
$10,000 Raised for PyLadies at PyCon 2013 - amazedsaint
http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/10000-raised-for-pyladies-at-pycon-2013.html
======
SeanDav
In the light of what happened at PyCon with Adria Richards and the whole
internet explosion of nastiness and short sightedness from all sides I
actually don't quite know what to think about "Women in Tech"

I saw so much hate that I was ashamed to be a male and in tech, yet I also saw
so much narrow minded reporting and deliberate distortion of events from many
so called feminists and feminist activists (not all female btw) that a part of
me would be quite happy if I never saw a female in tech again.

We all lost in that affair - male, female, tech, non tech.

A part of me doesn't even want to think about it again for some time until the
dust has completely settled. I would rather not even see articles like this.

A bigger part also realizes that there are real issues with sexism and would
love to see more women in tech and understands that the only way that is going
to happen is by honest and open discussion.

~~~
pekk
It's hard to understand how you could think that Adria Richards is
representative of all "women in tech".

It's also hard to understand why you take Adria's incident as such a severe
personal affront to yourself that you not only seem to want PyLadies to bite
the dust, but "a part of [you] would be quite happy if [you] never saw a
female in tech again." Even a sane and moderate person can see in this post a
suggestion that you would like to see women actively driven out of tech - all
because you are offended about Adria Richards.

With respect, please consider that your reaction to this may be strongly
irrational and that the things you are saying as a result (and the Adria-
unrelated places you are choosing to start a fight) may be making matters even
worse.

~~~
SeanDav
I am trying not to get personal here, but you are guilty of just the sort of
discussion that I find both embarrassing and narrow minded.

By narrow minded I mean you are deliberately cherry picking individual points
out of context and trying to imply something negative or even the opposite of
the original post.

For example you say:

> _" a part of you would be quite happy if you never saw a female in tech
> again. Even a sane and moderate person can see in this post a suggestion
> that you would like to see women actively driven out of tech - all because
> you are offended about Adria Richards."_

Yet you very conveniently skip over the part where I say _"a bigger part of me
would love to see more women in tech"_.

You are also putting words in my mouth. Nowhere do I express an opinion about
Adria Richards herself.

You say other things as well but I am not going to defend myself any further
or hijack this thread more than I already have.

~~~
pekk
You chose this.

You chose to drag the Adria incident (unnamed) into an unrelated thread,
perpetuating the toxic discussion (the one about Adria's incident) that you
claim not to want to hear about. But you weren't responding to someone else
here. You went there first. And you set the tone.

You chose to open with 'I actually don't quite know what to think about "Women
in Tech."'

You chose to say that a part of you doesn't want to see women in tech at all.
You didn't, for some reason, choose to reflect on whether this was rational or
needed to be said publicly.

You chose to say that you don't want to see articles "like this." Though this
article isn't about anything offensive at all.

You chose all of this. Neither your words, nor their inflammatory meaning,
were made up by anyone else. Then you chose not to rethink or climb down from
any of your inflammatory remarks. And you chose to respond to correction by
escalating and getting personal.

That attitude is the real problem that created the Adria mess. You are the
same kind of person you are complaining about. And it has nothing necessarily
to do with "women in tech."

Please stop the oversensitive, resentful whining about others and take
responsibility for your own choices.

~~~
gosu
I find this dramatic rhetoric off-putting. OP seemed honest and nuanced. There
might be a valid point to be made that his feelings are toxic to society, in
some subtle way, but I'll just echo the other people here in saying that he
comes off as constructive while you appear to be saying things that sound
clever to you.

------
amix
PyCon had 500 women out of 2500 attendance. Gave away over $100,000 in
financial aid. Gave away 2500 Raspberry Pi's. Thought kids to code. Raised
$10,000 for the PyLadies. Gave permission to publish amazing online videos
etc.

And then you have these 3 idiots (and more online idiots) that steal the
spotlight and everybody focuses on them. Sigh. Let's focus on the positive
stuff!

~~~
martythemaniak
Apparently sharing a joke with a friend now qualifies you as an "idiot".

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
And not even an offensive joke either. They literally made a juvenile penis
reference. Who here hasn't made one? Even made one today?

~~~
taligent
Me. Because I am not 5 years old.

So when I am at an event representing my company I act on my best behaviour.
It's called basic professional conduct.

~~~
WayneDB
Please explain why jokes about penises are juvenile as compared to say...a
joke about a paper airplane?

How about just talking about penises? You know, just a normal conversation out
loud, in a train full of people...about our penises. Is that really
juvenile...or something else?

(Or, you know, just downvote me because you don't like people questioning
things that you accept to be true.)

------
famousactress
So, if I was at a shop with a large recruiting budget trying hard to land new
talent, and I was also specifically interested in fostering an environment the
encouraged and promoted women in our industry.. I'd seriously consider writing
a check for 10k and doubling the contribution today.

Any takers?

~~~
pifflesnort
Let's pretend I'm at that shop with a large recruiting budget, and a $10k
check is only an e-mail to accounting away.

I also just watched a massive blow-up and bad press around Adria Richards,
PyCon, and this issue in general. I'm naturally wary of my company being
connected with or supporting these virulently negative forms of misogyny and
feminism of which the entire donglegate episode seemed to spring.

What would $10k would be funding, and the good press that would come of that?
Reading <http://www.pyladies.com/>, they appear to put on study groups and
other events, but their "Code of Conduct" is higher billed than an explanation
of what PyLadies actually does with funding.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
> the _equally_ [sic] negative and virulent feminism

You mean the negative and virulent feminists who were threatening to rape and
decapitate someone they didn't like?

Oh, right, no such thing happened.

Please, _please_ do not equate attempts to bring people's attention to
inappropriate sexual language during conferences - whether you agree with them
or not - to the massive outpouring of hatred, abuse, personal attacks and
misogyny that accompanied this incident.

~~~
smsm42
The story went a bit further than "attempts to bring people's attention". As
it is pretty clear by now, Richards is a crusader, repeatedly blowing things
out of proportion and raising big controversy out of most mundane things, and
in this case it cost somebody his job. So while indeed she did nothing nothing
comparable to death threats and other such filth, something more that "attempt
to bring attention" did happen.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
That's not clear at all. I highly recommend reading this essay for a more
careful look at what Richards has actually done by way of promoting gender
equality rather than what her detractors (both civil and hateful) are saying
about her:

[http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-
th...](http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-the-surface-
that-amanda-blum-article-on-adria-richards-is-not-what-it-seems/)

What is clear is that a huge number of people who thought it was totally
unacceptable for Richards to identify inappropriate behaviour at a conference
in the manner she did (or, according to some people, at all) have been silent
or supportive about the massive and sustained outpouring of hatred, rage,
vulgar insults and detailed threats of rape, bodily harm and murder that
Richards has faced since then.

Indeed, the GP comment actually equated what Richards did with what has since
been done to her (the word "equally" has since been edited out), and an
earlier posted reply by the same user (reply since deleted) suggested that
since no one has _actually_ raped or murdered anyone, there is no harm other
than the firing.

I really don't know what to say to someone who doesn't see the harm in a full-
spectrum blizzard of abuse, hatred and threats - not only to the direct target
but also to any other woman who is unsure how to respond when she sees or
experiences something inappropriate.

More perspectives:

Courtney Stanton, A Woman Walks Into A Tech Conference
[http://www.buzzfeed.com/courtneystanton/a-woman-walks-
into-a...](http://www.buzzfeed.com/courtneystanton/a-woman-walks-into-a-tech-
conference)

Sarah Milstein, I Have a Few Things to Say About Adria
<http://www.dogsandshoes.com/2013/03/adria.html>

Matt LeMay, On PyCon <http://mattlemay.tumblr.com/post/46004653389/on-pycon>

~~~
pifflesnort
This is a rhetorical device, intended to use an emotional argument ("hatred,
rage, vulgar insults and detailed threads of rape, bodily harm, and
murder!!!") to justify _totally unrelated behavior_ of public naming and
shaming for a mild offense.

This is exactly the sort of virulent emotionally-driven argumentative behavior
that I _don't_ want to have become a standard fixture in the technology
community. Issues like this should never rise to this level of heated
unprofessionalism and immaturity such that we become a target or amusement for
the trolls of the internet at large.

The whole thing was and is a ridiculous mess, and it all was avoidable by
behaving like responsible adults. No amount of bad behavior from teeming
hoards of anonymous teenage internet commentators justifies the behaviors that
preceded the public circus.

~~~
RyanMcGreal
It's not a freaking _rhetorical device_ to point out that every single time a
woman speaks up about inappropriate behaviour, she ends up paying a terrible
price in harassment, abuse, threats, and hatred.

It is theoretically possible to have a civil discussion about whether Richards
went about reporting the inappropriate behaviour in the right way (and it is
100% clear that the PyCon organizers agreed the behaviour was inappropriate).

However, if you continue to evaluate what Richards did in denial of the
abundant reality of insults, abuse, threats, hatred, contempt, ridicule,
disdain, disregard that women in tech _routinely face_ \- and further, if you
continue to ignore the fact that women are _routinely punished with huge
storms of abuse for speaking up about it_ \- then you will remain oblivious to
the fact that there is nothing "rhetorical" or "emotional" about pointing
these facts out. You will, in effect, continue to be a part of the problem.

~~~
overgryphon
I am a woman, and I work in software development, so I'm assuming I fit in
your group called "women in tech". I have no idea what insults, abuse,
threats, contempt, ridicule, disdain, and disregard I apparently have been
routinely facing.

If "women in tech" did suffer so severely on a daily basis, it would not be
relevant to Richards. Her job description seems to be "Developer Evangelist".
I'm not sure what that specifically means, but I do know it isn't technical,
and thus she isn't a "woman in tech".

Even if you do consider her a "woman in tech", the abuse Richards suffered
while wrong is not something routinely faced by "women in tech". I understand
that genitalia aren't generally supposed to be discussed at professional
conferences, but am finding it very hard to see why this is an issue of
harassment towards "women in tech" when no women were in the conversation at
all. Since Richards felt it was, she was entitled to follow up with the
conference leaders, and ask that they handle the situation appropriately,
which she did. At this point in time, she could have enjoyed the rest of PyCon
and gone home without suffering any abuse at all, happy that she spoke up
about the conversation that she took offense to.

Instead she publicly posted the photos of the men who dared discuss genitalia
amongst themselves in her presence in order to shame them. This is when she
opened her self to (and received) abuse. She had already had the situation
handled by the conference organizers, and thus had already spoken up about it
without any abuse at all.

It is unfortunate that Richards received the huge storms of abuse that she
did. But she chose to handle the situation in a way that invited that abuse,
when there were clear ways to "speak up" that would not have resulted in such
abuse.

This has everything to do with reacting to situations in a professional
manner, and nothing to do with "women in tech" being able to speak up about
legitimate sexual harassment.

~~~
andrewdupont
> "It is unfortunate that Richards received the huge storms of abuse that she
> did. But she chose to handle the situation in a way that invited that abuse,
> when there were clear ways to "speak up" that would not have resulted in
> such abuse."

This reasoning bothers me.

Let's stipulate that Adria's post to Twitter was a mistake. You seem to say
that the abuse is her fault, because if she hadn't made that mistake, she
wouldn't have received any abuse.

But shouldn't punishments be proportional to crimes? We all seem to agree that
it's barbaric to cut off a shoplifter's hand, or to hand out the death penalty
for petty crimes (as was once common in England, for instance).

People say this sort of thing all the time — "If you didn't want Y, you
shouldn't have done X." I feel like it shuts down the conversation. Yes, X was
wrong, but Y was also wrong, and it's ridiculous that something as wrong as Y
resulted from X. That's a discussion worth having.

The point is that nobody deserves death threats. It need not feel like a
defense of Adria Richards to say that.

~~~
overgryphon
Nobody deserves death threats. But that issue has nothing to do with PyCon,
women in tech, or software development.

It is simply current reality that whenever anyone posts things online, other
people are able to respond by anonymously sending death threats. The fact that
there are people who choose to do so sucks, and is a problem, but this is a
well-known fact. You, right now, could click reply on my comment and send me a
death threat. I would have no recourse.

Richards knew that people who didn't like what she posted publicly may respond
in that manner, and she decided to take that risk when she posted a photo of
other developers to twitter. If she did not want to deal with anonymous death
threats, she could (and did) handle the situation in a less public manner. She
chose to make the situation public.

The developers she posted a picture of had no way of consenting to that
publicity.

~~~
andrewdupont
> "But that issue has nothing to do with PyCon, women in tech, or software
> development."

I disagree. The shitheads in our community who would stoop to death threats
_do not threaten everyone equally_. The way I know that is that a woman who
complained about a joke got a _bunch_ of abuse, yet the company who _fired_
the joke-teller — by all accounts, an overreaction — got _nearly none_.

Also, it's not just death threats; it's harassment, too. Jesse Noller, who ran
PyCon, commits the sin of "having a Code of Conduct and enforcing it," and
ends up getting hate mail and harassing phone calls
(<https://twitter.com/jessenoller/status/314417532842950656>).

Internet geeks have weird and sadistic ways of dispensing "justice." That's
unfortunate, but even worse is _what_ they decide to point their magnifying
glass at.

~~~
pifflesnort
> _The shitheads in our community who would stoop to death threats do not
> threaten everyone equally._

What do you have that demonstrates that they're even in our community?

> _Internet geeks have weird and sadistic ways of dispensing "justice." That's
> unfortunate, but even worse is what they decide to point their magnifying
> glass at._

Not "Internet geeks". Anonymous mobs of dubious maturity and intelligence have
weird and sadistic ways of dispensing "justice", on and off the internet.

This is not unique to technology, it's not unique to women, it's not unique to
issues of sexism, and it's not unique to Twitter.

As I've noted numerous times in this thread, _Olivia Wilde_ , an actress,
received similarly hateful and disgusting Twitter messages for daring to
insult _Justin Beiber_ , a pop musician whose primary fanbase seems to be pre-
teens and teens.

Something tells me that the people that were offended enough to send hate mail
and treets were not angry "internet geeks".

------
orangethirty
As a father and uncle who is cultivating an understanding of computers into
three little girls I want to say that this is great. One of them likes
embedded applications, other likes web, and the other likes video games. And
I'm excited that the oldest one can code simple mods for Minecraft and get to
show off in class (her fellow students play Minecraft).

------
AgathaTheWitch
I respect their intentions and I am sure they are doing good work. Regardless
as a matter of principle I do not donate to organizations that discriminate on
the basis of sex.

~~~
pekk
To my knowledge, PyLadies has not engaged in discrimination. It isn't
discrimination to make groups which encourage minorities to code or get
involved in the Python community or whatever.

Men are not being hurt by the existence of PyLadies in any way.

~~~
lmickh
Whether or not it hurts men has nothing to do with discrimination. If the
group does not allow men to join or benefit from it's opportunities, it is
discrimination.

The question is whether or not PyLadies allows men to join as full members. I
honestly have no clue. I'm sure it would be easy to see it that way since it
is described as a group of women.

Now the question of whether all discrimination is bad is much more fun to ask.

~~~
taligent
This is a group with a noble cause trying to increase the frankly disgraceful
percentage of women in technology. And you label them as discriminatory ?

I take it you also oppose cancer groups then.

~~~
steveklabnik
Two things: #1, PyLadies is for everyone, as far as I can tell. So it's not
discriminatory.

Now, if PyLadies was 'no men only,' it would absolutely be discriminatory:
they're making a decision based on some kind of attribute. (It would also not
be perpetuating 'sexism' since discrimination against men is not societaly re-
enforced.)

The real question is 'is this bad?' I don't think that many people have a
particular problem with discrimination when it's _for_ women or other
minorities, especially when it's not at the _expense_ of everyone who's not
within that group. A "women's only" programming group doesn't harm men in any
way, yet helps women. I feel like this is the camp you may fall into. It is
certainly the one I do.

------
RyanMcGreal
Why am I not surprised that this post is drawing out the misogynists in tech?
Ugh.

~~~
obstacle1
It isn't. Point out some misogyny. "Disagrees with me" doesn't imply "is a
misogynist", though it's a neat rhetorical trick.

------
joezhou
PyLadies are pretty cool, they host some amazing events! Thanks for the free
food last year @pycon!

------
tssva
I have had great female bosses, co-workers and employees who have brought
great talent and ideas to the table. I have also had horrible ones. The ratio
of good to bad has been the same as males. Given this why should I support
organizations which encourage increased women in tech? How does it benefit my
organization? I understand increasing the talent pool but this can be done by
supporting organizations which encourage more of all people to enter tech
fields.

------
cwgem
I notice a few comments scattered about various parts of this thread so I'll
try and address as much as possible here.

There seems to be confusion regarding the idea of a program to support female
python developers. Why female developers? Why not male ones too? This is what
is causing the confusion that there's some sort of discrimination happening.
However that's not really the case, and you have to look at the whole picture
to really see it.

So, there's a problem of equality in the workplace as a general philosophy.
Sexism, Ageism, Racism, you name it. Taking from a Japanese proverb "He who
runs after two hares will catch neither". In this case there's more than two
hares, there's quite a lot in fact. So we have to break the problem down into
manageable components. In this case someone decided to take the women in tech
approach to the problem and focus on it. I'd consider it like taking someone
with knowledge of databases and let them work on the database specific
problems.

Now then, what exactly is the issue with women in the IT field? Up until the
hiring chain and through the workplace experience, there are points to where
women don't get the chance they should get. One reason is that people may not
see engineering as a "female appropriate job", as though women should be
working as secretaries or fashion designers. Another problem is fear. There is
fear that going into a job a woman might get harassed or otherwise have
difficulty fitting into a primarily male dominated environment. Start-ups for
example often have laid back environments where the line between professional
an personal gets somewhat fuzzy. Someone slips and lets out an inappropriate
comment because they're having a conversation with another coworker which
resembles a talk at a party, and are unaware that they're still in a
professional environment. This becomes difficult.

So you have women who are trying to get their foot in the door, but are not
sure how. That's why we need groups like this. First off we need people to
show support. We need people to say "hey women in IT is possible, here's some
of us that are doing it". We also need men in on this too so they can be
educated on what women in IT may have to deal with and know what to avoid.
They're also needed to show that not all guys have this thing against women in
IT and that things can work out for the better. Finally we also need it so
that women can do networking with companies that are more aware of the issues
that women deal with in the workplace, and actively work to figure out how to
deal with it.

This is why these sort of organizations need to be in place, and why they need
to target women specifically. They need to see others like them working
towards the same goal so they can achieve their dreams knowing they have
support.

Now with that in mind there is point to watch out for, and what I believe is a
valid concern. That is that we don't want the women in IT movement to become a
"women are better than men" deal, we want it to become a "women should have
the same opportunities as men". Equality is our main goal here. However,
because of the environment I've mentioned above, we need groups that
specifically target women to help the transition towards a more equality
friendly environment.

Hope this gives a better sense of what's happening.

------
Nordvind
How much of that's going to that "lady", who's been offended by eavesdropped
private conversation and violating conference rules?

~~~
chill1
PyLadies is a legitimate organization that has been around for a while. [1]

A simple Google search could help you resolve these inquiries in the future.

[1] <http://www.pyladies.com/>

------
reallynosh1t
I would donate my big dongle.

~~~
chill1
Seriously? Come on.. Even if you've only been half paying attention the last
several days, you'd realize that this issue is quite serious and personal to a
lot of people. If, when you saw this post, all that came to your mind was a
smart ass comment.. Please, next time, keep it to yourself.

~~~
Nordvind
I find your comment offensive, given that I've right of free speech, which is
guaranteed by constitution.

~~~
budde
The First Amendment prohibits the government from passing a law that abridges
or censors your right to speak publicly. It does not grant you the absolute
right to say whatever you want, wherever you want, whenever you want, free of
consequence.

------
keepkalm
My initial reaction was this is great, women are underrepresented in tech.
Thoughts that came afterward: this is a horrible overreaction to what happened
at PyCon over dongle-gate and this reinforces the boys club by making women a
protected class (no pun intended).

~~~
ubernostrum
PyLadies has existed for years, and the auction was announced and organized
before PyCon even happened, and took place before the entire internet went
apeshit.

These are facts you may find useful in deciding how to view this event.

------
r0sebush
What Ms. Richards has done to those 2 young men could have been much worse.
She used her position in the developer/twitter community to intimidate and to
cause harm to those 2 men. She knew what she was doing and the same outrage
that Ms. Richards experienced, would have been the same outrage those 2 men
would have received if what she did originally wasn't wrong.

She could have said that they were talking about rape or molestation and it
would have been her word against theirs. They would have been hauled into
jail, considered guilty and their lives would have been ruined, even though
they are innocent and practicing their natural right to speak to each other.

She overheard a private conversation between 2 consenting adults and nothing
was directed towards her or anybody else. She should have kept her mouth shut.

Ms. Richards or anybody with similar capability or visibility, should never be
trusted in any community or group. Is the not what any group or community
needs, ever.

Her actions were meant to intimidate, cause harm and censor a private
conversation.

~~~
pekk
What does that have to do with PyLadies?

