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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

#621

Post by FeepingCreature »

linkregister wrote: post #423
rayiner wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, this is the sort of "fainting couch" feminism that regards women as only potential victims who can't stand up for themselves and who must be protected by others. It's not fainting couch feminism, it's pragmatic feminism. These interactions happen in a context where peoples' livelihoods, their hopes and dreams, are on the line. Are you going to expect them to jeopardize that by overtly calling someone out? Th…

I think the point that the parent commenter is missing, and you're not illustrating, is that women are very frequently propositioned in the workplace. To stcredzero, he's innocuously asking a woman colleague of equal rank, who he has rapport with, out to a movie. He sees it as an opportunity to develop a relationship that could lead to a happy marriage. He doesn't get that many opportunities due to various reasons, s…

Wouldn't the same problem apply at any social gathering with gender bias?

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

#622

Post by adwn »

rainbowmverse wrote: post #602
freeflight wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 masculin…

> masculine-coded genders [...] feminine-coded genders

Now what freshly contrieved linguistic contraption is this? Just say "male" and "female", or "men" and "women", no need to obey the latest gender studies fad.

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

#623

Post by nailer »

vostok wrote: post #452
nailer wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finance in London basically funds the entire sex industry.

Paying someone for sex is not the same as harassing your coworkers. You're also extremely naive if you think this doesn't happen in every other sales heavy industry. London just happens to have a large financial sector. I can assure you that the same thing happens in the oil, tech, and real estate industries for example. If we're taking about anecdotes, I had a friend in college who was a sex worker and most of her c…

Sure but the entire team meeting at a strip joint after an official corporate event is harassment.

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

#624

Post by [deleted] »

adwn wrote: post #622
rainbowmverse wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 masculin…

> masculine-coded genders [...] feminine-coded genders Now what freshly contrieved linguistic contraption is this? Just say "male" and "female", or "men" and "women", no need to obey the latest gender studies fad.

[deleted]

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

#625

Post by [deleted] »

noir_lord wrote: post #100
rtpg wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 w…

[deleted]

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

#626

Post by sokoloff »

bt4u2 wrote: post #515
gizmo wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of intent, this contributes to the problem. A lot of mentoring and networking happens on a 1:1 basis, and if men refuse to meet women 1:1 in situations where they would meet with other men, then women will lose out on career opportunities.

Definitely. But what are you supposed to do? "Don't overstep boundaries", sure, but that's not a very practical advice. In this life you will overstep sometimes. Like bugs in code, it's unfortunate, but unavoidable. I wouldn't risk my career for a man, so why should I risk it for a woman? The rational thing seems to be playing it safe. The whole situation is nuts

"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." (John Shedd, but sidelong relevant to this thread was also cited several times by Grace Hopper in interviews).

If you take the apparent maximally safe course of action at every turn in life, you probably won't achieve much. It's risky to change jobs, to break up with your current partner, to start dating someone, to have kids, to buy a house, to change cities, to pick a college/major, to pick an initial career, to drive in the rain, to play recreational sports, to travel to a different country, to eat sushi, and 100s of other times in any given year.

If you are willing to do something important (and work-related) for a man that you are not willing to do for a woman, IMO, you should not be in a position of leadership.

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

#627

Post by curun1r »

mattzito wrote: post #590
curun1r wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone keeps mistaking my meaning. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior or say that it's okay. I've repeatedly condemned it. But we need to decide what we want as a result of bringing this kind of behavior out into the open. Do we want to punish and ostracize the guilty or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward? If it's the former, then by all means get out your pitchforks and we can…

> Do we want to punish and ostracize the guilty Yup, that one. > or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward? False equivalence. I would imagine if VCs and investors get the message that if they hit on women they'll be fired, they'll stop doing it. > I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships wit…

> I would imagine if VCs and investors get the message that if they hit on women they'll be fired, they'll stop doing it.

You imagine wrong. Instead, they'll learn how to do it without getting caught. Lesson one comes from these incidents. Don't leave an electronic or paper trail. It's much less likely these women would have come forward if they hadn't had electronic records of chat sessions to back up their assertions.

If you only treat the symptoms of the problem, it will keep returning in different forms. You need to address the root of the problem and your over-simplified view of the issue will never allow you to do that.

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

#628

Post by lebanon_tn »

> Lindsay Meyer, an entrepreneur in San Francisco, said Mr. Caldbeck put $25,000 of his own money into her fitness start-up in 2015. That gave Mr. Caldbeck reason to constantly text her; in those messages, reviewed by The Times, he asked if she was attracted to him and why she would rather be with her boyfriend than him. At times, he groped and kissed her, she said.

> “I felt like I had to tolerate it because this is the cost of being a nonwhite female founder,” said Ms. Meyer, who is Asian-American.

As abhorrent as Caldbeck's behavior was, what difference does being nonwhite make? It doesn't seem like white female founders don't get sexually harassed.

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

#629

Post by bernardlunn »

everdayimhustln wrote: post #569
ronilan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

People aren't archetypes or labels; that's too black & white, un-nuanced thinking. Psychological and sociological reseach proved most people act however they're expected to within a given power dynamic circumstance, except for a few outliers which will go their own way, for anti- or pro-community. This wrong "bad apples" analogy as it applies to police or genocide perpetrators also is dangerous because it's simply un…

some people are assholes, very few but some

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

#630

Post by nhumrich »

I always knew women had an unfair disadvantage in this industry. But I never realized it was this bad. This is a whole different level then I imagined, and makes me want to throw up. On behalf of my gender (im a male if that wasnt obvious from my lack of awareness) I would like to sincerely apologise. Women, please keep telling us these stories. Please have the strength to "go public" with this information. It helped me realize the severity of the situation, hopefully it will spread.
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