Being an asshole does not make you awesome

https://devandpencil.herokuapp.com/blog/2013/10/09/being-an-asshole-does-not-make-you-awesome/

by llamataboot • 13 years ago

31 96 13 years ago

devandpencil.herokuapp.com

This article is more than a little hyperbolic. The "perform like a porn star" deck was the "only time someone reacted to the fact that women are generally treated differently in the Rails / Ruby world"? Really?

It seems to me that there's generally about one very high profile incident every other month or so involving sexism within the developer (generally specifically web-dev, and primarily RoR) community.

The fact that so many high-profile incidents exist is a sign that there's plenty of work to be done, but a lack of attention is hardly the problem.

llamataboot3• 13 years ago

Mostly posted to highlight the response of the Ruby facebook admin. Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet and whose comments are, quite frankly, part of the problem of misogyny in tech.

roarroar16• 13 years ago

It is extremely dishonest of you to accuse this person of _hating women_ based upon his dislike of particular kinds of activism within the programming field.

jacalata9• 13 years ago

Here's some more evidence for you, from his public facebook posts[0]: "Fuck women, they are coddled and have their needs met their entire lives so they never see past their own needs to empathize with others."

[0] https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426 [1]: imgur version for non-facebookers http://imgur.com/kKVmGKm

lambda7• 13 years ago

Misogyny is not necessarily hating women, but can also mean fearing, disliking, distrusting, and otherwise treating women as fundamentally different and inferior to men.

Claiming that a man asking that people not be immature assholes means that "a progressive movement is being coopted by women who want to make it about their vagina" is pretty much a textbook example of misogyny.

Claiming that software engineering is a "male space" (so, what, do that make the female software engineers I work with some kind of intruders on my "male space"?) is also a textbook example of misogyny.

What is it going to take for you to accept that this guy is a misogynist? Actually physically harming women? There are a lot more ways to spread fear, distrust, and hatred than just physical harm.

lucisferre3• 13 years ago

Agreed based on that and some cursory reading of that group and Aaron's own public timeline he's doing us all an incredible disservice.

pekk7• 13 years ago

And not representing many of us, let alone all of us.

jamesbritt• 13 years ago

Who, while in a position of completely unofficial power, is still de facto representing part of the Ruby community on the internet

Perhaps people should be encouraged to stop assigning value to other people based on nothing more than their visibility. Maybe, instead, assign value to the content of their work, be it code, blog posts, presentations, etc.

Someone who starts or runs a forum is just that. They are not a [thought|community|whatever] leader or spokesperson, however much they may think themselves so.

This is just intellectual laziness. These people represent no one but themselves, and people should stop suggesting otherwise.

paulwithap2• 13 years ago

Foul language!???!? SOMEONE WRITE A BLOG POST TO PROTECT THE HELPLESS WOMEN!

ndespres2• 13 years ago

There's a big difference between "foul language" and that which is offensive, inconsiderate, exclusionary, and generally sexist, having the result of making women feel unsafe/unwelcome in this space.

Check your privilege, dude.

pekk7• 13 years ago

You are agreeing with the person to whom you are responding, that foul language is not sexism.

"Check your privilege" is virtually never a helpful thing to say.

quinnchr6• 13 years ago

So you don't think there's any merit to the argument that women might not want to work with a piece of software called rape-me?

kawsper• 13 years ago

Why would anyone want to work with a piece of software called rape-me?

paulwithap2• 13 years ago

There are childish assholes everywhere, and this guy seems to take a few Rubygems with names like "ass" (how sexist!) and claim that this is indicative of a general attitude of he-man woman-hating in the programming community. The entire thing is absolutely ridiculous.

vertr07• 13 years ago

Reddit is over there. <<<<<<<

anonymoushn• 13 years ago

Hoe is a gardening implement. Like rake.

D9u• 13 years ago

Where I come from, the word "hoe" is a verb, meaning, "to paddle," as in a canoe.

duairc2• 13 years ago

That's pretty funny from the admin guy. He describes the person who posted the piece as "politically correct thought police", and then right afterwards threatens to ban them if they post anything else "like this", i.e., anything whose politics he disagrees with.

muzz• 13 years ago

Instead of "funny" you could also say "hypocritical"

duairc2• 13 years ago

Yes, I could.

I don't like the word "hypocritical" though, because it implies that contradicting oneself like that is the moral failing of an individual. But really, we all contradict ourselves all the time, and we don't even realise it. These types of contradictions are interesting not because they show that the person who makes them is bad or stupid, but because they reveal the ideologies that structure their thoughts, behaviours and actions, and the contradictions embedded therein. In fact "ideology" itself can be thought of as a kind of blindness to contradictions.

In this particular case, the admin guy is probably not stupid. I'm sure he sees the contradiction in (p ^ ¬p). But he also is a man, and obviously feels threatened by feminism because it seeks to take away his male privilege (in this case, the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining^), and thus is motivated by ideology to defend his male privilege. This ideology is powerful enough that he can blatantly contradict himself and not even see that he's done so.

^ I know the admin guy wasn't misogynist himself, or at least the original article wasn't about his misogyny, I am just saying that male privilege generally grants men the right to be misogynist without anybody else complaining (certainly in the "male spaces" that the admin guy is talking about), and feminism threatens to take that right away from him.

thetrb• 13 years ago

Wow, what an idiotic response by the FB group admin at the end of the post.

throwaway866• 13 years ago

Yes. Filter gem names to block terrible, woman-hating names like retarded, therapist, hoe, and sex. A rake is an immoral pleasure seeker[1], better get rid of that one too! That will fix your community's problems, Ruby, because that's totally what the problem is! You nailed it!

Or rather than a bunch of dudes blogging about how to fix the problem, we listen to the women for once and not treat them like a tiny snowflake, ready to melt if they read the word fuck. Christ almighty. Nothing perpetuates this sort of shit more than male voices of authority saying "women can't handle a gem named 'bj'! We're assholes if we let it stand!"

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5H5r4_CoJo

Edit: Good, this pile of shit got flagged off HN.

hobs2• 13 years ago

To be fair, rape-me is over the top. Sex being bad though? Do women hate sex? When did sex become misogyny? :(

yaddayadda• 13 years ago

I'd add bitch and recursive_pimp_slap to the clearly over the top list.

throwaway866• 13 years ago

I agree with you on rape-me, which is why I left it out. There's an American breed of thought which says that the mere mention of anything related to sex demeans women and objectifies them, which comes from puritanical sensibilities. I've been in a meeting where someone discussed something sexual which was actually in-context to make a point about a product, and someone interrupted him and said "let's not discuss sexual matters, there are women present."

Smoked a cigarette with the woman in question later that day and she basically rolled her eyes about it.

polarix• 13 years ago

It's not clear that sexual or vulgar language (not sexist, generally, just sexual) is really the most important thing at stake for women in the profession. Probably they're more concerned with sub/unconscious bias, impostor syndrome, or, you know, actual outright abuse. Just a guess.

haberman5• 13 years ago

From the Facebook post:

"However, I really don't appreciate the co-opting of male spaces (i.e. software engineering) in to some politically correct thought police "safe space"."

I'm amazed that someone would say this.

I don't know about you guys, but I don't want software engineering to be a "male space." I didn't start programming because I wanted to spend the rest of my life being surrounded by mostly dudes.

This just really struck me because a lot of people say things like "I don't think software engineering is hostile to women." This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is unfriendly to women and I like it that way."

roarroar16• 13 years ago

You are misrepresenting what he said. Programming is primarily a male activity. That is fact. He is pointing to the attempts to co-opt the programming landscape "out-of-band" by activism - as opposed to simply taking control of and starting new projects. Your post is a perfect illustration of this sort of activism; you have put words right into the guy's mouth because you don't want to be surrounded by men.

jacalata9• 13 years ago

Really? How do you know that? You appear to be attributing intentions to him that are not actually demonstrated by his words. [edit for clarity: him = the facebook admin]

lucisferre3• 13 years ago

No I'm pretty sure the guy just hates women.

https://www.facebook.com/aaron.a78/posts/635104079844426

quinnchr6• 13 years ago

You're misrepresenting what he said. He's clearly trying to troll as hard as possible. So congratulations on agreeing with an intentionally inflammatory and sexist post I guess?

haberman5• 13 years ago

It is not my intention to misread. I'm not sure I understand how your interpretation differs from mine. Your interpretation seems to be saying "if you want a culture with a more inclusive atmosphere, start one yourself." How does this contradict my interpretation? Does this interpretation deny the female-unfriendly atmosphere of the existing culture? Does it show any more initiative/interest on his part to change this?

roin• 13 years ago

I'm not sure what a "male space" is, but it isn't software engineering. It is not a gender specific role, both men and women can do it, men and women excel at it, and men and women should be encouraged to do it. When we think of programming as a "male space" or a "male activity" we are not moving the profession forward.

Now what is a "male space"? The military? No, women are on the front lines. Finance? No, a woman is about to become the first Chairman of the Fed. Politics? No, we have 20 female US Senators and a viable Presidential candidate. Professional sports? No, women have their own leagues, and several men's teams have female execs. Software Engineering???

throwaway866• 13 years ago

I read him as brilliantly trolling Elad with everything that would trigger him to be pissed off. Simply a flawless troll against the social justice types, meant to be completely politically incorrect to infuriate the kind of person who would post with Elad did, and it seems like everybody here is biting too.

Given that Elad's reaction was to run here and post it, I'd say it worked. Most successful and subtle troll I've seen in a long time.

bradleyland3• 13 years ago

At some point, trolls have to crawl out from underneath their pre-pubecant rock and realize that "trolling" and "being an asshole" are the same thing. If trolling is the sort of thing you enjoy doing, fine, but don't expect to get along much with anyone but other assholes.

Karunamon3• 13 years ago

This kind of made me think about something I've wanted to ask for a long time but could never really crystallize until now.

I'm probably kicking a hornet's nest here, probably because I'm going to word this in a way that gives an impression I do not actually have, so, fair warning. I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt here that I'm not, in fact, a bigoted sociopath.

   <post type="devils-advocate" flame-retardant=105%/>

This guy, on the other hand, says "software engineering is hostile to women and I like it that way."

That's not what I gathered from that post.

I read it as an understandable (note: understandable means comprehend-able, not acceptable or appropriate) overreaction to a certain faction of extremists who want the focus to become about feelings and PC rather than doing cool things and getting shit done. To an extent, I sympathize with those who are scandalized when they hear the whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists, or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing from earlier in the year. Such things come off very much as an attempt to hijack or attack the culture.

Two questions.

At what point is it socially acceptable to express exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it? (Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any '$minority rights' group behaving badly)

At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in that people are going to go out of their way to offend you, but in that people have better things to spend their time on than measuring their every word for the slightest hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you, and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?

  </post>

I don't know, am I the only person that enjoys the somewhat acerbic nature of software engineering on the internet and doesn't want it to change all that much?

jacalata9• 13 years ago

You can argue that you don't want software engineering to be a 'safe space' without arguing that it should remain a 'male space'. (People might respond that this isn't possible, and that your desire for the acerbic community is outweighed by the desire for women to get into engineering, but that's a different conversation to what you'll get by saying 'I don't think women should be in engineering').

haberman5• 13 years ago

I can totally see what you are saying.

I think the part of this post that really jumped out at me was "male space." Maybe I misinterpreted, but when I read that it came off to me as a club where there are insiders and outsiders.

If he had left out the "male space" part, I would have probably assumed he meant something more like what you were saying.

pekk7• 13 years ago

A more interesting question to me is whether that acerbic, non-PC focused culture is or can be divorced from occasional sexism or even marshaled into explicit opposition to sexism (here I do not refer to donglegate as a real instance of sexism). and thus kept without any essential modification.

After all, obvious sexist drama bullshit is certainly a distraction from any business of real interest. But this is not the same thing as someone yelling about privilege.

lambda7• 13 years ago

For one, that Facebook post read pretty much as described above. Comparing someone who complains about vicious, nasty humor like "rape-me" and "recursive_pimp_slap" in a highly public place to "women who want to make it all about their vagina" and saying that people are "co-opting male spaces" pretty much says exactly that. It says "yes, it's hostile to women, and any women who complain can be reduced to a single anatomical feature, and if you complain you're trying to co-opt my playspace." There's really not much wiggle room in interpreting it.

  a certain faction of extremists

The problem is that many people who are making reasonable points, like someone who's pointing out that gems named "rape-me" really aren't acceptable in polite society, wind up being lumped in with extremists.

There may be a few extremists out there, but not many. What you see lots more are people who are tone deaf and make problems worse by going around and yelling "you're racist/sexist/homophobic", "no, you're a feminazi/PC", and on and on without ever really getting anywhere. Most of those people (on either side) aren't extremists, they're just caught in the internet spiral of hate. But just because some people go overboard on the internet spiral of hate that simply amplifies problems, doesn't mean that there aren't some real problems.

So, responding to someone who says "rape-me is not an acceptable name for a gem" with such rhetoric is instantly escalating that internet spiral of hate for no reason. Lumping people who have legitimate complaints, like "let's not have rape references in our public software repositories" or "let's try not to sexually assault people at conferences" with "extremists" is a way of dismissing those legitimate concerns and simultaneously escalating the rhetoric to the point where nothing useful will come of it.

  whinging about a Torvalds rant on the kernel lists, 
  or the extended brouhaha from the "donglegate" thing 
  from earlier in the year

These are two very different issues. One is a question of whether it's a good idea to chastise your collaborators so strongly on a public list, or whether there could be more polite ways to make your opinions known. It didn't really have any kind of discriminatory or sexist content, simply a question of the best way to encourage good practices and discourage bad ones.

The other is somewhat more relevant. It's an example of puerile humor, in a private conversation that happened to be in a public place (at least, as far as I've been able to gather). I found that it seemed to be an excessive attempt to shame people for behavior that was, as far as I can tell, supposed to be private, but was in a public place so other people could overhear it. I think that there is some reasonable debate to be had over what kind of behavior is appropriate in a public space where you can be overheard, but that there was an overreaction to it, since it was private behavior. However, the internet spiral of hate wound up blowing the whole thing out of control, in part because there are so many people who are so sensitive on both sides of these issues, and it went way beyond anything it should have.

Here's the thing. Donglegate could have been someone pointing out behavior that she considered inappropriate, and people could have taken that to heart and moved on. But lots of people overreacted. Posting people's pictures online publicly, rather than either talking to them yourself or letting PyCon staff talk to them, was an overreaction. Firing one of the people involved in the conversation was an overreaction. Firing Adria Richards was probably an overreaction, though at that point she had shown herself to be divisive enough to not be very good at community building. Sending her death threats and calling her a slut was definitely an overreaction.

So you can see several areas here were there were massive overreactions that led to this being far larger than it should have been.

Likewise with this post, the original post was a fairly reasonable request. "Let's not have nasty, rude things like rape-me in highly public, visible, and widely used code repositories". Now, some of it may have been a slight overreaction, like mentioning "hoe" (which is a clear reference to "rake") along with these other items. But what's a good way to deal with that? Probably to discuss those specifics; say that "rape-me" and "recursive_pimp_slap" are pretty clearly inappropriate, but there's really no problem with "hoe" or "therapist", and maybe discuss his point about whether there should be an explicit filter versus applying a certain amount of judgement. Those are reasonable, appropriate ways to respond to the post, that won't lead to donglegate style escalation.

Talking about "vaginas" and "co-opting of male spaces" is, well, the opposite.

  At what point is it socially acceptable to express
  exasperation with a group of people who ostensibly have
  noble goals, but then cause damage while they're at it?

It's generally socially acceptable to express exasperation with a group by pointing out specific flaws in their arguments, offering constructive criticism, and trying to de-escalate the situation. You should also be aware when doing so of whether you might be blind to some real problem, and that your response could come off as dismissive of that real problem; so you should try to first identify the problem that is being addressed, and understand why people consider it to be a problem.

  At what point is "this is not a 'safe' space, (not in 
  that people are going to go out of their way to offend 
  you, but in that people have better things to spend their 
  time on than measuring their every word for the slightest
  hint of '$ism'), so you may hear things that offend you, 
  and how you choose to interpret and deal with that is 
  entirely on you" ...an acceptable response?

Hmm. When people refer to a "safe space", they generally don't mean that no one is ever going to be offended by what someone else says. No one is going to measure out every word that they say, and always avoid stepping on someone's toes.

A safe space is instead one where you feel comfortable telling someone when you think they crossed the line, that they will respect that and not attack you for it.

One thing to keep in mind is that what's appropriate in one context may not be in another. Among close friends, you may feel perfectly comfortable telling racy jokes, or jokes about Jews or Catholics or blondes or what have you. When you're in the office, or at a conference, and there are people you don't know, you should consider that they may not take those jokes the same way that your friends do.

Think to yourself. If you have to tell someone "this is not a safe space", you are basically telling them "I do not want you in this space." Because if you want them in that space, you will make it safe for them. You don't have to tell your friends that, and can crack all the offensive jokes you want with them, because you know that they will be OK with it. But if there's someone there you know will not be OK with it, and you crack the joke, then you are saying to them "I would like to hurt you." Now, there are obviously nuances; sometimes you may crack the joke and only afterwards realize that it went to far, at which point you could choose to apologize and diffuse the situation (or make another making fun of yourself, depending on the circumstances).

On the public internet, recall that you can never be sure of who will see your joke, and how they'll react to your humor. Things you post to the public internet should be things that you are OK with your wife seeing, your grandparents seeing, your kids seeing, your buddy back from Iraq with PTSD seeing, a battered wife seeing, a child victim of sexual assault seeing, and so on.

If you want to do off-color jokes publicly like that, be sure to have a thick skin, because someone's sure to be offended and start trying to escalate that internet spiral of hate. This is where Penny Arcade slipped up; I think that the original Dickwolves comic was not a bad comic and not particularly offensive; in fact, it was lampooning ambivalence towards horrible things happening inspired by game design. But of course there was someone out there who got offended, and they made the mistake of taking offense at the offense and continuing to escalate the internet spiral of hate.

Sometimes, you do need to think to yourself and say "yes, I am OK with offending you." There are some people out there who try to pick apart everything and find something to get offended about in it. If you publish something publicly, you can't ever please them. But if you do, stop for a minute and decide if you really do want to offend them, of if maybe you'd rather let them be. And if you are sure that you are OK with offending them, then be sure of it, say your piece, and be done with it. Don't try to tell them why they shouldn't be offended. Don't make fun of them for getting offended. Just leave it be and move on.

  (Note: same answer has to apply to pretty much any
  '$minority rights' group behaving badly)

I'm curious why you call out minority rights groups. There are lots of different organizations that may have goals you agree with, and techniques you disagree with, or that you find damaging. Why do you specifically call out minority rights groups for "behaving badly"?

pekk7• 13 years ago

I trust you that he said this, but that doesn't mean he represents the whole industry or even a significant part; that's a ridiculous conclusion for you to draw. I've never heard anything like this.

zenogais2• 13 years ago

I think this article radically blurs the line between personal and professional space. Is the entire gem repository a professional space or a personal space? To my mind it's a bit of both. If you believe that self-expression is allowed in software development then I see no reason to constrict the entire space of gem names to those allowed in the author's conception of the professional realm. That's just silly.

To further extrapolate from the a small sample of the gem names to an overall problem in the software community is again a problem. I don't think gem names are the reason women are uncomfortable in tech - I don't even necessarily believe that sexism is an endemic problem. I do believe there's a gender bias in technology - the numbers are undeniable. However, I still don't necessarily buy that this is due to sexism. There are plenty of other potential reasons there are fewer women in tech than just sexism - social conditioning, selection bias, people in tech are perceived/portrayed as socially awkward, etc.

quinnchr6• 13 years ago

I completely agree that it's the combination of social conditioning, selection bias, etc that contribute to gender bias. But you can't just throw up your hands and accept the status quo because it's ingrained in our society.

The sad thing is women have been talking about this for decades, and no one wants to listen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarchy#Biological_vs._socia...).

zenogais2• 13 years ago

Well aware of the concept of patriarchy and the literature on the topic. No one's throwing their hands up. I just thought the article was terribly reductionist. All we can really say is "the activity of software development mirrors trends in the society it occurs within". Not really something earth shattering or sensational.

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

Some of those aren't even bad words like "therapist" and "hoe", and "ASS" appears to just be a poorly chosen acronym. "childlabor" doesn't offend any specific group and the name makes sense in context ("ChildLabor is a gem that helps manage child processes.")

Some of the other links don't even lead to anything. And I'm not sure why it's considered an issue that a few people name things after cuss words, but that's just me. And inappropriateness aside, since when are words like "fuck" or "sex" offensive to women, specifically?

And yet he freely uses the word "asshole". Which is a bit excessive to say the least for people merely using inappropriate words.

And then the whole "Oh no he said 'porn star', he must hate women!" What on Earth?

bradleyland3• 13 years ago

Hoe is a garden implement. I'm really surprised that the author included it in the group. Specifically, the hoe gem is a tool for building gems. The utility uses other farming/hoeing metaphors like sow.

I can't get behind you on the 'porn star' debacle. The vast majority of non-gay, male-oriented porn is horrifically misogynistic. I have a lot of respect for Matt as a Rubyist, but that choice was a poor one. I'm not suggesting we put him up on the cross here, but we should all be prepared to acknowledge the truths about pornography and what it means to incorporate that in to what is supposed to be a professional education experience.

Houshalter2• 13 years ago

You can say the name was inappropriate, to suggest it was sexist is ridiculous though. And the world is moving beyond the whole "porn is a sin" garbage.

fatman• 13 years ago

A few months back, while sitting in another company-wide, mandatory sexual harassment seminar, I figured that, for 90% of the audience, the entire presentation could be replaced with a single side: "Don't be an asshole."

However, as I read about more and more of these type of incidents, 90% might be somewhat high.

danso• 13 years ago

Jesus, seriously? Rubygems has 64,000 gems and as far as I know, there's no policy to give gems prior review. So the fact that a few people over the years have decided to troll Rubygems lack of Apple-like barrier means that the Ruby community has a sexism problem? That, and something that happened in 2008?

Yes, and of course the horrible incident that was blogged about this weekend. But that was not a Ruby thing...that was an alcohol-fueled bar scene with a supervisor who egregiously abused his power. But what about that situation makes it specifically a Ruby thing? That it doesn't happen at any other kind of conference? Talk about being isolated in your own world...

This is not to say that sexism and sexual harassment isn't a problem. No, in fact, I believe they continue to be a much more massive problem than the oP's incidents can begin to describe. But it's not about Ruby or the Ruby community in particular, and by viewing it as such, you narrow the range of social action and awareness needed to combat the problem.

zainny• 13 years ago

This entire post is absurd.

It's almost entirely analogous in my mind to the idea that because there are books that perhaps feature words like "sex" and "miniskirts" that this is offensive, the entire author community is broken, and this is why women don't read books! GUYS GUYS, we absolutely need to start censoring what people can write about! FYI, I think we should all base our moral code on the American christian values...just sayin'!

Here's an idea - women aren't all delicate flowers you need to white-knight on the internet. They can handle seeing words like "bj" and "shag".

vezzy-fnord• 13 years ago

Can we please go at least one week without being hypersensitive postmodernists about everything?

It seems that men complain about the lack of women in computing more than women do.

When did trolling become a social justice issue suddenly?

llamataboot3• 13 years ago

oh look! flagged off the front page as per usual on hacker news.

justintocci• 13 years ago

Official downloads from official websites probably should have a filter. I don't see those names as useful. They are a dark pattern, forcing you to click on the package because the name gives you no hint as to their function. If a cop plants evidence why discuss his choice of cocaine over heroin?

Peer pressure = bullying.

I think the best strategy for raising the bar of acceptable behavior is the same as fighting vandalism. Create wide open spaces, keep them clean and orderly, make positive improvements and point people to those places. Spray painting a neon star around every broken window (these blog posts lately) does the opposite of help. From what i understand, RailsGirls has the right idea.

Being an asshole does not make you awesome

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