I think it's possible that Horvath was right about the poor actions of management, and at the same time, very little of what she alleged seemed to fall into the bounds of gender-based discrimination. A colleague who reverts your commits because you wouldn't date him...that's not gender-based, that's office-romance strife (though obviously, such strife can be exacerbated with a gender imbalance at the company). I'm kind of interested in what happened to that engineer.
re: The co-worker who couldn't handle being rejected by her:
> The rejection of the other employee led to something of an internal battle at GitHub. According to Horvath, the engineer, “hurt from my rejection, started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked on together without so much as a ping or a comment. I even had to have a few of his commits reverted. I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up to find my work gone without any explanation.” The employee in question, according to Horvath, is both “well-liked at GitHub” and “popular in the community.”
His “behavior towards female employees,” according to Horvath, “especially those he sees as opportunities is disgusting.”
And there was one more incident that would purportedly fall under sexism:
> Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub.
The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.
The second thing, about hula-hooping, without context, it doesn't really mean anything beyond what Horvath claims she was able to grok just by stumbling upon the scene. I think during the original HN discussion, a Githubber said that the hula-hooping happened during an in-office party. Either way, hula-hooping and watching said-hula-hooping is hard to claim, on its face, as being gender-discrimination.
The other stuff though, about the co-founder unfairly pressuring her partner to resign, and the co-founder's wife claiming to have access to Github employees' private data...Those could be things that the company frowns upon enough to merit a resignation.
How is a woman who refuses to date another employee considered an "office-romance?" Retaliation as a result of unwanted advances is considered harassment.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was an actual romance. I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination.
From your link:
> Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).
1. Did Horvath provide proof that this immature behavior was more-than-isolated and unpunished? It would be easy for her to, as it would exist in the git logs. But we don't know if it happened dozens of times, or just more than one time.
2. Reverting commits is still part of an engineer's job. She alleges that the commits were unfair...again, this evidence would exist in the logs. But what if the commits were justifiable, and the engineer was being snippy about it? That doesn't really count as harassment.
3. Was Horvath retaliated against by management (e.g. fired or demoted) for being angry at her colleague? Her account doesn't claim that.
The link you posted says that harassment, and sexual harassment, is illegal...But what Horvath describes is not harassment by the legal definition, because the other engineer could claim that the reverts were part of his job. Again, the commit logs, or even a description of them, are needed to decide whether this constituted harassment beyond a coworker criticizing another.
> I meant that this immature (and shitty) behavior was based in that domain of "romance" (the existence or lack thereof, in this case) and not, from the face of Horvath's description, automatically based on gender-discrimination.
Don't make up soft weasel words to describe it. It's sexual harassment plain and simple. Also, this bit about classifying it as gender-discrimination seems like pointless hair-splitting. Horvath felt wronged by many things, and she probably felt those things would not have happened if she were a man, and I think that's a fair assumption on her part. I'll leave it to the courts to get into the technical classification of precisely if and how she was wronged.
Sorry, reverting someone's commits out of spite because they rejected you is not sexual harassment "plain and simple." Words have meanings. Furthermore it is not "pointless hair-splitting" to say it is not gender discrimination. You clearly have no understanding of what these terms mean and why it's important to not let this type of drama bleed into the wider discussion about systemic gender discrimination in tech.
"Harassment can include “sexual harassment” or unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a sexual nature. Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general."
Harassment of someone who happens to be of the opposite gender does not make it sexual harassment. Harassment of someone for rejecting you romantically does not make it sexual harassment. If someone "feels" they would not have been harassed the same way if they were a man does not make it sexual harassment. (This is clearly false in this case, obviously, because the same thing could have happened if it were an advancement by someone of the same gender.)
Reverting someone's commit is not harassment of a "sexual nature" nor does it include commentary on the person's sex or women in general. It has nothing to do with gender or sexual comments, it has to do with an emotional reaction to rejection and an immature pathetic response.
> The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.
No...but it would bolster her claim that a hostile work environment was knowingly perpetuated, which is a component of harassment. I'm not saying that talking to management is a trivial thing, especially in cases of reporting harassment. But it's also unfair to argue "they should've stopped it" if they weren't appraised of the situation. Again, maybe Horvath did say so, but her account to TechCrunch doesn't mention it explicitly. In any case, such a thing would likely be an electronic record, and so if she feels that the record was not thoroughly examined, now's her chance to assert that.
edit:
FYI: her detailed complaint to TechCrunch: http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/15/julie-ann-horvath-describes...
re: The co-worker who couldn't handle being rejected by her:
> The rejection of the other employee led to something of an internal battle at GitHub. According to Horvath, the engineer, “hurt from my rejection, started passive-aggressively ripping out my code from projects we had worked on together without so much as a ping or a comment. I even had to have a few of his commits reverted. I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up to find my work gone without any explanation.” The employee in question, according to Horvath, is both “well-liked at GitHub” and “popular in the community.”
His “behavior towards female employees,” according to Horvath, “especially those he sees as opportunities is disgusting.”
And there was one more incident that would purportedly fall under sexism:
> Two women, one of whom I work with and adore, and a friend of hers were hula hooping to some music. I didn’t have a problem with this. What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them. It looked like something out of a strip club. When I brought this up to male coworkers, they didn’t see a problem with it. But for me it felt unsafe and to be honest, really embarrassing. That was the moment I decided to finally leave GitHub.
The first one, of course, is bad. And there's possibly a case to be made that if management knew about this engineer and let it slide, well, that does create a hostile environment. Yet I don't think Horvath points out where she complained about this guy's commit-reverting behavior to management.
The second thing, about hula-hooping, without context, it doesn't really mean anything beyond what Horvath claims she was able to grok just by stumbling upon the scene. I think during the original HN discussion, a Githubber said that the hula-hooping happened during an in-office party. Either way, hula-hooping and watching said-hula-hooping is hard to claim, on its face, as being gender-discrimination.
The other stuff though, about the co-founder unfairly pressuring her partner to resign, and the co-founder's wife claiming to have access to Github employees' private data...Those could be things that the company frowns upon enough to merit a resignation.