Adria Richards, you're fucking it up for the rest of us

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Adria Richards, you're fucking it up for the rest of us.

I appreciate the spirit of what you're trying to do -- making software engineering a more friendly place for those of us in the minority, aka women. But you're actually doing more harm than good.

The fact of the matter is, the only real and sustaining way we are going to make the tech field more friendly to women is by having more women actually bite the bullet and pursue technical careers. That means that those of us are going to have to take the first steps the pioneering few working on technical teams of mostly men. Why aren't there more women in technical positions? I would posit (and perhaps you would too) is that we feel like outsiders. The kinds of people that are attracted to programming and problem solving are often introverted people who aren't really comfortable being the center of attention or a curiosity. Simply by being woman, we have to overcome that aversion to just get our foot in the door.

In all likelihood, the dudes were making these comments with no real sexist intent, they were just making harmless dorky/crude jokes. However, by alienating people who have no actual sexist intent, you are making it more awkward for me to be the only female in a group of male engineers. You are making it less likely that those people are going to relax and let their guard down and make me feel like I fit in. Will they be fired or outed for making some juvenile and silly joke about dongles and forking or prom dresses?

As a woman, jokes about dick innuendo aren't the things that make working in this industry challenging for me -- it's, "are they judging me as incompetent simply because I'm a female? Am I really good enough or did they make a mistake letting me work here (aka Imposter's Syndrome)? Can I ask this dude for help or advice on this code without sounding like I don't know what I'm doing?"

Furthermore, you are undermining those of us who want to bring awareness to real sexism (e.g., naked women on slides at confs). Outrage must be applied tactically. Your outrage over these comments creates a lot of noise that drowns out the issues that really need to be addressed. There's only so much outrage a community can hear before fatigue sets in, and we are training them to instinctivally respond with "oh, those crazy feminists are making another dick joke complaint."

I'd like to close with a suggestion: if you had gone to the guy and said in a friendly way, "hey, your comment made me feel uncomfortable. I know you were just making a joke, but we're trying to make it more friendly for the ladies here", instead of publically shaming him, you may have actually made an advocate instead of an enemy. Now you have taught him, all of his friends, and all of the people on twitter who feel he was just a schmuck who made a few innocent comments in bad taste to look upon all complaints of sexism (whether they be real or no) at a conference with cynicism.

I just wanna know - What exactly about penises and/or penis jokes do feminists find offensive?

Perhaps she over-reacted, but you saying 'you're fucking it up for the rest of us' goes a ways to legitimising the horribly abusive ways people have treated her subsequently.

She has a right to complain. People have a right to be sensitive. That doesn't mean an organisation is obligated to agree or do anything about the complaints i.e. they can use their own judgement.

I agree with you when you say she handled it badly, but having a go at her right now is inappropriate. This is a discussion better had with more hindsight.