Fair usually, however, the conference provided a mechanism by which she could "unsubscribe". Basically she joined a conversation, and didn't like it, and could have just left or asked them to stop. Or if she was uncomfortable with that, because it can be uncomfortable to do that, she could have asked the conference staff to help. Which she did. And they responded and ended the situation.
The real problem is that she took what could have been a simple case of "inappropriate but dealt with" to a completely different and public level.
I'd even offer "contact conference organizers in a non-public way if you don't feel comfortable confronting the other person directly".
Some people have a hard time addressing these issues directly – particularly when in the minority (by gender, in this case). It happens, and I'm not going to judge it. The issue here isn't that she was offended, but, rather, that she went from 0 to 100% full-on public on a well-trafficked twitter feed. She certainly skipped a few steps in the ladder of escalation, sure, but I think she had options other than just those you present. Just say'n.
She had many options. She could have gotten out of her seat and found a staff member to talk to. She could have sent an email. She could have called one of the numbers listed in the pycon code of conduct.
Instead, she posted a photo of some men on the Internet in order to publicly humiliate them. Are you advocating that people act this way whenever they get offended at a conference?
What this fails to mention is the _way_ that Adria handled it.
If she hadn't conducted a massively public shaming exercise, rather than saying "Shut up, I'm trying to watch a conference and listening to your dick jokes isn't helping." and then escalated to the conference organisers if that hadn't helped, and _then_ escalated to a public name/shame if _that_ hadn't helped, then I think people would be much happier with the situation.
| Instead she cowardly chose to not engage
| them directly
So... If someone is too intimidated for direct confrontation, their voice is not welcome / allowed to be heard?
1. Contacting the conference officials is a valid action to take.
2. Turning the incident into a blog post is ok too. It sparks public discussion.
3. Posting pictures and names is not. Especially since this seems to be a 'straw the broke the camel's back' situation, and I doubt that these same guys were the ones that offended her all of the other times. They get to take the full force of her fury that built up over (possibly) several incidents. That's not entirely fair. Even more so because she was just a by-stander to a conversation that was intended to be private.
They were in the middle of an auditorium, which is the opposite of private. Regardless of whether it constitutes harassment, the conference has a specific policy against it. Everyone involved said he was wrong and she was right, including they guy, who apologized in person and later in public on HN. She didn't ask for him to be fired.
Taking pictures at conferences and posting them on Twitter happens all the time. That's definitely not abuse. Quoting what people say at conferences also happens all the time. So that's not abuse. She was not involved in the firing; if that's abuse, it's not hers.
She explained why she didn't just tell them to be quiet on her blog. But here's my take:
It is not her job to teach people how to behave properly in public. It is their job to behave properly. And it's the conference organizers' job to maintain a safe space, one where everybody is behaving according to conference standards. And when they heard about the problem, they jumped on it.
Yes, and the situation on the conference was reported to the conference staff, the people involved were talked to, and the situation was resolved. Or so, it seems. Then Aria continued her public shaming, and the whole thing escalated.
So why couldn't you turn around and shh them? Move away from the "offending conversation?"
To me this appears that you intentionally set out to get them kicked out of the conference. You: 1. Tweeted about it 2. Took your phone to take a picture of them [they are "in a public space" or in a private space that allows photography (I'm assuming) but it's still a bit creepy] 3. Tweeted the "offending" rule to the staff.
Don't take this as an attack against you [or even in this situation] However, how would you feel if you were asked to leave a conference from a non-PC comment in a semi-private conversation that you had with someone? How would you feel if that ended your revenue source and/or tarnished your professional reputation?
[My 2c, get off your high horse and be an adult for once: People are going to say things you don't like, get over it. About the photo pit, I find this action extremely uncomfortable.. The same "right" you exercised could be turned around for you.. Someone could start photographing you and make you feel uncomfortable. ]
EDIT: Empowerment has nothing to do about interacting with other individuals. Theres no such thing as a lack of "empowerment" that prevents women from handling the situation with a "ssh" or moving away from the conversation. Could you have even mentioned to the people directly that you're offended, granted you'd look silly as that this is a very minor situation.
To be clear, what she did was this: she saw something she thought was utterly vile and morally reprehensible being seemingly "celebrated" in a talk. The talk wasn't necessarily happening yet; it was still being voted on. She mentioned in her podcast that there was a talk on this and suggested that her listeners vote on it.
Suppose the talk referenced something about how to beat your wife. Do you think it would have been so terrible to handle it that way?
Sure, maybe it's better to talk to the organizers together. But come on, surely you can understand why one might handle it that way -- especially since the talks were still being voted on it.
If this was wrong, it was only a very mild transgression. It does not form a pattern.
It's curious that you mention the barrage of rape and murder threats in passing, but reserve the weight of your outrage for the manner in which a woman reported inappropriate behaviour at a conference. And it was inappropriate, a clear violation of the code of conduct, as the conference organizers confirmed.
> Why? She reported the microaggression to the relevant organizers through a public channel.
As I understand it, the particular use of a public channel (particularly, the use of a photograph in it) was itself a direct violation of the Code of Conduct of the conference, and an unnecessary escalation. The only arguably excuse for such public shaming, independently of whether or not it was a violation of the Code of Conduct, would be if the act were more something significantly more serious on its own than she described (though a public complaint about the organizers would be in line if the act, as described, was privately reported and the organizers failed to deal with it in such a way that that failure was itself a hostile.)
i) The children don't come into it because she should have known that her actions were wildly disproportionate even if there were no dependents involved. Do you agree or disagree that her response lacked proportionality?
ii) Again, I'll point out that she did not in fact just report the incident to the conference staff. Any hypothetical scenario in which her response was not to publicise her grievance misses the main reason she deserves the harsh judgement she is receiving.
iii) You're presenting completely irrelevent scenarios as if they're relevant. Is the standard for responsible behaviour in the case of the gang rape of an unconscious teen different from the standard for responsible behaviour in the case of hearing a mildly risque joke by a guy in the row behind you at a tech conference? Is it very different? Is is very very very different? Is is perhaps so very different as to be utterly irrelevant?
Like I said, you have a problem with presenting apposite context and addressing proportionality. Try talking about what actually happened.
If I remember the story correctly, part of the backlash was that she didn't point out to them how what they were saying wasn't cool. She went straight to the conference heads, presumably to get the dongle jokers kicked out or reprimanded in some way. And then she further escalated the situation by tweeting and blogging about it.
Now, maybe that was the right way to do it. Maybe it wasn't. And I don't know if she "tried to start a witch hunt." But she did put it into the public sphere. And people reacted.
We don't know anything about the accusers, do we? I don't think it's fair to assume they had malicious intentions.
Specifically, I don't think we can assume that the people who were uncomfortable with the talk were like "this speaker should be banned from the conference". Maybe the initial message was closer to "hey, this seems a bit harsh and distracts from the actual content, maybe the speaker wouldn't mind toning it down for the next talk".
I said this in another post and I'm going to repeat myself here. Social media is powerful (look at the recent Steubenville fiasco) and if you are going to put somebody out to hang you better be right. Considering she is part of the pr group for her company (developer evangelist?) I believe she has an understanding of what a twitter account with 9000 followers can do.
>Isn't this exactly what happened though?
Also, don't try to play with words, she did that and more. The sensible response would have been to tell them to stop and then if they didn't, contact one of the staff. A post on twitter saying "Conference etiquette: Sexual innuendos about forking and dongles are not cool" without a picture would have been much MUCH more tasteful.
I'm not trying to demonize her. People harassing her online are inappropriate and should apologize as well (but probably won't because they're anonymous cowards). The men were technically violating the conference's code of conduct and have already apologized. It's her turn now, that's all I'm saying.
edit: Sorry, I did not understand your post (I think you may have edited it later?). I'm not hard on myself. Not sure where you gathered that from. I just don't like someone representing a group I'm a part of if they are going to fuck up its reputation by acting reckless.
You know, if she wasn't such a publicity-seeking hypocritical douchebag, I'd take your point. However, her pattern of behavior clearly shows that to be the case (she was tweeting sexual innuendos while at the conference).
So I think her MO was not "I feel vulnerable because some guys are making me uncomfortable, this is wrong, I'll do something about it". It was rather "I have a bully pulpit from which I can demonize some schmoes and raise my status at the same time, so I'll do it". Therefore the discussion of her over or under-reacting is moot - this was a publicity stunt that ended up backfiring on her.
While I regret people being fired, I can't help but feel that her ultimate downfall is deserved.
I think the majority of criticism is that she escalated things so rapidly to publicly shaming people who didn't deserve it costing a man his job over a silly dick joke that that majority of women wouldn't have batted an eye over.
If she didn't publicly identify him, no one would have cared.
If she had simply notified the conference staff, no one would have cared.
She took it to extremes, and now the internet is responding in kind.
The real problem is that she took what could have been a simple case of "inappropriate but dealt with" to a completely different and public level.
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