[dizzystar]

Let me ask you:

Guy calls a hat cute, he...

Woman calls a hat cute, she...

Which one is more offensive?

What exactly did men do that was so terrible to women -- in this industry -- that you feel like everyone has to make amends, and anything that "could" be a sexual joke should result result in the drama bomb we just seen or any ultimatums?

I did NOT suggest that you should be making bathroom jokes on stage. I DID suggest that calling a hat "cute" is not the slightest bit offensive. Seriously zero need to call for an apology over that.

You know what this drama bomb does to your profession?

-- It makes your profession unwelcome to me (male) and to many other people who would like to join in. We just had a post on the front page yesterday written by a woman who found this whole hoopla offensive and I am willing to bet excellent odds that women don't want to be part of this drama either.

Why?

-- The immaturity and the way you handled this stuff, as a community, is so incredibly shameful and backwards that I simply refuse to be a part of it. I would love to go to PyCon or similar places, but this makes it look like your profession is virulent and everyone is at each others throats, and any small spark is going to light a huge fire of controversy. I don't want to be a part of a drama bomb and I don't want to be part of a club that is openly succumbing to every whim of Drama Queens and Drama Kings.

[MoreMoschops]

I think you left out some context there.

Grace Hopper, one of the most accomplished computer scientists not just of her day but ever. Rose to dizzying heights in the US military because they needed her so much. A towering giant of the field. So when the picture of her comes up on screen, does the speaker say any of this? Does he acknowledge her greatness? No. He says she's wearing a cute hat. All her accomplishments and ability reduced to how she looks in a hat.

The problem here has absolutely nothing to do with the hat.

[theoretick]

This debate is entirely moot without context. I imagined/read it as something like: >"...Ah, and this absolutely brilliant woman started that trend. Just look at her, a beacon blahblahblah wrapped in that cute hat."

If neither of us have been there, its pointless arguing the statement. My point is simply that when I do such talks I frequently inject humor into it, just the way he had. Reading it as a completely isolated comment seems highly unrealistic to me.

[EliRivers]

When you give your talks with humour injected, do people in the audience come to you afterwards and suggest that your remarks were unhelpful to some people in the audience, as someone did in this case? In essence, do people politely complain to you about what you said?

If they did, would you ignore them and carry on injecting your humour?