The events of Donglegate don’t add anything to a very real discussion about gender equality in the IT workforce.

I’m going to be very upfront about my stance on the issue of ‘Donglegate’ and spell it out right here in my opening paragraph, because at the risk of mixing metaphors I fully realize how much of a tightrope I’m walking by even dipping my toes into this issue: Adria Richards is the only person whose firing was justified. Now that you’ve let the hate flow through you, allow me to explain my position, and why I believe that sexism, while certainly a factor, should not be the dominating theme of whatever lesson we as an industry choose to take away from the Donglegate incident.

First of all, let me break down the events of Donglegate as I understand them:

1) While attending a Pycon lecture, Adria Richards, a Developer Evangelist (in other words, a technology marketer) at Sendgrid was seated one row in front of two developers, one of whom worked for Playhaven, whom allegedly began cracking sexual jokes about the words ‘dongle’ and ‘forking’ during the lecture.

2) In response to the developers’ comments, Richards sent out a photo tweet and blog post, publicly outing the two developers and admonishing their behavior in the tweet. Soon after, the developers were escorted out of the lecture hall by Pycon officials.

3) Soon afterwards, Playhaven released a statement announcing that it had fired one of the developers in the tweet. The second developer responded by releasing an anonymous statement apologizing for the incident. Meanwhile, Richards’ social media accounts were inundated with anonymous death threats and hate speech.

4) Sometime later, Anonymous launched a DDOS attack on Sendgrid. Hours later, and apparently in response to the attack and to public scrutiny, Sendgrid fired Richards.

Now, in no way will I defend the actions of the two developers who kicked off the Donglegate shitstorm. Their juvenile behavior was not only immature, it furthered an attitude that has been holding back an entire industry, and they should have been held accountable. In that respect I agree with Ms. Richards.

[pullquote align=”right”]You don’t respond to a kid’s fart noises by recording them and playing them for a movie theater full of people.[/pullquote]Where things go awry, however, is in how Richards chose to respond to the situation. The developers were not making personal comments towards her. In fact, they weren’t addressing her at all. Richards was technically eavesdropping on their private conversation, if we really want to nitpick, but that’s neither here nor there. Furthermore, the sexual nature of their comments, while crude, was not overtly offensive or degrading, especially not towards women. They were dick jokes. Dick jokes. That was all.

Anyone who’s either had kids or has worked with kids knows what the proper response to this type of behavior is: A verbal warning, followed by one or more additional warnings, followed by escalation, whether that be flagging down a superior or threatening a punishment. The methods obviously vary, but my point is this: you don’t respond to a kid’s fart noises by recording them and playing them for a movie theater full of people. And that’s essentially what Richards did.

It’s not so much the tweet itself that bothers me- if it had been the second, third, or fourth response to the developers’ actions, then it would absolutely have been called for. But Richards never even attempted to engage the two wisecrackers. She never let them know that she found what they were saying offensive, never asked them to kindly shut their mouths, never gave them any kind of warning that she was prepared to alert event officials if they didn’t stop. She simply turned around in her chair, smiled, and publicly shamed them. As a result, two people are out of a job and an entire industry has egg on its face. All because of the improper use of the words ‘dongle’ and ‘fork’ leading to a passive-aggressive tweet. Does that sound like a logical case of cause and effect?

[pullquote align=”left”]Richards was paid to know how to use social media responsibly. In this case, she didn’t.[/pullquote]Let’s be clear about this: Adria Richards knew exactly what she was doing when she posted that tweet. She’s not some 14-year old kid with a new iPhone, with no grasp of the ramifications or the reach of social media. She’s a technology marketing expert- it is precisely her job to know the exact impact of a social media post. In that regard, Richards essentially abused her position for personal gain, and for that reason I believe that her firing by Sendgrid was entirely justified. Make no mistake, I’m not naive enough to think Sendgrid was trying to make some kind of noble statement about the responsibilities of a free press in a digital world. They were blatantly trying to deflect unwanted attention by throwing Richards under the bus. Regardless, the ends justified the means.

To make matters worse, it’s recently come to light that this type of passive-aggressive behavior is common for Richards, according to people she’s worked with. Not only that, jokes of the same juvenile nature have been found on her own Twitter account, thus casting serious doubt on whether the offense she allegedly took to the developers’ comments is truly justifiable.

And as far as the hateful, horrible things that have been posted to Richards’ social media accounts? Of course those were uncalled for. Of course I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. And of course the Internet as a whole should be ashamed for allowing such fiendish behavior to occur. But if there’s anyone who deserves less sympathy for suffering such nightmarish language, it’s someone whose job it is to understand what it means to have a social presence. Who should know that every 140-character burst sent out into the Internet carries a risk of offending someone, somewhere, and returning thousands of words of hate speech back. Richards was paid to know how to use social media responsibly. In this case, she didn’t- and as lopsided as it may seem, the death threats and hate speech she received are a direct result of that.

[pullquote align=”right”]A lack of gender tolerance isn’t what caused the debacle in the first place. It was a lack of common courtesy.[/pullquote]Naturally, the Internet has exploded as a result of Donglegate, and rightly so. But what worries me is that the tone of the discussion seems to have gotten stuck on sexism, and I don’t believe that’s fair to the developers, Richards, or to the very legitimate debate about gender equality in the IT workforce. Part of what makes an incident sexist is inherent hypocrisy. In other words, if the genders of the people involved were reversed, the situation would have played out entirely differently. And to be honest, I don’t see much changing about the situation if it had been two female developers making dick jokes behind a male’s back. Would things have played out entirely the same? Probably not, since you’d be hard-pressed to find two female developers immature enough to make such idiotic comments. Hell, you’d be hard-pressed to find two female developers in a lecture at Pycon at all, unfortunately (ba-zing).

That’s probably where a lot of the sexism angle does come into play- I’d imagine it’s hard enough being the only woman in the room, but to have to listen to dick jokes on top of that? I can certainly see that getting under someone’s skin. Although for the record, I have met a handful of female developers who aren’t afraid to crack a dick joke, and frankly it wouldn’t bother me if I were in a room full of women using the word ‘forking’ as a euphemism for sex. Which might be why I see the sexism argument as a non-starter here.

[pullquote align=”left”]No one had to lose their job because of Donglegate.[/pullquote]But whatever sexist element of Donglegate I may be missing, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. A lack of gender tolerance isn’t what caused the debacle in the first place. It was a lack of common courtesy. All Richards had to do was turn around and say to the developers, “Hey guys, quiet down.” That was it. No one had to lose their job, no one had to suffer a DDOS attack or receive death threats, and no one had to waste their time blogging about why all of said Donglegate nonsense should have been avoided entirely.

Now I realize this is an incredibly polarizing issue, and as a man I’m simply not able to see every angle of this story, since I’ve never experienced life as a female working in a male-dominated workforce. But I’ve read enough stories and listened to enough people to realize that things could certainly be better for women in the IT field, and I think it’s important to maintain a discussion about how things can change. But I just don’t think Donglegate adds anything to that discussion; in fact I believe it’s more likely to distract people from the real question of how to secure an equal work environment for everyone. Donglegate is simply an ugly reminder that sexism isn’t the only problem holding our industry back.