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Comment by skinkestek | Hacker News Reader

There has been a lot of talk about toxicity in developer environments over the years.

I'm starting to feel we should take a step back in each such case and think:

Who is actually toxic in the current situation?

The person saying something to his friend next seat or the person on next row listening in, reporting it to PyCon and going public on Twitter about it?

The person who has a blueprint of a veteran hunting rifle on his screen or the person who photographs it and put it on Twitter?

A certain leader of an open source project who used to swear a lot, or the persons that were trying to frame him so hard that for a long time I have understood he went out of his way never to be alone with anyone?

And in this case: what are all these code of conducts for if people can destroy others work in this way and nothing happens?

I feel hot headed at the moment, so I might be missing something, feel free to correct me.

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I think in each of the cases you've described I would probably fall on the same side as you. The PyCon example I thought was particularly egregious because it could so easily have been myself making silly jokes about dongles. There's no way anyone should have lost their job over that, so actually, while the person who went public was in the wrong, the main fault must lie with the companies who can't take a step back and give their employees any room or compassion at all.

This particular little drama is a bit more nuanced I think. First, the company behind the speaker involved is actually being supportive. Secondly the original post from the speaker wasn't terribly hand wavy or anything, but pretty measured "I didn't put forward a talk, they asked me, and then later pulled it without discussing the issue with me".

There's no question about it: joking about dongles and forking, *for the innuendo", is immature. It also is unprofessional, and they were having the conversation loudly enough to be heard by women and others nearby.

Yes, there are far worse cases of sexual harassment. Nonetheless, it helps create an environment where people, especially women, understandably feel uncomfortable.

The question then is what to do about it. IMO in the PyCon case, an apology and training would probably have been the best outcome, because losing your job is quite severe.

Of course, if after training a problem is repeated, or if there is just one case of much more overt harassment, then firing is probably the least bad action.

The difficulty with social media is sometimes it is impossible to call out toxic behaviour without there being an overreaction. That's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean toxic behaviour should be unaccountable (or overpunished).

I'm sorry, are woman totally unable to handle hearing immature jokes? I certainly hear them making enough of them, it's not just a male past time. Part of being a human is having a body and making stupid jokes about it. The pervasive blanket prudishness that elicits offence at anything body related is really out of hand.

It's quite simple: save the sexual jokes for the pub with your friends, not the workplace.

The massive gender imbalance in IT leads to skewed perceptions of what is acceptable in a professional environment. This in turn helps perpetuate gender imbalance. Simply, women do not want to work and get harassed.

I'd rather have more women in programming, than men who think sexual harassment is okay in a professional enviroment.

Sure I agree with everything you say, except that the jokes made were not sexual harassment. Overhearing something you don't like between strangers you are not involved with is not harassment. This is treading very old ground, but a simple "keep it to yourselves" from the listener or the conference organiser is the total remonstration and "training" anyone required in that circumstance. The people making jokes were contrite, and all of us sometimes slightly lose our heads when among friends at events, even professional ones.

"Overhearing something you don't like between strangers you are not involved with is not harassment"

1. It definitely can be (by legal, social, etc definitions), and it's very silly to claim otherwise in any form of generality. Like if I overhear you talking about what you want to do to my breasts or whatever, congrats, you've harassed me even if you didn't mean me to hear.

I don't remember the particular jokes here enough to give a more particularized view, but your statement is pretty general. In any case,

2. To the degree it isn't harassment, it can also be considered creation of a hostile work environment (even at a conference), which is also actionable and has been for many decades (ie this is not some new recent thing). The most common form you will find is probably exactly this: people making inappropriate jokes loud enough for others to hear.

You're most likely correct. I personally think the lines have been drawn in a way that catches out people who are not being malicious, making some people over sensitive to basic human dialogue, and still not properly going after those who are actually malicious. And it's actually making us mix less with colleagues. Maybe the ends justify it, feels rather cold to me.

When do you expect this process to show positive results?

Reductio ad absurdum, like, what if you don't overhear me talking about what I want to do to your breasts, is that harassment too?

Your being absurd by assuming your experience generalises to the whole population, and that the way you think things should change is the way things should change.

I'm willing to bet boob, dick, and bum jokes will be proven more durable than this bout of lunacy.

"When do you expect this process to show positive results?"

Given that "Mad Men" is no longer considered standard acceptable workplace behavior, uh, i think it did already?

These are not new laws, they started in ~1964 (in the US), and have shown positive results pretty quickly?

"Reductio ad absurdum, like, what if you don't overhear me talking about what I want to do to your breasts, is that harassment too?"

Yes, actually, but i'm sure you know this.

You act as if this is all some horrible form of oppression - sexual harassment law is ... not particularly hard to avoid violating.

There are certainly edge cases, but like, it's really not that hard to avoid sexually harassing your coworkers.

You'd have a stronger argument about PC and more general "acceptable workplace behavior" or something.

"Your being absurd by assuming your experience generalises to the whole population, and that the way you think things should change is the way things should change."

Uh, you think that sexual harassment law does not enjoy broad support? Okay?

"I'm willing to bet boob, dick, and bum jokes will be proven more durable than this bout of lunacy."

In the workplace, so far you have turned out pretty wrong, and this "bout of lunacy" has been going on for well over half a century in the US, and longer elsewhere.

So maybe you should reconsider.

The point here is that what is considered sexual harassment is itself political.

I can hear all kinds of overtly racist and sexist statements from my female colleagues, but because they are women, and their comments are directed at white folks and male folks, they are totally safe from this sort of retribution. (Ex. "I didn't want to move here because it's eyeroll so white")

Meanwhile, an (admittedly juvenile) set of jokes gets some people fired.

Yes, I have received harassment from women when I was younger. And there was very little that could be done about it, people would not take it seriously. That includes being sexually assaulted in high school, it happened because I was so eccentric it attracted "bad" girls.

But as a guy, if I did one tiny thing wrong I would be labelled all sorts of nasty things. It could be as little as being slightly too friendly to a woman somewhere, because I am really happy, having a really good day, and I would be treated horribly.

This is a widespread rampant problem in society. It's being seen as "harassment" when it's coming from men. But not so when it's coming from women.

You've just described what most every woman I have talked to says their life is like including massive fear of retaliation, fairly common harassment (including from strangers in public), etc. The whole reason for the metoo movement is because the massive fear and retaliation for speaking up.

Is there fear of retaliation when the reaction is almost universally media fawning for the bravery of speaking up, and importantly, has been for 20 ish years?

Yes. Look someone actually asked people and put together the surveys in a single place that is just a quick Google search away.

https://inspiredelearning.com/blog/sexual-harassment-in-the-...

Yes, the retaliation might be from other men seeing the complaint as frivolous. And in this hypersensitive society we live in now, that complaint may very well be frivolous.

I bring in data and you bring up random hypotheticals to dismiss it out of hand since you don't like what the data says. Which I think says everything someone needs to know about this debate and the participants.

I don't trust the data, even if it comes from academia, as it's very likely to have a pro-feminist bias. I need to know the methodology used, and also other sources of data to cross check it against. The bias in the coverage of these issues is absolutely shocking, and has been occurring for a long time indeed.

Yes, radical feminists are behind this, they have even taken over academia, and it's taboo to speak out against it, if you do, you will find yourself up against a mob.

I wonder if there is an evolutionary basis for such sexual conformity in humans. Because I'm trying to find an explanation for what's going on. How so many lives are being destroyed over trivial sexual transgressions, things that are really trifles and cause no real harm other than discomfort or unpleasantness. Of course serious transgressions such as rape are not trivial at all.

Or is it really down to our society instead?

These are not random hypotheticals. Which is why we cannot reasonably call your listicle that doesn't give proper citations or even hyperlinks "data".

55% of all EEOC complaints were about "retaliation", that's not 55% of victims, as the headline shows. That's 55% of all reports. Which means there are definitionally more reports of retaliation than reports of incidents!

Additionally, you have stuff like this: https://www.the74million.org/article/ed-department-sex-discr...

Yes, it's insane, it's the rise of sexual authoritarianism or even fascism. We scare the whole population into fearing that there's predators everywhere, and punish people for minor transgressions or trifles, ruining their lives. Meanwhile these minor transgressions increase the figures and are used to justify even more draconian measures. A vicious circle.

> I can hear all kinds of overtly racist and sexist statements from my female colleagues, but because they are women, and their comments are directed at white folks and male folks, they are totally safe from this sort of retribution. (Ex. "I didn't want to move here because it's eyeroll so white")

That's pervasive, but it's not appropriate either. This is why I said low key unprofessionalism should initially be dealt with by apologies and training.

> Meanwhile, an (admittedly juvenile) set of jokes gets some people fired.

I said that was an overreaction. But it's a different employer, who were acting due to publicity.

> I'm sorry, are woman totally unable to handle hearing immature jokes?

In this day and age? Yes. Absolutely. Comedians often lament the death of comedy, and I can see why. People are super easily offended and even minor comments make them lose their marbles.

Comedians are not pining to tell immature 'jokes' about forking dongles, women have been handling that crap for decades and they're not finding it offensive just lame.

What's changed is the feeling that it has to be endured without comment and left to slide in professional settings as happened in the past.

I myself find it odd that people are super offended and lose their marbles now that women are expressing an opinion.

It's more than just an opinion, it's costing people their careers and worse. The hypersensitivity of women can destroy mens lives over trifles in this day and age. With radical third wave feminists and their moral panics to blame for that.

Meanwhile women can harass and even "stalk" men and get away with it, the problem is ignored in society. In most cases these behaviors are completely harmless. What makes it so infuriating is that if an equally harmless man did the same, he could be in trouble with the law for it. He is presumed potentially predatory and dangerous for being male. This is a clear cut case of discrimination.

As a chair leg, I find the idea that women are a unitary whole utterly absurd.

What actually got me was this line:

> loudly enough to be heard by women

This is actually degeneration of feminism and equality. It harks back to conservatism "cover your lady's ears so she doesn't hear the wisecracks"

And it really doesn't square with the people I know. The men and women I've mixed with over the years are equal with the adult themed jokes. The rudest is the lady who lives next door.

So I don't actually believe that women don't want to hear that kind of joking about. I think they don't want to hear the kind of joking about that I, and probably most men, don't want to hear either: The I'd screw her, "locker room" (not any locker room I've been in, they're mostly be quiet and get on with dressing places) talk. But the collateral damage is a subset of people who now feel empowered to suck all the enjoyment out of everyones life.

> The pervasive blanket prudishness that elicits offence at anything body related is really out of hand.

It comes with the territory of living in a low-trust society (which the U.S. pretty much is nowadays). Joking around about topics that might raise offense is a luxury we can't necessarily afford in every circumstance.

> And in this case: what are all these code of conducts for if people can destroy others work in this way and nothing happens?

In a "the purpose of a system is what it does" sense it's clear that they exist to make it easier to kick out people you don't like - especially people who don't share the PMC cultural background that's dominant in tech - without taking responsibility for your choice in doing so.

PMC is standing for what?

Perhaps <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico-media_complex>. Just a guess.

Professional–managerial class.

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