#adria richards

[asexualbenwyatt]

reading Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. I liked The Psychopath Test and watched a video of him telling one of the stories in this book so I thought I’d check it out

definitely interesting so far but he

doesn’t get some things

like re: Adria Richards, the woman who tweeted about the two guys who made a sexual dongle joke at a tech conference. one of the guys (”Hank”) got fired, got a new job immediately. Adria got fired as well, was still unemployed at the time of writing, got rape threats. Hank got “he should be fired” threats.

Ronson calls Adria “an inapproriate shamer” and clearly doesn’t understand why she felt the need to tweet about the issue, implies it wasn’t that big a deal. Adria says that maybe it was Hank’s fault this all happened; Ronson was “taken aback” and later sent her an email explaining that Hank claims he never responded to diatribe about Adria and kept out of it. 

Ronson thinks Hank was inappropriately shamed. He doesn’t think anyone’s really appropriately shamed, as so far his thesis seems to be that online shaming goes too far, is too anonymous, too cruel, unnecessary. but he really doesn’t get why Adria was upset. 

"Have you ever heard that thing, ‘Men are afraid that women will laugh at them and women are afraid that men will kill them’?” she said.

I told Adria that people might consider that an overblown thing to say. She had, after all, been in the middle of a tech conference with eight hundred bystanders.

“Sure,” Adria replied. “And those people would probably be white and they would probably be male.”

This seemed like a weak gambit. Men can sometimes be correct. There is some Latin for this kind of logical fallacy. It’s called an ad hominem attack. When someone can’t defend a criticism against them, they change the subject by attacking the criticizer. 

(page 118, So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed)

mansplainin’ at its finest

[starspacerose-blog]

When you see a woman of color standing in the room, take a moment to think about her journey to get there despite racism and sexism

Adria Richards

[sarahmarian]

First is the reason why pile-ons become as giant as they do. To begin with, we’ve all seen Internet pile-ons that begin with a kernel of absolute rightness. Someone writes or shares something inconsiderate and someone else points it out, saying, “Hey, that post sucked.” What happens next is the shaming: a thousand other people jump in and say, “I agree, that posts sucks and so does its writer!” — even when and if the subject has already apologized. Ronson explains this phenomenon by talking about feedback loops, the reason why people slow down when a speedometer reading “your speed” is posted on the road. “We express our opinion that Jutsine Sacco is a monster. We are instantly congratulated for this — for basically being Rosa Parks. We make the on-the-spot decision to carry on believing it,” he writes.

Jon Ronson’s So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed and Its Backlash – Flavorwire

[wearytravelermusings]

Some Of Us Are Brave, Honest, & Transparent: The Adria Richards Edition

The almost sadistic-like sport of Twitter dragging Adria Richards is why we need feminism more now than ever before.  Adria Richards is brave, honest, and transparent; now the real question is this: will you be brave, honest, and transparent in defending her?

In the interest of full disclosure, the Adria Richards saga, and it's a saga at this point, is so much more than what happened at the PyCon Conference. Second, I had no idea who Adria Richards was until I started seeing tweets using racial slurs and surmised that she is: (i) an African-American woman, (ii) who is brilliant at what she does, (iii) and she happens to be outspoken and believes in transparency. Put simply, she's always been a target and will continue to be a target.

I normally don't do a "call & response" on the Internet. I find it counterproductive and the time-lag between replies often times mean that my attentions will surely be placed elsewhere and chaos and confusion ensues. But I'll make an exception for this.  Consider this post my response to Amanda Blum's call. You can read Blum's piece here: http://amandablumwords.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/3/

When I read about the Adria Richards situation, I was a bit unnerved. We live in the age of social media. I've been the victim of naming and shaming based on shoddy screenshots that were omitted or altered from their original state. So I know how a social media thrashing feels, which is why I feel comfortable enough to speak out on the topic.

From the few early sources I read, there was some confusion about what happened, and I thought that Richards was "probably" wrong. Thank God for discernment. It wasn't that Richards was wrong, but rather the sources people kept tweeting to me were wrong—or biased.

Yes, Adria Richards overheard dick jokes at the PyCon conference. Yes, she didn't ask the two behind her to stop making those dick jokes. Yes, she does have a large social media following. Yes, she took a photo of the two making the joke and posted it to her Twitter account and her blog. Now that we have the facts out there. here's my question: So what? Isn't this the age of "name and shame?" How many of you Richards foes were upset when an entire town was named and shamed (read: Stuebenville)? How many of you Richards foes were upset when innocent people, going about their daily lives, were posted to Reddit and People of WalMart for infamous Internet scorn?

Unlike the people of Reddit and People of WalMart at least Richards wasn't being a bully, she was acting because her trigger-warnings went off. I, for one, won't question that. And for white feminists to claim she should have handled it differently is a betrayal of feminism.

What Adria Richards did was what she thought she could do according to her understanding of what would keep her safe. For people who want to understand this, I would suggest you read Michael Omi and Howard Winant's classic text Race Formation In the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. Richards is a black woman in an industry dominated by frat-boy like white males. These two white males were at a professional conference, ya know, aka being at work. Why they thought telling a dick joke, even in a hushed tone, was appropriate is where our focus should be. But, in our post-racial state, we're talking about the black woman who should recalibrate her trigger-warnings? This is mindbogglingly dumb to me. No, Richards shouldn't have put herself in the line of fire by speaking to these two. Why should she? A logical person wouldn't have either. This isn't the 1950s anymore. In-person, public shaming or requests to "cut it out" can result in swift retribution or violence. For women to claim they are feminists and not to comprehend that is beyond the pale to me.   

One such woman who doesn't comprehend the above is Amanda Blum. Her hit piece about how "we all lost" really disappointed me. People on Twitter are acting like Blum's piece is a definitive account of what happened and what should have happened. This is more than just problematic, it's vile.

According to Amanda Blum, the issue at PyCon isn't about naming and shame, per se, but about what Blum claims is Richards "established pattern of action." What action might that be? Adria Riachards has the courage to be brave, honest, and transparent about sexism, racism, and other ills that hinder us from forming a "more perfect union."

Blum states matter-of-factly that she doesn't like Richards because Richards is publicly transparent. In her first example, Richards didn't follow the tried-and-true boy's club rules of keeping her issues "in-house." When Richards was asked to give a public talk, she agreed, and then became aware of another talk. The name of the other talk was "Getting The Money Shot." Blum acts obtuse and wonders quite seriously why Richards didn't address her complaint about the name of the talk with the conference or the presenter.

Let's be honest and transparent here. Why should Richards put herself in the line of fire directly by going to the conference organizers or the presenter and saying, "You know, the name of that talk isn't appropriate. Would you mind changing it? Thanks." This seems to be a pattern from Blum that makes me, as a black male feminist, extremely uncomfortable. I don't lecture people, and definitely not women, on the dangers of speaking out. But I will give some advice to Blum. The world isn't a nice place, particularly for black women. And if Richards thought that addressing this in a public podcast was appropriate, you should respect that. After all, you're part of the reason that Richards feels the need to constantly go public in the first place. Who titles a talk "Getting The Money Shot" and then wonders why someone wouldn't feel comfortable addressing why that title is inappropriate? This is like some bad comedy.

Blum continues that in a different universe, she could imagine how this all should have gone down. Why, how lovely. This is what one calls white privilege gone awry. Again, Blum seems to want to remove the fact that women in tech hold a tenuous position and for black women, that position, like in the rest of society, is on the last rung of the ladder.

My biggest disappointment from the Blum piece was how she actually stated that SendGrid should have "made" Richards apologize. Really now? Apologize for not talking to men who think it's appropriate to tell dick jokes at a public forum? This seems like a petty line of reasoning. And I have yet to see Blum's piece on why men shouldn't be making dick jokes and the consequences from said dick jokes. But I won't hold my breath on that.

The real issue isn't that Richards named and shamed two people. The real issue here is that Richards made foes along the way and those foes smell blood, and they are now attacking. I am not saying Richards is a saint. I am not saying that Richards should have taken the picture. But I am willing to bet my last breath that if Richards were a white woman who did the same thing, the female tech community would have rallied around her. Richards isn't white and she believes in using her voice and her platform. If anything, Blum should apologize for her anti-feminist hit piece and actually read a few books before making herself seem like a truly sad individual who is only out to settle scores from 3 years ago.  

In summation, we didn't all lose. Richards will be okay once the smoke clears. I'll tell you who did lose though. SendGrid did lose. Amanda Blum lost as well. And all the white feminists out there who want to create these little utopias (read: what Adria Richards should have done) that only apply to black women, they lost too.  If anything good is to come from this, I hope it's a serious discussion about how white privilege is real, I hope we also see how attacks of black women who speak out are increasing, and it's time to face the reality that otherwise reasonable people will side with white male patriarchy against a black woman because they think doing so will save them in the future. It won't. Domination will continue to rein and justice will continue to be illusive.

Here are some other book selections for those who are sincerely interested in learning from this:

Melissa V. Harris-Perry (2011). Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, And Black Woman In America: For Colored Girls Who've Considered Politics When Being Strong Isn't Enough.

Gloria T. Hull, Patricia Bell Scott, & Barbara Smith (1993). All The Women Are White, All The Blacks Are Men: But Some Of Us Are Brave: Black Women's Studies.

Frances Smith Foster, Beverly Guy-Sheftall, & Stanlie M. James (2009). Still Brave: The Evolution Of Black Women's Studies.

"But in a world where thousands of anonymous men can instantly gather to deliver swift retribution against any perceived threat, it's easy to understand why more women don't speak out." -- Russell Brandom The Verge.

The miseducation is real and the struggle continues..

(This is a re-post. This blog entry was originally published in March 2013.)

[ohironyyouresoironic-blog]

Just another IT story about...murder! Except not really.

You may remember earlier last year when a female attendee of a tech conference was fired after she tweeted the picture of two fellow male conference attendees who violated the conference code of conduct by making sexist remarks. Long story short, what follows is she was fired (as well as one of the men), and in addition, received plenty of tweets from angry men calling her every name in the book and threatening rape.

And since I’m about fed up with this, I’d like to share my experiences as a woman in IT. Before I start though, I’d like to say to be fair, I do not think any of these men were trying to be intentionally sexist at all, but when you’re in a predominantly male environment things tend to slip out but are swept under the rug.

First thing to remember while reading these, is that women in IT have almost no recourse. For example, if you have a team of twelve people, and two of them are women, if you go to HR and they address it everyone will know exactly who said something thereby alienating you further. Second, is that by saying these things, coworkers immediately remind you that you are not first and foremost a colleague with equal skills and abilities, rather you are a woman first (one that just happens to know some tech stuff). That hurts, and is demoralizing, and not being able to say anything just makes it worse and allows the behavior to continue. I work damn hard, as most women in IT that I know do – too hard to be belittled by thoughtless comments.

So here are the fun (and perhaps unintentionally) sexist comments that I’ve witnessed personally:

-          Walking in the first day of a new job and being told I should be OK with everyone quipping “that’s what she said” after every slightly sexualized comment. For example, when talking about cleaning up code, someone said “we’ll have to pull it out” – queue the “that’s what she said” comment…again. Cause come on, I’m “cool” (as opposed to what, other women?), I should be totally fine with it, everyone else was. Except everyone else in that room was male.

-          Before a SCRUM the great joke “Why are women’s feet smaller? So they can stand closer to the oven” hahaha.

-          In a UI meeting – why can’t we make a “filter” icon look like something people will understand, like a car air filter because “guys would understand that”

-          Again before a SCRUM – developer jokes that his wife didn’t know how much horsepower an engine had and he made fun of her for that. When I told him he really shouldn’t take that any further, he retorted “well you could tell me how many cups of flour it takes to make pancake batter. I wouldn’t know that.” Oh, well that makes it OK then.

-          The ladies I'd worked with threw me a very nice little wedding shower, for those of you who don’t know why there are wedding showers I will briefly enlighten – wedding showers came into existence because if a woman wanted to get married, and the father did not approve and therefore would not provide a dowry, the women’s female friends and relatives would get together to basically give her the things she’d need for married life. So when told about the event, a management level colleague stated “well if you get to have a wedding shower, the dudes here should get a cigar and porn party”. I’m not sure why he felt compelled to say this, but I do know that he kept mentioning this “guys cigar and porn party” multiple times after that occasion. No one said men couldn’t come to the shower if they wanted to.

-          Female colleague with superior skills was passed over for a promotion they ended up giving to a less qualified, junior male developer because he was “in the boy’s club” with the higher-ups (an all-male management staff).

As I’ve been in IT for over a decade, I could easily go on with more examples, but it’s truly just too disheartening. So I hope if any male worker (especially in IT) reads this, please, please think before you open your mouth. And I know…blah blah First Amendment, freedom, another sensitive woman, etc. but here’s the thing…I don’t go around yelling “FUCK SHIT ASS!!!” at your children just because a document says I can – it’s inappropriate. Which is exactly what this type of sexism is, inappropriate.

[benjiwasawookie]

I one had a girl like Adria Richards as a friend of Facebook. A lot of people need to learn when they are taking it to far. 

EDIT:  So I got a pretty hilarious set of hate mail from one very self entitled feminist over this. Truth be told it could have been either the Facebook friend or even someone I still know who isn;t quite confident enough to be wrong off the internet.