TL;DR: Ignore Jeff; read Shanley.

Jeff Atwood:

If you see any behavior that gives you pause, behavior that makes you wonder “is that OK?” […] speak up. Honestly, as one man to another.

OK, you got it.

Jeff Atwood’s blog post today asks an important question: “what can men do?” (I’m not linking to Jeff’s post directly; it doesn’t need the signal boosting.) But it fails to answer that question effectively, reinforces several myths about gender in tech, and, worst of all, structurally reinforces male dominance rather than breaking it down.

Yesterday brought news of TRUCEConf.

It’s a terrible, dangerous and insulting idea. The organizers should reconsider, either canceling the event or changing its scope and mission radically. I have no doubts that the organizers have good intentions, but good intention don’t always yield positive results. As is, TRUCEConf’s very existence runs counter to the vision of equality in tech.

I believe deeply in the importance of gender equality, yet I work in open source, a community with shockingly few women. The Ada Initiative is working together with people like me to bring more women into open source - and we’re succeeding. That’s why I’m challenging the Python community to help me raise $10,000: I’ll match any donations from the Python community to the Ada Initiative up to a maximum of $5,000.

As usual, what I write here is my opinion and I don’t speak for anyone else. In particular, this isn’t any sort of official PyCon anything.

Recently, tech conferences have started publishing a new kind of document: a code of conduct or anti-harassment policy [1]. Attendees are being explicitly told that they’re expected to follow these policies.

To some, this sounds patronizing; or like tools for group-think and censorship; or like a bad episode of The Morality Police. To my mind these are all valid criticisms. Most people aren’t jerks, so telling them to “be nice” certainly sounds patronizing. And it’s true that there are plenty of past situations where codes of conduct have been used to silence controversial opinions. And, yes, morality is sometimes relative; imposing one set of morals upon a diverse group isn’t fair.

Daniel Dvorkin:

In every field which was once exclusively male, but is now no longer, it’s been claimed first, that no woman can perform alongside men; second, when the first claim is disproven, that hardly any woman can; and third, when the second claim is disproven, that maybe a few women can, but a majority lack the ability or the inclination. And every single time, as the residual sexism fades, the third claim is shown to be false as well. Business, politics, medicine: it’s a familiar pattern. Now math is next on the list.