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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

#161

Post by khazhoux »

tpush wrote: post #141
khazhoux wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the tip. I didn't realize other stuff happens around me. But still, there's lots of "constant murmurs" that don't pan out, and in many cases they're driven by agendas. It's easy to make or perpetuate claims when there's no attribution, no specific examples, etc. Just vague innuendos. So if some vague innuendo is contrary to my personal experience, yeah I won't believe it as fact. Kudos to these women for b…

Sure, I'm not saying you should 100% believe everything you hear. Just that dismissing such things outright based on a lack of personal experience is also not the right way.

Dismissing would be wrong. Absolutely!

The poster above me said (and emphasized) that when there's constant murmurs, you should _believe it_. Very wrong. Keep an open mind, but don't "believe" it outright just yet.

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

#162

Post by pnw_hazor »

bdamm wrote: post #144

I have a confession to make. With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterward…

Does the red-light blink around your sister or Mom?

Put your female colleagues in the sister compartment of your brain.

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

#164

Post by novavex »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #115

HN Women. I am a male and I am genuinely curious. Is the following SH or does the position of power the person holds make it SH or does the environment (workplace) make it SH. "“I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”"

A bit worrying that this is ambiguous, but I would say that it is largely because of the position of power. Like someone mentioned earlier, "hire" and "hit on" should never be in the same sentence.

And as a common courtesy I believe people shouldn't be hitting on their co-workers in the workplace in the first place. That makes everyone uncomfortable.

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

#165

Post by pfarnsworth »

bdamm wrote: post #144

I have a confession to make. With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterward…

You should talk to a therapist. It will affect your career sooner or later, if it hasn't already. You better get help on how to control these thoughts, and more importantly your actions, especially if you sometimes give "eyes" to your coworkers.

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

#166

Post by JauntyHatAngle »

bdamm wrote: post #144

I have a confession to make. With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterward…

>With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her.

Its fine to think whatever you want, imagine murdering your boss, having sex with the coffee machine, whatever you want, that's happening in your brain, doesn't effect anyone else. It's a bit much for >every>This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterwards. But that can be persistent, and for the woman, must be kind of creepy feeling.

Unless you are being creeper and staring like a weirdo all the time then I doubt they notice.

If you are being a creeper and staring 24/7, then you have deeper issues with restraint and politeness that need to be sorted out.

>I'm at a loss as to how a man changes this somewhat foundational part of the brain.

I think most guys can cope fine, I'd wager most guys have some racey thoughts about co-workers, but the difference between that and being creepy/unprofessional is that its in your brain and you keep it there. Restraint is kind of a "foundational" part of modern life.

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

#167

Post by nickpsecurity »

andyburke wrote: post #60
dragonwriter wrote: post #40

Earlier 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'?

"Where are you working that you can reasonably imagine this happening?"

It's happened a bunch of times at my company just that I've seen personally. I'm not even talking the ones that did it to me. It's a "reputable," Fortune 100 company with diverse staff and plenty of turnover currently due to management. My part of it has maybe 100 people or so. There were also real cases of sexual harassment male-on-female and female-on-male mostly resolved by employees themselves without escalation. Younger people just being stupid with some coaching and strict warning. Those that were a bigger problem, such as smacking asses or continued harassment, get escalated to management who investigates them, gets witness testimony, and fires them if witness or camera confirmation is strong. I helped get rid of a long-timer recently where you hear stories with no evidence. He got transfered to a shitty job with more people around due to poor work ethic. This time, there were 2-3 witnesses to his behavior that escalated in his irritation and we got rid of him immediately.

So, it happens both ways in my company. The thousands of women I've talked to from tons of companies also told me both happen: sexual harassment; people using fake claims including sexual harassment as a tool. We call it the "he said, she said bullshit." Fortunately, my bosses cultivated a good team where we deal with little to none of that stuff. I mainly hear it from others acting as a witness for them or developing strategy for trouble-makers on occasion.

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

#168

Post by lawnchair_larry »

dkarl wrote: post #44
rl3 wrote: 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…

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…

I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desireable. They think that this is how the game is played, and these things are a form of peacocking. They think confidence is attractive, flattery is wanted, and that women are constantly searching for signals of an Alpha.

They also think they're exceptional. They don't understand boundaries, and they don't understand that women have to deal with that shit from other guys who also think that, everywhere they go. Whether it be cat calls at the grocery store or advances at work.

I don't know Sacca or McClure, and from their writing and the way they project themselves, I don't think they seem like the type of people I care to spend time around, but it's pretty clear that this is a bad combination of arrogance and ignorance rather than malice. I had to stop reading Sacca's post after the 5th page of him talking about how great he is, but it sounds like he definitely had his Come To Jesus moment and is genuinely remorseful and working on not being an ass. That's a far better outcome than premature ostracization. Save that for the Bill Cosbys.

In order to make progress, I think it is important to recognize this distinction. There are no doubt some actual predators out there, but they need to be dealt with very differently than the dumbasses. I say that in part as a recovering dumbass myself, and as someone who faced accusations of malice and manipulation (in matters completely unrelated to women) when that was absolutely not the case. Hanlon's Razor and all.

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

#169

Post by jdoliner »

bdamm wrote: post #144

I have a confession to make. With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterward…

It sounds like you may be suffering from a form of scrupulosity [0], a disorder in which you feel excessive guilt about moral or religious issues. In your case mostly moral. Fantasizing about having sex with women you work with and making eyes at them isn't really the same as what's going on in this article. Thoughts are just in your head, they don't affect the outside world unless you express them and "making eyes," unless you're intensely and persistently staring at them is unlikely to have the same effect as the actions in this story. You should cut yourself a bit more slack, you obviously care about not making women uncomfortable and from what you've described here I doubt you do make them uncomfortable.

If you're interested in reading more about this there's a great Atlantic article about Scott Aaronson going through something similar. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/01/the-blo...

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

#170

Post by neom »

bdamm wrote: post #144

I have a confession to make. With few exceptions, I cannot work with a woman without thinking about having sex with her. It's not like I'm trying, it's more like the thought is a blinking red light and I can't help but look at the thought. Then I realize the thought is absurd, but it's already happened. This normally doesn't leak out, but for some women, I will give them "eyes" and usually feel bad about it afterward…

I would highly recommend you talk to a therapist about this.
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