Personally, I prioritize "A problem got solved" over "people are talking about problems." One thing I like about this article, the Uber situation, and so on is they're getting some results. The massive problem still remains and is the lede but that's another good one.
I hope this becomes more and more common, leading to actual protections against it, and not the "We're totally serious about combating harassment and sexism, this time, for reals" response that it seems has the the norm for the past several years.
I would classify a small minority of these instances as "harrassment." Specifically, the groping. That's sexual assault. Most of the rest of it, though, in my opinion, is much ado about nothing.
Now we live in a world where a guy can be publicly shamed for attempting to flirt or for making a pass at a woman he is interested in?
If a woman sent me a Facebook message saying that she wanted to date me, or even sleep with me, and I wasn't interested, I would just say "No", not call a newspaper. It's an offer, not a rape.
Newsflash: the workplace is the second most common place for couples to meet. People of different genders who are bound to sometimes be attracted to one another are going to be forced to spend long hours with one another. And a lot of people are not good with subtle cues, especially men.
Uneven power dynamics makes this more complicated, but a complete social ban on any attempt at flirting is just silly. Speaking of uneven power dynamics, try to find me an example of a man reporting a woman to a newspaper because she offered to sleep with him.
As a trans m2f2a pansexual, hearing strong women who are just like me standing up against sexual harassment fills my heart with hope and my eyes with tears of joy.
Keep fighting the good fight ladies, for all of us!
>During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”
One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be reason enough to take pause for a moment, and maybe ponder why PR suicide seems like a good idea.
>Mr. Canter, in an interview, said that Ms. Dent “came on strong to me, asking for help” and that she had used her sexuality publicly. He said he disliked her ideas so he behaved the way he did to make her go away.
???
>Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said.
That one's just downright pathological creepy in the extreme.
Many 'successful' people who make it to ceo are more likely to be a psychopath according to the article. And I would describe these actions of the men who are more likely to be psychopath, not normal.
As a culture we are obsessed with psychopaths, but in reality there is nothing out of the ordinary about people who enjoy sadistically wielding power over others. You find them in every schoolyard. The difference between a psychopath and a bully is that bullies act in a way that increases their power and standing, so they are affected by (and can be constrained by) social and cultural norms, especially among adults. Our obsession with psychopaths (and the power fantasy it reflects) reinforces bullies' intuition that people secretly admire and envy their bad behavior.
I am white and male and the misogyny I've observed in tech has annoyed me. If it annoys me it must be intolerable to women. I believe every word of it and I could tell a few stories of things I've seen.
I've seen a lot of other kinds of assholery too. Tech has an underbelly just like any other major industry. FWIW I've heard Hollywood and Wall St. are worse.
A bank I worked at in the mid 80's had one woman working on a floor in a fairly separate building away from the main building. That one woman had to endure pretty much constant harassment from two guys who were technically her superior and their boss didn't lift a finger to stop it.
I made a good bit of noise about it to HR and then she begged me to stop because she was afraid they'd let her go. The two guys that did this (Koert Borst and Jos Haarsma, I sincerely hope they read this, assuming they are still alive) were crossing so many lines in their behavior I lost count.
Fortunately I only worked in that department (systems administration) for about a year before landing a job at the computer center which was far away from the main offices. Assholes would be too friendly a term to describe those two, it was downright sadistic how they enjoyed harassing her until she cried.
This is a small thing, but I have multiple friends who routinely had Linkedin requests that resulted in date requests. Having to constantly reset professional relationships back to where they should be is something I, as a guy, have never had to deal with. This is the low tier stuff, and it's still, in my mind, totally unacceptable. There's bigger stuff I'm not comfortable talking about in an open forum. A couple of the people I have in mind have given up on the tech scene and moved on elsewhere.
I'd question that. My wife is a former bond trader. At one point, the guys on her trading desk took her out to drinks, and one asked her, "So, are you still a virgin?" She was about 25 at the time.
Do you think tech doesn't have these problems? I suspect you're going to say that you've never personally seen it, but culture can vary a lot from desk to desk in finance.
Stereotypically, you have cash equities at one extreme and exotic derivatives at the other. Outside of banks, the culture at an HFT firm or quant hedge fund will be completely different from the culture on a "bro-y" bank desk.
It's true I would never personally have seen it in tech, but I'll say that my wife has recounted this story to a number of my female friends with 10+ years of experience in tech, and their response is "Seriously? Wow."
Yes because tech is much more culturally diverse, with large amounts of immigrants and second generation children of immigrants. If you've ever worked at a large tech company, you would know that the average team is very quiet because of the cultural barriers. The few Americans on the team are very introverted and again have a slight cultural barrier even with each other because many of them are the children of immigrants. The frat % is undoubtedly much lower in tech (if it's even represented at all) compared to banking.
I suppose there's more to this story than you're telling, because on the face of it - all I can say is people ask other people such questions over drinks, regardless of gender.
Asking a woman who's 25 if she's still a virgin is a clearly loaded question - if she says yes then she's admitting to be inexperienced and should sleep with the the 'man' asking in order to learn the ways of the world, and if she says no then she's admitting that she's sexually active and therefore willing to sleep with a 'man' like the one asking the question.
Creepy assholes use this sort of tactic because they get off on making someone else feel bad. If you see it you really should call them out.
It's context. The scenario plays out differently in most peoples' heads if said to a 40-year old veteran of the industry vs. a 25-year-old new hire vs. a 19-year-old intern. I'd agree that it's inappropriate for all of them, but it's inappropriate in different ways.
While that's obviously not okay, I'd be hard pressed to come up with predominantly-male industry where that wouldn't happen once in a while. Over drinks with inhibitions lowered? Creeper's gonna creep.
Paying someone for sex is not the same as harassing your coworkers. You're also extremely naive if you think this doesn't happen in every other sales heavy industry.
London just happens to have a large financial sector. I can assure you that the same thing happens in the oil, tech, and real estate industries for example.
If we're taking about anecdotes, I had a friend in college who was a sex worker and most of her customers were in tech.
"Sex worker" denotes consensual sex work, while "prostitution" includes human trafficking.
Also sex workers includes dancers in strip clubs, phone sex operators and adult magazine models none of which engage in the physical act of sex with others as part of their job:
Yeah, weaponized linguistics. The problem is, as any weapon, it can backfire.
General public doesn't give a rat's ass about jargon churned out by all those activists. And I'm absolutely not singling out sex workers here, SJWs tend to be the biggest offenders now.
If public familiarity with some subtle, nonobvious definition of "sex worker" is an important point of their strategy, they are probably doing it wrong. If they are getting collateral damage from the human trafficking propaganda, they can talk about "legal sex work" or whatever to cut themselves from it.
Activists overestimate familiarity with their jargon and ideas in the public. Firstly, because they live in echo chambers. Secondly, because virtue signalers amplify apparent popularity outside of the echo chambers too. It's a trap. Ask people who were sure that Trump will lose.
So, for example, let's say you're an activist and you use "SJW" with the general public. Is that an example of overestimating familiarity with your jargon?
I now feel compelled to explain myself. My use of it was only in a secondary remark, non important for the main point of my post. And I think somebody versed in the nuances of sex work advocacy may have heard of this concept too. If not, well, not much loss.
Interesting that you caught SJW and missed virtue signaling. This is more obscure I think and, admittedly, it was a part of my main point. So, from google:
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
Its really amusing you have chosen to make up your own ridiculous term - "weaponized linguistics" yet you have a hard time accepting the rather mundane and intuitive term "sex worker." Even more laughable than your own made up term is your use of an esoteric acronym(and no, I don't know or even care what it means.)
Also I was not promoting the term or any agenda I was simply explaining the nature of the term to the OP because they asked. Maybe you should go back and read the context.
I don't have any problem accepting "sex worker". I think it's a fine and intuitive way to describe somebody doing, well, sex-related work. I only don't find it intuitive at all that it must necessarily be somebody working willingly. I think it's an assault on grammar rules and logic to insist that people believe so. Three others appear to agree with me, or at least upvoted that post for whatever reason.
The esoteric acronym is of minor relevance, feel free to disregard it if your time can be better spent than researching this issue.
Note that I took a great care to rant in third person ("they"). Nothing personal.
The one sexual harassment case I saw on Wall Street in the decade I worked there was dealt with viciously by HR, in favor of the victim.
My network informs me that similar efficiency exists across the Street. I'd encourage any women skeezed out by SV to apply for Wall Street jobs: more cash, less groping.
When I saw Wolf of Wall Street I couldn't believe the in office orgies shown. I was like "How don't people get sued". I brought that up with friends in finance and they basically said "oh the stories I could tell" and they were referring to their current jobs.
So apparently that does happen on Wall Street as well?
I think cringe is the wrong word. We cringe when we watch The Office and see people make social mistakes without meaning to. These are not unwitting social mistakes. This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.
Furthermore, not having met any of these people but speculating based on my experience, I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work. I think they also enjoy the nineteen out of twenty who are repulsed and insulted but don't -- correction, hopefully, didn't -- think they could afford to call them on their bullshit. Very few people are genuinely indifferent to putting someone through an experience like that, but it's very common for people to enjoy it. Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not. I'm sure the people described in the article took care to stay on the right side of the law, but reading this I can't help hoping that they made mistakes.
>Nope. These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.
To be fair, even an asshole may show some restraint when they have a clear understanding of consequences. Thinking their money buys them immunity from consequence is an enabler as they don't believe they have the slightest need for this kind of rational self-interest.
You are both right, an asshole is an asshole as you suggest, but even so, assholes are worse when they think they won't face consequences as the poster your replied to implied.
I think it's important to distinguish that these aren't people who are necessarily assholes to everyone. They have plenty of friends and acquaintances who would never believe they'd do something like this. And others who upon hearing it, would've assumed it was a harmless misunderstanding.
I think one of the larger problems that society is struggling with is the idea that two different people can be in very similar proximity, interact with the same people and yet one can have to suffer through radically different (and horrible) treatment.
The reason I believe this is so difficult, is the other person legitimately think "I know that person, I know that place, I've gone through that and I've never seen anything remotely close to that." And reasonably conclude that it didn't happen. It's difficult to accept that there is an entire world that they don't ever experience.
But we all need a find a way to account for this, because too many people go through beimg mistreated and their concerns are simply dismissed.
It matters because it creates a situation where one set of people have an awful experience with someone, and another set all say "well, in my experience he's perfectly nice and would certainly never do something like that..."
I suppose the fact that they are assholes in one situation but behave respectably in another is what makes this discrimination? If they were assholes to everyone then....
I think it is an interesting thing I see with successful people that they often attribute too much of there success to their personalities and too little to luck and circumstances. This makes them believe their own bullshit about how great they are, and how bad other people are.
Because the people who have only witnessed them being "nice" are less likely to hold them accountable when hearing of their terrible behavior with others.
The other part of the situation which we're not hearing and are unlikely to ever hear are the cases where the interest was somewhat mutual. Given the billions of dollars at stake and the fame that comes with startup glory, I don't think it's a stretch to believe there are some female founders that try to use their sexuality to their advantage. Perhaps I'm naive, but given how blatant some of the stories have been, I wonder whether these men didn't arrive at their apparent level of bluntness without having gone through a few rounds of being more subtle and moving a lot slower. I'm willing to bet that these men have been somewhat conditioned into this level of behavior.
Don't get me wrong...the behaviors in these accusations are reprehensible and, even if the interest was entirely mutual, it would piss me off to no end if I were an investor in any of these funds that the managers were using my money to pursue women or generally anything other than trying to invest in the most promising companies. Even if they didn't have an obligation to the women pitching to them or common decency, which they do, they still have an responsibility to their investors which they completely violated.
But if we're going to be consistent, we need to call out anyone who brings anything sexual into what should be a strictly business setting, and I'd bet there are people on both sides of the pitch who've done that.
Intellectual consistency would require acknowledging the systematic repression of women in western history (not being able to vote, etc), and thus, the effects of what is still a patriarchial culture as often as not.
In other words, your argument attempts to ignore simple historical facts which you can verify easily on Wikipedia.
Where did I ignore that? I called their behavior reprehensible. I'm just saying that it's unlikely the behavior exists in a vacuum and that things are never as black and white as they're made out to be.
Historical oppression doesn't justify questionable behavior. I've seen many instances where women have "dated up" to help their careers. I even saw one instance where a female director dated the CTO and later the CFO to have someone to support her coke habit. Just calling out the men will never truly fix the problem. We need to be giving a consistent message to both sexes. These types of relationships (and expectations of relationships) are not acceptable under any circumstances. Because if it's wrong for men to pressure women but it's okay for women to pursue those men, then there can always be the hope in the back of the man's mind that maybe it's possible.
So if, say, 1,000 men got completely unsolicited propositions, groping, etc. and one man "dated up" at a company with women in high leadership positions, would you argue that those problems are exactly equally important and exactly equally serious and make sure to post comments about how incredibly important it is to ensure some balanced coverage and make sure everyone knows that it's not just solely a one-sided issue? Would you make sure to imply that anyone who focused on the much more common case was "justifying questionable behavior"? And try to drag the topic away from the common case?
Do you also do this in discussions of any other topic whatsoever? Whenever someone posts something about HTTP, do you make sure to post comments about Gopher and present it as being just as important?
I'm not trying to say they're equal problems. I'm trying to say that the one problem contributes to the other. In your example, the one man who dated up creates that possibility in the mind of the groper in those other 1,000 incidents. It's like the 1 super lotto winner among the millions who bought tickets. The event doesn't have to be likely for people to think that they might get lucky...people generally suck at estimating risk/reward. If there are zero winners, no one buys tickets, but since someone wins, millions play.
In the same way, if those advances were never successful, these men would quickly get the message and stop playing. But that doesn't seem to be the case since it's still happening way too frequently. If we want to stop this problem, we need to figure out how to get the message through that even in the cases where the advances were welcomed, they still did something wrong. And that requires more than just laying into those unfortunate few that are unlucky enough to do this kind of thing to women brave enough to come forward. It will require calling out those instances where the advances were welcomed.
I disagree. It's quite possible the behavior was completely unsolicited and uninvited. Things are sometimes exactly as wrong as they appear to be. To assume otherwise, with no evidence other than your own anecdotal experience, is... well, pretty much sexist!
This article, and this conversation is about one pathology. You bring up a different one and say "we should treat them equally!" - that's not very different from the "all lives matter" bullshit.
Sexism and discrimination of women in tech industry is a massive problem.
What you described probably exists in some cases, but is not a) related to the problem at hand and b) orders of magnitude less profound.
By bringing it up here and trying to tie those two together you're devaluating the severity of the problem at hand in the same way as if you went to an article about rape and started talking about those promiscous people who like sex.
Those pathetic douchebags were not "primed" by any experiences with women "dating up". They were primed, trained, protected and covered up by the shitty patriarchal society we live in. And it's worth tackling that problem without attempting to dilute it in "maybe she wanted it" sauce.
The other pathology is relevant because it contributes to the first one. It's not about equal exposure for the sake of equality, but relevant to understanding how shit works and how to deal with it.
Trying to see it from a cultural perspective, how common is it that female character "dates up" in books, TV and movies (and in particular, those targeting a female audience)?
Thinking back at the show Grey's Anatomy, ABC's highest-rated drama show, got a female lead, and was among the top 10 shows in the US. A recent joke the character made was that all of them married their bosses. While fictional, culture impacts perception regarding behavior and in turns causes behavior.
Everyone keeps mistaking my meaning. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior or say that it's okay. I've repeatedly condemned it. But we need to decide what we want as a result of bringing this kind of behavior out into the open. Do we want to punish and ostracize the guilty or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward? If it's the former, then by all means get out your pitchforks and we can condemn these men as fundamentally flawed human beings and women can continue to be subjected to this BS. But if it's the latter, then we really need to approach it from a more empathetic position. We need to understand the thought processes of these men to understand why they thought the behavior was in any way acceptable.
I see a lot of the vilification in these threads, but very little effort towards trying to understand. Chalking it up to "patriarchal society" may be fine from the standpoint of PC talking points, but it is intellectually lazy and just makes the situation more adversarial rather than one where we can come together and figure out the best ways to avoid this happening in the future. We want to make sure that the men who are in a position to abuse women like this learn why the behavior is wrong and not the steps to avoid (sms/fb/etc messages) getting caught.
This is why both pathologies are relevant. I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships with men in a position of power. But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men. It's an exploration of the thought process that led them to act in this way. Perhaps it's not what these men were thinking...it's just my projection, but no one has presented any argument or any other substantive possibility. They've just, like you, overreacted and sought to distort what I was trying to say because it didn't match the outrage and need for vengeance that they feel.
No it shouldn't. What he is saying is just fine if people would take the time to actually read it.
It's not even that people are disagreeing, it's that they see a trigger word and stop reading, then launch into a straw man attack. I see that frequently in these "social justice" threads.
> or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward?
False equivalence. I would imagine if VCs and investors get the message that if they hit on women they'll be fired, they'll stop doing it.
> I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships with men in a position of power. But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men.
Okay, so to combat this "pathology", we'll say, "If you engage sexually with someone who approached you in a professional context, consensually or otherwise, you're fired". Seems easy enough, and that takes care of the problem.
> I would imagine if VCs and investors get the message that if they hit on women they'll be fired, they'll stop doing it.
You imagine wrong. Instead, they'll learn how to do it without getting caught. Lesson one comes from these incidents. Don't leave an electronic or paper trail. It's much less likely these women would have come forward if they hadn't had electronic records of chat sessions to back up their assertions.
If you only treat the symptoms of the problem, it will keep returning in different forms. You need to address the root of the problem and your over-simplified view of the issue will never allow you to do that.
In theory, there could be an intelligent psychological model that analyzes a male VC's brain and provides thoughtful suggestions to them to dissuade them from this behavior right before it occurs. While that's a nice thought, it's incredibly unrealistic.
The far more practical approach is to catch the bad guys over and over again, make examples of them and mete out punishment. That's how criminal deterrence works in every other field. No reason to make an exception here.
>> But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men
There was never any suggestion that any of the men in the article observed some
woman "dating up" and as a consequence of that felt justified to grope or send
inappropriate messages to the women in the article.
The men in the article themselves did not even try to portray their alleged
actions as justifiable, or excuseable by association with any other past
behaviour. They either admitted their behaviour was wrong or denied they ever
behaved in this manner.
And yet, here you are relating a story about a woman you once saw "dating up" to
try and explain those men's behaviour as something else than a simple mistake
that should not be repeated.
How is this useful, exactly? In what way does it contribute, besides changing
the subject and trying to shift the blame on the people who, in the article,
were reportedly subjected to undeniably inappropriate behaviour?
>> But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men
Btw, this does not compute. Those instances are "rare" but those men have "likely" witnessed them? When something is rare, most are unlikely to witness it.
Welcome to the law of large numbers. Winning the lottery is a rare event--more than one in a million. A hard drive failure is a rare event--most drives can have trillions of successful reads and writes before they fail. Yet we've all seen the people holding up those oversized checks and who among us has never had a hard drive fail on us?
These guys see hundreds of pitches. There's hundreds of VCs in the valley. Something can be rare--less than one in a hundred and still be likely. Rare for a single instance can be likely and expected across a large number of instances.
There's a bit of confusion here with "the law of large numbers". People do win
the lottery, but because it's very rare, only very few people do so. Hard drives
may fail if they remain in use over a very long time, but only a few drives will
remain so.
Accordingly, the "law of large numbers" as you report it, means that either only
a handful of those hundreds of VCs in SV have witnessed inappropriate pitch
behaviour, or this inappropriate pitch behaviour is not rare.
Regardless of the exact quantities, it remains true that an event is either
unlikely to be witnessed, or it is not rare. That an event will be witnessed
even though it is rare doesn't mean that it will be witnessed often.
The law of large numbers doesn't say that rare things happen often, is what I'm
saying. Because that would be an oxymoron, not a paradox (which that "law" is meant
to illustrate).
I was always wondering why it is not appropriate to watch the skirt of a woman when I find it nice. Do not get me wrong, I come from a family of feminists, happily married with kids.
But I am also pragmatic : when I wear a nice costume, it is too show off. When going outside, I know I will be surrounded by people who will watch me.
If I wear a flamboyant shirt, I cannot be upset that people are watching me. I find this normal. I will not find normal someone complaining or even getting in contact with me because of that (though, why not?) but watching, even intensely, is OK.
If I do not want to be seen I wear jeans and a blue t-shirt.
This is why I do not agree (including with my wife and mother) that women who wear nice, revealing things do this "for themselves". They do not. Le any other animal, we show how good we are. But we are evolved animals and this do not mean "take me", something people (mostly men) forget.
In short : watching someone who decided to exhibit is absolutely fine. Anything else is crossing the line.
Perhaps their intention is to look attractive to someone they know, and you’re not part of the intended audience. That doesn’t mean you can’t look, but watching “intensely” is likely to make some people very uncomfortable and you should be respectful enough to not do it if you’re not sure it’s welcome.
> Intellectual consistency would require acknowledging the systematic repression of women in western history (not being able to vote, etc), and thus, the effects of what is still a patriarchial culture as often as not.
Actually I'd say that dismissing a reasonable point about interactions between individual people using a narrow interpretation of history to establish a non-standard epistemology is the greater intellectual mistake.
In other words, that women couldn't vote 100 years ago says absolutely nothing about whether a venture capitalist abused his relationship with a client or whether a potential client tried to use sexuality for a competitive advantage.
Men need to work hard to jail those assholes, here's why: They are the reason why men are described as generally threatening, discrediting and imposing huge constraints in advance on all men who show proper social restraint and respect for women.
I wonder how many innocent people we'll end up condemning with this posture. It's not like history lacks any examples that demonstrates that this is exactly what happens when you get tough and prosecutorial. You're pretty much sanctioning a pitchfork and torch attitude and that evolves into mobs that are often wrong.
These days it feels like we've learn nothing from stories like the Scarlet Letter that describe a time from our history where we treated women how you now propose that we treat men. Neither gender deserves this.
> You're pretty much sanctioning a pitchfork and torch attitude and that evolves into mobs that are often wrong.
What you are seeing is the decline of rational and logical thinking. No one wants to think critically anymore, because smart phones reduce available cognitive resources.
So you end up in situations where an inflammatory, poorly researched article emotionally hijacks the brain of a person who would have normally been capable of rational thinking.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but there are numerous cases where outrage porn has ruined the lives of innocent people.
Men aren't going to be on the front line of this for the same reason white people aren't on the front line of combating racism [0]: even if we don't do awful things one side effect of which is to reinforce privilege, we still benefit from that privilege. A woman seeking funding has to worry about all the things a man seeking funding has to worry about, plus she has to deal with being pressured into sex. That's not great for society, but it is an advantage for men.
[0] as a white man, it is my privilege to make sweeping statements about whites and men b^)
While I get and understand your sentiment, the problem is that being an asshole and a creep isn't illegal in itself. If some male VC groped a female founder in the course of trying to set up a funding deal, then sure, press charges and make it right, but texting a founder "Why are you still with your boyfriend/partner/girlfriend? We should go out for drinks, I'm so much better than him" is just wrong, but not criminal.
As much as I would like to see punishment for clearly abusive and shitty behavior like this article describes, 90% of the time it comes down to character profiles as this thread explains. Even if it found its way into court, the defense would almost certainly try to be framed as a misunderstanding. Instead of punishing and potentially ruining lives for what is sounding like thought-crime, lets just get men off the pedestal and put them on the same goddamned level as women. A woman shouldn't have to defend her reputation for not being slutty if she gets groped, assaulted or raped, and more importantly shouldn't have to fear retaliation for accusing someone of being not just an asshole, but a dangerous asshole.
Then why does their behavior disproportionately affect women, who have less power to complain about their behavior? If this were entirely an aspect of their character or personality they'd be an asshole to everyone equally, not opportunistically take advantage of people who have less ability to stop them.
> These people are assholes because they know they can get away with it.
So yes, openly bigoted people are assholes. But if they knew their bigotry wouldn't fly, they would at least not be open about it and not be assholes to people.
I think they often are. But you don't hear about it, because almost no one cares about males at the bottom of the social ladder. At the bottom, men are "valued" (for a lack of a better word) even less than women.
Or perhaps being an asshole to someone in the mailroom because you didn't like the way round a letter was put on your table is not in the same scale of things as trying to coerce someone to have sex with you
Part of poor character is picking on people from a position of power, when they have something you want. Part of poor character is putting your urges ahead of your empathy.
Generally, when guys get screwed over by a terrible VCs it's "well they're a terrible vc ... you know them." But when it's by women "they crossed this boundry? I'm shocked!"
>Then why does their behavior disproportionately affect women
I'm sure they use their positions of power in many different ways that affect both men and women, but their sexual advances obviously target women because most of them are straight.
>women, who have less power to complain about their behavior
The exact opposite is true. Almost nobody would take a man who complains about sexual harassment seriously. Just look at the night and day difference in response to teacher student abuse when the student is a guy or a girl.
I do not understand what world people live in where constant special concern is twisted into a lack of it. I mean, I do, in so far as it's just benevolent sexism masquerading as equality, but I can't wrap my head around those people considering themselves rational.
High functioning sociopaths. A person can be an asshole and not know it. A sociopath knows they're not acting within acceptable social norms and hides it. These investors are sociopaths. An asshole will make a comment and not deny it. A sociopath will try to twist it into a seemingly logical action ie "I was just trying to get rid of her because I didn't like her idea." By that logic who knows how many Jehovah's witnesses this person groped and/or fucked.
That's actually a medical/psychiatric diagnosis. I don't really think it applies here (or maybe it does, I don't know, I only know that you can't just throw that casually at run-of-the mill creeps).
I believe OP was referring to the studied fact that leaders and business moguls tend to exhibit many more of the sociopathic check points than the ordinary person.
Right, you might call these people manipulative, but on a level where they can camouflage their behavior.
Bill Cosby for instance could possibly be considered one. His also seems more methodical. What's worse: 60 possible rapes spanning decades or 60 possible rapes spanning a year?
Life pro tip: just say them in a calm, explicit and direct manner that you are not interested in receiving their visits and information from them. They respect that. They might show up after a year or so, just to check out if this is the same family living under the number.
They're pretty organised and respectful in what they do, so polite and direct works best.
They act that way because the other person is in a vulnerable position. Most of them will shrink pretty fast when confronted by someone who is not. So they are "selective assholes" so to speak.
The problem is that this sort of hierarchy rewards two abilitys- sliming and kicking - and (if you are good at that) upholding and extending hierarchys.
People aren't archetypes or labels;
that's too black & white, un-nuanced thinking. Psychological and sociological reseach proved most people act however they're expected to within a given power dynamic circumstance, except for a few outliers which will go their own way, for anti- or pro-community.
This wrong "bad apples" analogy as it applies to police or genocide perpetrators also is dangerous because it's simply untrue. Well meaning people will commit atrocities if directed to by a superior authority figure; the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiments underscore this.
Instead, there must be social and business pressures brought to bear to prevent emboldened behavior with accountability.
If there is boundaryless
affluenza anarchy, spoiled brats will overtly behave however they wish. If there are consequences, the behavior will be reduced and become covert. There must be constant vigilance on the part of those
stakeholders to enforce consistent accountability for professional/personal behavior.
Yes. It is a slow, slow decline into the kind of behavior described in the article that could have been stopped or mitigated at any point along the way but wasn't. Not necessarily in terms of how someone is deep down, but in terms of their understanding of how they can/should interact with people around them.
Rather than refuse to understand how someone could have gotten there, let's try to understand the assumptions they made along the way. Then rather than pretending we're unaffected by the culture around us, let's see if we share some of those assumptions. If we want to fix things rather than be blindsided by them, these are at least the first steps.
Sorry but no. The two experiments you cite are ancient and riddled with holes, they are red flags for any psychologist worth their salt. The people described in this article are sexist assholes, plain and simple. You can argue all about how the environment they grew up in made them that way, but not that that's not what they are.
Milgram's experiment has been replicated several time, even in several cultures. Good to know social psychology researchers are not "worth their salt"
And yeah, actually, your culture and socialization is a big part of what you are. You can blame them, but refusing to try and understand how they became assholes means nothing will change.
People must be responsible for their actions, even if an environment influenced their decisions. Yes, to fix the issue, there needs to be larger societal change. But individual perpetrators need punishment as well.
There are two reasons for this. First, punishment of the "bad apples" deters others in the future, and brings about the larger societal change. Second, as a basic principal of a free society, people must be held accountable for their actions.
>These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.
Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.
This kind of thinking is even worse than what they did, because it crystalizes them into some of their decisions and deprives them of being human.
While their acts are bullying, harassment, etc., this characterization is not that different to labelling a race inferior (or attributing some other characteristic as an unshakeable part of it). Only instead of a race it does that to a person (or a number of persons) based on past behavior.
People change, people can behave like assholes in one instance and be sweet and caring in another, and tons of other distinctions.
In the end, this type of thinking is what condemns those convicted in the US to inhuman treatment -- the belief that they are incorrigible because of something they did, and as thus deserve only hell.
It's cultural and power related. SV aready thinks it has 'droit du seigneur' over everybody in the world's data; no surprise to see entitled power dynamics leak into the workplace.
I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desireable. They think that this is how the game is played, and these things are a form of peacocking. They think confidence is attractive, flattery is wanted, and that women are constantly searching for signals of an Alpha.
They also think they're exceptional. They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that, everywhere they go. Whether it be cat calls at the grocery store or advances at work.
I don't know Sacca or McClure, and from their writing and the way they project themselves, I don't think they seem like the type of people I care to spend time around, but it's pretty clear that this is a bad combination of arrogance and ignorance rather than malice. I had to stop reading Sacca's post after the 5th page of him talking about how great he is, but it sounds like he definitely had his Come To Jesus moment and is genuinely remorseful and working on not being an ass. That's a far better outcome than premature ostracization. Save that for the Bill Cosbys.
In order to make progress, I think it is important to recognize this distinction. There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses. I say that in part as a recovering dumbass myself, and as someone who faced accusations of malice and manipulation (in matters completely unrelated to women) when that was absolutely not the case. Hanlon's Razor and all.
> Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desireable.
At a certain point, one has to believe that another's actions are evil, even if that evil is unwitting. One mustn't actively choose to be "evil and predatory" to be so in fact.
At a certain point, one has to believe that another's actions are evil, even if that evil is unwitting. One mustn't actively choose to be "evil and predatory" to be so in fact.
So something can become so horrible, that even a mistaken action should be defined as evil? Sorry, but that sounds wrong, and itself willfully vengeful. In that case, shouldn't we just do away with manslaughter and just say everyone who has killed someone is a murderer?
You're making a false equivalence; often, the distinction between murder and manslaughter is the lack of an actual _intent to kill_, not simply the presence of a mistaken belief that the killing would be welcomed as "a really alpha move".
Even in cases where intent isn't there, other factors (for example, hitting and killing someone while driving drunk or too far over the speed limit) can make an accidental killing murder.
I don't think that you can make the argument that any of the men in question did not intend to make sexual advances on these women.
To horribly misuse Aaron Sorkin:
Sam:
About a week ago I accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Toby:
Really?
Sam:
Yes.
Toby:
You accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Sam:
Call girl.
Toby:
Accidentally.
Sam:
Yes.
Toby:
I don't understand. Did you trip over something?
I'm trying to understand the intent of your reference. The scene you're referring to is when Sam finds out after he slept with the woman that she happened to be a prostitute. He didn't pay her as a prostitute. He met a nice woman and they spent the night together. Next morning he finds out she has a job that might get him in trouble.
How is that relevant to your point? It seems like the opposite of your point.
It popped into my head due to the linguistic disconnect - Sam is saying that he accidentally did something, but Toby is clarifying that, no, he did it on purpose; he just might not have been aware of the circumstances and potential consequences.
In other words, while it might be possible to "accidentally sexually harass" a person, there's much more involved than "did the harasser think they were harassing?"
Rather, it matters whether the person in question deliberately chose to perform the actions that compose harassment.
To use programming terminology, sexual harassment is an interface, not a class. One need not deliberately implement it if all the requirements are met.
They also think they're exceptional. They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that
I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desirable.
Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having the cachet of being involved with startups carries a certain small amount of power in itself. Combine this corruption with the powerful instincts around sex and mating, and really bad things can happen.
I'm probably going to be attacked for this, but I really wish women would be overt and name such things. (Here, I'm talking about workplace norms in CA in general, not any of the specific situations of women named in the NYT article.) As it is, there are so many provisions for deniability, being second guessed, and not overtly saying "I'm not interested" that it really muddies the waters. I think it would help if women just said, "No. I'm sorry, but I don't think of you this way." or, "No, sorry, but I think I should keep business and personal matters separate." Wasn't clear and direct communication part and parcel of the "no means no" message in the first place? By creating norms where women think it's dangerous to just come out and say no, it's like we're creating an operating assumption where any man who might hear "no" has to be considered some kind of unstable potential attacker. To me, this is the sort of "fainting couch" feminism that regards women as only potential victims who can't stand up for themselves and who must be protected by others. To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult. It's a chance for the refused to show acceptance. It's a chance for every party involved to coexist as equals.
Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between. I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults. Okay, now you angry and misguided young "activists" come and lay on the aspersions that I'm some sort of morally deficient person.
> To me, this is the sort of "fainting couch" feminism that regards women as only potential victims who can't stand up for themselves and who must be protected by others.
It's not fainting couch feminism, it's pragmatic feminism. These interactions happen in a context where peoples' livelihoods, their hopes and dreams, are on the line. Are you going to expect them to jeopardize that by overtly calling someone out?
There is a reason we put the onus on men to not make unwanted advances instead of putting it on women to clearly reject them. It's costless to refrain from hitting on your coworkers/underlings/potential hires. In contrast, there is potentially a very high cost to a woman overtly rejecting an advance. At best, it results in hurt feelings and embarrassment in a superior/potential boss/potential investor. At worst, it can result in negative repercussions (a coworker badmouthing you as "a bitch," a hiring manager passing on your application, an investor passing on your idea).
If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.
I think the point that the parent commenter is missing, and you're not illustrating, is that women are very frequently propositioned in the workplace.
To stcredzero, he's innocuously asking a woman colleague of equal rank, who he has rapport with, out to a movie. He sees it as an opportunity to develop a relationship that could lead to a happy marriage. He doesn't get that many opportunities due to various reasons, so he's taking the chance he has.
She sees it as yet another colleague asking her out, when it's likely another male colleague asked her on a date that very morning, along with the dude on BART and one on the street as she walked to work.
The workplace should be focused on work, not another place where a woman has to be on guard.
People do form romantic relationships from working relationships. This should be approached with the utmost of care, because the workplace isn't the appropriate place.
The appropriate place is social events, with mutual friends; a Tinder date; a friendship struck at your local Linux Users Group meetup (you never know), etc.
>"The workplace should be focused on work, not another place where a woman has to be on guard."
I don't think there is consensus on that view. Work wouldn't be my first choice for finding a suitable partner. But that doesn't mean that individuals that spend a lot of time together in a non-social context are magically excluded from behaving in a certain way for the sole benefit of female comfort. There is a clear difference between consensual actions here, and we mustn't infantilize women by making such blanket statements that essentially amount to us saying that women need an incredibly sterile and "safe" (from proposition) environment to work in.
You're shifting my argument into a strawman to bolster yours: nobody is credibly advocating infantilizing women.
I will help you with your reading comprehension:
> People do form romantic relationships from working relationships. This should be approached with the utmost of care, because the workplace isn't the appropriate place.
Since you strawman-ized my argument, I'll do the same to yours:
"When people tell me I can't hit on women at work, that's infantilizing them."
It's not fainting couch feminism, it's pragmatic feminism. These interactions happen in a context where peoples' livelihoods, their hopes and dreams, are on the line. Are you going to expect them to jeopardize that by overtly calling someone out?
I am a bit amazed that simply expressing your preferences when overtly asked is to be thought of as "calling someone out." If a coworker was to always pretend to agree with you on all matters of taste, I'd think of that person as spineless. Yet, most matters of taste are far less important than preferences of companionship.
At worst, it can result in negative repercussions
Nowadays, the phrase, "I don't feel comfortable with..." has negative repercussions in the same league.
If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.
If you read the thread, you will discover that no one was working for anyone, and this was for a volunteer organization outside of work.
Saying no directly is uncomfortable - socially and potentially professionally. That's not because of "norms" but because of reality. Rejecting someone directly is socially awkward and potentially dangerous.
It's not the responsibility of the person being pursued to protect the pursuer. It's pretty straight forward: if you ask someone out several times, and they keep making up excuses, they're not interested. Stop asking.
> Rejecting someone directly is socially awkward and potentially dangerous.
Very much this. People who've been rejected (male or female) can definitely be vindictive, nasty, and just plain evil. :(
I'm guessing it comes from their feelings of hurt inside from the rejection given. Which (personally) indicates how badly I sucked with interpersonal skills when rejecting people in my younger years. eg I'm pretty direct with people, but had literally no tact when younger. Bad combo. Ugh.
I disagree. The robustness principle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robustness_principle) or some permutation of it is used in virtually all communication systems and media channels. The burden is clearly on the sender of the message to be precise, not on the receiver to interpret a noisy message. I can't think of any situation, except for dating, where the burden is placed on the receiver.
It's how most communication works in just about all social situations, including dating, but even friends. Rarely does someone you want to be friends with say "Sorry, I don't want to spend time with you as a friend." They're just "busy."
It applies to human-to-human communication too. If a politician sends an ambiguous tweet, he or she will be blamed if the message is misunderstood. A marketing campaign can be accused of being racist even if the creators didn't intend it to be. If a worker doesn't understand a managers work orders, it is the managers fault -- not the workers, same thing with a student not understanding a professors lecture and so on.
To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult.
We absolutely should encourage this, but let's not ignore that we need to build a culture that doesn't ostracize and attack people when they do this.
So far, we have HR departments that have an incentive to ignore, minimize or deflect these problems. We have a culture of employment that says that this is all part of dealing with a job in a tough industry. And we have internet trolls ready to harass people when they come out against this behavior.
The first part, of asserting yourself and claiming your agency, is extraordinarily important. But there's so much more to it. If someone is sexually harassed, and they hit a brick wall at every turn, the best case scenario is that they ditch the startup or tech industry and go to more established companies that actually have a solid culture and process in place. And that is an absolute loss for everyone, especially because the kind of person who can see everything weighed against them and still takes a stand is what the startup scene is supposed to be all about. We shouldn't punish or ignore those people.
We absolutely should encourage this, but let's not ignore that we need to build a culture that doesn't ostracize and attack people when they do this.
If a particular organizational culture isn't full of people who would be the level of jerk to attack someone for saying "no thanks" then how is it at all positive to teach half the people there to behave as if they will probably do that? That sounds to me like you're just creating fear where there should be none.
> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.
Did you ask multiple times? This sounds like what could easily happen when someone won't take the initial "no," implicit or not, for an answer. Based on the rest of your comment, I expect so.
A few important points:
1. Repeated asking has been held to be sexual harassment, if repeated for long enough.
2. Here's a simple rule: ask once, and only once. She knows where you work. If she's interested, she'll ask for a rain check and get back to you.
> I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults
3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.
3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.
Which is why people behave that way in airplane cockpits and the bridges of submarines. (Actually, such behavior has gotten people killed in those contexts.)
If someone is insisting on an implicit level of signalling, they can be just as guilty of insisting foolishly as someone insisting on the explicit level. When implicit communications are demanded for 1) a higher stakes situation on the basis of 2) the supposed potential victim status of one party -- something is way out of whack. Not only is the safety of clear communications being abrogated, the danger being borne is skewed to just one party.
Beyond the level of the social white lie, if you're advocating deniability to "be safe" you're probably doing something dishonest on some level. Extending the mechanism of the social white lie to a situation where more is at stake is just foolish.
> Actually, such behavior has gotten people killed in those contexts.
Nobody is going to die if you can't date someone.
Again, I advocate a conservative approach to getting a date with a coworker. One request, declined for any reason, should be treated as a firm no absent explicit signals to the contrary (request for a rain check, some other sort of proactive, explicitly date-seeking behavior from the other party). Your odds of getting into trouble under this rule are so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent. If you choose some less conservative rule, including, apparently, whatever rule you've been following up to this point, your risks are higher.
Of course, there's also the issue of not wanting to make your woman coworkers uncomfortable. I would hope that would be something of intrinsic value to you, and that on this basis alone you might change your behavior after seeing its impact in the past. The fact that you're still arguing about this makes me doubt that you do value their comfort the way that I think you should. But I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people in a way that's going to stick. :(
> To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult.
You're blaming women for not being "adult" enough in their response to juvenile male behavior. It is these men who should start acting like adults.
And how do you know the women didn't say no? The article notes that some of the women faced retribution after rebuffing men.
> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.
It sounds like you need to work on reading other peoples' comfort level with your behavior. In a professional setting the standard is very high for ensuring you are not making someone uncomfortable. Consider how a customer would feel if they walked in a store and, out of the blue, got hit on by staff that they had zero chemistry with. Who then the blames the customer for not being "adult" enough.
You're blaming women for not being "adult" enough in their response to juvenile male behavior. It is these men who should start acting like adults.
That's a ridiculous false dichotomy. When people own their preference and viewpoint, people respect them more. Men who act like juveniles should clearly act more adult. Fully grown women who act like they're timid middle-schoolers should also act more adult. It's the workplace where people communicate honestly and clearly that produces results when breaking new ground and dealing with subtle and complex trade-offs. (Again, this isn't a discussion of people or events in the article, but rather a general one.)
> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.
The problem here is you're not reading signals correctly. If someone says any variation of "I don't think..." that means they are not interested. If they are interested but just legitimately busy or whatever they will 100% suggest a time that will work or at least give you some kind of an in. Granted, there can be mixed signals and it's not always the easiest thing to figure out, but you have to just accept it for what it is. The truth is asking people out is hard, rejecting people is hard, and we have these little dances to save face.
You may or may not be morally deficient, but by demanding certain behaviours of women, you're being misogynistic. Many women have had the experience of being physically threatened, or threatened with career damage, by a man they refused directly and with sincere clarity, and have therefore learned to reject with a softer line that doesn't put them at risk of harm. Oh, and no-one cares if that wasn't you or how you behave. Your failure to comprehend demonstrates a lack of sophistication on your part. Don't blame women for your attribution error; help us fix the other men instead.
I think this is suitable behavior for adults, rational or otherwise. We're human and, especially when we're young, inexperienced, or anxious, we don't always navigate the boundaries cleanly. To be honest, I too was told something like that once upon a time – and yeah, you'd better believe I got the message! Hopefully you immediately stopped whatever behavior was making them uncomfortable and apologized.
I think you're completely neglecting the fact that there is a large contingent of women that this behavior WORKS LIKE CATNIP ON.
There is a reason why a huge amount of porn in the world (and porn made for women) about boss / secretary, teacher / student, rich person / poor person, mentor / underling power imbalances: it's a major part of our sexuality as social animals.
So, these men have often gone through life being wildly successful with this type of behavior up until society started to change around them.
I didn't neglect it, but I did delete it from my reply for the same reason you got flagged down, and thought I could make my point without adding that triggering distraction.
Absolutely, and I believe it's why they're so hated by male feminists: they're supposed to be as sexually frustrated as they are, so they try to use shaming to achieve this even though it won't work.
Society might change, but biology takes longer. It's a successful mating strategy today, and it will be successful a thousand years from now, regardless of the kicking and screaming.
I think you're pretty close to 100% correct here. My one addition would be that with our level of connectedness, it would require an insane amount of self control for an individual (male) to be of the mindset 'I take the things I want at work' and not have slip ups of the sort we're seeing here (inappropriate messages etc.)
Because this disclaimer seems necessary in posts like this, I am in no way condoning his actions or the actions of people like this. However, it certainly seems like we're looking at an interesting area where the personality characteristics required to be successful may be orthogonal to 21st century social norms. (Venture capital.) I'd argue that another similar area is war fighting, and that this could be a plausible explanation (not excuse) for why sexual harassment can be so high in those areas as well.
"I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
Your comment is totally inappropriate, not to mention ridiculous, and essentially amounts to a silly personal attack. No rational reading of anything he wrote could possibly suggest that he does or condones that. In fact you'd have to entirely ignore the sentence where he specifically says the opposite. Comments like this make it very difficult to have important discussions about these topics.
At the same time, your “boys will be boys” attitude makes it hard to take you seriously as well. How do we actually get this behavior to stop when there are so many out there saying we shouldn’t call it out or there shouldn’t be consequences for it because they are “ignorant” of what they’re doing? On top of that, I don’t buy that ignorance argument for a second; they know exactly what they are doing.
If you got "boys will be boys" out of what I said, you obviously didn't read very far. Feel free to read the whole post and make half an effort to see what I was saying. I also didn't say there shouldn't be consequences.
Not that it matters much, you've already wrongly assumed how these people work. You're free to do that, but if you don't understand what motivates someone's behavior, your efforts to improve your own situation or that of your allies is doomed to be counterproductive.
I got it out of what appears to be an unwillingness to hold these people accountable for their actions. All throughout this thread, including from you, I see an unwillingness to condemn these actions, and really, a call for a complete lack of real consequences. I see a lot of “Well, we can’t actually punish them; that’d be counterproductive.” Counterproductive to what? Actual punishment is how you send the message that these things are not acceptable. If someone can do these things, and when called out just say, “I’m sorry I got caught”, then the message is that no one really cares if this happens.
But then there's the argument of the banality of evil. We spend a lot of time thinking about the black swans of evilness, but I'd argue a lot more damage is done on aggregate by mundane shittiness.
Nope. Are you trying thay rape culture is a thing and dudes really need special courses on how to not be harassers? That does not describe or culture or majority of dudes in any way. Our culture is full of signals that harassment is wrong.
It is also quite unlikely that people who climb the ladder and successfully play "impress investors and people around" social skills game are so clueless magically when they are alone with women. Somehow they manage to be cluefull when acting like a peacock would harm their career.
I would believe claim about dumbass, if we would talk about dude down in the basement that insulted CEO last week. Then yeah, he is clueless. But in cases here, it is really too much benefit of doubt.
Not everyone who likes to take advantage of other person (including when genders are reversed) is clueless.
Majority of men including those on the spectrum are not like that. When you claim that this is normal misunderstanding, you throw shadow on them too.
dudes really need special courses on how to not be harassers?
Given the many first-hand accounts of ordinary everyday harassment and men who flat-out do not seem to understand what is and isn't inappropriate, or what the words "no" or "I'm not interested" or "leave me alone" mean, yes, it does seem there is a significant population for whom this type of basic education is absolutely and vitally necessary.
Think of it like driver licensing -- many people, probably most adults, are, with a few lessons, perfectly capable of safely operating a car in most situations. And would seek out those lessons (whether paid from a professional teacher, or informally from an experienced friend or family member) regardless of whether they were required. But enough people wouldn't that we have to force every single person who wants to drive to obtain a license through a process that involves examination of their knowledge of driving and traffic rules.
So "teach about how not to harass/teach about consent/etc." should not be interpreted as "this person is calling out 100% of all men alive as well as me, personally and directly, out of blind hate", but rather as "just like driver licensing, there are enough assholes out there who ruin things that we probably need to make sure people are taught this".
Also, mandatory teaching/training ensures that nobody can pull a "well I didn't think that was wrong" excuse -- if people are taught what is and isn't acceptable, and there's a record of them being taught it, then they know it's wrong and we know they know.
Actually what we need is a huge corrective in media, the stuff feminists complain about all the time.
e.g. bell hooks' film stuff, The Bechdel Test, Anita Sarkeesian's work, etc.
This problem forms in large part because men are too attached to media that reinforces notions of women as secondary people, objects, and reward trophies.
The problem is that people's empathy with women going through harassment abruptly stops when they themselves are implicated in some manner.
>"Actually what we need is a huge corrective in media, the stuff feminists complain about all the time. [...]This problem forms in large part because men are too attached to media that reinforces notions of women as secondary people, objects, and reward trophies."
Yes, let's make it a thought crime to think of women as "secondary people, objects and reward trophies" and punish them for thinking it, instead of punishing actual physical criminal behavior. Let's ban and burn books because we don't like the type of behavior they "create" in males.
I agree that this education is "absolutely and vitally necessary", however I disagree with you that this education is "basic" or that it should be relegated to just subset of the population.
Knowing how to communicate with people who are different from you, knowing how to disagree with another without insulting them, knowing how to check sexual desires in inappropriate settings, knowing when you are operating from a position of power rather than influence ... these are often not at all obvious, they are learned.
I didn't say "it should be relegated to just [a] subset of the population". I said a justification for imposing it universally is to observe a subset of the population and come to the conclusion that yes, this is needed.
I have witnessed at least 3 people that were in a manager position and had unacceptable behavior. What lawnchair_larry described matches almost perfectly my perception of them.
One of them would casually explain in conversations the software he had written to crawl dating website. We was very open with things such as the mirror above his bed, sharing pictures of it. Before leaving the company at last, he had received multiple sanctions including an interdiction to get too close to some women who had worked with him.
Had I not met those people, I would be unable to believe that they exist.
My theory is that they are bold, assertive and have no shame. They don't "play" with people; people like them. They seduce managers and investors. They try to do the same with coworkers.
"Before leaving the company at last, he had received multiple sanctions including an interdiction to get too close to some women who had worked with him."
That sounds quite far away. He did not get info after first two and still honestly does not understand his behavior is not welcome? I mean, if you get the note from HR that you are not allowed to approach person x anymore, then maybe the seducing strategy does not work? Then again, people are not all that rational in general.
Stopped reading at "rape culture". Nothing I said has anything to do with rape (except Bill Cosby, who was mentioned specifically to emphasize that these comments don't apply to cases like that), and neither of the individuals involved have been accused of rape or anything resembling rape so I don't know why you'd bring that up.
> They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that, everywhere they go.
At this level of lack of empathy and thought, I see no functional difference between malice and inability.
> There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses.
How so? Both need boundaries first and foremost. When they don't respect boundaries voluntarily, those need to be enforced, always preferably by the persons whose boundaries they are violating and every witness to it.
Beyond that there are the differences. With a dumbass, they may learn not to sting, with someone who got turned into a scorpion, you might have to always wear a glove when feeding them, forever. Which is okay, but it's not okay to leave out the glove because for some of those you're handling without gloves, they might stop stinging at some point.
Though I agree in that you should not label people as dumbass or scorpion before hand. Enforce boundaries, explain your reasoning and emotions firmly and repeatedly. As if to your little dumbass brother, theoretically a peer you love lots, but right now someone you put in their place because you love them and they just won't stop kicking dogs or hurting other kids or drinking bleach. This has to be true, this cannot be faked, you have to muster the love too, not just the anger; and even only some will be able to notice and believe that. It will trickle into some, completely wash over others -- but you can only find that out by doing it. This also implies giving everyone the chance(s).
But don't go by their words. Don't trust user input, treat all of it like potential exploits. Do what you have to do anyway, and in this case you can go "great, then you won't mind these changes, if you had this Come To Jesus moment. If that was just a bluff, you'll shit bricks, enjoy". Cooperation is very desirable and should always be welcome, but it is not required.
In my line of work, which involves authority positions, I see this sort of thing happen a lot (not most of the time, but regularly):
Junior female supervisee becomes romantically involved with male supervisor. It's consensual, not predatory at all. Two people working closely together in closely related positions (I'm not talking CEO-secretary here, I'm talking something more closely matched in rank). Female supervisee might even brag about it or something in informal circles. It's obvious that part of what is happening is that the woman is attracted to ambition, authority, power, etc., even if they don't acknowledge this openly at the time (after all, they are seeking this for themselves). Relationship goes south (not always, though, about as often as any relationship), and then female supervisee blames male supervisor for taking advantage of her, brainwashing her, etc. Maybe even accuse supervisor of sexual harassment.
What I'm seeing in the NY Times piece is not this. None of the people I'm talking about would ever just proposition a potential hire.
However, I think it increases the ambiguity about appropriate behavior. If women in these positions are actively encouraging relationships sometimes (and people hear about this, in sorts of open secret situations), then for people who are already confused, it becomes even more confusing.
My guess is these guys are hitting on women in the same way they might anywhere, without realizing the position of power they have. As you say, I think it's a matter of social sophistication more than anything else.
Then those guys you are talking about need to learn to behave better with responsibility. I am not saying this from a social justice/feminism viewpoint that many other commenters are, but from the point of view of leadership. If you're a man or a woman who gets involved with your subordinates, that's a failure of yours as a leader and it's unethical.
It's unethical, because the superior/subordinate relationship makes a romantic affair coercive even if nobody participating intends it to be.
It's a leadership failure because the superior should behave better than the subordinate as part of providing their leadership function. Yes, you could say the suborndinate started it or whatever, but the superior is supposed to know better than to get involved with that. If you don't want people to be confused, don't add to the confusion by dipping your pen in the company ink.
I think fits the US military's definition of Fraternization: A senior-subordinate relationship that is unduly familiar and does not respect differences in grade or rank. They are strictly forbidden, and while they do happen anyway, they are also regularly punished when discovered. A personal relationship between a direct supervisor and their subordinate would be considered inappropriate fraternization regardless of how close together the parties are in rank.
Fraternization is different from harassment. Among other things, consent is irrelevant. It also covers a broader scope than romantic relationships. The inappropriateness of the relationship comes from the disruption in the chains of command and responsibility, and the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the relationship.
I think that the military is correct in forbidding this kind of relationship, because of the effects you mentioned. It doesn't have to be confusing. It just needs to also be considered inappropriate by the organization.
If these VCs are constantly using their power and privilege over women in their industry, I have to wonder if it actually ever works?
And if it does work and the person on the receiving end doesn't view it as harassment, should we? Should we start publicly admonishing the people who chose to sleep with a VC for money?
Part of me wonders if we should be equally aghast at the founder who does sleep with a VC for money/influence and has no qualms about it. It must be happening if VCs keep harassing at this rate, otherwise these VCs wouldn't keep trying. Im not trying to victim blame here, I'm just trying to point out that there may be a very strange culture underlying all of this sexual harassment.
I wonder how many people in power or have strong influence are psychopaths or sociopaths. I've had the misfortune to observe a psychopath in the workplace and in this case they touch people a lot. They touch people of the opposite sex more than same sex but they touch a lot of people. I wonder what is being said behind closed doors.
I have friend who is an employment lawyer. When I first asked her what she does she said "I keep old white men out of trouble". How sad.
Statistics have shown for a while now that psychopaths or sociopaths are drawn to positions of power and are therefor overrepresented in those positions.
On the other hand, excessive power (== money) often brings the worst out of us, as power appeals to our (sick/immature) need to dominate those around us (on a personal or even global scale). Domination can act like a drug. And once the brain is hooked on that drug, it's hard to go clean again.
Excessive power (== money) takes a lot of maturity to be handled ethically. Obviously, a lot of people fail hard.
Which is why our society should fight any type of inequality until it's completely gone.
> Which is why our society should fight any type of inequality until it's completely gone.
I don't think this actually follows from the prior premises you put forth. If I'm the 10x programmer, do I need to have my performance handicapped because some psychopaths exist somewhere in the world? That's a kind of inequality which I would argue isn't relevant.
> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.
> I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work.
> Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not.
Spot on, sadly a much overlooked and ignored fact.
While "sexism" certainly feeds into that, it's not the actual problem, the problem being that "assholes" often end up being very successful people because they can easily force their will upon others, regardless of gender.
These are ruthless personalities and their success is often build upon exactly that ruthlessness.
Why should the silicon valley vc ecosystem be exempt from that dynamic? It seems it ain't: https://www.saastr.com/are-silicon-valley-venture-capitalist...
As a male, on the short end of that naturally existing power dynamic, you are flat out of luck because you can't point at your gender and generate drama to monetize on or take whole companies down, instead you are lumped up into a big sack as part of the supposedly "systematic problem" by labeling it a "male dominated culture", taking every male person into a quasi sippenhaft trough guild by gender association in the "fight against sexism".
As somebody who considers himself a somewhat decent person, this whole tone in the discourse is getting rather tiresome because this also creates quite an oppressive environment for people who merely want to find a relationship partner. I feel guilty just thinking about approaching women on the street, I've rebuffed advances by female coworkers because that's not considered "appropriate", I don't want to approach that nice cashier in the supermarket because I fear I might bother her/creep her out. And because I've always been rather awkward with social situations, the outcome is quite predictable: I've been single for these last 10 years, while constantly being told how much of an asshole I'm for having been born with a dick.
If the people who aren't supposed to be targeted think they're targeted, and the people who are supposed to be targeted don't care, then maybe something has gone wrong with the discourse.
Simple counter-question: How do you define "sexual harassment"?
Because that's the actual issue these days. Behavior that used to be "normal" and lead to people getting to know each other is considered "harassment" these days.
One of it's points being that a big draw for many women is how they like being "admired" by so many men on Tinder in the same way they used to appreciate being catcalled: "Es ist dieses dauerhafte Umgarntwerden, das den Reiz ausmacht. Wie früher das Hinterherpfeifen oder Zuzwinkern.
So what's the message here? What is a single male supposed to do in such an enviornment? Some women like the catcalling, others consider it harassment.
Meaning: The saver option is not to catcall, but that also results in vastly reduced chances of getting to know any woman at all.
Especially when the "competition" does not bother at all and just keeps on catcalling and thus actually ends up getting to know new people, while you sit in your misery alone thinking "Well, at least I didn't harass anybody.." hell of a good time!
Then there is online dating, which has it's own slew of massive issues as a single male. Competition is extra fierce because on these platforms quite often men outnumber women 2:1 or worse. There you might not be called out for harassing that quickly, but there you need a harassing like behavior to be actually successful. You need to be somewhat dishonest about yourself in your presentation, you need to approach/contact as many women as possible (while disregarding their plight of getting spammed), to increase your chances for a successful reply and meeting.
All these are things "we" are supposed not to do, yet they seem like the only viable tactic to any measurable "success".
Nobody is gonna start a relationship with me because I'm just such a nice guy who didn't come on to her, those are exactly the kind of signals that keep you in the notorious "friend zone" for all eternity, but those are the kind of signals that are seemingly expected from males in any and all situations or else you might be considered a "creep" or a "harasser".
This get's even worse when culture actually adapts. Not too long ago a common complaint would be how "Men always feign romantic interest to get sex", true enough. Now increasingly men (and some women) have become more pragmatic about this and state their intentions in quite a blunt way and guess what? That can quite easily also be interpreted as "sexual harassment" when somebody comes on to you with "I'd like to have sex with you".
So what's a single guy to do? Especially when you are also lucky enough to be on the spectrum and have a hard enough time parsing social situations already, this constant ambiguity makes it an impossibility to improve my understanding about social interactions and dynamics, literally paralyzing me.
I'm in my mid-30's and I've given up any intend to actively look for a partner because I don't want to inconvenience anybody with my failed approaches or end up being seen as some kind of "creep" who "harasses" people and makes them feel uncomfortable, when that's actually the exact opposite of my intensions.
Of course, there's a lot there because it simply ain't as simple as:
"Do you sexually harass?" or "Do you have consent?"
Such statements underestimate the untold complexities pretty much all social interaction are based on.
That's why solutions to these problems are not as simple as some people like to pretend. Nobody really likes talking to each other bluntly, everything always has to be implied or "said trough the flower", leaving way too much room for ambiguity and as such misunderstandings that keep on going on as nobody wants to be the guy/gal angering the elephant in the room.
About your VC pitch question: Really depends on the type of sexual advance. While I don't practice it personally I don't see anything wrong with somebody telling another person "I consider you very attractive, do you want to have a good time with me?", it's a given that some people might not be as classy with their choice of words.
Yet it's quite direct, it's to the point and thus doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation or waste anybody's time with ambiguity.
As such I don't see why anybody would need consent for asking, first and foremost it's just a question and not an insult, order or the "objectification" of somebody.
It's another story if with "sexual advances" you mean something like groping, uninvited kissing or any other uncalled for body contact. Needless to say, that's a no-go and nobody ever claimed otherwise.
And yet I'll bet you would never feel comfortable implementing your proposed direct approach in a workplace environment. Or most environments. Because it would make people uncomfortable.
So maybe analyze that feeling. Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.
Different people consider different things "uncomfortable" during different times. It's an emotion, that's why there are no objective clear cut standards for "what to say without making anybody uncomfortable", it's dynamic just like many societal norms are.
The reason I don't practice the direct approach myself is that, as I've already mentioned, I'm just not interested in casual sex and I'm rather introverted. The irony being: Guys who actually practice it, are more likely to end up in relationships.
Using the direct approach for getting into a relationship, which I have tried, quite often just ends up being seen as the epitome of creepiness and results in ridicule and shaming.
> So maybe analyze that feeling.
I "analyze feelings" pretty much constantly, even over needless memories way in the past. The issue being that you can't look into other peoples heads to analyze their "feelings", as to not to offend them with something you might say or do.
> Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.
That's never what I argued for and you putting my statements so much out of context, to make me look like something I ain't, just reenforces my original point.
Maybe English is not your native language ? (it isn't mine BTW :) Catcalling has never been acceptable behavior, and, in my experience, does not increase anybody's chances of meeting new people. Catcalling is not flirting.
As to how to meet women (take this advise with a mountain of salt, was never a ladies man, have been married for 20 years and never cheated, so haven't flirted in 20 years :), play the odds; join groups that do stuff that interest you, get in a position to meet women, and meet them as people first, make friends and then relationships might develop; (and if not, you have more friends, and had fun doing whatever you were doing). That is, don't go to meetups (or pokemon tournaments, or the church choir, or ...) to hook up, go there because you want to be there, and, chances are, if you meet enough women you will find your match.
It'd be easier if people would just accept there's two common definitions of sexism going around and define their terms first, rather than beating each other over the head with "well, actually..."
Academic sexism: pervasive attitudes that tend to favor masculine-coded genders over feminine-coded genders. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against masculine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).
Colloquial sexism: being a jerk to someone because of their gender. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against feminine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).
Both are valid, but they're focusing on different things. Sometimes assholes are just assholes. Sometimes they know they can get away with it because of pervasive attitudes. It's hard to say who has it worse because no one believes anyone when they report, so statistics are notoriously unreliable.
Now what freshly contrieved linguistic contraption is this? Just say "male" and "female", or "men" and "women", no need to obey the latest gender studies fad.
If we replace the word "asshole" with "criminals", few except a couple of hardline conservatives would assume that one's destiny in life is being a criminal from the day you are born. Instead, as far as I understand most research, lots of external factors play a major role here.
That probably is exactly the same here. These men have been socially conditioned to be assholes. Which, in my eyes, means that there actually should be room for some empathy. Which doesn't mean excusing their behavior, but it means understanding that despite their power and money, they are like every other human being the product of their environment and culture.
And this culture is a joint product of every single member of it.
Mark Manson wrote an insightful essay about this, titled "What's the problem with men". Tl;dr: "We unfairly objectify women in society for their beauty and sex appeal. Similarly, we unfairly objectify men for their professional success and aggression."
> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.
The sentiment among many men working in the tech industry is that you can get crucified for making even a small compliment to a female. This idea of invulnerability would only be common among top executives and others who wield high amounts of power.
This reminds me strongly the usual stories from Hollywood, the big music industry and even medical world.
We in IT are definitely not alone dealing with this bullcrap. I wonder why there's no more "unmasking" in these other sectors. Maybe the victims don't want to risk being unofficially blacklisted?
I think the article goes to certain lengths to explain that but yes that is certainly one part of it. I think another one, speaking as a minority, is simply one of not standing out too much. When most of your coworkers are a certain race and gender, one feels a greater impetus not to stand out too much simply because of that (i.e. gender, race etc.) but because of one's efforts, work ethic etc.
Did you read the linked article? People believe there's a gender problem in tech because there is a gender problem in tech. These stories are pervasive. I'd encourage you to ask a woman who's been in the industry and while of they've ever been treated unfairly.
Women are almost exactly half of the workforce in the US, but hold only 25% of the jobs in computing. So that would imply the industry is worse than average. And the trend is going the wrong way: women were a much bigger presence in tech 20 years ago. IMHO, stories like the ones in this article are very common and are a major reason why. And that hurts everyone who works in tech.
Moreover, the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem in no way excuses what's going on in the linked article.
I guess I don't know what "major industries" people are talking about. For example, earlier in the thread Hollywood and finance are mentioned -- but these are definitely industries with a long history of law suits in this area.
With regards to "...ask a woman..." and "...the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem..." -- neither of these remarks have anything to do with what I said. I have some doubts about the claim posted earlier, to the effect that tech is worse than other "major industries", because I have never seen anything to back that up -- but two wrongs do not make a right and I never said anything like that.
To support these ideas I guess I would like to know, what are these major industries and what are the axes of comparison?
If this kind of factual scrutiny seems wrong in the face of the present emergency, I have to ask you: when would it ever be right?
The simple math I cited is not enough? You agree that women make up less than half the tech workforce even though they're half of working adults, right?
Why is it important to know how tech ranks against other industries anyway? How is that actionable information? Is the point to be able to claim "it's not our problem"? I don't think that's a useful line of thought. Even if tech were above average (and, again, it isn't) that doesn't in any way excuse the behavior in the NYT article.
While I admit I cringed at a few little things, on balance I didn't find it creepy, and I think that assessment just adds to the feeling among many that it's easier to dodge the issue than to try to get involved.
He could have left out a couple of the self congratulatory bits about how he's making a real difference, that's up to others. But other than that that post could have been a lot worse.
He touched someone's face once like eight years ago "in a way that made her feel uncomfortable". A stupid, asshole, casually sexist move? Yup. Worthy of being raked over the coals despite bending over backwards to make amends in the years since? Uhhh... no, not really.
Don't get me wrong. The other stories are really, really bad. Insanely evil, even. But the idea that Sacca's extremely minor dick move almost a decade ago deserves to be lumped in with the monstrous stories of serial stalking and sexual battery is pretty ludicrous. Makes me think the writer just wanted to shoehorn in a TV star to inflate the piece's reach.
He, himself, admits that this sort of behavior was a pattern. I don't think he has been or will be raked over the coals, because he seems to exhibit genuine remorse.
I respect him, but my sympathy isn't with him.
I'm sure it's deeply uncomfortable to be under this level of scrutiny and lumped in with people who have been caught doing things that seem skeezier. But you know what's worse? Not being a billionaire and trying to make a living in a world where people you need are more interested in having sex with you than your business value, or at the very least, are more than willing to tie one to the other.
"Seem skeezier"? We're talking about serial stalking, harassment, and sexual assault with multiple victims. Unless there are major facts we don't yet know, what Sacca did, even if part of a "pattern", pales in comparison.
And yet it's his face splashed over the "SEXUAL HARASSMENT SCANDAL" headlines, siphoning energy and criticism from the actual monsters, because he is a TV star so his being mentioned is more sensational.
Dave McClure is basically being given a slap on the wrist for obviously firing-worthy offenses. Would that happen if a celebrity wasn't taking the brunt of the press?
This is only the tip of the iceberg from what I've heard. He's rather well known in circles around Twitter for his harassment and there are several texts I've seen firsthand showing far worse harassment. He preemptively posted this not knowing what they'd disclose in the paper and I'll bet he's breathing easy now that it's "only" this face touch.
Mhm. Yet, I'm not sure I'd trust the cops to do anything about it. Heck, it is hard enough with actual harrassment: Groping is even more difficult. We have a hard enough time doing decent things when folks are raped.
If the person is lucky enough to work in a large place, there is som
Huh. Who would've thought that allowing wealthy frat bro types* to run amok, wield power over others, and construct cults of personality would engender a culture of sexism and abuse?
(* I'm not, of course, attempting to excuse any who may not fit this profile.)
Huh. Who would've thought that allowing wealthy frat bro types to run amok, wield power over others, and construct cults of personality would engender a culture of sexism and abuse?*
Power is a dangerous thing. This is why we must also be careful of the power in evidence-free accusations and abrogation of "innocent until guilty." Not saying that is necessarily happening here. However, such urging to "listen and believe" comes up when these topics are discussed. Women are no less corruptible by unchecked power than men.
> we must also be careful of the power in evidence-free accusations and abrogation of "innocent until guilty." Not saying that is necessarily happening here.
But you are strongly implying it. In a case where many of the men admitted their guilt, nonetheless. Your comment is just "men's rights" activist talking points.
That's fairly dismissive. He was asserting an unbiased approach at accusation. How is that a "men's rights" activist talking point? Are you suggesting that bias should exists against Y chromosomes?
This makes his assertion a politically motivated non sequitur.
Only if you incorrectly assume a particular intention on my part. However, if you take what I said at face value, it's simply a valid observation. I think it's one of the most important and fundamental observations to be made: that of the power dynamic. Feminism has much to say about such power dynamics. I think your bias is clearly showing.
That is like arguing "I'm just saying there should be equal rights for white people" on a post about white-on-black harassment because MLK Jr had "much to say about equality."
Taken in context it is an attempt to deny the imbalance of power that exists and which civil rights / feminism seek to dismantle.
That is like arguing "I'm just saying there should be equal rights for white people" on a post about white-on-black harassment because MLK Jr had "much to say about equality."
No, it's more like mentioning how people should be judged on the contents of their character, not the color of their skin. It's more like citing the importance of understanding the ideological basis of activism in the protection of individual rights and dignity. These are two points of great importance to MLK's activism where many of today's social justice activists are very weak.
Taken in context it is an attempt to deny the imbalance of power that exists and which civil rights / feminism seek to dismantle.
If you look at the greater historical context, you will find that overcompensation and tilting the playing field "the other way" doesn't produce greater social justice. However, I congratulate you for coming out and saying overtly that you are for creating an imbalance going "the other way." You thereby admit that you are not for a "level playing field" but rather an "equality of outcome."
I'd bet "equality of outcome" is a great way to run a startup! (/jk)
You've misrepresented the dismantling of sexism and racism as "tilting the playing field 'the other way'", a fabricated quote.
You've also utterly missed the point on MLK Jr. Using his words to suggest that racial oppression goes both ways on anything near the same level is a transparent attempt to deny the existence of white privilege. Popping up on threads about the oppression of women with non sequiturs about the oppression of men is exactly the same thing.
You've misrepresented the dismantling of sexism and racism as "tilting the playing field 'the other way'", a fabricated quote.
That's not a quote. That's putting three words in quotes. It's not really "the other way." It's really the same kind of injustice, hence "the other way" in quotes. What we have here is a fabricated charge.
MLK Jr. Using his words to suggest that racial oppression goes both ways on anything near the same level
Sorry, but where do I say that? I never said anything about the magnitude of oppression, and my argument doesn't require it. Please provide a quote, or you are putting words into someone's mouth? (Hint: you are putting words in someone's mouth!) Racial oppression doesn't have to go both ways at the same level to make artificial unfairness problematic.
Here's another hint: If you constantly have to willfully distort the other party's words to support your side of the argument, you might be in the wrong. On the other hand, my argument is made by your words and precisely the point you are trying to make.
Are you suggesting that bias should exists against Y chromosomes?
Many 2nd wave feminists are against such a bias. However, there are 3rd wave feminists who openly advocate this, even to the point of openly advocating the abrogation of innocent until proven guilty -- which is possible through the proceedings of non-judicial organizations (like school disciplinary systems) and by district attorneys in local jurisdictions in the US. Innocent until proven guilty isn't directly enshrined in the US constitution. It's inferred from some other parts of the constitution.
Heck no! That was the whole point of my saying, "Not saying that is necessarily happening here." Maybe I should've left out the necessarily.
Your comment is just "men's rights" activist talking points.
My point is a valid general observation about the power dynamics. One has to worry when valid general observations go unanswered by association with what some group says.
What if the choice were "no investment or attention" versus "creepy attention and small investment"?
Entrepreneurs are so willing to sacrifice, and this should not be the situation, but what if it is? How many of us males would accept these types of advances in order to get our idea funded?
To think that we can remove power from sex is misguided. There were times during my startup that I would have wished for the attention, even as a straight male, if only because it was better than the nothingness that my idea lived in otherwise.
I've known Marc Canter for a long time, but I don't know anything about Ms. Dent or her interactions with Marc.
However, he has so many other highly effective behavioral techniques for making people go away, that it sounds pretty fishy that he would just happen to deploy that particular technique in that particular situation for that particular person.
If he dislikes your ideas, he'll usually simply tell you directly and loudly, not hit on you to make you go away.
So I have a hard time buying his explanation.
But I would not describe him as a rich powerful VC holding money and power over the women he harasses.
If what she says is true (which I don't know and he denies), he may be a sexist pig contributing to the toxic environment for women (which is wrong and should be called out and condemned), but he's certainly not in the same category as Dave McClure and Justin Caldbeck.
Absolutely! He's just not in such a disproportionate position of power over the women he harasses as Dave McClure and Justin Caldbeck are.
He has his white male privilege, magisterial facade, and all that, but not millions of dollars and an old boys investors network behind him. But that definitely doesn't excuse his behavior. And his explanation is bizarre.
Even if Ms. Dent was trying to manipulate him sexually, Mr. McClure totally missed the point. If they had met in a public place, with no professional context, he might reasonably have twitted her about flirting with him.
But in a professional context, he would have been better served by just making sure she didn't get hired. Because you don't want to hire people who sexually manipulate their colleagues.
One has to marvel at the thought process that made Marc Canter offer that ludicrous excuse to defend his sexual harassment of Wendy Dent. Also amazing that he prioritizes disputing being her adviser, rather than the harassment allegations online [1][2][3]. The article has prompted more people to outline incidents with him: "Horrified but not surprised by Marc Canter's justification of his sexual harassment. He propositioned me for a threesome many times"[4]. Didn't matter how many times I said no or how awkward it was [5].
> One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be reason enough to take pause for a moment
I don't know the exact situation here, but to be fair, if you were mostly flirting with someone and it was not a hiring situation, this would not be an unflattering thing to say - "hey, I like you and I think you are smart and capable". If in his mind they met as social acquaintances and in hers they met as business acquaintances, it's easy to see how it would seem reasonable to him and horrifying to her.
'adrienne, it looks like you've been hellbanned. I've vouched this post and your other post, but figured you should know so you're not just yelling into the void. When I've run across you I've consistently thought your positions were reasonable and from a group consistently both marginalized and ignored on HN, so I'm very surprised you're hellbanned.
'eropple: I know i'm hellbanned. It's because i'm too mean, according to 'dang. Sometimes i shout into the void anyway, figuring people will have showdead on, that's all.
Gee, maybe people shouldn't be forced into working 60 hour work weeks to barely scrape by, and then we'd have time to try to socialize outside of work, form real relationships with people we're find ourselves attracted to, under appropriate circumstances.
But no. Not a chance.
We get roped into hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of hours of coding camps and university curiculum, and then spat out into a constant professional grind with treadmills that never end, and no other life beyond a professional one.
Clothes, cell phones, cars, gas, houses, utilities, drinking, and razor thin budgets to maintain all these things, and no life except the life at work.
Why are women getting mobbed and groped in the workplace, because there's no free time, and nobody actually has lives outside of work. Everyone is pent up, and there's no actual culture anymore. Just work.
Don't pretend like this is a sexism thing. It's an economic thing. And not just some work/life balance garbage.
This is about being able to afford to live a life among your peers, at eye level, just treading water, without working 80 hours and 3 jobs.
Has anyone seen a policy on how to handle sexual harassment allegations in the work place? If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you don't have evidence? Similarly, if you don't fire someone and new allegations come up later then it makes the employer look like they are an enabler.
> If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you don't have evidence?
If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?
If an employee of yours said they got mugged and lost their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before replacing it?
You should default to trusting your employees. You hired them! They are invested in the company, potentially with equity! Especially in at-will employment agreements, I think this should be much closer to "Management reserves the right to let go of anyone at any time for any reason" than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
If you don't do any validation, this will be noticed and you will encourage false reports as a means of settling unrelated personal scores.
That management reserves the right to dismiss for any reason doesn't mean that dismissing based on bare unconfirmed complaints is reasonable, either morally or from a business perspective.
Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening? The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high, yet you believe someone would do this just to 'settle unrelated personal scores'?
> Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening?
I'm working at a place where I can't imagine this happening because they, while taking harassment complaints very seriously, also take personnel actions very seriously and investigate before imposing permanent consequences, using other means to prevent furthering a problem during the investigation.
> The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high
If the company establishes a practice of firing without investigation, and the events are hard to disprove in a way which would sustain a defamation complaint by the falsely accused, the risks are near zero.
It happens. Allegations deserve investigation before punishment is doled out. Just because SV is doing an absolutely awful job at dealing with sexual harassment right now doesn't mean we need to swing hard the other direction and punish without proof.
You'd think we wouldn't need a security camera in our break room to stop people from stealing other people's food, but we do. People do all sorts of petty crap. If you expect rational behavior, you're going to be disappointed.
I envy that. I eat out or hide my food just because they won't put a camera in ours. Too much stuff stolen. I did get a thief once by putting a special ingredient in it then leaving it clearly marked with large letters and warning. They probably thought, "Screw him. He can't prove nothing." Jokes on him. :)
Just did it once, though. I put a lot of effort into avoiding harming innocent people. The bar is getting lower and people are often tired so someone might grab it thinking it was a sample or something. Just too tired to be smart or something. So, continuing to avoid the fridge except looking for any freebies company provides. :)
"Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening?"
It's happened a bunch of times at my company just that I've seen personally. I'm not even talking the ones that did it to me. It's a "reputable," Fortune 100 company with diverse staff and plenty of turnover currently due to management. My part of it has maybe 100 people or so. There were also real cases of sexual harassment male-on-female and female-on-male mostly resolved by employees themselves without escalation. Younger people just being stupid with some coaching and strict warning. Those that were a bigger problem, such as smacking asses or continued harassment, get escalated to management who investigates them, gets witness testimony, and fires them if witness or camera confirmation is strong. I helped get rid of a long-timer recently where you hear stories with no evidence. He got transfered to a shitty job with more people around due to poor work ethic. This time, there were 2-3 witnesses to his behavior that escalated in his irritation and we got rid of him immediately.
So, it happens both ways in my company. The thousands of women I've talked to from tons of companies also told me both happen: sexual harassment; people using fake claims including sexual harassment as a tool. We call it the "he said, she said bullshit." Fortunately, my bosses cultivated a good team where we deal with little to none of that stuff. I mainly hear it from others acting as a witness for them or developing strategy for trouble-makers on occasion.
> "If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?"
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your sentence, but are you advocating that you should fire the accused employee right away with no evidence other than the word of the accuser?
I totally agree with what you are saying as far as trusting your employees, but your examples are a little different; a better example would be "If an employee of yours says that another employee stole their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before firing the other employee?"
I think the key thing to do, as a manager, is to start by beliving the employee making the complaint. Don't tell them things like "Oh, you must have misinterpreted" or "was it really that bad" or "I am sure he didn't mean it".
You tell them you take their complain very seriously, that you are so sorry this happened to them, and that you will take action immediately. Then, you investigate. Shockingly, lots of harassers won't outright deny it if you ask them about specific behavior (don't come out and ask them if they sexually harassed, but ask them if they, for example, said these specific words that they are accused of saying); they won't lie because they don't think what they did was actually harassment, they think they were just flirting or being fun. You then take action, whether you need to fire the person, reprimand them, transfer them, demote them, etc.
> If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?
And if the other employee said they didn't commit the rape, you should presumably believe them by default as well, right?
A witness statement is evidence. Evidence isn't only things you can touch. A photograph isn't any more evidence than a witness statement is. A photograph isn't inherently more credible than a witness statement. You should consider the credibility of each piece of evidence regardless of what type of evidence it is.
A statement made by a trustworthy employee should be taken seriously, "he said she said" is not a valid excuse to not make hard decisions.
Sure but if it is denied by the other employee, you've got directly contradicting evidence. That's what "he said she said" is.
I suppose the right word is "hard evidence." And yes I would say a photograph is, in general, more credible than a witness statement.
I say this as someone who just went through a long trial (representing myself, while the other side had an attorney), with a lot of "he said she said", and where a tape recording (of a violent attack on me) and photographs (of bruises) made all the difference.
Recently the cases that have hit the news, have rarely been borderline grey areas.
If someone comes forward it is because they are being serially harassed, have documentation to back it up, and there are multiple other people who have also been victims.
He said she said situations will likely result in a warning or no action at all.
That's why I'd recommend people make recordings. The tough thing is, in California, it is illegal to record unless you have their permission, or if it is a felony in progress. (which it was in my case)
This is a watershed moment in the VC industry. The dam has finally burst, and we're now seeing the establishment of a new norm in which women who are being harassed go public rather than feeling compelled to hide it. Expect to see many men who were operating under the old norms getting ousted.
Maybe the best way to phrase this is "If there is mutual attraction." Plenty of people marry their co workers. And there are plenty of non creepy/harassing ways to figure out if someone else is interested.
That's a bit of a different scenario, though. The statement I objected to is sexist in at least one of these two ways: 1) it presumes that women appreciate these advances from men in positions of power simply because they're attractive (i.e. that harrassment is "forgiven by default" if it's done by an attractive guy) or, 2) women are vacuous and easily charmed by attractive men to the point where they don't recognize sexual harassment for what it is.
It probably isn't sexist to say that people appreciate advances from someone who is extremely attractive, as long as both are available and looking.
The problem is that it's inappropriate to express interest if you're in a position of power over someone, whether you're a man or a woman. I think you were saying that, but point #1 lacks that context.
(Assuming no supervisory relationship or other power imbalance,)
Make an introduction. Make your mild/budding interest in them clear enough. Ask them to do something that's clearly not work with you.
"Hey, want to get coffee sometime this weekend?"
You'll find out if there's preliminary interest or not. If they're interested but busy, they'll figure out how to make that distinction clear. If "sorry; I'm busy" is the entire answer, just assume they're not interested. You get one "free" chance here; make it fairly clear that you're interested; don't invite them out for a "team dinner" and then arrange for the rest of the team to not show up or other chicanery.
I've tried walking up to a girl, smiling, and introducing myself with "hi!". Her response: "don't ever talk to me you creep!"
I've had other girls respond with "hi! omg do you work out?"
What you're suggesting is no guarantee that you won't come across as creepy. If you haven't actually extensively tested your suggested approach it's kind of harmful to go around giving them as advice
That chicanery happens when the man is insecure and thinks a woman won't go out with him unless it's a team dinner. If there's a magic potion to turn an insecure man to become more secure without the man doing stupid things and screwing up asking out women, you'd make trillions.
Unfortunately, it's not quite that easy. Sometimes it's not clear that you're asking them on a date. Ex. I've asked a professional associate out for drinks. I thought it was a date, she didn't, and she was offended when I tried to flirt a little. (I stopped once I realized she wasn't interested, but it could have been offensive.)
Personally, I've stopped ever pursuing anyone who works in the same industry due to the potential for weird dynamics, but it's sometimes not as cut-and-dry as people make it sound. Like the example with Chris Sacca, is flirting with someone at a conference a form of sexual harassment?
I'm not saying what sokoloff said is wrong (or doesn't work) but I'd not invite a woman (or a person) to coffee before getting a physical approval. This physical approval (eye contact + smile) is usually a certain indicator of interest. I'm talking about same level co-worker.
I'd not go with a co-worker that I have power on (like being the direct manager, or the VC). I can see many ways where the relationship can go awfully wrong.
Unfortunately I suspect you're right, at least in the shortish term. The culture in general does seem to be making progress in (fits and starts) this area, but it's gonna take a while.
Because VCs are all populated by serial harassers who now realize they can't get away with this crap?
Or are you saying these will be seen as false accusations and thus it'll scare off VCs who aren't run by mysogynist pieces of sh-t?
Because I'm not sure what the alternative is. If a VC is not in the habit of harassing women, they have nothing to fear. In fact, it'll give them an opportunity to court talented entrepreneurs driven away from the immoral part of the VC spectrum.
Donglegate wasn't about false accusations, though. It was about a woman publicly shaming two other attendees for what she considered inappropriate jokes in a public setting and then being caught in the blowback when other people were unhappy with how she handled the situation.
Her accusations were factual, although there was discussion about whether they were valid.
Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
>The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there.
>Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
Which is completely unreasonable. Do you remember what she complained about them saying? Dongles and forking repos? They were discussing among themselves, it wasn't targeted at anyone, and any reasonable person wouldn't believe it was sexist.
And IMO the majority of people on the internet were supportive of the guy who got fired, and also thought it was bullshit.
The woman who started the whole drama received way worse retaliation from the Internet mob (which was partially deserved) and got fired as well, so it was tit for tat at least, although that of course doesn't fix the damages.
Sure, if you completely ignore the cultural context.
Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.
This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.
There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.
[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.
[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.
The cultural context is pretty much the exact opposite. The cultural context is that men with power tend to get away with sexual harassment of subordinates for years before anyone gets caught. Only when there is a mountain of evidence and a small army of accusers does the world actually believe them.
For all of the VCs described in this story - this was a pattern, corroborated by independent sources, and with details in writing. There is in fact a very high burden of proof before anyone even gets blasted in the mainstream media, let alone fired.
I think the distinction that can be made is that allegations of sexual abuse of women are less damaging in some cases than others. That the people in question were able to "get away with it" says more about how their character is generally perceived from the onset than about society in general.
It's true that society is ridiculously "tolerant" of gross misconduct of some people more than others but there are enough examples of lives being ruined by false allegations to validate my original point.
As a sibling comment pointed out, Trump was elected despite his "locker room talk" and multiple women alleging sexual abuse (plus the actual chauvinism he has displayed on numerous occasions). However I would wager that similar allegations would be far more damaging if leveled against someone like Sanders.
There's also the effect that successive allegations sometimes even reduce the credibility of the allegations because of suspected bandwagoning ("Oh, she just wants some of that attention to make herself interesting").
Humans are fickle and irrational, especially when in a group. Individuals tend to be treated differently but this tends to be more about social status than gender itself.
Since the current president celebrates his past assaults on women with no consequences, and threatens his accusers, again with no consequences, and Cosby was recently freed, your thesis that mere accusations damage prominent men rings hollow. The exact opposite is true.
It is so damaging for the women involved (career, socially, and withstanding the barrage of slander, misogyny and distrust that they always seem to face) that it is very hard to step up and simply tell the truth, and you are part of the problem here, with your needless insinuations about false accusations and talk of a low burden of proof.
It is a significant number. For example in Hardvard campus 20% of the allegations were determined to be false[0]; but this is a controversial subject and the numbers all over the place[1] from state to state and even more from country to country but overall most quote numbers that are not an insignificant number.
Are you suggesting the false sexual harassment / rape accusations never happen? I think there are some athletes from Duke who were subject to character assassination and would entirely disagree with you.
Everyone has plenty to fear. Any sexual harassment/rape accusations (no matter how untrue) are incredibly damaging, it's very biased towards the accuser.
The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.
this response would be as short lived as it is short sighted -- not taking into account that eventually.soon their bias would be measurable and again turn into ethical and PR nightmares for VC's that dont find a way to manage their male problem
> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
> "If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone."
Well, there are two problems with that.
1 - It puts the burden of proof on the accused. I.E. it totally throws out of the window what has become a de facto human right and an universally established legal one in every democracy: "Innocent until proven guilty", into a: "Guilty until you can shows us some footage that proves you are not guilty" (which let's face it, it's basically impossible if the accuser is lying on purpose and knows how to do things).
2 - In America I think you are free to record other people interacting with you or in your office/home (perhaps some American can clarify this), but in many other countries, specially in most of EU, that's a crime. You can't go around recording people unless they are of public interest and in a public situation or they expressly consent to it.
It may or may not be legal to record conversations in the U.S. depending on the state, and depending on whether or not other people consent to being recorded. California has 2-party consent law when it comes to recording conversations. In other words, it's a crime to record a conversation with another person and not tell them: https://www.google.com/search?q=california+conversaion+recor....
(Law enforcement is exempt from this restriction, of course).
As has been pointed out, no one is suggesting non-consensual recording. Starting a meeting with, "do you mind if I record this?" is hardly alien.
As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals.
If you are a VC having a meeting with a founder, arrange for for more than 2 people to be there, such as a co-VC, a co-founder, a secretary, or whoever. Are business meetings with 3 people suddenly a human rights violation?
> "As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals."
This is surely the poorest analogy I've ever read in my all life, comparing a burglar trying to enter your house with someone falsely accusing you of something.
What about the burden of proof you don't see if you go casually dressed to shop in some fancy shop and they falsely accuse you of trying to shoplift and you - oh bummer - didn't record everything?
You also don't see any burden of proof on you if you go to some corrupt country and the police falsely stops you for speeding and you didn't record your all trip after the moment you got there (though luck, if you didn't record everything is because you surely did something wrong)? You don't see that burden of proof on you, right?
The burden argument seems really disingenuous given the context. This is a business meeting, not picking dinner with your friends, and the process is full of negotiation, records, and witnesses. Would anyone protest writing down terms or having a secretary at the meeting to avoid the chance of a contractual dispute later?
> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
The previous comment didn't allude to illegal recording of conversations without consent. The suggestion was to ensure there was a record of all interactions.
If I'm a VC and I've scheduled a meeting at my office it is as simple as letting the party I'm meeting with know that I had planned on recording for my archives.
Nothing unusual or sketchy about the request, especially in a business setting.
Do you know what amazes me about comments like yours? You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen.
> I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money ... will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
OK, so ON NET what do you expect to happen? Lets say I agree and the smart ones take the meetings, what about the dumb ones? Or the average ones? What is the net result of all those different levels of VCs? Less or more meetings for women?
Again, "You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen".
> If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
It's not so easy. Bullshit accusations leaking on Twitter will be halfway to destroying your career before you even dig up the original recordings, and I doubt anyone will want to listen to your case anyway (if anything, they'll comb over your recordings with a tootbrush to prove you were guilty of this, and a bunch of other things). I too expect VCs to be less willing to expose themselves to such danger.
Any VC whose reaction to this is "oh I guess I should avoid taking meetings with women because I just can't know what goof will cause me to get sued" is probably already making some women uncomfortable.
If you cannot understand how _stupidly easy_ it is to have a completely non-sexual, non-harassing conversation with a member of the opposite sex, you most definitely should read up on some stuff. I mean this in the most non-snarky way possible.
Wouldn't it be nice if half the population weren't completely turned off by the idea of talking to anyone in tech?
Sales at my company is female dominated, I'm in building next door so I run into them all the time, I just treat them as any other member of staff, politely but otherwise as an amorphous blob.
I don't socialise with work mates outside of work events either, lines get crossed when you do in a alcohol orientated culture like mine.
It's worked fine for me for 19 years employed.
Had one female former colleague assume I was gay because I never hit on her (and she was attractive).
Nope, just not interested in bollocking up a good work environment, it was interesting to watch the dynamic though.
My simple rules for work.
Treat everyone equally, small stuff matters, I went out for coffee and went and asked the cleaner if he wanted one, he looked surprised.
Don't gossip ever, just don't. Leave the conversation if someone else starts.
Be on time, meet deadlines, let boss know as soon as you know you won't.
Be professional, you might know a customer for years but they are still Mr Smith until they say 'call me Bob'.
When a boss makes what you think is a poor decision (business reasons, moral reasons etc) get it in writing.
Always send a recap email after meetings, misunderstandings cost less the earlier you catch them (much like bugs).
Great list. Its interesting how good ideas for how to conduct yourself in a business environment will naturally exclude creepy and/or harassing behavior AND will also leave far less room and opportunity for false accusations to take root.
Its not foolproof by any stretch, but it's excellent risk management on multiple fronts.
I've been working since I was 18 and in 19 years I've seen a lot, experience is learning from your own mistakes, wisdom is learning from other peoples.
It's really not that difficult to maintain a professional attitude, it's a skill like any other it's just the modern workplace isn't always conducive to it, frankly I'd prefer a more formal workplace than informal all things been equal.
The risk is that some go-getter will use a harassment thread as leverage over you. No matter how saintly are you, in the current culture nobody is going to believe you if you're a man accused of harassment - so why open yourself up for the possibility?
I think you're right. It's "unlawful" but handled civilly.
While looking up the relevant law, I looked through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex and various other things, and discovered that there is an explicit exception written in to the law for members of the Communist Party. So you can totally discriminate against any commies who might try to work for you. Not really relevant here, but so weird I just had to share.
Jeez, the Cold War was a strange time. The exception seems especially weird since political party affiliation wasn't a protected class in the law to begin with. I guess that meant you legally could say, "We only hire non-Communists, regardless of sex/race/religion/...; and white Communist Jain men of Estonian origin."
I wonder if it was just a "safeguard" against members of CPUSA claiming their membership was a religious affiliation.
It sounds like it was an amendment introduced by a confused lawmaker who wanted to make sure the law wouldn't stop companies from firing Communists. The amendment was then accepted on the basis that it didn't make any difference (since as you note party affiliation isn't protected in the first place), so it wouldn't do any harm to include it.
You are placing normative (meaning "you should do") moral judgements on a descriptive (meaning "this will happen") moral statement.
My prediction isn't what SHOULD happen, but what I think WILL happen. My personal opinion on what is morally right? As I'm not a VC, utterly unimportant and redundant.
There should be no one on one meetings for any plausible business venture. Both sides needs to have multiple players to protect all interest and keep discussions to the subject at hand.
I would suggest than anyone who does get into such meetings simply demand the presence of multiple persons. This isn't a buddy lending money to another.
Scenario with a female founder: "Listen, I want to meet you but as we have an at least one woman present policy for any meetings with female founders, adn all the female partners are booked for the next week, I'm afraid I can't meet you".
Vs with a male: "Hells yes I'd love to catch up for coffee, I love your idea. Unfortunately, it will just be me as everyone else is busy".
> One example was the Americans With Disabilities Act, and we told the story of a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon named Andrew Brooks. When a deaf patient came to him for a consultation, he realized that the A.D.A. required him to hire a sign-language interpreter for each visit if that’s what the patient wanted. The interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and Brooks wouldn’t be reimbursed by the insurance company:
> That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.
Hopefully man on man abuse comes out as well. Sex abuse between all pairings / genders happens but there are not so many women VCs so it's unlikely that's going to come down here. But there are quite a few gay VCs.
My advice to everybody is keep meticulous notes and records of your interactions with others, regardless of gender. This is important to expose abuse and to expose lies.
The rabbit hole now goes high up, as well as deep.
"In the months ahead, IGE hired more adults, a slew of VPs with decades of industry experience among them. The company also brought on a former Goldman Sachs investment banker named Stephen Bannon, whose mission was to land venture capital."
Wow, thank you for posting for that link! I just finished watching "An Open Secret" for the first time, and it chillingly corroborates most of what Fucked Company humorously presented in that South-Park style documentary, which is how I first heard about the story when Fucked Company covered it contemporaneously.
I only learned about about Steve Bannon's connection to Brock Pierce (who recently posted a Facebook photo of himself wearing a red "MAKE BITCOIN GREAT AGAIN" trucker's cap at Trump's Inaugural Lounge) when Mother Jones and Wired covered it during the last election. It looks like the "First Kid" is trying to work his way back into the White House.
And here's a a map of the rabbit warren: a timeline of the scandals that started at DEN, including Brock's attempts to whitewash his past and ongoing lawsuits around his online gold trading company IGE, which Steve Bannon was involved with, up to his election to the board of the Bitcoin Foundation and the resulting resignations:
DEN Sources:
A document-in-progress compiling firsthand reporting on DEN, Bitcoin, Brock Pierce and the Mike Egan / Bryan Singer lawsuit
You seem to have forgotten to post a link you intended...
The scary thing is that btc is likely the traffickers currency of choice these days. How traceable are btc transactions wrt what types of goods or services are supposedly purchased with btc?
Untraceable if you use a mixer. Why not blacklist coins that have been mixed? It's not hard to figure out whether a coin has been tumbled through e.g. bitcoinfog.
I think most of the resistance to this idea comes from people who've used Silk Road clones, most of which force you to mix your coins. But as bitcoin becomes more valuable and ransomware more prevalent, the argument that silk road is ethical and should therefore be able to function becomes less and less persuasive.
Blacklisting the coins would be easy: Exchanges simply close your account if you receive a large number of BTC that have been tumbled. It's easy to identify the coins and to easy to close the accounts while refunding the coins.
Blacklisting the coins would be easy: Exchanges simply close your account if you receive a large number of BTC that have been tumbled. It's easy to identify the coins and to easy to close the accounts while refunding the coins.
---
Seems like the future will be full of black-market banks and money laundering (as opposed to how its always been ;-) #PanamaPapers)
Is this the most difficultt financial problem: We don't want government watching every single move we make, yet we dont want criminals to be able to easily hide all their nefarious actions...
Where is the correct balance?
We have those who are supposedly the beacons of the tech future now being revealed as just as bad as others...
Faith in humanity is being assaulted a fair bit more than it had been in the last few decades...
“Untraceable” is a strong promise and I'd be surprised if traffic analysis couldn't de-anonymize effectively with the investigatory resources which a nation-state can muster.
The other key thing is that Bitcoin fails open: if anyone anywhere ever makes a mistake or is subverted the blockchain is a public record of every transaction which is hard to deny and can never be purged. I'm not sure anyone has the operational competency to make assurances in that environment.
I think I included most of the links I intended (some were repeats from the previous message but bore repeating in context, and the last one to the timeline has a lot of other fascinating links), but here is another interesting one from Buzzfeed about An Open Secret:
I don't get why you were downvoted. The documentary "An Open Secret" is quite accurate and confirms everything I ever heard about DEN, provides a whole lot of background information and first person interviews, and is consistent with the information in the lawsuits that Brock Pierce tried to cover up and suppress. The video tape that the kid they molested took of Rector's house with all the pills, the gun safe, and photocopies he made of all the documents, the email with discussions and photos of kids Pierce and Rector were grooming, and the audio tape of the confession about molesting the kid, were all very chilling and quit convincing. This is no "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory: it really happened and is very well documented by many consistent sources.
Oh yeah: I guess the Bannon links are worth repeating in this context too, because it's one of the most mind blowing parts of this whole story, now that he's running the country into the ground.
Here are the links about Steve Bannon (Wired published an article in 2008 before Steve Bannon was widely known as the real President of the United States who dresses as Death, then in 2016 Mother Jones pointed out the old Wired article, and then Wired published another article mentioning it):
Oh yeah #2: thanks to Richard Bartle and Wired, here is the the original Debonneville lawsuit complaint and the amended complaint that Brock Pierce illegitimately and unsuccessfully tried to suppress, which documents in great detail the lurid story of DEN, IGE, the Debonneville lawsuit, "Pierce's Great Cover Up", and discusses Steve Bannon's involvement.
30. Steve Bannon ("Bannon") was hired around March 2005 to head the effort of obtaining private equity investment into IGE and eventually take IGE public. All the shareholders wished to cash out on their respective equity in the wildly successful business. From March 2005 to February 2006, Bannon and Pierce's primary focus was on raising investment money for...
I am a straight man who has experienced this personally. I can't give too many details without revealing who I am and who the VC was, but I can say the VC works at one of the largest corporate funds, and I was a bootstrapped founder at the time.
I wonder when the men who are being abused will come speak out? I have lost a job for not sleeping with my boss and a friend of mine says her boyfriend had the same thing happened.
~ queue everyone laughing because when stuff happens to men its funny ~
I wonder how the tech will handle false accusations, though. The culture of "guilty until proven innocent" opens up avenues of abuse, which were, are, and will be used.
Usually those people are repeated offenders and once first victim comes out, other are encouraged to do so too. That would give claim more weight. False accusations are rare anyway, but I understand your concerns.
How is it that the old money industries of Wall Street and Hollywood, no vanguards of gender egalitarianism themselves, seem to have less flagrant sexual harassment issues? Do they keep them under wraps or are they just more mature by now?
Anecdotal, but I have friends that live/work in the industry in Hollywood and they claim it is rampant there. It's a husband/wife duo. She's hit on constantly. He's demeaned often with "Yo, your husbands a broke schmuck, I'm rich."
Look up Kesha. Look up Sony emails. Those are just what leaks.
Hardest-charging--gotta-make-it-big--screw-the-rules guys are not heading to Wall Street or Hollywood, but to the Valley. That's where all the money and action is.
The tech industry, for all it's faults and transgressions, is still a relatively progressive industry (emphasis on RELATIVE). "Old money industries" have been getting away with this type of behavior for decades, if not centuries. Women in those jobs probably see no point in reporting it or coming forward. Why would they? It's not going to make headlines that the secretary at Goldman Sachs gets propositioned for sex by top executives. She's just going to lose her job, in all likelihood.
So I would argue, it isn't that those industries have less flagrant sexual harassment. It's that you just don't hear about it. It doesn't make headlines.
See Wolf of Wall St for most vivid example. I'll also add it's extremely common in sales all over the country. Especially telemarketing, phone sales, boiler rooms, and so on. A large number of women I've talked to over the years in those positions say it's crazy. That movie even brought flashbacks for at least one I talked to who told me of huge parties with barbeque, pools, drugs, and tabs for employees for beer and hotel rooms. I actually went to the first half of one of that company's parties at her invitation. Too crazy and too many hard drugs for me so I left. I've seen similar stuff at corporate offices of what you'd consider boring industries where on the executive or senior level they'd waste company money on parties with dates, secretaries, hookers or whatever. Nowhere near as extreme as the Wolf but same problems.
So, yeah, I have probably over a hundred anecdotes especially in sales but in general saying the right-leaning, ultra-capitalist areas have a lot of it nobody cares to report. Plus, it gets worse in "right to work" (aka fire without cause) states where there's limited job availability or the man/woman being harassed has been at company so long them not getting a reference can be held over them. Lots of reasons not to report.
There's sex at work, but there's also just many relationships that start or get set up at work and lead to marriage. Put men and women together in an environment that already cements a shared general interest and you're going to see that. People who treat every fellow employee the same as an amorphous blob are operating under a strange way of viewing the world.
I'm not sure it's that they're more "progressive" but that seems to point in the right direction. My own thought is that tech has relatively more "white knights" and also relatively more people willing to look at their actions affecting the world, even if it's sometimes a distorted view of changing it with a milk startup or whatever. Letting these things slide creates an uglier world to live in, whereas in other industries there's probably acceptance of the way things are or just a sense of being able to switch industries.
Currently I wonder which side will end up dominating tech culture or if we'll remain at war. Some companies have to send out memos telling people to cut out the sex in the stairwells. Others just don't hire any women and try to make sure they're not discriminating in a way that's illegal (not that hard with "pipeline" arguments, at least for core tech positions). And then others have some balance, and make it work or result in drama like this story.
I would say the tech industry is one of the few industries where a tight labor market means workers have power. When they have power, they are more likely to speak up about abuse and know that they will still be employable.
One theory I've seen bounced around is that the more process and institution there is in an organization, the less opportunity there is for sexual harassment. When social interaction at the workplace is limited and formulaic, there's no leeway for someone to sexually harass colleagues. Thus staid megacorps have less of these problems than startups/tech companies. Whether this is true or not, I can't personally say, as I've never worked at the former.
Wall Street is a different animal all together, and in a lot of ways worse. Having lived on both coasts and experienced both types of people (and still working with both types of people) I can tell you first hand that Wall Street is far worse. There is just more easy money to cover stuff up.
This is simply incorrect. These other industries are just as bad, and widely understood to be so. I don't think you actually need to look very hard to find evidence of this.
One thing that does define a difference between SV and at least Wall Street is that fast growth startups tend not to have put proper HR processes in place fast enough, which can create an environment in which harassment is easier.
They definitely do this WAY more in the music and entertainment industries. The women are probably just less empowered in that industry. The stories of men in power sleeping with young upstarts in the music industry is abundant. If I remember correctly, one of Lana Del Rey's songs (or maybe it was an interview), talked about kissing record label producer or executive or something.. and in her case she didn't have a problem with it specifically.
Here's a testimony on John F. Kennedy's sexism and drug use:
"The dark side of the man she calls "the Great Compartmentaliser", and who would identify himself on the telephone as "Michael Carter", was never far away. One day in the swimming pool, he decided that Dave Powers was looking "tense", and coerced Alford into giving the first friend a blow job. "I don't think the president thought I'd do it, but I'm ashamed to say that I did. The president silently watched." With sex, came drugs. Alford claims she was "the guinea pig" for the president's fascination with amyl nitrate – poppers."
The answer to your question, as other commenters are pointing out, is in the "seem". They seem to have less flagrant issues, but that's just appearances.
While tech still has a very long way to go, at least speaking up is becoming acceptable, and won't bar you from the industry for life. An Uber engineer who speaks up will never work for Uber again, but she can still find work in the industry (if she so desires). Someone who speaks up on Wall Street will be "marked" for life and never have the opportunity to work on Wall Street again.
You're absolutely correct about being "marked" on Wall Street.
Unlike tech, most professional services (banking/consulting/law), don't require particularly skill, but rather the right pedigree, connections, and social background.
Getting a job in IBD at a bulge bracket means years of striving: the right schools, the right social networks, the right way of "talking", the right "look". The rewards are massive: $100-200-300K bonuses even as a young analyst is the the norm. Loyalty, being able to "eat shit", etc are the traits most admired on the street. Being a "troublemaker" and speaking out against harassment (not even just sexual in nature, but just plain bullying/hazing) earns you the label as "weak" and out of a job. If you've been striving all your life for one of these coveted jobs, you can imagine the immense pressure to grit it out, collect your fat bonus, and drink, snort, and purchase-expensive-toys your stresses away.
Old institutions in wall street have processes in place to follow up and lay off employees.
Banks keep records of all communications and emails. Whatever you said, it is not just stored and available for searching, it is also randomly inspected by annoying regulators and backed up in a bunker for the next 5 years.
Last but not least, they are not populated by 20 years old brogrammers.
For one - we conflate VC as being "tech" when it's simply just finance (i.e. Wall Street). VC's literally take money and put it into investment vehicles and generate profit from selling those investments. That's basically what Wall Street does.
Are you...are you really that naive? This is almost all a matter of media attention, which is all a matter of money. You also won't hear about discrimination at the upper reaches in the fashion industry because, guess what, those advertising dollars speak loudly.
Once the West Coast tech world starts paying into the scam you won't hear about sexual transgressions there any more than you do in the world of Wall Street or Hollywood which are, as you hint, 1000x worse. People are just now hearing about guys like Bill Cosby, but his behavior was standard issue.
LESS flagrant sexual harassment? Ohhhh noooooo. Tech has a ton of work to do and you'll hear no excuses about this behavior from me, but if you think it's worse in tech than in finance in particular you're mistaking "more newsworthy" with worse.
What is interesting is that there seem to have been a burst of articles in 2016, but nothing in 2017. The first three pages of google results above have almost only articles from 2016, and a few from 2012, 2013, etc.
Maybe sexism sells more when it happens in the tech world, but unfortunately, I think it's happening in every industry , especially where women are a minority.
Perhaps because techies are seen as holier than you types? Sexual harassment stories in churches are way juicer stories than about other organisations.
> How is it that the old money industries of Wall Street and Hollywood, no vanguards of gender egalitarianism themselves, seem to have less flagrant sexual harassment issues? Do they keep them under wraps or are they just more mature by now?
Not quite Hollywood, but look e.g. to what's recently happening at Fox News for an industry where that's also pretty extreme...
Contrary to rest who says women are not empowered in other domains as much, I will say the reason is there is lesser liability for making the accusation. I think, by hollywood you mean actors, and the impact on the career can be big as the job period for a movie is short and does not completely dependent on looks and experience. Other than actors, the majority of hollywood, there are completely different dynamics(make up artist, graphics designer etc.). And for Wall Street it's clear. It's not under the wraps. I think general public sees them as sexist much more than coders.
It's far more widespread in both those industries. It gets reported on every now and then, but literally no-one is surprised so those stories never get traction. It's expected, plain and simple.
I had always heard the constant murmur of sexual harassment happening in the Valley, but I was never sure if there was any merit to it. I anecdotally had never seen anything that would even come close to a situation like those described, so I kind of brushed it off.
But then articles like these come out. Wow. These are some of the kingpins of Silicon Valley shown sexually harassing with hard, factual evidence. I had no idea.
Aside, and not meant at you specifically, but: Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _believe it_.
That constant murmur is the sound of a thousand stories like this that don't (yet) have the coordination to hit the pages of the NYT at the same time and become "credible". A month ago, there were dozens of female founders sitting on stories like this who were still afraid to go public. And they were afraid because good, decent people like you, who "had never seen anything like it" would "dismiss it out of hand" if they told.
(Obligatory disclaimers: You don't need to believe every story 100% unconditionally, but "a constant murmur" = "multiple corroborating sources" and should not be ignored. Also, I want to praise rather than criticise the parent comment, because acknowledging why we were ignoring these stories is a vital first step to not ignoring the next one we hear.)
While there's something to your comment, and I fully recognize I was in the wrong here, I would still have a really hard time believing in a constant murmur of bad behavior. Give credence enough to investigate and consider much more fully that I would have previously, absolutely, but I draw the line before "believe." Maybe that's just semantics.
Yep. What I'm saying we should learn from this, and Uber, and all the rest is that we should treat "a constant murmur" as much stronger evidence than we currently do. (Not necessarily a slam dunk - but, in Bayesian terms, it should shift your priors much more now than it would have before these stories came out.)
Edit: Although really, what stronger evidence will you ever get? I suppose you could get a personal account from someone you trust (but that's not something you're going to hear if you're in the habit of brushing off such stories - most commonly, "honey, are you sure you're not just misinterpreting him?"). Barring that, a constant stream of similar rumours is the only evidence of a problem like this you will ever hear - until there is a "Susan Fowler event". Update accordingly.
It can't really be treated as "evidence". Maybe it's "probable cause" for looking into something -- but that's different in a couple of important ways:
* One needs real and credible evidence to carry through with depriving another person of any liberty or property.
* Probable cause never trumps or adds to evidence -- if you investigate and find nothing, that's it.
One of the most confusing and unfortunate memes of the past year is this "believe women" stuff, because it confuses strong suspicion with proof. If these cases show us anything, it's that there is plenty of real and credible evidence -- no need to go on intuition or suspicion.
In a court of law, personal testimony is evidence. It isn't necessarily compelling by itself, but the idea that it isn't evidence because you don't like it is not actually how the legal system (or culture) works.
A "constant murmur" isn't testimony. Testimony includes specifics like the people involved, the time and place of the incident, and what precisely happened. A murmur doesn't need any of that. Not the least, because no one goes on the record for a murmur.
...the idea that it isn't evidence because you don't
like it is not actually how the legal system (or
culture) works.
What does this have to do with whether I like it or not?
It certainly depends on your position relative to the person; but many people who are in a position to do something are also in a position to investigate -- they can take correspondingly stronger action, on the basis of an investigation.
For example, Teo had plenty of resources available to him, if he wanted to follow up on the rumors he had heard. He just chose not to do so.
The same is true at Uber: within the company there was a wealth of information available, and it was certainly feasible for Kalanick and many other people to look into the available complaints, emails, performance reviews and transcripts to determine if something was amiss.
It is true that people outside of Uber, and people not as well connected as Teo, would not have these resources available -- but then again, those people are not actually going to go into Uber and start firing people (for example), though they might refuse to associate with people they had heard rumors about.
When you say "we should treat 'a constant murmur' as much stronger evidence than we currently do.", I would ask you, evidence with regards to what? What would you do based on this kind of evidence?
> Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _believe it_.
Um, no?
There's a constant murmur of racism in SV companies. I haven't seen that at all. In fact, the opposite. Doesn't mean there's no racism, but I'd rather have actual examples before I buy into that line.
There's a constant murmur of ageism in tech companies. I haven't seen that either. Plenty of people over 40, over 50 in tech. Fewer over 60, but this is a newish field still.
I've managed to go some 20 years in tech without seeing hardly any guys openly hit on girls at work -- except a couple of cases where they're now married. So why should I just "_believe it_", before reading stories like these recent articles?
Because these stories are an object demonstration that this sort of thing can be happening in a blatant, undeniable way - seriously, read those texts - and the men around can never see it. So, "never seeing it" isn't really strong evidence that isn't happening.
(Compare catcalls. Female friends I trust tell me this happens to them all the time. Around me? ~Never. But that's cause it happens when I'm not there. Extrapolate.)
I don't see any texts that people around me send each other privately, so as far as 1:1 private communication goes, yes I'll "never see it."
I'm not doubting the stories posted in these articles. But I'm not going to believe something just because there's a "constant murmur." There was also a constant murmur that Obama hated America, etc.
Your catcalls example is not a "murmur," it was people you know, telling you what happened to them. That's different.
Believe it or not, there is stuff happening that you are not aware of.
If your first reaction to hearing such things is "Well I've never seen it, therefore it probably doesn't exist", maybe some self-reflection is in order.
Thanks for the tip. I didn't realize other stuff happens around me.
But still, there's lots of "constant murmurs" that don't pan out, and in many cases they're driven by agendas. It's easy to make or perpetuate claims when there's no attribution, no specific examples, etc. Just vague innuendos.
So if some vague innuendo is contrary to my personal experience, yeah I won't believe it as fact.
Kudos to these women for bringing VC sexism out of the realm of murmurs.
Sure, I'm not saying you should 100% believe everything you hear. Just that dismissing such things outright based on a lack of personal experience is also not the right way.
The poster above me said (and emphasized) that when there's constant murmurs, you should _believe it_. Very wrong. Keep an open mind, but don't "believe" it outright just yet.
because things happen outside your immediate circle? Like maybe you work at a better company than most?
For example, if on your team of 20 engineers you have 3 women, then your team is already above the national average.
It's for the same reason you can think there's systemic racism in the American policing system without thinking that your cousin is racist because they're a cop.
"Aside, and not meant at you specifically, but: Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _believe it_."
If there's a constant murmer, don't believe it: it may just be a cultural or group narrative they push without evidence. I hear constant murmers that totally contradict each other with cherry-picked, source material from esp liberals and conservatives all the time. My favorite is obviously structural racism since I experienced it in mostly black school, town, and government. The blacks had it so much better off than us in those environments with ostracism, shouting down, and beat downs keeping whites anxious and some got really messed up in the head. However, the murmers in media say black people are always disadvantaged and white people never experience structural oppression. (cough) bullshit! (cough)
I figured out where that one started since I grew up with them from a young age hearing students and parents in both races. Essentially, they repeated what their parents taught them with amount of motivation to operate in their circumstances also usually based on parents teachings. There'd be some elements of truth like someone's experience or racial studies but it became a story that applied to everyone whose repetition made it self-fulfilling. Then, the echo chamber took over for most with small percentage breaking out to any degree. Facebooks study of spread of bad information within in-groups confirms this at a large scale. Lots of those were murmurs about political topics. All bullshit.
I'm lucky to have made it out. I said smart before but I got caught in quite a few in life. So, I was just lucky to see counter-evidence to both side's murmuring of bullshit.
If you work at a tech-company, you might think, "oh, that happens at Uber, but not here".
It almost certainly does.
One of the easiest things men can do to help is collect those stories anonymously, curate them, and share them broadly. (For example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/at-google...) Women shouldn't have to bear the brunt of the burden of making the majority believe them.
> Women shouldn't have to bear the brunt of the burden of making the majority believe them.
Accusers always bear the burden of providing evidence.
What people need to do is actually reserve their judgement. There's no need to choose sides when it's two people's words against each other.
For a victim, it's great to speak up, even with no evidence, in the event that there is a pattern and other may speak as well, like with what's happened with Bill Cosby. But if you have no evidence, people shouldn't just believe you but they also shouldn't call you a liar.
I give a lot of credit to women like Susan Fowler who were brave enough to speak out, with starting what feels a bit like a tidal wave. I hope we see similar light shone on institutionalized racism.
You'd rather say that she was sufficiently well connnected to make her voice heard. Even then she came public only after she had left the company and was employed elsewhere.
> You'd rather say that she was sufficiently well connnected to make her voice heard.
Most complaints of this nature damage the victim's career prospects and/or end up with loss of job/funding/etc. There is rarely evidence because the few who perpetrate this kind of behavior often deliberately avoid leaving evidence. They also rely on societal signals that most people don't believe it or don't care.
It isn't very hard to figure out. Every rape trial includes a huge segment on what the victim was wearing, as if that mattered. The message is clear: this is the way powerful people work, deal with it.
> Even then she came public only after she had left the company and was employed elsewhere
Indeed. Anyone who was old enough to understand the Clarence Thomas sexual harassment investigation can recall how much Anita Hill was dragged through the mud, despite having a compelling case.
I think the fact that Susan was not currently suing Uber was the primary reason why her story was believed by the general public. The critics who would howl "she's just trying to make false accusations for a payday" had no ammunition. Either that or things have dramatically changed for the better since the 90s.
As femboner said, there's whole companies in public relations and image management dedicated to doing stuff like that. Plus individuals with a great representation for misrepresenting stories. Spin doctors I believe they're called.
Good that they came out, many admitted to it, and some are gone. That's the good news. Still, one was extra weird and messed up that I had to at least look at both of them in how they presented themselves: Marc Cantor vs Wendy Dent. It was one of few where little info and no picture was available for the woman. It already presented his background plus him admitting he sent sexual and weird messages to her in response to her alleged flirting with him and/or presenting herself with sex appeal. Common line of BS but sometimes true. Curious, esp of just what she looks like (I like faces on names), I looked her up:
Wow. Got style of a fashion mag, big cleavage in another, then casual in another, and even dancing in front of fires in another. You could've told me the first set was a Hollywood screening or a fashion event with models pushing sexy outfits I'd believe either if it didn't say Hampton screening. That she might use sex appeal to her advantage is believable since many hard-working artists do. Just use every natural or acquired gift you have. She's also just interesting across the board from her bio to writing to photos. I'd consider asking her just because she seems a bit awesome and good looking. Uncommon combo at least in my circles.
That said, I'd probably not do it as a venture capitalist helping her get funding just because of the liability. I might end up in a news article or something. If I did it, there'd be a brick wall between the two with me testing her interest up front. She can tell me what she's comfortable with taking me up on personal/professional interests anywhere from zero (dont work with me) to both. Truth told, her short bio has so much good stuff I'd probably fund her (or help her) on a film-related startup just based on her experience and success in film. I'd do it whether she was interested in me or not.
Side discussion: There's also the side point that keeps coming to mind when I hear women complain that men they went to for money or professional advances showed interest in them. I'm always against anything extorting or harassment where women are clearly uninterested. That's obviously bad. Then, there seems to be an expectation that successful or professional men never show interest in any women who are skilled professionals or founders in favor of... lesser women in clubs, churches, or something? Telling me I must sacrifice all potential for a date or resulting relationship with such incredible women just because they're founders or something with nothing in return... while they can mostly do whatever they want... seems a bit arbitrary, unfair and lots of missed potential. One could argue financial benefits after acquisitions or IPO's from getting more women in but we men are already used to sacrificing time and money in some way for desirable women anyway. Startups come and go but (insert incredible founder) might only happen once.
Just kind of musing on a concern I've heard from a lot of people in and mostly outside that field just talking about rules where men can never hit on or anything close women who are professionals. Also, every one I've heard from reported witnessing a varying chunk of those women would hit on or flit with men they liked who were professionals doing their job. They said that was OK since they initiated. That seemed like a double standard. I always hate those. Good news is other chunk only flirt outside of work to uphold the principle of work & dating separate. Respectable where they ask for a sacrifice and make it themselves. Many men might still not agree to the arbitrary rule, though.
Dude, what the fuck? Her having picture of herself showing cleavage is totally irrelevant. Dressing attractively does not make it ok to be harassed.
Secondly, saying "don't hit on women who come asking for funding or professional consolutation" in no way means "you can't date or hit on professional women".... you just can't do it TO THE WOMEN WHO ARE ASKING YOU FOR PROFESSIONAL HELP. You can flirt and do your thing if you meet a professional woman in a social situation, just not when you are interacting with them in a business context.
You can even date co-workers (I am married to a woman I met at work), but 1) you can't be in a position of power over them and 2) You have to be EXTREMELY careful in how you approach them. You do NOT start off with texts about sex or sexual things. You don't send anything sexual until you are way into your relationship. You would start with something like 'hey, would you like to grab a drink after work', and then if they say no, you stop IMMEDIATELY AND NEVER ASK AGAIN.
"Dude, what the fuck? Her having picture of herself showing cleavage is totally irrelevant. Dressing attractively does not make it ok to be harassed."
It might shock you but I operate on innocent until proven guilty and hear both sides concepts. I'm just applying what little of that I can to assess how she presents herself vs his claims. I said there's some potential they were true. I also said the evidence was strongly against him and those texts were inappropriate. She's the victim here based on the evidence.
Then I started exploring the greater topic based on what I've heard and read from tons of people (including women) with varying opinions. In the media, esp like this, you're either big on sexually harassing women constantly or you totally support a specific position on interacting with women in the workplace that a subset of them are pushing or article covers. No middle ground in any way. I was just instigating some discussion of those rules.
Wow. Is this satirical? This is disgusting - you are part and parcel of the rampant sexism the women in the article are speaking out against.
> That she might use sex appeal to her advantage is believable since many hard-working artists do. Just use every natural or acquired gift you have.
You're evaluating whether or not you think somebody's claim of harassment is true based on whether or not you think they are attractive. Does that mean that you would disregard allegations by somebody you found homely? We should assess claims of harassment based on the testimony provided not your personal assessment of somebody's attractiveness.
> That said, I'd probably not do it as a venture capitalist helping her get funding just because of the liability. I might end up in a news article or something.
The reason to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable is to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable. It's not so that you avoid bad PR.
> If I did it, there'd be a brick wall between the two with me testing her interest up front. She can tell me what she's comfortable with taking me up on personal/professional interests anywhere from zero (dont work with me) to both.
There should be zero personal or romantic engagement by the part of a VC with an entrepreneur where the first interaction is skewed by the power dynamic. A consensual and equal relationship is impossible when one party controls the financial and social prospects of the other.
> Then, there seems to be an expectation that successful or professional men never show interest in any women who are skilled professionals or founders in favor of... lesser women in clubs, churches, or something?
It's possible for men to interact with women in social contexts, not just in professional ones.
> Telling me I must sacrifice all potential for a date or resulting relationship with such incredible women just because they're founders or something with nothing in return... while they can mostly do whatever they want... seems a bit arbitrary, unfair and lots of missed potential.
Women do not exist in the world solely for you to date. Again, if there exists an asymmetrical power dynamic there is no possibility of a consensual equal relationship. If somebody asked you out while holding a gun to your head would you feel comfortable turning them down? You might protest at the metaphor, but being able to deny somebody resources they desperately need can be just as threatening.
> Also, every one I've heard from reported witnessing a varying chunk of those women would hit on or flit with men they liked who were professionals doing their job. They said that was OK since they initiated.
Are you sure that in every instance the women are expressing romantic interest? Or are they merely being friendly, and being misinterpreted. That is a trope that comes up often - men think they are being hit on but nothing of the sort is happening.
"This is disgusting - you are part and parcel of the rampant sexism the women in the article are speaking out against."
So, let's say there was a trial where someone complained about an advance. Then, that person said they were flirted with first. One is a woman. You have data on how the guy presents himself to other people to compare to the claims of the woman. You give the woman the win automatically without looking into how she presents herself to compare to the guys claims and assess her credibility? If accuser = female and target = male, then female-claims = true. I'm not like that. I've seen so many females do exactly what he said in businesses, including business owners, that I at least wanted to test it out of curiousity. As I said, though, there's no hard data supporting his claim where in this case he admitted what data she had was true. Open and shut just on evidence.
"The reason to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable is to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable. It's not so that you avoid bad PR."
No no no. It's best to always look at principles and pragmatics. There's a huge liability side to this as I illustrated here:
There's also what I'm putting in for what I'm getting. If I'm a VC, there's a clear chance to make more money getting more talent in. That's why I'd be especially hesitant at least thinking in self-interest to flirt with them and probably try to create a good environment for women. I've already done that professionally for years and year. We even recently outed a perv that was ass-smacking who had apparently done it for years. I will also look at the risk posed to my career by real and false claims of sexual harrassment, though, since the cost is staggeringly high. I always look at principles, pragmatic options, risk, and rewards in business. Some of these get under-reported in the liberal media despite a massive number of people (including women) in the U.S. having differing views.
"There should be zero personal or romantic engagement by the part of a VC with an entrepreneur where the first interaction is skewed by the power dynamic. "
"It's possible for men to interact with women in social contexts, not just in professional ones."
Two, arbitrary rules designed to benefit one side. Usually at other side's expense but I consider it probably a gain in VC's for getting more female founders. I'm leaning in favor of it ideologically and default on it in business already since I've seen a lot of damage from going the other route. Then again, there's lots of men and women that like being able to make a yes-no proposal with some getting good results out of it. That's reality as opposed to hypothesis. Dissenting opionion exists. So, I bring it up to raise question to see what poeple say.
"omen do not exist in the world solely for you to date."
They exist to do whatever they want hopefully leading rich, happy lives. One thing many (most?) they like to do is date men. The time and place they'll meet plus window of opportunity might happen in a professional context with narrow possibilities. So, a cost-benefit analysis happens where one or the other might decide if it's worth the risk to approach the other. This is how you get couples or marriages that started with them working together. You're acting like this doesn't happen or never should happen. The amount of dissenting action... by women... means that's worth questioning or people discussing.
"Are you sure that in every instance the women are expressing romantic interest?"
These people are pretty good at recognizing flirting. Especially sexual humor, ignoring work tasks a bit to focus on learning more about the guy, and trying to go out with h...
>Just kind of musing on a concern I've heard from a lot of people in and mostly outside that field just talking about rules where men can never hit on or anything close women who are professionals.
Then why do couples often say they met at work?
If you're an investor, meeting someone for the first or second time, and someone asks you for money, and you hit on them, you're an utter asshole and moron. Yes, even if someone was dressed in a way that exposed cleavage.
It's not remotely appropriate, professional, or even decent to hit on someone at the place and time that Cantor did.
If you already have a steady, mutual friendship (or other positive relationship) with someone you work with, or are in a casual setting that people go to with the intent of hitting on people or being hit on, then, sure, things can work differently. But that's extremely distant from what occurred here. Someone asking something from you in a professional capacity does not ever want "wanna fuck?" as the answer.
That's actually my argument. Many do. Anyone applying nothing personal on the job wouldn't achieve that since each would report on the other per policy of no advances. Yet, there's tons of couples that met on the job. So, clearly a lot of people disagreeing with that concept or seeking to limit it in some way with a lot of relationships that wouldn't have happened.
"If you already have a steady, mutual friendship (or other positive relationship) with someone you work with"
How do you do that if you can't show personal interest in them if they approached you professionally? Other articles have women complaining about that where they expect to only receive professional interactions with men they sent a professional statement or response to. Note that, as in my reply to cortesoft, this is a subset of women where others may be fine with it. I've met a lot of those where I just saw them do it in their actions. Or they did the flirting themselves from the get go based on the value of the man. The differing views by both men and women are always left out of these articles that present just one. So, I wanted to see if anyone had something to say about it. Seems they're all in one camp so far that probably matches publisher's.
"and you hit on them, you're an utter asshole and moron. Yes, even if someone was dressed in a way that exposed cleavage."
Going straight to hitting on them before trying to get a conversation or friendly chat would be stupid. I said I'd probably not do it. Never have so far. I play it safe just being professional or friendly until one shows interest in me.
There is a legal, and ethical difference between meeting and dating a co-worker, and hitting on someone who you have power over.
The former is, assuming everyone is OK with it, fine. The latter is illegal as hell, and even if everyone is OK with it at the time, will expose you to litigation. Don't do it.
Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism.
The problem is that women are already being ostracized. When you can't get hired or you can't get VC money or you can't get business connections because the only time men will talk to you is to hit on you, you are already basically dead in the water as a business person.
It's a chicken and egg problem. The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio, but if the consequences of that are self-reinforcing then the status quo remains.
Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.
But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement. Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
> But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement. Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
My wife and I are starting in our own tiny corner by volunteer teaching small age-appropriate and (hopefully) interesting topics in math, science, and engineering in K5, first, second, and third grade (as our kids go through those ages).
The first seeds of the gender disparity in tech are sown in pre-teen years, IMO. There are also some significant selection effects later on, but I think those are smaller in magnitude than the original "Daddy, what can I be when I grow up?" programming.
One obvious step is that we need to do what we do in every other subject: force all children to learn enough tech to figure out whether they are good at it or not by making it a required class. When schools do that, they find that tons of girls excel at programming, but probably never would have tried it if it hadn't been mandatory.
Dealing with harassment in the industry is also key, but even if that was eliminated completely it wouldn't close the gender gap that exists by the time kids graduate high school. And the educational bit is much more straightforward to implement, it just takes a lot of money to be thrown at the problem.
Forcing all children to go to school has been an answer for a few generations now, and even with the crappy imperfect education system that we have, it's paid off immensely. I'm merely suggesting that tech is now important enough to warrant inclusion in that curriculum as a way of making it slightly more relevant and less crappy.
Except in the cases where it does work astoundingly well to solve issues that would have been labeled cultural before they were improved, like raising literacy rates across all races (achieved by massively increasing investment in education). See https://ourworldindata.org/literacy/#historical-perspective for some idea how well that worked. A similar situation is AIDS prevention via safe sex education.
If a cultural problem has lack of exposure and education at its root, then it is very easy to throw money at that part of the problem and just fix it. Right now girls and underrepresented minorities are woefully underexposed to coding, and via education we can right that wrong directly even if we can't figure out how to fix the underlying cultural issues (which definitely exist, and have made white and Asian boys much more likely to have early exposure to CS).
I'll note that students tend to rate CS as their favorite academic subject (it's slightly below art and theater) when they are forced to take it, so "force" in this context is mostly just about getting them to take the first step. They love it once they start, so whether or not it will solve the gender imbalance problem, it's such a critical skill for the future economy that it seems irresponsible not to spend money on it and prepare people to participate in that economy, doubly so when students enjoy it so much.
That's not to say at all that the cultural components should be ignored, they're just so much deeper and more difficult to fix than this particular side effect, which is amenable to solution-by-education (which necessarily means throwing money around, since training teachers takes money).
This is a very sincere question: Where in your link does it show that literacy rose due to throwing money at the problem?
I am failing to find that assertion on the page you linke and that isn't my understanding at all of growing global trends in literacy, which are rooted in much more complex trends away from subsistence cultures and agriculturally based incomes. Furthermore, reading is a skill that is vastly different from the problem where talented educated women with ambitions cannot get their foot in the door because most men see them exclusively as sex objects. This is not solved at all by teaching women to code. Plenty of women code. They still face horrible problems due to sexism.
> And the rate of growth really climbed after the middle of the 20th century, when the expansion of basic education became a global priority. You can read more about the expansion of education systems around the world in our entry on Financing Education.
I don't know if that is proof of the statement or anything, but I don't think it's a particularly controversial claim to say that universal education impacts literacy.
As for the challenges women face as they try to enter industry, those are well established and real, for sure. They need to be fought viciously, and we are correct to spend a lot of time and money on those problems. I'd never deny that, it's extremely important to do that work and fight that fight, as this entire article and discussion proves.
But pre-industry, only 18% of CS majors are women, so the educational system has to be fixed as well, that's way too big of an early gap to hope it will magically close once the industry gets it's shit together. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/a... has a good rundown of where the most valuable opportunities are (middle school is a big one) and how they should be addressed - it's not just about access, it's also about making sure that it's provided in a way that engages and targets young girls specifically, and making sure that more women are teaching these classes. Schools are a valuable point of leverage where you can affect preconceived notions about gender roles and career opportunities, and any effective program needs to break down those barriers. That requires a lot of curriculum design (the easy part) and retraining (the hard).
While you're right that plenty of women code, men outnumber them by 4:1 before they even face the challenges of industry. We need to throw everything we can at that, from every angle, and at every step in the pipeline, until we're much closer to 50/50. Educational interventions are straightforward and proven to work with fairly low cost at the early stages, so I can't imagine why we'd want to rule them out as being part of the solution. They're also massively helpful when addressing the racial imbalances, which are arguably even more vulnerable to asymmetric early exposure than the gender imbalance is (though that's a much bigger subject worthy of its own discussion).
"Going to war to preserve the peace is like fucking to preserve virginity."
Business connections don't happen by being aggressive, ugly and fighty. They are based on hard won trust. In a nutshell, the problem women face is that when men trust them and like them, their first, middle, last and only thought is often "I'd hit that!"
I'm having my own horrendous crisis today and not really up to trying to do this dance with you. I don't believe that rising literacy rates globally has anything at all to do with "throwing money at the problem." I don't think you and I are likely to reach any kind of agreement and, given my state of mind today, continuing this discussion with you is unlikely to go anyplace good at all.
Fair enough, I'm very sorry about the crisis and hope it works out okay.
I 100% agree with your calling out constant sexualization of women as a major problem that permeates the industry, so I don't think we're really that far apart. At least on my end any disagreement mostly centers on the role that education will play in mitigating the side effects, which is fine; even if it doesn't help as much as I hope it will, I'm still happy to see the progress that students make as a result of my work, and I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about the ultimate impact.
So no hard feelings, and I apologise if I came across as argumentative. It does occur to me in hindsight that especially in the context of this article, my comments could be construed as defensive of the industry status quo, since "it's the pipeline!" is too often used in that way. That's not what I intended at all, I'm sorry I failed to make that clear. I think we really are on the same side here in terms of goals, if not tactics.
The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio
I grew up in Columbus, GA in the highly racist America Deep South. Blacks and whites each constitute roughly 49% of the population of Columbus, GA. This has failed to turn it into some kind of racial paradise. Also, from what I gather, black slaves on plantations often outnumbered the white owners and their family members.
I don't think gender ratio has a thing to do with it. Using that metric as justification for the problem amounts to excusing it.
Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.
I do agree with this. This is not a path forward.
But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement.
I don't think we need more women in tech. We need to figure out how to treat the women already in tech like human beings instead of whoopi cushions. This needs to be done regardless of how many women there are. Waiting until we hit some quota is just excusing bad behavior in the here and now and that will tend to keep it alive.
Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
Or maybe there are people who have some idea, but no one takes them very seriously. In part because not taking them seriously conveniently serves to keep sexism alive and well while looking totally innocent to most onlookers.
> I grew up in Columbus, GA in the highly racist America Deep South. Blacks and whites each constitute roughly 49% of the population of Columbus, GA. This has failed to turn it into some kind of racial paradise. Also, from what I gather, black slaves on plantations often outnumbered the white owners and their family members.
Race and sex are different. There is no biological imperative to couple off with someone of a different race, such that an imbalanced ratio creates aggressive competitive pressure over a limited supply of partners.
> I don't think gender ratio has a thing to do with it. Using that metric as justification for the problem amounts to excusing it.
It's completely fair to blame individuals for their misbehavior, but when you see misbehavior at scale, there is some systemic problem.
If admitting that the problem is bigger than just one person has the effect of excusing that person, that doesn't make it any less true.
Saying that gender imbalance in the industry is not really the problem in no way denies there is some systemic problem. I agree there is a systemic problem. But I believe gender imbalance is a symptom, not a cause.
Have women as your first few customers. Sell to Women initially. Only pitch to women VCs etc... When you get beyond a certain point hire men to deal with men you don't want to deal with.
You're basically describing affirmative action or quotas. They worked successfully in the Nordic countries to improve the gender ratios over there. The Navy did it with great success. Many companies do it including First Horizon that's near me which tries to stay half and half.
This can work but essentially you have to either make it law or convince the VC's to do it willingly. Those are big political problems that would take a lot of targeted work done right. If it can be done at all.
The problem with quotas is that it isn't that kind of problem.
It isn't predominantly that qualified women are applying and being turned away because of gender discrimination, it's that industry-wide the number of qualified women necessary for an even gender balance do not exist.
They went to school for teaching or medicine or real estate and the 17 year old girls deciding which college program to apply to are still doing the same thing.
First of all, MEN have the most money and power. You are literally telling me that the path to power is to limit myself to the dregs of society. Like that makes some kind of logical sense.
Second, the black community in the U.S. did this sort of thing. They had a thriving, well to do community in Greenwood, Oklahoma known as The Black Wall Street. The result: Whites burned it to the ground and then promptly began changing the laws in order to hamstring their ability to rebuild on the completely made up bullshit theory that their homes needed to meet a stricter fire code since it had burned to the ground. The ONLY reason it burned to the ground is because asshole whites set it on fucking fire.
So, no, this absolutely does not work. With a problem like this, you take the bull by the horns and address the root problem or it absolutely does NOT go away. You cannot tip toe around sexism, racism, etc. They are malignant forces that actively hunt down and target people. Politely avoiding them never, ever works.
I really hope that stories like this will let us stop blaming specific companies like Uber and accept that this is a problem with our industry. We're never going to be able to fix this as long as we keep sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it's not a systemic issue.
As with all corporate evils, it will require leadership from the top down establishing clear standards of behavior with strong enforcement. Simultaneously, external pressure via media, lawsuits, and missing key talent can be applied on companies not doing it or reinforcing those half-assing it.
Not sure I agree- because investors aren't in the same category as employers, it's harder for a founder to get any sort of justice for discrimination or harassment. AFAIK, the bar for a lawsuit is much higher.
Also, most of these firms aren't huge organizations- they're small management teams with a couple partners and associates / analysts. From what I can tell on Crunchbase, Binary Capital was just Justin Caldbeck and Jonathan Theo before it imploded.
- Shouldn't the New York Times be reporting more often about sexual inequality on Wall Street?
- Silicon Valley has fewer women.
- Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of Scientific and Technical workers in the country - if you went to an American school, then you know where they stand in the hierarchy.
Could it be that the lower number of women here is forcing the men to go out of their way to beat the drumbeat of female rights to their own detriment, while the rest of the country points, laughs and pressures them into even more submission?
The technology industry is seen as progressive and cutting edge, therefore stories about sexism have more impact because they challenge a larger gap between perception and reality - "everyone knows" that finance is sexist.
I'm not sure I completely understand the rest of your point, but I object to the idea that promoting women's rights is against the interest of men. Just society arguments aside, there is a basic economic argument about the talent that is being overlooked by pushing women out with sexism.
Promoting and educating everyone of their rights is very important and essential to the function of a civil society.
You're absolutely right that tech gets the beatdown because it is new. It is much more difficult for people to complain about their conditions in older industries without finding themselves unable to find another job in the same industry.
The Tech industry, especially in Silicon Valley has the friendliest working environments. Why do news papers make it seem as if sexism is so rampant in the Valley? Why would a girl want to become an engineer if all she sees are stories about how badly women are treated in Silicon Valley?
It's an explosive combination of socially maladjusted nerds who suddenly ended up in positions of power in a location/industry with rather few women for them to influence with that authority + a new wave of progressive women trying to break into a male dominated space.
It's going to be a rickety ride for sure.
On a personal note, part of me was refusing to believe that someone like the partner at Binary was even possible in this day and age, I had never run into this myself and concluded this must have been a caricature at best. I must admit I was wrong to assume that, turns out those people are real. Hopefully there are very few of them, but I might have to change my mind on that one too soon.
> socially maladjusted nerds who suddenly ended up in positions of power
A lot of people who are socially awkward when they're young work hard to overcome it. Some just naturally grow out of it.
But some find a "trick" to avoid having to overcome it.
The trick is simple: be an asshole. Being an asshole doesn't require any actual social skills, and very few people will challenge you. Most people just go along to get along since they don't want to risk the social cost or spend the energy to raise the issue. It's a great way to superficially escape social awkwardness without having to actually work at it.
How much of this is actually illegal? In workplaces you have legal recourse but in this situation it doesn't seem like there's anything you can do except blast their name out there for everyone to see.
The groping is probably illegal independent of workplace context, the stuff done in hiring is as illegal as if it was done during employment, much of rest is probably not illegal.
I'm not commenting on the ethics of this, but the woman who was "groped" stated that she consented to it. I know this may seem distasteful, but whether she allows the kissing/groping because she's attracted to him or because she just needs his help, it's still consent in my mind:
"I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,"
"Because VCs are all populated by serial harassers who now realize they can't get away with this crap?"
Because any of them that aren't used to avoiding all the risky behaviors, whether doing it intentionally (asking for dates) or unintentionally ("discriminatory language"), will now worry that they'll be hit with newspaper articles that can destroy their career. They'll be considered guilty until proven innocent by good chunk of America. Association with them will taint many other employers who won't hire them. A percentage of the claims will also be fake to try to boost some woman's time in the spotlight.
Interestingly, one woman here predicted image-conscious men would get a bit paranoid. I told her prediction was good since I've been hit with numerous false claims that were all disproven by witnesses by customers and coworkers alike. I'm blunt, never seeking popularity, and say controversial stuff (political moderate w/ flair for dark humor) that they felt would make me vulnerable with their great skill at manipulation, acting, gossip, and so on. Fortunately, each time I had at least one witness who was a white or black female (diverse team pays off) backing me up that I didn't say/do whatever they claimed with others (including semi-opponents) saying they agreed that basically I don't hurt workers or treat them unfairly.
Due to the risk, I naturally didn't try to get a date with anyone when I was in leadership positions... despite much, much temptation since they were impressive inside & out. Later, I doubled down on that when false claims came in by people wanting to replace me as lead, get discounted product from me to benefit them, get better service(s) than other customers at a loss, attempt lawsuits against the company hoping for settlements (they never tried haha), get me fired for alleged mistreatment of customers, and so on. This shit happened to me so much that, as the HN commenter predicted, I started avoiding women or anything like those making the false claims (occasionally men) as much as possible unless professionally expected to deal with them and always on camera. I'd treat them [visibly and audibly] exactly like everyone else. I even considered wearing a recorder on me all day at work in case they (again) tried to make something look bad on camera reporting different words than actually exchanged. My female boss was too smart for that, though, blocking that individual's actions.
So, this shit happens whenever the aggressive, scheming women (or men) see a way to get more for themselves at some seemingly-vulnerable man's (or woman's) expense. The possibility with its consequences should be considered. At least acknowledged if we're calling side-effects of reporting a necessary evil. It's happened to me personally numerous times since a PTSD-afflicted individual looks weak or nervous much of the time: a magnet for attackers. Oh well. What doesn't kill you makes you (stronger/stranger?). ;)
>So, this shit happens whenever the aggressive, scheming women (or men) see a way to get more for themselves at some seemingly-vulnerable man's (or woman's) expense.
These are people with personality disorders (especially Borderline), who can thrive in environments where incessant lying, gaslighting, and life-ruining accusations are rewarded . The current system lets the people with the least morals float to the top, regardless of their gender. I don't know how to deal with borderlines in situations like this, but it's wrong for people to simply pretend they don't exist.
I've noticed people on HN never really want to discuss why people like the Uber CEO are sexist, and how people like that should be handled (aside from just firing them and forgetting that they exist). Learning about personality disorders can help you understand lots of behavior that was previously unexplainable or baffling, and perhaps even teach you something about yourself if you realize that you have one. The more time I spend in tech, the more I think that the rate of occurrence for them is much higher than in the general population.
I really wish greater awareness of personality disorders was espoused in tech, and that Americans in general took mental health more seriously. I think you could begin to fix a lot of problems that get talked about here by simply having people go to therapy. It wouldn't be a quick fix and it's not guaranteed, but it's better than nothing.
I've noticed people on HN never really want to discuss why people like the Uber CEO are sexist
I don't think it's fair to characterize Travis as sexist without backing it up with evidence. Travis isn't equal to Uber, and I respect him as an entrepreneur. (Maybe I missed an article claiming he was personally involved in some misconduct, though.)
One anecdote that appears occasionally is about an email that Travis sent to the company in 2013, when the company had a few hundred employees:
"Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic ‘YES! I will have sex with you’ AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip,"
Its nature is interpreted as evidence Travis is sexist by some HN commenters.
For what it's worth, I've given that incident a bit of thought. He was speaking to a group of 400 people. Unless we're of the opinion that under no circumstances is it ok for one coworker to have sex with another, establishing clear guidelines seems appropriate. The comment about himself seems more tongue in cheek given the overall tone of the rest of the email: https://pastebin.com/RZJkzQd6
In general, it seems more productive to reserve outrage for those who take advantage of employees or founders by using their position of power.
Sorry, maybe I worded that poorly, but I don't personally believe he's sexist, in fact I don't really know anything about him aside from what I've seen on HN and couldn't really give my opinion one way or the other. I was just making a note on the HN discussions regarding that topic (him being sexist).
Now I'm curious what line of work you're in where you find yourself in these conflicts so frequently. I've heard one off stories like that, but outside of politics, never heard of an environment where this is a regular occurrence.
> Due to the risk, I naturally didn't try to get a date with anyone when I was in leadership positions... despite much, much temptation since they were impressive inside & out.
When you write things like that, phrased like that, it's not surprising in the slightest that multiple women have thought you were harassing them.
My guess is that you come off as a creep. I'm sure you don't mean to but I don't believe psychopathic schemers are common enough that anyone could ever be accused numerous times without some real cause for it.
I'm a US, straight (the subject of the OP is men hitting on women, so, for me to give my experience as examples, it's important to note that I'm a straight male), US, native born, white (for my examples, it's likely also relevant to note that I'm in the majority of the people in the subject of the OP), male.
From my first girlfriend to my (late) wife,
I've always treated girls/women as angels.
But in the work place, I had several girls/women make it clear they wanted something physical and romantic, that is, sexual, with me.
Example 1: I was a college prof also helping the college in practical computing, and she was on the college administrative staff. She wanted to talk to me. Leaning back in her office chair, facing me, her legs aimed at me, so I could get a view of the back side of her thighs, she put her feet up on her desk and announced that she and her husband had an "open marriage".
I thought: Okay. Good for you. What's that got to do with me? I'm married, and my marriage is not "open". And even if it was, or even if I were not married, sorry. I make the first move, and this college is a target rich environment where you wouldn't pass the initial cutoff.
Example 2: A student, call her a girl, wasn't doing very well in my applied math class. In class she sat in the front row with a sweater with too many buttons undone at the top. She looked terrified about my course. She came to see me in office hours. Sure, I'd give her in my office, any student, a one on one, personalized, repeat of the lectures, the course material, anything in the course, just tutor them if necessary. As I was going over some of the material trying to get her caught up,
she sat close and rubbed her knee against my thigh.
I thought: Okay. You seem desperate. But you are safe with me. Let's concentrate on the applied math and get you through this course.
And there were several other examples.
I was not upset, offended, afraid, outraged, threatened, worried, etc.
And what complicated responses and reactions did I have to those proposals? Sure, exactly nothing, zip, zilch, zero. Easy.
If we are to have gender equality, then maybe the women should do something similar? E.g., in steps: Ignore it and concentrate on the work. Quit smiling. Scowl. Say something nasty. Scream. Bite, scratch, kick. Have a 6" hat pin and use it.
More advice: Don't dress like Fox Babes. Instead, if wearing skirts, have them about a foot longer so that when sitting the hem of the skirt is well over the knees, and modesty is preserved even if the knees are not together.
If Rafe Testosteroni doesn't like the hat pin, then he should stay out of range.
As a startup founder, CEO, the case I'm afraid of is too many of the females don't have enough pressing work to do, scare each other, form a herd, get highly energized and determined, and show up at my office with some lawyers complaining that Rafe Testosteroni routinely makes them "feel uncomfortable". Some of the women are convinced that Rafe is undressing them with his eyes. So far Rafe has never come within hat pin range, but all the women are very concerned. They all agree that they are highly concerned because they can't be sure just what Rafe is thinking or might do.
Wow, think for a second how hard is to be an entrepreneur. All the shit we have to deal with at so many different levels.
These women goes beyond that, literally putting everything on the line. Much respect.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 392 ms ] threadNow we live in a world where a guy can be publicly shamed for attempting to flirt or for making a pass at a woman he is interested in?
If a woman sent me a Facebook message saying that she wanted to date me, or even sleep with me, and I wasn't interested, I would just say "No", not call a newspaper. It's an offer, not a rape.
Newsflash: the workplace is the second most common place for couples to meet. People of different genders who are bound to sometimes be attracted to one another are going to be forced to spend long hours with one another. And a lot of people are not good with subtle cues, especially men.
Uneven power dynamics makes this more complicated, but a complete social ban on any attempt at flirting is just silly. Speaking of uneven power dynamics, try to find me an example of a man reporting a woman to a newspaper because she offered to sleep with him.
Keep fighting the good fight ladies, for all of us!
>During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”
One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be reason enough to take pause for a moment, and maybe ponder why PR suicide seems like a good idea.
>Mr. Canter, in an interview, said that Ms. Dent “came on strong to me, asking for help” and that she had used her sexuality publicly. He said he disliked her ideas so he behaved the way he did to make her go away.
???
>Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said.
That one's just downright pathological creepy in the extreme.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-p...
Many 'successful' people who make it to ceo are more likely to be a psychopath according to the article. And I would describe these actions of the men who are more likely to be psychopath, not normal.
I've seen a lot of other kinds of assholery too. Tech has an underbelly just like any other major industry. FWIW I've heard Hollywood and Wall St. are worse.
A bank I worked at in the mid 80's had one woman working on a floor in a fairly separate building away from the main building. That one woman had to endure pretty much constant harassment from two guys who were technically her superior and their boss didn't lift a finger to stop it.
I made a good bit of noise about it to HR and then she begged me to stop because she was afraid they'd let her go. The two guys that did this (Koert Borst and Jos Haarsma, I sincerely hope they read this, assuming they are still alive) were crossing so many lines in their behavior I lost count.
Fortunately I only worked in that department (systems administration) for about a year before landing a job at the computer center which was far away from the main offices. Assholes would be too friendly a term to describe those two, it was downright sadistic how they enjoyed harassing her until she cried.
One of the West Point/Sloan MBAs, Chip, showed his dick to a recruiter.
One of my lawyer friends had a hiring manager show his dick to her.
I've been in tech for a decade and haven't met anyone who has been exposed to a dick in person.
Stereotypically, you have cash equities at one extreme and exotic derivatives at the other. Outside of banks, the culture at an HFT firm or quant hedge fund will be completely different from the culture on a "bro-y" bank desk.
Asking a woman who's 25 if she's still a virgin is a clearly loaded question - if she says yes then she's admitting to be inexperienced and should sleep with the the 'man' asking in order to learn the ways of the world, and if she says no then she's admitting that she's sexually active and therefore willing to sleep with a 'man' like the one asking the question.
Creepy assholes use this sort of tactic because they get off on making someone else feel bad. If you see it you really should call them out.
London just happens to have a large financial sector. I can assure you that the same thing happens in the oil, tech, and real estate industries for example.
If we're taking about anecdotes, I had a friend in college who was a sex worker and most of her customers were in tech.
What's wrong with a word 'prostitute'?
Also sex workers includes dancers in strip clubs, phone sex operators and adult magazine models none of which engage in the physical act of sex with others as part of their job:
https://rewire.news/article/2008/05/06/sex-work-trafficking-...
Wikipedia article on gulags refers to prisoners as "workers" several times.
General public doesn't give a rat's ass about jargon churned out by all those activists. And I'm absolutely not singling out sex workers here, SJWs tend to be the biggest offenders now.
If public familiarity with some subtle, nonobvious definition of "sex worker" is an important point of their strategy, they are probably doing it wrong. If they are getting collateral damage from the human trafficking propaganda, they can talk about "legal sex work" or whatever to cut themselves from it.
Activists overestimate familiarity with their jargon and ideas in the public. Firstly, because they live in echo chambers. Secondly, because virtue signalers amplify apparent popularity outside of the echo chambers too. It's a trap. Ask people who were sure that Trump will lose.
I now feel compelled to explain myself. My use of it was only in a secondary remark, non important for the main point of my post. And I think somebody versed in the nuances of sex work advocacy may have heard of this concept too. If not, well, not much loss.
Interesting that you caught SJW and missed virtue signaling. This is more obscure I think and, admittedly, it was a part of my main point. So, from google:
the action or practice of publicly expressing opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one's good character or the moral correctness of one's position on a particular issue.
Also I was not promoting the term or any agenda I was simply explaining the nature of the term to the OP because they asked. Maybe you should go back and read the context.
I don't have any problem accepting "sex worker". I think it's a fine and intuitive way to describe somebody doing, well, sex-related work. I only don't find it intuitive at all that it must necessarily be somebody working willingly. I think it's an assault on grammar rules and logic to insist that people believe so. Three others appear to agree with me, or at least upvoted that post for whatever reason.
The esoteric acronym is of minor relevance, feel free to disregard it if your time can be better spent than researching this issue.
Note that I took a great care to rant in third person ("they"). Nothing personal.
My network informs me that similar efficiency exists across the Street. I'd encourage any women skeezed out by SV to apply for Wall Street jobs: more cash, less groping.
So apparently that does happen on Wall Street as well?
Furthermore, not having met any of these people but speculating based on my experience, I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work. I think they also enjoy the nineteen out of twenty who are repulsed and insulted but don't -- correction, hopefully, didn't -- think they could afford to call them on their bullshit. Very few people are genuinely indifferent to putting someone through an experience like that, but it's very common for people to enjoy it. Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not. I'm sure the people described in the article took care to stay on the right side of the law, but reading this I can't help hoping that they made mistakes.
Nope.
These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.
Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.
To be fair, even an asshole may show some restraint when they have a clear understanding of consequences. Thinking their money buys them immunity from consequence is an enabler as they don't believe they have the slightest need for this kind of rational self-interest.
You are both right, an asshole is an asshole as you suggest, but even so, assholes are worse when they think they won't face consequences as the poster your replied to implied.
I think one of the larger problems that society is struggling with is the idea that two different people can be in very similar proximity, interact with the same people and yet one can have to suffer through radically different (and horrible) treatment.
The reason I believe this is so difficult, is the other person legitimately think "I know that person, I know that place, I've gone through that and I've never seen anything remotely close to that." And reasonably conclude that it didn't happen. It's difficult to accept that there is an entire world that they don't ever experience.
But we all need a find a way to account for this, because too many people go through beimg mistreated and their concerns are simply dismissed.
I think it is an interesting thing I see with successful people that they often attribute too much of there success to their personalities and too little to luck and circumstances. This makes them believe their own bullshit about how great they are, and how bad other people are.
Don't get me wrong...the behaviors in these accusations are reprehensible and, even if the interest was entirely mutual, it would piss me off to no end if I were an investor in any of these funds that the managers were using my money to pursue women or generally anything other than trying to invest in the most promising companies. Even if they didn't have an obligation to the women pitching to them or common decency, which they do, they still have an responsibility to their investors which they completely violated.
But if we're going to be consistent, we need to call out anyone who brings anything sexual into what should be a strictly business setting, and I'd bet there are people on both sides of the pitch who've done that.
In other words, your argument attempts to ignore simple historical facts which you can verify easily on Wikipedia.
Historical oppression doesn't justify questionable behavior. I've seen many instances where women have "dated up" to help their careers. I even saw one instance where a female director dated the CTO and later the CFO to have someone to support her coke habit. Just calling out the men will never truly fix the problem. We need to be giving a consistent message to both sexes. These types of relationships (and expectations of relationships) are not acceptable under any circumstances. Because if it's wrong for men to pressure women but it's okay for women to pursue those men, then there can always be the hope in the back of the man's mind that maybe it's possible.
Do you also do this in discussions of any other topic whatsoever? Whenever someone posts something about HTTP, do you make sure to post comments about Gopher and present it as being just as important?
In the same way, if those advances were never successful, these men would quickly get the message and stop playing. But that doesn't seem to be the case since it's still happening way too frequently. If we want to stop this problem, we need to figure out how to get the message through that even in the cases where the advances were welcomed, they still did something wrong. And that requires more than just laying into those unfortunate few that are unlucky enough to do this kind of thing to women brave enough to come forward. It will require calling out those instances where the advances were welcomed.
In particular, the last paragraph you could have done without. These discussions already get heated enough, IMO.
Those pathetic douchebags were not "primed" by any experiences with women "dating up". They were primed, trained, protected and covered up by the shitty patriarchal society we live in. And it's worth tackling that problem without attempting to dilute it in "maybe she wanted it" sauce.
Thinking back at the show Grey's Anatomy, ABC's highest-rated drama show, got a female lead, and was among the top 10 shows in the US. A recent joke the character made was that all of them married their bosses. While fictional, culture impacts perception regarding behavior and in turns causes behavior.
I see a lot of the vilification in these threads, but very little effort towards trying to understand. Chalking it up to "patriarchal society" may be fine from the standpoint of PC talking points, but it is intellectually lazy and just makes the situation more adversarial rather than one where we can come together and figure out the best ways to avoid this happening in the future. We want to make sure that the men who are in a position to abuse women like this learn why the behavior is wrong and not the steps to avoid (sms/fb/etc messages) getting caught.
This is why both pathologies are relevant. I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships with men in a position of power. But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men. It's an exploration of the thought process that led them to act in this way. Perhaps it's not what these men were thinking...it's just my projection, but no one has presented any argument or any other substantive possibility. They've just, like you, overreacted and sought to distort what I was trying to say because it didn't match the outrage and need for vengeance that they feel.
This should tell you to stop and think about what you’re really saying.
It's not even that people are disagreeing, it's that they see a trigger word and stop reading, then launch into a straw man attack. I see that frequently in these "social justice" threads.
Yup, that one.
> or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward?
False equivalence. I would imagine if VCs and investors get the message that if they hit on women they'll be fired, they'll stop doing it.
> I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships with men in a position of power. But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men.
Okay, so to combat this "pathology", we'll say, "If you engage sexually with someone who approached you in a professional context, consensually or otherwise, you're fired". Seems easy enough, and that takes care of the problem.
You imagine wrong. Instead, they'll learn how to do it without getting caught. Lesson one comes from these incidents. Don't leave an electronic or paper trail. It's much less likely these women would have come forward if they hadn't had electronic records of chat sessions to back up their assertions.
If you only treat the symptoms of the problem, it will keep returning in different forms. You need to address the root of the problem and your over-simplified view of the issue will never allow you to do that.
The far more practical approach is to catch the bad guys over and over again, make examples of them and mete out punishment. That's how criminal deterrence works in every other field. No reason to make an exception here.
So you're advocating for zero tolerence.
There was never any suggestion that any of the men in the article observed some woman "dating up" and as a consequence of that felt justified to grope or send inappropriate messages to the women in the article.
The men in the article themselves did not even try to portray their alleged actions as justifiable, or excuseable by association with any other past behaviour. They either admitted their behaviour was wrong or denied they ever behaved in this manner.
And yet, here you are relating a story about a woman you once saw "dating up" to try and explain those men's behaviour as something else than a simple mistake that should not be repeated.
How is this useful, exactly? In what way does it contribute, besides changing the subject and trying to shift the blame on the people who, in the article, were reportedly subjected to undeniably inappropriate behaviour?
Btw, this does not compute. Those instances are "rare" but those men have "likely" witnessed them? When something is rare, most are unlikely to witness it.
These guys see hundreds of pitches. There's hundreds of VCs in the valley. Something can be rare--less than one in a hundred and still be likely. Rare for a single instance can be likely and expected across a large number of instances.
Accordingly, the "law of large numbers" as you report it, means that either only a handful of those hundreds of VCs in SV have witnessed inappropriate pitch behaviour, or this inappropriate pitch behaviour is not rare.
Regardless of the exact quantities, it remains true that an event is either unlikely to be witnessed, or it is not rare. That an event will be witnessed even though it is rare doesn't mean that it will be witnessed often.
The law of large numbers doesn't say that rare things happen often, is what I'm saying. Because that would be an oxymoron, not a paradox (which that "law" is meant to illustrate).
But I am also pragmatic : when I wear a nice costume, it is too show off. When going outside, I know I will be surrounded by people who will watch me.
If I wear a flamboyant shirt, I cannot be upset that people are watching me. I find this normal. I will not find normal someone complaining or even getting in contact with me because of that (though, why not?) but watching, even intensely, is OK. If I do not want to be seen I wear jeans and a blue t-shirt.
This is why I do not agree (including with my wife and mother) that women who wear nice, revealing things do this "for themselves". They do not. Le any other animal, we show how good we are. But we are evolved animals and this do not mean "take me", something people (mostly men) forget.
In short : watching someone who decided to exhibit is absolutely fine. Anything else is crossing the line.
Actually I'd say that dismissing a reasonable point about interactions between individual people using a narrow interpretation of history to establish a non-standard epistemology is the greater intellectual mistake.
In other words, that women couldn't vote 100 years ago says absolutely nothing about whether a venture capitalist abused his relationship with a client or whether a potential client tried to use sexuality for a competitive advantage.
These days it feels like we've learn nothing from stories like the Scarlet Letter that describe a time from our history where we treated women how you now propose that we treat men. Neither gender deserves this.
What you are seeing is the decline of rational and logical thinking. No one wants to think critically anymore, because smart phones reduce available cognitive resources.
So you end up in situations where an inflammatory, poorly researched article emotionally hijacks the brain of a person who would have normally been capable of rational thinking.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but there are numerous cases where outrage porn has ruined the lives of innocent people.
[0] as a white man, it is my privilege to make sweeping statements about whites and men b^)
As much as I would like to see punishment for clearly abusive and shitty behavior like this article describes, 90% of the time it comes down to character profiles as this thread explains. Even if it found its way into court, the defense would almost certainly try to be framed as a misunderstanding. Instead of punishing and potentially ruining lives for what is sounding like thought-crime, lets just get men off the pedestal and put them on the same goddamned level as women. A woman shouldn't have to defend her reputation for not being slutty if she gets groped, assaulted or raped, and more importantly shouldn't have to fear retaliation for accusing someone of being not just an asshole, but a dangerous asshole.
> These people are assholes because they know they can get away with it.
So yes, openly bigoted people are assholes. But if they knew their bigotry wouldn't fly, they would at least not be open about it and not be assholes to people.
I think they often are. But you don't hear about it, because almost no one cares about males at the bottom of the social ladder. At the bottom, men are "valued" (for a lack of a better word) even less than women.
Generally, when guys get screwed over by a terrible VCs it's "well they're a terrible vc ... you know them." But when it's by women "they crossed this boundry? I'm shocked!"
I'm sure they use their positions of power in many different ways that affect both men and women, but their sexual advances obviously target women because most of them are straight.
The exact opposite is true. Almost nobody would take a man who complains about sexual harassment seriously. Just look at the night and day difference in response to teacher student abuse when the student is a guy or a girl.
I do not understand what world people live in where constant special concern is twisted into a lack of it. I mean, I do, in so far as it's just benevolent sexism masquerading as equality, but I can't wrap my head around those people considering themselves rational.
That's actually a medical/psychiatric diagnosis. I don't really think it applies here (or maybe it does, I don't know, I only know that you can't just throw that casually at run-of-the mill creeps).
Bill Cosby for instance could possibly be considered one. His also seems more methodical. What's worse: 60 possible rapes spanning decades or 60 possible rapes spanning a year?
I'd love to know what you mean here, because I can't see how this follows anything.
Life pro tip: just say them in a calm, explicit and direct manner that you are not interested in receiving their visits and information from them. They respect that. They might show up after a year or so, just to check out if this is the same family living under the number.
They're pretty organised and respectful in what they do, so polite and direct works best.
You have never seen slow walkers move that fast from the building.
This wrong "bad apples" analogy as it applies to police or genocide perpetrators also is dangerous because it's simply untrue. Well meaning people will commit atrocities if directed to by a superior authority figure; the Stanford Prison experiment and the Milgram experiments underscore this.
Instead, there must be social and business pressures brought to bear to prevent emboldened behavior with accountability. If there is boundaryless affluenza anarchy, spoiled brats will overtly behave however they wish. If there are consequences, the behavior will be reduced and become covert. There must be constant vigilance on the part of those stakeholders to enforce consistent accountability for professional/personal behavior.
Some of the actions described in the article are crimes - these assholes should be prosecuted.
Rather than refuse to understand how someone could have gotten there, let's try to understand the assumptions they made along the way. Then rather than pretending we're unaffected by the culture around us, let's see if we share some of those assumptions. If we want to fix things rather than be blindsided by them, these are at least the first steps.
And yeah, actually, your culture and socialization is a big part of what you are. You can blame them, but refusing to try and understand how they became assholes means nothing will change.
There are two reasons for this. First, punishment of the "bad apples" deters others in the future, and brings about the larger societal change. Second, as a basic principal of a free society, people must be held accountable for their actions.
What this article is about: rich white men are sexist.
I fail to see the connection.
This kind of thinking is even worse than what they did, because it crystalizes them into some of their decisions and deprives them of being human.
While their acts are bullying, harassment, etc., this characterization is not that different to labelling a race inferior (or attributing some other characteristic as an unshakeable part of it). Only instead of a race it does that to a person (or a number of persons) based on past behavior.
People change, people can behave like assholes in one instance and be sweet and caring in another, and tons of other distinctions.
In the end, this type of thinking is what condemns those convicted in the US to inhuman treatment -- the belief that they are incorrigible because of something they did, and as thus deserve only hell.
They also think they're exceptional. They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that, everywhere they go. Whether it be cat calls at the grocery store or advances at work.
I don't know Sacca or McClure, and from their writing and the way they project themselves, I don't think they seem like the type of people I care to spend time around, but it's pretty clear that this is a bad combination of arrogance and ignorance rather than malice. I had to stop reading Sacca's post after the 5th page of him talking about how great he is, but it sounds like he definitely had his Come To Jesus moment and is genuinely remorseful and working on not being an ass. That's a far better outcome than premature ostracization. Save that for the Bill Cosbys.
In order to make progress, I think it is important to recognize this distinction. There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses. I say that in part as a recovering dumbass myself, and as someone who faced accusations of malice and manipulation (in matters completely unrelated to women) when that was absolutely not the case. Hanlon's Razor and all.
At a certain point, one has to believe that another's actions are evil, even if that evil is unwitting. One mustn't actively choose to be "evil and predatory" to be so in fact.
So something can become so horrible, that even a mistaken action should be defined as evil? Sorry, but that sounds wrong, and itself willfully vengeful. In that case, shouldn't we just do away with manslaughter and just say everyone who has killed someone is a murderer?
Even in cases where intent isn't there, other factors (for example, hitting and killing someone while driving drunk or too far over the speed limit) can make an accidental killing murder.
I don't think that you can make the argument that any of the men in question did not intend to make sexual advances on these women.
To horribly misuse Aaron Sorkin:
Sam: About a week ago I accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Toby: Really?
Sam: Yes.
Toby: You accidentally slept with a prostitute.
Sam: Call girl.
Toby: Accidentally.
Sam: Yes.
Toby: I don't understand. Did you trip over something?
How is that relevant to your point? It seems like the opposite of your point.
In other words, while it might be possible to "accidentally sexually harass" a person, there's much more involved than "did the harasser think they were harassing?"
Rather, it matters whether the person in question deliberately chose to perform the actions that compose harassment.
To use programming terminology, sexual harassment is an interface, not a class. One need not deliberately implement it if all the requirements are met.
Dark Triad, anybody?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_triad
Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having the cachet of being involved with startups carries a certain small amount of power in itself. Combine this corruption with the powerful instincts around sex and mating, and really bad things can happen.
I'm probably going to be attacked for this, but I really wish women would be overt and name such things. (Here, I'm talking about workplace norms in CA in general, not any of the specific situations of women named in the NYT article.) As it is, there are so many provisions for deniability, being second guessed, and not overtly saying "I'm not interested" that it really muddies the waters. I think it would help if women just said, "No. I'm sorry, but I don't think of you this way." or, "No, sorry, but I think I should keep business and personal matters separate." Wasn't clear and direct communication part and parcel of the "no means no" message in the first place? By creating norms where women think it's dangerous to just come out and say no, it's like we're creating an operating assumption where any man who might hear "no" has to be considered some kind of unstable potential attacker. To me, this is the sort of "fainting couch" feminism that regards women as only potential victims who can't stand up for themselves and who must be protected by others. To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult. It's a chance for the refused to show acceptance. It's a chance for every party involved to coexist as equals.
Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between. I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults. Okay, now you angry and misguided young "activists" come and lay on the aspersions that I'm some sort of morally deficient person.
It's not fainting couch feminism, it's pragmatic feminism. These interactions happen in a context where peoples' livelihoods, their hopes and dreams, are on the line. Are you going to expect them to jeopardize that by overtly calling someone out?
There is a reason we put the onus on men to not make unwanted advances instead of putting it on women to clearly reject them. It's costless to refrain from hitting on your coworkers/underlings/potential hires. In contrast, there is potentially a very high cost to a woman overtly rejecting an advance. At best, it results in hurt feelings and embarrassment in a superior/potential boss/potential investor. At worst, it can result in negative repercussions (a coworker badmouthing you as "a bitch," a hiring manager passing on your application, an investor passing on your idea).
If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.
To stcredzero, he's innocuously asking a woman colleague of equal rank, who he has rapport with, out to a movie. He sees it as an opportunity to develop a relationship that could lead to a happy marriage. He doesn't get that many opportunities due to various reasons, so he's taking the chance he has.
She sees it as yet another colleague asking her out, when it's likely another male colleague asked her on a date that very morning, along with the dude on BART and one on the street as she walked to work.
The workplace should be focused on work, not another place where a woman has to be on guard.
People do form romantic relationships from working relationships. This should be approached with the utmost of care, because the workplace isn't the appropriate place.
The appropriate place is social events, with mutual friends; a Tinder date; a friendship struck at your local Linux Users Group meetup (you never know), etc.
I don't think there is consensus on that view. Work wouldn't be my first choice for finding a suitable partner. But that doesn't mean that individuals that spend a lot of time together in a non-social context are magically excluded from behaving in a certain way for the sole benefit of female comfort. There is a clear difference between consensual actions here, and we mustn't infantilize women by making such blanket statements that essentially amount to us saying that women need an incredibly sterile and "safe" (from proposition) environment to work in.
I will help you with your reading comprehension:
> People do form romantic relationships from working relationships. This should be approached with the utmost of care, because the workplace isn't the appropriate place.
Since you strawman-ized my argument, I'll do the same to yours:
"When people tell me I can't hit on women at work, that's infantilizing them."
I am a bit amazed that simply expressing your preferences when overtly asked is to be thought of as "calling someone out." If a coworker was to always pretend to agree with you on all matters of taste, I'd think of that person as spineless. Yet, most matters of taste are far less important than preferences of companionship.
At worst, it can result in negative repercussions
Nowadays, the phrase, "I don't feel comfortable with..." has negative repercussions in the same league.
If you consider yourself a decent person, why would you put someone else between a rock and a hard place like that? There are literally billions of women on the planet, and 99.99% don't work with you/for you.
If you read the thread, you will discover that no one was working for anyone, and this was for a volunteer organization outside of work.
It's not the responsibility of the person being pursued to protect the pursuer. It's pretty straight forward: if you ask someone out several times, and they keep making up excuses, they're not interested. Stop asking.
Very much this. People who've been rejected (male or female) can definitely be vindictive, nasty, and just plain evil. :(
I'm guessing it comes from their feelings of hurt inside from the rejection given. Which (personally) indicates how badly I sucked with interpersonal skills when rejecting people in my younger years. eg I'm pretty direct with people, but had literally no tact when younger. Bad combo. Ugh.
We absolutely should encourage this, but let's not ignore that we need to build a culture that doesn't ostracize and attack people when they do this.
So far, we have HR departments that have an incentive to ignore, minimize or deflect these problems. We have a culture of employment that says that this is all part of dealing with a job in a tough industry. And we have internet trolls ready to harass people when they come out against this behavior.
The first part, of asserting yourself and claiming your agency, is extraordinarily important. But there's so much more to it. If someone is sexually harassed, and they hit a brick wall at every turn, the best case scenario is that they ditch the startup or tech industry and go to more established companies that actually have a solid culture and process in place. And that is an absolute loss for everyone, especially because the kind of person who can see everything weighed against them and still takes a stand is what the startup scene is supposed to be all about. We shouldn't punish or ignore those people.
If a particular organizational culture isn't full of people who would be the level of jerk to attack someone for saying "no thanks" then how is it at all positive to teach half the people there to behave as if they will probably do that? That sounds to me like you're just creating fear where there should be none.
Did you ask multiple times? This sounds like what could easily happen when someone won't take the initial "no," implicit or not, for an answer. Based on the rest of your comment, I expect so.
A few important points:
1. Repeated asking has been held to be sexual harassment, if repeated for long enough.
2. Here's a simple rule: ask once, and only once. She knows where you work. If she's interested, she'll ask for a rain check and get back to you.
> I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults
3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.
Which is why people behave that way in airplane cockpits and the bridges of submarines. (Actually, such behavior has gotten people killed in those contexts.)
If someone is insisting on an implicit level of signalling, they can be just as guilty of insisting foolishly as someone insisting on the explicit level. When implicit communications are demanded for 1) a higher stakes situation on the basis of 2) the supposed potential victim status of one party -- something is way out of whack. Not only is the safety of clear communications being abrogated, the danger being borne is skewed to just one party.
Beyond the level of the social white lie, if you're advocating deniability to "be safe" you're probably doing something dishonest on some level. Extending the mechanism of the social white lie to a situation where more is at stake is just foolish.
Nobody is going to die if you can't date someone.
Again, I advocate a conservative approach to getting a date with a coworker. One request, declined for any reason, should be treated as a firm no absent explicit signals to the contrary (request for a rain check, some other sort of proactive, explicitly date-seeking behavior from the other party). Your odds of getting into trouble under this rule are so vanishingly small as to be nonexistent. If you choose some less conservative rule, including, apparently, whatever rule you've been following up to this point, your risks are higher.
Of course, there's also the issue of not wanting to make your woman coworkers uncomfortable. I would hope that would be something of intrinsic value to you, and that on this basis alone you might change your behavior after seeing its impact in the past. The fact that you're still arguing about this makes me doubt that you do value their comfort the way that I think you should. But I don't know how to tell you that you should care about other people in a way that's going to stick. :(
You're blaming women for not being "adult" enough in their response to juvenile male behavior. It is these men who should start acting like adults.
And how do you know the women didn't say no? The article notes that some of the women faced retribution after rebuffing men.
> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.
It sounds like you need to work on reading other peoples' comfort level with your behavior. In a professional setting the standard is very high for ensuring you are not making someone uncomfortable. Consider how a customer would feel if they walked in a store and, out of the blue, got hit on by staff that they had zero chemistry with. Who then the blames the customer for not being "adult" enough.
That's a ridiculous false dichotomy. When people own their preference and viewpoint, people respect them more. Men who act like juveniles should clearly act more adult. Fully grown women who act like they're timid middle-schoolers should also act more adult. It's the workplace where people communicate honestly and clearly that produces results when breaking new ground and dealing with subtle and complex trade-offs. (Again, this isn't a discussion of people or events in the article, but rather a general one.)
No, it doesn't; that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful.
Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.
Huh?
Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.
You just said the same thing!
The problem here is you're not reading signals correctly. If someone says any variation of "I don't think..." that means they are not interested. If they are interested but just legitimately busy or whatever they will 100% suggest a time that will work or at least give you some kind of an in. Granted, there can be mixed signals and it's not always the easiest thing to figure out, but you have to just accept it for what it is. The truth is asking people out is hard, rejecting people is hard, and we have these little dances to save face.
There is a reason why a huge amount of porn in the world (and porn made for women) about boss / secretary, teacher / student, rich person / poor person, mentor / underling power imbalances: it's a major part of our sexuality as social animals.
So, these men have often gone through life being wildly successful with this type of behavior up until society started to change around them.
I feel so bad for them. /s
I'm saying that's why it's so common: It's been a viable strategy for a long time.
Society might change, but biology takes longer. It's a successful mating strategy today, and it will be successful a thousand years from now, regardless of the kicking and screaming.
Because this disclaimer seems necessary in posts like this, I am in no way condoning his actions or the actions of people like this. However, it certainly seems like we're looking at an interesting area where the personality characteristics required to be successful may be orthogonal to 21st century social norms. (Venture capital.) I'd argue that another similar area is war fighting, and that this could be a plausible explanation (not excuse) for why sexual harassment can be so high in those areas as well.
"I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."
Not that it matters much, you've already wrongly assumed how these people work. You're free to do that, but if you don't understand what motivates someone's behavior, your efforts to improve your own situation or that of your allies is doomed to be counterproductive.
But then there's the argument of the banality of evil. We spend a lot of time thinking about the black swans of evilness, but I'd argue a lot more damage is done on aggregate by mundane shittiness.
It is also quite unlikely that people who climb the ladder and successfully play "impress investors and people around" social skills game are so clueless magically when they are alone with women. Somehow they manage to be cluefull when acting like a peacock would harm their career.
I would believe claim about dumbass, if we would talk about dude down in the basement that insulted CEO last week. Then yeah, he is clueless. But in cases here, it is really too much benefit of doubt.
Not everyone who likes to take advantage of other person (including when genders are reversed) is clueless.
Majority of men including those on the spectrum are not like that. When you claim that this is normal misunderstanding, you throw shadow on them too.
Given the many first-hand accounts of ordinary everyday harassment and men who flat-out do not seem to understand what is and isn't inappropriate, or what the words "no" or "I'm not interested" or "leave me alone" mean, yes, it does seem there is a significant population for whom this type of basic education is absolutely and vitally necessary.
Think of it like driver licensing -- many people, probably most adults, are, with a few lessons, perfectly capable of safely operating a car in most situations. And would seek out those lessons (whether paid from a professional teacher, or informally from an experienced friend or family member) regardless of whether they were required. But enough people wouldn't that we have to force every single person who wants to drive to obtain a license through a process that involves examination of their knowledge of driving and traffic rules.
So "teach about how not to harass/teach about consent/etc." should not be interpreted as "this person is calling out 100% of all men alive as well as me, personally and directly, out of blind hate", but rather as "just like driver licensing, there are enough assholes out there who ruin things that we probably need to make sure people are taught this".
Also, mandatory teaching/training ensures that nobody can pull a "well I didn't think that was wrong" excuse -- if people are taught what is and isn't acceptable, and there's a record of them being taught it, then they know it's wrong and we know they know.
e.g. bell hooks' film stuff, The Bechdel Test, Anita Sarkeesian's work, etc.
This problem forms in large part because men are too attached to media that reinforces notions of women as secondary people, objects, and reward trophies.
The problem is that people's empathy with women going through harassment abruptly stops when they themselves are implicated in some manner.
Yes, let's make it a thought crime to think of women as "secondary people, objects and reward trophies" and punish them for thinking it, instead of punishing actual physical criminal behavior. Let's ban and burn books because we don't like the type of behavior they "create" in males.
Knowing how to communicate with people who are different from you, knowing how to disagree with another without insulting them, knowing how to check sexual desires in inappropriate settings, knowing when you are operating from a position of power rather than influence ... these are often not at all obvious, they are learned.
Everyone can benefit from this type of education.
One of them would casually explain in conversations the software he had written to crawl dating website. We was very open with things such as the mirror above his bed, sharing pictures of it. Before leaving the company at last, he had received multiple sanctions including an interdiction to get too close to some women who had worked with him.
Had I not met those people, I would be unable to believe that they exist.
My theory is that they are bold, assertive and have no shame. They don't "play" with people; people like them. They seduce managers and investors. They try to do the same with coworkers.
That sounds quite far away. He did not get info after first two and still honestly does not understand his behavior is not welcome? I mean, if you get the note from HR that you are not allowed to approach person x anymore, then maybe the seducing strategy does not work? Then again, people are not all that rational in general.
This sounds like my last CEO...
At this level of lack of empathy and thought, I see no functional difference between malice and inability.
> There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses.
How so? Both need boundaries first and foremost. When they don't respect boundaries voluntarily, those need to be enforced, always preferably by the persons whose boundaries they are violating and every witness to it.
Beyond that there are the differences. With a dumbass, they may learn not to sting, with someone who got turned into a scorpion, you might have to always wear a glove when feeding them, forever. Which is okay, but it's not okay to leave out the glove because for some of those you're handling without gloves, they might stop stinging at some point.
Though I agree in that you should not label people as dumbass or scorpion before hand. Enforce boundaries, explain your reasoning and emotions firmly and repeatedly. As if to your little dumbass brother, theoretically a peer you love lots, but right now someone you put in their place because you love them and they just won't stop kicking dogs or hurting other kids or drinking bleach. This has to be true, this cannot be faked, you have to muster the love too, not just the anger; and even only some will be able to notice and believe that. It will trickle into some, completely wash over others -- but you can only find that out by doing it. This also implies giving everyone the chance(s).
But don't go by their words. Don't trust user input, treat all of it like potential exploits. Do what you have to do anyway, and in this case you can go "great, then you won't mind these changes, if you had this Come To Jesus moment. If that was just a bluff, you'll shit bricks, enjoy". Cooperation is very desirable and should always be welcome, but it is not required.
this becomes so complicated.
In my line of work, which involves authority positions, I see this sort of thing happen a lot (not most of the time, but regularly):
Junior female supervisee becomes romantically involved with male supervisor. It's consensual, not predatory at all. Two people working closely together in closely related positions (I'm not talking CEO-secretary here, I'm talking something more closely matched in rank). Female supervisee might even brag about it or something in informal circles. It's obvious that part of what is happening is that the woman is attracted to ambition, authority, power, etc., even if they don't acknowledge this openly at the time (after all, they are seeking this for themselves). Relationship goes south (not always, though, about as often as any relationship), and then female supervisee blames male supervisor for taking advantage of her, brainwashing her, etc. Maybe even accuse supervisor of sexual harassment.
What I'm seeing in the NY Times piece is not this. None of the people I'm talking about would ever just proposition a potential hire.
However, I think it increases the ambiguity about appropriate behavior. If women in these positions are actively encouraging relationships sometimes (and people hear about this, in sorts of open secret situations), then for people who are already confused, it becomes even more confusing.
My guess is these guys are hitting on women in the same way they might anywhere, without realizing the position of power they have. As you say, I think it's a matter of social sophistication more than anything else.
It's unethical, because the superior/subordinate relationship makes a romantic affair coercive even if nobody participating intends it to be.
It's a leadership failure because the superior should behave better than the subordinate as part of providing their leadership function. Yes, you could say the suborndinate started it or whatever, but the superior is supposed to know better than to get involved with that. If you don't want people to be confused, don't add to the confusion by dipping your pen in the company ink.
Fraternization is different from harassment. Among other things, consent is irrelevant. It also covers a broader scope than romantic relationships. The inappropriateness of the relationship comes from the disruption in the chains of command and responsibility, and the conflicts of interest that are inherent in the relationship.
I think that the military is correct in forbidding this kind of relationship, because of the effects you mentioned. It doesn't have to be confusing. It just needs to also be considered inappropriate by the organization.
And if it does work and the person on the receiving end doesn't view it as harassment, should we? Should we start publicly admonishing the people who chose to sleep with a VC for money?
Part of me wonders if we should be equally aghast at the founder who does sleep with a VC for money/influence and has no qualms about it. It must be happening if VCs keep harassing at this rate, otherwise these VCs wouldn't keep trying. Im not trying to victim blame here, I'm just trying to point out that there may be a very strange culture underlying all of this sexual harassment.
I have friend who is an employment lawyer. When I first asked her what she does she said "I keep old white men out of trouble". How sad.
Edit fixed typo
Statistics have shown for a while now that psychopaths or sociopaths are drawn to positions of power and are therefor overrepresented in those positions.
On the other hand, excessive power (== money) often brings the worst out of us, as power appeals to our (sick/immature) need to dominate those around us (on a personal or even global scale). Domination can act like a drug. And once the brain is hooked on that drug, it's hard to go clean again.
Excessive power (== money) takes a lot of maturity to be handled ethically. Obviously, a lot of people fail hard.
Which is why our society should fight any type of inequality until it's completely gone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment
I don't think this actually follows from the prior premises you put forth. If I'm the 10x programmer, do I need to have my performance handicapped because some psychopaths exist somewhere in the world? That's a kind of inequality which I would argue isn't relevant.
> I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work.
> Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not.
Spot on, sadly a much overlooked and ignored fact. While "sexism" certainly feeds into that, it's not the actual problem, the problem being that "assholes" often end up being very successful people because they can easily force their will upon others, regardless of gender.
This is the very same dynamic which leads to "assholes" being way overrepresented in CEO positions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-small-business/wp/201...
These are ruthless personalities and their success is often build upon exactly that ruthlessness. Why should the silicon valley vc ecosystem be exempt from that dynamic? It seems it ain't: https://www.saastr.com/are-silicon-valley-venture-capitalist...
As a male, on the short end of that naturally existing power dynamic, you are flat out of luck because you can't point at your gender and generate drama to monetize on or take whole companies down, instead you are lumped up into a big sack as part of the supposedly "systematic problem" by labeling it a "male dominated culture", taking every male person into a quasi sippenhaft trough guild by gender association in the "fight against sexism".
As somebody who considers himself a somewhat decent person, this whole tone in the discourse is getting rather tiresome because this also creates quite an oppressive environment for people who merely want to find a relationship partner. I feel guilty just thinking about approaching women on the street, I've rebuffed advances by female coworkers because that's not considered "appropriate", I don't want to approach that nice cashier in the supermarket because I fear I might bother her/creep her out. And because I've always been rather awkward with social situations, the outcome is quite predictable: I've been single for these last 10 years, while constantly being told how much of an asshole I'm for having been born with a dick.
Yesterday I read an article about Tinder in the German Cosmopolitan: http://www.cosmopolitan.de/dating-app-tinder-tinder-im-test-...
One of it's points being that a big draw for many women is how they like being "admired" by so many men on Tinder in the same way they used to appreciate being catcalled: "Es ist dieses dauerhafte Umgarntwerden, das den Reiz ausmacht. Wie früher das Hinterherpfeifen oder Zuzwinkern.
So what's the message here? What is a single male supposed to do in such an enviornment? Some women like the catcalling, others consider it harassment. Meaning: The saver option is not to catcall, but that also results in vastly reduced chances of getting to know any woman at all. Especially when the "competition" does not bother at all and just keeps on catcalling and thus actually ends up getting to know new people, while you sit in your misery alone thinking "Well, at least I didn't harass anybody.." hell of a good time!
Then there is online dating, which has it's own slew of massive issues as a single male. Competition is extra fierce because on these platforms quite often men outnumber women 2:1 or worse. There you might not be called out for harassing that quickly, but there you need a harassing like behavior to be actually successful. You need to be somewhat dishonest about yourself in your presentation, you need to approach/contact as many women as possible (while disregarding their plight of getting spammed), to increase your chances for a successful reply and meeting.
All these are things "we" are supposed not to do, yet they seem like the only viable tactic to any measurable "success". Nobody is gonna start a relationship with me because I'm just such a nice guy who didn't come on to her, those are exactly the kind of signals that keep you in the notorious "friend zone" for all eternity, but those are the kind of signals that are seemingly expected from males in any and all situations or else you might be considered a "creep" or a "harasser".
This get's even worse when culture actually adapts. Not too long ago a common complaint would be how "Men always feign romantic interest to get sex", true enough. Now increasingly men (and some women) have become more pragmatic about this and state their intentions in quite a blunt way and guess what? That can quite easily also be interpreted as "sexual harassment" when somebody comes on to you with "I'd like to have sex with you".
So what's a single guy to do? Especially when you are also lucky enough to be on the spectrum and have a hard enough time parsing social situations already, this constant ambiguity makes it an impossibility to improve my understanding about social interactions and dynamics, literally paralyzing me.
I'm in my mid-30's and I've given up any intend to actively look for a partner because I don't want to inconvenience anybody with my failed approaches or end up being seen as some kind of "creep" who "harasses" people and makes them feel uncomfortable, when that's actually the exact opposite of my intensions.
Is there consent? If you're not sure, don't do it.
And so a follow-up: do you think a VC pitch by someone of the opposite gender represents consent to making a sexual advance?
"Do you sexually harass?" or "Do you have consent?" Such statements underestimate the untold complexities pretty much all social interaction are based on.
That's why solutions to these problems are not as simple as some people like to pretend. Nobody really likes talking to each other bluntly, everything always has to be implied or "said trough the flower", leaving way too much room for ambiguity and as such misunderstandings that keep on going on as nobody wants to be the guy/gal angering the elephant in the room.
About your VC pitch question: Really depends on the type of sexual advance. While I don't practice it personally I don't see anything wrong with somebody telling another person "I consider you very attractive, do you want to have a good time with me?", it's a given that some people might not be as classy with their choice of words.
Yet it's quite direct, it's to the point and thus doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation or waste anybody's time with ambiguity. As such I don't see why anybody would need consent for asking, first and foremost it's just a question and not an insult, order or the "objectification" of somebody.
It's another story if with "sexual advances" you mean something like groping, uninvited kissing or any other uncalled for body contact. Needless to say, that's a no-go and nobody ever claimed otherwise.
So maybe analyze that feeling. Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.
Different people consider different things "uncomfortable" during different times. It's an emotion, that's why there are no objective clear cut standards for "what to say without making anybody uncomfortable", it's dynamic just like many societal norms are.
The reason I don't practice the direct approach myself is that, as I've already mentioned, I'm just not interested in casual sex and I'm rather introverted. The irony being: Guys who actually practice it, are more likely to end up in relationships.
Using the direct approach for getting into a relationship, which I have tried, quite often just ends up being seen as the epitome of creepiness and results in ridicule and shaming.
> So maybe analyze that feeling.
I "analyze feelings" pretty much constantly, even over needless memories way in the past. The issue being that you can't look into other peoples heads to analyze their "feelings", as to not to offend them with something you might say or do.
> Because the reason you don't have a relationship is not because you can't casually sexually harass women.
That's never what I argued for and you putting my statements so much out of context, to make me look like something I ain't, just reenforces my original point.
As to how to meet women (take this advise with a mountain of salt, was never a ladies man, have been married for 20 years and never cheated, so haven't flirted in 20 years :), play the odds; join groups that do stuff that interest you, get in a position to meet women, and meet them as people first, make friends and then relationships might develop; (and if not, you have more friends, and had fun doing whatever you were doing). That is, don't go to meetups (or pokemon tournaments, or the church choir, or ...) to hook up, go there because you want to be there, and, chances are, if you meet enough women you will find your match.
Academic sexism: pervasive attitudes that tend to favor masculine-coded genders over feminine-coded genders. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against masculine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).
Colloquial sexism: being a jerk to someone because of their gender. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against feminine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).
Both are valid, but they're focusing on different things. Sometimes assholes are just assholes. Sometimes they know they can get away with it because of pervasive attitudes. It's hard to say who has it worse because no one believes anyone when they report, so statistics are notoriously unreliable.
Now what freshly contrieved linguistic contraption is this? Just say "male" and "female", or "men" and "women", no need to obey the latest gender studies fad.
That probably is exactly the same here. These men have been socially conditioned to be assholes. Which, in my eyes, means that there actually should be room for some empathy. Which doesn't mean excusing their behavior, but it means understanding that despite their power and money, they are like every other human being the product of their environment and culture.
And this culture is a joint product of every single member of it.
Mark Manson wrote an insightful essay about this, titled "What's the problem with men". Tl;dr: "We unfairly objectify women in society for their beauty and sex appeal. Similarly, we unfairly objectify men for their professional success and aggression."
https://markmanson.net/whats-the-problem-with-men
The sentiment among many men working in the tech industry is that you can get crucified for making even a small compliment to a female. This idea of invulnerability would only be common among top executives and others who wield high amounts of power.
We in IT are definitely not alone dealing with this bullcrap. I wonder why there's no more "unmasking" in these other sectors. Maybe the victims don't want to risk being unofficially blacklisted?
Many people say this but I wonder why they believe it.
Women are almost exactly half of the workforce in the US, but hold only 25% of the jobs in computing. So that would imply the industry is worse than average. And the trend is going the wrong way: women were a much bigger presence in tech 20 years ago. IMHO, stories like the ones in this article are very common and are a major reason why. And that hurts everyone who works in tech.
Moreover, the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem in no way excuses what's going on in the linked article.
With regards to "...ask a woman..." and "...the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem..." -- neither of these remarks have anything to do with what I said. I have some doubts about the claim posted earlier, to the effect that tech is worse than other "major industries", because I have never seen anything to back that up -- but two wrongs do not make a right and I never said anything like that.
To support these ideas I guess I would like to know, what are these major industries and what are the axes of comparison?
If this kind of factual scrutiny seems wrong in the face of the present emergency, I have to ask you: when would it ever be right?
Why is it important to know how tech ranks against other industries anyway? How is that actionable information? Is the point to be able to claim "it's not our problem"? I don't think that's a useful line of thought. Even if tech were above average (and, again, it isn't) that doesn't in any way excuse the behavior in the NYT article.
If you don't think a comparison to other industries is important, why did you bring it up to begin with?
https://500.co/making-changes-at-500/
https://medium.com/@sacca/i-have-more-work-to-do-c775c5d56ca...
Don't get me wrong. The other stories are really, really bad. Insanely evil, even. But the idea that Sacca's extremely minor dick move almost a decade ago deserves to be lumped in with the monstrous stories of serial stalking and sexual battery is pretty ludicrous. Makes me think the writer just wanted to shoehorn in a TV star to inflate the piece's reach.
I respect him, but my sympathy isn't with him.
I'm sure it's deeply uncomfortable to be under this level of scrutiny and lumped in with people who have been caught doing things that seem skeezier. But you know what's worse? Not being a billionaire and trying to make a living in a world where people you need are more interested in having sex with you than your business value, or at the very least, are more than willing to tie one to the other.
And yet it's his face splashed over the "SEXUAL HARASSMENT SCANDAL" headlines, siphoning energy and criticism from the actual monsters, because he is a TV star so his being mentioned is more sensational.
Dave McClure is basically being given a slap on the wrist for obviously firing-worthy offenses. Would that happen if a celebrity wasn't taking the brunt of the press?
If the person is lucky enough to work in a large place, there is som
(* I'm not, of course, attempting to excuse any who may not fit this profile.)
Power is a dangerous thing. This is why we must also be careful of the power in evidence-free accusations and abrogation of "innocent until guilty." Not saying that is necessarily happening here. However, such urging to "listen and believe" comes up when these topics are discussed. Women are no less corruptible by unchecked power than men.
But you are strongly implying it. In a case where many of the men admitted their guilt, nonetheless. Your comment is just "men's rights" activist talking points.
No. The men admitted guilt in this case and the women did supply evidence. This makes his assertion a politically motivated non sequitur.
Only if you incorrectly assume a particular intention on my part. However, if you take what I said at face value, it's simply a valid observation. I think it's one of the most important and fundamental observations to be made: that of the power dynamic. Feminism has much to say about such power dynamics. I think your bias is clearly showing.
Taken in context it is an attempt to deny the imbalance of power that exists and which civil rights / feminism seek to dismantle.
No, it's more like mentioning how people should be judged on the contents of their character, not the color of their skin. It's more like citing the importance of understanding the ideological basis of activism in the protection of individual rights and dignity. These are two points of great importance to MLK's activism where many of today's social justice activists are very weak.
Taken in context it is an attempt to deny the imbalance of power that exists and which civil rights / feminism seek to dismantle.
If you look at the greater historical context, you will find that overcompensation and tilting the playing field "the other way" doesn't produce greater social justice. However, I congratulate you for coming out and saying overtly that you are for creating an imbalance going "the other way." You thereby admit that you are not for a "level playing field" but rather an "equality of outcome."
I'd bet "equality of outcome" is a great way to run a startup! (/jk)
You've also utterly missed the point on MLK Jr. Using his words to suggest that racial oppression goes both ways on anything near the same level is a transparent attempt to deny the existence of white privilege. Popping up on threads about the oppression of women with non sequiturs about the oppression of men is exactly the same thing.
That's not a quote. That's putting three words in quotes. It's not really "the other way." It's really the same kind of injustice, hence "the other way" in quotes. What we have here is a fabricated charge.
MLK Jr. Using his words to suggest that racial oppression goes both ways on anything near the same level
Sorry, but where do I say that? I never said anything about the magnitude of oppression, and my argument doesn't require it. Please provide a quote, or you are putting words into someone's mouth? (Hint: you are putting words in someone's mouth!) Racial oppression doesn't have to go both ways at the same level to make artificial unfairness problematic.
Here's another hint: If you constantly have to willfully distort the other party's words to support your side of the argument, you might be in the wrong. On the other hand, my argument is made by your words and precisely the point you are trying to make.
Many 2nd wave feminists are against such a bias. However, there are 3rd wave feminists who openly advocate this, even to the point of openly advocating the abrogation of innocent until proven guilty -- which is possible through the proceedings of non-judicial organizations (like school disciplinary systems) and by district attorneys in local jurisdictions in the US. Innocent until proven guilty isn't directly enshrined in the US constitution. It's inferred from some other parts of the constitution.
Heck no! That was the whole point of my saying, "Not saying that is necessarily happening here." Maybe I should've left out the necessarily.
Your comment is just "men's rights" activist talking points.
My point is a valid general observation about the power dynamics. One has to worry when valid general observations go unanswered by association with what some group says.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_fallacy
Entrepreneurs are so willing to sacrifice, and this should not be the situation, but what if it is? How many of us males would accept these types of advances in order to get our idea funded?
To think that we can remove power from sex is misguided. There were times during my startup that I would have wished for the attention, even as a straight male, if only because it was better than the nothingness that my idea lived in otherwise.
However, he has so many other highly effective behavioral techniques for making people go away, that it sounds pretty fishy that he would just happen to deploy that particular technique in that particular situation for that particular person.
If he dislikes your ideas, he'll usually simply tell you directly and loudly, not hit on you to make you go away.
So I have a hard time buying his explanation.
But I would not describe him as a rich powerful VC holding money and power over the women he harasses.
If what she says is true (which I don't know and he denies), he may be a sexist pig contributing to the toxic environment for women (which is wrong and should be called out and condemned), but he's certainly not in the same category as Dave McClure and Justin Caldbeck.
He has his white male privilege, magisterial facade, and all that, but not millions of dollars and an old boys investors network behind him. But that definitely doesn't excuse his behavior. And his explanation is bizarre.
But in a professional context, he would have been better served by just making sure she didn't get hired. Because you don't want to hire people who sexually manipulate their colleagues.
[1] https://twitter.com/marccanter4real/status/88093410824684748...
[2] https://twitter.com/marccanter4real/status/88093168832647168...
[3] https://twitter.com/marccanter4real/status/88092323039082905...
[4] https://twitter.com/zephoria/status/880967155365367808
[5] https://twitter.com/zephoria/status/880967375692148737
I don't know the exact situation here, but to be fair, if you were mostly flirting with someone and it was not a hiring situation, this would not be an unflattering thing to say - "hey, I like you and I think you are smart and capable". If in his mind they met as social acquaintances and in hers they met as business acquaintances, it's easy to see how it would seem reasonable to him and horrifying to her.
But no. Not a chance.
We get roped into hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of hours of coding camps and university curiculum, and then spat out into a constant professional grind with treadmills that never end, and no other life beyond a professional one.
Clothes, cell phones, cars, gas, houses, utilities, drinking, and razor thin budgets to maintain all these things, and no life except the life at work.
Why are women getting mobbed and groped in the workplace, because there's no free time, and nobody actually has lives outside of work. Everyone is pent up, and there's no actual culture anymore. Just work.
Don't pretend like this is a sexism thing. It's an economic thing. And not just some work/life balance garbage.
This is about being able to afford to live a life among your peers, at eye level, just treading water, without working 80 hours and 3 jobs.
On the other hand, I'm glad these women are going public, as nothing scatters cockroaches like sunlight.
If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?
If an employee of yours said they got mugged and lost their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before replacing it?
You should default to trusting your employees. You hired them! They are invested in the company, potentially with equity! Especially in at-will employment agreements, I think this should be much closer to "Management reserves the right to let go of anyone at any time for any reason" than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."
That management reserves the right to dismiss for any reason doesn't mean that dismissing based on bare unconfirmed complaints is reasonable, either morally or from a business perspective.
I'm working at a place where I can't imagine this happening because they, while taking harassment complaints very seriously, also take personnel actions very seriously and investigate before imposing permanent consequences, using other means to prevent furthering a problem during the investigation.
> The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high
If the company establishes a practice of firing without investigation, and the events are hard to disprove in a way which would sustain a defamation complaint by the falsely accused, the risks are near zero.
Duke lacrosse. UVA. Conor Oberst.
It happens. Allegations deserve investigation before punishment is doled out. Just because SV is doing an absolutely awful job at dealing with sexual harassment right now doesn't mean we need to swing hard the other direction and punish without proof.
Just did it once, though. I put a lot of effort into avoiding harming innocent people. The bar is getting lower and people are often tired so someone might grab it thinking it was a sample or something. Just too tired to be smart or something. So, continuing to avoid the fridge except looking for any freebies company provides. :)
It's happened a bunch of times at my company just that I've seen personally. I'm not even talking the ones that did it to me. It's a "reputable," Fortune 100 company with diverse staff and plenty of turnover currently due to management. My part of it has maybe 100 people or so. There were also real cases of sexual harassment male-on-female and female-on-male mostly resolved by employees themselves without escalation. Younger people just being stupid with some coaching and strict warning. Those that were a bigger problem, such as smacking asses or continued harassment, get escalated to management who investigates them, gets witness testimony, and fires them if witness or camera confirmation is strong. I helped get rid of a long-timer recently where you hear stories with no evidence. He got transfered to a shitty job with more people around due to poor work ethic. This time, there were 2-3 witnesses to his behavior that escalated in his irritation and we got rid of him immediately.
So, it happens both ways in my company. The thousands of women I've talked to from tons of companies also told me both happen: sexual harassment; people using fake claims including sexual harassment as a tool. We call it the "he said, she said bullshit." Fortunately, my bosses cultivated a good team where we deal with little to none of that stuff. I mainly hear it from others acting as a witness for them or developing strategy for trouble-makers on occasion.
Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your sentence, but are you advocating that you should fire the accused employee right away with no evidence other than the word of the accuser?
I think the key thing to do, as a manager, is to start by beliving the employee making the complaint. Don't tell them things like "Oh, you must have misinterpreted" or "was it really that bad" or "I am sure he didn't mean it".
You tell them you take their complain very seriously, that you are so sorry this happened to them, and that you will take action immediately. Then, you investigate. Shockingly, lots of harassers won't outright deny it if you ask them about specific behavior (don't come out and ask them if they sexually harassed, but ask them if they, for example, said these specific words that they are accused of saying); they won't lie because they don't think what they did was actually harassment, they think they were just flirting or being fun. You then take action, whether you need to fire the person, reprimand them, transfer them, demote them, etc.
And if the other employee said they didn't commit the rape, you should presumably believe them by default as well, right?
If it comes down to he said, she said, contact a lawyer.
A statement made by a trustworthy employee should be taken seriously, "he said she said" is not a valid excuse to not make hard decisions.
I suppose the right word is "hard evidence." And yes I would say a photograph is, in general, more credible than a witness statement.
I say this as someone who just went through a long trial (representing myself, while the other side had an attorney), with a lot of "he said she said", and where a tape recording (of a violent attack on me) and photographs (of bruises) made all the difference.
If someone comes forward it is because they are being serially harassed, have documentation to back it up, and there are multiple other people who have also been victims.
He said she said situations will likely result in a warning or no action at all.
That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.
The problem is that it's inappropriate to express interest if you're in a position of power over someone, whether you're a man or a woman. I think you were saying that, but point #1 lacks that context.
Make an introduction. Make your mild/budding interest in them clear enough. Ask them to do something that's clearly not work with you.
"Hey, want to get coffee sometime this weekend?"
You'll find out if there's preliminary interest or not. If they're interested but busy, they'll figure out how to make that distinction clear. If "sorry; I'm busy" is the entire answer, just assume they're not interested. You get one "free" chance here; make it fairly clear that you're interested; don't invite them out for a "team dinner" and then arrange for the rest of the team to not show up or other chicanery.
I've had other girls respond with "hi! omg do you work out?"
What you're suggesting is no guarantee that you won't come across as creepy. If you haven't actually extensively tested your suggested approach it's kind of harmful to go around giving them as advice
Personally, I've stopped ever pursuing anyone who works in the same industry due to the potential for weird dynamics, but it's sometimes not as cut-and-dry as people make it sound. Like the example with Chris Sacca, is flirting with someone at a conference a form of sexual harassment?
I'd not go with a co-worker that I have power on (like being the direct manager, or the VC). I can see many ways where the relationship can go awfully wrong.
I have eye contact and smiling with lots of people. It's just being friendly.
Or are you saying these will be seen as false accusations and thus it'll scare off VCs who aren't run by mysogynist pieces of sh-t?
Because I'm not sure what the alternative is. If a VC is not in the habit of harassing women, they have nothing to fear. In fact, it'll give them an opportunity to court talented entrepreneurs driven away from the immoral part of the VC spectrum.
Ahh--if only this were ever true.
Are you saying they're false accusations?
The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there.
The people getting in trouble are the serial harassers who are so egregiously bad that a multitude of incidents are documented.
Your big standard subtle sexist or tech douche bro has nothing to worry about.
Donglegate was less than five years ago, did you already forget about it?
Her accusations were factual, although there was discussion about whether they were valid.
Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
>The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there.
>Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.
Which is completely unreasonable. Do you remember what she complained about them saying? Dongles and forking repos? They were discussing among themselves, it wasn't targeted at anyone, and any reasonable person wouldn't believe it was sexist.
But cases like are few and far between.
And IMO the majority of people on the internet were supportive of the guy who got fired, and also thought it was bullshit.
The woman who started the whole drama received way worse retaliation from the Internet mob (which was partially deserved) and got fired as well, so it was tit for tat at least, although that of course doesn't fix the damages.
Of course they are. There is opportunity, therefore it is possible.
Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.
This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.
There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.
[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.
[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.
For all of the VCs described in this story - this was a pattern, corroborated by independent sources, and with details in writing. There is in fact a very high burden of proof before anyone even gets blasted in the mainstream media, let alone fired.
It's true that society is ridiculously "tolerant" of gross misconduct of some people more than others but there are enough examples of lives being ruined by false allegations to validate my original point.
As a sibling comment pointed out, Trump was elected despite his "locker room talk" and multiple women alleging sexual abuse (plus the actual chauvinism he has displayed on numerous occasions). However I would wager that similar allegations would be far more damaging if leveled against someone like Sanders.
There's also the effect that successive allegations sometimes even reduce the credibility of the allegations because of suspected bandwagoning ("Oh, she just wants some of that attention to make herself interesting").
Humans are fickle and irrational, especially when in a group. Individuals tend to be treated differently but this tends to be more about social status than gender itself.
It is so damaging for the women involved (career, socially, and withstanding the barrage of slander, misogyny and distrust that they always seem to face) that it is very hard to step up and simply tell the truth, and you are part of the problem here, with your needless insinuations about false accusations and talk of a low burden of proof.
Of course there are false accusations out there. It's not the majority of them or even a significant number. But it's not zero.
[0]http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-1-in-5-campus-rape-...
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape
The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.
Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems:
Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with. That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc).
If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.
I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money (as opposed to lording it over others or using their position to get sex) will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
Well, there are two problems with that.
1 - It puts the burden of proof on the accused. I.E. it totally throws out of the window what has become a de facto human right and an universally established legal one in every democracy: "Innocent until proven guilty", into a: "Guilty until you can shows us some footage that proves you are not guilty" (which let's face it, it's basically impossible if the accuser is lying on purpose and knows how to do things).
2 - In America I think you are free to record other people interacting with you or in your office/home (perhaps some American can clarify this), but in many other countries, specially in most of EU, that's a crime. You can't go around recording people unless they are of public interest and in a public situation or they expressly consent to it.
(Law enforcement is exempt from this restriction, of course).
As for burden of proof, I don't see it. It's like saying that asking people to lock their houses is a burden, when thieves are the criminals.
If you are a VC having a meeting with a founder, arrange for for more than 2 people to be there, such as a co-VC, a co-founder, a secretary, or whoever. Are business meetings with 3 people suddenly a human rights violation?
This is surely the poorest analogy I've ever read in my all life, comparing a burglar trying to enter your house with someone falsely accusing you of something.
What about the burden of proof you don't see if you go casually dressed to shop in some fancy shop and they falsely accuse you of trying to shoplift and you - oh bummer - didn't record everything?
You also don't see any burden of proof on you if you go to some corrupt country and the police falsely stops you for speeding and you didn't record your all trip after the moment you got there (though luck, if you didn't record everything is because you surely did something wrong)? You don't see that burden of proof on you, right?
You simply expose your naivete.
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/california-recording-law
Any recordings done without the approval of the other party are illegal (opening you up to legal actions) and are completely inadmissible in court.
If I'm a VC and I've scheduled a meeting at my office it is as simple as letting the party I'm meeting with know that I had planned on recording for my archives.
Nothing unusual or sketchy about the request, especially in a business setting.
> I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money ... will continue to take lots of meetings with women.
OK, so ON NET what do you expect to happen? Lets say I agree and the smart ones take the meetings, what about the dumb ones? Or the average ones? What is the net result of all those different levels of VCs? Less or more meetings for women?
Again, "You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen".
It's not so easy. Bullshit accusations leaking on Twitter will be halfway to destroying your career before you even dig up the original recordings, and I doubt anyone will want to listen to your case anyway (if anything, they'll comb over your recordings with a tootbrush to prove you were guilty of this, and a bunch of other things). I too expect VCs to be less willing to expose themselves to such danger.
If you cannot understand how _stupidly easy_ it is to have a completely non-sexual, non-harassing conversation with a member of the opposite sex, you most definitely should read up on some stuff. I mean this in the most non-snarky way possible.
Wouldn't it be nice if half the population weren't completely turned off by the idea of talking to anyone in tech?
I don't socialise with work mates outside of work events either, lines get crossed when you do in a alcohol orientated culture like mine.
It's worked fine for me for 19 years employed.
Had one female former colleague assume I was gay because I never hit on her (and she was attractive).
Nope, just not interested in bollocking up a good work environment, it was interesting to watch the dynamic though.
My simple rules for work.
Treat everyone equally, small stuff matters, I went out for coffee and went and asked the cleaner if he wanted one, he looked surprised.
Don't gossip ever, just don't. Leave the conversation if someone else starts.
Be on time, meet deadlines, let boss know as soon as you know you won't.
Be professional, you might know a customer for years but they are still Mr Smith until they say 'call me Bob'.
When a boss makes what you think is a poor decision (business reasons, moral reasons etc) get it in writing.
Always send a recap email after meetings, misunderstandings cost less the earlier you catch them (much like bugs).
Its not foolproof by any stretch, but it's excellent risk management on multiple fronts.
It's really not that difficult to maintain a professional attitude, it's a skill like any other it's just the modern workplace isn't always conducive to it, frankly I'd prefer a more formal workplace than informal all things been equal.
I would strongly advise against discriminating against people based on their sex in the course of your business dealings.
While looking up the relevant law, I looked through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of sex and various other things, and discovered that there is an explicit exception written in to the law for members of the Communist Party. So you can totally discriminate against any commies who might try to work for you. Not really relevant here, but so weird I just had to share.
I wonder if it was just a "safeguard" against members of CPUSA claiming their membership was a religious affiliation.
http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=...
It sounds like it was an amendment introduced by a confused lawmaker who wanted to make sure the law wouldn't stop companies from firing Communists. The amendment was then accepted on the basis that it didn't make any difference (since as you note party affiliation isn't protected in the first place), so it wouldn't do any harm to include it.
My prediction isn't what SHOULD happen, but what I think WILL happen. My personal opinion on what is morally right? As I'm not a VC, utterly unimportant and redundant.
I would suggest than anyone who does get into such meetings simply demand the presence of multiple persons. This isn't a buddy lending money to another.
Scenario with a female founder: "Listen, I want to meet you but as we have an at least one woman present policy for any meetings with female founders, adn all the female partners are booked for the next week, I'm afraid I can't meet you".
Vs with a male: "Hells yes I'd love to catch up for coffee, I love your idea. Unfortunately, it will just be me as everyone else is busy".
When you add a price to a subset of players but not others, that subset suffers worse results see: http://freakonomics.com/2009/03/10/the-price-of-disability-l...
> One example was the Americans With Disabilities Act, and we told the story of a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon named Andrew Brooks. When a deaf patient came to him for a consultation, he realized that the A.D.A. required him to hire a sign-language interpreter for each visit if that’s what the patient wanted. The interpreter would cost $120 an hour, with a two-hour minimum, and Brooks wouldn’t be reimbursed by the insurance company:
> That would mean laying out $240 to conduct an exam for which the woman’s insurance company would pay him $58 — a loss of more than $180 even before accounting for taxes and overhead.
My advice to everybody is keep meticulous notes and records of your interactions with others, regardless of gender. This is important to expose abuse and to expose lies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Entertainment_Network
Isn't that guy still running the Bitcoin Foundation?
https://arstechnica.com/business/2014/05/some-in-bitcoin-gro...
He has a history of doing business with other creepy people, too.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/stephen-bannon-w...
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/trumps-campaign-ceos-little-kn...
https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-ige/
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&se...
If you didnt believe in #PG prior, DEN's documentary; an open secret may just change your mind...
https://youtu.be/4eeGX4SlF1s?t=1595
"In the months ahead, IGE hired more adults, a slew of VPs with decades of industry experience among them. The company also brought on a former Goldman Sachs investment banker named Stephen Bannon, whose mission was to land venture capital."
https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-ige/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmaRTZpJgPA
https://youtu.be/4eeGX4SlF1s?t=1h8m8s
I only learned about about Steve Bannon's connection to Brock Pierce (who recently posted a Facebook photo of himself wearing a red "MAKE BITCOIN GREAT AGAIN" trucker's cap at Trump's Inaugural Lounge) when Mother Jones and Wired covered it during the last election. It looks like the "First Kid" is trying to work his way back into the White House.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10155736654012782&se...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t7ubr0jBII
Here's a fascinating article I just found about how SAG AFTRA tried to censor and suppress "An Open Secret":
http://deadline.com/2015/06/sag-aftra-threatening-sue-an-ope...
And here's a a map of the rabbit warren: a timeline of the scandals that started at DEN, including Brock's attempts to whitewash his past and ongoing lawsuits around his online gold trading company IGE, which Steve Bannon was involved with, up to his election to the board of the Bitcoin Foundation and the resulting resignations:
DEN Sources: A document-in-progress compiling firsthand reporting on DEN, Bitcoin, Brock Pierce and the Mike Egan / Bryan Singer lawsuit
https://medium.com/@cuttlefish_btc/den-sources-af289efd690b
What do you mean by "If you didnt believe in #PG prior"?
The scary thing is that btc is likely the traffickers currency of choice these days. How traceable are btc transactions wrt what types of goods or services are supposedly purchased with btc?
I think most of the resistance to this idea comes from people who've used Silk Road clones, most of which force you to mix your coins. But as bitcoin becomes more valuable and ransomware more prevalent, the argument that silk road is ethical and should therefore be able to function becomes less and less persuasive.
Blacklisting the coins would be easy: Exchanges simply close your account if you receive a large number of BTC that have been tumbled. It's easy to identify the coins and to easy to close the accounts while refunding the coins.
---
Seems like the future will be full of black-market banks and money laundering (as opposed to how its always been ;-) #PanamaPapers)
Is this the most difficultt financial problem: We don't want government watching every single move we make, yet we dont want criminals to be able to easily hide all their nefarious actions...
Where is the correct balance?
We have those who are supposedly the beacons of the tech future now being revealed as just as bad as others...
Faith in humanity is being assaulted a fair bit more than it had been in the last few decades...
The other key thing is that Bitcoin fails open: if anyone anywhere ever makes a mistake or is subverted the blockchain is a public record of every transaction which is hard to deny and can never be purged. I'm not sure anyone has the operational competency to make assurances in that environment.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/adambvary/an-open-secret-hollywood-...
I don't get why you were downvoted. The documentary "An Open Secret" is quite accurate and confirms everything I ever heard about DEN, provides a whole lot of background information and first person interviews, and is consistent with the information in the lawsuits that Brock Pierce tried to cover up and suppress. The video tape that the kid they molested took of Rector's house with all the pills, the gun safe, and photocopies he made of all the documents, the email with discussions and photos of kids Pierce and Rector were grooming, and the audio tape of the confession about molesting the kid, were all very chilling and quit convincing. This is no "Pizzagate" conspiracy theory: it really happened and is very well documented by many consistent sources.
Oh yeah: I guess the Bannon links are worth repeating in this context too, because it's one of the most mind blowing parts of this whole story, now that he's running the country into the ground.
Here are the links about Steve Bannon (Wired published an article in 2008 before Steve Bannon was widely known as the real President of the United States who dresses as Death, then in 2016 Mother Jones pointed out the old Wired article, and then Wired published another article mentioning it):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZOF9q5fzfs
https://www.wired.com/2008/11/ff-ige/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/09/stephen-bannon-w...
https://www.wired.com/2016/09/trumps-campaign-ceos-little-kn...
Oh yeah #2: thanks to Richard Bartle and Wired, here is the the original Debonneville lawsuit complaint and the amended complaint that Brock Pierce illegitimately and unsuccessfully tried to suppress, which documents in great detail the lurid story of DEN, IGE, the Debonneville lawsuit, "Pierce's Great Cover Up", and discusses Steve Bannon's involvement.
http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~rabartle/debonnevillecomplain...
http://www.youhaventlived.com/qblog/2008/QBlog220208A.html
"Bullies with money are still bullies."
https://www.wired.com/wp-content/uploads/archive/images/arti...
30. Steve Bannon ("Bannon") was hired around March 2005 to head the effort of obtaining private equity investment into IGE and eventually take IGE public. All the shareholders wished to cash out on their respective equity in the wildly successful business. From March 2005 to February 2006, Bannon and Pierce's primary focus was on raising investment money for...
I am a gay man who has raised money, and networked with various gay VCs. I’ve never seen this kind of behavior from them personally.
~ queue everyone laughing because when stuff happens to men its funny ~
Look up Kesha. Look up Sony emails. Those are just what leaks.
So this sorta doesn't surprise me.
So I would argue, it isn't that those industries have less flagrant sexual harassment. It's that you just don't hear about it. It doesn't make headlines.
So, yeah, I have probably over a hundred anecdotes especially in sales but in general saying the right-leaning, ultra-capitalist areas have a lot of it nobody cares to report. Plus, it gets worse in "right to work" (aka fire without cause) states where there's limited job availability or the man/woman being harassed has been at company so long them not getting a reference can be held over them. Lots of reasons not to report.
Currently I wonder which side will end up dominating tech culture or if we'll remain at war. Some companies have to send out memos telling people to cut out the sex in the stairwells. Others just don't hire any women and try to make sure they're not discriminating in a way that's illegal (not that hard with "pipeline" arguments, at least for core tech positions). And then others have some balance, and make it work or result in drama like this story.
Wall Street is a different animal all together, and in a lot of ways worse. Having lived on both coasts and experienced both types of people (and still working with both types of people) I can tell you first hand that Wall Street is far worse. There is just more easy money to cover stuff up.
One thing that does define a difference between SV and at least Wall Street is that fast growth startups tend not to have put proper HR processes in place fast enough, which can create an environment in which harassment is easier.
Here's a testimony on John F. Kennedy's sexism and drug use:
"The dark side of the man she calls "the Great Compartmentaliser", and who would identify himself on the telephone as "Michael Carter", was never far away. One day in the swimming pool, he decided that Dave Powers was looking "tense", and coerced Alford into giving the first friend a blow job. "I don't think the president thought I'd do it, but I'm ashamed to say that I did. The president silently watched." With sex, came drugs. Alford claims she was "the guinea pig" for the president's fascination with amyl nitrate – poppers."
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/10/affair-jfk-ken...
Martin Luther King Jr was also a known womanizer.
While tech still has a very long way to go, at least speaking up is becoming acceptable, and won't bar you from the industry for life. An Uber engineer who speaks up will never work for Uber again, but she can still find work in the industry (if she so desires). Someone who speaks up on Wall Street will be "marked" for life and never have the opportunity to work on Wall Street again.
Maybe saying something will correct it.
Unlike tech, most professional services (banking/consulting/law), don't require particularly skill, but rather the right pedigree, connections, and social background.
Getting a job in IBD at a bulge bracket means years of striving: the right schools, the right social networks, the right way of "talking", the right "look". The rewards are massive: $100-200-300K bonuses even as a young analyst is the the norm. Loyalty, being able to "eat shit", etc are the traits most admired on the street. Being a "troublemaker" and speaking out against harassment (not even just sexual in nature, but just plain bullying/hazing) earns you the label as "weak" and out of a job. If you've been striving all your life for one of these coveted jobs, you can imagine the immense pressure to grit it out, collect your fat bonus, and drink, snort, and purchase-expensive-toys your stresses away.
Banks keep records of all communications and emails. Whatever you said, it is not just stored and available for searching, it is also randomly inspected by annoying regulators and backed up in a bunker for the next 5 years.
Last but not least, they are not populated by 20 years old brogrammers.
Once the West Coast tech world starts paying into the scam you won't hear about sexual transgressions there any more than you do in the world of Wall Street or Hollywood which are, as you hint, 1000x worse. People are just now hearing about guys like Bill Cosby, but his behavior was standard issue.
https://www.google.com/search?q=women+in+wall+street+sexism&...
What is interesting is that there seem to have been a burst of articles in 2016, but nothing in 2017. The first three pages of google results above have almost only articles from 2016, and a few from 2012, 2013, etc.
Maybe sexism sells more when it happens in the tech world, but unfortunately, I think it's happening in every industry , especially where women are a minority.
Not quite Hollywood, but look e.g. to what's recently happening at Fox News for an industry where that's also pretty extreme...
But then articles like these come out. Wow. These are some of the kingpins of Silicon Valley shown sexually harassing with hard, factual evidence. I had no idea.
That constant murmur is the sound of a thousand stories like this that don't (yet) have the coordination to hit the pages of the NYT at the same time and become "credible". A month ago, there were dozens of female founders sitting on stories like this who were still afraid to go public. And they were afraid because good, decent people like you, who "had never seen anything like it" would "dismiss it out of hand" if they told.
(Obligatory disclaimers: You don't need to believe every story 100% unconditionally, but "a constant murmur" = "multiple corroborating sources" and should not be ignored. Also, I want to praise rather than criticise the parent comment, because acknowledging why we were ignoring these stories is a vital first step to not ignoring the next one we hear.)
Edit: Although really, what stronger evidence will you ever get? I suppose you could get a personal account from someone you trust (but that's not something you're going to hear if you're in the habit of brushing off such stories - most commonly, "honey, are you sure you're not just misinterpreting him?"). Barring that, a constant stream of similar rumours is the only evidence of a problem like this you will ever hear - until there is a "Susan Fowler event". Update accordingly.
* One needs real and credible evidence to carry through with depriving another person of any liberty or property.
* Probable cause never trumps or adds to evidence -- if you investigate and find nothing, that's it.
One of the most confusing and unfortunate memes of the past year is this "believe women" stuff, because it confuses strong suspicion with proof. If these cases show us anything, it's that there is plenty of real and credible evidence -- no need to go on intuition or suspicion.
It certainly depends on your position relative to the person; but many people who are in a position to do something are also in a position to investigate -- they can take correspondingly stronger action, on the basis of an investigation.
For example, Teo had plenty of resources available to him, if he wanted to follow up on the rumors he had heard. He just chose not to do so.
The same is true at Uber: within the company there was a wealth of information available, and it was certainly feasible for Kalanick and many other people to look into the available complaints, emails, performance reviews and transcripts to determine if something was amiss.
It is true that people outside of Uber, and people not as well connected as Teo, would not have these resources available -- but then again, those people are not actually going to go into Uber and start firing people (for example), though they might refuse to associate with people they had heard rumors about.
When you say "we should treat 'a constant murmur' as much stronger evidence than we currently do.", I would ask you, evidence with regards to what? What would you do based on this kind of evidence?
Um, no?
There's a constant murmur of racism in SV companies. I haven't seen that at all. In fact, the opposite. Doesn't mean there's no racism, but I'd rather have actual examples before I buy into that line.
There's a constant murmur of ageism in tech companies. I haven't seen that either. Plenty of people over 40, over 50 in tech. Fewer over 60, but this is a newish field still.
I've managed to go some 20 years in tech without seeing hardly any guys openly hit on girls at work -- except a couple of cases where they're now married. So why should I just "_believe it_", before reading stories like these recent articles?
(Compare catcalls. Female friends I trust tell me this happens to them all the time. Around me? ~Never. But that's cause it happens when I'm not there. Extrapolate.)
I'm not doubting the stories posted in these articles. But I'm not going to believe something just because there's a "constant murmur." There was also a constant murmur that Obama hated America, etc.
Your catcalls example is not a "murmur," it was people you know, telling you what happened to them. That's different.
But still, there's lots of "constant murmurs" that don't pan out, and in many cases they're driven by agendas. It's easy to make or perpetuate claims when there's no attribution, no specific examples, etc. Just vague innuendos.
So if some vague innuendo is contrary to my personal experience, yeah I won't believe it as fact.
Kudos to these women for bringing VC sexism out of the realm of murmurs.
The poster above me said (and emphasized) that when there's constant murmurs, you should _believe it_. Very wrong. Keep an open mind, but don't "believe" it outright just yet.
(I guess it's a cultural thing from their two-party system or something)
For example, if on your team of 20 engineers you have 3 women, then your team is already above the national average.
It's for the same reason you can think there's systemic racism in the American policing system without thinking that your cousin is racist because they're a cop.
If there's a constant murmer, don't believe it: it may just be a cultural or group narrative they push without evidence. I hear constant murmers that totally contradict each other with cherry-picked, source material from esp liberals and conservatives all the time. My favorite is obviously structural racism since I experienced it in mostly black school, town, and government. The blacks had it so much better off than us in those environments with ostracism, shouting down, and beat downs keeping whites anxious and some got really messed up in the head. However, the murmers in media say black people are always disadvantaged and white people never experience structural oppression. (cough) bullshit! (cough)
I figured out where that one started since I grew up with them from a young age hearing students and parents in both races. Essentially, they repeated what their parents taught them with amount of motivation to operate in their circumstances also usually based on parents teachings. There'd be some elements of truth like someone's experience or racial studies but it became a story that applied to everyone whose repetition made it self-fulfilling. Then, the echo chamber took over for most with small percentage breaking out to any degree. Facebooks study of spread of bad information within in-groups confirms this at a large scale. Lots of those were murmurs about political topics. All bullshit.
I'm lucky to have made it out. I said smart before but I got caught in quite a few in life. So, I was just lucky to see counter-evidence to both side's murmuring of bullshit.
It almost certainly does.
One of the easiest things men can do to help is collect those stories anonymously, curate them, and share them broadly. (For example: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-05-23/at-google...) Women shouldn't have to bear the brunt of the burden of making the majority believe them.
Accusers always bear the burden of providing evidence.
What people need to do is actually reserve their judgement. There's no need to choose sides when it's two people's words against each other.
For a victim, it's great to speak up, even with no evidence, in the event that there is a pattern and other may speak as well, like with what's happened with Bill Cosby. But if you have no evidence, people shouldn't just believe you but they also shouldn't call you a liar.
The rush to judgement is toxic.
Most complaints of this nature damage the victim's career prospects and/or end up with loss of job/funding/etc. There is rarely evidence because the few who perpetrate this kind of behavior often deliberately avoid leaving evidence. They also rely on societal signals that most people don't believe it or don't care.
It isn't very hard to figure out. Every rape trial includes a huge segment on what the victim was wearing, as if that mattered. The message is clear: this is the way powerful people work, deal with it.
> Even then she came public only after she had left the company and was employed elsewhere
Which is damn smart on her part.
I think the fact that Susan was not currently suing Uber was the primary reason why her story was believed by the general public. The critics who would howl "she's just trying to make false accusations for a payday" had no ammunition. Either that or things have dramatically changed for the better since the 90s.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674145 and marked it off-topic.
http://www.wendydent.com/short-bio
http://www.wendydent.com/red-carpets?page=0%2C1
Wow. Got style of a fashion mag, big cleavage in another, then casual in another, and even dancing in front of fires in another. You could've told me the first set was a Hollywood screening or a fashion event with models pushing sexy outfits I'd believe either if it didn't say Hampton screening. That she might use sex appeal to her advantage is believable since many hard-working artists do. Just use every natural or acquired gift you have. She's also just interesting across the board from her bio to writing to photos. I'd consider asking her just because she seems a bit awesome and good looking. Uncommon combo at least in my circles.
That said, I'd probably not do it as a venture capitalist helping her get funding just because of the liability. I might end up in a news article or something. If I did it, there'd be a brick wall between the two with me testing her interest up front. She can tell me what she's comfortable with taking me up on personal/professional interests anywhere from zero (dont work with me) to both. Truth told, her short bio has so much good stuff I'd probably fund her (or help her) on a film-related startup just based on her experience and success in film. I'd do it whether she was interested in me or not.
Side discussion: There's also the side point that keeps coming to mind when I hear women complain that men they went to for money or professional advances showed interest in them. I'm always against anything extorting or harassment where women are clearly uninterested. That's obviously bad. Then, there seems to be an expectation that successful or professional men never show interest in any women who are skilled professionals or founders in favor of... lesser women in clubs, churches, or something? Telling me I must sacrifice all potential for a date or resulting relationship with such incredible women just because they're founders or something with nothing in return... while they can mostly do whatever they want... seems a bit arbitrary, unfair and lots of missed potential. One could argue financial benefits after acquisitions or IPO's from getting more women in but we men are already used to sacrificing time and money in some way for desirable women anyway. Startups come and go but (insert incredible founder) might only happen once.
Just kind of musing on a concern I've heard from a lot of people in and mostly outside that field just talking about rules where men can never hit on or anything close women who are professionals. Also, every one I've heard from reported witnessing a varying chunk of those women would hit on or flit with men they liked who were professionals doing their job. They said that was OK since they initiated. That seemed like a double standard. I always hate those. Good news is other chunk only flirt outside of work to uphold the principle of work & dating separate. Respectable where they ask for a sacrifice and make it themselves. Many men might still not agree to the arbitrary rule, though.
Secondly, saying "don't hit on women who come asking for funding or professional consolutation" in no way means "you can't date or hit on professional women".... you just can't do it TO THE WOMEN WHO ARE ASKING YOU FOR PROFESSIONAL HELP. You can flirt and do your thing if you meet a professional woman in a social situation, just not when you are interacting with them in a business context.
You can even date co-workers (I am married to a woman I met at work), but 1) you can't be in a position of power over them and 2) You have to be EXTREMELY careful in how you approach them. You do NOT start off with texts about sex or sexual things. You don't send anything sexual until you are way into your relationship. You would start with something like 'hey, would you like to grab a drink after work', and then if they say no, you stop IMMEDIATELY AND NEVER ASK AGAIN.
It might shock you but I operate on innocent until proven guilty and hear both sides concepts. I'm just applying what little of that I can to assess how she presents herself vs his claims. I said there's some potential they were true. I also said the evidence was strongly against him and those texts were inappropriate. She's the victim here based on the evidence.
Then I started exploring the greater topic based on what I've heard and read from tons of people (including women) with varying opinions. In the media, esp like this, you're either big on sexually harassing women constantly or you totally support a specific position on interacting with women in the workplace that a subset of them are pushing or article covers. No middle ground in any way. I was just instigating some discussion of those rules.
> That she might use sex appeal to her advantage is believable since many hard-working artists do. Just use every natural or acquired gift you have.
You're evaluating whether or not you think somebody's claim of harassment is true based on whether or not you think they are attractive. Does that mean that you would disregard allegations by somebody you found homely? We should assess claims of harassment based on the testimony provided not your personal assessment of somebody's attractiveness.
> That said, I'd probably not do it as a venture capitalist helping her get funding just because of the liability. I might end up in a news article or something.
The reason to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable is to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable. It's not so that you avoid bad PR.
> If I did it, there'd be a brick wall between the two with me testing her interest up front. She can tell me what she's comfortable with taking me up on personal/professional interests anywhere from zero (dont work with me) to both.
There should be zero personal or romantic engagement by the part of a VC with an entrepreneur where the first interaction is skewed by the power dynamic. A consensual and equal relationship is impossible when one party controls the financial and social prospects of the other.
> Then, there seems to be an expectation that successful or professional men never show interest in any women who are skilled professionals or founders in favor of... lesser women in clubs, churches, or something?
It's possible for men to interact with women in social contexts, not just in professional ones.
> Telling me I must sacrifice all potential for a date or resulting relationship with such incredible women just because they're founders or something with nothing in return... while they can mostly do whatever they want... seems a bit arbitrary, unfair and lots of missed potential.
Women do not exist in the world solely for you to date. Again, if there exists an asymmetrical power dynamic there is no possibility of a consensual equal relationship. If somebody asked you out while holding a gun to your head would you feel comfortable turning them down? You might protest at the metaphor, but being able to deny somebody resources they desperately need can be just as threatening.
> Also, every one I've heard from reported witnessing a varying chunk of those women would hit on or flit with men they liked who were professionals doing their job. They said that was OK since they initiated.
Are you sure that in every instance the women are expressing romantic interest? Or are they merely being friendly, and being misinterpreted. That is a trope that comes up often - men think they are being hit on but nothing of the sort is happening.
So, let's say there was a trial where someone complained about an advance. Then, that person said they were flirted with first. One is a woman. You have data on how the guy presents himself to other people to compare to the claims of the woman. You give the woman the win automatically without looking into how she presents herself to compare to the guys claims and assess her credibility? If accuser = female and target = male, then female-claims = true. I'm not like that. I've seen so many females do exactly what he said in businesses, including business owners, that I at least wanted to test it out of curiousity. As I said, though, there's no hard data supporting his claim where in this case he admitted what data she had was true. Open and shut just on evidence.
"The reason to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable is to avoid making women seeking funding feel uncomfortable. It's not so that you avoid bad PR."
No no no. It's best to always look at principles and pragmatics. There's a huge liability side to this as I illustrated here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674307
There's also what I'm putting in for what I'm getting. If I'm a VC, there's a clear chance to make more money getting more talent in. That's why I'd be especially hesitant at least thinking in self-interest to flirt with them and probably try to create a good environment for women. I've already done that professionally for years and year. We even recently outed a perv that was ass-smacking who had apparently done it for years. I will also look at the risk posed to my career by real and false claims of sexual harrassment, though, since the cost is staggeringly high. I always look at principles, pragmatic options, risk, and rewards in business. Some of these get under-reported in the liberal media despite a massive number of people (including women) in the U.S. having differing views.
"There should be zero personal or romantic engagement by the part of a VC with an entrepreneur where the first interaction is skewed by the power dynamic. "
"It's possible for men to interact with women in social contexts, not just in professional ones."
Two, arbitrary rules designed to benefit one side. Usually at other side's expense but I consider it probably a gain in VC's for getting more female founders. I'm leaning in favor of it ideologically and default on it in business already since I've seen a lot of damage from going the other route. Then again, there's lots of men and women that like being able to make a yes-no proposal with some getting good results out of it. That's reality as opposed to hypothesis. Dissenting opionion exists. So, I bring it up to raise question to see what poeple say.
"omen do not exist in the world solely for you to date."
They exist to do whatever they want hopefully leading rich, happy lives. One thing many (most?) they like to do is date men. The time and place they'll meet plus window of opportunity might happen in a professional context with narrow possibilities. So, a cost-benefit analysis happens where one or the other might decide if it's worth the risk to approach the other. This is how you get couples or marriages that started with them working together. You're acting like this doesn't happen or never should happen. The amount of dissenting action... by women... means that's worth questioning or people discussing.
"Are you sure that in every instance the women are expressing romantic interest?"
These people are pretty good at recognizing flirting. Especially sexual humor, ignoring work tasks a bit to focus on learning more about the guy, and trying to go out with h...
That's exactly what Trump asked all the voters in America to do, and many did.
Donald Trump Says Accusers Are Too Ugly For Him To Have Groped: “Believe me, she would not be my first choice,” he said of one woman.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/10/donald-trump-insults-...
Then why do couples often say they met at work?
If you're an investor, meeting someone for the first or second time, and someone asks you for money, and you hit on them, you're an utter asshole and moron. Yes, even if someone was dressed in a way that exposed cleavage.
It's not remotely appropriate, professional, or even decent to hit on someone at the place and time that Cantor did.
If you already have a steady, mutual friendship (or other positive relationship) with someone you work with, or are in a casual setting that people go to with the intent of hitting on people or being hit on, then, sure, things can work differently. But that's extremely distant from what occurred here. Someone asking something from you in a professional capacity does not ever want "wanna fuck?" as the answer.
That's actually my argument. Many do. Anyone applying nothing personal on the job wouldn't achieve that since each would report on the other per policy of no advances. Yet, there's tons of couples that met on the job. So, clearly a lot of people disagreeing with that concept or seeking to limit it in some way with a lot of relationships that wouldn't have happened.
"If you already have a steady, mutual friendship (or other positive relationship) with someone you work with"
How do you do that if you can't show personal interest in them if they approached you professionally? Other articles have women complaining about that where they expect to only receive professional interactions with men they sent a professional statement or response to. Note that, as in my reply to cortesoft, this is a subset of women where others may be fine with it. I've met a lot of those where I just saw them do it in their actions. Or they did the flirting themselves from the get go based on the value of the man. The differing views by both men and women are always left out of these articles that present just one. So, I wanted to see if anyone had something to say about it. Seems they're all in one camp so far that probably matches publisher's.
"and you hit on them, you're an utter asshole and moron. Yes, even if someone was dressed in a way that exposed cleavage."
Going straight to hitting on them before trying to get a conversation or friendly chat would be stupid. I said I'd probably not do it. Never have so far. I play it safe just being professional or friendly until one shows interest in me.
The former is, assuming everyone is OK with it, fine. The latter is illegal as hell, and even if everyone is OK with it at the time, will expose you to litigation. Don't do it.
This is sexual harassment training 101.
The problem is that women are already being ostracized. When you can't get hired or you can't get VC money or you can't get business connections because the only time men will talk to you is to hit on you, you are already basically dead in the water as a business person.
How do we get out of this dead end?
It's a chicken and egg problem. The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio, but if the consequences of that are self-reinforcing then the status quo remains.
Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.
But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement. Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
My wife and I are starting in our own tiny corner by volunteer teaching small age-appropriate and (hopefully) interesting topics in math, science, and engineering in K5, first, second, and third grade (as our kids go through those ages).
The first seeds of the gender disparity in tech are sown in pre-teen years, IMO. There are also some significant selection effects later on, but I think those are smaller in magnitude than the original "Daddy, what can I be when I grow up?" programming.
Dealing with harassment in the industry is also key, but even if that was eliminated completely it wouldn't close the gender gap that exists by the time kids graduate high school. And the educational bit is much more straightforward to implement, it just takes a lot of money to be thrown at the problem.
If a cultural problem has lack of exposure and education at its root, then it is very easy to throw money at that part of the problem and just fix it. Right now girls and underrepresented minorities are woefully underexposed to coding, and via education we can right that wrong directly even if we can't figure out how to fix the underlying cultural issues (which definitely exist, and have made white and Asian boys much more likely to have early exposure to CS).
I'll note that students tend to rate CS as their favorite academic subject (it's slightly below art and theater) when they are forced to take it, so "force" in this context is mostly just about getting them to take the first step. They love it once they start, so whether or not it will solve the gender imbalance problem, it's such a critical skill for the future economy that it seems irresponsible not to spend money on it and prepare people to participate in that economy, doubly so when students enjoy it so much.
That's not to say at all that the cultural components should be ignored, they're just so much deeper and more difficult to fix than this particular side effect, which is amenable to solution-by-education (which necessarily means throwing money around, since training teachers takes money).
I am failing to find that assertion on the page you linke and that isn't my understanding at all of growing global trends in literacy, which are rooted in much more complex trends away from subsistence cultures and agriculturally based incomes. Furthermore, reading is a skill that is vastly different from the problem where talented educated women with ambitions cannot get their foot in the door because most men see them exclusively as sex objects. This is not solved at all by teaching women to code. Plenty of women code. They still face horrible problems due to sexism.
(links to https://ourworldindata.org/financing-education#historical-pe...)
I don't know if that is proof of the statement or anything, but I don't think it's a particularly controversial claim to say that universal education impacts literacy.
As for the challenges women face as they try to enter industry, those are well established and real, for sure. They need to be fought viciously, and we are correct to spend a lot of time and money on those problems. I'd never deny that, it's extremely important to do that work and fight that fight, as this entire article and discussion proves.
But pre-industry, only 18% of CS majors are women, so the educational system has to be fixed as well, that's way too big of an early gap to hope it will magically close once the industry gets it's shit together. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/data-mine/a... has a good rundown of where the most valuable opportunities are (middle school is a big one) and how they should be addressed - it's not just about access, it's also about making sure that it's provided in a way that engages and targets young girls specifically, and making sure that more women are teaching these classes. Schools are a valuable point of leverage where you can affect preconceived notions about gender roles and career opportunities, and any effective program needs to break down those barriers. That requires a lot of curriculum design (the easy part) and retraining (the hard).
While you're right that plenty of women code, men outnumber them by 4:1 before they even face the challenges of industry. We need to throw everything we can at that, from every angle, and at every step in the pipeline, until we're much closer to 50/50. Educational interventions are straightforward and proven to work with fairly low cost at the early stages, so I can't imagine why we'd want to rule them out as being part of the solution. They're also massively helpful when addressing the racial imbalances, which are arguably even more vulnerable to asymmetric early exposure than the gender imbalance is (though that's a much bigger subject worthy of its own discussion).
it's extremely important to ... fight that fight,
"Going to war to preserve the peace is like fucking to preserve virginity."
Business connections don't happen by being aggressive, ugly and fighty. They are based on hard won trust. In a nutshell, the problem women face is that when men trust them and like them, their first, middle, last and only thought is often "I'd hit that!"
I'm having my own horrendous crisis today and not really up to trying to do this dance with you. I don't believe that rising literacy rates globally has anything at all to do with "throwing money at the problem." I don't think you and I are likely to reach any kind of agreement and, given my state of mind today, continuing this discussion with you is unlikely to go anyplace good at all.
Adieu.
I 100% agree with your calling out constant sexualization of women as a major problem that permeates the industry, so I don't think we're really that far apart. At least on my end any disagreement mostly centers on the role that education will play in mitigating the side effects, which is fine; even if it doesn't help as much as I hope it will, I'm still happy to see the progress that students make as a result of my work, and I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about the ultimate impact.
So no hard feelings, and I apologise if I came across as argumentative. It does occur to me in hindsight that especially in the context of this article, my comments could be construed as defensive of the industry status quo, since "it's the pipeline!" is too often used in that way. That's not what I intended at all, I'm sorry I failed to make that clear. I think we really are on the same side here in terms of goals, if not tactics.
I grew up in Columbus, GA in the highly racist America Deep South. Blacks and whites each constitute roughly 49% of the population of Columbus, GA. This has failed to turn it into some kind of racial paradise. Also, from what I gather, black slaves on plantations often outnumbered the white owners and their family members.
I don't think gender ratio has a thing to do with it. Using that metric as justification for the problem amounts to excusing it.
Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.
I do agree with this. This is not a path forward.
But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement.
I don't think we need more women in tech. We need to figure out how to treat the women already in tech like human beings instead of whoopi cushions. This needs to be done regardless of how many women there are. Waiting until we hit some quota is just excusing bad behavior in the here and now and that will tend to keep it alive.
Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
Or maybe there are people who have some idea, but no one takes them very seriously. In part because not taking them seriously conveniently serves to keep sexism alive and well while looking totally innocent to most onlookers.
Race and sex are different. There is no biological imperative to couple off with someone of a different race, such that an imbalanced ratio creates aggressive competitive pressure over a limited supply of partners.
> I don't think gender ratio has a thing to do with it. Using that metric as justification for the problem amounts to excusing it.
It's completely fair to blame individuals for their misbehavior, but when you see misbehavior at scale, there is some systemic problem.
If admitting that the problem is bigger than just one person has the effect of excusing that person, that doesn't make it any less true.
Have women as your first few customers. Sell to Women initially. Only pitch to women VCs etc... When you get beyond a certain point hire men to deal with men you don't want to deal with.
This can work but essentially you have to either make it law or convince the VC's to do it willingly. Those are big political problems that would take a lot of targeted work done right. If it can be done at all.
It isn't predominantly that qualified women are applying and being turned away because of gender discrimination, it's that industry-wide the number of qualified women necessary for an even gender balance do not exist.
They went to school for teaching or medicine or real estate and the 17 year old girls deciding which college program to apply to are still doing the same thing.
Second, the black community in the U.S. did this sort of thing. They had a thriving, well to do community in Greenwood, Oklahoma known as The Black Wall Street. The result: Whites burned it to the ground and then promptly began changing the laws in order to hamstring their ability to rebuild on the completely made up bullshit theory that their homes needed to meet a stricter fire code since it had burned to the ground. The ONLY reason it burned to the ground is because asshole whites set it on fucking fire.
http://www.ebony.com/black-history/the-destruction-of-black-...
So, no, this absolutely does not work. With a problem like this, you take the bull by the horns and address the root problem or it absolutely does NOT go away. You cannot tip toe around sexism, racism, etc. They are malignant forces that actively hunt down and target people. Politely avoiding them never, ever works.
Also, most of these firms aren't huge organizations- they're small management teams with a couple partners and associates / analysts. From what I can tell on Crunchbase, Binary Capital was just Justin Caldbeck and Jonathan Theo before it imploded.
- Shouldn't the New York Times be reporting more often about sexual inequality on Wall Street?
- Silicon Valley has fewer women.
- Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of Scientific and Technical workers in the country - if you went to an American school, then you know where they stand in the hierarchy.
Could it be that the lower number of women here is forcing the men to go out of their way to beat the drumbeat of female rights to their own detriment, while the rest of the country points, laughs and pressures them into even more submission?
Something just doesn't add up.
there are going to be pompous douche bags in any industry. and there's nothing worse than a horny male idiots with a little power.
I'm not sure I completely understand the rest of your point, but I object to the idea that promoting women's rights is against the interest of men. Just society arguments aside, there is a basic economic argument about the talent that is being overlooked by pushing women out with sexism.
You're absolutely right that tech gets the beatdown because it is new. It is much more difficult for people to complain about their conditions in older industries without finding themselves unable to find another job in the same industry.
The Tech industry, especially in Silicon Valley has the friendliest working environments. Why do news papers make it seem as if sexism is so rampant in the Valley? Why would a girl want to become an engineer if all she sees are stories about how badly women are treated in Silicon Valley?
It's going to be a rickety ride for sure.
On a personal note, part of me was refusing to believe that someone like the partner at Binary was even possible in this day and age, I had never run into this myself and concluded this must have been a caricature at best. I must admit I was wrong to assume that, turns out those people are real. Hopefully there are very few of them, but I might have to change my mind on that one too soon.
A lot of people who are socially awkward when they're young work hard to overcome it. Some just naturally grow out of it.
But some find a "trick" to avoid having to overcome it.
The trick is simple: be an asshole. Being an asshole doesn't require any actual social skills, and very few people will challenge you. Most people just go along to get along since they don't want to risk the social cost or spend the energy to raise the issue. It's a great way to superficially escape social awkwardness without having to actually work at it.
"I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,"
Because any of them that aren't used to avoiding all the risky behaviors, whether doing it intentionally (asking for dates) or unintentionally ("discriminatory language"), will now worry that they'll be hit with newspaper articles that can destroy their career. They'll be considered guilty until proven innocent by good chunk of America. Association with them will taint many other employers who won't hire them. A percentage of the claims will also be fake to try to boost some woman's time in the spotlight.
Interestingly, one woman here predicted image-conscious men would get a bit paranoid. I told her prediction was good since I've been hit with numerous false claims that were all disproven by witnesses by customers and coworkers alike. I'm blunt, never seeking popularity, and say controversial stuff (political moderate w/ flair for dark humor) that they felt would make me vulnerable with their great skill at manipulation, acting, gossip, and so on. Fortunately, each time I had at least one witness who was a white or black female (diverse team pays off) backing me up that I didn't say/do whatever they claimed with others (including semi-opponents) saying they agreed that basically I don't hurt workers or treat them unfairly.
Due to the risk, I naturally didn't try to get a date with anyone when I was in leadership positions... despite much, much temptation since they were impressive inside & out. Later, I doubled down on that when false claims came in by people wanting to replace me as lead, get discounted product from me to benefit them, get better service(s) than other customers at a loss, attempt lawsuits against the company hoping for settlements (they never tried haha), get me fired for alleged mistreatment of customers, and so on. This shit happened to me so much that, as the HN commenter predicted, I started avoiding women or anything like those making the false claims (occasionally men) as much as possible unless professionally expected to deal with them and always on camera. I'd treat them [visibly and audibly] exactly like everyone else. I even considered wearing a recorder on me all day at work in case they (again) tried to make something look bad on camera reporting different words than actually exchanged. My female boss was too smart for that, though, blocking that individual's actions.
So, this shit happens whenever the aggressive, scheming women (or men) see a way to get more for themselves at some seemingly-vulnerable man's (or woman's) expense. The possibility with its consequences should be considered. At least acknowledged if we're calling side-effects of reporting a necessary evil. It's happened to me personally numerous times since a PTSD-afflicted individual looks weak or nervous much of the time: a magnet for attackers. Oh well. What doesn't kill you makes you (stronger/stranger?). ;)
These are people with personality disorders (especially Borderline), who can thrive in environments where incessant lying, gaslighting, and life-ruining accusations are rewarded . The current system lets the people with the least morals float to the top, regardless of their gender. I don't know how to deal with borderlines in situations like this, but it's wrong for people to simply pretend they don't exist.
I've noticed people on HN never really want to discuss why people like the Uber CEO are sexist, and how people like that should be handled (aside from just firing them and forgetting that they exist). Learning about personality disorders can help you understand lots of behavior that was previously unexplainable or baffling, and perhaps even teach you something about yourself if you realize that you have one. The more time I spend in tech, the more I think that the rate of occurrence for them is much higher than in the general population.
I really wish greater awareness of personality disorders was espoused in tech, and that Americans in general took mental health more seriously. I think you could begin to fix a lot of problems that get talked about here by simply having people go to therapy. It wouldn't be a quick fix and it's not guaranteed, but it's better than nothing.
Also learning about the drama triangle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karpman_drama_triangle
I don't think it's fair to characterize Travis as sexist without backing it up with evidence. Travis isn't equal to Uber, and I respect him as an entrepreneur. (Maybe I missed an article claiming he was personally involved in some misconduct, though.)
"Do not have sex with another employee UNLESS a) you have asked that person for that privilege and they have responded with an emphatic ‘YES! I will have sex with you’ AND b) the two (or more) of you do not work in the same chain of command. Yes, that means that Travis will be celibate on this trip,"
Its nature is interpreted as evidence Travis is sexist by some HN commenters.
In general, it seems more productive to reserve outrage for those who take advantage of employees or founders by using their position of power.
When you write things like that, phrased like that, it's not surprising in the slightest that multiple women have thought you were harassing them.
My guess is that you come off as a creep. I'm sure you don't mean to but I don't believe psychopathic schemers are common enough that anyone could ever be accused numerous times without some real cause for it.
From my first girlfriend to my (late) wife, I've always treated girls/women as angels.
But in the work place, I had several girls/women make it clear they wanted something physical and romantic, that is, sexual, with me.
Example 1: I was a college prof also helping the college in practical computing, and she was on the college administrative staff. She wanted to talk to me. Leaning back in her office chair, facing me, her legs aimed at me, so I could get a view of the back side of her thighs, she put her feet up on her desk and announced that she and her husband had an "open marriage".
I thought: Okay. Good for you. What's that got to do with me? I'm married, and my marriage is not "open". And even if it was, or even if I were not married, sorry. I make the first move, and this college is a target rich environment where you wouldn't pass the initial cutoff.
Example 2: A student, call her a girl, wasn't doing very well in my applied math class. In class she sat in the front row with a sweater with too many buttons undone at the top. She looked terrified about my course. She came to see me in office hours. Sure, I'd give her in my office, any student, a one on one, personalized, repeat of the lectures, the course material, anything in the course, just tutor them if necessary. As I was going over some of the material trying to get her caught up, she sat close and rubbed her knee against my thigh.
I thought: Okay. You seem desperate. But you are safe with me. Let's concentrate on the applied math and get you through this course.
And there were several other examples.
I was not upset, offended, afraid, outraged, threatened, worried, etc.
And what complicated responses and reactions did I have to those proposals? Sure, exactly nothing, zip, zilch, zero. Easy.
If we are to have gender equality, then maybe the women should do something similar? E.g., in steps: Ignore it and concentrate on the work. Quit smiling. Scowl. Say something nasty. Scream. Bite, scratch, kick. Have a 6" hat pin and use it.
More advice: Don't dress like Fox Babes. Instead, if wearing skirts, have them about a foot longer so that when sitting the hem of the skirt is well over the knees, and modesty is preserved even if the knees are not together.
If Rafe Testosteroni doesn't like the hat pin, then he should stay out of range.
As a startup founder, CEO, the case I'm afraid of is too many of the females don't have enough pressing work to do, scare each other, form a herd, get highly energized and determined, and show up at my office with some lawyers complaining that Rafe Testosteroni routinely makes them "feel uncomfortable". Some of the women are convinced that Rafe is undressing them with his eyes. So far Rafe has never come within hat pin range, but all the women are very concerned. They all agree that they are highly concerned because they can't be sure just what Rafe is thinking or might do.