[adriarichards]

Here's context:

The guy behind me to the far left was saying he didn't find much value from the logging session that day. I agreed with him, turned around and said so. He then went onto say that an earlier session he'd been to where the speaker was talking about images and visualization with Python was really good, even if it seemed to him the speaker wasn't really an expert on images. He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development https://us.pycon.org/2013/schedule/talks/.

That would have been find until the guy next to him...

began making sexual forking jokes

I was going to let it go. It had been a long week. A long month. I had been on the road since February and PyCon was my 5th and final conference before heading home.

I know it's important to pick my battles. I know I don't have to be a hero in every situation. Sometimes I just want to go to a tech conference and be a nerd.

But...

like Popeye, I couldn't stands it no more because of what happened next:

Jesse Noller was up on stage thanking the sponsors. The guys behind me (one off to the right) said, "You can thank me, you can thank me". That told me they were a sponsoring company of Pycon and from the photos I took, his badge had an add-on that said, "Sponsor".

They started talking about "big" dongles. I could feel my face getting flustered.

Was this really happening?

The rest of the story I've posted on my blog: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont...

[ianschenck]

Can you please explain, because it seems obvious to you but not to me, how a crass joke about male anatomy is inherently anti-female.

Can you also please explain why going public was the best immediate course of action.

Lastly, would you have been offended if the joke came out of a female's mouth (as asked below)?

I've been in a situation where a young female engineer was in a very abused situation, and it took me a much thought to figure out how to handle it, but immediately going public was definitely not the right choice.

Thank you.

[chrisfs]

I am NOT the OP but I think the answers to your questions are pretty clear. Crass jokes about in the anatomical parts male or female are not appropriate in a professional setting where you don't know everybody who is sitting nearby. There's no need to go into complex discussions about sexual or power dynamics. Immediate action is needed because unlike the workplace there would be no opportunity to speak with these people later

[jorgenev]

How fragile are women, really? It seems amazing to me that they don't all just shatter the day they are born (from what I read on the internet at least).

[dodyg]

Your comment is stupid. Sexual jokes made by strangers create a hostile environment for women. Don't do it. Period.

If you are among friends, go crazy and nobody gives a damn.

[oh_sigh]

> Sexual jokes made by strangers...

Is a joke about a 'big dongle' a sexual joke, or an anatomical joke?

Is a joke about someone having fat fingers a sexual joke, since fingers can be used in sexual acts?

> ...create a hostile environment for women

And not men?

[andrewdupont]

Is a joke about a 'big dongle' a sexual joke, or an anatomical joke?

I feel like you're being willfully obtuse here. The penis is commonly used for exactly two things. Sex is the only reason why anyone would consider it advantageous to have a large penis.

And not men?

Sure, men too. Let me repeat that: you are "allowed" to be offended about this if you are a man. People tend to say "creates a hostile environment for women" not because of assumption or stereotype but because of many personal accounts of specific women who say that this sort of joking makes them feel like they're in a hostile environment.

[joshuajonah]

I tend to think the people at Pycon are my friends. I've dealt with a lot of them personally for year. We are supposed to be a laid back community, not a toxic environment where people are afraid to say something wrong. Let's leave that to the MS guys.

[norabean]

I'm on accord with you, but not accord with the choice to have added photos of the people and never talked to them. I feel this is a tough situation now that the guy lost his job. Is his job loss been verified though? I'd be curious to know that...I mean 3 kids!? I can't imagine.

[drlloyd11]

Also swearing, mentioning body parts, gay people, violence, and unpopular views. All very very bad..

[Tyrannosaurs]

It's not a case of how fragile they are, it how much they have been, and still are, disadvantaged by the way society is structured.

Things have improved in recent years but look at average salaries, representation in government, representation at senior levels in companies and so on and tell me that it's all sorted.

And if women aren't being fairly represented at the top (unless you're saying that there have in history genuinely been no women capable of being, or even running for, US president), why do you think they're represented fairly further down? And then why do you think that is?

[Demonspawn]

Women are fairly represented at the top and at the bottom. They are mostly missing from both ends of the spectrum. If you understood about the differences in expression between males and females (it's not just humans that follow these trends) then you would recognize that while men tend towards greatness and failure, women tend to be average.

Mother nature was too smart to waste reproductive potential on environment testing.

You're trying to solve a "problem" that isn't, and wrecking what works in your attempt.

[Tyrannosaurs]

So your answer: women, know your place.

Can you cite research from reputable journals to support this? And are the measures of whatever the hell it is you're measuring that says women are extraordinary aren't biased in terms of the way society sees the sexes (that is measuring what has been deemed historically useful based on a male perspective) and are judging genuine ability in things that matter, not just one easily measurable thing.

I only ask because rankable measures of ability of the sort you're talking about are generally consider bullshit these days.

[domah]

Don’t believe the crap about the patriarchy. More women are accepted and attend college. More degrees are awarded to women than men. Women outlive men. More men commit suicide. Men are twice as likely to be victims of violence, including murder. If you consider sexual assaults in prisons, twice as many men are raped as women (society thinks prison rape is funny). The streets are littered with homeless men, sprinkled with a few homeless women. Statically, women are happier than men. The myth that girls are being cheated by are educational system is belied by the fact that schools are bastions of femininity, mostly run by and taught by women. Girls outperform boys in school. It is the boys in school getting f*cked over, and prescribed ritalin for being boys. Real wages for men are falling, while real wages for women are rising. Just because someone says something enough times, doesn’t make it true. Men have nothing to feel guilty about.

[ColdFingers]

In that case, the joke should be called out for being inappropriate period, to men or women. A particular gender needs not be mentioned.

[loudcode]

I think that's a problem here. An offensive joke is being dressed up as a gender issue. There isn't a gender issue here, there's just a maturity issue with everyone involved.

[zshprompt]

sure, but taking their photo and posting it as step 1 is not the action of someone being brave

[TY812]

Blogspam. Why don't you engage in this discussion here instead of promoting a private website which is semiblocked anywhere but a tiny part of Northern America?

[pythonuser]

Frankly, I think you are a cyberbully.