Ellen Pao: My lawsuit failed. Others won’t • Hacker News Board

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

#331

Post by AsyncAwait » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:08 PM UTC

interstitial wrote: post #302

bobcostas55 wrote: post #287

>and downplays the impact of obvious and unobjectionable steps like [..] "give expectant mothers maternity leave" This is a bit off-topic, but maternity leave is neither obvious nor unobjectionable. There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression. Have a look at: * The impact of Nordic countries’ family friendly policies on…

Stop posting evidence, you can see by your downvotes, that when HN asks for "substantive" comments it surely doesn't mean evidence-based.

I got the impression that the downvotes are because of:

> There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression.

Which is not untrue, but has nothing to do with why maternity leave is beneficial, namely for the individual.

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

#332

Post by p49k » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:10 PM UTC

bane wrote: post #290

I think it's very important to parse Pao from the reprehensible behavior she describes in her workplace. Being polite, Pao does not come off well in her own personal story. But she was also swimming in a garbage pit. I have no doubt that what she writes about is true, and probably even holds back on much of the frat house nonsense. There can be entire semesters spent at school exploring other avenues that she might h…

What specific behaviors of Pao would you compare to the constant harassment and mistreatment she experienced at KP? From my recollection, most of the criticism she received was related to poor decisions she made at Reddit, and it has since been revealed by Yishan Wong that she was not actually the person who made those decisions and that she was used as a scapegoat.

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

#333

Post by jadeklerk » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:14 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #183

Articles like this really make me aware that men and women like Ellen Pao and her former partners live in a separate parallel world: three degrees, $10 million golden parachutes, private jet flights to ski resorts, affairs with a creepy married co-worker in Germany, machismo-driven muscling for VC connections, bisexual finance wizards who kickstart an Ivy-League LGBT program, dominance games over which chair an exec…

Sorry, what is 'hiring junior devs from the ranks of biology grads' intended to help with?

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

#334

Post by kelukelugames » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:15 PM UTC

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 don't think it's fair to interpret every rude behavior as 100% due to sexism. Nor is it okay to dismiss all sexist behavior as general rudeness. Some people are treated some times different by some people partly due to their gender and race.

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

#335

Post by kelukelugames » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:17 PM UTC

b4ux1t3 wrote: post #299

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #198

Sexism in Silicon Valley or sexism among the corporate elites? I doubt the average tech worker, who doesn't travel in private jets, casually talks about porn actresses and sex workers at their job. However, I have often heard and read such anecdotes about elite executives, also in non-tech sectors. I'd say that kind of attitude is more related to the impunity that comes with power than with tech or non-tech.

> I doubt the average tech worker, who doesn't travel in private jets, casually talks about porn actresses and sex workers at their job Or, if they do, they look both ways before doing so. The old joke "How does every racist joke start? By looking around" applies pretty handily.

Hits too close to home. I had a co worker who would only tell "jokes" when the manager or the one woman on the team wasn't around.

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

#336

Post by uniformlyrandom » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

p49k wrote: post #332

bane wrote: post #290

I think it's very important to parse Pao from the reprehensible behavior she describes in her workplace. Being polite, Pao does not come off well in her own personal story. But she was also swimming in a garbage pit. I have no doubt that what she writes about is true, and probably even holds back on much of the frat house nonsense. There can be entire semesters spent at school exploring other avenues that she might h…

What specific behaviors of Pao would you compare to the constant harassment and mistreatment she experienced at KP? From my recollection, most of the criticism she received was related to poor decisions she made at Reddit, and it has since been revealed by Yishan Wong that she was not actually the person who made those decisions and that she was used as a scapegoat.

> revealed by Yishan Wong

If what he said could be trusted. He also made a bunch of questionable decisions at Reddit, so I take whatever he says with a grain of salt.

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

#337

Post by jellicle » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:19 PM UTC

bobcostas55 wrote: post #287

>and downplays the impact of obvious and unobjectionable steps like [..] "give expectant mothers maternity leave" This is a bit off-topic, but maternity leave is neither obvious nor unobjectionable. There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression. Have a look at: * The impact of Nordic countries’ family friendly policies on…

No, there's no evidence that paid maternity leaves harm women's wages or career progression. Uniformly across the world, paid maternity leaves correlate strongly with more gender equality in the workforce, including in pay and career progression.

In general, in countries with good parental leave policies, it is forbidden to discriminate against parents for taking them. The returning worker is entitled by law to return at the place he/she would have been assuming he/she had worked continuously.

Your comment is like saying that outlawing murder makes more murders happen. It takes a whole lot of motivated reasoning to make that leap.

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

#338

Post by davrosthedalek » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #300

bobcostas55 wrote: post #287

>and downplays the impact of obvious and unobjectionable steps like [..] "give expectant mothers maternity leave" This is a bit off-topic, but maternity leave is neither obvious nor unobjectionable. There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression. Have a look at: * The impact of Nordic countries’ family friendly policies on…

> long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression Of course it does. What it benefits is the actual human beings in question (child, mother, father). Most humans think that significantly increasing the well-being of your family, and in particular your infant, is a whole fucking lot more important than wages and career progression. Like all things in life it's a trade off, but an unobjectionally g…

RE your analogy, I don't think this is true in general. There are many jobs/people where the downtime is needed to perform better. That's certainly the case for me and in my field.

To your main point: You are absolutely right. Germany, for example, tries to symmetries the problem by allowing fathers to take part of the maternity leave. But of course, especially in high paying jobs where companies have to invest a considerable amount into a worker to train them, a maternity leave, or any other reduction of total working time at the company, will affect the salary. The question is now: Do we, as a society, treat the privilege to raise a child as adequate replacement of the lost salary/promotions etc? If not, who makes up for the difference?

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

#339

Post by cuckcuckspruce » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:22 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #337

bobcostas55 wrote: post #287

>and downplays the impact of obvious and unobjectionable steps like [..] "give expectant mothers maternity leave" This is a bit off-topic, but maternity leave is neither obvious nor unobjectionable. There is significant empirical evidence that shows that policies such as long paid maternity leave harms women's wages and career progression. Have a look at: * The impact of Nordic countries’ family friendly policies on…

No, there's no evidence that paid maternity leaves harm women's wages or career progression. Uniformly across the world, paid maternity leaves correlate strongly with more gender equality in the workforce, including in pay and career progression. In general, in countries with good parental leave policies, it is forbidden to discriminate against parents for taking them. The returning worker is entitled by law to retur…

The claim wasn't that all paid maternity leave harms women's wages. The claim was that _long_ maternity leave _may_ harm women's wages or career progression in Nordic countries.

Please avoid 'hot takes' and read the article listed yourself.

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

#340

Post by b4ux1t3 » Mon, Aug 21, 2017, 2:24 PM UTC

kelukelugames wrote: post #335

b4ux1t3 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I doubt the average tech worker, who doesn't travel in private jets, casually talks about porn actresses and sex workers at their job Or, if they do, they look both ways before doing so. The old joke "How does every racist joke start? By looking around" applies pretty handily.

Hits too close to home. I had a co worker who would only tell "jokes" when the manager or the one woman on the team wasn't around.

I'm not even against the telling of jokes that are. . off-color. But they really don't belong where you might cause distress. If you think something is offensive enough to warrant looking around before saying it, maybe save it for home.

My girlfriend (a Jew) and I crack Jew jokes all the time. . .at home. Even though no one in my workplace is Jewish (that I know of), I still wouldn't crack most of the jokes we use at home in my workplace. It's just not appropriate, not by any reasonable standard.