Dongle gate

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Story Here

Someone at a PyCon overheard two men behind her making penis references using the word "dongle". She took their picture, sent it out in a tweet calling out their behavior, and got one of the men fired.

She drew a bunch of criticism, had more than a few rape / death threats, and was ultimately fired. That's the story in a nutshell.

I personally think she was punishing the two men for the sense of humor they had, and definitely went overboard when she tweeted their pic, but getting the threats she got were wrong too. I don't think anyone should've been fired over this.

Her firing was appropriate in my opinion since she couldn't mind her own business.

As employees of whatever company holds the conference, both men were legally considered 'on duty' while at the conference, and were subject to said company's rules of conduct.

Why she did not turn to them as she would have in the workplace and reminded them that 'We really can't talk like that, here', I do not know, but an alternative was to anonymously e-mail whomever was in charge.

Her observation was correct, her handling of it was over the top.

I work for a big company which holds a BIG convention each year.

We are expected to wear our I.D. Badges, business dress or uniforms, and behavior standards are the same as when we are on duty in our respective facilities.

This is made quite clear to us.

These gentlemen must have known that they were over the line.

If this happened during one of the yearly assemblies from my workplace, and someone in management overheard it, believe me, it would be corrected on the spot.

Sylkat

From her blog:
"I saw a photo on main stage of a little girl who had been in the Young Coders workshop.
I realized I had to do something or she would never have the chance to learn and love programming because the ass clowns behind me would make it impossible for her to do so."
She genuinely believed (or so she claimed) that tech nerds going "Dongle..giggle..giggle" would somehow prevent females from having a future in the IT industry.

I lean towards agreement with this woman (link) on the matter.

This Website has pictures of dongles.

WARNING: TSFW! !!

I'm a little concerned by the whole "call-out culture" thing: http://www.dailydot.com/opinion/adria-r ... t-culture/

It makes me feel very unsafe. Reminds me of how I've felt in neurotypical culture for years where I never knew when I was going to offend someone for something and not find out until later when it was too late.

[Aside - No one deserves death threats - including the woman in this situation.)

I'm just hoping I don't have to deal with too many "call-out culturists" in future conferences. I actually had a bad dream earlier tonight about this. I was at that conference - and the organizers are awesome. There were 20% women there! It was a great conference. But, I could easily have said something that offended someone at some point, just because I may not realize. And I wish people would tell me directly that I did so, so I could avoid it in the future. Not "call me out" over it publicly without ever giving me a chance. Or - ask the organizers to address it, so they could tell me what I did, so I can avoid it. But - just posting it publicly with photos of the people and everything - that makes me shudder.

No one should have gotten fired over something so petty, and as far as I'm concerned the woman fired herself by alienating the very group she needed to liaise with as a tech evangelist. Stupid on multiple counts.

I've never heard of the call out culture before, or that women going to these conventions were in so much danger.

I still have little to no sympathy for the whistleblower, she was trying to get those guys in trouble. They weren't even talking to her in the first place.