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posted by LaminatorX on Monday April 07 2014, @08:51AM   Printer-friendly
from the Don't-be-a-jerk! dept.

Written in a New York Times article and summarily paraphrased here,

Elissa Shevinsky can pinpoint the moment when she felt that she no longer belonged. She was at a friend's house watching the live stream of the TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon, when she saw that it opened with two men who developed an app called Titstare. After some banter, one of Titstare's developers proudly proclaimed, "This is the breast hack ever."

Ms. Shevinsky felt pushed to the edge. Women who enter fields dominated by men often feel this way. "It's a thousand tiny paper cuts," is how Ashe Dryden, a programmer who now consults on increasing diversity in technology, described working in tech. Women in tech like Shevinsky and Dryden advocate working to change the tech culture from inside-out, but other women like Lea Verou write that,

' women-only conferences and hackathons cultivate the notion that women are these weak beings who find their male colleagues too intimidating...As a woman, I find it insulting and patronizing to be viewed that way.'

This all being hot on the heels of engineer Julie Ann Horvath's departure from Github as a result of similar concern.

Any of you care to address your own personal experiences or opinions regarding the subject matter; as well as the accuracy of the articles' stories compared to the industry-at-large?

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @12:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @12:15PM (#27413)

    And yet Brendan Eich had to step down as CEO, great doublethink there.
    Either the rules are the same for everyone at all times or they are just as unjust as sexism, racism or whatever else.

  • (Score: 2) by naubol on Tuesday April 08 2014, @03:22AM

    by naubol (1918) on Tuesday April 08 2014, @03:22AM (#27925)

    The rules are the same for everyone, don't be an intolerant bigot about other people's lives. Let them live as they want, accord them the same rights, and don't promote suffering. Unfortunately, Eich didn't want to follow these rules.

    This is sort of like saying that we're against freedom because we make laws against murder. Tolerance is not tolerant of bigotry, it is intolerant of bigotry.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @04:34PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 08 2014, @04:34PM (#28270)

      You do of course realize that the idea of putting a label on someone to justify your injustice is not a valid concept, just like labeling someone a witch, traitor, terrorist, whore, nonbeliever or whatever else is in fashion at the moment doesn't automatically mean that you are right and they are wrong.
      In this case you are wrong, Brendan did not mistreat people at work, he left his personal opinion at home.
      This article is once again the same story, this woman watched something on her free time, nothing to do with anything that happened at work.

      Leave your personal opinion at home and respect others that do the same, wether they happen to share your beliefs or not.