes asking, "So, Jane, how do you
feel as a woman at the company?" She probably meant that management should
listen in general (to all employees.) Well then, is she playing "I know some
specific things that are suboptimal, but I want you find them yourself"? What
if they are already improving things they know of, and they just wanted her
input on anything they're missing? So she spits back some quip to make them
feel bad, nobody wins, and they won't ask again.

------
pencilcode
Taking into account the normal backlash that ensues against any woman who
raises issues of sexism in the workplace, i think she was very brave. typical
reaction is let's not judge company A but let's really judge the woman,
instead of the more sane reaction of let's not judge either the woman or the
company. as for going to court, i know plenty of people who bitch about the
workplace publicly and never go to court. the only difference is harassment is
actually a crime but proving it is typically hell so most woman don't bother
(and it could hurt them real bad professionally) - they just deal with it the
best they can. Anyway, let's not judge either github or julie - they both
deserve fair treatment.

------
andrelaszlo
This looks pretty toxic to me, either way:

    
    
        > @getsecret told me they took down a post that's attempting to
        > assassinate my character. They didn't. It continues.
        >
        > "Removed my comments, but why are people using Secret as an
        > outlet? Internally, "Queen" has history of RAGING against any
        > professional riticism. Leadership has stood idly by while she
        > lied about contributions, threw hardworking oworkers under the
        > bus (again and again), and spread vicious rumors about women at
        > work and in the community. That's fucked. Maybe we shouldn't
        > discuss that in the open, but unethical behavior should be
        > exposed. If you have similar stories, please share with
        > greenshirt on Anonyfish. This will be private. Just a safe way
        > for us to talk. Thanks."
    

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444646082857820160/phot...](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444646082857820160/photo/1)

~~~
theorique
Either the person in question behaved in a toxic manner, and was called out
for it secretly, or else she did not behave in a toxic manner and the
secretive calling-out is the toxic behavior.

Who's telling the truth? I wasn't there for any of it - so I have no idea.

------
daigoba66
Reporting based on unconfirmed reports and allegations from twitter is the
best kind of reporting.

I'm not saying there is not a story here, yet. But let's wait until there are
some facts to report.

------
stefan_kendall3
I worry about the unintended side effects of posts like these.

Who will read this and hesitate the next time they're about to hire a woman
because they're the best candidate for the job?

"If one person claims there's gender-based harassment in the company, it would
really affect our valuation...Better go with the slightly less-good-fit male
candidate."

Of course I don't know what happened exactly, but fixing problems from within
seems more effective than leaving a place and pointing fingers. Nobody likes
to get pointed at.

~~~
anu_gupta
> Who will read this and hesitate the next time they're about to hire a woman
> because they're the best candidate for the job?

Lazy, sexist assholes, that's who.

~~~
stefan_kendall3
They don't need more ammo.

------
frakkingcylons
This is a poorly-written article focusing on insignificant tidbits of
illegitimate controversy attributed with GitHub which distracts from actually
discovering the details of an unhealthy work environment that may exist at
GitHub.

The bit about racial and sexist slurs in some random users' code? Completely
irrelevant. GitHub is a platform to host code. They are not and should not be
responsible for what people commit to repositories. To suggest otherwise is to
suggest that GitHub should take on the role of a censor, and at that point,
code associated with any gray area (like Popcorn Time) becomes a target for
the vocal minority.

Let's wait for Horvath to finish her side of the story and go from there.

------
thomasvendetta
I have a question. Her tweets were posted multiple times last night to HN.
They were up voted and commented on, yet within 20-30 minutes each time, they
were flagged as dead and no longer on the front page.

On some, there were newly created accounts commenting in defense of Github and
claiming her comments and reasons were fraudulent.

What's up with that?

~~~
untog
Hacker News users flag posts relating to gender whenever they come up. It's
long been my opinion that flagging is too powerful on HN. Legitimate stories
about Titstare and that hackathon where women fetch drinks for you were
disappeared very quickly.

Though in this instance I'm not sure it's so bad, we have very little to make
a meaningful discussion out of yet.

~~~
jonchang
There's a better-written story over here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405510](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7405510)

But it's magically vanished from being listed on the front page:
[http://hnrankings.info/7405510,7405325/](http://hnrankings.info/7405510,7405325/)

The discussion about the tweet mentioned above is here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7403344](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7403344)
(and it looks like it was flagged off the front page almost instantly)

------
choult
I am quite frankly disappointed in the behavior of my peers whenever a story
like this comes out. It makes me ashamed of my industry - we are so much
better than this!

There is no place for discrimination in this world. Ever.

~~~
alanh
Oh, blanket statements. If you are against discrimination, always, you must
then be opposed to Horvath’s creation of a series of talks that discriminate
against men? It’s explicitly woman-only. _The only discrimination that has
demonstrably occurred at GitHub is the anti-male selection criteria of Passion
Projects._

Shouldn’t have to say this, but I’m merely pointing out that you probably
aren’t saying what you think you are saying, and I am neither condoning nor
condemning Passion Projects, GitHub, or Julia.

~~~
jpwright
Having a speaker series featuring women in tech is not "anti-male
discrimination". Maybe it would be if there weren't 1000+ other tech
conferences where the majority of speakers are men. How someone can say stuff
like this in 2014 honestly baffles me.

~~~
alanh
It’s obviously "anti-male discrimination," by definition. It’s just not evil
or unwarranted. Discrimination is not a synonym for hate; it basically means
selection criteria or bias, which obviously applies. For pete’s sake. Are you
so eager to prove you’re a good guy that you’re going to paint everyone else
as a bigot?

------
lexcorvus
I can see two basic solutions to these issues:

    
    
        1. Purge every company of assholes
        
        2. Allow complete freedom of association
    

#1 is hard to implement because assholes are everywhere. #2 is the obvious
solution, and in fact it is so obvious that Julie Ann Horvath's actions
implicitly endorse it—don't work for companies filled with assholes.

Alas, the obvious solution is illegal under US federal law. Asshole-filled
companies are required by law to hire the kind of people assholes love to
harass. In other words, the very laws designed to promote the interests of
asshole-targets guarantee that they will come into contact with assholes.
(Medical geeks might recognize this as _iatrogenesis_.)

Of course, there's always:

    
    
        3. Convert all assholes to non-assholes
    

This can be considered a special case of #1, and would be the best of all
possible worlds. Indeed, a great deal of energy goes into achieving it. But it
essentially reduces to "eliminate the existence of assholes". It doesn't take
a particularly subtle grasp of human nature to understand why this doesn't
appear to be working.

In sum, the obvious solution is illegal and the desirable solution doesn't
work. Is it any wonder this conflict seems never-ending?

~~~
tesseractive
It sounds a whole lot like you're saying:

A. There are only two impossibly simplistic solutions to the problem.

B. Neither of them are workable in practice, so clearly the problem is
intractable.

There are people out there who have spent more than 10 minutes considering the
problem. Many of them have conducted research and published on the topic. You
might consider reading some of them before concluding that it's hopeless.

~~~
lexcorvus
_A. There are only two impossibly simplistic solutions to the problem._

Can you think of a solution that doesn't fall into either of the categories I
suggested?

 _B. Neither of them are workable in practice, so clearly the problem is
intractable._

Don't shoot the messenger.

 _Many of them have conducted research and published on the topic._

This is exactly what you would expect when there's an illegal but obviously
workable solution. Nobody ever got a job for saying "let companies hire
whomever they please", so researchers have an incentive to make the impossible
solution seem possible—if only we would listen to (and fund the research of)
people like them. The results simply involve increasingly complicated ways of
purging (or converting) assholes.

~~~
melindajb
I can think of a solution: enforce the law regarding gender harassment. Face
lawsuits otherwise. Period.

~~~
lexcorvus
Companies facing gender harassment lawsuits need to purge assholes or risk
going out of business. In other words, your solution reduces to solution #1.

~~~
melindajb
Upvoted for elegance.

------
iwasphone
> The controversy calls to mind that of Adria Richards last year

False.

~~~
chris_wot
I have to agree. Adria Richards took a picture of two guys then posted the, to
twitter, complaining about a conversation the two were having that possibly
contained sexual innuendo. The same sort that she made on twitter earlier.

In this case, someone has quit and said that a company hasn't been doing the
right thing. That's a far more ethical stance to make.

Mind you, I've no idea what the issues were/are.

------
vladgur
...'The issue has spilled over into other Internet companies too, as Horvath
quite correctly called out Secret, the anonymous-sharing app, for leaving up
what is an appalling post about her, in which she is called “Queen.”.....

I signed up for the Secret yesterday based on the HN comments of their UX
interactions and I immediately noticed that in comments below Secret posts,
people are assigned random icons and then refer to each other by what the icon
looks like. She refered to the author of that Secret comment as "greenshirt"
in her tweets. Is it possible that the "Queen" was a reference to her
icon(which we dont see from the screenshot), rather than an insult. It could
be just be attributed to a chess figure icon.

~~~
sergiotapia
Is it wrong to call a woman a "Queen"? What.the.fuck.

I call my wife 'mi reina' and my daughter 'princesita'. Are you telling me
these retards are saying that's a no-no?

~~~
jkelsey
Yes. You don't use gendered pronouns to refer to your coworkers and
professional associates because you're reducing that person to their gender
when it rarely matters. Also, you don't call people 'retards' because that's
insulting to people with disabilities. What you call your wife and daughter is
between you and your family.

~~~
dictum
Can't speak for the person who called her "queen", but that's the problem with
some words being gendered and others not. Most words in my mother tongue are
gendered even if the thing they're referring to are objects with no innate
gender. Cultural insensitivity or not, I fail to see how calling a woman a
queen reduces her to her gender. Hell, I can't see how calling a man a queen
reduces him to any gender.

I'm assuming whoever called her a queen wanted to allude to a domineering
personality, and indeed nobody is called a "king" for being pushy and
domineering, but the sentiment is also expressed in regards to men, as in "he
does X like he fucking owns the place".

~~~
untog
Also, being pushy and domineering is seen as a positive in men, but is almost
always seen as a negative in women.

~~~
dictum
I don't know, I've personally seen both men and women be criticized for
domineering attitudes in similar situations. Some men are less likely to
criticize men for their domineering attitude for fear of starting a fight
(some men don't physically attack women, but will attack men), making an enemy
with bully tendencies, losing their job, etc. Perhaps it's not that men being
pushy and domineering is really appreciated, it's just accepted as a fact of
life to prevent uncomfortable repercussions.

------
TrainedMonkey
Article looks sensationalist without any concrete details, however I will
reserve my judgement and wait for more information before condemning either
party.

------
TTPrograms
>But, even in a January interview with ReadWrite about how progressive the
company had become, she noted some lingering issues: “I recently got an email
from a middle manager that began, ‘So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?’ I
said, ‘You should ask them’.”

This is pretty telling of her attitude, I think.

------
karangoeluw
There is no proof (yet). So let's not make a big deal and judge neither Julie
nor Github unless something solid comes out.

~~~
erkl
If a publicly distributed first-hand account by the person in question isn't
"solid proof," what exactly are you looking for? What reason do you have to
think she's being anything less than truthful?

~~~
Jare
Not judging her story as truthful does not imply judging it as not (or
"anything less than") truthful either.

Her story as far as the article describes, is not an account, it's an
accusation without much factual, actionable data. You normally don't judge on
accusations until you have tried within reason to obtain factual data from
both parties involved.

~~~
erikpukinskis
My approach is different actually. While I think the criminal justice "beyond
a shadow of a doubt" standard is sensible for many criminal trials, because I
have no legal power over github, I treat these things more like civil suits.
Which means I just look for "the preponderance of the evidence". In this case
there are varying amounts of evidence for all three of the following:

1) workplace harassment against women is quite common

2) such harassment is frequently ignored

3) there was some harassment in this case

And there's no evidence that I've seen that suggests there was no harassment
or that it was handled properly by management. Therefore for the time being my
assumption is that the harassment and mismanagement both happened.

That said, although I have seen mountains of evidence for 1) and 2), because
the amount of evidence for the specific situation is small, that means a small
amount of counter-evidence about the specific situation could easily shift the
balance of probabilities.

That said, I have seen quite a bit of evidence that such accusations are only
rarely false, so while I would change my balance of properties readily, I
don't expect that to happen.

------
pjscott

        > look
    

You look around the article, and see real news of someone quitting, and a few
incensed tweets. Around these things lie a vast and billowing cloud of
baseless speculation, which smells uncomfortably of sulfur and bile.

    
    
        > examine speculation
    

The wispy and insubstantial cloud seems formless at first, but if you stare
long enough, you can almost see the shapes of your foes. Or possibly bunny
rabbits. None can say.

    
    
        > take speculation
    

You try to grab the cloud of speculation, but it slips through your fingers.
This is consistent with the behavior of most clouds.

------
cowpig
I don't really understand the motivation behind spamming twitter with vague
messages. If you care about problematic treatment of women in tech, this seems
completely counter-productive. Why not talk about what happened, how it could
be avoided in the future? Inform people about the nature of the problem and it
becomes possible to find solutions.

I do believe that sexism is a real problem in this industry. But this woman's
behaviour is childish and a completely inappropriate response no matter what
it is that happened.

------
csomar
_I 've been harassed by 'leadership' at GitHub for two years. And I am the
first developer to quit._

And

 _Julie Ann Horvath, an influential engineer at GitHub who has been vocal
about the company’s increasingly positive culture for women_

Hmmm. I don't think this is going to serve her well. So if you have been
harassed for two years, why did you find the culture in Github positive for
women?

~~~
jpwright
I think you are jumping to conclusions. The situation could have changed
during the time she was there. It's also quite likely that she put a positive
spin on things when describing GitHub publicly because it was part of her job,
and she wasn't willing to go public with her accusations until it reached a
certain level.

------
theorique
The allegations thus far are extremely vague. We don't even have complete
_stories_ from both sides, let alone conclusions.

Until we know what actually happened (if we ever do) it will be hard to judge.

------
revelation
But, but, .. what do you mean? Just yesterday, that nice founder of GitHub
showed us all of their mobile-first bring-your-life-into-work-and-never-leave
tools for communication! It was all open and stuff!

You mean there are still informal networks? Power gradients? Alliances? They
lied to us!

~~~
akerl_
Obvious troll is obvious.

~~~
revelation
Just pointing out theres a difference between "we are actually this honest and
open" and "we just hate accountability".

GitHub seems to fall to the right of the divide.

------
gagaga
Will HN ever be capable of having a rational discussion of women in
engineering and the issues they face? Most of these comments are face-palm
worthy.

------
malandrew

        “I recently got an email from a middle manager that began, 
        ‘So Julie, how are the women at GitHub?’ I said, ‘You 
        should ask them.’”
    

What is so wrong with that email? I can see how it could be misconstrued by
someone with a chip on their shoulder, but I could also see the original
sender thinking that that is a totally innocent constructive question to posit
to a woman who has been with the company for a long time. I would expect men
to know more about what's going on with the men in a company and for the women
to know more about what's going with women in a company. At the end of the day
there are conversations at work with are always inappropriate and
conversations at work which are inappropriate to have with members of the
opposite gender, but are likely not to be considered inappropriate by members
of the same sex. Or am I just missing something here.

------
gcb0
What exactly is the issue? the whole article does not say anything. At all. It
just highlights her vague accusations. Sounds like a disgruntled employee. or
did I miss any actual accusation there?

------
caycep
This is probably totally OT, but on the subject of women in CS and other STEM
fields/professions:

It seems like - while I'm sure the numbers like payscale and demographics
probably still heavily favor male vs. female, looking around, you see pretty
accomplished women in leadership positions - Jennifer Widom, Daphne Koller,
heck you can even cite Ginny Rometti. Why don't we ever hear from/about them?

------
sergiotapia
I just don't take these people seriously anymore. It seems like a uniquely
north american woman phenomenon.

Why is that I almost never hear about a German female software developer
crying wolf?

This person could have been legitimately harassed, but all of the bullshit
flooding online has made me grow a thick skin and just not care anymore
because I think it's fake.

~~~
rmc
There is a lot of sexism in Europe. e.g. the European Union tried to get more
women into science with a campaign called "Science: It's a girl thing"[1]. The
promotional video[2] is painfully archiac. It looks like something straight
out of Mad Men. "Pete, women are only interested in make up, so make sure we
have lots of that"

[1] [https://science-girl-thing.eu/en/splash](https://science-girl-
thing.eu/en/splash) [2]
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA)

~~~
sergiotapia
That video is just cringe-worthy. What were they thinking?!

~~~
RyanZAG
It's cringe-worthy for you, but it's actually popular amongst the target
demographic and has probably done more for getting girls into tech than most
other initiatives. You can deny it all you want, but many girls really do like
that kind of thing - and denying their right to like that stuff is just as bad
as denying their right to join the tech workforce.

EDIT: I mean the initiative as a whole, not the video alone. The whole
initiative has been done in a fairly cringe worthy way for me though, but for
the target audience it mostly gets it right.

~~~
rmc
The video itself was taken down _very_ quickly after numerous actual women in
science saw it and (publically) WTFed.

------
ohyes
Beyond the stuff that is harder to substantiate, putting stuff in your
comments that isn't related to the code you've written is incredibly
unprofessional. I wouldn't do that at any of the jobs I've been in.

It's a shame there's a lack of professionalism in the industry.

------
danso
OK, as a minority myself -- maybe not in tech today, but growing up in a
region that was 99% white and not anywhere near Silicon Valley -- this really
irritates me:

[https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444662613020913665](https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/444662613020913665)

 _" The shitty thing about all of this is that by being open and honest about
my experience I'm devaluing stock options of people I care about."_

So Horvath is alleging what most definitely sounds like civil-court level of
damages, if not _criminal_ , but she won't provide details _or file a lawsuit
as a whistelblower_ because she fears for her friends' financial profit?

How _the hell_ does that even make sense? What amount of IPO profit is worth
the level of systematic oppression and discrimination that she is alleging
here? And what kind of friends -- the ones privileged enough to earn a spot in
Github's ranks and could easily get a job at a less purportedly evil company
-- would be unsympathetic toward Horvath calling out her abusers, given the
level of harassment and cruelty they have inflicted upon her, as she tells in
her tweets?

I hate to pull the "I'm a minority card" too, but I am someone who can
_completely believe_ that a situation like Horvath's could exist "under the
radar" and yet cause lasting harm to equality in society...it's a common
fallacy to think that racism/sexism only exists when physical violence and
criminal malfeasance (of the media frenzy kind) occur.

And so I'm equally frustrated that she, out of concern for her friends' bank
accounts, will not do the right and just thing, given that she asserts to have
irrefutable evidence and a solid case. And if there are enough good people at
Github, as she also asserts, then legal and decisive action will only _help_
Github to become a great company.

------
bowlofpetunias
I'm really not surprised at this after all the publicity about GitHub's
immature "no managers" frat boy culture.

Really, what do you expect to happen when you put a bunch of young men with
little life experience together and let the inmates run the asylum?

Also not surprised at the many blatantly misogynist comments here on HN.

If there was ever any doubt about how our industry treats women, all you have
to do is let the industry speak for itself, like it does here on HN.

~~~
melindajb
right? In a most unexpected way (to me) I do appreciate that HN allows all
these disgusting comments to remain, vs. whitewashing them away. It gives
credence to claims about what people really think in this industry.

~~~
melindajb
go ahead kids, downvote me. I love it. I eat it for breakfast.

------
zobzu
after reading the article and links - i think i can safely say some people are
batshit crazy - and that the only harrasment at github was this women
harrasing others.

even thus this article was supposed to be in her defense. batshit crazy.

~~~
jkelsey
> and that the only harrasment at github was this women harrasing [SIC]
> others.

How do you know this? Do you work at GitHub?

------
ChristianMarks
Philosophy departments are also having their troubles with sexism, sexual
harassment and allegations therof, as one can find by perusing
[http://leiterreports.typepad.com](http://leiterreports.typepad.com),
[http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/](http://philosophysmoker.blogspot.com/)
and
[http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/](http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/)
The serious problems in professional philosophy with sexism and harassment are
exacerbated by an other-worldly proclivity among some philosophers to theorize
the possibility of harassment out of existence.

------
moron4hire
I believe her completely, because I would frankly be _shocked_ in this day and
age to see a company that didn't treat its employees like shit. Especially a
Silicon "better-than-the-old-dog-chow" Valley company.

How hard is it to treat people with respect, to treat them--ya know--like
people?

------
FaisalAbid
Disgusting. I don't know how in 2014 we still judge people by their gender or
sexuality.

All businesses should really care about is if the employee is a value add to
the company. Male or Female, it should not matter.

Disgusting GitHub, didn't expect this from you.

~~~
chris_wot
Expecting what exactly? What did they do?

~~~
romanovcode
I also am mind-boggeled about this.

She said so many times how bad her employees were treating her but she never
said exactly _what_ they were doing.

~~~
chris_wot
She may not be easily able to.

------
mantrax
Information is vague, so it's best not to take side (yet, at least).

This caught my eye, though: "In one day, all of the work I've done at that
company to be a better place for women to work has come undone."

"All work undone in a day" feels off. Either too impulsive, or speaking ill of
her alleged work.

I'd be suspicious of anyone claiming great progress in their activist agenda
(or whatever agenda) for _two years_ , and then suddenly announcing it was all
undone by a single remark or in a single day.

------
yarou
Basically, how any incompetent person behaves in the workplace. People getting
shit done don't have time for this nonsense.

~~~
phaer
You mean people who are productive don't have time to harass other people?
That does not sound convincing, because there a plenty or documented events
were that happened.

Or do you mean, people who are productive don't have time to defend themselves
against harassment? In this case you are definitely blaming the wrong people
because you should blame those who still don't manage to keep the workplace,
and the rest of society, free of sexism, racism and so on.

~~~
intortus
No, people who are productive don't get harassed. Meritocracy, bro!

------
korzun
Until she posts about what happened I don't understand the point of her
Tweets.

If you are accusing a company of something, do so with facts.

This is not something you beat around the bush with.

------
rds2000
__Females != Feminists __

Going into a workplace with a feminist agenda is a distraction and problem
waiting to happen.

 __Twitter Followers != Engineer __

[https://github.com/nrrrdcore](https://github.com/nrrrdcore) \- she didn't
even have any code. She's not a prominent engineer IMO. More of a marketer /
enthusiast type.

Edit: Does anyone here have proof of gender discrimination or she was a good
engineer?

~~~
eropple
Going into a workplace with the idea that everyone should be treated fairly
and equally is a distraction and a problem waiting to happen? "Feminism" isn't
"women better, dudes worse."

(And the always popular implication that people who aren't engineers don't
matter...)

~~~
rds2000
> the always popular implication that people who aren't engineers don't matter

There is also the popular implication when there is a girl on twitter starting
trouble again, they're not coding and trying to claim some form of
discrimination, instead of developing programming skill.

~~~
eropple
Implied by the _deranged_ , yes. Are you deranged?

You can't--and obviously I mean in the "if you're a basically functioning,
mostly vertebrate human being it's morally repugnant" sense of "can't", not
the physical, over-literal sense that I feel like you're going to use--blame
shitty workplace behaviors (and this isn't the first I've heard of GitHub
having problems) on _people not knowing how to code_. I mean, what kind of
world do you want to live in where you can excuse mistreating people because
they don't "develop programming skill"?

Actually, don't answer that. I don't want to know what kind of world you want
to live in.

------
jd0
I'm glad to see a lot of people sticking up for her here in the comments but
an equal number of these comments disgust me.

Take a look at the gender disparity in the top 10 tech companies. Most of them
are about 80% male. It's not that women don't want to work in tech, it's that
society as a whole including the entire tech community is entrenched in a neo-
good ol boys only mindset centered around a false meritocracy. Fuck the
techies and fuck silicon valley. I grew up romanticizing the industry and in
my adult life I've found it to be the ultimate disappointment.

------
rds2000
To non-US people:

In USA, we have a special sub-type of "office lady", which is the "marketer /
enthusiast" twitter troll.

The issue is, in other countries, office ladies are happy to just dress
professionally and do their clerical work.

In USA, we have self-esteem bubbles, an education system, a political culture
that create a factory of women like this. Basically, office ladies who act
like bulls, get enabled by nice-meaning people, then bite off more than they
can chew.

Also in USA, understand that our english isn't to be taken literally; it
infers complicated politically-charged emotions. Americans react very harshly
and nit-pick blunt truths, our public discourse is not one of reflection,
clarification or debate, but projecting emotion at an idea we don't feel
reaffirms our view of the world.

These people are a tiny sliver of our society, but since we in USA are good
people, we tend to give them benefit of the doubt. Because of the abuse by
this type of women in the workplace, some Americans are associating women in
distress with people like this. The boy who cried wolf.

People like this can really hurt things for actual victims of discrimination
who do their job.

~~~
harshreality
I don't understand what this has to do with "office ladies" specifically.

You could make similar claims about any cult personality. Anyone in a typical
low-to-mid-level corporate job who has more social capital in the external
world (twitter, etc.) than social capital inside the company.

------
iamleppert
Terrible! Can't believe such a progressive company like Github would stoop so
low.

------
xrctl
This shows why it is best to ignore women's complaining from the start.

Github has bent over backwards for Horvath, and it only fueled and enabled her
delusions.

This "gender based harassment" was most likely someone disagreeing with her
that Github did not need to be feminism 24x7.

~~~
gagaga
Is this a satirical post? I cannot imagine anyone writing this in 2014 and
actually believing it.

~~~
adamors
Read the whole thread, it's rampant with sexism and victim blaming. Typical
for a HN discussion about anything related to gender issues, really.

~~~
Allan_Smithee
Trigger Warning: HN

------
alexnking
Thanks a lot github. This is why we can't have nice things.

