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.
(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.)