Dell Apologizes for Hiring 'Shut Up Bitch' Moderator
wired.com
wired.com
http://elektronista.dk/kommentar/dresscode-blue-tie-and-male...
Taken from the blog post:
[The] moderator starts to rejoice the lack of women in the room. “The IT business is one of the last frontiers that manages to keep women out. The quota of women to men in your business is sound and healthy” he says. “What are you actually doing here?” he adds to the few women who are actually present in the room.
...[He] finishes of by asking all (men) in the room to promise him that they will go home and say, “shut up bitch!”.
Goodness only knows why Dell hired him as their corporate voice. Shocking.
This guy is not world famous.
Should someone lose their job over this? Sure. Maybe even a few someones. /Someone/ knew who this guy is and hired him.
Should the whole of Dell be cast as misogynist for hiring someone that I bet Micheal Dell couldn't name if you asked him this morning? I don't think so.
Unfortunately there is still a lot of misogyny in the tech industry, and startups are no exception. It's hard to take companies seriously when they post job advertisements asking you if you "want to bro down and crush some code?" as Klout did.
Yes. Couldn't they hire some non-funny, sensitive guy, all-too-touchy about politically correct issues? HN is full of them!
That being said, the author of "therealkatie, lighten up" post is ridiculous as well.
I don't make femist jokes at work because doing so signify a complete lack of social skills on my part (same as the guy at Dell who selected the comedian). That being said, her (realkatie's) inability to handle those jokes also represents a complete lack of social skills.
I would guess that the guys making those jokes are probably interested in her rather than "discriminating" against her.
It never ceases to amaze me that someone can make a flip judgment about a person (even throw them under the bus!) after spending 2 minutes reading one single blog post that that person wrote.
You don't know her. It's pretty freakin' presumptuous to say she has a "complete lack of social skills", and reflects poorly on you.
I haven't laughed this hard in a few days. Thanks for that.
Not enjoying bullying, especially if it goes on for months or years, does not say anything about your social skills, either good or bad. It does say a lot about your workplace if such bullies are a permanent fixture, and if the problem persists, then cutting your losses and moving on is probably the sensible thing to do.
Yes, ideally, you should stand your ground and fight, but if this kind of garbage is tolerated by management, you're fighting a losing battle.
John Scalzi: "In the role playing game known as The Real World, 'Straight White Male' is the lowest difficulty setting there is." (http://whatever.scalzi.com/2012/05/15/straight-white-male-th...)
Yes -- lighten up (non ironically).
A representative of Dell, standing in front of Dell employees, should not be telling a chunk of those employees that they are worth less because of their gender.
If you have to hire someone and tell them not to use their trademark humour then why are you hiring them in the first place?
MC, however despicable, just did his thing as advertised.
Moreover, since when are we supposed to interpret what a comedian says so literally? The comment that seems to be most offensive is "Thank god there's so few women in this business, keep up the good work!" Taken sarcastically, that very statement would become an indictment of the tech industry for failing to maintain a gender balance. I am certain that if the same line had come from a lady, no one would have found it offensive.
Now, I am not saying that the comedian in question isn't misogynist. I know nothing about his personality. I am simply trying to play the devil's advocate. I just want to highlight that context and intention matter. Otherwise, Russel Peters would be in jail by now.
Also, why I am being downvoted to oblivion for raising a pretty reasonable point of discussion? In my mind, downvotes shouldn't be used as a tool for censorship, or to restrict discussion. It should be used for quality control more than anything else.
Well yes, because context matters. When you have a power disparity, comedy only goes one way - if a member of a majority group makes disparaging remarks about a minority group, that's not funny, it's straight-up bigotry.
For example, when I was working in India, I mentioned that my friend's babymomma (the mother of his child, to whom he was not married) was visiting me. The ladies in the office gave me a rather shocked and horrified reaction. In the US, you'd get the same reaction if you made a joke about Gujus.
My suggestion is that if you are in the US, play along with it and just accept it as a weird Americanism. In much the same way, Indians constantly asking me about my family is just a funny cultural thing I play along with.
The jokes made about me when I worked in India were along the lines of "no American jokes - he'll sue."
It does extend a bit beyond the US, but it's not remotely universal. Similarly, my remarks about Indian perception of babymommas and family values aren't restricted to India, but are certainly representative of a big cultural gap between India and the US.
Pretty much any logical justification one could provide would be hopelessly based on other cultural practices and ideas, though I'd love to hear you try to cook one up that isn't (you might surprise me).
Acceptance is not the same as acceptability.
This is simply a statement of a moral value. The fact that a certain group of people tend to agree with such a statement is a cultural thing.
You should choose your words more carefully. "Ignorant" implies a lack of knowledge, I believe "immoral" is actually the word you were looking for.
I didn't say anything about unwed mothers.
Once again, acceptance is not the same as acceptability. Just because sexist comments are accepted in India doesn't make such comments acceptable from a normative moral standpoint. The same thing can be said about your unwed mothers statement. Such a statement might be accepted somewhere, but shouldn't be acceptable.
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make about cultural things - you seem to be advocating some sort of moral relativism, is that correct? If so, then okay, but then we need to look at the context for the original comments, which is at a Danish Dell professional event, not India, or anywhere else. It's an environment where sexism and racism is not generally accepted, and where it is considered unacceptable, which is a good thing, from a moral evolution standpoint.
Perhaps India and its casual acceptance of sexism and racism has something to learn from its more morally enlightened neighbours.
What relevant facts do you believe I am unaware of, and how do those facts invalidate my reasoning?
Note that accusations of ignorance without actually demonstrating it usually fall into the realm of ad-hominem (i.e., a logical fallacy).
I'm not quite sure what point you're trying to make about cultural things - you seem to be advocating some sort of moral relativism, is that correct?
I'm not advocating any particular moral beliefs, you are.
I'm suggesting that the best way to understand these American attitudes on jokes/etc is to merely treat them as an American/western cultural/moral value rather than look for a logical basis for them. I.e., the same thing I'd suggest to Americans asking about Indian attitudes towards unwed mothers.
It's hard to see when that would ever be acceptable
Perhaps you should actually read the original report by the Danish blogger: http://elektronista.dk/kommentar/dresscode-blue-tie-and-male...
Then, perhaps, you should put yourself in women-in-tech's shoes and ask yourself why this might be offensive. We're a small minority which is, on the one hand, desperately in need of encouragement, yet, on the other hand, continually set back by the sexist, intimidating attitudes of some men in the industry.
For some other examples you might want to see http://programmersbeingdicks.tumblr.com/
Can you see that the mountains of scorn you heap on 'men in tech' represent the very landscape of sexism you rail against?
As a 'male in tech' and a husband, and a son, and a father of two girls... as a friend and a collegue or as a boss, this shit has moved from mildly aggravating to outright hurtful.
Women in tech: it's not all men. It's some men, don't sink to their level, please lead by example instead.
It's not just some bad male apples. I'm fine saying that I'm a privileged sexist male, because I've lived all my life in societies with bizarre preoccupations with gender roles, where one gender dominates the other.
As a man in technology, you come with a whole heap of privilege, you need to understand what it's like from the other side. That tumblr rightly calls out people in tech who are dicks, particularly to women. Without sites like this, people might continue thinking that this sort of behaviour is acceptable.
Are you aware of how insulting this assertion is?
Clearly not...
Besides, I said "might". I probably should have said "some people", but the fact that I have to defend a site that points out abhorrent behaviour towards a minority group in an industry is pretty shocking to begin with.
The question is why wouldn't it be? Racist and reverse racist jokes, jokes playing with national stereotypes in general, are the stock and trade of comedians. Same for jokes about women, marriage, mother's in law, etc.
It's fucking joke. It's not supposed to be the comedian's party line.
Wow. For the record, I would, as a white person, feel similarly uncomfortable and disgusted by racist jokes in any setting really. It's one thing to make fun about yourself, it's another to poke fun at others' expense in an unkind manner.
If a comedian at a Dell event had used the word 'nigger' in almost any joke context, someone would have been fired.
Everyone is well aware of the technology stereotypes. If he called all the men <insert stereotype> would Dell have to apologize?
No, because men aren't oppressed in our society and especially our industry.
Saying stuff that contributes to an oppressive environment isn't okay, even if you package it as a joke.
If you don't understand what I just said: congratulations, you're probably pretty privileged.
men aren't oppressed in our society and
especially our industry
Jokes have been historically used by oppressed people to express their frustrations. Not saying it's the same thing here, but trying to ban humor, even if it is politically incorrect, is really not OK.
The world would be a much better place if we smiled more.
Jokes have been historically used by oppressed people to express their frustrations. Not saying it's the same thing here, but trying to ban humor, even if it is politically incorrect, is really not OK.
The world would be a much better place if we smiled more.
Majority of homeless: men
Majority of crime victims: men
Majority of workplace fatalities: men
Majority of prisoners: men
That said, there are enough places where sexist jokes are made at men - by both men and women. Nobody complains and nobody cares. That is just the way it is :(
Oh for fuck's sake, it's not thought when words are uttered out loud. It's also not crime when free people freely protested the free speech of a free individual who has not been punished by any government.
Godwin's Law should be updated to include Orwell's fictions because nobody seems to have a sense of perspective about them.
> I, for one, welcome the world where nobody complains about jokes.
And I would welcome a world where everyone thinks for two seconds about what it's like to be a constant target of said jokes, uses their basic human empathy to listen to said complaints, and then reasons about it for a while instead of defensively dismissing the complaints with a privileged wave of the hand.
1) person A, using free speech, espouses some (typically ill-conceived) idea
2) person B, using free speech, criticizes said idea
3) person A compares person B to Adolf Mao Orwell scuffing their jackboots on free speech.
For example, imagine a fat person (or a short person, or a ugly person, bald person etc) - is it okay to make fun of his/her fatness, shortness etc, all day long? how would that person feel?
This has nothing to do with "professionalism". It is about just being as much nice to fellow humans as possible.
And according to the article, this Christensen guy is supposed to be "motivational speaker" - what kind of motivation, I can't understand.
The worst thing out of this episode is this - there are lots of nice men in the IT industry, who genuinely want more women in the industry. They'd like to help, and do everything they can to make IT more appealing to women - then routinely, a couple of times a month, these incidents occur - and it gives the entire IT industry a bad name, undoing all the good work done by others.
If they had hired a comedian who singled out men in tech as neckbeard virgin nerds, and played on stereotypes, I think it would be almost as unacceptable. "Unacceptable" because it's an obnoxious stereotype, "almost" because men are still the majority/power group in tech and can take it more easily than the outnumbered female minority.