Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

471–480 of 882 posts

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

#471

Post by vostok »

nostrademons wrote: post #435
vostok wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have worked on Wall Street. It's not worse.

I'd question that. My wife is a former bond trader. At one point, the guys on her trading desk took her out to drinks, and one asked her, "So, are you still a virgin?" She was about 25 at the time.

Do you think tech doesn't have these problems? I suspect you're going to say that you've never personally seen it, but culture can vary a lot from desk to desk in finance.

Stereotypically, you have cash equities at one extreme and exotic derivatives at the other. Outside of banks, the culture at an HFT firm or quant hedge fund will be completely different from the culture on a "bro-y" bank desk.

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

#473

Post by 5thaccount »

xenadu02 wrote: post #72
5thaccount wrote: post #19

Earlier 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.

> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems: Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with . That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc). If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have…

Do you know what amazes me about comments like yours? You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen.

> I expect smart VCs that are interested in making money ... will continue to take lots of meetings with women.

OK, so ON NET what do you expect to happen? Lets say I agree and the smart ones take the meetings, what about the dumb ones? Or the average ones? What is the net result of all those different levels of VCs? Less or more meetings for women?

Again, "You don't have to agree with a course of action to accept the reality that certain things will happen".

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

#474

Post by TeMPOraL »

nostrademons wrote: post #435
vostok wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have worked on Wall Street. It's not worse.

I'd question that. My wife is a former bond trader. At one point, the guys on her trading desk took her out to drinks, and one asked her, "So, are you still a virgin?" She was about 25 at the time.

I suppose there's more to this story than you're telling, because on the face of it - all I can say is people ask other people such questions over drinks, regardless of gender.

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

#475

Post by morgante »

rdiddly wrote: post #313
mikeash wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

With any people, ever?

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

#476

Post by TeMPOraL »

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 wonder how the tech will handle false accusations, though. The culture of "guilty until proven innocent" opens up avenues of abuse, which were, are, and will be used.

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

#477

Post by morgante »

nostrademons wrote: post #435
vostok wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have worked on Wall Street. It's not worse.

I'd question that. My wife is a former bond trader. At one point, the guys on her trading desk took her out to drinks, and one asked her, "So, are you still a virgin?" She was about 25 at the time.

Why is her age relevant? It's not an appropriate question for a colleague anyway, but I'm curious why that would make it worse.

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

#478

Post by likelynew »

I don't know if it is appropriate to say, but I think overt preference in hiring females is one of the biggest cause. Almost every tech company hire women with less qualifications to improve the the diversity. I know it is for the best, but in personal experience, it is very spoken thing between some males. Few interpret inside their head that the females are for them. I think it is evident even in snippets of this article: "I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you." It kind of means that she is not qualified to be hired, according to him, but.. I don't know, it is a complex relationship.

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

#479

Post by TeMPOraL »

xenadu02 wrote: post #72
5thaccount wrote: post #19

Earlier 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.

> I expect less VCs to take meetings with women, sadly. Why? There's a really simple procedure that can solve these problems: Don't hit on, feel-up, or try to have sex with people you're in a professional business relationship with . That goes double for people you hold power over (managers to employees, VCs to Founders, etc). If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have…

> If you're really truly worried about false accusations then here's another fix you can have for free: record your meetings, texts, emails, and calls with founders and/or don't meet alone.

It's not so easy. Bullshit accusations leaking on Twitter will be halfway to destroying your career before you even dig up the original recordings, and I doubt anyone will want to listen to your case anyway (if anything, they'll comb over your recordings with a tootbrush to prove you were guilty of this, and a bunch of other things). I too expect VCs to be less willing to expose themselves to such danger.

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

#480

Post by sbergot »

watwut wrote: post #436
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…

Nope. Are you trying thay rape culture is a thing and dudes really need special courses on how to not be harassers? That does not describe or culture or majority of dudes in any way. Our culture is full of signals that harassment is wrong. It is also quite unlikely that people who climb the ladder and successfully play "impress investors and people around" social skills game are so clueless magically when they are al…

I have witnessed at least 3 people that were in a manager position and had unacceptable behavior. What lawnchair_larry described matches almost perfectly my perception of them.

One of them would casually explain in conversations the software he had written to crawl dating website. We was very open with things such as the mirror above his bed, sharing pictures of it. Before leaving the company at last, he had received multiple sanctions including an interdiction to get too close to some women who had worked with him.

Had I not met those people, I would be unable to believe that they exist.

My theory is that they are bold, assertive and have no shame. They don't "play" with people; people like them. They seduce managers and investors. They try to do the same with coworkers.

Post reply on HN