GitHub engineer resigns alleging gender harassment, company launches investigation

[Himanshu Arora]

Julie Ann Horvath, a well-known engineer at GitHub, on Friday announced her resignation alleging harassment by someone at a leadership position in the company. TechCrunch has posted her side of the story, which contains a series of unpleasant experiences that prompted her to call it quits.

Horvath claims she had been facing sexism and intimidation at the startup for almost two years. Earlier, when she refused the romantic advances of a co-worker, he ripped code out of her projects. "I would work on something, go to bed, and wake up to find my work gone without any explanation".

She was also allegedly threatened by the wife of one co-founder who asked Horvath not to quit and say something nasty about her husband's company.

She also recalled how male employees gawked at women who were hula-hooping at the office, describing the situation "ugly and embarrassing" and claiming that it made her feel unsafe.

In response to the allegations, CEO and co-founder Chris Wanstrath, posted that the company had begun a full investigation into the reasons for her departure. In his post, he personally apologized to Julie, and shared that the relevant founder and the accused engineer have been put on leave with the immediate effect, and the founder’s wife has been banned from the office.

GitHub definitely needs to mitigate the questionable situation as soon as possible, especially as it seeks to recruit more women. Horvath's exit has ignited yet another debate on gender equality in technology companies.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/56013-github-engineer-resigns-alleging-gender-harassment-company-launches-investigation.html

 

[Guest]

Call me old-fashioned, but this incident proves that women has no place in the tech industry.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Call me old-fashioned, but this incident proves that women has no place in the tech industry.

Call me old-fashion; but the bastard that made her feel so unpleasant, should be strung up by the nearest town square tree. I don't know if the allegations are true, but I certainly don't have a problem believing them.

 

[fps4ever]

Call me old-fashioned, but this incident proves that women has no place in the tech industry.

You do realize its not 1938 correct?

 

[Guest]

She also recalled how male employees gawked at women who were hula-hooping at the office.

Uh....What kind of office is this? Dont get me wrong I would gawk at somebody doing the hula in my office

 

[misor]

Gender harassment? the usual term I encountered (when watching tv shows/news) is sexual harassment and involves men (or women) of higher position 'exploiting' other employees.

 

[davislane1]

"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."

This is why it should be law that all men give feminists zero sexual attention. If it is embarrassing and "unsafe" for men to express their attraction to females, any subscribing Women should be completely and irrevocably invisible in this respect. It is, in fact, the most equitable solution.

 

[mario]

I work in the tech industry and I actually work at a place where Julie used to work. Yes hula hooping, dancing, exercising, yoga, etc are all activities that happen in these offices, that doesn't mean you should be creepy and just stand and stare in a non appropriate manner, as is implied by her remarks, to the people doing those activities, it is an office environment and it's unacceptable for this to happen.

All the women I've met in the tech industry have been amazing and very capable, programmers, product managers, managers, qa, all of them have been exceptional and I'm proud to say that I work in a place that encourages an awesome environment for everyone.

Tech companies can become boys clubs very easily and it's sad when stuff like this happens.

 

[Guest]

"She also recalled how male employees gawked at women who were hula-hooping at the office, describing the situation "ugly and embarrassing" and claiming that it made her feel unsafe."

Well thats definitely harassment toward males, you come to office to work, not to hula-hoop.
She can work remote from home all she wants and hula-hoop there.
You know you will be seen, but you still do it and feel "unsafe"? thats poor excuses, its like coming to the beach and accusing every men of sexual harassment!

 

[Guest]

I abhor sexual misconduct, but the Hula Hooping example is just plain wrong.
Her colleagues were doing it. Did they feel harrassed by the male attention?
If they did, there is certainly no mention of them stopping and saying something themselves.
If they didn't stop, then were they happy to have the attention?
Questions like this need to be asked because if her friends were happy being oogled, then what business was it of hers?
And why chastise a male spectator when she should be chastising her female colleagues for "performing for the boys"
You can't have it both ways. It doesn't work like that.

 

[lmike6453]

I abhor sexual misconduct, but the Hula Hooping example is just plain wrong.
Her colleagues were doing it. Did they feel harrassed by the male attention?
If they did, there is certainly no mention of them stopping and saying something themselves.
If they didn't stop, then were they happy to have the attention?
Questions like this need to be asked because if her friends were happy being oogled, then what business was it of hers?
And why chastise a male spectator when she should be chastising her female colleagues for "performing for the boys"
You can't have it both ways. It doesn't work like that.

+1, well said...it's like saying a woman comes in to work in a see-through shirt showing her bra CLEARLY, and then suing for sexual harassment when people look

 

[rub900]

For everything done here no matter you would be fired at our company. No question just gone. If we even cuss we get coached.

 

[lmike6453]

For everything done here no matter you would be fired at our company. No question just gone. If we even cuss we get coached.

Sucks to work where you work then, sounds like grade school

 

[Darkshadoe]

"She also recalled how male employees gawked at women who were hula-hooping at the office, describing the situation "ugly and embarrassing" and claiming that it made her feel unsafe."

I may be old fashioned but usually a person goes to work to..umm..I dunno... work maybe?

This doesnt sound like a workplace but a bar setting. she really has no call to complain since this was a social time (like in a bar) rather than her doing actual work.

Now this little cupcake can get her butt in the kitchen and make me a sammich.

 

[mario]

I'm so glad I don't know 90% of the people who replied here personally, this thread is evidence of why it's so hard for women to be taken seriously in the tech and gaming community and why there's so little participation from them, they suffer this kind of sexism early on their life on most of the time and it's not so hard to see why this can be very discouraging.

BTW, playing with a hula-hoop is not the same as wearing a see-thru shirt. I wouldn't be surprised if those hula-hoops are provided by the company.

If I would still be working at TS I would push to have a Code of Conduct[1][2] to have it enforced in this community.

 

[cliffordcooley]

Sad when people think, there are only two social settings in life (work or bar). My God which of the two categories, should we put all those other settings in? I guess when everyone is shopping and having a good time, they should be considered to be in a bar. Because they are obviously not at work.

 

[davislane1]

I'm so glad I don't know 90% of the people who replied here personally, this thread is evidence of why it's so hard for women to be taken seriously in the tech and gaming community and why there's so little participation from them, they suffer this kind of sexism early on their life on most of the time and it's not so hard to see why this can be very discouraging.

The reason people don't take women seriously is their attitude. Not only do they like to demand their cake and eat it too, they also have the tendency to try and force people into conforming to their own ideas and feelings. You'll never be taken seriously acting like that. Professionally, the reason they are "underrepresented" in these (and other) fields is for reason of demonstrable differences in cognitive ability and time management habits between men and women.

The reason Ms. Horvath has only two white knights in this thread is because she destroyed her position with the incredibly irrational feeling that men gawking at hulahooping co-workers creates an "unsafe" work environment, calling into question the validity of her entire position. I was, in fact, moderately sympathetic to her cause up until I discovered her "final straw" was such a trivial and irrationally represented event.

If I would still be working at TS I would push to have a Code of Conduct[1][2] to have it enforced in this community.

One of the biggest things TS has going for it is that it gives its community members a lot of room in non-technical threads. Throwing Thor's Hammer at people for expressing "mean" opinions is the fastest way to clean up the discussion and consequently reduce ad revenue.

 

[Guest]

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm) calls this "Sex-Based Discrimination" or "Sex Discrimination Harassment" or "Sex Discrimination." No wonder I have never seen the use of the phrase "Gender Harassment." It only took a few seconds to search for the correct term; I guess the writer was too lazy to even do that.

 

[davislane1]

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sex.cfm) calls this "Sex-Based Discrimination" or "Sex Discrimination Harassment" or "Sex Discrimination." No wonder I have never seen the use of the phrase "Gender Harassment." It only took a few seconds to search for the correct term; I guess the writer was too lazy to even do that.

As a rule, one should never call out a writer for failing to perform research when one's own correction lacks thorough research itself. In this case, the very first result on Google: http://carleton.ca/equity/human-rights/gender/gender-discriminationharassment/

You have to understand, while science and business majors have to constantly discover and develop new things to stay afloat, credentialed participants of the social justices must continually invent new terms for various real and manufactured issues.

 

[Guest]

The link you provide is Canadian. Here in the U.S. it is typically called sex discrimination. Maybe the reason the first link is the first link is because it is the most authoritative. By the way, your last sentence made no sense.

 

[davislane1]

By the way, your last sentence made no sense.

I was alluding to the fact that "gender" discrimination is a wholly unnecessary term invented by people with nothing better to do.

 

[Darth Shiv]

The reason Ms. Horvath has only two white knights in this thread is because she destroyed her position with the incredibly irrational feeling that men gawking at hulahooping co-workers creates an "unsafe" work environment, calling into question the validity of her entire position. I was, in fact, moderately sympathetic to her cause up until I discovered her "final straw" was such a trivial and irrationally represented event.

Well the "last straw" I agree was very weak - she was feeling a bit oversensitive imho but the rest of her story has some pretty severe alarm bells.

What on earth are female staff (or anyone really) hula hooping in an office for? I'd be "gawking" thinking what the...??? We had an interesting male work colleague who, at lunch, for exercise, used to "lift" his office chair like he was using it for weight training. I'd be gawking at that too...

 

[mario]

The reason people don't take women seriously is their attitude. Not only do they like to demand their cake and eat it too, they also have the tendency to try and force people into conforming to their own ideas and feelings. You'll never be taken seriously acting like that. Professionally, the reason they are "underrepresented" in these (and other) fields is for reason of demonstrable differences in cognitive ability and time management habits between men and women.

The reason Ms. Horvath has only two white knights in this thread is because she destroyed her position with the incredibly irrational feeling that men gawking at hulahooping co-workers creates an "unsafe" work environment, calling into question the validity of her entire position. I was, in fact, moderately sympathetic to her cause up until I discovered her "final straw" was such a trivial and irrationally represented event.

Two things:

#1, the reason there's only two "white knights" in this thread is because TS is also a boys club, I know because I've seen the stats and it's very easy to tell just from all the comments I've read in TS since I've worked here. Yeah the final straw was not a very controversial situation, but once the glass is full you just need one extra drop to spill it.

#2 Smart people take woman very seriously and smart companies try to hire a lot of women. No, they don't demand to "have the cake and eat it too" and no their cognitive time management abilities are not of lesser degree of that of a man, unless you have scientific references stating these facts you should refrain from saying it, it's not smart. At a previous company I worked for I was working under a hard working and very intelligent woman who a product manager, she was very capable and very enthusiastic about the work we were doing but she was never taken seriously by one of the C-level executives because she had suffered from harassment in the workplace and she was called to tell what had happened to her when another woman was harassed by the same person, who was good friends with the same C-level executive, and she brought the situation to HR.

I try to never engage in Internet comments because most of the time the discussion will go nowhere but racial and gender discrimination are intolerable and I would hate for TS to become a place where this sort of behavior is not frowned upon. I've been deeply involved in the development of this site and it's very sad to see this kind of attitude in its community.

 

[cliffordcooley]

@mario - I don't know you personally, but I would like to shake your hand.

 

[Darkshadoe]

"#1, the reason there's only two "white knights" in this thread is because TS is also a boys club,"

This session of the He-man Woman Haters Club shall now come to order. Alfalfa will you read the minutes from the last meeting?