
A Clash of Cultures - kungfudoi
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=5046
======
k__
A friend of mine has a strange approach to tech, at least in my opinion.

She didn't buy a computer till 5 years ago, only used the library ones to
write and print some documents.

Then suddenly she bought a laptop and setup Linux on it. Took her a few weeks,
but she got everything up and running without any help.

Also, she had an old cellphone for years and then she bought a Nexus 4, rooted
it and installed an OS of her choosing on it. It took her at least a month to
get the thing because she never used eBay or PayPal before.

My girlfriend also rooted her smartphones multiple times when they got no
updates anymore and installed Cyanogen mod.

Both these women aren't what you would call tech affine, if you interact with
them on a daily basis.

Somehow they got rather complicated technical issues fixed without any help.

This really challenged my perspective on technical know how.

~~~
jerf
"This really challenged my perspective on technical know how."

A good 25% or so of "tech knowhow" is just thinking that you can in the first
place. A lot [1] of "tech ignorance" isn't actually tech ignorance, but people
who have for one reason or another simply decided they can't.

[1]: And as I've come to learn the Internet's ability to misread things over
the years, let me note that had I meant to say "all of", I would have. There
are some who have decided they _won 't_, for instance, and that's different,
along with all sorts of other special cases. But I know a lot of people in my
life who can't use tech because of what is basically a self-fulfilling
prophecy.

~~~
marcus_holmes
There's also the "stacked problem" thing.

Most problems we encounter in tech have multiple layers of problem-solving:
we're installing this, when that goes wrong. To fix that we discover that we
need to change this other thing. Changing that other thing means the jobbie
over there breaks. Fixing that involves installing a widget over here, and so
on. When you reach the end of the chain, and this fix means that thing works,
which means the other thing suddenly springs into life, and so on up, is a
great feeling.

I've discovered that some people can only do this one or two layers deep: as
soon as this fix depends on that, which depends on the other... they give up
because it's "too hard"

Everyone I know with "an aptitude for tech" is pretty comfortable going at
least five layers deep.

I know this has no relevance to the gender discussion from the OP. I just find
it interesting ;)

------
ryandrake
There must be a lot of backstory and context here that is going unmentioned,
because I can't understand what this Dale guy is accused of doing. He
"questioned her authenticity?" What does that mean? Was he implying she was
some kind of non-human robot or something? What was the actual tweet? I feel
like I walked into a movie 30 minutes late and missed the important part.

~~~
krastanov
Naomi (@sexycyborg) is a well known maker who happens to have a lot of risque
maker projects and plenty of photos of her online would be scandalizing for
more socially conservative people.

She has been blamed to be the face for a manufactured persona, to be generally
incompetent at anything maker related, etc. The explanation for why she (and
her "handler") would do that, is that they get hired to endorse products.
Plenty of sexism, slutshaming, and circumstantial "evidence" (e.g. the comment
about almost cutting her finger this one time) have been used against her.

It is a generally disappointing story of slutshaming.

Now a well known media persona in the maker community decided to entertain
those allegations and ruined her reputation.

~~~
deeg
Our industry is (rightfully) going through a lot of self-examination on how we
treat women as sex objects and here is a technically savvy woman projecting
herself (among other things) as...a sex object. While it is certainly her
right to do so it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially
warranted).

That said, being called "fake" may be wrong. I have no knowledge one way or
the other.

~~~
qiqing
> it seems that a bit of push-back is expected (and potentially warranted).

It is generally useful to use a reversal thought experiment to check for
logical consistency.

Would a photogenic young man who wore tight clothes while presenting their
hardware projects be told he's not a real person because he had the audacity
to own his sexuality? Would that be warranted or expected?

~~~
deeg
The ranks of the tech industry are dominated by men so if a man tried to use
his sexuality to capture more eyeballs he'd likely be ignored or widely
mocked. Also, since men do not endure the sexual harassment or objectification
like women do in the tech field, I'm not sure if the situations are easily
reversed.

How about this thought experiment: what if I made a poster of Wu and put it on
my office wall next to the posters of Steve Jobs and Limor Fried? Would I be
creating a hostile environment for my female coworkers?

Wu can dress how she wants in her private life and it's none of my (or our)
business; commenting negatively on her private attire would indeed be slut
shaming. However she is projecting a highly sexualized image into a field that
has problems with sexualizing women; that is what opens her to criticism.

~~~
bigiain
I must have missed the tweets where Dougherty tried to destroy the career and
livelihood of, say, Taylor Swift or Beyonce or Miley Cyrus.

In what universe does "a field that has problems with sexualizing women" mean
the opening for criticism is on the women, not the problem of "the field"?

Dougherty needs to stop pretending he's a fit and appropriate person to lead
or speak for a major company - and go learn a bit of respect and restraint.
Right now his reputation is lingering around Jake Applebaum, Frank Artale,
Dave McClure, and Harvey Weinstein.

I'd like to hope Tim O'Reilly realises the damage Dale's doing to the Make and
Makerfaire brands, and reacts as well as 500 Startups and Ignition Ventures
both (eventually) did... But, as you point out, we're in "a field that has
problems with sexualizing women".

------
hprotagonist
Sometimes I wonder whether IRC really does have an advantage over richer media
communications.

I do not know or care about the identity of someone who helps me with a tricky
question in #emacs beyond their current nick. This lack of information is, in
many ways, an asset.

I think the only place it goes wrong is that eventually you'll have to
interact with people in the real world, and the easiest assumption to make on
IRC is that everyone i'm talking to is basically me, but smarter, and there's
some guaranteed weirdness when it becomes clear that this is not the case.

~~~
emsal
On IRC, if you stay in a channel long enough, you'll find that (depending on
the channel) communities there do have their own slew of personalities and
politics.

People may eventually reveal information about themselves (gender, age,
ethnicity, etc.), and if the information happens to be real, whatever
harassment or bigotry that's made in response to that can do just as much
damage as if it were done over another medium.

~~~
hprotagonist
This is all true, but the degree to which I get to control how much other
long-time channel denizens know about me is much more under my control. I can
even mask my IP pretty easily.

A real-name, photo-required, rich-media equivalent (i.e, twitter) tips the
balance of mandatory disclosure away from my favor.

~~~
praisewhitey
Twitter doesn't require a real name or photo (I use neither) and has as much
rich media as the IRC channels I sit in.

~~~
hprotagonist
i'm not a twitter user, but i have been led to believe that eggs are generally
not trusted.

~~~
jpindar
When they say eggs they mean accounts that literally do not have any avatar
image, and are thus probably operated by newbies or bots.

A quick check of my feed shows that at least half of the accounts I follow
don't have an image of a person or a name that could be a real name. Of those
that do, some are clearly not the picture or real name of the user of the
account.

------
qiqing
In light of the commentary on Naomi Wu's choice of clothing in her content, I
wanted to share an excerpt from an interview in another article to give a
sense of cultural perspective here:
[http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-
communau...](http://www.makery.info/en/2017/01/30/sexy-cyborg-la-communaute-
maker-est-reservee-aux-privilegies-blancs/)

 _Why and how did you create this “Sexy Cyborg” character? Is it all persona
or is it also the real you? Basically, when you are not being a maker, do you
still dress just as sexy?_

It’s the other way around, I actually wear more conservative clothing when
taking maker pictures and video for English-speaking social media than I do
normally just walking around and running errands. Westerners just seem to get
enraged over silly clothes. Well, Americans and British mostly. Europeans and
South Americans just think it’s funny and exciting, like Chinese do usually.

I have what I call the Auntie Test: Do Chinese women over about 50 or so have
any problem with my clothes? The Auntie who cleans the halls in my apartment
building has twice sent me back home for a sweater, but that is just because
it was winter and catching a cold calls for Chinese Traditional Medicine. I
was raised properly and am respectful. If the day comes and the neighborhood
Aunties tell me not to dress so sexy, I won’t. But so long as they smile and
wave at me, I don’t really think it’s anyone’s business what I wear in my own
country.

------
natural219
Steelmanning Dale's position here.

([https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man](https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Steel_man))

It seems like the root questions here are:

1) Does Naomi do all of the work for all of her projects, without external
help?

2) If answer to (1) is "No", does she ever represent herself as doing all the
work, or claim that she doesn't get external help?

3) If answer to (2) is "Yes", Does this cause harm to people deceived by her
public character as a "maker"?

The balance of evidence for (1), if you believe Dale's account and some
others, is "No". There's piles of internet evidence for this (I don't want to
drag them up, but can maybe find links if people are curious). This fact
doesn't actually seem to be in active contention, so I'll move on.

The balance to evidence for (2) seems to me also like a "No". I don't think
Naomi has ever claimed that she does 100% of the work for all her projects
herself -- and that's totally fine! She's a figurehead / movement leader, she
doesn't need to be a personal expert in every maker field to make a positive
impact. If you read some of her FAQs
([https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs](https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs)), it doesn't
seem like she's making this claim.

(3) is an interesting question that I will leave to the crowd. I'm already
tired of writing this comment and realize that I actually don't care. So
nevermind about all this.

~~~
cwkoss
I think part of the irony of this situation is that Make Magazine publishes
tutorials and features white American childrens' projects who have almost
certainly received extreme hand-holding help from parents.

If the standard is truly "without external help", are people following
tutorials in Make magazine not 'real' makers?

If the standard is "represent as doing all the work", to what extent does Make
verify that the (often privileged) children it features are doing all of the
work themselves? Has the CEO ever called out a child for getting too much
help?

Children is certainly a bit of a straw man, but I suspect they feature many
young-20-something white male Americans whose parents have taught them
technical things from young age, can afford maker equipment to experiment with
at home, can ask their parents for technical help when they get stuck, have
mentors in their family's social network that are experts in the field, etc.

I guess my point is _EVERYONE_ in the maker movement needs lots of help if
they are not from the highest levels of privilege. There is a ton of info to
learn, and nobody has the time to trial-and-error brute force their way to
expertise. Implicit standards that everything must be done and figured out
yourself creates a bias to only feature people who "need" the exposure least
and are most privileged. Anyone working 'alone' has likely received enough
help on previous projects that they were able to build off those skills to
self-teach the rest of the way.

Obviously, Make magazine appreciates the value of help and instruction within
the maker community: that is their reason for existence. Thus, I believe Dale
is holding Naomi to a higher standard than he does for most male American
makers because of his own biases.

~~~
natural219
I agree with all of this!

(Normally I'd just upvote, but want to clarify that this is my actual position
and that I don't hold some ulterior motive from being frank & critical of the
story as presented).

------
crankylinuxuser
I remember lurking here on HN quite a while back (err, maybe a few months ago)
and saw someone who was making the claim of the following:

    
    
         Naomi Wu was a hack
         Naomi Wu had multiple handlers. 
         There was some "shadowy guy" lurking in most photo ops.
    

I didn't think anything of it, other than a hater. I even saw one of these
claims on a few other sites I visit...

Found it: [https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0](https://imgur.com/gallery/O3Yq0)
(Imgur indicates timesignature May 6, 2017)

To be honest, I have __NO __clue what 's going on. I just have a good memory
of previous stuff I've read and saw. Maybe this'll give more hints about
what's going on here

content edit: Turns out the URL was from steveklabnik , which points towards
this: [http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-
cybo...](http://sexycyborgisaliar.blogspot.nl/2017/05/naomi-sexy-cyborg-wu-is-
liar-and-fake.html) and the cached content here:
[http://archive.is/GE0he](http://archive.is/GE0he)

When you search for that URL, you see only 5 hits. The very first one is on
[http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357](http://krautkanal.com/b/12075357) by user
mandalareopens. This just stranger and stranger. :/

Edit: For those that downmodded me, I don't believe this stuff. I'm saying
there's a history of __someone __running a smear campaign against her.

------
sorenjan
My issue with her isn't with her at all, but rather with what Bunnie calls the
Idol Effect. She posts projects on Reddit[0] from time to time, and they
pretty much always gets upvoted way beyond their technical merit. One was a
pair of 3D printed shoes with storage for lockpicks and a wireless router, the
album was close to 40 pictures, several of them of her in a very small dress.

I don't follow her, I don't have anything against her. I don't like how people
upvote her projects simply because of girl.

[0]
[https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg](https://www.reddit.com/user/SexyCyborg)

~~~
jhou2
1\. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their
"technical merit".

2\. A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea. I believe she
described how hard it is for women to find storage space when they dress up.
Men's clothing have pockets everywhere, but women's clothing often don't. I
don't think it's easy to find shoes with storage.

3\. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress? Feminism means women can wear
whatever they want. She goes into this issue in depth on her blog. She makes a
fair point that the response to it is social/cultural. In China, she doesn't
get the same sexually-related responses. Puritanism doesn't quite run the same
over there.

4\. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White, balding
middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns as an
attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her perspective
into the milieu?

~~~
sorenjan
> 1\. Reddit. Seriously. Pictures of cats get upvoted way beyond their
> "technical merit".

Not on r/DIY or r/hacking.

> A pair of shoes with storage sounds like a great idea.

Yes, it probably is. Is it hacking? The fact that she put a battery powered
router and a set of lockpicks in the storage doesn't make it hacking.

> 3\. What's wrong with her wearing a small dress?

Nothing. But is it necessary with several images of it in an album on r/DIY?
Is the post upvoted merely because of the 3D printed shoes? Does a post about
a 3D printed Raspberry Pi case with makeup and a mirror need 11 pictures of
her holding it first? [0]

> 4\. Her perspective on the maker movement is fair and diverse. White,
> balding middle-aged males aren't going to have the same problems or concerns
> as an attractive, young asian female. What's wrong with bringing her
> perspective into the milieu?

I never claimed there was anything wrong with her bringing her perspective. I
specifically said "I don't have anything against her". My problem isn't with
her, it's that people see a skinny young woman with large breasts doing
technical stuff and automatically think that because she breaks the mold her
work is more interesting that it actually is. It's a little insulting to women
that doesn't use the same gimmicks.

[0] [https://imgur.com/a/4aAPS?grid](https://imgur.com/a/4aAPS?grid)

~~~
romwell
>Yes, it probably is. Is it hacking?

Yes, it's hacking. It utilizing something (shoe heels) in a way that was not
intended by the people who designed it to solve a problem.

Putting a router into a shoe that has storage isn't hacking. Changing the shoe
to make it possible is.

>My problem is that people [...] think her work is more interesting that it
actually is.

Ah, my apologies then. Of course, there is an objective, intrinsic metric that
measures how interesting something is, and you clearly are someone with the
ability to compute it, unlike the unwashed masses, who are all wrong, and are
definitely guilty of the sin of finding something _more_ interesting than you
do.

It is especially daunting since never in the history of humanity, and
especially on Hackernews, has interest in something been connected to the
person who made it in any way.

~~~
sorenjan
Nice use of [...] to cut away my point there. I make no claim of representing
any objective truth, only my own opinions, as I assume you do too. And one of
my opinions is that I prefer more silicon than silicone in my technical
articles.

> Putting a router into a shoe that has storage isn't hacking. Changing the
> shoe to make it possible is.

She didn't change any shoes, she 3D printed them. And she called them "3D
printed platform heels for hackers", and claimed that she made them to be used
for pentesting. Here you go, the first image from her pentesting gallery
posted to r/diy, r/hacking, and r/lockpicking:
[https://i.imgur.com/7aiOCYR.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/7aiOCYR.jpg) Out of 37
images there are 5 that shows the build process.

I'm not trying to put down the shoes themselves, she has a whole backstory
constructed for how they could be used and the reasoning behind them. I still
think a lot of people find some parts of the gallery more interesting than the
actual work being displayed, and she knows that. How many would find a gallery
of a pair of 3D printed shoes as interesting if it only had pictures of said
shoes?

I find that most times interest on Hackernews is centered on a person it's
because of that persons previous achievements or demonstrated technical
ability, not their appearance. Her work isn't particularly interesting in
isolation (maybe I should add IMO for much needed clarity), yet here we are
with a big Hackernews discussion thread about a post made by Bunnie Huang
about a post by the CEO of Maker Media, all centered on her.

------
Mz
Her positioning of her public persona here is not doing her any favors. On the
one hand, if she can get taken seriously while showing herself off as a _sexy
cyborg_ with her bod strongly highlighted, this may help break some
stereotypes. On the other hand, women already get pigeonholed as being only
good for one thing. Playing up the sexy angle is going to make it generally
harder for other people to perceive her as anything else.

I have never heard of her before. I have no idea what she is doing that she
chooses to pursue this positioning as someone sexy as her primary identifier.
But it strikes me as inherently problematic to take that positioning in a male
dominated field.

It is something I have wrestled with. I don't think there are any easy answers
here. Women are damned if they do, damned if they don't. If heterosexual men
find a woman attractive simply for being, for example, an intelligent woman,
it winds up being a huge challenge to combat that. It can happen no matter how
conservatively she dresses or what she looks like. If being "old and ugly"
cured the issue, I wouldn't spend so much time contemplating such questions. I
have joked that I am still waiting to become old and ugly enough for this to
stop being an issue.

But, you know, I can't control what the world does. I can only kind of sort of
take a smidgeon of control over my limited choices in life. And I found it
helpful to take a different approach than this.

~~~
cwkoss
You may be interested in her FAQ:
[https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs](https://pastebin.com/V3474kYs)

" __How can you wear those clothes? __

Not an issue here in Shenzhen. No one bothers me. They notice but there is no
problem. Our sex workers do not wear this kind of clothing as Chinese men
prefer an innocent /cute/childish look. You can see from my 360º videos on
YouTube that aside from curious looks no one bothers me or cares very much.
Mostly they enjoy the novelty and ask to take pictures with me.

Beside personal taste, the other issue is my appearance is effective. Female
Makers- or Women in Tech are rarely featured in Chinese news, it's just not
something that gets much interest and there is no community of like-minded
women I can look to. Sexy girls are still the delivery vector for nearly all
messages in tech here. If I want to get my message out- that these new
technical tools are accessible, and that there are well-paying jobs available
for women that master them, I have to do so in a way that will actually reach
my audience. I'm sure the high road is nice- but in China, no one will hear a
word you say while you are on it.

For people making negative comments- while sex workers in your country might
wear some similar clothing, women in your country also wear and do things that
only sex workers in other, even more conservative countries would do. While we
all would like to think our country sets the standard for the World it’s
polite not to impose our standards on each other- no matter how surprising the
differences. You can be sure if I visited your country I would dress so as to
not cause offense."

~~~
Mz
Thank you. I think I still don't really agree, but maybe I will mull it over
and blog about it rather than try to talk about my reservations here.

------
coldtea
> _If someone asked you to draw a picture of an engineer, who would you draw?
> As you draw the figure, the gender assigned is a reflection of your mental
> prototype of an engineer – your own prototype bias. Most will draw a male
> figure._

How about it being a reflection of status quo?

If one sees more male engineers, they are more likely to draw a male one than
a female one.

Ever more so if their goal is to draw a representative or "median" engineer,
and not an activist one (to help increase the number women in engineering
roles) when doing the drawing.

~~~
cortesoft
Right, but the point the author is trying to make is that having that vision
of the 'prototype' in your head changes your behavior and keeps people who are
not the 'status quo' out of the field.

------
40acres
Men generally seem to take issue with women who own their sexuality, combine
that with the general level of misogyny and sexism in the tech industry and
the general level of gate keeping that surrounds "nerd" culture and you get
this.

Disappointing but not surprising.

~~~
js8
Please stop repeating the myth that tech industry is somehow extremely
misogynistic or sexist. It's not more than other industries, in fact I
strongly suspect it is actually less.

~~~
zbentley
Did GP imply that tech is more misogynistic than other industries? Or
"extremely" so?

I do not think they did.

Even if tech is on par with, or less than, other industries with regards to
misogyny, what then? We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a
problem. Let's talk about what to do about it, not pretend it doesn't exist
because "it could be worse".

~~~
js8
I think they did hint at it, to quote "combine that with the general level of
misogyny and sexism in the tech industry"; but only they know. If they didn't
- good!

> We (HN) largely work in tech. It (the industry) has a problem.

No, it's a social problem. Tech industry per se has nothing to do with it. I
can see many social problems (and worse ones, let's be real) unrelated to tech
that we can and should talk about and not pretend they don't exist.

I mean, look at it from the other side - we shouldn't ignore a social problem
because it _isn 't_ an issue in tech - for example, homelessness.

------
pjmlp
I always get sad when I see such issues happening to fellow female engineers.

Throughout technical school, CS degree and companies I have worked on, most of
them were and are, top noch when compared with many of us.

If I was doing a Mission Impossible kind of team, many of the faces would be
female.

Yet sexism keeps being a thing.

~~~
MHB8080A
I suspect the cause of her issues is not that she is female, but that she uses
her physical attractiveness to promote herself in a community that has
traditionally valued pure technical ability over all.

If you look at her YouTube channel, it's full of her showing off scantily clad
outfits, which has allowed her to amass a relatively large audience. Had she
been male, her same projects wouldn't have allowed her to attain any sort of
similar notoriety (the fact that many of them center around fashion aside).

Contrast the lack of similar reactions towards Jeri Ellsworth.

~~~
cmiles74
I don't think I've experienced this rarefied field where people were valued
purely by their technical ability. I would love to be in that field!

In my opinion, no one should be penalized for their attractiveness or lack
thereof and no one should be penalized for the clothes they decide to wear.
Any shame you may feel over being attracted to someone is kind of your own
thing and, surely, doesn't impact that person's ability to do their work,
technical or otherwise.

For sure, many workplaces have certain dress requirements. This is someone
blogging on their own time, from their own home or workshop. They can wear
whatever they like.

~~~
MHB8080A
She is not being penalized for her attractiveness, quite the contrary. Her
choice of clothing has allowed her to gain a substantial media following
without the need for advanced technical ability - she has admitted herself
that most of her projects were on a "middle-school level" (hyperbole, but
still demonstrative).

It's not the case of a person who happens to be attractive doing technical
things and being judged for it - it's the case of a person becoming popular
because of their attractiveness, with the technical abilities being secondary.

Plus, if you look at the media reaction to the events, it is almost entirely
supportive. Dale Dougherty was blasted by the media and had to apologize for
his remarks.

------
forkLding
I'm a Naomi Wu fan so I am biased but I want to point out that we shouldn't
doubt people as a front because they prepare what they say beforehand from the
internet or other sources or even because they have to do research or ask for
help from other sources before doing a video. I'm a programmer and yet
surprise I use Stackoverflow. In the end, points of authority are still people
and should be seen as such, they are not all-knowing sources of truth or some
kind of tech Buddha.

------
hidenotslide
I don't know anything about this particular case, but it reminds me of a
similar episode in 2015 against a South Korean Hearthstone player.
[https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-
fe...](https://www.gamespot.com/articles/witch-hunt-against-fake-female-
hearthstone-player-/1100-6425551/)

Point 3 about the asymmetry of a prominent CEO spreading rumors without
consequence is troubling.

------
jayliew
I googled to find out who Dale is, and saw that he issued an apology over
Twitter and linked to the open note on Makezine:
[https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-
wu/](https://makezine.com/2017/11/06/open-note-to-naomi-wu/)

~~~
cmiles74
I also found this apology to be pretty weak sauce. Obviously the damage can't
be undone, but why not take a stab at trying? He owes it to this person, after
all.

Things I dislike:

\- The actual apology is one sentence long

\- He doesn't state what he did wrong

\- He doesn't acknowledge the harm he has caused

\- It's not clear he's learned anything from this event

[https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-be-
grown/201206/how...](https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-be-
grown/201206/how-craft-the-perfect-apology)

~~~
ScottBurson
This piece on the apology includes a response from Ms. Wu making similar
points: [https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/11/07/make-magazine-
founder...](https://thenextweb.com/asia/2017/11/07/make-magazine-founder-
apologizes-after-accusing-chinese-maker-of-being-not-a-real-person/)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
For the record, the tweet in question is on Naomi's twitter page header. It
reads:

"I am questioning who she really is. Naomi is a persona, not a real person.
She is several or many people".

Also more pictures of Naomi on her twitter- I have to admit she looks like a
booth babe and the first thing that came to my mind when I saw here pictures
was "fan service".

But that means nothing of course. In fact, if I think about it- having a poor
sense of style is _so_ being an engineer.

------
penistives
> Western men visiting China often feel entitled to the attention of local
> women, says Wu. When she declines romantic or sexual advances from American
> ex-pats, Wu says they often respond with rage. [1]

Sounds like Dale was turned down.

1\. [http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-
silico...](http://www.newsweek.com/naomi-wu-sexy-cyborg-misogyny-silicon-
valley-704372)

------
replicatorblog
A few years ago the video game convention PAX instituted a policy, under
pressure from attendees, that amounted to "no booth babes." This applied to
hired models whose only job was to dress provocatively standing in a booth,
but also to cosplayers who demonstrated a level of creativity in costume-
making and performance matching Naomi Wu.

In that case, a class of creative professional who are passionate makers and
enthusiastic fans of a medium were denied a chance to ply their trade because
the organizers felt it was a salacious distraction from the core proposition
from the show.

Here is some coverage: ([https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-
lollipop-chain...](https://kotaku.com/5900134/skimpy-outfit-gets-lollipop-
chainsaw-cosplayer-asked-to-leave-pax)).

The sense I get is that Dale is being criticized because he's seen to be
questioning an individual's technical skills based almost exclusively on her
physical appearance. I get that, and that criticism is fair.

However, my read of his comment is that he shares the view of the proponents
of PAX's policy. In that case, Jessica Nigri was a creative enthusiast, but
her presence made the show less comfortable for other attendees for a variety
of reasons, e.g. promoting unrealistic body images, adding a sexual dynamic to
what is supposed to be an all-ages show, etc.

I'm curious if the uproar would be at all diminished (or exacerbated) if Dale
had framed the original decision to not have her present along one of these
lines of argument:

1) If he was dismissive of her work, but not her as a person.

"Naomi Wu is an impressive young maker with a large following, but we feel
like her popularity is driven more by her appearance rather than the quality
or originality of her work."

2) Or if it was presented as an editorial decision:

"We've not invited Naomi Wu to present because her work, while interesting, is
sexually charged and outside the scope of projects we want to highlight at
MakerFaire."

3) Or a commercial decision:

"Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because while we
believe makers should feel free to pursue a wide range of interests and modes
of self-expression, her presence may prove distracting to the busloads of
first-graders who make up a large portion of the audience, and uncomfortable
to our sponsors."

4) Or even if it was a moralistic judgement:

"Naomi Wu has not been invited to present at MakerFaire because we believe
women in tech face huge amounts of latent sexism and our judgment is that
featuring work in this style would worsen, not improve the problem."

Would these have been better or worse?

FWIW, I had the good fortune to spend a few hours with Dale and some of the
O'Reilly crew circa 2008. It's hard for me to imagine a more "woke" group of
people at the head of a large tech company. They were focused on diversity and
inclusion well before the topics took on the wide-spread buy-in that they have
today.

~~~
Chris2048
Just to pick on one thing:

> promoting unrealistic body images

How does this work? Mere existence is an automatic promotion of your body?

Should Gregor Clegane not go to cons because it would make small guys feel
bad?

~~~
replicatorblog
I don't know how it works, but it's an argument that gets made, often by the
same people who are now protesting Make. I don't see a major difference
between the women who were told to cover up or get out at PAX and Ms. Wu. Both
have carved out a niche at the fringes of a tech industry by flaunting their
physiques. I understand the arguments for and against celebrating them, but
their treatment seems inconsistent.

------
objectivistbrit
This is an absurd story.

Of course a woman can be a "maker". Of course an attractive person can be a
"maker". But Naomi Wu's entire shtick seems to be "skimpily dressed girl with
fake tits does stereotypically nerdy male activity". Look at her Youtube
channel [1] - every video starts with an anime cartoon of her, obviously
intended to titillate.

People have frequently criticised startups for using sex to promote their
products. (E.g., Geeklist, a few years back [2]). Now a scantily clad woman is
a feminist icon? I get that there's a view of the world whereby the Geeklist
woman was being exploited, and Naomi Wu is simply owning her sexuality, or
whatever. For most outsiders it simply looks like fashion. Using sex to
promote tech products was passe, and now it's in again and slightly edgy, but
only if you're cool enough to pull it off.

She has an explanation about how the breast implants really express her
interest in bodyhacking and the outfits reflect the cyberpunk style of
Shenzhen. (B.S., by the way - most of Shenzhen is just a normal Chinese city).
And when all her photos and videos are of her in a skimpy outfit, wearing
makeup and with hair styled - she's choosing to present herself in a certain
way. She could do a video wearing a sweater, working on a late night project
with a ponytail and bagged eyes, but she doesn't. She knows looking good will
get her videos more clicks. (It takes a lot of effort to look good
consistently, which is why engineers and scientists of either gender are
stereotypically not good-looking. They're spending too much time on other
things).

Then there's the fact that her Twitter [3] simply doesn't sound like a
mainland Chinese girl. No, I can't prove this. But I spent enough time
studying Chinese and living in China, speaking with a wide range of Chinese
people, and I'd bet any amount of money that those tweets were written by an
American. Even when translated by a native English speaker, Chinese has a ton
of idiosyncratic phrasings and sentence patterns that give it a distinctive
style. (For an example, see ChinaSmack [4], which translates Chinese internet
culture into English).

Not only do Naomi's tweets lack that style completely, they definitely do not
sound like they were written who grew up in a Confucian culture. China favours
modesty, hierarchy and conforming to the group. Sure, there are sassy,
independent young Chinese women, but they don't sound like sassy, independent
young American women. Naomi Wu sounds like an American woman. (Specifically
American and not generically Western - Europeans don't have that brash
aggressiveness). Again, I can't prove this, but her Twitter postings simply do
not have the slightest hint of Chinese-ness. [Edit: having listened to more of
her videos, it is highly unlikely the girl in the videos made those tweets].

Then there's the fact that she screenshotted his tweet and uses it as part of
her Twitter header photo [3]. And the huge pile-on to a guy who made one tweet
and later apologised for it. She even goes digging and trying to associate him
with Donald Trump on fairly spurious grounds [5]. This whole story designed to
hit the tech industry's buttons and incite everyone to pontificate about "tech
bros". My guess is that her company is intentionally using this episode as a
guerilla marketing/PR exercise, but I have no idea.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cdk4Zw2oYdc)

[2]
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/03/23/women-
party-favors-eye-candy-shanley-kane-women-in-tech/#61547ed4960e)

[3] [https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg](https://twitter.com/realsexycyborg)

[4] [https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-
univer...](https://www.chinasmack.com/renren-statuses-by-chinese-university-
students)

[5]
[https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256](https://twitter.com/dalepd/status/926813927769440256)

------
thomzi12
Interesting article, kind of wish it started off with some context and simple
reporting on the situation though -- I'm not familiar with the story.

------
jorgec
Who did what? and why is relevant? Sorry but you don't put the whole story and
the context, then its just a personal opinion.

------
heliodor
Mods, please fix the title. "A Clash of Cultures" is very broad and says very
little about the article's contents.

~~~
pvg
The title is neither clickbait nor misleading. It's perfectly fine to have to
read something to find out what it is.

~~~
heliodor
I think a lot of people would consider that linkbait. Not revealing the
contents of something. The appeal of mystery. Is that not bait? Manipulation?

~~~
pvg
A lot of these people would be wrong.

What are these well-known essays about, judging from the title alone? If they
were linked on HN, would you like the titles changed?

As we may think

A modest proposal

Unto this last

Total eclipse

The emperor's old clothes

The cathedral and the bazaar

------
pwaai
In my opinion, the article also unwittingly reveals the fetishization of Asian
women in North America.

How dare an Asian woman who has breast augumentation surgery and risque photos
call herself a technologist? How dare she use her physical attractiveness to
woe the attention of men other than getting naked in front of your computer
screen?

~~~
tree_of_item
"How dare"? Who is saying anything like that? I think the original accusation
focused on the deleted account of an experienced engineer associated with
Naomi.

But you know what?

> How dare she use her physical attractiveness to woe the attention of men

I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to do.
Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be about
technical ability.

~~~
pwaai
> I'm just gonna go ahead and say this is, in fact, a questionable thing to
> do. Especially in a community with a name like "Maker" that purports to be
> about technical ability.

Are you even remotely aware of your own biases here that I'm trying to
highlight?

So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict Puritan
dress code for women to fit your own world views?

> You're not wrong, but it's a touchy subject and the word "slutshaming"
> polarizes people pretty effectively in the current year.

In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it might
have impact on what you are writing?

~~~
tree_of_item
> So communities that purports technical subjects should enforce strict
> Puritan dress code for women to fit your own world views?

Come on, this is an obvious strawman. There's a gradient between a "strict
Puritan dress code" and "let's get naked!". If I showed up to Strange Loop in
a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be okay?

> In your comment you invalidate 'slutshaming' completely, do you think it
> might have impact on what you are writing?

I don't think I "invalidate slutshaming completely". I said it's a polarizing
topic, which it is.

~~~
pwaai
Well the main complaint seems to be that she was dressed too 'sexy' without
taking the context into factor. Her aims were marketing and she succeeded.

> If I showed up to Strange Loop in a slingshot speedo do you think that'd be
> okay?

It's okay if you are okay with it, regardless of what others think. I'd
imagine this example was created to illustrate how unsexy for a grown male
(which I assume here) is to wear a speedo whereas it would work for female
(assume hetero). I'm sure some folks at Strange Loops will find your attire
attractive.

Which is pretty much the entire point of me trying to explain the underlying
sexist bias that's at play here.

Calling 'slutshaming' a touchy word and a modern trend _are_ invalidating
remarks because you minimize it's importance and that it's not worthy of
discussion because it's merely superficial like a trend. It's real and the
only reason why you might not think so is simply because you haven't
experienced it which is not valid grounds to say 'slutshaming' isn't real.

Things that are inappropriate in your head are that way because of your own
emotional relationship with those "inappropriate things". In this case, seeing
somebody in a sexy light and blaming them for arousing you is inappropriate
initself. It might warrant as harassment of sorts. Do you walk up to your
female co-workers (just the sexy ones) and tell them they can't wear what they
feel is within their rights because you are uncomfortable with your own
feelings which is entirely within your control?

~~~
tree_of_item
> Do you walk up to your female co-workers (just the sexy ones) and tell them
> they can't wear what they feel is within their rights because you are
> uncomfortable with your own feelings which is entirely within your control?

No, HR does that for me. Have you even seen Naomi's pictures? If she wore
anything like that at work in the USA it would absolutely be a problem. It's
not "my own emotional relationship".

~~~
ryandrake
I think that says more about the USA than anything else.

------
draw_down
Incredible how this person has been treated. Just indefensible.

------
baybal2
Oh wow! Impressive

------
hitekker
Key takeaway:

>why would Dale want to slander Naomi?

>I don’t know the background, but prior to Dale’s tweet, Naomi had
aggressively dogged Dale and Make about Make’s lack of representation of
women.

>Dale could have recognized and addressed this core issue of a lack of
diversity. Instead, Dale elected to endorse unsubstantiated claims and destroy
a young female Maker’s reputation and career.

Are there other sources that corroborate Dale’s supposed sadism?

~~~
cmiles74
I think "sadism" may not be the appropriate term. Based on what I have read,
it sound more like Dale is simply sexist. His doubts and concerns have a
pretty sexist bent, as do his actions.

When a person really thinks another class of person simply cannot do a
particular thing, this is what you get.

------
oh_sigh
This 'controversy' could be settled if Naomi would just say whether the
assertion is right that the 'timaz' user is either her boyfriend or someone
she is in contact with.

------
zbentley
An asymptote of this phenomenon is Curtis Yarvin ("Moldbug", basically a
fascist, and also a programmer) being denied a slot at the Strange Loop
conference:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_Yarvin#Controversy)

How does that compare with this situation? Is it similar? Different? If so,
why?

------
at-fates-hands
The problem with this is what I've been experiencing for years. Online
shopping is fine, but what if I need something right now, and I can't wait for
overnight shipping?

What if I need something for a Halloween costume, in December? What if I need
a tie or pair of pants for an interview? What if I forgot to get a gift for my
nephew? Malls don't require that you have a meticulous plan for everything you
might need in the next month. Malls make it easy for me to go to, get
something I need and get out. No matter how fast online buying is, they can't
compete with local stores that allow me to get something as fast as I need it.

I first started seeing this when a bunch of convenience stores went under
after 2008. Now it's getting worse. CompUSA and other tech stores used to
carry a lot of PC hardware stuff I needed and could get when I needed
something. Radio Shack, CompUSA, and bunch other shops all went under. Now if
I need something, I'm left with Best Buy's paltry offerings and the closet
Best Buy store is a good 20 minute drive one way because they already closed
three of the shops that were within a five minute drive.

The death of the Malls and retail in general is already killing the
convenience of being able to get something when I need it. Now I have to drive
further, spend more time trying to find a retail store which is still open,
and then hope their minimal offerings will do the trick.

