Dear Fellow Rubyists
dyepot-teapot.com
dyepot-teapot.com
It's easier to write someone off as not worth listening to, if they say or do something "offensive". So, if you have something you consider important to say, it might behoove you to think about the ways people can write you off as not worth listening to. Since the fellow with the naked ladies in his presentation included the naked ladies in order to get attention, I'm going to assume he felt like he had something important to say. And, since nobody is talking about what he said, and only how he said it, I'm thinking he failed.
You have a vivid imagination. The sex scenes are perhaps the mildest of any modern scifi I can think of...and they came in later novels, perhaps after he was thoroughly confident no one took his writing lightly. He also practically murdered the one actually sexually explicit story he wrote in his early career (The Portable Star), by insuring it wasn't published again in any collection during his life.
Compare Asimov to any of his contemporaries...Heinlein, Farmer, Dick, etc. Clarke was also a bit more "polite", and I guess, also more inclined toward people taking his work more seriously and thinking more about the serious issues he was addressing.
Of course, he also felt that he just wasn't very good at writing female characters or romantic subjects, so he avoided it for the sake of his readers. So, if we're being entirely strict about using Asimov as an example, it also falls apart because he had several reasons for not doing sex very often...not just wanting to be taken seriously.
After finding another useless gender debate, I wanted to find out what the 'offensive' presentation was. Instead I found something no ruder than a Sunday newspaper, got distracted by the CouchDB content, and learnt.
I don't think it's useless at all, and I've yet to hear a cogent argument to the contrary. If you think the discussions are ineffective, then explain why. What should be done differently? What can we do to have less ineffective discussions?
If you think discussing the subject is pointless because discussing equality is useless, then... fuck knows, there's not much point in discussion is there :P
Additionally, it's worth pointing out that Matt, having heard and taken the criticism he was given, responded by removing a number of risque images from the presentation that is now posted on the ultrasaurus thread linked up here.
It's creating more division rather than helping. Just quit moaning about it and get on with building.
We're in an industry where gender is pretty irrelevant.
Asking "How do we get more women into tech" though is like asking how we get more boys to play with dolls.
Let people get on and do what they want to.
I know girls who have been interested in tech, who abandon it, either because of the presumption that they will not be welcome, or in response to actual behavior of their male peers (i know numerous girls who've been in CS classes, who've been in group projects, only to have one of the group members by the end of the project freak out on them, or get -really- -really- passive aggressive, after it becomes clear that said girls have no romantic interest in a particular group member).
While my personal experience is obviously anecdotal, discussions i've had and things i've read indicate to me that the experiences my friend have had are not outliers.
So, it may be that, overtly, some think that gender is irrelevant in coding, or even that coding isn't social, but gender is part of identity, just as much as much as your coding creations are part of your identity.
Also, comparing the ability to determine at your own abilities what career you would like to be in, and how you can contribute to society to playing with dolls? Trivializes the cause of gender equality a bit don't you think?
Additionally, boys are actively discouraged from playing with dolls. Society punishes such behavior, and vigorously promotes alternative behavior in it's place. So, ask yourself, why shouldn't boys be able to play w/ dolls? Why does society discourage it? :p
Don't get me wrong, proportional gender representation (or at least anything closer than what we have now) in tech isn't a unique problem. My wife is in Dietetics (what dietitians do, not what Tom Cruise does), and they've got the opposite gender distribution from what the Ruby community does. It's just as frustrating for them as to why guys don't go into their field. It's certainly not because a male perspective wouldn't be useful (since there are cultural distinctions between how guys view food, health, and the human body). It's not because they're not good at contributing to the field (i've heard some really cool things that guys in food science & nutrition have produced out of the University of Guelph for instance)
But the notion that we should just ignore it is... pretty pathetic in my opinion :( Just because some don't care, doesn't mean it's not a problem, or that it's not an injustice that should be addressed.
It doesn't. It calls them "action figures."
I hope you'll agree that even if there are outward similarities between dolls and action figures, most boys and girls make a distinction between the two (which is a learned behavior). If you swap a child's dolls for action figures, or visa-versa, you don't get identical behavior. There is a cognitive distinction.
Instead of whining about other people's behavior, perhaps people should do things to tackle the inequalities they perceive (such as the fine Girl Geek Dinners or "do a Amy Hoy" and put out some damn good blog posts and apps and become well known and respected in the community).
I see the irony in that I'm whining about someone else's behavior, but I don't want anything to be "fixed" as such.. I just wish these smart, decent people would get on with doing great work instead of losing time on a crazy argument that always goes nowhere.
I do not know her personally, but we have enough peers in common, that I know she also does "Amy Hoy's" (I like that phrase, btw :D ) and regularly puts out pretty cool tools (I'm pretty sure she's a key contributor to Calagator (Ruby events calendar)) and blog posts.
But even if she didn't...
I think if you witness something you're not comfortable with, and everybody else is quiet about it, it's actually brave AND valuable to speak up. I know it gets old reading about it on Hacker News, heck, I agree with these gender-posts most of the time, and I never vote them up, just because I wince in fear at the threads that happen.
I'm sick of the debate, but even sicker of the reality.
Still, I identify with whatever that sensation it is you feel (petercooper) when you see a gender topic on HN. My heart sinks, too. But I still admire the bloggers who take the time write a post, knowing full well they'll get tons of cruel, off-topic comments from strangers (so far she's been called a whore, ideally removed by now), and bite the bullet and write anyway ...
[apologies, i lightly edited my last line right before somebody quoted it]
I see it more along the lines of unnecessary repetition, like the incessant blog posts about how "Rails sucks" or how "slow" Ruby is. We get the message. If one can't bring something new to the table or at least let a year pass to see how things progress, does it need to be said yet again?
Apparently so, since certain ruby programmers think it's appropriate to put soft-core porn into conference presentations.
If somebody made something new with Ruby, and then it did something really cool or really bad, I would want to hear about it that developer's experience and opinion with it.
The anecdote described in the blog post, whether you agree with it or not, just happened, it was "new."
Rubyists are -not- all that liberal, just like most programming communities are not all that liberal. There are a lot of very outspoken liberals, however, there are just as many conservatives (and i use this in the American liberal/conservative distinction) out there to argue with.
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Frankly i find your sentiment dispiriting and unhelpful. Discussions like these are indicative of a problem. I vociferously agree that we need action more than words, but simply disregarding the discussion, and there by the problem, sounds like willful denial to me.
Fundamentally it comes down to this. If ruby is supposedly more egalitarian and accessible than other programming languages (which is something we tell ourselves as Rubyists), why are there -fewer- women than in many other technical fields? Why are we doing such an awful job of recruiting and retaining people so that our gender ratio is at freaking least >5% women?
Pragmatically, the question that needs to be answered is what can you or i (or any individual rubyist) do to alleviate this problem? What are the pitfalls and impediments to attempting to help?
If nobody talks about the issue it's hard to see how we can make any progress. If you don't like the tone the conversation has taken, try and spin it off into something that is more constructive.
I think Peter's point was that the action needed has to come from those who want to play a larger role in their respective Ruby community. What's needed are more code and talk proposals, not blog posts.
One poster referred to women being excluded, which is an interesting claim. I've never heard another Rubyist make a comment to suggest that anyone should be excluded from any Ruby activity. If anything, the people I know are on active lookout for anyone interested in Ruby.
One way to have more women at Ruby events is for more women to write more notable code and step up to give notable presentations.
If anyone thinks this is already going on, and women are being deliberately put aside in favor of men, I would love to see some evidence for this.
I was part of the advisory group for the recent Mt. West RubyConf, and out of the 50 or so talks proposed, I don't think a single one was from a woman. So, who needs to step up to make things change?
Why? Because when we use the word "sexist," some people immediately go into "i only care about the code, I don't care about the gender" mode, which I think is sincere, but misses the point about the other, non-code-review behavior not being cool.
I believe it when people say they can impartially evaluate code and conference proposals without being distracted by gender. But that doesn't mean we can't be alienating with our behavior.
The blogger in this post is successfully putting Ruby code into the world, and co-chairing a new conference (raising eyebrow, maybe she is "doing something about it" :D ). It's not necessarily about acceptance, which she has. It's about wanting to really like your community, which she doesn't at the moment.
Speaking personally (am female)my problem with this is more the feeling of being repelled than excluded.
I regularly back away from IRC channels, user group meetings, BOF's, etc not because I think individuals are sexist by the definition of "They think females are inferior coders," I don't think that's the problem. The sensation is more like, "it seems like they'd have more fun if I weren't here."
I think to myself, "If they're talking about strippers and whores this much when I'm here, they probably would have more fun if I weren't." I don't call them out, it's their space as much as mine. I just leave.
It's not really about content, it's about context. There are a million places where the t&a graphics from those slides wouldn't make me wince at all, but this place wasn't one of them. Ditto strippers. I'm not offended, I'm just pickin' up signals.
That said, I don't think anything should be censored or not allowed, (not that anybody, even the original blogger has suggested as much), We just can't be surprised when people who don't know us well interpret our subjective expressions a certain way.
Lot of people are talking whether the presenter "meant to offend." Of course he didn't. He seems really nice and smart. And NOT sexist. I feel bad for him, because this issue is bigger than him, and I'd probably love to hang out with him in a heartbeat, even though I don't think his slides were the right call.
But...
I'm reminded of this Jay Smooth video where he said you have separate "if a person is racist* from "is what the person said racist?"
(http://www.illdoctrine.com/2008/07/how_to_tell_people_they_s...)
Personally, I'm willing to drop the word sexism altogether, and just say, bad (subjective, but may get us to focus the discussion more.) This way, we can talk more about whether stuff is good for us, rather than if it's sexist.
(added)
If we wish to see more equal participation, we need to foster more equal participation. The existence of opportunity does not always guarantee participation, particularly if there are cultural or institutional biases against participation (this i would argue is a feature of tech communities writ large, not a problem specifically with Ruby, since i think the majority of the rubyists i talk to would welcome greater participation from women [but that is a fact that is hard to know without explicitly talking about the subject with them]).
We promote Ruby. We look for people to advocate our programming language to. We already recruit. Why aren't we doing a better job of recruiting women? What can we do to be better about it?
It's bullshit to point at this one occurrence, ignore 99% of what else goes on, and suggest there's a culture of deliberate exclusion in Rubyland. 8 years of active Ruby involvement tells me otherwise. Maybe it's true for the NYC crowd, I don't know. They'll be the ones to explain (or not) how this talk came about. But to me it's an aberration.
Also, the discussion that's going tells me there are many Rubyists who have a problem with this sort of presentation (though exactly what that problem is seems to vary).
It seems more to be part of a virulent strain of annoying juvenility that pops up in numerous tech corners.
People are not claiming that this presentation is representative of all presentations in the Ruby community. This presentation and the reaction afterward is being taken as INDICATIVE of a problem that is neither recognized nor addressed.
More to the point:
"This presentation and the reaction afterward is being taken as INDICATIVE of a problem that is neither recognized nor addressed."
I don't see a single presentation out of whatever total number of Ruby talks as coming even close to being indicative of a problem.
Nine years of Ruby conferences. One comes along that demonstrates notable poor taste. That's a good record.
These traits are more common in people who keep perpetuating the gender debate. People who show resentment for how communities naturally behave and who stubbornly think a demographic quota has to be met for the world to be a friendly and fair place. I'm of the live-and-let-live mentality. I resent no-one and I'm only stubborn about people doing what the heck they want as long as it harms no-one else.
If people want to continue complaining about gender equality, whether Ruby is "slow" or not, whether Rails sucks or not, whether Kevin Federline's album is really the worst ever, or any such thing, I have no personal issue with that, but I felt, at least, it was finally worth noting that these discussions have all taken place 101 times before and that they're not making a scrap of difference.
I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments. Being curmudgeonly would demand I actually care about the essence of those same arguments.
Peter, i really mean this good-naturedly, your responses want nothing for lack of consistency.
The distinction i would make here between Kevin Federline's artistic merit, and equality in the work place is that one matters, and the other does not (sorry K-Fed :P ).
You can claim that any discussion of gender equality shares the same futility as arguing over cultural minutiae, however that does not mean they are equally trivial.
Nor, do past results indicate future performance.
I'd like to stress that i agree with you, that the previous discussions have not resulted in much change, and that conversations should gear towards the constructive. But, engagement is the only way forward on the issue. Ignoring it will not make it go away, and will not make it better.
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Just to be absolutely clear the "I'm impartial, apathetic, and weary of seeing good people get mired in these arguments." is the curmudgeonly bit ;) People care about this subject, so telling them that it's futile and not to discuss it is sort of a dampener, innit.
I don't see what's wrong with people pointing that out.
If you consider that gratuitous pornography, boy are you in for a shock some day.
I'm a little disappointed that there isn't a strong tone being taken against this guy; perhaps I'm just missing it? Even the woman bloggers seem to be apologizing for the offense they've taken.
Those slides were hugely sexist and misogynistic; the imagery was stereotypical and gratuitous. I wasn't there, so didn't hear any accompanying commentary, but he would have to be an amazing speaker to make those slides appear not objectionable.
[Edit: There was a non-apology, after all. http://www.ultrasaurus.com/sarahblog/2009/04/gender-and-sex-... -- Really, his wife saw nothing wrong with this?]
I've never heard Matt say anything misogynistic, and his wife Heidi is extremely friendly, intelligent and polite. Really, i am positive there was no ill intent here. This was a failure of judgement, not a failure of character.
Why is that hard to believe?
If there were minors in the audience, then sure. If it was a conference for nuns or something, then yup... the slides would be inappropriate. But it wasn't afaik
I can understand an argument that it's distracting, but offensive? nope.
It's a topic that requires empathy, and most people come around to someone else's point of view only through seeing their body language when talking about an offensive topic.
The slides I saw were far less racy than most magazines/news papers.
That context is completely different from being in a room filled with men you don't know at a professional conference. Can you see how having the presenter show sexual images, all of women, could make women attendees uncomfortable?
My understanding is that women in technology offer suffer from degrading sexism - from being ignored/marginalized to having their butts patted (yep, still happens). It makes sense to me that women would be uncomfortable to be at a professional conference where the presentation is "priming" the attendees to see women in a sexual way.
It's not at all the same as watching tv or reading a magazine in private, and the same standards don't apply.
I was going to criticize the blog hugothefrog linked to for indicting the whole Ruby community because of one asshole, but then I thought about it a little more and really? Nobody organizing the conference looked at his title and said hold on a minute? Or asked to vet the slides beforehand? Or in the audience stood up and said, "Matt, you're an asshole."
This might have been funny in 6th grade. Now it's incredibly tasteless and probably actionable.
He promotes tech, he contributes to the community, i've never seen him be mean or rude to anyone. If his wife and the others he keeps company with are any indication, people like him and thinks he does well by others.
I saw the title and thought it was tasteless (i wasn't actually at GoGaRuCo), and maybe i should have said that it would have been upsetting, but i genuinely just thought it was going to be tasteless, not something that would offend (There's a book called "How to make love like a porn star" with the subtitle "A Cautionary Tale").
It's possible that Matt's presentation could have been executed in a manner that didn't offend. Nor was his intent juvenile, as you have asserted. From what he's said, he seems to have thought that people would be liberal (i don't mean that politically speaking) enough to handle the subject matter, which i think is a mistake he is not likely to make again.
So, there's the disconnect. Matt had one impression of how his presentation would be received, and that assumption did not go challenged until after he delivered the pesentation. The audience, not knowing Matt, have different assumptions and boundaries on what is and isn't appropriate in a presentation. I'm willing to go so far as to say Matt was wrong on this. He made the wrong decision. But he didn't do it because he's callous, or mean, or misogynistic.
The only correction I'd make to his post would be to state that people in nearly all communities (perhaps not the members of the Professional Association of Honest Apologists) are unable to apologize gracefully.
Here's another example: http://use.perl.org/~Alias/journal/31986
So, sure, people are talking about the presentation. They're just not talking about the technical content of the presentation.
I don't think that's a winning proposition.
A few times recently I've heard people remark on one or another presentation, but they were captivated by the jokes or visual gimmickry.
When I was watching some of those talks, my thought was, you've only got 30 minutes, and you're wasting it with jokes?
It's nice to have a talk that's remembered, but it should be for the essential content, not for the fluff (or, in some cases, the fluffer.)
I wouldn't be surprised if non-tech people thought this was a porn site thing.