Honestly no, they probably didn't. I know I never did. It was only once I got to know a couple of women engineers well that I got to know the things they had to put up with. So I can see why you might oppose codes of conduct if you've never been exposed to the reasons why they were implemented in the first place. Personally I'm glad they're there.

To put it bluntly I only see radical shouting on twitter from both sides (look at the latest tweets from the CoC author and the reactionary responses). I have not really experienced it in real life.

So the debate itself seems to be like an alien war fought above my head with the occasional fallout dropping on projects I care about. I would very much prefer both sides to do more coding and less clawing at each other.

In my first management position in the 90’s I got to see:

Blatant discrimination against one of my reports who was openly gay and dealing with schizophrenia

A female colleague sexually propositioned by her boss

A VP who was openly homophobic and misogynistic.

If you are dealing with this and trying to get it to stop and the other side is asking you to do “less clawing” ...