

That Amanda Blum Article on Adria Richards is Not What It Seems - henrik_w
http://www.technologywoman.com/2013/03/24/digging-beneath-the-surface-that-amanda-blum-article-on-adria-richards-is-not-what-it-seems/

======
rayiner
The author loses me right off the bat:

"I personally wouldn’t really much care myself, but Adria’s right. This is a
direct porn reference and doesn’t belong at a technical conference. Porn is
deeply offensive to many groups of people on religious as well as gender
grounds (and just I-think-it’s-morally-wrong-and-vile grounds)"

As someone who cares deeply about getting women into traditionally male-
dominated areas (starting from HS when I did robotics demos for elementary
schoolers to now as the father of a daughter) I think it's unmitigated
disaster for feminists to hitch their wagon to the broader "I'm easily
offended by everything" movement. There is a crucial distinction between
things that are offensive because they are sexist and things that are
offensive because they are in bad taste--one perpetuates unfavorable gender-
biased power dynamics and the other does not. Waging war on the whole panoply
of things that might offend someone somewhere is dilutive and counter-
productive.

Movements that are effective at building coalitions are ruthlessly focused on
the things that tie members of the coalition together. By taking on battles
that are outside the core focus of how women are treated in tech, you lose the
support of many people, especially women, who should be part of that
coalition.

PS. This rant is veering off onto "man telling women what to do" and for that
I apologize. But my thoughts on the matter seem to be pretty consistent with,
and are mostly informed by, the thinking of my wife and female friends, all
professional women trying to make it in traditionally male-dominated fields.

~~~
waterlesscloud
In general, I think there's far too much policing of language and I wish
everyone was more relaxed about it.

Having said that, "money shot" really is a clear reference to porn, and I was
surprised to see it used in the way that it was. It's not inappropriate for
every venue, but it seems pretty clear cut to say it's inappropriate for the
title of a presentation at a tech conference.

~~~
protomyth
Are you really sure about "money shot"? I know the porn reference, but I've
heard it in multiple contexts over the years to refer to the photo (or in a
more modern context video) that will sell it (whatever it is).

~~~
AdrianRossouw
According to wikipedia [1], it was originally the scene in a film that took
the most money to reproduce. And is used in journalism and many other fields.

The relation to porn is of course obvious due to the presentation's subtitle,
referring to something as a 'money shot' should probably not be considered
pornographic in intent, in my opinion.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_shot>

~~~
subsystem
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V6vNEDMzgw>

"I'm co-opting the term money shot, because I think it's very valuable... we
all know what it is, if you don't know you can google it because I'm not going
to talk about it, but if you co-opt the concept what you come away with is the
content people actually care about and that is what people pay for in porn..."

If you can't talk about the title it's probably not a very good one.

------
YuriNiyazov
Meh. I am not impressed by this teardown. There are many factors in this
situation that one can argue about, but the one that to me is unarguably
completely damning towards Adria's actions is this one:

She posted a picture of many men. One of them is smiling at the camera. It
just so happens that his smile happens to have that naughty "heh heh heh, did
you hear that sick joke I just made?" look. Almost everyone on the Internet,
me included, thought that the guy smiling was the perp. Turns out that it
wasn't actually him at all, and that the perp is actually the guy on the left
side of the picture.

Regardless of what we may think of public shaming, or of what her role used to
be at Sendgrid - Adria should've foreseen that everyone would think the
smiling guy would be the suspect.

She publicly shamed the wrong guy!

She didn't deserve the rape and death threats, but to leave what she did
without any consequences to her would be inappropriate, to say the least.

~~~
misnome
It wasn't him? The one, obvious, center of attention of the photograph? That
makes it even worse!

~~~
YuriNiyazov
See what I mean? No, it's the guy in the grey shirt staring off.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
Apparently not. It's the _other_ guy wearing the PH shirt, on way far out in
the picture.

------
chasing
Two guys make fairly minor transgression at conference. In response, a woman
makes fairly minor transgression as far as reporting it. Their companies
appear to overreact, but who really knows since we don't know anything else
about how these people did their jobs. Bloggers expend endless hours slicing
and dicing the minute meanings of otherwise inconsequential things, hoping to
peg blame where there simply might be none.

Have I summarized this who episode about right?

~~~
pekk
Photographing someone without consent at a conference is really not minor, and
posting said photograph to Twitter to enlist an army against someone is not
minor at all. It's full scale bullying. The idea that these companies just
randomly happened to fire these people coincident with high-profile,
contentious events (for unrelated reasons) is actually absurd. Drowning people
in death threats and DoS attacks over the internet is not minor either.

~~~
niggler
"Photographing someone without consent at a conference is really not minor"

It's a public place. Do you really think you live in a bubble where no one can
take pictures of you without your consent?

"posting said photograph to Twitter"

When did that stop anyone? We see photoshopped images of politicians make the
rounds and sometimes show up on Hannity (Fox News television show)

"enlist an army against someone"

It's far from clear that she wanted to enlist an army against them. And she
was clear in her apology that she didn't want this to end with the other
people getting fired.

" It's full scale bullying."

You should probably steer clear of politics and success in general. Worse
stuff happens to less notable people on a regular basis. Doesn't make it good
or bad, but this is the nature of social media discourse.

"The idea that these companies just randomly happened to fire these people
coincident with high-profile, contentious events (for unrelated reasons) is
actually absurd."

It's doubtful in PlayHaven's case, considering that they kept one of the
people in the circumstance, that the other person was fired just because of
the comment. It was probably the straw that broke the camel's back.

I agree that death threats, DoS attacks, and general witch-hunts are not
minor. I also think that the issue would have died down if playhaven had not
fired mr-hank, but we have no details regarding what actually happened.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
The obvious attention of her photo is the guy who is smiling at the camera;
most of the Internet thinks that he was the perp that got fired. Turns out
that it's the guy in the grey shirt on the left side of the photo.

She publicly shamed the wrong guy! How is what she did ok?

~~~
dalke
I have been trying, and failing, to understand the moral justification to
prohibit all forms of "public shaming." Could you help me understand your
viewpoint?

It seems to me that public shaming can be used for good. If a speaker at a
conference says something racist, and from the audience you immediately call
it out, causing that speaker to feel shameful, apologize, and carry on, then
that seems like a good use of shaming. If a speaker should make overt and
blatant lies in order to use the public stage in order to defame someone
else's character, then surely a massive outcry of booing is morally
justifiable, and the speaker should not be able to use "I was shamed" as a
justifiable way to retaliate against those who booed.

The PyCon procedures even say that the organizers may cut a presentation short
and throw the speaker out, should that person's presentation be against the
Code of Conduct. If public shaming is prohibited, and if the speaker feels
shamed by the staff response, then can't the speaker rightly exclaim "you are
shaming me in public and you must stop!"? Why should the staff be allowed to
shame someone in public?

However, you seem to think that any form of public shaming should be
prohibited. What are your opinions about the scenarios I listed above? Can you
describe the moral reasoning you used to help decide which forms of public
shaming are appropriate and which are inappropriate?

Otherwise, I don't see how saying that "She publicly shamed the wrong guy!"
is, by itself, enough information to tell if what she did was okay or not.
Also, under the US law that applies to workplaces (PyCon is not a workplace),
all honestly made statements concerning possible civil rights violations are
given protected status. If PyCon were a workplace, then this public complaint
would be completely okay, and both legally and morally justifiable.

Because I cannot come up with a good moral reasoning ("don't do things that
cause others to feel bad" is not a good moral reasoning) for saying that this
is anything other than ok, I conclude that it was ok.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
WTF?

Do you have any context as to what is going on here?

The guy in the middle of the picture that's smiling at the camera is not the
perp. Most people who just saw the picture, without reading everything that
everyone else wrote, think that he is the perp.

Where did I write that I disagree with all forms of public shaming, and that
they all need to be prohibited? However, posting up pictures of many men, with
one of them clearly staring at the camera, and saying "he jokes about dongles"
is wrong when the guy that is at the center of the photo and is staring at the
camera is not the guy that joked about dongles. That's defamation. Case
closed.

~~~
subsystem
"However, posting up pictures of many men, with one of them clearly staring at
the camera, and saying "he jokes about dongles" is wrong when the guy that is
at the center of the photo and is staring at the camera is not the guy that
joked about dongles."

The tweet said "right behind me", which is the right guy according to you.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5434005>
<https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313417655879102464>

Edit: I added "according to you" and link to comment since it was pointed out
below that this might also be the wrong guy, which would make the comment even
worse of course.

~~~
YuriNiyazov
My statement came from this source:

[http://glpiggy.net/2013/03/20/identity-of-dongle-micro-
aggre...](http://glpiggy.net/2013/03/20/identity-of-dongle-micro-aggressor-
revealed)

This source, much like the rest of the Internet, initially blamed Alex Reid,
the man in the middle of the picture. Then this source decided that the guy to
be blamed is the guy in the grey shirt. I made my comment following this
source.

Then someone else, somewhere (no clue what the original source of that
statement is anymore, but you are right, there are certainly comments to that
extent floating around, and your post had that comment as well until it was
deleted), stated that the reason why the guy at fault was fired from PlayHaven
was because he was wearing his company's t-shirt, and thus was publicly
representing the company, which in some way makes sense. The only guy in that
shirt that was wearing a PlayHaven t-shirt and not the guy in the middle is
sitting way far out, and not "right behind her" by any definition of that
phrase.

My point is that someone who just saw that photo, without reading the
extensive commentary around it, still thinks it's the man grinning at the
camera - "right behind me" or not. Who is the right guy? I really thought it
was the guy in the grey shirt, but even that is now under doubt.

~~~
dalke
"This source, much like the rest of the Internet, initially blamed Alex Reid,
the man in the middle of the picture."

Are the statements of this source more or less defamatory than the original
source? That is, in the original image+text it was (and remains) ambiguous
about who made the sexual jokes. While this source specifically named one
person, and then named another.

If defamation is a relevant concept to this discussion, then you should be
complaining most strongly about the defamation done by this source, no?

------
anigbrowl
_Second, whereas the original XKCD comic painted one woman to be smart and the
other one to be neutral intelligence-wise, this t-shirt comic paints both
women to be stupid. Again, not something I would be especially bothered by,
but I can see Adria’s point here. You have a technical(ish) conference where
the t-shirt graphic portrays dumb women. This is probably not a good idea._

Comic link: [http://jenmylo.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-
shot-2011-...](http://jenmylo.files.wordpress.com/2011/08/screen-
shot-2011-08-03-at-12-36-47-pm.png)

I don't find either of these presenters stupid. They're just interested in
different things, and focused on different audiences. My takeaway was that
this conference had something for everyone, as opposed to being of interest
only to all-rounders who are already power users.

If your blogging skill is writing or photography or suchlike, you shouldn't
_need_ to be expert in SEO to get something out of a Wordpress conference,
should you? Likewise, if crafting plugins is your thing, it shouldn't mater
that your visual aesthetic starts and ends at a shell prompt. If I were ever
to attend a Wordpress conference it would definitely be for the blogger track,
and I wouldn't feel stupid for my _complete lack of interest_ in the
underlying framework.

------
dictum
Porn is a thorny issue—there's really no need for a slide with softcore porn
in a tech presentation unless it's a conference for developers of porn
websites ;) However, the specific example Adria objected to ("Getting the
Money Shot") is simply a pop culture reference. If I am a wireless network
specialist and I name my presentation on wardriving "The Fog of Wardriving",
it does not mean I endorse the military-industrial complex, imperialism, or
the actions of the U.S. government. I'm just referencing something vaguely
related, or making a dumb pun. It doesn't indicate that Danielle Morrill loves
porn and wants everyone in the audience to start an orgy mid-conference, with
live streaming. It's just a cultural reference. Also, while Adria has the
right to not attend an event which does not follow her personal values, other
people don't have any obligation to share her values. Danielle, or any other
presenter, male or female, is free to not feel so strongly about porn.

What I don't understand at all is Adria's questioning of the WordPress
t-shirt.

T-shirt: "Hey, as a developer, you don't have to care about content to love
WordPress! And if you're a content creator, you don't have to care about
software development to love WordPress."

How is this misogynist, and how would this stop being misogynist if the comic
had men instead of women?

~~~
gaylemcd
It's more than just a pop culture reference. The fairly short abstract stated
"how thinking like a porn director will help you achieve the ‘money shot."

And, yes, obviously, Adria has the right to not attend. She ALSO has the right
to say that you shouldn't have a talk that celebrates something that many
people find utterly vile is not appropriate. I don't think Adria was ever
alleging that what they were doing was illegal.

We would all hopefully object to someone having a talk called "Taking Naked
Kiddie Pics" with a line about "how thinking like a pedophile can capture
people's imagination". I would _hope_ that people wouldn't think it was
inappropriate to speak up -- even petition -- against such a talk, right?

That's my point.

[NOTE: I am NOT saying that porn is as bad as kiddie porn. Of course it's not.
The analogy I'm drawing is simply that we DO think it's okay to speak up about
things that we think are vile or morally wrong. Many people (religious
conservatives, etc) see porn that way.]

~~~
dictum
I didn't know about the abstract, but I can see what they meant for "thinking
like a porn director": titillation. It's a strange metaphor, but I think it
was about not dragging on for too long and cleaning showing what's amazing
about your product. Still, I'm not sure. I don't see how this is celebration:
stretching my military example, I've mentioned military discipline in a blog
post once. I don't celebrate and personally repudiate most of their actions,
but military discipline is a cultural reference that helped explain my point
(the blog is long gone so I can't quote it).

I understand why feminists would hate the porn industry—exploitation of women
at a young age, pressure on people to conform to unrealistic expectations,
etc. But the feminist argument against porn as a thing, the porn industry
notwithstanding, is based on some assumptions—that sexuality is always a tool
of exploitation, that male sexuality is abusive, and that sexual attraction
without affective relationships is inherently exploitive.

Feminists are right to call out the use of sexuality as a tool for oppression,
but to see all sexuality as oppression is absurd.

~~~
AdrianRossouw
Well, ironically they are using 'all sexuality is oppression' as a tool of
oppression. From another article on HN right now [1]

"Judging a book by its cover is the new tolerance. We throw people into the
stocks based on feelings while ignoring intent and assuming victimhood. This
is why I fundamentally disagree with equating offense with harassment: it
provides unlimited ammo and shuts down discussion rather than giving people
the benefit of doubt. It elevates the exception to the norm, by presuming the
worst."

[1] <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433390>

------
ramblerman
Jesus Christ already!

The price of living in a free society is that you develop a hardened exterior.
You don't get to hold a monopoly on being offended. Taking these little
offenses and making them 'taboo' or even worse illegal belongs in the realm of
dictatorships and theocracies.

If putting 2 words together to form "Money Shot" is so powerful that it hurts
your soul and torments your mind then you really may have a problem. Learn
some self discipline and control and stop trying to bend the world to your
will.

~~~
gaylemcd
Did it hurt her soul and torment her mind? No.

The talk was not only called "Getting the Money Shot" but suggested in the
abstract "how thinking like a porn director will help you achieve the "'money
shot.'"

Many people (I am not one of them, to be clear) find porn very morally wrong.
This is not just women, but many men too (particularly religious people).

It's not appropriate for a talk, and it is okay to speak up about it.

No one is talking about making it illegal.

~~~
ramblerman
> This is not just women, but many men too (particularly religious people).

Religious people are also deeply offended by homosexuality, abortion and
evolution theory. Should we cater to those "offenses" as well?

~~~
MetaCosm
Exactly, completely nailed it. Once you start catering to everyone who might
be offended, where does it end... that is the real slippery slope.

"It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that.' As if
that gives them certain rights; it's actually nothing more...it's simply a
whine. 'I find that offensive,' it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has
no reason to be respected as a phrase. 'I'm offended by that,' well so fucking
what?" -- Stephen Fry

~~~
gaylemcd
You're using the "where does it end" logic to - what? - suggest that she
shouldn't speak up about something? I don't get it.

Here, I'll play your "where does it end" game. What if someone was giving a
talk about how to distribute kiddie porn. No speaking up if you find this
offensive! Because, I mean, where does it end?

~~~
MetaCosm
When you go to "kiddie porn" to try to win an argument about community
censorship, I think you should automatically lose, a new version of Godwin's
law. Seriously, it is like listening to the US Congress talked about CISPA (to
protect from child porn and terrorists), it is a pathetic ploy... but I will
play along.

You always have a right to be offended, but I have a right to not give a crap.
Vote with your wallet (don't go to conference), vote with your feet (don't go
to that talk), but don't try to get material banned from everyone because it
offends YOU, let me decide for myself... I have the same options you do, to
not go to the conference, to not go to the talk.

I will even lean into your example. Obviously, having or distributing child
porn is a felony, so it is assumed the talk author wouldn't really bring any
(if (s)he did, just call police, they go to jail)... so maybe his talk would
be about how to hide your identity online... maybe how to hide it from
oppressive governments? Maybe how to use the TOR network? Maybe how to safely
help women get online and protest in countries where they aren't allowed to go
outside alone? Maybe the title was intended to drum up some media attention
and get a packed hall for a talk about people being stalked online, and how to
be invisible.

------
Steuard
The clearest lesson I take from this article (and from this week's reaction on
HN) is that it's _very_ easy to feel defensive when someone accuses you of
sexist behavior (or even someone you merely identify with). When that happens,
a lot of folks lash out at the person who raised the issue, often more
intensely than they deserve.

I rather expect this is one of the factors that leads women _not_ to speak up
when they feel uncomfortable. That's bad, right?

~~~
AdrianRossouw
a lot of my female friends are terrified of speaking up at conferences because
they don't want to run afoul of people like adria richards. There are several
recent, documented, cases where groups like the ada initiative are rather
viciously attacking other women because they don't agree with them.

People weren't lashing out at her because she raised an issue about perceived
sexist behaviour, they lashed out at her because she was seen as being a
bully.

As a gay man, if I had a militant online following that I sic'ed on some
random person because I heard them make a joke about Lisp at a conference.. I
would hope that people would stand up to me about it.

------
hackernewbie
The XKCD comic is about herpetology and ornithology. The revised one is about
the difference between wordpress users and developers. Where on earth does
either mention the intelligence or status of women?

------
rayiner
Mirror: [http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-Article-on-Adria-
Ric...](http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-Article-on-Adria-Richards-is-
Not-What-It-Seems)

------
gaylemcd
MIRROR: [http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-Article-on-Adria-
Ric...](http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-Article-on-Adria-Richards-is-
Not-What-It-Seems)

------
Zarathust
This is a blog post about a blog post about a blog post about original events.
The original events have been eclipsed a long time ago

------
YuriNiyazov
::sigh:: this article got shadowed off the front-page. And we were just
getting started.

~~~
14113
Shadow? New to HN, and had noticed that it had dissipeared since I saw it.
Some terminology I don't understand?

~~~
YuriNiyazov
It means it doesn't have a [dead] thingie on top, and the link out to the
original article still works so that all of us can still argue with each
other, but as far as the rest of HN is concerned, this thing is unfindable.

~~~
niggler
It's sad to see this shadowed, since even after a week we as a community
haven't fully come to terms with what happened.

------
davidroberts
I personally agree with the point about porn not belonging in a professional
conference, but I would have cast my vote by skipping that presentation.

------
niggler
"error establishing a database connection"

~~~
Steuard
This is plausibly a duplicate: [http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-
Article-on-Adria-Ric...](http://gayle.quora.com/That-Amanda-Blum-Article-on-
Adria-Richards-is-Not-What-It-Seems)

~~~
gaylemcd
It is (or close enough)

