The word of the day is sexism: Shanley Kane tweeted the CTO of Geekli.st, asking them to take down a video of a woman in a Geekli.st top and underwear dancing around. The subsequent tweets were captured in a long Storify and Geekli.st subsequently issued a public apology.
The interesting thing about this, to me, is how often well-meaning geeks react badly when someone says that they did something sexist, racist, homophobic, etc.
Let’s say someone says to you, in a public forum, “This thing you did is sexist.” What should you do?
First, if your immediate reaction is to say, “No it’s not!” don’t give in to your immediate reaction. That seems to be what most people start off with and it doesn’t help anything.
The reason you’re probably so eager to say it’s not sexist is because you’re not sexist. (Let’s assume, if you’re reading this blog, that you are correct: you are not sexist.)
So, if you aren’t sexist, why can’t you flat-out say “You are wrong”? Well, for starters, just because you’re not sexist doesn’t mean you never do anything sexist. Besides, they’re saying “This thing you did is sexist” but what they mean is “I feel this thing you did is sexist.” And even if you’re Simone de Beauvoir and Margaret Atwood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer rolled into one, you cannot tell them their feelings are wrong (well, you can, but you’ll look like an ass). What should you do, then?
You should try to make them feel better and try to avoid hurting them in the future.
- Step 1: try to make them feel better. The best way to do this is through an apology. A real one, not an “I’m sorry this offended you”-type apology. A better choice: “I’m sorry that I did that.” Now follow up with, “What can I do to make this better?”
- Step 2: try to avoid hurting them in the future. Obviously, everyone makes mistakes. You can’t never make one again, even if you and your company were publicly humiliated the first time around. The important thing is to try to learn from it. Google around and read about the issues women and minorities are concerned about in geek culture. Even if you don’t agree with everything everyone writes (I certainly don’t), you will at least know what the issues are.
If someone tells you they’re offended, you should take that seriously. If they’re speaking up, there are probably many others who are silently offended.
Kristina Chodorow's Blog 
One typo: Shanley Kane’s twitter profile says she works in Basho not in Geekli.st
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I don’t think I said she worked at Geekli.st, “Shanley Kane tweeted the CTO of Geekli.st,” is there somewhere else I get it wrong?
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I think you nailed the issue, It was really about the reaction. However, the initial defensiveness was not what killed him. Its was his knowing not when to back down, and his instance on escalating the situation. Perhaps she was slightly rude. Yes she definitely should have move the conversation to email when he suggested it. However, part of “acting professionally” is making an allowance for the other sides behavior. That means at the very least knowing when not to sit there and scream “you’re being unprofessional”. The worse thing she said in the thread was “Yo.” Other then calling her unprofessional, he made veiled threats about her job, and I’d suspect the part about her applying to his company “before she worked at basho” was some form of blackmail (perhaps she applied while working at basho).
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Yeah, faults on both sides, no doubt. It just amazes me how consistently people defer to their own ego (“No, I didn’t do anything wrong!”) without considering the consequences.
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