That's exactly it. We find it so hard to understand how that joke is threatening. It's almost impossible to imagine. It just sounds like a dumb joke.
But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article:
“Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me.
“You felt fear?” I asked.
“Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”
I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
> I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
I can't imagine what it is like to crave for a cigeratte. If our industry were full of nonsmokers, would we then have to go out of our way to accommodate people who want to smoke in their offices?
The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him. She still seems to be in denial. Did she have to eavesdrop on a conversation that she wasn't a part of? She doesn't represent women. She represents herself and the high horse she commands.
I'd never hire her for anything related to developer relations. No sensible company should after her demonstrated lack of responsibility.
> I can't imagine what it is like to crave for a cigeratte. If our industry were full of nonsmokers, would we then have to go out of our way to accommodate people who want to smoke in their offices?
In this case, the metaphor would be more accurate the other way around. If the industry were full of smokers, would it make sense for them to accommodate people who don't smoke? We definitely should, and we do, because secondhand smoke is damaging.
The person in the minority is the one that was being hurt. Restraining yourself from telling silly jokes won't hurt anyone; feeling threatened in an unsafe environment does, and this is how it is perceived an industry where women are in the minority. "Grow a thicker skin" is a legitimate reply up to the point where you accept them to tell you: "Right, but tone down your behavior". You can't expect the other party to be the only one to agree with everything you do, if you are not willing to concede something as well in return.
You can and should be able to set up as many private venues where you can behave in as rude ways as you want, as long as all people participating in them have accepted those norms. But at public places, open for all, it's good to know that there are expectations of polite behavior, and people should respect those limits.
> The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him.
Quite right. That's why her behavior is not acceptable either, because the expected conduct between adults is to handle personal grievances in private. But the way she handled the situation doesn't make her concerns invalid, and we should not conflate the first with the second.
Thank you for your reply. We agree on so much. However, I'd like to point out that the middle ground is not always the best way. Sometimes, the other side is flat oiut wrong. Reminds me of the wikipedia article about a wwe wrestler where editors found two conflicting numbers for height so someone had the great idea to average them out.
> You can't expect the other party to be the only one to agree with everything you do, if you are not willing to concede something as well in return.
Yes, you can. Are you really saying that I can't tell jokes to my friend for the fear of offending an eavesdropper? Yes, we need to do more to encourage diversity in cs. No, I am not willing to watch my every word for fear of triggering an eavesdropper.
> However, I'd like to point out that the middle ground is not always the best way.
That would ring true if the persons asking for a middle ground weren't expressing severe concerns of distress, and the point you defend was somehow meaningful and essential. When the side you defend is "I want to tell dirty jokes in public" and the other is going "I am reminded of rape threats because we have proof that people in similar settings tend to commit hostile behavior", your side doesn't come up very sympathetic.
> Are you really saying that I can't tell jokes to my friend for the fear of offending an eavesdropper?
In the middle of an ongoing talk at a conference??? No, you can't tell jokes there that can be overheard (why wouldn't you just whisper to his ear?), as you shouldn't do it at the cinema while the movie is going on. That's called basic respect - the other people went there to listen to the speaker and do some networking. Or if you do, the least you should do is have the decency to apologize when someone else tells you off.
> No, I am not willing to watch my every word for fear of triggering an eavesdropper.
You can tell jokes to your friends at the pub, or at the office café, or any place where social rules are relaxed. That's not being PC, it's common courtesy to adapt your behavior to the social setting. If you can't or won't control your behavior at more formal venues and distinguish where it's proper to behave informally and when it's not, people would be right to avoid being around you.
Social rules are there to avoid friction, and allow everyone involved to find a compromise they can live with. You are not entitled to behave as an insensitive asshole, in particular when people is asking you to stop. You can legally do it, but it doesn't mean it's morally right. There are venues where you can tell bad jokes to your friend, please limit yourself to doing it at those places.
> You are not entitled to behave as an insensitive asshole, in particular when people is asking you to stop. You can legally do it, but it doesn't mean it's morally right. There are venues where you can tell bad jokes to your friend, please limit yourself to doing it at those places.
I absolutely agree with this point. I'd just replace the last sentence with please don't put up private conversations of people with photographs and identifying information on Twitter or another public forum for everyone to see.
The usual response to danger is flee or fight. She didn't flee. She didn't confront them. She shamed them publicly instead (which made it considerably more likely that they would take revenge physically instead). What is more likely, that she did this because she felt threatened, or because she felt like she could use her status to get back at the system?
Not to mention the part where she herself tweets dick jokes.
> I would consider shaming them to be "fight," in this instance.
More like shooting someone in the back.
> I also feel really bad that Adria felt so uncomfortable that she did something so rash.
That is where we differ. I do not believe her explanations. Not when she tweets the same kind of joke herself.
> The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.
This particular situation was avoidable. But yes, diversity is a big issue.
> Both of their actions and reactions seem so natural to me. The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.
Everybody makes bad call. The difference is in how you handle your bad decisions, and what lessons you draw. Adria does not even begin to recognize that she acted wrongly towards these two guys, and generally gave a bad name to feminists.
> That is where we differ. I do not believe her explanations. Not when she tweets the same kind of joke herself.
I think that brings up a very good point. You can make these jokes when you feel safe.
Hank felt safe at PyCon, it was easy for him to joke right there in earshot of many like-minded people.
Adria felt safe tweeting such a joke from her own computer.
Adria did not feel safe at PyCon. This should be a huge problem for us. We should be questioning this, not Adria's mental capacity.
I don't believe Adria is a sociopath, or delusional, or any of the number of things she has been accused of being in this thread. I believe she is a rational individual, much like Hank, and that she felt intensely uncomfortable at PyCon due to her minority status. I believe she feels how she described — just like I believe Hank feels how he described.
> Adria does not even begin to recognize that she acted wrongly towards these two guys, and generally gave a bad name to feminists.
I don't think Adria is very focused on these guys, and for a lot of people that comes off as hatred or a lack of empathy — especially because we, as guys, empathise in particular with Hank. So her lack of acknowledgement is so easily felt as cruel.
Thanks for so eloquently describing what I've been trying to articulate about these sorts of situations. People can react in ways that appear hypocritical, irrational or plain malicious when they're put in circumstances that make them feel unsafe, uncomfortable or unwelcome. This can happen to any of us.
Those actions shouldn't be praised, but they also shouldn't be judged outside of their context. It's really hard for people like us in a position of relative privilege* to empathise because we're put in these situations so much less often, if ever.
It's so important for us to recognise our internal biases and confront them. Until I read these comments I didn't realise just how much better I'd empathised with Hank just because he's way more similar to me than Adria is.
* I hate to use the p-word because of its stigma but I really can't think of a better word
> Those actions shouldn't be praised, but they also shouldn't be judged outside of their context.
Imagine that you live in a bad part of town, and that you have been assaulted before. Somebody takes out a pocket knife and starts carving a figure on a tree. You lash out and kick them in the crotch. Congratulation, you completely overreacted. I expect that most people would apologize and feel kind of bad for having taken out their frustration/fear/whatever on somebody harmless. Especially when they had a long time to think about what they did.
> Adria did not feel safe at PyCon. This should be a huge problem for us.
I don't know what to think of her explanations, which may or may not be sincere, and may or may not have been made up after the fact. Lack of non-white males in the tech industry is definitely a larger issue than this individual case.
> I don't think Adria is very focused on these guys, and for a lot of people that comes off as hatred or a lack of empathy — especially because we, as guys, empathise in particular with Hank. So her lack of acknowledgement is so easily felt as cruel.
I wouldn't go as far as hatred, but lack of empathy, certainly. Judging from her "I wouldn't make jokes if I had kids" comment, she clearly believes he had it coming.
> Judging from her "I wouldn't make jokes if I had kids" comment
That comment really hit me too when I first read it. Because I have kids and I would make jokes like that. I thought it was insensitive.
But then I tried to see things from her point of view and maybe I wouldn't feel so bad about Hank. He got a new job quickly, he didn't get death threats.
And maybe she doesn't have kids, so she's just spouting off some opinion about how you should behave as a parent without really knowing. But so what? Why should we be so angry about this and vilify her?
I think much of the anger directed at Adria in this thread is irrational — our feelings are telling us to make this a big deal when it isn't, the problem is elsewhere.
> Everybody makes bad call. The difference is in how you handle your bad decisions, and what lessons you draw. Adria does not even begin to recognize that she acted wrongly towards these two guys, and generally gave a bad name to feminists.
That might make her a feminist by definition, but it's far away from some of the more visible factions of feminism. I wouldn't assume she identifies as a feminist just because she agrees with some of the core tenets.
Your comments have led me to see this situation in a new light. It doesn't make a lot of sense for someone to feel threatened by a dongle joke. Those happen every five minutes at tech conferences. It makes more sense if she was suddenly lashing out at perceived sexism in the entire tech community, with the picture of the little girl on the screen combined with vaguely sexual humor acting as a trigger.
But. If she was so tightly wound that a dongle joke caused a sense of danger so profound that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, then she's probably dealing with personal psychological issues. We shouldn't confuse the mental state of one person with the situation of all women in technology. I don't think anyone is happy with the current levels of gender imbalance and sexism, but that seems like it might be a separate issue.
There's a such a thing as too much empathy. If someone is exhibiting abnormal behavior then the best thing to do is to focus on getting them the help they need, and then question what factors in society might be contributing to their mental state. The majority of women can sit in a room full of men and overhear a dumb joke without feeling the need to publicly shame people. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but this seems to be an issue about this particular woman and her psychological state. I do feel some empathy for her in that respect, but she's still responsible for her actions.
> “Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”
I believe she genuinely felt the way she describes, but I don't think she felt it because of her gender.
I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.
I find it more likely that the feeling had something to do with the trauma associated with her father knocking out her mother's teeth with a hammer when she was a kid, as detailed in the last part of the article.
An innocuous joke that triggered a disproportionate emotional response, seeded by past trauma.
Of course it's possible for women to feel this way. It's possible for men to feel this way as well. That doesn't make it reasonable, or something an emotionally mature person would feel and act upon.
Bingo! Her feeling of 'danger' was irrational unless there have been a wave of sexual assaults at developer conferences that I'm unaware of. She has no control over being offended or not, but she does have the ability to control her reactions to such offense. If it really bothered her why not just tell the guys, hey can you please not use that sort of humor around me?
It's frustrating to hear a bunch of white men who normally stick around groups of other white men talk about how someone who is very different - black, female, Jewish - is silly for feeling threat in situations where white men don't feel threat.
When people of your racial/religious group are murdered and attacked and harassed (and anti-Semitism is still a thing) her perception of threat is no doubt heightened.
It's unreasonable to expect her to confront people making dumb jokes if she feels threatened by them.
(However, her actions are not acceptable. She could have sought out conference organisers and told them.)
The interesting thing that happened: A bilious internet mob.
The thing being discussed: The legitimacy of an individual's mental state. Not even the reasonableness of their reaction to the mental state, the mental state itself.
I can certainly empathize with feeling fear that I am perfectly aware is irrational, looking at pictures of people up high makes me queasy and I stop looking before I break into a cold sweat. Pictures!
> But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
Nobody can imagine how would a random nerd from a 800-people conference would feel over a joke. Shall we ban joking? Fine people that use "dirty" words? "Your tone of voice makes me feel deeply offended, thus I have all the right to sue you" ? Where does this road end?
What makes me feel extremely annoyed is the whole political correctitude and feeling-catering that slowly turns normal human communication into bland, tasteless pulp.
The problem is the lack of diversity in our field leads to these horrible, unfortunate situations where people feel threatened and jokes which are not intended to be harmful are felt to be much worse.
It means that we shouldn't be dismissing Adria and feeling for Hank because that's what always happens and what will keep causing these situations to happen in the future.
If we want to feel safe about making bad sex jokes then we need diversity in our field. We need everyone to feel safe just being there before we can all act like we're safe and comfortable enough to be ourselves.
> No, we shouldn't ban any of that.
> Why would that be your take-away from this?
People have very different sense of humour. As long as people are expressing that sense of humour via jokes, there will be jokes that are not seen as funny by the others that (over)hear them. I think it's safe to say that there will always be sex-related jokes as well. Thus, unless we stop joking completely, I don't see a way how we could completely avoid bad sex-jokes in private conversations. And if there are such jokes, there's always the risk of the wrong person hearing them and feeling offended just because the joke is a) bad and b) about sex.
I fully agree that we are lacking diversity, and there are things that we could do better to make the tech field more open. Self-censoring our private talks is NOT one of those things.
You're right that I can never directly relate to being a female. All I can do is think about things logically.
If she truly had this kind of response to an innocuous joke, I think that says more about her own insecurities than about the behavior of Hank. Feeling danger in response to a bad joke in a crowded room is not a reasonable response to have. It's grossly over-proportionate.
How far should we go to cater toward the irrationalities of others?
This reminds me of when I go out running at night. I avoid running near men (particularly groups of men) because of a fear that I'll come to harm: specifically rape. It's irrational, and unreasonable, but it's the reaction I have nonetheless. (This is common, FYI, many women feel like this.)
I don't expect other people to cater towards my fear, but acknowledging that it's real and that it happens is important. Ridiculing it won't make it go away.
> I avoid running near men (particularly groups of men) because of a fear that I'll come to harm
It's not irrational. I'm a man and I avoid groups of people at night, too. It's an absolutely reasonable precaution. I avoid other men because I don't want to put my life in danger unnecessarily, and I avoid women mostly because I don't want them to be alarmed by my presence.
These are what I would call rational fears, because they're about minimizing risk. It's also very clear that, say, if I required sudden medical assistance, I would probably trust any stranger I come across in the city at night to do the right thing 99.9% of the time. These are the mechanics of false negatives vs. false positives.
> I don't expect other people to cater towards my fear
Exactly. This is an important point because being afraid of something another person might do doesn't necessarily mean it's an accurate reflection of that person's intent.
And this is the fundamental breaking point where I think reasonable people start to feel a disconnect in the flow of the dongle story, because Richards is asserting both now and then that her life was in danger, and while it's easy to at least consider this feeling was real, the main question becomes did those guys do anything to cause that fear?
Because if they did not, it's unreasonable to blame them for causing this fear. I don't think a lot of people would say this fear itself is unjustified, but using it to attack someone who apparently did nothing to cause it is, and this whole disaster is a missed opportunity to talk about the factors that cause it.
This is not to detract from the stupidity of genital jokes in general, which amazingly both parties appear to be fond of.
As a white nerdy male, there is an analog that I feel similar to your running scenario. I grew up in the suburbs, more of a sheltered upbringing due to the makeup of the neighborhood. For many years, when I'd be walking downtown, if I saw a group of people that looked like they were from a typical rap video (not specifically any race, but more the group's clothing and body language, although race does play a part of it), I'd turn down another corner. This is mostly due to what got fed to me by TV and other sources, and the knowledge that a nerdy white guy is probably the most hated vulnerable person in that area at that time. Now I know that this is totally irrational, and it wasn't until I forced myself to not turn a different corner each time, that I started to get over it.
Now on another level, I'm a very bashful person, so I have a hard time looking at people in the eyes when I talk to them. Therefore my eyes are pointed at a 30 - 60 degree angle downward towards the floor. And guess what is in that line of site if I happen to be talking to a woman at work? So I learned to just stare straight ahead, or start messing with my phone, whenever a female coworker passes me in the hall. Just to avoid giving the impression that I'm looking her up and down, due to my natural instinct to avoid eye contact by shifting my gaze downward towards the floor after seeing someone make eye contact with me (which, as mentioned, can be taken the wrong way, and land me in HR).
Certainly not. It's a very complicated issue that starts with the common popular stereotype that all men are sexual predators. We live in one of the safest times in human history, yet the news has us all believing we are in constant, imminent danger.
But you are in fact thousands of times more likely to be hit by a car while jogging than raped. Yet almost nobody feels immense fear when a car drives by them.
I have OCD, so I deal with irrational thoughts all the time. I can truly empathize with how difficult they are to dismiss, even when you understand just how irrational they are.
The ridicule here is because Adria acted on her irrationalities and ended up costing a guy his job over them.
But do you have that fear running around in a public area with 800+ random people?
The fear itself is reasonable, perhaps not fair, but reasonable. But if the fear is so strong for you that you can't even feel safe in the above description it's an issue with you and not them.
Sure, but intimidated isn't fearful of one's life. We all get intimidated in social situations regardless of gender. I'm sure it's worse at dev conferences for women with respect to intimidation, but I don't think it's outside the norm for it to happen to people.
Here's a true story for your consideration, a little while ago, walking home through the park which is unlit, after working late, I came across a female jogger lying unconscious on the ground. I did some basic first aid, called an ambulance, and waited with her until help arrived.
If she'd seen me in the distance and veered off the track because MEN she would have collapsed in the bushes and died of hypothermia probably that night. Have faith in people and they will be there for you when you need them.
We shouldn't chalk up her feelings to "her own insecurities" and we should assign them up to a serious lack of diversity in our field, which can make people feel excluded and unsafe.
If we can't acknowledge this woman's feelings seriously then we can't include her. That's not good enough.
I've seen Adria called "delusional", and "in need of therapy" in this thread. It makes me sad to think how quickly and easily we dismiss her.
The joke was innocuous, and I agree that her response was over-proportionate. I agree with you. The difference is I don't blame her for those actions because I think I can see how she felt in that situation. Same way I don't blame Hank for making a stupid joke because I've been there too.
@interpol_p: As a thought experiment, what if the joke had been, "Where does the king keep his armies? Up his sleevies!"
ie. entirely innocuous and commonly told in third grade classrooms. If all parties had behaved identically and this same controversy had blown up as a result of that joke, would you still be taking the same position that you do in your comment here?
I'm asking if you acknowledge the existence of some norm in our society for the reasonableness of being offended. Is there a point beyond which we as a society say, "No reasonable person would ever be offended by that, so we're sorry you're experiencing negative emotions and rising hair on your neck, and we're sorry you feel like murder is imminent, but this is not actually a problem and there is a negligible probability of you being killed based on a joke about the king's sleeves."
Note that a consequence of denying such a norm is that we must frequently reorganize our society to please myriad extremists of many stripes, many of whom have mutually exclusive demands.
Conversely, if you admit the existence of such a norm, is this controversy just a discussion about how to construct an algorithm for calibrating it? I'm genuinely asking these things, not being snarky.
Rubbish. If someone feels some way about something I say when I never intended any harm to them by it then its entirely their problem.
Her comparison with the schoolyard bully is moot, because there presumably would have been intent towards her in that case.
While I don't agree with Adria's actions, this is simply nonsensical. The most prejudiced person I know honestly feels as though she is intending no harm when she says that miscegenation should be illegal. It's still her problem that she's a galloping racist and hurting other people.
She could say that all humans should be forcibly rendered sterile before puberty and it still wouldn't be hurting anybody. It's a terrible idea, of course, and I don't much care for it.
That's not true. Creating a hostile environment and perpetuating attitudes that lead to prejudiced action is hurting people. The words you say tug towards the culture you want, and when that culture's thing is hurting the weak, you're responsible for it.
why should we be expected to accommodate aberrant, pathological behavior? Adria's feelings may have been authentic but they are so far away from reasonable or appropriate that I think we're actively harming our community by humoring her. At some point we have to just accept that Adria has some really profound issues that make her incapable of interacting normally with white men.
Then think of how terrified she must have felt when she was laughing and joking with a beer and surrounded by men playing Cards Against Humanity, with all those sexual and racial jokes. Poor "black, jewish" girl! Maybe we should expose the names of all those men in the photo and get them fired too ? I mean, She felt fear!!!
I think the danger has to be substantiated in order for a larger crowd to care. Was Adria in actual danger? Did she actually feel fearful? If a person felt in danger, would she take a picture of the two men she felt endangered by, and then tweet it to publicly shame them? As a person who has gathered a substantial amount of Twitter followers, what did she think was going to happen to the two men? What was her ideal world outcome? That the two men would become embarrassed and apologize as examples to future men, and then their employers would allow them to keep their jobs?
If your mental/emotional state is at odds with the reality of your circumstances, therapy is in order, not scolding the hapless bystanders you blame for your delusions.
Are you suggesting she is delusional because she felt something that you cannot imagine feeling?
When a woman in our field says "I felt this way" we say "No no, she's delusional, therapy is in order." Instead of asking why and trying to understand what led to these feelings. This sort of behaviour doesn't help us become more inclusive.
She is delusional, because most women do not feel _unsafe_ being at a conference. Even where most attendees are men.
Fearing for your physical safety, when the joke the guy made was not addressed at her, was not about females, is delusional.
But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article:
“Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me.
“You felt fear?” I asked.
“Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”
I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.