Woman who gets man fired for penis joke, gets fired herself

[LittleBlue]

So here’s what happened:

1) While sitting in the 10th row of a Python programming conference, a developer who used to work for mobile monetization startup Playhaven apparently made a joke about “big” dongles and “forking someone’s repo.”

2) Adria Richards, a developer evangelist sitting in front of them, called them out on Twitter and in a blog post for making the conference environment unwelcoming toward women. PyCon then escorted them out to the hallway.

“Women in technology need consistant [sic] messaging from birth through retirement they are welcome, competent and valued in the industry,” she explained in a blog post.

3) Shortly afterward, Playhaven said it had fired the developer. CEO Andy Yang explained, “As a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go.” He added that the employee wasn’t Alex Reid, who is the guy looking straight at the camera in Richards’ tweeted photo. Reid still works for Playhaven.

4) The unnamed fired employee showed up on Hacker News by the name of “mr-hank” and apologized for the joke.

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. However, there is another side to this story. While I did make a big dongle joke about a fictional piece hardware that identified as male, no sexual jokes were made about forking. My friends and I had decided forking someone’s repo is a new form of flattery (the highest form being implementation) and we were excited about one of the presenters projects; a friend said “I would fork that guys repo” The sexual context was applied by Adria, and not us.

My second comment is this, Adria has an audience and is a successful person of the media. Just check out her web page linked in her twitter account, her hard work and social activism speaks for itself. With that great power and reach comes responsibility. As a result of the picture she took I was let go from my job today. Which sucks because I have 3 kids and I really liked that job.

She gave me no warning, she smiled while she snapped the pic and sealed my fate. Let this serve as a message to everyone, our actions and words, big or small, can have a serious impact.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spiraled-way-out-of-control/

Long story short. Woman hears joke about a "dongle". She goes on twitter to report it. He gets fired. He goes on social network to claim that she missed the context of the joke. Twitter outraged when it learns about it, hackers attack her place of work. She refers to herself as "Joan of Arc" protecting the workplace from sexism. Some apparent hypocrisy ensued, as she herself was caught making penis jokes:

Adria Richards ‏@adriarichards

@skwashd you should put something in your pants next time...like a bunch of socks inside one...large...sock. TSA agent faint
https://twitter.com/adriarichards/status/312265091791847425

She gets fired by her company after they and their clients are targeted by hackers (Anon specifically). She has been threatened on twitter, and now her former company is under DDOS attack by hackers. http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/21/breaking-adria-richards-fired-by-sendgrid-for-outting-developers-on-twitter/


In retrospect, I agree with Kim-Mai Cutler's conclusion. A dongle joke wasn't worth 2 people's jobs and possibly their careers, threats against her, and numerous unrelated companies being attacked by hackers.

[Skittles]

1. there's a difference between light-hearted jokes and harrassment

this woman sounds childish

[sendero]

150. Thank you..

.... I sometimes wonder if people get that.

Now, if you make "lighthearted jokes" and someone expresses discomfort, you should stop. Certainly at my job, I would have never said this. But this whole thing is an example of idiocy posing as concern.

My wife had a similar experience recently when someone managed to torture a comment she made into racism. Yes, my wife, a woman who was married to a black man before me, a woman who raised a biracial child with me. Management, generally having zero tolerance for actual racist comments (a position with which I agree BTW) examined what was said and the context and concluded there was no racism involved. But the fact is this person's twisted interpretation of what my wife said almost cost her a job.

I'm totally for working in a place where actual racism or sexual harrassment of any kind is not tolerated. But jc on a crutch it's hard to feel like this qualifies.

[CBGLuthier]

2. If they had not wanted us to make jokes about dongles they should have named them

something else like boobles or anusles, so we would not be so tempted.

People have been making jokes about dongles since before either of these people were born.

[MineralMan]

5. Both my wife and I refer to USB thumb drives as "dongles."

We've both been writing about the computer industry since the mid 1980s. And I remember copy protection dongles for PCs, dating back to the old 8088 days. They sucked. Dongle is one of those words that stimulates the juvenile in many people. Forking is another term that naturally gets turned into juvenile humor. The computer industry is full of people who retain much of their juvenile nature. And so it goes.

[MineralMan]

3. Two people lost their jobs over nonsense.

That whole dongle and forking stuff has been around for a long time, now. It's juvenile nerd humor. Taking such things to social media and out of the environment where they occurred led to serious consequences for the joker and for the person who took umbrage at a lame old nerd joke.

Was the joke sexist? I don't know. I didn't hear the context of it. Was it lame? Certainly. What do professionals at trade conferences do when they overhear lame jokes with sexual connotations. They move to another part of the place if it bothers them, or confront the person who made the joke directly and call that person on the joke.

Taking such stuff to social media is just stupid. The whole story is never told...only the part that fits the person's umbrage.

I hate to hear about stuff like this.

[Xithras]

253. It was at a Python conference...what do you expect?

Nobody with a whit of common sense would be caught dead at one of those...or programming Python

[LuvNewcastle]

4. Good.

[Generation_Why]

6. It's petty people like her that make society a horrible place to live...

I've never met a person that took things too seriously that I have liked.

Most people just go with the flow and get through the day.

People like her seek out conflict and cause trouble for average people.

[MineralMan]

8. People tend to take grudges away from the places

where the grudges began and put them out in public, where people don't even know the other people. Things get distorted. Stuff gets left out. And shit happens.

It has happened to me. Someone on a discussion forum who did not like me for one reason or another called one of my clients, after sifting around and finding out my real life name. I don't even attempt to be anonymous, so it was easy. Anyhow, the person contacted my client and told him that he should quit working with me because "he is a liar and an asshole." My client gave me a heads up about it, and laughed. Now, I know who that person was, based on the other things said to my client, but I would never, ever bring it up or name anyone. It was a stupid move to do that. It was wrong to do that.

If you have a bone to pick with someone, pick that bone on common ground. Don't take it public. It's as likely to embarrass you as it is to cause problems for the other person. And there it is.

[Paul E Ester]

7. Here is her blog post.

http://butyoureagirl.com/14015/forking-and-dongle-jokes-dont-belong-at-tech-conferences/

[HappyMe]

9. *sigh!* All of this

because of a lame joke.

When will people learn that the social media stuff can bite you on the ass pretty damn quick.

[Paul E Ester]

10. SendGrid Fires Company Evangelist After Twitter Fracas

http://mashable.com/2013/03/21/sendgrid-fires-adria-richards/

Almost like she got fired on Facebook by the company.

[LittleBlue]

11. That's why some are wondering if it's a hoax

But it was posted at the same time on both the twitter and facebook accounts of SendGrid.

She hasn't tweeted in 19 hours after a flurry of tweets over several days, so my guess is it's true.

[Warpy]

12. No, a warning to the joke teller would have sufficed

Firing him was an over the top response to something that should have been dealt with by a superior.

[redqueen]

15. The accusation that she "got him fired" is dishonest.

His jokey sexual innuendo made her feel uncomfortable (personal blogs and space are ok for lighhearted sexual innuendoes, professional spaces are not) ... and she complained on Twitter. That was it.

She had already explained to another male attendee, who was also there representing his employer, why his innuendo was inappropriate. He didn't get it, either. After then Nth time you are subjected to this crap it starts to get really old.

And as per usual, she explains why the behavior was inappropriate, and gets roundly attacked. Of course.

[Warren DeMontague]

29. SEE? SHE REALLY *IS* JOAN OF ARC!

JOAN OF ARC OF THE DONGLES!!!

[NBachers]

142. Also Joan of Arc The Evangelist!

[Gore1FL]

160. I'd make an Arc joke

but I like my job.

[Warpy]

36. Yes, the company overreacted and she beame a lightning rod

for every MCP out there and that cost her her job. It's all very unfair and should have been dealt with by a manager.

That's what managers get paid for, at least theoretically.

If it had been dealt with, no firings would likely have happened. Now everybody involved looks like they've been eating mud, especially the company that failed to deal with inappropriate workplace "humor."

And yeah, guys, it gets old really fast. Save those jokes for the men's room, m'kay?

[redqueen]

41. Watch it now...

You'll be accused of being a childish, overreacting, humorless destroyer of 'fun'.

[Warpy]

42. Enough of this kind of bullshit goes on

and maybe the corporations will realize the "open office" concept is a flop.

[RKP5637]

76. ... reminds me of when one of my friends wrote an article and mistyped "floppy disk testers" as

"floppy dick testers," missed in the proof reading and was published in a tech. alert to thousands.

[Warpy]

79. Now that's funny!

My vision is shite so I don't even need real typos to send me into gales of giggles, I misread enough stuff for that.

[Warren DeMontague]

139. "floppy dick" is funny, but "dongle" is offensive?

Maybe floppy dick is more retro, but otherwise the distinction seems a bit academic.

[Warpy]

210. "Dongle" jokes, done repeatedly

get old really fast. Get it?

"What a place for a typo!" is funny. The first time.

Hell, a "dongle" joke might have been funny. The first time.

Apparently those guys couldn't talk about anything else.

The company overreacted. Telling them to give it a rest would have done everyone a lot more good.

And before you accuse me of being a delicate flower, I worked in hospitals and hospital humor would put a rat off a fresh garbage truck.

Some guys just don't know when to shut up. The guy in question should have been told instead of fired.

[Warren DeMontague]

234. From the OP: "apparently made a joke" ... see that letter "a"?

Now of course that means this woman was being pummeled incessantly with dongle dongle dongle jokes from whence she couldn't escape, right?

No, by all accounts she was eavesdropping on these guys, heard ONE joke, then took their picture and broadcast her gripe to the universe.

[Le Taz Hot]

112. Way back in the 14th century

when I was in my 20's I worked in a warehouse office for a company that made pickles, pickled peppers, giardinara, etc., Anyway, one day I got on the loud speaker and announced we need 6 cases of cherry peckers on the dock right away. (That should have been cherry PEPPERS.) The warehouse workers were a bunch of guys who never let me live it down.

[RKP5637]

121. ...

[Warren DeMontague]

140. Oh, sure, I bet you'd rather pay for the full version of MS Word.

Open Office? A flop? PAH!

http://www.openoffice.org/

[Melon_Lord]

45. If she had acted like a grown up and an equal...

She would have told him it was inappropriate and dealt with it.

Instead she complains to as wide an audience as she can find and proceeds to talk about how she should be constantly reassured and made to feel welcome at all times.

"Women in technology need consistant messaging from birth through retirement they are welcome, competent and valued in the industry"

Not to mention the fact that she is shocked when people judge her for her pettiness. Joan of Arc indeed...

[LittleBlue]

52. She's had prior incidents

Here's a female tech industry person who has had problems with her in the past

http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

She sounds crazy, frankly.

[MADem]

138. If I understand the arc of the story (with or without Joan) she was fired for making penis jokes....

Her twitter account revealed some inappropriate conversations about gentleman's pants, or something like that.

I think she sounds hypocritical, at a minimum--particularly when criticizing double entendres while having a history of making single-entendre "size" jokes.

[deutsey]

192. Interesting. Thanks for posting n/t

[Dryvinwhileblind]

70. High maintenance female evangelist...

...nope, I'd better not, it'd be too easy.

[union_maid]

113. Oh, please

That's just ridiculous. If that's going to make you uncomfortable, you really need to seek a career in a convent or something. Working around someone like her would make me totally uncomfortable, not working around a couple of geeky guys with and I've been a woman all my life.

[Skittles]

235. I AGREE

I think it would suck, walking around on eggshells with someone like her

[redqueen]

171. The venue had rules against such beavis and buttheaddery. Therefore she had a right not to hear it.

Insult her all you want if it makes you feel better. Might want to brush up on your understanding of why rules like that exist.

[redqueen]

174. Yes, minimize it. Ignore that it wasn't the first time she heard such 'jokes' at a tech conference

and it most certainly will not be the last. Yeah, she overreacted. That doesn't make their assholery any more justified.

[Warren DeMontague]

206. Wow. Person "A" sitting in the audience says something to Person "B"

that something being a relatively mild- by ALL standards- joke (sorry, "joke" airquote airquote eyeroll eyeroll heavy sigh heavy sigh so-called free speech mansplain whataboutery sigh sigh) about "dongles".

Person "C" is eavesdropping on their conversation from a different row, takes the picture of Persons A&B*, tweets about it while posting their picture, gets Person "A" fired..

And Persons A & B are the assholes?

Shit, why not just kill them? Cut their feet off? They'll never do it again. BECAUSE THESE MICRO AGGRESSIONS MUST! NOT! STAND!

[font size=5]JOAN OF ARC OF THE DONGLES HAS SPOOOOOOOOKEN!!!! [/font]





[font size=1]*one can only imagine the level of offense that would had what been committed had this been a man taking a picture of two women and posting it on the intertubes without their permission, howevah. [/font]

[Warren DeMontague]

201. They were sitting IN THE FUCKING AUDIENCE, and she tweeted their picture.

At what point could you possibly acknowledge an overreaction?

Never?

[DanTex]

209. Not actually prudish. She has no problem with penis jokes as long as she is making them.

Control freak, and narcissist, yes.

[NaturalHigh]

223. That's what I read too.

[DanTex]

178. She didn't just complain on Twitter.

She posted a photo on Twitter, and in fact the guy in the center of the photo wasn't even the guy who made the dongle joke. She also called the guys "ass clowns" on her blog. In other words, she used her position of influence as public figure in the tech world to publicly shame someone for what was at worst a small indiscretion. And, yes, she kicked off a chain of events that ended up with him getting fired (and her as well).

You don't need to be in favor of "dongle" jokes in order to see that what she did was inappropriate.

And also, I would argue that sexual jokes on her blog or from her twitter account are at least as inappropriate as the comment at the conference, which was a private comment between two people. Her internet persona is very much a part of her career -- it's not some anonymous personal blog. How would you feel if a male developer evangelist with a popular blog and twitter following made sexual jokes on twitter?

[MissMarple]

13. I put that in the category of suspending a kid because he brought lemon drops to school.

There is way to much overreaction and cluelessness going on. This is like grade school politics, and I'm wondering where the adults are. Are the kid's in charge? Firing someone for saying a coarse word is like expelling a kid for saying "bang, bang" on the playground.

All the guy needed to do was sincerely apologize, which he did. Andy Yang needs a reality check. And Adria needs a manners and communications class. There are better ways of making your point effectively. Doing a kindergarten "teacher, teacher" tattle is not one of them.

Well, I feel better, now.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

80. Business nowadays is to blame

They literally treat their workers as if they are still grade schoolers. I work in a large building that houses a big call center. If you walked through the work area, you would believe you were walking through a preschool, with colored construction paper cutouts on the wall, outlining the company's goals the same way I was taught my ABC's.

[UnrepentantLiberal]

14. "She refers to herself as "Joan of Arc" protecting the workplace from sexism."

[LittleBlue]

16. Just so people know the context

[patrice]

30. There are people who mistake themselves for the cause they purport to advocate for, when this

happens the seeds of a fascistic cults of personality are being planted.

Real revolution is built on an ongoing honest self-critique; someone should tell Adria that she could be doing more harm than good for what she says she values, but which may actually be more secondary to self-aggrandizement.

[jollyreaper2112]

68. Very cogent reply

I agree totally.

[backscatter712]

17. Wow, things really spiraled out of control.

He made a tasteless, offensive joke, which I'm not defending (it was out of line,) but am I the only one who thinks that getting people fired is going way too far?

[redqueen]

22. I doubt she expected that he would be fired.

The accusation that she "got him fired" is dishonest.

[tabasco]

260. And I'm certain she was happy when she learned she got someone fired

Just a power freak pretending she was offended.

[mwooldri]

104. You weren't the only one thinking that.

While we won't know everything, I do know that this could have been handled a whole lot differently. If that picture wasn't taken and tweeted, identifying the supposed culprits in question, then I don't think we'd be talking about this today. Known "developer evangelist" Adria Richards apparently half-hears a conversation, takes it as sexual innuendo, gets offended and posts picture of them with her thoughts. Employers of company discover tweet, one guy in picture gets fired (the other is still employed with original employer). The guy in the picture that was fired goes to a developer social forum and states a few things - a) he apologized for his comments as though not meant in any sexual way whatsoever, he sees that they could have been, and b) he lamented that because Ms. Richards has a popular following and knows how to use social media, and her handling of this event in public has caused his employer to part ways with him. Since he responded in public to her complaint in public, people have been taking sides one way or another and the intertubes has been full of this stuff.

Now both of them are looking for new employment because both employers have let the two parties go. The guy (under the name of mr-hank) appears to have had some offers sent his way already. I don't know where Adria Richards is going to end up but I hope both of these guys learn from this, and get back to doing what they like doing. I hope Ms. Richards continues to fight for getting more women involved into computer programming and tech in general.

[Sgent]

18. For the non-technical people

I just thought I would explain what "forking" is...

If I'm working on a codebase (for example the code base of Democratic Underground) and I want to create Sgent's Underground, I may take (with permission) DU's code and modify it for my own purposes. At the point I copy the code, its called a fork -- as in a fork in the road, with the DU codebase now going one way, and my copy going another.

At PyCon, which is a developer's conference dealing with the language Python in which much of the code is semi-public domain, coder's routinely share resources and code. Having someone think highly enough of your code that they want to base their work off of it is generally seen as a compliment.

[jorno67]

19. Thank you for that!

I had no idea what they were talking about...I'm older than what I thought.

[petronius]

33. Thanks! I just had to go read the wiki on "developer evangelist" as well - although

I'm still not sure I've completely wrapped my head around it.

I assumed "forking" referred taking something tasty, as in reaching out with your fork to spear a morsel off of someone else's plate (which should give you some insight into my table manners)...

[Sgent]

40. Although that works in this context

forking has been in computer terminology for decades -- it originally refereed to forking a process (spinning a new process out of an old one), which then morphed into the terminology re/ software development and code bases. It most definitely should be understood in a Robert Frost sort of manner.

Now... if you want to get dirty, the usual nerd term for f*ck is fsck (file system check).

[Paul E Ester]

48. You can bet that pissing off developers is not in the job description for "developer evangelist"..nt

[RKP5637]

74. And ... when it comes to forking and spawning child processes too! And then

hooking up male and female connectors. Damn, she must have a hell of a time in technology. Well, and then ball valves in plumbing.

[backscatter712]

107. Technical meaning for this use of fork.

In multi-tasking/multi-processing related work, if you want to have multiple programs running, one of the ways to do it is a system call named fork(). (I'm using C function calls here.)

You run the fork() function, which creates a child process, which then goes off and does its own thing independently of the parent process.

[Recursion]

180. No, it was fork in the sense of version control

Taking a code repository and making your own changes to it.

[Skittles]

237. argo fork yourself

*ooh* will that get me fired?

[Blanks]

20. You can't be too serious in this day and age...

That's why (I'm very disciplined at this point in time) when I find myself having fun; I stop.

I don't want to risk offending anyone. I'm just thankful that opportunities to have fun don't come up very often.

[Mopar151]

21. She did this for sport, because she could

A prototypical girl bully, enforcing her vision of correct socialization on an "inferior". "mr.hank"s social ineptitude is pretty minor in context, and she is proud of "leveraging" that into trashing his life. Adria's employer is right to terminate her over this - people like this are cancerous in the workplace. The hacker attacks are another matter - firing her for causing them and not for her original action is kanda cheezy.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. "Social Justice Warriors"

Apparently it's all the rage, in some quarters.

[opiate69]

89. hahaha!!! perfect!!

[lumberjack_jeff]

193. Bwahahah!

"problematic" indeed.

[Demo_Chris]

284. Exactly. She is the problem here.

[Warren DeMontague]

23. First time I heard my wife say "I need to order a dongle for work" I laughed for 15 minutes.

I'm like, shit, I don't wanna know.

[RiffRandell]

251. Same thing happened to me but with my husband.

He's in telecom, and I was having problems with one of our computers.

I called him at work, and he told me to "pull the dongle out and push it back in."

I couldn't stop giggling---I didn't even know it was called that.

[redqueen]

24. She didn't "get him fired".

She got fed up with hearing sexual innuendoes at a professional event.

Making sexual innuendoes on your own blog, while around friends, at your home, that's one thing... but do people really consider it appropriate at a location where you're representing your employer? That's why he got fired. His behavior was called out, and it reflected badly on them.

[Vinnie From Indy]

31. As far as the story goes, she overheard one sexual innuendo that was not

aimed at her and thought she heard another. The man with the three children and wife who lost his job apologized that he made a joke of the word "dongle" in her vicinity.

It also seems clear that Adria is no stranger to strong sexual language herself as some of her past twitter posts reveal. Apparently, she can toss out some very lame humor about penises as well.

I think the whole thing spun out of rationality early.

[redqueen]

39. No, she already had a discussion with another man about why such talk was inappropriate.

After he made a similar 'joke' and got a stern look from another woman for it.

This incident during the presentation was not the first.

And yeah, she talks like that on her personal blog. Not at professional events.

[Vinnie From Indy]

44. I thought she has also made penis jokes on her twitter feed

As far as I can tell from her blog on the incident, Adria had never seen this guy before she heard the single sexual innuendo in regard to the word "dongle". It also seems Adria was incorrect about there being sexual innuendo intended with the use of the word "forking" by the man she reported.

[Recursion]

181. She made the TSA crotch-groping joke on her public twitter feed. At that conference.

[redqueen]

186. What rules apply to what can be said on Twitter?

I don't use it, but I've seen much worse said on it.

[Recursion]

187. When your twitter feed is the main component of your job? Whatever your company says

I'm actually in the vanishingly small camp of people who think she wasn't wrong to post the guys' pictures; I'm also very irritated that she was publicly making penis jokes on twitter while shaming these three people for privately making penis jokes.

[DanTex]

190. How was it not wrong to post the guys' pictures?

Her blog is also a part of her job and her professional person. She used it to publicly shame two guys for a mild sexist joke. And the main guy in the picture wasn't even the one who made the "dongle" joke. Apparently the "forking" joke wasn't even sexual, another indication that her trigger is a little too light.

And this is all assuming that making a "dongle" joke in a private conversation is sexist, something I'm not completely convinced of but I'm willing to accept for argument's sake.

[Recursion]

250. Whatever it takes

I'm sick of the tech industry coddling immature people with no sense of boundaries.

[redqueen]

191. I didn't know her Twitter feed was work-related.

In that case, yeah, she really didn't have any room to talk, as she was essentially engaging in the exact same conduct.

I think she overreacted and shouldn't have posted their pictures, myself.

[theKed]

198. If your intent is that

a journal published on the internet without access restrictions, and a twitter feed publicly viewable by anybody in the world with an internet connection is less public than a conference room populated by a few dozen people, then you need to rethink your conception of "public" and "private".

Her positioning as a "technology evangelist" (whatever the fuck that means) places her in the public eye. Her work is based on visibility and web-traffic. Her blog is part and parcel of that work, as is her facebook page, as is her twitter feed. They are one of her workspaces. Just on a quick Google of her name there's 2 websites she runs (adriarichards.com, butyoureagirl.com), a flickr page, a youtube channel, a facebook page, and a linkdin page. All of which are based around her work. Adriarichards.com lists her job as "organic Technology Consultant, Trainer, Speaker and blogger". Blogger. As in, writing a blog is part of her job. As in her blog is her workplace.

[enlightenment]

228. So her increased level of annoyance

at hearing a second offensive remark was sufficient for her to go public with her complaint?

What you seem to be suggesting is that because she had already had a discussion once - with one man - she didn't need to do it again with a completely different person. Last time I checked, human males were not designed like the Borg - so the fact that she had "already had a discussion with another man" is really not relevant to her later action.

It's kind of like being in a market and suffering the misfortune of being smacked from behind by a cart. In your scenario, the first time it happens the sufferer might turn and ask the individual pushing the cart to be careful. Two rows over, a completely different individual smacks the sufferer again . . . and it's okay for them to turn around and spew invective, or ask the manager to have them thrown out of the store?

The offensive may be the same, but the people are different. A rational person would conclude that the level of response appropriate for the first offense is still appropriate for the second offense - not an escalation justified because they are still annoyed by the first offense.

[redqueen]

231. No. I think she overreacted.

I pointed out that first incident because it shows that she doesn't always.overreact... She handled a similar situation well earlier.

[enlightenment]

242. Okay.

I think we can agree on that - she obviously has the capacity to take the high ground. It's a shame she didn't on the second occasion.

[apnu]

214. "I think the whole thing spun out of rationality early." That's Twitter for you.

And all the more reason to use it with extreme caution. Let's not forget Spike Lee tweeting the wrong address of George Zimmerman and caused an unending barrage of death threats against an elderly couple who had to move out of their house.

I'm not saying the jokes have a place at a professional event -- they don't and the two offenders were pulled aside by event security and dully notified the breech of conduct.

But that's a different conversation, my point is, twitter is a very powerful weapon, but its often wielded by inept children.

[gollygee]

233. That's a good point

And as I've now read that she has a large number of followers in the tech world, it does give her a higher level of responsibility for what she puts on Twitter than, say, some random kid.

[apnu]

240. True that (nt)

[LTX]

155. What? "Making sexual innuendos on your own blog" is fine, but

making sexual innuendos in conversation not directed at anyone else and "overheard" is not? Blogs are published, and are intended to be widely disseminated and widely read. But by your reasoning this public dissemination of sexual innuendo (as long as it is by a woman, apparently) is just fine, but private conversation (between men only, one presumes) must never contain sexual innuendo lest it be overheard by a woman. Your Victorian portrayal of women as delicate flowers who must be protected from overhearing even the mildest form of sexual innuendo, lest they faint and wither from the workplace, I suppose, is truly insulting.

[redqueen]

161. You find it insulting that I can differentiate between places where there are restrictions on speech

and places where there aren't such restrictions?

Really?

[LTX]

168. Fascinating.

So you want restrictions on personal conversations that may be overheard, but those same restrictions would be inapplicable if the conversation was published, or broadcast, for public consumption. I don't think insulting is the applicable word for that.

It is, however, the applicable word for your apparently Victorian view of women.

[redqueen]

176. Depressing.

This has nothing to do with what I want. Or "Victorian" views of anything.


Restrictions on speech aren't a new concept. Read up on it.

[lumberjack_jeff]

194. Make up your mind. Is Joan of Arc a righeous crusader for workplace virtue or did the boss do it?

She got him fired, and now she's getting the attention she craves.

[NaturalHigh]

205. Seriously?

She posted his picture and acted like he was sexually harassing her. You know what they say about karma. Hers caught up with her.

[snooper2]

25. I guess we'll have to change 142 million pieces of documentation

that describe connectors being male or female now as well





I guess we can start using inny, outy like belly buttons

On edit, the "gender changer" language verbiage probably needs to go as well right....forgot that one



I got a dongle hanging on the side of my cube right now. Fucking laptops don't come with DB9 interfaces anymore so if I want to use the cisco blue console cable I got to pull my dongle out

[demwing]

32. Put your dongle back where it belongs

Or someone is likely to get all twitterpated

[AtheistCrusader]

46. Those aren't dongles. They are gender changers.

[demwing]

54. well now your just bragging

but I wasn't responding to the pics.

read Snooper's quote:

"I got a dongle hanging on the side of my cube right now. "

[Bucky]

26. Live by the sword, die by the sword. (Um, I don't mean "sword" as euphemism.)

[Downtown Hound]

28. Firing for this is too harsh

A little talking to would have sufficed. I've seen this before in the workplace. There was a girl in this one place that I worked at one time that literally told raunchy and sexist jokes ALL THE TIME, but when someone turned it around on her, she complained and got him lectured for sexual harassment.

Bottom line is, people need to be respectful, and they also need to lighten the fuck up.

[Warren DeMontague]

294. yeah, that's about the sum of it.

[jollyreaper2112]

34. Ugh

Sadly, this is a red meat test case. The woman sounds like an ass, the men were reasonable, and the initial break of the story was a blank canvas for both sides to paint on. Here's a woman standing up to make pigs, here's men victimized by a psychotic feminist.

We still don't know all the details. Was the guy really an ass the company was looking for an excuse to fire? Maybe his employers were dicks?

Based on the commentary I've seen elsewhere, most people were reacting according to personal views before even half the facts came out.

Based off of what I've read, she does sound like an entitled jerk who enjoyed making her own sexist jokes and overreacting when men did it.

This is a sad, sad mess.

[JVS]

57. Not to go too deep into things, but it's kind of enough to know a few things

1. She eavesdropped on a PG-rated pun about dongles made by a stranger.
2. She then took someone's picture and posted it to the internet with the malicious intent of publicly shaming them.
3. The digital pillory was effective enough to get him fired.


This is just not a way to treat others.

[BainsBane]

95. that's what think is enough because it confirms your own

biases. The idea that one incident like that gets anyone fired is absurd. Recursion has said he knows the people and the guy was a serial offender. But don't let that get in the way of a good story about the evils of the women in the workplace.

[JVS]

108. You are ascribing views to me in order to confirm your biases.

I don't even see how this is an issue of workplace since the people involved didn't work together.

[BainsBane]

269. He lost his job

So his employer considered it a work place issue. It's obvious to me there is more to the story. Less information never enables anyone to make proper assessments of a situation.

[snooper2]

135. "that's what think is enough because it confirms"

HUH? LOL

[sabrina 1]

262. A 'serial offender'? Was he a murderer, rapist, bank robber? How do you mean 'he was a serial

offender? Did he break some law? Surely you are not using that extreme language to refer to someone who makes a few jokes that some people get offended by?

I wonder how some people manage to live in this world. To be so upset over a joke, it must be hell. Or do they seek out people making jokes so that they can play the victim, point a righteous finger, rouse up the mob, get that heretic fired!

This is getting dangerous now, the extremes some people are going to to try to control the language. A man with three children and presumably a wife who need that income, lost their job because of some lunatic, fanatical hypocrite who acted like she was resurrected from the Salem Witch days.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

35. No one should have been fired here, period. (n/m)

[Recursion]

37. The first guy's company has said it wasn't just this

And the first guy has obliquely said something similar.

[redqueen]

47. Amazing that that little factoid isn't mentioned in the OP.

[Jenoch]

117. She overheard a comment and over reacted.

She took a photo, attached some accusatory words, and caused this situation. If the words had been directed at her, then she would have something to complain about. If she overheard it in her own workplace, she would have had something to complain about. This was a large event. She apparently didn't know these guys, and they apparently didn't know her. She was offended because she chose to be offended.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

56. Where did you draw that from?

Her blog?

I'll be honest, I clicked on it and tried to read, but the flames from the martyrdom stake were too intense. Or maybe it was just the gibberish. All I could parse from it was that she had a brief conversation with these guys where they directed nothing offensive at her, and then she decided by eavesdropping on their conversation that they were holding back a toddler from programming or something.

[Recursion]

73. Some Python blog (I vaguely know most of these people)

The Python world is kind of having a shitstorm right now; I'll see if I can find that again.

[tammywammy]

58. I didn't gather that from their statement.

http://blog.playhaven.com/addressing-pycon/

PlayHaven had an employee who was identified as making inappropriate comments at PyCon, and as a company that is dedicated to gender equality and values honorable behavior, we conducted a thorough investigation. The result of this investigation led to the unfortunate outcome of having to let this employee go. We value and protect the privacy of our employees, both past and present, and we will not comment on all the factors that contributed to our parting ways.

[sabrina 1]

264. Wow!! How horrific! The guy makes bad jokes. Why isn't he in jail? Surely this must be against

the law!!

Seriously, people need to get a grip. There are actual crimes being committed in this country but THIS is what some people choose to get outraged over. I can see one day a complete backlash happening to the extremism that we are witnessing more and more of. A guy with three children has now lost his job because some moron went out of her way to find something to be offended by and then to film, not even the right guy and put it on the internet. I hope he sues her, the other guy also. Enough already. Women are being made to look ridiculous with these morons claiming to represent them. That woman needs help.

[Incitatus]

38. Be extremely careful when posting anything about your company over social media.

I know people who have lost their jobs and been demoted over trivial things. It's really stupid the way some corporations can react.

[riqster]

62. Oh, hell no

Q: How do you make a Corporate HR Officer laugh!

A: THAT'S NOT FUNNY!!!!!

An old workplace joke that has a lot of truth in it.

[Paul E Ester]

43. Is "forking a dongle" really ok on DU?

[edbermac]

49. Dongle = penis?

[krawhitham]

252. In her warped mind it is

[Jenoch]

50. This blogger OVERHEARD a comment. It was a comment

made to someone else. I don't believe in karma, however if the blogger did not believe in karma before, I'm sure the blogger is a believer in karma now.

[BainsBane]

51. Chances of it unfolding as described are highly unlikely

Last edited Thu Mar 21, 2013, 07:11 PM - Edit history (1)

If the company had liked the guy, they would have given him a warning and sent him to sensitivity training. This was probably their opportunity to get rid of an employee who they found subpar.

Putting your work info and business on Twitter is just plain stupid.

[AtheistCrusader]

55. His job search is doing to be difficult, methinks.

[mwooldri]

102. Maybe, maybe not.

It seems the guy has had a few doors open for him as a result of his employer closing the door on him. Looking through the various postings, the guy went on hacker news, opened up an account, and posted an apology and a comment about the handling of the overheard private joke. Going by the name of mr-hank, he did respond to some of the responses to his post here. Gives a bit more insight to what happened, wading through all the comments and all.

We don't and won't know everything but the takeaway lesson from this incident is that you need to be aware of your audience, and going "all out public" about a private grievance may not result in desirable consequences.

[sabrina 1]

265. I think he'll find a job pretty quickly. She, otoh, will probably find it hard to get a job..

No one likes an informer, especially one that is a hyopcrite.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

61. This

Probably the idea they weren't listening was upsetting to them.

[uselessobot]

53. My 85 year old MIL just read this and in a deadpan voice said and I quote

"Ms. Richards needs to get laid."

[Paul E Ester]

60. Ms. Richards on dating

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

67. Zzzzz....

Wow. I survived a minute and twelve, and that was a struggle.

I don't understand why anyone would want to be involved with a person who thinks nothing is private and everything is an opportunity to make themselves famous.

[Vinnie From Indy]

71. Couldn't get past the first five minutes

One thng that comes through very loud and clear is that this woman is obsessed with herself and quite boring.

Is there anything of note on the video or is it just more sublime navel gazing?

Cheers!

[Paul E Ester]

78. I watched it, it only confirms uselessobots hunch...nt

[TreasonousBastard]

152. I randomly clicked on what was about 10 minutes in, and...

she was talking about fish.

Tuna fish.

[LittleBlue]

72. She doesn't date because of past "drama"?

No way! Her? Dramatic?

[davidthegnome]

91. Hmm...

She strikes me as narcissistic and shallow.

[Puglover]

149. Self absorbed obsessive compulsive is more apt.

<shudder>

[MannyGoldstein]

129. Mrs. Goldstein watched, and says she'd not make a good Pope

Which settles it for me, more or less.

[EOTE]

245. I LOLed at the part where she talked about how one guy yammered on and on about himself.

It sure is a good thing that this woman doesn't yammer on and on about herself. Otherwise that would make her a hypocrite. No way I'd go on a date with her without a hollow tooth filled with cyanide.

[Warren DeMontague]

268. she "likes tall guys"... HEY! THAT! IS! OBJECTIFICATION!!!!!!!! Come on, chant with me!

"SEE THE HUMAN NOT THE HEIGHT!

[font size=5]SEE THE HUMAN NOT THE HEIGHT!!!!!

SEE THE HUMAN NOT THE HEIGHT!!!!!

SEE THE HUMAN NOT THE HEIGHT!!!!![/font]


HEY HEY HO HO

THIS YARDSTICK JUDGMENT'S GOT TO GO!"


Anyway, given that several members of this website were basically told they were lower than pond scum for expressing a so-called "opinion" harumph harumph on the topic of large breasts, one can only imagine the resounding condemnation that Ms. Richards will face since she has revealed that she superficially look-judges potential mates on the basis of optico-oppressive heteronormative physical appearance standards which HARM and furthermore the REASON they HARM is BECAUSE THEY ARE HARMFULLY HARMFUL and in case you don't believe me MANY NOTED WIKIPEDIA EXPERTS who have done dissertations on the topic of the HARMFULNESS of height-judging agree that OFTEN, it is HARMFUL.

Which proves it.

[SamReynolds]

59. I hate when women act so childishly.

It doesn't help the image of women as competent adults in the workforce.

[Cal Carpenter]

159. Huh, I didn't think we were at a point

where one online personality can reflect all women in the workplace.

Imagine if one dude acting foolishly put into question whether or not all men are overall competent in the workplace.

It must be sad to have a mentality like that.

[redqueen]

163. Thanks for calling that out. Huge tell right there. nt

[Cal Carpenter]

189. No problem, I kinda couldn't believe

it hadn't been responded to yet!

[zaireeka]

173. It is sad...

At some level, that is necessary. Human Resources departments are usually bound to take action when they become aware of an incident. Whether the offense goes to the level of Jenson v. Eveleth or a simple dick joke, most organizations will take the most secure road possible to protect their name and resources.

The upshot is that we must ALL treat our co-workers, teammates, etc. not only with respect, but as potential "martyrs for the cause" regardless of what that cause is. You can bet that a whole slew of HR departments are currently drafting memos regarding their policies about"overheard/unintentional conversation" during workplace events.

[zaireeka]

177. P.S.

Need to add that it wasn't women who created this situation-men behaving badly in the workplace started this whole kerfuffle, so remember that an "innocent dick joke" comes at the end of a long line of women being marginalized/assaulted/made to feel like shit simply for showing up to work.

[lumberjack_jeff]

197. That's true. "Childish" should only describe Adria... and her cheerleaders. n/t

[SamReynolds]

261. I did no such thing.

So you're okay with women in the workforce acting like fools?

The point is that we've come a long way and things like this tend to paint women badly, even if it's just because men tend to perceive it that way.

[RKP5637]

63. Many people really need to chill out! This, is ridiculous. Frankly, I'm pleased she

was let go. She must have a real hard time when connectors are discussed in terms of male and female connectors!

[treestar]

64. Oh that the job market would improve immensely

do they have someone trained waiting in the wings? Cause they would need that in order to make even a transition worth it. All these stories about firing people over the stupidest stuff. I would not have been offended by that nor would I have bothered with it on social medial networks.

[Apophis]

65. Joan of Arc? Really?

She thinks highly of herself.

[southernyankeebelle]

66. No offense but this woman wouldn't survive in an office full of GIs. I can tell you

the F's coming out of their mouths left and right then turn around and forget I was there and apologize. I never got offended by their language. The only word that would get a big bad reaction from me if I ever heard a GI say the word was C*NT. I cannot stand that word. Lucky for me I never heard a GI say it in front of me. I think this was a case of over reaction and she shouldn't of been listening to someoneelses conversation. If she was so offended she should have turned around and said something to him right there and then and give him a chance to apologize. But again she is one of these christain women who say one thing in public and do other things in private.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

69. You better edit, quick

Honestly, you didn't even try to conceal that word.

[southernyankeebelle]

75. Thanks I just didn't catch it. Glad you did.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

82. That's probably still not good enough

Mind you, I'm not alerting, but my guess is that would still not pass the smell test as far as bleeping slurs.

This thread would be a festering Meta petri dish.

[southernyankeebelle]

83. You have a point. But lets see for now.

[Warren DeMontague]

96. It's a festering swamp of teeming giant dongles!

A tangled weave of turgid connector cables and swollen nodes! A puslating blob of overheated, grease-slicked (Grace Slick?), thrusting hardware iterations!

and I'll swim my way right through it, claims Enthusiast Jack Pruitt

And the weblogs that get tangled as you willy and you wangle, at the walk up in Seattle where you fought the nascent battle, as you do the thread and throttle let us raise another bottle

raise another bottle
raise another bottle

[Spider Jerusalem]

244. Wow. That's absurd.

I don't really see how "the one word they might have used that I would have had a problem with" with the word spelled out is alertable or a violation of TOS. That somehow seems a bit like telling someone who posted this poem that "you didn't even try to conceal that word".

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

247. It was just some advice, I'm not an alerter

I'm not sure whether you think I'm absurd for saying it, or whatever, but if you don't think that would have been alerted on and likely hidden, you haven't been paying attention.

[patrice]

85. Excellent point about how she could have corrected the behavior in situ . . . but chose

to grand-stand (for what REAL purpose?) on Twitter instead.

Lesson to all of us: firm, even tough, direct, but essentially respectful, correction is probably a better tactic than self-aggrandizing grandstanding. Think of the difference in effects upon the issue itself, which approach has a more constructive effect upon more people.

[southernyankeebelle]

92. And the man wouldn't have lost his job. What a stupid woman. Karma comes back at

her. To me she was very wrong.

[patrice]

109. All of us need to ask ourselves, in every way, what's more important: ridicule? or learning? nt

[southernyankeebelle]

110. Good point. I bet both of them wished they could take that day back.

[patrice]

211. I think that would be a beautiful thing if they could. nt

[southernyankeebelle]

213. certainly would. nt

[BainsBane]

88. She wasn't working with GIs

Firstly, you don't know about this situation. Two, companies have policies for a reason. It's not a woman's job to convince her male colleagues to act appropriately in the office. That is their own responsibility. There are also federal laws governing such behavior. Lastly, there is no way this guy would have been fired after one offense if he'd been good at his job. People need to use their heads a bit here. Honestly.

I can't imagine what prompts someone to think calling a woman a "c...t" is acceptable in any work place. "She shouldn't have been listening to someone else's conversation." What an attitude. No wonder so many woman are raped in the military. But that of course must be their fault for not dealing with it right there.

[southernyankeebelle]

94. She should of handled it on a personal matter. Then if the man kept it up then report him.

How did he know he offended her? He was talking to the guy next to him. Oh by the way I am just giving you my personal feelings on the subject. Women in the military are just as good at giving out that kind of language as they are hearing it. Those are facts. That C**t is unacceptable in any place inside or outside an office your right on that because some strange guy called me that once. I was very shocked. I think he was drunk driving.


You can say what you want. I still think the woman had no business listening to someone else conversation. And I believe she should have talked to him in the first place. The man has 3 children and he got fired. In the end she also got fire. Who won here? I still say she over reacted. But again you entitled to your opinion and I will stick by mine.

[BainsBane]

97. The man was a serial offender

and while I myself would have not bothered with something like that, I don't think she had a responsibility to correct him. She's not his mother, and he's a grown man.

I actually find your comments about the military far more offensive, especially considering the huge percentage of women who are raped there. Attitudes that you describe from male soldiers are part of a culture that results in rape.

[southernyankeebelle]

101. Whatever. I am not on trial here. Forget.

[BainsBane]

125. I did not mean to put you on trial.

I'm sorry for making you feel that way. I imagine there are a lot of obstacles to being a woman in the military. My hope is that all of you have fruitful careers and stay as safe as possible.

[southernyankeebelle]

151. All I was trying to say that I have seen with my own eyes women using salty language like

the guys. That doesn't lead to rape. It is never right to rape anyone especially children and women of course. Some women need to learn to be careful when they are out having fun. Don't drink so much that you don't realize what is going on around you. Guys should do the same. I am sure if those young people in Ohio had not been drinking none of what happened to that girl would of happened. Everyone should of been more responsible, yes even the girl. It is not acceptable that she got raped, however, had she not been drunk when she said no they would have understood loud and clear. What upsets me these parties took place at homes. Where were the parents when the kids were having parties? Where was their responsibility? By the way I am not in the military but have worked civil service for many years. My last job I was the only woman in the office for a few years. We did have a couple of female soldiers who came and left but I mostly worked with guys. They were great guys even when they used their salty language. They'd forget I was there and always apologized. But here is the thing they always went out of their way to help him if I needed help for something in the office. In a regular public places you are right and people shouldn't talk that way.

[sufrommich]

169. If your son was in as much danger of being

raped as your daughter would be if he passed out at a party you might have a point,but he's not. The Stuebanville rape was not a case of "both the boys and the girl have some responsibility",that's blaming the victim.

[Vinnie From Indy]

123. On what do you base your claim this man is a serial offender?

Do you have any tangible proof that this man is a serial offender?

[BainsBane]

126. Recursion says he knows the people involved

and posted about it elsewhere in the thread. Common sense also says no one would get fired over one incident such as this. There had to be something else in his background, whether previous incidents or poor work performance.

[DisgustipatedinCA]

134. No, I don't think that's accurate

It looks like Recursion says he vaguely knows some of the people who were in the room, and that Python-related blogs are lit up over the subject. Where's the serial offender part?

[BainsBane]

137. that's what I took from post 37

Unless I misunderstood.

[Recursion]

182. I don't know him personally; I've interacted with most of these people on Python mailing lists

Somebody else's blog, which I now can't find, quoted an insider at the company saying "I wish we could say it was just this incident, but it wasn't".

[BainsBane]

226. somehow I always knew

you were a snake charmer.

Seriously though, common sense says there HAD to be more to it than what's reported above.

[darkangel218]

77. Ive never heard of "dongle" before

[DetlefK]

154. That's a temporary license to use a software.

The dongle can either be a file that the software checks each time it starts up or it can be an electronic device with a USB-plug (looks like a tiny USB-stick) that has to be plugged in.

[CBGLuthier]

227. Originally and today they were devices to prevent piracy

The original ones connected to serial ports (or was it parallel ports) and did absolutely nothing except satisfy a check made by the software. Without the technically useless piece the software will not run. This is used, typically, for high end software that costs thousands of dollar per seat.

[RKP5637]

81. Well, she would have a hell of a time as an electrician where they use butt connectors! n/t

[secondvariety]

86. Don't forget

the pecker head - that's where the terminations for an electric motor are located. Even my Sister Electricians call it that.

[RKP5637]

99. LOL! And then we've got the old knob and tube wiring! And telco with butt end testers!

[NBachers]

145. Believe it or not, I recently brought a new line of cock hole covers into my department

and they're selling quite well, thank you.

[RKP5637]

166. Do you have some "pet cocks" too? LOL

[yourout]

127. Don't forget your "Dykes"

[RKP5637]

162. Yep! Sometimes I call them side cutters now depending where I'm at ... we used to

call them dykes forever.

[snooper2]

136. butt connectors, those are nothing compared to my old

butt set in my desk LOL

[RKP5637]

164. ...

I'll need to check your butt end out!!!

[Warren DeMontague]

143. "Unit"

[RKP5637]

165. Great!!!

[Recursion]

185. Rigging on tall ships has c**t splices

Last edited Fri Mar 22, 2013, 01:10 PM - Edit history (1)

though it's normally euphemized to "cut splice" nowadays.

[RKP5637]

200. Wow!!! I never knew that ... I learn something new on DU every day! n/t

[secondvariety]

84. I'm glad I work in the field.

I wouldn't last half a day in an office environment. I'm way too non-PC.

[RedCappedBandit]

87. She should have never posted the guy's picture to begin with

What a bunch of nonsense

[JVS]

132. Yeah really.

Setting aside all the issues of the conflict, the tactic of taking things to the internet when you have a disagreement is really bad form. And the reason that it is bad form can be seen by the blowback she got from the internet. There are a lot of people out there who you don't want paying much attention to you, and to pull someone onto the public stage like that is extremely inconsiderate bordering on abusive.

[quinnox]

90. A crusader in her own mind

She should wear a t-shirt that says, "Yup, I'm gonna tell on you!"
when she goes to work. Can you imagine having to work with her, yikes. Talk about walking on eggshells. Good luck to her on the job search, she will need it, with this publicity. Its people like her that prove the Saturday night live church lady is not so ficticious after all.

[Union Scribe]

263. My first question was...

what's her DU name?

[4Q2u2]

93. work place rules

Have not the HR work place rules of sexual conduct a couple of decades old now? I must have missed the grievance step to post publicly online disputes.
She also forgot the first rule of being a hero, they usually die. Nice video though that should have the guys beating down her door for a date.

[NBachers]

146. You mean the "TALL" guys. That's as far as I could get

[sufrommich]

98. The Venturebeat article says she's now getting

rape and death threats.I guess they showed her.

[AngryAmish]

158. 4chan

[BainsBane]

100. This story is a Rorschach test

through which people express their preexisting views.

[Warren DeMontague]

103. isn't everything?

[ismnotwasm]

111. That's Slash!

[Warren DeMontague]

118. I know. Paging Elad!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1259844

[JVS]

114. Perhaps.

Something is a Rorschach test when the information I am able to obtain makes the person I identify most with in a narrative look bad. Thus I will declare that there is not enough information to form an opinion and claim that those who do not discard the information provided and have formed an opinion are simply drawing on their own prejudices. Note that I am perfectly capable of detecting all of those prejudices based on how they perceive the story though, despite having even less information about them than is given in the story they are commenting on.

[guardian]

203. How could you post such an obscene graphic on DU?

Everyone knows that looks just like a ..........

Quick hit alert. We need a Jury decision on this one!

[BainsBane]

225. They'd hide it too

[ismnotwasm]

105. Another view

Richards didn't call for anyone to be fired, she wasn't hostile or irrational, she wasn't outraged over one shitty dongle joke—she was expressing an accumulated frustration at the persistent difficulty of carving out space for women in the tech community. Men, if you don't get that, it's because you don't have to get it. You are not qualified to be dismissive of a lifetime of microaggressions until you have personally experienced a lifetime of microaggressions. So if you don't get it, be thankful. Now pick some of this shit up—it's heavy.

http://jezebel.com/5991792/woman-in-tech-tweets-about-sexist-dudes-in-tech-dude-get-fired-internet-meltdown-ensues

[union_maid]

115. So she nerd shames a couple of guys for lifetime of frustrations?

I'm a woman. Always have been. I enjoyed the time I worked with geeky, nerdy guys much better than I ever could have working with someone like this woman. In a million years.

[ismnotwasm]

116. Well bless your heart.

[EOTE]

215. That wouldn't be a microaggression, would it?

This thread seems to be filled with them, it's sickening. Almost more than a man can take.

[sibelian]

278. It's their latest thing.

It pops up all over threads like this when they haven't anything substantive to say.

[pacalo]

124. I hear ya!

Women who delight in causing trouble for others -- men, in this case -- seem to be oblivious to their own self-destruction in their quest for "equality" in the workplace.

[sibelian]

122. "a lifetime of microaggressions"

Get real...

[redqueen]

148. Are you unfamiliar with the concept?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=microaggressions

It's actually quite an important one.

[Warren DeMontague]

144. would you consider getting fired from your job over a "dongle" joke

a "microagression"?

[EOTE]

216. No, that's a macroaggression.

But it's in response to a lifetime of microaggressions, so all evens out in the end.

[DanTex]

184. You don't have to be dismissive of microaggressions to find what she did to be way out of line.

Yes, she was hostile and irrational. She took out here frustration over a "lifetime of microaggressions" at one guy, by publicly shaming him and calling him an "ass clown" on her blog, which apparently has a pretty wide following in this community.

I personally find it ridiculous to call these men "sexist dudes" because one of them made a dongle joke. If the standard for sexism is anyone who can't resist the juvenile temptation to make a "penis" joke when confronted with the word "dongle", then sexism will never be eradicated. If instead you said these men were insensitive to the hostile and uncomfortable environment that even mild sexual-natured jokes can create, then I might agree with you.

[deutsey]

188. +1

[uponit7771]

255. +1

[DanTex]

106. What a stupid mess.

I guess the guy shouldn't have made the dongle joke, although the real culprit is whoever came up with the word "dongle". Publicly shaming the guy for an extremely mild joke was stupid and a huge overreaction.

The guy getting fired was stupid and a huge overreaction. The hackers DDOSing the company where the woman worked was stupid and a huge overreaction. And the woman getting fired was stupid and a huge overreaction. Although, I guess she did bring her employer a lot of unwanted attention by stupidly deciding to publicly shame a guy over a dongle joke, so that's the one part of this that is maybe justified.

Still, wow.

[jollyreaper2112]

119. That's the tragedy here

It gives the worst of both sides a great excuse to overreact and everyone in the middle gets splattered as the shit hits the fan.

This is perfect red meat for the men's rights activists because she's clearly in the wrong and acting like a stereotype and it's fodder for the radical fems because guys are overreacting exactly as one would expect when poked with a stick. It's like the goddamn Middle East.

[jeff47]

207. That attention meant she could no longer be effective at her job

Her job was basically PR from a technical angle. She would not be able to be effective in that job after this shitstorm.

[dkf]

277. And she exposed how effective she is at her job in front of the world.

Who wants to work with her now? Didn't she just commit career suicide at least at that position?

[Beacool]

120. Moral of the story: technology is not always your friend.

Ask anyone who has been fired due to what they posted on their Facebook account. Also ask anyone who hasn't been hired after a prospective employer checked them on Facebook.

We have become such a self involved society that many feel that their every utterance or activity is worthy of sharing it with the world.

In this case, I think that they were both at fault. He for not being careful about the jokes he told at his work place and she for exaggerating her outrage over a mild joke. Now neither one of them has a job.

[jeff47]

208. Nitpick - this was not at his work place

This was at a conference.

[Beacool]

243. Maybe so, but if it's related to one's job it's the same.

I work for a large corporation and they would have reacted similarly. If they send one to a meeting, training or seminar, one must comport oneself as if one was in the office.

[brewens]

128. Driving my blood center bus one day three women riding with me

were talking about giving oral sex. Now this is a subject that fascinates me to no end but I wasn't about to say a word! One of the women, who was actually the boss at the time,was one of my favorite all-time co-workers. She is totally cool. Another is also a fiend of mine, much younger and I went to school with her mother. She I could probably trust, but she is well known to be vindictive if you're on her list. The third woman has to be one of the nastiest pieces of work ever to walk the face of the earth and I later ended up helping get her fired.

I would have been totally withing my rights to have complained about this conversation to HR. I could have said it made me feel uncomfortable and was inappropriate. They would have had to have taken it seriously and investigated. Anyone that really knows me would know that was a complete crock of shit! Absolutely no way was I, or would I have been offended by that conversation. The only reason I would have ratted is if I was out to get someone.

I can assure you that had I spoken about anything similar to the woman I helped get fired, she would have immediately gone to my supervisor over it. She even approached another woman we worked with about bondage one time. She actually got fired for telling a story that I said I didn't believe at the time. Another supervisor heard it too and I was just in the position of having to back him up. I didn't believe it for good reason but it turned out to be true.

You just have to not say or do anything inappropriate at the workplace these days. You really can't trust anyone. Having said that, if you're in a position of authority, you do need to be aware of the possibility of the disingenuous complaint. Try and give someone a second chance if you can.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

241. I have a good friend, a woman, who was fired for making an off-color...

..... comment about a birthday cake that apparently looked like a penis.

The comment didn't come back to bite her until she disciplined a subordinate, a mortgage loan officer, for lying about locking a customer's $700k loan and playing the float at the customer's risk. The market turned sour and the loan, after much screaming yelling and back and forth with the client, closed $17k under water for the house. She deducted it from the loan officer's commissions.

Lo and behold, the off color comment turned in to a "hostile work environment" for this disgruntled loan officer who, by the way, spoke and told dirty jokes like a sailor. But his reputation wasn't the issue before HR when it came up. And there was no denying she said it.

Context doesn't seem to matter months later when HR and the lawyers are involved.

I used to warn her when we worked together (while running away) about her "grab ass" she would play with me and a couple of the other gay loan officers. We were all friends. But I always said "the fun and games" we were having won't be appreciated when HR gets involved.

[MannyGoldstein]

130. "Python"? Really? Sounds like some sort of ding-a-ling joke.

The sexist crap on this site is out of control.

[HipChick]

131. The racist posts on her facebook page are deplorable..

[The Straight Story]

133. Maybe we should change the names of Dongles. I thought maybe he opened a door for her

another reason we need cameras by all doors at work, to catch the dongling bastards in the act.

[Warren DeMontague]

141. You know, I actually thought the Dongles were okay. Their lead singer was kind of hot.

Oh, sorry, I meant the Bangles.

[Locrian]

153. no, that's the "Dangles" not the "Bangles"... n/t

[DanTex]

167. Still is...

[lonestarnot]

147. What bullshit.

[deutsey]

156. Indeed n/t

[gollygee]

157. I don't know what to think

I've heard (from my husband who goes to these types of conferences) that tech conferences are horribly sexist places, but that there are attempts within the industry to fix that, and if she was upset about hearing yet another sexist comment at a tech conference and complained, and the guy's employer knew this was a regular problem and had disciplined him before for it and he wasn't getting that under control, I could see him being fired.

But to fire him for the one joke is over the top, otherwise. It would require a scenario like the above for it to make sense to me.

I don't think her making a penis joke on twitter is relevant. If the issue is that tech conferences are sexist, and he was part of that, and he were fired for that, then that's about workplace environment. There is a different standard as far as what is appropriate between a work-related conference, for an industry that is trying to clean up its act as far as sexism at conferences goes, and Twitter.

I guess there isn't enough information here for me to know if he has a history and had been disciplined before. I can't imagine why he was fired otherwise. It doesn't make sense to get fired over one very mild joke (and the other thing she completely took out of context so that wouldn't be a part of it.)

[DanTex]

175. The issue is not just sexism at the tech conference. It is also public shaming of

a private citizen by a person with a media following.

What the woman should have done was written a blog post about the incident, explaining how seemingly harmless jokes actually contribute to a sexist environment that can make tech workplaces uncomfortable for women. She also should have privately asked for an apology, which based on the man's comments, she likely would have received. She could have invited him to write a guest blog post about the need for men like him to be more aware of the consequences of their words. It could have been a teachable moment.

Instead, she tweeted a picture of the two men, and called them "ass clowns" on her blog. This set of a chain of events that pushed everyone back into their own corners. Some men will see the man as a victim of political correctness gone too far. Some women will see the woman as a victim who got fired for trying to speak up about the sexism in the tech industry.

And, actually, she is a victim, who is now receiving death threats. Because a bunch of idiots decided to take revenge on her and attack her company's website.

[Exultant Democracy]

179. She would fit right in with the umbrage brigade around here.

Making the world suck a little more, one over reaction at a time.

[EOTE]

212. LOL. Yup, pretty much. NT

[mainer]

183. As a woman, I sure wouldn't want to work with her

When you go through life outraged about everything, you're not good company. It sucks having to walk on eggshells all the time because your coworker might take umbrage about the most innocent comment.

[cbdo2007]

195. I guess I don't understand - is "big dongle" a sexual reference??

Isn't that a computer term?

[EOTE]

220. Yes, but it contains the word "dong" as well.

So it's a fairly silly term. Some guy made a silly comment regarding a dongle and he lost his job for it. I have to say that I think of myself as fairly considerate of others and I use worse language pretty much every day.

[Warren DeMontague]

273. When I first read it, I thought he was on the stage.

No, he was sitting in the audience, talking to someone next to him, she eavesdropped, turned around, took his picture, and broadcast it to the world.

And SHE'S the victim.

Talk about living in an "entitlement mentality" bubble.

[geek_sabre]

196. great blog on the issue, with a bit of her history

https://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

[lumberjack_jeff]

199. Excellent post. n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

204. So basically, this is someone who spends all their time running around looking for things to get

outraged over.

[NaturalHigh]

222. Yes. It's like the "opening doors for women is benevolent sexism" thing.

She apparently has too much time on her hands to think about why she should be angry every moment.

[Warren DeMontague]

236. I wonder what her username is?

[NaturalHigh]

274. I wondered the exact same thing, Warren.

I won't mention any names, but I could hazard a few guesses.

[tblue37]

276. I read a bunch of blogs about the incident, and

I thought that was the best one of all the posts I read.

[NaturalHigh]

202. Did anyone open a door for her?

If so, I completely understand why she's pissed.

[Puglover]

218. Maybe?

http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Adria

[mainer]

219. She had a right to tweet about it. But NOT to ID him.

So she got irritated. It's OK to tweet that you're annoyed. But not OK to identify the guy annoying her either by photo or by name.

[Rex]

221. Stupid people get what they deserve the most.

Moral of the story, despite all the other issues.

[Evasporque]

224. the nerds have begun feeding on each other....this is bad....nt

[backscatter712]

229. A perspective from a woman in the dev community who's worked with Adria.

http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

[polly7]

230. Interesting article. I feel bad for everyone harmed by this. nt.

[redqueen]

232. Just FYI, she doesn't consider herself a feminist.

She says herself on her blog that she is not.

Her cause is getting more women in tech.

[Warren DeMontague]

238. ...time to distance from her?

Maybe the whole "Joan of Arc of the Dongle Microaggressions" deal isn't really gaining traction?

[Demo_Chris]

285. Her cause is claiming sexist BS and getting random strangers fired

She also likes long rambling walks on the beach and blog posts about herself.

[redqueen]

287. Well she's getting rape and death threats now so

...

[Demo_Chris]

288. I do not approve of that, but that's the internet, it brings out the worst in people...

And SHE'S the one who took it there. She wanted the attention and now she has it.

I saw this being discussed earlier today on a couple different chans. They were posting her name and address and phone number, and no-doubt contemplating mischief. But then, she maliciously cost some guy his job. She thought it was amusing to use a false claim of sexual harassment to wreck some guy's life. So... there you go.

[redqueen]

289. Yeah, it's totally her fault. Totally.

You can't blame people for using rape and death threats against a woman if she dares to do something you disapprove of

[Demo_Chris]

290. I already said I do not approve of those comments

I understand why you might prefer to discuss these comments, as this allows you to continue to paint her as the victim.

In any case, it's unfortunate but true that internet "justice" (or, more accurately, vengeance) rarely comes packaged in politically correct language, but there it is. She started this, she ruined some guy's life for a joke, and now the collective will have its say. It probably wont be pleasant. They don't operate under an eye-for-an-eye; they want both eyes, a kidney, and tears.

[redqueen]

291. "SHE'S the one who took it there. She wanted the attention and now she has it. "

No, you're not blaming her at all.

She didn't get him fired.

What he did WAS SEXUAL HARASSMENT. THAT'S WHY THERE'S RULES AGAINST IT FFFS.

I'm done with this stupid, persistent effort to focus outrage at this woman. So fucking done.

You enjoy yourself, now.

[Demo_Chris]

292. Public opinion, usually a fair judge of these things, is against her

You would like to hold this woman up as some kind of martyr. You are not doing the women's movement, which I try to support, any favors. Just the opposite, this is EXACTLY the kind of garbage that undermines everything you are trying to accomplish. I read most of your posts (you are actually one of my favorite posters here), and you always give me something to think about, but I think that this time you are missing the point. What this woman did was, from a guy's perspective, damn near the most offensive and infuriating thing a woman can do. In my opinion you shouldn't be defending it.

[Warren DeMontague]

293. That's why this sort of over-the-top "social justice warrior" behavior is a guaranteed win-win.

Invariably the criticism it receives can be portrayed as further "proof" of the inherent problem.

And so on.

[sufrommich]

239. This whole conversation about her here and elsewhere

reminds me of the freepers using "the New Black Panthers" as a sort of boogeyman to warn us of the perils of "voter intimidation" by using a small incident to point out "reverse racism". The truth is,many women in the work force face sexism every day but you won't ever see the kind of outrage for them that you see for this one woman in this one situation. It's being used as a parable for how those mean old feminists ruin everything although it's hardly an everyday occurrence anywhere. She's now getting threats of rape and death,there are some angry idiots out there who will not stop until she gets her just rewards and other women understand what's waiting for them if they aren't careful when speaking out. Whether she justly or unjustly made the accusation doesn't seem to be the point,if it were,we would see 200 plus posts every time a woman was treated wrongly or made to feel uncomfortable on the job.The conference promoters and others in the business realize there is some historical basis for discouraging sexism in their field and yet I have never seen the level of outrage directed toward it as there is for this one woman and this single incident.

[redqueen]

246. Excellent post.

[MoclipsHumptulips]

248. Very well said sufrommich.

Thank you.

"The truth is,many women in the work force face sexism every day but you won't ever see the kind of outrage for them that you see for this one woman in this one situation. It's being used as a parable for how those mean old feminists ruin everything although it's hardly an everyday occurrence anywhere. "

Spot on.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

249. And this blog, by a woman in the field, says she's just a whackadoodle

http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

See, there is no need to create an imaginary boogeyman in this instance. Just talking about a real life asshole who enjoys going out of their way to make you take notice.

[Warren DeMontague]

258. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN OVERREACTION! EVAH!

Unless, of course, you're talking about the brilliant satire of someone like Valerie Solanas saying "let's kill all the men in as gruesome a manner as possible", in which case you just don't appreciate good humor.

[uponit7771]

256. +1

[Warren DeMontague]

257. translation: This makes people who complain about things like "dongle" jokes look like petty tyrants

and hypocrites, so let's please stop talking about it.

[BainsBane]

270. Absolutely.

[Vinnie From Indy]

271. First of all, there was no sexism or mysogyny related to the original

incident.

You wrote,
"The conference promoters and others in the business realize there is some historical basis for discouraging sexism in their field"

The men involved in the incident were not sexist nor did they display any hatred toward women.

You wrote,
"Whether she justly or unjustly made the accusation doesn't seem to be the point"

It would seem to be the point for the man that got fired and his wife and their three children.

Lastly, this situation was thrust into our face on DU as it has become a big story in the tech world. Trying to offer that all criticism of Ms. Richards is invalid because A FEW idiots threatened her via the Internet doesn't cut it in my book.

Cheers!

[MannyGoldstein]

254. You know, if engineers got fired every time they made social faux-pas...

... actually, that might explain my employment history...

[JVS]

266. It could also explain the collapse of our technology to a new stone age.

We just better hope nobody holds the door for a woman carrying a pot of shit out of the cave, or we'll be in big trouble.

[tabasco]

259. It's all about power with some people

I'm sure she got a great rush when she found out she got somebody fired. I doubt if she was offended one bit. Just saw her opportunity to attack someone and feel power.

[Warren DeMontague]

267. She's going to parlay this into a career as an internet Klaxon, no doubt.

"Don't retreat, reload!"



JOAN OF ARC OF THE DONGLES HAS SPOKEN

[Vinnie From Indy]

272. Yep!

Ms. Richards will forever be linked to the historic Donglegate incident of 2013.

[Demo_Chris]

286. The collective has her name now. I suspect she is about to start hating life n/t

[Warren DeMontague]

275. I hear tell that AMC is having a problem with Jon Hamm's dongle

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2558141

[Kurovski]

279. And here I sit, still two months away from getting my dongle management degree from DeVry.

Life ain't fair. it just ain't fair.

[Warren DeMontague]

280. Apparently, all you need is a good pair of boxers to tame one of those suckers.

[Kurovski]

281. Sure, that's what Hanes, Inc. WANTS you to believe.

Protocol, protocol.

[Warren DeMontague]

282. The Fruit-Loom-Industrial Complex.

[Kurovski]

283. And now...you are on their list

May God have mercy on your soul.

You have raisin to reach a safe house.