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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?
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 07 2014, @03:19PM
> in my mind a woman whipping out her breast to breastfeed in public is no different to a man whipping out his penis and publicly urinating.
I don't want to be the flame you anticipated but what you wrote is just... wierd.
Urination is, by it's nature, offensive. Urine is a waste product, it smells bad, it is unsanitary if not disposed of properly. That's why we have discrete little rooms where people can do it and (hopefully) wash their hands afterwards.
Breastfeeding is none of those things. It's not stinky or icky or dirty or gross. It's just a baby drinking milk.
I really don't see any equivalence between the two, except that in both cases a body part which western society normally insists on covering up gets exposed. BFD. The sight of a boob (or a penis, for that matter) is not going to hurt me or anybody else.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @03:32PM
Blah, as long as we have a society where both dogs and cats urinate publicly I find your arguments about the ick factor of urine to be largely irrelevant, there are plenty of places where the urine would cause no issues that are considered public, I'm not suggesting that you take a piss indoors or on the street right where people are walking. And what if you really, really, really have to pee and can't find a bathroom.
If you take a piss in an alley behind a dumpster you will still be marked a sex offender for life if the cops catch you in some states.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Monday April 07 2014, @03:43PM
Sooooo... what you're saying is that whipping it out and pissing in public is not offensive.
Are you the same AC that just now equated pissing and breastfeeding? If so I'm really not sure where your argument is going.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 07 2014, @04:17PM
Exactly the same place where I was going with my original post, either we change the rules for what is acceptable in terms of nudity or we refrain from offending other people that find it disturbing, wether it's public urinating or public breastfeeding.
The reason I went with whipping out the dong to urinate was for two reasons, first, like breastfeeding both acts are driven by biological functions, second, I vaguely remember reading some article with women calling out for more peni in movies and tv to make things equal with all the boobs that are shown and from that, like any good random internet weirdo I jumped to the totally reasonable conclusion that women equate showing penis to showing breasts. Personally I'm not offended by nudity at all and would prefer that laws that prohibit nudity be removed and if it became legal, the social norm would also change over time. But things being as they are, I respect that some people are offended by public urination and refrain from doing so, likewise I think that breastfeeding women should be sensitive to the fact that public breastfeeding makes some people uncomfortable. If we all go off and do whatever we personally think is reasonable, regardless of other peoples opinions we can't have a civilized society.