Sexual Harassment in the Tech Industry

So you're saying that in keeping with "gender stereotypes" men should be inconsiderate, sexist assholes and women should just shut up and deal with it ?

And for the record trying to equate a fashion/lifestyle magazine with the totality of the female gender is completely and utterly stupid.

Well I'm sure it's not hindering gender stereotypes when Alissa Quart chooses a publication which treats women as objections for fashion, who are desperately insecure about how they keep their man, and what secrets are kept.

I find it funny how she forgets that some of the criticisms of Adria Richards came from women, she phrases it as if the whole negative actions are the sole property of men. Myself I don't find tweeting someone else's conversation, with their photos and identities easily determinable appropriate. Gender and Sex have nothing to do with that.

TBH, I would guess that "brogrammers" actually comprise a very small number of trade show perpetrators due to the fact that they may generally have more social access to women outside of the work place. Many of the geeks I meet were and are socially very awkward people, social ineptness is (sometimes) correlated with ineptness in interacting with women. I would say (again, a guess) a "brogrammer" has less interest in sexually assaulting a woman at a trade show then a sexually deprived and socially inept geek does; you'll find brogrammers at bars and clubs where it seems the lewd treatment of women that aren't aware of their bodies due to drugs and alcohol is the norm.

Mind you, I'm not nearly saying all geeks are like this - I consider myself to be a reclusive geek but have the utmost respect for women and I have yet to meet another programmer that hasn't shared that mentality with me. (it makes me sad when so many trolls come out to bash - whether justified or not, it isn't a civilized conversation)

Society is entirely schizophrenic on this point. On the one hand, we use sex to sell everything under the sun. (And, for that matter, the sun itself -- come visit [insert sunny low-latitude vacation destination here]!)

On the other hand, we can't even consider it. At work, in professional circles, etc.

(At least, not "overtly". There's a lot of "covert" use in play, though. From both sexes. Physically attractive people, both anecdote and now studies show, get ahead.)

On the third hand... We are supposed to be "totally committed". (Or, we were supposed to be in the last decade -- I start to lose track.) You're not a quality employee if you aren't putting in 60 hours a week. Wait, you're not worthwhile if you don't own your own company. Work life, personal life -- there is no dichotomy. There can be only one! (Work)

So... radically, almost diametrically opposed viewpoints. And we are supposed to conveniently segregate them depending upon where we are and/or what we are doing. Only... we increasingly aren't supposed to segregate those very activities and locations.

Bah...

I'm all for treating people well. And I think that starts with divorcing ourselves from a lot of this -- both current and perennial -- cultural crap.

The only solution I can really think of is transparency. Don't lie to your kids, students, employees about how the world works. Hopefully, informed people are more likely and more empowered to behave as responsible adults. Respecting both others and themselves.

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P.S. I wrote this fairly quickly and on the basis of quickly reading the parent comment. I'll have to read through things more carefully, now.

I see that the article starts out describing a literal assault. I do not condone that nor mean to imply with my already-written comment that we can merely... "examine" ourselves out of all such circumstances.

All the same, a lot of the messaging in our society seems, by design or side-effect or both, to misinform. And to omit much needed conversation and correction before we reach the point of assault.

I think of the... scumbag behavior I so often encountered in school and at college.

When you're a young person and without good role models, it can be hard to figure out how to deal with that. And sometimes, even what to think of it. Type A or whatever personalities often make a certain amount of headway just by outright aggressiveness and intimidation.

Also, as a male, I've been in the perhaps somewhat less prevalent position of being manipulated by a world-class female user.

Perhaps we are at the vanguard of having another serious, cultural conversation about all this. Hopefully, for the better. Shine a light on it. Put it in context. Help people to see and find a better way.

There is a perception amongst some guys in IT that women aren't capable enough to be great programmers. Hence they either don't strive to higher positions (and higher wages) or they are deliberately kept down.

I've seen it happen on a few occasions and it's really disheartening to watch them get screwed over.

Are you sure you want the word to disappear as a relic of the 2000's? I ask because relic terms you suggest like metrosexuals, hippies, etc seem to have disappeared as the mainstream began to absorb their ethos.

Rather than address the content of what is being said you try and dismiss it as though Marie Claire could never, ever produce an objective, insightful look at the role of women in the IT industry. And then try and excuse the behaviour with a "but sales guys do it". Nice work.

I spent years at university (at great cost) and countless long hours because I genuinely believe that this is a serious profession on par with a doctor or scientist. And I for one am sick of these stories coming up again and again and being dismissed by people such as yourself again and again.

My experience must differ from yours, but metrosexual and hippie are useful superficial descriptors for many people I encounter. I know many people who would self-identify as either. When I was completing college I also knew several people who would gladly self-identify as brogrammers. The terms do not describe freak phenomena that we can sweep under the carpet.

To me, brogrammer mostly can be reduced to spending too much attention on vanity and not enough on the well-being of others. There are many synonymous terms, but this one is valuable for its succinctness.

About 90% right but rather than being divisive, as in forming or expressing division or distribution, you could just summarize it as "its a being civilized issue". As in you shouldn't act like a zoo primate, regardless of who is doing what to which gender, etc.

What those cons need is need is a bunch of moms and grannies not just young hotties (and no this is not blame the victim, keep reading) In that old women are a instinctual effective civilizing influence on young boys who are operating at a lower mental age for whatever reason. A stern glance from an old grannie is, oh, probably about 100x more effective at intimidating a jerk than a strongly worded article in Marie Claire. I'm sure that an entire nation of drunken childish frat boys is quaking in their boots knowing that Marie Claire magazine is not so happy with them. The presence of some father figures would help too, fathers of daughters of roughly the age of the harassed hotties tend to be kinda protective. I have no idea how a PR campaign "Take yer mom and grandpa to Defcon this year" would work.

Who would ever have guessed that it takes a cross section of all of society to act civilized, that some kinda weekend long lord of the flies re-enactment doesn't result in the revival of medieval chivalry or the revival of the womens lib movement or whatever.

The "4chan crowd" usually only needs some token amount of motivation, and a target. It doesn't matter of they care about the 'core values' at stake. IIRC, in the case of Adria Richards, it was posted somewhere on 4chan, and that's when things really took off (at least in terms of volume). The '4chan crowd' really only had to take offense to her 'name and shame' attitude, without caring about the larger 'sexual harassment policies at tech conferences' issue.

The first time I ever saw "brogrammer" was in a Facebook ad from Intel. I didn't think of it as negative, I thought it was a way of saying that programming was no longer (at least in the view of the general public) the purview of socially awkward dorks.