And so the Internet has found a new woman to hate. Most of you are probably already familiar with the Adria Richards debacle that’s developed over the past several days. If not, Jill at Feministe has a good summary of events:
Adria Richards, formerly of the company SendGrid, was at a tech conference this week when some dudes behind her made a series of inappropriate and sexual jokes. Annoyed by the pervasiveness of misogyny in the tech world, she snapped a photo of them and put in on Twitter with a complaint. One of the conference organizers spoke to the men and they apologized. Totally reasonable! Good response, PyCon. Later, one of the dudes got fired. Instead of getting mad at the company that made the choice to fire him, the internet hordes descended on Adria. She was on the receiving end of rape and death threats. Her address and phone number were published. Her blog and her company’s website came under DDoS attack. Oh and then her company, SendGrid, fired her.
Like Jill, I think firing someone for a “dongle” joke is an overreaction, to say the least. But Richards wasn’t responsible for that; indeed, she told the fired man she hoped his employer would reconsider and take him back.
SendGrid’s firing of Richards is far more problematic. It’s one thing to get in trouble for acting like a sexist boor; it’s quite another to get in trouble for simply pointing out someone else’s problematic behavior. Richards faced a virtual lynch mob for simply documenting an example of the everyday sexism that permeates the tech world; by firing her, SendGrid essentially sided with the mob.
Is “lynch mob” an unfair term to describe those who’ve gone after Richards? No. In this context, the term is sadly apropos, as the target of all this online “activism” is not only female but black – two strikes against her in the minds of many of her, er, “critics,” who attacked her as a “fucking nigger” as well as a “cunt.” (The more genteel racists referred to her derisively as a “diversity hire.”)
Numerous commenters have already documented some of the appallingly racist and misogynist attacks on Richards. (The links in the above paragraph contain plenty of examples.)
Here, I’d like to focus specifically on the attacks on Richards coming from Men’s Rights activists – that is, from people who like to think of themselves as upstanding human rights activists for the 21st century, virtual equivalents of Martin Luther King. In fact, many of the reactions of MRAs show them to have far more in common with the bigots who fought against the civil rights movement than they do with King.
In the Men’s Rights subreddit, the MRA masses gave more than one hundred upvotes to a graphic describing Richards as a “racist, sexist and hypocritical cunt.” Evidently pointing out that white men as a class have certain advantages in the world is a kind of “racism.”
Elsewhere in the subreddit, aasorted commenters indulged themselves in gendered slurs. Greyfeld got dozens up upvotes for comments denouncing Richards as a “feminist cunt” and a “screeching harpy cunt.” DerpaNerb described Richards as “a racist/sexist cunt [who’s] clearly … not capable of doing her job properly.” Buster2209 scored 160 upvotes with a comment describing Richards as a “stupid bitch [who] brought it on herself.” Cyridius simply declared “I hate her because she’s a dumb ignorant bitch.”
Others happily gave the Men’s Rights movement credit for Richards’ firing. The execrable EvilPundit got 180 upvotes for a post essentially endorsing the virtual lynch mob and declaring Richards’ firing to be proof that the Men’s Rights movement had entered a “new phase.”
Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. Pundit, but there’s nothing new about men harassing and threatening a black woman.
AnnArchist – a former contributor to Reddit’s now-banned Beating Women subreddit — reacted with indignation to someone who pointed out Richards had been harassed:
Over on A Voice for Men, where the locals describe themselves with no sense of irony as Men’s Human Rights Activists, there was much rejoicing over the firing of Richards, who was variously described as an “entitled bitch,” a “sociopathic bitch,” a “femshit” and a “bush pig.” Naturally, the c-word, applied to all feminists, made an appearance as well.
Daflory hoped that Richards’ firing would be the start of an industry-wide purge:
Adria Richards seems like an entitled narcissist, who had become used to deference as a moral authority through her impeccable credentials as a diversity goddess: black, Jewish, and female. …
No one ever told Adria Richards that she was at best only an tolerated guest in the world of tech, and she could either play by male rules and contribute, or get lost. Hopefully other feminists in tech will get a similar message.
And August Løvenskiolds’ mind went straight to the gutter:
[A]fter being outed as a betrayer of her customers, none of them will want to work with her, and any tech company that hires her will instantly lose credibility.
She’s going to be hard-pressed to find a job as a sex-worker unless the light is quite dim.
Taking a step back from the particulars of the incident, Mark Trueblood wondered if a man strike might help to put things right once again:
I’m pretty sure Amnesty International doesn’t exactly endorse this sort of “human rights” activism.
Thomas R’s revelation has primed him to become a Brave Hero. Take the red pill, dude!
> I think firing someone for a “dongle” joke is an overreaction
Aww hell no, people need to be fired for their immaturity, IT NEEDS TO END DAMN IT.
I’m so damned sick of stupid people, they don’t deserve respectable jobs, just like she deserved to be fired about bragging about it like a childish retard.
Why are they all supposedly long term readers who then go on to directly address David? If you’ve actually spent any time here you’d know that the Mannoobzerettas, or whatever Mueller used to call us, are going to be calling out your bullshit within minutes.
Stupid tablet autocorrect – Meller.
Not to mention that Mr Long Term Reader was asking stupid questions about “why is this ableism?” like there hadn’t been a huge thread on that very topic yesterday … yeah, right, not trolling at all. ::rolls eyes::
you know what dont even approve it
Podkayne — appropros of nothing, my not-an-ex is a pharmacy grad student and odds of her saying that Steubenville’s Jane Doe “had it coming” or anything of the sort, well, it’s about as likely as me failing to post this because I got killed by a meteorite. In other words, you’re not the only pharm-person out there who’s siding with Jane Doe (sorry about pharm-person but you didn’t say whether you’re a pharmacist, doing residency, or what…please pardon my generic attempt!)
On topic! Can we please stop the
rideworld, I want to get off. I just, wtf? She didn’t ask for him to be fired, she didn’t even support it after it happened, quite the opposite. She got fired as well! And of fucking course the internet goes all misogynist slur tastic about how she deserved it, for…what? For being at a tech conference, for what she said, for not asking him be fired, for being fired? No wait, she deserved to be fired for being fired makes no sense, scratch that one. And fuck, even if she deserved to be fired, in what fucking world does she deserve death threats?! (Not that she deserved to be fired, or that dude did, or that anyone deserves death threats)Argh!
Thomas R // re: Thomas R — we just, just, explained why “maybe he/she/ze/they is/are crazy” is ableism and not okay. Like, literally this time yesterday into earlier today, like, within the last 12 hours. In simplest terms, two things:
1) plenty of people who’re diagnosable with nothing are still assholes
1b) plenty of diagnosably mentally ill people are not assholes
1c) most assholes are not mentally ill
2) treating assholery as a side effect of being mentally ill implies that the mentally ill are more likely to be assholes
2b) and thus should be ignored
2c) whenever they say anything you disagree with
2d) even if it’s perfectly valid — diagnosed bipolar and pissed about something most people would be pissed at? Are you taking your meds?
2e) and this all is how the opinions, thoughts, emotions of the mentally ill get discounted because hey, we’re crazy! Clearly nothing we say can be taken seriously!
Everyone // anyone — I haz a cranky, got to listen to my father rant about bootstraps and mental illness and can’t say how much that line of thought pisses me off because “am I taking my meds?” *screams* yes asshole, I am, amazingly there’s no “ignore assholes” med (benzos are only so good!)
In cats, she tried to claw my face for daring to sit in the chair she was on the back of — plenty of room, didn’t disturb her, nothing. Turns out my idiot brother had actually knocked her over not long before, and apparently she wanted to take it out on my face. Never, ever, upset a cat.
Oh never mind, my annoyance at having any “unacceptable” emotion discounted on account of my being crazy is just a childish tantrum. Please return to, um, doing exactly that — ignoring my annoyance because you find it unacceptable, extra points if you decide to hand wave it away because I’m crazy.
Garlic bread, an orange, or chocolate, what do I want for a midnight snack? Ohh, whole paycheck pickles…one of those and garlic bread (it’s homemade so yeah, I wants)
This whole comments section is glorious after reading up on what happened here. Same with the article. Spot on.
This eye for an eye MRA agenda is just so exhausting to try and fight against. He got fired? SHE BETTER GET FIRED TOO OR MISANDRY! Because getting her fired too feeds his three kids that they’re so concerned about. How about nobody get fired, those dudes and the ones around them learn to save the dick jokes for non-professional settings, and we all go on with our lives? NO EVERYONE MUST SUFFER!
Ok so when adults are confronted with their problematic behavior they often attempt to examine why people took offense to it rather than whining about being bullied. There were legitimate points being made here, one specifically about using an ableist slur against people committing despicable acts and, instead of trying to understand why people became justifiably upset and even angry over it, you made them the bad guys for not telling you more delicately. Very adult.
Hi Jessay!
And of course Thomas Whiney is ignoring the huge thread from yesterday about that very subject.
Hey, did I tell you I bought some hemp seed oil?
Troll harder, Thomas. Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone who’s new not only to this blog but to the internet in general will bother to engage with your tale of fictional woe.
@kitteh Yeah I saw that in the other thread, I’m just very behind on this site. Did you test it out yet?
Yes, I’ve tried it out – not sure if it helps. Do you have to rub it right in?
The odour makes me smile – it’s like green veggies. I feel like something should be cooking. 😀
Ladies, sorry to be OT, but what’s the protocol for drawing Dave’s attention to a particularly awful misogynist piece? Not that we need to read more of it, but I found a blog that I can’t locate in the archives with a serious of very disturbing opinion pieces.
I also have some epic screen captures by a friend of mine on a dating site who ran into someone who turned out to be a prolific (and vile) MRA personality that she would be willing to share. We’re not entirely sure how to go about that legally, however.
Would it be best to communicate via twitter?
You can contact Dave via email by clicking the pic of his head up the top right of the screen. 🙂
Lulabelle — click the big head in the side bar, it’s his email. Also, we’re not all ladies.
OT — I went with garlic bread, a pickle, and a side dish of my father trying to whisper in my ear what his father had said, and my grandfather apologizing for staying the night here and being a bother. Even at 2 am I can’t manage to grab a bite to eat without a side dish of hostility, my father’s just so fun! (Kill me now, please)
Apologies Argenti Aertheri, I should think more carefully before I write. I might stick to good people of Manboobz (since there are users who comment here I would rather not address too, after all).
I like “good people of Manboobz”. 🙂
Argenti – so is your grandfather your mother’s parent, or your father’s? Is he being lousy rotten son or lousy rotten SiL, as well as lousy rotten parent?
He’s being a lousy son. And my grandfather refuses to hear anything about how this is Not Okay because he’d be home bound if my father didn’t take him out. Well, he thinks so, my mother’s specifically said that she’d take him out regardless what my father says…her father died when she was…I was what, 3? So she was about my age. She acts more like his kid than his kids do.
Lulabelle — no problem, pretty sure we’re all forgiving of honest mistakes, I know I am! Good people of manboobz sounds cool to me 🙂
And just Argenti is fine!
Also, bedtime for me, sleepy pill makes me sleepy XD g’night guys
Why am I not surprised that your douchey progenitor is a lousy son as well as parent … 🙁
Niters, sleep well!
Wow, you jackasses are even worse than SRS. Thomas R was the only one who posted a semi-reasonable reply here and you all gang up on him with cheap insults while addressing none of his points. You give feminism a bad name. I guess this is where being part of an autistic self-congratulatory 24/7 circlejerk gets you.
Thomas: But now that I’ve written a few polite (!) sentences, I finally realized it:
You are bullies. I just didn’t see it before because you were bullying those who had it coming.
Uh-hunh. You flip-flop on the sexual inuenndo, claim to have been a long time reader; and so aware of local practice, and agree that lots of people “have it coming” but you said all you said and thought what… that you were special?
That somehow your first comment being of a sort that routinely gets smacked down would be difference because?
Oh right, you are special.
Maybe it’s just that you joined the ranks of those who need to be smacked down.
I just can’t imagine how you can read those things into what I have written. I am not interested in being subject to such childish tantrums.
Really? And you pretend to be a long time reader of comments? Because you shouldn’t need to imagine it. This very discussion has been had a half dozen times in the past few days.
Seriously, I’m done with this. I was interested in a conversation between adults.
No, you weren’t. If you were, you wouldn’t have gotten all sniffy at someone being short with you for making a problematic statement. I think you wanted to take offense, and paint the “feminists” as nasty harpies.
Yet they still pretend not to be misogynist. Also, nice to see this was named “donglegate”, what with Watson still receiving harassment, almost 2 years after her reasonable video.
Yeah…I really don’t think tweeting someone’s photo was an appropriate reaction to overhearing them make some dumb sex jokes, and I’m normally on the other side in these kind of debates. Obviously the MRA comments are hideous as always, but I do think her original behaviour was pretty awful. She did get him fired, the same way emailing a video of him being drunk and rowdy to his boss might have got him fired, even though it would be unrelated to his actual job.