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esbwhat

272 karma · joined May 27, 2012

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esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
>she was tweeting sexual innuendos while at the conference

besides the point. It's not about the sexual innuendo, it's about the context of the sexual innuendo. Clearly she is not a prude and against sexual jokes in general. But in that specific environment, they were inappropriate. Twitter is a different environment.

esbwhat··on Blocked Sites is discontinued
well, android
esbwhat··on Blocked Sites is discontinued
Can I ask you why you see DDG as the perfect alternative to google? One would think that if you are concerned with the sort of things google is doing, you would bank on an open source search engine, so this sort of thing doesn't just repeat itself.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
hahaha ok

I suppose you are against affirmative action too.

esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
hindsight is 20/20, eh?
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
>If the significance is because they are part of a whole, then they need to be addressed in that context.

How are you ever going to get any accountability if you don't address them individually. People need to be taught what a microaggression is and why it's important, and then punished if they continue to make them. Repeated sexual jokes are already considered a form of sexual harassment.

>The argument that something shouldn't be tolerated, even when accepted, doesn't automatically justify every possible response.

This is true, and we seem to disagree what a justified response is in this scenario. I don't think it was that big of a deal actually. The internet made it into a big deal, but that's not adrias fault. I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this one, because I don't know where to go from this.

esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
That's not the point. The point is we shouldn't brush off these individual incidents as insignificant because they are part of a whole. The problem is not going to get solved if you don't show that you do not tolerate this sort of behaviour, on an individual scale.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
I don't think the person who got fired should have been fired. I don't think she should have been fired. I don't think such an internet shitstorm would have been necessary, but here we are. All that I am saying is that I don't think she overreacted in reporting this in a public manner.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
Society treats people differently depending on who they are. Men have certain privileges not afforded to women. If examining situations in a social context, this cannot be ignored. There is a reason this conference was BOASTING about having 20% women attending.

We cannot treat everyone as if they are the same if the playing field is not level.

In a vacuum, there should be no difference. But we do not live in a vacuum.

esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
That's the thing though - People always think that calling out microaggressions is overreaction, because they look at an individual incident, and not the whole. At the same time it needs to be clearly communicated that this kind of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
The part of the code of conduct you are referring to was added AFTER this whole thing happened. So you don't think it was a serious thing. I disagree. It's brushing off these things as "not serious" that is part of the problem.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
Again, context matters. When a man makes a sexual joke and a woman makes a sexual joke, it's not the same thing because there are different implications to it.

Women are often sexualized and/or objectified, specifically by men. When a man makes a sexual joke, even if he is not directly sexualizing a woman, that can make some women uncomfortable, because of the societal context behind it.

Tech conferences already have kind of a bad reputation towards building an inviting atmosphere for women. Now imagine you are in a place where you might feel a little bit vulnerable, and you hear something like that. It's easy to take it the wrong way, regardless of the intent behind the joke. All this is completely ignoring that in a professional settings, these kinds of jokes are inappropriate anyway.

esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
I don't think she had any obligation to raise the issue quietly. Making things public works. Unless people start calling out this kind of behaviour in a public manner, there will be no pressure for anyone to change anything. I think this is just a variant of a tone argument basically.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
The idea of a microaggression is that it's many small things you are exposed to consistently, and a lot. The kind of things people will say "lighten up, it's just a joke" to, because they see it as an individual incident. (which incidentally has been happening in this thread, a lot)
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
Yes, it is such a fucking inconvenience not making juvenile and unprofessional jokes at a conference where you are supposed to represent your employer.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
Why? She reported the microaggression to the relevant organizers through a public channel. I don't see the problem?
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
Bullshit. It's not about whether ALL women are uncomfortable. Of course not all women are uncomfortable. So should we only frown upon behaviours that make every single member of a minority uncomfortable? Some is enough.
esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
>Who's the sexist again?

most of the time, the person asking that sort of question

Nice misrepresentation of what I said, by the way. It's not about the joke, it's about what's behind it. Women are frequently objectified in jokes, and the Technology industry hasn't exactly been the most welcoming to women. When you make a sexual joke in front of a woman in this context, she might feel inclined to think about what's behind that joke. And you will feel that no matter the intention, the tech industry is not one that has proven itself to be mature enough to be given the benefit of the doubt.

esbwhat··on Adria Richards: ‘I’m staying safe’
I also don't think Adria overreacted. It was a microaggression. Jokes like that foster the uncomfortable boys club environment that is so inherent to tech. Were the jokes explicitly sexist? No, but in an industry that has more than just a bad track record, stuff like that is not okay. Context matters.
esbwhat··on Germans and Jaywalking: An American's Perspective on the Berlin Tech Scene
I think we germans are doing alright actually
esbwhat··on Germans and Jaywalking: An American's Perspective on the Berlin Tech Scene
The thing is that not all streets are created equal. On particularly dangerous corners there will be lights, and cars can come around the corner going maybe a bit too fast to stop, so it's important to obey them. When there is no light, that's usually indicative of a less busy street as well, where crossing at your own discretion is safer.
esbwhat··on An apology to open source
I use flot on one of my sites. It's nice, I only have positive things to say about it. Especially if you are still using something like openflashchart I recommend taking the time to switch over, it doesn't take long at all.
esbwhat··on Firefox introduces PDF viewer
just a note, but you can do that in linux and afaik windows as well
esbwhat··on German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
Weird. I've lived in Hamburg all my life and I've yet to see anybody be scorned for jaywalking. The same basically goes for family models, I've been to more homes where everyone just sort of does their own thing than I've been to homes where the family gathers round at a table and eats together, although that one definitely is also not a rarity. Is it elsewhere?
esbwhat··on German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister
my prediction about you: You have only ever been to south germany
esbwhat··on GIMP 2.9/2.10 Feature Preview
well, all it takes is for someone to tackle it, seeing as how the project is open source.
esbwhat··on Super Mario in HTML5
nice demo, but terrible physics
esbwhat··on Lenovo splits the Think brand into a separate group
I also own an x1 carbon -- it's a great laptop, linux runs on it flawlessly. If the battery was changable it would be perfect.

I've not had a problem with the keyboard, and I also own a thinkpad with a "real" thinkpad keyboard. I wouldn't say I prefer one over the other, they're both solid keyboards.

esbwhat··on All My Life I’ve Been Told I Was Special. It Was A Lie.
There is a middle ground to this. Always praise effort, never skill. They did studies on this, if you praise children for their talent, they will do worse than if you praise them for their effort. Effort is in their control, talent is not. This doesn't mean you need your children to hate you/be super strict.
esbwhat··on Regexper: Beautiful regexp visualizations
((((a))))

-> server error. Looks like 3 groups within each other are the limit

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