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One for the timelineOne for the timelinePosted Dec 1, 2010 23:24 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510)Parent article: The dark side of open source conferences
I dis-associated myself with the Debian project after a Debconf dinner where someone's date was asked if she was a prostitute. The man whose date she was was himself rather creepy, but both men and women with the project behaved horribly toward them. Touching is so far over the line, as are some of the other activities noted on the timeline. On the other hand, I remain worried about the chilling effect of the GNOME speaker policy and its ilk. It can be interpreted in ways that have nothing to do with protecting women. IMO, the kind of men who go in to software engineering suffer a lack of healthy interaction with women who are their peers, and it may be that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field is involved. The interaction problem might improve if we can simply inspire more young women to be interested in the field starting at an early age, and get them to sustain their interest. But we still have a large inequity there. Popular culture repeats the "what happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas" mantra and other such things about women at conferences. I was pretty disgusted the last time I had an unsolicited lecture on that topic from a cab driver. I sure wasn't there to engage in any of that.
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One for the timeline Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:51 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I'm not a great believer in spontaneous generation of women at conferences. It seems likely that the way to inspire more women (young or otherwise) to attend conferences includes ensuring that we provide strong guidance about acceptable behaviour boundaries, and make it clear that people who cross those boundaries aren't welcome at our community events. I certainly wouldn't be enthusiastic about turning up at an event if an unwritten expectation was that I should be improving people's social awareness at the same time!
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:00 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Not what I meant. Men's behavior toward women gets wired in at a reasonably young age. It's then that we need to promote healthy interaction as a part of their social education. By the time a man attends a trade conference, it's at least a decade too late. Yes, obviously we can't ever allow folks to behave that way. Part of me would like to deck them, but we'll just escort them to the door.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:06 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"By the time a man attends a trade conference, it's at least a decade too late."
Nonsense, and believing this serves only to exclude people who could otherwise be beneficial members of the community. There's no black and white distinction between people who behave appropriately and who behave inappropriately. There's plenty of situations in my life where I've behaved inappropriately towards women, and some of them occurred after I'd started attending trade shows. The point isn't how people are brought up. It's how they behave after it's been pointed out that their behaviour isn't acceptable, and whether they're willing to accept that they're wrong and modify their behaviour in future.
The role of codes of conduct is to allow the organisers to provide a relevant and proportional response without putting the victim in a position of responsibility, not to immediately eject anyone who says something wrong. It's certainly not MAN PROTECT WOMAN WITH POWER OF MIGHTY ARM MUSCLES, and turning it purely into a man against woman problem just perpetuates the concept of gender roles.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:25 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Codes of conduct govern what people do. They are necessary, but IMO not by themselves optimal. I believe that it will be necessary to work on what people think. Regardless of the code of conduct in place, there will be feelings of prejudice at a level that is probably difficult to consciously control, and there will be actions based upon those feelings. That's why we get "the glass ceiling" and such. If we can't work on earlier socialization, we won't really solve the problem. We'll just arrive at an uneasy truce.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:29 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Yes, that's the point. How people think isn't relevant in terms of a conference being a safe venue for anyone. How people behave *is*. While it would obviously be preferable for everyone to be entirely gender blind, the reality is that that's not going to happen at any point in the near future. So we do what's necessary to avoid people refusing to attend conferences because of behaviour, which means we discourage that behaviour. And maybe the behavioural standards will influence future socialisation.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:29 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, having an interim policy is fine, but a short-sighted pragmatism of stopping there just makes it the case that we'll have to fight the problem forever.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:56 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You're right, providing policies while ignoring some of the other underlying reasons for the gender disparity in software would be short sighted. But nobody's suggesting that. The point is that part of solving the gender disparity is ensuring that women aren't discouraged from attending conferences by behaviour of some other participants.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:41 UTC (Thu) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] It's not necessary to be "gender blind" (which isn't really possible for most), or to think in an appropriate way; it suffices to treat people fairly and with respect. And while there should be zero tolerance for assault or gross insults, we do have to consider that some in our community sit somewhere on the autistic spectrum, are lonely and have trouble with social cues. It gets worse if they spend most of their time in all-male environments, have no clue how to talk to women they are interested in, and suddenly they meet an attractive woman at a conference who's interested in many of the same things. This is going to be a recipe for social disaster, I'm afraid.Things would be better if the gender ratio were more even; the male geeks would be more used to the presence of female geeks, would be better at telling the difference between technical interest and personal interest, and we wouldn't get the same small set of women being hit on by overwhelmingly large numbers of men. I'm not sure how we get there from here, though.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:01 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]
I'm not a doctor, but somehow I don't think any autistic person who is high-functioning enough to A) contribute to open source B) want to be at an event with so many people and C) carry on any sort of conversation is low-functioning enough not to understand "stop" or "no." If you can understand "your patch has been rejected," you can likely understand "don't do that again."
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:18 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Oh, absolutely. What they don't understand is how the other person in the situation feels. If they did, you might not have to tell them.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:16 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
I don't know. I can sort of understand that in this situation the autistic person's stress levels may be so sky-high that comprehension of such things may be delayed. However, in that situation our natural reflex is to *get out of there*, not to jump on women like some sort of slobbering caveman... so, no, I don't think the autistic argument works very well either.
I have seen autistic men behaving terribly inappropriately towards women: generally severely autistic rather than mildly, but not always. It does not look *remotely* like an unwanted grope from a neurotypical man, and people that severely autistic are impaired enough that they're not going to want to go anywhere near a conference. I'm not anywhere near that severe but I stay away because the things are just too crowded, thus stressful.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:13 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link]
It's not the "no" that is not understand, it's the "nice girl smiles at me" thing that is misunderstood. Not as "rape me", but as "I'd welcome if you'd ask me out to a date then we'd have some body contact".
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 1:11 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
Further evidence: I'm probably more vocal and appalled by this sort of thing than most (I seem to become a significant participant in many of these LWN threads, anyway), and I certainly understand the meaning of the word 'no' and in fact would never dare approach a near-stranger or indeed anyone else in any of the ways listed... but while I'm high-functioning I've only ever been to one conference of any kind (work-sponsored), and got out fast, because the population density was simply too high for me to function. I now turn that sort of junket down as a matter of course.
This indicates that there is in fact a set of autistics (probably quite a large set) in which you are sufficiently neurotypical to realise that attacking women is *bad*, y'know, but sufficiently autistic to avoid conferences. It seems unlikely to me that there are many who can tolerate conferences but who also are so afflicted that they don't realise that sexual assault is wrong.
(Note: there *are* regrettable cases of autistics committing sexual assault, usually due to severe misreading of social signals or sheer desperation -- decades with no hope of romantic relationships can do strange things to some people, we are not all cut out to be monks. But even this is rare: in most cases I have heard of the individuals in question were either severely autistic, generally attacking their carers because they hardly ever saw anyone else, or had other mental problems -- e.g. bipolar disorder, attacking in the manic phase.)
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 1:26 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Whoa! Nobody here was trying to connect Asperger's or autism with the touching incidents or violent crime. There's no excuse for the folks who do that.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 2:56 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
"IMO, the kind of men who go in to software engineering suffer a lack of healthy interaction with women who are their peers, and it may be that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field is involved. "
If you weren't trying to say that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field was related to a lack of healthy interaction with women who are their peers, and that that has something to do with incidents of sexual harassment or assault at conferences, what were you trying to say? Because that sounds awfully like "We wouldn't have so many problems if it weren't for all the autists".
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 6:01 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] If you choose to read something that nasty into my writing, that's your problem. Get therapy.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 13:54 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I'll admit that I'm not naturally well-disposed towards you, but I'm genuinely having trouble working out any reading of your statement that doesn't imply that autism is part of the problem. What /did/ you mean?
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 20:00 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Sure, we don't get along, Matt, but IMO this one was over the top and an apology might be in order. See my comment here. Essentially I am calling for childhood and early adulthood social education to get over the issue that as a class we may lie lower on a scale of emotional maturity (without having a diagnosable spectrum disorder) and that our social interaction with women, again as a class, may suffer from it. This is in not any way meant to excuse criminal activity, because you can be expected to know it's wrong action even if you are for some reason disposed to it. But we need to consider why some people grow are becoming that sort of criminal. What are we doing wrong with them as a society? So, none of this was meant as "get rid of them" or "we'd be better off without them". Thanks Bruce
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 21:07 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
I'm sorry, I'm really still not seeing it. What does "the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field" mean if it's not referring to autistic spectrum disorders? I just don't understand why you'd bring this up other than to suggest that the problem is related to lack of empathy, despite the evidence being that it's not those lacking empathy who are the problem.
(And that's "Matthew", not "Matt")
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 22:42 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] What it means is that as a class we're not on the spectrum but we're probably below the midpoint in empathy. There is some truth in the caricatures of programmers and akiba kei.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 22:52 UTC (Sun) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
If you weren't referring to diagnosable conditions, then your use of the word "disorder" was inappropriate and misleading and would explain why multiple people have interpreted your writing in a way other than your intended meaning. On the other hand, I'm still really not convinced that lack of empathy has anything to do with the issues discussed in the original article, and I don't think you've done a terribly good job of explaining the relevance.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 1:12 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] "Empathy disorder" doesn't have to be so severe as to be diagnosable as Asperger's or autism. So, it is not necessary for you to go right to the extreme and assume that I mean autism, which I did not write. Below the level of diagnosable disorder there can be mild deficits, and I suspect that as a class we suffer from mild deficits, organic or as some artifact of upbringing, and that remediation in early education is possible, and that there should be more of it. Do you have a theory about the mindset and background of the perps? Certainly there is some problem with their socialization if they can objectify a woman.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 2:11 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Asperger's is a pretty long way from Autism, and it's also pretty much the least life-affecting empathy disorder (other than autistic spectrum disorders, narcissism and psychopathy are in the list as well - but given that there's no evidence they're more widespread in the computing world than elsewhere, you presumably weren't referring to them). Disorder pretty much by definition refers to a diagnosable condition, so it's natural to assume that you're referring to Asperger's or high-functioning Autism.
"Do you have a theory about the mindset and background of the perps? Certainly there is some problem with their socialization if they can objectify a woman."
When women complain about men sexually propositioning them in the middle of a crowded city my first assumption isn't that the men in question are borderline spectrum, it's that society as a whole is pretty bad at enforcing reasonable behaviour standards. I'd be fascinated to see your evidence that these events are more common at open source conferences than at events attended by people who don't fall into the stereotypical "Software developer who's never met a girl" category.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 4:14 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] my first assumption isn't that the men in question are borderline spectrum, it's that society as a whole is pretty bad at enforcing reasonable behaviour standards. The assumption here is that the only reason people do perform bad behavior is that society does not completely enforce a specific rule against it. It seems to be ignoring the potential of socializing people to act in a moral and equitable fashion even in the absence of the violent compulsion of law.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 4:30 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
...whereas your assumption is that people engage in sexual harassment because they lack empathy? That would be a solid and reasonable position if it weren't contradicted by reality. For the most part people either engage in sexual harassment because they're unaware of strong social prohibitions against it (primarily because there *aren't* strong social prohibitions against it yet), or because they're bad people. An anti-harassment policy means the first group has no excuse, and makes it easier to get rid of the second.
Working with people with empathy disorders to improve their social abilities is a wonderful goal and, having spent a couple of years doing so in the past, I wholeheartedly approve of any effort to do so. I also wholeheartedly approve of work to reduce our society's dependence upon oil. I think they're pretty much equally relevant to the problem that the parent article discusses.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 6:11 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] or because they're bad people. Right. How do bad people happen? Especially regarding this particular crime, which isn't an economic one. It's not because we don't do a good enough job of enforcing behavioral rules. It's because they get bad parental examples and bad social education.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 12:56 UTC (Mon) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
You seem to be arguing by assertion rather than citation, but where do empathy disorders come into it?
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 19:48 UTC (Mon) by Zomb (subscriber, #23391) [Link]
Agreed. While Bruce is mostly right about the social education and the results for the personal skills of many engineers, his conclusion is based purely on correlation. Which is not an appropriate way to find a proof; in fact, it doesn't usually prove anything.
Correlation "analytics" found that computer gaming is the main and only cause of school rampages, or that we need more (sea) pirates in order to get the climate stable again.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 8, 2010 8:46 UTC (Wed) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
Let it go, please.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 13, 2010 20:39 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
How can you tell who is going to be 'in the class of programmers' when very young? (Well, unless you're me, hooked from the age of five. But note: not an abuser, the very thought makes me feel ill. In this I am quite normal, one would hope. Football players, now... ;} )
One for the timeline Posted Dec 13, 2010 20:33 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]
For what it's worth I didn't think you meant that... but it's plain that it could be misread that way, so I clarified as best I could.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 14:38 UTC (Sun) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I also read your comment "it may be that the high incidence of empathy disorders in our field is involved" as implicating at least those with ASD (e.g. there are documented correlations between higher rates of ASD and engineering/science; hence ASD is likely the disorder most people think of in reading your comment). Other commenters in other sub-threads in this article have made similarish remarks.
I'd also be interested if you could clarify your remark. While at the same time rejecting any casual claim (intended or perceived) that ASDers may be more responsible for the sexual abuse (note that this does not mean that no abusers have ASD).
One for the timeline Posted Dec 5, 2010 19:50 UTC (Sun) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Sure. If you look in my comments for the action I am calling for, it is childhood and early adulthood social education for healthy interaction between men and women who are peers in age and intellectual development. It is my firm belief that the crimes mentioned in the timeline are not committed by men who have ever learned to have a healthy social peer relationship with women, rather they are coming from men who objectify women, which is an illness brought about (IMO) by poor social education and probably bad parential examples. I am not saying that the criminals have a diagnosable spectrum disorder. However, I think that as a class men who go in for programming may score lower on a scale of emotional maturity than the general population. Computer programming, (and I guess science and engineering) provides a world of justice for the adept that does not exist in their human interactions. If you write your program correctly, it works, otherwise it doesn't. This is very attractive to folks who have much more difficulty finding justice in the world around them because their actions in that world do not result in the expected outcomes. I think that as a class they might need some early remediation. That's all. Thanks Bruce
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 9:00 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
Whether you intend it or not, this still sounds like you're referring to ASD, because you're explicitly tying together the emotional disorders that might lead men to abuse women and the disorders that are more prevalent to programming, i.e. ASD.
Again, where is the evidence that these disorders intersect? Given that sexual abuse apparently occurs just as much outside of ASD-biased areas like programming conferences, indeed is likely far *more* prevalent outside (you yourself referenced the tailhook scandal). It's quite possible that, if anything, ASD-biased areas see *less* abuse. The connection you make (at least in the minds of a few readers, and not unreasonably) between abuse and ASD is both less than fully justified and somewhat prejudicial to ASDers, who may not to be blame for any of this.
I agree an ASD-biased area might have other social-interaction issues, that might lead to certain groups being under-represented (e.g. women). But we should be very careful about conflating things...
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 15:57 UTC (Mon) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] Well, the evidence is that these crimes are not committed by people with ASD, their tension level would be so high that they'd avoid the situation. So can you just assume I'm referring to something other than ASD?
One for the timeline Posted Dec 6, 2010 16:14 UTC (Mon) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]
I might have assumed that, except you explicitly referred to those disorders peculiar to programmers - which would be ASD. Perhaps instead you could avoid that instead? :)
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:06 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Focusing on autism misses the point - I know that several of the examples given were carried out by people who aren't on the spectrum. And, honestly, my experience is that people with some degree of autism react well to "That was inappropriate, please don't do it". An inability to learn from experience isn't the hallmark of autism. It's the hallmark of an asshole.
One for the timeline Posted Dec 2, 2010 15:42 UTC (Thu) by flewellyn (subscriber, #5047) [Link]
As I (someone with Aspergers) am fond of saying, "Asshole is not on the autism spectrum."
GNOME speaker policy Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:16 UTC (Thu) by eMBee (guest, #70889) [Link]
Bruce Perens writes:
"On the other hand, I remain worried about the chilling effect of the GNOME speaker policy and its ilk. It can be interpreted in ways that have nothing to do with protecting women."
are you talking about this?
which chilling effects do you see there?
greetings, eMBee.
GNOME speaker policy Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:27 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] It doesn't really define what offends, it just says to avoid topics that are likely to offend people. Which means just about anything, as far as I can tell. I keynoted the GNOME conference in Norway, around 2004, but that was back when it was OK to make a joke in my non-technical keynote. There was a basic assumption that the audience were grown ups. I had the confidence of the audience that anything I said was not meant to be a personal attack on them. Now, the social covenant with the audience is broken and my performance is taken to be a potential attack on them that has to be managed. No thanks.
GNOME speaker policy Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:10 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
another thing to be aware of (and something companies are learning with their policies), having a policy and not strictly enforcing it (including to stupid 'zero tolerance' levels) is that you can get in legal trouble for not enforcing it, or for inconsistently enforcing it (you are accusing me of breaking this policy, but you didn't punish all these other people for doing the same thing, you are just using this as a excuse to punish me)
as a result, having a fuzzy policy can be a liability.
GNOME speaker policy Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:27 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]
Sure, you can interpret it that way. Or you can interpret it based on observations of reality, where the vast majority of presentations are made without upsetting anyone. Some of them even include jokes!
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