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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

#311

Post by michaelchisari »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #119
api wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am white and male and the misogyny I've observed in tech has annoyed me . If it annoys me it must be intolerable to women. I believe every word of it and I could tell a few stories of things I've seen. I've seen a lot of other kinds of assholery too. Tech has an underbelly just like any other major industry. FWIW I've heard Hollywood and Wall St. are worse.

Tell one.

This is a small thing, but I have multiple friends who routinely had Linkedin requests that resulted in date requests. Having to constantly reset professional relationships back to where they should be is something I, as a guy, have never had to deal with. This is the low tier stuff, and it's still, in my mind, totally unacceptable. There's bigger stuff I'm not comfortable talking about in an open forum. A couple of the people I have in mind have given up on the tech scene and moved on elsewhere.

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

#312

Post by yorwba »

taway92837 wrote: post #273
azinman2 wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you know of specific stories? Have you experienced this yourself? I am a gay man who has raised money, and networked with various gay VCs. I’ve never seen this kind of behavior from them personally.

I am a straight man who has experienced this personally. I can't give too many details without revealing who I am and who the VC was, but I can say the VC works at one of the largest corporate funds, and I was a bootstrapped founder at the time.

Why don't you want to reveal who the VC was? I'm not trying to imply you should, just curious about your reasons not to.

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

#313

Post by rdiddly »

mikeash wrote: post #111
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…

That last part seems to go beyond creepy and into criminal sexual assault territory.

Yeah there definitely needs to be no touching ever, aside from handshakes.

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

#314

Post by dang »

xor1 wrote: post #159

What are your thoughts on women with borderline personality disorder abusing an environment in which the burden of proof is placed entirely on the defendant?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674407 and marked it off-topic.

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

#315

Post by xor1 »

cbhl wrote: post #308
xor1 wrote: post #159

What are your thoughts on women with borderline personality disorder abusing an environment in which the burden of proof is placed entirely on the defendant?

I think that you are derailing the conversation, and I would appreciate it if you would stop.

Can you please explain how it's derailment? Do you think my concern is an invalid one?

As someone who has been through the ringer with borderlines multiple times, it is something that I think about constantly, and I think it's a mistake to ignore the fact that it's a real thing and that people with borderline personality disorder exist in professional workplaces.

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

#316

Post by dang »

jackcn wrote: post #249

Marissa Mayer?

We've banned this account for trolling. If you don't want to be banned on HN, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and promise to follow the rules in the future.

We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14674763 and marked it off-topic.

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

#318

Post by ewjordan »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #93
Mz wrote: post #41

Saying 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…

One obvious step is that we need to do what we do in every other subject: force all children to learn enough tech to figure out whether they are good at it or not by making it a required class. When schools do that, they find that tons of girls excel at programming, but probably never would have tried it if it hadn't been mandatory.

Dealing with harassment in the industry is also key, but even if that was eliminated completely it wouldn't close the gender gap that exists by the time kids graduate high school. And the educational bit is much more straightforward to implement, it just takes a lot of money to be thrown at the problem.

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

#319

Post by obstinate »

stcredzero wrote: post #247
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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 desirable. Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having t…

> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.

Did you ask multiple times? This sounds like what could easily happen when someone won't take the initial "no," implicit or not, for an answer. Based on the rest of your comment, I expect so.

A few important points:

1. Repeated asking has been held to be sexual harassment, if repeated for long enough.

2. Here's a simple rule: ask once, and only once. She knows where you work. If she's interested, she'll ask for a rain check and get back to you.

> I just don't think this is suitable verbal behavior for supposedly rational adults

3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.

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

#320

Post by abalone »

stcredzero wrote: post #247
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

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 desirable. Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having t…

> To say the overt "no" -- to directly say what you want and mean -- is to claim agency as an adult.

You're blaming women for not being "adult" enough in their response to juvenile male behavior. It is these men who should start acting like adults.

And how do you know the women didn't say no? The article notes that some of the women faced retribution after rebuffing men.

> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between.

It sounds like you need to work on reading other peoples' comfort level with your behavior. In a professional setting the standard is very high for ensuring you are not making someone uncomfortable. Consider how a customer would feel if they walked in a store and, out of the blue, got hit on by staff that they had zero chemistry with. Who then the blames the customer for not being "adult" enough.

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