Full disclosure: I'm a girl with three older brothers and have been around a ton of guy-humor.
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Hey everyone, I do feel really bad for "mr-hank." I personally would not have been offended by his comments ... I probably would have found them funny. I go to a lot of tech conferences (and I have 3 older brothers), but girls joke about things, too. I'm just not one to freak out about the word "dongle" or "fork." The implications seem fairly innocent to me.
But listen, it was Playhaven who sparked this controversy. The funny part ... is that Anonymous touts freedom of the internet ... their founding principle was to be against internet censorship. They attacked the Westboro Baptist Church for taking down a YouTube video of Tom Cruise. So, I'm really surprised they went after SendGrid over a freedom of speech case on Twitter. There's no doubt that Richards has the right to report on something that happens in real-time. That's a basic right for citizen journalism. I come from a journalist and analyst background, so am pretty passionate about the freedom to report.
Long story short, I think there's a lot of attention on the gender gap in technology right now and it's feeling very forced and uncomfortable ... i.e. lots of press and publicity.
I think empowering, rather than squabbling, is really important right now. This gender gap change has to come from the top (as Cisco pointed out recently in their awesome statement about not being very supportive and dedicating to doing better).
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Hey everyone, I do feel really bad for "mr-hank." I personally would not have been offended by his comments ... I probably would have found them funny. I go to a lot of tech conferences (and I have 3 older brothers), but girls joke about things, too. I'm just not one to freak out about the word "dongle" or "fork." The implications seem fairly innocent to me.
But listen, it was Playhaven who sparked this controversy. The funny part ... is that Anonymous touts freedom of the internet ... their founding principle was to be against internet censorship. They attacked the Westboro Baptist Church for taking down a YouTube video of Tom Cruise. So, I'm really surprised they went after SendGrid over a freedom of speech case on Twitter. There's no doubt that Richards has the right to report on something that happens in real-time. That's a basic right for citizen journalism. I come from a journalist and analyst background, so am pretty passionate about the freedom to report.
Long story short, I think there's a lot of attention on the gender gap in technology right now and it's feeling very forced and uncomfortable ... i.e. lots of press and publicity.
I think empowering, rather than squabbling, is really important right now. This gender gap change has to come from the top (as Cisco pointed out recently in their awesome statement about not being very supportive and dedicating to doing better).
http://dthin.gs/Z1yKQC
It's the long-standing corporate powers who need to be symbolically "fired" (or otherwise reprimanded) - not mr-hank.
And it was Playhaven who started this unjust controversy - not citizen journalism by Adria Richards.