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Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

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Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#141

Post by Mithaldu »

Joeri wrote: post #115
Boothroid wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pao's appointment at Reddit always struck me as odd. Was she really the best person they could find?

Well, obviously she was the best person, otherwise they would not have hired her. The definition of "best" is malleable. You may not understand the reasons why they chose her, but clearly they had them.

> "she was the best person"

No, based on the evidence she seemed to be the best person.

I don't have much of an opinion on what exactly happened, but your claim there is overly confident.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#143

Post by stonewhite »

archagon wrote: post #130
stonewhite wrote: post #128

I can't help but feel that this story doesn't really add up. > I recommended that she not report it. She is sharing her story with her team, possibly seeking ways of retribution, and when she finds out a story that can help her cause, and _this_ is her response? To what end?

Empathy?

You don't just go around in a company naming a senior partner and his exploits for "Empathy", not when the stakes are that high.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#144

Post by arkitaip »

ramblerman wrote: post #76
jmkni wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way she was treated, though, was disgusting. I have zero doubt that her gender/ethnicity was a major motivating factor for the majority of people involved in this backlash and that a white male in the same position would have pretty much gotten a pass from the same people. /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/revengeporn where two incredibly toxic subreddits, and I was personally happy to see them go.

> /r/fatpeoplehate and /r/revengeporn where two incredibly toxic subreddits, and I was personally happy to see them go. I agree, but we were discussing motive. It's not unfair to expect reddit's leadership to have some insight into its userbase. If I took ownership of vogue tomorrow and introduced articles about bmx racing, that would be a dumb move. I could complain that the readership doesn't understand bmx racing…

Not only are you misrepresenting what Pao did and didn't do at Reddit, your analogy is poor too. The subreddits in question were utter trash, maybe even illegal in how they targeted people, and a very poor representation of what Reddit is.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#145

Post by dmitrygr »

Powerofmene wrote: post #135
dmitrygr wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: very very few filed and very few won

Per the EEOC, in 2015 171 claims were filed for sexual harassment by men. While it is a tremendously small percentage of the more than 6,000 claims, I would assume like domestic violence, men are exceedingly reluctant to file for personal reasons.

And somehow this isn't a topic being forced unto the front page by mods :)

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#146

Post by icebraining »

zakk wrote: post #117
archagon wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Person sues powerful firm for rightful reasons → powerful firm hires people to stir the mud → mud-stirrers create controversy → story now has "two sides" → balance fallacy causes powerful firm to come out on top in the public eye. I think it's also important to remember this pattern. It's been coming up a lot in recent years.

> "rightful reasons" Not according to the judge. You may say they were rightful, and many people are discussing it. But at the same time you have to understand that a person trained and appointed to determine if the reasons are rightful, said they are not. That's were the story started to have two sides.

Not according to the judge.

Jury.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#147

Post by gizmo »

dreta wrote: post #69

An interesting read. Though, for me, VC in general is not the kind of job that favors people who are nice. When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. For me, it set the tone for the whole article, and painted a clear pictur…

I disagree. Ellen Pao is a woman of color, and she has no choice but to be aware of how she is perceived by others and by white men in particular. White guys can afford to be color blind, because racism doesn't affect them personally. She doesn't have that luxury.

A coworker showing up at your hotelroom door in a bathrobe is not "rude". It's textbook sexual harassment. Sexual harassment isn't just in the eye of the beholder, there are clear rules for professional conduct and those rules were repeatedly violated. Note that the _majority_ of women in tech report having been sexually harassed to some degree. So I don't think your skepticism about sexual harassment is helpful, given how ubiquitous it is.

Your suggestion that Pao has a specific negative attitude towards white men (i.e. she dislikes white men) is beyond the pale. This is a really underhanded attempt to discredit her.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#148

Post by ahakki »

dmitrygr wrote: post #119
narag wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mark your comment as sarcasm, but that point has been made seriously many times. There's no discrimination if you're part of the powerful majority, even if as an individual you're powerless. It's fair or it isn't, IDK, but it's no joke, that's for sure.

Hm. So treating me as a part of an allegedly uniform class "powerful men" is ok? But treating others as part of a uniform mass isn't? Curious. Learning so much

You should probably try and learn even more.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#149

Post by Powerofmene »

dreta wrote: post #69

An interesting read. Though, for me, VC in general is not the kind of job that favors people who are nice. When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. For me, it set the tone for the whole article, and painted a clear pictur…

> When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism.

What specifically are you referring to as being rude or trying to use you?

If seems based on the legal definition of sexual harassment it was sexism it was harassment and then when they excluded her from meetings, sought negative reviews from people she worked with, withheld positive reviews in order to give her negative performance reviews and ultimately say her work had not improved over time they retaliated for her rejected unwanted advances.

So it was not sexism it was sexual harassment and retailiation. Just because she did not win her court case does not make it less illegal behavior. It appears she was out-gunned.

Ellen, as I see it, refers to sexism in the industry in the general aggregate....the hiring of few females, the treatment and harassment of women, the lack of promotions that qualified women receive, the lower pay, the unwarranted and unwanted comments, the unwarranted and unwanted texts, the lack of diversity, etc.

Re: Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t

#150

Post by mrleiter »

Imagine being constantly reduced to your body. No matter what you do. That hurts. It simply does. It takes away everything you are responsible for, your intelligence, your success, your ideas. You are nothing more than an object for the opposite gender (in most cases women are objectified as a matter of fact, but there is also objectification by women). A little more empathy would do much good.
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