In fact, the most sexist behavior I've encountered in the workplace was a manager who had a propensity to interrupt women more often than men. I mentioned this to him in private. Apparently, it was an unconscious bias. Afterwards, he made an effort to correct for it.

Outside of the workplace (parties, bars, public transportation), I've encountered much worse: people getting cornered, felt-up, etc. But that's always involved strangers or acquaintances, not coworkers.

And it should go without saying, but I really feel for the author. :(

Yeah, I mean, fucking hell. Seriously? I don't really understand how this can happen. It's just not thinkable in any professional context I have ever experienced. It's about as unthinkable as if a black speaker got on stage and some racists started throwing them peanuts - those people would not remain in the room very long. If security did nothing, the rest of the crowd would probably forcefully throw them out.

It seems some women (in tech or in other places) live in a very bizarre, warped world full of complete assholes. I can understand that they're very upset about that - I would be too. I would not tolerate remaining in such an environment, it affronts my basic sense of decency as a human being. But - I have never observed anything like this, ever, whereas this seems to be commonplace in that strange parallel universe where these women are living.

Baffled.

Edit: Interesting that when I was looking at this comment just now it was at -1. Now back at +1. Not quite sure what there is to downvote here. I'm not disagreeing with the OP, just saying that in my career I have never observed the kind of disgusting behaviour she describes. Clearly it must be happening somewhere since so many women report it. I just wonder where.

Even if I was disagreeing with the OP, what is there to downvote? Is disagreement no longer allowed on this site?

The incident in question was my talk at DEFCON 19 right before the camera started rolling. I want to reiterate that THEY MADE GOOD ON THIS and I am NOT MAD. I feel like everybody learned a lot and things will be better now.

But yeah, there were over 1000 people in the room for that talk, I'm sure if it comes down to a "did it happen" or "did it not happen" we can pull up enough witnesses. That one is pretty cut and dry.

Here's the point series I tried to make in the article: bad things happen, when they happen nobody knows what to do about them, and we won't make systems which handle these problems properly until enough people give enough fucks so that they are actually properly made.

Totally agree with the point of your article btw. I've strived to create these systems in my own company (and I think I've delivered on steps 1 and 2 - step 3 indicates an area for improvement for us, though).

In fact, I'm going to forward this article to a couple of people on my team to discuss if we're doing this well enough. Thanks for writing it.

That makes much more sense. DEFCON, a hacker convention where each speaker seems obligated to comment on how much they've had to drink - while holding a beer. Also, "hacker" being closer to the juvenile antics of webpage defacement - not the making of blinking sweaters with lilypad kits and hot glue.

It bothers me to think that females have some responsibility for avoiding these sort of situations (blaming the victim, etc), but hell - I'm a 30 year old man in the security industry and I avoid DEFCON.

My mom went to Long Beach to meet my dad before they got married. He was returning from Vietnam at the end of the war. She was gangraped in a alley by about five guys.

My sister was raped by my cousin when she was 13 and we were on a camping trip. She is 40 years old now and after a night out crashed on a friends couch and woke up to him jerking off on her back (this was a few months ago).

Things like this happen a lot and shit like "I have never seen so it can't be true" are part of the reason why you barely ever hear of it.

If you have a mom and sister the odds are pretty good one of them have been raped.

Dropping truth-bombs are we.

For shame - polarising the discussion doesn't help anyone. :-( Those who downvote reflexively in this manner are precisely the ones who most need to pause, read carefully, and try to learn to see things from more than one perspective...

I asked a friend why she wasn't going to Linux.conf.au. She stopped going after she was sexually assaulted at one.

It's not just a US problem.

Every time I read an article along these lines I feel even more grateful to work in environments where there haven't been glass ceilings, hiring is on merit and the workplaces are incredibly diverse.

A workplace with one must have quite a few victims, a workplace without one is full of people that never heard anything like this.