[hackerspaces] Improve hackerspace diversity - Donate to Ada Initiative

[Walter van Holst]

On 23/09/2014 23:13, Kristin-Leigh Brezinski wrote:

> Re: Violet Blue, I think the whole thing got blown out of proportion,
> but really, who thought a talk titled "sex +/- drugs: *known vulns and
> exploits*" wouldn't raise red flags to a lot of women(/people in
> general)? Anyone who considers themselves enough of a wordsmith to play
> on puns like that should be open to criticism of the double-meanings in
> the terms they're invoking. 

That is way too contextually dependent. Both the event and the speaker
involved are relevant. BSides SF is/was a security event and using the
idiom of IT-security is not a priori wildly inappropriate in that
context. Violet Blue has a long track record of writing and lecturing on
sexual topics to the point that she's larger than life on that subject
matter.

Had it been some pick-up artist it would have been  obviously wrong and
creepy. Had it been at an event geared to recovering rape victims, it
would have been an obviously wildly inappropriate title. This was not
the case.

Also, being open to criticism doesn't mean you have to take an event
organisation being harassed into canceling your talk lying down either.

And now for something controversial: you cannot take any potential
trauma by any potential visitor into account when you want to do
anything remotely interesting, especially on a topic such a sex. I
prefer to think of women as intelligent fellow human beings that are
capable of reading beyond the title of a presentation by a well-known
speaker and to take subsequent informed decisions to attend that
particular presentation or not in case they feel that it may trigger
some trauma they sadly have experienced in the past.

Long story short: the Ada Initiative can go jump in a lake as far as I
am concerned and I'd much rather donate money to the Gnome Women's outreach.

Regards,

 Walter