It's somewhat encouraging to read the comments here and note that for a change they are not already overrun by aggressive apologists for the continuing misogyny in software development.
Hmm. The number of apologists is actually quite small, in my experience. I think the problem here is that most of the people here are men, who have no real idea what being on the receiving end of sexual or sexually-motivated harassment is like, but they also don't see what they can or should do about it. I think it goes something like this: "Stories like the OPs are terrible, I get that, but by saying that 'the tech community' is to blame, you're saying I'm to blame, and I've never been sexist to anyone!". Basically, they feel like something is being done or said in bad faith here. A lot of the people who wind up arguing on these threads aren't actually misogynists[1], they just feel they're being told something that doesn't make sense to them, and in a way they're not entirely wrong. There's not much reason to accept that "the tech community has a problem" if you and your friends are members of the tech community, and none of you are sexists, but you feel like you're being accused anyway. We need to make a clearer distinction between the average member of the tech community and, for want of a better word, the 'asshole contingent' who are the source of the problem.
[1] That some people arguing on the 'wrong' side here are not doing so for misogynistic reasons doesn't mean that nobody is; part of the problem is that you can't easily tell the difference.
> We need to make a clearer distinction between the average member of the tech community and, for want of a better word, the 'asshole contingent' who are the source of the problem.
What I'm suggesting is that the average member of the tech community himself needs to do a better job of being distinguishable from the asshole contingent - and the typical pedantic, aggressive, head-buried-in-sand HN reaction to instances of sexism, chauvinism and abuse is a real part of the problem.
I was just about to write the same thing, before I saw your comment. HN is a cesspool in these cases usually, but I'm genuinely happy that it's different this time around.
