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

nytimes.com

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

#51

Post by cortesoft »

kevinburke wrote: post #30
rdlecler1 wrote: post #11

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…

I totally agree with what you are saying as far as trusting your employees, but your examples are a little different; a better example would be "If an employee of yours says that another employee stole their laptop, would you demand security camera footage before firing the other employee?"

I think the key thing to do, as a manager, is to start by beliving the employee making the complaint. Don't tell them things like "Oh, you must have misinterpreted" or "was it really that bad" or "I am sure he didn't mean it".

You tell them you take their complain very seriously, that you are so sorry this happened to them, and that you will take action immediately. Then, you investigate. Shockingly, lots of harassers won't outright deny it if you ask them about specific behavior (don't come out and ask them if they sexually harassed, but ask them if they, for example, said these specific words that they are accused of saying); they won't lie because they don't think what they did was actually harassment, they think they were just flirting or being fun. You then take action, whether you need to fire the person, reprimand them, transfer them, demote them, etc.

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

#52

Post by jonny_eh »

5thaccount wrote: post #19
CydeWeys wrote: post #13

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.

Then they'll miss out on some of the best startups out there. A VC firm that respects women will have an easier time investing on good terms.

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

#53

Post by azylman »

I really hope that stories like this will let us stop blaming specific companies like Uber and accept that this is a problem with our industry. We're never going to be able to fix this as long as we keep sticking our heads in the sand and pretending it's not a systemic issue.

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

#54

Post by horsecaptin »

Something doesn't add up here.

- Shouldn't the New York Times be reporting more often about sexual inequality on Wall Street?

- Silicon Valley has fewer women.

- Silicon Valley has the highest concentration of Scientific and Technical workers in the country - if you went to an American school, then you know where they stand in the hierarchy.

Could it be that the lower number of women here is forcing the men to go out of their way to beat the drumbeat of female rights to their own detriment, while the rest of the country points, laughs and pressures them into even more submission?

Something just doesn't add up.

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

#55

Post by [deleted] »

5thaccount wrote: post #19
CydeWeys wrote: post #13

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.

[deleted]

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

#56

Post by BadassFractal »

It's an explosive combination of socially maladjusted nerds who suddenly ended up in positions of power in a location/industry with rather few women for them to influence with that authority + a new wave of progressive women trying to break into a male dominated space.

It's going to be a rickety ride for sure.

On a personal note, part of me was refusing to believe that someone like the partner at Binary was even possible in this day and age, I had never run into this myself and concluded this must have been a caricature at best. I must admit I was wrong to assume that, turns out those people are real. Hopefully there are very few of them, but I might have to change my mind on that one too soon.

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

#57

Post by HarryHirsch »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #25

I give a lot of credit to women like Susan Fowler who were brave enough to speak out, with starting what feels a bit like a tidal wave. I hope we see similar light shone on institutionalized racism.

You'd rather say that she was sufficiently well connnected to make her voice heard. Even then she came public only after she had left the company and was employed elsewhere.

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

#58

Post by khazhoux »

meredydd wrote: post #39
austenallred wrote: post #18

I had always heard the constant murmur of sexual harassment happening in the Valley, but I was never sure if there was any merit to it. I anecdotally had never seen anything that would even come close to a situation like those described, so I kind of brushed it off. But then articles like these come out. Wow. These are some of the kingpins of Silicon Valley shown sexually harassing with hard, factual evidence. I had…

Aside, and not meant at you specifically, but: Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _ believe it _. That constant murmur is the sound of a thousand stories like this that don't (yet) have the coordination to hit the pages of the NYT at the same time and become "credible". A month ago, there were dozens of female founders sitting on stories like this who were still afra…

> Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _believe it_.

Um, no?

There's a constant murmur of racism in SV companies. I haven't seen that at all. In fact, the opposite. Doesn't mean there's no racism, but I'd rather have actual examples before I buy into that line.

There's a constant murmur of ageism in tech companies. I haven't seen that either. Plenty of people over 40, over 50 in tech. Fewer over 60, but this is a newish field still.

I've managed to go some 20 years in tech without seeing hardly any guys openly hit on girls at work -- except a couple of cases where they're now married. So why should I just "_believe it_", before reading stories like these recent articles?

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

#59

Post by meredydd »

austenallred wrote: post #49
meredydd wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aside, and not meant at you specifically, but: Next time you hear "a constant murmur" of harassment, racism, or other bad behaviour, _ believe it _. That constant murmur is the sound of a thousand stories like this that don't (yet) have the coordination to hit the pages of the NYT at the same time and become "credible". A month ago, there were dozens of female founders sitting on stories like this who were still afra…

While there's something to your comment, and I fully recognize I was in the wrong here, I would still have a really hard time believing in a constant murmur of bad behavior. Give credence enough to investigate and consider much more fully that I would have previously, absolutely, but I draw the line before "believe." Maybe that's just semantics.

Yep. What I'm saying we should learn from this, and Uber, and all the rest is that we should treat "a constant murmur" as much stronger evidence than we currently do. (Not necessarily a slam dunk - but, in Bayesian terms, it should shift your priors much more now than it would have before these stories came out.)

Edit: Although really, what stronger evidence will you ever get? I suppose you could get a personal account from someone you trust (but that's not something you're going to hear if you're in the habit of brushing off such stories - most commonly, "honey, are you sure you're not just misinterpreting him?"). Barring that, a constant stream of similar rumours is the only evidence of a problem like this you will ever hear - until there is a "Susan Fowler event". Update accordingly.

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

#60

Post by andyburke »

dragonwriter wrote: post #40
kevinburke wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

If you don't do any validation, this will be noticed and you will encourage false reports as a means of settling unrelated personal scores. That management reserves the right to dismiss for any reason doesn't mean that dismissing based on bare unconfirmed complaints is reasonable, either morally or from a business perspective.

Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening? The risks of someone making this claim are so, so high, yet you believe someone would do this just to 'settle unrelated personal scores'?
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