I clicked the comments to write "Joyent is going to get a lot of hate mail from Hacker News woman-haters", and indeed, with 21 comments so far, that seems to be true.
Good job, Bryan Cantrill and Joyent. One small step forward.
(And now I see this posting getting flagged down the page rapidly, like anything else on the topic of Silicon Valley's disdain for women. Has dropped from #3 to #35 in roughly 3 minutes.)
Pointing out a complete overreaction is now woman-hating, it seems.
It's almost as if being a misogynist doesn't take any effort whatsoever anymore. It just becomes another mundane everyday action. It shouldn't be, but you're redefining it to be.
"misogynist doesn't take any effort whatsoever anymore"
You mean it ever actually took effort? The truth is that our entire society is misogynist. I'm a woman, and I do my upmost to not be, but /because society itself is screwed/, even I can't avoid being misogynist occasionally.
In this particular case, you're thankfully calling the actions of men "overreactions", but that EXACT word is used to belittle women the world over, in exactly this same way. Wanting people to be decent human beings is "overreacting". Wanting people to check for consent before buying them drinks, or walking them home, or coming into their house... overreacting.
And that's not even going into the gender aspects of calling a man that.
I notice that your argument can be used to dismiss any criticism of any action taken to fight sexism - it does not rely on the action actually being proportionate, reasonable or productive. Just the fact that some sexists have called other, reasonable, reactions unreasonable is justification enough to dismiss it out ouf hand. It essentially makes self-proclaimed anti-sexist actions immune from criticism.
If our entire society is so pervasively misogynist that you can basically do it all the time just by going through your daily routine, then why is misogyny even notable at all? Misogyny is supposed to be an abnormal thing.
How do you define misogyny?
Yeah, the word "overreaction" can be applied to many contexts. Who would have known?
Wanting people to check for consent before buying them drinks
I wish someone bought me free stuff.
or walking them home
That one I can agree with, but how exactly does someone walk you home without your consent? I mean, if they don't have it, then by definition it's following or stalking.
coming into their house
As in, they knock and come in uninvited? Politely send them away. If they come in forcefully, that's a different issue entirely.
I'm not sure why you think it has to be necessarily. By analogy, would you say that racism is supposed to be an abnormal thing? We have plenty of examples of societies where racism is or was the norm.
In contemporary Western society, misogyny is considered abnormal.
But like I said, I'd require a more thorough definition of what the OP considers "misogyny". Because for some people I've noticed that all minor annoyances and socially awkward situations are misogynistic and sexist.
I think the patch was a good change. I think the way Ben handled it was bad behavior. I think the way Joyent handled Ben's behavior was even worse behavior.
Building an environment based on fear, reprisals, summary judgment and punishment is not a good recipe for improving the state of gender equality in tech (or anywhere). Means are as important as ends. Lining up suspected misogynists against a wall and shooting them is not a good way to go about stamping out misogyny, although that is more or less what's going on here (though not quite as dramatic, of course).
By using inappropriate means, by making summary judgments based on little evidence, and by making use of other inappropriate means the cause of gender equality is not advanced or strengthened, instead it is equated with abuses of power and instead weakened.
And just for posterity's sake, this article ended up being flagged into total invisibility within about 10 minutes of hitting the front page, despite having 50+ upvotes in about 20 minutes.
Good job, Bryan Cantrill and Joyent. One small step forward.
(And now I see this posting getting flagged down the page rapidly, like anything else on the topic of Silicon Valley's disdain for women. Has dropped from #3 to #35 in roughly 3 minutes.)