See I don't get hatred at Hank, I mean, I did initially read it like that. But when I took a step back I started to see it as hatred of being excluded in a field you love. Hatred at the obliviousness of Hank — his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority.
I think her view of Hank is to disregard him — kind of "Oh he'll be okay, the system's on his side." She doesn't really acknowledge him because it's not about him. We've made it about him because it's so easy for us to empathise with Hank but not with her, which is exactly part of the bias she's upset about.
I think Ronson strongly suggests that this is in fact the case.
Ronson's a great journalist for acknowledging the complexity of a situation without attempting to offer answers he's unqualified to give, imho.
> “So you’re in your new workplace…” (Hank was offered another job right away) “…and you’re talking to a female developer. In what way do you act differently towards her?”
> “Well,” Hank said. “We don’t have any female developers at the place I’m working at now. So.”
> “You’ve got a new job now, right?” I said to Adria.
> “No,” she said.
Incidentally thank you for all your comments on this article. They're really thoughtful and have helped me understand what is clearly a very big issue much better.
You're right but it's still vague. It wasn't made clear on how or if they went about getting new jobs. How many resumes sent out? How many interviews? We don't know what their experience level is...etc...etc. Those questions miss the point of what you are getting at (gender/minority bias) but there is still a technical angle in getting a job.
She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed.
If the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis!" then the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it. That's all it does by itself.
All that about being offended and excluded and threatened, that is all baggage that she brought with her into that situation. She imagines that the joke was, "lol that dongle reminds me of penis ...and reminds me that we must continue to oppress all women muhahaha!"
That's her imagination. She made that part up. Hank didn't say or imply or even think anything remotely like that. And it doesn't matter if other people share her delusion - any more than it would matter if this was a religious issue and she was claiming someone had committed blasphemy. It doesn't matter that other people share the delusion that god is real.
> She wasn't being excluded. She wasn't being made fun of. She wasn't being oppressed.
Unfortunately that isn't how she felt. Her feelings should matter to us just as Hank's feelings matter.
> the only significance of that joke is that it acknowledges the existence of human sexual organs. That's it.
No one is arguing that the joke is not innocuous, or that the joke is somehow sinister. I've been in Hank's shoes, I've made stupid jokes about sex.
I'm not arguing that Hank deserved any retribution for making that joke. He seems like a really nice guy. It was horrible what happened to him.
I'm arguing that there is a problem because someone doesn't feel safe when an innocuous joke is made. And a lack of diversity is the root of this problem.
Unfortunately when this topic comes up here we all question Adria's motives, we accuse her and call her delusional. We deny her feelings, and in doing so we exclude her and other women. We make the situation worse.
We should be trying to understand how she came to do something so rash and question the culture and environment that brought this horrible situation about.
We should give Adria the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is not a monster, then we will see where the real problem lies.
> We deny her feelings, and in doing so we exclude her and other women.
Now that comment is sexist, because you deny men the right to have the same feelings. It's easy to pick nits, especially in those fields.
I don't think that anybody denies Adria's right to feel offended, at least not really. Feelings are irrational, that's why we don't get to fully explain them logically (quite convenient). Actions, on the other hand, should be rational, and we are often judged by their rationality.
We can only speculate how Adria felt, and it doesn't really matter. Her actions and words are what got her into trouble. When compared to the comments she overheard on the conference, it is not just out of proportion, but completely out of direction as well.
Perhaps the worst part is that this kind of attitude actually _hurts_ tolerance instead of improving it. I'd love to have a productive black Jewish female on my team. I'd hate to have someone obsessing about racism, sexism and hurt feelings, regardless of their race and gender.
Reminded of a quote that resonates with me, in general:
“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... than 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 am offended by that.' Well, so fucking what?"
[I saw hate in a graveyard -- Stephen Fry, The Guardian, 5 June 2005]”
> Unfortunately that isn't how she felt. Her feelings should matter to us just as Hank's feelings matter.
It was unreasonable for her to feel that way and even the author of the article acknowledged that.
She can feel however she wants, but she is responsible for herself, no one else is. It is not Hanks' responsibility to make sure she isn't offended by a simple joke. It may have been inappropriate, but that's not the same thing.
Well, to me her feeling are irrelevant. She could've have been feeling fear, anger or may even enjoyed the joke and tried to share it and it's creator.
All this happened because of what she _did_. And doing is different of feeling. You don't choose your feelings, but you choose your actions.
So ... a man's behavior made her feel a certain way, such that she bears no responsibility for her reactions and their consequences?
What is felt or what can be said is dependent on the circumstances of your birth, chromosomes, and DNA?
Take your argument and spin it, and you're allowing that women are responsible for men's actions based on how the women act and behave.
Or you can allow the one and deny the other. That's a hell of a double standard.
My read, from the original airing of this, and from Ron Johnson's interviews here, is that Adria Richards absolutely wasn't suited for her job. She's overtly racist and sexist, ascribing people traits, or passing judgement on what they can or cannot do or say, based simply on race and gender.
She took what was, at the very worst, a slightly immature situation, and made it far, far worse. And continues to.
I've seen plenty of behavior from men (or boys) that makes me cringe. I've called it out at times. I've also seen (or received) it from women. And, for that matter, men. Truth is we're sexual creatures, and the boundaries between professional and personal do get crossed. Failure to recognize that (and behave accordingly) is a problem.
I've also had my own issues with behavior of others from time to time. Sometimes I'll comment, but if I'm at at a structured event that doesn't work (and I've met plenty of people of various stripes and persuasions who seem dead-set on finding an argument), I'll find someone who can intermediate -- an arbitrator frequently does blunt the emotions of to principle antagonists.
Could there be reasons for Adria's behavior in her own personal history? I'm not a psych professional, but I've had my own personal experiences (some extremely painful, damaging, and expensive) and done a fair bit of reading (including of psych texts and manuals). Seems valid to me to conclude that it very well might. And that if she does in fact have a history of such behavior, she'd do well to receive some sort of assessment and therapy for it. And I wish that she lived in a society which made such treatment far more accessible. Her behavior certainly has interfered with her professional and personal relationships, from the evidence I've seen.
But people own their own responses and feelings. An irrational or aberrant response is just that: irrational and aberrant. A person with a mortal fear of snakes shouldn't work in a reptile exhibit, a pyromaniac shouldn't work at a firehouse. And a woman who's constitutionally hostile to white men should probably find herself a position where she's not called on to deal with them diplomatically and spread corporate good-will.
Someone whose response to everyday situations gets other people hurt, or fired, or threatened, isn't behaving normally. Adria's response in this regard is no more valid than the road-raging executive, the raving street person who attacks someone for no reason, the child who throws a tantrum, or the jilted lover who goes into a screaming rage encountering an ex on the street.
Was she rightly fired? Absolutely. Ideally she wouldn't have been hired for the position in the first place.
The threats she's received since? Uncalled for.
Her failure to own her own actions and recognize her error? Inexcusable.
Oh, and the answer to men and their behavior around women dressing or acting provocatively? That's something the men own.
> his inability to realise how vulnerable she felt simply attending a conference because she was in the minority
Aren't we granting too much power to minorities? Let me tell you a story that happened to me.
I once went to a Java developers meetup. I'm a Lisper, probably the only one that was attending, so I was a clear minority (that was 3 years ago, back before everyone jumped onto functional programming bandwagon and started replacing 'A's in their company logos with lambdas, etc.). I actually only went there because my friend was giving a talk about Git. That, and they had free pizza. But I digress.
Anyway, there was this guy showing an interesting library for Java, name of which I can't remember now, that was aimed at seriously reducing the amount of cruft and boilerplate one has to write, replacing common patterns with annotations. I thought it was a great idea, and wanted to congratulate him, but suddenly, the entire audience started criticizing. That it's wrong, it's not "the Java way", etc. I voiced my opinion, that it clearly improves readability, for which I heard that I "don't get the Java way of doing things". I think I might also heard someone telling me, "you're a Lisper, this is different, you won't understand".
Now should I be offended at that reaction? Well, I felt bad, but should I cry foul, and vent out on the obvious discrimination of concise languages? Should I Tweet about how misolambdic the people on that conference were? How they hate metaprogramming? Should I get someone fired from their job because they told me I'm a Lisper, and thus don't understand Java? I'm a minority after all. I can't even get a job in the field I love, and have to code PHP to earn my bread.
I don't think anyone would find affirmative answers to above questions reasonable. And yet in some cases, it's apparently fine to overhear a random joke and turn it into a mess that gets two people fired from their jobs, just because you're a part of a minority. Do we want a society that's afraid of minorities? Because in a way, it validates discrimination - when people see that the smaller group has a disproportional ability to cause damage, it makes people hate them, not welcome them.
Moreover, I believe that not being easily offended is the sign of being a mature person. You shouldn't let some passing airwaves upset you to the point of losing control.
> So, if I try to understand your choice of comparisons, do you live with oppression because you're a Lisper?
If you call my peers laughing at me for "learning this weird thing" for the past 3 years, then yes, I live with oppression.
But more seriously, the reason I chose a clearly absurd example is to separate the issue from the emotional weight people give to topics about sex. I see this emotional attitude as a reason people get so irrational about the topic.
We're granting the power by our reaction. If we're willing to accomodate even most absurd demands on the threat of being attacked by the rest of our group, we implicitly grant a minority the power to do whatever they want with us.
Parent is wrong though. Nobody is granting anybody power.
Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.
Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.
> Hank's employer had the power to shrug off the episode and keep employing him. Instead, they ceded their power to a minority/controversial view.
To cede your power to a minority is exactly to grant that power to them. That's exactly what I'm talking about.
> Adria's employer, on the other hand, was actually being attacked over the situation. Maybe they could have withstood it, maybe they bucked early. Still, it's not like anyone granted 4chan users power - they already had it and decided to use it against SendGrid.
SendGrid didn't grant 4chan the power to DDoS them. But they surely granted the trolls power to get someone from the company fired over a stupid Twitter dispute. The next time they'll be considering whether or not to launch another attack to get someone fired, they will be more eager to go through with it.
If, howewer, there was such a history, would me making fuss over the situation in the story above make my behaviour justified?
The point is, there is always a minority to be found and a member of such can always find a reason to feel offended - but this by itself does not justify being aggressive. I used a clearly absurd example to separate the issues from sexual themes, because those get people emotional and irrational.
I don't think anybody is saying that being in a minority is justification for being aggressive. I think what some people are saying is that being oppressed might be a justification for being aggressive, but I can't say for certain. I'm just an average Asian who appears like an average Caucasian.
I think her view of Hank is to disregard him — kind of "Oh he'll be okay, the system's on his side." She doesn't really acknowledge him because it's not about him. We've made it about him because it's so easy for us to empathise with Hank but not with her, which is exactly part of the bias she's upset about.