It is not embarrassing for the entire industry and any attempt to paint this as an industry-wide issue is insulting to those of us who do not behave like this.
Except that this is far from the only instance of it happening. The reason it is a problem for the entire industry is that people decide it's not their problem and continue to associate with and work with the people who perpetuate these actions. There is very little self-policing that goes on, and that does make it a community problem.
(The problem is considerably worse in the open source software development community, but they at least some provinces therein have started to figure out that institutionalized and institutionally-accepted sexism are unhealthy. Apparently the message has not percolated to the startup/tech-company side of the fence; it does seem to still be very much a men's club.)
I have no idea who Tammy Camp is, I have no idea what conference she was banned from, I have no idea why she thinks she was banned from it, I have no idea who banned her, I have no idea of what the response from the other side (if there is an other side) is, I have no idea what happened.
I understand her claim: "I was banned from the conference."
I don't understand what that claim means, or how it is verified?
Has she been banned from attending? From presenting? What has she been banned from?
And most of the time, conferences have more than one organizer, don't they? There is usually a committee in charge of who presents.
So you jessedhillon are asking me to believe her conspiracy theory: that the person who wanted to have sex with her has gotten to the entire conference committee and convinced them that this very talented and accomplished woman is not worthy of presenting at the conference. What was she going to present? What did he tell them?
Or if you take her words literally, she was banned from the conference, then the vendor will not take her money even for an admission ticket, and if she shows up, the cops will be called.
All of this seems to provide ample evidence for Ms. Camp to prove her case in a court of law.
And yet, she provides none of it.
As I said, somewhat ambiguously, I have no idea why she thinks she was banned from the conference. She needs to clarify what she was banned from, and how.
"Try reading the article."
I have been friendly. And stated my views. And attacked no one. And taken Ms. Camp at her words and taken you seriously.
You appear to have an attitude problem, Jesse. Not sure why.
> You appear to have an attitude problem, Jesse. Not sure why.
Because you have a combination of two bad habits: being intellectual cheap/lazy and boldly proclaiming stark, binding conclusions based on that lazy reasoning.
I seriously wonder if you have Asperger Syndrome, or are a psychopath, to be this obtuse and seemingly incapable of understanding how a people think and feel.
intellectually cheap or lazy
probably have Asperger's Syndrome, or
I am a psychopath,
I am obtuse, and
Incapable (INCAPABLE) of understanding how a people (a people?) think and feel.
Good job Jesse! We will be contacting you shortly.
Apparently you are surprised or dismayed that someone could draw that conclusion about you based on what you've written here.
I don't have any remorse about considering that someone who's response to "I was asked to have sex with a conference organizer or leave, and it was a deeply humiliating and infuriating experience" is to be glib and interrogative -- feigning curiosity with pointed and IMO malicious questions --
I don't have any remorse about proposing that such a person has deep issues understanding the emotions and motivations of other people.
(BTW, let me know if you find any more typos or grammatical errors, I'm seriously concerned about that.)
" Asperger's Syndrome, or I am a psychopath, I am obtuse, and Incapable (INCAPABLE)"
Jesse, those are pretty strong conclusions to draw after a few short encounters on the Internet.
The world is not as black and white as you insist it is.
That you would draw and state these conclusions, for forcefully, so unabashedly, suggest to me that you are desperate and out of logical ammunition, or that you are a relatively naive and intolerant individual.
Re: "Feigning individual and asking "malicious" questions?" Do tell, what gives you, Dr. Jesse Dhillon, that impression, and how were my questions malicious?
The questions I ask, are the questions I would think any critical (critical in the best meaning) observer of the situation would ask. Her allegations, as they are of this moment, are tissue thin, and are backed up solely by her word, and nothing else.
I am genuinely impressed with how much attention this has gotten, especially by folks who similar to you, unreservedly, uncritically, buy into her story without expressing even a single misgiving about any of the stated details.
I have expressly given her the benefit of the doubt, but I have also expressed my concerns over what seem to be vague ambiguities in her claims that need clarification before I believe it without reserve.
You may wish to ask yourself, how often do you buy into similar tales, how often you do not, and what is it about YOU, that makes the difference.
And yes, in fact, I wonder if the wholesale buy in to her statement comes more from how she is an attractive, powerful, young woman, and less from her very thin statement.
But yes, I am surprised that in an internet conversation, you Jesse would so quickly and enthusiastically jump to attacks and attacks based on diagnosing psychological pathologies over the internet.
If you continue this behavior, I think you'll go far.
First off, the conclusions are partially facetious. Do I think you have a diagnosable mental illness? I don't know. Are you obtuse: yes, I would say you are being obtuse. Do you have Asperger's? I don't know, but you certainly speak like someone who has little ability to understand the motivations of others.
I'm not alleging that we could take you to a doctor's office right now and produce a certificate of verified diagnosis.
The post was largely about how she deals with negative experiences, and only a small part of that was about the event that prompted her experience. Yet you chose to focus not on the part of her post where she focuses on achieving a positive mental state, but to cast doubt -- under the guise of what you claim is rational skepticism (which is where the claim of cheapness comes from) -- as to whether or not she was justified in feeling offended.
Where the claims that you are lazy and cheap come from is that you are apparently operating under the slow-thinking idea that anyone who simply questions anything they are told is a rational, critically thinking agent. In fact, that modus better suits conspiracy theorists than actual, rational analysts.
It's ironic that you think that I'm the one who views things in stark contrast, when you are the buffoon who thinks that claims of the existence and prevalence of gender biases are disproved by naming even one successful female.
> And yes, in fact, I wonder if the wholesale buy in to her statement comes more from how she is an attractive, powerful, young woman...
Wow, if there was any doubt before, now it is removed: you are a verified weirdo. I haven't said anything about whether or not I believe her, only that your line of questioning is motivated by something other than a desire to be purely rational, as you would have readers believe.
I would guess that you are motivated by her attractiveness more than me: if you are like most other male HN readers, you are probably resenting her and other women, especially the attractive ones.
Doesn't that line raise a host of legitimate questions with you, that need to be answered before you can ascertain what miss Camp's accusation entails? For all we know, she could have been wrong about the intentions of said organizer. If being 'banned' means: not being offered a position in the presentation schedule, she could have wrongfully inferred a causal chain between the wrongly interpreted intentions and her not being offered that position. A decade of witnessing professional misunderstandings between people taught me that you can never take a single report at face value, unless you know the person doing the reporting very well.
I have some female friends that work in this industry and none of them complained or even mentioned this kind of incidents. You might say that this is anecdotal evidence, but so is the blog post.
Is it possible that they haven't spoken about it because you are male and they feel as though you may not understand? Is it possible that they haven't spoken up for fear of losing their jobs?
Just because nobody has spoken about it doesn't mean it hasn't been going on.
I doubt they feel I may not understand. I talk to them on various topics including stuff for adults. As for the fear of losing their jobs, most of them are classmates, not (ex-)workmates, so I don't see how talking to me about this might lead to losing their job.
By the way, I asked multiple times one of them about the "Women in Open Source/Free Software" propaganda and she told me she isn't very fond of this positive discrimination. She doesn't see any real barriers in working on software be it FOSS or proprietary. My speculation is that some people might not trust her abilities at first and make some jokes, but that's it.
If your thought process about this subject includes the idea that anecdotal claims are relevant, I doubt that you would leave the impression that you are trustworthy enough to talk to about this.
I think I was a bit misunderstood. I'm not saying that sexual discrimination, harassment, rape etc. does not exist, just that it might not be as common as some people think. All I wanted to do is counter an anecdote with another anecdote. By the way, except for the 1 in 4 statistic mentioned by KuraFire, all I've seen is anecdotes.
Going back to trust, I don't understand your logic. Are you trying to say that because I'm skeptical others might not tell me about these abuses?
You should also take into account the cultural differences between countries. I live in Romania (an European country) and things are bit different from US. Some stuff that's normal or just a bit negative here (read impolite), might be offensive to a lot of Americans. When I visited the offices of an American company, I remember seeing a labor law poster in the kitchen mentioning that managers must take courses about sexual harassment. You won't see something like this in Romania. Another example might be groping. There was some groping in high-school and the girls complained of course, but they didn't make a fuss out of it nor shouted rape.
P.S. Speaking of groping, Japan seems to be famous for it. I wonder if this type of sexual scandals related to the software industry exist in Japan, too. It looks to me like US is prone to them.
> Are you trying to say that because I'm skeptical others might not tell me about these abuses?
It wasn't me making the argument, but yes, this is definitely applicable. Women have very finely-tuned senses when it comes to reading men (because they are conditioned by our male-dominated society to do this, just to survive), so if you're admitting to being skeptical about these matters it is almost guaranteed that the women in your direct vicinity will not consider you trustworthy enough to discuss these most vulnerable and difficult things with.
The reverse is also true: the more open-minded and understanding you show yourself to be, the more people will feel comfortable opening up to you about real things.
You've indicated you live in Romania. While I'm from western Europe myself (Netherlands), I'm fairly confident that everything I just wrote applies just as much here in the US, back home in the Netherlands, and there where you are, Romania.
The fact that "you won't see something like [labor law posters mandating courses about sexual harassment]" in Romania probably indicates that this problem is actually far worse in Romania than you think. That, or it is far lower, but I doubt that given your "there was some groping in high-school" comment.
I'm skeptical to broad generalizations based mostly on anecdotes. I have no problem with some specific cases and I'm always ready to help my friends. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed. By the way, I asked one of them today if she heard of any sexual scandals at the work place in Romania or Italy and she told me she hasn't hear of any. All she knows about is some rudeness (in lack of a better word).
The problem might indeed be far worse in Romania from a quantitative point of view, but not from a qualitative point of view. People don't make such a big deal like suing the boss for small things, e.g. sexual innuendo or dirty jokes. They might call him a pig like in high-school and break his neck as a friend suggested :-D, but that's it.
Here's some additional elaboration to X-Istence’s great point: 1 in 4 women in the US has been raped / sexually assaulted. Less than 30% of them actually reported it to authorities.
Thanks for coming with a statistic instead of another anecdote. Though this statistic does not say anything about industries, so the "silicone" industry might not be the only one to blame. Of course, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't stop doing bad things, just that we aren't as abnormal as others (or ourselves) label us.
Based on first-person accounts, scholarly studies and data from a nationwide survey of college campuses conducted by Ms. magazine, freelance journalist Warshaw draws a devastating portrait of men who rape women they know. The Ms. survey reveals that 25% of the college women polled have been the victims of rape or attempted rape, 84% of the victims were acquainted with the attacker and 57% of the rapes happened on dates.
There are some important technical details missing, like how many respondents were, what's the estimated error and so on. I'll check your blog next week for further details.
I have a blog post in the works that is chock full of statistics, focused on Tech & Design. Check back on farukat.es sometime in the next few days if you want a wealth of resources, research studies findings etc.
Actually, it is embarrassing for the entire industry, as we all make it what it is. Our industry is nothing if not the sum of our individual actions and contributions to society, just like how your individual actions over the course of your lifetime define who you are as a person and how other people perceive you.
If you commit a crime at age 20, it will still have been a crime ten years later when you are 30. You may have served your time and earned “society's forgiveness” so to speak, however, and thus redeemed yourself.
Our industry will need to redeem itself. But right now, the rotten apples in our industry? They represent that one moment when you were 20 and committed a crime.
Whether you like it or not, whether it's true or not, computing has a reputation for being a mens' club. And things like this don't help. So yes, this is an embarrassment to the industry whether you're directly responsible or not.
1842: Ada Lovelace (1815–1852), analyst of Charles Babbage's analytical engine and described as the "first computer programmer"[13]
1893: Henrietta Swan Leavitt joins the Harvard computers, a group of women engaged in the production of astronomical data at Harvard; she is instrumental in discovery of the cepheid variable stars, which were evidence for the expansion of the universe.
1926: Grete Hermann publishes the foundational paper for computerized algebra
1942: Hedy Lamarr (1913–2000), Hollywood diva and co-inventor of an early form of spread-spectrum broadcasting
1943: WREN Colossus operators, during WW2 at Bletchley Park
1946: Betty Jennings, Betty Snyder, Fran Bilas, Kay McNulty, Marlyn Wescoff, and Ruth Lichterman, original programmers of the ENIAC
1949: Grace Hopper (1906–1992), United States Navy officer and first programmer of the Harvard Mark I, known as the "Mother of COBOL". Developed the first ever compiler for an electronic computer known as A-0.
1961: Dana Ulery (1938-), computer scientist; first female engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, developing real-time tracking systems using a North American Aviation Recomp II, 40-bit word size computer.
1962: Jean E. Sammet (1928-), mathematician and computer scientist; developed FORMAC programming language. Was the first to write extensively about history and categorisation of programming languages (1969).
1965: Mary Allen Wilkes computer programmer; First person to use a computer in a private home and the first developer of an operating system (LAP) for the first minicomputer (LINC)
1965: Sister Mary Kenneth Keller (1914? - 1985) first American female Doctorate of Computer Science (1965)[14] [15]
1972: Karen Spärck Jones (1935–2007), pioneer of information retrieval and natural language processing
1973: Lynn Conway (1938-), led the "LSI Systems" group; co-authored Introduction to VLSI Systems
1978: Sophie Wilson (?), designed the Acorn Microcomputer.
1979: Carol Shaw (?), game designer and programmer for Atari Corp. and Activision
1980: Carla Meninsky (?), game designer and programmer for Atari 2600 games Dodge 'Em and Warlords
1983: Adele Goldberg (1945-), one of the designers and developers of the Smalltalk language
1984: Roberta Williams (1953-), pioneering work in graphical adventure games for personal computers, particularly the King's Quest series.
1984: Susan Kare (1954-), created the icons and many of the interface elements for the original Apple Macintosh in the 1980s, was an original employee of NeXT, working as the Creative Director.
1985: Radia Perlman (1951-), invented the Spanning Tree Protocol. Has done extensive and innovative research, particularly on encryption and networking. USENIX Lifetime Achievement Award 2007, among numerous others.
1985: Irma Wyman (~1927-), first Honeywell CIO
1986: Hannah Smith "Girlie tipster" for CRASH (magazine)
1988: Eva Tardos (1957-), recipient of the Fulkerson Prize for her research on design and analysis of algorithms
1993: Shafi Goldwasser (1958-), theoretical computer scientist, two-time recipient of the Gödel Prize for research on complexity theory, cryptography and computational number theory, and the invention of zero-knowledge proofs
1993: Barbara Liskov together with Jeannette Wing develops the Liskov substitution principle
1994: Sally Floyd (~1953-), most renowned for her work on Transmission Control Protocol
1996: Xiaoyuan Tu (1967-), first female recipient of the ACM's Doctoral Dissertation Award.[16]
1997: Anita Borg (1949–2003), the founding director of the Institute for Women and Technology (IWT)
2001: Audrey Tang (1981-), initiator and leader of the Pugs project
2004: Jeri Ellsworth (1974-), self-taught computer chip designer and creator of the C64 Direct-to-TV
2005: Mary Lou Jepsen (1965-), Founder and chief technology officer of One Laptop Per Child (OLPC); founder of Pixel Qi.
2006: Frances E. Allen (1932-), first female recipient of the ACM's Turing Award
2009: Barbara H. Liskov (1939-), winner of the Turing prize 2009
Let's toss in there Carol Bartz, Meg Whitman, Mitchell Baker, Maria Cantwell, and even Carly Fiorina.
Yael Elish, Co-Founder and CEO of esnips- eSnips is a large social content sharing site that gives its members 5GB each of storage space to upload whatever they want.
Veerle Pieters, Founder, CEO and Graphic Designer of Duoh!-Web development services including design, DHTML layout creation, PHP scripting, database support, Flash.
Tiffany Bass Bukow, Founder and CEO of MsMoney.com-Financial Web site for women to learn about women’s unique financial needs, financial planning, personal finance, investing, retirement etc.
Susan Wu, Founder and CEO of Ohai – Online gaming platform
Stephany Alexander , Founder and CEO of WomanSaversWomanSavers – Dating Experts show you how to catch cheating men and screen your date free in the largest database rating men’s relationship history to date.
Simone van Trojen, Founder of LaDress- Find the perfect dress for any occasion. LaDress offers dresses in beautiful fabrics, timeless designs and high quality materials.
Simone Brummelhuis ,Founder and CEO of The NextWomen- The Next Women is the first Women’s Internet Business Magazine and Community, with a focus on startups and growing businesses, led, founded or invested in by women.
Shaa Wasmund, Founder and CEO of SmartaSmarta.com is a business support and advice network for start-ups, small business owners and entrepreneurs.
Sandy Kemsley , Founder of Column 2 - BPM, Enterprise 2.0 and technology trends in business.
Sally Robinson, Founder and Owner of Ample Bosom- Designer lingerie and bras for women with a fuller figure to order on-line.
Rebecca Blood, Founder of rebecca’s pocket- Writing about news, gothica, and web design resources.
Rachel Elnaugh, Founder of Red Letter Days- Discover unique gifts, gift experiences, activity days and gift ideas to solve all present buying dilemmas or buy experience days gift vouchers.
Nelly Yusupova , Founder of DigitalWoman- DigitalWoman is a web technology specialist, consultant and strategist, and motivating and inspiring speaker. She is the CTO of Webgrrls.
Julie Pankhurst , Co-Founder of Friends Reunite- Find ,reunite, contact old friends from school, work, college, university, neighbours, armed forces, expats.
Janet Hanson, Founder and CEO of 85 Broads – 85 Broads is an exclusive global women’s network with members who live, work, and study in 82 countries around the world.
Iris Ben-David, CEO and Founder of Style Shake – StyleShake empower millions of women to design freely, or personalize our top designs. Dresses are sewn to perfection in just 10 days!
Heidi Roizen, Founder, CEO and Chief Lyrical Officer of SkinnySongs- SkinnySongs motivates fans to lose weight and get fit. Lose weight and shape up with inspirational lyrics that are good for your body and soul.
Glenys Berd, Founder of LovethoseShoes - Health and Wellness Footwear Specialist. Now including Free Delivery and Free Returns on all brands. The company stock a wide range of Earth Footwear including shoes, sandals and trainers.
Gina Bianchini, Co-Founder and CEO of Ning – An online service to create, customize, and share a social network.
Georgie Coleridge-Cole, Founder and Editor of SheerLuxeSheerLuxe.com is a guide to online shopping. Editors bring you the products, fashions and retailers on the web daily.
Felicia Jackson, Co-Founder of Netimperative- Delivering online news and digital intelligence to business.
Erin Jansen, Co-Founder and Author of NetLingo-This site contains thousands of definitions about computers, the Internet, and the online world of business, technology & communication.
Eileen Gittins, Founder and CEO of Blurb -Make your own book with Blurb online. Create photo books, wedding books and more. Design and publish professional quality books to keep, give or sell.
Cyan Banister, Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Zivity- Zivity is where people just like you rub elbows with models, photographers, and video artists in an ad-free social network.
Chrissie Rucker, Founder of The White Company – Primarily white linen, tablewear, furniture, accessories and gifts. Order online or request a catalogue.
Caterina Fake, Co-Founder of Flickr and hunch – Hunch personalizes the internet by getting to know you and then making recommendations for what you might like.
April Henry, Founder of Myspace.com- Social network site.
Anne-Marie Huby, Co-founder and MD of JustgivingJustGiving – One of the easiest way to fundraise and donate to charity online.
Anne Wojcicki, Co-founder 23andMe- 23andMe provides genetic testing for over 100 traits and diseases as well as DNA ancestry.
Amy Millman, Founder of Springboard Enterprises - Offers programs which educate, showcase and support women entrepreneurs as they seek equity capital and grow their companies.
Jean Armour Polly, Founder of Netmom.com - A website for kids.
The theory, often claimed, is that "X" is a man's world.
As I am sure you understand, all it takes is one data point to falsify a theory. I have provided dozens of well known women that have made enormous progress for computing. It took me about 30 seconds.
So for "X" equal computing, the theory fails, it is busted, it should be an ex-myth, pining for the fjords.
In fact, from its very beginning, by which I mean its VERY BEGINNING, women have played terribly important and substantial roles in computing. How is it you are unaware of this? It really is common knowledge.
Showing that there are lots of well known men will do nothing to prop the theory up.
I suggest you might have a more enlightening experience asking yourself why the busted myth persists.
You think that a single case, or a handful of cases, can disprove the claim because you think the claim is of the type "for all {men, women, industries}" and therefore you think that one, single point can disprove the claim.
Actually, the claim -- as with most human problems -- is of a probabilistic nature and subject to statistical reasoning.
That you think your insistence of the application of binary logic to interpersonal relationships is an enlightened approach is astonishing, and makes me wonder whether or not you're a psychopath.
Actually as far as I can tell computing has a reputation of being especially this way.
Personally I don't really understand why you'd want to defend the "there's nothing wrong, ignore this woman" point of view. You acknowledge there's a problem, although you don't think it's specific to this industry. Why take the course of action/defend the point of view least likely to improve the situation?
And your sweeping generalization of computing is based on? Some things you read on the Internet? A story you heard once from a female coworker?
I don't know how your shop is but in my shop this shit does not happen because we are overly selective with our hiring and extremely quick to fire. One tactic we have in interviews is to take the applicant to dinner and get him drunk with a female colleague present. Multiple otherwise-awesome applicants have earned a circular file at dinner.
> And your sweeping generalization of computing is based on?
The same thing as yours. My personal experiences and what I've heard. You have no more evidence that there is nothing especially wrong with computing than I have that there is.
> "but in my shop this shit does not happen"
That you've heard about. Although I suspect that if you share the same kinds opinions around your coworkers as you are sharing here, you've made a fair number of your feel uncomfortable and unwelcome without ever realizing it.
> One tactic we have in interviews is to take the applicant to dinner and get him drunk with a female colleague present.
Wow. IANAL but using a female coworker as a honeypot is probably opening your company up to liability. The standard for harassment or unfriendly working environment is what a reasonable person would consider the same. I'd vote in favor of the plaintiff if a colleague of yours asked to perform this duty ever sued your company. As a matter of policy you're knowingly putting an employee in a situation where they are more likely to be harassed specifically for the purpose of seeing if they get harassed.
Well, it's your ass on the line and not mine; for that I am thankful.
You're right, you're not a lawyer so you should be less willing to throw the word 'liability' around. You're armchairing your way to a legal conclusion based on two facts and a situation you're unaware of. Namely that this colleague was the one who came up with the idea and enjoys the responsibility. Look at her angle. She gets a less hostile workplace by helping screen out the creepers who will come after her later.
Feel free to armchair lawyer someone else because you really suck at it.
Feel free to armchair lawyer someone else because you really suck at it.
Armchair lawyering -- from my experience it usually looks and sounds much better to the practitioner than it does to any trained lawyers. Those practicing it are often convinced that they speak with authority, even though they're laughably wrong.
I see. So someone bans a female from a conference for not having sex with him, and the person who points out that this is embarrassing is disrespectful? I simply don't understand your logic (or lack thereof).
