![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Internet abuse culture is a tech industry problem
After Jesse Frazelle blogged about the online abuse she receives, a common reaction in various forums[1] was "This isn't a tech industry problem - this is what being on the internet is like"[2]. And yes, they're right. Abuse of women on the internet isn't limited to people in the tech industry. But the severity of a problem is a product of two separate factors: its prevalence and what impact it has on people.
Much of the modern tech industry relies on our ability to work with people outside our company. It relies on us interacting with a broader community of contributors, people from a range of backgrounds, people who may be upstream on a project we use, people who may be employed by competitors, people who may be spending their spare time on this. It means listening to your users, hearing their concerns, responding to their feedback. And, distressingly, there's significant overlap between that wider community and the people engaging in the abuse. This abuse is often partly technical in nature. It demonstrates understanding of the subject matter. Sometimes it can be directly tied back to people actively involved in related fields. It's from people who might be at conferences you attend. It's from people who are participating in your mailing lists. It's from people who are reading your blog and using the advice you give in their daily jobs. The abuse is coming from inside the industry.
Cutting yourself off from that community impairs your ability to do work. It restricts meeting people who can help you fix problems that you might not be able to fix yourself. It results in you missing career opportunities. Much of the work being done to combat online abuse relies on protecting the victim, giving them the tools to cut themselves off from the flow of abuse. But that risks restricting their ability to engage in the way they need to to do their job. It means missing meaningful feedback. It means passing up speaking opportunities. It means losing out on the community building that goes on at in-person events, the career progression that arises as a result. People are forced to choose between putting up with abuse or compromising their career.
The abuse that women receive on the internet is unacceptable in every case, but we can't ignore the effects of it on our industry simply because it happens elsewhere. The development model we've created over the past couple of decades is just too vulnerable to this kind of disruption, and if we do nothing about it we'll allow a large number of valuable members to be driven away. We owe it to them to make things better.
[1] Including Hacker News, which then decided to flag the story off the front page because masculinity is fragile
[2] Another common reaction was "But men get abused as well", which I'm not even going to dignify with a response
Much of the modern tech industry relies on our ability to work with people outside our company. It relies on us interacting with a broader community of contributors, people from a range of backgrounds, people who may be upstream on a project we use, people who may be employed by competitors, people who may be spending their spare time on this. It means listening to your users, hearing their concerns, responding to their feedback. And, distressingly, there's significant overlap between that wider community and the people engaging in the abuse. This abuse is often partly technical in nature. It demonstrates understanding of the subject matter. Sometimes it can be directly tied back to people actively involved in related fields. It's from people who might be at conferences you attend. It's from people who are participating in your mailing lists. It's from people who are reading your blog and using the advice you give in their daily jobs. The abuse is coming from inside the industry.
Cutting yourself off from that community impairs your ability to do work. It restricts meeting people who can help you fix problems that you might not be able to fix yourself. It results in you missing career opportunities. Much of the work being done to combat online abuse relies on protecting the victim, giving them the tools to cut themselves off from the flow of abuse. But that risks restricting their ability to engage in the way they need to to do their job. It means missing meaningful feedback. It means passing up speaking opportunities. It means losing out on the community building that goes on at in-person events, the career progression that arises as a result. People are forced to choose between putting up with abuse or compromising their career.
The abuse that women receive on the internet is unacceptable in every case, but we can't ignore the effects of it on our industry simply because it happens elsewhere. The development model we've created over the past couple of decades is just too vulnerable to this kind of disruption, and if we do nothing about it we'll allow a large number of valuable members to be driven away. We owe it to them to make things better.
[1] Including Hacker News, which then decided to flag the story off the front page because masculinity is fragile
[2] Another common reaction was "But men get abused as well", which I'm not even going to dignify with a response
no subject
Another problem is simply not acknowledging women's contributions. In the free software world, for instance, things like outreach and documentation are often seen as "women's work" and are much less prestigious than coding.
I realize I'm preaching to the choir here, of course ^^; I guess I just feel that, in my personal experience this is the case ... I was an advocate of one particular decision I felt would make GNOME development more accessible, and spent a lot of time blogging about it on Planet GNOME and creating tutorials and wiki pages. And then a few months later the decision-makers apparently had that same idea independently, and did not acknowledge me or any of the work that I'd already done on it under the aegis of the Outreach Program. Except to say that it was incomplete.
I'm pretty sure I discussed this with you awhile ago already. >_>; It was ... kind of an eye-opener for me, though. In a lot of ways.
Credit
(Anonymous) 2015-07-11 03:34 am (UTC)(link)Which reminds me of many pieces of home-brew wisdom I received as a child "respect and credit is often the price of success". Another I value, which may not be relevant to your case was, "choose carefully whose opinions you make yourself a prisoner of".
My grandmother never lived to know the internet - but I find her advice transfers to the medium.
SFITCS