| The failure was not equally massive on all sides, though. Two guys made possibly juvenile jokes to each other while sitting in the audience at a conference. This was a minor failure of manners. A woman reacted by taking a creepshot of them, publicly shaming them on Twitter, and getting them kicked out of the room without even trying to simply talk to them. Even though she had also been making sexual jokes while at PyCon: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425
And like most cyber-bullies, she felt exhilarated by her power to dispose of people she finds annoying without even having to interact with them as human beings: https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313442430848487424 This was a failure at displaying a stable, adult personality. The company employing one of the guys fired him. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681
A father of three is out of a job because a silly joke he was telling a friend was overheard by someone with more power than sense. This is the real massive failure. This is the moment where the "feminism in tech" advocacy movement jumped the shark. Not the women in tech themselves, mind you, who where there before this thing and will be there after it. But this campaign to make everything as comfortable as possible for a group of people who is assumed to need protection, as interpreted by some vocal elements whose representativity is anything but proven, has already led us to establish a ridiculous police state atmosphere where an engineer can be fired for making an off-color joke to a friend. This is not making tech welcoming to women. This is making tech unwelcoming and hostile to all the geeks, men and women, who are uncomfortable with this corporate-style PC totalitarianism. And at this point it's not just a looming dystopia. It's happening now! A geek lost their job for a joke, because their corporate masters were afraid of the backlash from a cyber-bully riding the right PR wave. This is not the kind of industry I want to work in. Please, let's stop this insanity now. |
A creepshot by definition is a sexualized photograph, this doesn't count.
> publicly shaming them on Twitter
Nothing wrong with this.
> and getting them kicked out of the room without even trying to simply talk to them
When a con attendee violates the rules and con staff wish to pull them aside, that is totally legit. And no, she was under no obligation to explain anything to them.
> This was a failure at displaying a stable, adult personality.
You are implying that the OP is unstable, which is a pretty gross thing to say and is offensive to folks with mental disability.
> The company employing one of the guys fired him. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5398681 A father of three is out of a job because a silly joke he was telling a friend was overheard by someone with more power than sense.
The OP did not fire this individual nor escort them out of the room. Having con staff pull the person aside is an expected outcome, but being fired is completely outside of the OP's control and is, frankly, a huge overreaction from a company that would rather throw people aside than actually engage in meaningful sensitivity training for its employees.
> But this campaign to make everything as comfortable as possible for a group of people who is assumed to need protection...
Women in tech are not asking for others to protect them, but rather that policies be made and enforced that allow them to participate like any other attendee of the con. That con spaces are so unsafe in a variety of ways doesn't highlight the need for protection, but the need to provide basic rules of decency and to enforce them.
> ...as interpreted by some vocal elements whose representativity is anything but proven, has already led us to establish a ridiculous police state atmosphere where an engineer can be fired for making an off-color joke to a friend.
A conference is not a public gov't and they reserve the right to enforce policies attendees agree to when buying tickets or signing up. A police state this is not.
> This is not making tech welcoming to women. This is making tech unwelcoming and hostile to all the geeks, men and women, who are uncomfortable with this corporate-style PC totalitarianism.
Oddly enough the company that fired the gentleman in question fits more in line with your feelings of corporate-style totalitarianism. However, pulling con attendees aside who are making the space unsafe is to be expected and is a desired thing. Also, there isn't anything PC about not making penis jokes at a professional conference where your company is a sponsor.
> And at this point it's not just a looming dystopia. It's happening now! A geek lost their job for a joke, because their corporate masters were afraid of the backlash from a cyber-bully riding the right PR wave.
The problem you seem to have is with corporation and private business, not someone ensuring that the conference they are attending is a safe space.