Nope. She has all sorts of fictionalised anecdotes going on in her article. Can I know for sure? No. But I trust my BS meter more than this troublemaker.
She describes herself as a "troublemaker" on her Twitter profile, which may or may not mean she makes things up to get attention.
And whatever your thoughts on her article, perhaps you should just keep them to yourself on the off chance that, you know, you might be wrong. She mentioned she can produce evidence for the DEFCON story elsewhere in this thread so you might want to get that $500 ready.
And I said I wanted recorded evidence, so my $500 is safe. The reason it's safe is not because the cameras weren't rolling but because 24 men never chanted "show us your tits". Who knows, maybe one idiot in the crowd did... but 24 didn't.
I just watched some of her talk on youtube, and she has the crowd in her hand. She owns the topic and gets laughs and respect. Even the youtube comments are all positive.
If you ask me, she seems like a bit of a wild child. She's cheeky, she doesn't give a f--- about anything. She's smart. And the crowd is into her stuff.
If the "show us your tits" incident actually happened, it may well have been a failed attempt at extreme irony or bad-taste humour because of her obvious talent at the subject matter rather than any literal "sexist remark at a woman because she's a woman". I'm not defending such behaviour, but with everything like this, intent and context needs to be closely examined.
She's come out and used it as example of "sexism in tech" when it might well be an example of "robotics geeks showing respect by way of a clumsy and deliberate disregard of civilised discourse.". Perhaps it was an attempt at nodding to the Las Vegas themed "bad behaviour" after dark, combined with a nerdy attempt at being funny, all in an attempt to get the attention of this girl they actually admire.
Context and intent is everything. And her article doesn't take that into account. This is the reason she writes below in caps "it's all okay we worked it out"... meaning the incident at DEFCON.
I'm not a prude, nor particularly feminist (other than the usual 'I couldn't give a fuck who you are as long as you can code' etc). But I'm still struggling to see any context where chanting 'show us your tits' isn't a completely unacceptable thing to say to another human outside of a strip bar.
And I really can't see how you can argue it's anything other than sexist, unless women start shouting 'show us your cock' at the next RMS lecture.
I'm proud to have the audience working with me at the end. That's what a good speaker does. That doesn't mean they were with me in the beginning. Most of them probably didn't know me before I went up on stage.
I can probably dig up some witnesses if it really would change your mind, or you can ask the DEFCON officials.
> Perhaps it was an attempt at nodding to the Las Vegas themed "bad behaviour" after dark, combined with a nerdy attempt at being funny
Switching from it-never-happened to maybe-she-misunderstood pretty quickly, no? Evidence of the latter would be enough to cost you $500. But It's pretty wild that you think someone who understands and plays the audience that well would misunderstand their intent.
I get the feeling that you actually realize how little you know about the event, and I encourage that. Weird things happen all the time, especially in Vegas.
FWIW, the event in question actually did happen - I'm not just taking sides in an internet argument here; I know it for a fact.
She describes herself as a "troublemaker" on her Twitter profile, which may or may not mean she makes things up to get attention.