... I need to put them in the category with Aimonetti and David Heinemeier Hansson and PennyArcade as people who think the feminists who think this stuff is a problem are a bunch of whiny attention-seekers, and that the hubub about “climate” and conferences is just a bunch of angry people with nothing better to do than make life difficult for people with senses of humor.
A minor amendment I'd make to this. A large number of people think the feminists who complain about this stuff are angry people with nothing better to do.
The LessConf organizers get to join a much smaller and more elite category - the narrow category of people willing to admit their true beliefs even at the risk of public condemnation by various people who wish certain views weren't expressed.
By the way, since the original post didn't provide it, here is a link to the actual conference page. Form your own opinion. http://lessconf.lesseverything.com/
I have no idea why the author included "Uncle Bear" on her page. He's ugly, but didn't saying anything sexist in his promo video. Maybe the author of the blog post is doing double duty, defending the honor of both women and sheep (watch his video and you'll understand)?
I respect speakers' rights to express whichever beliefs they hold, but I think it's also important, both for them and for attendees, to recognize the effect that it has. Their views on women (or any group), popular or otherwise, are irrelevant so long as they don't needlessly bring them up, but when they choose to do something that makes some members of the audience less comfortable and less likely to attend in the future (particularly since speakers are often perceived to represent the community), then that's a loss for the entire community, with negligible gain.
Even if those who are offended are overreacting, publicizing their views is probably the best way to be sure that both speakers and attendees can make well informed decisions about which conferences to attend.
If they want it to be a club for guys (and women who'll deal with it), that's their prerogative. If, on the other hand, they think it's more to their benefit to be inclusive, they should probably make an effort not to be needlessly offensive. To that end, it's probably best they be made aware of who they're offending.
particularly since speakers are often perceived to represent the community
There needs to be a serious education effort to remove that mistaken idea from people's minds.
It's also a bit insulting to the audience to assume they are too dense to realize that the actions and opinions of one person are simply the actions and opinions of one person.
Even if those who are offended are overreacting, publicizing their views is probably the best way to be sure that both speakers and attendees can make well informed decisions about which conferences to attend.
Perhaps true, but if the community doesn't acknowledge offensive behavior, it comes off as tacit acceptance. If the speaker is invited back without question or actively defended by the community, a person couldn't be blamed for getting the impression that the speaker's views reflect the views of the community as a whole, or at least of those responsible for the event.
> There needs to be a serious education effort to remove that mistaken idea from people's minds.
I'd argue that that's difficult to do without acknowledging the behavior as undesired/detrimental when it happens, for the reason above.
For what it's worth, I'm very glad their views are expressed. I think they're destructive and suggest a certain myopia, but I'd rather the beliefs be out there than people hide them for fear of public condemnation.
Who cares? The Uncle Bear video was stupid and funny and if that offends you then don't come to the conference because you are uptight and I don't want you there. And if anyone that makes fun or uses Charlie Sheen (because he is the IT thing right now)to promote themselves then you will need to write a blog post for every comedian and news anchor out there who have bombarded us with his face for the past 2 weeks.
It's not nice when people get hurt or offended. And I think it's possible to create a world where that never happens if we agree to ban artists like Allan and Steve and anyone who tries to do anything different.
Meanwhile, the Less guys have created a wonderful event through which I have made great, wholesome friendships, with nice guys and nice girls—people who like to smile and not take themselves too seriously and just want to learn and create great things.
Personally, I don't condone smut. But a conference which will offend nobody in some small way is a sterile, dull thing. O'Reilly do these well.
There many, many, beautiful things about Allan and Steve. They are incredible contributors to the world. The event they've created has done many wonderful things for people.
If you don't care that the conference is exclusionary towards women, then fine. Have fun with that.
I think going to a Yet Another Conference Of Sexist White Dudes And The Absurdly Be-armored Women Who Tolerate Them sounds obscenely boring, no matter how interesting the white-dudeliness is. I'm just sick of it. But you have fun.
> But a conference which will offend nobody in some small way is a sterile, dull thing.
I think the point to make is that this is not "some small way", as much as it may appear to be small to some - it's significant enough for you to stop attending. The group of people offended by misogyny is statistically independent from the group of people contributing to the conferences' success, so:
- there's no reason they needed to be offended
- offending them offers no real benefit
- offending them hurts the success of the conference by discouraging people from attending who otherwise would have.
- ignoring or supporting it exacerbates this problem, and so it's not in the best interest of anyone to ignore or support it, regardless of their views on women
The real benefit is that a more casual and honest environment is created at the conference.
At the typical sterile, corporate, business casual conference in my field (finance), there is a particular very boring code of behavior. There will be very little honesty - if you think a product sucks, or you think the industry is broken, you'll keep it to yourself. The guy from Morgan Stanley will never ever disagree with John Mack .
From LessConf's advertisements, I get the impression that their conference is more honest and more fun. The guy from Google might even disagree with Larry Page.
If this results in a few oversensitive people staying home, that sounds like a tradeoff well worth making.
That's absolutely a fair point. I don't want to imply that we shouldn't keep it in moderation, but I do think we should be careful about what we define as "oversensitive", particularly for groups that we don't belong to, because there is a danger of defining the whole group as such, and therefore excluding them entirely (socially). If they are sensitive to it, overreacting or not, it does discourage them from attending. I personally don't think giving up arguably misogynistic references (specifically) in presentations would be so detrimental that it offsets the benefit of not offending those sensitive to them, particularly since it's a group that we as a community have been so effective at scaring off in the past.
Let's not forget Mark Pesce at linux.conf.au feeling compelled to put fetish photos in his presentation to illustrate some minor point unrelated to sexual fetishes.
Once you start down the trashy route, there's nowhere to go but down; you wind up competing with all the other douchebags for attention.
Also, you pick up a bunch of fans from this sort of thing who are essentially shitheads ("Huh huh, those humourless feminazis are at it again, you tell 'em, I thought your talk/conf/video was just good fun") so your good name will be further trashed by all your defenders, even if you want to back off.
Having "stripclub" in the title of your talk is pretty unprofessional.
To their credit, though, 3/10 of the speakers at LessConf are women. http://lessconf.lesseverything.com/ That's a better ratio than at most tech events.
I think they're more guilty of being flippant than deliberately sexist.
Having "stripclub" in the title of your talk is pretty unprofessional.
Why?
Perhaps it's not your thing, but there are plenty of people, both patrons and employees, who see expressions of sexuality as normal and fun.
And if you think that having women or men dance around and disrobe encourages others to think of women or men as little more than sex objects then the problem is with those ignorant people who foolishly extrapolate from what some individuals do to entire populations.
There are very few professional settings where expressions of sexuality are seen as normal and fun.
OK, I'll grant that actually stripping at most work places would be bad form. But mentioning strip clubs? Referring to them? Depends I suppose on the country and local prudishness. It's not normally itself considered an expression of sexuality.
I would look at it this way: say you've started a new job. You've been told that you're expected to behave "professionally", but not given any specific guidance as to what that means in this company. You're seated at the head of a large table in a conference room, with a mixed audience of people who work for the company. You don't know who any of them are or what they do -- they could plausibly be anyone from mailroom people to senior executives. You're asked to introduce yourself.
Under these circumstances would you, with no prompting from your audience, consider it "professional" to start talking about your interest in strip clubs?
Under these circumstances would you, with no prompting from your audience, consider it "professional" to start talking about your interest in strip clubs?
It would be no more or less professional than mentioning playing in a death metal band on weekends or being a volunteer at an atheist outreach group or helping organize protests to support gay rights.
Any reticence would be based on how professional I thought the others were, and if I thought I would be at a disadvantage because of narrow-minded prejudice about things that have no bearing on my work.
I guarantee you they don't care because the points being made are over the top. Ask Amy Hoy (a speaker) about it and I will guarantee she will say, "Who gives a shit?"
I don't disagree that the points being made are over the top—at least at this time—but it seems like the Ruby conferences have brought this increased scrutiny upon themselves.
And you're probably right, my limited impression of the Ruby community is that they don't "give a shit". Which is why my advice is to pressure the sponsors. Misogyny is bad for business these days, who wants that kind of P.R.?
But the sponsors don't care and normal people don't either. The tone of these conferences is not the reason women are not more involved, if it is then it is a small piece.
Real Problem: Math, Science and Engineering are boring for women (not all women but I'm making simple points here). For that matter they are boring for most people.
Solution: Don't make them boring when kids are in grade school and high school.
The lack of women is not because of this stupid conversation this erik guy started.
> The tone of these conferences is not the reason women are not more involved
I'm under the impression that it is - some women have voiced objection to the tone, so we know it's at least the case for some, and we don't have any data indicating that those anecdotes aren't representative of the whole. In fact, since so few women go, those anecdotes are pretty significant.
> Math, Science and Engineering are boring for women
If that were true, it still wouldn't account for the significant difference between the number of women in CS and other STEM fields - we do, though, know that the tone of the community is the reason for some.
> Solution: Don't make them boring when kids are in grade school and high school
Certainly there are other (and more far reaching) issues, but the tone that we present as a community is one that we have more direct control over (with a very simple solution), and changing it to one that isn't perceived as hostile would have little negative impact.
This is shit. I read in some article that 99% of the women electrical engineers quit engineering after 5 years.
As an EE, I can tell you, the work environment sucks!!!!
Yeah bitch is ok term to to refer to women. You are just too sensitive. Stop complaining about crap work - be a teamplayer. You dont' like coming out to drink with us - therefore you are not one of us. We are uncomfortable telling dirty jokes in front of you - I wish they did not hire you. You have 3.8GPA but you were hired just as a quota. You took a guy's job that needs to support with family. You complain you must be PMSing. There is essentially no seat at the table for you.
Math is a freaking language. The women I tutored in college all were told they were bad in math because they were female - and they believed the shit.
Do you know that most statisticians are 50-50 women and men?
That is why I love stats. Not only was the math as easy as in engineering but there were real role models for me.
Edit: Further empirical evidence that women are not bad at math. Go to graduate programs at top rated schools, in engineering and math departments you will find a good fraction are women - I talking about 30%. Yes not 50% but much higher than undergraduate levels which are more 5-10% range.
Jeebus, with all the thin-skinned douchenozzle pansies in this country, it's impossible to even have a fucking honest opinion that in any way differs in the slightest from the "conventional wisdom" of the hordes and masses.
He didn't "make fun" of Haiti, he expressed his opinion. It's honesty. Agree or disagree, like or dislike, but lay off calling people out over simply saying what's on their minds.
Honestly, I couldn't really give a shit about Haiti, either. It's tragic, what happened, but we've got enough of our own fucking problems for me to worry about those people.
A minor amendment I'd make to this. A large number of people think the feminists who complain about this stuff are angry people with nothing better to do.
The LessConf organizers get to join a much smaller and more elite category - the narrow category of people willing to admit their true beliefs even at the risk of public condemnation by various people who wish certain views weren't expressed.
By the way, since the original post didn't provide it, here is a link to the actual conference page. Form your own opinion. http://lessconf.lesseverything.com/
I have no idea why the author included "Uncle Bear" on her page. He's ugly, but didn't saying anything sexist in his promo video. Maybe the author of the blog post is doing double duty, defending the honor of both women and sheep (watch his video and you'll understand)?