Adria Richards fired by SendGrid for outting developers
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
Sadly, humans are not perfect. Making dumb jokes and posting a photo of those who made dumb jokes online? Dumb mistakes.
Firing people, DDoS attacks, vile threats: Now that’s a shitty clusterfuck. The bullies have driven the conversation.
Now, attempting a public shaming will also bring negative attention on your employer. That can get you fired.
A bunch of innocent bystanders are dragged in to the foray when the mob attacks the employer of the offended woman. The woman's employer wants nothing to do with any of the mess, so they fire her very publicly on the internet in an attempt at triage for their bleeding customer base.
Meanwhile, the conference organizers institute what could only be described as a "gag order" policy with regard to harassment issues.
Please -- oh please -- explain to me how one could possibly extract anything "good", with regard to equality or otherwise, from this situation?
People making off-colour jokes at a conference is unacceptable (perhaps not a firing offence).
Posting pictures of fellow attendees from a conference, while your work is paying you to be there, with insulting messages about them, is also unacceptable (but perhaps not a firing offence).
No-one involved here comes off particularly well, but I truely believe if if Ardia had done any (or all) of:
* Talk privately to the people * Talk privately to the organiser of PyCon * Talk publicly about the issue, without giving out pictures or names
She would not now be having a problem of anywhere near the same size, or now be fired.
Misogyny is kind of like porn: "you know it when you see it". There is a simply an undue level of hatred for Adria which is correlated to her gender, I think in large part because she is an outspoken feminist.
A lot of people in this community would very much like outspoken feminists not to exist (check the comments here or on Reddit anytime a post about women in tech goes up).
Another way to look at it: I can't imagine this chain of events would have gone down if a man pointed out a lewd joke at a conference.
The whole thing really smells like a feminist backlash.
I'm trying to be more outspoken about gender bias I encounter in the workplace, but incidents like this are a terrifying reminder of why that can be dangerous.
A few months ago I posted about an inappropriate comment someone made to me at a hackathon and got lots of advice (on this forum) to publicly out and shame the person. Seeing that my company could have come under attack for that is a reminder of why it's dangerous for women to speak out.
There's been sensible debate and abuse. There may be an overlap, but they are distinct reactions. If you challenge someone, you invite them to challenge you back (I hope she's not terrified by disagreement). But abuse and threats are entirely separate, and seem to have come from people beyond the industry, e.g. anonymous. Lots of trolls on the net are just looking for a fight and gender politics fades into the background when you have a large number of people on a hair-trigger, willing to use any language at their disposal that they can make fit the target.
She chose public justice for all, including herself and anyone she represented in that context. That works both ways, regardless of gender.
What concerns me is that even in the face blistering internet rage, she dug in her heels and stood by her actions. Just apologize. Why is it so bloody hard for people these days to just admit they made a mistake? Being fired, harassed on twitter, etc etc could not possibly be better than writing "I'm really sorry I publicly outed those guys, I should not have done that, and will refrain from doing that in the future".
Here's another thread where I argue that an apology could have fixed things: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5415524
Some of the responses were indignant, and people said she shouldn't have to apologize for her actions. I agree, she doesn't need to apologize. But look where it got her! This is indicative of a much broader trend I see. People today would rather lose a finger than say they're sorry. I just cannot understand it.