The dongle comment was a conversation between two people, it was not private, but it's audience was intended to be limited to two individuals.
The CAH game could offend someone that passed by (it was played in a hallway), what would have happened if someone took a picture of her playing CAH and tweeted "Not Cool Guys/Gals"and made a blog post about feeling treated at PyCon?
Did they seek the approval of others around who weren't playing, and ensured that they felt emotionally safe?
I somehow doubt it.
She is misrepresenting her character and manipulates the public image of herself to stir controversy, drama, and in turns she actually hurting the cause she claims to champion. If anything that is the thing I don't like about what she did the most.
Why not? I can be scared of ax-wielding murderers while still enjoying a haunted house where people in an ax-murderer costume jump out at me.
You expect offensive stuff in a CAH game. You don't expect it being mumbled behind you during a keynote.
She chose to be offended. There was nothing inherently offensive about the comment as it's reported. It was apparently a private comment to a friend.
If I'm eavesdropping on some friends talking amongst themselves then I'd expect to hear all sorts of crass lewdness TBH. If I then choose to be offended perhaps the lookout is on me, that I should stop eavesdropping other's conversations.
The situation at hand — to borrow your metaphor — is like someone coming out of a haunted house, seeing someone across the street dressed as an axe-murderer (but clearly in fancy-dress), then crossing the street to harangue them because one should know axe-murderers frighten them and that some how the happenstance of your co-locality gives them the right to control over your attire.
If you don't like the content of private conversations that you can overhear, as an adult, in a public setting, then your choices are to put up with it, move out of earshot, or ask the people to censor themselves.
https://us.pycon.org/2013/about/code-of-conduct/
> All communication should be appropriate for a professional audience including people of many different backgrounds. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for any conference venue, including talks.
> Be kind to others. Do not insult or put down other attendees. Behave professionally. Remember that harassment and sexist, racist, or exclusionary jokes are not appropriate for PyCon.
That does really not fit well with playing CAH...
