Anyone have her Github? Is she even any good? I would expect with the size of the chip on her shoulder it would be difficult to work.
I don't know her but her issues seem to be deeply psychological. I would be afraid to work anywhere near her brand of hatred. Ironically, according to the article, she posted a penis joke. The gent in the store merely used a puerile entendre and she flips out? I suggest that she seek professional help.
Also, for one that says "I can't speak for her" and "I don't know her," you seem quite willing to go all out to discredit her as being the stereotypical irrational woman. [1] She herself isn't necessarily present in the discussion. What is the point in eviscerating her as you've done? Playing armchair psychologist does nothing to make workplace interactions better. This whole situation seems like a great place, at the unfortunate expense of Hank and Adria, for the tech industry to meet in the middle between "making dongle jokes is cool, get over it" and "the white-male hegemony needs to be dismantled."
[1] http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HystericalWoman
But look at how Adria describes her feelings in the article:
“Have you ever had an altercation at school and you could feel the hairs rise up on your back?” she asked me.
“You felt fear?” I asked.
“Danger,” she said. “Clearly my body was telling me, ‘You are unsafe.’”
I believe she actually felt like this. And that it is possible for women to feel this way at a conference heavily dominated by men. But we are oblivious to it, we can't even imagine how it feels.
I can't imagine what it is like to crave for a cigeratte. If our industry were full of nonsmokers, would we then have to go out of our way to accommodate people who want to smoke in their offices?
The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him. She still seems to be in denial. Did she have to eavesdrop on a conversation that she wasn't a part of? She doesn't represent women. She represents herself and the high horse she commands.
I'd never hire her for anything related to developer relations. No sensible company should after her demonstrated lack of responsibility.
In this case, the metaphor would be more accurate the other way around. If the industry were full of smokers, would it make sense for them to accommodate people who don't smoke? We definitely should, and we do, because secondhand smoke is damaging.
The person in the minority is the one that was being hurt. Restraining yourself from telling silly jokes won't hurt anyone; feeling threatened in an unsafe environment does, and this is how it is perceived an industry where women are in the minority. "Grow a thicker skin" is a legitimate reply up to the point where you accept them to tell you: "Right, but tone down your behavior". You can't expect the other party to be the only one to agree with everything you do, if you are not willing to concede something as well in return.
You can and should be able to set up as many private venues where you can behave in as rude ways as you want, as long as all people participating in them have accepted those norms. But at public places, open for all, it's good to know that there are expectations of polite behavior, and people should respect those limits.
> The joke wasn't directed at her. Her response was directed at him.
Quite right. That's why her behavior is not acceptable either, because the expected conduct between adults is to handle personal grievances in private. But the way she handled the situation doesn't make her concerns invalid, and we should not conflate the first with the second.
Not to mention the part where she herself tweets dick jokes.
I feel really bad for Hank, he totally did not deserve it. I also feel really bad that Adria felt so uncomfortable that she did something so rash.
Both of their actions and reactions seem so natural to me. The upsetting thing is that our lack of diversity makes these situations so unavoidable.
Only Jews can tell Jew jokes. Only black people can tell n* jokes. Only a woman can tell dick jokes without shame?
But. If she was so tightly wound that a dongle joke caused a sense of danger so profound that the hair on the back of her neck stood on end, then she's probably dealing with personal psychological issues. We shouldn't confuse the mental state of one person with the situation of all women in technology. I don't think anyone is happy with the current levels of gender imbalance and sexism, but that seems like it might be a separate issue.
There's a such a thing as too much empathy. If someone is exhibiting abnormal behavior then the best thing to do is to focus on getting them the help they need, and then question what factors in society might be contributing to their mental state. The majority of women can sit in a room full of men and overhear a dumb joke without feeling the need to publicly shame people. I definitely understand where you're coming from, but this seems to be an issue about this particular woman and her psychological state. I do feel some empathy for her in that respect, but she's still responsible for her actions.
I believe she genuinely felt the way she describes, but I don't think she felt it because of her gender.
I would take a guess that this kind of feeling isn't present for the vast majority of women -- indeed, there was no danger.
I find it more likely that the feeling had something to do with the trauma associated with her father knocking out her mother's teeth with a hammer when she was a kid, as detailed in the last part of the article.
An innocuous joke that triggered a disproportionate emotional response, seeded by past trauma.
I can attest to this. My friends in computer science - both male and female - make bad sex jokes all the time. We all laugh at them.
I don't think it's fair to assume that only men can enjoy dumb jokes.
This psychological point is the key issue which seems to have unfortunately been missed in a lot of the HN discussion.
Nobody can imagine how would a random nerd from a 800-people conference would feel over a joke. Shall we ban joking? Fine people that use "dirty" words? "Your tone of voice makes me feel deeply offended, thus I have all the right to sue you" ? Where does this road end?
What makes me feel extremely annoyed is the whole political correctitude and feeling-catering that slowly turns normal human communication into bland, tasteless pulp.
Why would that be your take-away from this?
The problem is the lack of diversity in our field leads to these horrible, unfortunate situations where people feel threatened and jokes which are not intended to be harmful are felt to be much worse.
It means that we shouldn't be dismissing Adria and feeling for Hank because that's what always happens and what will keep causing these situations to happen in the future.
If we want to feel safe about making bad sex jokes then we need diversity in our field. We need everyone to feel safe just being there before we can all act like we're safe and comfortable enough to be ourselves.
If she truly had this kind of response to an innocuous joke, I think that says more about her own insecurities than about the behavior of Hank. Feeling danger in response to a bad joke in a crowded room is not a reasonable response to have. It's grossly over-proportionate.
How far should we go to cater toward the irrationalities of others?
I don't expect other people to cater towards my fear, but acknowledging that it's real and that it happens is important. Ridiculing it won't make it go away.
If we can't acknowledge this woman's feelings seriously then we can't include her. That's not good enough.
I've seen Adria called "delusional", and "in need of therapy" in this thread. It makes me sad to think how quickly and easily we dismiss her.
The joke was innocuous, and I agree that her response was over-proportionate. I agree with you. The difference is I don't blame her for those actions because I think I can see how she felt in that situation. Same way I don't blame Hank for making a stupid joke because I've been there too.
I'm asking if you acknowledge the existence of some norm in our society for the reasonableness of being offended. Is there a point beyond which we as a society say, "No reasonable person would ever be offended by that, so we're sorry you're experiencing negative emotions and rising hair on your neck, and we're sorry you feel like murder is imminent, but this is not actually a problem and there is a negligible probability of you being killed based on a joke about the king's sleeves."
Note that a consequence of denying such a norm is that we must frequently reorganize our society to please myriad extremists of many stripes, many of whom have mutually exclusive demands.
Conversely, if you admit the existence of such a norm, is this controversy just a discussion about how to construct an algorithm for calibrating it? I'm genuinely asking these things, not being snarky.
Open AND closed spaces should be forbidden due to agora- and claustrophobia. The problem is with surrounding, not the sufferers, right?
Then think of how terrified she must have felt when she was laughing and joking with a beer and surrounded by men playing Cards Against Humanity, with all those sexual and racial jokes. Poor "black, jewish" girl! Maybe we should expose the names of all those men in the photo and get them fired too ? I mean, She felt fear!!!
When a woman in our field says "I felt this way" we say "No no, she's delusional, therapy is in order." Instead of asking why and trying to understand what led to these feelings. This sort of behaviour doesn't help us become more inclusive.
