Stormy Peters, with whom I have indirectly worked by (slightly) helping KidsOnComputers.org, what may have seemed like an anodyne article on how a woman might be able to attend a tech-related conference without “feeling harassed”. She titled this “Events are not cesspools of harassment.” Publication led to… well, a cesspool of harassment being dumped on Peters’s head by commenters on the article’s page and on Twitter. (I would hesitate to say “female commenters” in our transgender age, but most had names such as Holly, Renee, Sarah and other traditionally female monikers.)
Instead of a craven apology for her ThoughtCrime, Peters followed this up with an ironic summary and analysis of the criticism. Commenters were predictably even more enraged by this one, e.g., Holly Wood’s “I see you’re in a fairly lofty position at your company. Are you a supervisor of some kind? While I know I’m wildly outside your area of expertise, I would not ever consider working for you.”
Peters finally throws up her hands and tells the commenters to, if they have such great ideas, write them up in long form.
[It is curious to me that there are women who like to go to conferences but don’t like working in tech because of harassment and don’t like tech conferences. Why wouldn’t they quit to work in some other field? Or if they are drawn to conferences per se why wouldn’t they go to a dermatology or radiology conference in Boston, have sex with a drunk physician, and then harvest $100,000 per year tax-free for 23 years under the Massachusetts child support guidelines or, if not interested in children, sell the abortion? The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the median web developer, a typical “tech” job, pays a pre-tax $65,000 per year (occupational outlook handbook). Is that a high enough rate of pay to compensate for all the pain and suffering these commenters say that they are enduring?]
I asked a software engineer who currently identifies as a woman what would happen if a man had written an article with the same text as Stormy Peters’s original. “He would have been fired immediately,” she responded.
[Not very related: I asked a federal government worker what would have happened to him if he had set up a personal email server to use for official business, Hillary Clinton-style. “I would have been fired immediately,” he responded.]
Holly Wood sounds like a fake transgender commenter. Conventions are the only place women normally appear, in SOMA. They’re the booth babes & PR representatives. Sometimes a pack of horny hipsters who haven’t seen a woman in 20 years each takes turns trying to recommend restaurants to get her attention.
She will sooner or later turn 50 and at that point no one will harass her (if by harass is meant show sexual interest) and then she will be able to attend conferences or conventions without fear.
I know a woman who goes to these conventions and loves them.
Holly Wood? really? you think?
If the federal government worker referenced above had classified information on their home email server, he would have be charged with a felony shortly after getting fired.
We BADLY need a shorthand description for this… phenomenon?
something akin to once frequent RTFM (in computeresy context)
and WhiteWhine on the Internet, or
#WhitePeopleProblems on Twitter.
So instead of writing the above, I could just shorthand-comment.
Come to think of, that last seems equally applicable here as well.