Seriously. It’s 2007. Can girls please stop acting like the world needs to stop and take a collective gasp every time she engages in something typically geek-related? I think most of us are over it already. Jump on in and have some fun. But if you don’t want to be treated differently, stop pointing it out in the moment. Yes. You have boobies. Good for you. Now help me carry my monitor into the LAN, please.

Does that mean that the whole incident was an episode of man-hate? Or was she just an asshole? Honestly, just because someone is offensive toward you and they have a penis doesn’t make it an issue of hating women. And just because other people tell you to get over it and move on like tens of millions have done over the decades of using the internet doesn’t mean they don’t understand, sympathize or like women. Like me, they would probably say the same thing regardless of your sex.

What the person or persons said regarding this incident was disgusting and somewhat frightening. Let’s leave it at that. You can’t expect the lot of us to sit here and listen to a lot of women (by the way, you make up more than 50% of the internet and bloggers you know) tell us how selfish, ignorant and hateful we are just because we don’t fall to our knees and lock the proverbial internet-gates the instant you try to manipulate the argument into something which is less “this guy posted something hateful, disgusting and offensive” and more “this guy posted something hateful, disgusting and offensive and this just shows how male geeks are misogynists and just think of women as tits and vaginas because they aren’t all falling all over themselves in response to this”.

But you know, this was a great ploy on Sierra’s part. Until she decided to run around the internet like some damsel in distress and told people she was afraid to use the internet and had locked herself in her bedroom with the lights off for however long, I had never heard of her.

I just came across your great blog here while searching the web for more information about the Kathy Sierra case. I first became aware of her situation from an article in tomorrow’s SF Chronicle (already online tonight at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/29/BLOG.TMP ).
I agree with Jane’s posting above that some of our male counterparts are “tone deaf” to the problems of written and verbal harassment against women. Because of male privledge, they’re blind to the effects that words and attitudes can have – creating a climate where discrimination and even intimidation and violence can be considered acceptable.
The problems are not just limited to the tech world or the world of blogs – they happen in the “real” world as well. Witness the hollabacknyc.com site and it’s various spin-offs, where women trade sometimes chilling tales of encounters with street harassers.
I posted an article about Hollaback to my Yahoo group, and was appalled at the responses of a couple of men (guys who had been lurkers up to that moment but suddenly wouldn’t stop trying to shout everyone else down). These guys just didn’t “get it” – on everything from the power dynamics of verbal harassment, to why sites like that are important tools of empowerment.
This is why education about these issues is so important. Education needs to start at the middle school level. And sadly, many of these men never seem to have evolved beyond middle school.

I’m with you on this one, Annalee. Anger is much more constructive than fear, though they’re two sides of the same coin. It’s important to prosecute this kind of behavior because it’s not only dangerous and uncivilized, it’s the tactic of bullies who need to be taught that they can’t get away with it. Got a stalker (and I’ve had one too, so I do know how scary it is)? Fight back, ladies. Demand action, and prosecute when he’s found.

And guys, if this happens on your watch and you do nothing, you’re just as responsible. It’s called aiding and abetting. It should matter to you because you’ve all got a woman in your life somewhere.