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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

#691

Post by bogomipz »

taway_1212 wrote: post #674
vostok wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> sex worker What's wrong with a word 'prostitute'?

"Sex worker" denotes consensual sex work, while "prostitution" includes human trafficking.

Also sex workers includes dancers in strip clubs, phone sex operators and adult magazine models none of which engage in the physical act of sex with others as part of their job:

https://rewire.news/article/2008/05/06/sex-work-trafficking-...

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

#692

Post by [deleted] »

grey-area wrote: post #683
prodmerc wrote: post #666

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone has plenty to fear. Any sexual harassment/rape accusations (no matter how untrue) are incredibly damaging, it's very biased towards the accuser. The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.

Do you have a citation of an actual case of a VC falsely accused and then exonerated, or is this all in your head?

[deleted]

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

#693

Post by freeflight »

XorNot wrote: post #671
freeflight wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simple counter-question: How do you define "sexual harassment"? Because that's the actual issue these days. Behavior that used to be "normal" and lead to people getting to know each other is considered "harassment" these days. Yesterday I read an article about Tinder in the German Cosmopolitan: http://www.cosmopolitan.de/dating-app-tinder-tinder-im-test-... One of it's points being that a big draw for many women is h…

Wow is there a lot to unpack here, and this really is a poor medium for it so I'll try and cut to the crux of the issue: Is there consent? If you're not sure, don't do it. And so a follow-up: do you think a VC pitch by someone of the opposite gender represents consent to making a sexual advance?

Of course, there's a lot there because it simply ain't as simple as:

"Do you sexually harass?" or "Do you have consent?" Such statements underestimate the untold complexities pretty much all social interaction are based on.

That's why solutions to these problems are not as simple as some people like to pretend. Nobody really likes talking to each other bluntly, everything always has to be implied or "said trough the flower", leaving way too much room for ambiguity and as such misunderstandings that keep on going on as nobody wants to be the guy/gal angering the elephant in the room.

About your VC pitch question: Really depends on the type of sexual advance. While I don't practice it personally I don't see anything wrong with somebody telling another person "I consider you very attractive, do you want to have a good time with me?", it's a given that some people might not be as classy with their choice of words.

Yet it's quite direct, it's to the point and thus doesn't leave much room for misinterpretation or waste anybody's time with ambiguity. As such I don't see why anybody would need consent for asking, first and foremost it's just a question and not an insult, order or the "objectification" of somebody.

It's another story if with "sexual advances" you mean something like groping, uninvited kissing or any other uncalled for body contact. Needless to say, that's a no-go and nobody ever claimed otherwise.

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

#694

Post by sokoloff »

bt4u2 wrote: post #685
sokoloff wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Clearly there are potential rewards (ev+ if you're into poker or ai) in starting your own company. That a risk is +EV does not make it a necessary risk.

Surely a more necessary risk than ev-, wouldn't you agree?

More advisable? Yes. More necessary? No.

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

#695

Post by kelukelugames »

guelo wrote: post #283
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.

It's weird to me that this is happening right after the country elected an admitted sexual harasser to be president.

And a VP who doesn't dine alone with women.

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

#696

Post by ableton »

linkregister wrote: post #446
ableton wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't comparing the west to China. I just don't know a whole lot about feminism over there so I didn't include it. Gender is the distinction between men and women. If you eliminate the distinction, which feminism is trying to do as quickly as possible (along with LGBTQFHTKEO), you eliminate the concept of gender alltogether.

You were talking about disliking equality movements in the West. I was adding that it's happening in China and other Asian nations too. So that leaves you with... the Middle East and Africa?

Why do you keep talking about other countries? I wasn't comparing the west to any other country.

Men and women are different. Women have decided that they don't want to be women any more. The results have been disastrous. Families are falling apart today. 60% of people in prison come from home without dad. We have more money than ever, and less happiness. People are so silly. They confuse money and power with happiness. Incidentally all the divorce that comes thanks to women actually leads to more poverty. (2/3 of divorces among college educated come from women)

Most people have been thoroughly brainwashed. There are only a rare few like Neo who the programming just doesn't quite work for.

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

#697

Post by femwarrior »

morgante wrote: post #493
jakelazaroff wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also want to reply to #4. The thing that differentiates the sexual harassment in most of these cases is that there's a power imbalance. Being hit on becomes much scarier if declining might jeopardize your job or your startup's funding.

Does that mean that powerful men should never hit on women? A rich and powerful VC is almost always going to have more power than any woman he meets. Even if they're not actively raising money or trying to get a job, he's still a powerful man who could someday offer those things. I'm not trying to be trite here, but I really do wonder what the line is. Even as a man, I certainly pay attention to my interactions with…

I think the "position" of power thing is often overblown. Most women are not prostitutes, so they are perfectly capable of turning down some money (in the VC case). For employees, it might be scarier, but employees shouldn't be slaves to begin with.

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

#698

Post by kelukelugames »

refurb wrote: post #216

For everyone who is wondering why these people act the way they do, the answer is that their actions work some of the time . Otherwise, why would they do it if they continually strike out? What one person might see as harassment, another might see as an exciting "chase". I've known women who have had guys be very aggressive (it's a fine line) and they were quite taken by it. This of course is not excusing the behavio…

>Otherwise, why would they do it if they continually strike out?

lol, I know lots of guys who strike out every time. I suspect they repeat behavior because they don't know any better and it's low effort and low risk.

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

#699

Post by bt4u2 »

sokoloff wrote: post #694
bt4u2 wrote: post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely a more necessary risk than ev-, wouldn't you agree?

More advisable? Yes. More necessary? No.

Okay then. It took you a while, and a few unnecessary (ho ho ho) downvotes of my posts but we finally agree: The smart move for any male leader is to never spend any 1on1 time with female subordinates, and unfortunately ignore how that might affect her career

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

#700

Post by mdorazio »

erohead wrote: post #687
ig1 wrote: post #658

I feel deeply uncomfortable on 500 Startups positions on this ( https://500.co/making-changes-at-500/ ) for four reasons: 1) 500Startups considered these issues to be serious enough to remove McClure from his role but didn't publicly disclose this. This meant that he presumably could continue to meet female founders and other WIT while still appearing to be in a position of power. 2) A number of LPs in 500 have state…

How do you know that this didn't all go down in last 72 hours?

Because they say as much right in the second paragraph?

"In recent months, we found out that my co-founder Dave McClure had inappropriate interactions with women in the tech community."

"In recent months" is a hell of a lot longer than "In the last 72 hours."

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