Not being able to make sexually explicit jokes in private at a public conference is absolute ludicrous. No question that the offender here is the person posting this out of context and seemingly out of spite.
If you happen to work in California, you should know that this kind of remark, if repeated and unwelcome, would constitute harassment. If the person concerned was in management at a company, that's a problem.
As for her reporting method, the conference organizers specifically say they want information in writing, and they want to be the ones handling it, not individual attendees.
https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/harassment-i...
I think the use of twitter could use some help, however.
True, but unwelcome is key. How do you know if a remark is unwelcome? Someone tells you so -- either the offended or HR (whom the offended told). They don't post it on Twitter or blog about it, they talk about it with people in a position to correct the problem.
I know plenty of women who wouldn't feel the least bit offended by a dongle joke -- point being, you can't say "well there's a woman in earshot, better turn on the woman filter."
Personally I believe you should make an honest effort to behave professionally, especially in the presence of folks you don't know, but different folks have different yardsticks for this. That's why you communicate.
They were really proud that 20% of attendees were female (that was on a keynote slide), Guido wore a "python is for girls" shirt (as he did last year), the Pyladies organization sponsored a ton of events (pycon after party, a mani-pedi get-together, auction [1]), there were at least 4 groups with a booth in the vendors section with the goal to include more women (pyladies, ladycoders, ada initiative, some other one I forget).
I mean, it's not a black and white issue and I concede that those remarks will be taken different depending on the situation. However, in this situation where everyone is celebrating the progress that's been made (and knows how much more still needs to be done), such remarks are IMO totally inappropriate.
1: Technically, the auction was supporting the pyladies group, I don't know if they ran/sponsored it, but it was all for their benefit.
That said, I don't understand how this snowballed into people getting fired from their jobs. What they did was wrong, but things really got blown out of proportion, and we the internet haven't been helping. The story should have ended with the stern talking to by the pycon staff.
In this case, the conference had an explicit policy prohibiting sexually explicit jokes. You can read the policy here: https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/
Note specifically the wording "Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue" and "Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon."
Expecting attendees of the conference to obey the conference rules in the crowded auditorium during a presentation seems quite reasonable to me. I am not sure violating it is a firing offense, but I cannot blame the person posting it for writing honestly about their own experience.
There are situations where they'd know it's not ok to make sexual jokes. They would not be making these jokes at a funeral, or at a niece's dance recital, or over dinner with their grandmothers.
Note also that they were in conversation with Adira seconds before they made the joke, so it's not entirely clear to me that they could even reasonably expect that they be ignored.
Otherwise we have an overclass who has the power to police the conduct of an underclass.