Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.
If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile.
It just amazes me that people who have both the means and ability to get what they want do foolish stuff like he's doing.
People like him may be bored of using money as a means to get girls (no need to resort to prostitution for this even). Instead, they probably get off from methods like these.
It's probably some mix of a lack of impulse control and enjoying the chase. He meets an attractive woman and pursues her, without stopping to think whether or not what he's doing is inappropriate or even assault.
Edit: I just finished reading the article. I hope this comment doesn't seem like I'm dismissing him as "Dave being Dave", because what he did was horrible. Plying her with copious amounts of alcohol and then backing her into a corner, refusing to leave her house. That's really messed up, like a frat boy's limited understanding of consent.
What I don't understand is why she kept drinking what he was pouring. (This is absolutely not a ”she was looking for it” remark... I'm just curious why in her initially sober state she had less incentive to avoid risk than when she was a little inebriated. His behaviour is absolutely nothing but despicable.)
Have you ever spent a lot of time around people you look up to and respect professionally and/or who are a bit famous? You get flustered and want to be liked and accepted. It's natural, and the burden is on the person in the more powerful position not to exploit that.
A long while ago I made the decision that I would never drink if I were not comfortable with the situation. Trying to impress somebody is a situation I am not comfortable with, so in this particular situation I would not drink. I consider this a sound policy (but then of course, of course I would, because it is my policy, so I'm biased).
That's nice in theory, but as long as sharing drinks with people is the world's most preeminent traditional method for socializing and turning casual acquaintances into close connections you're going to be necessarily swimming up stream with that policy.
It's not a theory, it's my practice. There's many cultures/religions where drinking is not allowed and somehow they manage to socialise too. I just say "thank you, but no thank you, I don't drink" and that's the end of it, the one time somebody was pushy I just remarked I'm on medication (little white lie there) and that was it.
Plus, incidentally, this is Malaysia... I lived in Malaysia for several years in the mid 2000s. There's a lot of heavy social drinking there but there's also a predominant Muslim culture (the Malays) who in theory should be barred from imbibing alcohol. As such, Malaysians are, in my experience, very adept at mixing in social situations where copious drinking is occurring while still allowing for some members that abstain from doing so on cultural grounds not to fell out of place.
It isn't impossible to do. It isn't even difficult to do. In fact it's an absolute non-issue.
Now, this is not terribly relevant in the present context (this was her house, I presume the alcohol was taken from her drinks cabinet, & cetera) but you should never allow anybody to pressure you into drinking because of social pressure. That somehow you seem to believe that the social situation begets the behaviour is a bit alarming.
I think I expressed myself badly. I'm English/Italian and live in Italy. However I lived in Malaysia in the mid-2000s. These events took place in Malaysia. As I understand it the victim is a Malaysian national. Therefore I consider my experience of the place and culture to be somewhat relevant, or at the very least, evidence that other modes of behaviour are possible.
Because drinking a bit too much during a party is no big deal. Remember the part where she was surprised to find herself alone with Dave? That's when she suddenly realized what was going on.
(By the way: any analysis on how the victim of abuse made sub-optimal decisions is _always_ victim blaming, even if you add a disclaimer stating otherwise.)
> By the way: any analysis on how the victim of abuse made sub-optimal decisions is _always_ victim blaming, even if you add a disclaimer stating otherwise.
If I leave my car running with the keys in it in a bad part of town, and my car gets stolen, the thief is still totally to blame, but don't you think there are better precautions I could have taken? Is there a way to discuss that without immediately shutting it down as victim blaming?
FWIW, I do NOT think Ms. Yeo did anything resembling the car key example above. I think everything she described (having drinks in a group with friends and business partners) is absolutely something anyone should be able to do without fear of being on the receiving end of what Mr. McClure did. But I still think there should be a way to have honest conversations about taking precautions against crime, that we for some reason think are acceptable to have in all other discussions of crime EXCEPT sexual assault.
> Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.
That's not the point. The point is precisely the power and coercion. Paying someone or finding someone like-minded doesn't hit that button anywhere near the same way that assault and blackmail does.
If you're strong-arming women into sex, it's not about the sex, it's about the strong-arming. The very inappropriateness itself is the goal.
People say this all the time, but is there any actual rigorous evidence or argument for it?
As far as I can tell it's just a way to demonize and dehumanize a group of really unpopular people in order to feel better about taking retribution against them. Comparable to saying, "She didn't murder her kids because of depression, but because she wanted them and her husband to suffer. The pain itself is the goal."
So is this really a rent-paying belief? Or is it rather a way to feel good about hating someone and absolve yourself from the responsibility to understand the internal experiences of people who do bad things?
This is important, by the way. If the goal is to feel good about hating people who did wrong, dehumanize away. If the goal is actually to prevent other people from doing wrong, you need understand accurately why the wrong was being done in the first place, and that's what I'm afraid isn't being done here.
I'm speaking from the perspective of someone who pays attention to the way good people are seduced into bad actions by the exercise of power beyond what's appropriate.
I do this precisely because I want to avoid situations where my behavior and viewpoint will be compromised by the level of authority I wield.
The very point I'm attempting to make, anyway, is that if you hand even the best humans inordinate power they will abuse it. That's how power is. It's not about the people - it's about the power structures we inhabit.
Reference the milgram experiment, the stanford prison experiment, whatever you like. They're not definitive, by any means, but they show you what is possible.
Thanks for sharing this. Reading Dave's post the first time, all I could think was "this seems like the most bland, cop-out, vague apology I've ever seen." He didn't list the specifics of what he felt bad about, and the whole thing read like a PR release to get ahead of any potential fallout.
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant.
Not in any way to defend Dave, but I think it would have been wrong for him to publish specifics as that could cause further distress to the victims involved.
But I strongly support them coming forward and telling their own stories. That has value and gives the accusations their proper perspective and gravity. It truly is different to be confronted with the details.
Agreed, it's not an abuser's place to decide for their victim what details are made public.
But, the direct apology to a victim should be clear and not place blame on them for how they interpreted a situation, "I'm sorry if you felt X" is the opposite of an apology, it is redirecting blame.
Direct aplogies to victims are addressed to those victims, they do not tend to be written as open letters for the world to read and don't usually attempt to whitewash the situation in which the encounter took place so the perpetrator looks better. If he'd left that part out it would be a lot better, if he left out the self congratulatory bits it would look better still. If that had been the only case then the book could be closed but it appears that that one encounter really was the tip of the proverbial iceberg and I really hope for mr. McClure that there isn't any worse down the line for him because this could end up being both expensive and possible a legal issue. Just this encounter alone would be enough to get him booked in many places.
Oh, I agree with you on that. It's just easy for there to be a lookie-loo sort of situation where people want to know the sordid details and end up re-centering the narrative on the abuser and the story they want to tell.
McClure's public apology, above all, should have been honest and sincere; more detail isn't strictly necessary, to be honest and sincere. It sounds like it wasn't honest or quite sincere. And, it sounds like his private apology, in this case, was decidedly dishonest and redirected blame.
> but I think it would have been wrong for him to publish specifics as that could cause further distress to the victims involved.
But he did publish specifics, selected to make it look as if he had just misread the situation. Which in fact did cause further distress to the victims, see linked article.
>With respect to the NYT article above and Sarah Kunst specifically, I’d like to sincerely apologize for making inappropriate advances towards her several years ago over drinks, late one night in a small group, where she mentioned she was interested in a job at 500. While I did not offer her a job at the time, a few days/weeks later I did refer her to my co-founder Christine Tsai to begin a formal interview process with 500, where Christine and others on the team met with her. Ultimately, 500 decided not to offer Sarah a job. Again my apologies to Sarah for my inappropriate behavior in a setting I thought was social, but in hindsight was clearly not. It was my fault and I take full responsibility. She was correct in calling me out.
>In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. 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.”
>Ms. Kunst, who now runs a fitness start-up, said she declined Mr. McClure’s advance. When she later discussed the message with one of Mr. McClure’s colleagues, she said 500 Startups ended its conversations with her.
For anyone for whom it's not obvious. The point is not that he spiked her chances to get hired for rejecting his advances, or that she wasn't treated fairly by in the remainder of the interview process.
The point is that he hit on her when she was expressing interest in a job, an advance backed by not only an (even if ultimately unfounded) fear that her application MIGHT be spiked if she rejected his advances, but a strong impression that ACCEPTING these advances would GET her the job.
Sex and romance in the workplace is always fraught, but this is why above almost all you never, never initiate them with someone in your chain of command or when they are attempting to move into it.
Contrary to what others are saying it is still in and of itself probably not a crime in most jurisdictions but it is a serious civil wrong that can cost immense money and goodwill, besides being just wrong.
And if you're the CEO of the organization, well, you should be appropriately compensated already.
He wouldn't have had to name names. His "apology" went along these lines:
> I made advances towards multiple women in work-related situations, where it was clearly inappropriate [...] I put people in compromising and inappropriate situations, and I selfishly took advantage of those situations where I should have known better. My behavior was inexcusable and wrong.
Dave made it sound like he'd hit on women in the context of offering them a job or investment. His one example re: Sarah Kunst specifically mentions he hit on her in a group.
All of the above -- while clearly unethical -- are a world away from getting drunk with an investee / business partner in her apartment, waiting until everyone else had left, and making aggressive physical advances towards her, including having to be told no multiple times.
Dave's message underplayed his behavior and, I think, really reinforces that he doesn't understand that what he did was wrong. He could have apologized for all of the above and only Dave, Cheryl, and the handful of people Cheryl told would have any idea he was referring to Cheryl.
I frankly think Dave was still hoping to underplay his behavior to keep his job. Also, the fact that 500 let Dave represent them in Australia with no warning to their Australian partners makes Christine Tsai seem complicit [1].
When I read the original, I thought it was pretty reasonable as apologies go - it was directly saying what he did was wrong, which is better than the non-apology "I'm sorry you were offended"s you see (low bar, but still). Of course, it now looks like, at best, he was just copping to the "less bad" bits to try and quell it before the worst bits got out.
While "less bad" is obviously still damaging and there is a lot to talk about there, what's given in the post sounds like a clear-cut crime.
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant
Perhaps cynically, the only conclusion I can derive from this is them thanking him for not lifting the veil too high and revealing how the system has worked with these forces in play. In the absence of this I have to wonder if the SV VC industry is one big missing stair[1].
Let's stop perpetuating this myth that this is a "few rotten apples".
This is a systemic problem in our industry, and we need to all realize this, so that we can start teaching each other what behavior is and is not appropriate in a very clear, concise, and precise manner.
My thoughts exactly. There's a gold rush in Silicon Valley (or the tech industry in general) and usually, these rushes attract jerks. You can't create a system of fierce individualism and predation and then act surprised if this behaviour extends to every facet of life.
I read somewhere, a while ago, that assholes moved in herds to Wall Street in the 80s-90s, and now they've decided to move to California.
I agree that we can teach each other what kind of culture we want to instill, and one that allows people to work in an environment that boosts their potential.
However, from my observations, to flat out list a finite list of behaviorism, will manifest yet another set of behaviorism, which will manifest another list.
I do not view this as a simple systematic problem, but rather a deep-wedged symptom of a sick society. We all are complicit.
A society that is focused on results and ego and success will always encourage such behavior (of debasing others, exploiting others regardless of their being — even white men are exploited and debased by other "higher-paying" white men). No set of rules will change this until we change our society's culture.
The culture cannot change through scolding, but rather a deep, opening conversation that will be conversed again and again until people find no use for the word harassment or sexual harassment or the desire to hurt or debase others in name of success.
I think it's important to clarify what "our industry" means, though. I think it's a mistake to lump it all into "tech", because that misses some important root causes. I think there are a bunch of different things going on:
1. With respect to VCs preying on female entrepreneurs, this doesn't shock me in the slightest. Wherever you have this huge power imbalance, coupled with large numbers of people who are extremely reluctant to jeopardize their "big break", you will see this kind of abuse. It was/is common in Hollywood, and I think the Catholic Church sex scandals have a ton in common. If you have a situation with that type of power imbalance, unless you have a very detailed and specific process to deal with predators, that kind of abuse will happen.
2. I think what Susan Fowler described re: Uber has a ton to do with the extremely aggressive culture Uber set up. In fact, a lot of the "villains" in Susan's story were, surprisingly, women. I think the tough question is how to you "rein in" that type of aggressive culture when it was so successful for Uber originally.
3. Finally, with regards to how women are treated in general in tech, I think a lot of the unconscious biases people hold, how people react differently to men's ideas vs. women's, need to be discussed more openly and with a goal of making everyone more aware of their own prejudices without fear.
Wow, that's really incredible optimism. I'd be more than happy if there was a 50/50 split between the kinds of apples but I fear that it is more along the lines of 20/80 or worse based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot.
> If you're aware of harassment and assault of women, please contact the appropriate authorities.
Are you kidding? I wouldn't have enough time in a day. Just some stats, 1 out of every 6 women has been the victim of attempted rape or rape.
I'm aware of several such cases in the last 2 years alone, none of these resulted in an arrest or a court case and I have absolutely no reason not to believe the women.
Besides that I do not have the right to go to the authorities on behalf of someone who does not want to go to the authorities herself because more often than not they are part of the problem and tend to make the whole affair into an exercise in victim blaming.
This is an extremely complex issue and even if we can all agree that it is not normal there is no set recipe for how to deal with such situations.
Apparently we cannot agree that it is not normal, because you claimed that, optimistically, half of men are like that, with a more "realistic" estimate of 80%. The point is that, if the numbers are that bad in your experience, then you do have a very not normal experience.
> if the numbers are that bad in your experience, then you do have a very not normal experience.
That would be good news. But I fear that it isn't. Here's an experiment for you: ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you. If you feel brave ask someone who spent time in an orphanage or jail or some other place where they have little access to representation and are at the mercy of people that have power over them.
>ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you.
That is not the number under dispute. There are two fundamentally different theories about what is going on: 1) Most men sexually assault women, or 2) A minority of men sexual assault a large number of women. Based on statistics of victims, it is impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. However, understanding which scenario we are in is vitally important to forming our response. You seem to believe that we are in scenario 1.
I will admit, I do not have any evidence handy that we are in scenario 2, because it is not a proposal I have ever seen seriously suggested. However, you have presented no evidence that we are in scenerio 1, which seems to be the less believable situation. Until such evidence is presented, I will continue to believe that it is a minority of men that cause a majority of sexual assault [0].
[0] Yes, not all sexual assualt is by males, but I am reasonably confident that it is enough that this general statement holds.
What I've seen professionally makes me believe this, definitely. And that view is consistent across 30 years in the industry with stints in various sub-branches of IT and/or fields that require IT services (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
Let me reprhase this in a more direct way so there is no misunderstanding:
I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
If you know of such companies it would be nice to list them.
If there is such a thing I would love to be surprised, I suspect that it is going to be the ones run by women, but they are rare enough that I have not had much exposure to them.
>I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
This is a very different claim than what you made above. Even within a company, a minority of people can cause a majority of the problems. Indeed, for any toxic behavior I can think of, it only takes one employee to take down a team, and the problem often spreads beyond that team. I see no reason to believe sexual assault is any different.
Again, the question of if we are in situation 1 or 2 is vitally important. If we are in situation 1, then we are looking at a generational struggle to change men's attitudes towards women. Essentially, we need to wait for the old guard to die off, then wait for the new guard to die off, then hope that our actions made the new-new guard behave respectably.
If we are in situation 2, then the above solution is almost useless. Instead, we are facing a managerial problem where we fail to root out the bad actors. As with any other toxic behavior, this can cause them to contaminate the entire environment. Of course, in this context, "manager" does not only refer to the managers of companies, but also the "managers" of social communities. Effectively, in this scenario, the problem description is not so much that too many people rape, but rather that we are ineffective at dealing with those who do.
I strongly believe this is a societal problem, not a 'women in tech' problem, though it is quite probably a fact that women in tech have it somewhat harder than women in society on average but judging by who run the worlds corporations and who make the worlds laws it's probably a safe bet that that gap is smaller than it seems just because we happen to look at the world through a filter shaped by technology.
If every time I hear about a woman being harassed I would get myself mixed up in the case I don't think I'd have many friends left. Just in the last year alone one of my female friends was raped in her own home and if she wanted me to do something I'm pretty sure she'd be more than willing to ask, all I can do instead is to be there when she wants to talk about it.
What bothers me is that people seem to think this stuff is rare.
What I can do - and do - is when something is happening around me and I'm aware of it when it is happening to step in, but after the fact if you are not a party to something then you are not going to help matters if you on your own without the consent of the victim approach the authorities, and you also don't have the right to take matters in your own hands.
So seriously, what the fuck, realize that if you are not in any way shape or form a party to an event that you may not have the right - and definitely do not have an obligation - to approach the authorities.
I'd like to apologize for the misunderstanding, I said what I said because of the phrasing in your original post "[...] based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot."
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't agree with your defeatism. While I cannot single-handedly stop all sexual assault, every person that I can indirectly protect is precious. I will never stop trying.
Protection is useful before and during some action. In the few cases that I was a witness I definitely stepped in and did something about it, but in most cases you only hear about things long after they've happened (in many cases years afterwards).
So you will 'never stop trying', but tell me, how often have you been there when it happened? For me those instances are a small fraction of the number of cases that I'm aware of and I suspect that the whole reason this number is so low is because of how these things play out, see the linked article here: mr. McClure did not bother to harass her until he'd isolated her. Who would stop him other than the woman?
At the workplace, the supposed appropriate authority is Human Resources. The obvious problem with this is that since Human Resources' role is literally to treat the humans at or attempting to be in, the company as resources, during a case of sexual harassment their systematically correct behavior is to weigh the assessed value of all parties involved, predict the value deltas for each possible way to resolve the case, and implement the resolution with the predicted net highest value to the company.
Women locker room talk is not about sexual coercion but it's often about using their sexuality to gain advantage. While this is obviously not equivalent to sexual assault, it's not ethical either.
possibly could have been better phrased: I was trying to point out that a woman 'using her sexuality for personal gain' only works if men treat her solely as a sexual object
Could be due to the location. Might be different in different countries. In the places I have worked (always women in the team, startup and more enterprise-world), I never seen sexism happen apart from once.
Of course there is the problem that it could be hidden (IMs or whatnot). Hence my optimism :-)
It seems more that as with most types of abuse and non-retributive violence, the sexual abuser tends to be in a position of disproportionate power to the abused. Also, because of the greater variance in the Y chromosome, human males display more phenotypically outlying (in this case, aberrant) behavior than human females.
It is not just a handful of rotten apples. The enablers are right there in the Twitter quotes.
It isn't enough for the assholes to stop assholin'. We all have the opportunity to contribute positively by moving the norms, and we will all be better for it.
The people that have the ability to fix it are the incredibly brave women coming forward. That's what's changing things.
Otherwise, most of us have already been doing all we can. We don't do bad things, and we don't enable people doing bad things. It's ok to admit that we didn't cause this nor have the ability to fix it.
We're all in this together, and even when it falls to others to lead, we can all contribute in a supporting role.
For example, there's lots of victim-blaming in these threads. We have an opportunity to speak up and counter it. In so doing, we support the brave women on the front lines.
>Non-consensual, sexual advances are not the same as flirtatious comments from a creepy dude
It is refreshing to see this much needed distinction; I think many people in modern society have been conflating flirtation with harassment for the past few years.
Still, not to speak against the author or victimized women, but I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem as it seems to be to outspoken individuals online. I've been beaten by strangers before, and even that was something I got over much more quickly than the years of scarring that women like the author seem to experience from unwanted physical advances. I cannot understand how being propositioned and kissed against one's will is such a terrible fate to suffer.
I suspect that much of the recent backlash against harassment is mostly a result of conditioning, wherein women learn from society to feel more violated and take these advances more personally than they should.
After all, I'd take an uncomfortable kiss over a beating any day, and being put into the hospital by a couple of violent strangers did not leave me, or other men that I know, with a lifetime of discomfort.
I do not intend to be offensive, I simply cannot resolve the discrepancy in my mind. Is this a difference in male and female mindset?
Intimacy is one of the only things we (should) entirely get to choose who to share with. For everything else, there's societal expectations of some degree of doing things even though you don't really want to - but intimacy is the one case where as a society, we supposedly strongly believe that there should be no expectations that you are intimate with anyone you don't want to be intimate with. Women tend to get taught this idea more than men, who are instead taught that if they don't want to be intimate with someone, then something is either wrong with them or wrong with the person in question.
Now have someone force you to perform intimate acts with them, after a lifetime of being taught that you get to decide who to be intimate with.
As a terrible analogy: a lot of middle-class people for whom part of their primary goal in life is to own a house tend to never quite recover from being burgled. The reason for that is that they consider their house the one safe place they have. For many women, intimacy is the one safe thing they have.
Edit: For clarification, the (now flagged) parent commenter was expressing that he did not understand why women are so affected by unwanted sexual advances. He mentioned that men have come onto him without his consent, and he was (on a separate occasion) beaten up bad enough to end up in the hospital, but his quality of life did not decrease to the same degree that he sees in women who are kissed against their will. He said he didn't understand why being kissed without permission is such a big deal in comparison with actually being beaten up. Following is my response:
Sexual assault & sexual harassment are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a world that can be very fucked up if you're a woman. You've been beaten up, but after the beating you were still (I assume) physically bigger and stronger than ~50% of the human population. That might influence how you feel about the things that have happened to you.
Here is an excerpt from the link above:
Credibility is a basic survival tool. When I was very young and just beginning to get what feminism was about and why it was necessary, I had a boyfriend whose uncle was a nuclear physicist. One Christmas, he was telling–as though it were a light and amusing subject–how a neighbor’s wife in his suburban bomb-making community had come running out of her house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her. How, I asked, did you know that he wasn’t trying to kill her? He explained, patiently, that they were respectable middle-class people. Therefore, her-husband-trying-to-kill-her was simply not a credible explanation for her fleeing the house yelling that her husband was trying to kill her. That she was crazy, on the other hand….
Even getting a restraining order–a fairly new legal tool–requires acquiring the credibility to convince the courts that some guy is a menace and then getting the cops to enforce it. Restraining orders often don’t work anyway. Violence is one way to silence people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to exist. About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It’s one of the main causes of death in pregnant women in the U.S. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible.
I tend to believe that women acquired the status of human beings when these kinds of acts started to be taken seriously, when the big things that stop us and kill us were addressed legally from the mid-1970s on; well after, that is, my birth. And for anyone about to argue that workplace sexual intimidation isn’t a life or death issue, remember that Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, age 20, was apparently killed by her higher-ranking colleague last winter while she was waiting to testify that he raped her. The burned remains of her pregnant body were found in the fire pit in his backyard in December.
In America, men are far more likely to be murdered than women. Men are far more likely to be victims of public-sphere violence than women. Private violence is hard to quantify, but what evidence there is suggests that women enact is roughly in equal proportion to men (though of course women are weaker, but they can use weapons and men who are domestically abused are typically ignored or laughed at).
Given these data, portraying interpersonal violence as a special thing that women have to deal with is pretty absurd.
The reality is that women are the far more protected gender. Nobody cares when men are victims of violence. People have always cared greatly when women are victims of violence.
It reminds me of the great amount of political noise in Canada around "missing and murdered Aboriginal women". Meanwhile nobody ever mentions missing and murdered Aboriginal men, even though Aboriginal men are more than twice as likely to be missing or murdered than Aboriginal women! So politically a man's death is far less than half as important as a woman's death. It took years for the MMIW inquiry to even start considering men as a side-detail. [1]
I mean heck, your first anecdote. Picture a man running from his house today screaming his wife is trying to kill him. He could be laughed at. He could be arrested for abuse if she simply accuses him. These things happen all the time. The horror stories are everywhere.
So, stepping outside the sexist "society must protect women, men must protect themselves" double standard, the case just doesn't add up. There must be another answer to parent's question.
Good luck as a foreigner in Malaysia approaching the local police to file a complaint for assault based on a forced kiss against another foreigner who happens to be a millionaire. But that doesn't make it right.
Note that it is extremely hard to get these cases to go anywhere in the West where you know the law and where the lines tend to be drawn rather sharper than in Asia (unless there is drugs involved).
I do not believe that Malaysian police take a laidback attitude to sexual assault reports sd you have implied here. Even cases of a woman being sexually assaulted by another woman is also taken seriously in Malaysia. I think you need to stop having preconceived ideas about South East Asian countries. They might look similar but they are not.
"Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape, including marital rape, is a criminal offense,
as are most forms of domestic violence. The penal code states that rape is
punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years and whipping. Marital rape does not
have a minimum penalty, but the maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment.
According to women’s groups, an average of 10 women were raped each day;
more than half of these women were under 16. A study by All Women’s Action
Society found only one in 10 reported rape cases came to court. A report by the
Women’s Centre for Change showed that perpetrators were convicted in only 4 to
6 percent of cases. The latest police statistics available showed 2,718 rapes were
reported in 2013, of which 52 percent involved girls age 16 and below.
Cultural attitudes and a reported lack of sympathy from the largely male police
force resulted in many victims not reporting rapes. Many government hospitals
had crisis centers where victims of rape and domestic abuse could make reports
without going to a police station. NGOs and political parties also cooperated to
provide counseling for rape victims. Women’s groups asserted that courts were
inconsistent in punishing rapists."
So, how much do you think would happen if a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner?
I think you have misconstrued understand about the culture of Malaysia. I suggest if you want to know more to read more perhaps report originating from Malaysia to give a better context.
There is a shame associated with rape hence many victims chose to be quiet, most families would prefer for the perpetrators to marry the victim.
Furthermore, statutory rape in Malaysia is quite prevalent so the 52% is actually statutory rape.
"So, how much do you think would happen if a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner?"
If you have any evidence, even anecdotal evidence that a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner but was ignored in Malaysia, please share it.
> I think you need to stop having preconceived ideas about South East Asian countries.
I am not familiar with Malaysia but since you clubbed all South East Asian countries, let me share an anecdote.
I personally know someone who was raped in Indonesia and when she reported it to the Police, they literally laughed at her and said you were drinking you deserve it.
What a terrible story. I'm sorry she had to go through that and appreciate her sharing it.
I'm curious about the legal aspect of it. "Sexual assault" is a crime, right? The worst repercussions I hear from these stories are maybe a resignation at best. But if this is truly a crime shouldn't it be prosecuted?
These accounts happened in Malaysia, so someone would have to initiate an investigation and then seek extradition. It's not likely to happen.
On the other hand, this man has apparently a history of this behavior, so potentially there are similar actions in the US and people have yet to reveal them.
Many victims decline to prosecute to avoid the mental toll the process takes, including having to relive their trauma, having their credibility torn to shreds and possibility of the perp being acquitted even in face of compelling evidence. Trying to recover and generally move on with their lives is already hard enough.
Depending on the jurisdiction, strictly speaking it's not up to the victim to pursue charges. The prosecutor can bring charges whether the victim wants to or not.
In practice if the victim doesn't want to testify there's usually no way to get a conviction so it won't be prosecuted. But the decision lies with the prosecutor.
It's a classic he said / she said situation. Based on how he isolates the women, this is exactly the scenario he wants. No witnesses and plenty of time and space to wiggle out of his own culpability if it should arise.
If you invite someone over to your apartment to drink scotch, and then they come on to you, that's not sexual assault. Sexual assault is when someone has sex with another person without their permission.
If you two were alone, you had sex, and you go to a doctor later and there are no signs of violence, how can you prove you actually said "no"? Honest question.
You probably can't. That affects whether or not you can reasonably pursue it, but doesn't change the objective fact of whether or not it was consensual.
It's damn near impossible. Given the amount of pushback women get from the system, something should be done to help. Suffering systematic abuse then having a system that basically says, "You wanted it," must be extremely draining.
Our system is only slightly above ones that require a male relative to have witnessed the assault before accepting that it wasn't the woman who committed a crime.
Really?! Does it matter what she was wearing, too?
From the story, she had a bunch of people over, most of them left, one stayed, propositioned her (not assault), heard no, was asked to leave, then forced her into a corner and kissed her (very clearly assault and very clearly sexual harassment IMO [1]).
There are many "grey area" situations surrounding behavior in apartments with alcohol. This, IMO, isn't one of them.
[1] - This previously said "clearly sexual assault" in the parentheses.
If you tell someone to leave (NOW!) after they indicate they want to sleep in your bedroom when they've been offered the couch and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.
When someone has sex with another person without their permission it is rape.
I'm by no means a burly red-blooded gentleman, but I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault.
Of course adding context to all those situations, it's easy to see that I or the recipient would in all probability welcome the advance, and so it is not assault, however the fine line between "assault" and "relationship" at that point is entirely down to perception, and it makes this entire area massively ugly to try and delineate.
Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.
> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.
You won't need a written legal waiver, you could simply ask if it is ok.
If you don't ask you're taking your chances that the other person reads the situation just like you do. Just yesterday a friend of mine ended up in an elevator with someone she ended up having dinner with because their flight got canceled. He tried to force himself on her in the elevator, I'm sure he thought it was ok and I'm also 100% sure that she did not give him any reason to think that kiss would be welcome. Now maybe there is a chance that such a kiss would be welcome, but if it is there is no harm in asking and if it isn't there is a lot of harm in assuming that it is welcome.
It's pretty clear cut to me. And I've never kissed any one of my former partners without making sure that such an attempt was welcome, but then again I haven't had that many opportunities to put this to the test.
I think the written legal waiver was mentioned because it would be the only verifiable evidence to defend yourself against someone claiming such advances were unwarranted.
That's one more reason to make sure they are. If there is ambiguity it is safer to err on the side of caution. Note that anybody that you were in a room with could make up such a story, so you're always going to have to rely on good faith to some extent and false accusations really do happen.
You seem to be identify a valid problem of defining "assault". This is a real problem, and something that policy makers will need to tackle at all levels, but it is not what is being discussed. After someone responds to your request to sleep with them by asking you to leave, you have left the realm of ambiguity.
If you are hanging out with a friend and start getting a bit handsy, then I could see the grey area. But it the cases where it is not wanted, a simple "no", or movement away, or pushing his hands off, etc would be enough to clarify where the line is, and ignoring that would turn it into unambiguous assault.
You're confusing the absence of explicit consent for its explicit denial. Yes means yes, no means no, and starting things up without an explicit conversation is a long and convoluted debate... And what happened here was not that. This was firmly "no means no" territory. Once somebody has asked you to leave, that's a pretty goddamned firm "no".
Yes, there are long and troubling discussions about how so much of sexual advances are silent and how it's hard to discuss consent with those, but this story was way the hell outside of that grey area.
The situation and context matters. David McClure knew that the event at her apartment was a business meeting, there were many other colleagues, he followed her into her bedroom after the business meeting finished despite her objecting, he propositioned her and she objected and moved away, and THEN he finally tried and failed to kiss her after pinning her into a corner until she could no longer escape. Were your actions in your previous relationships like this? I hope not - for your own sake. Your strawman about a "written legal waiver" does not apply to this scenario.
> I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault.
That's funny, I can't think of any examples from my past which could be construed as assault. And I rather doubt you can either; implicit consent is still consent.
> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading
I think that's quite an absurd conclusion. How do we jump from "don't kiss people who don't want to be kissed" to "obtain a written legal waiver"? That's like going "you shouldn't break into someone's house...so you need a written waiver before entering, even if they're literally walking next to you and offering you a drink", because maybe you've misread the situation, and when they said "come on in, but mind the dog" they meant "go away"?
In the real world body language and conversational hints make is very clear what's going on in most cases, and in a small minority of cases when those prompts are misread, there will be a clear "no", and then you apologise and move on.
"Then I went into my own bedroom but Dave followed me there, and that’s when he first propositioned to sleep with me. I said no. I reminded Dave that he knew my then-boyfriend and that we’d just talked about him earlier that night. At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me..."
Can you honestly read that and, taking the account at face value, go "wow, Dave was just making an honest mistake; he should have been more careful and asked for a written waiver before he forcibly tried to kiss a resisting woman who had repeatedly told him no and was in the process of evicting him due to his inappropriate advances"? Really? Truly? That's your takeaway here?
The problem here, as described, isn't that he didn't get her consent in writing, its that there was no consent at all. These are not comparable things!
> and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
I understand this incident occurred in Malaysia, which doesn't follow US law, but I don't believe they consider it sexual assault either. Some cursory review of LEO online forums is indicated a forcible kiss would be considered the lesser "sexual battery".
"The primary difference between sexual battery and rape is that with battery there is no penetration between the sexual organs. With sexual battery, all that matters is the non-consensual touching of another person's sexual organs. Sexual assault, like the broader crime of assault, constitutes the threat of force."
Even under that definition, I'm unsure if a kiss is considered either sexual assault or sexual battery, since sex organs aren't involved.
IANAL.
Edit: Appreciate the replies! You learn new things every day.
This isn't how you evaluate whether something is criminal in the United States. Virtually all sexual assault (or sexual battery, depending on the jurisdiction) is prosecuted under state statutes. In many states, any coerced sexual touching done for the purposes of gratification constitutes sexual battery. If you search for cases, you will indeed find forced kisses on the mouth prosecuted.
Obviously, the physical coercion McClure used to trap this woman against a wall is, even without the sexual component, itself an assault
"Usually a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person's body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person's consent."
A forced kiss could definitely be interpreted in that way, especially after being told to get lost.
The involvement of 'sex organs' is optional.
Let's parse that statement that you quoted:
> Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.
Lack of consent: check
Sexual contact or behavior: check
Note the 'any type'.
> Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape
Force: check
These are things that definitely fall under the term sexual assault, and a kiss goes quite a bit further than 'fondling', especially if it has already been indicated that such a kiss - and then there are kinds of kisses - is not welcome.
If I was on the defending side I'd hate to have to try to present the McClure case in a way that it might end up in this bracket, possibly that list is exhaustive and as long as the word 'kiss' isn't in the list you might get into 'sexual battery' but frankly I think that's just terminology, if the lady felt assaulted I don't fault her for picking the wrong narrow legal term and I suspect that in plenty of places the judge would see it in the same way.
If you're going to toss out legal language you might want to learn the difference between "battery" (contact happened) and "assault" (no contact required).
Thanks! I've made a note to dive deeper into the difference between the two, although I think the confusion might be more common:
"Historically, battery and assault were considered separate crimes, with battery requiring that the aggressor physically strike or offensively touch the victim. In that way, a battery was a “completed” assault. Many modern statutes don't bother to distinguish between the two crimes, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "assault and battery" has become as common as "salt and pepper." These days, statutes often refer to crimes of actual physical violence as assaults.
As a matter of law you are incorrect (at least in the United States).
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
I was responding to "Sexual assault is when someone has sex with another person without their permission" which is incorrect in that it too narrowly defines sexual assault.
Replace "sex" with "sexual act" and you've got it almost word for word. I suppose you could say there's a difference there, though one just seems like a shorthand for the other.
That's what the DOJ says. But the standards in the individual states, where these cases are certain to be prosecuted if at all, vary wildly. In some, the assault has to involve an intimate body part. In some, the contact has to be (ugh) "penetrative". In some, any form of coerced touching done for sexual arousal will qualify.
Also interpretations of "coerced," "unwanted," "consent," etc vary, so even when standards appear similar their applied meanings may differ.
Just to state the obvious though, behavior that is legal can be nonetheless morally deplorable. Not saying that's inconsistent what with anyone in this thread is saying (I can't see what crispytx wrote). But some HN comments over the past few days seem to view the putative wrongs in exclusively legal terms, as if legality is dispositive of morality.
He didn't proposition her, he physically sexually assaulted her even when she was very firm that it was not welcome.
I get that there are cases where you can be sympathetic to the guy for misreading the situation or coming off creepy when he was just clumsy about what he thought was a respectful advance. I get that those things happen - this is an industry full of awkward nerds, mistakes are made.
But that's not what happened here, and nobody should pretend otherwise.
You've crossed way over the line into trolling. Since you don't appear to have a history of doing this on HN we haven't banned you, but if you don't stop, we will.
It's one thing to bring up real questions and/or complexities of the broader issues—people have been doing that a lot in these threads recently. The timing for that hasn't necessarily been good but one can at least see how it might come up in good faith. Outright denial is something different.
How many times do you have to choose to not walk down a particular street at night because of the real risk that you will be raped?
How many times have you have to 'politely' brush off some random creep, without hurting his feelings, to avoid being intimidated, coerced and assaulted?
It's almost impossible to comprehend if you don't live with the very real possibility hanging over your head that today is the day when someone, most likely someone you know, is going to try to rape you
It's going to be pretty impossible to sow doubt about the 'setting' on this one like he did with the previous instance. Makes you wonder how often this sort of thing played out, 10's of times? 100's?
At least 12 women according to the update in Cheryl's post. Most, if not all of these women, are also people of color according to Sarah Kunst.
<<Update>> I just spoke to Sarah Kunst and learned from her that at least 12 other women including me, have faced sexual harassment or advances from Dave of various degrees. Some of them are portfolio company CEOs like myself. They’re afraid to come out, but some eventually will. I had doubts publishing this, but after talking to Sarah, it is clear to me now that I can’t just sit silently and trust that Dave’s behavior will stop, or that we can just file his misconduct under “Dave being Dave.” This is about protecting other women who might otherwise be subjected to his future unwanted sexual advances.
Because there are tons of apologists in the valley. Men who also harass women like McClure and feel they're entitled to it, especially against women of color.
The overwhelming majority of HN votes don't come from "the valley". And to the extent we have data on this the geographical trend is probably opposite to what you're suggesting.
There's really been a considerable change in HN in the past few years. A couple of years ago, a thread like this would have been 100% apologists and victim-blaming, laced with a heavy dose of outright misogyny. It would have been flagged off the the front page in minutes. Today, the threads are much better with only a small amount of that.
I'm unclear whether this is because a) Silicon Valley is changing b) the user composition of HN is changing or c) the misogynist types are just feeling less confident. Regardless of the reason, it's a change for the better.
I have to credit 'dang and 'sctb's public moderation and tone-setting for a lot of it (and I've been a critic of weak and permissive moderation here in the past, so credit where credit is due). HN still has some really profound problems with punching down, but so does everywhere else and it's improved significantly; amongst the places I hang out it's gone from perhaps the most egregious example of the kind of nastiness in the industry to somewhere better than the median.
I will second that the moderators deserve credit for the change in "tone" as you put it. But it is not really a change in tone, but rather that the hold-on-a-seconders, whose "tone" is generally utterly anodyne in comparison to the reflexive vituperation they receive (not that it bothers me) have been warned off contributing. And so it goes.
The contributions of those anodyne 'hold-on-a-seconders' should not be missed. There was a reflexive script that they worked off that sounded all very mature but pretty much came down to people wandering into every thread and reminding everyone that sometimes victims lie.
They never had any specific reason to do this; it was never the case that these guys had new information. They just felt consistently moved to remind us all that No-one Really Can Know All The Facts every time an allegation turned up, like they had just invented epistemology and wanted to tell the world.
Exactly this. It's whataboutism designed to discredit and damage the victims and to that end I actively don't respect (and do downvote, and sometimes flag) those posts.
> There's really been a considerable change in HN in the past few years. A couple of years ago, a thread like this would have been 100% apologists and victim-blaming, laced with a heavy dose of outright misogyny.
I wonder how far back you mean; I haven't noticed that in past two or three years.
> It would have been flagged off the the front page in minutes.
Sometimes those topics get flagged simply because people might be getting tired of the pervasive guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude that's frequent with these stories, especially that they often turn out to be overblown, more complex than presented, or outright false.
Yeah, that's a ridiculous allegation. If you invite someone over to your apartment to drink scotch, and then they come on to you, that's definitely not sexual assault. Sexual assault is where someone has sex with another person without their permission.
From the article: "After the meeting, Khailee, Dave, and a few others (including two other females), came over to my apartment to brainstorm about 500 Startups’ new Growth / Distribution Accelerator, Cerebro (later rebranded as Distro Dojo) and also a hashtag for MaGIC, the organization that I was leading."
Does this sound like "inviting someone over to your apartment to drink scotch"? Do you think it's appropriate for someone to "come on to you" in this scenario?
Your definition of sexual assault is also completely incorrect. The definition of sexual assault from the US Department of Justice is: "Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient."
"At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said something along the lines of “Just one night, please just this one time.” Then he told me how he really likes strong and smart women like me. Disgusted and outraged, I said no firmly again, pushed him away and made sure he was out my door."
So what? He came on to someone while he was drinking at their apartment. That's all he's guilty of. People are acting like he's Bill Cosby or something. Give me a break.
If a guy who is bigger than you and had the kind of leverage he had did that, I wonder if you would say "aw let's give him a break, he's just hitting on me".
He forcibly backed her into a corner and kissed her, after Cheryl had already rejected his previous advance and asked him to leave. How is that at all okay? WTF is wrong with you?
WTF? Where on earth did you get your definition of 'came on to' ?? In my mind, 'coming on to' someone was usually just trying to catch their eyes, attempting to start an awkward conversation to gauge their interest in you etc. etc.
In what universe does forcibly pushing someone physically smaller than you up against a corner and planting your lips on theirs against all their protests count as a standard every day pick up routine????
> Sexual assault is where someone has sex with another person without their permission.
You keep posting that in this thread, but that is wrong both as a matter of common usage AND as a matter of law, at least in Western, english speaking countries.
I don't know in which country you live but I'm pretty sure that your definition of sexual assault (specifically where you say it is "where someone has sex") isn't what the law says in most countries of the world.
And remember that in most legal systems "ignorance of the law is not excuse".
I have edited my comment in light of your response to more precisely reflect my claim that it is assault and sexual harassment, but depending on jurisdiction I agree that it may not meet the legal definition of sexual assault.
> The fact that I had to say no multiple times, and that he had push himself onto me and kissed me without my consent was way more than crossing the line of inappropriateness. It’s sexual assault.
As the father of someone who underwent significant psychological trauma following a rape, I actually find this comparison quite offensive. Obviously the behaviour is completely inappropriate, but the effect is unlikely the same as that of violent sexual assault.
This is so stupid. There are so many horrible things that can happen in life. A bald ugly guy trying to kiss you is not anywhere near the top of that list. And furthermore, the majority of first sexual encounters involve going back to someone's apartment for drinks. Women rarely tell the people they want to sleep with that they want to sleep with them, they drop subtle hints, like inviting you back to their place to drink scotch.
Wow. Reading that, I would be too grossed out to touch the hand of someone like Dave. Creep is not putting it strongly enough - serial sexual assaulter is correct.
I mean, I don't know the guy. Maybe all this lynching is justified, maybe it isn't. But all I can glean from this article is that the woman who wrote it is blowing her interactions with him a bit out of proportion. Mind you, I've experienced my fair share of sexual assault as well. To me, this is just some guy who has no game who came off a bit too strongly. Regardless, he has some learning to do.
> But all I can glean from this article is that the woman who wrote it is blowing her interactions with him a bit out of proportion.
Where do you get this from? It read pretty factual and dry to me.
It also puts the lie to his statement about that other encounter that he 'misread the situation', there clearly was no misreading the situation here and yet he persisted, twice.
Question for me is when did Christine Tsai know and why was nothing done sooner?
She tweeted (now deleted) about Caldbeck a week before asking “Where’s the Outrage?” when it now sounds like she kept the real reason why McClure was put in a “limited” role in April for reasons unknown to even the 500 staff (and obviously the public until this past weekend) https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/03/employee-email-claims-500-...
Hard for me to defend the public moral outrage she showed for the Binary cap situation when she clearly kept silent about similar issues with her own firm.
> Generalized sexist statements and behavior that convey insulting or degrading attitudes about women (e.g. Insulting remarks, obscene jokes or humor about sex or women in general)
This should be generalized to include both sexes. I often see insulting or degrading comments about men by people in the tech world, especially with terms like "mansplaining".
That's exactly what I'm proposing, just change the wording to "Generalized sexist statements and behavior that convey insulting or degrading attitudes", removing the "about women" part.
Yet here I sit at -3 points for suggesting I deserve the same protections.
As the father of three daughters I always cringe a bit when I read things like this. Thanks Cheryl for sharing your story, and men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it.
No. If you think that is the only way - to interact without a shred of empathy or self-awareness of your own actions - then you may be part of the problem.
Try to recall the character of someone who doesn't get accused of assaulting or abusing other people, or making them feel uncomfortable -- someone who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics -- and then behave like that.
It's not that hard, really. Just be a grown-up. Put away the childish fantasies of finding self-worth by bedding lots of women and flaunting wealth and power, and treat everyone you interact with as though they're actual people.
It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone, just for asking a few logical questions on the web.
I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate.
What I hear OP saying is that there is nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't find my sexual or romantic propositions inappropriate, which means I'm a sexual harasser and possibly a criminal.
The standard of just becoming a person "who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics" is extremely ambitious. I don't think I can reach that in my life time. If you have, congratulations!
And even if I can identify a role model like that, how do I find out how he propositions women?
It really, really isn't that complicated, I promise. Step one: communicate your interest politely and ask her on a date. Step two: if you are rebuffed, don't be a jerk.
You will notice that nowhere in here is "she will act shocked and think you are a harasser." Because that's not how it actually works, despite the considerable efforts of some folks to convince you that it is. Perhaps you should meditate on why they'd spend so much effort on that.
I wasn't describing you specifically. Maybe I was unclear, or maybe you're trying to steer a discussion about inequity towards a group of people into a discussion about your discomfort as a non-member of that group. Or maybe both.
I also don't think this is the appropriate time and place to write a manual on dating. Here's one hint though: when you meet a nice woman, your first thought shouldn't be, "how do I proposition her?"
Role models are probably a bad idea; often we find out later that they've been going about it all wrong as well.
> nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't find my sexual or romantic propositions inappropriate
You can never be sure of anything in human relations. But I think the shorthand approach is to see it from her point of view. Basically, does she have a safe exit? In the situation described there are two ways in which she does not. Firstly, there's a business context - she's worried that if she says "no" firmly enough, it will jeopardize her contract; secondly, there's a physical obstructing of her and an initial refusing to leave her flat (he is eventually persuaded to).
Remember also the flip side of this: as a woman, there is nothing she can to do be sure that someone she does actually accept a proposition from isn't a rapist. And if she does, there are people who will blame her for it.
>I tried suggesting exactly this - not only down-voted, but then flagged!
I think that's because your post is of less quality than the one you're responding to, not because of the merits of the idea itself. pjc50 said "probably" instead of asserting an absolute, and provided a reason why that might be the case, instead of dismissing the concept with a snarky remark.
In other words, pjc50 provided an argument to support the idea in a neutral tone. That can be respected even by people who don't agree with the argument.
Why should I "support the idea" of role models when I see no value in it? Isn't the burden of proof on the user? Where is the "argument" that role models are a valid thing worthy of authority?
I didn't say that you should support the idea of role models. I said that the argument provided in pjc50's post supported the idea that "role models are probably a bad idea".
Your comment only included a sentiment, not a rational reason to support the idea you tried to express.
That's all that is needed when the burden of proof is not upon you. I don't need to argue why there is no teapot in space, anyone with such a claim themselves bear that burden.
MY 'idea' is the rejection if an unsupported claim, requiring no more rationalisation than that.
> I don't need to argue why there is no teapot in space
In that case you didn't needed to write down your rejection of it either, and your post became redundant. No wonder that it got downmodded into oblivion.
You left out commenting on the part where your post came as dismissive. If your post had made a neutral assertion that "role models have been assumed but that may be unjustified", it might have been acceptable. But that is not what your post did.
Now you may learn to avoid writing remarks like that and contribute with constructive dialog in the future, or keep defending a post which the community decided to flag dead and bury, by making rationalizations about it that were not explicit in the original.
What did it do instead? That's exactly what it said. It's your assertion that the comment was "dismissive".
> Now you may learn
the post ended up around -2 which is not "the community"; The remark "like that" was fine in my own judgement, and that's what matters to me, not the handful of internet points I might lose to people who care for no dialogue at all.
The comment was constructive as far as I'm concerned, and my "rationalizations" are clear - I think you've jumped the gun in assuming your opinions here.
> the post ended up around -2 which is not "the community"
The post is hidden from view once it becomes flagged dead; and before it happened, no one bothered to mod it up to undo what they'd think could be an unfair down vote.
You may rationalize all you want, but fact remains that pjc50's post was not flagged down, and yours was, even though they were "suggesting exactly" the same point.
I just pointed out this factual difference, and proposed what I think is the most likely reason. If you keep thinking that you got downmodded not for the style of your post but for its contents, by "people who care for no dialogue", then how do you explain that pjc50's post was not downmodded as well?
But doo you know how many saw it at that point? Many nested comments see no active users in any case, other than those already participating in the thread. This means voting is biased by that.
The fact that pjc50's post was not down-modded is also consistent with the down votes being non-representative. You're applying "logic" where it doesn't apply, but feel free to apply probability or statistics.
It sounds like you've spent more time online reading about this subject than you have offline learning about what it's really like, I don't mean that as an insult.
In the same way that it is easy to conclude that there is a mass war between social justice warriors and the alt-right if you hang out in the right circles online, despite in real life it being a very minor fringe issue that the vast majority of people have no knowledge of.
You shouldn't be hesitant to approach anyone as long as you feel you are being respectful.
> I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate.
This social anxiety is not in the same category as the behavior of the perpetrator of sexual assault in this blog post.
There are plenty of sites that will pair you up with someone for a date. You can meet someone from such a site and easily judge whether they are interested in pursuing a relationship further. Once they know you have social anxiety, they will probably even give you some leeway about being awkward and uncomfortable as you try to gauge where the relationship is going. That is certainly not a guarantee against you doing something out of line. And it is still certainly helpful to get advice from someone you trust who is obviously more comfortable and intuitive with the less "logical" aspects of human interaction.
Completely unrelated to all of that-- this blog post was about a person who held a position of power over another in a professional business venture, tried to get the less powerful person in the venture drunk at a social gathering, then attempted to use that person's inebriation in order to increase the likelihood of sexual advances. Then, the victim of this unwanted and already inappropriate proposition explicitly said "no" and explicitly asked him to leave. Instead, he physically assaulted her.
Please tell me you understand the difference between that and your own potential to have an awkward encounter with a woman due to social anxiety.
The only point I really wanted to make is that "If anyone reacts negatively to anything you do, it is always because you did something wrong" is an insane standard for human behavior.
I think most everyone agrees with that in general. But when it's phrased "men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it", it's apparently a whole other story.
I was hoping there could be a sane and logical discussion about that, but that seems impossible, at least here and now.
> Please tell me you understand the difference between that and your own potential to have an awkward encounter with a woman due to social anxiety.
I do understand that. I wasn't commenting on the main story at all, only the "If anyone reacts negatively..." quote.
And I assume that when people say "and men please remember...", they really only mean pushy inconsiderate men, and forget that their word will be read by people like me who really need to hear advice about becoming more assertive.
Final nitpick: I'm not so concerned with an awkward encounter. I have a lot of those. My fear is doing something I think is within modern rules of courtship, and be branded a sexual predator. My other fear is being so scared of doing something inappropriate that I never do anything at all and remain forever alone...
I think there's more to it than that. When peers proposition each other or express desire to have more than a professional working relationship (and a polite rejection ends the discussion), that's one thing. But a person in a superior position has a different and greater duty, as rejection can have a negative consequence for the other more vulnerable party. That's why many companies' ethics rules forbid, for example, romantic relationships between a supervisor and his/her direct reports.
I completely agree it would be inappropriate to seek a romantic or sexual relationship with someone who you report too, or who reports to you.
Generally though, when going through the various 'keeping it legal', 'managing within the law', etc type classes that managers often have to take a large corporation as part of their training, the reasoning behind forbidding relationships between employees in a reporting hierarchy was always presented as being there to prevent the appearance of favoritism or impropriety.
The idea being that you may be blindly analyzing everyone's performance against the same metric but in answer to a complaint you would have to prove a negative, that you didn't tip the balance for your partner.
"...presented as being there to prevent the appearance of favoritism..."
FWIW, I've been through sexual harassment awareness training 4 times at 3 companies. Part of settlement agreements when some yahoo screwed up (again).
My legal takeaway was the liability, to the company and to the harasser.
My personal takeaway is "Just don't."
I like clear boundaries, so that life is (more) predictable. There's some quote about "The mere appearance of conflict of interest is a conflict of interest." If there's the smallest doubt, anything less than a "Yes!", then the answer is a "No." Sure, I probably missed opportunities. But I'd rather be a dim bulb than a creepy stalker.
It's not really about how either party feels, it's about what is professionally/socially and legally acceptable. What he did was wrong, regardless of whether either of them thought it was.
As a father of a daughter and a son, I disagree strongly with what you say. Feelings are completely irrelevant here.
Asking to sleep with someone and trying to kiss her, and then leaving when being told "no", is not sexual assault; regardless of how either person felt about that. You can consider it awkward, ridiculous, or just normal human sexual behaviour. But it is not by any means assault.
> Asking to sleep with someone and trying to kiss her, and then leaving when being told "no", is not sexual assault;
That's not an accurate summary of her account. He'd been rebuffed repeatedly and clearly before forcing her into a corner and trying to kiss her. While the exact legal definition of "sexual assault" varies depending on the jurisdiction, if it came down to a court decision I don't like his chances.
I did nor interpret her text that way. To be fair, the whole text is very confusing for an article that purports to be "shedding light". The sentence that talks about the corner is this:
"On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said (...)"
Now, this is extremely vague and can mean anything. He was already going out, but she was in the way, and the exit door was on a corner? He pushed himself without touching her (because the contact was later, during the kiss attempt)? This can be construed as assault or as a normal goodbye when leaving the house of somebody.
It is infuriating that this crucial part of the text (where the alleged assault happens), is extremely vague. Moreover, the fact that the text is riddled with bogus claims like "unwanted propositions", does not play in favor of its credibility. That's actually the whole point of propositions, to see if you are wanted or not! What does it matter if a proposition is wanted or not? This is ridiculous.
In the end, this noise plays against the victims of assault. When somebody is assaulted, she should go immediately to the police, not write a vague article three years later, mixing real problems with imaginary ones in the same list.
Now, this is extremely vague and can mean anything. He was already going out, but she was in the way, and the exit door was on a corner?...This can be construed as assault or as a normal goodbye when leaving the house of somebody.
A normal goodbye is not forced on someone who has repeatedly said no to advances. The account was really quite clear, far clearer than McClure's apology. And yet you feel the need to make up details (where the door was etc) in order to try to excuse his behaviour, and call her a liar. Why is that? Why do you think she would lie in this situation and he would not?
Your response says more about you than her. Also, your incredulous response is the perfect illustration of why this woman didn't go the police and go public with her story years ago - she was in a vulnerable position, and would be slandered and called a liar if she made the claims public, and likely disbelieved by most of the men she worked with and then calumnied in court by well paid lawyers. The woman has zero incentive to lie, and frankly very little incentive in our current society to come forward, it is highly likely she is telling the truth in this situation simply because the balance of power likes with McClure and if she lied her career would be over (it will be harder even if she tells the truth).
The reaction on HN to these stories has been damning (for the global tech industry) - it's clear tech has a long way to go before even confronting these issues truthfully and without prejudice, let alone actually dealing with them.
The first step to dealing with this problem properly is not to write long screeds about how this woman might well be lying (the implication being this is a common occurrence, not an outlier), but to accept her story at face value - leave it to the police or those investigating the incident to verify it.
I do not believe the author is lying. I honestly do not understand the relevance problem that she is reporting. She cried after an awkward interaction? This happened to me all the time when I was younger, no big deal really.
The "awkward interaction" here is being physically intimidated by someone who doesn't respect being told No, who is big enough to overpower you and who is in a position. Of power with clear conflict of interest.
It's great that you wouldn't be terrified in this kind of situation. It's also important to know that not everyone feels the same way that you do, and that it's entirely reasonable and expected for someone to be scared shitless given the situation described. It's not their fault to feel that way, and they're not the ones who should "grow a pair". Everyone here needs to make sure that physical intimidation doesn't happen, and if you're not sure about whether it's wanted, get a clear approval before you storm onto someone.
Maybe she was crying because she felt the encounter was more than awkward. Seeing as it she believes it constituted assault, she may have been emotional because she had worried that it could have become much worse for her, McClure being bigger and stronger than her, and also likely inebriated. She was probBly emotional, based on her account, because she was put in a terrible situation where she had to keep silent for the sake of her company.
Smugly declaring "The account was really quite clear" and then attacking with an ill-intent ad-hom "yet you feel the need to make up details ... in order to try to excuse.." is not constructive.
> Your response says more about you than her
This bullshit. You are not her, you have no more information than anyone else here. Please cut out the ad-homs.
> long screeds about how this woman might well be lying
Where was this claimed in this thread? Please, quote the exact words.
It's 10x sad because she's an Asian female (most of the victims are either Asian or another minority group). Unfortunately there is a lot of self-hating and white-is-right mentality among Asians. Why do you think so many westerners goto Asia to "teach" English?
Edit: this is an un-PC opinion and casting a wide net, so downvote all you want, but this is well documented and discussed online. And if you've traveled throughout Asia, or have any experience living there, you know this is way more common than just a fringe opinion.
This. I find it hard to believe the entire "teach English in Asia" industry is fueled by people who base their decision on some fantasy to have sex with Asians (or just their students? I'm not sure what they are implying), and it certainly doesn't mesh with my experience of English teachers abroad.
Moreover it's not only westerners (or only men) who go teach over there. I see people teach English (and to lesser degree other languages) who are not white [diff people from Africa, South America, etc.,] who teach English --moreover, those teachers typically stay in a country a year or two and return home or go onto another country and region; inexplicably, there seem to be an overrepresentation of Canadians. Many of them take the job because it pays relatively better than the alternative back home.
Do _some_ suffer from some fetishism[1], I'm sure --but in my estimation, it's not many.
[1] Charisma Man speaks to the stereotypical western geek who suddenly finds himself attractive in a different culture trope.
Thanks for stepping forward. It takes a lot of courage to come out publicly with such a personal story, especially when the offender is as well-known as Dave McClure.
'Censorship' has become more pejorative than informative, but you're right that users are downvoting and flagging comments; I think pretty fairly. Wherever moderators have intervened (in any way that affects comment visibility), we've posted comments saying so. That goes for the previous threads too.
Not every kind of comment is welcome here. HN is trying for higher-quality discussion. (Trying and failing, of course. But we can always fail better.) Comments that destroy the possibility of higher-quality discussion should certainly be flagged—otherwise the community is hostage to every kind of trolling.
Please review my recent comments on this post, which have been flag killed. If you believe they were fairly downvoted and deserve to be flagged, then please delete or permanently ban my account.
Trying to re-frame a discussion about the victimization of women to include offhand comments about men is not just off-topic but insensitive too. In the general case, you can't do that in any discussion where tensions are high without either doing it deftly and articulately or being quickly shouted down.
The author's article ended with concrete suggestions for improving the industry. The people going into those suggestions are emotionally charged, and more willing to accept them blindly.
I do not think that is appropriate, and I think a mild suggestion to change the wording so as not to be sexist while not denying the author's experiences is perfectly acceptable.
I have respect and sympathy for the author, and I believe that she offers a valid yet one-sided perspective on the situation in the industry. All I ask is that as we learn from her experience and move towards resolving it for all such victims, we do not do so in a manner that would unfairly disadvantage or place undue burden or harm on innocent men, just for lack of sufficiently scoped wording.
Out of all the topics that come up from time to time on HN, this one is pretty much unique in that there is strictly one point of view acceptable to put forward, and every other one is guaranteed to get you instantly flag-killed under the guise of "wanting high quality discussion". If I valued my Internet Points, I'd just steer clear of these altogether and go click through to a React vs. Angular discussion instead.
That's not true at all, as anyone who skims through the last few days' threads on the topic can easily see.
The one thing that ideologically committed HN readers all seem to agree on is that the community is full of (and the mods secretly in league with) their enemies. If you were in our shoes you'd find it as surreal as I do how consistently we hear this from all sides. The sincerity is similar in all cases, but obviously they can't all be right because their interpretations are opposite.
I don't think 'we must be doing things right if all sides are criticizing us like that'; that's a bad argument because the truth doesn't average out that way. But I do think that perceptions of the HN community and moderation are dominated by cognitive bias in way that makes it hard to have a clear conversation about it.
Hey, dang, I agree mods in any public forum have a thankless job, and there will always be people assuming you're part of whatever conspiracy they think exists to censor them--it goes with the territory. You guys do your best to keep this place troll-free, and because of that, HN seems to be, for most topics, one of the last bastions of civil discussions left on the net. I'm sure it's why a lot of us keep coming back, so thank you.
My point was, whenever you have that mix of 1. an emotionally charged topic, 2. strong, existing community norms, and 3. a public, linear (up + down = 0) voting/flagging system, you're bound to get the results we're seeing in this discussion: comments that reinforce the community's norms being promoted and comments that don't being demoted. This shouldn't surprise anyone who's been on the Internet for more than a few days. Reasonable people can debate the normal run-of-the-mill HN topics, but ones like these don't seem to have much room.
Anyway, I wasn't planning to continue this discussion, but since you provided a thoughtful reply I figured I owed an attempt to do the same.
That's a good analysis but somehow you (seem to?) end up at the wrong conclusion that the community has a single norm about this. What I see is a deeply divided community. The hopeful aspect (maybe) is that it's (perhaps) inching its way into more substantive discussion across those divides. That's a capacity the community has to build extremely slowly. The flagging phenomena that people are observing in recent threads are both a sign of this and integral to it.
There are exceptions, but most of the comments being flagged contain some element that is destructive of thoughtful conversation. Having those be marked as beyond the community's tolerance—and I mean 'tolerance' literally, as in, 'more than this will cause the nervous system to go into overwhelm'—is critical to de-escalating the remainder of the discussion enough that people can disagree without ceasing to hear each other.
The important thing to realize is that most flagged comments are not being flagged purely because of the point of view they express. In most cases they add a little extra something—or maybe a lot of extra something—and there are other, unflagged comments that express similar points of view, just more thoughtfully. In most cases, if the flagged commenter got calm enough to explain their point of view more neutrally, the odds of getting flagged would be less. (Inveterate trolling is also a thing, of course, but rarer.) They're welcome to do that and rejoin the land of the living at any time.
It does tend to require some work of self-reflection, though, to avoid getting flagged straightaway again. Most elements that result in flags are things the commenter was unaware of, but which land rather abrasively with the reader. The work is to develop some awareness of what those things are and then avoid them. For bonus points one can consciously replace them with something indicating respect for the opposing point of view or person. That can often be something quite small.
It is true that the ideological distribution of the flagged comments is skewed, but that's a separate question. And there are flagged and moderated comments on every side of the issue.
Maybe the flagging/downvoting system should be revisited, then. It seems like dissenting opinions are simply downvoted rather than challenged out in the open, as they should be. This means that discussions turn into a single-sided affair, as the other side simply flag kills their dissenters until only one opinion is visible.
I don't mind downvotes much, but it's hard to feel like I'm contributing to a worthwhile discussion if my responses are hidden and my ability to reply is removed.
I'm not sure what to tell you because we have such wildly differing perceptions. The threads I'm seeing have a lot of different points of view in them—fundamentally disparate points of view with tons of disagreement.
These are entirely reasonable statements, and they're flagged. Not just downvoted, flagged. Censored. Removed from the discussion.
That's my only problem right now. I understand user comment flagging is useful in lieu of moderation, but I'm personally seeing myself silenced persistently in this discussion and it's extremely discouraging.
In at least one instance, I've even been told that directly challenging a sexist call to action is "off-topic" and "insensitive".
This is all happening on an article that is a direct result of sexism being repressed in the industry. Should I just wait a few years for the sexism to fester, then make a blog post of my own once the damage has already been done? Because that seems to be the only acceptable way to express myself here.
Ok, I've now had time to look at those comments and they're not 'entirely reasonable'; they contain elements that many people could reasonably object to and indeed flag as inflammatory.
To pick the most obvious, you use the word 'sexism' in a contentious way that is bound to land with many readers as trolling—and you didn't just do that once, you dropped it in numerous times. That's the sort of thing that leads to the feeling that the reasonable aspects of your comment are just a pretext, while the subtext is gratuitous provocation. I don't think you did that on purpose, but your claim that people were flagging 'entirely reasonable' comments arbitrarily is inaccurate. Just to be clear, my point isn't about the correct meaning of 'sexism'—it's that if you throw explosive footballs around, however unintentionally, your comment becomes subject to flagging for the sake of a non-flamewar discussion.
Many commenters are blind to the things in their comments that land objectionably with others. They're much (much!) too quick to conclude that the fault is all on the other side, that my 'entirely reasonable' comment is unjustly suppressed, and so on. If you want to get out of that loop you need to take a deeper, more reflective look at your own expressions. Then you can find ways to express your substantive point of view that aren't accidentally bound up with things that produce troll effects and you can participate in a (hopefully) higher-quality discussion.
As I mentioned upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693838) flagging provides an important service by making a distinction between gratuitously provocative comments and the ones that express similar points of view more thoughtfully. The actual effect in the threads is to make substantive discussion between opposing points of view possible, because otherwise the flamebait would be overwhelming. Indeed it has been so impossible in the past that it's rather astonishing to see it beginning to happen, i.e. people beginning to hear each other and offer at least tentative respect across division lines. That would definitely not be happening if the more inflammatory comments weren't being flagged.
I'll second dang in saying this is not true (thanks dang for the moderation by the way, it really does help, even if no-one agrees with every decision). Here's an example of a viewpoint you probably think of as part of the orthodoxy being voted down and flagged:
There definitely is not only one viewpoint allowed on these threads, with others flagged or voted down.
The threads attract more flagging and up/down voting wars than usual, but the votes are not all one way, and frankly if anything I think the comments on HN on these threads are pretty male dominated and hostile to the women concerned, plenty of those comments are allowed to stand.
Every comment I've seen so far that has been dead or flagged down had these two properties:
1. Honestly attempting to contribute new information and views to the conversation, or asking new questions.
2. Opinion or assumptions would be considered immoral from a certain (currently dominant) point of view.
It seems pretty clear to me that "high-quality" is being conflated with "reinforces my moral convictions" or "upholds my tribal sacred values".
There should be an effort to push back against this (though it'd take a really deep commitment to free speech and against moral/tribal orthodoxy as a general principle). It seems unlikely but one can hope.
EDIT: Hilariously, I'm getting downvotes for this. There's an Inception joke in here somewhere.
HN isn't an ideological battleground. In general, it's for whatever gratifies intellectual curiosity. The flagged comments may have contributed information, but most of them share a common trait: they're incendiary.
The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral. It's not easy to do. People are generally passionate about their points of view, and I've been guilty of this myself. But the ideal is worth striving for.
In particular, complaining about downvotes is also against the rules. I did this the other day and regretted it; it unfairly catapulted my comment to the top of the thread due to the overcorrection, and by then it was too late to edit. It's better to let a comment stand or fall on its own merits, as difficult as that is.
>The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral.
I agree in principle. But standards should be applied the same way to all comments with regard to viewpoints.
What I'm seeing is that the same standards aren't being applied to different viewpoints.
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
I understand people are tribal and some just want to suppress dissent and maintain the power of their orthodoxy. But I also hope a place like HN can rise above such tribalism.
(regarding downvote complaints I don't disagree with the general policy.. if you're referring to my comment you replied to here I didn't intend to complain, only to point out the irony and perhaps try to cue some downvoters to consider what they're doing from a further remove).
You can see the content of flagged comments by going into your profile settings and turning on the [showdead] option. Currently there are 26 flagged comments, so to pick a few random ones:
"By that standard, the only way to never do anything inappropriate is to never do anything."
"It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone..."
"When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex..."
"I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem..."
I didn't cherry-pick the above examples; they were just the first few that showed up with Command-F [flagged]. "Incendiary" is still probably the best way to describe these comments, which is why they're flagged. The other reason is shallowness on a controversial topic, which usually leads to flamewars.
If you see a comment that breaks a specific guideline in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html then you're encouraged to flag it. (You need a certain amount of karma to see the flag button.) The main reason that the comments you mention aren't flagged is usually because they don't violate any of the guidelines. The system isn't perfect, but it seems to work remarkably well given the size of HN's audience.
Regarding talking about downvotes, I understand and can relate to the point of view. To clarify, I didn't mean anything by the word "complain." The reason to avoid mentioning "downvotes" at all is because (a) talking about downvotes spawns low-quality subthreads almost instantly, and (b) it gives your comment an unfair advantage. HN's voting system fluctuates wildly thanks to the diversity of the people that now have the privilege of downvoting, but in general, high-quality substantive comments tend to rise.
If you want to give a few examples of comments you feel were unfairly flagged, or unflagged comments that you feel break the guidelines, I'd be happy to chat about those. (We're currently in a flagged subthread, so there's no harm in continuing our conversation.)
EDIT: To address one specific point more thoroughly:
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
Unorthodox, controversial viewpoints are indeed held to a higher standard, but the reason is because it fosters better conversation. For these, HN is optimized for substantive-but-neutral. Deviating from either axis tends to produce flamewars of the worst caliber.
On this topic, it absolutely is. Whenever these threads happen, they go one way or the other.
If the all-genders-equal, non-feminist side swings the discussion, the entire thread disappears off the front page, inexplicably sitting at position 500+ with no flagged indicator. The lambdaconf debacle comes to mind, but it's hardly the only example.
If the feminist, women-are-victims-side swings the discussion, the thread is left up, full of moral chastising, with a graveyard of flagged comments serving as a warning to the evil dissenters.
On this topic, HN is unquestionably biased from the top, and the pretense otherwise is laughably non-credible and deluded.
Furthermore, while meta-complaining is against the rules, this rule is again only enforced against those who question the party line, not those lamenting the amount of immoral thought on display.
The bigger message being sent is obvious though: men, don't bother apologizing for your missteps or character flaws. Forgiveness is not coming.
If a woman got drunk at a guy's house, and was being insistent upon being shown the door, throwing it in her face would be considered cold and insensitive.
Here, let me tell you a story. It's past 3am in the big city, I'm returning from a night out. While riding up the elevator, i can't help but notice the guy I'm sharing it with is a sobbing mess. I've never seen him before, but he gets out on my floor and heads in the opposite direction. I go inside, but as I get ready for bed, someone bangs loudly and repeatedly on my door. It's the guy. I hesitate opening. He knocks some more. Worried something bad happened to him, I let him in and ask what's wrong. He's locked out. He quickly gets into a tirade, about how his girlfriend broke up with him. That's why he's drunk. He doesn't know where his keys are but probably left them at a friend's. I feel somewhat cheated for my sympathy, having assumed far worse. Instead it's just self inflicted misery.
I listen for a bit but try to make it clear I'd like to go to bed. Spotting a pipe on the coffee table, he suggests we light up instead and I let him crash. I firmly decline. I decide this person is the master of their own destiny, ask them to leave, and suggest they grab a cab or bus to their friend's place. Against much protest, I get him out the door and feel immense relief.
If I'd been a woman, just saying I'd felt unsafe would've sufficed. I could've just called the police about this dangerous man banging on my door.
Of course, it wasn't a guy knocking. It was a girl. She was drunk out of her mind, ready to get even more wasted, and she made it clear I was the bad guy for not immediately considering her problems mine.
We're being bludgeoned by the hammer of sexism, in a discussion about the perils of sexism in the industry, on the foremost discussion board in the industry.
The irony.
I've submitted a formal request to have my account banned. I'll not be part of this ineffectual echo chamber any longer.
Not every flagged comment has been flagged undeservedly, but some of them have.
I agree that there is a trend on HN where comments that go against the "moral convictions" or politics of the majority are flagged. It's disappointing to see this happening.
Flagging a poorly worded or clearly incendiary comment is fair. That's not what has happened to some of the comments for this article. I hesitate to call it censorship, but it comes close.
I feel that my two comments, although tone deaf, possibly misguided, and certainly not well worded, were good faith comments that did not overtly violate guidelines.
I've never had my comments on hn flagged before and can't help but think I wandered into a minefield. Nearly half of the top level comments on this thread are flagged. If you include the ones that are downvoted into oblivion it is fully half at the time of this writing.
Is that because this article is beset by trolls, or because the conversation is being stifled?
Hard to say. But I know my intention was good faith.
This was a tough one. I ultimately decided not to vouch it, and I'd like to try to explain why. It doesn't have anything to do with the content or my own feelings on the matter, but rather the way in which the idea was presented.
I agree that it was in good faith, and it was also substantive. But it's not really neutral:
"But seriously? Do I live in an alternate reality where drunk people do all sorts of borderline illegal inappropriate stuff on a regular basis?"
"It may seem insensitive, but I am being pragmatic: whether or not something "haunts" you has as much to do with your way of framing an event and your attitude towards trauma as the actual event.
Just because someone else did something wrong is no reason to carry it with you for years."
I can only describe my own perspective on the comment, which may not represent everyone else's. But the reason that I feel the flag is deserved is that even though the comment is written in good faith, it presents your side as clearly correct. The implication is that if anyone disagrees with you, they must be mistaken.
The phrasing "Do I live in an alternate reality...?" sets up the reader to want to disagree with you. It's argumentative rather than pensive. It's entirely possible that your life experiences are an outlier rather than representative. E.g. I agree that drunk people tend to do risky things, but in my own life, my friends manage to restrain themselves pretty well. I'm probably the outlier rather than you, but the point is that framing the argument as can't-possibly-be-wrong is poisonous to thoughtful conversation.
That leads to the other issue, which is that it blames the victim of harassment for feeling harassed. It's certainly possible that whether you're harmed by an incident is a matter of perspective, but it's not automatically up to the victim to fortify themselves. If someone is legitimately distraught over an incident, they'll carry that with them in ways that alter their future behavior to their own detriment. The core difference is the betrayal of someone you trusted and respected: if you're harassed by someone on the street, you can shrug it off. If someone you respect tries to force you into a corner and plant their lips on you, you're going to freak out and wonder how many other people in power are secretly this way, and how you could possibly be so naive to think they weren't. That sort of betrayal can stay with you for years.
So it's not that your comment was mistaken, but rather the nature of your phrasing tends to exclude thoughtful replies from forming, combined with the fact that the topic itself is extremely controversial. It's very difficult to react well to someone who both blames the victim and sets up an argument as if their life experiences are representative of the norm. (But I totally agree with you that it was written in good faith! I was just trying to explain some of the reasons why it got flagged, not call you out on anything.)
One thing that helped me in this regard was to phrase my controversial ideas as questions. "Drunk people tend to do reckless things. Would it be a good idea to cut him some slack in this case?" is far more likely to generate thoughtful comments than "Drunk people do reckless things. I can't believe that we're not cutting him some slack."
Hope this helps clarify a bit. The overall point is that if you put a lot of conversational passion into your side of the argument, this typically causes the other side to give an equally passionate rebuttal. But that's just another name for a flamewar. That's why it's better to be dispassionate yet substantive.
Also, I wasn't meaning to imply anyone should cut someone slack for behaving poorly while drunk. I was saying drunk people can be a menace, kinda like muggers. But although I've been mugged it doesn't exactly haunt me so much as make me cautious in certain situations. But whatever maybe my whole idea was stupid.
But why was my subsequent comment also flagged. And now I'm getting downvoted for pointing out that the user first flagging, and then commenting violates HN guidelines which clearly state not to do that. This feels completely out of control.
I wouldn't read too much into it. When users see a flagged comment, they're more inclined to flag subsequent comments of the same tone. Saying that you didn't read half the reply didn't really help matters, plus it was very energetic overall. Energy tends to be met with energy in the opposite direction, which tends to spark flamewars.
In general though, it's better to email hn@ycombinator.com with concerns about the site rather than comment about it. They're very responsive.
I did email them, and I do appreciate your feedback. At this point my concern is understanding flagging criteria and your analysis of my tone was helpful.
Was not in the same tone and was flagged. It was an overtly conciliatory comment. When that comment was flagged, followed by the flagging user ignoring guidelines, I stopped debating.
There's a problem here that goes beyond my comments per se.
When you wrote "that's why I flagged the comments" it didn't occur to me that you meant both the comments you were referring to: mine and khazhoux's.
Instead I misinterpreted that as both of my comments.
Which frustrated me because I felt my second comment was not similar to the first, and then I couldn't understand why you continued the discussion on a comment you had just flagged.
Now that I see what went on, I do appreciate you sharing your view as to why you flagged the first one and think it's basically all good from my pov.
That comment was eminently flaggable for being unrelated meta-discussion - it's mostly about you, has nothing to do with the post and is bound to generate a pointless meta-thread. The guidelines and endless moderation comments specifically ask you not to do this.
I don't think it was off the front page. Minor point, but people make so many sensitive comments to us about this kind of thing that it seems worth clarifying.
415 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 306 ms ] threadIf he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile.
It just amazes me that people who have both the means and ability to get what they want do foolish stuff like he's doing.
Edit: I just finished reading the article. I hope this comment doesn't seem like I'm dismissing him as "Dave being Dave", because what he did was horrible. Plying her with copious amounts of alcohol and then backing her into a corner, refusing to leave her house. That's really messed up, like a frat boy's limited understanding of consent.
Plus, incidentally, this is Malaysia... I lived in Malaysia for several years in the mid 2000s. There's a lot of heavy social drinking there but there's also a predominant Muslim culture (the Malays) who in theory should be barred from imbibing alcohol. As such, Malaysians are, in my experience, very adept at mixing in social situations where copious drinking is occurring while still allowing for some members that abstain from doing so on cultural grounds not to fell out of place.
It isn't impossible to do. It isn't even difficult to do. In fact it's an absolute non-issue.
Now, this is not terribly relevant in the present context (this was her house, I presume the alcohol was taken from her drinks cabinet, & cetera) but you should never allow anybody to pressure you into drinking because of social pressure. That somehow you seem to believe that the social situation begets the behaviour is a bit alarming.
(By the way: any analysis on how the victim of abuse made sub-optimal decisions is _always_ victim blaming, even if you add a disclaimer stating otherwise.)
If I leave my car running with the keys in it in a bad part of town, and my car gets stolen, the thief is still totally to blame, but don't you think there are better precautions I could have taken? Is there a way to discuss that without immediately shutting it down as victim blaming?
FWIW, I do NOT think Ms. Yeo did anything resembling the car key example above. I think everything she described (having drinks in a group with friends and business partners) is absolutely something anyone should be able to do without fear of being on the receiving end of what Mr. McClure did. But I still think there should be a way to have honest conversations about taking precautions against crime, that we for some reason think are acceptable to have in all other discussions of crime EXCEPT sexual assault.
That's not the point. The point is precisely the power and coercion. Paying someone or finding someone like-minded doesn't hit that button anywhere near the same way that assault and blackmail does.
If you're strong-arming women into sex, it's not about the sex, it's about the strong-arming. The very inappropriateness itself is the goal.
As far as I can tell it's just a way to demonize and dehumanize a group of really unpopular people in order to feel better about taking retribution against them. Comparable to saying, "She didn't murder her kids because of depression, but because she wanted them and her husband to suffer. The pain itself is the goal."
So is this really a rent-paying belief? Or is it rather a way to feel good about hating someone and absolve yourself from the responsibility to understand the internal experiences of people who do bad things?
This is important, by the way. If the goal is to feel good about hating people who did wrong, dehumanize away. If the goal is actually to prevent other people from doing wrong, you need understand accurately why the wrong was being done in the first place, and that's what I'm afraid isn't being done here.
I do this precisely because I want to avoid situations where my behavior and viewpoint will be compromised by the level of authority I wield.
The very point I'm attempting to make, anyway, is that if you hand even the best humans inordinate power they will abuse it. That's how power is. It's not about the people - it's about the power structures we inhabit.
Reference the milgram experiment, the stanford prison experiment, whatever you like. They're not definitive, by any means, but they show you what is possible.
"when you’re a star, they let you do it" - President Trump
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant.
But I strongly support them coming forward and telling their own stories. That has value and gives the accusations their proper perspective and gravity. It truly is different to be confronted with the details.
But, the direct apology to a victim should be clear and not place blame on them for how they interpreted a situation, "I'm sorry if you felt X" is the opposite of an apology, it is redirecting blame.
McClure's public apology, above all, should have been honest and sincere; more detail isn't strictly necessary, to be honest and sincere. It sounds like it wasn't honest or quite sincere. And, it sounds like his private apology, in this case, was decidedly dishonest and redirected blame.
But he did publish specifics, selected to make it look as if he had just misread the situation. Which in fact did cause further distress to the victims, see linked article.
>With respect to the NYT article above and Sarah Kunst specifically, I’d like to sincerely apologize for making inappropriate advances towards her several years ago over drinks, late one night in a small group, where she mentioned she was interested in a job at 500. While I did not offer her a job at the time, a few days/weeks later I did refer her to my co-founder Christine Tsai to begin a formal interview process with 500, where Christine and others on the team met with her. Ultimately, 500 decided not to offer Sarah a job. Again my apologies to Sarah for my inappropriate behavior in a setting I thought was social, but in hindsight was clearly not. It was my fault and I take full responsibility. She was correct in calling me out.
https://500hats.com/im-a-creep-i-m-sorry-d2c13e996ea0
The NYT article (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/30/technology/women-entrepre...) did not go into these specifics.
Below is all it discusses about her:
>In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. 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.”
>Ms. Kunst, who now runs a fitness start-up, said she declined Mr. McClure’s advance. When she later discussed the message with one of Mr. McClure’s colleagues, she said 500 Startups ended its conversations with her.
> I made advances towards multiple women in work-related situations, where it was clearly inappropriate [...] I put people in compromising and inappropriate situations, and I selfishly took advantage of those situations where I should have known better. My behavior was inexcusable and wrong.
Dave made it sound like he'd hit on women in the context of offering them a job or investment. His one example re: Sarah Kunst specifically mentions he hit on her in a group.
All of the above -- while clearly unethical -- are a world away from getting drunk with an investee / business partner in her apartment, waiting until everyone else had left, and making aggressive physical advances towards her, including having to be told no multiple times.
Dave's message underplayed his behavior and, I think, really reinforces that he doesn't understand that what he did was wrong. He could have apologized for all of the above and only Dave, Cheryl, and the handful of people Cheryl told would have any idea he was referring to Cheryl.
I frankly think Dave was still hoping to underplay his behavior to keep his job. Also, the fact that 500 let Dave represent them in Australia with no warning to their Australian partners makes Christine Tsai seem complicit [1].
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/02/500-startups-admits-it-kep...
edit: fixed Christine's name
While "less bad" is obviously still damaging and there is a lot to talk about there, what's given in the post sounds like a clear-cut crime.
Perhaps cynically, the only conclusion I can derive from this is them thanking him for not lifting the veil too high and revealing how the system has worked with these forces in play. In the absence of this I have to wonder if the SV VC industry is one big missing stair[1].
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missing_stair
Thanks for writing this, takes courage!
This is a systemic problem in our industry, and we need to all realize this, so that we can start teaching each other what behavior is and is not appropriate in a very clear, concise, and precise manner.
I read somewhere, a while ago, that assholes moved in herds to Wall Street in the 80s-90s, and now they've decided to move to California.
However, from my observations, to flat out list a finite list of behaviorism, will manifest yet another set of behaviorism, which will manifest another list.
I do not view this as a simple systematic problem, but rather a deep-wedged symptom of a sick society. We all are complicit.
A society that is focused on results and ego and success will always encourage such behavior (of debasing others, exploiting others regardless of their being — even white men are exploited and debased by other "higher-paying" white men). No set of rules will change this until we change our society's culture.
The culture cannot change through scolding, but rather a deep, opening conversation that will be conversed again and again until people find no use for the word harassment or sexual harassment or the desire to hurt or debase others in name of success.
1. With respect to VCs preying on female entrepreneurs, this doesn't shock me in the slightest. Wherever you have this huge power imbalance, coupled with large numbers of people who are extremely reluctant to jeopardize their "big break", you will see this kind of abuse. It was/is common in Hollywood, and I think the Catholic Church sex scandals have a ton in common. If you have a situation with that type of power imbalance, unless you have a very detailed and specific process to deal with predators, that kind of abuse will happen. 2. I think what Susan Fowler described re: Uber has a ton to do with the extremely aggressive culture Uber set up. In fact, a lot of the "villains" in Susan's story were, surprisingly, women. I think the tough question is how to you "rein in" that type of aggressive culture when it was so successful for Uber originally. 3. Finally, with regards to how women are treated in general in tech, I think a lot of the unconscious biases people hold, how people react differently to men's ideas vs. women's, need to be discussed more openly and with a goal of making everyone more aware of their own prejudices without fear.
Wow, that's really incredible optimism. I'd be more than happy if there was a 50/50 split between the kinds of apples but I fear that it is more along the lines of 20/80 or worse based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot.
Are you kidding? I wouldn't have enough time in a day. Just some stats, 1 out of every 6 women has been the victim of attempted rape or rape.
I'm aware of several such cases in the last 2 years alone, none of these resulted in an arrest or a court case and I have absolutely no reason not to believe the women.
Besides that I do not have the right to go to the authorities on behalf of someone who does not want to go to the authorities herself because more often than not they are part of the problem and tend to make the whole affair into an exercise in victim blaming.
This is an extremely complex issue and even if we can all agree that it is not normal there is no set recipe for how to deal with such situations.
That would be good news. But I fear that it isn't. Here's an experiment for you: ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you. If you feel brave ask someone who spent time in an orphanage or jail or some other place where they have little access to representation and are at the mercy of people that have power over them.
That is not the number under dispute. There are two fundamentally different theories about what is going on: 1) Most men sexually assault women, or 2) A minority of men sexual assault a large number of women. Based on statistics of victims, it is impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. However, understanding which scenario we are in is vitally important to forming our response. You seem to believe that we are in scenario 1.
I will admit, I do not have any evidence handy that we are in scenario 2, because it is not a proposal I have ever seen seriously suggested. However, you have presented no evidence that we are in scenerio 1, which seems to be the less believable situation. Until such evidence is presented, I will continue to believe that it is a minority of men that cause a majority of sexual assault [0].
[0] Yes, not all sexual assualt is by males, but I am reasonably confident that it is enough that this general statement holds.
What I've seen professionally makes me believe this, definitely. And that view is consistent across 30 years in the industry with stints in various sub-branches of IT and/or fields that require IT services (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
Let me reprhase this in a more direct way so there is no misunderstanding:
I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
If you know of such companies it would be nice to list them.
If there is such a thing I would love to be surprised, I suspect that it is going to be the ones run by women, but they are rare enough that I have not had much exposure to them.
This is a very different claim than what you made above. Even within a company, a minority of people can cause a majority of the problems. Indeed, for any toxic behavior I can think of, it only takes one employee to take down a team, and the problem often spreads beyond that team. I see no reason to believe sexual assault is any different.
Again, the question of if we are in situation 1 or 2 is vitally important. If we are in situation 1, then we are looking at a generational struggle to change men's attitudes towards women. Essentially, we need to wait for the old guard to die off, then wait for the new guard to die off, then hope that our actions made the new-new guard behave respectably.
If we are in situation 2, then the above solution is almost useless. Instead, we are facing a managerial problem where we fail to root out the bad actors. As with any other toxic behavior, this can cause them to contaminate the entire environment. Of course, in this context, "manager" does not only refer to the managers of companies, but also the "managers" of social communities. Effectively, in this scenario, the problem description is not so much that too many people rape, but rather that we are ineffective at dealing with those who do.
Seriously, what the fuck. If you don't care enough to do anything, at least have the decency to stop hand wringing about it on the internet.
If every time I hear about a woman being harassed I would get myself mixed up in the case I don't think I'd have many friends left. Just in the last year alone one of my female friends was raped in her own home and if she wanted me to do something I'm pretty sure she'd be more than willing to ask, all I can do instead is to be there when she wants to talk about it.
What bothers me is that people seem to think this stuff is rare.
What I can do - and do - is when something is happening around me and I'm aware of it when it is happening to step in, but after the fact if you are not a party to something then you are not going to help matters if you on your own without the consent of the victim approach the authorities, and you also don't have the right to take matters in your own hands.
So seriously, what the fuck, realize that if you are not in any way shape or form a party to an event that you may not have the right - and definitely do not have an obligation - to approach the authorities.
So you will 'never stop trying', but tell me, how often have you been there when it happened? For me those instances are a small fraction of the number of cases that I'm aware of and I suspect that the whole reason this number is so low is because of how these things play out, see the linked article here: mr. McClure did not bother to harass her until he'd isolated her. Who would stop him other than the woman?
(I'm male but) I have and let's just say, there's a female "locker room" as well just down the hall from ours.
Sure, women talk dirty too, rather less of them are guilty of sexual coercion and assault then their male counterparts, I would hazard
Sorry?
Of course there is the problem that it could be hidden (IMs or whatnot). Hence my optimism :-)
It isn't enough for the assholes to stop assholin'. We all have the opportunity to contribute positively by moving the norms, and we will all be better for it.
Otherwise, most of us have already been doing all we can. We don't do bad things, and we don't enable people doing bad things. It's ok to admit that we didn't cause this nor have the ability to fix it.
For example, there's lots of victim-blaming in these threads. We have an opportunity to speak up and counter it. In so doing, we support the brave women on the front lines.
It is refreshing to see this much needed distinction; I think many people in modern society have been conflating flirtation with harassment for the past few years.
Still, not to speak against the author or victimized women, but I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem as it seems to be to outspoken individuals online. I've been beaten by strangers before, and even that was something I got over much more quickly than the years of scarring that women like the author seem to experience from unwanted physical advances. I cannot understand how being propositioned and kissed against one's will is such a terrible fate to suffer.
I suspect that much of the recent backlash against harassment is mostly a result of conditioning, wherein women learn from society to feel more violated and take these advances more personally than they should.
After all, I'd take an uncomfortable kiss over a beating any day, and being put into the hospital by a couple of violent strangers did not leave me, or other men that I know, with a lifetime of discomfort.
I do not intend to be offensive, I simply cannot resolve the discrepancy in my mind. Is this a difference in male and female mindset?
Now have someone force you to perform intimate acts with them, after a lifetime of being taught that you get to decide who to be intimate with.
As a terrible analogy: a lot of middle-class people for whom part of their primary goal in life is to own a house tend to never quite recover from being burgled. The reason for that is that they consider their house the one safe place they have. For many women, intimacy is the one safe thing they have.
I think reading this will help you understand: https://www.guernicamag.com/rebecca-solnit-men-explain-thing...
Sexual assault & sexual harassment are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a world that can be very fucked up if you're a woman. You've been beaten up, but after the beating you were still (I assume) physically bigger and stronger than ~50% of the human population. That might influence how you feel about the things that have happened to you.
Here is an excerpt from the link above:
Credibility is a basic survival tool. When I was very young and just beginning to get what feminism was about and why it was necessary, I had a boyfriend whose uncle was a nuclear physicist. One Christmas, he was telling–as though it were a light and amusing subject–how a neighbor’s wife in his suburban bomb-making community had come running out of her house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her. How, I asked, did you know that he wasn’t trying to kill her? He explained, patiently, that they were respectable middle-class people. Therefore, her-husband-trying-to-kill-her was simply not a credible explanation for her fleeing the house yelling that her husband was trying to kill her. That she was crazy, on the other hand….
Even getting a restraining order–a fairly new legal tool–requires acquiring the credibility to convince the courts that some guy is a menace and then getting the cops to enforce it. Restraining orders often don’t work anyway. Violence is one way to silence people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to exist. About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It’s one of the main causes of death in pregnant women in the U.S. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible.
I tend to believe that women acquired the status of human beings when these kinds of acts started to be taken seriously, when the big things that stop us and kill us were addressed legally from the mid-1970s on; well after, that is, my birth. And for anyone about to argue that workplace sexual intimidation isn’t a life or death issue, remember that Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, age 20, was apparently killed by her higher-ranking colleague last winter while she was waiting to testify that he raped her. The burned remains of her pregnant body were found in the fire pit in his backyard in December.
Given these data, portraying interpersonal violence as a special thing that women have to deal with is pretty absurd.
The reality is that women are the far more protected gender. Nobody cares when men are victims of violence. People have always cared greatly when women are victims of violence.
It reminds me of the great amount of political noise in Canada around "missing and murdered Aboriginal women". Meanwhile nobody ever mentions missing and murdered Aboriginal men, even though Aboriginal men are more than twice as likely to be missing or murdered than Aboriginal women! So politically a man's death is far less than half as important as a woman's death. It took years for the MMIW inquiry to even start considering men as a side-detail. [1]
I mean heck, your first anecdote. Picture a man running from his house today screaming his wife is trying to kill him. He could be laughed at. He could be arrested for abuse if she simply accuses him. These things happen all the time. The horror stories are everywhere.
So, stepping outside the sexist "society must protect women, men must protect themselves" double standard, the case just doesn't add up. There must be another answer to parent's question.
[1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/mmiw-inquiry-could-include...
I'm going to have to stop reading there.
Now, of course, I don't know what happened, I wasn't there. What I'm seeing in front of me are glowing pixels that don't constitute a conviction.
In my opinion if you believe you've been the subject of assault you ought to approach the police, or probably a lawyer.
Note that it is extremely hard to get these cases to go anywhere in the West where you know the law and where the lines tend to be drawn rather sharper than in Asia (unless there is drugs involved).
https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/236666.pdf
"Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape, including marital rape, is a criminal offense, as are most forms of domestic violence. The penal code states that rape is punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years and whipping. Marital rape does not have a minimum penalty, but the maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment. According to women’s groups, an average of 10 women were raped each day; more than half of these women were under 16. A study by All Women’s Action Society found only one in 10 reported rape cases came to court. A report by the Women’s Centre for Change showed that perpetrators were convicted in only 4 to 6 percent of cases. The latest police statistics available showed 2,718 rapes were reported in 2013, of which 52 percent involved girls age 16 and below. Cultural attitudes and a reported lack of sympathy from the largely male police force resulted in many victims not reporting rapes. Many government hospitals had crisis centers where victims of rape and domestic abuse could make reports without going to a police station. NGOs and political parties also cooperated to provide counseling for rape victims. Women’s groups asserted that courts were inconsistent in punishing rapists."
So, how much do you think would happen if a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner?
There is a shame associated with rape hence many victims chose to be quiet, most families would prefer for the perpetrators to marry the victim.
Furthermore, statutory rape in Malaysia is quite prevalent so the 52% is actually statutory rape.
"So, how much do you think would happen if a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner?"
If you have any evidence, even anecdotal evidence that a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner but was ignored in Malaysia, please share it.
I am not familiar with Malaysia but since you clubbed all South East Asian countries, let me share an anecdote.
I personally know someone who was raped in Indonesia and when she reported it to the Police, they literally laughed at her and said you were drinking you deserve it.
I don't have a well thought out comprehensive solution.
I'm curious about the legal aspect of it. "Sexual assault" is a crime, right? The worst repercussions I hear from these stories are maybe a resignation at best. But if this is truly a crime shouldn't it be prosecuted?
On the other hand, this man has apparently a history of this behavior, so potentially there are similar actions in the US and people have yet to reveal them.
In practice if the victim doesn't want to testify there's usually no way to get a conviction so it won't be prosecuted. But the decision lies with the prosecutor.
(There are some exceptions- private prosecutions used to be the norm in English common law, but the US largely didn't seem to inherit that portion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prosecution?wprov=sf... )
http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2015/12/pressing-charges-wh...
His apology speaks volumes about his process
Our system is only slightly above ones that require a male relative to have witnessed the assault before accepting that it wasn't the woman who committed a crime.
From the story, she had a bunch of people over, most of them left, one stayed, propositioned her (not assault), heard no, was asked to leave, then forced her into a corner and kissed her (very clearly assault and very clearly sexual harassment IMO [1]).
There are many "grey area" situations surrounding behavior in apartments with alcohol. This, IMO, isn't one of them.
[1] - This previously said "clearly sexual assault" in the parentheses.
That's not all she said happened. She said he ignored her saying no, and he physically touched her anyway.
When someone has sex with another person without their permission it is rape.
Of course adding context to all those situations, it's easy to see that I or the recipient would in all probability welcome the advance, and so it is not assault, however the fine line between "assault" and "relationship" at that point is entirely down to perception, and it makes this entire area massively ugly to try and delineate.
Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.
You won't need a written legal waiver, you could simply ask if it is ok.
If you don't ask you're taking your chances that the other person reads the situation just like you do. Just yesterday a friend of mine ended up in an elevator with someone she ended up having dinner with because their flight got canceled. He tried to force himself on her in the elevator, I'm sure he thought it was ok and I'm also 100% sure that she did not give him any reason to think that kiss would be welcome. Now maybe there is a chance that such a kiss would be welcome, but if it is there is no harm in asking and if it isn't there is a lot of harm in assuming that it is welcome.
It's pretty clear cut to me. And I've never kissed any one of my former partners without making sure that such an attempt was welcome, but then again I haven't had that many opportunities to put this to the test.
If you are hanging out with a friend and start getting a bit handsy, then I could see the grey area. But it the cases where it is not wanted, a simple "no", or movement away, or pushing his hands off, etc would be enough to clarify where the line is, and ignoring that would turn it into unambiguous assault.
Yes, there are long and troubling discussions about how so much of sexual advances are silent and how it's hard to discuss consent with those, but this story was way the hell outside of that grey area.
No means no.
That's funny, I can't think of any examples from my past which could be construed as assault. And I rather doubt you can either; implicit consent is still consent.
> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading
I think that's quite an absurd conclusion. How do we jump from "don't kiss people who don't want to be kissed" to "obtain a written legal waiver"? That's like going "you shouldn't break into someone's house...so you need a written waiver before entering, even if they're literally walking next to you and offering you a drink", because maybe you've misread the situation, and when they said "come on in, but mind the dog" they meant "go away"?
In the real world body language and conversational hints make is very clear what's going on in most cases, and in a small minority of cases when those prompts are misread, there will be a clear "no", and then you apologise and move on.
"Then I went into my own bedroom but Dave followed me there, and that’s when he first propositioned to sleep with me. I said no. I reminded Dave that he knew my then-boyfriend and that we’d just talked about him earlier that night. At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me..."
Can you honestly read that and, taking the account at face value, go "wow, Dave was just making an honest mistake; he should have been more careful and asked for a written waiver before he forcibly tried to kiss a resisting woman who had repeatedly told him no and was in the process of evicting him due to his inappropriate advances"? Really? Truly? That's your takeaway here?
The problem here, as described, isn't that he didn't get her consent in writing, its that there was no consent at all. These are not comparable things!
The US Justice Department doesn't construe a forced kiss as sexual assault: https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
I understand this incident occurred in Malaysia, which doesn't follow US law, but I don't believe they consider it sexual assault either. Some cursory review of LEO online forums is indicated a forcible kiss would be considered the lesser "sexual battery".
"The primary difference between sexual battery and rape is that with battery there is no penetration between the sexual organs. With sexual battery, all that matters is the non-consensual touching of another person's sexual organs. Sexual assault, like the broader crime of assault, constitutes the threat of force."
Even under that definition, I'm unsure if a kiss is considered either sexual assault or sexual battery, since sex organs aren't involved.
IANAL.
Edit: Appreciate the replies! You learn new things every day.
Obviously, the physical coercion McClure used to trap this woman against a wall is, even without the sexual component, itself an assault
A forced kiss could definitely be interpreted in that way, especially after being told to get lost.
The involvement of 'sex organs' is optional.
Let's parse that statement that you quoted:
> Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.
Lack of consent: check
Sexual contact or behavior: check
Note the 'any type'.
> Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape
Force: check
These are things that definitely fall under the term sexual assault, and a kiss goes quite a bit further than 'fondling', especially if it has already been indicated that such a kiss - and then there are kinds of kisses - is not welcome.
If I was on the defending side I'd hate to have to try to present the McClure case in a way that it might end up in this bracket, possibly that list is exhaustive and as long as the word 'kiss' isn't in the list you might get into 'sexual battery' but frankly I think that's just terminology, if the lady felt assaulted I don't fault her for picking the wrong narrow legal term and I suspect that in plenty of places the judge would see it in the same way.
"Historically, battery and assault were considered separate crimes, with battery requiring that the aggressor physically strike or offensively touch the victim. In that way, a battery was a “completed” assault. Many modern statutes don't bother to distinguish between the two crimes, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "assault and battery" has become as common as "salt and pepper." These days, statutes often refer to crimes of actual physical violence as assaults.
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault
Just to state the obvious though, behavior that is legal can be nonetheless morally deplorable. Not saying that's inconsistent what with anyone in this thread is saying (I can't see what crispytx wrote). But some HN comments over the past few days seem to view the putative wrongs in exclusively legal terms, as if legality is dispositive of morality.
I get that there are cases where you can be sympathetic to the guy for misreading the situation or coming off creepy when he was just clumsy about what he thought was a respectful advance. I get that those things happen - this is an industry full of awkward nerds, mistakes are made.
But that's not what happened here, and nobody should pretend otherwise.
It's one thing to bring up real questions and/or complexities of the broader issues—people have been doing that a lot in these threads recently. The timing for that hasn't necessarily been good but one can at least see how it might come up in good faith. Outright denial is something different.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692419 and marked it off-topic.
Why can't women be strong and have power?
Because that wouldn't fit the narrative.
How many times have you have to 'politely' brush off some random creep, without hurting his feelings, to avoid being intimidated, coerced and assaulted?
It's almost impossible to comprehend if you don't live with the very real possibility hanging over your head that today is the day when someone, most likely someone you know, is going to try to rape you
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14692413 and marked it off-topic.
<<Update>> I just spoke to Sarah Kunst and learned from her that at least 12 other women including me, have faced sexual harassment or advances from Dave of various degrees. Some of them are portfolio company CEOs like myself. They’re afraid to come out, but some eventually will. I had doubts publishing this, but after talking to Sarah, it is clear to me now that I can’t just sit silently and trust that Dave’s behavior will stop, or that we can just file his misconduct under “Dave being Dave.” This is about protecting other women who might otherwise be subjected to his future unwanted sexual advances.
Upvoted GP as a corrective measure.
I'm unclear whether this is because a) Silicon Valley is changing b) the user composition of HN is changing or c) the misogynist types are just feeling less confident. Regardless of the reason, it's a change for the better.
They never had any specific reason to do this; it was never the case that these guys had new information. They just felt consistently moved to remind us all that No-one Really Can Know All The Facts every time an allegation turned up, like they had just invented epistemology and wanted to tell the world.
I wonder how far back you mean; I haven't noticed that in past two or three years.
> It would have been flagged off the the front page in minutes.
Sometimes those topics get flagged simply because people might be getting tired of the pervasive guilty-until-proven-innocent attitude that's frequent with these stories, especially that they often turn out to be overblown, more complex than presented, or outright false.
Does this sound like "inviting someone over to your apartment to drink scotch"? Do you think it's appropriate for someone to "come on to you" in this scenario?
Your definition of sexual assault is also completely incorrect. The definition of sexual assault from the US Department of Justice is: "Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient."
"At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said something along the lines of “Just one night, please just this one time.” Then he told me how he really likes strong and smart women like me. Disgusted and outraged, I said no firmly again, pushed him away and made sure he was out my door."
^ How do you define that?
In what universe does forcibly pushing someone physically smaller than you up against a corner and planting your lips on theirs against all their protests count as a standard every day pick up routine????
You keep posting that in this thread, but that is wrong both as a matter of common usage AND as a matter of law, at least in Western, english speaking countries.
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient." [0]
[0] https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault
And remember that in most legal systems "ignorance of the law is not excuse".
(Edited for clarity)
(sexualAssault == rape)
> sexualAssault == rape
You realise you can't just make up definitions, right?
That depends on the jurisdiction.
I have edited my comment in light of your response to more precisely reflect my claim that it is assault and sexual harassment, but depending on jurisdiction I agree that it may not meet the legal definition of sexual assault.
As the father of someone who underwent significant psychological trauma following a rape, I actually find this comparison quite offensive. Obviously the behaviour is completely inappropriate, but the effect is unlikely the same as that of violent sexual assault.
Where do you get this from? It read pretty factual and dry to me.
It also puts the lie to his statement about that other encounter that he 'misread the situation', there clearly was no misreading the situation here and yet he persisted, twice.
She tweeted (now deleted) about Caldbeck a week before asking “Where’s the Outrage?” when it now sounds like she kept the real reason why McClure was put in a “limited” role in April for reasons unknown to even the 500 staff (and obviously the public until this past weekend) https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/03/employee-email-claims-500-...
Hard for me to defend the public moral outrage she showed for the Binary cap situation when she clearly kept silent about similar issues with her own firm.
This should be generalized to include both sexes. I often see insulting or degrading comments about men by people in the tech world, especially with terms like "mansplaining".
Yet here I sit at -3 points for suggesting I deserve the same protections.
I don't know of any way to reliably predict other people's reactions to what I do.
It's not that hard, really. Just be a grown-up. Put away the childish fantasies of finding self-worth by bedding lots of women and flaunting wealth and power, and treat everyone you interact with as though they're actual people.
I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate.
What I hear OP saying is that there is nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't find my sexual or romantic propositions inappropriate, which means I'm a sexual harasser and possibly a criminal.
The standard of just becoming a person "who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics" is extremely ambitious. I don't think I can reach that in my life time. If you have, congratulations!
And even if I can identify a role model like that, how do I find out how he propositions women?
You will notice that nowhere in here is "she will act shocked and think you are a harasser." Because that's not how it actually works, despite the considerable efforts of some folks to convince you that it is. Perhaps you should meditate on why they'd spend so much effort on that.
I also don't think this is the appropriate time and place to write a manual on dating. Here's one hint though: when you meet a nice woman, your first thought shouldn't be, "how do I proposition her?"
> nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't find my sexual or romantic propositions inappropriate
You can never be sure of anything in human relations. But I think the shorthand approach is to see it from her point of view. Basically, does she have a safe exit? In the situation described there are two ways in which she does not. Firstly, there's a business context - she's worried that if she says "no" firmly enough, it will jeopardize her contract; secondly, there's a physical obstructing of her and an initial refusing to leave her flat (he is eventually persuaded to).
Remember also the flip side of this: as a woman, there is nothing she can to do be sure that someone she does actually accept a proposition from isn't a rapist. And if she does, there are people who will blame her for it.
I tried suggesting exactly this - not only down-voted, but then flagged!: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14668197
Seems whatever use "role models" have, they certainly have ideological buy-in..
>I tried suggesting exactly this - not only down-voted, but then flagged!
I think that's because your post is of less quality than the one you're responding to, not because of the merits of the idea itself. pjc50 said "probably" instead of asserting an absolute, and provided a reason why that might be the case, instead of dismissing the concept with a snarky remark.
In other words, pjc50 provided an argument to support the idea in a neutral tone. That can be respected even by people who don't agree with the argument.
Why should I "support the idea" of role models when I see no value in it? Isn't the burden of proof on the user? Where is the "argument" that role models are a valid thing worthy of authority?
Your comment only included a sentiment, not a rational reason to support the idea you tried to express.
MY 'idea' is the rejection if an unsupported claim, requiring no more rationalisation than that.
In that case you didn't needed to write down your rejection of it either, and your post became redundant. No wonder that it got downmodded into oblivion.
Now you may learn to avoid writing remarks like that and contribute with constructive dialog in the future, or keep defending a post which the community decided to flag dead and bury, by making rationalizations about it that were not explicit in the original.
What did it do instead? That's exactly what it said. It's your assertion that the comment was "dismissive".
> Now you may learn
the post ended up around -2 which is not "the community"; The remark "like that" was fine in my own judgement, and that's what matters to me, not the handful of internet points I might lose to people who care for no dialogue at all.
The comment was constructive as far as I'm concerned, and my "rationalizations" are clear - I think you've jumped the gun in assuming your opinions here.
The post is hidden from view once it becomes flagged dead; and before it happened, no one bothered to mod it up to undo what they'd think could be an unfair down vote.
You may rationalize all you want, but fact remains that pjc50's post was not flagged down, and yours was, even though they were "suggesting exactly" the same point.
I just pointed out this factual difference, and proposed what I think is the most likely reason. If you keep thinking that you got downmodded not for the style of your post but for its contents, by "people who care for no dialogue", then how do you explain that pjc50's post was not downmodded as well?
But doo you know how many saw it at that point? Many nested comments see no active users in any case, other than those already participating in the thread. This means voting is biased by that.
The fact that pjc50's post was not down-modded is also consistent with the down votes being non-representative. You're applying "logic" where it doesn't apply, but feel free to apply probability or statistics.
In the same way that it is easy to conclude that there is a mass war between social justice warriors and the alt-right if you hang out in the right circles online, despite in real life it being a very minor fringe issue that the vast majority of people have no knowledge of.
You shouldn't be hesitant to approach anyone as long as you feel you are being respectful.
This social anxiety is not in the same category as the behavior of the perpetrator of sexual assault in this blog post.
There are plenty of sites that will pair you up with someone for a date. You can meet someone from such a site and easily judge whether they are interested in pursuing a relationship further. Once they know you have social anxiety, they will probably even give you some leeway about being awkward and uncomfortable as you try to gauge where the relationship is going. That is certainly not a guarantee against you doing something out of line. And it is still certainly helpful to get advice from someone you trust who is obviously more comfortable and intuitive with the less "logical" aspects of human interaction.
Completely unrelated to all of that-- this blog post was about a person who held a position of power over another in a professional business venture, tried to get the less powerful person in the venture drunk at a social gathering, then attempted to use that person's inebriation in order to increase the likelihood of sexual advances. Then, the victim of this unwanted and already inappropriate proposition explicitly said "no" and explicitly asked him to leave. Instead, he physically assaulted her.
Please tell me you understand the difference between that and your own potential to have an awkward encounter with a woman due to social anxiety.
edit: clarification
I think most everyone agrees with that in general. But when it's phrased "men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it", it's apparently a whole other story.
I was hoping there could be a sane and logical discussion about that, but that seems impossible, at least here and now.
> Please tell me you understand the difference between that and your own potential to have an awkward encounter with a woman due to social anxiety.
I do understand that. I wasn't commenting on the main story at all, only the "If anyone reacts negatively..." quote.
And I assume that when people say "and men please remember...", they really only mean pushy inconsiderate men, and forget that their word will be read by people like me who really need to hear advice about becoming more assertive.
Final nitpick: I'm not so concerned with an awkward encounter. I have a lot of those. My fear is doing something I think is within modern rules of courtship, and be branded a sexual predator. My other fear is being so scared of doing something inappropriate that I never do anything at all and remain forever alone...
Generally though, when going through the various 'keeping it legal', 'managing within the law', etc type classes that managers often have to take a large corporation as part of their training, the reasoning behind forbidding relationships between employees in a reporting hierarchy was always presented as being there to prevent the appearance of favoritism or impropriety.
The idea being that you may be blindly analyzing everyone's performance against the same metric but in answer to a complaint you would have to prove a negative, that you didn't tip the balance for your partner.
FWIW, I've been through sexual harassment awareness training 4 times at 3 companies. Part of settlement agreements when some yahoo screwed up (again).
My legal takeaway was the liability, to the company and to the harasser.
My personal takeaway is "Just don't."
I like clear boundaries, so that life is (more) predictable. There's some quote about "The mere appearance of conflict of interest is a conflict of interest." If there's the smallest doubt, anything less than a "Yes!", then the answer is a "No." Sure, I probably missed opportunities. But I'd rather be a dim bulb than a creepy stalker.
Asking to sleep with someone and trying to kiss her, and then leaving when being told "no", is not sexual assault; regardless of how either person felt about that. You can consider it awkward, ridiculous, or just normal human sexual behaviour. But it is not by any means assault.
That's not an accurate summary of her account. He'd been rebuffed repeatedly and clearly before forcing her into a corner and trying to kiss her. While the exact legal definition of "sexual assault" varies depending on the jurisdiction, if it came down to a court decision I don't like his chances.
I did nor interpret her text that way. To be fair, the whole text is very confusing for an article that purports to be "shedding light". The sentence that talks about the corner is this:
"On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said (...)"
Now, this is extremely vague and can mean anything. He was already going out, but she was in the way, and the exit door was on a corner? He pushed himself without touching her (because the contact was later, during the kiss attempt)? This can be construed as assault or as a normal goodbye when leaving the house of somebody.
It is infuriating that this crucial part of the text (where the alleged assault happens), is extremely vague. Moreover, the fact that the text is riddled with bogus claims like "unwanted propositions", does not play in favor of its credibility. That's actually the whole point of propositions, to see if you are wanted or not! What does it matter if a proposition is wanted or not? This is ridiculous.
In the end, this noise plays against the victims of assault. When somebody is assaulted, she should go immediately to the police, not write a vague article three years later, mixing real problems with imaginary ones in the same list.
A normal goodbye is not forced on someone who has repeatedly said no to advances. The account was really quite clear, far clearer than McClure's apology. And yet you feel the need to make up details (where the door was etc) in order to try to excuse his behaviour, and call her a liar. Why is that? Why do you think she would lie in this situation and he would not?
Your response says more about you than her. Also, your incredulous response is the perfect illustration of why this woman didn't go the police and go public with her story years ago - she was in a vulnerable position, and would be slandered and called a liar if she made the claims public, and likely disbelieved by most of the men she worked with and then calumnied in court by well paid lawyers. The woman has zero incentive to lie, and frankly very little incentive in our current society to come forward, it is highly likely she is telling the truth in this situation simply because the balance of power likes with McClure and if she lied her career would be over (it will be harder even if she tells the truth).
The reaction on HN to these stories has been damning (for the global tech industry) - it's clear tech has a long way to go before even confronting these issues truthfully and without prejudice, let alone actually dealing with them.
The first step to dealing with this problem properly is not to write long screeds about how this woman might well be lying (the implication being this is a common occurrence, not an outlier), but to accept her story at face value - leave it to the police or those investigating the incident to verify it.
It's great that you wouldn't be terrified in this kind of situation. It's also important to know that not everyone feels the same way that you do, and that it's entirely reasonable and expected for someone to be scared shitless given the situation described. It's not their fault to feel that way, and they're not the ones who should "grow a pair". Everyone here needs to make sure that physical intimidation doesn't happen, and if you're not sure about whether it's wanted, get a clear approval before you storm onto someone.
> Your response says more about you than her
This bullshit. You are not her, you have no more information than anyone else here. Please cut out the ad-homs.
> long screeds about how this woman might well be lying
Where was this claimed in this thread? Please, quote the exact words.
Edit: this is an un-PC opinion and casting a wide net, so downvote all you want, but this is well documented and discussed online. And if you've traveled throughout Asia, or have any experience living there, you know this is way more common than just a fringe opinion.
This part of OP's comment is a very well known trope for people working in Asia.
It could just be a incorrect sterotype but personally this part of the comment should not have been flagged.
(Currently there's a trope the IT field has a issue)
It’s likely more a culture clash than an agenda
Do _some_ suffer from some fetishism[1], I'm sure --but in my estimation, it's not many.
[1] Charisma Man speaks to the stereotypical western geek who suddenly finds himself attractive in a different culture trope.
Second question: did 500 Startups foot the bill (the allegations are kryptonite to their brand)?
Not every kind of comment is welcome here. HN is trying for higher-quality discussion. (Trying and failing, of course. But we can always fail better.) Comments that destroy the possibility of higher-quality discussion should certainly be flagged—otherwise the community is hostage to every kind of trolling.
I do not think that is appropriate, and I think a mild suggestion to change the wording so as not to be sexist while not denying the author's experiences is perfectly acceptable.
I have respect and sympathy for the author, and I believe that she offers a valid yet one-sided perspective on the situation in the industry. All I ask is that as we learn from her experience and move towards resolving it for all such victims, we do not do so in a manner that would unfairly disadvantage or place undue burden or harm on innocent men, just for lack of sufficiently scoped wording.
The one thing that ideologically committed HN readers all seem to agree on is that the community is full of (and the mods secretly in league with) their enemies. If you were in our shoes you'd find it as surreal as I do how consistently we hear this from all sides. The sincerity is similar in all cases, but obviously they can't all be right because their interpretations are opposite.
I don't think 'we must be doing things right if all sides are criticizing us like that'; that's a bad argument because the truth doesn't average out that way. But I do think that perceptions of the HN community and moderation are dominated by cognitive bias in way that makes it hard to have a clear conversation about it.
My point was, whenever you have that mix of 1. an emotionally charged topic, 2. strong, existing community norms, and 3. a public, linear (up + down = 0) voting/flagging system, you're bound to get the results we're seeing in this discussion: comments that reinforce the community's norms being promoted and comments that don't being demoted. This shouldn't surprise anyone who's been on the Internet for more than a few days. Reasonable people can debate the normal run-of-the-mill HN topics, but ones like these don't seem to have much room.
Anyway, I wasn't planning to continue this discussion, but since you provided a thoughtful reply I figured I owed an attempt to do the same.
There are exceptions, but most of the comments being flagged contain some element that is destructive of thoughtful conversation. Having those be marked as beyond the community's tolerance—and I mean 'tolerance' literally, as in, 'more than this will cause the nervous system to go into overwhelm'—is critical to de-escalating the remainder of the discussion enough that people can disagree without ceasing to hear each other.
The important thing to realize is that most flagged comments are not being flagged purely because of the point of view they express. In most cases they add a little extra something—or maybe a lot of extra something—and there are other, unflagged comments that express similar points of view, just more thoughtfully. In most cases, if the flagged commenter got calm enough to explain their point of view more neutrally, the odds of getting flagged would be less. (Inveterate trolling is also a thing, of course, but rarer.) They're welcome to do that and rejoin the land of the living at any time.
It does tend to require some work of self-reflection, though, to avoid getting flagged straightaway again. Most elements that result in flags are things the commenter was unaware of, but which land rather abrasively with the reader. The work is to develop some awareness of what those things are and then avoid them. For bonus points one can consciously replace them with something indicating respect for the opposing point of view or person. That can often be something quite small.
It is true that the ideological distribution of the flagged comments is skewed, but that's a separate question. And there are flagged and moderated comments on every side of the issue.
I don't mind downvotes much, but it's hard to feel like I'm contributing to a worthwhile discussion if my responses are hidden and my ability to reply is removed.
These are entirely reasonable statements, and they're flagged. Not just downvoted, flagged. Censored. Removed from the discussion.
That's my only problem right now. I understand user comment flagging is useful in lieu of moderation, but I'm personally seeing myself silenced persistently in this discussion and it's extremely discouraging.
In at least one instance, I've even been told that directly challenging a sexist call to action is "off-topic" and "insensitive".
This is all happening on an article that is a direct result of sexism being repressed in the industry. Should I just wait a few years for the sexism to fester, then make a blog post of my own once the damage has already been done? Because that seems to be the only acceptable way to express myself here.
To pick the most obvious, you use the word 'sexism' in a contentious way that is bound to land with many readers as trolling—and you didn't just do that once, you dropped it in numerous times. That's the sort of thing that leads to the feeling that the reasonable aspects of your comment are just a pretext, while the subtext is gratuitous provocation. I don't think you did that on purpose, but your claim that people were flagging 'entirely reasonable' comments arbitrarily is inaccurate. Just to be clear, my point isn't about the correct meaning of 'sexism'—it's that if you throw explosive footballs around, however unintentionally, your comment becomes subject to flagging for the sake of a non-flamewar discussion.
Many commenters are blind to the things in their comments that land objectionably with others. They're much (much!) too quick to conclude that the fault is all on the other side, that my 'entirely reasonable' comment is unjustly suppressed, and so on. If you want to get out of that loop you need to take a deeper, more reflective look at your own expressions. Then you can find ways to express your substantive point of view that aren't accidentally bound up with things that produce troll effects and you can participate in a (hopefully) higher-quality discussion.
As I mentioned upthread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693838) flagging provides an important service by making a distinction between gratuitously provocative comments and the ones that express similar points of view more thoughtfully. The actual effect in the threads is to make substantive discussion between opposing points of view possible, because otherwise the flamebait would be overwhelming. Indeed it has been so impossible in the past that it's rather astonishing to see it beginning to happen, i.e. people beginning to hear each other and offer at least tentative respect across division lines. That would definitely not be happening if the more inflammatory comments weren't being flagged.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14677258
There definitely is not only one viewpoint allowed on these threads, with others flagged or voted down.
The threads attract more flagging and up/down voting wars than usual, but the votes are not all one way, and frankly if anything I think the comments on HN on these threads are pretty male dominated and hostile to the women concerned, plenty of those comments are allowed to stand.
1. Honestly attempting to contribute new information and views to the conversation, or asking new questions. 2. Opinion or assumptions would be considered immoral from a certain (currently dominant) point of view.
It seems pretty clear to me that "high-quality" is being conflated with "reinforces my moral convictions" or "upholds my tribal sacred values".
There should be an effort to push back against this (though it'd take a really deep commitment to free speech and against moral/tribal orthodoxy as a general principle). It seems unlikely but one can hope.
EDIT: Hilariously, I'm getting downvotes for this. There's an Inception joke in here somewhere.
The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral. It's not easy to do. People are generally passionate about their points of view, and I've been guilty of this myself. But the ideal is worth striving for.
In particular, complaining about downvotes is also against the rules. I did this the other day and regretted it; it unfairly catapulted my comment to the top of the thread due to the overcorrection, and by then it was too late to edit. It's better to let a comment stand or fall on its own merits, as difficult as that is.
I agree in principle. But standards should be applied the same way to all comments with regard to viewpoints.
What I'm seeing is that the same standards aren't being applied to different viewpoints.
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
I understand people are tribal and some just want to suppress dissent and maintain the power of their orthodoxy. But I also hope a place like HN can rise above such tribalism.
(regarding downvote complaints I don't disagree with the general policy.. if you're referring to my comment you replied to here I didn't intend to complain, only to point out the irony and perhaps try to cue some downvoters to consider what they're doing from a further remove).
"By that standard, the only way to never do anything inappropriate is to never do anything."
"It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone..."
"When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex..."
"I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem..."
I didn't cherry-pick the above examples; they were just the first few that showed up with Command-F [flagged]. "Incendiary" is still probably the best way to describe these comments, which is why they're flagged. The other reason is shallowness on a controversial topic, which usually leads to flamewars.
If you see a comment that breaks a specific guideline in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html then you're encouraged to flag it. (You need a certain amount of karma to see the flag button.) The main reason that the comments you mention aren't flagged is usually because they don't violate any of the guidelines. The system isn't perfect, but it seems to work remarkably well given the size of HN's audience.
Regarding talking about downvotes, I understand and can relate to the point of view. To clarify, I didn't mean anything by the word "complain." The reason to avoid mentioning "downvotes" at all is because (a) talking about downvotes spawns low-quality subthreads almost instantly, and (b) it gives your comment an unfair advantage. HN's voting system fluctuates wildly thanks to the diversity of the people that now have the privilege of downvoting, but in general, high-quality substantive comments tend to rise.
If you want to give a few examples of comments you feel were unfairly flagged, or unflagged comments that you feel break the guidelines, I'd be happy to chat about those. (We're currently in a flagged subthread, so there's no harm in continuing our conversation.)
EDIT: To address one specific point more thoroughly:
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
Unorthodox, controversial viewpoints are indeed held to a higher standard, but the reason is because it fosters better conversation. For these, HN is optimized for substantive-but-neutral. Deviating from either axis tends to produce flamewars of the worst caliber.
If the all-genders-equal, non-feminist side swings the discussion, the entire thread disappears off the front page, inexplicably sitting at position 500+ with no flagged indicator. The lambdaconf debacle comes to mind, but it's hardly the only example.
If the feminist, women-are-victims-side swings the discussion, the thread is left up, full of moral chastising, with a graveyard of flagged comments serving as a warning to the evil dissenters.
On this topic, HN is unquestionably biased from the top, and the pretense otherwise is laughably non-credible and deluded.
Furthermore, while meta-complaining is against the rules, this rule is again only enforced against those who question the party line, not those lamenting the amount of immoral thought on display.
The bigger message being sent is obvious though: men, don't bother apologizing for your missteps or character flaws. Forgiveness is not coming.
If a woman got drunk at a guy's house, and was being insistent upon being shown the door, throwing it in her face would be considered cold and insensitive.
I listen for a bit but try to make it clear I'd like to go to bed. Spotting a pipe on the coffee table, he suggests we light up instead and I let him crash. I firmly decline. I decide this person is the master of their own destiny, ask them to leave, and suggest they grab a cab or bus to their friend's place. Against much protest, I get him out the door and feel immense relief.
If I'd been a woman, just saying I'd felt unsafe would've sufficed. I could've just called the police about this dangerous man banging on my door.
Of course, it wasn't a guy knocking. It was a girl. She was drunk out of her mind, ready to get even more wasted, and she made it clear I was the bad guy for not immediately considering her problems mine.
It's not the bailey (the thing people actually want to say and do) though.
One example of the bailey in action: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-30/bilnd-recruitment-tria...
The irony.
I've submitted a formal request to have my account banned. I'll not be part of this ineffectual echo chamber any longer.
I agree that there is a trend on HN where comments that go against the "moral convictions" or politics of the majority are flagged. It's disappointing to see this happening.
Flagging a poorly worded or clearly incendiary comment is fair. That's not what has happened to some of the comments for this article. I hesitate to call it censorship, but it comes close.
I've never had my comments on hn flagged before and can't help but think I wandered into a minefield. Nearly half of the top level comments on this thread are flagged. If you include the ones that are downvoted into oblivion it is fully half at the time of this writing.
Is that because this article is beset by trolls, or because the conversation is being stifled?
Hard to say. But I know my intention was good faith.
This was a tough one. I ultimately decided not to vouch it, and I'd like to try to explain why. It doesn't have anything to do with the content or my own feelings on the matter, but rather the way in which the idea was presented.
I agree that it was in good faith, and it was also substantive. But it's not really neutral:
"But seriously? Do I live in an alternate reality where drunk people do all sorts of borderline illegal inappropriate stuff on a regular basis?"
"It may seem insensitive, but I am being pragmatic: whether or not something "haunts" you has as much to do with your way of framing an event and your attitude towards trauma as the actual event. Just because someone else did something wrong is no reason to carry it with you for years."
I can only describe my own perspective on the comment, which may not represent everyone else's. But the reason that I feel the flag is deserved is that even though the comment is written in good faith, it presents your side as clearly correct. The implication is that if anyone disagrees with you, they must be mistaken.
The phrasing "Do I live in an alternate reality...?" sets up the reader to want to disagree with you. It's argumentative rather than pensive. It's entirely possible that your life experiences are an outlier rather than representative. E.g. I agree that drunk people tend to do risky things, but in my own life, my friends manage to restrain themselves pretty well. I'm probably the outlier rather than you, but the point is that framing the argument as can't-possibly-be-wrong is poisonous to thoughtful conversation.
That leads to the other issue, which is that it blames the victim of harassment for feeling harassed. It's certainly possible that whether you're harmed by an incident is a matter of perspective, but it's not automatically up to the victim to fortify themselves. If someone is legitimately distraught over an incident, they'll carry that with them in ways that alter their future behavior to their own detriment. The core difference is the betrayal of someone you trusted and respected: if you're harassed by someone on the street, you can shrug it off. If someone you respect tries to force you into a corner and plant their lips on you, you're going to freak out and wonder how many other people in power are secretly this way, and how you could possibly be so naive to think they weren't. That sort of betrayal can stay with you for years.
So it's not that your comment was mistaken, but rather the nature of your phrasing tends to exclude thoughtful replies from forming, combined with the fact that the topic itself is extremely controversial. It's very difficult to react well to someone who both blames the victim and sets up an argument as if their life experiences are representative of the norm. (But I totally agree with you that it was written in good faith! I was just trying to explain some of the reasons why it got flagged, not call you out on anything.)
One thing that helped me in this regard was to phrase my controversial ideas as questions. "Drunk people tend to do reckless things. Would it be a good idea to cut him some slack in this case?" is far more likely to generate thoughtful comments than "Drunk people do reckless things. I can't believe that we're not cutting him some slack."
Hope this helps clarify a bit. The overall point is that if you put a lot of conversational passion into your side of the argument, this typically causes the other side to give an equally passionate rebuttal. But that's just another name for a flamewar. That's why it's better to be dispassionate yet substantive.
Also, I wasn't meaning to imply anyone should cut someone slack for behaving poorly while drunk. I was saying drunk people can be a menace, kinda like muggers. But although I've been mugged it doesn't exactly haunt me so much as make me cautious in certain situations. But whatever maybe my whole idea was stupid.
But why was my subsequent comment also flagged. And now I'm getting downvoted for pointing out that the user first flagging, and then commenting violates HN guidelines which clearly state not to do that. This feels completely out of control.
In general though, it's better to email hn@ycombinator.com with concerns about the site rather than comment about it. They're very responsive.
This comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14693085
Was not in the same tone and was flagged. It was an overtly conciliatory comment. When that comment was flagged, followed by the flagging user ignoring guidelines, I stopped debating.
There's a problem here that goes beyond my comments per se.
When you wrote "that's why I flagged the comments" it didn't occur to me that you meant both the comments you were referring to: mine and khazhoux's.
Instead I misinterpreted that as both of my comments.
Which frustrated me because I felt my second comment was not similar to the first, and then I couldn't understand why you continued the discussion on a comment you had just flagged.
Now that I see what went on, I do appreciate you sharing your view as to why you flagged the first one and think it's basically all good from my pov.
<commented that this story shouldn't be flagged off the front page>
https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/03/employee-email-claims-500-...