The tech community is messed up in da head, yo.
Several times since Steve Holden’s I’m Sorry post I’ve writtenlong blog posts about my own views on codes of conduct andprofessional behavior, including the views informed by some of my ownextraordinarily embarrassing transgressions. I never felt that theend result had much to add to the conversation so I never posted anyof ’em. Plus, they were really embarrassing transgressions.
If you want to know, until last week, I was fairly publicly on thefence about the proposed Python Software Foundation code of conduct(which is not yet public, but is based on the Ubuntu CoC, I think)because I was worried about CoCs being used to whack peopleinappropriately, due to nonspecificity and other things.
Three things happened at PyCon 2013 that made me decide to (a) changemy mind and (b) post this short note saying so.
First, I came to PyCon with two women colleagues, one of whom washarassed nearly constantly by men, albeit on a low level. Both ofthem are friendly people who are willing to engage at both a personaland a technical level with others, and apparently that signals to somethat they can now feel free to comment on "hotness", proposition them,and otherwise act like 14 year old guys. As one friend said,(paraphrased) "I’d be more flattered that they seem to want to sleepwith me, if they’d indicated any interest in me as a human being –you know, asked me why I was at PyCon, what I did, what I worked on,what I thought about things. But they didn’t." (Honestly, if I wereto judge by that reported set of interactions, any genetic componentto such behavior would be weeded out in approximately one generation,’cause such guys would only be able to reproduce through anonymousdonations to sperm banks.)
Second, at an event for a subcommunity that I help not run, bad shithappened.At the same event, derogatory and not-fun sexist remarks were made,publicly and loudly, about a presenter. This made the main organizerfor that event feel horrible, and put a damper on the whole event.
Third, this happened.As with #2, I found PyCon’s responseperfectly appropriate, which makes me much happier about the way PyConspecifically and the PSF in general are likely to enforce any code ofconduct in the future. As for the person who posted Twitter picsidentifying the men she felt were being sexist, I am not very upset byher actions, because she is not an official representative of PyCon orthe PSF, and she did not post anonymously, so she is takingresponsibility for her actions — unlike the people harassing JesseNoller for doing hiseffin’ job. I do reject the notion that Adria speaks for me in theparticulars, and I would guess that her claim to speak for all futurewomen is similarly rejected by many women. Again, PyCon is notresponsible for her tweet or her picture, and they should not be heldaccountable in any way for it; that’s her personal action. (I’mmore upset by the company that took this to the extent of actuallyfiring someone over it, and I’m really gladmy employer (Michigan State University) has rules, procedures, andformal hearings — if they fire me, it will be after a certain amountof due process and not due to what is presumably Internet hearsay.)
In the end, the latter two incidents are completely overshadowed bythe first, though. I’m not the parent or guardian of either of mycolleagues, and I suspect they would similarly reject the idea that Ispeak for either of them – they’re both perfectly capable of tellingpeople what they think, frankly (and I would love to be an audiencefor some of those conversations). But, as both a visible member ofthe Python community and as the father of two small girls, I amappalled at the second-hand reports of male behavior. I’mparticularly appalled at the systemic low-level harassment that seemsto be considered normal behavior by some. It’s not cool, it’s notfun, and it doesn’t even have the dubious virtue of being effective.
In summary,
- GOOD JOB, PYCON. The way the incidents were officially handled wasreally well done and speaks well of the people we have chosen torun PyCon.We need codes of conduct because they provide some minimalguidelines for people that (apparently) need ’em, because theycan’t figure out how to tie their own shoelaces without suchguidelines.As a community, we need to change the way we treat women, becausemy daughters will TASER YOU ALL INTO OBLIVION in 10-20 years if wedon’t.
–titus
p.s. Sorry, no comments. Go blog ’em and I’ll link to the blog posts,just send them to @ctitusbrown on Twitter.
