The new culture at Uber is off to a running start. At least he apologized but seriously, this kind of thing at a meeting "aimed at addressing the harassment of women and other unprofessional conduct within the company"? Totally tone deaf.
I'd be skeptical of calling it a "new culture." When you make apologies and changes based on external pressure instead of true understanding, the problems won't actually go away.
Yes, that was my point in an earlier thread. Institutions have a lot of inertia and even if you change all of the management the old habits will remain until that inertia is overcome. This can take a long time.
Yeah, though hopefully it was a public teaching moment as to the kinds of "microaggressions" that women face every day. Even ones accomplished enough to be on the board of a multi-billion dollar company.
The "joke" occurred shortly after Arianna made a "white men" "joke". I doubt he would have made his comment if she hadn't first made a similar comment that prompted that sort of kneejerk retort among two colleagues on familiar terms who are both at least two or more generations removed from the average tech worker. Arianna is 66 and Bonderman is 74.
"My goal was to increase the diversity of the board, much though [sic] I love my white male colleagues" Then she starts talking about diverse hires on the board. Not sure how it was a joke. I don't think anyone would have raised an eyebrow at that. It wasn't derogatory at all.
To them it's normal. If you haven't seen any different then it can be very hard to get rid of your instantaneous embarrassing responses.
I worked for a short period at a large US bank branch office in the Netherlands. The stuff that got said there about the women working there when they were out of earshot (and sometimes within) does not bear repeating. It's only in the last decade or so that this is (slowly) improving but workplace harassment is on the order of the day and I won't hold my breath until it is all behind us.
Wow, what a damn idiot. I mean seriously. I just can't think of any way to paint this as ok! I've already uninstalled Uber and tell my friends to avoid it like the plague but this just takes the cake. They really think people are going to take their "investigation" seriously when they act like this?
Especially when the head of "investigation" is the man who should be in jail himself, Eric Holder aka Fast&Furious. His actions caused the death of at least on US official (boarder patrol). Hopefully Trump will find the time and get to him in his crusade into draining the swamp.
You just don't get it. Who cares if its true! Try, for a moment, to put yourself in the shoes of someone of the opposite gender (I assume you're a man) and imagine how that would make you feel about joining a company board after all that's happened with Uber so far on the sexism and gender discrimination front. If you did, you'd never have written this comment...but you seem to have an empathy issue.
I really really doubt anyone would care if someone made a similar joke about men. At best someone would note that it's hypocritical like I am, but not actually be personally offended. Some women make comments like that all the time and no one cares.
Hi there! You also "don't get it"! That's NOT THE POINT. Who cares if anyone would care if women said that about men.
It wouldn't matter if women made that joke about men because we have a ton of privilege just by nature of our gender. Look at the context here! This is a company that has oppressed an entire gender and it just continues. And then this shit. So why does it even matter if women said that about men? And would they? And are they doing stuff like that systemically, like men do, systematically since the dawn of civilization putting women in a lesser role?
You are possibly right to be frustrated about gender problems, but your suggestion — that in the fight for gender equality it's ok to construct a double standard for men and women — is mistaken. If you want to fix gender inequality, fix specific unjust advantages and disadvantages. The idea that because men have blanket "privilege" women should be compensated with additional privileges leads to more inequality, not less.
You straight up asked me to imagine the situation was reversed. And I did. And I noted that it wouldn't bother me or really anyone. No one cares about women making fun of men, and I don't think they should. Especially if it was an offhand joke about how men talk more or less or something. I can't even imagine how that would raise any emotion in me. I might even laugh at it, provided the joke was executed well.
You are really grasping at straws to make an excuse for a double standard. Either gendered jokes are ok or they aren't. It shouldn't matter what gender.
Anyway the political skew on this site is ridiculous. The f-ing president of the United States got elected after saying way more heinous shit about women than this. Half the population still voted for him and loves him. Yet on this site any comment even remotely critical of feminism is downvoted and flagged to hell or removed by the mods.
And my comment in reply to this nonsense got flagged and downvoted, 3 days later, on an already flagged and buried subthread. Wtf. You guys are just proving my point.
Nearly every study shows that men talk as much as women, if not more than women. However, men see their talk as "important networking and collaboration" and women's talk as "unimportant trivia and gossip"
"It is statistically true that women speak more than men" [1], therefore it is wholly appropriate for this guy to crack this comment as a joke, interrupting a woman talking about the benefits of more women on the board, at an event specifically about sexual harassment.
Is that your argument?
[1] Is bullshit, by the way. Studies vary widely, and in some studies indicate that it depends on context to a degree that the conclusion that "women talk more" is basically meaningless.
I am not aware of studies validating the quality of conversations between sexes. Which means someone should record what a random sample of CEOs say and reasonably classify it.
The problem with this comment is that it's uncivil, baselessly inflammatory, and launches the discussion right into generic flamewar territory—territory that Hacker News needs to spend exactly zero time in. Please don't post like this again.
Since this has come up in the thread, I'll put this out there. While this would be an inappropriate comment regardless of whether it's true, it's also based on a unsupported and probably false generalization: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4488.
support: "In the collaborative setting, 37 female and 42 male master’s students worked to complete a graded assignment in 12 hours. The researchers found that women tended to interact more with each other, especially in long conversations."
The strange thing is that the same comment has been used in support of gender equality. In Iceland, where every board must have at least 40% representation for each gender, they interviewed some female CEOs, who said something like, "Men are selfish! That's how we got the financial crises. Women will look out for the good of the group. It's in our DNA."
Aggressive feminists are overrepresented because it takes a special kind of woman to even want to compete in aggression and sometimes sociopathy with male CEOs...
To anyone who did not bother to read the article, the comment was something along the lines of "adding more women to the board will ensure more talking."
The remark wasn't directed at an individual, wasn't harassing, wasn't despairing, wasn't sexual, wasn't crude, and definitely wasn't in any way malicious. I realize it's trendy to get offended now-a-days (one word? three?), but come on. Seriously? This is what we've been reduced to getting worked up over?
To be honest, the context of the meeting makes this extremely tame joke kind of funny. I have zero problems with this and am actually a little salty I spent the time to type this reply about a non-story.
"Women talk so much, am I right?" is a sexist statement, and it's particularly egregious when interrupting a fellow (edit: female) board member at an event announcing the new, non-sexist culture of the company.
Whether or not positive and negative sterotypes are used are kind of besides the point, its the fact that a stereotype was used at all. Let me give an example, if you say im a jew so I have money, os that negative or positive? Even if you think its positive, the fact that the stereotype is validated implies that other stereotypes are true.
Now this particular joke is pretty tame, certainly. If he wanted to he could have add the qualifier " more talking, bringing more perspectives to the table" or something. But the way he said it could have been interpreted as a stereotype, and therefore is problematic
i appreciate it when people do that instead of just downvoting - which doesn't exactly stimulate communication :)
(It would be cool if downvoting on HN would only be permitted if also commenting...)
>[As a man], I have zero problems with this and am actually a little salty I spent the time to type this reply about a non-story.
Added additional context to your statement.
Why is the question you are asking is "Why are we getting upset over this?" instead of "Why do people say unnecessarily sexist jokes that aren't actually funny?"?
I'm not making that assumption. The only assumption I'm making is that the parent is a male, which is based on Hacker News demographic and the type of person who usually makes these arguments.
This was a mistake, but it is only outrageous in the context of the company's past misbehavior. It does make it clear just how difficult it will be to move past their present issues, though.
It is hard to judge if this was inappropriate without knowing the context. It can be seen as a positive thing to have more communication or "talking" if the board has more female members. It also depends on the guy's relationship with people present. It can be considered a joke if they were on friendly terms. I think journalism can be put to better use than reporting a non-story like this.
Edit. After knowing this was in all hands meeting I think it is inappropriate.
one of these days i'm finally going to sit down and write a book called "As Dumb as I Wanna Be" (and yes it is sampling rodman's title)(side note: trump appoints rodman to Nork ambassadorship in 3....2.....1.....)....
but stuff like this you just can't make up. problem is there is just too much material. hell, it's going to take many chapters just to cover the first 120 days of trump presidency, nevermind the volume if he doesn't end up getting impeached...soon..
there just seems to be no end to what i call rectal inversion syndrome, which is a tragic and common affliction of having one's head up one's ass..
It seems to me like the primary reason this turned into a big deal is because of context, not the remark per se. Not only was it at a large meeting where they were supposedly going to improve on the issue of how women are treated there, but it interrupted the only female board member. So, that is why this has turned into drama. It speaks volumes wrt the level of lack of respect for women there and just how deep it runs.
It just makes it an easier target that the remark was about women. But I am guessing this would have become news even if he had said something else because the point is "We are gathered here today to talk about how we are going to up our game and treat women with genuine respect...let me show you exactly how much respect I have for women by interrupting the only female board member to kind of mock her and the entire agenda we are discussing."
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 104 ms ] threadhttps://youtu.be/b4q-WwXgYHU
That said, the comment was still inappropriate.
I worked for a short period at a large US bank branch office in the Netherlands. The stuff that got said there about the women working there when they were out of earshot (and sometimes within) does not bear repeating. It's only in the last decade or so that this is (slowly) improving but workplace harassment is on the order of the day and I won't hold my breath until it is all behind us.
Edit: Looks like the evidence isn't on my side on this one. Ok, it's been addressed; I've changed my mind on the matter.
It wouldn't matter if women made that joke about men because we have a ton of privilege just by nature of our gender. Look at the context here! This is a company that has oppressed an entire gender and it just continues. And then this shit. So why does it even matter if women said that about men? And would they? And are they doing stuff like that systemically, like men do, systematically since the dawn of civilization putting women in a lesser role?
- A man
You are really grasping at straws to make an excuse for a double standard. Either gendered jokes are ok or they aren't. It shouldn't matter what gender.
Anyway the political skew on this site is ridiculous. The f-ing president of the United States got elected after saying way more heinous shit about women than this. Half the population still voted for him and loves him. Yet on this site any comment even remotely critical of feminism is downvoted and flagged to hell or removed by the mods.
Nearly every study shows that men talk as much as women, if not more than women. However, men see their talk as "important networking and collaboration" and women's talk as "unimportant trivia and gossip"
"It is statistically true that women speak more than men" [1], therefore it is wholly appropriate for this guy to crack this comment as a joke, interrupting a woman talking about the benefits of more women on the board, at an event specifically about sexual harassment.
Is that your argument?
[1] Is bullshit, by the way. Studies vary widely, and in some studies indicate that it depends on context to a degree that the conclusion that "women talk more" is basically meaningless.
I am not aware of studies validating the quality of conversations between sexes. Which means someone should record what a random sample of CEOs say and reasonably classify it.
Touchy subjects I guess. Of course, when the maturity of civilization is hovering around TODDLER, what do you expect?
Ariana Huffington lays out course corrections
David Bonderman: "Yah but fuckn' women, amirite?"
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/do-women-talk-mor...
Here's a nice introduction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men_and_feminism
The remark wasn't directed at an individual, wasn't harassing, wasn't despairing, wasn't sexual, wasn't crude, and definitely wasn't in any way malicious. I realize it's trendy to get offended now-a-days (one word? three?), but come on. Seriously? This is what we've been reduced to getting worked up over?
To be honest, the context of the meeting makes this extremely tame joke kind of funny. I have zero problems with this and am actually a little salty I spent the time to type this reply about a non-story.
I guess it depends a lot on the context and how it was said/meant.
Now this particular joke is pretty tame, certainly. If he wanted to he could have add the qualifier " more talking, bringing more perspectives to the table" or something. But the way he said it could have been interpreted as a stereotype, and therefore is problematic
i appreciate it when people do that instead of just downvoting - which doesn't exactly stimulate communication :) (It would be cool if downvoting on HN would only be permitted if also commenting...)
Added additional context to your statement.
Why is the question you are asking is "Why are we getting upset over this?" instead of "Why do people say unnecessarily sexist jokes that aren't actually funny?"?
It's just ESPECIALLY glaring during the meeting about sexual harassment.
Edit. After knowing this was in all hands meeting I think it is inappropriate.
It was a company-wide meeting. Wikipedia says they have 12,000 employees, so I doubt he's on friendly terms with all of them.
but stuff like this you just can't make up. problem is there is just too much material. hell, it's going to take many chapters just to cover the first 120 days of trump presidency, nevermind the volume if he doesn't end up getting impeached...soon..
there just seems to be no end to what i call rectal inversion syndrome, which is a tragic and common affliction of having one's head up one's ass..
It just makes it an easier target that the remark was about women. But I am guessing this would have become news even if he had said something else because the point is "We are gathered here today to talk about how we are going to up our game and treat women with genuine respect...let me show you exactly how much respect I have for women by interrupting the only female board member to kind of mock her and the entire agenda we are discussing."
That is my read on it.