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

nytimes.com

821–830 of 882 posts

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

#821

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article, and this conversation is about one pathology. You bring up a different one and say "we should treat them equally!" - that's not very different from the "all lives matter" bullshit. Sexism and discrimination of women in tech industry is a massive problem. What you described probably exists in some cases, but is not a) related to the problem at hand and b) orders of magnitude less profound. By bringing it…

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…

>> But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men

Btw, this does not compute. Those instances are "rare" but those men have "likely" witnessed them? When something is rare, most are unlikely to witness it.

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

#822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article, and this conversation is about one pathology. You bring up a different one and say "we should treat them equally!" - that's not very different from the "all lives matter" bullshit. Sexism and discrimination of women in tech industry is a massive problem. What you described probably exists in some cases, but is not a) related to the problem at hand and b) orders of magnitude less profound. By bringing it…

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…

[deleted]

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

#823

Avoiding this situation is why I never meet women 1:1 outside of conference rooms, yet Mike Pence was roundly mocked for doing this.

What do you mean? Are you implying that you make sure you're never alone with women in order to avoid sexually harassing them?

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

#824
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…

> 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 reason enough to take pause for a moment

I don't know the exact situation here, but to be fair, if you were mostly flirting with someone and it was not a hiring situation, this would not be an unflattering thing to say - "hey, I like you and I think you are smart and capable". If in his mind they met as social acquaintances and in hers they met as business acquaintances, it's easy to see how it would seem reasonable to him and horrifying to her.

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

#825

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could not be more wrong. This absolutely works for some people, and both participants enjoy it.

This is probably what the dudes in the NYTimes article think to themselves, too.

You need to get out more. People have different preferences when it comes to sexual interactions.

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

#826

> 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…

In this particular case, Caldbeck was exclusively (and clumsily) harassing Asian women.

Despite this aspect of the case, framing it as a problem of being "nonwhite" implies that Caldbeck's harassment extended to black or hispanic women for example, which it did not.

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

#827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically, power corrupts. No, it doesn't; that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful. Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.

that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful. Huh? Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses. You just said the same thing!

No, if you want to shorten mine it's “Power provides opportunities for existing corruption to show”, which is quite different than “Power corrupts.”

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

#828
post #813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe worse than most other major industries today. Many people say this but I wonder why they believe it.

Did you read the linked article? People believe there's a gender problem in tech because there is a gender problem in tech. These stories are pervasive . I'd encourage you to ask a woman who's been in the industry and while of they've ever been treated unfairly. Women are almost exactly half of the workforce in the US, but hold only 25% of the jobs in computing. So that would imply the industry is worse than average.…

I guess I don't know what "major industries" people are talking about. For example, earlier in the thread Hollywood and finance are mentioned -- but these are definitely industries with a long history of law suits in this area.

With regards to "...ask a woman..." and "...the fact that other industries may also have a gender problem..." -- neither of these remarks have anything to do with what I said. I have some doubts about the claim posted earlier, to the effect that tech is worse than other "major industries", because I have never seen anything to back that up -- but two wrongs do not make a right and I never said anything like that.

To support these ideas I guess I would like to know, what are these major industries and what are the axes of comparison?

If this kind of factual scrutiny seems wrong in the face of the present emergency, I have to ask you: when would it ever be right?

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

#829

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?

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14675616 and marked it off-topic.

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

#830
post #811
post #631

This is silly. Don't reduce me to some risk averse weakling because I'm not willing to put my neck out for strangers for little to no reward. If you're like that, and you regularly go to Africa to help people, more power to you. I'm not. Most people are not.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14676851 and marked it off-topic.

You did it 1 comment too late. Please fix
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