Ugh. This is predictable in the age of guilty til proven innocent isn't it? When an accusation is enough to tank a career then yes people are going to feel the need to protect themselves by removing any possibility of that happening.
And rather than trying to approach the problem constructively, the article takes a strong tone throughout that puts the blame on men:
> That means the many, many women in this world who are just trying to do their jobs and make progress in their careers are being stymied by men who are terrified of being, I dunno, unable to control themselves while talking to a woman in the conference room.
No. It's not men who are afraid they're unable to control themselves. It's men who are afraid they'll be falsely accused and won't be able to defend themselves.
An unsubstantiated accusation is not enough to tank a career.
A cross-correlated one, from multiple independent reports is another story. As is one that stands up to cross-examination and scrutiny.
Reporting harassment by your manager is just as likely, if not moreso to shit on your career, as it is on theirs. They have all the power in this relationship, and every opportunity to retaliate if you aren't believed.
What's your explanation for the change reported in the article? TFA says "60% of male managers say they are uncomfortable performing common workplace activities such as mentoring, working one on one, or socializing with a woman."
TFA's only suggestion for a cause is because these men are "unable to control themselves while talking to a woman in the conference room." Do you believe the problem is really that 60% of men are unable to control themselves?
There's a problem here, a real problem, but perpetuating ideas such as this really isn't a good way to start solving that problem.
> Ugh. This is predictable in the age of guilty til proven innocent isn't it? When an accusation is enough to tank a career then yes people are going to feel the need to protect themselves by removing any possibility of that happening.
When has one accusation been enough to tank a person's career? Do you have an example? Of one accusation - not several dozen accusations from several dozen parties spread out over a period of decades.
It sounds like your proposal would be to properly allay fears that unfounded accusations can be damaging and reassure men that women aren’t as sensitive as they may fear. Which accepts the premise of what I’ve said and concurs that this article perpetuates the problem.
The next thing is how do we do that not just in tech, but wider society since wider society influences such fears?
The two guys joked to themselves about dongles at a conference when a woman (not part of the conversation) took offense and tweeted about it in real time. The men were escorted out and both lost their jobs.
That's not an isolated accusation of something inappropriate that happened behind closed doors. That's a verified (By all parties involved) example of unprofessional behavior in a professional, public space.
When you attend a conference with a laptop plastered with corporate stickers, you represent your employer. Try to act like a professional, when you do so.
And you're seriously grasping at straws with that second link.
Your examples aren't related. The first is about a joke and the second about a license plate. In neither case was it it the ACCUSATION that ruined careers.
this is absurd. these people are reactionaries. they should know that false accusations almost never happen and if they act in good faith they'll be fine. instead they're going to professionally penalize women. classic.
It doesn't need to be a false accusation. It just needs the accuser has lack of objectivity and a high level of paranoia. Very common in 50% of the population.
Possibly the poster is over extrapolating the finding that women self-report higher levels of neuroticism than males. It's not clear to me that 1) self reporting is a reliable measure, 2) higher neuroticism implies higher paranoia or lower objectivity or 3) higher neuroticism is necessarily a negative trait.
According to that page, it's only 2-10% of cases that police were able to determine that no crime had been committed. Given how difficult it is to disprove a sexual assault, the number of false accusations must be must higher. Consider also that those were just the cases that the accuser felt so confident in their ability to frame their victim that they reported it to the police instead of merely slandering their target to HR or via social media or similar.
What's the percentage of accusations in the workplace that turn out to be unsubstantiated? And what percentage of those result in any consequence for the reportee rather than the reporter?
Most workplaces don't feature many accusations of rape, real or false, so a 2% rate for all of life doesn't seem particularly relevant.
Complicated to be around a group of people that has so strong opinions about what it is to be a "real man", and that they think they deserve so more money and respect than the market (and the consumer) is willing to pay.
Complicated to be around a group of people that has so strong opinions about "the patriarchy", and they think every man is evil and out to harm them and will not hesitate to make false allegations to ruin someone's career.
>The dynamic basically foists the burden of making men feel comfortable on to women
To be fair, it puts an increased burden on both parties. Any situation in which people cannot even socialize comfortably is not ideal for productive work.
It's obvious that there is sexual tension between individuals at work sometimes. Given that relationships at work are fairly taboo even assuming both parties are interested, there are not obvious pathways to resolve this without risking your career. Anytime I've ever had any interest in a coworker, the main thought I've had in my mind has usually been to try not to even THINK about getting involved. But, work is just work. Gotta get paid. if I were to to prioritize my actions on my terminal values, what I really want in life, notwithstanding the risk described above, I would try to pursue these relationships.
So false accusations ruining things for managers means we need more women managers, instead of...you know, selecting managers based on competence and technical ability first and foremost? Maybe instead of doubling down on the type of rhetoric and leftist nonsense that caused this problem in the first place we should strive for a more meritocratic society in general.
> That means the many, many women in this world who are just trying to do their jobs and make progress in their careers are being stymied by men who are terrified of being, I dunno, unable to control themselves while talking to a woman in the conference room.
I realize this is a bad situation here, but this is an incredibly uncharitable take. Yes, that is probably true for some men, but others are probably worried about things looking bad even if nothing happens, or about false accusations.
The words "Bad faith" are such a cop out lately. Everyone is using it because they think it is a clear way to win an argument fast. What do you mean when using it?
In this case I think it's appropriate. There's been a 32% increase in this attitude since last year. Do you really think the author of the article believes that 32% more men can't control themselves around women than last year?
> Do you really think the author of the article believes that 32% more men can't control themselves around women than last year?
I could believe that 32% more men realize that their inability (or disinterest) in controlling themselves around women might actually have consequences.
I agree it's overused and abused, but this is pretty straightforward. The author is attributing the rise to "men can't control themselves" instead of the obvious "men are afraid of false accusations". Even if the latter is not a good reason to be uncomfortable, the article should address that point instead of the overt strawman.
I think if a male manager doesn’t feel comfortable having a one on one meeting with a female employee, so be it, but then he has to be consistent and not have one on one meetings with any of his employees. If a guys gonna watch his back at the expense of getting work done, he has to do so in a way that treats everyone equally
Why? It is not about equality, it is about risk mitigation. Regardless of your stance on the issue, it is far more likely a male manager will be falsely accused by a female employee than a male employee (it is also more likely he will be truthfully accused by a female than a male, but that fact should make females happier about having another person present in meetings).
These comments are already a toxic hellstew of nasty sexism couched in dispassionate pseudo-objective terms. HN reminds me regularly that the problem is even worse (at least in some corners of tech) than occasional links here suggest.
If your response to an article is to double-down on sexism, you are very much part of the problem.
For everyone else, working for and with women, or having women work for and with you, doesn't have to be scary at all. Just don't be awful, and they probably won't be either. Since you work in tech, presumably, or you wouldn't be here, try thinking of all of your colleagues as "people" instead of "men and women." It's not like it should matter in this field.
As a woman: no, this comments section is a sexist dumpster fire of the usual "but false accusations!" variety that paints women as generally being out to get men, because... Who knows! I still haven't figured out what our motivation is for all the alleged false accusations we apparently enjoy making, and I'm pretty sure in reality we all just want to live our lives and mind our own business. But also, you know, have some protection or recourse if some co-worker thinks it's cute to grope us or make gross comments about our boobs or something.
I enjoy reading HN, but it absolutely has a sexism problem and it shows everytime an article about something like this is posted. You know how to not get "falsely" accused of harassment? Don't be a creep and don't treat your woman collegues as being lesser-than. Really not that hard. I promise.
I think it's a little silly that humans are willing to progress against their nature and let women into the workforce on equal standing but not have any additional social rules enforced. Being progressive is more than opening the door and patting yourself on the back for it. No one cares that you voted Clinton if you still talk like you're in a 60s.
It seems like we want social change, but we don't want to accept the risk of ostracism that comes with it. We want to change everyone else.
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[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 106 ms ] threadAnd rather than trying to approach the problem constructively, the article takes a strong tone throughout that puts the blame on men:
> That means the many, many women in this world who are just trying to do their jobs and make progress in their careers are being stymied by men who are terrified of being, I dunno, unable to control themselves while talking to a woman in the conference room.
No. It's not men who are afraid they're unable to control themselves. It's men who are afraid they'll be falsely accused and won't be able to defend themselves.
A cross-correlated one, from multiple independent reports is another story. As is one that stands up to cross-examination and scrutiny.
Reporting harassment by your manager is just as likely, if not moreso to shit on your career, as it is on theirs. They have all the power in this relationship, and every opportunity to retaliate if you aren't believed.
TFA's only suggestion for a cause is because these men are "unable to control themselves while talking to a woman in the conference room." Do you believe the problem is really that 60% of men are unable to control themselves?
There's a problem here, a real problem, but perpetuating ideas such as this really isn't a good way to start solving that problem.
That doesn't mean that 'getting eaten by sharks' is something you should be particularly worried about.
When has one accusation been enough to tank a person's career? Do you have an example? Of one accusation - not several dozen accusations from several dozen parties spread out over a period of decades.
The next thing is how do we do that not just in tech, but wider society since wider society influences such fears?
https://techcrunch.com/2013/03/21/a-dongle-joke-that-spirale...
And not quite related but somewhat. Here in Canada a man named Lorne Grabher has had a custom license plate GRABHER lost it due to a single complaint.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/grabher-licence-p...
When you attend a conference with a laptop plastered with corporate stickers, you represent your employer. Try to act like a professional, when you do so.
And you're seriously grasping at straws with that second link.
Just to be clear here, you're asserting that lack of objectivity and paranoia are particularly common in women? If so, that's...really really sexist.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11519935
For something as serious as rape it's 2% to 10%, for something less serious it would likely be higher.
Most workplaces don't feature many accusations of rape, real or false, so a 2% rate for all of life doesn't seem particularly relevant.
That’s just accusations that make it to court, too - the numbers that are settled behind closed doors are surely far higher.
To be fair, it puts an increased burden on both parties. Any situation in which people cannot even socialize comfortably is not ideal for productive work.
It's obvious that there is sexual tension between individuals at work sometimes. Given that relationships at work are fairly taboo even assuming both parties are interested, there are not obvious pathways to resolve this without risking your career. Anytime I've ever had any interest in a coworker, the main thought I've had in my mind has usually been to try not to even THINK about getting involved. But, work is just work. Gotta get paid. if I were to to prioritize my actions on my terminal values, what I really want in life, notwithstanding the risk described above, I would try to pursue these relationships.
I realize this is a bad situation here, but this is an incredibly uncharitable take. Yes, that is probably true for some men, but others are probably worried about things looking bad even if nothing happens, or about false accusations.
I could believe that 32% more men realize that their inability (or disinterest) in controlling themselves around women might actually have consequences.
If your response to an article is to double-down on sexism, you are very much part of the problem.
For everyone else, working for and with women, or having women work for and with you, doesn't have to be scary at all. Just don't be awful, and they probably won't be either. Since you work in tech, presumably, or you wouldn't be here, try thinking of all of your colleagues as "people" instead of "men and women." It's not like it should matter in this field.
I enjoy reading HN, but it absolutely has a sexism problem and it shows everytime an article about something like this is posted. You know how to not get "falsely" accused of harassment? Don't be a creep and don't treat your woman collegues as being lesser-than. Really not that hard. I promise.
That probably isn't very reassuring... and explains exactly why so many men are worried.
It seems like we want social change, but we don't want to accept the risk of ostracism that comes with it. We want to change everyone else.