A Docker engineer got so many threats the company hired security to protect her
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
I was at a tech talk last week, 40 devs, 1 woman, 39 blokes.
You don't have to be a genius to see there is something off with that ratio.
I've rarely seen more than 1-2 at any of the tech events I've gone to there.
I've also heard the crap some programmers say about women (not all but enough to leave a bad taste).
Prior to working in the tech industry I worked in the retail industry and the gender split was pretty much 50/50.
It's hard to admit that some of your success might be because of your gender/colour etc.
That's just not believable. There has to be more to the story than that. Nobody gets harassed because they're good at their job and go out teaching others etc, etc.
The author of this article is leaving something out.
If you read an article that said "Bob the mailman was beaten to death by local residents because he was good at his job" would you think "Yep, that sounds like the whole story"?
Interestingly, noir_lord noticed and you can see that in his comments on this article. I have the impression that many, many people notice how exceptional and small the presence of women is in tech.
No news article has the "whole" story, so why single this one out? They are necessarily a digest of the events.
Oh, does it? When you read this:
"...this person received horrific threats because she's good at her job and out teaching others how to use an up-and-coming programming technology."
it seems reasonable to you? Do people generally receive "horrific threats" because they're good at their jobs?
I don't see any point in speculating about what's actually going on here. It's pretty clear whatever it is isn't in the article, though.
If by people you mean women, then yes.
You don't seem able to say exactly why you find this so hard to believe. Could it be that your experiences are limited?
More likely, the people reading this and assuming the root of the whole thing is, incredibly, a woman who's being attacked for doing a good job (and not being a tax collector or similar government functionary) are simply credulous.
Since there seem to be some people who believe the account in this article and others that don't, what in your mind is the experience that people have been exposed to that changes their minds?
It seems like you're saying they are purely irrational. Do you have any evidence which suggests that?
I'm really interested because so far you've provided no content to suggest why someone should join you in your incredulity.
No matter what your age, you need an education.
What reasons would you accept?
Even if reason is a concept that is outside of human control, you're still attempting to apply it to this article. It is necessarily channeled through you when you comment on this situation.
What you accept is relevant.
"...this person received horrific threats because she's good at her job and out teaching others how to use an up-and-coming programming technology."
I'm not going to say it's not plausible that that is the reason like others are saying. Personally, I'm doubtful, but I'm willing to entertain that that actually is the reason.
Assuming that actually is the reason, what evidence supports that statement. Are there numerous troll comments that we can read with our own two eyes that unambiguously demonstrate that the trolls were motivated by her skill?
If there isn't, then I would expect the statement to be ""...this person received horrific threats."
Either there is evidence that supports the statement that begins with "because..." or there isn't. That evidence is clearly omitted.
In general, a good thing to do in lots of situations is listen to people about their lived experiences, and after listening to women talk about being in this industry for a while this sort of thing becomes just 'a particularly horrible example' instead of 'something totally incomprehensible.'
Sure. That would be believable if the year were, say, 1850.
On one hand, this comes off kinda' bad, as if we're looking for the real reason this person is being harassed, looking if they deserved it or not. No matter what prompted this harassment, this is wrong, terrible and should not happen to _anybody_ no matter the sex, position or actions of that person.
But, I still have my curiosity as to what reason these harassers might have. They might be simply sexist but that seems a little exaggerated, considering there are other women that have exposure and don't seem to suffer the same level of harassment. I enjoy greatly reading Julia Evans's posts for example, and I haven't seen signs of harassment over there - maybe I haven't been paying attention.
There might be something specific that this person did that made the harassers angry - I repeat, this is not to incriminate miss Jessie Frazelle, and she might not have done anything wrong, but something made the attackers angry, maybe something complety ridiculous. What would that thing be? If there is a thing this person did, this harassment might have originated even if she were a man. Maybe it's not such a sex thing after all? It seems there are plenty of public people that get death threats and are harassed, and these things are generally tailored to the sex of a person - women get killed an raped, men get killed and told to suck a dick.
I don't know, I'm just confused - it's true there aren't many women in tech, and I'm as welcoming as possible but there are certain issues that I don't understand and don't know how to approach, but trying to solve them requires actually understanding them beyond a short article and evasive tweets.
Its interesting to me that you mention Julia Evans. I've never encountered her writing, but she definitely has a belief in the truth of women's stories about harassment. See here: http://jvns.ca/blog/2016/03/06/women-only-spaces-are-a-hack/
Perhaps Julia would respond better to a direct e-mail asking her if she'd share any of her experiences in tech! Might be worth a shot?
Hence why I used scare quotes for "deserved". People don't deserve to be harassed.
As for "something that made the harassers angry", eh. I don't know. But that's not the point. The fact that people are so happy to create a toxic environment for other people is something we should address.
Are you from Saudi Arabia?
Disbelief requires no evidence. It only requires a story that doesn't square with your experience. And this one definitely smells fishy.
Interesting. So is Atlanta rapper BOB right to say the earth is flat because he's never observed its curve? He personally thinks the idea of earth as a globe is fishy.
Its funny, I'd say to him that his feeling of fishiness has no merit and that he should be forced to justify his claim of disbelief.
Have you ever been exposed to religion?
Back to the religion thing... did you know God loves you and wants you to send me money? You don't really have grounds to disbelieve that, do you? I mean, facts and evidence?
Earlier:
> Nobody gets harassed because they're good at their job and go out teaching others etc, etc.
The mental gymnastics you're doing to find a way to disbelieve this whole article are impressive. But ultimately, you're tripping over your own feet.
The mental gymnastics you're doing to fit this into your world view are impressive. But it's really coming across as facile virtue signaling. You seem to be suspending rudimentary common sense in an effort to believe that which is unbelievable.
I can think of a lot of instances in which "common sense" has been invoked as short hand in an argument where the people involved simply can't explain why they disbelieve the opposition.
You seem to quite often attempt to signal that you are aligned with an unbiased and rational view, but you seem to just discard arguments based on your emotions.
There's been a few threads on this article that you've abandoned. Its becoming more and more clear its because you simply can't satisfyingly state the reasons for your judgements.
> But you don't get a lot of people sending you ugly tweets just because you're contributing to a software effort.
Again, source? Or is this another one we can tack down to "common sense".
"Fishy" isn't at all an emotive word. And of course I don't believe I used the word "rudimentary".
>You seem to quite often attempt to signal that you are aligned with an unbiased and rational view, but you seem to just discard arguments based on your emotions.
I'm not the one making emotional arguments. This is the situation:
1. Woman does her job very well.
2. ???
3. Harassment.
>There's been a few threads on this article that you've abandoned. Its becoming more and more clear its because you simply can't satisfyingly state the reasons for your judgements.
That's silly. At this point you just keep repeating yourself without addressing anything I've written. Couple that with the timeout on HN they've added to discourage this conversation and it's literally not worth the trouble, so I'm going to end it here. Of course you're welcome to reply, though frankly I'll be very surprised if you include anything new.
>Again, source? Or is this another one we can tack down to "common sense".
Again, do I really need a "source" to explain to you people don't do things for no reason? Really?
> You seem to be suspending rudimentary common sense in an effort to believe that which is unbelievable.
Maybe, just maybe, what you believe and what is actually true are two entirely different things.
Calm down.
Sad to say, I don't think there is more to the story, without just egging on the trolls. Her offense was to be a woman as the public face of a hot new tech, and that's all.
Turning it around, what would she had to have done , in your mind, to elicit death threats and revenge porn? Double parked? Cut in line in front of someone's grandma at the bank?