I saw this in the comments on the tech crunch story about JAH. It's priceless:
Please change the title of the article from: "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism And Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit", to "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Harassment From The Founders Wife, The Founder, And Has A Problem With Hula Hoops (For Some Reason)"
Woman-on-woman bullying is a big issue in the tech community. My closest friend at company I work at now is a female developer and she is constantly being bullied by the women on our design team. A lot of women who work in tech are threatened by female developers, especially when they are straight and attractive.
If you guys want to frame this issue in terms of gender that's what you should be talking about.
This basically boils down to one woman (Teresa Preston-Werner) bullying another woman (JAH). So can someone please explain to me why all of the feminists are turning this into a "women being victimized by men" thing?
How do you know that there were as many qualified female candidates for the job? How do you know that the women that you think were underpaid were producing the same quality of work as the men in similar roles? You don't. You assume it because it fits your worldview.
I'm choosing to believe the study, the abstract of which says:
"The main finding is consistent across the three studies: when an organization is explicitly presented as meritocratic, individuals in managerial positions favor a male employee over an equally qualified female employee by awarding him a larger monetary reward."
The fact of the matter is I don't, which is more, not less, of a reason to be skeptical that the concept of meritocracy is bad because it causes a paradoxical outcome.
I honestly haven't read the study, but I'm skeptical about how its authors reached their conclusion. How are they determining that the male and female job candidates are equally qualified? Are statisticians experts on hiring software engineers or sys admins? Were they directly involved in the hiring process of a group of tech workers? Do they have access to said workers skill assessments?
I think anyone could pick a bunch of tech companies which describe themselves as meritocracies and determine that they hire men more frequently than they do women. I think you would find that to be the norm in any tech company, regardless of how they describe themselves. There are more men in tech. Duh.
Based on the results of the investigation, it seems the sexual harassment / gender-discrimination allegations are bogus. What we are left with is a female employee who was systematically mistreated by the CEO's wife, and a CEO who was unable or unwilling to put a stop to it.
So what can we learn from this apart from the obvious deficiencies of said CEO and said CEO's wife?
1. Nothing causes more trouble at a company than two women who don't get along. I'm sorry to say this, and I know it's politically incorrect, but women are catty and it's very difficult to get women to work together without all sorts of drama.
2. Women in tech frequently play the gender card when their jobs don't work out. Whatever the reason for their resignation or termination, they are highly likely to perceive that their gender was a major factor in the outcome.
Please change the title of the article from: "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism And Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit", to "Julie Ann Horvath Describes Harassment From The Founders Wife, The Founder, And Has A Problem With Hula Hoops (For Some Reason)"