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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

#601

Post by qb45 »

watwut wrote: post #583
manfredo wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same. Please re-read my original comment in this chain, I'm dealing with two hypotheticals depending on what exactly is said. > In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her…

> Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on what exactly is said. Well then, leave her alone. However, she literally said "you are making me uncomfortable". That is neither threat nor rude. It is literally direct and honest communication.…

And it invites him to try to make her feel comfortable until she freaks out and goes to HR or NYT. Sometimes it's better to just say no. You don't owe explanation to anyone.

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

#602

Post by rainbowmverse »

freeflight wrote: post #581
dkarl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. > I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one time in twenty it will work. > Those are the people we call bullies, whether their acts are criminal or not. Spot on, sadly a much overlooked and ignored fact. While "sexism" certainly feeds into that, it's not the actual problem, the problem being tha…

It'd be easier if people would just accept there's two common definitions of sexism going around and define their terms first, rather than beating each other over the head with "well, actually..."

Academic sexism: pervasive attitudes that tend to favor masculine-coded genders over feminine-coded genders. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against masculine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).

Colloquial sexism: being a jerk to someone because of their gender. People who adhere to this definition with religious fervor tend to ignore or explain away sexisms against feminine-coded genders (perceived or self-identified).

Both are valid, but they're focusing on different things. Sometimes assholes are just assholes. Sometimes they know they can get away with it because of pervasive attitudes. It's hard to say who has it worse because no one believes anyone when they report, so statistics are notoriously unreliable.

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

#603

Post by FT_intern »

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…

> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it.

The sentiment among many men working in the tech industry is that you can get crucified for making even a small compliment to a female. This idea of invulnerability would only be common among top executives and others who wield high amounts of power.

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

#604

Post by rorykoehler »

peoplewindow wrote: post #586
rorykoehler wrote: post #561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty evenly balanced in my social circles. Perhaps there is something else at play?

Probably culture. I've been pretty successful with women in my life; whilst I was nerdy as a teenager things changed and I've since had a lot of luck with women. In Europe, where I live, I have never been asked out by a woman that I can recall, despite having had plenty of girlfriends here and good relationships. Men always have to make the first move. The most extreme case of this was when I briefly dated a Russian…

For what it's worth I'm also European but have lived all over. While I can see your point re Russia I'm not sure it's a geographic thing entirely.

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

#605

Post by pluma »

hanspeter wrote: post #509
chrischen wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point holds as long as false accusations are possible. Women, like men, are not all angels. Sexism, or even patriarchy, has no gender.

But false accusations are possible about anything. By this logic VCs should avoid talking with anyone.

Sure, if you completely ignore the cultural context.

Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.

This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.

There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.

[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.

[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.

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

#606

Post by thirdsun »

tuna-piano wrote: post #140
tuna-piano wrote: post #129

Wow, this seems terrible. For these women (and from the sounds of it, many more) to always have to second guess if an investor likes them for good business reasons or whether it's just because they're pretty. To always dread meeting a new business contact, knowing there's a small but substantial chance he'll make some awkward comment. Some thoughts: 1. Is this more common in silicon valley than elsewhere? (I've never…

I just want to elaborate on point #4. I chose those examples purposefully: Those three are all well-known business leaders who have dated or married their subordinates. Presumably, there was a point where Gates/Brin/Knight initiated or suggested to initiate romantic involvement. If as it turns out the woman had not been interested, in retrospect, would the methods of initiation seem like sexual harassment? I believe…

That’s a very important aspect. If the difference between inappropriate harassment and the start of a sweet, romantic Pam-and-Jim-like story is the question of whether she‘s interested or not, we are in for a lot of grey area and uncertainty.

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

#607

Post by mirimir »

jimnotgym wrote: post #587
mirimir wrote: post #535

Yes, this is it, I think. I knew this guy, many years ago, who bragged about walking up to random women, and asking if they'd like to have sex. He said that he got slapped a lot, but also had lots of sex. I think that he was just BSing, but who knows?

I don't see the relevance. Asking a random stranger for sex is certainly outside of our normal social conventions, but this is not the same as using your power and position to coerce someone into having sex with you.

I consider them both to be sociopathic. Asking random women for sex is arguably also coercive.

Edit: I note that smart robbers and rapists scope potential victims by making innocent requests. Then escalating.

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

#608

Post by pluma »

xor1 wrote: post #418
stale2002 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

False accusations are basically not possible though. The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there. The people getting in trouble are the serial harassers who are so egregiously bad that a multitude of incidents are documented. Your big standard subtle sexist or tech douche bro has nothing to worry about.

>The people getting in trouble are the serial harassers who are so egregiously bad that a multitude of incidents are documented. Donglegate was less than five years ago, did you already forget about it?

Donglegate wasn't about false accusations, though. It was about a woman publicly shaming two other attendees for what she considered inappropriate jokes in a public setting and then being caught in the blowback when other people were unhappy with how she handled the situation.

Her accusations were factual, although there was discussion about whether they were valid.

Also, the people who agree that her accusations were valid, are also likely the people who think that their behavior was indicative of them being serial harassers.

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

#609

Post by austincheney »

Yet another reason to NEVER move to silicon valley.

PROS:

* if you land a job at a Fortune 50 company you could end up making $300k after 5-6 years if you are a badass. These are all big ifs.

* lots of sunshine

* easier access to venture capital

CONS:

* high taxes

* real estate is 10x inflated compared to most of the rest of the country

* actually, everything costs more there. The valley also has the highest gasoline prices in the country. Even food is more expensive there.

* the top employers have, in the past, colluded to illegally not hire each other's developers

* illegal sexual harassment appears to be a cultural norm

* housing shortages

* weird local politics (social justice warriors are actually a thing there)

---

In summary the valley looks like a great place for founders (if male) but horrid for employees.

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

#610

Post by FT_intern »

vostok wrote: post #471
nostrademons wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yes because tech is much more culturally diverse, with large amounts of immigrants and second generation children of immigrants. If you've ever worked at a large tech company, you would know that the average team is very quiet because of the cultural barriers. The few Americans on the team are very introverted and again have a slight cultural barrier even with each other because many of them are the children of immigrants. The frat % is undoubtedly much lower in tech (if it's even represented at all) compared to banking.
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