Open letter to the Mac/iOS dev community regarding conduct
wildchocolate.tumblr.com
wildchocolate.tumblr.com
I find this kind of generalization or assumption pretty much as distasteful as the author found the presentation.
> However, what this experience and other similar encounters I have had in the last three years as a Mac developer have started to suggest is, maybe the Mac community doesn’t want people like me to be comfortable.
The author of the post isn't implying that this singular incident leads to the conclusion that the Mac community is a boy's club. Rather, a series of experiences had while working in the Mac community leads the author to that feeling.
It's been my experience working in computer and programming communities in general that there is a huge blind spot for privilege among members of those communities, esp. given how many professional programmers are white, cisgendered men. The author is stating that her experience has show there to be a problem in the way professionalism and gender is approached by the Mac community, and its up to those of us that do have a lot of privilege to listen, take a step back, and think about that person's experience and examine our role in that community.
After stepping back and thinking about it, the author's stance about the iOS community seems to allow me, as an iPhone developer, only two options:
1) I am, explicitly or implicitly, guilty of some form of discrimination or inappropriate behaviour, or
2) I am not actually part of the iOS community.
I have, however, come across this in other fields. I assume this is likely due to how small the Mac community has been, as well as -- and this may be a stretch -- the kind of professionalism that Apple has themselves demonstrated.
The fact that this sort of conduct may be becoming more prevalent in the iOS/Mac space is disappointing, but not entirely surprising.
I'm inclined to be on the complainant's side, but the complaint makes it seem much worse than it appears to have actually been.
I'm left thinking the woman involved went to a session that gave every indication of being very slightly off-color, and was shocked and offended that it was.
But we should be.
Not that ibankers are necessarily the worst of the worst, they obviously aren't, but c'mon people, aim high?
Some traders are certainly gross, especially on Wall St, but that isn't true across the industry.
The only places I can see this as being acceptable is in places which were a) male dominated/homogenous, and/or b) lacking in professionalism.
So I can understand this happening at banking conferences because of (a), and unfortunately, hacker scenes have a problem with both (a) and (b), but I would strongly disagree that this happens in most other communities.
Pretty much. I've seen the same debate in other circles I'm involved in- anime/manga nerds, film geeks, atheists, sports etc etc. There's nothing special here but nonetheless we should act if there is a problem regardless of the community.
Sure, but how many banking conferences do you see jokes as crass as the ones that were mentioned here? No one is getting hot and bothered here how people talk privately or to their buddies.
Naturally, I have not heard the entire talk, so it's possible there were segments which would indeed be considered demeaning for women specifically - and if so, then indeed that is another problem. But as a society, is it really healthy to keep around this attitude that women are delicate creatures who would be forever harmed by hearing anything with the slightest hint of sexual connotations? Is it really the case that only men can laugh at and enjoy the occasional sex joke?
It's not an issue of being demeaning. It's an issue of people from a minority group being very uncomfortable when the majority is talking as if they're not there.
If so, would the exact same jokes be dismissive of men, if the gender of the speaker and audience were reversed? Or is there something about the jokes which have an anti-women bias?
To be more specific, do you think this talk could fairly be interpreted as: maybe the Mac community doesn’t want people like me to be comfortable? Perhaps they would rather keep this a boy’s club forever, and it’s simply irritating when people like me disrupt that. Because I think that's a pretty unfair thing to accuse the presenter of.
Also, being a heterosexual guy, I would have avoided or walked out of this talk anyway. So I guess I'm just having a hard time telling how much that feeling would change if I were a "minority", because apparently I would have the same reaction either way.
Deleted comment
That lack of professionalism can't or shouldn't be defended, but neither can the hypocrisy in the post about it. For a thinly veiled post about sexism and male dominance in an industry, the author makes no effort to avoid making some sexist remarks of her own (as highlighted by alex_c[0]).
At risk of going off on a tangent, diversity is a good thing. Discrimination isn't. By extension, positive discrimination isn't a good thing. And the sooner everyone realises that the solution to the issue of poor diversity isn't even more discrimination, the better.
This in its simplest form means not using your own race, gender, religion, age etc. to make a point in favour of your own demographic, and also not allowing other people to do the same against you. Because real diversity is when none of that actually matters.
I have a slight feeling this may not be a popular point of view, but I find some of the popular thinking to be rather illogical. But the author makes a good point when taken solely on the merits of professionalism.
Oh? What would you attribute it to?
It's quite likely that it is because of a lack of women. Some immature people get accustomed to working in a boy's club environment, and don't grow up, don't know how to act professionally.
Note that you're making the error of assuming that attributing the cause to lack of diversity implies some kind of quota system to remedy the lack of diversity.
More women would be great. Better would be for immature developers to grow up.
At best attributing it to diversity and playing the sex card oversimplifies things such as the individual's upbringing and his personality. People are all different, so I find it unfair to say that this is not the product of a person being a person, but a person who works in a male dominated environment.
Is the implication thus that an industry needs more women for it to be more mature? That without diversity men (note how the article emphasises this is a male problem) will resort to making dick jokes and chatting about celebrities they'd bang all the time? And how is that implication any less offensive than the lack of professionalism the speaker exhibited?
So to answer the question, I attribute this not to diversity or anything such, but to an individual who was, as you've said, immature. He alone does not make the entire development community immature, nor is he exemplary of a male dominated profession.
The thing is, as white (or white-looking arab or jewish) dudes, we _never_ have to run into that. The closest I ever came was immigrating to a different country and constantly getting singled out over my accent — so much so that I changed it.
I agree with the parent post - people should stop trying so hard to be offended about stuff. Being singled out or second-guessed doesn't harm one.
Like others have commented, author makes pretty _offensive_ generalizations of the whole community and people in it, which I think is even worse and untrue, than some guy having an offending talk.
Not sure if she's changed the style since you visited, but it's quite readable. I was tempted to put it down to me using a dark theme in KDE, but Chrome, unlike Firefox, doesn't inherit the OS default colours for web pages.
Why are we acting so prudish about sexuality? I know my wife wouldn't care about a reference to celebrity t&a. What kind of girls do take offense? I'll tell you what kind, ugly girls. Had to be said.
Exactly what could the presenter have done to more fully communicate the nature of the talk? Put up a green first slide that says "This talk is rated "O" for offensive by the Tech Conference Association of America."?
Do you honestly not see any problem with that line of thought? I'm curious, how old are you?
No, forbidding people to make jokes because some tiny minority might find it offensive is "fundamentally selfish and entitled". Forbidding people to make jokes because you feel offended by them, even more so.
And, btw, you failed to even define what that "line of thinking" is, you just accused me of "employing" it.
"""I see that you're going to deploy the "political correctness" strawman, though, so I don't think I'll make any headway here."""
What is this, your personal Godwin's law? Since when "political correctness", especially in a situation where it exactly applies, is a "strawman"?
It's true though, you won't make any headway here. Not with this kind of crap arguments.
No, it's professionalism, consideration, and standards of behavior.
you failed to even define what that "line of thinking" is, you just accused me of "employing" it.
You explained your line of thinking pretty well:
Well some people say if you are getting offended by "inappropriate" jokes that's basically your problem, not the problem of the majority of people there having fun
What is this, your personal Godwin's law? Since when "political correctness", especially in a situation where it exactly applies, is a "strawman"?
Because there is nothing here about political correctness. This is about professionalism, consideration, and maturity. Additionally, the term "politically correct" is used as a pejorative these days, so it's of little value.
Not with this kind of crap arguments.
Please take your attitude back to Reddit.
Isn't that the exact same reasons given by pointy haired managers against wearing jeans at work?
That is not professionalism, that is giving the appearance of a "professional" to people who don't know any better.
Professionalism lies in being honest with your clients, delivering, and keeping the standards of quality of your trade (IT in our case), not of the jokes you tell.
And it's funny how, say, Star Wars jokes would have been totally fine with the audience, but a reference to tits and the gates of hell open. Again, "professionalism" is not what's under attack here, it's the prudes.
"""Because there is nothing here about political correctness. This is about professionalism, consideration, and maturity."""
Are you under the impression that if you repeat a sentence two or more times, you make it an argument? This is exactly what you wrote in your opening paragraph, and you failed to give any justification.
So, I insist: this is all about "political correctness" --and the fact that you invoke "consideration", " standards of behavior" and "maturity" only gives this more credit. Isn't PC a set of "standards of behavior" that are all about "consideration"?
As for the "Additionally, the term "politically correct" is used as a pejorative these days, so it's of little value" argument, I can't even begin to describe how lame it is.
"""Please take your attitude back to Reddit."""
I've never been a Reddit member, and I don't define myself as a HN member either, it's just a page I read.
What are you, fifteen years old (mentally), to define yourself by some site you frequent?
And you were ranting about "professionalism" earlier? Right.
Stop being a dipshit, you dipshit.
Love,
The actual point I was making was slightly different, but i'll leave it to the reader to figure out what it was.
"A Letter to the Developer Community
Dear Mac/iOS Developer Community,
Empathy is the ability to put yourself in someone else’s shoes who may be different from yourself and attempt to understand/have compassion towards that person’s feelings, especially if their feelings are different from your own. If you do not consider yourself to be a particularly empathetic person, there’s no need to read any further.
I attended a Mac developer conference recently and overall had a great experience. I had the opportunity to meet and get to know many great developers while learning a few things too. Unfortunately, I left with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. This feeling I attribute to a lack of conduct standards, and a failure by many of us to understand the changes in the industry that have been occurring, like it or not, over the years.
Here is what happened. I sat down to listen to a talk that I could tell by the title of the talk, was going to be inappropriate. I thought to myself, I’m at a respectful Mac conference, the organizer is walking around in a suit and conducting himself very professionally, I’m sure it will be ok. This was, in fact, a poor assumption. The speaker prefaced his talk by basically stating there was a little substance, but that most of the topics were being presented simply because of the sexual or otherwise inappropriate jokes that could be formed from the topics. For instance, jokes that can be made about “autoreleasing”. I’ll let you think about that for a second and you basically understand how this went. About ten minutes in, I was thoroughly disappointed in the immaturity and inappropriateness and walked out of the room. As others informed me later, it did not get any better. There were tidbits of information weaved in, but the overarching theme remained the same.
Sadly, this was not the only offensive point in the week. The highly respected keynote speaker managed to weave in a reference to a female celebrity’s tits and ass in his discussion, which I found awfully distasteful.
Now, I know that being one of the handful of women in attendance at the conference, I am in a serious minority in terms of the way I experience and react to things such as this. I also know that it’s quite possible that others would not be offended as they may have the same, in my opinion immature, sense of humor. Yet, in discussing with others, including members of my team, I found that I was not alone in finding these references uncomfortable.
Why is it that an inappropriate talk would even be permitted on a stage at any respectable conference? How does this in any way further the advancement of the software industry at large, and the Mac community especially? In my opinion, it sets us back quite a bit. During one of the much more informative and respectable talks of the week, the topic of diversity was brought up. The speaker pointed out the fact that the Mac community is full of mostly men from an educated and higher income background. The context was in discussion of how we tend to gravitate towards like minded people. And in fact, it’s impossible to argue that this is a truly diverse field by any means because women and minorities are grossly underrepresented as I’m sure you know.
However, what this experience and other similar encounters I have had in the last three years as a Mac developer have started to suggest is, maybe the Mac community doesn’t want people like me to be comfortable? Perhaps they would rather keep this a boy’s club forever, and it’s simply irritating when people like me disrupt that.
Wow, does that thought scare me. Coming from a different industry where diversity is praised and encouraged, could it be that software developers want the exact opposite? Clearly not all of us. But, perhaps some of the organizers of this particular conference gravitate toward that mindset.
The Mac development community has changed a lot over the years. There are new iOS consulting companies popping up all the time. Macs are in more homes than ever before in history. Mac developers are hiring business partners, even donning suits sometimes, and prancing into major corporations to work on exciting applications. It’s a new world, folks. And as a result, there will likely be growing pains.
All I ask is this…
First, if you are in a position where you can control the conduct and standards at a software event that is intended to be in any way professional, you are therefore obligated to do so. Or at least warn people who may be attending otherwise, so we may steer clear.
Second, before you start to defend this kind of inappropriate behavior in a professional setting, think about how you would feel if I were your daughter or your sister. I’m not against inappropriate humor by any means, I just think there’s a time and a place. This was not it.
Do we want the Mac community to be a place where anyone, regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. feels uncomfortable?
Diversity is great. It shows that our field is growing up. But diversity can only happen with acceptance, tolerance, and the ability to empathize with those who may feel uncomfortable, even if you yourself do not. I sincerely hope that at future Mac community events, I will not be similarly offended.
Thank you to the wonderful guys who provided support and feedback in preparation for this article. It’s nice to know we have some gentlemen out there in the Mac community!
Sincerely,
Brit
Update: After getting in touch with the conference organizers, I have a lot of hope regarding this issue. They were very concerned, apologetic, and acknowledged that this should not happen at a professional event. Thank you!
Dirty/sexist jokes in professional conferences do not count as "diverse standards of humor." They just make our industry look immature and unwelcoming.
So basically make it as boring as an insurance convention...
No, but being self-important and all-too-cautious and "professional" makes it.
I communicate best by using live nude people up on
stage in an interpretive dance. The human body is
beautiful. If you are offended by it you should just
leave. If you decide to ban me from your conference
you are just trying to censor my free speech.I appreciate it, because whenever these situations pop up, they quickly devolve into "tech is full of unprofessional assholes" versus "stop being such a baby". He also provides some background for why the session was done that way in the first place.
Based on this more specific info, I don't actually think this is offensive at all, and it's actually rather funny.
However, as with all jokes, it's how you tell 'em. I can imagine this all being done in a family friendly way. I can also imagine it being delivered in a wholly inappropriate drooling-pervert manner. We can't know unless we see a video.
As jalkut says in the blogpost, the jokes write themselves. You could deliver this entire talk in a deadpan manner, reading out all the "dirty words" as if they're perfectly normal, and all the dirtyness is in the minds of the audience. This is the beauty of innuendo and double entendre, it allows you to be dirty without actually being dirty.
There is a long tradition of this on BBC radio going back to the 60s, where unbelievably, unutterably filthy things have been talked about at 6:30pm, when children are having their dinner, via the potent medium of deadpan innuendo. The key is that everything should have be able to be parsed perfectly innocently, so if your children ask what it means you can tell them with no embarrassment. There have been things said at dinner time in this manner that would likely otherwise never have been allowed to be broadcast, at any time of day or night.
In this case however, based on the OP reaction, I think it's more likely that the presenter was gurning his way through the talk, giving suggestive "LOL DICKS!" messages through his speech mannerisms and body language. These were likely the root cause of the uncomfortableness.
But as I say, all this is speculation without video of the session.
With that said, even if the speaker did as you said and was completely deadpan, I would still think it's inappropriate. It's just not the appropriate place to even attempt to make those references, no matter how you do it. Among friends, I make and laugh at raunchy jokes. But professional environments should be more inclusive than that.
This is what topical, appropriate and actually funny humor in a professional setting looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVp8UGjECt4
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJKyztJJVdU (although this is something of a reversal of the concept)
And maybe a warning in the program beyond the name of the session.
Oh wait, never mind: "I sat down to listen to a talk that I could tell by the title of the talk, was going to be inappropriate. I thought to myself, I’m at a respectful Mac conference... I’m sure it will be ok...The speaker prefaced his talk by basically stating there was a little substance, but that most of the topics were being presented simply because of the sexual or otherwise inappropriate jokes that could be formed from the topics..."
The author is being quite inconsistent here. On the one hand, she thought she was at a "respectful Mac conference". On the other hand:
...this experience and other similar encounters I have had in the last three years as a Mac developer...
So even though she's previously been exposed to dirty jokes before at mac events, she still thinks that "I’m at a respectful Mac conference...I’m sure it will be ok."
Or the "dirty words" might be private APIs, which like actual dirty words would get your app rejected by Apple, but might be of interest to people writing for jailbroken devices.
So in the case of this session's title, there are conceivable alternate interpretations that a person might hope to be the case.
Thus, if a session is going to involve double entendres or ribald humor, it would be best to indicate so in the conference materials, so that attendees can best decide what to attend. (The problem with this would be if session presenters all wound up adding less-appropriate material)
Precisely. The humor involved sounds like the kind of thing you hear on Radio 4's News Quiz. Some of which is simply a BBC newsreader reading clippings from the media that have double meanings. (a non-sexual example: "The Bristol RSPCA is giving discounts on pet chipping. 15 pounds for cats and dogs, 10 pounds for old-age pensioners")
Needless to say, the News Quiz loves to talk about UK shadow chancellor Ed Balls.
It's possible, of course, that the speaker's presentation was rather less deadpan. But still, the woman who posted the complaint did have some warning of the content and tone.
"Samantha has to nip out now with her new gentleman friend. Apparently, they've been working on the restoration of an old chest of drawers. Samantha is in charge of polishing, while he scrapes the varnish and wax off next to her."
"Samantha nearly made it - she's been detained at the last minute in the city's Latin quarter. An Italian gentleman friend has promised to take her out for an ice-cream, and she likes nothing better than to spend an evening licking the nuts off a large Neapolitan."
To the uninitiated, try and imagine these being said by an 83 year old man who doesn't appear to realise that there is any other way to understand them, and that they are perfectly ordinary sentences. Oh yes, and samantha is an entirely fictional person who is constantly alluded to but doesn't exist. There's a moral question for you...
I don't find them funny, I find them interesting and useful. It's a discussion on interesting aspects of the Cocoa libraries. The common theme is that dirty minds could find the names of certain calls naughty. But it's not discussed or the point of the slides at least.
Seems like a reasonable talk. I was actually all set to defend the point of the author of the article, having read the article, but now seeing the slides I don't really see anything at all troublesome here. It's a valid tech talk.
But as you say, perhaps the video of the session would indicate the slides were ignored and it was a wild free for all of obscenities and bigotry.
Really? It's just a collection of crude jokes. I can't imagine how you could present those slides in anything other than a perverted manner.
Off the top of my head:
* Feign outrage, deliver the talk as if you are furious at apple for including such filth. "WHAT IF MY CHILDREN WERE TO HAPPEN UPON THIS API?!?" and so on.
* Feign acute embarrassment, as if one has been forced to deliver a talk about programming but cannot concentrate because of the distress these perfectly normal method names cause to your repressed puritan 1950s mind. Mumble, sweat, stammer, dart your eyes around but never actually say anything bad.
* Deliver the talk deadpan, but become increasingly upset at the audience's inevitable laughter at the bad words. Admonish them loudly for being so low-minded. When you deliver the last and crudest method name, with suitably overloaded timing, throw your notes to the ground and storm off the stage during the laughter.
I would support any criticism of a lack of female presenters and so on. But "criticizing" humor is in my view the highest form of arrogance existing. Telling other people what they are allowed to find funny and what not is just pure hypocrisy. If someone can't look behind a few unfunny remarks and pull the "I AM OFFENDED" card, any further argument seems impossible. I think there is a need besides the reductio ad hitlerum to introduce a reductio ad affendendum.
If a talk turns out to be disappointing there is always the option to leave, sneak into another talk, have a break, go outside, bond with other "leavers" and so on. There will always be individual preferences in regards to conference presentations and content but expecting that they have all to fit to ones personal preferences (and values) seems a bit unrealistic.
I would liken it to going to a talk at OSCON entitled, "What's Wrong With Microsoft," and finding out that it is just a string of Microsoft jokes. Sure one could have expected that at an Open Source conference. Sure one can walk out of the talk.
But am I barred from blogging about my disappointment with the level of professionalism/maturity at the conference? Does my ability to walk out invalidate how that talk reflects on the conference as a whole?
Feigning embarrassment is possible but extremely unlikely, given every "dirty word" has a comment at the end of its section emphasizing the joke.
I appreciate your comments, though. It's always good to have someone representing the other side in a reasonable manner.
If you sign up for a class about human sexual behavior, you shouldn't be offended when they talk about anal sex.
If I take a class on human sexual behavior, I don't expect 80% of it to be dick jokes.
If you go to a session that says it involves dirty words, you really shouldn't be surprised or offended when it involves dirty words, or at least attempts at saucy double entendres.
Admittedly, one might think "dirty words" wasn't meant so literally - perhaps it meant "words that describe things you shouldn't do, like 'over-release'". That ought to have been made clear in the conference materials.
We are _wired_ to pay attention to this stuff Yes, it's a huge distraction and again, counter-productive if you're trying to pay attention to anything else.
I'm not saying that you have to be offended. I'm telling you that I am uncomfortable here, please stop.
When you're in polite mixed company, you don't make tits & ass jokes. Nor do you go around tackling people, or belching the star spangled banner, or peeing in the water fountain. The same applies to speakers at a conference. There are expectations of minimally acceptable behavior in any social context. Racy humor is racy because it rides the fine line between the titillating and the vulgar. But that line is different depending on the social context, which makes it even more important to either get it right or not bother trying, because getting it wrong offends people and makes you look like an ass.
I'll just leave this here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc
Yes, words have meaning, and that meaning can change the world, but if someone making dick jokes causes you to get hyper-uncomfortable, maybe you have some personal sensitivity issues to work through before you start worrying about the level of professionalism at a conference that you obviously don't want to be at.
In short: "Yes Virginia, the world has dick jokes in it."
- Defamation
- Slander
- Sexual Harassment
- Non-sexual Harassment
- Yelling "fire" in a crowded theater
Someone wants to spread untrue rumors about you? Get over it! It's just a bunch of words! Sticks and stones, man!
Someone wants to making constant sexual advances towards you? Get over it! It's just a bunch of words! Sticks and stones, man!
Someone wants to make constant threats of violence against you? Get over it! It's just a bunch of words! Sticks and stones, man!
The basic logic that you're using is that the perception is in the eye of the beholder. If the beholder perceives something as bad, then they just need to change their perception.
From the perspective of the individual struggling to deal with the world, it may make sense to apply this logic to try and change perceptions to better deal with the world. From the perspective of the world as a whole, it makes less sense.
For example, a rape victim may wish to find some way to view the rape in a less negative light in order to move on with their lives. Does this mean that rape isn't bad, but just an issue with how the victim perceives it?
Seriously, if you don't like the way a conference is run, vote with dollars and go somewhere else. The rest of us who don't give a shit about things that don't matter will be there instead.
Blaming someone who is offended by your words is really a selfish way to look at the world. Again, this isn't about freedom of speech, it's about professionalism at a conference.