Read "Families and how to survive them" by John Cleese and Robin Skynner. It's a dialog between John Cleese (yes, the Monty Python) and his therapist. The topics range from birth to adulthood, and they also touch on how people get involved in extremist political movements. This is highly interesting and - at least for me - eye-opening.

Honestly I would be flattered if someone did that. Because it would show me that they're sincere in their criticism, and that they spent a lot of time thinking about and addressing my issues. I don't detect any passive-aggressiveness in that. Rather, I see it as satire, which is a valid tool for criticism, in my opinion even one of the highest forms of criticism there is. Because satire is really, really hard to do.

My response would be: "Well played, dear Sir and/or Madam, now here's why you are wrong ..."

debating these sorts of issues like humans beings

And here's the problem. Who defines what "like human beings" means? You? I? Because we two have different opinions on that. Do we hold an election? Do we ask every single person on the planet and then ban anything that could be offensive to anyone? Do we all carry around little flyers with all the stuff that we think is offensive and exchange that before we can engage in conversation? This creates hell for everybody. You end up with a bunch of paranoids who won't talk to anybody because every little thing could upset someone.

Having different opinions and challenging other people is fine.

Yes, it is. And this includes the fact that other people have different opinions on what "different opinions" and "challenging other people" means.

That's why we agreed to have free speech a long, long time ago (and agreed to outlaw physical violence). That's why we deem free speech as something that is important and worth protecting. Yes, getting your ego bruised once in a while does hurt. But you can learn to swallow your pride. And you can learn to not take things so damn personal. Words can't hurt you nearly as much once you learn that. I know it's hard, but it's definitely doable and worth it. And your general level of happiness goes way up once you stop being offended by everything around you.

Also, one thing you need to understand is this: once you start policing your own behavior so that other people won't take offence the goal posts will invariably start to shift. If someone is determined to be offended they will find a way and you will lose another way of expressing yourself. It's impossible to win this game.

There's a great book called "The four agreements" by don Miguel Ruiz and one of the four basic ideas is to stop taking anything personal. Because, for example, everything I say to you has nothing to do with you, but everything to do with me. If I'm mean to you then I'm mean because of myself, not because of you. If I'm giving compliments, then I do that because of me, not because of you. Likewise I know that whatever you write has nothing to do with me, so there's no way I could take anything you write personal (ideally at least, I'm still learning and practicing this way of life).

It's not an easy attitude to have, because we've taken everything people have said to us personal for so long. Unlearning that behavior takes time and practice. But it's an incredible way to deal with criticism. If someone comes up to me and says: "Hey vertex, you have a stupid face and you stink!" then I know that those words have nothing to do with me, but everything to do with that person. They have given me a couple of poisonous words, but I'm not obliged to take them by feeling offended or arguing against them. If I don't accept the poison it's impossible for them to force it on me. And once this person learns that nobody is taking their bait then they will eventually understand that their behavior is pointless and they need to think of some other way to interact with people. Don't feed the trolls, so to speak.

And, contrary to the idea of policing everybody's behavior, this actually works.

If you're going to try and structure the industry using those criteria you're going to create hell for everybody.

Just think about it:

It's not going to make the researcher feel good about themselves

Yeah, but your comment is not going to make the guys behind C+= feel good about themselves either! We need to make the industry more friendly to them! See how that works? And of course my comment doesn't make you feel good about yourself, so I need to be more friendly as well! And on and on ...

It's inevitable that sooner or later some people are going to feel bad. Sure, human interaction is not a zero sum game, but it's not possible to please everybody in a universe with finite resources. Sooner or later there's going to be conflict. If you make the emotional state of everybody an official concern of the industry then you've created an industry that can't do anything anymore, because whatever you do there's someone who does not like it.

So how will you decide what's acceptable and what not so that everybody feels good about it? How will you structure a whole industry so that it is friendly and inclusive to everybody, no matter how different they are?

You simply can't.

And there's no need to do that in the first place. Sure, there aren't a lot of women in the industry. But there are a few. And they're doing fine. If they want to work in the field they have no problem doing that and they have no problem with the culture either. It's simply that most women find it an utterly boring field and they prefer working somewhere else.

They'd be as miserable in the tech industry as I would be as a kindergarten teacher.

stuff like this doesn't make the industry any friendlier.

Why?