Wow, think for a second how hard is to be an entrepreneur. All the shit we have to deal with at so many different levels.
These women goes beyond that, literally putting everything on the line. Much respect.
Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
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Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#92Good that they came out, many admitted to it, and some are gone. That's the good news. Still, one was extra weird and messed up that I had to at least look at both of them in how they presented themselves: Marc Cantor vs Wendy Dent. It was one of few where little info and no picture was available for the woman. It already presented his background plus him admitting he sent sexual and weird messages to her in response…
>Just kind of musing on a concern I've heard from a lot of people in and mostly outside that field just talking about rules where men can never hit on or anything close women who are professionals.
Then why do couples often say they met at work?
If you're an investor, meeting someone for the first or second time, and someone asks you for money, and you hit on them, you're an utter asshole and moron. Yes, even if someone was dressed in a way that exposed cleavage.
It's not remotely appropriate, professional, or even decent to hit on someone at the place and time that Cantor did.
If you already have a steady, mutual friendship (or other positive relationship) with someone you work with, or are in a casual setting that people go to with the intent of hitting on people or being hit on, then, sure, things can work differently. But that's extremely distant from what occurred here. Someone asking something from you in a professional capacity does not ever want "wanna fuck?" as the answer.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#93Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism. The problem is that women are already being ostracized. When you can't get hired or you can't get VC money or you can't get business connections because the only time men will talk to you is to hit on you, you are already basically dead in the water as a business person. How do we get out of this dead end?
> How do we get out of this dead end?
It's a chicken and egg problem. The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio, but if the consequences of that are self-reinforcing then the status quo remains.
Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.
But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement. Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#94How much of this is actually illegal? In workplaces you have legal recourse but in this situation it doesn't seem like there's anything you can do except blast their name out there for everyone to see.
The groping is probably illegal independent of workplace context, the stuff done in hiring is as illegal as if it was done during employment, much of rest is probably not illegal.
Somehow I missed the groping part. I was referring to the guys coming on to them while they were fundraising.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#95This 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…
I think cringe is the wrong word. We cringe when we watch The Office and see people make social mistakes without meaning to. These are not unwitting social mistakes. This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it. Furthermore, not having met any of these people but speculating based on my experience, I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one ti…
> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.
Nope.
These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes.
Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
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'?
http://www.thenewstribune.com/sports/article158124954.html
Duke lacrosse. UVA. Conor Oberst.
It happens. Allegations deserve investigation before punishment is doled out. Just because SV is doing an absolutely awful job at dealing with sexual harassment right now doesn't mean we need to swing hard the other direction and punish without proof.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#97Good that they came out, many admitted to it, and some are gone. That's the good news. Still, one was extra weird and messed up that I had to at least look at both of them in how they presented themselves: Marc Cantor vs Wendy Dent. It was one of few where little info and no picture was available for the woman. It already presented his background plus him admitting he sent sexual and weird messages to her in response…
Dude, what the fuck? Her having picture of herself showing cleavage is totally irrelevant. Dressing attractively does not make it ok to be harassed. Secondly, saying "don't hit on women who come asking for funding or professional consolutation" in no way means "you can't date or hit on professional women".... you just can't do it TO THE WOMEN WHO ARE ASKING YOU FOR PROFESSIONAL HELP. You can flirt and do your thing i…
"Dude, what the fuck? Her having picture of herself showing cleavage is totally irrelevant. Dressing attractively does not make it ok to be harassed."
It might shock you but I operate on innocent until proven guilty and hear both sides concepts. I'm just applying what little of that I can to assess how she presents herself vs his claims. I said there's some potential they were true. I also said the evidence was strongly against him and those texts were inappropriate. She's the victim here based on the evidence.
Then I started exploring the greater topic based on what I've heard and read from tons of people (including women) with varying opinions. In the media, esp like this, you're either big on sexually harassing women constantly or you totally support a specific position on interacting with women in the workplace that a subset of them are pushing or article covers. No middle ground in any way. I was just instigating some discussion of those rules.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#98I mean, we need more women in silicon valley. Legalize prostitution maybe. These guys have had so few encounters with the opposite sex that they haven't calibrated to social norms. Maybe start a fashion industry in DTSJ and to attract some non-technical females and things will even out.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
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'?
You'd think we wouldn't need a security camera in our break room to stop people from stealing other people's food, but we do. People do all sorts of petty crap. If you expect rational behavior, you're going to be disappointed.
Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Any VC whose reaction to this is "oh I guess I should avoid taking meetings with women because I just can't know what goof will cause me to get sued" is probably already making some women uncomfortable. If you cannot understand how _stupidly easy_ it is to have a completely non-sexual, non-harassing conversation with a member of the opposite sex, you most definitely should read up on some stuff. I mean this in the mo…
Sales at my company is female dominated, I'm in building next door so I run into them all the time, I just treat them as any other member of staff, politely but otherwise as an amorphous blob.
I don't socialise with work mates outside of work events either, lines get crossed when you do in a alcohol orientated culture like mine.
It's worked fine for me for 19 years employed.
Had one female former colleague assume I was gay because I never hit on her (and she was attractive).
Nope, just not interested in bollocking up a good work environment, it was interesting to watch the dynamic though.
My simple rules for work.
Treat everyone equally, small stuff matters, I went out for coffee and went and asked the cleaner if he wanted one, he looked surprised.
Don't gossip ever, just don't. Leave the conversation if someone else starts.
Be on time, meet deadlines, let boss know as soon as you know you won't.
Be professional, you might know a customer for years but they are still Mr Smith until they say 'call me Bob'.
When a boss makes what you think is a poor decision (business reasons, moral reasons etc) get it in writing.
Always send a recap email after meetings, misunderstandings cost less the earlier you catch them (much like bugs).