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Comment by jamesaguilar | Hacker News Reader

Apparently it harmed someone enough that they were willing to complain to twitter about it. There have been a few good articles posted about why many women feel uncomfortable when the workplace is sexualized, especially in male-dominated industries. If you haven't read one, you may want to check into it.

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This wasn't the workplace first of all. This was a conversation (albeit a dumb one) between two friends. Last time I checked, I didn't need to worry about everyone's delicate sensibilities when I was speaking with my buddies. Also, she wasn't harmed, the way you are using that word takes away all meaning it has. She was offended. That's it.

I would understand if they were saying a sexist joke or saying a joke that perpetuated some stereotype but all they were doing was saying a stupid joke about dongles and forking. How could that offend anyone that wasn't looking to be offended?

I disagree with you on the harm point. Our legal system does too. Mental harms count. There are varieties of them that you are legally protected from. Work-context sexual offense is one of them.

Whether pycon is a professional context really depends on whose dime and at whose behest you are attending it, no? I don't know the details of this case. In any event, it's probable that PyCon has a harassment policy that could be interpreted as to bar sexual jokes around people who don't want to hear them, but I don't know for sure.

I wasn't arguing against the fact that mental harm exists. I was arguing that harm implies that somebody was injured and a sexual innuendo involving dongles and forks is hardly offensive enough to injure somebody just like looking at someone the wrong way shouldn't harm someone in most situations. In a situation were someone is being harmed by something that is in most situations harmless (because they suffered some sort of trauma or they have a phobia) they should inform someone, not take up vigilante justice.

Also, although these jokes were sexual in nature, they did not have anything to do with sexualizing women, putting down anyone from any sex, or targeting anyone in particular as the butt of the joke. And seeing as how these jokes were not intended to hurt or upset anyone or where in any way threatening or disturbing I don't see how it could constitute harassment.

I would definitely agree that a single instance of these jokes would not and should not constitute harassment. The joker should not have been fired. I said as much in my first post.

Anyone can be harmed by anything. I'm a female and those kinda jokes do not make me uncomfortable at all, however some other non-typical random things do that i can never expect anyone to know about. i understand its my responsibility to handle my own emotions and feelings

I find it more plausible that it's about dominative social behavior, rather than harm to the person.

Considering Adria's remark on Twitter that she "feels like Joan of Arc", I would suspect this as well.

Women in this field keep explaining how this sort of thing harms them. But when we complain we are "no one"!

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