April 22, 2014

Two women catfight, one man gets fired

As I mentioned earlier, the New York Times splashed an HR brouhaha at a tech startup called Github in which a young creative writing major named Julie Ann Horvath had drawn massive national attention to the problem of alpha-male programmers sexistly discriminating against poor oppressed female software engineers such as herself. Her most tragic example of this was how the co-founder's wife had made her cry over a personal dispute.

In a major advance for feminism, the precedent has now been been established that when two women catfight, the man gets fired.

From a posting by Jane Doe, for whatever it's worth, attempting to explain the real nub of the Github Crisis of Gender Relations:
Around the end of 2012, Julie started dating a close male friend of the cofounder’s wife and didn’t like that they were close. She asked them to stop being friends and when they would not end their relationship, Julie started telling coworkers that the wife had affairs and that the cofounder’s newborn child was not his. She told this to multiple coworkers directly and also to the wife through her boyfriend.

But, no matter, the New York Times ran completely with Julie's positioning of her story as Github having a sexist work environment emblematic of how Silicon Valley must spend more, much more on feminists.

Here are four tweets the NYT chose to pass along to the public. The first, from Github's VC honcho, was added later as a compromise. The latter three, the first to be published by the NYT, make interesting reading about what's fit to print these days.
Marc Andreessen         @pmarcaWe stand firmly behind both Github the company and Tom the person -- we know that both Github and Tom have very bright futures ahead!

Patrick McCulley @panther_modernGitHub is apparently just another corporation that has decided dudebros are worth more than other employees. 
Matthew Dean @matthewdeanersI don't understand how you can't find evidence of sexism when sexism is institutionalized.

Shanley @shanleyTHIS IS WHAT WE MEAN BY HOW THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES FOR WHITE MEN IN TECHNOLOGY. NONE. ZIP. NADA.
   

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you meant "beta-male" culture. And I think that's down near the root of the problem: men in open-source are not typically used to being on top. They are underdogs; they are nerds. They did not get picked first for the team, they did not date cheerleaders. And they have carved out a space where, for once, they have authority and power. Unfortunately, this manifests as a deep insecurity- and in order to protect this precious authority, that they have worked for and feel they deserve, they feel they have to hoard it, guard it against outsiders. And sadly, they see women as hostile outsiders- competitors, when in fact they could be important allies, with a lot of common ground.

Anonymous said...

Authored by Jane Doe? Anonymous and thus without credibility. Don't be so sure this is about two women having a feud just because that's the assertion by someone unwilling to identify them self. The male culture in tech is well documented and this isn't changed in any way by Jane's "perspective."

Cail Corishev said...

Marc Andreessen and Brendan Eich would appear on a pretty short list of people who made the Internet what it is today. No idea who these other people are, or why NYT readers should care what they think about anything.

Anonymous said...

The male culture in tech is well documented and this isn't changed in any way by Jane's "perspective."

We created it, so we get to define the culture. If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen.

Anonymous said...

Andreessen has had a fascinating career.

Of course, as the guy who coded the first graphical browser, he is part of Internet history. I remember when he first released Netscape, he would frequently post in newsgroups to directly answer questions.

But, he wasn't just some coder. Netscape didn't last very long, but he parlayed that into being one of the most visible and richest VC's in Silicon Valley. Not to mention he married into another fortune.

As I recalled, he cashed out of Netscape for a few million when the end (Microsoft IE) was high, but not really big bucks.

Geoff Matthews said...


Authored by Jane Doe? Anonymous and thus without credibility.


I'll pass over the fact that you're posting here anonymously, and just point out, that with the behavior of women programmers like this, I don't think that men are the people she needs to worry about.

Anonymous said...

It doesn't matter how little sense they make, they're still the new york times, so they're still right and you're still wrong. Sad but true.

Anonymous said...

In order to really feel sorry for tom here I'd have to get his opinion on what happened to CPlusEquality on github.

Dave Pinsen said...

He frequently engages with his followers on Twitter now.

Whiskey said...

Women hate hate hate beta males anon. Women and beta males are mortal enemies. Women want beta males, achivement competitors who are unsexy replaced by gays, other women, NAMs, alpha sexy males who are incompetent think Charlie Sheen when younger.

Whiskey said...

Back on topic two women one married to the founder catfight over a singe guy. Yeah the founder was a beta male given his wife wanted the rivals boyfriend.

Women never ever forgive lack of male sexiness.

Brett Stevens said...

Technology is where people who like to think they are alpha males go, but really it's a matter of being obedient to the machine. It thus attracts people who derive a sensation of power from manipulating computers, which generally means people who are not the healthiest nor most sociable. It's not surprising that Horvath found herself in such a neurotic situation, or that she's neurotic. I doubt she'll get hired again once the drama dies down except as Diversity Director somewhere.

Anonymous said...

"the behavior of women programmers like this"

It's a major stretch to call her a programmer. Strip away all the posturing and the "nrrrdcore" handle and the entry-level aping of some programmer lingo and it's more like "graphic designer that managed to learn some css and html." She seems to have been running as fast as she could from any gritty coding and towards the things male programmers tend to despise: public speaking and socializing.

Which may have been at the root of some of the work conflict. She liked to posture as a techie coder, but wasn't, and never understood the cultural mores.

countenance said...

When did the NYT become TMZ for the Silicon Valley's hen house gossip?

jody said...

there are very few dudebros in IT.

marc recently wrote a pro-bitcoin article. because he has to. he's 25 million into coinbase. as a 4 year veteran of BTC i've come to the opposite conclusion. it has no future. while i expected some governments to whack it, i didn't expect every major government to whack it all in a 4 month span.

ignore what VCs say when they are in for big bucks.

Leo Fuchs said...

Male programmers have zero common ground with feminists. They hate us, obsessively, poisonously, irrationally.

I've known some competent women in programming. None felt threatened by the environment. None felt entitled to force men to interact like women (i work for a female programmer who is very easy to get along with and has great respect for the software culture -- because unlike this girl, she has the drive and brains and mental toughness to thrive in it).

The girls who have problems in tech are the "nerrrdgrrrl" frauds who "like computers" and want the money, but really can't even begin to keep up technically. When you're the dead weight on the team, you feel paranoid and unwanted. And you should. If you can't handle open disagreement about technical issues, if you can't cope with being shown to be wrong in front of the team and laugh about it (because the right answer outweighs your ego, and it's the other guy's turn next), get out. Just get the f**k out. You're a worthless timesucking value-destroying morale-damaging parasite.

If you're not entitled or incompetent, if you argue to get at the truth rather than to dominate others, geeks will accept you. They may misjudge you at first, but once you're in the door and you prove yourself, they don't give a damn about surface details.

Cail Corishev said...

It's a major stretch to call her a programmer.

One thing that these "Moar girls in IT" articles have brought to light, thanks to reports from the field that show up in the comments, is that it's not unusual for a woman to get hired at a tech company that can afford to be PC, be given the meaningless title of "developer," and then spend years doing absolutely nothing productive at all. She'll attend meetings, work on committees, go to conferences, attend training seminars, and write virtually no code at all. Nice work if you can get it.

Anonymous said...

Women never ever forgive lack of male sexiness.

I feel for you. It must be rough.

Anne said...

Worked 30 years as a (female) programmer after getting a degree in Math/Physics. Never had a problem with fellow students or profs at university.

Didn't get along with everyone I met in my career, but it was unrelated to male/female issues. You never get on with everyone. That's just life.

This woman sounds like a nut, not a true techie. True techies get interested in it young (high school, if not earlier).

ysv_rao said...


Women hate hate hate beta males anon. Women and beta males are mortal enemies. Women want beta males, achivement competitors who are unsexy replaced by gays, other women, NAMs, alpha sexy males who are incompetent think Charlie Sheen when younger."

Dude now you are just stringing random buzzwords together
Get a grip

Londoner said...

So I guess Whiskey's fiddly iPad keyboard is why he constantly types "Buchanon" instead of "Buchanan"?