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Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

nytimes.com

21–30 of 882 posts

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#21

How is it that the old money industries of Wall Street and Hollywood, no vanguards of gender egalitarianism themselves, seem to have less flagrant sexual harassment issues? Do they keep them under wraps or are they just more mature by now?

Anecdotal, but I have friends that live/work in the industry in Hollywood and they claim it is rampant there. It's a husband/wife duo. She's hit on constantly. He's demeaned often with "Yo, your husbands a broke schmuck, I'm rich."

Look up Kesha. Look up Sony emails. Those are just what leaks.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#23
post #7

This entire article is a smorgasbord of cringe: > During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.” One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be…

To me, this article explains it all.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/09/13/1-in-5-ceos-are-p...

Many 'successful' people who make it to ceo are more likely to be a psychopath according to the article. And I would describe these actions of the men who are more likely to be psychopath, not normal.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#24

This is a watershed moment in the VC industry. The dam has finally burst, and we're now seeing the establishment of a new norm in which women who are being harassed go public rather than feeling compelled to hide it. Expect to see many men who were operating under the old norms getting ousted.

I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Not because they are likely to be problems, quite the opposite I'd wager. That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.

These men are not attractive enough to make this ok.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#26

This is a watershed moment in the VC industry. The dam has finally burst, and we're now seeing the establishment of a new norm in which women who are being harassed go public rather than feeling compelled to hide it. Expect to see many men who were operating under the old norms getting ousted.

I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Not because they are likely to be problems, quite the opposite I'd wager. That's going to be the rather depressing and sad reality of the shakeout of this.

Unfortunately I suspect you're right, at least in the shortish term. The culture in general does seem to be making progress in (fits and starts) this area, but it's gonna take a while.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#29
post #7

This entire article is a smorgasbord of cringe: > During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.” One would think having the phrases "hire you" and "hit on you" in the same sentence when communicating with someone undergoing recruitment at your company would be…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#30

Has anyone seen a policy on how to handle sexual harassment allegations in the work place? If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you don't have evidence? Similarly, if you don't fire someone and new allegations come up later then it makes the employer look like they are an enabler.

> If it comes down to 'he says she says' do you fire someone even though you don't have evidence?

If an employee of yours said they were raped by another employee, would you make them go to the hospital and get a rape kit before believing what they said?

If an employee of yours said they got mugged and lost their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before replacing it?

You should default to trusting your employees. You hired them! They are invested in the company, potentially with equity! Especially in at-will employment agreements, I think this should be much closer to "Management reserves the right to let go of anyone at any time for any reason" than the criminal standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt."

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