Couches, DBs, and pr0n, oh my!

I work to end violence against women. My part of that movement involves writing Web apps in Ruby. Following suit with Nick Seiger’s post on the matter, this post is me standing to be counted.

The Ruby community, in my view, should welcome and include everyone who shares the hacker spirit. It should also continue, in the hacker spirit, to be edgy, playful, anti-corporate, and always in favor of freedom.

All of us being human, sometimes we’ll be edgy in ways, like the now-infamous CouchDB presentation, that make some members or would-be members of the community feel starkly unwelcome. When that happens, those of us who notice it should absolutely call it out, and I, like Nick, pledge myself to do so. Those of us who make the mistakes should learn from them, and I think Matt Aimonetti is doing so. (I’m not sure that DHH gets it yet.)

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        <p>I won't summarize or analyze the specific issue with Matt's slides (Martin Fowler has <a href="http://martinfowler.com/bliki/SmutOnRails.html">done a good job of that already</a>, q.v., and quoted below), except to say this: the <strong>effect</strong> was that the pictures used, in the context of a room full of a hundred or more men and six women, reinforced some really icky cultural norms about power dynamics between men and women. <strong>It wasn't intentional,</strong> but it was real. From an anti-sexual-violence perspective, those are the same norms that, in the minds of some, make rape <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/30/opinion/30kristof.html">not a serious enough crime to bother processing the evidence</a>.</p>

I say that to underscore the seriousness of the matter. I don’t say it to demonize Matt Aimonetti (or DHH). Any of us could have misjudged the interaction of imagery and context as Matt did, and the effect could’ve been racist, classist, homophobic or any number of other things instead of sexist (the effect, not the presenter). How we handle it as fellow members of a community sets the tone going forward:

How about a community where women are valued for their ability to program and not by the thickness of their skin? How about a community that edgily pushes new boundaries without reinforcing long running evils? Perhaps even a community where women reach equal numbers? —Martin Fowler

Although the presentation in question makes me sad, I’m frankly thrilled at the discussion that it’s sparked and how it’s been conducted. I’m glad to see other men in the community listening to what women are saying about it, understanding, and responding. (Incidentally, why don’t I regularly read any women Rubyists’ blogs?) Most of the dialog across Twitter and blogs has been pretty constructive. Some conflict and defensiveness notwithstanding, as a self-identified feminist, I’m pretty proud of the Ruby community.