[nemothekid]

Maybe because I'm young and I don't know "how it works" yet, but I would hate for the Tech industry as I know now to become "professional." To me, the tech industry is one of the few places I can work without wearing a suit and tie everyday and still make more than 6 figures. I don't want my presentations to be "censored" because someone has a stick too far up their ass. I don't want the next Linus to be fired because he was "unprofessional" in the way made a statement. Maybe I'm trying to cling too much to College, but I like being able to talk to my co-workers as friends and not robots where work goes in grunts come out.

I get people aren't 100% politically correct. I'm black and some people still panic when the word "nigga" plays on their speakers. I know its a song, not KKK propaganda, and I'm not going to give a lawsuit for "oppressing" me with your taste of music. I think its important to consider people's intents for their action. I think thats crucial for maintaining the "hippie" culture of Silicon Valley. I'm a grown man and I know women have periods and men have dicks. You know what pisses me off more than sex jokes? Cat Jokes. I fucking hate cats. If I can keep myself composed over a shitty 5 second cat joke, I think most people can make it through a man saying a woman has a "cute navy hat."

Lastly, I understand there are lines however. The CouchDB porn star talk was way over the line. That is something I don't even understand how most guys would be comfortable with. All I'm saying is we should recognize when people are being hyper sensitive and when people are really being insensitive.

[angersock]

Being in an industry where there is still a chance to do new things and be judged on our work instead of other things is pretty great.

We just need to be sure that we all act with the maturity and respect befitting our good fortune--this includes dealing politely with things we disagree with, and having the good grace not to cause drama over dumb shit.

[rmrfrmrf]

When I say that I think we need to be more inclusive of women, the last thing I'm saying is that we need to turn every company into an HR police state (trust me, I've worked in those places before and they're hellish).

However, I think I can touch on one of your points to help explain why these seemingly petty word choices are more important than most people think.

> I understand there are lines however. The CouchDB porn star talk was way over the line. That is something I don't even understand how most guys would be comfortable with.

Your response to the CouchDB talk was similar to many people in the tech community, which (correct me if I'm wrong) was, "how did they even think that that would be a good idea?"

Well, chances are the CouchDB guys wanted to be funny and push the envelope a little to generate buzz about their product. But when we're constantly surrounded by this subtle sexualized environment in tech, our perspective changes as we become desensitized to it. So, what may have seemed to be a slightly risque presentation to the CouchDB presenters becomes a much bigger deal to people on the outside looking in.

While it might not seem like a man saying "and look at that cute little hat" about one of the most respected women in our field is a big deal, consider it in the context of what women see or hear at that conference on the same day:

* booth babes

* "dude, I fuckin raped that shit" (related to any job 'done well')

* being groped in an elevator

* scantily-clad women on every desktop background for entire rows of machines

* constant unsolicited flirtation and getting 'checked-out' (and being called a bitch after you say no)

* Guy 1: "I swear to God, this bitch that works with me never does anything right." Guy 2: "Well, I saw on Reddit that a lot of women's brains just aren't designed to program. They're designed for raising children and..." Guy 1: "Making sandwiches" [Both share a laugh]

* "Wow, I'd totally fork his repo."

It's just like...enough already, you know?

Also, I just want to point out that, no matter what the severity of the offense is in the tech community, there are always people that try to diffuse the conversation by saying,"Now, I consider myself to be a die-hard feminist, but we need to learn to pick our battles..." yada yada.

Here's part of Matt Aimonetti's infamous response to the criticism of his CouchDB presentation: "The topic of my talk was obvious, and I would have hoped that people who were likely to be offended would have simply chosen not to attend my talk or read my slides on the internet."

[derefr]

> consider it in the context of what women see or hear at that conference on the same day:

I think this is the problem with my perspective here. I don't have experience with any of those other things. At the company I work for, nobody thinks booth-babes, sexualized desktop wallpaper, or bland acceptance of horribly sexist stereotypical "humor" is a good idea. We wouldn't attend a con where any of those were the norm; we'd probably boycott it.

And since we don't have those things, the dongle-jokes seem a lot less like "adding onto the pile."