Except: A) She posted the picture in question on that twitter feed and B) She identifies herself as affiliated with her (former) employer at the top of that feed/in her profile. To me, those make her "personal" feed not so personal and wholly germane to this conversation.
What seems to be in question here, however, is whether people may post truthful comments on twitter, which under U.S. law are by definition not libelous.
(Also, in this case, I do believe that she used her twitter feed for 'official'/work-related duties, so that does genuinely blur the line between personal and professional)
The whole point is we're trying to protect people from offensive behavior. The definition of what's offensive is vague at best. Common approach - if someone was offended, it's offensive - assumes that we trust victims accounts that they were in fact offended.
While context is important, it is much harder to believe that someone would be seriously offended by a joke when they make the same kind of a joke themselves. That's why the tweet is relevant.
And quite often, we find that something that wasn't offensive yesterday can very well be offensive today.
First, being part of a minority group and claiming offense gives you a lot of power to inflict damage on others. You are leveraging both, the legal system and very strong social stigmas. There is a reason why you are granted this power, but with power comes responsibility. If I walk on a sidewalk and bump into someone, I say I'm sorry and we go about our business. If I'm driving a 18-wheel truck and bump into someone, it's an entirely different story. We don't have a magic gauge to measure your emotional state, so we have to take your word for it. I think scrutinizing your past to ensure that what you say is at least consistent with what you do is a reasonable measure to prevent people from abusing the aforesaid power.
Second, if something wasn't offensive to you yesterday, but suddenly is today - even if I'm most sincerely trying to avoid offending you, how do I keep up with the "list of things that offend you" du jour? Do you have a protocol in mind?
As far as I've seen, people's atitudes towards crude jokes do not change in the space of a few hours. Maybe they might change that quickly if something significant were to happen in that space of time, but I doubt it in this case.
That said, I don't think this is a case of her asking for it. It's just pointing out hypocrisy, which is a perfectly OK thing to do. It's less extreme but analogous to pointing out someone who complains about domestic violence being themselves an abuser.
Just because I send two emails from my Gmail account doesn't mean they are related and/or relevant.
It's nice that all of the sudden "pycon" is a "professional event" as if people are all walking around in suits and ties and monocoles.
Plenty of people go to conferences with friends as social events. Pycon is definitely like that for a lot of folks. That's why it's billed as an "annual gathering for the community".
Talking privately in hushed tones at a conference you treat as a social event is, IMHO, much better than blaring it out publicly to 11,210 followers.
Also, the context is very different. You may think of PyCon as a social gathering, but it is in fact work-related for a lot of people (including, presumably, Adria in her role as a developer evangelist). What's acceptable in an informal, personal setting (e.g. jokes made to people who explicitly chose to view her personal twitter stream) may not be acceptable in any kind of professional setting.
I believe you're in the wrong room sir, that would be the Steampunk convention down the hall.
penis jokes on twitter = OK
penis jokes behind me in public = BAD
The real problem is that she took what could have been a simple case of "inappropriate but dealt with" to a completely different and public level.
I'm not even commenting on whether either gender _should_ have such a monopoly (they shouldn't in my view). But just in actual fact it is not so in our society today.
Do you know what a developer evangelist is or even what is expected of someone taking a representative role at a company? I don't know what this has to do with sending two letters from gmail. Sounds like argument from irrationality or grotesquely inappropriate analogy.
Aria will be fine, she has quite an audience, as her blog shows, and she will be continue to be invited. I am just not sure that I like her methods.
In the current day & age, for better or worse, you have to be very acutely aware of your "surroundings" -- that includes what you post on any social media website, and especially if you explicitly name your employer.
IMO, and again, for better or worse, this does currently apply to both personal and business accounts as long as they're visible...
If someone's job is to be a public figure or spokesperson for a given company then everything they do publicly online is relevant (I'm a huge advocate of using pseudonyms and anonymous communication online over personally identifiable communication.)
And why doesn't that logic hold for the two people who were joking amongst themselves? The parallel is : just as her twitter feed is public, and other people can "hear" her speak, these guys were making private jokes at a public event, and that is none of her business.
Your argument is basically akin to saying that, because I told some dirty jokes to my friends in private, I'm never allowed to complain when someone tells a dirty joke in public.
Ah, Twitter is now considered private but two devs speaking in their chairs are pretty much delivering a speech.
Besides, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said you're not allowed to do these things, but you shouldn't be allowed to complain about it, just like senators who watch porn lose credibility when passing laws against all forms of porn.
There's also a matter of context. A personal twitter stream is a very different context than a professional event. If I'm friends with my coworkers, I may hang out with them after work, and a dirty joke then is perfectly acceptable. But with the exact same people, at the workplace, a dirty joke is inappropriate. Exact same people. The difference is context.
Furthermore, you wouldn't then see yourself as a "hero" for publicly shaming the people who made said lewd joke. Simply turning around and telling them that what they're doing isn't appropriate.
Also, it's not like those two developers were using a microphone or loudspeaker or some such device, they were just chatting away behind her and talking to each other. Sometimes we forget that people may overhear us when we talk to each other in a public setting. In that context is inappropriate speech(not sexist, not outright wrong, just inappropriate for that context) grounds for public shaming and firing when you simply could've forgotten(or not thought about) being overheard?
I just think that she went overboard with the reaction and even seeing herself as heroic for doing something like that. The fact that she makes jokes like that in a different context simply shows that it couldn't have been that offensive to her(maybe just cringe-worthy) to warrant such a reaction.
(wikipedia article on ad hominem)
In this case, i'd think it's pretty fucking valid.
Argumentum ad verecundiam fallacy (argument from authority), supporting argumentum ad hominem fallacy.
Nicely done.