[davewasmer]

I'm confused. The author seems to advocate for civil, rational, open-minded discussion, and follows it by advocating that the industry effectively exile someone whose views he disagrees with.

The included quote is not a personal attack on any individual. Yes, its strongly worded - more than I would personally like. But its not a wild rant saying women are an inferior race. The quote doesn't even suggest women shouldn't be in tech - it simply suggests an explanation for the gender imbalance (however accurate that explanation may be).

Why not attack that explanation instead? Leave no doubt in anyone's mind that he is painfully wrong - not by public shaming and ostracizing, but through the rational argument the author seems to so eagerly want.

[zacharyvoase]

The article questioned the honour and motivations of men who stand up for women's rights, calling them: ‘dickless wonders’, posers, ‘bland, craven hacks’, ‘docile, cringing cowards’, ‘buffoons’, ‘spineless’, ‘ostentatiously beta’, either ‘weak and stupid’ or ‘horny’, and ‘lazy, spineless weasel[s]’.

[angersock]

It did somewhat more than that--at least acknowledge that this is an incomplete summary of the article.

[tjaerv]

Ah, but it's a sufficient summary of the article.

[calibraxis]

Only in a hypermale industry can someone bitterly accuse you of missing a phallus for standing up for women's rights, and people will still say, "What's sexist about that?"

> But its not a wild rant saying women are an inferior race.

"For this is the technology industry: there are more men in it because the male mind is, in general, better primed with the sorts of skills the industry values; men are simply better suited to most technology jobs. Women therefore tend to work in roles that require finesse and communicative skills, where they pop up in this world at all."

"Impressive women who can stand their ground alongside men – and there are plenty of them – succeed not in spite of a supposedly oppressive male atmosphere but because of it."

"The best women don’t want your pity and the mediocre ones don’t matter anyway."

Only in a backwards male-dominated culture do we lack the basic reading comprehension to see the sexism in this.

[angersock]

So, original article's thesis seems to be: "It is a colossal waste of time to tweet about demographics during a presentation where something else is being discussed."

The article then goes on to substantiate this thesis, using claims and rhetoric that aren't, in my opinion, worth the packets they're printed on.

However, the thesis--valid or not--is a decent point for discussion.

Zack did not raise to the occasion, and instead rallied about tarring and feathering the author (and other people in the community with similar views. He suggested that the companies purge themselves of any affiliation with the article's original author, and without even specifying why this was valid.

Simply put, this is crude demagoguery. I'll confront it head on: Why in the world would you categorically cut ties with anyone whose opinions on an unrelated matter you don't agree with?

By your logic, Haber should be stricken from the history books.