[varjag]

From TFA:

>He said he would be interested in forking the repo and continuing development. That would have been fine until the guy next to him… began making sexual forking jokes

The guy inserted his forking double innuendos in a conversation two other persons were having. Do you seriously think he'd do that if one of those weren't a female?

(Also, forking jokes? Is that 1995 or what)

[CornishPasty]

> Do you seriously think he'd do that if one of those weren't a female?

Uhh, yeah... If he was crude enough to make forking jokes, he wouldn't care what his audience was, perhaps he'd even prefer it to be guys so they can all laugh along with him...

[Tyrannosaurs]

It's a fair point, though the whole thing is slightly irrelevant (the overall point you're responding to) as we shouldn't assume that men don't find this stuff offensive.

[drumdance]

> Do you seriously think he'd do that if one of those weren't a female?

Jeez, me and my guy friends do this kind of thing all the time. In my circle at least (professionals in all walks of life, from software to academia to public policy), making double entendres is part of what it means to be a guy.

However, I do sensor myself around women.

[DoubleMalt]

However that was not the guy she twit shamed as far as I can gather from her not very organized writeup.

[varjag]

I wrote that jokes were fired because she was in the earshot. You commented that I postulate unfounded facts, while they are very well founded if you'd go through as much as first half of her write-up.

[sdfsdfsdfs]

Nope, you did postulate an unfounded fact. It isn't clear why the guy made sexual jokes. The author joined in a conversation she wasn't invited in on, and then one of the guys in that conversation made some jokes she didn't like. It's actually not clear whether the tone of the conversation between the two men changed when she joined it. For all we know that guy makes sexual jokes to his buddy all the time, there really are people who are like that. The author simply doesn't say anything about what the offending man was saying prior to her joining the conversation.

So yeah, you were extrapolating. But it does make sense to assume that the guy made sexual jokes because she joined in the conversation, and directed the jokes at her. In the story she tells about the developer making the joke about shaved pubic hair, she seems very reasonable.

It's a shame, the author probably should have been clearer that the jokes were made directed at her. Everyone has their own biases, and the problem with stories like this is that when women read them they think about the worst behaviour of men they've had to put up with, and assume that's what happened and when most men read them, they think about their own typical behaviour and assume it must be a misunderstanding.

[varjag]

For the record I'm a male. Her side of story sounds plausible because I've seen enough folks who would act like that, especially after a beer in the lunch break.

I first read the stream of autodafe comments here and my initial reaction was to post something along the lines "crusade for the sake of crusade", but fortunately I opted to read the article first.

[gojomo]

That any forking joke was motivated by the fact Richards would hear is not established by your excerpt. (Richards merely says that jokes were made.) Additionally, Richards' interpretation of the fork comment is somewhat disputed by one of the conversation participants: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681

It's certainly possible a fork comment was intentionally creepy, a first statement made to a new, female conversation participant, and with an inappropriate tone. But it's also possible two friends were continuing an "I'd fork that repository" riff from earlier, with negligible sexual intent, and the tone was misunderstood by Richards.

It's your definitive conclusion of ill-intent, from incomplete evidence, that people may object to.

[varjag]

For what it worth, a statement opening with "it seems" can hardly be definitive in any sense. The post I replied to made a statement that the jokes weren't directed at her - yet somehow we don't see nearly as much hair-splitting from my critics on that part.

> It's your definitive conclusion of ill-intent, from incomplete evidence, that people may object to.

Intent is always in doubt and I wouldn't ascribe any to the dude's mind process at the time. For all I know it could really be just a joke in poor taste, or a part of his cumbersome mating dance. All I pointed out is the case is not nearly as clear cut as the parent poster presents it, stupid me not realizing we have some sort of r/mensrights party here.