Is Sexual Harassment Part of Hacker Culture? 1127
owenferguson writes "Valerie Aurora, Linux kernel file systems expert, takes DEFCON to task for poor sexual harassment policing. A nice followup piece to the recent Readercon fiasco."
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Is Sexual Harassment Part of Hacker Culture?
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BLISS is ignorance.
Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:5, Informative)
I think in the general area of business software, the stereotype of the hardcore geek is mostly gone. People who write business applications are generally pretty mainstream by geek standards. Perhaps such a concentration of extremely tech-focused geeks like at the conference in question is the last place we see this kind of stereotype, and possibly, for that reason they are all the more poorly behaved.
Re:Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:5, Insightful)
Sounds like investment bankers. And frat-bros (same thing I guess)
Re:Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:4, Informative)
People who write business applications are generally pretty mainstream by geek standards
I have to agree - I work for a software company that writes business apps and this largely describes our culture. I think it also helps that our office has many women - Granted, they mostly work in marketing, sales, finance etc, but they're around. Interestingly though, we do have a few hardcore geeks - And they work in IT, not writing code.
Re:Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a strong association between hardcore anything (geek, programmer, whatever) towards being maladjusted to societal norms
I'd put in in other words: There's a distinct tendency for geeks to form a society with different and distinct social norms. You make it almost sound that there is only one set of social norms shared by all societies over the globe. There isn't one. It's almost as nonsensical as all those people complaining that other people's writing is "ungrammatical". Obviously, they don't even know what the word means.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hardcore geeks don't make me feel comfortable (Score:5, Insightful)
Geeks know bitterly first hand what bullying is about. The incidents described were not awkward mistakes, they were intentional bullying. Nobody sets out to "pick up girls" by grabbing their crotches and walking away.
No (Score:5, Insightful)
(Aside from needing to look up that link about all articles that end with question mark)
.. its a part of immature people who associate with hacker culture .. hmm .. so maybe that should be a yes?
Sexual harassment is just plain old immature behavior. It isn't a part of Hack Culture
Re: (Score:3)
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Women at Defcon are just "attractive young fangirl/cheerleader type women who seem to think hackers are cool for some reason but who don't even care about hacking." You heard it here first, everyone. There's no way for a woman to be a hacker. If you think you are, you just think it's cool for some reason.
We need new rules so that immature men who innocently provoke attractive young fangirls into believing they have been harassed can feel safe. That's really what gets lost in these conversations: men need to feel safe from false accusations of harassment.
(If you're being sarcastic, I apologize, because you're clearly several levels better at it than I am. If not, fuck right off.)
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a hacker. However, I'm a doctor married to a doctor, so I've got a very good idea of the difficulties of women trying to get recognized and respected without becoming professionally male.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Hackers don't lack social skills.
Compared to non-hackers, statistically, YES THEY DO.
Hackers have some of the most advanced social skills in society.
Lol. Sure. I would say that they have advance skills of affecting society, but the term 'social skills' has a widely accepted connotation for which your use of the word does not apply.
The problem isn't lack of social skills, it's the addition of alcohol, drugs, and lots of attractive young fangirl/cheerleader type women who seem to think hackers are cool for some reason but who don't even care about hacking. A lot of these women are out of their element...
No. These are human beings in a physical place in a society that has laws and expectations that will not be ignored by subculture (ignore it all day and you will end up in jail or fired or both). The reality of that subculture's dysfunctional facets does *not* provide 'reason', nor does it justify the complete bullshit you're spewing here. You're using the 'she asked for it' argument, and you might find some other assholes to agree with you, but the majority of Americans (this was in Vegas, in the US) don't pay credence to that 'argument' at all and bluntly reject them. There is a big difference between an explanation and the implication of responsibility. You are implying that the victims of harassment had partial responsibility --- no. A naked woman rubbing herself all over the guy next to you is *NOT* required to accept harassment from you of any kind -- to assume you are welcome to the same without her permission is absurd. If you can't control yourself when you see attractive women, you need a psychiatrist.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Those are not social skills. They are sociopath skills. Which probably explains the misogyny in the rest of your post.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
Treating a person as a tool to be used is much easier than actually interacting with them as a human being; what makes it easier is the very fact that in doing so, one ignores all social rules and norms one is supposed to follow and simply concentrates on the goal. And not all hackers can pull off social engineering.
Re:No (Score:5, Interesting)
OK, so wow. Just wow.
I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt since you seem to mean well but that post was seriously fucked up on many levels. I kind of want to tear you a new one but I'm going to try and refrain since you seem to at least have your heart in sort of the right place.
First, social engineering skills != social skills. Not even close. Actual social skills that actual healthy adults have are a combination of understanding the motivations of others and having respect for them as individuals. People are not a set of walking stimulus/response sets for someone to manipulate. A failure to distinguish between the two is very common amongst intelligent, socially awkward types. Hacker types *are* socially awkward on average. The thing is that most people in hacker circles manage to learn actual social skills at some point. Sadly a portion of them never grow out of the mindset that crude, non-consensual manipulation of others for entertainment or gain is somehow indicative that they have learned to interact with other people on a meaningful level. Also, the ability to trick an over-trusting secretary out of a password on the phone hardly makes one the next Machiavelli, just FYI.
Second, yes poor social skills *are* the heart of the matter. I've been around plenty of social settings (including many hacker/geek social settings) where there were drugs, alcohol, hot women (sometimes hot men and women in states of undress and sometimes having sex) where people managed to not be immature douchebags and treated each other with respect. This is a cultural problem and needs to be treated as such. Yes, it's sometimes kind of annoying when a girl acts all slutty and shows off her body because she wants attention but that in no way entitles everyone in eyesight to groping her uninvited any more than a guy wearing an expensive watch or driving an ostentatious car deserves to be mugged/carjacked for doing so. And it *DEFINITELY* does not excuse other people from degrading and intimidating women as a group because a few of them chose to act a certain way any more than I should feel entitled to walk down the street, punching random guys in the face for the actions of a few sexist idiots.
Third, I definitely agree that everyone at such an event should feel safe and it's heartening that you bring this up. However you kind of fall flat on your face in the next sentence. You think people should feel safe so that the 'most attractive females' will keep showing up? Excuse me? I thought Defcon was about hacking and computer skills, not so that you can eye hot girls. There is a whole internet full of naked, hot girls you can ogle to your heart's content and plenty of hot girls in Vegas you can go out and hit on and lots of hot prostitutes in the greater state of Nevada you can pay to sleep with if that's what you are interested in. Also note how your rationale is conspicuously missing any reference to making female computer hackers feel welcome or any indication that women can be something other than 'attractive young fangirl/cheerleaders'.
Lastly, the community definitely needs to shoulder some of the blame. Yes, Defcon should implement some sort of comprehensive policy towards harassment that is clear and well enforced. But that is only half the solution. Human culture is *not* a clean set of equations that a few rule changes can reform like tweaking the code for The Sims. Rule changes are pretty useless - ultimately, they have to find an impossible sweet spot between being toothless and draconian and rules by themselves will never change the minds of people any more than all those DARE ads convinced us all that drugs are bad. That you seem to think so is not surprising given your attitude towards social engineering.
However, you need to get through your head that the larger Defcon community is partially at fault for tolerating a hostile environment and that a broader, self-initiated social shift is required if any meaningful change is going to happen. When a woman h
Re:No (Score:4, Insightful)
Sexual harassment is just plain old immature behavior. It isn't a part of Hack Culture .. its a part of immature people who associate with hacker culture .. hmm .. so maybe that should be a yes?
I'd go with correlation, not causation. "Hacker culture" typically comes from young introvert males with weak social antennas. "Sexual harassment" typically come from young introvert males with weak social antennas. That and how like-minded people in a crowd always stretch it further than any one person would individually. So it's a high risk event but I wouldn't say the hacker culture glorifies it in any way.
Re:No (Score:5, Insightful)
This commentary on this article will undoubtedly.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ooops, *looks above post*, too late.
Re:This commentary on this article will undoubtedl (Score:4, Informative)
Maybe I missed the /. thread on the ReaderCon fiasco, but here's the original complaint
http://glvalentine.livejournal.com/340623.html [livejournal.com]
Absolutely shouldn't be (Score:5, Insightful)
Or the experience of one of my friends, who prefers to remain anonymous. At a recent DEFCON, while leaning over to get her drink at the bar, someone slid his hand up all the way between her legs and grabbed her crotch.
I cannot believe someone could even remotely think that doing something like this would be a good idea. Someone else's body is not just an object. Jesus Christ people, get a fucking clue - this sort of attitude makes for a very poor environment all around.
It's all about gender neutral security policy (Score:4, Insightful)
FTFA:
Or the experience of one of my friends, who prefers to remain anonymous. At a recent DEFCON, while leaning over to get her drink at the bar, someone slid his hand up all the way between her legs and grabbed her crotch.
I cannot believe someone could even remotely think that doing something like this would be a good idea. Someone else's body is not just an object. Jesus Christ people, get a fucking clue - this sort of attitude makes for a very poor environment all around.
There are many stupid blokes in the world. I'm sure this actually happened. We also have to consider that any time you put a large amount of politically radical individuals in one place, a portion of them will be falsely accused because it's just politically convenient. The next Julian Assange very well could be at Defcon, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if this situation gets exploited by both sides.
We need to educate both men and women about safety. We need technology in place which is gender neutral, which protects both the accused and the accuser. The last thing we want is for something horrible like a sexual assault to happen but being falsely accused of a sexual assault is as horrible as being sexually assaulted. So we have to consider all potential risks and scenarios in security policy.
Re:It's all about gender neutral security policy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I've hung out with female feds at two different events. Alas, nobody tried to grab them. That would have been fun to watch.
Re:Absolutely shouldn't be (Score:5, Insightful)
No idiot. He's implying they go undercover as plain clothes cops to bait gropers in the same way female officers stand on street corners baiting johns.
Re:Absolutely shouldn't be (Score:5, Insightful)
It creates a minefield for male hackers if women are present? Do you even believe what you write here? Indeed, if you can't behave if women are present, you shouldn't go where women are. It would be better for everyone.
Re:Absolutely shouldn't be (Score:5, Insightful)
And here, ladies and gentlemen, is the seed of every organizational sex scandal coverup in history. "Let's deal with this in-house. Don't want to give the organization a bad name."
Down that path, my friend, lies multimillion dollar payouts, jail time not only for the offenders, but also for those that tried to hide the ill deeds.
That someone could seriously write this kind of a post weeks after the Penn State report is absolutely extraordinary.
Some guy grabs a woman's crotch and he's caught, call the cops. He commitez a felony, and if you try to bury it with internal "discipline", you've just commited one too.
One incident.. (Score:5, Insightful)
One man was apparently out of order, it wasn't a group effort by an entire community. The creep didn't do anything bad enough to get himself arrested and was banned for life for his actions, can't that be an end to it?
Or are we still running with the assumption that all white males are fundamentally evil and everything they do is sexist and/or racist.
Re:One incident.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:One incident.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Did we read the same article? It wasn't just one incident. Aurora tells how she left one DEFCON after a "barrage" of harassing incidents. The crotch grabbing episode was something she cited as an extreme case.
Re:One incident.. (Score:5, Informative)
One man was apparently out of order, it wasn't a group effort by an entire community. The creep didn't do anything bad enough to get himself arrested and was banned for life for his actions, can't that be an end to it?
No one is blaming everyone for the harassment itself, they're blaming the board for not enforcing their own policy. The lifetime ban came only in response to the outcry (which in turn came because the written policy said that lifetime bans would be issued to harassers, but the board only banned the harasser in question for two years.) There are also larger issues (Was the man given lenience because he holds a position of some minor prominence in the SF community? How can other cons and organizations learn from this and prevent harassment in the future? &c)
Or are we still running with the assumption that all white males are fundamentally evil and everything they do is sexist and/or racist.
Fuck you.
It's not just DEFCON (Score:5, Interesting)
... and it's not "sexual harassment". It's "sexual assault". I've been seeing considerably more of people being inappropriately aggressive, and not just in hacker cons. It's happening in sci fi cons too, and tech business cons, and plenty of other places. Sales conferences have always been bad, but it's new to see so much of this in geek culture.
I'm pretty sexually liberated (OK, I'm a fucking slut), but that doesn't mean free for all. No matter how much you think they want it, never assume they're interested unless they respond positively to some gentle verbal flirting... And if they don't, they're not interested, so please fuck off.
I know this sounds obvious to many, but I keep seeing rather horrifying examples of geeks completely failing to follow that basic protocol.
Re:It's not just DEFCON (Score:5, Insightful)
A few things:
1) It'd make no sense if you were a celibate slut.
2) Good for you
3) No, seriously - good for you (and hopefully for the ones you fuck as well)
I, for one, never quite understood why there's this stigma about women enjoying sex.
On a side note, I can never really avoid laughing, when some idiot shouts something like "whore" after a woman, who've just turned him down. I mean - he's now loudly informing the world, that not even people who are paid to keep other's company are interested in him. "Look at me - I'm repulsive!"
Re:It's not just DEFCON (Score:5, Informative)
We're talking about people sticking fingers where they shouldn't be in public, and in my secondhand experience literally whispering that he'd like to rape her if there weren't so many people around. Yes, really, in those words. That's not "confused about how to engage women" or "just ignorant of social etiquette"; it's ABSOLUTELY assault.
Re:It's not just DEFCON (Score:5, Informative)
No comment on "rape fantasy" per se, but as someone with extensive exposure to (though minimal involvement in) the BDSM community, I can testify that they are if anything some of the <em>most</em> proactive about making very explicitly sure that everything is consensual, specifically because if they weren't, there would be so much more room for unfortunate confusion than usual. BDSM activities are full of all kinds of rules and safeties and explicit negotiations about what is or isn't OK ahead of time, making everything that follows far more clear than two strangers drunk off their asses who wake up the next morning unable to remember who stuck what into whose where.
Re:It's not just DEFCON (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly this.
I was a "social retard" my whole high school career. I was very good at being put in the friendzone whenever I spoke with women in a social way.
It was so frustrating to see so many guys just be friendly like I was, and two weeks later they'd be going out with girls who were originally friends.
The protocol is always unevenly applied. I'd be friendly, and it would always end there. I tried gentle flirting, standard fare, essentially emulating every approach I'd seen before, and it would never work. I'm not autistic. I'm not disgusting. I eventually gave up. It always seemed that I was just not attractive, or just friend material.
These days, I don't even try anymore. I treat women as asexual most of the time, and thanks to prozac prescribed for depression, it's not too hard (in whichever mixture of senses you'd like to take it)
It just might be bad luck. Get back on the horse and all that. But four years seems unreasonable. I tried the "Being a Dick" technique, it does work. For about a day. And it can't lead to any healthy interaction, or meaningful relationship. Plus being a dick in a specific way is a lot of work, and just not fun for anyone.
Anyone care to sympathize? Spend a very long time considered as if you were never someone who could be related to as fully human?
Re:It's not just DEFCON (Score:4, Insightful)
Spend time figuring out how to be good company. Old people are good to practice on, and they also give good advice, if you can get over your pride and listen to it. Let go of your attraction to immature women, if you have any. Pay attention to the women you are attracted to, and what they do to be attractive to you. Think about how you could do the same. Obviously putting on makeup won't work, but if you are like most people in our society, you have imprinted on images that have been presented to you on TV and in the print media, and online. Women are conforming to those images to appear more attractive to you. The same thing works on them. Figure out how to be as good a person as the woman you want to meet. Then do what it takes to actually be that person, not just present that image. When you can ask a woman out and be completely okay with her saying no, you're a long way down that road. But ultimately there is no answer that will always work. If the only way you can be okay with being alone is to take prozac, you absolutely must figure out how to fix that. If what you are doing with your life yields no joy, then do something else with your life. Don't expect a woman to be a source of joy—it doesn't work that way.
It's not. (Score:3)
Being an asshole is not part of any culture, and endemic sexism (which clearly exists) is not the same as inherent sexism.
Working to end sexual harassment is not an attack on hacker culture. (And nor is it necessary or helpful to attack hacker culture in order to end sexual harassment.)
Defcon isn't the problem Vegas is (Score:5, Insightful)
I have been going to defcon for many years. In recent years my non tech wife has been coming along. My wife is extremely hot and attracts unwanted attention everywhere we go. Its quite the task to keep creepers at bay most of the time. She has repeatedly made it clear that the attendees at defcon and the parties there have been completely respectful and gentlemanly to her. On the other hand, she has been propositioned for "shopping sprees and condo parties" from creepy Vegas men and attempted to be recruited to be a stripper and prostitute on different occasions at the Rio and Riviera pool by Vegas scum. At one point several random hackers came to her defense as she was trying to get away from Vegas scum at the pool. By the time I got out of my track and to the pool random defconers had "solved" the issue in a ways an angry older brother would. These type of problems are what makes my wife wary of defcon and Vegas in general, Vegas scum, not the defcon attendees.
If this is all about some drunk kid asking someone to show your tits, well those kids are everywhere there is alcohol. If someone assaults you, sexually or otherwise, charges should be pressed.
Re:Defcon isn't the problem Vegas is (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is all about some drunk kid asking someone to show your tits, well those kids are everywhere there is alcohol.
Sure, but this was reportedly an item on a scavenger hunt run by a member of the security staff. That crosses the line from stupid drunks to actual systematic harassment.
It's brogrammers (Score:5, Insightful)
However some ruby on rails rockstar douche bag is almost required to be grabbing ass and treating women like shit in between going to the gym and downing red bull. But brogrammers aren't just a pita to women, real programmers hate them too. They're a cancer on our culture.
Re:It's brogrammers (Score:4, Informative)
However some ruby on rails rockstar douche bag is almost required to be grabbing ass and treating women like shit in between going to the gym and downing red bull. But brogrammers aren't just a pita to women, real programmers hate them too. They're a cancer on our culture.
A buddy of mine is active in the local Rails community, and I've gone to some Ruby events just for the heck of it (I hate Rails). I have to say that have never seen any inappropriate sexual behavior at all from this group. Nerd warfare? Sure. But mostly over various extreme programming models and Ruby interpreters that I decided not to care about.
Deal with it firmly but appropriately (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't part of the hacker ethos that the code rules? Who cares the age, sex, color, national origin, or creed of the writer? Do any of these factors make for better or worse code? If not, then differentiators based on those factors have no place in the hacker culture.
Any type of harassment needs to be dealt with rapidly, firmly, and appropriately. At the hacker cons I've attended, I've been fortunate to attend sessions with female presenters. I've also had the opportunity to interact with female attendees and found them to be logical, intelligent, and well spoken. I go to such cons to learn, network, and have some fun. Playing grabass just isn't on the menu. Such things are the province of small minds with no social skills. I'm all for harassers getting a swift kick - or several. I have a feeling though that the goons wouldn't be enamored with that idea.
I'm old enough to have been in the military before, during, and after the 1991 Tailhook incident. Hopefully the pendulum won't swing so far in the other direction that personnel are tossed and/or banned based on unsubstantiated allegations. There are very real incidents that need to be dealt with firmly. There are also invented incidents that should result in sanctions against the person making the false allegations.
-ZPO
strawmen and beating men = funny? (Score:5, Insightful)
The major problem with Valerie's article is that she creates a strawman argument ("all you men say that if women don't feel comfortable, they shouldn't go") which she then leaps off of to claim that women are not made welcome and thus are being denied employment opportunities available at said conference. In prior discussions here on Slashdot, I have not seen a single commenter say anything similar to that. It is at best an extremist viewpoint. Most of the voices in this and prior discussions have been one of collective disapproval and support for women feeling comfortable at conferences.
The other problem is that Valerie and her cohorts think female-on-male violence is funny:
"The cards are a hilarious way to raise awareness of the problem of brutal sexual harassment at DEFCON and similar conferences."
http://singlevoice.net/redyellow-card-project/ [singlevoice.net]
Text from the red card: "You should be happy you got this card and not a punch in the face."
This is a perfect example of how culturally it has become completely acceptable for women to beat men in public or media; people stare, freak out, and intervene when a guy gets aggressive with a woman....but she can use his hair to thrash his head around, punch him repeatedly, etc - and nobody says a word or gives it a second glance. In movies, a woman getting hit is the ultimate bad-guy act...but a man getting hit? That's comedy! Funny! Let's not forget that the man is always portrayed in media as being a lecherous slimebag, and thus "deserves" this treatment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlFAd4YdQks [youtube.com]
how is handing a card "violence"? (Score:4, Insightful)
you have a different definition of violence if giving someone a red piece of paper with writing on it qualifies
Best answer (Score:5, Insightful)
First, I must preface I am not saying these things do not happen and I will not take away from anyone's experience as these situations are inexcusable and horrific, but I do want to chime in and say they do not happen to ALL women.
I have been attending tech conferences for going on 6 years now. This year was my 2nd BlackHat, 3rd Defcon, I also speak at average 4-5 conferences in an associated industry each year. While I won't say I have never experienced an idiot or two (but wouldn't you in any situation) OVERALL the men have been supportive, giving, generous and career boosting. They are also very protective over me and if anyone treated me this way I know the person would find himself in a very bad way very quickly. That being said.
I worry when I see posts like this because though I am 1000% positive there are a few bad apples in a conference the size of Defcon (18k) I don't believe wholesale that there are a plethora of bad aggressive idiot men attending.
Most of the men I meet are respectful and helpful and by othering the men you separate women further and create and atmosphere where men are afraid to speak or befriend as they might offend.
So again, I do not wish to in any way detract or minimize the horrendous behavior that was mentioned here. I just caution that generalization can cause issues that do not exist, create a negative atmosphere where women are further separated from the goals they seek to achieve. We work in a predominantly male industry.
Men are not the enemy and I would not be where I am without the ones I know help and guidance. So just remember in a barrel of apples there are always some worm infested ones among the many bright and shiny.
Answer. (Score:5, Insightful)
Long Answer: Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
The claim is a lie. (Score:4, Insightful)
The article is a slander attempt to co-op the conference. Simple as that.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe a better question is WHY is this harassment occurring? Is this specific to certain types of conferences?
Adopting a clear policy on the matter is completely sensible. But how does one come to believe that such creepy behavior would be tolerable in the first place?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
First, a subculture that has very few women, and many of those few that seem to be there* are total attention whores.
Second, with that general lack of women, combined with the disproportionate amount of attention whores, objectification and grandstanding becomes much more common, and fairly violent and derogatory terminology gets bandied about as normal.
Third, many who participate perceive themselves as flaunting the law/rules, and that can lead to a mindset for flaunting
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
total attention whores
violent and derogatory terminology
Um...
Re:It's Obvious (Score:5, Funny)
1) Believe it or not, a girl can *actually* be interested in you. No, I'm not kidding! You *don't* have to be a creeper!
You don't know me! Crazy talk. I was going to stop reading, but I didn't and found this little gem:
6) Do not, in any circumstance, talk about your penis. Not usually too much of a problem with American guys, but to guys from more sexually-liberated countries... we know you've got one, and yes, we've seen big ones before; now can you get on with the "being human" thing before we leave?
If I don't talk about penises, how will you know that I'm not gay? You should think before you say stuff like this.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming from a woman's perspective: agreed, to an extent.
It's not that most of these guys are necessarily bad people, but hackers (in the DEFCON sense) do tend to follow alpha male mentality. Now mix that up with copious amounts of alcohol, the poor social adjustment that many geeks have, and the "anything goes" attitude of Sin City, and yeah you'll have problems.
On that note, the single biggest improvement in that respect would actually be to move DEFCON from Las Vegas. People just behave badly there - for better or worse this isn't just a geek thing or a DEFCON thing.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Coming from a woman's perspective: agreed, to an extent.
It's not that most of these guys are necessarily bad people, but hackers (in the DEFCON sense) do tend to follow alpha male mentality. Now mix that up with copious amounts of alcohol, the poor social adjustment that many geeks have, and the "anything goes" attitude of Sin City, and yeah you'll have problems.
On that note, the single biggest improvement in that respect would actually be to move DEFCON from Las Vegas. People just behave badly there - for better or worse this isn't just a geek thing or a DEFCON thing.
No, they don't.
They follow what a wimpy, pasty-white basement dweller THINKS is an "alpha male mentality".
Real alpha males stop acting that way about 11 or 12.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
On that note, the single biggest improvement in that respect would actually be to move DEFCON from Las Vegas. People just behave badly there - for better or worse this isn't just a geek thing or a DEFCON thing.
That's a terrible idea. What about all the women that have to live in Las Vegas?
Sexual harassment, assault, and battery must not be tolerated anywhere in society. Las Vegas does not deserve a special exemption as being a spot where men can go, and stop comporting themselves like gentlemen. That does not mean you can't get a little crazy either. I've been completely fucking plastered and flirting with women and I can tell you I still behaved like a gentleman. In Las Vegas too. I didn't grope them and make lewd comments about how I wanted them to service me sexually.
I don't know if a lifetime ban is appropriate in this specific case because there is no article on what actually happened. It seems that the women writing the article talks about having her crotch groped. That is sexual battery and a felony.
We have laws for this stuff. While I don't support multi-year sentences for just groping a woman, I would absolutely throw the bastard in jail for 6-12 months. People don't have a real grasp on just how long that is in a prison environment. Think about something like your two week vacation, that just seems a lot longer, and then multiply it.
Where the laws don't cover it, that's where organizations can step in and remove the person for whatever time period they deem appropriate. If it was for something as serious as sexual battery then, yes, it may well be appropriate to remove that person for life.
Simply removing a conference from an environment that may enable bad behavior is a half-assed response (respectfully), and does not really address the problem in the way it deserves.
It does not matter where it is. Nobody should be able to get away with behavior like this regardless of gender, sexual orientation, etc.
Reminds me of special capitalism zones in China where it is okay to temporarily not act Communist.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
No.
Defcon just needs to enforce sensible policies that provide a deterrent against sexual harassment. Anything behavior that goes beyond sexual harassment and ventures into assault and/or battery is dealt with by the authorities with cooperation by people attending Defcon.
Moving Defcon does nothing and only provides a flimsy excuse for inexcusable behavior. That excuse being, "Las Vegas made us do it".
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, a fake GE training video on sexual harassment; the rules for men were "Be handsome, be attractive, don't be unattractive." The last scene was the "unattractive" guy walking down a hallway and saying hello to a woman at her desk, and her calling security. Which, unfortunately, isn't far from the truth; "Hi" with the response "Eww, get away from me you creep" isn't unknown in real life.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Is this real sexual harassment or just one of the insanely vocal parish that categorise "rape" as "some guy glancing askance at my bubs", who in the process harm actual rape victims by trivialising it?
Grabbing a woman by the crotch in a crowded room and running away definitely counts as "sexual harassment". Except, oh wait. It's ASSAULT. Much better.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the case in the US. "Rape" has not become a meaningless term here.
It means rape. We're not talking about Swedish Rape.
No means no and stop means stop. If you confuse the two, it's on you, asshole.
The opposite of Sweden is Italy, where it's hard to get a rape conviction unless the woman is hurt enough to be hospitalized for a week. I love Italy, but women are treated like shit there. The rape laws in the US appear to be pretty reasonable by comparison to those two extremes.
The fact that we're seeing the kind of comments we're seeing to this story saying that "women cry sexual harassment just if you look at them", is pretty much proof that sexual harassment is a problem in "hacker culture". Those stupid comments come from the kind of problematic culture that creates a situation where women are abused. The cases where sexual harassment is found by a court are almost always real sexual harassment. When you hear some guy say, "Yeah, I just looked at her and the next thing you know I'm being charged with sexual harassment", you can pretty much bet that it wasn't about "being looked at" at all.
And no, "She dresses like a slut" is not a valid defense. Nor is, "We were just playing. We always play like that here." People who are exploiting others almost never think they're doing anything wrong. The desire to rationalize - to excuse ourselves - is very strong. It's strong enough a group of slaveowners to get together and write some formal document about the "inalienable rights of man" and how "all men being created equal" and such bullshit, and then pat themselves on the back, when they own people who were brought here in chains. Like I said, people who exploit never think they're doing anything wrong.. We want to think we're good people so badly that we'll tell ourselves any kind of lie in order to excuse our behavior. It's how terms like "Right to Work" and "Free Market" come about. I mean, how can it be exploitation if it's the work of the "Free Market"? You're not against "freedom", are you?
Battery or Sexual Battery (Score:3, Informative)
Crotch grab, tit grab, unwanted sexual contact both are considered. At best its a battery charge in most of the US, and most likely its a sexual battery charge in most of the US. Assault (for some weird legal reason) is all the yelling and screaming, threatening gestures etc that go on before or after unwanted physical contact.
This was a felony. The guy who did it, even if he was drunk, in a place he expected such behavior was accepted, etc (and it IS Las Vegas, they adopted a don't ask, don't tell policy a
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, someone who cannot differentiate between sexual harassment and sexual assault should not be writing articles.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem I have - not solely isolated to geek culture - is the refusal to believe that a problem even exists. When faced with some situation, such as "do I keep going when this girl who was making out with me before says, 'this is going too fast for me, I want to stop'?", a large percent of men will say "of course I stop" while a large minority will say "of course I keep going", but both groups by and large refuse to admit that there are so many people who take the opposite view.
Think of all the women you know. One in four will be raped at least once in her lifetime. We're not even talking about sexual harrassment, things like unwanted grabbing of breasts and crotches, etc. One in four is just, simply, "rape". There is not some tiny, miniscule percentage of guys doing this; there's actually a rather large minority who seems to think that it's okay to do to women things that they don't want done to them. But just as much of a problem as these guys are, it's nearly as big of a problem that a large portion of the majority of guys who aren't like that seem to have trouble believing that so many men *are* like that. That they probably have several friends who wouldn't stop if the girl they're with said "no".
I think the Daniel Tosh / rape joke thing is a great example. Some comedians get all "freedom of speech" offended if anyone gets mad at them for telling rape jokes. "They're just harmless jokes!" The difference between a "harmless joke" and "offensive" when you say something over the top is whether you and/or your audience actually believe it. And whether you want to accept the fact or not, a sizeable percentage of your audience actually *does* believe what you're joking about. And a sizeable percentage of your audience are victims of what you're making fun of. So you can talk all you want about how you can stand up and tell genocide jokes without people getting offended, but unless you're prepared to go to the Kigali Chuckle Hut and do the same sketch to a bunch of Tutsis who had their families hacked down, you have no ground to stand on.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
hink of all the women you know. One in four will be raped at least once in her lifetime
That stat is not 1/4 of all women, it's 1/4 of women who attend college will survive a rape or attempted rape. In addition, it only takes a quick google search to see that this 1 in 4 number isn't without considerable controversy of its own.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
First off, that's not the stat I'm referring to (see my post above); that's a totally different one. And secondly, that should be even more concerning, as college is just a few years of one's life; to amass such a high odds of rape or attempted rape in just a couple years is even more disturbing.
And yes, anything having to do with rape is controversial, and there's no shortage of people trying to downplay it. But want to know the little bit of selection bias that makes it hard for you guys to understand how common rape is? Because the women you know in your life aren't just going to come up to you and tell you that they've been victims of rape or attempted rape. Maybe if you got really close to one and the timing is right. But your casual acquaintances aren't just going to say it to you. It's something that even women don't often talk about with each other unless the right topic comes up and people feel comfortable enough talking about it. After I got the courage to tell my little sister what happened to me, for example, only then did I learn that she's apparently the only woman in my immediate family who hasn't been raped. I've hosted four women in my house over the years as low-rent / rent-free guests. One had been the victim of a violent rape and has flashbacks, one had significant sexual abuse at various points in her life and it's really messed her up in relationships, and I never raised the topic with the other two. Let's pick another selection criteria - I've dated approximately equal numbers of men and women over the years. Of the women, two I don't know their pasts (it was a long time ago, we were young), another one was a victim of an attempted rape, another one had been raped twice (once at knifepoint, once with drugs), and one had never been raped but had for a long time been in a situation where she felt compelled to have sex with an old boyfriend whether she wanted to or not because he was stronger than her and demanding, and she didn't want a fight out of it.
I could start adding friends to the list if you want.
It's this sort of personal experience that makes it obvious that the numbers for rape are *at least* as high as cited. But most of the guys reading this will never learn about most of the rapes or other forms of sexual abuse in the lives of most of the women that they know.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
One in four will be raped at least once in her lifetime.
I've heard this before, and it's complete nonsense perpetuated by feminists. The "one in four" myth began with a famous survey given to college students, in which the girls were told that if they had a sexual situation where they weren't completely comfortable, regretted it afterwards, or the guy didn't *specifically* ask for consent (even if consent was strongly implied by her actions), they should count that as rape.
In most American cities, typical rates for violent crimes (including rape) are a couple dozen per 100,000 people per year. In more hellhole-ish countries, it's maybe an order of magnitude higher. If we believe your "one in four" claim, then American college campuses would be more dangerous than the most dangerous hellholes in the world! See wikipedia's page on rape statistics for more.
Re:Yes. (Score:5, Informative)
Wait, are you really citing police conviction statistics here? I mean, really? You do realize that most rapes go unreported, right? And that most reported rapes lack sufficient evidence to prosecute?
Secondly, I'm not citing college statistics (see above). Although Wikipedia has a pretty impressive list of studies [wikipedia.org]. Care to discount them all? Actually the college numbers are the most disturbing aspect, with most studies showing a 3-5% rate of rape *per academic year*, 95% of which go unreported.
Re:Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
Those studies, mainly the famous CDC 1995 college survey that is often cited, are pretty interesting. What's most interesting is how many liberal blogs quote the results "20% of college students were raped!" without saying exactly which questions were asked or what counted as rape. I haven't actually been able to find the list of questions, but I'd be curious to see what it is. As I said in my last post, they typically include things like "did not get explicit verbal consent" (the sloppy makeout and grabbing at each others clothes is apparently not enough), and the biggest gotcha of all: alcohol.
If she had anything to drink, the way most of those surveys are worded, it's automatically rape. If the man was drunk too, then a logical person would conclude that they raped each other, but the feminist worldview doesn't operate that way. Men can only be aggressors and women only victims, right?
It's true that many rapes are not reported, but we also know that many reports turn out to be false (that wikipedia page cites some studies to that effect). Also, nearly all district prosecutors have an explicit policy of not prosecuting women whose rape reports are later proven to be lies. I'm not talking about the guy being acquitted, I'm talking about *provable* lies, where she says "Joe raped me at 7:55pm on Tuesday" and later they find security camera footage of Joe sitting in a restaurant at that time. This creates a huge incentive to lie without repercussions, destroying the lives of men as you go.
Re:Oh I can see what this is.. Andrew Breitbart (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not an isolated indecent (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, if this list is the worst that feminists can come up with, taking the whole of the vaguely defined "geek culture" into account, we're fucking saints.
Re:Not an isolated indecent (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to show a pattern, you have to make the so-called "incidents" have something in common. The Ecole Polytechnique massacre, really? Taking a computer science course (and dropping out) does not make one a geek.
A lot of the rest aren't much more convincing. A sexually suggestive ad ("support") which would not raise an eyebrow in the mainstream? The "OMG ponies" Slashdot April Fools joke?
The only pattern I'm really seeing is repeated attempts to smear geeks and geek culture with the label of misogynistic. I might think there was something to it except
1) I know a lot of geeks -- of them, only one might have an issue, and he's moved over to the sales side since. Also not a software guy.
2) I've seen "brogramming" used as an example. Not the existence of the joke, but the existence of the actual thing.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you have to be a "femicommie" to object to being grabbed by the crotch.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.
Those are bad. They tend to end up in jail or a mental institution... for good reason.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Or positions of power and authority, if they aren't idiots about it...
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly. The stupid sociopaths wind up in prison usually, because they'll do illegal things but they're too dumb to avoid getting caught. The really smart sociopaths become tycoons and run corporations like Apple and Microsoft, while the ones either not quite as intelligent (but still smart) or more motivated by power than money become President or go into other high-up political positions.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Interesting)
It could be argued that it's also required. After all it comes down to the old psychological quiz... a train is out of control. You're standing right next to a lever that will change it's path. Down the path it is currently going ten men are working on the tracks, and will be killed if you don't throw the switch. However if you do throw the switch, the train will barrel down the next tracks, where a child is playing.
A high ranking politician has to be able to weigh those things dispassionately, calculate the loss to society as a whole from ten men (how old are they, how much do they benefit/cost the society?) versus one child (what can that child achieve, does it have a good or bad start in life, how much bad publicity will be caused by its death? - and yes, the last one matters, because bad publicity will affect the politicians possibilities to save ten more men the next day.)
Psychologists have found that when given a choice like that, many of us rather do nothing. We don't want blood on our hands by our own action, we feel less bad if it's by inaction. That's because these are people with empathy who will think of the first as a murder committed by us and the second as a tragic accident. The fact that we could have cut suffering from ten families to one by the throw of a switch... well, that doesn't carry into it for us.
Empathy is not always a good thing. High military command and high political command are two places where, for better or worse, it's a drawback. Those places need cold objectivity and goal oriented thinking... Of course then we come down to what goals someone is actually pursuing, but that's a whole other argument...
Note that I personally am against centralized government, partially because of this reason. Positions of power attracts, feeds, and needs exactly the kind of people in them that we wouldn't want there. Doesn't matter if it's a democracy or a dictatorship, when you're looking for someone to lead millions of people, then normal people won't step up to the plate. And if they try, they get run over by those that are better at it... the sociopaths, amongst others.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
A high ranking politician has to be able to weigh those things dispassionately, calculate the loss to society as a whole
Here's your weak link - a sociopath is only interested in calculating the loss to the sociopath. Nobody's arguing that good leadership doesn't mean hard decisions, instead they are arguing that a group of people who are very able to get into leadership positions make for piss poor leaders.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course I don't believe such a system exists.
Interesting analysis. The way I see it, the US system was initially built to function that way, and it certainly can function that way (whether it ever actually has, I leave as an exercise for historians.
What it would take is a fully engaged and educated electorate. Activists approach the system with the assumption that politicians do not have souls, and react strictly based on negative and positive reinforcement. And for a politician, the stimulus is very predictable, and is based on publicity and money. With enough people educated and engaged, they politician's environment can be closely controlled, ensuring that their behavior is correct. And note that with democratically elected representatives, an engaged electorate will always be more effective than moneyed interests. Politicians do respond to lobbyists with money, of course, but in when constituents are paying attention, that money gets trumped every time.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
what the fuck is this political correctness? All the women are asking for is to be treated the same as you'd treat the men.
Do you walk up to men and ask for sex?
Do you touch other men all over and give them massages?
Or do you just shut up and code? If the latter, why do you give a flying fuck about this?
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Right.
So someone who doesn't want women to be harrassed and physically intimidated, and makes a public stand against it, actually secretly wants it to be less obvious.
While the people who bring out strawman after strawman, and keep talking about jokes and political correctness, instead of the actual stuff at hand, are the ones who want to deal with it.
And your reasoning is "that it reminds you of this one guy", someone who checks out the territory first, then uses force to take what he likes. You know, that's exactly how politically correct people roll! Everybody knows that. They also poisoned the wells.
Holy fuck guys, TFA is not even about you and how you personally suck -- it's about that other guy, who you seem to be confusing yourself with -- yet you turn the whole discussion into a giant flare calling yourselves out? All the energy put into strawmen.. you know where it ends up pointing, right? I mean, there's misunderstandings, and there's repeated missing of the point and talking about a conveniently prepared narrative, over and over again.
I don't mean just you personally, a bunch of guys in this discussion. Maybe you really have such issues with political correctness that you just use this topic as a vehicle for your.. stuff.. even then, pay some fucking attention to what some women have gone through, and how there isn't even an equivalent for that, no likely way for women to do it to men. Also, don't spam, and don't just mindlessly repeat, ignoring counter-arguments and preaching to the choir.
OR MAYBE this story actually rubs you genuinely the wrong way, with what it is actually about -- in that case I'd say, keep talking fuckers, let the world know. We're cominagetcha, rawr! You had your fun, you left your scars - but I for one am praying there will a day where the only technically correct (TC) way to talk about this is the past tense. Cuz you're all dead and nobody learned your trade. Amen.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Aww, that's cute. Too bad it's also bullshit.
Men don't overhear an off-color joke being told to another man and subject the whole office to PC-training.
Hmm, last place I was at, some idiot boss told an off-color (i.e. racist) joke that another man took offense to. Lawsuit. Settled for around $2M.
The only bullshit is people thinking their own views of what is professional conduct should somehow be the standard of their workplace. You think rape jokes or commenting on peoples' tits are acceptable? Feel free to call up HR and ask that that be added to the employee code of conduct. If they tell you to seek professional help, maybe you should.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's what this is about?
No, no, you're just strawmanning. Read about what this is actually about. Guy flirts, gets shot down, doesn't get the point, grabs girl from behind later and is subsequently constantly hovering just out of reach, waiting around for her.
Calling someone out on that kind of bullshit is not being PC. calling someone out on that is just simply informing some maladjusted shut-in that acting that way is not acceptable, that it's fucking creepy and not tolerated.
But I bet you don't know anything about members of the opposite sex showing you unwanted attention despite your protestations. Because you're not just dumb, you're ugly too.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Informative)
You're not a hacker, you're a dick.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
No, your low ID doesn't help either.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
You are a part of this society. You damn well better care what we think, because if we judge you to be a threat to the rights of others, we can and will lock you away in some dark little concrete room where you can never hurt anyone again.
You are not a god. You are not an island. You are a sack of mostly water. No one cares about your little Slashdot manifesto. Learn to function in this society, or be removed from it.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't about hurt feelings. Read the article. This is about women -- human beings with all the same thoughts and feelings as men -- getting groped and molested by men who are so broken in the head that they think such behavior is merely "politically incorrect". Such people are a danger, because they either do not or cannot recognize the humanity of other people.
Some of them retreat from society, never hurt anyone, and live in their caves as hermits until they die. It's sad, and it would be good if we could help them, but in those cases we have no justification in forcing help on them.
But for those that actually assault women, yes, we have not only the right but the responsibility to remove them from society.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Interesting)
I apologize. No one should be allowed to grope or physically molest anyone. I'm a little tired and misunderstood what had occurred. Again I do apologize for the language and tone of my response.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Informative)
To be clear, the behavior described is wrong and should not continue.
To be honest, as a woman, you don't have to go to a hackerspace to get this kind of abuse, it's widely available.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck you. This isn't about hurt feelings, it's about sexual assault; reaching up a woman's skirt and grabbing her crotch is a criminal offense, and deserves prison time.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
treating others with basic respect is communism
got it
you're probably the type of douchebag who thinks the definition of freedom means you can do whatever the hell you want without regard to consequences
good luck growing up kid
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
I happen to be homosexual and find that offensive - I can assure you most gay men have no desire to see some geek parade around in speedos or anything else for that matter. The suggested punishment implies that homosexuals lust after any and all males regardless, reinforces a sexual stereotype, and shows your own prejudice. In short, it's a bit hypocritical.
Those with insight will recognise that this post is in itself "politically correct" and infer further meaning.
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:5, Insightful)
>>Guys like you should be dressed in a pair of speedos and forced to parade for an hour in a gay bar.
>>Then we'd hear no more nonsense about "political correctness".
FUck off. What makes you think us gays want to be punished with that asshole too?
Re:Hackerspace != Political Correct (Score:4, Insightful)
Nobody expects you to enjoy it. But it would be very helpful if you could stand around leering and whistling so the subject of our experiment could learn what it's like to treated like a piece of meat. The purpose of the exercise is not punishment, it's education.
Re:Way to be a girl about it (Score:5, Insightful)
The very concept that women need to be treated a particular way is a large part of our society's gender issues..
Women need to be treated with respect for their boundaries. The same as men. There's not gender discrimination here; men can and have been sexually harassed, but in a place that is 90% male it's less likely. You seem to be confusing what's prevalent with what's possible.
Re:Way to be a girl about it (Score:5, Insightful)
The very concept that women need to be treated a particular way is a large part of our society's gender issues..
Women need to be treated with respect for their boundaries. The same as men. There's not gender discrimination here; men can and have been sexually harassed, but in a place that is 90% male it's less likely. You seem to be confusing what's prevalent with what's possible.
People need to be treated with respect, in general.
Re:Way to be a girl about it (Score:5, Interesting)
Not likely. There's two kinds of men who treat women like shit; there's the extroverts who are really skilled at reading body language and figuring out which women actually like their treatment, and which don't. These men do indeed get lots of pussy; it's pretty sad really, for the women, but IMO the fault lies with their parents for not clueing them into this and warning them about these men.
The other kind is men who think they're like group 1 above, but they're not, they're introverted losers (note: I'm not saying all introverts are losers, just these men), and they can't read womens' body language at all, don't know what they can get away with and what's over the line (group 1 above knows the difference), so they make pathetic attempts at emulating group #1, but fail miserably. These men are pathetic, lonely, and despicable creatures. These are the men that apparently are very numerous at hacker conventions.
Seriously, what kind of moron thinks he's going to get into a woman's pants by grabbing her crotch at a bar, then disappearing into the crowd before she can do anything about it? It shows a seriously juvenile mentality.
Re:Way to be a girl about it (Score:5, Insightful)
Well if they can't treat women right no wonder those geeks are all virgins.
LOL!
Maybe you have never seen much of the world.
The guys who DON'T treat women right are the guys who have lots of women around them. It's the gentlemen who are lonely.
These Defcon guys are well on their way to drowning in poon.
Bullshit, and a common fallacy. A man can be strong, confident, even alpha yet still treat women with respect and get lots of lovin' in return. It's the sad little twats who think that being a 'bad boy' will get them something who wind up all too often alone, or have to settle for broken girls who have no self respect and seek abusive treatment.
Trust me, quality women don't respond to dickheads with the attitude you seem to think is a winning one. The girls who are truly worth it respond to strong, intelligent, confident gentlemen, not asshat children.
Re:Hilarious coincidence (Score:4, Insightful)
The Geek Feminism blog claims the use of Lena Soderberg's image as the first in a long list [wikia.com] of geek crimes against women. This despite the fact that the crop of the image normally used shows no nudity, and that if it were in a different magazine, the full shot would have been considered an artistic nude.