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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

#541

Post by lists »

aianus wrote: post #487
sangnoir wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter devils advocate - let me remap what you're saying to race: >> racism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. >To play devils advocate, racism is a thing everywhere. In some cases, there are good biological reasons why blacks and whites are treated differently, e.g. basketball (mostly blacks) versus swimming (mostly whites ) If the above doesn't sound insane to you, I don't know what to tell you.

White men represent only 23.3% of NBA players despite white people representing 63% of the greater population of the US. Clearly this is evidence of systemic discrimination against whites and the NBA needs to step up their diversity efforts to balance it out. In addition, blacks need to rein in their offensive and exclusionary 'hip-hop' culture in the NBA as it is making whites uncomfortable and reluctant to join or…

>In addition, blacks need to rein in their offensive and exclusionary 'hip-hop' culture in the NBA as it is making whites uncomfortable and reluctant to join or remain in the league.

Wow. You realize that you, or whoever you read or heard this from, has absolutely no evidence to back this up, right? Not to mention we're talking about passing up millions because someone played Future in the locker room, if there's a white dude that'd do that, I dunno what to say. But best of all is when you listen to white players in the league and how they've picked up black colloquialisms in the speech (listen to Dirk Nowitzski talk), or are rather comfortable doing shit like that time fucking Doug Collins and Jalen Rose were quoting "What happened to that boy?" by Baby and Clipse.

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

#542

Post by yorwba »

DanBC wrote: post #525
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never met anyone who believes women are unfit for STEM . It's a ludicrous idea. I just don't understand why getting offended is supposed to help. I'm reminded of the former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's "Misogyny Speech" speech.[1] Being offended means you've lost . The other party has had the desired affect on you: your energy is diminished by their words. We shouldn't be offended , no. We should fe…

> I've never met anyone who believes women are unfit for STEM. It's a ludicrous idea. They post to HN every now and again. I can't link because their posts usually get flagkilled, or their accounts are dead from other fuckwittery. But it happens.

If you have showdead on, linking to dead comments should be possible. I'm not sure whether seeing the linked comment would still require showdead, though.

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

#543

Post by barsonme »

slackstation wrote: post #532
barsonme wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another interesting anecdote is Kai Cole (Joss Wheadon's ex-wife): http://www.thewrap.com/joss-whedon-feminist-hypocrite-infide...

That is such a strange article. It shackles Joss Wheadon with this additional moral failing for cheating on his wife as if his feminist ideal should stop him from falling for the trappings that all rich powerful people go through. Somehow because he has particular views of the equality of men and women, it should give him an above average amount of will power to stop himself from temptation? Feminism is a political s…

> Somehow because he has particular views of the equality of men and women, it should give him an above average amount of will power to stop himself from temptation?

I don't know.

From my own reading of her article, it seemed like her (feminism-related) issue stemmed from him using feminism as both a shield and excuse to pick up women.

But, to _try_ to answer your—perhaps rhetorical—question, I'd say yes to the extent that somebody who talks the talk should walk the walk. Having extramarital affairs isn't respecting your wife. IMO, it's similar to an unabashed anti/non-racist repeatedly using racial slurs. Like, there's a bit of dissonance there that needs to be spoken to.

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

#544

Post by aianus »

lists wrote: post #541
aianus wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White men represent only 23.3% of NBA players despite white people representing 63% of the greater population of the US. Clearly this is evidence of systemic discrimination against whites and the NBA needs to step up their diversity efforts to balance it out. In addition, blacks need to rein in their offensive and exclusionary 'hip-hop' culture in the NBA as it is making whites uncomfortable and reluctant to join or…

>In addition, blacks need to rein in their offensive and exclusionary 'hip-hop' culture in the NBA as it is making whites uncomfortable and reluctant to join or remain in the league. Wow. You realize that you, or whoever you read or heard this from, has absolutely no evidence to back this up, right? Not to mention we're talking about passing up millions because someone played Future in the locker room, if there's a w…

Woosh

(it's a play on current PC tropes on the lack of women in tech and how insane they sound when applied to race/nba)

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

#545

Post by gorbachev »

Joeri wrote: post #106

It's easy to get hung up on the particulars of Pao's story and get sidetracked into defending or judging her, but I feel that is besides the point. I am more interested in the wider notion of why she wrote this article: to point out that sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity? Getting hit on by someone higher up…

"I'm wondering though: is this just about sexism, or is it about professionalism and maturity?"

I don't think it has anything to do with either one of those things, but everything to do with some people just being sociopaths. It seems to be concentrating on people with power over others.

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

#546

Post by nitrogen »

sushid wrote: post #522
nitrogen wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to defend frat culture, but who defines what topics are or are not publicly discussable, and where is this list maintained? Aren't taboos sometimes more harmful than whatever harm the taboo is supposed to prevent?

I'm confused. Either you're legitimately asking for a list or you are trying to say since there's no way such a list exists, we should be allowed to "publicly" discuss whatever we'd like in the company of coworkers. You're probably better off asking your HR for a training if you can't fathom what topics may be appropriate for work or not. But most of it is common sense. Is it sexual/racial or otherwise offensive to s…

It's clear that I've been misunderstood, and I'm not sure how to rectify the misunderstanding. This makes it difficult to have actual discussions about this topic that don't devolve into bandwagon parades.

If we had always followed the "don't say it" default, then it would still be considered offensive to advocate for LGBT or religious or gender rights in the workplace. This is what I meant by taboos being sometimes harmful.

Everything I've seen in all the jobs I've worked shows a massive disconnect between "HR reality" and actual reality. I've seen women openly and proudly objectifying male subordinates in company meetings. I've seen men spending extensive time distracting their female coworkers with no consequences. I've seen women objectifying the "hot catering delivery boy". I've seen salesjerks harassing and flirting and getting away with it, while genuine people are slapped down for trivialities. The loudest and most prolific swearing I've ever heard was in a company with a highly religiously conservative employee demographic.

Nowhere have I seen a workplace where people robotically clock in, work silently, and clock out. Never have I seen a workplace free of non-work-related conversations.

People spend a majority of their waking time at work or on work-related matters. A sizable proportion of couples report meeting each other at work. There's simply no such thing as a work-only workplace. The HR-ification of society only facilitates the kind of abuse and discrimination that the devious get away with and the genuine get blamed for.

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

#547

Post by adekok »

sangnoir wrote: post #397
adekok wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. To play devils advocate, sexism is a thing everywhere . In some cases, there are good biological reasons why men and women are treated differently, e.g. child care (mostly women) versus hard physical labor (mostly men) Where those biological differences aren't effective (e.g. typing on a keyboard), then yes, men and women should be treated the same. But even with…

Counter devils advocate - let me remap what you're saying to race: >> racism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. >To play devils advocate, racism is a thing everywhere. In some cases, there are good biological reasons why blacks and whites are treated differently, e.g. basketball (mostly blacks) versus swimming (mostly whites ) If the above doesn't sound insane to you, I don't know what to tell you.

> Counter devils advocate - let me remap what you're saying to race:

That makes about as much sense as saying "let me remap what you're saying to hair color"

> If the above doesn't sound insane to you, I don't know what to tell you.

It does sound insane, because it is insane.

But it's your text. Not mine.

The problem is that you're making the following insinuation:

there are no more differences between men and women than between black people and white people

That statement is simply not true. In terms of physical prowess, men are stronger, faster, etc. There is just no question:

* the record for mens "clean and jerk" is as much as the womans record... plus the woman who's doing the record

* national / olympic womens teams (soccer, baseball, etc.) compete with mens high school teams... and lose.

* the records for swimming, sprinting, marathon, etc. show huge difference by sex

What is insane is denying biological reality, while insinuating I'm no better than a racist.

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

#548

Post by adekok »

enraged_camel wrote: post #351
adekok wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sexism in tech is a thing, and that it shouldn't be. To play devils advocate, sexism is a thing everywhere . In some cases, there are good biological reasons why men and women are treated differently, e.g. child care (mostly women) versus hard physical labor (mostly men) Where those biological differences aren't effective (e.g. typing on a keyboard), then yes, men and women should be treated the same. But even with…

>>But even with that, there may be biological reasons why men and women are interested in different things. Which may mean more women in job A, or more men in job B. You say biological reasons, I say social programming. The whole nature vs. nurture debate has been going on for ages. Basically, we have no way of knowing what portion of women's tendencies to gravitate towards certain jobs and careers can be attributed…

> You say biological reasons, I say social programming.

The science says biological reasons:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon_Baron-Cohen/publi...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/belinda-parmar/sugar-and-spice...

Among others...

> Basically, we have no way of knowing what portion of women's tendencies to gravitate towards certain jobs and careers can be attributed to biological factors vs. to the way they were raised by their parents and conditioned by society.

That isn't true, either.

Let's look at Sweden, which is a modern egalitarian society. If society is largely gender-blind, then people should overwhelmingly make "free" choices. i.e. choices which are strongly influenced by biology.

And we see that. Jobs in Sweden are still overwhelmingly split by gender. Engineers are overwhelmingly male, and people-oriented jobs (nurse, etc.) are overwhelmingly female.

Here's another discussion of gender differences:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/games-primates-play/201...

To deny that men and women are psychologically different is to claim that evolution / biology works on the physical attributes, but does not work on the corresponding mental attributes.

That claim just cannot possibly be true.

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

#549

Post by oh_sigh »

linkregister wrote: post #445
oh_sigh wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read my post? I was saying that perhaps she is indeed solely motivated by money. Turning down easy money in the chance to strike it big from the civil suit. If you only see the first part, then she apparently isn't motivated by money. But with the second part it becomes a possibility again.

What is your estimate for the potential upside?

I don't know ... Dozens of millions?
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