The dark side of open source conferences

December 1, 2010

This article was contributed by Valerie Aurora

In the past two decades, the open source community has evolved from an obscure grass-roots movement of wild-eyed crusaders, indigent grad students, and spare-time hobbyists to an unprecedented worldwide collaboration of full-time professionals and extraordinarily committed volunteers. We pride ourselves on our openness to new contributors, from any country or social background, and most often describe the power structure of open source projects as a meritocracy. Many of us believe that open source is inherently progressive - a way to level the playing field that operates across all social categories and class boundaries.

And yet, here it is, the year 2010, and my female friends and I are still being insulted, harassed, and groped at at open source conferences. Some people argue that if women really want to be involved in open source (or computing, or corporate management, etc.), they will put up with being stalked, leered at, and physically assaulted at conferences. But many of us argue instead that putting up extra barriers to the participation of women will only harm the open source community. We want more people in open source, not fewer.

In this article, we will first explore the current state of harassment in open source through interviews with ten women (including myself) about their experiences at open source conferences. Then we will describe some concrete, simple actions anyone can take to help reduce harassment for everyone, not just women (who have no monopoly on being the target of harassment). In particular, we'll discuss the recently released generic anti-harassment policy for open source conferences - basically, HOWTO Not Be A Jerk At A Conference.

Interviews

I interviewed by email nine women about their experiences at open source conferences. Harassment can and does happen to anyone of any gender identity or persuasion (just ask anyone who has been to middle school), but I know enough to write about only two kinds of harassment: the kind you get for being female, and the kind you get for using Emacs. I strongly encourage other people to write about their experiences being harassed at conferences, as harassment is an important problem no matter who it happens to.

The women I interviewed are: Cat Allman, FOSS community organizer at Google and event professional, Donna Benjamin, executive director of Creative Contingencies, Beth Lynn Eicher, an organizer of Ohio LinuxFest, Selena Deckelmann, major contributor to PostgreSQL and founder of Open Source Bridge, Mackenzie Morgan, Ubuntu developer, Deb Nicholson, an organizer of LibrePlanet and the FSF Women's Caucus, Noirin Shirley, Executive VP at Apache Software Foundation, Sarah "Sez" Smith, and one anonymous respondent. I interviewed myself for a tenth woman. Nine of us have been harassed at one or more conferences. Of the nine of us who have served as conference organizers, eight of us have dealt with at least one incident of harassment at a conference we were running.

First, I asked each person about their first open source conference: Which one was it, what year, and what do you remember the most?

Cat Allman recalls the atmosphere at the 1998 forerunner of OSCON: It was "Joyous pandemonium: it was a gathering of the tribes, a religious festival, the morning of the first day of a Children's Crusade; so much passion and belief in one room." Donna Benjamin went to LCA 2006 "Intending to stay just for the miniconfs, but having such an awesome time, meeting awesome people and changing my flights to stay for the whole week." Sarah Smith loved the "grass roots feel" of LCA 2002. Selena Deckelmann says of LISA 1997: "I felt energized and enjoyed meeting new people - students and professionals - and talking about all the free software we all used to do our work."

My first open source conference was Ottawa Linux Symposium 2002. I was surprised by how nice the other kernel developers were in person. People I knew as unholy terrors on the mailing lists smiled and shook my hand and said, "How nice to finally meet you in person!" I ended up inviting ten or so people back to my hotel room to play the TCP/IP Drinking Game, including (to my delighted newbie surprise) Alan Cox and Rusty Russell.

Next, I asked about a time each person felt uncomfortable at a conference. Unfortunately, this was an easy question to answer for most. Anonymous says:

One event a group of men put print-outs of Hans Reiser on sticks and carried them around. They approached women (and possibly men) to tell us that every time we use ext3, Reiser will kill another woman. Later someone was caught taking up-skirt photos of my friend's partner.

Mackenzie Morgan says,

A presenter had a title slide followed by a slide of bikini-clad women holding laptops, which he said was just to get people to pay attention. I'm not sure if we were supposed to pay attention to the women or to what he was saying though.

Selena Deckelmann says:

I give talks, organize and spend a lot of time in conference booths, I frequently have to deal with conference attendees ignoring me and asking questions of male colleagues standing next to me because they think that I am non-technical.

For Selena, as for many women, it's a double-bind: "I have to be very aggressive when initiating conversation to get people to talk with me about technical subjects," but then her behavior is "incorrectly interpreted as flirting." Beth Lynn had the same experience: "I was at a conference where a man mistook my friendliness and technical interest as sexual attraction to him." Mackenzie says, "At one conference, it was implied that another engineer was only agreeing with me on a technical matter because I would pay him back with a sexual favor later."

Cat Allman says that computer conferences have come a long way in the last 25 years - but that they still have a long way to go. She says of a conference in the mid-1980s: "Male attendees would walk up to you - even if you were in a group - and ask 'How much for a (sex act)?' You tried hard not get in an elevator in the convention center alone." Now, women hired to wear company polo shirts and g-strings (true story) are rare outside of Las Vegas, but the problem of a sexualized environment remains:

I go to technical conferences for business, technical content and fellowship, not to hook up or engage in voyeurism. If I go to CES in Vegas I go with the understanding that porn is part of the business of that conference, but I find overt sexual behaviors unexpected and off-topic at FOSS conferences.

Deb Nicholson says the days of "eye candy" are far from over. She says of an event held within the last two years, "When strippers were hired to mix with people at the Saturday night event everyone attended, that made everyone uncomfortable."

Three of the ten women reported being physically assaulted at a conference. Mackenzie says, "I was grabbed from behind and kissed by a stranger without permission." Later she found out that this person assaulted another woman at the conference. Noirin Shirley says after a man grabbed and kissed her at a conference after-party, she told him she wasn't interested, and "He responded by jamming his hand into my underwear and fumbling." At the Linux Storage and Filesystems Workshop 2007, I organized a group outing to a pub, only to have one of the invited workshop attendees grab my ass while I was having a completely normal conversation. (I told him to never touch me again, warned my friends about him, and refused to speak to him again.)

Next, I asked about how people decide which conferences to attend. Besides the obvious factors - time, location, travel funding, speaker status, who is attending - reputation of conference organizers and attendee behavior came out as a major factor.

Beth Lynn says, "If the conference has a reputation for encouraging unprofessional behaviour such as a sexual environment, I will not go. For this reason I am not attending Penguicon any more." Cat says, "If I think an event organizer turns a blind eye to questionable behavior I'll pass on the event." Noirin Shirley says, "It's word-of-mouth and knowing some of the organizers, knowing that they're not going to put on an event where bad behaviour is tolerated." I base my decision on three major elements: the reputation of the conference organizers, the word-of-mouth from my friends, and my past experience at that conference (if any). For example, anything run by the Linux Foundation will be extremely professional, respectful of women, and rank high on the getting-stuff-done factor.

I only stopped attending one open source conference altogether because of consistently bad behavior of both attendees and the organizers: the Ottawa Linux Symposium. This was a difficult decision for me because, at the time, attending OLS was almost a requirement for any serious Linux kernel developer, since that's where a lot of the face-to-face design work and discussion got done. But every year I attended, I was insulted, lewdly propositioned, or groped by several people, by everyone from newbies to top Linux kernel developers. This happened even though I was a speaker, BOF organizer, or program committee member for five years. The organizers appeared to condone the behavior by doing things like giving a wink-wink nudge-nudge review of conference shenanigans before the keynote, and "playfully" nagging attendees not to bring girlfriends or women they picked up on the street to the conference parties. (Message: OLS is for men, women go home.) I complained to the conference organizers but got no response.

After OLS 2006, I decided that I cared about being treated respectfully more than I cared about advancing my career, and stopped attending OLS. Luckily for me, the Linux Plumbers Conference started soon after, and I volunteered to help get Plumbers off the ground, in large part because the organizers were clearly committed to creating a professional, welcoming, get-things-done atmosphere. To be fair, it's been a few years since these incidents, and the OLS organizers have gone their separate ways, so I wouldn't be surprised if they have had a change of heart about what makes a good conference.

Changing the atmosphere

So how we do we go about changing the culture of open source conferences so that we don't chase off the very people we want to attract, both women and men? Judging from the past ten years of my experience, harassment at open source conferences is not going to stop all by itself. We have to take action.

A good first step is for conferences and communities to adopt and enforce explicit policies or codes of conduct that spell out what kind of behavior won't be tolerated and what response it will get. Much in the way that people don't stop speeding unless they get speeding tickets, or that murder is totally unacceptable to most people but laws against it still exist, harassment at conferences may seem obviously wrong, but stopping it will require written rules and enforceable penalties.

To get things started, I helped write a customizable, general-purpose anti-harassment policy for open source conferences. For online communities, the Ubuntu code of conduct is a good place to start.

If you want to do something personally to help stop harassment, you have a few options. You can email the organizers of conferences you like to attend asking if they have a policy for dealing with harassment, and suggesting this one as an example. (You can find a list of conferences and their contact email addresses in this blog post about the policy.) If you are a conference organizer, you can skip the middleman and adopt the policy yourself. If you have the Internet, you can write a blog entry and post on your favorite short-message site about the policy. And, finally, if you see harassment happening or hear people bragging about it, you can speak up and stop it yourself.

Donna Benjamin says, "We want harassment not to happen in the first place, because dealing with it is so deeply unpleasant for all concerned. But with silence and inaction, women just stop coming to events, and harassers keep harassing." What Donna is suggesting is something we can all work towards: a time when polices like this are no longer needed. I'm going to work for that time. Will you join me?

Index entries for this article
GuestArticles	Aurora, Valerie

to post comments

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 19:50 UTC (Wed) by daglwn (guest, #65432) [Link] (1 responses)

Valerie, thank you for your efforts. It disgusts me that this type of behavior is still so prevalent in our society.

What men have to realize is that this behavior is a power play. It's not "fun," or "a joke" or anything else but intimidation. It's certainly not about forming any kind of healthy relationship. It's an effort by those men to tip or keep the balance of power in their favor. It's about control and often a lack of self-esteem or self-confidence on the part of the man. Men who act this way are often feeling threatened in some way, perhaps not by the individual being assaulted as she may be a stand-in for someone or something else.

Training men to recognize this in themselves and work through those issues is also a necessary step to stop this behavior. If a woman is assaulted, the man should go to jail, no excuses. But if men take the steps to understand their own personalities and shortcomings they can learn ways to express frustrations and fears in productive, positive ways. Unfortunately, our society does not encourage such deep personal examination, vulnerability and openness.

The same goes for racism and all the other ways that individuals or groups attempt to maintain a power imbalance in their favor.

culture in general

Posted Jan 2, 2011 19:06 UTC (Sun) by gvy (guest, #11981) [Link]

> If a woman is assaulted, the man should go to jail, no excuses.
Well if a woman is assaulted and there's at least one proper man around (not the assaulting weenie) then a lesson in behaviour should follow, at least in "wild" Russia she can pretty well expect that.

> The same goes for racism and all the other ways that individuals
> or groups attempt to maintain a power imbalance in their favor.
Heh. One of such groups seems to actively push the "anti-racism" and "tolerance" agenda selectively -- for the rest of us. For themselves these jehudons allow racism, extremism and plain old lies just fine. Take care filtering this stuff.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:04 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

The policy looks excellent. It's sad that it's necessary, but it plainly is.

Your anecdotes are pretty appalling. Who the heck do these people think they are? Do they have no understanding of elementary courtesy? Didn't they have mothers? Enforceable penalties are obviously essential for the more extreme cases, because anyone willing to engage in not-so-borderline sexual assault is not going to pay the least attention to codes of conduct without the threat of penalties.

As you pointed out, many of these people simply need to remember how they were treated when they were at school. Don't Do That To Anyone Else. Don't Do Anything Remotely Similar To Anyone Else. This is not difficult stuff, but some people just don't get it.

(I wonder: if you found the people doing this sort of horrible thing and determined what their school experiences were like, would we find that these were people who were among the bullies, not the bullied, in their school days? So they're just keeping up what they know, attacking anyone who looks remotely different and taking what they want from anyone different from them: it's just that now 'different' means not 'geek' but 'female'. I have no evidence at all for this but it seems plausible.)

(Note that the inevitable storm of incoming comments from men regarding how *they* have been viciously attacked *too* by those nasty women or how women were asking for it or should expect it because they had the temerity to be born the wrong sex are derailment and should be ignored. Equally, comments about how a presentation would be acceptable if it evenly interchanged pictures of bikini babes and bikini hunks are missing the point, as are comments about how such a policy would make conferences too straitlaced. Hint: if people are being assaulted at your conferences, the conferences are not straitlaced enough -- not by a long way. I'd be scared to go somewhere where this sort of stuff happens and I'm not even female.)

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:15 UTC (Wed) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (8 responses)

quote: and "playfully" nagging attendees not to bring girlfriends or women they picked up on the street to the conference parties. (Message: OLS is for men, women go home.)

I wouldn't have taken this as 'women go home' but rather as 'we want to have everyone there be peers'

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:17 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (5 responses)

I'd only assume that if husbands and boyfriends were mentioned. Since they weren't, this was plainly implying 'men only'.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:32 UTC (Thu) by epa (subscriber, #39769) [Link] (4 responses)

If you asked a woman not to bring along random men she picked up on the street, that would be insulting.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 4:31 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

So that makes the comments that were made okay, then, or...?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 23:56 UTC (Fri) by rahvin (guest, #16953) [Link] (2 responses)

The comments were inappropriate.

The statement should have been this is a technical conference family and friends are not to be brought along and that sexual harassment is not to be tolerated.

I'm astounded that any woman would tolerate some of this without a call to the police. I would think in this day and age if someone walked up and stuck their hand down your pants they should expect the police to be called and to be arrested for sexual assault. I understand there is a desire not to create waves, fit in and such, but sexual assault should never ever be tolerated in any respect. Sexual harassment is bad enough but why on earth weren't the police called when the assault happened?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 6, 2010 22:06 UTC (Mon) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

They weren't called because she was perfectly capable of walking to the police station--and did so.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 7, 2010 9:40 UTC (Tue) by Auders (guest, #53318) [Link]

> Sexual harassment is bad enough but why on earth weren't the police called when the assault happened?

This is beside the point. Whether or not the man was charged, people need to be aware that things like this do happen, and that measures should be taken by the organizers to avoid them (besides bringing in the police).

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:26 UTC (Wed) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] (1 responses)

To possibly over-explain: yes, of course you're correct, the explicit message was "please, conference attendees only at the party", and the intention was no doubt to say just that, but funnier.

The humor depended on the contrast of that explicit message with the implication that what many of us were *really* there for was to pick up chicks on the way to the party.

And, sure, that could be kinda harmlessly funny if a) the genders involved weren't always the same, and b) we didn't get variations on that same thing every year, and c) the conference was more balanced between men and women, and d) we all knew everyone there could be counted on to take that implication as just the setup for a joke and not any suggestion of expected or even remotely condoned behavior. Etc., etc.

As things are, yeah, it's likely to come across as "OLS is for men, women go home", intended or not.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 7, 2010 16:22 UTC (Tue) by charlieb (guest, #23340) [Link]

> The humor depended on the contrast of that explicit message with
> the implication that what many of us were *really* there for was
> to pick up chicks on the way to the party.

I don't think so. I think the humor depended on knowing what happened at the *previous* OLS party. Someone associated with the venue, and not associated with OLS, invited a handful of "friends" - who were provocatively dressed, perfumed, stillettoed, etc, etc.

I have no doubt that this is what was being referred to by the OLS organiser, and that Valerie was not aware of that background. I don't think she would have taken offense if she had been aware of that back-story.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:27 UTC (Wed) by xnox (subscriber, #63320) [Link]

Quite a few male (gay or straight) attendees at the conference would feel harassed if some random hunk would "grab their ass and kiss them from behind without permission".

Such behaviour is not acceptable in any environment.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:36 UTC (Wed) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] (1 responses)

In my experience, most people (men or women) could expect to be treated rudely at OLS, even by the organizers themselves. Although I have many good memories from the years that I attended, the weird clique-y social atmosphere was the main reason I stopped going.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 20:59 UTC (Wed) by daniel (guest, #3181) [Link]

Me too. With all the territorial defense and backbiting the fun evaporated.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:06 UTC (Wed) by ewen (subscriber, #4772) [Link] (2 responses)

For the record, a couple of people were ejected from the conference mentioned by "Anonymous" as a result of some combination of the behaviour described and other behaviour. Which, at the time and now, I think was the right decision on the part of the conference organisers. (Unfortunately it's not the only incident that I'm aware of at that conference that year. And I don't know if anything else happened in the other situation I'm aware of; it's not my story to tell, and I don't know the full detail.)

As someone else already said in the comments it's sad that it's still necessary to be having this discussion. But it's clearly still necessary, because it keeps happening. Thanks for writing about it.

Ewen

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:59 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (1 responses)

At the time, I felt it was a bit harsh because the reason given by the organisers was that the offenders were making off-colour jokes about Hans Reiser. Now that I'm aware of the _nature_ of those jokes, it makes perfect sense, and I would have done the same thing. Because really, that's not a joke about Hans Reiser, that's intimidation.

(I can believe it was unintentional intimidation, but that's insufficiently mitigating to change my opinion -- the organisers did the Right Thing).

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 18:53 UTC (Thu) by ewen (subscriber, #4772) [Link]

It's been sufficiently long, and I've heard bits of the story from sufficiently many other sources, that I can't be certain I remember precisely what was announced by the organisers and what I learnt later. But I do remember that the organisers gave more of a reason than just "off colour jokes", although obviously not that much more detail since they didn't want to air all of it in public. My reaction at the time was surprise that someone was being ejected from the conference, but recognition in light of what they said happened that it was the right thing to do.

As you say I suspect those involved were perhaps unaware of just how inappropriate they were being at the time. But that's part of the problem, rather than something that should excuse it.

Ewen

Thanks!

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:24 UTC (Wed) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

It takes a lot of courage to write about this, and to accept to have one's name in this article. I quite understand that one wanted to remain anonymous, as I can imagine the pressure that this could cause.

I wanted to congratulate you, Val, for taking action and getting things done, especially as the other option would be to just give up, and for us to keep waiting for the ultimate unionfs ;-) (just trying to lighten the atmosphere, sorry...)

You have my deepest respect, and my strongest support. Thanks for all of us.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:40 UTC (Wed) by dskoll (subscriber, #1630) [Link]

Taking upskirt photos? Ughh... IMO, there should have been criminal prosecution or a lawsuit for that one.

I'm shocked and saddened by those anecdotes. I have three daughters, all of whom are good at math and science and one of whom has expressed interest in learning programming. It seems they might need some lessons in martial arts to go along with their programming lessons. :(

s/open source //g;

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:51 UTC (Wed) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

At the risk of repeating the obvious, this sort of behaviour is hardly unique to "open source" conferences.

The more (marketing?) money that's involved in a conference, the more of an "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" attitude gets woven into it.

In the end, these conferences, much like the greater "community" they serve, are run by those who participate. (Read whatever you want into that!)

Not just big-money conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:00 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

One of the incidents I mentioned took place at a free community event, not a big corporate event like OSCON.

(I'm Mackenzie)

s/open source //g;

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:10 UTC (Thu) by tajyrink (subscriber, #2750) [Link]

Of course, free software conferences could/should be better than average, rather than average or worse.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:52 UTC (Wed) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (70 responses)

If someone commits sexual assault or solicits prostitution then the correct answer is for the affected individual to call the police on the spot and file criminal charges, not write a code of conduct.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:01 UTC (Wed) by davide.del.vento (guest, #59196) [Link]

Yes criminal charges are a way to deal with this issue, but the "code of conduct" can be much more quick, powerful and effective, especially for international conferences, where one would have to deal with foreign laws.
Do you have an employer? If so, chances are that there is an anti-harassment policy from it. My employer does, and I am glad it does: it does not replace US laws, but it does help in keeping a nice climate on the workplace.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:04 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (14 responses)

The process of filing a lawsuit may be time consuming, stressful and unproductive - especially if you're in a foreign country (as many conference goers will be) and don't have any witnesses, were drinking at the time or any of the myriad of other possibilities that tend to turn these cases into "I'm sorry, we're dropping the case".

The answer isn't "Lawsuit or it didn't happen". It's "Do whatever is necessary to stop these people from behaving this way", and if a written harassment policy helps that then it's part of the solution.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:06 UTC (Wed) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (11 responses)

Actually I wasn't thinking lawsuits; I was thinking arrests. But I didn't consider the case of a conference in a country where those type of actions might not be illegal.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:09 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (9 responses)

Arrests that will involve witness statements, testimony and potentially having to turn up to court where a defence lawyer will then proceed to spend time attempting to convince people that you're a liar? I don't blame anyone who's unwilling to go through with that, and we shouldn't attempt to place the onus of fixing things on the victim.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:15 UTC (Wed) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (8 responses)

Putting the onus of reporting a crime on the victim of said crime is too much to ask yet demanding that the rest of society bend over backwards to bubblewrap the world isn't?

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:21 UTC (Wed) by chromatic (guest, #26207) [Link] (1 responses)

How is publishing a code of conduct (which basically says "Treat other people with respect!") a demand in any way, let alone an unreasonable demand? Why should the penalty for behaving badly to anyone else require filing criminal charges? (I can think of many examples of poor behavior which are not illegal.)

I don't get it

Posted Dec 3, 2010 4:50 UTC (Fri) by jzbiciak (guest, #5246) [Link]

Agreed. One would hope such a code of conduct would also be redundant/unnecessary, but clearly folks need to be reminded. Also, making it explicit sends a more positive overall message, so long as the organizers also make sure to uphold it so that it gets taken seriously.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:23 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (2 responses)

I don't object to it being the victim's responsibility to report the crime. If they're unwilling (for whatever reason) to do so then the justice system won't be involved. That's not a problem. But when you say that "the correct answer is for the affected individual to call the police on the spot and file criminal charges", the implication is that it's the victim's problem, not the conference's. That's not a constructive way to improve things.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:52 UTC (Thu) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] (1 responses)

So have the victim report it to the conference organizers and have them call the cops.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:59 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

"I'd like to report a crime. The victim doesn't want to be involved in the case and there were no other witnesses, but we'd like you to arrest the offender anyway. Hello? Hello?"

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:42 UTC (Wed) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link]

I would've thought that the world-bubblewrapper would be anyone objecting to (mostly relatively minor) consequences for any behavior that manages to fall short of the obviously criminal. Criminal prosecutation rightly requires a high standard of procedure, but that doesn't mean the same standard is required before you can, say, asking someone to stop being a jerk, or even to leave your meeting.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:00 UTC (Wed) by james_w (guest, #51167) [Link]

"demanding that the rest of society bend over backwards to bubblewrap the world"

No, just asking them not to assault or harass attendees.

If that's not a reasonable request to make then it's not a conference that I want to attend.

James

I don't get it

Posted Dec 8, 2010 8:11 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

Writing down community standards is a useful thing!

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 8:31 UTC (Thu) by rvfh (guest, #31018) [Link]

Not necessarily a legality issue, but in some countries the police officer might not be impressed if you talk about sexual assault because someone touched your breasts or bum. A lot of paperwork for them, and they really don't care: "you're not dead, are you?"

Note: I do not agree with this attitude. I sure don't enjoy unwanted physical contact, on any part of my body.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:48 UTC (Wed) by mbcook (subscriber, #5517) [Link] (1 responses)

I think the idea of a "conference blacklist" of people who are known to cause these kind of troubles would be a good idea, but very hard to setup.

That said, I agree with direct action. If sexually assaulted in any way (such as gropes, grabbing and kissing, etc) then physical self defense seems like the best thing to do. After a couple of women yell "rape" really loud and punch or kick the guy harassing them it will be an immediate and unmistakable message. If police are called, all the better. I'd say call them yourself.

Of course, this won't work for simple cat calls and lewd remarks. Reporting people to the conference and seeing if it's taken seriously is the best you can do there.

Lawsuits do take a while, but you can always decide not to file. Just getting the guy a visit from the police will send a pretty strong message too.

I realize it's tough and scary to have to physically defend yourself, but short of a large scale boycott/walkout I'm not sure what else could be done (especially by an individual) to get the message across REAL fast.

(Note: I'm assuming the US or similar treatment of such sexual assaults. If the country wouldn't help or would actually go after you for defending yourself, your only choice besides status quo would be not going)

Legal/privacy issues with blacklists

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:51 UTC (Thu) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

Using, maintaining and/or "exporting" a common blacklist would be illegal in many countries because of privacy laws. IOW, not really an option...

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:14 UTC (Wed) by sez (guest, #71571) [Link] (2 responses)

I understand your view Jack but for all sorts of reasons criminal proceedings fail. Most of those reasons don't have anything to do with whether the behavior was actually criminal, or even wrong. Also it might be months before the matter is dealt with in court. And all the person is free to come and go from the conference - the police aren't going to lock a person up for a week waiting for a court appearance. What the conf does with regard to dealing with the matter here is crucial - do they fail to act, sit on their hands and say "its up to the authorities" ...? How will that look if/when the authorities fail?

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:17 UTC (Wed) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (1 responses)

Having someone taken away in handcuffs or even just be forced to explain themselves to the police is a pretty powerful deterrent even if prosecution fails.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 7, 2010 15:04 UTC (Tue) by sez (guest, #71571) [Link]

You've watched too many cop shows.

Investigations into matters like this involve medical examinations, and taking of statements from witnesses and the complainant.

Cowboy ideas about the offender being dramatically carted away minutes after calling the police are unrealistic in my experience.

Even if eventually the person is spoken to by police he will be released on bail, and is free to return to the conference the next day.

Unless the conference organisers do something about it.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:07 UTC (Wed) by PaulWay (guest, #45600) [Link]

> If someone commits sexual assault or solicits prostitution then the
> correct answer is for the affected individual to call the police on the
> spot and file criminal charges, not write a code of conduct.

Yeah, and instantly become the centre of attention, have to make embarrassing claims which you may not be able to verify, have a whole bunch of your peers ostracise you for a "minor thing", and miss a bunch of cool technical talks. Yeah, that's really going to be a popular option.

A lot of the worst behaviour isn't grabbing people's breasts or anything so obvious. It's implications, insinuations, slights, embarrassing personal comments or 'accidental' contact. It's all stuff that can be later 'denied' as 'totally innocent' or 'not meant that way'. This is worse because everyone around including the victim knows it's rude or offensive, but there's nothing that's actually actionable - and because you can either just shut up and pretend it didn't happen and get on with the conference or say something and suddenly be the centre of unwelcome attention.

Most guys I know can't really get their head around this. They think that it's all clear cut. They think that it'd be easy to just speak out. It isn't.

And the sad thing is that geeks and nerds have traditionally been picked on and bullied at school - we know how these things work. Yet, like abusive parents, some guys just carry out the same warped behaviour that tormented them, because they've implicitly realised that it makes them look better if they put someone else down.

What I learnt from my years of being bullied is that I didn't want to do that to anyone.

I wholeheartedly support any code of conduct like this and will do my best to make all conferences I attend a friendlier and equal place for everyone.

Have fun,

Paul

If its REAL, call the cops, otherwise STFU

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:22 UTC (Wed) by brianomahoney (guest, #6206) [Link] (2 responses)

If its REAL, call the cops, otherwise STFU

Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:28 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Yes, of course -- the only appropriate responses to disagreeable events are to call the cops or STFU.

Since you decided to comment instead of STFU, I assume you've called the cops on the poster above? Or were you more worried about being nasty than about making sense?

If its REAL, call the cops, otherwise STFU

Posted Dec 7, 2010 15:09 UTC (Tue) by sez (guest, #71571) [Link]

Cops release the guy on bail, he comes back and does it again.

Conference organisers act - eject him, deal with it, revoke his registration - no badge, no entry, no more problems.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:59 UTC (Wed) by xtifr (guest, #143) [Link] (28 responses)

A lot of people have pointed out negative issues with calling the police, but there's another factor you're ignoring here, Jack. There's a lot of behavior that falls short of "sexual assault or solicit[ing] prostitution"--behavior that is not illegal, but is <em>absolutely</em> unacceptable in civilized society. To pick a non-sexual example, using the "N" word would hardly be the basis for any sort of police involvement, but it's far beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior for many (I hope most) of us.

If a woman is left with no recourse but to call the police, then any behavior that falls short of illegal is tacitly accepted. But I don't accept it! If you can suggest something <em>besides</em> a code of conduct that would cover behavior in the range between acceptable and outright illegal, I'm all ears, but until then, I'm all in favor of Val's suggestion or something like it.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:07 UTC (Thu) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (7 responses)

The thing that the world is full of jerks (of both genders). You can't legislate them out of existence and when people are determined to be a jerk they'll find a way to do it no matter what kind of rules you try to apply to prevent it.

When you find yourself (no matter your gender) dealing with a jerk your options are basically as follows: ignore it, deal with it yourself or complain about it. If you reach adulthood without learning how to deal with the jerks yourself then that's really your own problem.

It would be great if that skill wasn't necessary but wishing that jerks didn't exist in the world isn't going to make it so. If people would focus more on standing up for themselves rather than appealing to authority figures they'd make a lot more progress.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:29 UTC (Thu) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link]

Ummm

No one is legislating against anything.

We are applying our right to self selection.

People are free to be jerks, and others are free to ignore them and exclude them from their community

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:01 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

> If people would focus more on standing up for themselves rather than appealing to authority figures they'd make a lot more progress.

Really? Because authority figures have, you know, authority. I mean, standing up for yourself is a fine thing to do, but there's a limit to what you can do as a random attendee, and I don't see how it'd be some moral failing to ask the organizers to do their damn job. If someone is harassing people, the appropriate response is to kick them out, and I can't do that, but the conference organizers can (and should). Or would you prefer, like, some sort of vigilante justice?

The fact is, in a conference setting, some people have more authority than others. So those people have to make a choice. They can use that authority to back up the jerks (e.g., by egging them on from the podium or just ignoring legitimate complaints) or to back up the non-jerks (e.g. by kicking out people who harass others and not inviting them back).

And the nature of authority is that whichever option they pick is likely to have much more of an effect on how the conference turns out than whatever I do. So in practice, telling attendees that they should stand up for themselves and stop whining means (1) you're saying that it's okay for people with authority to back up the jerks, and (2) it's the responsibility of individual (female) attendees to take on not just the jerks, but the whole conference apparatus.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:49 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Or would you prefer, like, some sort of vigilante justice?

I cannot imagine how horrifying libertarian conferences must be (if there are enough libertarians even in the US to have conferences of any kind).

I don't get it

Posted Dec 3, 2010 14:01 UTC (Fri) by RussNelson (guest, #27730) [Link] (1 responses)

Hehe, you don't actually know any libertarians, do you? Libertarians are fine with rules ... they just want the rules to be voluntarily agreed-upon. In the case of a conference or a meeting, there are rules. Break the rules, and get the punishment ... or don't attend in the first place. THAT is how libertarians work in the real world (rather than your fantasy libertarians).

I don't get it

Posted Dec 5, 2010 1:16 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, I know quite a lot of them. Every one says something different and says that the *others* are not real libertarians. You are about opinion fifty.

Adult harassment victims did nothing wrong

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:50 UTC (Thu) by JanC_ (guest, #34940) [Link]

> If you reach adulthood without learning how to deal with the jerks
> yourself then that's really your own problem.

What you are saying is that adult victims of any kind of harassment (be it sexual harassment at open source conferences, bullying at work, war rape, ...) have to deal with it on their own, because it's their own fault?

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:24 UTC (Thu) by james_w (guest, #51167) [Link]

> and when people are determined to be a jerk they'll find a way to do it no matter what kind of rules you try to apply to prevent it.

True, but we can make it very difficult for them to do it at our conferences.

This isn't about stopping everyone in the world from being jerks, this is about keeping it out of our conferences, so that a minority don't spoil them for everyone else, and prevent us from getting more contributors.

One jerk can do a lot of damage, including stopping 10 or 100 people from contributing to a project or attending a conference.

James

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:16 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (19 responses)

replying to you in particular, but to many posts in this thread in general.

complaints on these issues need to be separated between the clearly illegal (putting hands down someone's pants for example) where the right thing to do _is_ to call the cops (after all, what can the organisers do other than to call the cops on your behalf, but if you aren't willing to talk to the cops about the issue, there's not much that the organisers can do about it) and the ones that are 'setting a bad tone' by insinuation.

mixing them up doesn't really help, if for no other reason than that the people who are just setting the bad tone are going to look at this and say "I'm not doing that sort of thing" and continue to ignore the things that they are doing that are merely offending people.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:35 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (16 responses)

"after all, what can the organisers do other than to call the cops on your behalf, but if you aren't willing to talk to the cops about the issue, there's not much that the organisers can do about it"

There's plenty the organisers can do. They can eject the individual concerned. They can prevent them from attending the conference in future. They can let other conference organisers know what trouble they had and how they dealt with it. They can make it clear that this kind of behaviour is not tolerated. They are in no way bound by a requirement that law enforcement be involved, and if they insist on that then they are failing in their duty towards their attendees.

It's a scale. Some inappropriate acts can be dealt with by simply taking the person concerned aside and suggesting that they modify their behaviour. Other acts are sufficiently serious that the involvement of law enforcement may be required even if the victim isn't willing to do so themselves. But they're different extremes of the same thing, and talking about both in the same context isn't mixing things up.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:07 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (15 responses)

ejecting people opens the organisers up to lawsuits from the people being ejected. How many people are willing to accept that sort of liability?

and please don't say that false accusations never happen, it's been very clearly proven that they do (and to be clear, I am in no way stating or implying that the people interviewed for this article are in any way misstating what actually happened)

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:41 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

*Not* ejecting people also opens organizers up to lawsuits from the people being harassed. (Especially when the harasser is a repeat offender that everyone knows about but ignores anyway. Even if we ignore the *ethical* aspects here, that'd be a *far* more difficult lawsuit to defend against.)

And, for that matter, pretty much everything else involved in running a conference *also* opens one up to lawsuits -- e.g., guess who's on the hook if some attendees trash the venue.

So we have standard ways to deal with this -- written policies (if the form when you signed up said "attendance may be revoked on whim of organizers" then you hardly have a legal leg to stand up if your attendance did get revoked), and running the conference under the auspices of a limited liability corporation with a civil liability insurance policy.

This is all so standard that when I see the liability argument I always feel like the person advancing it is just trying to find some logical justification to back up their gut reaction. Sorry if that's not the case here, but that's how I feel.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 7:14 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (1 responses)

I was in San Jose (Silicon Valley) a few weeks ago, and the hotel I was staying at apparently has problems with weekend parties.

they had a written policy that they apparently hand out to guests staying for the weekend talking about eviction if there are noise complaints.

one interesting thing about this was that it wasn't hotel security that would evict them. The hotel would call the police and have the police evict them.

If you want to throw someone out and make it stick, you really should involve the professionals, either police or other local security personnel.

if someone is merely misbehaving, telling them to calm down, but the off-color jokes, etc is very definitely appropriate for anyone who witnesses the bad behavior to do (definitely NOT limited to event staff), but if you are talking about behavior bad enough to throw someone out (the abuse/assault level of behavior) that is a different story.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:19 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Dunno what your hotel story has to do with anything? Are we just changing the subject from talking about the liability risks of throwing people out to talking about the exact mechanisms that should be used to do it?

Anyone who's running a conference should hopefully be competent enough to handle this kind of situation in an appropriate manner; whether that involves calling the cops is going to be situation dependent, but it's certainly an option.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:19 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (3 responses)

"ejecting people opens the organisers up to lawsuits from the people being ejected. How many people are willing to accept that sort of liability?"

Really? The terms and conditions for most conferences I've signed up to make it clear that the organisers are free to eject me if they see fit. What's the worst that can happen? Refunding of admission fee on a pro-rata basis?

"and please don't say that false accusations never happen, it's been very clearly proven that they do (and to be clear, I am in no way stating or implying that the people interviewed for this article are in any way misstating what actually happened)"

False accusations happen. It's a dreadful reality, and I feel deeply for anyone who's been affected by it. But it's a minority of situations, and while it's true that a false accusation can affect someone's life, so does sexual assault. Working on the assumption that accusations are false until proven true protects may be fine for a criminal justice system, but in a community it hurts a small number of innocents while harming a large number of innocents. If I sexually assault someone in a back room at a conference, without any witnesses, what do you expect law enforcement to do? What do you expect the outcome of me continuing to attend and speak at conferences to be? Is my victim ever going to be enthusiastic about showing up to any event I'm presenting at? Is anyone that my victim ever speaks to?

There's a straightforward way to avoid false accusations. Behave in a manner such that nobody believes you're capable of anything you're accused of. It turns out that people predisposed to inappropriate behaviour generally manage to creep out other people beforehand.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:38 UTC (Thu) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] (1 responses)

"But it's a minority of situations"

Yes, and what on earth does it have to do with having an anti-harassment policy, anyway? Organizers can ask people to leave now, and probably have to every now and then. They could do it on flimsy pretenses already.

This is silly.

All this carping about procedure is beside the point--if there were a pattern of people running around conferences giving wedgies, and the organizers said "cut that out, or you're not welcomed", we wouldn't be having this argument.

The real argument is over whether you should feel like you screwed up because you used a "slide of bikini-clad women" for some throwaway joke. So, go browse around the wiki a little, and come back and argue specific points if you really want to.

Meanwhile, you consider this just a matter of a few thin-skinned people being "offended", and you resent being asked to visit some confusing alien ultra-politically-correct culture--fine, so just take this all as a sort of guide to the quaint customs of our culture. They're not that hard, honest. And stop worrying that you're going to be booted out for some minor slip-up--unless you're totally nuts, the worst that's going to happen is you'll have the slightly uncomfortable experience of somebody in a staff t-shirt asking you to stop doing something....

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:27 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

you are very much putting words in my mouth.

I was talking strictly about the assault-level events

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:08 UTC (Thu) by KSteffensen (guest, #68295) [Link]

"There's a straightforward way to avoid false accusations. Behave in a manner such that nobody believes you're capable of anything you're accused of. It turns out that people predisposed to inappropriate behaviour generally manage to creep out other people beforehand."

In Denmark where I live, for the last couple of years we've had quite a high focus on peadophilia in daycare centers, sports communities, boy scouts, etc. Since peadophilia is such a horrible crime and so hard to prove conclusively in a court, an accusation of peadophilia is enough to ruin a persons life, even though the accused is acquitted in court. This leads to a situation where men I know refuse to do paid or charity work in these settings, for the fear of being accused of touching the children.

Behaving in a manner such that nobody believes you're capable of anything you're accused of is not necessarily as straightforward as you say.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:43 UTC (Thu) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (2 responses)

A conference is a private event. Generally speaking, the organizers have as much legal right to eject someone from a conference as you do to kick someone out of your house. If you are a conference organizer, it's your party, you can invite - or kick out - anyone you like.

Hm, I feel like I wrote this before. Oh, that's because I did!

http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Anti-harassment_policy...

(Search for "private event.")

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 17:06 UTC (Thu) by sorpigal (subscriber, #36106) [Link] (1 responses)

Having taken time to actually read this link I am now confused. Is this the policy referenced in TFA? It seems like it would be better described as an Anti-Harassment HOWTO for conference organizers, a thing which clearly would be beneficial and not at all harmful. Describing it as a "policy" and referencing the Ubuntu code of conduct suggests that this is some kind of affidavit that each attendee would have to agree to live by, which sounds draconian and unreasonable.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 18:17 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

No, the one in TFA is: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Conference_anti-harass...

You're right that the one she linked in the comments is just an explanation of anti-harassment policies and issues surrounding them.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:51 UTC (Thu) by stewart (subscriber, #50665) [Link]

> ejecting people opens the organisers up to lawsuits from the people being > ejected. How many people are willing to accept that sort of liability?

Just about all of them.

Those that aren't, I don't want to go to.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 7, 2010 15:16 UTC (Tue) by sez (guest, #71571) [Link] (3 responses)

Ejecting people opens $conf up to lawsuits. Where is your evidence for this claim?

Sounds like FUD to me.

Certainly for our conference our insurance policy explicitly *does not cover* claims under molestation, so if someone experiences that at our conference and we have done nothing to prevent it, we are wide open to being sued.

But as far as ejecting people goes - no problem.

False complaint?? What are you talking about?

This is not a kangaroo court, no-ones being charged with anything here. If the worst possible thing happens under this policy and the person gets ejected, too bad - so sad, they go back to work and tell their buddies whatever they want. Its a minor inconvenience.

If the conf organisers don't eject them and the offender goes on to grope and harass more people, the class action lawsuit, not covered by insurance is going to go as high as the national debt.

You want to pay for that?

I don't get it

Posted Dec 7, 2010 19:20 UTC (Tue) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

if you refund the person's air fare, hotel, and conference registration, then it can approach 'too bad, so sad' but even then it's not a non-event.

your opinion seems to be 'better to punish a hundred innocent people by throwing them out than to miss throwing out one bad person', aka a presumption of guilt.

At least in the US, this is not how things are supposed to work.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 7, 2010 20:30 UTC (Tue) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link]

I think you're mistaking judicial process and a private event.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 7, 2010 20:31 UTC (Tue) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

Where did sez talk about throwing out hundreds of people?

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:28 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

I think it's important to keep the plainly illegal actions separate from the merely obnoxious ones in terms of how we respond to them, but not to the point that we treat them as completely separate issues. They aren't. Bad behavior is self reinforcing. You can bet the plainly illegal behavior is far more common at events where simple obnoxiousness is tolerated than at events where any level of sexism is considered unacceptable.

And the less egregious behavior is an area where the community can really do something. If you think somebody is setting a bad tone, don't just shrug it off because it doesn't affect you. Challenge them on it.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:27 UTC (Thu) by mdz@debian.org (guest, #14112) [Link]

"after all, what can the organisers do other than to call the cops on your behalf, but if you aren't willing to talk to the cops about the issue, there's not much that the organisers can do about it"

Their first responsibility is to avoid this situation happening in the first place.

I don't get it

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:02 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] (17 responses)

You're right, you don't get it. The worst offenses- the sexual assault and soliciting prostitution- feed on minor ones. When sexual harassment is shrugged off with a nod and a wink, it gives would be attackers the message that women are acceptable prey. On the other hand, a code of conduct that bans even minor examples of sexism will make it clear that any kind of unequal treatment is unacceptable- as long as the words are backed up with concrete action.

Less NOT More

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:02 UTC (Thu) by brianomahoney (guest, #6206) [Link] (16 responses)

This has to be in and of America, where the law is not enough, and the self-identified victims want to create more specifically tailored politically correct crap. That is what this is, pure crap.

Women and GLT are entitled to the same respect and protection under the law as anyone else, no more, no less. That already deals with harassment and unwanted advances, un-wanted flirting need to be delt with firmly by the flirtee.

Less NOT More

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:46 UTC (Thu) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (15 responses)

Women and GLT are entitled to the same respect and protection under the law as anyone else, no more, no less.

Of course that's not enough. It never will be until all the wrongs are set right and atoned for. Of course when someone has a carte blanche to keep inventing new wrongs the process will never be complete.

Only in ivory tower academia or government circles are views like this taken seriously any more. The rest of the culture has moved on and doesn't give the people who spout off that kind of BS much credibility.

please stop.

Posted Dec 2, 2010 19:17 UTC (Thu) by wingo (guest, #26929) [Link] (13 responses)

Please stop, both of you. You are attempting to smear the people you disagree with as being out-of-touch, but do yourself a favor and count the number of commenters here that agree with you.

I live in Europe, work in industry, and agree with Val.

Thank you.

please stop.

Posted Dec 3, 2010 6:28 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

See, but you're only counting the people who feel safe posting on an anonymous internet bulletin board. You need to also count the lurkers who support him in email.

please stop.

Posted Dec 5, 2010 16:12 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Likewise, very strongly. In fact in Europe I'd hope that these things were stamped on much harder than in the US. Certainly there are longer legal teeth in some countries, but I'm not sure about cultural ones: the EU is culturally diverse and in some places, e.g. Italy, all sorts of appalling things appear to be acceptable if one uses the antics of political leaders as an indication of what is marginally tolerable.

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 11:57 UTC (Tue) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (10 responses)

I live in Europe

Considering how your enlightened European laws are sufficiently accommodating to arrest Julian Assange on trumped up charges I'm not sure that's something worth bragging about.

Coincidentally, did you notice that the crime he's being accused of only exists because of the radical feminist doctrine that women can retroactively withdraw consent? (men, of course, do not have this privilege)

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 14:23 UTC (Tue) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (8 responses)

"Can retroactively withdraw consent" - bullshit, this is not an accurate description at all. I think this quote sums it up well:

"The New York Times reported that the two women claimed that "each had consensual sexual encounters with Mr. Assange that became nonconsensual.""

Basically, they started have sex, she said, "Okay, time for the condom!", he said, "Condom, schmondom" and proceeded against her wishes. Sorry, folks, but even after everyone has taken off all their clothes and are getting all snuggly, it's still possible to commit rape. Just imagine any number of things you would not like to have done to yourself while naked in bed. Go on, I'm sure you can think of something. Now imagine your next sex partner decided to do them to you and wouldn't take no for an answer. Also imagine that your sex partner is bigger and stronger than you and a worldwide hero and that thousands of self-righteous internet commenters will come to their defense.

If you think this is an okay way to have sex, do, please, post your name and photo so we can avoid you just as assiduously as Julian Assange. Thanks.

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 14:33 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (7 responses)

Before you make concrete in your mind that version of events, you may wish to read this alternative account of the events that lead to the accusations around Assange: http://t.co/K4SIHRP

(Warning for those who don't have an istyosty plugin installed: It's a dailymail link, but this one is at least interesting, and its author claims to be basing it on the actual police charges, combined with talking to associates of those involved. The latter of course not infrequently turns out to be highly biased / unreliable, but the author at least seems to try to differentiate what info came from what kind of source).

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 15:58 UTC (Tue) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link] (1 responses)

You can use actual links on lwn.net, you know. It's not Twitter -- you don't have to fit within 140 characters.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1336291/Wikileaks...

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 16:36 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

A better link would be via istyosty (a proxy), to minimise the clicks given to the Daily Hate: http://istyosty.com/2r1

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 16:30 UTC (Tue) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (4 responses)

Oh, my mistake - they had sex with a condom, then they want to sleep, then he had sex without a condom against his partner's wishes. In the other incident they had sex with a condom, the condom broke, and he went on to have sex without a condom against his partner's wishes.

I'm afraid this doesn't change my disagreement with the original poster at all. No consent was withdrawn retroactively, it was not given at the time of the act.

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 16:40 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Do you always automatically take accusations against people as true? The precise nature of consent is at best unclear, and there are no allegations of force or duress of any kind (least none public at least).

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 16:47 UTC (Tue) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link]

Ah, and just after I wrote that, details of charges come out in the court hearing and they include use of force. Still, needs to be tried before judgment...

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 17:07 UTC (Tue) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (1 responses)

A actual rape victim does not go out the next morning, buy food, cook breakfast for her attacker, eat it with him and only later deciding to file charges.

It's a sham that only makes sense under the twisted ideology of "all men are automatically rapists".

Of course it's all geopoliticaly motivated but the incident does serve to illuminate just how outrageous those laws have become.

please stop.

Posted Dec 7, 2010 17:33 UTC (Tue) by jake (editor, #205) [Link]

We seem to have gotten pretty far afield from the topic of the article. I imagine there are plenty of places to discuss Wikileaks/Assange and the charges against him. Howzabout we stop discussing it here?

thanks,

jake

please stop.

Posted Dec 10, 2010 12:15 UTC (Fri) by randomguy3 (subscriber, #71063) [Link]

They may be trumped up. They may not be. We (random people on the internets) certainly don't have enough information to say one way or the other. They are certainly serious, though.

What we have are courts to hear the evidence and come to a conclusion. Largely open courts, whose decisions can be scrutinised by the press and public.

Mr Assange is attempting to avoid the confrontation with the courts. He believes he is in danger of either a miscarriage of justice or extradition to the US. These things may be true, but the world will be watching carefully.

Anyway, this is something of a digression from the topic of the article, but your automatic assumption that the women involved must be lying simply because his arrest is convenient for various governments certainly won't endear you to other readers. And you are somewhat undermining your earlier argument about how the police are the right people to deal with issues at conferences given how little faith you apparently have in European legal systems.

Less NOT More

Posted Dec 3, 2010 19:39 UTC (Fri) by AdamW (subscriber, #48457) [Link]

This is an interesting fallacy because it becomes so clearly absurd if you apply it to, well, any other area at all.

To make it clear, the fallacy is 'the only rules of conduct that matter are the law of the land. Nothing else matters'.

So, let's see. Would you go to a church, stand up in the middle of the service, and yell "YOU'RE ALL MORONS! GOD IS DEAD!"

Would you consider that acceptable behaviour? Even if you don't believe in God? *I* don't believe in God, and I wouldn't do that.

But it's not illegal. So, why wouldn't you do that (assuming you wouldn't)? Because you recognize that it would be outside the accepted code of behaviour in that environment. It would be rude.

If you did this, the church in question would likely ask that you not attend any events there in future. Would you say they would be unreasonable to do so?

Okay, more examples. Would you sign up for LKML and send five hundred messages discussing the NFL? Again, this isn't illegal at all. But would you think it would be a reasonable or polite thing to do? Would you be surprised if you were banned from the list for doing it? But it's not illegal! What right does LKML have to enforce its cruel and arbitrary standards of behaviour on you when you're not breaking the law?

See, it *really* doesn't stand up at all. But for some reason, you think it's fine to apply the bizarre idea that behaviour can only possibly be wrong if it's illegal to the sphere of sexual harassment.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 21:52 UTC (Wed) by davide.del.vento (guest, #59196) [Link] (2 responses)

Wow, I was unaware of this issue (maybe because I don't go very often to conferences and even less often to afterwards gatherings?)

I guess most people (including myself), male and female, have received "unwanted attentions" at conferences and elsewhere, and that is probably part of the human nature and (although not fun) it could be ok.

But from "unwanted attentions" to plain harassment and the facts described here, it's a huge step in wrong direction. These facts are not acceptable at a tech conference (well, they are not acceptable anywhere).

I'll surely check if there is a policy for dealing with harassment in any conference I'll attend in future, refraining from attending ones that don't, and mentioning the reason to the organizers.

Thanks for bringing this to the attention of LWN readers! I'll share it on my social network (since this article is paywalled, I strongly recommend putting the http://valerieaurora.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/its-not-jus... in the abstract outside the paywall)

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:15 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

> Wow, I was unaware of this issue (maybe because I don't go very often to conferences and even less often to afterwards gatherings?)

If you're a privileged type (e.g., white/male/hetero/cisgender/thin/middle-class/..., like me), then it turns out that there's a *huge*, a *shocking* amount of this sort of stuff that goes on all the time around us, and we just don't hear about it. Because it isn't shocking to the people it affects, it's just business as usual, no point in talking about it all the time. (That's what's shocking to us.) And since we aren't affected, we don't see it otherwise.

> I'll share it on my social network (since this article is paywalled,

If you want to share the full article, you can click the "send a free link" button at the bottom of the article, and share that.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:56 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Well, some of us hear about it from friends or female relatives. It definitely happens (and yes, I'm told that that learning martial arts *is* a pretty effective last-ditch defence if someone grabs you in a quiet street at night: though often a quick kick where it hurts is just as effective, it can't be effectively employed until the perp's hands are busy).

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:19 UTC (Wed) by storner (subscriber, #119) [Link] (7 responses)

As others have commented, the examples You provide are indeed appalling.

Since I am not in the US (Denmark / Scandinavia), I cannot help but wonder if there is a general difference in culture between the US and here on the other side of the pond. True, I am male and Valerie's experiences are from the female point of view. But I am also openly homosexual, so I have had a couple of "funny" remarks thrown my way occasionally. But never at Open Source conferences - my impression of people in the OSS community here has always been that they are generally more accepting of various minority groups than society in general, something which I've attributed to many of us being younger than the average population.

It's sad that some people haven't got a clue about how to behave themselves.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:30 UTC (Wed) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (3 responses)

I suspect there may be more LGBTQ folks in the FOSS community than women (usually estimated 10% of population are gay, but even if only 5% of men in FOSS were gay/bi, that'd still be twice as many as the estimated number of women). I also think that many of the sorts of things that happen to us (the grabbing, leering, propositioning, etc) are exactly the sorts of things a homophobic straight man would *not* want to do to you--it'd make him look like what he despises.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:56 UTC (Wed) by sealne (guest, #58884) [Link] (2 responses)

I have lost count of the number of times that the homophobic comments at FLOSS conferences (maybe one day I'll make it through an event without this happening) have forced me to leave a conversation or social event.

The worst part is when it is people you consider friends that nearly have you in tears with their hateful comments and then claim that its all just a joke.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:49 UTC (Thu) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link]

I agree, homophobic comments and "jokes" are incredibly common at FLOSS events and create a really unpleasant and uncomfortable environment for everyone. One of the joys of writing this policy was the hope that it could be used to discourage gay jokes, and fat jokes, and racist jokes, and all the other crap that makes me furious and angry but happens so often that I can't fight it all by myself.

I strongly encourage conference organizers to explicitly call out sexual orientation as one of the sources of harassment they will not tolerate. It is included as one of the options in the policy.

Thanks for bringing this up.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:36 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

To clarify, I don't at all doubt that there are homophobic comments, only that there would be negative events with sexual overtones (such as requesting or forcing a sexual act) by a homophobic person. I strongly *hope* that there are not violently homophobic incidences occurring at conferences, as these are the sort of physical dangers I perceive to be the problem for members of the LGBTQ population.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:07 UTC (Wed) by leoc (guest, #39773) [Link] (1 responses)

FWIW, the "Ottawa Linux Symposium" is in Ottawa, Canada.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:16 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

FWIW, it hasn't been worth going to OLS in about three years. All the good papers are submitted elsewhere these days.

I live in Ottawa, about ten minutes walk from the conference venue, and I couldn't be bothered to go to the free day this year. It genuinely wasn't worth my time. I did appreciate the opportunity to get together with some of the attendees after-hours though :-) [Yes, in a pub. Even though I wasn't drinking. See other comment.]

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 8, 2010 8:35 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I'm a gay man on the fringes of open source in the US. I've been to way too many linuxy/open sourcey conferences (worked for SuSE etc) and I've pretty much never noticed the harassment of attendees. The only unusal topical thing that happened is I actually got picked up -- in a very careful and deferential and polite manner. We went on a pleasant date though it didn't really go anywhere.

Back on topic: I don't see these things happening. Yes, I would see the tasteless sexualized environment thigns from time to time, and I would frown on them, complain about them to co-attendees, and sometimes tell the purveyeors of them that they reflect poorly on the company. But I did not notice any directed harassment, intimidation, or gender demeaning going on.

However, when I talk to women about the topic I find out that they absolutely *are* happening. I get all kinds of stories from subtly awful where women are looked past for opinions from their male colleagues to the overtly bizaree like the conversation about "You're not an engineer. There are no women engineers." Harassment of this sort has a tendency to happen when other parties aren't around or involved. It's easy to miss if people don't speak up about it.

Oh, Joy! Another policy!

Posted Dec 1, 2010 22:20 UTC (Wed) by freebird (guest, #43129) [Link] (4 responses)

Print some red and yellow cards with the code of conduct. Carry a whistle.

When propositioned, whistle and yellow card (make a 'yakking' gesture).
When groped, whistle and red card (make a groping gesture).

There are plenty of cell-phone cams all around, and I suspect a comprehensive Hall of Shame would be compiled pretty quickly.

After which consciousness will have been raised sufficiently that the problem goes away.

Oh, Joy! Another policy!

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:41 UTC (Thu) by marduk (subscriber, #3831) [Link] (3 responses)

> Print some red and yellow cards with the code of conduct. Carry a whistle.

Wear a grimace. Carry a pistol.

Oh, Joy! Another policy!

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:11 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (2 responses)

Carry a knee. Ask conference attendees to hold perp by arms to preclude protective measures. Employ knee in delicate zone carried only by men. (Yes, it hurts. Yes, it is technically assault back. But the bugger deserved it, it isn't actually damaging, and immediate retribution is satisfying.)

(this is not entirely a serious suggestion, perhaps)

Oh, Joy! Another policy!

Posted Dec 6, 2010 4:17 UTC (Mon) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link] (1 responses)

Your suggestion was perhaps not entirely serious, but this one is.

First, I'm glad this sort of suggested formal policy appears to be on the way to becoming the norm. It's about time!

What I kept thinking while reading the original article, especially about the physical assaults, is that it was too bad the victims in question weren't carrying Mace, pepper-spray, etc, and wasn't afraid to use it. A couple incidents of that and one would think the problem would disappear, with the reputation preceding for anyone unfortunate enough to be contemplating such attacks, just as it does for some of the bad actors in question.

OK, I can hear the reactions now. "Typical male reaction." "Why should they have to carry that sort of stuff in the first place?" "That's not legal in some places." ...

I know it's illegal to carry pepper-spray or the like in some places, and agree, it /shouldn't/ be necessary. And if it's "typical male reaction", then help me understand what sort of other real options exist for such situations.

But I've often thought that were I female, regardless of whether I should /have/ to (I shouldn't), I'd likely carry pepper-spray, much as I already make it a personal practice to learn where the exits are in the hotels, I stay/meet at, to the point that I sometimes wonder if I should fail to do so, that'd be the time the fire happened and I'd need it.

And believe me, if someone tried (involuntarily) groping in my underwear and I had spray available, they'd be getting a blast (and if I didn't have it available when it happened, I expect that I'd see to it that I did, soon thereafter)! Same with that involuntary kiss episode. Maybe I'd be the one thrown out as a result. Maybe not. But regardless they'd be thinking twice about trying that again on their next intended victim! And there'd be a lot of attendees that would get the message as well. (One would hope they'd come to my defense when it came time to decide who to throw out, but my action can't rest on what I'd hope other people will do.)

The "how much for <act>?" bit would then get a response like, "Well, that depends on how much the emergency treatment you choose after getting hit with this <show the can> would cost. Now are you going to continue or do we drop it?" Of course accompanied by the scathing look the person deserves. Again, the message would be as effectively delivered to other witnesses as well. At that point, one might expect an apology unless the person's /entirely/ clueless. How/if it came might determine whether I'd consider future interaction with that person or not, or simply don't have anything ever to do with them again regardless. Either would be justified.

To my way of thinking, at least, a couple incidents of this nature and the message would get out. Perhaps that guy with the bikini second-slide might get the message and be doing a bit of quick editing, were it at the same conference, and hopefully wouldn't even be considered for the next one. OTOH, it takes some people a bit more reinforcement to get the message, witness the recent emacs virgins remarks incident.

OTOH, I'm **NOT** blaming the victim here. There's no excuse, regardless. I'm simply wondering if pepper-spray or the like /has/ been considered as a personal defense option. Maybe there's been an event where someone deployed it. How was that treated? If not, how /would/ it be treated? Would it have the effects described above, or would the simple fact that the spray was deployed make the victim the aggressor, potentially turning the tables to the point that the victimizer appears to be the victim, however justified the deployment was?

Anyway, a written and enforced public policy encourages all actors to best behavior, Ideally the environment being encouraged with this policy will mean there'll be less events like the above to discuss, in a few years. =:^)

Oh, Joy! Another policy!

Posted Dec 6, 2010 22:47 UTC (Mon) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

In the kissing episode, my arms worked pretty well for putting a stop to it. He stopped moving when a wall got in the way. And when I (and the lady next to me, who heard the kiss sound and saw the push) yelled at him, a handful of people took notice and tried to get him to leave. They didn't notice that he finally chose to leave when I did...and followed me, but I saw and headed toward where other people were.

Oh, and no, I wasn't the first person he'd gone after that day. The other had an experience much closer to Noirin's (except in this case, he tried to put her hands on his crotch).

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:03 UTC (Wed) by james_w (guest, #51167) [Link]

Thanks for writing this, it makes a compelling argument for the need for such a policy, and against this being something that doesn't really happen at open source conferences.

James

One for the timeline

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:24 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link] (42 responses)

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.

One for the timeline

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:51 UTC (Wed) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (37 responses)

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] (36 responses)

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] (35 responses)

"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] (34 responses)

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] (33 responses)

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] (1 responses)

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 (guest, #2330) [Link] (30 responses)

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] (27 responses)

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] (23 responses)

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] (22 responses)

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] (16 responses)

"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] (15 responses)

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] (13 responses)

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] (12 responses)

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] (10 responses)

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] (9 responses)

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] (8 responses)

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] (7 responses)

"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] (6 responses)

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] (5 responses)

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] (4 responses)

...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] (3 responses)

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] (2 responses)

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 (guest, #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 (guest, #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] (4 responses)

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] (3 responses)

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] (2 responses)

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] (1 responses)

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] (1 responses)

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] (3 responses)

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?
http://live.gnome.org/CodeOfConduct/SpeakerGuidelines

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] (2 responses)

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 (guest, #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!

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 1, 2010 23:32 UTC (Wed) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (2 responses)

Some of these accounts are almost unbelievable. A hostile or dismissive vibe is one thing (bad as it is), but the accounts of physical assault are staggering.

How is it that a many can put his hands down a woman's pants in a conference and get away with it? If the conference authorities are not willing to do something, can't the police be notified?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:21 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (guest, #2510) [Link]

Read up on The Tailhook Scandal. It's an illness of our society. This is not in any way meant to excuse it.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:32 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

For the record, Noirin's hands-down-pants experience was reported to the other organisers (though she herself was one of them) who then escorted her to the police station to file a report.

Thank you, Valerie

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:08 UTC (Thu) by pr1268 (guest, #24648) [Link]

Thank you, Valerie, for your article and for drafting a policy. Like other commenters above, I, too, am appalled at what you've described happening at open-source conferences. This policy is a necessary step in the right direction to eliminate boorish and (likely) illegal behavior.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:12 UTC (Thu) by jhhaller (guest, #56103) [Link] (23 responses)

My daughter took a field trip to the International Manufacturing convention. She was very excited by all of the robotic machines, but then one of the exhibitors brought out their skimpily clad dancers to the stage. Men flooded the exhibit, taking pictures with their cell phones and calling their friends. My daughter was so offended (her first trade show) that she yelled at the dancers for being traitors to their gender. I would like her to be able to consider a career in engineering/technology, but this behavior gives her a hint of where she won't be welcome.

I haven't been to an Open Source conference (unless you count Usenix in the 70's), but most shows won't work financially if there aren't exhibitors unless they or are held in free space such as a university. Exhibitors and universities are generally sensitive to people who are offended by this sort of activity. Letters to exhibitors or universities will frequently put pressure on the organizers to discourage this sort of antisocial behavior. If the behavior comes from someone who works for a corporation, a letter to that companies HR department is also likely to be effective in either getting the person to change their behavior or leave the company. Most companies don't want their employees representing their employer poorly. My company has a policy that employees can't visit a strip club while away on company business, even on their own time and expense, nor may employees expense such trips locally. While one would think this would be a big problem, sales teams will do almost anything to close a sale. Having a company policy makes it easier to tell a client no, that it's against company rules. I'm sure they wouldn't want an employee who was groping people at a convention either.

If you know of a conference which has been problematic, writing letters to the venue and exhibitors will be a proactive step in getting things to change. Having both men and women raising the concern is helpful when the venue or exhibitors incorrectly think that someone is just overly sensitive.

Did I just wake up back in the 1970s?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:55 UTC (Thu) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

I'd actually say that yelling at people for being "gender traitors" is much higher on my list of things that should get you thrown out of a conference than some of the items on Valerie's list like hiring "booth babes". But since I neither attend these conferences nor run them it hardly matters.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:10 UTC (Thu) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (21 responses)

I understand and share your daughter's anger, but it might have been better directed at the people who hired the dancers, not the dancers themselves. I feel confident that none of the (female) dancers were motivated by the desire to hurt other women; probably they just wanted to support themselves and had few other options, in part because of sexual discrimination. Blaming women for accepting jobs as exotic dancers and booth babes is approximately as sensible as blaming newly freed slaves for taking jobs as sharecroppers.

I wanted to avoid putting more responsibility on the victims of harassment, which is why I focused on convincing the people in power - conference organizers - to change.

If you'd like to learn more about this topic and at the same time read one of the top living writers in the English language, I recommend any of Margaret Atwood's novels, but especially "The Handmaiden's Tale" and "The Blind Assassin." You're welcome!

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:00 UTC (Thu) by stewart (subscriber, #50665) [Link] (1 responses)

Amazingly enough I go to tech conferences for tech, not for scantily clad women. If I wanted scantily clad women, I would be elsewhere, not at a tech conference.

Perhaps if people running a booth want attendees to be interested in their technology they should have people on the booth who know about their technology.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 7:57 UTC (Thu) by dambacher (subscriber, #1710) [Link]

> Perhaps if people running a booth want attendees to be interested in their
> technology they should have people on the booth who know about their
> technology.

I was at a machine tool fair a month ago. A machine manufacturer had a beautiful girl showing the machine functions to interested people. She definitely had the tech knowledge.
But they put her in a bavarian dirndl wich in a marketing sense accentuated the wrong things.

So yes we definitly need such a policy on conferences.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:07 UTC (Thu) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (9 responses)

>I feel confident that none of the (female) dancers were motivated by the desire to hurt other women; probably they just wanted to support themselves and had few other options, in part because of sexual discrimination. Blaming women for accepting jobs as exotic dancers and booth babes is approximately as sensible as blaming newly freed slaves for taking jobs as sharecroppers.

It saddens me that you appear to be so dismissive of other people's career choices as to imply that nobody would make those choices unless essentially forced to.

That kind of prejudice seems discordant with your other writing, but I suppose we all have blind spots. It seems we still have a very long way to go.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:02 UTC (Thu) by jackb (guest, #41909) [Link] (1 responses)

It saddens me that you appear to be so dismissive of other people's career choices as to imply that nobody would make those choices unless essentially forced to.

The kind of prejudice to which you are referring isn't new and its agenda is well known but otherwise rational people apparently have been too bullied by political correctness to call it it out for what it is.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 8, 2010 8:52 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

Oh hate those feminists! Hate hate hate!

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:16 UTC (Thu) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (6 responses)

Let's be clear here about what the "career choice" is. From what I know of the booth babe/showgirl/exotic dancer industry, these people have to put up with a lot of disrespect and bad treatment from both their audience and their management. I don't personally know any little girls (or grown women) who dream of their ultimate career as booth babe for a switch company. Again, it's not about being disrespectful or angry with the women who are being sexualized to sell ethernet cards, it's disagreeing with a society that leaves them with this as their best option.

If you're talking about a different kind of career that involved wearing skimpy clothing and dancing in order to sell computer parts, please be specific about what it is and how I'm blaming or disrespecting the dancer.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 17:53 UTC (Thu) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (1 responses)

A group of dancers hired to perform on stage at a conference is hardly an egregious example of exploitation, but what concerns me is phrases like 'I don't personally know...' and 'their best option'. The subtext being: 'this is something I wouldn't want to do, therefore nobody must want to do it, therefore anyone who does it must have been forced somehow'.

I don't personally know anyone who wants to be a sysadmin - after all it's a job that comes with high stress and very low social status - but I don't therefore assume that anyone who is has chosen it because it's their only choice.

If you are simply pointing out that a hardware or software conference is not the appropriate place for any display which sexualises women (or men for that matter) then we're in agreement, but it *appears* (and perhaps I'm misconstruing your position) that you believe a priori that no woman would ever want to be sexualised to any extent in a professional situation. A fairly short Google search can find any number of sex-positive feminists (and women who prefer not to describe themselves as feminist because they feel betrayed by feminism as a movement) who wouldn't agree and feel marginalised by that (common) viewpoint.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 21:51 UTC (Sat) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link]

I think you are confusing being sex-positive with being sexually exploited. And before you demand that I educate you on the topic, try doing some research yourself.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 17:53 UTC (Thu) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] (3 responses)

Of course, there are many women who become exotic dancers or adult models solely for the paycheck, but you could say that about nearly any field. How many little girls (or boys) dream of their ultimate career as a housekeeper or telemarketer?

On the other hand, it is a gross generalization to suggest that no woman ever chooses to be an exotic dancer. I have several friends and acquaintances--women I met through typical social channels--who have willingly chosen exotic dancing and other sex-related work as a career and truly enjoy what they do. To insist that no woman should take a job displaying or exploiting their body is its own form of sexism.

It's probably fair to say that nobody dreams about being a booth babe for a switch company. But that's how the service industry works: unless you have more inquiries than you can handle, you don't really get to pick and choose your customers. Sometimes the work is fun, sometimes it just pays the bills. I'm sure the caterer who was backstage refilling the warming tray with hot dogs wasn't living their "dream career" at the moment either.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 4:57 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (2 responses)

It's interesting how there are all these people jumping to defend women against... Valerie's comments. And yet I just searched this thread, and despite their deep concern about women's rights, those same people haven't felt the need to similarly condemn any of the events described in the original post. On the contrary, they're much more worried about how rude it is to call people out for misogyny, and discounting the special problems that women encounter in FOSS groups, and talking about how hard it would be to enforce these things.

Val suggested that none of the dancers were motivated by the desire to hurt other women, and that the reason they were up on stage at a tech conference (of all things) probably had more to do with the paycheck than anything else. She probably could have been more nuanced in her analogies, but as far as I can tell, you all specifically *agree* with these points. So is this just about scoring points or what?

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:09 UTC (Fri) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] (1 responses)

For the record, I fully support Val's goals of raising awareness of sexual harassment at tech conferences and calling for pressure to make the atmosphere at such events more supportive of female attendees. I didn't mean for my debate with her in this sub-thread, which is only tangentially related to the original issue, to suggest otherwise.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:44 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

Thank you, I'm glad to hear it.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:51 UTC (Thu) by jhhaller (guest, #56103) [Link]

It was definitely a teachable moment when she came home and told me about her experience, and about what she could do better to express herself in an effective way to encourage change. I don't blame the dancers for taking the job, but she is still young enough to see things in black and white rather than grays. However, when through employment or conventions, many of the women who are attending (and some men, obviously not all) are uncomfortable in those situations. Especially if it is employment-related, this discourages people who are uncomfortable from being in these situations. I can't imagine an employee (male or female) having to go home to their spouse and explain why they had to take their client to a strip club to keep their job.

But, as the article is about Open Source conferences, and reading that some woman (and probably some men) have stopped attending some conferences, the conferences with issues are obviously missing the voices of those who refuse to attend, and discouraging future participation. And for every person who speaks out, there are probably another ten who feel the same way, but just silently stop attending, or change professions.

Thanks for the book suggestion.

It's not just Open Source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 19:48 UTC (Fri) by AdamW (subscriber, #48457) [Link]

Health warning: don't read The Handmaid's Tale without an industrial-size vat of anti-depressants and a large box of hankies on tap. It's a great book, but also quite hideously depressing...

The Blind Assassin is much cheerier. In bits, anyway. Also brilliant. :)

Handmaid, not Handmaiden

Posted Dec 3, 2010 20:56 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (6 responses)

The novel Valerie is thinking of is titled "The Handmaid's Tale". "Handmaid" being the name for the social niche of the main narrator in the story.

It seems to me that someone who doesn't recognise yelling at people who are doing their job as harassment and take it seriously might not be the right person to write an anti-harassment policy.

Handmaid, not Handmaiden

Posted Dec 4, 2010 20:30 UTC (Sat) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (5 responses)

Thanks for the correction on the book title!

Re: "yelling at people who are doing their job" - I think you may have the people and events in this thread mixed up. I was the person who suggested that "yelling at people who are doing their job" was not the right thing to do, and I am also the person who wrote the anti-harassment policy. The young woman who yelled at the people doing their job is the daughter of a commenter and was not, to my knowledge, involved in writing the policy.

Handmaid, not Handmaiden

Posted Dec 5, 2010 15:06 UTC (Sun) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (4 responses)

No, I have the people and events perfectly straight, and my priorities straight too. You had an opportunity to clearly and forthrightly condemn harassment and you didn't take it. Depending on the messenger, silence can be its own message. Perhaps you'd like to rectify that now?

Handmaid, not Handmaiden

Posted Dec 5, 2010 21:59 UTC (Sun) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (3 responses)

Really? Seriously? You're calling me to task for not being sufficiently outraged about a young woman being upset at several other women being exploited at a tech conference? Do you think maybe you might be derailing a bit?

Okay, I shouldn't feed the trolls but I'll make an exception. Yes, I clearly and forthrightly condemn yelling at women hired to create a sexualized environment at technology conference. I even more clearly and forthrightly condemn the decision to hire women to create a sexualized environment at a technology conference - something that happens rather more often and has a far greater negative effect, yet doesn't seem to bother you as much.

Now, please, after you - go straight ahead and review my article and this thread and take every "opportunity to clearly and forthrightly condemn
harassment" where you see it. Because I see a lot of opportunities you may have missed...

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 6, 2010 3:10 UTC (Mon) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link] (2 responses)

Thank you, I hope that's clear. I decline to identify every possible incidence of harassment, it lies outside my interest and expertise, and seems likely to be fruitless.

I will give you two pieces of advice though: If you're unsure whether you are being trolled, it is not a good idea to reply and accuse the person of trolling.

Secondly I suggest you read "The Sparrow" by Mary Doria Russell, and think upon the gravity of the mistakes you can make when you assume that others see things exactly the way you do, think about them the way you do, and feel about them the same way you do.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 6, 2010 6:23 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

"Perhaps you'd like to rectify that now?" Are you kidding?

You're so full of advice and strong words, and so hard of hearing, that I think anyone could be forgiven for smelling a troll. Maybe tone it down a notch?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 8, 2010 8:59 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I read the Sparrow. It's tripe.

I also know that yelling is not the same as harassment: On the way to work the other day, three cars entered an intersection when there was not enough room in the lane they wanted on the other side. The light changed. They dumbly stayed lined up blocking traffic. I was walking by and yelled "GET OUT OF THE INTERSECTION, YOU IDIOTS! PULL INTO THE OTHER LANE! ITS YOUR ERROR!" This was not harassment.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:14 UTC (Thu) by mb (subscriber, #50428) [Link] (33 responses)

While I agree that this behavior is unacceptable, I do not think that it is special to Open Source conferences.

> A presenter had a title slide followed by a slide of bikini-clad women
> holding laptops, which he said was just to get people to pay attention.
> I'm not sure if we were supposed to pay attention to the women or to what
> he was saying though.

Yeah, a picture of bikini-clad men holding laptops would have been way funnier. ;)
I did not attend this, but I assume it was just a (bad and stupid) joke. I personally don't see anything sexist there.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:43 UTC (Thu) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (3 responses)

The way I read this was that is was not so much sexist, as it was an ignorance of the female audience at these conferences.

Ultimately that seems an underlying issue that can open the door to more sexist environments. Planning your conferences assuming that women will be present and interested would probably make you think twice of using any bikini images

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:52 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (2 responses)

I have never done this and I don't consider it professional.

Still, an image of a woman in bikini - where's the problem ?
Maybe you could ask the guy to put a picture of a pretty guy in Speedos on the same slide. I for one wouldn't feel offended by this in any way, independent of whether it would be presented by a man or woman.

Alex

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:00 UTC (Thu) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link] (1 responses)

Still, an image of a woman in bikini - where's the problem?

This is a fundamental rule of social interaction: what matters is not what you find offensive personally - what matters is the 'superset' of all things that members of the audience might be upset or even just uncomfortable about.

Since it's a superset there will probably always be things that you don't care about that deeply - but which others find impolite or offensive.

This concept is especially important on technical conferences where a large number of cultures and subcultures meet and often the only common social platform they share are the narrow technical topics.

If you are conscious of that then it's going to be a pleasant experience for everyone involved.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 12, 2010 7:21 UTC (Sun) by linuxrocks123 (subscriber, #34648) [Link]

Following this rule means giving free reign to any person wishing to censor something. All that person has to do is say, "that offends me", and the censorship is done. I support -- and always will support -- actively ignoring people who are offended by trivial things.

---linuxrocks123

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:57 UTC (Thu) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

The problem isn't when one person does something like that -- if it was just one, you can shrug it off and continue. The problem is the *overall* vibe when LOTS of people do that and when it's treated as acceptable by the community. Many women have made it abundantly clear that that kind of thing makes them feel uncomfortable and unwelcome. So, it's pretty irrelevant that you don't have a problem with it.

Okay, maybe women only consist of 2% of the audience...so, great!...97% of the audience maybe wasn't offended by your joke. Hey, not too shabby for a joke, right?

But, it is a technical conference, not a comedy club. And the same group is consistently the butt of the joke, over and over again. So, considering we WANT that group ("Women") to participate it behooves everyone to take their feelings into consideration (even if you don't share the offense), so that someday, the audience may someday consist of *MORE* than 2% women.

Conference organizers should ensure that attendees (and ESPECIALLY presenters!) understand this, and that all the conference staff is on the same page about what the acceptable conduct is, so they'll deal with any issues in a consistent and appropriate manner. A code of conduct is a great way to achieve this.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:57 UTC (Thu) by DOT (subscriber, #58786) [Link]

It doesn't have to be intentional sexist evilness for it to be a women-deterrent. You want to solve this gender-inequality problem, you've got to see the bigger picture and get rid of situations that drive women away. If a light-hearted well-intentioned but stupid joke drives women away, you gotta lose the joke.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:20 UTC (Thu) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (26 responses)

> I did not attend this, but I assume it was just a (bad and stupid) joke. I personally don't see anything sexist there.

I'd write a response, but someone else already did :-). And Valerie helpfully linked to it too: http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Sexualized_environment

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:03 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (25 responses)

I just looked at some random "incident" on geekfeminism.org.
Feels weird.

I got this one:
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Drupal.org_gender_disc...

This is a discussion from a mailing list, and at the bottom "problematic responses" are collected.

First, I don't understand the purpose of collecting "problematic responses" from some random email thread.
Second, on this page, I don't see what could be problematic about the mentioned posts.

These were not official statements, and we have freedom of speech.
To me this feels more like censoring and expecting that everybody is 100% fully PC in whatever he says or writes.

Alex

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:27 UTC (Thu) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (11 responses)

By this point the language on that page has got so diluted as to seem meaningless. Cis-privilege? Trans-phobia? Oh dear. I'm pretty sure this is "phobia" in same sense that "racism" is about race these days.

What is the ultimate aim for the people who wish to dilute the concept of gender? Because I can't make heads or tails out of this.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:14 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (6 responses)

You certainly can make heads or tails of it. You're just choosing not to, in order to avoid having to accommodate others in a way that they claim is important to them, and you claim is irrelevant to you.

There's a word for that: rude.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 19:03 UTC (Thu) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (3 responses)

Thanks for explaining a lot in your response. You do not call your response rude, then?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 21:27 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (2 responses)

I'm rude because you're derailing. Let's count the ways.

Trivializing the topic as not-so-bad, so ignorable: check.

Conspiracy theory about the ultimate aims of people requesting civility and respect: check.

The supposedly confusing nature of the topic means you can't even google the terms you're supposedly confused about, and need me to read the internet aloud to you: check.

My rude tone in response excuses yours so there's no problem: check.

No, not acceptable. Go read on your own and try again.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 22:44 UTC (Thu) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (1 responses)

You should be ashamed of your behaviour.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 23:37 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]

I'm ashamed that a place I associate so commonly produces threads like this.

What do you think I should be ashamed of?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 19:33 UTC (Thu) by nye (subscriber, #51576) [Link] (1 responses)

Redefining commonly used words to mean something new and then attacking others for not understanding and using your new definition could also be considered rude.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 8, 2010 9:05 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

I don't believe that happened.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:30 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

> By this point the language on that page has got so diluted as to seem meaningless. Cis-privilege? Trans-phobia? Oh dear. I'm pretty sure this is "phobia" in same sense that "racism" is about race these days.

That is an excellent bit of deduction you have performed, determining what people who have lived through stuff mean on a subject that you admit you have no knowledge of whatsoever.

Seriously, even if you don't have any trans friends who are willing to explain this stuff (like they have to do every day), there is this thing called the internet. If you want to learn what it's like to be trans, you can find that out really easily.

I do admit that your approach (make decision, *then* acquire facts) is quicker, though.

> What is the ultimate aim for the people who wish to dilute the concept of gender? Because I can't make heads or tails out of this.

To live their lives, I think. (Note: their lives are different from your life.)

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 19:55 UTC (Fri) by AdamW (subscriber, #48457) [Link]

thought experiment, here: if you came across a new programming language or a new startup process or a new desktop environment and it used some terms you weren't familiar with, would you:

a) immediately decide that it was some kind of politically-correct conspiracy theory and the new terms were just silly jargon

b) look up the terms and figure out what they meant

Hmm, tricky one, there. Areas of interest tend to generate their own vocabulary. We talk about 'shared libraries' because we don't want to rewrite 'compilations of common functions that can be used by multiple external pieces of code' too often. To someone outside the field, 'shared library' is either a meaningless piece of jargon or a place you can go and get books. Are we muddle-headed politically correct conspiracies nuts? No, we're a special interest group with its own vocabulary. Why is it such a problem when the interest in question is prejudice against minority genders?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 21:35 UTC (Fri) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (1 responses)

I did spend some time looking through this stuff after I made my original comment that was the first time I hit these terms. My bewilderment was of course treated as some kind of calculated insult rather than understood by the people who directly responded to me.

I learnt a few things, along those the primary understanding that there is nothing I could possibly say that would not be attacked on this topic, because I fundamentally do not use language the same way that people do who care about this topic. It's easier just to let it slide.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 15:27 UTC (Sat) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]

So, you've been busy using the phrases you pointed out "cis-privilege" and "transphobia" for a while and hear them used in other contexts commonly and thus came away bewildered? Poor thing. Someone is obviously trying to make your head spin.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:23 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (12 responses)

Dismissing someone's request for civility by calling it "PC" is extraordinarily rude. You can easily change your own behavior, and request the change of others, if you choose to accept it as an important change.

Failure to do so indicates disinterest in listening to the people who feel this is important, or take their concerns seriously. That is a personal judgement about the validity of their interests; you're just papering it over with free-speech language to pretend otherwise.

Do you insult your parents or loved ones to their face and then claim that it's "PC" to demand you not do so, or argue that only "official" insults should be heard and all others ignored? No. Because you care about respecting them. That's it. That's the whole issue.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 18:41 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (11 responses)

Hmm, I just randomly clicked on one page there, and I honestly don't understand what's wrong with the comments, e.g.
"If this info is truly valuable for demographics, shouldn't we also be asked to describe our education, our race, our political preferences, our sexual orientation, our hair color (both carpet and drapes), and our income level?"

Maybe it's because I'm not a native speaker, but I don't see in which way this is insulting to anybody.
Maybe the "carpet and drapes" ? I don't know what that means.

Alex

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 21:34 UTC (Thu) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]

"Carpet and drapes" refers to someone's public hair and head hair. It's a crude way of lowering the tone of discourse and trivializing the disscussion.

Beyond that bit of terminology though -- which pops out if you google it -- understand two things.

First, you picked the most "harmless-looking" of the comments to quote while ignoring the others. This in itself is an attempt to trivialize the topic.

Second, even this selected comment engages in a diversionary tactic of attempting to broaden the conversation to the point of rendering the original concern inert. Any time someone mentions irrelevant hypothetical dimensions of discrimination (eg. pretending to care about nonexistent "purple and green" people, hair colour, number-of-toes or whatnot) they're just trying to kill a conversation they find uncomfortable.

Not cool, don't tolerate it.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 11:33 UTC (Fri) by wookey (guest, #5501) [Link] (9 responses)

I'm a native speaker and I had no idea what that meant either. I just thought 'but carpets and curtains aren't hair -odd' and ignored the bit in brackets. I also had no idea what 'cis-privilege' was and am surprised that asking about it here got you such an unhelpful response. It's quite tricky to google for too. I got two pages of texts _using_ it, but none of them apparently explained what it - meant - clearly it was/is a common term in that sphere of discussion (trans-gender issues).

Eventually I found the wikipedia page 'cisgender' which explains that term, from which one can kind-of guess what 'cis-privilege' is about. Given this non-obviousness, it would have been nice if someone had just explained things rather than saying 'don't be rude - go read the internet'

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 16:56 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

What thread are you referring to where someone asked what cis-privilege was? I can sort of kind of read that into this comment if I squint but... not really.

If some hypothetical poster *had* said "hey, this is really interesting and I want to know more but I've read this stuff on the wiki and tried to google for this other thing and couldn't find it, anyone have any suggestions?" then I think they'd have gotten a very different response. Graydon's responding to this attitude of "wah this is too confusing and impossible, no-one could possibly understand this stuff so I give up". Which, if you've been in these kinds of discussions before, is something you've seen over and over as yet another way that people avoid confronting this stuff. I mean, it *isn't* easy to think about or deal with, but it's possible, and the other option is to be part of the problem. If you're choosing "be part of the problem" then of course you can expect some flak.

Anyway: "privilege" is a cover term for the benefits a member of a higher-status group receives over a member of a lower-status group, usually without the higher-status person even being aware of what's going on. So it distorts our ability to understand and interact with other people, and it produces unjust outcomes. This is an excellent post about the various privileges that John Scalzi enjoys. This is an excellent summary of what "privilege" does and doesn't mean. For more links and a discussion of male privilege specifically, this article seems good.

"Cis privilege" is the privilege that people receive for being born into a body whose sexual characteristics match their experience of gender. If you want to get a sense of all the things that cis-privilege lets you take for granted, then googling "cis privilege checklist" will get you a bunch of people's lists -- I'm not really qualified to tell which are 'better' (or perhaps they're complementary), but this one seems readable.

HTH.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 16:57 UTC (Fri) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (7 responses)

And yet, you have demonstrated my point: if anyone sees a word in a conversation here they don't understand, google will tell you what it means with effort comparable to what you typically spend looking up compiler error messages. And typically take you to a world of nicely written 101-style educational pages with patient explanations (eg: http://www.t-vox.org/index.php?title=Trans_101 on trans topics). Like with any topic you respect, you paid a small amount of your own time and did the learning. Done. Thank you.

(Even then, I am assuming you're only claiming to have trouble looking up the term "privilege" in the context of that quote, rather than its originating page, since on that originating page the term is *hyperlinked to a page on its meaning* in the sentence we're discussing. Of course, the author I was replying to can't follow hyperlinks either..)

What others were and are doing is speaking in intentional bad faith: shifting arguments to sub-topics they think it's safer to attack (transsexuals), denying their existence (claiming transsexuals only wish to "dilute the concept of gender"), playing ignorant (and unable to correct said ignorance or "make heads or tails of it"), playing victim (reframing a matter of respect as the battle for free speech against sinister PC censors), claiming irrelevance or meaninglessness of a topic while refusing to listen to those who claim it is relevant and meaningful to them, etc.

I replied rudely because the author(s) were already a ways into such bad-faith derailment tactics seen hundreds of times elsewhere. Read any conversation on the net pertaining to a marginalized group (women, gays, trans people, people of colour, disabled people, the poor) making structural arguments asking for basic respect in social discourse, and you will see the exact same tactics trotted out to kill the conversation rather than take it seriously and listen. It's so cliche as to be the subject of satire. Google "anti-feminist bingo" for example(s).

You, like many others on this thread, acted more respectfully. So I'll respond politely and in full to you. Thank you.

If any men reading this thread honestly want to respect these topics enough to suppress their defensiveness and just *read* -- not fight; read, digest, think -- then work your way through the links off http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Resources_for_men and see if any of it rings any bells about your own behavior or that of others in your community.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 22:08 UTC (Fri) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (6 responses)

*sigh* just as I thought I'd stop responding on this topic entirely.

I'm sorry, but you probably have no real idea what I think about things. Yet you are accusing me of behaving here in bad faith. I think you must be jumping to conclusions, because I don't even know myself at this point what I really think about this.

The reason why I talked about "diluting the concept of gender" is that it seemed to me originally that there is no ambiguity around the topic: that we are all either male or female. I would say that this is objectively true for all of us, save from some rare genetic disorders. Additionally, we don't usually get to define many things subjectively, and I did not originally see any reason why gender should be allowed to be defined subjectively.

Thanks to some amount of Googling -- and expressly no thanks to anybody responding to me -- I now I understand that gender can be a really sore point for a number of people. Additionally, I understand also that my original remarks can be construed as offensive seen from viewpoint of someone who lives and breathes this issue, perhaps one such as yourself. What I find frustrating is that you seem to have forgot that people exist who have never thought about transsexualism related issues, and when they start from step one of understanding it, they are directly accused of being in the camp of the enemy.

It's a crazy way to relate to people that you should be trying to win over to your cause. I hope you can see that, and consider less fanatic ways to respond to others in the future.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 0:09 UTC (Sat) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link] (5 responses)

Thank you for googling and reading. That is a good step towards avoiding a repetition of what was said earlier.

I'm trying to point out problematic *actions* here, rather than people. I understand you're a human who probably has a variety of thoughts on gender, as well as the ability to learn and change; I'm telling you that some behavior was unacceptable and needs to change. In particular:

1. If a topic (eg. "sexual harassment at conferences") makes you uncomfortable, don't change the subject (as aleXXX did) to one that seems easier to trivialize (transsexuals).

2. Don't trivialize transexuals. Also don't trivialize racism. Nobody even mentioned that. You can easily tell that the people involved in the topic take it seriously; starting your contribution by a trivializing statement is equivalent to an insult, and you can probably guess that.

3. Don't throw in innuendo about "real motives" when someone relates their their own experience or identity, or that of their friends, relatives, loved ones.

4. Don't make it someone else's problem to inform you of things you can learn yourself. It's a sign of respect for a topic to do independent reading on your own time.

5. Don't tell someone that they'd be better listened-to if they only spoke less directly to the topic at hand. You demonstrated how seriously you take less-blunt talk earlier: by trivializing. That is *why* I responded bluntly and why I'm continuing to be direct.

Again, thank you for hearing my earlier remarks and responding by reading. There is plenty more to read if you're interested in adapting your behavior; see the link I left above to the "resources for men" page.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 0:55 UTC (Sat) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link]

1. I think you may be reading too much into aleXXX comment, but I have no firm opinion either way. He is free to comment if he likes.

2. I offered "racism" as an example of term that has been diluted, especially similar to how the word "phobia" is used today. Both of these words are usually used as label, not as meaningful argument. Compare with fasism, which means apparently whatever a person wants it to mean. My original thought on seeing "trans-phobia" was to focus on the word "phobia" and consider that "phobia" normally means a medical condition that needs psychiatric treatment.

3. I believe I had a real question here. Innuendo is your interpretation and not what I intended. It simply did not occur to me that for some people asking if they are male or female is offensive.

4. I admit my response was hasty. Had I considered for a bit longer, I would not have written it. I was responding to aleXXX that I also experienced a kind of bewilderment when seeing the page he had chosen, and was therefore sympathetic to his confusion.

5. I believe this is firmly your interpretation and does not reflect my character.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 15:03 UTC (Sat) by alankila (guest, #47141) [Link] (1 responses)

Also, an important point you seem to be missing. You seem to think I started reading because of your comments. That is in fact the exact opposite, and I already said this once. Had I not started reading out of interest before you or the other guy responded, I would not have bothered at all. Based on your actions, and the other discussion threads on the internet, I have arrived at the conclusion that any transsexualism-related topic requires silk gloves of +20 tactfulness that I don't happen to possess.

You also seem to believe that actions are the only thing that matter. But I believe that you have forgot that when you have words on screen, there are no actions per se. In discourse, you need to understand what the other person's point of view is, not take a few phrases here and there and build a completely different image and then immediately proceed attacking that. You are interpreting. You are not objective. And based on what I have read so far, you are not thinking what the people who write the text meant, but you are rather scanning it from point of view of "can this somehow be treated as an insult against some protected group". In doing this, you are of course labeling unacceptable actions, sure, but you are also making it impossible to have a conversation about the topic.

You linked to some trans-101 page which went through the stuff at exactly the correct way. That's _exactly_ the kind of stuff I needed to read, so thanks for pointing it out.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 4, 2010 22:25 UTC (Sat) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]

You certainly do possess the tact necessary. It's not hard, I've given you direct instructions in every message I replied to about things not to do in such conversations, and you're adapting your tone fine. Thank you for doing so. I'm trying to adapt mine to match.

The "words on a screen" are the action I'm responding to. I realize that you have a "point of view" and, to be blunt once more, it matters less than what you choose to do and say (or not say) in the future. People feeling marginalized, harassed, trivialized and insulted by this community aren't at any loss for understanding or hearing our points of view. We broadcast them like a fog-horn.

You -- we -- need to hear and listen to their points of view. That means clamming up and reading-or-listening. Not having a debate. Not demanding people listen to your defensiveness or confusion. Not turning every related experience into a 250-message argument thread.

Speech matters, as does the assumption of whose job it is to speak, be listened-to, or be taken-seriously. You buy a phrasebook and learn the local etiquette if traveling to another country. You study legalese if going to court. You suppress your tendency to swear around your elder family members. You don't raise your voice around kids. You realize when you're angry or drunk that some of the things you have an urge to say are best suppressed, as you'd regret them. In all these cases you recognize the onus is on you for adapting your speech quietly and on your own dime. The situation is the same here.

I'm not trying to paint you into a corner of being an enemy, or the Bad Prejudiced Guy. Everyone has prejudices. I'm plenty sexist, racist and classist myself. I trip up all the time. But while reflecting on those thoughts and informing myself of the perspectives of those I'm prejudiced against, I read and adapt my speech behavior to avoid the worst parts I've seen described, that I recognize in myself. I've only been telling you to do the same.

That's really it. It's not hard, you can do it too. You'll do fine. There's an absolute ocean of ink spilled on these topics to guide you. If you want to spend the afternoon reading a far more nuanced and detailed meta-analysis about the issues of privileged speech, assumptions of authority and relevance, topic derailment and reframing, try this:

http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146

(Read the whole thing, and any links you disagree with. Bookmark any wikis or FAQs that you have residual confusion about. Don't stop at the first thing you disagree with. Suppress your defensiveness enough to finish it.)

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 5, 2010 14:45 UTC (Sun) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (1 responses)

Please don't interpret things into my posting which were not there.
Please also don't take the right to judge me ("some behavior was unacceptable") based on a single basically neutral posting in a web forum.

I didn't change the subject because it made me feel uncomfortable.
I looked over to that web page because it was referenced in the discussion here a few times, so I thought it might be interesting.

I wrote back here when I saw that the site at least partially contains basically "blacklists" with posts from people which the editors considered inappropriate.
I was disappointed by this.

Alex

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 5, 2010 20:08 UTC (Sun) by graydon (guest, #5009) [Link]

Your behavior wasn't "basically neutral". I will explain what *was* in your postings, since you claim to be unable to see it.

You entered a conversation with a first statement denying the topic's validity, re-centering concern on your own perception, and ignoring the links about sexualized environments and harassment. Many of which discuss how the (mis-) perception and trivialization of the topic by men is central to the problem at hand.

You followed one such overlooked link only when it was pointed out to you again (by a man), but didn't read any of the text on that page, just went looking for a "random" incident by clicking around the containing wiki.

You ignored all the other incidents, the hundreds of pages of patient explanation, all the explanatory text, and picked one incident about transsexuals and transphobic speech (which isn't the topic here). You ignored all the text explaining that it was about transsexuals and all the links and terms that could educate you on why the incident in question might have been a problem.

You found a quote you "couldn't see" a problem with, but didn't google the term you didn't understand ("carpet and drapes"; which leads to a first-hit definition of its slang meaning).

You ignored all the other quotes in that thread which you might have more readily understood as problematic to transsexuals (trivializing the topic, shifting the discussion to penises, cracking jokes about women on magazine covers, false claims of gender-blindness).

You chose a defensive and self-centered framing for your interpretation of the thing you saw but didn't understand: "PC", "censoring" and an attack on your freedom of speech.

At this point I called you on your behavior.

Conversations like this have very clear patterns; if you don't recognize them, read some of the linked description of the patterns and what they mean. I'll link again below. Actually read them. All the text. Look for your own behavior in the descriptions. Suppress your defensiveness; reflect on your own reactions. Use a calm, open mind and assume the people speaking are are actually trying to explain what's going wrong, to help you change yourself for the better:

http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2006-03-08_146
http://theangryblackwoman.com/2009/10/01/the-dos-and-dont...
http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Silencing_tac...
http://derailingfordummies.com/

And finally, concerning "blacklisting" (note: no names were being collected, only quotes) please see:

http://geekfeminism.org/2009/08/19/why-we-document/

Computing in general?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 0:57 UTC (Thu) by gwolf (subscriber, #14632) [Link]

I was invited to a large-scale Bolivian conference targetted at computer science and engineering students. Attendance was close to a thousand people, from the nine departments of the country, and a very nice conference overall. It was the 13th annual conference, and it rotates between the country's main universities. The organizers are not the students themselves, but the university's authorities.

One of the main social highlights of the conference was a beauty contest. Each of the nine regions picked their girl to represent them, and they posed for everybody. I didn't want to attend, but was requested to do so, as we the international guests would have the honor of being the judges.

To be honest, I wish I had not accepted. It just... Felt bad. Even though I was the only one in the auditorium I could see that didn't like that.

So, I don't know if it is more prominent in FOSS, or it is just coincidental that Bolivians accept beauty contests more than me (I was told it is a pretty common thing), or what... But it happens in that setting as well.

OSDC2010 had a code of conduct

Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:12 UTC (Thu) by laptop006 (guest, #60779) [Link] (2 responses)

OSDC2010 held last week introduced their own code of conduct, based on this one:
http://2010.osdc.com.au/code-conduct

...
Our goal is to create a safe and harassment-free conference experience for all involved, regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, religion, preferred operating system, programming language or text editor.

OSDC2010 had a code of conduct

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:04 UTC (Thu) by stewart (subscriber, #50665) [Link]

also mentioned in my dinner keynote at OSDC2010.

OSDC2010 had a code of conduct

Posted Dec 6, 2010 9:04 UTC (Mon) by ras (subscriber, #33059) [Link]

I was worried there for a second. I am not particularly fond of the policy being promoted by geekfeminism, and you say OSDC's policy was based on it.

One problem with geekfeminism policy it is it is not well written. For example, defining "Harassing Photography" as harassment is circular. And while the geekfeminism says following someone can be harassment, so could staring at them, talking about them, drawing them, and a thousand other things not mentioned. In computer terms it could be described as a very poor filter, getting both far too many false positives and false negatives. That is I guess that is why the real law is not written in such specific terms. Or to put it another way, this is what you get when amateur lawyers making up the rules.

The other thing you get when group representing a particular subsection of society writes the law is an obvious bias towards their interests and concerns, and that has happened in this case. The policy is pretty obviously written with the concerns of women in mind. A policy that was written with the concerns of the disabled, or race, or religion would look different. I don't think a policy of an open source group should openly favour any of those groups. All are equally important.

OSDC's policy avoided both those pitfalls, and so kudo's to OSDC. I hope other conferences adopt something like OSDC's policy and not the geekfeminism one.

Some will construe this the wrong way. I am not disagreeing with the emphasis of the article. It perpetrates the awareness of what happened Apachecon and its consequences. The more that incident and its outcome ricochets around cyberspace, the more likely it is that the message that such treatment of women is unacceptable sinks into our group. It is just that this geekfeminism policy has been fired off as response to a single high profile incident. It reminds me of 9/11, which generated a whole pile of responses, some of which were in retrospect obviously not the best way to handle the problem.

In this case, there are other ways to generate awareness of this problem that do not involve inflicting a poorly worded policy on open source conferences.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:35 UTC (Thu) by antifuchs (subscriber, #34569) [Link] (1 responses)

I'm very glad you wrote this article. One of the things I feel lets harassment like this go on is that so few people (outside the circle of people who are directly affected by the harassment) are aware that it actually happens. That so many people (me included) are appalled by the experiences you write about gives me hope that we'll look out more for this sort of behavior in the future.

Public anti-harassment policies at conferences are a good first step towards making our community more inclusive. I hope that within our lifetimes, we get to see a world in which these policies are no longer needed.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 1:40 UTC (Thu) by Trelane (subscriber, #56877) [Link]

I'm seconding the thanks. I was recently a conference organizer and hope to be again. Definitely food for thought here.

Thank you to the women who contributed to the article. I'm only sad you had something to contribute. :(

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:02 UTC (Thu) by bojan (subscriber, #14302) [Link] (29 responses)

Never attended an open source conference and from what I read (even before this article), I never will. There seems to be some kind of "drinking culture" required (of course, the consequences of drinking are usually _far_ removed from any culture). Drinking games, pubs and what not seem to be mentioned regularly. Could not be further from what I'd consider a professional gathering.

When sleaze described here is added on top, it just sounds awful.

Really feel sorry for the women that had to go through this crap.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 2:28 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (9 responses)

In my experience, drinking games at conferences are rare. I've had a great time at conferences with people who don't drink at all. There is certainly drinking going on after hours - and not always moderately - but they'll let you in the door even if you don't drink.

That said, alcohol is clearly part of the problem sometimes.

What's the point of conference? I make my living through electronic communications. But, having been to more conferences than I could possibly count, I've come to the conclusion that in-person gatherings are a vital part of making a community work. You react to somebody's email very differently if you hear their voice in your head while you read it. Humans simply have to get together in person every now and then to function well together.

So, if you want to function well in a community like ours, you really need to attend our gatherings every now and then. It's not "awful," it's how we work; it can even be energizing, stimulating, and fun.

OTOH, behavior which makes conferences awful for some people is not acceptable; thus this article.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:05 UTC (Thu) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link] (2 responses)

"but they'll let you in the door even if you don't drink."

Well, there was the 2008 OLS whisky bof that came with instructions that you weren't allowed in without a bottle of whisky. Which, sure, you could do without drinking a bunch, but, eh.

And I think a whisky bof is a fun idea, hooray to people who take the trouble to organize one, I totally understand that you wouldn't want freeloaders, but suddenly that year it seemed to be a big semi-official event with some special location the conference organizers had rented, etc., and at that point it'd seem better to explicitly extend the welcome to non-drinkers too.

Whatever. I think that's the exception.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 3, 2010 4:06 UTC (Fri) by ccurtis (guest, #49713) [Link] (1 responses)

Well, there was the 2008 OLS whisky bof that came with instructions that you weren't allowed in without a bottle of whisky.

I think you very much misinterpreted whatever phrasing was there.

A BOF isn't an official event, and some leniency should be allowed for how people freely associate after the conference has concluded for the day. I, and several other people, went to said BOF; none of us brought a bottle of whiskey, and all were allowed in. That said, a whiskey BOF isn't really a whiskey BOF if nobody brings whiskey, so being encouraged to bring your favorite bottle is hardly a crime.

As to the event itself - yes, there was an organized event; by whom I do not know. Bus rental was arranged and you had to pay your own share to ride there. The whiskey BOF was held at the same place, but there aren't too many places where you can just carry in 50 (or whatever) bottles of whiskey so no matter where it happens it's going to seem like some semi-official event in a special location.

Right?

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 3, 2010 17:27 UTC (Fri) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link]

"I think you very much misinterpreted whatever phrasing was there."

The email Andrew Hutton sent to people who followed up to the original announcement to attendees said "admission is one (sealed) bottle of single malt whisky", followed by a paragraph of detail about exactly what that meant. Maybe he just got lost in the details and didn't mean in to come out that way, but as written it was fairly clear.

"none of us brought a bottle of whiskey, and all were allowed in."

Yeah, in fairness I knew if I asked I might get a different answer, and if it had a been a big deal I would have; as it was I think I was a little on the fence anyway and found something else to do.

"A BOF isn't an official event, and some leniency should be allowed for how people freely associate after the conference has concluded for the day."

Sure. Looks like Andrew Hutton organized it and sent email to all the attendees. Maybe the only difference that year was that he invited everyone on the attendee list.

"none of us brought a bottle of whiskey, and all were allowed in."

I'm not crusading for prohibition here--as organizer of our own little local weekly kernel hacker's pub night, that'd make me a hypocrite--I'd just suggest that if you're a conference organizer wondering how to make your conference welcoming to a variety of people, then you may want to keep the non-drinkers in mind when you announce events that you're organizing.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:06 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (5 responses)

they'll let you in the door even if you don't drink.

It's not a question of letting someone in or not. Being sober around people who are not that sober is definitely not fun. Maybe the word "awful" is not too strong to describe this situation. In my experience nearly any kind of social activity involves drinking, so I tend to avoid them. I think (hope?) that during the actual conference it is not a problem, but I guess that the real binding happens after the last presentations, so...

I've read the blog about the assault - it's absolutely appealing and in my opinion the guy deserved a knee to his groin and some time behind bars. I've also noted that the blog writer wore skirts too short (she had to wore bicycle shorts under that) and sit in a couple of laps. Please do not wear such short skirts and do not sit in laps. It is uncomfortable for guys. Probably not as uncomfortable as the lewd remarks, but still uncomfortable. I'm not advocating a chador, just skirts below knee and no cleavage. I mean professional environments do have dress codes, so it's shouldn't be different for conferences.

clothing & victim blaming

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:32 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (4 responses)

The knee? Er... Let me tell you, unless you're only looking at ankle-length skirts, it's darned *hard* to find skirts that reach all the way to the knee. Which means I mostly only wear ankle-length skirts, but I digress. Mid-thigh is considered appropriate in school dress codes, and it's very likely the most common length manufactured. Even when I look at dresses labeled "longer lengths," their measurements tell me they'd end at least 6 inches above my knee, and I'm not a basketball player. So, unless you're saying we should all be wearing either ankle-length or sewing our own clothes...

Regarding cleavage, please take a look in the women's department at any store. Find a button-up shirt that actually buttons all the way up. 90% will button only to mid-bosom, perhaps with another button 8 inches up at the collar for the "one button undone" rule. Buttoning this button while not having any buttons in the interim would result in a big old keyhole on the chest, if the button will even reach the hole. These shirts are usually cut so that there isn't enough fabric there for the two sides to reach. They are angled out into a V shape. I looked in Target a few months ago. I found *one* style of shirt made to button all the way. It only came in colors like bright blue plaid and hot pink plaid.

The modes of dressing you are saying are required for men to control themselves are ones that involve having to make ones own clothing or only wearing vintage clothing from the 1950s. They simply are not widely available anymore.

Additionally, she pointed out what she was wearing and how she was behaving to emphasize that a hundred men managed to understand that wearing a short skirt and sitting on someone's lap is NOT consent to being kissed or fondled! Only the word "yes" is consent.

Oh, and by the way, I *do* wear long skirts. I *do* frequently wear high necklines (especially if I'm going to be somewhere as gender-imbalanced as a tech con). Generally, I'm about as covered as an Orthodox Jewish woman, even up to including frequently covering my hair . And you know what? I've still been assaulted and followed at technical conferences.

STOP blaming the victim! Changing how you dress DOES NOT change your likelihood of being assaulted.

clothing & victim blaming

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:57 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (3 responses)

Please read again what I wrote. I didn't write to dress up properly to avoid getting assaulted. I wrote to dress up in respect to fellow male open source enthusiasts who find it uncomfortable to be around females in short skirts and deep cleavages. It is not about not being able to control ourselves. It's about being uncomfortable. I don't know which part of the world you live, but at least in my part the stores have other kind of clothes too. I have four female colleagues and haven't seen neither their knees or breasts even though sometimes they come to my desk and bend towards my monitor.

clothing & victim blaming

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:32 UTC (Thu) by daniels (subscriber, #16193) [Link] (1 responses)

I (a male) often wear shorts to conferences, especially ones like LCA and GUADEC held in the summer of hot countries. Is this OK, or does that make you uncomfortable too?

clothing & victim blaming

Posted Dec 2, 2010 20:33 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

There was a certain shorts wearer that did make a lot of people uncomfortable at a lot of conferences.

clothing & victim blaming

Posted Dec 3, 2010 3:52 UTC (Fri) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link]

Perhaps another way to say this is that people should avoid dressing & behaving in ways, that if pictured during conference presentations as clip-art, someone would be made uncomfortable by it.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:05 UTC (Thu) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

Some FOSS conferences are very fun and inspiring, so instead of boycotting them all perhaps you should look for opportunities to attend one that is recommended by someone you respect. I've only been to 2 big conferences, SCALE and SF LinuxExpo, so my experience is much narrower than Jon's, but neither one suffered from tasteless offensive presenters or drunken attendees. SCALE in particular is a great conference, well run by volunteer organizers, and well worth attending; every year it has been the must-go conference for me.
http://www.socallinuxexpo.org

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:17 UTC (Thu) by bfields (subscriber, #19510) [Link]

There seems to be some kind of "drinking culture" required

No, I certainly agree that organized social events at professional conferences should be for non-drinkers too, and I think it's a reasonable thing to ask around about before you attend, but I certainly wouldn't assume they're not.

As Val says, the Linux Foundation events seem well-run--I expect a non-drinker would be happy, at pub nights included. It's more about being able to relax and talk with the people you normally only get to see in email.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:25 UTC (Thu) by mjg59 (subscriber, #23239) [Link] (5 responses)

Having been to pretty much every significant Linux conference:

The honest answer is that drinking is a significant part of certain socialising, and part of that is down to the community generally being relatively young, spending much of their life working in stressful environments and having the opportunity to blow off some steam with their peers. However, that's not the major aspect of it. The vast majority of well-organised social events function as, well, social events. There may be alcohol available. Some people may drink more of it than is strictly necessary or appropriate. But even if you don't drink (and I haven't at various points in my life), there's the opportunity to spend time with interesting people and have fascinating conversations with them. Not wanting to drink isn't a social stigma, and I'd hope that any encouragement to engage in any kind of drinking culture when you're unwilling to would be deemed as inappropriate as any of the acts in the parent article.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:37 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (4 responses)

Not wanting to drink isn't a social stigma

Really? I haven't noticed that here...

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:36 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link] (2 responses)

About eighteen months ago, I had pancreatitis, and as a result my alcohol consumption has been severely curtailed. I don't feel any less included in the social aspect of conferences as a result. If it's a party in someone's room, I'll bring a six-pack of soft drinks. If it's at a bar, I'll drink coke or iced tea while everybody else drinks beer.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:19 UTC (Thu) by NAR (subscriber, #1313) [Link] (1 responses)

So, following your logic, if one female is not assaulted at a conference, the whole problem doesn't exist?

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:23 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

Perhaps you're being socially ostracised for reasons other than being a non-drinker.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 15:24 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

I'm a total non-drinker, yet I don't find myself uncomfortable at social events with some alcohol (even conference in Bavaria. During the Octoberfest).

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:57 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

I don't usually drink (could get through perhaps 1/4 of a glass of wine in an entire evening, and only if it's a rosé), but I attend the afterparties anyway. I've not been pressured at any of them to change the fact that I don't drink. The last one, I got a shocked reaction when I had a sip from a friend's wine glass.

Geeks seem to be able to carry on semi-intelligent conversations (or at least technological debates) even after a few beers (unlike the people I go to school with), so they can still be pleasant company. I've never seen a drinking game at a con party, only drunk games, by which I mean drunk people playing games that are unrelated to drinking--trivia games, board games, Nintendo, etc. The majority know their limit and how to control themselves, even inebriated.

It is, of course, also possible to not attend the parties while still attending the presentations. The booze doesn't come out for about 2 hours afterward.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:08 UTC (Thu) by stewart (subscriber, #50665) [Link]

I would like to say that there is a strong desire by the overwhelming majority to fix these bugs in our community.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:09 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (5 responses)

lots of drinking is a large part of most tech related events. opensource events are far from being special.

drinking is not forced on anyone, and as a non-drinker I have never been even teased at opensource events for not drinking (although I have had it happen at some other more 'professional' events)

after hours the local bars are a common place for people to hang out and talk, and during this time most people drink. some people get falling-down drunk, but the vast majority do not (I will note for the record, that the Europeans tend to be heavier drinkers than the Americans in my experience, but that's a trend rather than a divide)

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:40 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (4 responses)

And the British are probably worse than the Europeans.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:07 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link] (3 responses)

Racism!

(ok, it's a joke, but still. Some people will not like your comment)

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 5, 2010 0:52 UTC (Sun) by jond (subscriber, #37669) [Link] (1 responses)

It would be Jingoism rather than racism, I think. As a Brit, I find it interesting to see how we might be considered by others, and not personally insulting (although perhaps my opinion can't be generalized to others)

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 5, 2010 13:27 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Oh, I'm a Brit. A Brit who can't hold even a tiny bit of alcohol, who is therefore very aware of just how much a lot of other Brits drink.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 7, 2010 11:00 UTC (Tue) by mpr22 (subscriber, #60784) [Link]

Those people need to get a grip. As a Brit who drinks, I can confidently state that British attitudes to alcohol are broken, and that nix's statement is entirely fair.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:11 UTC (Thu) by stewart (subscriber, #50665) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't think I've ever experienced a drinking game at a conference.... talking tech is much more interesting.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:41 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

I've experienced one, at an Oracle conference after hours. Unfortunately "take a drink whenever anyone utters the phrase "it was an Oracle bug" turned out to be a very bad choice of drinking game, even for those of us (like me) who were drinking water.

What's the point anyway?

Posted Dec 3, 2010 20:00 UTC (Fri) by AdamW (subscriber, #48457) [Link]

in the experience I've had (a few FUDCons, a big commercial conference in SF, LFNW) drinking is very optional. If you want to go to a bar after the day is over, there will be some other people who do too. If you don't want to, there will be other people who will go to somewhere that isn't a bar. FUDCons have one officially-scheduled event which generally takes place in some sort of bar-ish environment, FUDPub, but it's a scheduled social event (not part of the actual 'business' bit of the conference), plenty of people go along and don't drink, and plenty of people don't go and still enjoy the rest of the conference.

So, I wouldn't shut out the idea of going to conferences entirely. Look at the schedule for the ones that interest you and see if they seem to be heavy on social events that happen in bars. Maybe ask a few people who've been before. But certainly, in my experience, F/OSS conferences tend to be pretty non-drinker-friendly.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:14 UTC (Thu) by modernjazz (guest, #4185) [Link]

Striking and disturbing article. I never realized how lucky I am, as a white male, that I have never once even _considered_ whether it would be safe for me to attend a conference. It never even crossed my mind as a question I needed to ask. Deeply, deeply unfair to those for whom this is an issue.

Thanks for speaking out.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:17 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link] (7 responses)

Connecting this problem to conferences is an interesting way of saddling the organizers with a moral liability - a positive burden of action - for limiting the behaviors of attendees. Having to conjure up some sort of quasi-judicial system can't be very appealing.

Ostracism is a time-proven penalty that moderately aggrieved groups can perform all by themselves. Not good enough? (The police is there for the major stuff, of course.)

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 3:52 UTC (Thu) by foom (subscriber, #14868) [Link]

Well, the organizers should at least feel responsibility for limiting the behavior of presenters.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 4:48 UTC (Thu) by vaurora (guest, #38407) [Link] (4 responses)

"Connecting this problem to conferences is an interesting way of saddling the organizers with a moral liability - a positive burden of action - for limiting the behaviors of attendees."

Well put! The burden of action you describe sounds like it dovetails well with the burden of action that comes from wanting people to come to the conference you organized in the first place.

"Having to conjure up some sort of quasi-judicial system can't be very appealing."

Again, well put! I'm sure there are people out there who enjoy telling people how not to be jerks in explicit detail, but I they think all have jobs as lawyers or politicians or FSF employees or something. How exactly does one say, succinctly and unambiguously, that taking photos underneath women's skirts is not okay without also banning merely annoying and unpleasant photography? It takes some work. I ended up with the phrase "harassing photography or recording" - not an elegant piece of writing by anyone's standards.

"Ostracism is a time-proven penalty that moderately aggrieved groups can perform all by themselves. Not good enough? (The police is there for the major stuff, of course.)"

Ostracism works pretty well when the people doing the ostracism are part of a powerful majority. However, I and at least 9 or 10 of my friends have been ignoring the guy who grabbed my ass at LSF for 2 or 3 years now but it unfortunately doesn't seem to have stopped ass-grabbing at open source conferences. I tried ostracizing the popular kids who were mean to me in middle school but that didn't seem to work either.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:15 UTC (Thu) by frazier (guest, #3060) [Link] (2 responses)

However, I and at least 9 or 10 of my friends have been ignoring the guy who grabbed my ass at LSF for 2 or 3 years now but it unfortunately doesn't seem to have stopped ass-grabbing at open source conferences.

The surface problem is strength in numbers. There aren't many women by percentage in software period, and I've never worked along side a female developer in a startup or open source project. The real problem, however, is the lack of respect. Period. It's one of those things that if women were 40% of the open source world, it probably wouldn't go on like it has. That's a factor, but it shouldn't be. But it is. Respect to you for telling us what you see and to Jon for publishing it. I feel like apologizing, but I'm not those people. I'm not part of the problem. I don't think the regs proposed will do that as presented, but I hope the related awareness genuinely changes things. Massive respect to you for carrying on as you have.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 5, 2010 1:14 UTC (Sun) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link] (1 responses)

There aren't many women by percentage in software period

40% of my workplace is not 'not many by percentage', it's near-parity... but it is a proprietary software company (we tried to take it free but our customers asked us not to. Banks are strange.)

About half of those are testers or DBAs: perhaps 30% of the developers are female. A bit low but not terrible.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 8, 2010 9:24 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

By contrast my company has 2 developers to around 30 men. And the two women are *new*. It's a good start.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 21:15 UTC (Thu) by cjwatson (subscriber, #7322) [Link]

Perhaps "intrusive" rather than "harassing". Strongly discouraging intrusive photography in general wouldn't hurt, IMO. There are lots of people who take photos at free software conferences, and generally this is good because it forms part of our group memory. However, there's a small minority who shove a camera almost into your face and take close-up shots without bothering to ask first, and it can be very uncomfortable. If it bothers me as a fairly confident white male, I'm sure it's much worse for many others.

shifting the burden

Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:01 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

This simply makes it policy that the organisers get in on the ostracising too.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 5:06 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] (7 responses)

As a sponsor of various FOSS events, this article is disturbing.

In future sponsorship agreements organisers can anticipate a clause which will lead to immediate stoppage of services and the return of all funds should instances of sexism, sexual harassment, display of sexualised imagery and other matters of discrimination be associated with events we sponsor.

As people may appreciate, we'll protect our reputation even if that causes havoc at the event and the financial collapse of its organising body. In short, we value people higher than software.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 7:18 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

associated with and approved by (or even not objected to by) an event are very different things.

events can have things associated with them that are completely outside of the knowledge and approval of anyone running the event.

you are asking that the event organizers police the behavior of all attendees, no matter where in the city they go

now, given the current social climate, I don't expect that any events would reject your clause, but I think you would find invoking it more interesting to do than you think.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:20 UTC (Thu) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

you are asking that the event organizers police the behavior of all attendees, no matter where in the city they go

If someone complains that a conference attendee attacked her, there should be consequences even if it happened outside the official conference limits in some after-hours thing. This isn't spy cameras in bedrooms, this is a deterrent on appalling behaviour.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 23:13 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link]

The aim is to focus event organisers on minimising the risk to their sponsor's reputation. Our reputation can be harmed by participants' behaviour outside the event venue, so we do want organisers' focus there too.

The terms aren't harsh. A harsh term would be for organisers to indemnify us against damage to us caused by the behaviour of their participants. Indemnification is a pretty standard contract term, and it is noticeable by its absence.

Invoking the clause is a no-brainer. Take the worst case -- do you think our reputation would suffer or be enhanced by being sued by conference organisers after we withdrew suddenly following an unseemly incident? Even in the unlikely event that we lost legally, we'd still win.

You've got to understand that this sort of behaviour is a sponsor's worst nightmare. We hand over some small amount of services or money, but our entire reputation is on the line.

Those outside business don't understand how important reputation is. Consider a business where you can work hard to get, say, a 10% growth in sales each year. That takes a huge amount of thought and money spent on product lines, sales staff, promotion and so on. Consider that a 10% hit to revenue from a "reputation incident" would be regarded as minor. That is, the least you can expect is to waste an entire year's effort by everyone in the business.

It's more than just reputation. Large sums of money are spent on what is basically the happiness of staff; for example, at least half of our leasing expenditure is spent on getting nice office space rather than the cheapest dump. Having spent all that money the last thing we need is for more than half of the staff to be disgruntled because we facilitated some outrageous behaviour.

Anyway, I've probably written enough so that you can see the view from another side of the fence.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 19:03 UTC (Thu) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link] (3 responses)

I doubt any conference would allow their sponsors recourse to funds due to an instance of poor behavior by an attendee. Perhaps you could simply require that each conference adopt and enforce a mutually-agreed-upon sexual harassment policy similar to what Val has proposed?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 21:25 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link]

I some sponsors refused, I can see the headline now "$conference refuses to guarantee safety of female attendees"

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 23:35 UTC (Thu) by gdt (subscriber, #6284) [Link] (1 responses)

You are suggesting a contract where you pay in advance for a service but have no claw-back clause (or its bigger, scarier brother the indemnity clause)? That would be foolish.

If the organisers fight the application of the clause, well that's just another way of asking which party spent real money on lawyers during the sponsorship negotiations.

I don't care if a conference adopts a strategy which involves Val's suggestions or not. That's not the sort of detail you put in a contract. What goes in a contract is measurable outcomes. That doesn't preclude an event using Val's suggestions as a means for reaching those outcomes.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 0:28 UTC (Fri) by lutchann (subscriber, #8872) [Link]

No, I'm saying any conference willing to contractually guarantee good behavior of its attendees is foolish.

If you want to require that conference organizers vet presentations for offensive content, promptly eject attendees for inappropriate comments and behavior, and encourage women to participate, then that's fine. There's plenty of precedent for that.

If you want the ability to unilaterally terminate your obligations and recover previously-made payments because an attendee alleged that another attendee groped her in a pub at 1am, then you're going to run into some resistance, and rightly so.

remember that these are rare events

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:24 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (9 responses)

While the events described are awful, it's important to recognize that the assault type occurrences are very rare events.

yes it happened to 30% of the respondents, but that is over 25 years of (in many cases) more than once event per year.

some of the comments indicate that people think that opensource events are 'Animal House' or 'Revenge of the Nerds' type of events. That is _far_ from the case. While there are some events that I would be leery of going to (Defcon for example), almost all of them are very well run, with well behaved people attending them. Overall I would rate opensource events where people are there because they want to be to be more well behaved, and far more productive than the vast majority of industry events (in any industry) where people are there on expense accounts becuase their company has to have a representive there and that person got picked.

yes, it's common to have a beer BOF (or whiskey, or brandy, or.. ) but it's also common to have a Gay and Lesbian BOF. remember that BOFs are 'birds of a feather', after hours events. If you go to one, you are going because you share interests with the other people there and have an interest in the BOF topic

quantitative

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:02 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (8 responses)

I just made a list of the conferences I've attended. For tech conferences in general, I've attended 15 in the last 3 years. 9 of those were specifically related to FOSS.

1 of the FOSS conferences was the one with the "surprise kiss." I'm inclined to include the guy who insisted on following a friend and me to our hotel room until we went to fetch security guards in the category of a pretty bad one too...which would make 2 out 15 conferences I've attended total to have had a high "ick" factor. If fetching a security guard is justified, it's crossed a line.

If I include things like distasteful presentations (undressed women photos, person on stage mooning the audience, etc) and the example I gave in the interview of being told someone was agreeing with me "because if he doesn't, he won't get any tonight" (I said "implied," but it really wasn't so subtle, eh?), and the creepy guy (note: he was conference staff of some sort) who tried to ask me to be his mistress (???), then it goes up to 6 out of 15, with 2 out of the 4 additions being at FOSS-specific events.

(Oh, and none of these was Defcon or Black Hat. Their reputations precede them, so I will not be attending them any time soon.)

Summary:
Bad enough to need security guards: 1/9 FOSS and 2/15 overall
Total incidents: 3/9 FOSS and 6/15 overall some recent

So, there's quantitative data of my experiences at recent events. Make of them what you will.

Oh, a bit more: 2 of the 3 assaults mentioned in the article happened this year. In the case of mine (the kiss), I was that person's second assault of the day/conference. The other was much more overtly sexual.

quantitative

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:23 UTC (Thu) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (7 responses)

my take away from this is that this is not a problem caused by the FOSS community as such, the FOSS conferences are just mirroring other problems. (although the numbers are probably not statistically valid, this would indicate that FOSS is slightly better than the non FOSS events, 30% bad FOSS vs 50% bad other, not that any of these are good numbers)

the way the article is written (and the way people are understanding it, based on some of the comments here), it sounds as if this is a problem caused by the FOSS community.

I am surprised that your experiences have been that bad, I get to a couple major events a year and have never witnessed anything along the lines of the 'bad enough to contact security' types of things. I have heard comments that could make people uncomfortable (and heard some that made me uncomfortable, including during some keynotes, after which I have complained in writing about the lack of taste of the presenter, feedback is good)

quantitative

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:44 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link] (2 responses)

The others were all hacking/security cons. Hackers on Planet Earth, DojoCon (small DC-area con), and ShmooCon, specifically. I think the hacking community, in general, is fairly well-known as being in the same state as the FOSS community when it comes to male:female ratios and commonality of misogyny. I suspect if I attended more "mainstream" tech events (Java developer conferences or MSDN stuff, for example) that those would have more women in attendance (closer to on-par with the percent graduating with CS degrees or working in the field, that is, about 1/4 of attendees being women) and fewer issues.

Actually, the only con I've attended where I can't say "one of the years I was there, $bad_thing happened" is the Debian one, DebConf. This was also the first year I attended, but I'm hoping that's a trend that will at least stick if I get a chance to go again.

quantitative

Posted Dec 2, 2010 10:46 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link] (1 responses)

> I suspect if I attended more "mainstream" tech events (Java developer
> conferences or MSDN stuff, for example) that those would have more women
> in attendance (closer to on-par with the percent graduating with CS
> degrees or working in the field, that is, about 1/4 of attendees being
> women) and fewer issues.

Depends.
If you feel offended by hired attractive booth babes being present, you will not like about 100% of commercial technology fairs (I have been at Cebit, embedded world, EAGE). Some advertisement material may use pictures of pretty young women presenting stuff. They will be usually dressed business-style, some companies try to get more attention by dressing them more "attractive" (I think that's mostly the companies where the target group is young men, e.g. gaming related stuff, search e.g. for "Cebit booth babes" to get some of the more "extreme" examples).

I have noticed *much* less to zero in this direction at FLOSS events (FOSDEM, LinuxTag, KDE Akademy, Chemnitzer LinuxTag, Dresdner LinuxInfoTage). Also, I have the impression that the women in the KDE community attending our events are usually very happy and don't have any of these problems (maybe it's different if all attenders are from one community and everybody knows everybody else).

Alex

quantitative

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:57 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

KDE is one segment of the FOSS world that sticks out to me as having quite a *lot* of very visible women. K/Ubuntu folks noticed this too, when Lydia and I covered Celeste for a KDE Junior Jobs / Kubuntu Papercuts IRC session--they asked "why are all the women into KDE?" (A GNOME user then popped up to say she existed.)

quantitative

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:12 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (3 responses)

> the way the article is written (and the way people are understanding it, based on some of the comments here), it sounds as if this is a problem caused by the FOSS community.

But, it is obviously a problem caused by the FOSS community. As in, each of the problems described was caused by someone who was in the FOSS community. I hope other communities also try to clean up their act, but whether they do or not is irrelevant to those numbers -- we can and should do better than a 33% harassment rate, and the only way that's going to happen is if we take action.

quantitative

Posted Dec 3, 2010 6:57 UTC (Fri) by dlang (guest, #313) [Link] (2 responses)

no, it is a problem that is part of the tech community that FOSS is a part of.

that's very different from saying that FOSS (or the FOSS community) is the cause of the problem.

we can and should work to reduce the problem, but we should not make it sound as if it is far more dangerous to go to a FOSS event than other similar events that don't involve FOSS.

I am not excusing the behavior, but the fact is that when you get several hundred to a few thousand people togeather for just about any event, the small number of bad apples out there can cause problems

quantitative

Posted Dec 3, 2010 17:07 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link] (1 responses)

So I get you're really worried that someone might judge the FOSS community poorly over this or something, and that would be horrible and unfair because *relatively* it isn't doing so bad. Sure, okay, women need to be aware that any tech event they go to is potentially dangerous.

(There is still that nagging question of why women are 20x more common in commercial software development than in FOSS, but from what I understand about that I'm willing to believe that it's online harassment rather than in-person harassment that's driving them away.)

But instead of worrying about who might judge who, and worrying about whether we'll look bad, I'd rather worry about how we can actually make things better -- in particular at FOSS events, since their organizers are reading this thread and other event organizers aren't. That's the point of this article.

quantitative

Posted Dec 5, 2010 0:09 UTC (Sun) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

I suspect the "very tiny numbers of women" thing is a big part of the problem. The group of tech cons I counted up that weren't FOSS ones were *all* security ones..which have even tinier numbers of women.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 6:40 UTC (Thu) by cjl7 (guest, #26116) [Link] (5 responses)

Hmm, this is unfortunately a flaw in the matrix... (sorry, I couldn't help it)

To make things clear, I do not condone harassment in any way shape or form! But policies or rules aren't going to solve the problem!

In the US they have death penalty for murder and other crimes and other countries (like Sweden, where I'm from) obviously got strict laws against such behaviour. Still people murder, rape and do all of the nasty stuff with little or no regard to laws. Another example would be traffic, people speed all the time even if they know that they might get caught.

Sure, you can put them in jail, but it won't stop people from doing it.

The only way to change bad behaviour is for the environment to act and correct it at once! Peer pressure is the best way! IMO

I have a little girl (4 years old) and I hope that the people in the world will value women as peers and not as a lower level citizen. But it sucks that "civilised" countries still have this problem! Some men are stuck in cave-man mode (especially when alcohol is involved).

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:22 UTC (Thu) by modernjazz (guest, #4185) [Link] (1 responses)

Ummm...can you clearly spell out the difference between jail and peer pressure for me? All solutions to social problems are, well, social in nature. It's just that jail is a more serious, systematic, long-term form of peer pressure. You're ostracizing the person over a period of months or years rather than over a period of hours or days, and you don't have to spend a lot of time making sure that everyone is "in on it."

I agree that jail has plenty of issues (certainly it does in the US, anyway) and doesn't entirely cure the problem, but neither will any other single measure you propose. Our only option is to combine techniques, preferably targeted appropriately to the seriousness of the offense. Policies and rules are one way to try to make things fair (because everyone can see the rules for themselves), rather than letting justice become arbitrary, anecdotal, incomplete, and inconsistent.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:33 UTC (Thu) by cjl7 (guest, #26116) [Link]

The point I tried to make about prison and peer pressure is that laws give you the ability to put people in prison, it doesn't change the behaviour. (well it might sometimes I guess)

Saying that, peer pressure is no certain method to actually change peoples attitude either...

And changing the attitude might be the single most difficult thing in history, otherwise this wouldn't be an issue in countries with healthy values (I know, it's very subjective). Obviously I have no simple solution to this problem and didn't mean to suggest that such a thing exists.

Anything and everything that helps is welcomed by me!

Peer pressure

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:10 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (1 responses)

A clearly-worded policy saying that certain kinds of behavior are not welcome at an event seems like a fairly clear form of peer pressure, no? Especially if it motivates others to say something when they see inappropriate behavior happening.

Peer pressure

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:45 UTC (Thu) by cjl7 (guest, #26116) [Link]

I agree, stating what's acceptable is a good thing. But for the policy to be effective we (the attendees) need to enforce the policy as well when and if we see such inappropriate behaviour. Otherwise the policy would be worthless, no?

And I firmly believe we should be able to protest against such behaviour with or without formal policies, because we all know it's wrong!

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 18:21 UTC (Thu) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link]

Still people murder, rape and do all of the nasty stuff with little or no regard to laws.

How do you think people would behave if we didn't have laws against murder and rape? It's a safe bet they'd behave worse than they do now. Laws and codes of conduct are an imperfect solution to misbehavior, but they're far better than giving up and doing nothing.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 9:24 UTC (Thu) by Kamilion (subscriber, #42576) [Link]

Put into pictures for those who are unable to understand words.

http://www.intrepidgirlbot.com/2010/10/29/guest-comic-by-...

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 11:22 UTC (Thu) by rilder (guest, #59804) [Link] (1 responses)

Still reading the linked articles and this one, but shouldn't it be "The dark side of conferences" rather than "The dark side of open source conferences" ? I mean is that a specific reference to the conference being open source ?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:31 UTC (Thu) by fuhchee (guest, #40059) [Link]

Maybe the theory is that in this venue, here at lwn, one may reach more OSS organizers than general conference organizers. So, designating/pressing *them* for undertaking the behavior-policing job may be more effective than complaining about the general population's drunk cavemen.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 12:54 UTC (Thu) by willy (subscriber, #9762) [Link]

Val, I'd be interested to know your reasoning behind not naming and shaming your groper at LSF2007. It might well affect how interested I am in inviting him to future conferences or working with him in the future.

It does amaze me how badly some men misinterpret flirting. I would say that I've flirted with at least three of your interviewees at conferences ... without once being under the impression that I was being invited to do more than talk.

I'd like to thank you for bringing this up. I think we all feel that women are under-represented at Linux conferences, and would like to do more to encourage them to attend. Often, we have no idea how to do that, and this is a concrete thing we can do.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 2, 2010 13:54 UTC (Thu) by dion (guest, #2764) [Link] (5 responses)

Not that it's any excuse, but it seems that most of these incidents can be classified as impulsive actions of a few isolated, poorly socialized, bumbling morons.

The isolated incidents are, while not excusable, then perhaps explainable by the high tolerance towards lacking social skills that exists in geek circles, which will, invariably, allow these kinds of people to accumulate.

By tolerating the socially inept and insisting that people should have a thicker hide to work in our community we all help them to stay that way, so insisting on a better tone on-line could be a way to start socializing the offenders.

I think a much worse problem is the case where businesses, speakers and conference organizers make a decision to be assholes, because in that situation there is a chance for the offender to reflect on the act before the world is subjected to it.

That OLS was so poorly run that the organizers didn't take the matter seriously and actively encouraged bad behavior is inexcusable.

We had a local conference where Peter Larsen, from GratisDNS (a danish DNS hosting provider) thought it would be a good idea to have a couple of booth babes strut around the exhibition hall in nothing but thongs and body paint.

I found the stunt very out of place and unprofessional, so as a result I do everything I can to steer people away from the GratisDNS-assholes (danes should go to https://www.quickdns.dk for free DNS hosting in stead).

I certainly hope that Open Source Days will reject GratisDNS as a exhibitor or at least severely limit their antics, but there is little I can do other than not go to OSD.

For reference, the girls are the two yellow ones here (SFW):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hemster/4410040435/in/pool-o...

Anyway, I wish you luck in getting people to grow up.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 3, 2010 8:42 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (4 responses)

Perhaps it's not the impression you meant to give, but your comment seems to be suggesting the following:

1. That the blame for girlgeek abuse at conferences lies with the socially awkward.

2. That the socially awkward be shunned, if they don't shape up.

I am quite horrified by both of these possibilities.

Firstly where is the evidence for point 1? I am quite sure the socially-adept are more than capable of such abuse. Social adeptness is a prerequisite for popularity and hence a sense of power/entitlement that can be a factor in physical abuse. Even with a problem that socially-inept *are* prone to, the "unwitting stalker" problem where they fail to notice the other side wishes to detach from social interaction with them, I have seen just as many of the socially-adept male conference-goers being creepy in the level of attention they give to the opposite sex. So, if anything, my anecdotal experience suggests that the problem of inappropriate behaviour to women is quite orthogonal to social-adroitness.

So, again, where's your evidence for this extra-ordinary claim (at least, a claim that at least some readers of your comment will perceive it to make)?

The 2nd perceived suggestion should obviously be horrifying to one and all. Even if there were a kernel of truth to the first claim, it proposes a form of collective punishment through intolerance of a physiological characteristic and shunning those with it. That clearly beyond the pale.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 3, 2010 10:37 UTC (Fri) by dion (guest, #2764) [Link] (3 responses)

To clarify #1: No I don't think the geeks who are merely "socially awkward" are to blame for abuse at conferences, you have to be extra broken inside to do something like that.

Like much else, it's a continuum, at one end you have "the run of the mill, socially awkward geeks we all know and love" and at the other you have "egotistical, poorly socialized brutes, who cannot tell the difference between a woman talking about a technical issue and flirting".

The atmosphere that allows the socially broken to think that what they are doing is ok is certainly to blame and conference organizers should make sure that they do their part to improve the atmosphere.

To clarify #2: I certainly don't advocate shunning anyone, the best possible solution is to educate and socialize everyone so we can all get along, without any groping or violence.

However, when someone actually go out and violate geekgirls physically, then I'm all for public shaming, because that will at least teach the perpetrator and the community at large a lesson.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 3, 2010 12:17 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Your comment still seems to imply that the abusers are a subset of the socially awkward.

Again, where's the evidence for this? There does not appear to be _any_ reason to think this is true - and other commenters seem to have their own anecdotal evidence suggesting the same thing. The evidence suggests abusers are drawn a much more general subset of _all_ men.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 3, 2010 14:26 UTC (Fri) by ofeeley (guest, #36105) [Link]

And that's important for two reasons:

1. Suggesting that the problem is due relatively fixed neurological structures rather than changeable behavior limits the options on the table both for those causing the problem and those affected by it. If it's demonstrably true then it narrows the scope of the debate dramatically.

2. As you suggest this seems like some goats are being scaped. I'm sure anyone with ASD doesn't need the extra stigma of being automatically written off as a sexual abuser.

Thanks to Val for raising this issue. It's a strength of the F/OSS community that something like this can be discussed and possibly fixed.

Another incident for the books: GratisDNS@OSD

Posted Dec 3, 2010 17:16 UTC (Fri) by njs (subscriber, #40338) [Link]

There are many, many folk out there who are perfectly skilled socially, and they use those skills to get away with harassment.

Here's a discussion with many examples (though in the context of science fiction conventions rather than software conventions): http://mrissa.livejournal.com/746160.html

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 14:02 UTC (Thu) by bjacob (guest, #58566) [Link] (2 responses)

As someone who runs a smaller open source project, I wonder if there is anything that we can do to attract more women to contribute? Our project's members are very civil and we never had any heated/incivil argument, yet almost all of the new contributors who spontaneously pop up seem to be male. I wonder if putting a message prominently on our website would help. I would say something about there being no difference between men and women when it comes to programming, and about us being a civil bunch and being ready to kick out anyone who'd be incivil. I wonder if that'd do anything to help, or if we should more proactively reach out to where women actually are (e.g. universities) or if there's just nothing we can do on our part.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 18:11 UTC (Thu) by maco (guest, #53641) [Link]

You'd have to watch for it, but occasionally the geekfeminism.org blog has threads requesting that women-friendly companies who are hiring, women-friendly FOSS projects who are looking for contributors, etc. pop up in the comments and say something.

Recruiting for a friendly FOSS project

Posted Dec 3, 2010 20:12 UTC (Fri) by speedster1 (guest, #8143) [Link]

I remember an organization called "society of women engineers" at my alma mater -- I had two friends who were members, one girl and one guy. If I were a project leader who wanted to recruit girl developers, might look for mailing lists of such college organizations.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 16:12 UTC (Thu) by eds (guest, #69511) [Link]

Thanks for speaking up. This is an outrage. I strongly hope everyone involved in these conferences will do their part to make sure that everyone can participate without ever having to be concerned of harassment or assault.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 2, 2010 21:17 UTC (Thu) by ricwheeler (subscriber, #4980) [Link]

Thanks for the write up Val!

The critical point here is how can we make sure that we make our community events welcoming and productive for all open source developers. Clearly, as a community, we have largely failed so far especially when it comes to pulling in more women to open source.

The suggested policy for conferences you propose seems to be common sense to me - not just focused on anti-harassment, but more broadly how to be professional and courteous to our colleagues.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 5:15 UTC (Fri) by bcl (subscriber, #17631) [Link]

Thank you for shining the light on this abhorrent behavior.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 16:43 UTC (Fri) by RogerOdle (guest, #60791) [Link]

A conference would be a good time to explain what being nice requires of people. It needs to be made clear that proper behaviour is required at all times when dealing with fellow developers or anyone else, whether at a conference or not. We shouldn't treat conferences special with an attitude that they should be on their best behaviour while there. Being nice and respectful should be required at all times, even when you are miles apart and communicating by email. Being rude, lewd, or insulting should have consequences. These range from ejection from a particular conference to being barred from participation in FOSS projects. These consequences can be particularly effective when applied to someone employed by a FOSS company that requires participation.

A policy is just so many words if it is not enforced. Please do not turn your back if you witness this kind of behaviour. Even if all you do is take the offender aside and explain what he did was wrong, it will help. Building a community of honor and dignity requires treating offenders properly even when their behaviour is not tolerated.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 3, 2010 21:03 UTC (Fri) by tusuzu (guest, #71637) [Link]

"Locker Room Bravado"

This is the phrase that describes the foundation for most of this offensive behavior. It's a phrase guys understand. A percentage of men take private joking about wives, girlfriends, female bosses, etc. on to the next level of showing off their 'manliness' in front of other men, and the confidence they place in their actions comes from their belief in a trust between men that other men won't object and other men actually silently agree - which we know, and most guys know, isn't true. But the guys don't know what to do about it any more than we do, and don't know a good vocabulary to discuss this problem which doesn't insult all men.

Use the term "locker room bravado" and you'll get immediate understanding from a lot of guys about what's going on. They'll buy into what you are saying and won't feel up against the wall about it, they'll be supportive of you (us).

Lovely article. Thank you for your insight.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 5, 2010 1:43 UTC (Sun) by niallm (guest, #3923) [Link]

I'm really really sorry you -- and other representatives of your gender -- have to suffer through this incredibly unprofessional, cliquey, immature, exploitative and hierarchical crap. It infuriates me. Thank you for speaking out and trying to do something about it.

If you see something

Posted Dec 5, 2010 15:21 UTC (Sun) by petrakis (guest, #39672) [Link]

Say or do something about it. That men in each other's
company and that of women would condone this sort of
behavior, for whatever reason, is unacceptable. As a man,
if you see this sort of behavior, you should feel compelled
to intervene and put an end to it.

Peter

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 6, 2010 15:39 UTC (Mon) by no_treble (guest, #49534) [Link] (1 responses)

Suprised I haven't seen it in the comments yet (unless I missed it...) but a good Step 1 for men is: Wean yourselves from porn. It is not a healthy or realistic view of women at all and it will not lead you toward socially healthy behavior. (I'm a man)

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 13, 2010 20:47 UTC (Mon) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

That'll be hard. There was research a few years ago trying to determine something-or-other (I can't remember what it was) involving men who used porn and those who did not.

They had to abandon the study because they could not find one single male who would admit to satisfying the latter criterion. Now, admittedly, this being a psych study the sample set probably consisted entirely of psych undergrads, who are young and thus suffering from a degree of testosterone poisoning... but fundamentally we are visually activated animals and it appears likely that pornography is eternal. (Some of the first recorded cave art, those 'fertility icons'? Plainly prehistoric porn. The stuff is probably older than Homo sapiens. Good luck stamping it out.)

(Some men may go off it later in life, but I suspect that marriage and/or declining testosterone levels are more to blame than anything else.)

Sexual harassment is only a part of the picture

Posted Dec 8, 2010 12:32 UTC (Wed) by bunk (subscriber, #44933) [Link]

When talking about a "generic anti-harassment policy", I wonder how far it does or should go (and as a non-native speaker. I'm struggling with what exactly is covered with the word "harassment").

The discussion here seems to be only about harassing people due to their gender or sexual orientation.

In big parts of the open source community it seems to be accepted to make fun of non-attending people like Bill Gates or Richard Stallman.

I remember a conference where fun was made of Richard Stallman in the keynote, and even though I'm not affiliated with the FSF I did consider this inappropriate.

I'm definitely not comparing this with groping or raping, but I see this as something comparable to the "A presenter had a title slide followed by a slide of bikini-clad women holding laptops".

When a speaker makes fun of Richard Stallman, is that something that is covered as inapproriate by the generic anti-harassment policy?

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 11, 2010 14:41 UTC (Sat) by lImbus (guest, #58664) [Link]

Sad to hear such thing is needed, but I definitely would like to support it wherever I can.

Needless to say that the same rules of common sense apply to any other group of human beeings, should there every rise jokes about ... let's say homosexual contributors.

It was a pleasure to read your little study.

~lImbus

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Dec 14, 2010 16:54 UTC (Tue) by Lethedethius (guest, #71847) [Link]

Ya know, I've served 5 going on 6 years in the military and we face the same problems, our harrassment rate is above the United States actually (if I remember right) and we're taking action against it by publisizing what can be done to prevent it and how to report it. Please both women and men need to be a little thick skinned and not take every interaction with men as harrassment, yes men will come onto women, it's human nature. If you're an attractive woman then I'm sorry, I will be attracted to you, if you have an attractive personality, I will be attracted to you. If you say no the first time then I should stop right there. There are laws that prevent this stuff, and every convention should exercise those laws, thru formal and informal complaints, have a black list of people who are not eligable to attend anymore because of misconduct. And those who go to far (digging in the pants) should be formally charged accordingly. I read about a stupid picture on a slide and laugh, was it nude? We're all adults people, if you do not like it turn your head, but at the same time feel free to have a man in a thong holding a laptop too in your slide deck. I'm a guy, if I don't like it I'll turn my head, not whine about it. In life you must develop thick skin, take someone to the side and inquire about your issues and their thoughts. Please do not post nonsense about a picture, that follows up the alley of the Drew Carey Shows "French Fry and Catapillar" picture. Rediculous right? The important issue here is sexual harrassment and assault, reporting is the most important thing. It IS NOT your fault you got sexually assaulted, it IS your fault you did not report it though. You don't want to be sexually assaulted then put a stop to it, don't complain about it. Report it to the authorities so they can take control and put the individual where they belong, behind cold steel bars. A second issue is treating others as they should be treated, rather your a bimbo or a technical genius you should be treated the same, and that is hard to push. The strippers should get the same respect the speaker gets, period. If you have an issue with that, by all means shoot me and e-mail and we have a face to face chat in person, I'll persuade you to think the same way I think. Men are attracted to women, it doesn't give them the right to harrass or assault them, but it is everyones right to ONCE(ONLY ONCE) to make a verbal advance and see where it takes us. This is a social event right? Aren't these advances a means of socializing? If you are too thin skinned to simply say no and not be offended by the individual then wear a sign saying "not interested in hooking up" because it happens at malls, walmart, and funerals; not just conventions. My .2cents(multipled by 15). To summarize, don't be offended by advances, be offended by harrassment and assault, and report them! That should be the standard.

The dark side of open source conferences

Posted Jul 30, 2011 10:39 UTC (Sat) by phaedrus (guest, #77526) [Link]

Found this linked through an article on H Open Source (http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/More-conferences-a...)

Thank you for writing the article and publicizing these problems. It's abhorrent to exclude anyone from 'open' source conferences (whether through inhospitable actions or hostility and violence). Keep up the good work.