hmmm, let's delve into a semantics analysis of human spatial designations
When does hula hooping in a public space transfer to a public performance?
gee I don't know, I was never one for philosophy! You can throw an infinite amount of what-ifs at any scenario. I was only responding to someone's statement that they do not stare for fear of being accused a sexist (I'd imagine people would call a starer a creep more-so a sexist in that scenario).
It's possible to recognize the attractive features of someone while still being conscious of their humanity. Obviously there are degrees of attention you can give someone based on their looks that goes from socially acceptable to socially unacceptable.
I'm a man so I can't speak for women directly, but what I've gathered from the experiences of others is that women are interacted with on an attraction basis exponentially more than men are, this also constantly ranging from socially acceptable to unacceptable, wanted and unwanted. It manifests in little ways, cat-calling, aggressive or unwanted flirtation, maybe a creepy controlling coworker suddenly confessing his love? My own mom told me about a time when a total stranger grabbed her butt in a store and walked off. It makes sense to me that many women would be extra-sensitive to scenarios like this. Men literally don't have to deal with interactions like this at that level so it's totally different when the gender roles are reversed, and it's rare that they are.
The importance of that scenario was that it was relative to her entire work experience at Github. Even if we assume the intentions of the male workers were totally golden and the hula-hoopers were totally fine with their gawking, to me it makes sense why this scene would be triggering for her.
To clarify for many of you, you don't need someone shouting "I HATE WOMEN" for sexism to be occurring. The sexism in this scenario is subtle and persistent, something that likely tainted all of the workplace interactions at github, allowing a female employee's problems at work to be continually ignored. This eventually built up to the issue most people are focusing on, a founders spouse being allowed to harass an employee, which is not so much the main issue but a major symptom of a larger issue at github and in the tech industry as a whole, that issue being the downplaying of women's concerns, opinions and needs.
The hula hooping moment was important because it visibly demonstrated her male coworkers lack of respect for women as people. They were unabashedly staring at their female coworkers as "eyecandy" in that moment and even defended their doing so.
This is the sort of fucked up attitude that's turning the public increasingly against the tech industry. The attitude seems to be "we can do anything that we want, because we're smart and we know the loopholes"
To use a metaphor you might understand I think you're programming around the bug instead of debugging.
Maybe, shocking as it is, women are reacting to real injustices in these cases that you read about in "any article or blog post about sexism in tech". If your immediate reaction to someone being called out for sexism is to distance yourself from women, have you ever considered that perhaps your attitude is sexist? You're assuming in all scenarios that the man is right and being attacked unfairly, disregarding evidence.
This can look like "victim-blaming", but it's really more-than-anything a yearning for people to keep their standards of evidence high
I don't buy it. The "hacker type" despite self-professing as a logical bunch falls prey to all of the logical fallacies and cognitive biases that any other opinionated group does. The evidence is already out there, this is one of many incidents following a trend of sexism in this industry that has been going on for decades.
Github does not exist in a vacuum and real life social interaction doesn't use variables beyond a distant abstract analysis.
You put those words in my mouth, buddy. To clarify, social ineptitude combined with a degree of self-assured narcissism, resulting in a total disregard for the opinions of other people which don't jive with the most "logical" worldview. It's possible to be socially introverted and still considerate to other people.
