About Kathy
March 27th, 2007 by
desi
Last night I read Kathy Sierra’s blog about the threats and comments that she has been receiving and I have to tell you that it infuriated me. My immediate thought was, “And people wonder why we have so few women in the industry and even less who are willing to be a part of the blogsphere”. It is incidents like these that make it so difficult to choose IT and Development as a career. These guys may live behind anonymous names while on the internet but I can almost bet that they have at least some behavior that comes out in their day to day work life that causes women around them grief. Now I have made some assumptions here.. I am assuming these are men but I could be wrong.. I doubt it but I could be. Regardless, this sort of thing should not be tolerated. I would like to know how many men receive threats like these? I am speaking of threats against your life or comments as humiliating as the ones left on her blog?
I hate to make it a “women” issue but until some men come forward and say that these sort of things happen to them as well then I have no other choice than to believe these things were said because she is a woman. I was having a discussion with someone I respect a great deal about this last night and his response was that when you put yourself in such a celebrity position you have to expect this sort of thing. He also stated that you should simply ignore it because by not ignoring it we are giving them the attention they are looking for. I completely disagree. By ignoring the situation we indicate to the people who do this sort of thing that it is okay to behave this way. That is not the message that I want to send nor is it the message that I think our community should send. As for the celebrity comment, even celebrities take death threats seriously. My friends response to that was that celebrities only concern themselves with substantiated threats. So what then makes a substantiated threat on the internet? Does someone have to finally show up at your door with a gun to make it legit?
Our industry is one of the few industries that I know of where your career can be made or broken by your blogging behaviors. Blogging is one of the ways in which we share our ideas and thoughts… its part of what we do. I have always had a problem with it being okay to treat someone with disrespect regardless of the forum. Rudeness should not be tolerated but I have heard time and time again from people in this community comments such as “Oh it is just part of it” or “It is just our way”. It should not be tolerated no matter what the physical makeup of the individual being treated rudely is.
I know very few men who would look a women in the eye and call her a “cunt”. They know the level of insult that word carries and most don’t want to be the deliverer of it. Why should it be any less insulting when some coward does it over the internet? I also know very few men who would stand around and let that be said to women in their presence. I doubt my friend would hear that and say “Just ignore him .. he’s an asshole and if you let it bother you then you are just giving in to his need for attention”. If he did then he isn’t a very good friend.
I am hoping that one day women won’t have to worry about these sorts of things because I actually do love my job and I want more women to see that our industry IS a place where they can exist in peace and actually be successful through hard work.
One last thing that my friend said to me that really got me: “The only reason this is a big deal is because she is a woman… if it were a man no one would give a fuck.” If that is really how men (my friend is male) feel in our community then we have a lot further to go than I thought. I want to believe that people value each other a little more than that. I value PEOPLE more than that. I do and will “give a fuck” no matter who the person is.
I hope that this does not stop Kathy or others from continuing to post. It is like any other threat, if we let it push us down then it will never go away. Her situation may make it such that she feels she must stop posting or speaking and that is her decision but I hope that we are able to fight this sort of thing and stand up to this type of behavior. MLK once said “When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.” I am starting to really get that statement.
March 28th, 2007 at 6:34 am
I completely agree. Threats have to be taken seriously and can not be ignored. Verbal threats is often how it starts. My thoughts are with Kathy right now and I hope she is not very scared and that she is taking care of herself. I have a lot of empathy for what she must be feeling.
Every woman just needs to do what she needs to do to feel safe. Same goes for any man who might experience something similar.
March 28th, 2007 at 9:50 am
It should never have gone that far. When you blog you get flames and trolls but they took it way over the line into intimidation and threat. Not Acceptable, no matter the age, or sex of either party. My regret is that Kathy was unable to attend and teach her conference in spite of the threats. But if she doesn thave friends who can back her in the area I can understand it. In the futere she should call on some of them if she can, I would imagine there would be plenty of volunteers.
March 29th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I agree all this is unacceptable. Unfortunately, saying things such as “they’re doing this because she’s a woman” (paraphrasing) is not entirely correct. Yes, that’s what you see on the surface, but the reality is a little different.
For example, you often hear that African Americans were treated as slaves because they are black. Well, my ancestors were French and white and they were treated as slaves. You know them today as Cajuns. They were put on boats against their will and put to work throughout the states. The people who did this did it because they could, not because of any attribute. Yes, they used differences to point out why they thought they were superior to these slaves. But even without this, they would have just found something else to pin it on and nothing would have changed. (BTW, they did just that by saying they were french as opposed to dark skinned.)
I’m a guy and I’ve received death threats. I had the luxury of living in a safe neighbourhood though. And I knew who was doing the threat. All of these threats pointed out how I was different. But they didn’t do these threats because of these specific attributes. They would find anything that is different and try to use it against you. Hate isn’t biased toward any specific attribute.
So when people say that people’s attitude towards women must change, you’re not addressing the real issue that hate will find ANY attribute. By trying to address any one specific attribute, you’re going to have to go down the list, african americans, gays, women, muslims, french, etc…. on and on and doesn’t address the real issue of hate speech itself.
Hate will find anything to cause insult and fear. In Kathy’s case, being a woman is a difference that they used. But they would have found anything. And yes, any difference (woman or otherwise) makes Kathy and others with any such difference a likelier target that people who share similar attributes to the people making threats. But it’s the hate, not the attributes that the hate seems to be focused on that we need to address.
Kathy will eventually get frustrated that someone can control her life so easily. After a while of nothing happening, the threat will lose its effect and she will return to the scene. It’s what happens to everyone who gets threatened. After a while, you realise that being afraid isn’t worth it, sustainable or fair to yourself and others around you.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:06 am
It was deliberate, and it was because she was female. Violet Blue did a good writeup about it. I thought initially it was a stalker, but it wasn’t. The weird thing about “sexual harrassment” is that the term is generally thought to mean hassling somebody for sex, as if lacking social skills were a crime, but what it really means is using sex as a way of harrassing somebody. As in, all that stuff with photoshop wasn’t driven by sexual fantasy, but by the goal of intimidation.
What sucks is that they WON. Kathy Sierra stopped blogging. This means there’s a very reasonable chance it’ll happen again, since people tend to keep doing things that work.
May 25th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Giles I completely agree with you. I really wish she had not stopped blogging but I do understand why she did. So the rest of us women have to take it into our own hands and fight back by blogging and in general letting the computing world know we are here and willing to fight for our right to be here.
June 4th, 2007 at 11:40 am
Hear hear.
Ignoring this is absolutely not the answer.
The Internet can act as a virtual barrier, where people can act differently and do things that they wouldn’t do in the real world.
If someone insults or attacks you online, you should take a step back and think about what you would do if this happened in the real world.
What’s great is that people are fighting against the horrific actions of these disgusting people.