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Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
521–530 of 692 posts
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
I watch some. How could that not be racially stereotypical? It's clearly a stereotype, as you said yourself, and it's clearly applied to an entire race. I'm not sure I could think of a better example of a racial stereotype. You can argue over whether or not it's offensive, but that's not what I'm asking.
It's culturally stereotypical, not racially stereotypical. > it's clearly applied to an entire race Clearly? How so? You likely think I am playing a game of semantics, but I genuinely think if we keep playing this game of trying to find reasons to be victims, things will never get better, even if that is what all parties want! The reason I brought up comedians is because they seem to allow normal people a view into t…
All I can say is that it is true. Look at this article, and please try to ignore the provocative headline, I just can't find a better presentation of the data: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-white-republicans-mo...
You can explore the data yourself here: https://gssdataexplorer.norc.org/variables/vfilter?keyword=&...
As you can see, 15% of white people think black people are more unintelligent than intelligent. 35% think they're more lazy than hardworking. 25% wouldn't want a relative to marry a black person. 20% wouldn't want to live in a half black neighborhood. And this is just people with conscious biases that they're willing to report on a survey.
We can argue about what counts as "a huge portion", but these percentages represent tens of millions of people. There's so many ways to show that racism is still a huge deal in America, but it's really easy to think "I'm not racist, I've never seen anyone be racist, these people must be making it up".
I doubt I'm going to convince you with this comment, but it's stereotypes all the way down. The idea that only old rednecks are racists is itself a harmful stereotype, because it simply is not true.
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's never the answer. Why is it that it's ok to not treat some people with basic human dignity and respect?
I'm not entirely sure if you're saying "toughen up" is never the answer, or "firing" is never the answer. Assuming the former: It is entirely possible to misinterpret friendly ribbing or banter as something far more malicious. To assume the worst of someone who genuinely means no harm, and to suggest they should be punished, censored, and shunned. "Toughen up" is perhaps not quite the right phrasing here: It's asking…
"Toughen up" is never the answer.
"It is entirely possible to misinterpret friendly ribbing or banter as something far more malicious. "
This is still entirely the fault of the one who mistakes ribbing for actual team building.
"To assume the worst of someone who genuinely means no harm, and to suggest they should be punished, censored, and shunned."
Telling them to knock it off is NOT censoring.
"Where, perhaps, simply asking them firmly to knock it off, explaining you are finding their jokes hurtful, and giving them the chance to change their behavior, is perhaps more appropriate than forming an internet lynch mob based on assumptions of malice"
Because no one has ever faced retaliation for doing just this. No one, upon hearing this from a co-worker, has never ratcheted up the "friendly ribbing".
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
People with power can more reasonably say "fuck this label, it brings me too much criticism, I'm picking another one". Not how they usually spin it. Is the solution not to question anyone for harmful beliefs and actions? The solution is to treat ideas and principles more as ideas and principles and less as emotionally based ideological bludgeons. if your goal is to avoid people questioning your behaviour Where the he…
> My original observation is the different treatment the powerful get from the not-powerful, even when the questioning is ideological. I don't think you've shown that the powerful get different treatment from the not-powerful. In fact, as far as I can tell, you've agreed that the powerful do come under criticism, just that they handle it better?
Are you trying to steer me towards a fallacy like this? -- Both men and women are paid for work, therefore they are equal. Powerful men and not-powerful men receive very different treatment when they are subject to ideological questioning. Powerful men tend to be believed when they claim ideas and emotional states. Not-powerful men tend to be not-believed, or accused of lying. Sometimes, even surface signals can be sufficient "proof" that certain emotional states or ideas apply to them.
In fact, as far as I can tell, you've agreed that the powerful do come under criticism, just that they handle it better?
I'm saying that the system is generally rigged for the powerful, even if "the system" is a social/subcultural context strongly influenced by progressive women.
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#525> This is an indicator of the bubble you're living in
And your comment is the epitome of another very common bubble: the language police / SJW bubble.
You come across as if you think that censoring strangers on the internet (for what is actually the most common usage of a most common English word) is actually going to bring about some positive change in the issue of sexism. And you do it with the utmost arrogance, as if you were the messiah of equality.
If you talked to people like that in real life, noone would give you the time of day. I know I wouldn't.
> It might be worth taking a step back and asking yourself what other things you consider normal might actually be disrespectful.
Have you ever tried this yourself?
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#526Earlier quoted context omitted.
A claim of sexism at a tech company is not in any way "extraordinary".
Oh, does this sort of thing happen routinely at Apple? I hadn't read that, could you provide your source?
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#527There is a mental trap I have personally fallen into I will dub the "Friendliness Trap" where you start to incorrectly think of someone you work closely with as your close friend due to the forced proximity and "friendly" interaction. This can foster inappropriate workplace behavior your brain justifies as OK. For instance friendly teasing, sometimes even started by the person themselves (e.g. "Oh, you know us [blank…
a male "alpha"/masculine-type coworker pulled this trick several years ago. self-deprecates about his weight. he was fairly good at conversation/joking/etc, and somehow he made these self-deprecating jokes somewhat funny. He wasn't even obese, just a larger guy. One day the coworker sitting right next to him poked fun at his weight, and suddenly it wasn't funny anymore, and the "victim" of the joke reported it to HR. People can play nasty tricks, and so I second your advice to not partake in any form of "teasing".
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#528Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would argue that if the repeated joke is agreed upon by all involved, it doesn't have to be bullying. Friends have inside jokes that only they enjoy and get repeated constantly. Why can't an inside joke be about someone? I'm the worst dresser on my team and i commonly (not daily, but monthly) get "hey nice clothes!" comments. We all laugh and move on. if the comments bothered me, i could say something, or dress lik…
> I would argue that if the repeated joke is agreed upon by all involved, it doesn't have to be bullying. True, and this can occur on work, but by default it does not. See my comment hereunder on the different social rings. There is also the argument that one needs to accept criticism, or "take some flak". People take much better criticism 1 on 1. So if your boss finds that you clothe yourself badly he could address…
I agree. no one has a problem with how i dress. it isn't brought up in a "fix this" sort of way. it is brought up in a "oh look, another new ninja turtles shirt" way. My clothing choices aren't inappropriate, but many of my coworkers prefer dressing more formal, which makes me stand out. I don't view it as teasing of any sort so I'm ok with it... but I'm aware that other people might be hurt by being called a poor dresser.
And I would agree with that about the spectrum. My point was more that the only issue arises when someone doesn't realize they are being offensive:
Trying to be offensive -> clear violation -> handle it.
Recipient speaks up -> clear violation -> handle it.
Trying to be playful, recipient offended but doesn't speak up -> unclear that it is in fact a violation -> may wind up unhandled resulting in issues.
Trying to be playful and everyone gets along -> no violation
If you're trying to be playful and the recipient doesn't respond well, they shouldn't have to speak up to end it. So if you cant read someone, the "dont keep pushing it" is a good default to have, but if its apparent everyone is having a good time, no biggie.
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
She's making a direct accusation against Apple, but doesn't provide any concrete quotes that we can evaluate for ourselves. Seems like it would be more fair to leave the company name out of it if she's only trying to give us a heads up about a problem in the industry.
I don't understand what it would mean for you to "evaluate this for yourself". You have no way of independently verifying what's she's saying, quotes or no quotes. The background assumptions behind this sort of comment strike me as weird. It's as if you think that women themselves aren't able to tell whether or not they're being harassed, and this can only be determined by an online panel of (mostly) male nerds who h…
>I don't understand what it would mean for you to "evaluate this for yourself". You have no way of independently verifying what's she's saying, quotes or no quotes.
It is the difference, though, between accepting a conclusion, and seeing the path that led there.
"This guy is incompetent because he writes insecure code"
vs
"He often wrote code that would allow untrusted input, of undetermined size, into a fixed size buffer. This behavior caused me to question his competence."
vs
". He was constantly checking in code like this, or worse. I question his competence."
The first requires you take the author's conclusion at face value. The second and/or third give you a better idea of why they got there, which makes it more credible.
And, while no names were named, there's enough contextual clues that I'm sure many at Apple know who's being talked about. So, it's less about "you're a crazy female" and more about "lots of people are being called sexist here (one supervisor, several coworkers), would be more comfortable with that if there were more detail".
Re: Harassment at Apple: A personal perspective
#530> No one at the company took responsibility for anything other than protecting the company’s liability in case of a lawsuit The tech industry absolutely doesn't need unions /s
From my mothers similar experiences followed by her unions absolute refusal to help, in a word, no. They exist to parasitically take your money, forcibly take others who don't want to give and really offer very little in return other than more bureaucracy. Your much better off paying a lawyer than a union.
"forcibly take others who don't want to give"
To paraphrase most anti-union people's favorite refrain, "Nobody is making you work someplace that requires union dues."