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.
@Weeboy
That sucks. Hugs if you want them.
As you can tell, what really flipped my anger switch about Mr Politeness was the dismissal of all the worst the internet had thrown at Ms Richards. For me it reflects the the commentators on Steubenville who say “Well, of course we all agree that rapists are horrendous” before going on about how these athletes have “had their lives ruined”. The oh so polite repositioning of the conversation from the things they don’t want to examine onto safe ground.
Wee-boy – how are you holding up? Sending you jedi hugs if you’d like them.
@Laight- The conference Code of Conduct puts a great degree of emphasis on reporting inappropriate incidents to the conference staff. In that moment, twitter is a fast and easy way to do the reporting. I’m disturbed at the outward spiraling ramifications of that reporting, and I think it speaks to the danger of the internet, in which comments that are meant to be internal can be viewed by the whole world. That being said, the issue is that assholes are harassing this woman and her job is more interested in distancing itself from bad publicity than from protecting its employee.
Shorter nopestories : ThomasR got all the attention, by being ableist. Mummy, Mummy, look at me, LOOK AT ME!
Shorter nopestories : ThomasR got all the attention, by being ableist. Mummy, Mummy, look at me, LOOK AT ME!
*edited to avoid moderation
@pecunium: As someone who doesn’t frequent a lot of these conventions (or any, actually), I didn’t realize a lot of these situations were handled so poorly and understand why she did what she had to do. I still think she needed to pay for the consequences for how she handled it (not by being fired, though). This doesn’t change the fact that by not giving them a chance to correct themselves and humiliating them on the internet – where everyone other than the PyCon/SendGrid staff would react for themselves – she turned this into a huge PR issue that her company wanted to avoid at all costs. What would you do in this day if you were a company? No one wants to deal with a potential major sexual harassment case.
Hey, I just wanted to say in Thomas R’s “defense” (and it is probably not really my place since I never really commented here and am probably stating the obvious) that I think he just didn’t mean anything by it. People try to be reasonable by finding fault with both sides and don’t realize that these arguments are a) used to defend the attackers and b) that when people get threatened it is not the time anymore (especially in a thread like this) to discuss how Richards should have reacted.
I think the people here get arguments like that all the time and are just tired of discussing over and over why arguments like these are counterproductive.
I get it, I used to fall for that all the time and wondered why others would react the way they did(I still fall for it, I just don’t wonder anymore), but many people just aren’t used to this way of thinking, so I just thought it needed to be explained.
I hope I will get some feedback on this, I’m really just trying out right now 🙂
“She needed to pay for the consequences for how she handled it?”
What does this even mean? She took action within the boundaries of the conference – tweeting at the org using the hashtag. They were removed from the panel. That one of them was fired isn’t her fault. This is a really bizarre mentality. If I ask you to leave my office so I can get some work done, and you’re hit by a bus while going to your car, that’s not my fault. Every downstream event after an action isn’t the fault of the original actor.
Personally, I’ve seen and made complaints about some very inappropriate behavior at conferences (including being told, myself, to take off my clothes or to sit in some guy’s lap). The people in those situations are still employed at the employers with whom they were working when they did the behavior. If I were to make a complaint, I would assume the person against whom I’m making a complaint would get a slap on the wrist, not be fired. I would think this because the what occurred in the past usually has some bearing on what occurs in the future. It’s a pretty bleak situation for those of us in technical fields.
@weeboy – I’m so sorry to hear that. Hugs if you want them, and I wish you and your friend healing and solace.
@reginaldgriswold: Like I said, she forced these guys into public scrutiny and the company to make a rash choice regarding their public image, rather than focusing on just the character of their staff. I’m sorry for the abuse you had to face in the workplace, but just because you assume they wouldn’t get fired doesn’t mean anything. For example, do you think this blogger anticipated his getting fired for his comment – however wrong and petty it was – to Felicia Day? http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/02/its-probably-not-wise-to-be-a-jerk-to-felicia-day/
TomBCat, To focus on the fact that she tweeted something when the post is about the threats of violence and the sexist and racist slurs being hurled gleefully at the tweeter… Well, that is the wrong focus. And then to react with a childish snit when called out? If Thomas R wants to have an adult conversation, he’s not going about it very well.
Same basic comment goes for LaightTempest, by the way. Also, there were two guys making jokes there, only one of whom got fired. Makes me think this was probably more in the nature of “the last straw” for his employer, because if they were just concerned about PR they would have fired them both.
Again, how is this different from what happened to Rebecca Watson, who DID NOT NAME OR IDENTIFY THE PERSON WHOSE BEHAVIOR SHE CRITICIZED? She got the same reaction, minus the racism. Can you see why we’re focusing on that, rather than focusing on the means Adria used to communicate her criticism?
My sister’s getting into town soon, so I’ll leave you guys to it. More hugs to WeeBoy.
Sorry LaightTempest, let’s go back to the part where you glossed over a person getting rape and death threats and being fired for saying something publicly needed to ‘pay the consequences’.
She said something on Twitter about people breaking work rules and making her job harder than it should be.
Why the fuck is everyone siding with the two risible wankers and ignoring THE RAPE AND DEATH THREATS she is getting? I don’t actually fucking care what she did to be honest, she could have painted her fucking arse bright blue and wiggled it in their faces, she still wouldn’t deserve RAPE AND DEATH THREATS.
Ugh! Every fucking place I go that even so much as hints at this story has the “she deserves it how dare she” assholes all over the place.
Dude, thirteen year olds understand sexual innuendo. I’m pretty damn sure that a full grown woman does too. Also, kids as young as five know full well what’s considered acceptable behavior dependant of where they are. Why is this point even being argued over?
Oh, I know. Its because this story is just close enough to the “that bitch said something to human resources, and just her say so totally got this completely innocent man fired” myth. We’ll just overlook the part where the woman involved did nothing of the sort.
Where the fuck is all the moral outrage when asshats film women to brag about their flirting? Or get upskirt pics of unsuspecting women and girls? Or post the sexytime pics of former girfriends who broke up with them? That’s right, nothing to see here.
Not one person frothed at the mouth about the pics distributed of the Stuebanville rape victim. But two guys, fully clothed and aware that a photo was being taken suddenly becomes a moral outrage worthy of death and rape threats.
So let’s turn this around shall we? Why didn’t those two men stand up for themselves and ask that the photo not be taken? Clearly they didn’t mind at the time right? Surely everyone knows that when pics are taken that you never know what the other person might do with them right? I mean, what were these two guys thinking, letting someone take their photo? I mean, there must be more of a story here, something that we aren’t being told that drove the woman to post those pics in a humilliating way right?
Also LaightTempest, no, I don’t think that dude anticipated being fired for putting out a rude tweet about Felicia Day. But what does that have to do with anything? If you’re trying to say that people should be careful on what they post on Twitter if their workplace takes offence to it, yeah, that might be a consideration for people (whether it should be is a whole other discussion), but they didn’t fire her for sending a tweet, they fired her because a load of fucking racist sexist pieces of shit threatened them if they didn’t. See the difference?
@Argenti You know, that’s actually good to hear. I’m a pharmacy technician rather than a pharmacist, but my experience of listening to both pharmacists and other pharm techs on any social issue has been largely negative (triple that when health, especially mental health, is the topic). But as long as teams are so small (I rarely work with more than one pharmacist and SOMETIMES one other pharm tech at a time) I have a huge incentive to walk away from potential fights, because I don’t want every work day to be a battlefield, and I don’t want bosses to know me as that girl who is always hostile to her coworkers. So I walk around stores a lot.
Rebecca Watson’s case is actually really good comparison in another way; soon after Elevatorgate, she replied in a panel to an argument that was made on the internet by Steph McGraw. That became the excuse to deflect all criticism away from the irrational amount of hate of Elevatorgate, by claiming that the argument did in fact have a cause that was all Rebecca’s Fault.
A lot of folks want to hate her. They will seek out any excuse, no matter how minor, to act as a justification for that hate.
Ultimately, if you think a victim of a massive campaign deserves “consequences” you should back up and think exactly what those consequences SHOULD have been, and whether they get applied equally. It helps to clarify the level of irrational hate that is piled on, and with any luck, should help you place the scorn where it should be; i;.e. a culture who thinks a campaign of harassment and DDoS attacks is in any way appropriate to calling out someone publicly for being a dick.
@weeboy – best wishes to you and your friend, that’s a tough situation.
Scalzi had, as usual, a good response to this and the many, many other similar incidents: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2013/03/21/two-simple-observations-regarding-women/ The comments are, despite moderation, full of the same old.
Wouldn’t it be nice if just once, the general response wasn’t to blame the woman? But hey, male privilege is a feminazi lie!
Why do I get the feeling that “consequences” are going to boil down to “she deserves whatever men decide to dish out”? That’s exactly what this whole debacle boils down to: If you’re a woman and you call out a man, God help you, because there is no limit to the abuse you’ll have to endure.
@cloudiah,
thanks, I get that.I just meant that Thomas R probably didn’t think that far and that’s why the reactions might have seemed uncalled for to him.
I more or less tried to explain to him why it is too late to discuss her behavior now(and on an article about threats made to her), because the threats probably don’t have anything to do with her actions, and that those people mostly criticize her to excuse that kind of reaction(ore use any discussion about her behavior to excuse anything that comes her way).
Maybe that didn’t come across very well, and I think he genuinely didn’t get what the problem with his argument was. Since I didn’t have to discuss this for the millionth time, I just thought I could clarify it so maybe next time he knows why people react so strongly to what he said.
Of course arguments like his come up over and over again, and you are not here to give free lessons.
I just often don’t get why arguments like these are victim blamey because I am focused on the wrong details and sort of a well-that-is-technically-right-mentality, and this is getting really rambly because I don’t want to come across all wrong.
I mean I get the point and completely agree, but I also get why he misinterpreted the reactions as bullying.
Sigh,
on my facebook feed there’s a woman who works in a tech field who mentions that she thinks fork and dongle jokes are hilarious and who posted a link to Amanda Blum’s commentary.
Commentary gist: Adria Richards proved that women are a threat to tech men and set back the struggle for equality.
I has a sad.
I also happen to think fork and dongle jokes are hilarious, but I make them to my S.O. and close friends, not around people I don’t know at conferences.
The moral of the story, if you hear someone say something inappropriate enough or offensive enough that it would get them fired, don’t tell anyone because it will be your fault they are fired. The person saying the inappropriate thing has no responsibility for their own actions.
What the fuck? Why is it that this piece of information is not getting as much coverage as say, her Twitter socks-down-the-pants joke? If that’s true, then there is no way to construe his firing as her fault, no matter how many red pills one has taken. And why hasn’t he who was fired made this point clear himself? I understand that admitting one got one’s self fired is embarrassing, but she’s getting death threats* here.
* And not just idle hyperbole type ones either. I saw a very disturbing image of a naked deceased and decapitated woman with Adria’s home address captioned on it. That’s some scary shit.
@weeboy: Jedi hugs and compassion for you and your friend.
LaightTempest:
I am getting really, really, really, really, REALLY fucking tired of people saying after firmly using their posterior as a hat, “Well, I have no experience in this area and have never read about it,” as if that excuses having opened ones mouth while wearing one’s ass.
Especially when it’s followed by:
It reads as nothing more than, “Now that you have educated me about the circumstances and I realize she was responding to an evironment I know nothing about… I still think the same thing because Gods the world would end if I changed my opinion based on additional evidence.
Also, the “consequences” were rape threats, death threats, being doxxed (having her address and telephone posted on the internet) in combination with a death threat, having the situation repeatedly reported inaccurately, being insulted, being told making a dick joke on the internet means she cannot be sexually harrassed, her employer being DDOS attacked along with many of their affiliates, her company firing her, and then her company announcing it fired her because of the DDOS attacks, which is painting a target on the back of any woman who speaks up from now until a company actually shows fortitude and honor.
So which part of that, exactly, is “consequences” she needs to pay for her actions, exactly?
No, members of Anonymous turned it into a DDOS attack on her company to blackmail them into firing her, and the company caved within 24 hours.
Or is the DDOS attack on her company part of those “consequences” she needs to take responsibility for that you referenced above?
TomBcat:
First of all, Intent is not Magic.
Second of all, awful as the Richards case is, it’s happening in the further context of the Stubenville Rape Case, where blaming the victim (even when her perpetrators have been tried and convicted in a court of law) reached new and horrifying heights. People are a little sensitive to the subsequence Blaming the Victim going on with Richards, and frankly rightly so.
The default setting to “woman does anything, anywhere, at anytime” is “How much of what she suffers was her fault”. Always. Anytime. No matter how much or how little an actual person is called out. No matter how much or little evidence. No matter how big or small the thing is that she does. The default setting to “woman does anything, anywhere, at anytime” is “How much of what happens was her fault”.
FYI, I found the press release from PlayHaven about the firing of “Mr Hank”, and it turns out that he was fired for multiple reasons, not just for the incident Adria reported alone.
Apparently this was posted several days ago. So I guess the key question now is, why the fuck wasn’t that the end of it?
nerdypants, because if this was allowed to slide, women might speak up when they were made uncomfortable in the future.
Because a woman is always responsible when something bad happens to a man, duh.