Blizzard Recruiters Asked Hacker If She ‘Liked Being Penetrated’ at Job Fair
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I've gotta say, that is way more sexual of a joke than I'd personally be comfortable wearing in a business casual environment, and I can't help but feel that if you wear that you're really opening yourself up to people teasing you with "Oh yeah, when was the last time you were penetrated?". There's a big difference between "she was asking for it because of her clothes" - bad argument - and "she chose to wear a shirt with an overtly sexual joke on it and people repeated the joke to her".
Was that on the shirt too?
The incentives to misrepresent the truth and lie/exaggerate/downplay are there for every party involved.
> Back in 2015 at the Black Hat USA security conference in Las Vegas Blizzard had a recruitment booth in the “Career Zone” section of the vendor area. As the name implies, the purpose of the Career Zone is to connect hackers seeking jobs with companies seeking to employ them. My executive (whom I should clarify was not employed with us at the time, but rather was employed as a senior vulnerability researcher at large security consulting firm) approached the Blizzard booth to inquire about open positions; however instead of discussing potential job opportunities with her, the Blizzard recruiters ridiculed her for being a woman. They asked her if she was lost; if her boyfriend brought her to the conference; if she even knew what the conference was about; if she knew was penetration testing was, and how often she got penetrated; and a slew of other extremely inappropriate and wholly unprofessional questions.”
Or just believe the women in the face of credible evidence. The lengths many HN commenters will go to to cast FUD upon any accusation of sexism in the industry is a pretty clear indicator of how much sexism is in the industry.
? But we just found that we can't do that.
The top commenter has basically turned the story upside down, with the fairly relevant information (i.e. evidence) that Ms. Mitchell was wearing a t-shirt with overtly sexual language - to which the Blizzard dorks merely responded directly to.
Blizzard guys met her at her level, with equal levels of dubious professionalism.
This information was not fully reported in the story and it materially changes the situation.
The story was presented as: "Woman Faced Sexual Harassment"
... but really it's something much more nuanced: "Woman Extolling Sexual Language, Is Responded To In Those Same Terms, Interprets Actions as Harassing"
The statements on her t-shirt, if correct (i.e. both sides) are clearly 'sexually charged language' that, if worn in any professional context, especially by a man, would have them immediately sidelined. Shamed, at minimum.
So in this case, it's a good thing that we 'didn't believe the story' because it turned out to be something more complicated.
I'm always immediately sympathetic to people in these scenarios ... but invariably I learn more, and that there is always considerably more nuance than reported, to the point wherein the authors of the story are effectively misrepresenting reality, and I become much less likely to accept anything reported just 'at face value' - which is frankly not good for 'the movement'.
I think the 'large central mass' of regular people are really, really open to change and looking at things differently, and in hearing legit stories, but as soon as they're misrepresented, the window of general empathy closes.
> Blizzard guys met her at her level, with equal levels of dubious professionalism.
This is wildly charitable to blizzard guys. She's wearing a punny tshirt and asking about a job. They're responding by asking how often she's been penetrated, and whether she knows literally anything about csec. She isn't fucking hitting on them at a bar, and they're there as professionals looking to fucking hire people.
I don't think this really adds nuance. It attempts to excuse unprofessional (maybe can be interpreted as questionably okay in this context) and sexist (not okay, fucking period) actions. They're getting paid by Blizzard to be there. You don't say shit like that and expect to have a job the next day, regardless of the context.
> I think the 'large central mass' of regular people are really, really open to change and looking at things differently, and in hearing legit stories, but as soon as they're misrepresented, the window of general empathy closes.
Which is why FUD still works, because muddying the waters makes people excuse unacceptable, unprofessional and downright wrong language allows otherwise "open" people to say "well I guess we'll never know." which preserves the status quo.
I see their argument being more like she initiated the tone of the interaction by her choice of wording on her clothing?
A person, whatever they are wearing, is not overly engaging in sexualized interaction.
But if someone writes something overtly sexual on their t-shirt, they are engaging in a communication.
That someone responded to the t-shirt shouldn't be surprising, even if it's unprofessional.
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"I don't think it adds nuance"
It adds nuance because the men, engaging in discussion about 'penetration' without incitement, is something clearly different then the men commenting on the pun that is on another person's shirt.
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"Which is why FUD still works, because muddying the waters "
It's not muddying the waters if you accept that the woman initiated a level of discourse by her own accord.
Consider what would happen if one of your male co-workers wore a t-shirt with an overtly crude, sexual double-etendre about 'penetration' to the office?
"Have you ever been PENETRATED? (wink wink!)"
Surely you'd be outraged that this would be exactly the kind of 'frat boy' culture you're condemning.
I'm certain that I would be told to 'change shirts' immediately, at least at my office.
So how do we then contemplate that a women, who wears such a is not directly engaging in this bad behaviour?
If you wear a t-shirt that says: "Suck My Banana!" to the office, and someone says to you "Ok, I'll Suck Your Banana!" - then who is really 'at fault' of being crude and sexist?
I don't think that Banana has much of a legitimate claim.
The applicant has every responsibility to maintain a degree of professionalism.
If they entered into a conversation with overtly 'cheeky' and sexual context, then they've set the tone themselves.
More importantly - the victim here could be interpreted as the instigator of sexual harassment.
Imagine a man, wearing a T-Shirt at the office, that said 'When Was The Last Time You Were PENETRATED?' - he would be taken aside and accused of sexual assault or unwarranted behaviour, right on the spot, no conversation needed.
The word professionally or professionalism are weasel words that don't hold up to scrutiny. Competence is necessary by every definition I found, so how, exactly, are you going to determine competence? By my measure everyone in management at Blizzard should be immediately terminated for lacking professionalism.
> The applicant has every responsibility to maintain a degree of professionalism.
That presumes everyone agrees to the same standard of professionalism, which isn't true, not even slightly.
> If they entered into a conversation with overtly 'cheeky' and sexual context, then they've set the tone themselves.
Why are you blaming the victim?
> More importantly - the victim here could be interpreted as the instigator of sexual harassment.
If reading words on a shirt instigates someone else to behave like that, then they should have their mental state evaluated.
> Imagine a man, wearing a T-Shirt at the office, that said 'When Was The Last Time You Were PENETRATED?' - he would be taken aside and accused of sexual assault or unwarranted behaviour, right on the spot, no conversation needed.
I've done exactly what you're describing several times at a few different organizations of various sizes. I think you're going to be very surprised how Twitter and corporate media aren't a proxy for real life.
It's also worth pointing out that these events occurred at Black Hat, in Las Vegas: what passes as acceptable business attire there is not the same as what would fly in an office, and I guarantee there were plenty of people wearing far more risqué shirts without facing any harassment.
It's easy to try to pin some responsibility on the woman here, but that ignores the fact that this sort of language and culture is extremely common at Black Hat and DEFCON, and a shirt like she was wearing would not have been out of place at the conference. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if she won the shirt at the conference.
From the year before, here [0] is a sign from the vendor area at Black Hat, featuring an underwear clad model with the caption: "You know you're not the first... but do you really care?"
Similarly, to this day, DEFCON, held one week after Black Hat, and likely the largest security conference in the world, still holds a "Hacker Jeopardy" competition, featuring strippers who remove their clothing as contestants answer questions correctly.
I only say all of this because I think a lot of context is being lost in this article, by people who haven't been to these conferences: the women's shirt wouldn't have been what singled her out here, her gender was, and for the recruiters to harass her for that is unacceptable.
If a man wore that shirt, we would declare it 'demeaning and sexist' I think, without doubt.
I fully agree, it's all too much, people should be more professional, and the Blizzard guys should not have referenced it at all.
You're 3rd paragraph doesn't add up. If she is wearing the 'dirty t-shirt' ... then she is not a 'victim' to what she herself is perpetuating, unless you think this person is unintelligent? I don't understand.
I don't think this is the story we are looking for, and I don't think legal action is warrant against people referring to someone by comments on their own t-shirt, and it's also upsetting that this nuanced information is not in the article.
'Sexism' is real, it happens, and it's important, and so we can't just flail around with bad information and journalism trying to push narratives. Facts matter and if people want to 'move the needle' it would behove us all to get the story straight.
Yeah, that's...not a good look.
But I agree, it doesn't excuse the behavior of the Blizzard employees. ESH.
While I don’t condone this behavior, the back of the shirt says “When was the last time you were penetrated…”
"Penetration" is not as offensive as "kill". Would you submit the s/SIGKILL/SIGNINE patch to any project?
Still unfortunate. But understandable.
I don't know about "Penetration" vs "kill" - I would agree that kill is objectively more offensive, but as an industry we've got an issue with sexual harassment not violence - so I don't know if kill really applies in it's offensive meaning here.
All I know is that the jokes around "Penetration" need to die. In this particular scenario that specific "Do you like being penetrated line" was practically set up as a response to the shirt - it's a bad shirt to wear to a professional event. If we can just tone down the marketing I think it'll continue to die off as decorum is normalized.
"I'm sorry, Fry, but astronomers renamed Uranus in 2620 to end that stupid joke once and for all."
That wasn't really the point I was trying to make. I don't think that it is problematic that foobar implies "fucked up beyond recognition". That is not an offensive phrase. It's a little uncouth, but not offensive on its own.
And penetration is not an offensive concept! It's what we call one thing going into another thing. Sex also involves this, I am told. Even killing isn't inherently offensive. We kill germs and mosquitoes (and mysqld) frequently and intentionally.
What really needs to happen is the accurate placement of blame. Like you say, the penetration jokes need to die (for the same reason the Uranus jokes needed to die in 2620). The penetration jokes directed at applicants by recruiters really need to die. But the use of the word "penetration" in security is not at fault, it's just an accurate term.
Secondly, I find it oh so funny that people barge into a community and demand the language change because it's offensive to them, yet claim that they are being the tolerant ones.
I didn't forget the /s. I declined to use it. There's a point at which a suggestion is so absurd a reasonable person is bound to interpret it as ironic. If they don't see the irony that's unfortunate, and 1) I wasn't talking to them and 2) their foolishness is only amplified if they feel legitimized.
>"One of them asked me when was the last time I was personally penetrated, if I liked being penetrated, and how often I got penetrated,"
Don't get me wrong, it's terrible.
She's an attendee at a security conference wearing a tshirt. They're representatives of a company trying to hire people at that conference.
Edit: Flagged? I'm sorry. If you read the article, the inappropriate jokes were targeted to her t-shirt reading "Penetration Expert". This is stupid on top of stupid.
In this case it was led with something akin to aww are you lost? where is your boyfriend?, which already provides really shitty harassment context. There's also a pretty large difference when you're in a chill groupchat compared to _representing your employer at a conference_
Can we just like - stop that though? We're not in middle school anymore and it's not particularly funny of a joke.
Statements made to break the ice and provide a more social environment are fine for easing technical discussions - especially when introverts are so common in our field - but there are legions of other topics in the security research field that can yield rich soil for merriment.
I am in the industry for 25 years and have participated (and in the vast majority of cases - spoken) at many conferences. I have never seen it happening.
I am an average man and met other average men and women at the conferences and it was like any other meetings: sometimes interesting, lots of chit-chat, lots of boring people etc.
I never saw anyone harass others - my experience is in Europe, the US and a bunch of conferences in Asia.
I have also regrettably not witnessed the executive orgies everyone talks about, despite having been at all the right after parties.
This DOES NOT mean that it does not exist - the case in the article is an example of assholes who statistically exist in all populations who should have been told to fuck off by someone around. And shove their sense of humor in a dark place of their body.
I am just kindly challenging the extremely common part.
Just to say though, it seems probable to me that 99% of twenty-something women in the industry will have a misogynistic experience to recount. Perspective is relative.
What I question is how common it is in the security world (compared, say, to the filmmaking industry, or rugby, or mining). Being for a variety of reasons quite sensitive to this topic, I just said that I have not witnessed it so far.
There is something to do with the word penetration that makes people feel as though they MUST comment sexually on it.
Not only are they being inappropriate by trying it with people at a security event, they're probably an idiot for ever thinking it was funny.
But aside from that, we probably should retire "penetration tester" as a job title because dipshits can't resist being dipshits and there's enough barriers for women in security as it is.
Took the free swag and left?!
i suppose maybe that might have been funny in junior high school or something. but, seriously?
no wonder people are leaving WoW and their recent games were underperforming (Warcraft 3 Reforged for example)
I would doubt that a company would publicly post this due to liability otherwise
https://reason.com/2018/10/17/seneca-valley-mean-girls-false...
Further, if you read the article there is a literal whole company with a business relationship that was cancelled with blizzard over this. I think you really really really should do some soul searching on what makes you have a knee-jerk reaction that they're making it up.
But also, news organizations are cognizant that their credibility takes a hit if they just publish every single accusation regardless of attribution.
I don't even WANT to have that conversation with a random person...
What is with these people?
Gotta be honest I'd even be a little uncomfortable about the shirt... the whole situation is wonky.