Absolutely. I like to think of it terms of a guiding principle of non-universality. A lot of errors seem to spring from incorrectly assuming that everyone's definition of acceptable conduct is (or even should be) the same, or assuming that one person's (or group's) experience can be applied uniformly to a much larger group.

I recently had a great conversation with a friend who asked me if I could imagine being uncomfortable because of a woman's advances. I said yes, absolutely. She asked, if that woman were to ignore your rebuffs, could you imagine being in a situation where there'd be nothing you could do to stop it. And I couldn't. I mean, I could just leave the room. Or ask a figure with authority in the situation to step in. Or, if nobody else was around, just walk away. But that's because I wouldn't - couldn't - feel physically threatened by it. And so my understanding of the situation is necessarily non-universal. I have to take it on faith that women (hell, people in general) can feel threatened by things I don't understand as threatening because, definitionally, I can't experience things outside of my experience.

Sometimes conversations on gender and technology can get quite heated, and I feel unfairly caught up in a lot of quite powerful emotional crossfire when, like many others, I'm just trying to make sense of it and do what seems right as best I can. So far I've gotten decent mileage out of non-universality, proportionality, merit and consent as my axioms for this, but it's an evolving process.

I read this manifesto as largely being against a perceived universality of female opinion, and in that sense I agree with it. I know women who find wearing a hijab empowering, and others who consider it the worst kind of oppression. I know of women who don't care about, or even like, booth babes. I'm glad to hear dissenting voices to remind us that nobody, not Ada Lovelace herself, can give us the One Right Answer To Women In Computing that we've all been hoping for.

But I think that part of embracing non-universality is knowing its limitations. "We prefer taste, professionalism and behavior being created by living a culture of taste, fun, substance and standards" - I absolutely agree. But what standards? What taste? My experience of professional behaviour will determine my answers. If I've worked in a machine shop all my life, maybe "show us yer tits" seems perfectly professional. I agree that demonising men (even the men who do the wrong thing) isn't the right answer, but there does need to be some answer if there's any hope of improving the situation.

What we need is a way of collectively agreeing on what is okay. Like any protocol, it might have variations and exceptions, but some kind of standard that attendees can consent to: "we can't tell you what good taste is, but we can all agree to at least this much".

As a newspaper for beleaguered women to whap over the nose of all those naughty men, I would be vehemently against any anti-harassment policy. In those terms it would seem like just entrenched victimhood. But as a system for establishing an acceptable, consensual standard of behaviour I consider these policies a great step forward for the technology industry.

It might seem like being very open and high-minded to say "we don't need rules", but for the men and women who are most at risk that's just saying "there are rules but we won't tell you what they are or how they work". An undocumented protocol is still a protocol, one whose understanding often requires tragic mistakes.