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Bingo! Her feeling of 'danger' was irrational unless there have been a wave of sexual assaults at developer conferences that I'm unaware of. She has no control over being offended or not, but she does have the ability to control her reactions to such offense. If it really bothered her why not just tell the guys, hey can you please not use that sort of humor around me?



It's frustrating to hear a bunch of white men who normally stick around groups of other white men talk about how someone who is very different - black, female, Jewish - is silly for feeling threat in situations where white men don't feel threat.

When people of your racial/religious group are murdered and attacked and harassed (and anti-Semitism is still a thing) her perception of threat is no doubt heightened.

It's unreasonable to expect her to confront people making dumb jokes if she feels threatened by them.

(However, her actions are not acceptable. She could have sought out conference organisers and told them.)


It's also bizarre.

The interesting thing that happened: A bilious internet mob.

The thing being discussed: The legitimacy of an individual's mental state. Not even the reasonableness of their reaction to the mental state, the mental state itself.

I can certainly empathize with feeling fear that I am perfectly aware is irrational, looking at pictures of people up high makes me queasy and I stop looking before I break into a cold sweat. Pictures!




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