[ottertown]

Lots of comments here focusing solely on the beer pong aspect of frat parties. You guys aren't wrong: there's nothing sexist about beer pong.

The use of the word 'frat' really is the difference here. Beer and beer pong are the obvious connotations with frat parties. Scantily clad women, roofies, and rape, are some others, even if those associations are unfair. Why in the world would you associate your company with something like that?

The party itself isn't some egregious, unforgivable mistake, but the fact that while under investigation for gender discrimination, it does something like this, illustrates to me that Twitter is pretty oblivious to the problem.

[travjones]

Perfect summary. Don't forget racism as an additional association. I'm not sure why there is an overwhelming atmosphere of denial on HN whenever the topic of women in tech comes up. What's the deal? Do you think women are adequately represented in tech jobs? What about minorities?

[aaronbrethorst]

I assume it has to do with the meritocracy myth. There's quite a bit of good writing about it. Here's one piece: https://medium.com/@jocelyngoldfein/techs-meritocracy-proble...

[roguecoder]

There are a group of men who joined the profession because of the exclusionary atmosphere: it makes them feel special and elite. You can see this in the study of interest in computer science classes depending on classroom atmosphere: the hyper-masculine condition has a rise in male interest at the same time women's interest falls dramatically (http://ilabs.uw.edu/sites/default/files/Cheryan_Meltzoff_Kim...)

There are some people who just don't want anything to change and resent the effort required to think about people who are different from them, but there are others who have ego invested in maintaining the exclusionary atmosphere of the profession. I suspect, though I don't have a citation, that those people are also more likely to participate in forums like Hacker's News that reinforce that sense of being special.

[arprocter]

Frats are only for white people? I guess these folks[0] didn't get the memo

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_African-American_Greek...

[arprocter]

You really think if they called it a 'Greek party' instead there would've been no 'offense' taken?

[ottertown]

Um, maybe? There's a whole list of unacceptable types of parties for companies to host.

Greek may have generated less uproar, but that's not the word they chose.

[giarc]

What about just "College Olympics"? (If olympics is not a trademarked word).

[arprocter]

Point is, as long as it's a pong party someone would've still extrapolated it into Something For The Perpetually 'Offended' To Be Angry About(tm)

[wpietri]

If a workplace is seeking diversity, I think there's also something problematic about a very alcohol-driven work culture. The Geek Feminism wiki points out a number of problems with an alcohol-focused event:

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Women-friendly_events#Alc...

One thing that was hard for me as a guy to learn is that women can reasonably see all guys as Schrodinger's Rapist:

http://kateharding.net/2009/10/08/guest-blogger-starling-sch...

If one is continually performing the "will I be safe" calculus, alcohol clearly increase risk. Much more so at a party whose whole purpose is getting smashed, and which has strong connotations of college sexual dynamics.

[bcg1]

I'd DDoS your up arrow if I could. I'm not a woman... but after discovering that I have a severe allergy to alcohol I don't drink at all anymore and there is no way I would feel comfortable attending an event that was so focused on drinking. On top of that, even as a man I would feel unsafe in such an environment... unfathomable to me how it would feel if I was a woman.