[peteforde]

I'm stunned that RubyFringe is on this list. The writeup you linked to is brutally one-sided: the partner track ("girlfriend daycare") was conceived of, named and run by women working in the larger context of supporting a conference run by a woman who happens to be the managing partner of the original Rails dev shop.

The men who had a blast as partner track participants would agree that this controversy was the ultimate tempest in a teapot.

The name change happened because there was a conference to be run and there was no battle to be fought and won.

Luckily it didn't seem to matter as none of the DevChix folks had any intention of coming in the first place. A good time was had regardless:

http://www.rubyinside.com/rubyfringe-success-and-roundup-956...

[LaGrange]

The biggest problem in many such cases isn't really the name, but the reaction to complaints. Perfectly the name would be fine from the get go, but if it wasn't, people say "hey, that's crap", organizers change it, case closed. Real crap starts when people start freaking out that "OMG feminism has gone insane!", and it's that reaction that is the real symptom of big problems. All because someone deemed the name more important than the likelihood a woman would feel welcome in the conference proper.

Similarly in the case of PyCon: joke was crap, someone called it out. Instead of an apology and admission that it shouldn't have happened, two people lost their jobs, and a lot of whistleblowers will be discouraged from speaking out. All because people think their freedom of joke making is more important than the likelihood a woman would feel welcome.

People do know those aren't complaints about direct harassment – just about a lot of individually tiny things that, once taken together, breed an atmosphere that encourages harassment and discourages participation. And sure, some women can deal with that – but they shouldn't have.

Also, a dong joke wouldn't be an issue in a perfect world, but we're not living in one.

[vidarh]

The PyCon incident blew up because of the tweeted picture, which to many of us was _far_ worse than the stupid joke. Complain to the organizers, sure. Make fun of them at the conference, even.

But the tweeted picture to a large number of followers took it well into harassment, where the joke wasn't.

[jm3]

Hard to imagine anything more horrible or harassing than posting a photo of someone.

[vidarh]

Do you seriously not understand that the problem is not that she "posted a photo of someone", but the context?

[Joeri]

That photo got two people fired. Seems serious enough to me.

[roberto]

From what I understand in the Pycon incident there was an apology and admission that it shouldn't have happened, and parties were happy with the result. The problem came later because of the tweeted picture.

[Lewisham]

Psstttt... don't tell anyone... but all of the conference dramas ever have been "tempests in a teapot."

[coldtea]

Western people that don't have anything better to do than parade some misguided PC cause.

It's what passes for "action" and "making the world better" in this era.

That, and BS orchestrated rage against foreign issues they are instructed to care about by their government (Tibet, Iranian elections, etc).

Which is sad for people who remember the SDS, the Vietnam protests, and so on.