We keep talking about making appropriate responses to sexism — not just those of us who are strongly pro-feminism, but even the regressive thugs on the other side will say that, although we’ll argue about what level of response is appropriate. But this is where I lose patience every goddamned time: apparently no response other than silence and submission is acceptable.
We’ve all seen how “guys, don’t do that” was turned into cause for outrage. Here’s another instance: Adria Richards was at a tech conference when, during a presentation that was about women coders no less, a couple of guys behind her started cracking suggestive jokes.
The guys were clearly in the wrong. They were being rude, distracting, and trying to assert their dudely privilege in one of the few moments granted women during a conference dominated by men. So Richards turned, snapped their picture, and tweeted it to the conference organizers, asking them to handle it.
This was a measured response. It wasn’t a blast of anger, it was a request that the conference enforce its code of conduct. It disrupted the meeting less than a couple of chattering smart-asses did. This is exactly what we should want people to do: polite confrontation through appropriate channels.
The conference organizers also did exactly what they were supposed to do: they called the two men aside and asked them to stop and behave themselves.
I assume the two men also reacted appropriately. There are no tales of angry shouting or rejection of the admonishment. I charitably presume that they were chagrined and a little embarrassed, nothing more.
This should have been the end of it: a happy story of a minor breach of manners handled by grown-ups who moved on to do their jobs professionally. Lessons learned all around; don’t disparage or harass minorities (women were only 20% of the attendees), trust the organizers to manage hiccups smoothly, deal with problems through official channels. Except you know more happened or it wouldn’t be news.
A whole bunch of otherwise uninvolved people completely lost their shit. This is ridiculous.
But instead, the internet decided to throw one epic fucking tantrum. First, one of the men pictured in Richards’s photographs was fired from his job (his company was one of the sponsors of PyCon). Richards did not call for him to be fired, nor did she celebrate the decision, according to this post. Nonetheless, Richards’s company SendGrid—NOT the company that fired the dude—was subject to a DDoS attack courtesy of 4chan (their express purpose was to “ruin her life”). She’s also been subjected to the usual avalanche of violent harassment and rape threats that descends upon any woman who dares to criticize male-dominated tech culture (see: Sarkeesian, Anita; also everything else ever). Sidenote to tech dudes: GET A FUCKING GRIP.
SendGrid subsequently fired Richards.
Firing one of the men over a brief incident of inappropriate behavior: totally inappropriate and excessive. That would only be reasonable if there were far more severe breaches of courtesy.
4chan getting involved: disgraceful. Launching a denial of service attack against Richards’ employer: what the fuck is wrong with these people?
Worse: Richards’ employer, SendGrid, caving in to extortion and firing her. I hope she’s considering legal action. That was incredibly craven.
Worser, appallingly disgusting: the violent reaction by some assholes.
Richards has been called practically every name under the sun. Some Twitter commenters demanded she kill herself. A 4chan user allegedly released Richards’s personal information. But few reactions were more disturbing than this one, sent to her Wednesday evening: a photo (blurred but still NSFW) of a bloody, beheaded woman, bound and stripped, with the caption “when Im done.” Next to it was a home address and phone number, ostensibly Richards’s.
And of course the usual slymepitters are crowing over all this on twitter, taunting via the #ftbullies and #wiscfi hashtags, as they always do. This is the kind of behavior they love to applaud.
This is the heart of the problem. We can build all the protocols for reasonable responses we want; women like Adria Richards can use them; responsible people can implement appropriate reactions.
And then, beneath it all, lies the festering sewer of rape culture that rises in rage at any damned uppity woman who dares to speak out against our very own homegrown Taliban.
And one last bit of insult: the conference organizers retroactively revised their code of conduct to exclude public shaming.
Public shaming can be counter-productive to building a strong community. PyCon does not condone nor participate in such actions out of respect.
Cowards. Just remember, ladies, decorum must be maintained, and the proper young woman will be meek and silent in the face of offense. The men can’t build a strong community if women keep speaking out publicly.
I wonder how many women will now think twice before complaining about asshole behavior at their job or at a meeting? If they’re inhibited, congratulations, scumbags: you got what you wanted. On the other hand, maybe we’ll finally reach a critical mass of outrage, and the next time some dudebro starts with the sexist shit at a conference, a dozen people, men and women alike, will rise up and tell him to grow up or get out.
I know I’m even less inclined to let casual smears slide now. I hope you feel the same way.
What the fuck? I mean really, what in the goddamned fuck? I’m sorry you had to interact with that loathsome person(Hell, I’m sorry you have to share a universe with him).
(Derail: God, I mean I know there have been millions if not billions of absolutely brilliant women, but for the love of not-God could we please teach people about Emmy Noether in history/science/kindergarden. I mean, Einstein had a great mind and all, but I have never, never in my life come across someone whose mind was so utterly, brilliantly, elegant(I recognize that term has sexist connotations, but it’s the only word I can think of to describe just how amazing her insights were, she was able to look at all sorts of branches of mathematics and say “they’re all the same, just looked at through different lenses” and similarly with math and the fundamental nature of the universe.) It angers me to no end that she gets so little recognition due to our sexist-ass society. And somehow it just infuriates me to imagine that this fuckbrained twit would straight out ignore you, her and anyone identifying as a woman because “they’re stupid”. The most brilliant mind, in my estimation, to ever work in math or physics was stupid? But of course, I can only begin to imagine how infuriating that shit on a daily basis has to be, god. Also, the notion that you are stupid is downright laughable, you are consistantly one of the best and most insightful commenters on here, and I suspect that I’ve learned more about feminism and basic human decency from listening to you since elevatorgate than I have from 16 years of schooling.)
And thanks for your warm words earlier. To quote Dollhouse, “I try to be my best.” But I have a long way to travel. Even when I think I am a good ally, I find I am still a coward. But practicing here has made me a bit more willing to call out fuckfaces in meatspace, so I really ought to thank the MRAs.
Here, the relevant portion of the policy I quoted:
That’s part of the definition. The LEGAL definition.
Next step in this dance: some variant on ‘but then women can just make up whatever they want (becuz wimminz lie) and get innocent men in trouble!’ No. Harassment policies are arbitrated by staff, who will investigate and listen to both sides, but one side claiming what they did was not harassment is merely their opinion, not the default assumption. This is not a bench experiment, it is an issue of negotiating agreement on a set of behavioral norms.
From zhuge, le homme blanc qui ne sait rien mais voudrait:
First, they didn’t direct anything like, ‘I want to fuck you’ to Richards, in either account. That would be clear-cut sexism.
Given the context… I don’t think it could be interpreted that way. I would fully expect Richards to be fully aware of what forking means, and how the sexual innuendo of forking a man’s repo is being used – a juvenile joke not directed at women in any way. Heard incompletely, it’s just about ‘forking’ someone in general. By the by, it’s a bit insulting to Richards that people are implying she wouldn’t even know what forking meant (which you haven’t done, but I think it needs to be said).
All in all, it’s like considering a man saying ‘having sex’ to another man within earshot of a woman creates a hostile, sexist environment.
I have never suggested that anyone is making things up. Is it not valid to question whether a comment, at any point, is actually sexist? There are also a number of women who loudly and emphatically say it was not sexist. Do we need to do a count? I acknowledge that a woman’s opinion on sexism tends to be more valuable, since they have to deal with it so much more often and will be better at recognizing it, but it does not instantly validate every accusation made. And I’m not just rejecting their opinions out of hand and refusing to listen – I just want a half decent justification. You’re doing a pretty fair job of getting me there, but I’m not convinced yet.
Being disruptive and making stupid jokes at a conference – we can all agree that’s a terrible idea and unprofessional. Even if it was a casual environment, you shouldn’t be bothering people in an audience. But it still doesn’t qualify as sexist.
I think they’re in damage control mode. I don’t think every person thrust into the spotlight has an obligation to go back to the media and condemn all wrongs that are being done in their name by some anonymous dicks on the internet. But they could also just be inconsiderate or selfish – who knows.
Zhuge:
Oh yes, a thousand times yes. Absolutely brilliant, with wonderful insights.
I wasn’t terribly surprised to find out that he had few friends. Life is too bloody short to waste on such people.
Pteryxx:
Yes. All too predictable. We may need that link re false accusations you posted in Teadome.
Yet Richards interpreted it that way (and many of us concur) therefore, obviously, it could. (Sheesh.)
[meta]
shirakawasuna:
Then why do you not do so?
Do these fuckwits whine every time someone takes a photo of someone and puts it on Twitter or Facebook?
Dear men:
Die.
No, seriously. This is a rant, and it’s about you, personally. You, personally, are a ****, because statistics indicate there is an almost 100% certainty that you have either committed a rape, or wanted to commit a rape, or knowingly assisted or defended someone who committed a rape, or mocked a woman who was raped. And no, I’m not dropping links to tell you what you should damn well already know.
Here is what you know: that you are a vile and depraved chunk of flesh that doesn’t matter to the world. You exist in a reality you perpetuate in which value is all relative, in which everything is placed into a hierarchy, which in the end means that nothing has inherent value. You are literally worthless.
And you are willing to do it so long as someone is worth less. So part of the way you deal with that is to try to make women worth less. You whine and whinge and cry about the Big Brother Corporations or Big Brother Government or Big Brother China-taking-all-our-jobs or Big Brother *******-who-beat-you-up-in-seventh-grade or Big Brother who-raped-you, but in the end you lap it up and pass the buck so that you can have someone underneath your own thumb. You only care about your rank in the pecking order, so spare me the crocodile tears.
I used to pity you. I used to feel sorry for you. I used to think most of you got a bad rap and were probably misunderstood.
But women are raped every day and we don’t go on murdering sprees. We don’t hunt men down and torture them to death. Little girls aren’t known for picking the wings off flies or frying ants to death on the sidewalk. Women in war zones are raped en masse and then cry for peace, and I’m expected to swallow your sob story about having a troubled childhood because you never knew your father and that’s why you and your friends drugged and gang-raped a sixteen year old girl.
On a daily basis you, individually and in concert with other men, actively attempt to destroy the lives of a class of people who have, for the most part, never done anything to you. Who have been enslaved and raped and brutalized and forced to raise children you claim or starve or beat or sell, and have for the most part still managed to find it in their hearts to love. Who rarely hurt you back. Who almost never rape or murder you. Who usually only harm you or their children when suffering from deep trauma-related psychoses. We suffer, daily, and you laugh at us, and tell us it’s our fault.
Then you tell us you can’t help it. It’s your nature. It’s how you love. It’s how you desire. It’s how you prove yourselves.
All of which leads me to believe that either you’re deluding yourselves about the reality of your choices OR that you really and truly are fundamentally flawed beings. It’s amazing how many of your academic fields and governance – from evolutionary biology, to psychology, to criminal law – are constantly trying to convince me of the latter. Females are human beings, but I’m not sure what you are.
If the world was the tiniest bit just, or fair, or merciful, or righteous, I would be out there with a knife or a gun hunting you down. I would offer you blowjobs for forty dollars behind the building and then dispatch you quickly in quiet solitude. I would be kinder than you, because I would only go after adults. I would be kinder than you, because I would do it quickly and not torture you first. I would be kinder than you, because I wouldn’t call you names or demean you or psychologically terrorize you while I was doing it. You would be released from the psychotic prison of your mind, and there would be one less man out there threatening my mother, my sisters, my daughters, and my self.
You wouldn’t know who I was. I smile at you in that elevator. I dress inconspicuously. I call you “sir” if you’re older. I’m the one who serves you coffee at the drive-thru window, and you crack jokes to try to get me to smile. I’m the one who cleans your office, who you greet by first name and a smile with that little half-wave. I’m the one who tells you to turn your head to the side and cough. I could poison you, I could go through your desk drawer and destroy your finances, I could kill you on the operating table. I could do things to you. You don’t know. I’m your next door neighbor, your secretary, your sister, your wife. I’m the “loud” “fat” woman in your office you dismiss out of hand. I’m the young Asian girl from downstairs you eroticize because of my presumed submissiveness.
It’s ironic, really – you try to subvert, and corrupt, and infect, and distort, and mangle, and destroy our lives because you aren’t even sure you have one. It’s obvious that you don’t deserve one.
You aren’t scared of me, but maybe you should be. Because I know what you are. And I know how this will end.
You think this sounds violent? Don’t even start; I know what you look at when you masturbate.
Dear men:
Die.
No, seriously. This is a rant, and it’s about you, personally. You, personally, are a ****, because statistics indicate there is an almost 100% certainty that you have either committed a rape, or wanted to commit a rape, or knowingly assisted or defended someone who committed a rape, or mocked a woman who was raped. And no, I’m not dropping links to tell you what you should damn well already know.
Here is what you know: that you are a vile and depraved chunk of flesh that doesn’t matter to the world. You exist in a reality you perpetuate in which value is all relative, in which everything is placed into a hierarchy, which in the end means that nothing has inherent value. You are literally worthless.
And you are willing to do it so long as someone is worth less. So part of the way you deal with that is to try to make women worth less. You whine and whinge and cry about the Big Brother Corporations or Big Brother Government or Big Brother China-taking-all-our-jobs or Big Brother *******-who-beat-you-up-in-seventh-grade or Big Brother who-raped-you, but in the end you lap it up and pass the buck so that you can have someone underneath your own thumb. You only care about your rank in the pecking order, so spare me the crocodile tears.
I used to pity you. I used to feel sorry for you. I used to think most of you got a bad rap and were probably misunderstood.
But women are raped every day and we don’t go on murdering sprees. We don’t hunt men down and torture them to death. Little girls aren’t known for picking the wings off flies or frying ants to death on the sidewalk. Women in war zones are raped en masse and then cry for peace, and I’m expected to swallow your sob story about having a troubled childhood because you never knew your father and that’s why you and your friends drugged and gang-raped a sixteen year old girl.
On a daily basis you, individually and in concert with other men, actively attempt to destroy the lives of a class of people who have, for the most part, never done anything to you. Who have been enslaved and raped and brutalized and forced to raise children you claim or starve or beat or sell, and have for the most part still managed to find it in their hearts to love. Who rarely hurt you back. Who almost never rape or murder you. Who usually only harm you or their children when suffering from deep trauma-related psychoses. We suffer, daily, and you laugh at us, and tell us it’s our fault.
Then you tell us you can’t help it. It’s your nature. It’s how you love. It’s how you desire. It’s how you prove yourselves.
All of which leads me to believe that either you’re deluding yourselves about the reality of your choices OR that you really and truly are fundamentally flawed beings. It’s amazing how many of your academic fields and governance – from evolutionary biology, to psychology, to criminal law – are constantly trying to convince me of the latter. Females are human beings, but I’m not sure what you are.
If the world was the tiniest bit just, or fair, or merciful, or righteous, I would be out there with a knife or a gun hunting you down. I would offer you blowjobs for forty dollars behind the building and then dispatch you quickly in quiet solitude. I would be kinder than you, because I would only go after adults. I would be kinder than you, because I would do it quickly and not torture you first. I would be kinder than you, because I wouldn’t call you names or demean you or psychologically terrorize you while I was doing it. You would be released from the psychotic prison of your mind, and there would be one less man out there threatening my mother, my sisters, my daughters, and my self.
You wouldn’t know who I was. I smile at you in that elevator. I dress inconspicuously. I call you “sir” if you’re older. I’m the one who serves you coffee at the drive-thru window, and you crack jokes to try to get me to smile. I’m the one who cleans your office, who you greet by first name and a smile with that little half-wave. I’m the one who tells you to turn your head to the side and cough. I could poison you, I could go through your desk drawer and destroy your finances, I could kill you on the operating table. I could do things to you. You don’t know. I’m your next door neighbor, your secretary, your sister, your wife. I’m the “loud” “fat” woman in your office you dismiss out of hand. I’m the young Asian girl from downstairs you eroticize because of my presumed submissiveness.
It’s ironic, really – you try to subvert, and corrupt, and infect, and distort, and mangle, and destroy our lives because you aren’t even sure you have one. It’s obvious that you don’t deserve one.
You aren’t scared of me, but maybe you should be. Because I know what you are. And I know how this will end.
You think this sounds violent? Don’t even start; I know what you look at when you masturbate.
Tony:
Only if it’s a woman with a notation of “not cool” or “guys, don’t do that” or similar. Then it’s horrible, evil, unthinkable and the cause of irrevocable damage. You betcha.
@ cm, changeable moniker:
Hi, I’m male. And I can absolutely verify the already incredibly well-studied field of male-centric spaces. I enter into evidence my undergraduate program, where I was told I would fail the computer science course because my partner was female. Mind you, I’m male — but apparently not male enough!
@ shirakawasuna:
First, and without vitriol: If you want to know what happened at PyCon, ask PyCon. They have contact information! Go look it up. They even do press releases, I hear. In fact, some of those have been linked in this very thread, which leads me to believe that you have not, in fact, read this thread.
Therefore, for expecting us to educate you about what happened at some particular conference none of us were at (probably), here’s some more vitriol for you. Fuck off.
If you’d actually read the thread, you’d understand the reasons vitriol is being directed your way. If you’d actually read the thread, you might understand that people who have participated in said thread have very little interest in your hurt feelings at receiving swear words on the internet.
And you know what? If the information you want isn’t in this thread, you could try this crazy thing called “the internet”. I hear it lets you search for things, instead of demanding that other people look up what you lack the reading comprehension to get from this thread. Fork-me-Jesus-Almighty.
And with that, puttering off to bed. Might check in to find out how shirakawasuna, aka The Troll Who Isn’t, responds to this. Might not. Can’t really bring myself to care. What a shirakawsunadipshit.
[meta]
Etienne Dufour: I will die, so will you.
(But I’m not an agent provocateur, unlike you)
@ Caine, Fleur du mal ~ oh like the shit you post is fucking Shakespeare.
– Christie Koehler
Look: If I were to outright say, as a “compliment”: Wow, those error bars are the smallest I’ve ever seen on a measurement of the proton radius. I totally want to fuck the person who did those measurements/analyses.- It would be deeply problematic. Sure the person who did it might be a man, but it betrays a certain attitude towards sex, namely, that sex is something a man does to someone else and doesn’t involve the consent of the person involved to be treated as solely a sexual being. This is not something that men generally have to deal with, but women have to deal with all the time. Knowing that I am willing to objectify people to make my humor is going to be offputting and might discourage women from working with me, in my group, in my laboratory or in my field. That would be deeply upsetting. Couching that statement in double entendre doesn’t help.
The “having sex” line totally depends. If every day two guys at an office talk about all the women they had sex with that weekend, it very well could contribute to a hostile climate. If someone is offput by the discussion the onus is on the people discussing to stop. They’re in an office/professional environment. I won’t say that they can’t talk about their sex lives in private(though I’d hope they don’t objectify their partners even then), but they have an obligation to make the environment comfortable for everyone.
No we don’t need to do a count. The point is that a substantial number of women find it offputting, it is thus ipso facto problematic. If you want to ask “does it partake of the form of sexism” then I don’t know and I don’t give one fuck about it’s metaphysical situation. I don’t even give a fuck about the guys who said it, in this situation. I just care that it clearly is harmful, mainly to women qua women, and so is sexist. If you want to quibble on the definition of sexism, I suggest you start a philosophy degree instead.
Look, they probably are in damage control mode. But you know what, people sit around and criticise moderate Christians and moderate Muslims and all that. They are the ones, in principal the fuckfaces are doing in their name, and I think they have an obligation to say “they don’t speak for me and are horrible people.” If they don’t, they are cowards. And cowardice when dealing with sexism is still fucking sexism. I deal with that myself. It’s hard. But it has to be done, because it isn’t as hard as being the subject of sexism.
Possible double post, wordpress is being weird to me here…
@ shirakawasuna:
First, and without vitriol: If you want to know what happened at PyCon, ask PyCon. They have contact information! Go look it up. They even do press releases, I hear. In fact, some of those have been linked in this very thread, which leads me to believe that you have not, in fact, read this thread.
Therefore, for expecting us to educate you about what happened at some particular conference none of us were at (probably), here’s some more vitriol for you. Fuck off.
If you’d actually read the thread, you’d understand the reasons vitriol is being directed your way. If you’d actually read the thread, you might understand that people who have participated in said thread have very little interest in your hurt feelings at receiving swear words on the internet.
And you know what? If the information you want isn’t in this thread, you could try this crazy thing called “the internet”. I hear it lets you search for things, instead of demanding that other people look up what you lack the reading comprehension to get from this thread. Fork-me-Jesus-Almighty.
And with that, puttering off to bed. Might check in to find out how shirakawasuna, aka The Troll Who Isn’t, responds to this. Might not. Can’t really bring myself to care. What a shirakawsunadipshit.
Etienne Dufour ~ “Dear men:
Die.
No, seriously.”
Dear Etienne,
Come at me BRO!
Etienne Dufour:
So are men. So are little boys. Among the many people here who have been raped (I’m one of them), we have men who were raped. It’s both insulting and offensive and dismissive of you to act as though such things only happen to women. Also, most men don’t rape. It’s a minority of men who commit rape. Women are also capable of rape, and some of them do.
I get the anger, I really do. That said, don’t imagine that screed of yours helps in any way. It doesn’t.
From zhuge, le homme blanc qui ne sait rien mais voudrait:
I do give them the benefit of the doubt. That’s why I’m asking questions.
Well the timing of the comment is being used to say that it does imply a sexist comment.
The forking/dongle comments? Where? There is one person, Richards, claiming that it was sexist and that she was tired of hearing shit at the conference.
No. I keep hearing this argument, but it’s specious. Because we are human, there *will* be times when a comment is misperceived, for a large number of reasons – the speaker was incompetent, the recipient heard something that didn’t happen, many more potential reasons. It is not true that a comment is sexist by fiat of one person thinking it was so. I wish that the side of the coin was more biased in that direction, since women’s perception of sexism is rampantly dismissed without warrant, but it does not mean that the absolute opposite is true – a woman is always right about the sexism of a comment.
That’s what I was referring to earlier about ‘implying sexism’. It’s the best argument I’ve seen so far and it’s actually the primary justification that Richards gives as well – the inappropriateness of the timing. It still doesn’t make the comments sexist – I don’t have to explain all the ways someone could be bored at a conference. I’d try a ‘turn the tables’ analogy but it probably wouldn’t go over so well.
I do not understand why people are hung up on questioning if the fratbrat boys were sexist or not. Wait, yes I do. If they said nothing sexist, then Adria overreacted and everything that subsequently happened-fratbrat #1 getting fired, 4chan getting involved, Adria getting rape and death threats, her firing-was all her fault because she overreacted.
You people are looking for a reason to justify everything that happened in theonly way you can understand: it was all Adria’s fault.
Fuck all of you victim blaming arseholes.
Called it. See again, reporting, arbitration, etc.
@ Etienne Dufour:
Dear Etienne Dufour:
Restrain your rhetoric. That was absurd. Were you trying to parody something? Seriously, what the fuck was that?
Sorry, no. For one, I don’t go into back alleys for blowjobs. I’m also fairly sure that doctors at the operating table have these things called review boards, so I think I’m safe if I go into surgery*.
Honestly, what the fuck was that?
ALL WOMEN CAN KILL YOU RAWR! BE AFRAID! BE VERY AFRAID!
Worst parody of feminism attempt ever, in my opinion.
Also, sorry about the double-post, particularly since my copy-paste issue didn’t go well.
* Well, as safe as anybody can be in surgery. I hear they use sharp instruments.
From Asher Kay:
I do. I am not suggesting that my question is more important than the death and rape threats she’s receiving. Just because I’m discussing something doesn’t mean it’s the most important thing in the world to me – in fact it’s because it’s incidental that I’m asking it. I don’t really need to hash out how ridiculous the 4chan’s response is any more than I already have elsewhere, nor would I expect a fight about that here. A chunk of the internet has gone full-on ‘Men’s Rights’ over this, and that should be condemned.
shirakawasuna: I refer you to comment #2 on this thread, O liar.
“Hi, I’m the guy who made a comment about big dongles. First of all I’d like to say I’m sorry. I really did not mean to offend anyone and I really do regret the comment and how it made Adria feel. She had every right to report me to staff, and I defend her position.”
You’re disputing both what the the aggrieved party and the offender acknowldege: that she had “every right to report me to staff”.
It was offensive, and seen so by all parties involved.
(You are clutching at straw that ain’t there)
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls:
The woman is given the benefit of the doubt, but she is not absolute truth. The law is meant to apply to cases of sexual harassment – what is perceived, by a woman or a man – is weighed very heavily. It is not absolute.
We have a fundamental disagreement about what justifies a comment as sexist. You say it’s whether it has been perceived by a woman as sexist. That’s it. I say that misunderstandings are possible.
Etienne:
You may be pissed off, but that double wall of text was out of linr. Especially calling for domeone, anyone to die.
Etienne Dufour:
No. Focus on those people, men and women, who are the problem. Many men totally support women’s rights.
.
shirakawasuna:
You are a part of the problem. Stop acting stupid and educate yourself. Semantics about meaning outweigh rape threats. You are a nasty piece of work.
.
Caine:
Thank you for keeping up the rage. Your voice means a lot to me. I’m having trouble getting on the site today or I’d have posted more often..
@shirakawasuna:
Can you explain why it’s important at all? Why you want to discuss that particular issue?
What would getting a precise, satisfying answer mean to you? If it turned out that you were convinced the jokes were sexist, what would that accomplish for you? What would it mean in terms of the incident? In terms of the larger issues for women in tech culture?
And if it turned out that you were convinced that the jokes *weren’t* sexist — what would that mean? What would the consequences of that be for you?
Lofty:
Thank you. I wouldn’t blame anyone for wanting to stay a hundred miles away from this thread. It’s infested with a special breed of stupid.
Actually, by continuing to follow this up, you seem to be directly suggesting that your question is more important than the death and rape threats Adria Richards is receiving. And the DDOS attack. And the rampant firings. Because you don’t seem to understand the context in which you’re commenting. Or refuse to understand!
Do you understand that this thread is over 1000 comments long, filled with people who totally understand but just want to dissect her behavior that much more?
Just stop. I’m asking, sincerely. Just. Stop. Explore the ethical ramifications of her possible social media faux pas elsewhere. I guarantee you, you’re just digging a deeper hole here. We’ve already explored these issues, and found them massively irrelevant to the situation at hand.
And you know what? Sure. There are interesting questions of social media etiquette and public shaming available in this situation. But not after 1000 comments. Not after those 1000 comments. You expect rational discourse on abstract — or applied — topics of courtesy after the likes of Matthew Best?
Seek it elsewhere. Or seek it here on a follow-up thread, or in the Thunderdome (though I wouldn’t recommend it immediately). At this point, I’m absolutely confident that none of us want to deal with this shit anymore. Not here. Not without vitriol.
Your position seems to be that it’s vitally urgent to criticize Richards before everyone forgets about it. This isn’t going to be forgotten. It’s going to be an on-going issue, for all sides. So your absolute focus on what she did wrong just makes you look like an absolute jackass.
I remind you, 1000 comments. And not just any comments. Matthew Best comments!
Having read his comments, I’m sure you’ll understand my continued vitriol. Fuck off. Just fuck off.
@golliblog, if you’re still around, I’ll ask you directly the same question I asked generally – leaving aside your rather absurd claim that her actions constitute ‘harassing photography’, as anyone with a functioning brain can basically work out it doesn’t, what, precisely, is wrong with Adria Richards publicly, but very mildly complaining about sexist jokes?
@shirakawasuna, as you would know if you had even done a bare minimum of research via Google about this, even without reading all 1000 comments here, one of the men in question has apologised for his comments and Jesse Noller, who chaired the conference said, and I quote, ‘We pulled all the individuals aside. We got all sides of the story. They said she was right, and they were very apologetic.’ As such, I think it’s pretty fucking clear that the comments were, in fact, sexist.
Patrick:
They didn’t read the comments, that is more than obvious.
Shirakawasuna:
You still seem to think the sexist nature of the comments are up for debate. Unless you are Adria Richards, that determination is not yours to make. It was hers. Your attempts to bring that into question is a way of dismissing her.
What is your motive for the line of questioning? Especially when it is clear you are biased in one direction. If someone is able to be the definitive judge and determine no sexism occurred, what does that mean? And yes, your focus on this over the rape and death threats is telling. Oh you pay lip service, but you appear to think you have some gotcha on your hands that will magically turn this around. Even if it was not sexist it still would not matter, because she would stil have faced rape and death threats. Thats what happens to women.
From zhuge, le homme blanc qui ne sait rien mais voudrait:
While I’m very appreciate of your responses to me, I wasn’t playing favorites. I really just meant that I’m not forcing anyone to read or respond to anything I say. I’m not suggesting at all that anyone owes me their opinion in any context. But I keep getting told that I’m being entitled so clarification was necessary.
I hadn’t read that particular article (and haven’t yet – will do after this post), but I’m very familiar with sexism in STEM on a personal level. I work in both engineering and science. On the engineering side it’s in a field particularly plagued by sexist attitudes and a huge gender imbalance. On a fairly regular basis I hear (and appropriately deal with) male nerds complaining about why there isn’t a ‘men’s interest group’ for them. The (supposedly subtle) lower expectations for women in the field. Saying that a man is doing something the ‘the way a girl would’. Basically standard tropes that (usually) don’t get them in trouble.
Which does not condemn all double entendres – it’s referring to ones she heard. They can be benign or sexist. Women at work make puns and double entendres all the time. Does that mean they’re making themselves uncomfortable with sexist banter? Women are people, too – they make and appreciate jokes just like anyone else.
I disagree. I think everyone is making a lot of assumptions about me and my experiences based on very poor reasoning and almost no information. It is possible to disagree about *one particular case* without being a rape apologist. I also made the apparently wrong assumption that this would be a good place to get some of that ‘read’ suggestion done. It’s very apparent that if I want more information, it should apparently be just doing what I already did – read a ton of articles and make my own conclusions.
shirakawasuna @ #996:
Don’t you think there might be a reason for this? You mean to tell me that you went through this entire fucking thread, read posts by almost every regular here about being triggered, especially by Matthew Best, read meta comments about the last week and Steubenville, and you’re still mystified why a very large group of people whose emotions have been rubbed so fucking raw that they’re bleeding are being short and angry with you?
Even when I was a Nice Guy(TM) and MRA I could have fucking seen this!
You desperately need to get some context.
Please. You really do.
This thread has only ever been about the reaction Richards received. Yes, I read PZ’s opening post, and I’m fully aware of title. But the topic is, and always was, the shit that Richards received. This is what we’ve been trying to talk about, and yet people (yourself included) have come in here to go “WHAT ABOUT TEH MENZ?!?!?!?”, and they aren’t what this thread is about.
So please stop. For your own sake as well as ours. I’m asking you. Please.
As I’ve said before, I personally am not against the particular conversation you want to have, but this simply is not the thread for it.
Please respect that.
Please?
Are you sure you’ve read everything on this thread? I don’t know the exact number, but several people have quoted Adria’s report on the incident. Personally I cannot believe that anyone who reads that could think that the “jokes” weren’t sexist. The only question is whether to report the people concerned this time. Presuming that you’ve read the whole thread, including the several copies of her report, you’ll notice that she had ample opportunities to report other “jokes” – this one was the one that made her mind up.
Just to save you reading through the whole thread – again – here’s one link. http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/03/22/adria-richards-did-everything-exactly-right/comment-page-2/#comment-585666 In fact, don’t just read the cite, read that whole comment. It’s well written and makes my points better than I ever could.
From mildlymagnificent:
I’ll agree with you there! And those sexually charged jokes can be very much part of a boy’s club, and very exclusive and sexist.
But that doesn’t mean that all sexually charged jokes are sexist, or constitute sexism.
Obviously, you do not in fact believe women are people.
From Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls:
I haven’t in any cogent way, except by zhuge. I think I’m just getting your boilerplate ‘enemy’ response.
Comment 989:
I agree with everything there. And yet, this double entendre shows no signs of sexism.
Note: by ‘agree’ I mean with your entire message, not a ‘yes’ answer.
From Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls:
They don’t make what I’m discussing irrelevant at all… they are just more important.
It’s getting really hard to take you sincerely.
Oh hi, by the way. I’m male, white, straight, have a B.S./M.S. in engineering fields. I’m highly proficient in programming languages, and in fact am quite versatile with Python. Thus obviously qualified to talk about PyCon!
Credentials done?
I commented above that you are really missing the point. This has been an extremely volatile thread. Why are you so insistent that everybody — after 1000 comments — cater to you?
Has it occurred to you that there might be a reason for that? Has it occurred to you to read the fucking reasons why you’re getting this?
Are you really that fucking dense? Do you step on a landmine and complain that the “WARNING: LANDMINES HERE” sign wasn’t fucking obvious enough?
Here it is: You’re getting treated like a fucking asshole troll because you sound like a fucking asshole troll. CONTEXT, dude.
[meta]
shirakawasuna, the conference organisers, the company that purportedly fired the man, the company that did fire the woman, the woman herself and the man who apologised all acknowledge the reality of what you query.
(Or: you’re a bullshitter)
From Pteryxx:
Nothing I’ve done constitutes trolling in any way. This is not because I say so – words have meaning and this one doesn’t apply. You are telling yourself a fiction by reaching at the demonizing straws.
I have not at any point devalued Richards. I am being realistic about fallibility and treating her like a person, not an infallible sexism detector.
I am making arguments related to whether something is sexist – though mostly I’m inviting more information demonstrating that the two male PyCon attendees said something sexist and finding it wanting.
I don’t question Richard’s experience any more than I question the two PyCon attendee’s experiences and I give her the benefit of the doubt. I work on the assumption that she perceived sexist remarks – obliquely by the timing of the juvenile joking (during a presentation on women in the community).
Your editorializing on my suggestion that being a fallible person is equivalent to me knowing *better* than Richards is so ridiculous that it deserves no further comment.
It should be noted that PyCon has put the Code of Conduct up on GitHub and has already changed the “Out of respect” language, as well as shutting down an attempt to get public shaming listed as its own offense with extra special penalties.
They’re very clearly trying to do the right thing.
shirakawasuna:
I’ve already made this point, but I’ll make it a bit more explicitly.
Adria Richards thinks the comments were sexist.
One of the men has apologised for making these comments.
According to the organisers of the conference, at the time, the two men admitted Richards was right and were very apologetic.
In short, everyone actually directly involved with this incident, down to and including the men who actually made the comments, seem to think the men were in the wrong for making sexist comments.
Yet you seem to be still questioning whether the comments were sexist.
shirakawasuna, please list the signs of sexism.
You have read it in context. Haven’t you? In a conversation that includes a woman, if only as audience, men slide ever so smoothly from talking professionally into using those same words to make sexual innuendoes. None of us were there to see facial expressions or eye movements or body language, but most of us would be willing to bet our next hamburger that there’d be some ‘tell’ that both men knew that they were being inappropriate, and that they knew very well that at least one woman could hear them.
Of course, they could be oblivious, insensitive jerks who didn’t care who heard them – but that, in and of itself, is sexist. It’s almost a definition of “chilly climate”.
I’m starting to think that women at such conferences don’t need designated drivers. They need designated report-every-single-violation-of-conference-policy-you-see-and-hear volunteers. The deluge of reports might at least give some people a better idea of how much of this stuff goes on and just how wearying it is to deal with.
From Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls:
Your reckless labeling of me as sexist is pretty much exactly the reason I haven’t found much satisfying discussion here. You’re repeatedly attempting to fit me into a mold you can hate, when I’m just a person who has a question about one aspect of one story. I want facts or context that goes beyond ‘the accuser says it’s so, so it is’.
I wasn’t going to say it earlier, but since you’re repeatedly referring to it, the law does not determine semantics, nor have your citations of the law demonstrated your case. We also started discussing that – apparently it’s over and time to hold it over my head?
If the community you’re commenting at says you’re trolling — repeatedly, by multiple regular commenters — maybe you should just shut the fuck up and respect that. Because, you know, if you don’t:
You’re trolling.
You don’t have a right to this space. Hell, none of us do. It’s a privately-run blog subject to the capricious whims of one highly opinionated asshole. While assigning motives to the owner of this blog is presumptive (and dangerous!) in the extreme, I’m going to do it anyway: he’d call you a troll, too.
So, until he tells me to fuck off, I’m going to just say FUCK YOU. You’re a troll.
Note that I haven’t addressed anything you’ve said*, because in my opinion, you’re a fucking troll.
P.S. Now worried about calling PZ names and speculating about what he would do here. He’s so sensitive about that! The jerk.
*
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
From Pteryxx:
When did Richards interpret the forking comment that way? I have yet to see Richards claim it was directed at her.
[meta]
shirakawasuna, you indignantly blustered at Nerd:
And I say that your disingenous inanity and ignorance of reality are much more explanatory as to why you’re dissatisfied with the discussion here, O bullshitter.
(Also, I’m right and you’re wrong)
shirakawasuna
Ye gods you’re denser than concrete. Focussing on semantics instead of the real issue, the death threats and rape threats. You’re the enemy of progress, no doubt about it.
@ EpiGrad:
Mind indulging me in a link? I didn’t find anything about new updates with a casual search. This would be awesome. :)
@PatrickG
https://github.com/python/pycon-code-of-conduct/commit/500a3d25c27065598002f7c999de3fdfb7ab18b1
And three cheers to @agentultra for his comments there.
From PatrickG:
I did read PyCon’s statements. They’re just a little bit shy of boilerplate conference apologetics (they don’t say much).
I haven’t expected anything. I asked for more information. No one is under any obligation to give it to me. I assumed this would be the place to go, as people here tend to educate themselves from diverse sources that I might not find.
I don’t have hurt feelings. I just note empty vitriol when it occurs. And I read the thread – it did not hold what they said it did. The fact that no such information has been forthcoming is almost a confirmation of that fact.
I, like almost everyone who replies to me, have a compulsion to respond to things said to me. I’ll admit that fault.
Ye gods (choose your own!), you didn’t read the thread at all, despite your assertions to the contrary! Her direct words and claims are quoted many, many times. Not going to bother requoting them, because as the Voice of Reason, you are obviously able to use Google/Yahoo/Bing/Whatever.
Fucking troll. Go back under your bridge.
Learn a lesson here, then. Don’t respond when several people tell you to fuck the fuck off. Also: look up ‘tone troll’. I’m sure you’re already aware of the term, but yeeeeeeesh.
Plus, since you don’t have hurt feelings, you won’t mind one more gratuitous ‘fuck off’.
shirakawasuna, please go away.
You are being horrible.
And that’s goalpost shifting. Here was your claim from 1002:
Comments or images do not have to be addressed directly to the complainant to constitute harassment. No such requirement exists in the explanation of harassment I posted, which you read and quoted. Overheard conversation can in fact constitute harassment.
@ Asher Kay: Thanks for the link. It’s interesting how several people in that thread went ‘Erf. Never had that happen to me, wasn’t aware”. shirakawasuna could take a few notes, I think.
Also @ Asher Kay: I’m really glad PyCon is taking this so seriously, and opening it to community input. They do indeed seem to be trying to do the right thing, and good on them for that!
From zhuge, le homme blanc qui ne sait rien mais voudrait:
That’s a very good point. I was about 9/10 of the way to convinced, but the word ‘fork’ itself makes it a pun for ‘fuck’. It’s not like they came out of the blue and actually said they wanted to fuck the guy because his stuff was good – the entire joke is the unimaginative double entendre. It’s also not like men are the only people who say ‘I would fuck that X’.
It’s not something to say in a professional environment, regardless.
I agree. Repeatedly setting up a boy’s club ‘in-joke’ of sexual conquests, etc, sets up a sexist, hostile work environment. That’s not what happened by any account. These justifications are dangerously close to, ‘any sex joke creates a hostile work environment’.
So if 30 women say it’s sexist, and 400 say it isn’t sexist, you conclude it is indeed and move on? Particularly given the near complete lack of justifications, doesn’t that imply that there’s more to the reality than simply counting the number of females saying ‘yea’? Your response reads to me as, ‘no we don’t need to count the women, but I counted some and am moving forward with their claim’. Women are not magical sexism detectors. They can give reasons for their perceptions. They can justify their claims. What I’m mostly seeing is belligerence. And while the vast majority of the time this is a cop-out, there will be cases where people are irrationally touchy about innocuous comments.
I’d be willing to grant that if they don’t speak out, they’re cowards. I just don’t fault someone on cowardice when it comes to this situation – not everyone wants to risk their professional or personal futures as a company representative by disavowing something you didn’t do.
No, everyone is responsible for their own actions. The chauvinist response is the fault of those chauvinists committing and rationalizing the threats. They are the people at fault in this situation. The rest is minor in comparison, not worth assigning blame.
From Pteryxx:
I can’t help it if that is literally your justification.
Called it at 1001, which shirakawasuna apparently did not feel compelled to read.
@PatrickG
Yeah. I don’t know how it will turn out, but it’s good that they’re doing it in the open.
And I agree that @shirakawasuna should read the comments. This is where the rubber meets the road. Some abstract definition of sexism isn’t going to help come up with a framework that makes women feel safe to report misconduct. Parsing and reparsing the jokes that were told in this specific instance isn’t going to help create a tech culture that is welcoming to everyone.
Pfft. shirakawasuna seems to be deliberately avoiding the point, and I’m due for bed.
But I can’t leave without pointing and laughing:
With regards to Adria Richards: she wasn’t, she did, and she did. As was linked to many, many times in this thread.
Your comments are clearly not innocuous, and I therefore conclude that I’m being rationally touchy about your comments (yes yes, different PQs there – it’s a different argument). Particularly, I’m going to ‘de-innocuize’ this:
So 30/430 isn’t enough? What is?
I’m really asking you that question: Very specifically: what proportion of a disadvantaged group complaining is necessary to take complaints seriously? You seem to want to count them, so answer that. Give us a percentage. 6.98% isn’t enough. What is?
In the expected absence of a meaningful answer, I stand by my assessment: Yeesh. Troll. Ah well, I’ll have to leave other people to poke at it. Good night!
Pharyngula et al have successfully completed a formal reductio ad absurdum without their own knowledge.
Seriously, how Richardson handled this was so obviously dumb that it takes “special” people to understand it.
To John Morales:
I read the contents of comment #2 well before this post was out. She did have every right to report them to staff. They were being disruptive, unprofessional, making sex jokes in the middle of a conference, and they were making her uncomfortable.
I’m going to fight my compulsion to reply to things and retire for the night. I’m guessing the thread will be dead enough by tomorrow, but who knows. Thanks to those who offered information!
Irrationally touchy, eh?
I suppose that includes the “oh, no, not again”, the “last straw”, the “fed up”, “that’s one too many” or “oh god, not here, not now” responses to “innocuous” “not really sexist” jokes, comments and invitations that so many women have. They have these responses after dozens of similar interactions (even if only as audience) that they’ve tolerated, buttoned their lip, gritted their teeth, smiled politely, frowned at or otherwise brushed aside, consciously ignored, or turned away from during the preceding day(s) of a conference or week(s) at a job.
But it’s irrational to invoke conference or employment harassment policies on selected occasions rather than every. single. time. Is that what you’re arguing? Is that what you want? Every single time? So we can tot up the total numbers of offensive comments and stupid jokes and then parse out whether that was “too much”. That’d be fun.
Or we can leave it to people to decide for themselves whether and when they report. Sounds like a plan to me.
shirakawasuna
FFS, do you assholes tag-team these threads or something? Every time I come back to Pharyngula, I think that surely this thread has died, but every time some new shithead has turned up to keep up the endless wave of douchebaggery. Seriously, find a new fucking hobby, ok?
@shirakawasuna
While you’re out there readin’ and makin’ up your mind, here’s another one:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/03/the-biggest-problem-in-technology.html
Note the well-linked support of problems of sexism in tech culture.
Note the dismissal in the comments section. These are your kindred souls.
To NateHevens, resident SOOPER-GENIUS… apparently…:
I would still argue that PZ himself specifically discussed this, and quite a bit more than the reaction (though that’s the most important aspect). With that said, I’m heading out and won’t try to get any more information from this thread. I can understand a need to vent about the ‘what about the men?’ response that always comes up.
shirakawasuna,: Fuck off, troll
stevecarlos: Fuck off, ableist troll
“Fuck off, ableist troll”
I’m sorry for noticing that mentally retarded people, like yourself, are mentally retarded and that this implies a cognitive deficiency.
stevecarlos @1077
0/10.
no troll points
Apparently this isn’t the first time Adria Richards has pulled a prima dona stunt.
Amanda Blum details an occasion where Richards’ behaved like a bully and caused considerable collateral damage because someone (Danielle Morrill) gave a talk entitled “Getting the Money Shot”. See here http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/
Richards’ sounds like a narcissist and a complete train wreck. It must be incredibly destructive for a company to have such a person on its books.
Notwithstanding the above, Amanda is right to point out how OTT the blowback directed at Richards’ has been. Hopefully Richards becomes a more rounded and mature individual as a result of this event.
Jesus fuck golliblog. That piece was discussed in the FIRST 500 comments already.
Also, thanks for being so very, very clear in your misogyny. A woman was, in your view, being a prima dona, so rape and death threats are used to put her back in her place (or make her a “more rounded and mature individual”, as you put it.) and that’s all good and dandy.
Like I said, thanks. Most people aren’t that honest.
Oh my god, it really is a tag-team….
“rounded and mature individual”
Oh my giddy aunt.
Please, please don’t tell us what you think a “rounded and mature individual” would look like on this thread or anywhere else for that matter. I don’t know whether I could handle it.
Tag team? This looks more like one of those elaborately choreographed may-pole dances. Except all the ribbons got tangled up because of all the mis-steps.
golliblog
Oh sweet soy gravy, FUCK OFF.
Gen, Uppity Ingrate:
“A woman was, in your view, being a prima dona, so rape and death threats are used to put her back in her place (or make her a “more rounded and mature individual”, as you put it.) and that’s all good and dandy.”
I very clearly and specifically agreed with Amanda’s reaction to the vitriol directed at Richards, so your allegation fails.
Please endeavour to be civil. Being rude and telling lies doesn’t advance your case.
I am awed by the stamina of the Pharyngulites here. Seriously, I don’t know how you all do it. As a lurker-trying-to-be-less-lurky, I wanted to back you up.
@ shirakawasuna: Women are constantly having to justify our responses to things. You should be flattered! It was just a joke! Why can’t you lighten up? You’re getting vitriol in part because this is an old pattern that people are really fucking tired of. Would you also ask me why I think the security guard at work constantly telling me to smile is sexist? It’s just a facial expression! How is that sexist?
Also – sexual comments are like any other kind of sexual behavior; they require consent. The bar is lower than for physical activities, so you can have implied consent based on prior conversations or existing relationships. But you still need consent. This has been used to harass women in male-dominated spaces for a long time. It’s a dominance display – we can make this a sexualized environment whenever you want, and your consent and comfort don’t matter. So you have behavior that has a history of being used in sexist ways, even if the behavior itself, taken totally out of context, is not necessarily sexist. It’s like fried chicken and watermelon – there is nothing inherent in those foods that makes them racist. But in the US, their historical usage makes pretty much any joke about them racist. And it’s disingenuous to ignore the context. She specifically identified these remarks as the kind of thing that could have a chilling effect on women entering the profession.
On top of which, no matter how many times you say you’ve got your priorities straight, the fact that you are focusing so much on semantics is trivializing the real problem. This is not an academic exercise. This is not a thought experiment. This is not a school essay or research paper. This is a real woman receiving real threats. There is no context I can think of that makes parsing the exact parameters of sexism a worthwhile topic just now.
Quite frankly the trolls must be posting here to get a kick out of stirring up feminists. Nothing else makes sense. Go find a sewage farm to tapdance on, you horrible bunch of shits. Decent humanity doesn’t want you around.
/delurking
…and after they beat, raped and shot her, she would be even a more rounded individual. /sarcasm off
I don’t know you’re new here or not, but tone trolling is never a good defence around here. You might want to stop that, unless you’re looking to being moderated in spectacular ways when the host of this site wakes up. Just sayin’.
I must have accidentally skipped the comment where shirakawasuna acknowledges all the comments clarifying that the two men have confirmed the accusation that their comments were sexist.
I went to bed last night (CET) thinking, hey, we managed to have half an hour’s decent conversation there. And then it seems the trolls came back in force…
For the benefit of those who didn’t bother reading the first 1000 comments, here’s SallyStrange @150
One of the Great Lies being perpetrated here is that one or more men admitted making sexist comments. This is simply false. One man admitted making a joke that involved sexual innuendo about dongles. Why do Richards’ supporters tell lie after lie after lie? Curious …
Using sexual innuendo in an inappropriate context and thereby making someone feel harassed IS sexism. And before you start whinging about the harassment, cf. Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trolls@979
And why are you defending the behaviour of someone who has himself admitted wrongdoing?
Is it because that is how you commonly behave? There is really no other plausible explanation.
which was inappropriate for a professional conference and something that Richards rightfully complained about and got her complaint accepted.
hard to say what getting death threats and being fired from a job will do for a person. I know one thing though.
It hasn’t taught YOU a fucking thing.
Delft
Sexual innuendo pertaining to male genitalia is not in and of itself sexist. The claim that the alleged harassee gets to decide if a comment is sexist or whatever is obviously wrong, otherwise any complaint, no matter how outlandish, would be upheld merely on the basis of the harassee’s opinion. The law doesn’t work that way.
Your allegation that I must behave in such a way is far more serious that Richards’ allegation. Indeed it clearly constitutes defamation. Same goes for the comment you quote. How about showing some common courtesy?
Yeah, how about it, golliblog?
golliblog, tone trolling is sneered at here, which you would know if you had an ounce of sense. Making shit up is not a good look.
Beatrice:
“which was inappropriate for a professional conference and something that Richards rightfully complained about and got her complaint accepted.”
Did actually you read what Pycon said?
Lofty:
” Making shit up is not a good look.”
This comment constitutes defamation.
Bullshit. Typical troll defensive manouver.
Lofty,
Shhh. Be careful, you might get sued! *snicker*
Pycon’s response:
source:http://pycon.blogspot.com/2013/03/pycon-response-to-inappropriate.html
OK, sorry, they didn’t explicitly write “sexist”. The comments were in poor taste and those who made them acknowledged that and apologized. Can we stop shitting on Adria now? I think she’s already got enough of it.
@golliblog
I made no allegation, but asked a question. For which you have no answer.
And even if I did allege you behave as our subjects did: if, as you say, they behaved fine – just how would that constitute defamation?
I think there are shovels round the back.
Whee!
please tell me you are a lawyer, so I can laugh even harder.
Beatrice:
“OK, sorry, they didn’t explicitly write “sexist”.”
Wow. You actually managed to say something truthful. Congratulations. Balloons. Whistles. Cracks open the Champagne.
” Can we stop shitting on Adria now? I think she’s already got enough of it.”
Adria is milking this like a dairy cow. For Christ’s sake, she is already comparing herself to Joan of Arc…
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/313442430848487424
OMG isn’t she lucky?!
I’m totally hoping for a day when I will start getting messages telling me I should kill myself or threatening to rape, torture and kill me, including sending me a pic with a decapitated head as sweet promise of what I should look forward to.
Oh, and that I will get fired at the same time.
*rubbing hands*
I can’t wait.
The Tweet is from the day she made the complaint, you stupid asshole.
OMG, Inorite! If my spermstealing doesn’t nett me the big cash and luxuries and attentions we women live on (which we know it will, of course, but suppose it doesn’t), now at last I know what will!
… and that was a joke. In case you are not aware of jokes that are not using someone else as a punchline.
(Tweet, in case people aren’t following asshole’s link:
)
golumblog, I have obviously maligned you. My unhumblest apologies. To show what a good specimen of humanity you are I am offering you this award.
[meta + OT]
golliblog, you really think you’re justified on shitting on Adria because of that tweet?
(And you really don’t grok it’s stating she feels she did what she thought she should do though she will bear the cost of it personally?)
Actually, this need to cast the victim as the bad guy is probably fuelled by the knowledge that there, but for the grace of god…
See the shitstorm caused by these guys’ behaviour. Think: OMG I may need to change my behaviour, I may need to stop making dirty jokes in public, ogling women, etc. I may actually have to start treating women as human beings!
No way, gotta stop that. By whatever means.
And start blaming the victim.
[meta and definitely not important for the larger point]
John,
I read the tweet as saying that she felt she did something unexpected, breaking unwritten rules to do what she believed was right, also breaking the mold of what a woman in tech industry is supposed to be (silent) (I’m reading it that way because she started with “As an advocate for digital equality…”) . Unfortunately, the comparison to Joan of Arc proved true in the way you note as well.
you are a pathetic waste of human life.
seriously.
Stop being a sexist pig., It doesn’t advance your fuckwitted pretend case.
Yes, your take on things is simply false, seen the the sexist pig eyes of a misogynist twit. One day you’ll mature and realize you do have to deal politely with half the population. Who are smarter than you, and you can’t compete with your bad attitude.
Actually, they are a form of harassment in the work-place. That is what we are talking about. And the harassee makes the decision, not you. YOU AND YOUR OPINIONS ARE IRRELEVANT TO THAT DECISION. Just like you are irrelevant to this discussion, as your opinion is *floosh* treated with all the respect it deserves—none.
Golliblog:
Do you have a job? If so, please ask to see your company’s policy on sexual harassment. Take a close look at what is considered sexual harassment. Take a close look at the policies in place that determine whether or not harassment has taken place. Then compare that with your statement that
Nerd of Redhead,
I’ve had a quick squiz up the thread and I note your comments are practically nothing more than an open sewer. Have you been checked for Tourettes Syndrome?
Look, here is another example of Richards’ behaving like a gigantic fisted arse at a BDSM orgy. http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/comment-page-1/#comment-326
The silly moo chucks a hissy fit over a fucking stick figure cartoon. What an oxygen thief.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
Richards did exactly the wrong thing.
She overheard a private conversation (not her fault, it was in a public area). Instead of directly confronting the people, or reporting it directly to the conference organisers (as was the procedure laid out in the code of conduct) she chose to take a picture of these men and post it on her blog (contravening the code of conduct).
Let’s not pretend that she did not know what her followers were likely to do. In fact, she even bragged about it, likening herself to Joan of Arc.
This behaviour undermined her ability to perform her job. She was, essentially, a salesperson. Her apparent willingness to persecute anyone she disagreed with, rendered her ineffective as a salesperson.
The ‘reasoned and measured’ response to the ‘sexist comments’ would have been to turn around and confront these men. If she was unwilling to do this, we must examine her purported ‘bravery’.
At the end of the day, this was a person who decided to take offense and then took the cowards way of dealing with it. This was (before the 4chan DDoS) a setback for women. It only furthered the stereotype that women are weak, and need assistance to function in the real world.
Nobody was the winner in this scenario.
…you seem to be on a campaign of hate towards this woman. I am not sure whatever she has done to you, but no human being deserves this treatment. Ever. Not even if her name was Sarah Palin.
But coming from a person who preaching to us that we need to be polite a few comments above, you should at least know better and setting a good example. Which you are obviously not.
This thread bears a remarkable similarity to the epic 3d5k of the elevator — someone shows up, tosses up ill-informed lies and misogyny, ignores all the comments that came before, regulars (special thanks to Caine, Nerd and everyone else who has been brave enough to deal with this ongoing shit) explain why that reading is wrong, that person fades into the bandwidth and, boom, another one shows up with virtually the same ill-informed lies and misogyny. Rinse and repeat.
youngie, did you even bother to read the comments?
Golliblog, in my workplace, a statement like that, even if not directed at a woman, even if it was said to another person and a woman overheard that statement, would, in all probability, be the grounds for a successful harassment complaint. Does your workplace have a harassment policy?
guys, guys, remember: it’s RECKLESS to label a dude as sexist! Why, it might even rise to the level of PERSECUTION!
This really is about men desperately resisting the prospect of facing actual consequences for behaving in a sexist manner. Like public shaming, the horror!
Fuck you pathetic, cowardly assholes.
Your OPINION is irrelvant, and is *floosh* dismissed as fuckwittery.
Have you been checked for a functioning mind and the ability to understand context? Not showing from your inane and sexist posts. Still unable to make your case, because you can’t. You can’t put up, you can’t shut up. Liars and bullshitters inhabit that space. Mature up.
Gee, what a load of oxymoron here. Private in a public space. Not dealing with a rocket scientists, or anybody who understands context and the law. Which is why their opinion *floosh* needs to be recycled.
Utakata,
I was told that politeness wasn’t necessary here that asking others to be polite is tone trolling. When in Rome, be like a Roman ….
The guy with three kids didn’t deserve to lose his job.
Richards needs to learn that if you go looking for trouble sometimes trouble will come looking for you. Hopefully she’ll learn from this experience. But I doubt it, I think she’ll use this experience to further her own career. I wouldn’t be surprised if she does a Crystal Gail Mangum and signs a book deal. Or at the very least earns herself a media gig.
Caine and Nerd have lied through their teeth. I have backed up my claims with links. They haven’t. They can’t because they are engaging in a truthless discourse..
Nah…it’s more like what’s with you, youngie. Rape and death threats are (contravening the code of conduct) in many nations (believe it or not), but I don’t see you bringing that up. Or that Richards was wrongfully dismissed over something that barely deserves disciplinary hearing. But hey, you are a number of peeps who have been scrambling here to defend the indefensible, spouting apologist nonsense and trolling inanities. Isn’t about time to give it a rest and really ask what’s wrong with the world that does this to people? It’s the elephant in the room here that you’re missing, bub.
Neither did Adria. I see she isn’t worth your effort. The fuckwits who think they back in the frat house get no consideration from me. And the guy fired was already in deep doo doo. Context is not your friend. All you have is bluster, lies, and deception.
Oh, so no retraction of
I will try to restrain my surprise.
You linked to irrelvancies as to the main issues. Side issues having zero bearing on the incident, a form of victim blaming. Stupid attempts by a stupid method by a stupid person. We here have learned not to take you words/conclusions as anything other than lies and bulllshit. Don’t like it? Stop posting….
If the guy lost his job just because of that one infraction, then it’s unfair. And you know who would be to blame in that case?
His employers!
Golliblog:
Do you have a job? Are you a student? Either way, have you read your company’s/school’s harassment policy? If you have, and you are still making these inane arguments, you need to read it again (this time, read for comprehension). If you haven’t, you need to. Otherwise, it may be you that gets fired.
Why is it perfectly okay for a woman to get fired because she reported behaviour unacceptable in a professional environment, but not okay for a man to get fired because he engaged in behaviour unacceptable in a professional environment? And what does having a family have to do with a decision to fire someone for cause? In my office, that would be flat-out illegal.
So what is this paterfamilias teaching his children about appropriate behaviour in public?
Same where I work. And the guy fired had some prior problems, and really was on the way out anyway. See upthread, and read for comprehension.
Nerd of the Dead,
You say this: ” And the guy fired was already in deep doo doo. ”
Can you link to evidence to support this claim.
Also, Richards’ breached the Pycon Code of Conduct in a much more egregious fashion than the men who were the subject of her complaint. Harassing photography is not cool. It is not definitely not OK to publish the faces of people who attended a work related function with a list of grievances without even bothering to identify exactly who is alleged to have said what. And after your complaint has already been dealt with by the conf organisers!
How is this not obvious, you poo obsessed septic tank?
Youngie, please explain to the class how, in a world where so many people think rape and death threats are ever acceptable responses, a woman can actually “win” in a situation like this.
Sorry. I was trying to keep my comment short so I left out about 15 relevant paragraphs.
Its upthread, page one. But I’m not doing your homework, considering your “evidence” is irrelevant bullshit, lies and deceptions.
Unsupported and unevidenced assertion, as your “evidence” was imagufactured and illogically twisted bullshit. We both know that. I gave you prime examples of real harasssing photographs. Silence from your end, of course.
@golliblog
Now, that is defamation.
Glad to clarify that for you.
*headshake* It’s like a talisman for these pathetic bros.
shorter frothing: ‘Wait, there’s a rule saying a woman’s word should be taken seriously? With consequences? The magic words ‘Bitchez lie’ might not save my ass anymore? NOOOOOOO! BitchezliebitchezliebitchezliebitchezlieWHY ISN’T IT WORKING bitchezliebitchezliebitchezlie!’
I just consider the souse. Somebody who is divorced from reality, evidence, and harassment training.
Richards was a women with **3 kids you think her firing was unjustified too, golliblog? Something tells you’re a few stacks short of a pile in reasoning here. This is not mention she was fired with rape and death threats. I assume you are making an argument that’s okay too, because it’s all apart of the “learning experience”. *Perhaps attacks on her race is part of the package deal too.
*Source: http://manboobz.com/2013/03/22/mens-rights-activists-greet-adria-richards-firing-with-cheers-gendered-slurs/
But whatever, there are some things that good people occasionally do that need correcting when they do something wrong, there is no argument from me here. But this is not the way to do it, unless you’re big supporter in crimes against humanity in meting out revenge. /shrug
**Note: PZ already addresses this in his post if you cared enough to read through it. And no firing him wasn’t okay either. So don’t get your tu quoque’s all in a twist about this. Kay?
SallyStrange
“This really is about men desperately resisting the prospect of facing actual consequences for behaving in a sexist manner. Like public shaming, the horror!”
You are a disgraceful sack of rat droppings, Sally. There is no evidence that anyone behaved in a sexist manner; sexual innuendo does not by itself constitute sexism. If if it did, Richard’s numerous sexual jokes on twitter would make her a sexist.
Richards’s has a chip on her shoulder the size of Ayer’s Rock and hopefully this episode will shake it lose. But I doubt it.
#1137 golliblog
Bull.fucking.shit. Links HAVE been provided in the previous 1000 comments. Several fucking times over. GO fucking read them asshole. We’ve been through this before, you’re the one who’s apparently too fucking stupid to read.
Just because YOU are just waltzing in here doesn’t mean we haven’t dealt with and squashed bullshit arguments you’re spouting for DAYS already.
Wow, amazing. I remember you asking me whether I’ve read PyCon’s comment about it and I read it and linked to it and there is no mention of them thinking of her as a guilty party.
Did you forget? No problem, I can remind you.
#1146
golliblog
In the workplace it does! Hence one reason why Richards’ jokes on Twitter aren’t sexist.
Fuck you, you privileged ignorant blinkered pissant.
golliblog:
Do you have a job? Are you a student? Either way, have you read the sexual harassment policy in force where you work (or are a student)? If you have read it, you would understand why what you have been writing is absolute bullshit.
There is prima facie evidence they behaved in a sexist and harassing manner. A complaint was turned in and verified by both the organizers and the men. You lie, lie, and lie some more, but it doesn’t make what you say anything other than lies. The truth is by a standard definition of harassment, harassment occurred. Whether you concur with that or not is irrelevant. But then, you are probably irrelevant in real life to.
Golliblog, a primer on sexual harassment. Funny how your opinion is irrelevant to the policies, which are based on law.
Beatrice,
Do you actually have a functioning brain stem? It only later came to the attention of everyone that Richards had put a photo up on twitter. And to make things even worse, she then put in on her blog. Subsequent to this, Pycon (temporarily) amended their Code of Conduct to add a clause about public shaming. If you read PZM’s post you would know this. Remember, PZM called them cowards?
However, even before the amendment the Pycon Code explicitly forbade using photography to harass people. Very clearly, Richards breached this clause of the Code.
Do you have one? Your claim is irrelevant. Your OPINION is irrelevant. Your “evidence” is non-sequiturs. You have nothing to say other than WAAAHHHHHHH.
Example of such photographs: upskirt, downblouse, close-ups of breasts, crotches, buttocks, etc. It doens’ t a smart person to figure that out, but it does take one who isn’t lying and bullshit, by twisting facts to suit their inane and idiotic arguments.
So…. she made a huge mistake of not going to the conference organizers but tweeting the picture she took (this is what most of you shitheads are whinging about). That way conference organizers found out about it and dealt with the situation.
Then they found out about the photo she took. Huh what?
Interesting course of events.
*eyeroll*
and I’m the one with malfunctioning brain
Also, putting the silliness of your name calling aside golliblog (after you asked us to play nice), but since you seem to be big on “evidence”, evidence is now suggesting from your quotes above that you have serious issues with outspoken women. Since you haven’t really talked this way of the men. What gives?
Nerd of the Fisted Bottoms,
PZM’s blog header says Evolution, development and random ejaculations from a godless liberal!
Would opening PZM’s blog in a workplace where others could see it constitute sexist behaviour because of the sexual innuendo?
Give me an honest answer, you poo loving goose.
Nerd,
His opinion is irrelevant because it’s bullshit.
If PyCon found out about the goings on from the tweets, then they knew about the photo. They didn’t deal with the whole thing and then found the photo. They did cowardly retroactively amend the code of conduct.
He is also an idiot if he believes that she could breach an amendment of the code of conduct made after she supposedly breached it.
*headdesK*
“Youngie, please explain to the class how, in a world where so many people think rape and death threats are ever acceptable responses, a woman can actually “win” in a situation like this.”
Well, she could have “won” by confronting the individuals head-on. There is little doubt (please see the response from the fired individual) that they would have accepted the reprimand and altered their behaviour.
Trying to tie the specifics of this situation in with the disgusting attitudes of those on 4chan makes you seem like a complete and utter moron. A perceptive person would realise that those fucktards only say those things in order to get a response from over-sensitive idiots. This is the nature of the troll. If you fell for it, you have my pity. But not my respect.
Show me how taking a picture of two fully clothed immature guys is SEXUAL HARASSMENT. Then we can talk.
And yes, if somebody was offended at the office, they could file a complaint. Who the fuck cares? Mature people respond in a rational manner. Only those who are sexist pigs are afraid of being told “don’t do that”.
It’s not like PyCon staff were right there to respond and make a determination of harassment if they were made aware that any had occurred. OH WAIT…
Victim-blaming, it’s the key to time travel, yo.
Show it really works. Citations. Who cares about your OPINION? You weren’t there, and have no business second guessing her motives.
So, we’ve concluded that she didn’t breach the original code and she obviously couldn’t have breached the amended one in advance.
I wish that could mean we’ve done with this little shithead of a troll.
Beatrice,
I did not say Richards’ breached the amendment. Can’t you read? Are you stupid or dishonest? I said prior to the amendment the Code forbade “harassing photography”.
that’s not harassing photography, idiot
Like the previous guy did when she confronted him about his table joke and ended up telling him to get a clue about professional behavior from someone in his own company because he refused to accept the reprimand or alter his behavior? *snort*
Like people here are so willing to actually read the words of harassment policies and note that harassment is determined by the effect on the recipient?
(Oh, they can read the one clause that they think blames the woman. THAT clause they like.)
You haven’t demonstrated the photograph was harassment. Just alleged it without evidence, so that claim, like all of yours, is *floosh* dismissed as irrelevant. You haven’t shown the photo was sexually harassing, because you can’t, and your know that. All you have is you want it to be harasssment, but it isn’t. It is evidence of wrong doing on the part of immature men.
PyCon people must be really useless anyway. I mean, they called all parties and talked to them, investigated the incident after reading Richards’ tweets…. and yet they supposedly somehow missed the tweet with the photo. Not to mention that at least one of the twop guys knew about the photo since he was looking into the camera and smiling.
But no one knew about the photo, and that’s the only reason pycon solved the issue without considering Richards in the breach of their code of conduct. Right. Not that the photo was in breach of code.
*eyeroll*
Beatrice,
You are incredibly dishonest. The tweet to Pycon reads thusly:
“Can someone talk to these guys about their conduct? I’m in lightning talks, top right near stage, 10 rows back #pycon”
It is time stamped 10:34pm. The tweet with the photos was separate.
This is too stupid for words.
This woman did nothing wrong.
I’ll just repeat this again:
That is you cupcake. The photo of the perps is not harassment. That is an unevidenced OPINION on your part. More lies and bullshit from the sexist pig.
And the tweet with the photo is the one right before the one you quoted (two minutes difference), also with #pycon tag
Yeah, I’m dishonest. Seriously.
Newsflash: conversations unfold over time, so it’s the woman’s fault for not using her Stasis Powers to freeze time for a couple of minutes to make all her comments simultaneous.
That’s got to be the single most nitpicky blaming attempt ever.
“You weren’t there, and have no business second guessing her motives.”
So, I assume, you will stop second guessing the motives of the two men?
“Like the previous guy did when she confronted him about his table joke and ended up telling him to get a clue about professional behavior from someone in his own company because he refused to accept the reprimand or alter his behavior? *snort*”
Yeah, the fact that she didn’t actually confront him, but told him that the joke would be appropriate in another context clearly has no bearing on what happened later. *facepalm*
Adria is not the hero here.
Actual, blatant, sexism should be eradicated. We can all agree on this. What happened in this situation was not that. What we’re seeing is a multitude leaping to a person’s defense based solely on the fact that she is a woman claiming sexual harassment.
None of Adria’s defenders seem willing to even consider the possibility that things were not exactly as were reported on her blog. The commentary has been disturbingly reminiscent of religious “reasoning”.
Oh, and lookity look at the first answer to the tweet with the photo:
Pteryxx,
Yeah, I can see that. *sigh*
I wish I could get myself away from the keyboard. I am weak.
Motives aren’t magic. Their ACTIONS caused their problem. Why are you so ignorant?
Who the fuck cares about your sexist OPINIONS? They are *floosh* dismissed as unevidenced fuckwittery. She makes the call on harassment. Not, not the men, and she doesn’t have to approach them at all. She did nothing wrong. Whereas, your defense is something wrong.
Fixed that for you. Evidence in the OP, news articles, and most of the mass of this thread. Which makes your claim:
rather hilarious.
youngie
No one really gives a shit about the motivations of the two guys. This is about the massive shitstorm of fury that erupted, directed at Richards, which happens every single fucking time a woman speaks up about sexism.
Wrong cupcake, sexual harassment should be eradicated, which doesn’t always have overt sexism. Why you think overt sexism is required is beyond the case law involved, making your OPINION WRONG.
And I mean, it’s absolutely obvious from the second tweet that she is referring to a previous one.
I didn’t notice their phrasing there, Nerd. Glad you did. “Actual, blatant sexism”? Almost sounds as if they’re demanding a strict black-and-white dividing line between what will get them in trouble and what they can continue inflicting.
Nerd of Redhead: “Who the fuck cares about your OPINIONS?”
Pteryxx: Cherry-picking from obvious trolls
myeck waters: “No one really gives a shit about the motivations of the two guys.”
Showing, once again, why reason and logic are useless in a discussion when it comes to gender politics.
@youngie
Really? Your comments here don’t suggest you agree. Note that you are nitpicking a woman’s behaviour in face of the fact that she is facing threats of rape and death. The words victim-blaming, sexism and misogyny spring to mind.
So women listen up: when in doubt, run it by youngie here, who will let you know whether you are allowed to protest.
Yep. From #923 yesterday (quoting Koehler):
@ golliblog & youngie, you may have had something of a point that simple sexual innuendo of that nature was not sexist – if it were made in a totally different situation, such as, say, IN A PARALLEL FUCKING UNIVERSE. The simple fact of the matter is that Adria Richards is immersed in what is still a male-dominated and misogynistic culture, and, if anything, that is heightened in conferences like this. So, yes, if you look at the comments in such complete isolation, you have to built them their own special universe to exist in, the comments aren’t sexist. In the context in which the comments were actually made, they definitely were.
Fuck you, youngie. Go back a few posts and see why “don’t feed the trolls” is a useless and inane response in cases like this.
Except you aren’t showing reason and logic. You are showing your presuppositions, which aren’t based on reality. Sexual harassment occurs without overt sexism. All the is required is that the victim is uncomfortable. That is case law, and for you to argue with logic and reason you must acknowledge the facts.
Reason and logic? A woman has received death threats. If you think the poor fee-fees of the two dudes who sparked the original incident compare in ANY WAY with that, you are incapable of the most basic of mental skills: comparison.
Well hey, maybe pointing out how harassment policies actually work will help some of these goofs become more mature, better-rounded individuals.
Nerd of the Flies,
Now answer the question:
PZM’s blog header says Evolution, development and random ejaculations from a godless liberal!
Would opening PZM’s blog in a workplace where others could see it constitute sexist behaviour because of the sexual innuendo?
I think they’d prefer to never allow a woman to decide on her own what’s sexist and what is not, without the input of
an experta man.But, failing that, yes, I’m sure a handy black-and-white dividing line would be helpful for them, so they can know what kinds of covert, not-quite-actual sexism they can get away with.
Like golliblog. Yes, golliblog, I know YOU don’t think the men were being sexist. Problem is, you’re objectively wrong. Unless you have evidence showing that Adria Richards AND the two men AND the PyCon staff were all lying about the content of what was said, you’re just in denial about it, seizing on the fact that the PyCon official statement did not use the word “sexist” or “sexism” in its announcement to justify your denial.
I mean, that must be REALLY scary for you. Something that seems to your deluded brain to be not at all sexist, and yet those poor innocent men still got in trouble for it! Outrageous. Good lord, what will happen to YOU next time you make an off-color joke in your workplace or at a professional conference???
So I can understand your desire to remain in denial. I think it’s fucked up as hell, but it’s sort of understandable.
Well, that’s easy: it might. If someone saw it and complained, it would. Not to mention, you’re probably not supposed to be browsing non-work-related websites while you’re at work.
Did you have some sort of pathetic point you’re trying to make?
Get a fucking dictionary and look up the word ‘context’, as it’s patently obvious you have no clue what it means.
That you are demented enough to think that the term “random ejaculations” is sexual innuendo of any sort whatsoever tells us far more about the sort of filth you leave lying around in your own brainpan than anything else.
Is there no guide to what constitutes sexual harassment in your workplace, golliblog? That would be an oversight; you should probably mention it to someone.
SallyStrange:
Seriously. Given the evidence of how much entrenched sexism exists in brogrammer culture, any tech company worth its salt should be scrambling to hold extra training sessions right now.
I see what you did there… +1
SallyStrangelife,
We don’t have a transcript of the alleged comments so we are in no position to make an objective judgement, dopey.
Pycon never called the comments sexist. Actually, Adria Richards does not describe use the word sexist in her long bloated and pompous blog post. Check for yourself: http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/
Now go stick your head up a dead bear’s arse.
youngie:
Cherry picking is done to distort or obfuscate an argument. When the argument is “X happens” showing examples of X isn’t cherry picking, it’s fucking evidence. Someone who could write that and then just two lines later tries to imply some sort of understanding of reason and logic is a self-deluding idiot.
SallyStrangelife,
I’m a hobby farmer in Oz. Why the hell would I need a harassment policy? I have no employees, all I have is kangaroos, possums and koalas.
You dumb Yanks are such girlie men.
They don’t have to be overtly sexist to be harassment. That’s case law, which you make attempt to refute. Why are you so dense?
I propose a new measure of distance, the golliblog, to be defined thusly:
The distance at which SallyStrange’s point sailed above golliblog’s head.
Sadly, I fear there will be a lot of use for this measure in the next little while.
Online Course: Sexual Harassment Awareness Training
It’s only 35$US, too. They also recommend A Sexual Harassment Handbook, Amazon link
You misgynist ignorant fuckwit, you are incapable of thinking. All you have is attitude, ignorance, lies, and bullshit.
golliblog, should you agree to never have contact with any other female humnas, minorities, LGBT or other different types of humans–in fact to go into a cave and never come out, I would agree you have no need of a harrassment policy.
Why don’t you stick your ignorance where the sun don’t shine. If you don’t know what you are talking about, and we have prima facie evidence of that, shut the fuck up like a man of honesty and integrity would do. Oh, that’s right, you have no integrity…
Gee, stupidly looking for an absolute where there are none. Typical troll losing the argument behavior.
I suspect more people would be upset due to the atheism in the blog. But nobody has complained to me or HR. The actual amount of sexual innuendo here is trivial until sexist pigs like you show up. But then, context, rationality, and intelligence isn’t your friend.
Pteryxx:
“Seriously. Given the evidence of how much entrenched sexism exists in brogrammer culture, any tech company worth its salt should be scrambling to hold extra training sessions right now.”
Surely this language is sexist. I mean, would it be OK for me to talk about nigragrammer culture?
You can’t have different rules for different groups. One in, all in.
I like your article. We received a lot of hateful comments because of our legal analysis of Ms. Richards’s termination by a Colorado employer. http://www.rmlawyers.com/blog/2013/03/sendgrids-unlawful-and-retaliatory-termination-of-adria-richards.shtml
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was fond of using the word “ejaculated”, that filthy pornographer.
golliblog’s #1210 actually managed to be stupider than their previous posts. I’m impressed.
No, actually it isn’t.
And if you can figure out exactly why it isn’t sexist, and why the analogy you chose to compare to it is pathetic and disgusting, then you may just manage to grow a little bit as a human being.
But I’m not holding out much hope for you at this point.
Astronomers may well find such a measure useful.
And another measure to be added: The golliquoque. Defined as the distance which golliblog is willing to go in order to find a tu quoque, roughly equivalent to two and a half golliblogs.
Laws for sexual harassment. That’s federal, there can also be state and local. Sometimes company’s training fall behind which is why they need run some to not be caught out. Lawsuits are expensive. What a abjectly ignorant and unthinking person you are.
Mother Jones catches Richards out telling a pork pie:
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next. In a blog post Richards posted the next day, she writes that staffers “wanted to pull the people in question from the main ballroom” and that they were escorted out. She doesn’t mention seeing them again. It was later widely reported across Twitter and tech forums that the two guys Richards pointed out to staffers were kicked out of the conference. Not so, lead conference organizer Jesse Noller told us in an email: “They were pulled aside, spoken with, and then returned to their seats to the knowledge of the staff and myself.” Noller says no one was removed from the conference due to this incident … http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/03/pycon-2013-sexism-dongle-richards
Richards has been caught out lying through her teeth.
@ golliblog, this off topic I know, but I’m curious – is your ‘nym any kind of reference to the term “golliwog”? I’m just wondering whether your very obvious misogyny is accompanied by other forms of bigotry.
Aw, you think it’s an effective insult to ascribe the qualities of girls to men. That means that you are sexist, dear golliblog! No need to thank me, it’s just par for the course around here. Personally, I am a Yank woman, with occasional girl qualities surfacing generally when I am playing with my nieces or nephew. And I’m not stupid enough to think that all Ozzies are as sexist as you, so you’re welcome for not using you as a brush to unfairly tar an entire nation.
If you don’t have any employees, then I guess you don’t really need to worry about what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace, do you? So what’s the point of your little hypotheticals? Oh right, none, you’re just desperately flailing in a pathetic attempt to maintain your sexism-denial.
Right, we just have a partial transcript provided by Ms. Richards, an account which neither the two men nor the PyCon staff have disputed. Do you have evidence to suggest that all of these people are engaged in some kind of elaborate deception about what actually happened? If not, then we can safely say that this was an example of sexually charged comments creating a hostile workplace environment, as defined by the PyCon sexual harassment policy, as well as numerous other conference and workplace policies, which have been put in place based on research into how sexual jokes, sexual commentary, and sexually charged conversations can create what is known as a “chilly climate” for women in the workplace.
Yes, I read her description. True, she doesn’t use the word sexist. What she DOES say is that she did it because she wanted to create a tech culture that is welcoming to the next generation of women and girls who are interested in programming and tech. What do you call it when you have a culture that is NOT welcoming to women and girls who are interested in programming and tech? Why, you call it a sexist culture! Your illiteracy is not an argument.
Yes, well-spotted, we have bears in North America. No dead ones handy, though. Sorry to disappoint.
You have been lying through you teeth. Who the fuck cares about Richards? Your ignorance and idiocy is what you should be worrying about. And you have plenty of both. And I don’t believe anything you say….
golliblog,
You’re the liar here.
Still willing to claim staff wasn’t aware of Adria’s photo tweet and that’s the only reason she wasn’t accused of breaching their code of conduct, liar?
In golliblogs world, he must always be right, no matter what the evidence says. If in need, he imagufacture/create/distort reality so it sounds like he is right. So not….
No. This is evidence that Richards didn’t mention seeing them again. It is also evidence that other parties besides Richards falsely reported that they had been kicked out.
You are, in fact, lying about the content of a quote which you provided yourself.
That’s pretty incompetent lying.
Golliblog:
Get the message you dumbfuck: insults are allowable here and envouraged.
Sexist slurs like “girlie men” are not. Take your sexism elsewhere fuckface.
Mohamedbhai at 1211 has some relevant legal precedent in their blog analysis, for instance from a 1998 decision:
Definitely relevant when conferences constitute a work-related environment.
SallyStrange
He wasn’t very competent to begin with, but he must be getting really desperate now.
He did manage to turn this conversation into a discussion about Adria’s behavior, again. I hoped we’d managed to get past that.
Maybe it’s because it’s, like, 2 or 3 in the morning in Australia right now. Probably he just needs to get his sleep. The poor dear is highly overwrought. Men! They’re so emotional.
Golliblog:
I see you are still clinging to the notion that taking one picture is harassing photography. Not sure what you stand to gain by not educating yourself properly, but what yhe heck, I will walk you through it again: it takes more than one photograph to rise to the level of harassment.
Curiously for all that you are wedded to this idea, PyCon has–near as I can tell–said nothing about Adria’s pic. Amidst all this, one would think they would have said something if she were in the wrong, no.
As it stands, it is only the rape culture enablers like you, Matthew Best, shirakawasuna and others who are hung up on irrelevancies.
A handy quote from Mohamedbhai’s link up above:
There is no politeness line that should or should not be crossed when protesting workplace discrimination.
All you dudebros complaining about how intemperate it was of her to use Twitter rather than personal conversations or email or whatever? Bite me.
Youngie:
As a community we do not stand for using ableist slurs. Stop it.
Now THIS is an example of sexism.
May slow, grinding process of golliblog’s personal growth continue. Will he cross the threshold into “somewhat decent human being” before the sun crosses the threshold to become a red giant?
My money is on the sun.
And perhaps we’ll have a new useful astronomical unit for TIME.
golliblog & youngie:
Do either of you work or go to school? If so, have either of your read your company’s/school’s harassment policy? If not, do so. If you have, read it again but this time actually pay attention. Your concerns are bullshit. And, under case law involving harassment, they are legal bullshit.
Hahahahahaha!
Golliblog somehow thinks “brogrammer” is sexist. I suppose bromance is too in the little trolls’ eyes.
Note the tweet quoted at the end of that MoJo article:
A few other tweets from the Pythonistas:
and
*slowclap* Great job, haters. Great. Job.
@golliblog:
Let’s pretend, for a moment, that these comments were, as you continue to insist, not sexist. Considering both the conference organisers and actually the men who made these comments seemingly agree the men were in the wrong, they must have still been inappropriate, in some manner. I STILL can’t see how any part of this situation is Adria Richards fault, yet you seemingly do. Care to explain what, precisely, is her fault?
Horde,
You’re perseverance in the hideous face of ignorance and malice is inspiring.
Thank you.
golliblog
You really need to read a dictionary and a great many good books from a variety of eras sometime.
‘ejaculation’ means more than the emission of semen. It is obvious that PZ’s line refers to verbal utterances.
Your profound ignorance is showing.
And yet, if you were to turn to me during the middle of a workday and say, “Hey, Sally, want to read some of these random ejaculations I’ve been checking out??” depending on how you said it, I might well interpret it as sexual harassment.
Context is everything. Ultimately the person receiving the harassment is the only person who can determine if it’s harassment or not, and THAT, I believe, is what really gets the goat of golliwog and others like him–the idea of women having the power to adversely affect a man’s life, just because he made some questionable comments! With no man to check her untrammeled power! No RATIONAL mind to insist that no, silly, ejaculations aren’t NECESSARILY related to semen, therefore I must be delusional in interpreting your comment to mean something sexual. No voice of authority to tell the uppity woman to shut up and take it because rocking the boat is far worse than having women like me silently endure the mental stress of covering up my discomfort and anger. Why, if you let women decide what is and isn’t sexist, the next thing you know we’ll be insisting that it’s not okay to rape your own wife, and that actually we shouldn’t be monetarily penalized for taking time to produce and raise the next generation of human beings! We might even start expecting equal representation in government! All hell would break loose!
So you can see why it’s important for men like golliwog and youngie to establish the idea that it’s justifiable to punish women who speak out against sexism with firings, gendered and racial slurs, and rape and death threats.
zmidponk:
Good luck getting an answer.
I have posed variations on that question to several people, even the “I am just looking for information, and all I get is irrationality” shirakawasuna, and no one can answer.
Lets crank it up:
even if we agree nothing sexist was said, how does that change anything? PyCon and the brobrats still agree a mistake was made. Adria still got fired and still got rape and death threats
People would have called for her to be raped or killed no matter what.
Thats the problem.
Not parsing if this or that is sexist.
Started out faux-reasonable, eventually went for the sexist slur. I have never ever seen this before in my entire life on this planet.
Exactly. It’s not about the woman, it’s about the unaccountable business masters.
Even if Adria Richards had chosen not to say a damn thing in this particular instance, it would have been some other woman, at a different conference, working for some other company, and SHE would have been receiving the rape and death threats. It’s a pattern. THAT is the salient point here, and it is the point that these douchebros are going far, far out of their way to avoid. The fact is that pointing out sexism is punished with public waves of frighteningly violent misogynist abuse is THE problem. Until women have the freedom to point out sexism, rightly or wrongly, without fear of getting fired, harassed, threatened with rape and death, it’s pointless to have these conversations. Are you frustrated because you really, really want to make the case that Richards was wrong about the effect that these guys’ conversation was having? Well, direct your anger towards the group of misogynist assholes who launched the DDOS on her company, who bombarded her with racist and sexist slurs as well as rape and death threats. Until THEY feel that there are consequences for their bad behavior, we’re not going to be able to have any other conversations.
@golliblog, # 1218
Crip Dyke wrote that she enjoyed some tea this morning. She never mentions having any other beverages. Others later reported that CD did, in fact, have a tall glass of OJ as well.
Not so, CD’s best friend told us: while CD did drink OJ a couple weeks ago, and while there is some in the fridge so that drinking OJ was an option this morning, no one present this morning actually brought up OJ as an option and all seemed quite satisfied with tea.
Therefore, CD is a bald-faced liar.
================
How is this conclusion warranted? There is no conflict with what I said about having tea and **either** subsequent version. There is a dispute over what happened between unnamed sources and an identified source that appears to be more reliable. However, neither of them disagree with ME. They disagree with each other, and having tea is perfectly consistent with both later having OJ and with having only one beverage type during a morning.
In the same way, Richards reports the men being pulled aside for conversation with staffers. She doesn’t mention seeing them again, because for her the fact that the conversation happened was the important part. Just as for me, tea was the important part of my beverage experience this morning. I might not be mentioning OJ because I happen to be talking about tea, or because I love tea and am particularly focused on it, or whatever. But not mentioning OJ could be either because I didn’t have any, or because I didn’t need to include that detail to tell my story…just like I’ve omitted details about how many pets are within 300 feet of me.
Your statement about catching Richards in a lie is such sheer idiocy that it is hard to credit you with even minimal competence to address what happened and the coverage at all.
Worse is the prospect that you are competent and that you are engaging in bad faith. While others may have made up their mind about it, I’d rather *you* address – publicly – just why you would call Richards a liar when your own evidence shows absolutely no discrepancies between her narrative and the assertions of others.
Hmm, no wonder the modern world is such a mystery to you.
Jesus Christ onna stick, I see the asshole contingent kept whinging throughout the night. Poor babies, desperately scrabbling to attach blame so they don’t need to look at their own reprehensible conduct. Tsk.
Around these parts, “hobby farming” is reserved for privileged fuckers, often from The City (NYC for those who don’t live in upstate New York), who have a substantial trust or retirement fund, such that they don’t need to worry about the profitability of their farm.
Is it the same in Oz?
The shit has filled your brain, Cupcake.
SallyStrange:
It’s that way across the states. Attaching “hobby” to farming (or anything else) means you don’t actually need to do that for a living. I expect the same applies in Oz. So…we have an asshole of limited intellect and overweening privilege who spends a lot of time with shit and a penchant for threatening to sue people.
Caine (and all):
Whenever a politician breaks the law, or engages in a major ethics violation, what usually brings them down is not the original transgression but the attempt to cover it up. Something that I have noticed (probably already obvious to you) is that, when it comes down to any situation in which a woman calls out a man (or men) for being sexist, being objectifying, being privileged, it is not the original objectionable action that causes the furor. It is that a woman had the temerity to notice that she was being treated as something less than a human being and then the shitstorm erupts.
Had these two privileged dudes put their sexist remarks up as tweets or a facebook post, been called on it by the conference organizers, been told (and accepted) that they had done wrong, and one of them been fired, this would not have ever been noticed here or just about anywhere else. In other words, if they had done their sexist commenting to the entire community via social media, the only ones who would have known would have been those involved in some way.
But, since it was a woman who noticed and called them on their egregious behaviour (not the organizers), the force 10 shitstorm erupts. Just as for politicians, it is the cover-up that creates the furor, when it comes to sexism, it is the temerity of a woman to notice it that becomes the target.
I’m now picturing the “hobby farmer” as one of the characters from the movie Wake in Fright. That’s not a compliment.
Hobby Farmer.
Now I’m wondering just how far apart to plant my 1/35 scale models of WWII armour.
Ogvorbis:
In a nutshell, yes. How many times have we seen that, just in the last few years? Again, this isn’t a case of someone yelling “off with their heads!”, either. It was a case of “not cool.” Very similar to “guys, don’t do that.” It’s rather difficult to come up with a milder reproof than not cool. A decent human being would think that wouldn’t merit a reaction at all, let alone the incredibly disproportionate one which took place.
Again, this comes back to women having autonomy. As is pointed out in Jack Holland’s Misogyny, historically autonomy has been the sole preserve of men. It’s more than obvious that a segment of the male population becomes damn near hysterical when any woman, any where, asserts her autonomy as a human being.
Ogvorbis @1250, I agree. That’s why we still get epic shitstorms when the woman doesn’t call anyone out by name, or when she talks about trends rather than specific incidents. It’s nothing to do with how she responds to an event or whether her actions negatively impacted someone else.
FTFY
Oggie:
Force 10 shitstorm! Love it!
@Ogvorbis (and all)
When a man or an organisation – in their wisdom – take exception to something, and act that’s obviously fair and objective.
But we don’t want these women getting all uppity, thinking they can just feel harassed whenever they please.
In a way, I get why the trolls are almost busting a bloodvessel.
Delft:
I’m just going to note here that when a man files a sexual harassment complaint, if the news gets out, he’s often a target of bullying and ridicule. IOW, he’s treated as though he were a woman.
I live in KY. I have some very poor friends who run a hobby farm. They can and eat the food they grow and the livestock they raise, not because it’s trendy, but because they have effort to spend rather than money. They call it a hobby farm because it is tiny and it is not done for a profit. The adults and a couple of the kids have full time jobs. They do well to break even. Let’s don’t get nasty to people who share something in common with these raging assholes.
Jackie:
Absolutely no offense to your friends. In spite of their use of “hobby farm” though, that’s not the standard meaning.
Obviously he has a hobby farm.
That’s where he raises all the hobby horses he won’t come down off of.
Carlie:
*Snortle*
I would call those folks homesteaders, Jackie. I’ve always thought of “hobby farm” as referring to farming done purely for the heck of it, without any worry about production or any of it. If you’re depending on the output of your farm to supplement your diet, that doesn’t qualify in my mind. But hey. Different strokes. I’ll stop making fun of hobby farmers.
This is true. PHMT
Caine@1258
True, I wasn’t thinking of that. Sorry.
So perhaps it’s not (only) about keeping women in their place, but about protecting the status quo of “we get to behave as we please”?
Sorry, Jackie. I stand by my opinion of golliblog being a privileged fuckwit, but that has nothing to do with hobby farming.
I think it’s something like “Men get to behave as they please except when they engage in women-like behavior, in which case they ought to be penalized because they’re voluntarily giving up (hu)man-status which is utterly despicable”.
Jijoya:
This ^ right here.
Yep. Because he has been ‘feminized’ and is thus no longer eligable for membership in the he-man woman haters club.
Bingo.
Not to mention one of my stumbling blocks.
It does seem to come down to the toxic masculinity Caine mentioned upthread.
Disturbing.
And I don’t know how we can fight that, other than by teaching boys that they can cry etc.
Delft:
By speaking up, by talking with other men, and refusing to define yourself according to such a toxic concept, along with teaching boys and girls that being a decent human being is the goal.
Apparently “reason” is not the correct tool.
Seriously, though, it feels to me like the part of it that’s not vaguely “cultural” is related to conformity and solidarity behavior. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s important for men to speak out too. The norms have to change. The hateful person has to feel like the “odd man out”.
That and being good parents. Helping our children choose healthy friends.
This is one of the reasons I am willing to let people know some of what I went through in some of these threads. I am, like, a walking poster child for the damage that toxic masculinity can do to a man. Unfortunately, the people who act like assclams and embrace their misogyny with all the gusto of a one year old with a bottle never seem to understand that misogyny hurts men too, that toxic masculinity hurts men. We (men) are so limited in what we are allowed to do if we want to stay in the club — and still be considered human. Being a victim of rape? Out. Victim of sexual harassment? Out. Cry in public? Out.
So far to go.
Ogvorbis:
Exactly. That’s why I suggested that Nifty get her college age sons to read Guyland right now, because it addresses all these issues at the time they are the most reinforced. However, the concept of masculinity can change – men have the power to do that.
@Ogvorbis
But hearing people like you talk about it gives me hope. And I’ve been hearing a lot of men speaking out about Richards too. Anil Dash has been doing the same hard slog on Twitter that Pharyngulates have been doing here. Awesomely.
@Etienne
You know, I very often feel suicidal over thoughts not dissimilar to this. I sometimes find it hard to turn off the car once I’ve pulled into the garage over this, and things like it. I’ve never done any of the things that you claim, and yet I’ve still participated in rape culture, that’s undeniable for just about any man. And yet I am not sure I accept this. I understand the anger and rage, but I feel like it’s very dangerous to say things like that. Oddly enough, this didn’t trigger suicidal thoughts in me, even though I felt like it should(I suspect it’s akin to how my CBT for OCD involves facing your fear and avoiding the rituals associated with it. I am terrified of being a terrible person who deserves to die, and fear someone telling me so, and yet when they actually do, well, so be it?)
I’m really bothered by this statement for a lot of reasons, especially the casual dismissal of rape victims. But I do agree that toxic masculinity in effect does say “suck it up” and “do it to women”. I don’t disagree per se. But I don’t think that when I do cry reading the posts here that those are crocodile tears, I mean, who would I be performing for? I am mostly a lurker. And I figure if that’s true of me, it’s likely true of others like me? I don’t think PZ deserves to die, myself.
I agree a lot with this. It is rediculous that we excuse behaviour from men when women suffer so much worse and generally don’t do these things. But I don’t believe in free will, and at some level, even though I know the oppressor class will almost always get away with their crimes, never have to feel bad about it, and die on the top, even then I feel some small twinge of sorrow for them. Because who would want to be a monster, an oppressor? I think that even if the toxic masculinity culture hurts women a million times more than men(and I suspect this could be an underestimate), I still think it harms men by turning them into monsters. And so, even as I feel deep anger, I always feel an accompanying sorrow. My God, how awful for Trayvon Martin that this racist-ass culture says it’s ok to kill him because he’s black. How fucking terrible. And fuck Geroge Zimmerman. But at some level, I also feel sad that we live in a world where anyone has to be George Zimmerman, who was told that it was ok to take a black child’s life, who was given legal carte blanche to do so. Perhaps I shouldn’t have sympathy for the devil, but I can’t help feeling some twinge of sorrow for those who were cast to play the villains, even as I hate them and pity those cast as victims so much more.
In effect this is true. And it’s very distressing and upsetting. Women are generally so much more than men in this culture and are scorned for it. They don’t generally kill, rape, or assault. And yet they suffer those violences. And our whole culture enables this, and as long as we play along we do contribute to that harm. But I think that once we have taken the red pill, if you will, we can make things better. We can try our best to fight against our own biases and outer oppression. I donate to Planned Parenthood and Emily’s List, and La Raza, and Heidi Heitkamp, and Secular Woman. I protest discrimination, sign petitions, vote for progressive women. I do what I can to eliminate the biases in myself, and I call out men who do the same.
In the past, I am sure I said awful things. I am sure I made and laughed at rape jokes. I am sure I dismissed claims of sexism, racism, homophobia. I am sure I “yes, but”ed all the time.
But I can’t see how dying now would help fix that. It would mean I would have fewer opportunities to step on people’s toes. It would mean that no one would ever have to be afraid or creeped out by me again, because of whatever qualities I have that make that a natural response. But, it wouldn’t absolve me of any sins, and it wouldn’t help anyone. It wouldn’t make anybody happy, I think, and would make my friends and family sad. And it would mean an end to my own positive actions and donations.
At least, this is what I tell myself when I am feeling like I really do deserve to die.
I think the answer is probably both. We are deluding ourselves, but we do so because we are flawed. We are so very deeply flawed, with just world effects and prejudice, etc. It is a tragic aspect of humanity, that requires more effort than it ought to fix. But such effort can be put in, I think. Perhaps I am overly optomistic.
I suppose you could kill me. I suspect you could kill someone even by saying this, since you could in principle trigger suicidal thoughts in people. But what would that really accomplish? One less man, but of what sort? Would you be getting rid of a rapist or an anti-rape advocate? A culprit or a victim? I suppose I am somewhat crazy, I have anxiety disorders and depression and OCD. But I don’t really think that means I deserve to be “released from the psychotic prison of my mind”. It worries me that one would suggest that the mentally ill ought to die, though I understand the anger.
I suspect it will end with us all dying alone, hoping we made the world a better place, or perhaps just in a state of emptiness brought about by Alzheimers?
I guess there is one other thing about this post which bothers me a lot. Someone above called you an agent provacateur. I thought you might just be very legitimately angry and expressing a lot of rage. While it didn’t really trigger suicidal feelings in me, I did stop reading for the night because I was afraid of what would come afterwards. I normally think anger can be very useful for expressing just how much pain something causes. Telling people that they are dumbfuck shistains for supporting any restriction on abortion helped make it clear to me how important the issue was and how utterly disingeneous the restrictive laws were in a way that might not have been so clear if people had been very polite about it.
But why would you come to a blog run by an ardently pro-feminist man, on a blog filled with pro-feminist men and women who know and care about many other pro-feminist men and tell them that they all deserve to die? I guess if it’s just a poetic expression of fear and hate and anger, I understand. But knowing that so many people on this site have PTSD, anxiety disorders, etc. surely it must be clear that you really might trigger one of them into suicidal behaviour? And I guess I don’t understand why you would want to harm or kill your allies? Why tell the pro-feminists that they need to die? If you really are intent oh hurting your enemies, why not post it at the slimepit, where they don’t mind death threats evidently, and who really do make rape jokes and insult rape victims?
If it were just an expression of anger that you didn’t mean, I understand, though I might ask that you not tell us we deserve to die if you don’t really want us to. But if you really mean it, then why post here?
*headshake*
The “Dear men. Die.” rant is copypasted from a blog in 2010, was placed on an anti-ManBoobz site last summer, and now the pitters have a post about it.
Pteryxx:
Ah. That answers for a lot. Trolling to see what kind of response it gets. Surely those assclowns have figured out by now that that sort of shit doesn’t get a pass here? Right?
Ah, so it was an agent provacteur. Quelle suprise.
And it’s not just men who’ve been victimized who lose their man card – masculinity is so strictly policed that men who ally with women are also “feminized.” See some of the responses to PZ or David Futrelle. I think that’s one of the barriers to men getting involved, and it’s something that men who want to be allies should be prepared for.
Burgundy:
Yes it is, however, progressive men have always supported women’s rights as they can see past their own noses. There are plenty of examples throughout history of men who have supported women’s rights, what we now call feminism. Feminist men do get plenty of abuse, however, they are actively changing the concept of masculinity.
Caine – absolutely. I don’t mean it as an excuse or think it’s an insurmountable barrier, and I definitely don’t mean to trivialize the work that men have already done.
Troll bashing must be therapeutic, I got a good nights sleep. I wake, walk to the window and Look! I see gollumblog’s ego float by high in the sky. I judge it to be a mile up at least!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just read he first two pages. You guys are a bunch of callous assholes, you know that? How’s about not looking for an excuse to beat on someone for a change?
Now, what good would come from listening to abject fuckwittery. For example, folks who can’t grasp the concept that it doesn’t have to be overtly sexist to be considered sexual harassment? Be specific, or shut the fuck up.
How’s about you contribute something to any thread besides your moronic rages and fits? And how’s about the rest of you stop deliberately misrepresnting people and going so ridiculously over the top when arguing with someone. God but you’re a bunch of hateful fucks.
I mean seriously, going out of your way to label Ellen Beth Wachs an anti-feminist, misogynistic chill girl? Declaring any conference she’s involved with garbage? You’re nothing but a pack of fucking thugs.
So the asshat who said that those who are abused will abuse, we should have, what, welcomed him with open arms? And when he said that when you abuse ‘something,’ bad things happen, we should have, what, given him a hug? And that’s just one of many. Not to mention all of those who decided that questioning whether or not she was wrong to bring it to the attention of the conference is much more important than discussing the rape and murder threats directed at her or that sh got fired, we should have all held hands and sung Kumbayah?
How’s about you actually tell us what should be listened to that is of intellectual and factual interest. So far, you are nothing but a tone/concern troll, not worth listening to. How I say it is irrelevant to the facts.
I’m sure julian is just talking about those assholes making Adria scared for her life. If he wanted to rant on commenters’ behavior, he would do it in Thunderdome.
Julian:
Let me guess, you’re upset about EllenBeth, right? I have bad news for you, in this thread, she fucked up. Even people close to her said as much. The whole matter has also been dealt with, so take your bile elsewhere – we’ve dealt with enough already.
You’re nothing but a worthless tone troll, without anything to say to advance an argument. Not worth listening to even. Do better, or shut the fuck up.
Oh spare me. You know damn well you went over the fucking line. No wonder you guys never leave this place. You pull this shit every fucking time and then use whatever’s done to you all as an excuse to hurt people not even associated with the fight.
Beatrice:
If it’s the Julian I’m thinking of, they are a former Pharyngula commenter, or somewhat of one. Mostly stuck to the lounge. Ages ago, they decided we weren’t nice enough, so the routine complaining goes on all over the place.
I this thread you fucked up. There’ no excuse for the ridiculous level you pushed that too.
Sorry, this is a rude blog. You don’t know where the line is. So, either explain yourself with evidence to what was said earlier, or shut the fuck up. Your whinging isn’t convincing anybody you have anything to say.
Caine,
I remember julian, my comment was a polite way of saying “oy, off to the Thunderdome with you”.
Julian:
Who are you talking to, Cupcake? Personally, I didn’t go over any line and if you don’t specify just what it is you’re all upsetty about, well, no one can help you. You could always shut up and go whinge about us in your usual haunts.
It’s not that you’re not nice, it’s that you go out of your way to be hateful, to be mean, t try and dehumanize people. The only thing you guys don’t do is use sexist or racist language. But that doesn’t make you any less hateful or cruel.
And jesus “EllenBethh is misogynistic chill girl, vying for male approval?” WTF?!
Julian:
No, I didn’t. And I apologized for the one thing I did get wrong, due to a lack of information. So as usual, you’re vomiting up shit for no reason. EllenBeth went out of her way to both victim blame and defend one of the most loathsome assholes in this thread. She may not have intended to do that, however, it’s what happened. Did no one ever tell you about feet of clay, Julian? Don’t put people on a pedestal, dear. They have a tendency to fuck up.
Yeah and I remember all of you. I remember how none of you said anything to TLC when he was saying he’d smack bluharmony if she didn’t quit seeming so meek. I remember how you turned on Walton when he tried mellowing you all out. I remember how you treat each and every person who gets on the badside of one of you.
You are not a compassionate group of people. You are hateful, bitter and cruel. I came here thinking this was just the slympit exaggerating shit to drum up hate against you guys. I see they’re exactly right. God damn, fucking fix yourselves.
Julian:
You are the one out of line, defending rape culture apologists like you are.
Odd. I find the people here to be incredibly supportive, nurturing and uncompromising. I have no idea how I would have coped without the support of the wonderful people here.
Opinions are like assholes, y’know.
And, isn’t it odd that Walton was ‘chased away’ and yet was commenting on another thread not too long ago?
I haven’t been here much myself, but I’ve found people (read: the non-trolls) here to be interesting, funny, clever, courageous, thoughtful and kind.
Strange how impressions differ, isn’t it?
Sorry fuckwit. You’re fucked up. No evidence, no foul. Either toss in some citations or shut the fuck up. That is if you have honesty and integrity….
Hahahahahahaha!
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Totally lol
You’re all so amazingly insightful. Obviously I can’t hope to hang here.
Ogvorbis:
And mentioned being overwhelmed with examinations, as usual.
Wrong cupcake. We just don’t mince words with faux politeness. Now, either substantiate your claims with evidence or shut the fuck up. Welcome to science, not a drawing room.
Caine:
Just once, JUST ONCE, I would like to see a critic of PZed or the horde who is actually honest.
Delft:
Yep. Life’s a funny old thing. Of course, people with an axe to grind generally chop up everything in sight.
ROFL
This another thing you all constantly do. If someone says one thing, you guys subsitute something else.
I said ‘turned on.’
You substituted ‘chased away’ in place of it.
You guys don’t do honesty very well do you?
Ogvorbis:
That would be nice. It would cause my jaw to shatter, but it would be nice.
Julian, you lack honesty and integrity. If you had any, you would cite the posts you find wrong. I see nothing. So, as Christopher Hitchens’ said, “that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence”. Which *floosh* is every post of yours today. Either show some specifics or shut the fuck up. That is what a person of honesty and integrity would do. Liars and bullshitters can’t put up evidence, and won’t shut the fuck up either. Choose wisely cricket.
I see the usual suspects are back to rewrite history.
Good bye. Hope you all get over yourselves.
After this stunt I think you’ve lost even more people willing to assume the best from you guys. :/
julian
Move your cursor up to that little ‘x’ on the tab.
click.
Bob’s your Uncle.
Still no evidence from the proven liar and bullshitter Julian. Change that with links, or shut the fuck up.
julian, if someone pointed to a genuine, honest complaint, it would be taken seriously.
You haven’t done that.
So either start doing that, or shut the fuck up.
Really, you’re going to align yourself with the slimepit because you have an axe to grind?
Why Julian thinks their evidenceless temper tantrum will change anything is beyond the ken of normal intelligent people. Until I see some evidence, it is all *floosh* sent to the waste disposal system.
Isn’t it odd how often people start off pretending to have an honest criticism, and then turn out to be slymers?
Yup, that’s why NOBODY, not me, not Chris Clarke, not Stacy nor Janine nor anybody else tried to get folks to dial back the rhetoric against her. Because we’re ALL horrible people in our hivemind groupthink thingy here.
*rolls eyes*
Wow, so glad julian stopped by to fling some shit around. Perhaps xe is mad that we didn’t empathize enough with the poor, poor conference organizers who were absolutely ruined because of this whole shitstorm like EllenBeth so graciously pointed out?
Pffft.
The hivemind has a multiple personality disorder.
So you’re hangin’ in the pit now. Goodness, that’s a mighty big axe, Cupcake.
I’ll note here that Chris Clarke said EllenBeth was much too smart to fall for the shit the ‘pit was flinging. Pity you’re too stupid, Julian.
Oh noes, people here are mean poopyheads who say nasty things to people who victim-blame and minimize violent threats!
No wait, that’s a feature, not a bug.
Well, all Julian had to do to be considered seriously was to link to a few posts where Xe thought we went too far. Then, and only then, can we consider what was really said. Somehow, since it wasn’t heroworship (nobody gets that from me) toward EB, we had to be wrong…
Has anyone else noticed this pattern?
Critic: Makes a statement/insult/accusation sure to bring a response.
Horde: Multiple responses per the commenter’s personality.
Critic: Cherry picks and then deliberately misunderstands. Makes another inflammatory statement.
Horde: Attempts to answer per the commenter’s personality.
Critic: Cherry picks and then deliberately misunderstands. Makes another inflammatory statement.
Horde: Attempts to answer per the commenter’s personality.
Critic: Cherry picks and then deliberately misunderstands. Makes another inflammatory statement.
Horde: Attempts to answer per the commenter’s personality.
Critic: Flounces with declaration of victory.
And you are willing to tar any of us who criticized the rape culture apologists in this thread despite many of us having nothing to do with your prior issues. When people come in focused on ‘mistakes’ Adria made rather than the misogynistic responses she received, their priorities are fucked up. Just as yours currently are.
Nerd:
EB? Elevator ?
Shit. NEver mind. Figured it out. Sorry.
#1299 julian
Look, I used chill girl the first time in sarcasm because I couldn’t fathom why else the fuck anyone would defend that piece of shit commenter she was sticking up for. Another commenter said that which you quoted, and all things considered I can’t say they are wrong. It’s certainly within the realm of possibility considering her actions here, especially if you don’t know who she is. And the commenter you’re referring to? Knew who Ellen was and has every right to decide who they want to spend their time on or avoid. It’s their opinion and it’s not like Ellen gave a good showing here anyways.
I still don’t know who the fuck she is, I didn’t click any links regarding her activities elsewhere but it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with her shitty behavior here. I don’t care if she’s the Patron Saint of Feminism, she fucked up badly. And considering what we knew of her incident at a conference regarding someone not filing a claim, it came off the wrong way and was latter clarified. (which just made her look more incompetent but whatevs).
Nobody de-humanized her, though I was admittedly, unapologetically mean to her. She defended an asshole who triggered several people, myself included, defended the idiots who harassed and decided to play the blame game “she didn’t report it right” in regards to Adria. So, she basically did everything wrong. Yeah, I still say fuck her. I don’t if everyone else is friends with her, I’m not going to waste my time with someone who apparently agrees with ‘beat/abuse a child and they become an abuser’ since she defended that jerk (didn’t even take it back or say he was wrong) and as someone who’s had a terrible childhood, she can stay the fuck away from me. And it doesn’t matter that I don’t want to be around or associate with her conferences because she rubbed me the wrong way, I can’t/don’t go anyways. Maybe by the time I can go to one that’ll change but the point is moot now.
The same-old same-old? Boring.
Oooh, I go off to make a cuppa and another troll blasts in crying “Waah waah, you’re such a bunch of meanies!!!!”
Amazing.
Julian, here’s a hankie.
JAL:
Yeah, I gotta say, that’s still with me and bothers me a great deal.
Wait, you came here from the slymepit to complain that we are too abusive? Are you stoned out of your mind? Please, tell me, what kinds of things have the ‘pitters said about her? Because I recall long, tedious periods of abuse of “EllenBethWacko” and other such names on the #FtBullies hashtag…which apparently are all forgotten now that some people here were angry with her.
For the record, I consider EllenBeth Wachs a friend and positive contributor to the cause of atheism and humanism and to feminism. I think she was wrong here — she was thinking too much as a conference organizer, and not enough as a minority fighting for respect — but that the reactions here were far too heated to be useful.
However, I also knew that this thread would end up a long one, with lots of hot tempers, and an influx of morons, and I made a conscious decision early on to let it burn on. That’s how Matthew Best managed to be left alone for so long. Perhaps you didn’t notice, but ALL sides were allowed to rage on here unchecked. And now, of course, the Brave Heroes of FreezePeach are all squawking. Am I supposed to tell people how to express themselves? Or not?
However, the confession that you’re a slymepitter breaks one of my absolute rules. Bye. Don’t bother coming back, hypocrite.
Julian said
I’m one of those who said some unpleasant things about EllenBeth.
Unpleasant, but true.
I’d never heard of her before this thread. I hope never to hear of her again. Her behavior in this thread was atrocious. I don’t give a damn what she is purported to have done outside of this thread – what she did here makes her unworthy of any respect or attention.
Deal with it.
Stop suppressing my freeze peach, okay arbor? Sheesh!
Julian isn’t a Slymepitter.
Hyperdeath:
I expect he shouldn’t have brought them up or mentioned how he thought they were right.
Hmm. Have any of you folks fired anyone on flimsy pretexts lately? Sent any rape or death threats? No?
Eye on the ball, people.
Funny who Xe sounded like one when xe was taking us to task upthread. Which is all I have to go on. A chance was offered to listen to xim if they would stick to evidence, not hyperbole. But Xe chose hyperbole. What do you really expect us to think?
Rey:
*sigh* I have other stuff to do, man.
Post 1345
Yes…you must be very proud.
Holy fuck balls did we get another infusion of disingenuous prattle!
I think I need to make a meta point to the nonexistent good-faith arguer that just wants to have a casual conversation on why Adria Richards needs to be ignored and treated like scum as the liar everyone knows all women to be.
A)Stop.
If you’re acting in good faith, you are propping up a sickening social sexism that constantly considers women to be liars no matter how well they document what happened to them, no matter how well they explain their thought processes, and no matter how many facts support them. By taking away focus from Adria Richards to your own bullshit, you are being complicit with an abusive sexist culture that constantly punishes women for speaking up and rewards men for destroying in the most savage and sickening means possible any woman who dares push back against toxic systems.
B) Learn. Think. Introspect.
Why are you so angry at Adria Richards in all this? Is it because you fear your participation in a broken sexist culture that is openly hostile to female participants? Is it because you think you own subgroups like “geekdom” or “programmers” and thus imagine female participants to be outsiders who aren’t allowed to critique main culture? Is it because a woman “rising out of her place” incenses you? Is it because you feel guilty because you have done the same thing and women politely suffered through your idiocy because that’s what they are socially trained to do?
Look at this. Stare at the inhuman vileness of your character. Be aware and do not run.
Really look and find out why it was so easy to align and protect those who made death and rape threats and fired a woman from her job for doing the right thing. Find out why it’s so fucking important to you personally that you demonize her and rationalize the actions taken against her as proper.
You may want to protest to this, argue that “no, I’m not sexist”.
Sorry, but you are.
Every last one of those of you on here arguing your little bullshit rationalizations? You are all sexists. You are all misogynists. You are all the scum of the Earth and your characters are forever marred by that. Sorry, but it’s the case.
When given the obvious choice, you sided against a woman because it was your natural inclination that whenever a woman is smacked down, she must have deserved it. She must have “inappropriately tweeted” or did some dastardly action or had some nasty reason or was unfair or had an agenda or excuses, excuses, excuses.
You made that choice and now you must lie in it. But you can also choose to stop and learn and become better people. That’s also your choice to make.
C) This keeps happening.
This isn’t isolated. These incidents aren’t innocent and once offs. The responses aren’t a sudden bad behavior on the part of a single bad apple. It’s deeper in our culture and it’s a pattern that continues endlessly forever.
No matter the “proper” response of the women who are belittled and minimized by sexist sexual jokes that reduce women into their popular representation as “the sex class”, women are treated like shit. If they ask politely, they are made the subject of crasser sexist jokes. If they complain, then they are treated like humorless feminists overreacting to a bit of fun. If they make sure minor is taken, they are, as we see here, treated as an “accepted target” for every nasty bit of harassment and hate that a bunch of scared little gobshites trying to scramble up a slope of toxic masculinity that they will NEVER EVER WIN can throw at her. If they push to end the culture, they typically are targeted for even worse, including real world violence. If they eschew all that and just make a helpful note that doesn’t name names or really lay into anyone, they are still treated to rape threats and threats of violence.
No matter the style of the pushback against the sexist culture. No matter how gently they phrase it, women are still subjected to rape and murder threats. Do they say “hey guys, don’t do that” about a creepy proposition in an elevator? Rape and murder threats and ongoing harassment for years. Do they note that guns won’t protect you from rapes because most rapists aren’t strangers? Rape and murder threats. Do they post one fucking tweet about something all parties agreed was boneheaded and inappropriate? Rape and murder threats. Do they try to get the right to shit in the right toilet? Fall on the wrong side of Glenn Beck’s bullshit lies? Note that a subgroup or hobby isn’t perfect and move to make some videos? Rape and murder threats.
No matter what they did. What they said. How they said it. What else they did. Douchebags like you still tried to blame them, still attacked them, still continued the harassment and tried to justify it long after the “inciting incident” that you and others are so sure must have justified or been the “real important piece of information.
No matter what, the harassment occurs, in practice, against any woman who pushes back no matter how mildly against a sexist entrenched culture.
EVERY. FUCKING. TIME.
D) It’s all bad faith.
Let’s be frankly honest here. There’s not a damn one here among you who is here because they really think that it’s more interesting that double entendres can be considered sexual and diminishing or that tweeting is a double-plus hitler crime, or anything else.
You’re here, because it’s all the same harassment.
Just like no matter what a woman says, she is still pilloried and harassed and sent rape and murder threats. No matter what, any thread commenting on this backlash. Noting the sexism inherent in it, daring to talk about the incident with some grasp of facts and context is invaded by douchebags seeking to silence debate.
Do you think we are stupid?
That women and feminist men haven’t noticed that every time a woman is brutally silenced and attacked for talking about a system of sexism, there is an invasion of you fuckers on every thread that talks about it to throw up a bunch of half-hearted defenses designed to piss off and silence.
That this is a tactic, endlessly played, in every thread without heavy moderation that dares discuss what happened, why it happens, where people may connect the pieces.
That we haven’t noticed that you are this sexism. That you specifically are the force that invades the spaces, no matter how small, no matter how inconsequential so you can rant about how the bitch deserves it because no one could possibly have that curly hair without Satanism, etc…? EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
And do you really think that we don’t notice this? That we don’t see this pathetic attempt at silencing for what it is?
That when you then try and spin it like “we’re the bad ones” for daring to notice or play the sort of devil’s advocate bullshit games you once thought were so clever, it does nothing to hide that each and every last one of you
Chose to be scum.
Chose to come here and participate in this endless cycle of bad faith penny-ante silencing and misogynist terrorism bullshit. That we can see that this happens every time we speak up, no matter what.
But here’s the thing to all you Misogynist Fuckwits out there.
We’re the vanguard. The fuckers. The bitches who don’t back down and are more than used to living daily in a system that fucking hates us. That we understand more than you ever could what it truly means to be pushing against a broken system for our basic humanity.
You don’t get more power than now. Not ever again.
Cause after us, after you’re done with your little tantrums, we’re moving to make this world a better place for the women who come after us, so that they don’t have to sit through the same endless fights because some overprivileged pieces of garbage somewhere decided that programming in Python or being on the internet or liking video games or being an atheist was a “man activity” that “girls aren’t allowed to be part of”.
And that change is coming piece by piece, action by action, no matter how loudly you wail or how many of us you burn to the ground in your vitriol.
Your system will turn on you and you’ll be left like the sad little Tea Party racists, crying for a world you never noticed left you behind.
And you will deserve
EVERY
LAST
PANG
of suffering that brings you. I leave the final choice up to you. You can grow and begin becoming people that might actually have friends and social support in the decades to come or you can continue to be this and you can continue to collapse further into a hole, forgotten by the world, meaningless to all, shouting vitriol to a society that more and more ceases to care for your penny ante bullshit.
And when you play this game in the future and the company hiring the woman just shrugs and the Python community rises in support and the blogs you seek to troll just ban you and move on. You can remember that someone tried to warn you and you deliberately chose not to listen.
After going to the night job, coming home, catching up on paperwork for the other job, and a bit of sleep I find that nothing’s changed. NOTHING.
The Horde is still having to 101 a bunch of ragingly clueless assholes, the raging assholes still don’t know how to read or provide evidence and the slymepit is still leaking toxic sludge.
Just another day in feminist paradise, amirite?
I would have thought that after 1300 comments the discussion could have moved on to something productive, but I’ve always been a little too hopeful when these kinds of posts appear here.
…and Julian? If you’re still reading…
Everything I said about EBW was evidenced by her own behaviour here. The suggestions I made regarding her hiring of an HR Specialist as a consultant have been completely ignored by anyone trying to paint me as a clueless asshole. Nothing I said was out of line, AT ALL, given how she acted. I already knew who she was and was very clear that I don’t give redeemable points to people for doing something good at some other time, which is the way it should be.* …but if you’d actually read any of what I said you’d know that.
Of course, you’re not interested in what actually happened, are you? You’d rather just ignore it so you can get off a few cheap shots.
Well, have fun with that. I stand by everything I said. Every. Single. Word.
*Just like you don’t let people convicted of burglary a free pass because they donate money to charity or let those convicted of DUI keep their licenses because they are members of MADD. (Which is a terrible organization, but that’s a discussion for another day)
Holy shit Cerberus, that was fucking outstanding.
I’m amused at anyone who thinks that “forking” isn’t innuendo because it’s technically a technical term.
Applause for Cerberus but the trolls won’t notice, now or ever, sadly.
I think Cerberus deserves some kind of award for both tenacity and thoughtful, intelligent, on-point contributions to this thread.
A million thanks to you, Cerberus!
Just in the interests of providing more information and clarity, PlayHaven released more information, which indicates that while both men were involved, yes indeed, only one was fired. In large part, this seems to be due to a rumor that the fired man was Alex Reid, which prompted PlayHaven to issue a denial and clarification:
Now given that Alex Reid was one of the men in the picture (you can see his name on his convention id in the original tweet) and was not fired, while the other man (identified as mr_hank on various forums) was, it seems only logical to conclude that there really must have been something else going on.
PlayHaven won’t release personnel information here, but they rather go out of the way to point out that there were other facts involved in this decision, even while saying they won’t talk about them.
So while Richards’ tweet might have been a contributing factor (in the sense of an event that took place prior to another event), it obviously wasn’t sufficient by itself to justify firing. As the fact that Reid is still employed (and valued!) would seem to bear out. Funny how people keep missing this/deliberately ignoring it.
Maybe mr_hank has a history. Maybe he’s become a public liability to PlayHaven — in ways that Alex Reid has not — which would totally justify him being fired, right? It’s why Richards was fired, and all the assholes are absolutely — nay, passionately — wedded to the fact that her firing was not only justified, but necessary because her public actions putatively impaired her ability to do her job.
Y’all going to walk back your assertions now, right? Of course not. That would require an admission of error, and being unjustified in your noble outrage. Yeesh, so done with this thread.
[crossposted in part from the newer thread]
Ah, dammit. I screwed up that blockquote.
Cerberus:
YOU FUCKING ROCK! That was so well done. Shut the thread down now.
Are the Mollies still around? I haven’t seen much of them. I think Cerberus sort of wins them all for the next year, though.
Phew. What a read! And not the first such comment in this thread by Cerberus, either!
I’m still in awe of Cerberus @1347
That was one of the most powerful things I have read on Pharyngula, ever.
Really I’m speechless. Bravo, thanks, and thanks again.
Thank you, Cerberus. fantastic post!
A quote from Adria Richards’ blog:
” I stood up slowly, turned around and took three, clear photos.”
A quote from the Pycon Code of Conduct:
“Harassment includes offensive verbal comments related to gender, sexual orientation, disability, physical appearance, body size, race, religion, sexual images in public spaces, deliberate intimidation, stalking, following, harassing photography or recording …”
Richards took three photographs and put them up on her blog even though she was happy with the Pycon had handled her grievance. There was no need for this and it most certainly constitutes harassing photography.
Richards deserved to be fired. I can’t imagine why anyone would want to employee such a vexatious and vindictive individual. Remember, as Amanda Blum notes, Richards has form for disrupting events and grandstanding. Richards ain’t no team player; she is a narcissist and a self promoter.
golliblog
Did you ever answer the golliwog question?
golliblog, here’s an easy to understand message:
YOU ARE A MISOGYNIST PIECE OF SCUM. SHUT UP AND GO AWAY.
Oh for fuck’s sake:
Taking pictures so the staff could ID the guys being assholey isn’t harassment.
Jesus jumped up and kissed a dog, get a clue and shut the fuck up.
*goes back to lurking*
Fuckwit, this means upskirt, down blouse, close in shots of crotch, buttocks, and breast. Funny how you are so dimwitted, you can’t refute this, but keep repeating your dimwitted lies like they mean something. All the mean is you are too stupid to understand real evidence. You think anything is evidence for your delusions. It isn’t.
Funny how it doesn’t meet the definitions given in post #1364/. Which means your “evidence is a failure of logic, scientific scrutiny, legal scrutiny, and any rational person. Which leaves you out dimwit. Your “evidence” is *floosh* dismissed as imagufactured idiocy which you pretend is meaningful. It isn’t, and never will be. Which is why you are nothing but a liar and bullshitter. Nothing you say can be taken at face value.
Niki M:
It’s the only line they know how to parrot. It’s good to read you again, Niki.
Caine,
Settle down. Take a deep breath. Think.
Richards has form. Her perceptions are seriously screwed. She has shown up on numerous blogs and blasted people for being sexist based on sweet FA. Here is one example. Richards’ barges into a blog and accuses the (female) blogger of sexism over the gender of the figures in a stick figure cartoon. http://jenmylo.com/2011/08/03/wcsf-shirt/comment-page-1/#comment-326
Richards has a habit of playing with matches. If you do that, sometimes you’ll get burnt.
you need to follow you own advice. Except you can’t think. You can’t show the photographs were harassment. Your claim is *floosh* dismissed as irrational inanity.
You have a form. A form of lying and bullshitting. Any claims you make against Richards are automatically *floosh* dismissed as irrelevant. The only relevancy is the two males who made a mistake.
Gee, you are burnt everytime you post her. You aren’t even in the match. Your word is worthless, your claims are bogus, your logic doesn’t exist. All you have is your bigotry.
I think we’ve all been in the working world long enough to know what “team player” means.
golliblog,
There was no “harassing photography.” Nor Caine does need to follow any of your patronizing suggestions. You need to learn to read for comprehension, if you are capable of it (which I sincerely doubt). Otherwise, just fuck off already.
golliblog
I’m curious – is your ‘nym any kind of reference to the term “golliwog”?
Cerberus – #1347 was a masterpiece. Thank you for it and all your contributions on this and so many other threads.
Rey Fox wrote:
Our chum* golliblog hasn’t. He ‘works’ on a ‘hobby farm’, remember?
*Heh.
Rey:
Well, those of us who actually work do, yes. The misogynist piece of scum doesn’t, just has a hobby.
Hekuni Cat:
Let me guess: relax, chill out, calm down or a variant thereof? (I have the misogynistic piece of scum killfiled. There’s no need to read anything they write, they know one line and repeat it in parrot fashion.)
Yes, I do rather wish he’d go back to his heirloom tomatoes. They can’t sass back.
quantumn tomatoes can sass
co-incidence, considering Richards is black? would it matter?
*warning, racism*
Jim Crow museum link for Golliwog
I note, in bolding the section right after, patrickG completely IGNORES the entire preceding sentences:
so patrick, what were you saying again?
idiot.
Caine:
Slightly different wording, same meaning.
point being that actually, by law and by their own statement you just quoted…
It was perfectly legitimate for them to have fired an employee for what they noted.
now, as to why the other guy wasn’t fired, that’s an entirely DIFFERENT matter. My guess was they simply couldn’t afford to fire two guys from the same department, and the other one had seniority.
but this does NOT bear on the fact that they clearly imply it was the employees statements that resulted in his being let go.
what is also of note, is that Richards is not mentioned. If your point is to clear Richards of being in the wrong here, you don’t need to go about it this way. It’s not necessary.
Ichthyic:
That was uncalled for. Completely. The company has further stated that this incident alone was not cause for his being fired, and Nightshadequeen was the first one to bring their initial statement to attention in this thread.
I just want to 25th the awesomeness of Cerberus’ #1347. Incredible.
it’s not the point. The fact is, the company CAN legitimately fire someone for making comments like those two did at that conference. It doesn’t have to have ANYTHING to do with Richards, or anything else for that matter, and trying to use that statement to make claims otherwise is an idiotic thing to do, and actually plays right into the hands of people who want to claim this has anything at all to do with Richards.
this is why I say… idiot.
I would have expected nothing less directed at myself for doing the same thing.
it was called for.
Golliblog:
Ok, great. She took three pictures. Happy?
But gosh, strangely, we have heard nothing from PyCon about Adria’s behavior. Any speculation about why would be just that-speculation. But PyCon took no actions against her and the two guys agreed they were out of line.
So did you have an actual point to make or do you just enjoy keeping julian, shirakawasuna, Matthew Best, et al company in Rape Culture Enablers Inc?
Golliblog:
Bringing up past “indisretions” does nothing but show that you dislike this woman. What the ever loving fuck did she do to you? Slash your tires? Key your car? Crop your face on Gollums body? All this rage you have for her and yet those who cry for her rape and death get…what? A slap on the wrist? Where is your righteous indignation for 4chan? I am beginning to suspect you have an agenda against Adria Richards.
Ichthyic: not to pile on, but Caine @ 1382 is right.
Cerberus @ an n-tuple of places: wow. fucking wow. and thank you so very much.
Horde @ the whole damn thread: likewise, thank you all.
I’ll put my hand up as a former dudebro techno-mysogynist. not long ago (pre-elevatorgate) I’d have piled on that uppity bitch too. which goes some way to explaining the physical reaction I’ve had to this thread – triggering with a side of vomit.
50% of the Human race: please accept my sincere apology for the appalling, shameful way I have treated women. for most of my life really, but specifically in the tech (EE) fields. never speaking to them, but often speaking about them, in derogatory, degrading terms. utterly disregarding the fucking job along with their skills; considering women as objects for wanking over (weird how I tended not to have the kind of sex that involves others with that attitude) or the butt of jokes (dumb bitch cant even do [whatever]). Ugh. Seriously, I cant recall ever having a serious EE conversation with a woman. asshat.
thank FSM for Pharyngula & the Horde. without which I’d still be golliblog or M.Best [gag].
Ichthyic:
No. It was not called for. The company issued a statement saying that Mr Hanks conduct as PyCon was not the only reason for his termination. They could have fired him for that, but if you take them at their word, they did not. I think you owe Patrick an apology.
@ Ichtyhic:
Wait what? I was trying to make a very specific point, I bolded the portions relevant to that point, and more to the point, you’ve completely ignored the close to forty comments I’ve already made in this thread.
If I wasn’t clear enough for you, it’s because you obviously didn’t read everything else I’ve said in this thread. Now, obviously I can’t require this from people. But I do think — and continue to think — that the following point is relevant:
A great number of forums focus on a particular named person being fired. That person was not fired. Someone else was. The person who was not fired, but defended on the basis of them being fired prompted PlayHaven to issue a clarifying statement saying “Fuck no, we didn’t fire that dude — we fired that OTHER dude, for reasons beyond what happened here”.
The POINT was that the massive overreaction was at least in part due to INCORRECT INFORMATION. That was my point.
Your move.
I doubt it was. This would have happened to some extent anyway. The people reacting are not bright nor responsible.
@ Ing: In no way am I trying to deny that the shitstorm would have happened. I do, however, think it’s highly relevant to point out that the shitstorm was initially founded on inaccurate information.
It might make a few people take just a few moments to think. The legion of idiots that descended on this issue did so citing reasons that were factually untrue. Now, the legion of idiots would do that anyway. But maybe, just maybe, a few people won’t be quite so eager to jump on the bandwagon next time.
After all, it seems to always turn out that the initial mob internet reaction tends to rest on really shaky ground. Maybe people shouldn’t form a mob, eh? Maybe they should wait for facts and data to come out, before they commit themselves to a Holy Crusade?
Anyway, that’s my point. I’m still rereading my original comment trying to figure out how, exactly, I defended the actions of the mob. I’m really missing something here. :P
Dude…wasn’t it 4chan? They’re going to do it again. Especially now that they got what they wanted from doing so. They would have done it anyway because they don’t give a shit.
@ Ing: If you think the internet sensation that followed these incidents can be laid solely at the feet of 4chan, I’m just going to say NO.
4chan may have started the fire. Everyone else eagerly grabbed a piece of wood and threw it on. Maybe the lesson here is that people should stop fucking listening to 4chan, no?
Or is every commentator that has ever written about this subject — for major publications (Ars Technica, anyone?) — a representative of 4chan? Pshaw.
Bandwagons. They happen. People should learn not to jump on them, yes? They tend to be shaky.
In short: the internet clearly comes marked with a “Here be Assholes” label. People should stop being so willing to support the most recent asshole they’ve read!
Yes this is the crux of the issue.
Is there a reason you feel the need to share the Aesop everyone here already knows?
Tony,
“But gosh, strangely, we have heard nothing from PyCon about Adria’s behavior. Any speculation about why would be just that-speculation. But PyCon took no actions against her and the two guys agreed they were out of line.”
Once Pycon learnt that Richards had used her blog to harass conference attendees, they reviewed their Code of Conduct. If you read PZM’s post you would note that he derided them as cowards for having done so.
Pycon also had no way of knowing until Richards put up her blog post that she had taken three photos, not the one that you dishonestly claimed she took.
Also be aware that there is no evidence to suggest the persons in the photo knew they were being photographed three fucking times. The statement we have from the guy who was fired suggests he was aware of only one picture. Obviously if no-one knew about it a complaint couldn’t be made at the time of the conference, nor could they have anticipated Richards putting the photos on her blog after the conference
Richards has a history of bullying behavior and outlandish reactions to things she doesn’t like. Amanda Blum has confirmed this is the case. Is Amanda Blum also a misogynist? And what about the other tweets and posts from women tech bloggers who have distanced themselves from Richards’ behaviour? Are all these women sexist?
As I’ve already noted in my approval of Blum’s post, Richards doesn’t deserve death threats etc , but she did deserve to be fired.
The more you look at this case the more it resembles the Duke Lacrosse Rape Hoax.
terryg:
Welcome to the fold.
TL;DR
None of us can say we have done no wrong.
We have all contributed to the sexist culture we live in. It is impossible not to. But when confronted by the pervasive influence of patriarchy we all have the opportunity to break that cycle, to stop and recognize our role in this shitty sexism cycle. We can refuse to play along. Sure we may still stumble. A lifetime of dwelling in the sludge will do that. But with heightened awareness, combined with a desire to not repeat past mistakes, we all have the chance to effect change.
You may not be able to change your actions in the past, but now that you’ve seen the harm you have done, going forward, you can make amends. You can do your part to make this a world that we want to live in.
To all those out there who recognized their privilege…who saw the damage they had done…who realized the harm they committed to women (and men)…to those who have made the decision to not stand by as women are degraded, silenced, harassed, bullied, or intimidated…welcome.
I cannot excuse your past actions any more than I can excuse mine. All I can say is that together, we can stand and fight the tide of sexism and misogyny. We can do our part-however much that might be-to ensure that future generations [hell, THIS generation] has it better. It will not be easy. The atheist community has seen the pushback against the effort to include diversity in its ranks. The gaming world, the comic book world, the tech industry…they are all rife with sexism, just as our culture at large is. It may seem daunting. Hell, the influx of fools in this very thread was frustrating. But I tell you what–looking around and seeing the support of so many others, realizing that this is not a solo battle for anyone, being able to find strength in numbers…that is powerful. The more of us that speak out in the name of equality…the more of us that refuse to stay silent where once we did…the more of us men who stand shoulder to shoulder with women-as their equal the more we grow in strength and the more we can accomplish. So if you think “my voice is meaningless amongst all the others”:
It.
Is.
Not.
Your voice is unique.
Your voice adds to the Chorus of Egalitarianism.
Your strength adds to our strength.
Your added perspective informs ours.
You, all of you, have something to bring to the table.
To combat patriarchy…to fight the deep seated sexism in patriarchal societies cannot be done alone.
So if you are like terryg, or myself, or any others who once contributed to the oppression of women and now wants to aid women in casting their oppressors aside, speak up. Let your voice be heard.
The end result-a world where we are all truly equal-is more than fucking worth it.
Golliblog:
I am done with you, you dishonest rape culture apologist. it has been pointed out time and again that in the face of her rape and death threats, the most important thing is not how she handled the situation. I think she did right. You think she did not. Either way, it does not fucking matter. No matter how she handled it, the resulting deluge if misogynistic comments was disturbing and immoral. As long as we as a culture continue to respond to ‘uppity women’ who speak out with death & rape threats, the reason and method they use to speak out is of little concern.
In closing: fuck your victim blaming and fuck you.
What the fuck is wrong with the misogynistic assclam with the racist moniker?
How ever so charitable of you. Etc. Now don’t you have some dirt to harvest?
Cerberus – that’s a tour de force.
I’d love to say that nothing more needs to be said, but we all know it has to be done over and over and over again. At least we can now link to this comment rather than feebly strive to produce something not even half as good.
golliblog,
What, you think it’s some kind of gotcha that she tweeted one photo while there were also two others? That’s pathetic.
Unless the second two were made in the toilets while the two guys were pissing, they are no more harassing than the one on twitter. You know, the one you claimed pycon didn’t know about, and actual tweets showed you a liar.
Hmmm, racist moniker…obsessed with Adria Richards, a black woman…hmmm…
Ing and Icthyic, I ask you to actually read the entirety of this thread and see the many, many posts I’ve made. I really don’t appreciate the accusations you both are leveling against me, and I honestly don’t understand how you got that content from what I said, despite multiple re-readings.
This has been a very toxic thread, made so by people like Matthew Best, domah, and golliblog (to name a few). But I’m feeling rather insulted that you’re assigning positions to me (Icthyic explicitly, Ing implicitly) that I don’t hold, since if you’d read the thread, you would realize these are not my positions.
And seriously, Ing. What the fuck was this?
Because obviously some people don’t know it? Because people in this very thread obviously don’t know it? Because lots of people on the internet obviously don’t know it? Seriously, what the fuck? Pointing out that people shouldn’t base their actions on questionable data is … wrong somehow? Again, Ing, what the fuck? Last I checked, this was a blog and community that valued empiricism. Pointing out that people are demonstrably making mistakes based on false data shouldn’t be a mockable position. And yet, here you are. Might want to rethink that, no?
Take your Aesop and shove it. I’m off to bed.
PatrickG: thanks for all the work you’ve put in, explaining the obvious to repulsive fucking douchebags.
:
Ichthyic & Ing are bound to notice you are collateral damage, sooner or later. others have.
:
dont be disheartened – in a thread this nasty, collateral damage due to friendly fire is pretty much assured.
:
Tony! @ 1396: that was extremely well said, and I concur wholeheartedly. there are of course downsides to speaking up – I’ve shitcanned a few “friends” who are in fact fucking predators. and upset a few more. I’m OK with that. and its the least we can do.
[slightly OT, i got into a steubenville discussion with a couple of friends when i was in China recently. it took several hours, but in the end i got Alan to completely reverse his stance. it took spelling out the principle of bodily autonomy in detail, but he eventually grokked “non-consensual penetration = rape” really is the same as “no you cant take my kidney”. arguing that i ought to be able to take his kidney if he was comatose drunk was the clincher there. that segued into how the law has/must/will adopt the same principle (lousy wording sorry). he came back with “how the fuck am i supposed to know” which isnt as bad an argument as it first seems – eventually conquered it via drink-driving. that legal change (NZ/Aus) was accompanied by a massive social education campaign, which explains how it worked so well. no such campaign for bodily autonomy/rape though, despite the maturation of the law in that regard]
Fuck the trolls. Let’s throw some actual conversations on the fire.
Do the tactics of tag-teaming and sock-puppeting trolls into any thread mildly supportive of someone who has been directly harassed with rape/murder threats necesitate a change in commenting policy on those posts in specific in order to reduce their intended psychological cost to the vanguard set?
Does the desperate nature and increase of these tactics of silencing specific individuals with rape/murder threats and the way these sync up with the similar bullshit terrorism attacks (usually against women) by right-wing misogynists suggest that these are the last refuge of scoundrels who know they have lost the war?
Additionally, if the last is true, is it still a major concern? I’ll note on this one that the professional women-haters in the anti-choice camp were able to win a remarkable amount of political victories, greatly reduce the ability of the other side to speak in its aid, and make public opinion too scared to side with women even fully today just on the strength of its continued commitment to terrorism and the KKK was able to delay civil rights in the South for over a century in similar fashion (which would be why these groups turn to these terrorist tactics, because they work in making oppressed groups scared to fight back).
How do we counter these campaigns earlier? How do we place more onus on those spreading the bile and continuing the harassment? How do we make it socially and financially not worth it to support these twisted actions? Should we boycott every group or company that gives in to these terrorists in order to defang them?
How can we show the next generation that we’re not going to take this shit and things won’t be this fucking bad when they grow up and go to these cons?
All right, now that we’ve brought up something besides the same bad-faith repeatedly-disproved horseshit of the harassers, let’s turn to the fuckwit terrorist misogynist who hasn’t realized his bitter failure at life and his complete willing choice to be scum and participate in the harassment of Adria Richards, to align himself with rapists and wanna-be murderers and all manner of terrorists over a black woman daring to be uppity is in fact the reason that his life will only continue to get more and more empty and painful as a world passes him by and more and more minorities get more and more uppity every day, undeterred by his PETTY ANTE BULLSHIT.
golliblog @1367
*Crack* *Crack*
You are scum.
It is worth noting this before your fractal wrongness, because otherwise you may fail to appreciate what your actions carry. You have chosen to participate in a harassment campaign. Chosen to show your hatred at a black woman for having the unmitigated gall to call out something that was by every single party’s account, a fucked up action. Because you feel that said fucked up sexist attempt by two douchebags, so uncomfortable with the notion of women, that they couldn’t for 50 FUCKING MINUTES keep their sexist sexual douchebaggery to themselves, to assauge their own discomfort at being at one of the few spaces of the con actually focused on women and women’s issues, decided to fill said panel with their inappropriate, unprofessional, sexist bullshit.
Chosen to FEAR and yes, I most definitely said fear said black woman, and her one little tweet, because you in your overprivileged, overpampered, gift of a life, are terrified that you, one golliblog P. Douchenozzle, might have to change. Might have to evolve and stop treating women like the sex class, stop treating blacks like a permanent underclass. Might have to deal in your little white male bubble with the existence of others, capable others who happen to share your interests or work in your fields and might be SICK AND FUCKING TIRED of dealing day in and day out with your unevolved, undeserving sexist, racist, bullshit day in and day out.
That they might just do the unthinkable and say something. OH NOES, minorities using FREEZE PEACH! Impossible! Anarchy! And you in your overpampered, babied never seen a real hardship in your existence life somehow can’t handle something so painfully tiny as that.
I know you are arguing in bad faith. We both know that. But still, I want you to think on that last bit. Let it dwell and build inside of you. What that says about your precious masculinity. About what kind of man you really are and what kind of man you will never ever be able to be. Because you are so pants-wettingly afraid of one black woman with one picture and one tweet in a vast sea of women quietly suffering through so many douchebags who can’t seem to grow the fuck up and actually interact like GROWN. FUCKING. ADULTS. In the 21st goddamn century. With all the power in the universe to learn and grow and FUCKING DEAL with the existence of people not like them.
All right, that out of the way, let’s begin.
No, no, no, Dorothy, you ain’t in fucking Kansas anymore. And that petty ante “bitches be irrational about my arguments against their humanity” dismissal tactics don’t fly. And how passive aggressive and cowardly it is to try and play that little amateur mind game bullshit. Fuck, you ain’t foolin’ anyone, son. Let loose, tell us what you really think. Why you’re really so “wound up” about Caine and Adria Richards. Let your freak flag fly and call them all the nasty little names you’re clucking down into the back of your throat because you think that posing as a “reasonable commenter who ‘tried to be civil” will somehow fool anyone but yourself.
Sorry, kiddo, but
You
Are
Not
That
Smart
Because you. You are an idiot. And idiot who has grossly underestimated what you’ve decided to fuck with today. An idiot who doesn’t seem to realize that no one is fooled. The mask? It’s cheap plastic and everyone can see right through you. The only one dumb enough not to see through every last one of your tactics?
Is you.
And a mean overhand serve in badminton.
Oh my god, as feminists (because we are the strawmen that misogynist men think we are in order to attempt to justify their blubbering defenses of the status quo) we all think with one hivemind and reflectively back any woman anywhere as being feminist no matter what. Because women, unlike men, are not raised in the same toxic culture as everyone else and thus have not steeped in the same assumptions, have not learned to overlook the same blind areas, and certainly will never do something that might resonate poorly with other existing contexts in the world.
Oh wait, sorry to diappoint, we’re not actually fucking idiots like yours truly and so we’re not stupid enough to fall for that horseshit… unlike some people (hey, you wanted attention sonny, you’re getting it).
And with regards to her comment.
She is absolutely correct. It is problematic in its depiction with the revisions as noted.
Hell, let’s not take my word for it, let’s look to Adria’s actual words, because frankly, with you assholes’ desperate attempt to erase her and replace her with something to post hoc justify your sexist racist hatred, I just can’t get enough of splashing her ACTUAL FUCKING WORDS in your motherfucking faces.
Oh vile, evil harpy that she was. Pointing out that she found the modified image problematic, her reasons for thinking so, politely pointing out where her disagreements were coming from, the context in which the depictions were existing in, the context of the original cartoon, and an explanation of why she wanted to point out the issue in the context of her fandom with the original work and why Randall Munroe made the two presenters female in the first place.
It’s almost like she’s not actually evil. She’s instead a smart, even-headed, and rational woman who tries to be polite and considerate about her actions, remaining civil when she sees issues and trying to bring up concerns in acceptable, reasonable ways.
We see the same actions here as in her long description of what happened at the conference, which I know you must have read because you’ve been endlessly quoting a single phrase from it out of a foolish belief that we’re stupid enough not to know what the PyCon policy on photographs is talking about.
Of all the enemies you could have picked for this terrorist rape-threat-a-palooza, you’re stuck rationalizing and demonizing her. Not someone like me, fuck I throw off more curses than a drunk Texan and I’ve got a long history of not taking bullshit lightly, but instead even-tempered, civil rational Adria Richards.
No wonder you’re stuck trying to spin her photographs as somehow double-plus Hitler.
You’ve literally got nothing else to protect you from the cold, certain knowledge of just how much of a bastard you are. Fuck, I would be sweating too, boy, if that ball of self-knowledge was right on the edge of your brain waiting to lay bare who you really are.
You know what. Let’s be charitable.
Let’s be all the charitable.
And really really give this chain of logic the best possible shining we could give it. Not its true character, but rather taking everything in its best possible light.
You are saying.
You said:
That because Adria Richards has a history of caring about issues of gender and gender equality as a black woman born into this world, that she therefore deserves to be illegally fired through online harassment and be given an unending avalanche of rape and death threats and to have douchebags like you trying to smear her name to the far corners of the internet, because “she had it coming”
…
If you can’t see how painfully obviously this gives up your true motivations, then there is no hope for you as a human being. And no matter where you are hired, I can guarantee that if you earnestly believed that this argument held merit, that you in no way deserve your position and have only lucked into it by a system still sexist and racist enough to keep it out of more qualified hands.
This isn’t just transparent victim-blaming. It’s fucking asinine. There is no possible thread of logic outside the most twisted of misogynist fantasy-making that goes “recognizes things about the world : deserves all the misogyny we can throw at her”. None. Period. Game over.
And frankly, that’s what it all boils down to for all of you.
She is a woman who dares recognize the system. Thus she deserves all the backhand you can throw at her to “get her back in line” and keep her from being aware.
But see, you fucked up, Jim boy, because all your little buddies decided to turn Adria Richards one little tweet into yet another martyr in a long row of them. You have once again ruined a woman and gone trumpeting far and wide across the internet to gloat and in so doing haven’t frightened us back into being barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. You’ve called us all to action.
Those who would be tempted to put their head in the sand and ignore, because “only the bad girls get burnt” see how little it takes for the fuckers to descend. They learn viscerally the true character of the hatred men like you feel towards them. They learn to speak out more. To recognize more the casual abuse you trot out and defend and which women are trained since birth to politely ignore.
You’ve made countless more Adria Richards.
Because you, sir
Are a fucking
Moron.
Now please let the door hit your ass on the way out, because I doubt your tired shtick can really protect you from the gnawing knowledge of the shitstain your life has become much longer.
(Wild applause for Cerberus)
Cerberus,
You say: “And with regards to her comment.
She is absolutely correct. It is problematic in its depiction with the revisions as noted.”
Nope. The person who modified the cartoon (with approval from the creator, by the way) believed both stick figures to be women. Other participants on the thread said the same thing. Richards made the ridiculous assumption that one of them was a man and then launched into an absurd rant.
Richards’ is clearly unhinged. That she is unhinged is an objective fact that may be deduced from her pattern of behaviour on the web and at conferences. The fact that she is a POC woman does not excuse her petty and vexatious behavior. It is as irrelevant as her shoe size.
Yes yes, bitch be cray cray and overreacting and hysterical and above all, this black woman be ANGRY.
YAAAAAAWN. Stereotypes are so lazy.
Now vexatious. That I like. As in “vex the whiny dudebros”. Ooh, definition time.\
vex·a·tious
/vekˈsāSHəs/
Adjective
1. Causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration, or worry.
Love it. That’s in fact exactly what happened. All the entitled male privilege, so frustrated, so annoyed, so very, very WORRIED.
Yes, it’s clear that her behaviour was indeed vexatious. That doesn’t make it wrong. I’d argue that the opposite is true.
But once again, thanks for making it clear that the moment a woman acts “vexatiously” (I know you don’t want to say UPPITY, but… ) in your and your fellow men’s esteemed and of course completely objective and unbiased view, she needs to be forcefully made into a “more mature well-rounded individual”, to again use your own words, by way of losing her job, receiving death threats and rape threads, etc. etc. No rape culture here, no sirree.
Fucking women and their autonomy, eh?
golliblog @1407
What’s that fuckwit? You still think we’re as fucking dumb as you?
Hey, what’s that, on the right side of the screen. Looks like a scroll bar. Oh god, actual effort, so hard, having to move the scroll bar up TWO! WHOLE! COMMENTS!
My god man, how can you be expected to survive such unprecedented hardship! Oh, my poor man, my aching heart hurts to see you in such pain, but carry on, you can persevere.
Cause when you do, you might have noticed that little clump of double blockquotes in the middle there wherein I quoted her comment in full and therefore you’re johnny come lately distraction attempt just leaves you there with your dick in your hand and everyone pointing and laughing at the guy so stupid he thought this inaccurate and obvious smear job would work.
Like so many of the penny-ante wanna-be smart guys I mango-hunt as my regular blogging duties, you are fractally wrong. You’re wrong on the focus. Wrong on the tactics. Wrong on the assumption we’re willing to play with your tactics. Wrong on what you think you’re cherry picked “facts” would prove. And finally wrong on those special hand-picked facts as well.
If I was this completely unable to handle even the most rudimentary tasks, well, I don’t know what I’d do with myself, because apparently I would have wasted every last moment of every last teacher who ever crossed my path.
I award you zero points, you tired troll, but hey, you know what, you can run right back to the Slymepit where most of you fuckers are from and tell them all that Cerberus is a big meanie poopy head who is immune to reason and hates men, and we can all save ourselves the effort of you having your big tantrum flounce and your quick replacement by gollinotasockpuppet in a few scant comments.
K? K.
#
Now then, since I don’t want to leave a single comment any more in this thread where these distractions become the whole conversation, let us note how members of the oppressor class who are invested in the status quo often fail to understand hypocrisy or why liberals care.
All the people trying to find someway, anyway that she also broke the rules of PyCon, or someway, anyway that she committed racism, or as we see in this latest piece of twaddle, someway, anyway she… said something somewhere which somehow means that she must be a serial liar and therefore deserves to be given endless rape and death threats… somehow.
And these are so hollow, not only because they lack any truth or exist in a hideous context the trolls are trying to dodge, that so many men felt comfortable harassing and threatening a woman with rape and death and trying not only to destroy her but literally eliminate her for something so inconsequentially tiny.
But rather because they don’t understand what hypocrisy even is. When a right-wing anti-gay bigot is caught sucking dicks in a men’s bathroom off the I-5, that’s hypocrisy. Because they sought to eliminate the rights of the people they are. It isn’t a cancellation of another act, it’s not even an argument that the first thing is only bad because the second thing existed. It’s a context that makes the primary action even more monstrous and lays bare the bad faith behind it.
This failure to understand even the basic workings of these pieces are common to all authoritarian defenders of oppressor classes. Whether it be toxic masculinity as depicted by actions like the backlash on every single woman who has spoken out on damn near anything in the last couple of years or it is right-wing douchenozzles trying to claim that no it is really Obama who is the real racist because blurba blurba fart.
I wonder if there isn’t something there in that piece. That failure on these groups part to even recognize our arguments and what we are saying that feeds the spiral in which they become more and more invested and rationalize more and more their hatreds and their reflexive response to being against whatever we support and driven entirely by the thought of seeing these designated enemy groups in pain.
Cause maybe recognizing that will help those carried along who are yet reachable stop before they go complete golliblog.
Oh addendum, because I never get to do call backs to shticks from my site here.
IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION!
No matter what with every last one of you oppressor-class defending right-wing douchebags, it always comes back to the golden global truth. No matter what you try to claim in your enemies, nearly every time, it just ends up being massive silver-screen projection.
Like here. Adria Richards posting two tweets and a picture: Petty and vexatious and the worst thing since Hitler! Death threats, rape and endless harassment is only fair against such a petty and out of control monster.
Right-wing harassers of Adria Richards doing the aforementioned death and rape threats and hacking her employer and getting her fired and flooding every comment thread talking about her so everyone will know that “SHE WAS THE MEAN ONE! SHE WAS! SHE WAS! SHE WAS!” and arguing that tweets are somehow the fucking holocaust?
Soooooo not petty and creepy stalker behavior at all. NO no.
Obvious Aussie
BlokeTroll is Bleedin’ Obvious. I do sincerely enjoy watching the troll beating sessions though. A perfect mix of information, wit and formidable-ness. I’ve officially decided you guys are who I want to be when I grow up.Cerberus,
You are long winded but also dopey. From your quote of Richards:
“I’m disappointed to see the woman in the modified cartoon is portrayed as …”
Richards jumped to the conclusion based on nothing whatsoever that the cartoon displayed one man and one woman. Richards looked into the Rorschach test that is a cartoon with two stick figures and saw one man and one woman where everyone else on the thread saw two women or one woman and one person who could have been either gender (or intersex). This is the entire basis of her rant That is vexatious behaviour.
[meta]
So the golliblog’s #1407 shows how reduced he has been by Cerberus.
—
(Psst: golliblog, you’re being rhetorically mauled while you bleat your naked assertions; you are the horrible example)
golliblog:
<snicker>
(You don’t even realise you just ranted that, do ya?)
I know you aspire to that, but know you don’t yet make the grade.
(You’re up to boring and boorish, but that’s not much of a challenge, is it? ;) )
golliblog @1412
In which you can clearly see her state the other is a man, oh wait no. And in fact, in the entire comment (I know, so much reading, gah), you can see her pointing out her specific issue with the translation.
But even if you could manage to be right about one thing for the first time in your entire life (you could finally make your poor ma proud). Even if she said the other one was a ponytailed dude having gay sex with bunnies in a kaleidoscope of the mind, how would that be in any fucking way relevant?
She spotted a real incident. She reported a real incident. She explained why she reported said real incident. The con confirmed the real incident. The perpetrators of said incident confirmed said real incident.
And even if that wasn’t the case, how would that have justified the number of exceedingly illegal, unbelievably immoral, and downright horrifying things YOU and your fellow douche brigade have done to this woman for daring to point things out?
#
But let’s leave that aside and focus on you (hooray for you, what you always wanted).
Your stated argument at this point in time is “Adria Richards is a liar. I think I’ve found one incident in which she noticed something I personally didn’t and therefore she must have lied to get those poor men in trouble. And if she lied, like I assume all women do whenever they note a messed up culture that I am an active participant and defender of, then they deserve to be put back in their place, as harshly and brutally as possible.”
Note this. Note what this says about you. Note what it says about anyone arguing on your side. Just like you arguing on the side of rapists and wanna-be murderers says about you.
This is important because at its core is the real issue for every last one of you:
“Women should stay in their place. What is must be maintained against ‘bitches’ trying to tear it down and nothing is out of bounds in ensuring women stay in their place.”
No.
We’re not, because our place is not beneath you. Our deserved “place” is not to silently continue to put up with the same bullshit and swallow the same crap that previous generations did because “it’s not safe” or “you don’t want to rile them up” or “good girls don’t raise a fuss”. Our “place” is having access to the same things men take for granted. If we are programmers, we can be programmers without having to fight tooth and nail for every halting step in a way that no man in the field has ever had to do. If we are gamers, we can be gamers. If we see sexism, we can call out sexism. If someone is a douchebag, we can call them a douchebag.
And your little terrorist gang of anonymous cowards (yeah, where else have we seen that?) might crow and scream and yell at us that you’re going to rape and murder us and you can pull up these pathetic little grasped straws as if anyone even remotely believes they are anything more than a post-hoc rationalization to try and get the blood off, and you can try and yell and scream and make women want to question whether or not its worth feeling like shit and fighting for your basic humanity every fucking day.
But it’s not going to change the trajectory. More and more women are going to live their actual roles as full and complete human beings. And you are going to run out of more and more places to “retreat to” to avoid them, much like the racists who found out that suburban isolation means fuck all with the internet to their kids.
May you enjoy the fruits of the life you deserve, fuckweasel.
She stepped out of line, insulting and inconveniencing dudebrohood, and it must be made clear that that is unacceptable, and high-cost. Why, it’s as bad as if she’d said in a public venue: “Guys, don’t do that.” On that precedent, the harassment is likely to continue at least into 2015.
I must admit that selfishly, I’m not sorry to have been offline for most of this thread – privilege presenting itself as judicious even-handedness is so vomitous. Kudos to Cerberus, Tony, John Morales, Gen, Uppity Ingrate, terryg, Rey Fox, beatrice, PatrickG, Ing (just the first few names I noticed scrolling back).
golliblog
But she only used ONE! She used the one that could be used for identification, that’s it. That’s the only picture up on twitter or her blog. It’s not harassment when she was just collecting evidence.
JAL:
“It’s not harassment when she was just collecting evidence.”
The photos are in themselves evidence of nothing. There was no reason for this entitled twit to take one photo let alone three. There was no reason to tweet one of the photos. And there was most certainly no reason to put one of them on her blog in a vituperative blog post. How the hell can a dongle joke justify such vexatious behavior? Answer, it doesn’t. A complaint lodged with Pycon pursuant to the Code of Conduct was (arguably) warranted, extra antics were not.
Richards lit a match one time too often and she got burnt.
Give it up, golliblog.
Just come right out and say you think death threats and rape threats are just fucking dandy.
Just say it in plain English.
Stop hinting at it, stop trying to couch what you REALLY want to say in weasel words.
I double dog dare you. And I TRIPLE dog dare you to sign that statement with your real name. If you’re so fucking proud of your words here I want you to OWN THEM. Own them so everyone in your life can see what you really are. After all, if you think it’s fine then you have nothing to fear, do you?
(I know you won’t because you’re a cowardly little shit, aren’t you? A cowardly, hateful, stupid little shit.)
golliblog @ 1418;
‘Not cool’ doesn’t seem very ‘vitruperative’ to me. I also find it interesting that you dismissively write off a series of ongoing rape and death threats, denial of service attacks upon her employer resulting in them firing her, and the stated intent to ‘ruin her life’ as lighting a match once too often and getting burnt. Doesn’t such a response strike you as disproportionate? She never demanded that the man be fired, and it appears he already had a problematic track record and this was simply the last straw, whereas Richards was fired after a concerted campaign of harrassment of her employer seemingly over this incident alone, and the campaign of personal harrassment against her is ongoing.
Why are you so invested in blaming Richards here? She has suffered far more than the man who lost his job through his own actions, and all due to an utterly excessive and disproportionate response from a legion of internet misogynists, and yet you still scrabble to place the blame on her. Why is that?
To the Horde:
If there’s anything I’ve taken away from this thread it’s this:
I will not, from this day forward, keep silent about any sexist, misogynistic bullshit. I’m not going to give anyone a pass from here on out. I’m so tired of the daily bullshit and I refuse to play the politeness game anymore. Every time I’m harassed, every time I see anyone else harassed, I’m going to speak out. I’m going to report, report, report. I’m going to get in the faces of the doodbros and the douchewads and I’m going to publicly shame them immediately and vociferously. I’m going to take pictures. I’m going to name names. I’m not going to let women like Adria, Rebecca and too many others be alone in this.
I’m done with being “nice”. I’m done with “not making a fuss”. I’m through with trying to educate gently or politely.
I want this shit GONE from this world and I’m not going to let a bunch of idiots with no sense of decency get away with their crap for one more second.
Don’t even have to read *raises envelope* Golliblog can’t provide the true smoking gun evidence to make us doubt Adria, because he is nothing but a bigotted liar and bullshitter repeating the same illogical, unreasonable, and imagufactured claims all night. Like repetetion itself is evidence *snicker*. And not one iota of new claims with real evidence. They poor man has some problems. To bad he shows them to the world.
golliblog, that whole FIRE BURNS metaphor you keep using got tired at some point around the third quarter of 1885. Also, even if we pretend you have a point about the instances you quoted constituting “playing with matches” as opposed to “leveling criticism while being a woman”, insisting twice is “one time too often” paints an utterly endearing picture of how many hits your fragile ego can take before you gleefully decide rape and death threats + being fired are a perfectly logical consequence when a woman does something you disagree with. Or something you generally agree with except when it comes to HOW she did it. (Insert other examples of poorly faked calm / pseudo-rational hairsplitting.)
Gregory,
“Why are you so invested in blaming Richards here? She has suffered far more than the man who lost his job through his own actions, and all due to an utterly excessive and disproportionate response from …”
Richards was “excessive and disproportionate”. That is why she was fired. Her employer said:
Hey, golliblog – why are you more mad at Richards than the guy’s boss who fired him? She was perfectly ok with the response she got from the conference organizers and from the men themselves. It was his boss who later fired him, not her. Or is it that if you stop a minute to think about that, then you have to admit that he got fired for a pattern of behavior that only culminated in that incident being the last straw, and then you’d have to admit that she really had nothing to do with him getting fired?
Golliblog, who the fuck cares about your abject bigotry, your ignorant and inane arguments that only prove you’re the problem? All you can do is repeat your trash like a mantra. Except, you are a proven liar and bullshitter, whose every word can and will be *floosh* dismissed for what it is. The irrational and illogical ravings of a fuckwitted bigot.
Adria Richards dropped her duds and shat on her employer’s reputation. If you pull a stunt like that you get fired. I call it Karma.
Fuck… me, this thread is practically imploding under the weight of all the misogyny.
I haven’t read all two and a half pages which have been added to this thread since I left on Friday, but my skimming has revealed some apparently indefatigable commenters taking a stand against the bullshit. So, to all you who stuck in here: well done. Seriously, well fucking done.
@Golliblog #1424
Bullshit. They fired her because being associated with her was enough of an excuse for some vile arseholes to do their damndest to shut the company down through a DOS attack. They fired her as a matter of convenience, and you know that full well.
@Golliblog #1424
Bullshit. They fired her because being associated with her was enough of an excuse for some vile arseholes to do their damndest to shut the company down through a DOS attack. They fired her as a matter of convenience, and you know that full well.
Golliblog, why aren’t you the most angry at the guy’s employer, if it was no big deal what he did? I’m just going to keep asking, so you might as well answer it or look like an evasive asshole. (well, more than you already do)
gollithug, why don’t you dump shit on your “hobby farm” vegetable patch instead? That at least may achieve something worthwhile.
@thumper #1430:
I think the problem with golliblog is that xie actually doesn’t seem to know anything. At least, not anything based in reality.
I see Golliblog is pretending his OPINION is anything other than bigotted and irrelevant lies and bullshit. Can’t put up like a person of honesty and integrity, and can’t shut the fuck up like a person of honesty and integrity. Ergo, he has no honesty and integrity. Nothing but the same old shit throughly refuted and repeated ad shitdeom.
Lofty,
I’ve meticulously sifted through the evidence. I have for instance, exposed the lie that Richards only took the one photo.
Nerd the Turd, on the other hand, has linked to a fucking Wikipedia page. Fifty plus coments and all the dick has done is link to an irrelevant Wikipedia page! I doubt our potty mouthed buddy has even read Richards’ blog entry on this incident. *floosh*
golliblog, so you call it Karma? I can’t say I’m shaken by that particular revelation, but whatever attracted you to a science, atheism & skepticism-centered community of blogs of all places?
Anyway, so you seem to think you’ve covered the employer’s reaction – being cowered into firing Richards (and blaming it on her) by DDOS attacks and tsunamis of abusive shit. Time to attempt to rationalize the abundant hatemail, death and rape threats from a mob of random yahoos now. (Non-employers whose reputation she did not “shit on”.) You’ve made it clear THIS sort of reaction is also part and parcel of what happens when
someonea woman “lights a match one time too often”. Expand on how your Karma logic applies here, thanks.Oh golliblog, give it up you disingenuous fucknugget.
C’mon, if you’re SO SURE of your position that Adria totally deserves threats of rape and death threats why won’t you meet my challenge?
Come out and say you think the threats Adria has received are perfectly fine and completely deserved.
What have you to fear if you’re so right?
Or is it that you know you’re just a disgusting sack of shit with no morals or decency who would have to face real-world negative consequences for your disgusting, hateful position?
All you have done fuckwit is make illogical non-sequitur claims, imagufactured “evidence”, shown no logic, reason, cogency, idea of what evidence really is, or show a lack of bigotry and sexism in your thinking. All you can do is repeat yourself from the echo in your empty mind.
Still waiting for the real smoking gun evidence (not your imagufatured lies, bullshit, and distortions) to back up each and every claim you make. Which you can’t do.
Golliblog, I assume you’re ignoring me because I haven’t participated in the thread until this point, or because you read my nym as feminine and therefore think I’m not worth responding to.
So, why are you so upset about this whole incident, and why are you upset at the person who initially reported it rather than the employer who fired the guy who did it?
John Morales:
That was not a “weak rationalisation”. it was a valid explanation. If you had bothered googling the words, you would have seen that for yourself. Besides that was not the only comment that was full of lies about the expression “forking a repo”, it was just the one I bothered to quote.
thedude:
Just because something has a valid non-sexual meaning means that it can not be used as a double entendre? Really? That is your argument?
Kate_Waters,
“C’mon, if you’re SO SURE of your position that Adria totally deserves threats of rape and death threats … ”
I never said that. I said she deserved to be sacked. Why do PZM’s followers insist on lying about stuff?
Abortion on demand, equal opportunity, government funded maternity leave etc.. I’m all for it. What I don’t like is cynical opportunists like Richards. She is a turd. And I bet she gets a book deal or a media gig after this is all over. $$$$$
Why do insist on lying she derseves to be sack. The dudebros might, but not her. You, on the otherhand, haven’t and can’t make your case without bigotry, lies, distortions, and imagufacturing inane reasons for your bigotry.
You a a big pile of pig fecies, molding in the sun. Don’t like being told what you are? Mature up and quit thinking you have something to say. NOBODY HERE GIVES A SHIT ABOUT YOUR FUCKWITTED OPINION, NOR DO WE HAVE TO.
golliblog: She deserved to be fired for the DDOS attacks and the threats she didn’t deserve is your position.
So “she deserved it” is essentially what you’re saying while trying to weasel out of explicitly saying she deserved it.
Which was my point.
Own that, you stupid shitstain. Fucking own in and soak in it and then loudly proclaim that publicly where your friends, family and employers can see it.
Fucking hell you’re stupid. How do you manage to brush your teeth in the morning without stabbing yourself in the eye with the brush?
Golliblog:
Gendered insults are something else we do not tolerate around here. Calling someone a ‘dick’ is not cool. It is bad enough to listen to your pathetic rationalizations about how bad a person Adria was, while glossing over the misogynistic responses she received, but we don’t need you adding to your insipid bullshit.
Oh, and I am tired of said bullshit, so I will come out and ask: do you have a problem with black women?
Your obsession over Adria in this thread has me thinking you do.
@Nerd
” imagufactured ”
… *explosive laughter*
Awesome. I am so stealing this.
I agree with everything PZ said, except “this was a measured response.” It was a tweet. Tweets are basically shouting something in public. Had the intent been to merely inform the organizers about a couple of douchebags’ behavior, then there are other more private ways to do so.
That said, I totally support her actions in tweeting this. I don’t think a “measured response” is the only acceptable response. Screw that. If you want to be public about how these douchebags are behaving, and you haven’t invaded their privacy (name badges in public are not private), then do so.
@Golliblog
“Nerd the Turd”? What is this, a playground? Are you twelve? That would explain a lot.
Also “Dick” is a gendered insult and those aren’t allowed here.
golliblog, you’ve made 30 posts about this just in the last day, here on page 3.
What upsets you so much about this situation, if not the firing of the guy who made the comments?
Kate_W:
Once again Kate displays the logic and intelligence of a pretzel. Idiot.
golliblog, y u ignore my questions? :(
@ charlessoto:
Amazing how many people just refuse to get this. Or redefine the realm of the appropriate and acceptable so that one tweet is life-ruining, but death threats and DDoS attacks are obviously just fine. Measured, even!
But your comment in general I take as yet another example of “yo, morons, here’s how you express some slight issue with the action and still manage to GET THE FUCKING POINT”. Wish more people could do that. Thanks charlessoto!
Carlie:
Truth is I couldn’t give a rat’s arse about the situation. I’ve joined in the discussion for the intellectual stimulation and amusement.
BTW, I couldn’t give a low-flying fuck about race. You American liberals feel guilty about slavery and can’t seem to leave that baggage alone. For goodness sakes, walk forward and don’t look back. Treat everyone equally. What’s so fucking hard about that?
Nope, Kate’s got your number. If she didn’t, you wouldn’t have had to resort to ignoring the substance of what she was saying in order to insult her intelligence. Until you can provide a substantive refutation, the charge stands: you think Richards deserved everything she got, including the rape and death threats. If you didn’t think that on some level, you wouldn’t be here trying to lie about what an awful person she is.
@Golliblog
And once again you try and weasel out of giving an answer to the questions asked of you, demonstrating the same lack of integrity as you have all thread. But at least you are consistant in your fuckwittedness.
Then how do you explain your lack of intellectual capacity and the unamusing nature of your comments?
Also why do you hate Americans so much?
@Golliblog #1453
The not-so-subtle allusion to the word “Golliwog” in your ‘nym would appear to contradict that statement.
Ah. Self-confessed trolling. Boring on you hobby farm, is it, mate?
=====
And the ‘not give a rat’s arse about the situation’ still strikes me as disingenuous. If golliblog were really here for ‘intellectual stimulation’, would xe have been relentlessly pushing an MRA, misogynist, anti-feminist viewpoint?
SallyStrangelife:
Oh please. If I hated Americans I wouldn’t be on this website. Nor would I have the Red Hot Chilli Peppers playin’ in the background ;)
Golliwog cares so much that he’s motivated to lie about what a terrible person Adria Richards is. I’m sorry, but it takes a bit of motivation to track down past events to use them to paint a person in a false negative light. It also takes a bit of motivation to return to a conversation where you’re in the minority to argue your falsehoods, over and over again over the course of several days. So I don’t quite believe that Golliwog’s lack of caring is as complete as he says it is.
But hey, if you really don’t care that much, Golliwog, it should be a simple thing for you to fuck off, maybe spew your ignorance on another blog, right?
Fixed that for you Golliblog the sexist pig.
Except all the intellecual talk is coming from us, as you provide is ignorant and sexist blather. Can’t even do evidence right; you keep showing you have no idea what is meant by non-sequitur. And your amusment is acknowledging you are trolling, which is a banhammerable offense. And also shows your lack of honesty, integrity, and morals.
More inane and worthless non-sequiturs. Can’t do anything right, can you? Pitiful.
golliblog: please address comment #1371. I’m going to be putting your username in the filter file as a thinly veiled racist slur. Please change it and inform us of your new pseudonym so I don’t have to ban you for sockpuppetry, when there are so many better things to slap you down for.
Also, all you other commenters: using that name will also block your comments. You’re going to have to refer to him more creatively.
Thanks PZ. I really hate that word.
I was going to go back and see what happened in this thread, but based on the last few posts… I won’t even bother.
Same idiocy, with a bit of racism thrown in, it seems.
That’s pretty rich, considering how abysmally Australians have treated aborigines.
Nothing’s hard about it, which I suspect is why you’re so attracted to it. Systematically oppress a race for hundreds of years, steal their land and their children, and then *poof* we’re color-blind now! Happy equality! Have a nice time climbing out of the shitholes we’ve made for you while we saunter back off to our suburbs and hobby farms. What’s that? You still face institutional obstacles? Sorry, can’t hear you, I’m color deaf too!
trollybigot, if rationalizing the status quo is intellectually stimulating to you, I’d suggest you change hobbies. I’m sure many people could easily spend their whole lives on a farm and continue to develop intellectually, but you’ve evidently regressed. You’re making less sense than your livestock would if it could join the conversation. Don’t despair, however. Though I can detect no amusement in your pronouncements, they’ve certainly contributed to amusing the hell out of me.
So you’re just mentally jerking off, using the fact that a woman was sent rape and death threats to get your jollies. Nice to at least see the honesty, I guess.
So this idiot admits he’s the type of loathsome person who joins a lynch mob not because of out rage but for the fun of it.
I hate web culture
Oh dear d*g, trolliblog went there…
…also, anyone else getting the Al B. Quirky vibe of this poster?
Ah, having checked out Wikipedia, I see the racist undertones of the nym…
So lovely. Mixing racism and sexism together. I wonder if there’s any homophobia or transphobia to complete the trifecta.
Wow, you are so delusional. Face it, she was wrong and cut off her nose to spite her face. All she (and you) did was reinforce the issues with women in the IT workplace. Most women agree she over reacted. These are nerds; you wanna see discrimination, go work at a construction site.
Nobody will ever take her seriously again; you either if you keep with posts like this
I can just imagine PZ running away from his computer, crying bitter tears of rejection.
Oh look – Benn Dover! Get it? It’s like a sexual joke as a username! So funny!
Also, fuck off.
Rapey Nym:
Actually, no they don’t. It’s fairly stupid of you to waltz into a thread of over 1,400 comments, at least half of them by women and make that claim. Of course, your stupidity is boilerplate, we’ve heard this stupid, asshole “argument” many times before. Do us a favour, and go away until you come up with something original. Make sure to read all 3 pages of comments so you don’t go repeating the same old shit.
Benn Dover:
Do you have a job? If so, ask to see your company’t sexual harassment policy. You will find that what happened is covered. It was sexual harassment. And the men involved agreed that it was. Stop lying.
With a name like Benn Dover, I didn’t expect much. And even that low bar wasn’t cleared.
Horders! I would like to express my gratitude for the education you are imparting to me, if no one else on this thread.
Thank you.
I would like to express my support to those still fighting off the troll tagteam that has taken root in this thread. Whatever it is to be beyond impressed, I am that.
Never think that this type of aggressive, uncivil, rude (oh no!) comment thread is useless or too emotional or… Hell, I don’t know, but it’s awesome, the stupidity out there, but even more Awesome is the battle against it, and I love you all for it. I love you all for being rude, uncivil, impatient, angry, unmeasured, over-the-top, etc., etc.
As a token of my appreciation, I offer ice cream cake. It’s not for the trolls, just you.
Ogvorbis/glodson/myeck waters,
glad to see you’re still bitter about your homegirl getting canned and losing ALL credibility in the IT field. Maybe one of you can hire her to host your ‘men hating’ parties where you look for sexism in places there isn’t any.
I think women SHOULD be in the IT field, and not just to bring us men coffee; after all, they do give the best back rubs.
Considering your idea of “most women” most likely consist of some unfortunate female relative who’s too kind to throw you out of the house and has turned agreeing with you into a habit because she’s tired of your tantrums, I really can’t afford to take your word for this. Also, sit on a sharp spike.
Unevidenced assertion *floosh* dismissed as self-serving fuckwittery. And putting you into the liar and bullshitter category, where everything you say will be hyperskeptically eyed.
Benn Dover,
Working hard for your banning, I see. That’s a proper hard working Man. Ogvorbis, glodson and myeck waters, look up to him!
Caine, will you get Men a beer while I finish the sandwiches? And whose turn is it to do the foot massages?
Beatrice:
I thought I was on monolith duty. I hafta do a beer run? Alright, alright…
Yeah, ol’ rapey nym, he approves of wimmin in the workplace, even in STEM fields, as long as they ben dover for him. Geddit? Har har.
You’re a fucking idiot, Bennt Over with Your Head Jammed Firmly Up Your Rectum.
Ah, that’s comedy gold. I mean, a nym like that and a call for back rubs. You are the asshole’s asshole.
I guess in your fetid mind, she deserved to be fired and have all those death and rape threats. And calling her a homegirl, really?
Further, I think that holding men in a field isn’t man hating. Making the excuse the the men can’t help themselves is disgusting, and the misandristic side of the patriarchy.
I would stop there, since you are too stupid to understand this. Really, the selection of your nym is the indication you failed the first intelligence test. But for others, by saying that guys in the field cannot help themselves is to hold these men to a lower standard. A standard that both discourages women from getting involved in the field while telling these men that they have lower value than others. They are just nerd men who cannot help themselves! That’s a horrible standard to hold any group to.
Why do you hate men so much?
Glodson:
It wasn’t specially selected for here – idiot logged in via FB. It’s their FB identity.
*spits*
Fuck, Caine, then this person is even dumber than I thought.
Glodson:
And I’ll just bet you’re shocked silly by that, huh? ;D
“Benn” translated: “I am an immature asswipe, TAKE ME SERIOUSLY!!!”
ha ha ha, just love the bile being spewed here, but the fact remains her own company disagreed with her and got rid of her. the fact remains that she brought this on herself. the fact remains that she did the OPPOSITE of what she was trying to do for all her women followers in the industry. And the fact remains that if you’re going to get your panties in such a wad from my comments perhaps you need to lighten up, kitten
No, Benn.
The fact is that the company caved after trolls threatened to ruin her life, they caved to bullies and idiots. I guess we are just silly to be concerned with her treatment. Her firing, which her company did out of cowardice as to not wade into the problem, has done harm. The fact remains that she was just trying to get the guys to stop making jokes in public during the conference and getting the Convention to enforce its own rules. Which she did accomplish.
But given your comments here, you are just an asshole.
OMG, you have to tell me, is Caine the kitten or I am? I won’t be able to sleep tonight, questioning whether I get to be kitten or not. *fans herself* *swoons*
*pushes Caine into a puddle by the road*
I’m kitten, right?
the fact remains that anyone who was offended by their joke really need to lighten up; worse stuff is said on network tv. but the world is full of losers who need to be offended, otherwise nobody pays attention to them. Like you losers who get wet from my comments. you’re welcome, most action you’ve gotten in awhile.
Trolling in the same exact way, with the same exact garbage over and over again. Truly the pinnacle of intellectual stimulation. I’m in awe of the raw skill and ingenuity and how it totally builds a stronger character. Truly such a master of the art, like the hacking wizardry it takes a bunch of pathetic script kiddies to “hack” a DDoS attack.
Lazy and stupid is no way to go through life son.
And if “causing women pain” is your idea of fun and you’re not exploring a consensual sadism scene?
Then that says everything about who you are, even if you try and rationalize otherwise “because you’re not really invested”.
Petty ante abusers and KKK wannabes. How pathetic and empty their lives must be that that is left as their ambition. It’s just… pathetic.
Weak Ass Puerile Homophobia @1474
Oh hey, there’s the tag right on schedule. Guess we’re running out of the A-caliber trolls and now we’re stuck with whatever dregs they can throw into the mix.
You’re also slipping more and more, showing more and more of that raw hatred of women that prompted your hooded cowardly attack against a black woman for being uppity. In another 2 or 3 rotations are we just going to be dealing with a troll rotation saying “women bad, men own subgenre, hurga hurga”. Tell you what guys, why don’t you go on ahead, we’ll discuss the issue on our own without your “help” and we’ll promise to be feeling super “contrite” and “ashamed” of ourselves for the horrible sin of being born women in “your America”, ok? Ok.
IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION. So often a truism of right-wing arguments in general, I’m “glad” to be seeing it breach the mainstream as well as the one two stop for every lazy empathyless hack seeking to demonize their opponents in a quick and desperately rationalize the sickening automatic reaction they have to life.
Yeah, all we’re saying is that women aren’t allowed to use Twitter because of our post hoc rationalization of our sexist cross-burning yelling at her to leave the community or else… No! Wait, we’re just saying that calling out sexism ever is wrong and we’re right to turn into petty terrorists in pathetic response…. No, wait, we’re saying the woman always did something wrong and if we were smart enough to find something that didn’t sound like the straw-grasping it always is, then we could better hide our sins in public. Because even though we’re thinking of ourselves in public has great big he men who “put that woman in her place”, we are still haunted by the burning knowledge that such actions might not be as supported by the overall community as much as you think. Especially now that you keep creating martyrs to piss more and more non-sexists into standing up for the right thing and not turning a blind eye to your creepy assumptions of ownership of certain spaces.
But hey, here’s a bit of desperate rhetoric anyways, because hey, we’ve always said women are dumber than all men, so hopefully that is true and these women won’t see right the fuck through this petty ante bullshit.
Oooh, euphemismlicious! Yes, she “reinforces the issues of women in the IT workplace”. You know… existing. If only women remembered to not exist in the workplace or if they insisted on existing, were nice enough to serve as furniture that never ever has a personality and never ever notices the intense hatred and sexism of some of their coworkers and certainly never ever spoke out about it… then everything would be peachy keen. For sexist men.
And really, if we’re being honest with ourselves, isn’t protecting sexist men from ever having to deal with the realities of the world and having to grow and shift to handle that knowledge worth all the misery we can possibly throw at minority groups.
Because apparently, it’s too much effort for the dainty little specimens of privilege and ease to grow the fuck up and accept we exist and are people.
Snrk. Sure they do, honey. Sure they do. Yeah, we don’t need you to tell us how “most women” saw this incident and every one of the other desperate abuse and harassment campaigns against various women who deliver even minor pushback against the status quo. “Most women” have eyes and aren’t stupid like MRA trolls and so can easily see the raw hatred some entitled shits have about them for daring to exist. “Most women” are listening every time you trumpet one of these heads around and cheer about knocking a bitch back for being uppity. You don’t need to tell us what “most women” think about her behavior. They know and they know that that’s the least important thing in this whole carousel of abuse.
Cause that’s how discrimination works, right? It’s all just like high school with the nerds and the jocks, right? And no one who ever belonged to a group that was bullied could ever be craven pathetic bullies, gleefully kicking on someone perceived as beneath them for the boost in esteem and toxic masculinity homosocial support that brings.
Oh hey, turns out you became the thing you most hate, congratulations on that, you’ve joined the ranks of cowards who turn to bullying and bigotry in order to prop up their meaningless miserable lives and gain social support. Congrats! You must be so proud.
Or response B: Or join education. That’s the field where I’m being discriminated in. Like I’m the best teacher there according to other staff members and visiting teachers and chaperones, but they’re giving me all the head games and workaround and seeking to fire me on anything they can because of how I be. Discrimination, whether sexist, transphobic, homophobic, racist, or classist exists unfortunately everywhere and isn’t just the domain of the most obvious offenders. You decided to turn your subgroup (IT workers) into just another group of diseased bullies, one that has gone further than any other employment subgroup in harassing and demonizing women, even over the “jocks” in construction.
How proud that must make you.
Awww, with IT’S ALWAYS PROJECTION like this, your rank file bigotry and complicit participation in an act of overwhelming abuse against a woman becomes almost… cute. It’s like you want to be a big boy and wear the big boy pants but you just can’t stop shitting your diaper when you get excited. And you want to play with the big boy toys and let us all know that we need to shut up or else. Because otherwise…. um, no one will take you seriously… um, you’ll die alone in a house surrounded by cats… um, help me sexism, help me shut up the meanie head feminist bitches who refuse to play nicely with our undergrown bullshit anymore.
It’s clear you’re out of your league kid, so why don’t you just go tag in the next one and we’ll pretend for you that your super powered logic arguments were too much for our delicate lady brains so you won’t lose face with the lads. There’s a good douchebag. On your way.
The fact remains that this is irrelevant to the main issue being discussed here.
This, however, is a good illustration of a joke that is indeed far more offensive and vile, the essaying of which disqualifies the speaker from the title of “decent human being”.
Hehehe, poor fuckwit got into it over his head and now he’s lost for words. You can’t even troll properly, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.