Clearly a case of "I want to speak with the engineer and not the manager/ceo/lawyer". Sad to see people still trying this kind of shenanigans.
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#12Karen made a mistake by writing the tweet, and Bradley made a mistake by writing this article. It became clear to me while reading it that Bradley is either not that socially aware or doesn’t really have Karen’s best interests at heart. He should have found a way to phase himself out of the organization, or at least refrain from writing an article that could be summarized as “I’m disappointed that nobody really respe…
It felt like self-aggrandizement disguised as an article about sexism.
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#13Clearly a case of "I want to speak with the engineer and not the manager/ceo/lawyer". Sad to see people still trying this kind of shenanigans.
Indeed, looking at the tweet, it seems that the senior tech director wanted go have hand-on information about how things are going, not marketing speech from someone at the top.
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#14Concluding sexism here seems overzealous. If Sandler were a man, I could still see all the same confusion due to Kuhn's history at the organization. Expecting hierarchical nomenclature to change external perceptions is a bit naive. I agree with others here that Kuhn should have stepped down completely if he really wanted pass on the organization, otherwise it's not exactly clear what role he plays. It's like expecting people not to associate GvR with Python.
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#15Can somebody explain me why the situation described in the tweet is an example of sexism? The person wants to donate, and wants to speak with some other person about it with which he is comfortable dealing. That person happens to be male and his boss (the author of the tweet) happens to be female. Why does it make the situation sexist? Is there an obligation that if I contact somebody in the organization to make a donation, I must speak to a person of an opposite gender or I will appear sexist? Is there something else in the situation that did not fit in a tweet? How this situation is a no-win for Karen Sandler - isn't she getting the donation her organization needs, and having her employee do the work that is his job? Maybe she wanted to speak with that person instead, so maybe that is not all-win, but it doesn't seem to be no-win. What am I missing here?
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#16Clearly a case of "I want to speak with the engineer and not the manager/ceo/lawyer". Sad to see people still trying this kind of shenanigans.
Indeed, looking at the tweet, it seems that the senior tech director wanted go have hand-on information about how things are going, not marketing speech from someone at the top.
I've had to do the same with suppliers and software vendors.
A quick one-on-one with the "tech person" has often been far more informative & accurate than anything I've heard from the execs or senior managers.
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#17What kind of political crap being submitted in hn now a days. Pretty rare to see any technical business things. Just politics.
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#18Without trivializing institutionalized sexism, the author's highly submissive (almost grovelling) attitude makes me feel uncomfortable, not because of the genders of those involved but because he seems to let the workplace hierarchy completely define both himself and the boss. I am not familiar with the author, but is it unfathomable that he has accomplished something that some donor would like to speak to him about…
I got zero sense of a 'highly submissive (almost grovelling) attitude'.
I got a strong sense of irritation and annoyance that people still, after many years, have not understood the organizational structure. He's using repetition to make it clear, in no uncertain terms, that his boss really is his boss.
Kuhn writes "I can't think of a single reason this donor could want to speak to me that would not be more productive if he instead spoke with Karen."
Since you don't know what he's done, why do you second-guess his explicit statement by positing "is it unfathomable that he has accomplished something that some donor would like to speak to him about privately."
Apparently yes, it is unfathomable to Kuhn and Sandler.
True, it's possible that the donor is (say) hoping for a private meeting with Kuhn to proposition him for a one-night stand - we can imagine many such scenarios which are broader than the simple context of a donor relationship to a non-profit. But these then become much more improbable than the stated view that the donor used a gender biased viewpoint to misjudge the dynamics involved.
You write "they are being very assuming about the donor's motives and beliefs" - but compare that with Kuhn's phrase "repeatedly insisted that the donation was gated on a conversation with me". If there were a reasonable explanation, perhaps based on Kuhn's past accomplishments, why didn't the donor say so explicitly?
Or are you proposing that the donor did say so, and that Kuhn is hiding the response, in order to misdirect us? You know little of him, so what is the basis of your doubt?
I cannot easily reconcile what you wrote, when I compare it to the original text, as something other than trivializing institutionalized sexism.
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#19To me the situation is explained too vaguely to tell: exec tells current charity director that he wants to talk with previous charity director before making a donation. If we weren't talking about donations, I would say that's definitely impolite, but in this case I'm not sure. And we don't have info about whether they previously knew each other or not, so I wouldn't dare to judge yet in this case without more info.…
Not just "tells current charity director" but "repeatedly insisted".
In what situations would it be reasonable to gate a donation on having a private conversation with an employee, instead of having a join conversation with both the employee and the executive director?
The only ones I can think of involve fraud or other form of distrust. But in that case, why is the exec considering a donation, when the person the exec wants to talk to doesn't have the power to control the donation?
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#20Without trivializing institutionalized sexism, the author's highly submissive (almost grovelling) attitude makes me feel uncomfortable, not because of the genders of those involved but because he seems to let the workplace hierarchy completely define both himself and the boss. I am not familiar with the author, but is it unfathomable that he has accomplished something that some donor would like to speak to him about…
It’s also worth pointing out that role changes take time for people to realize. This guy used to be the executive director and people knew him as that guy. All of a sudden Karen replaces him and everybody is instantly supposed to treat her as in charge and totally disregard their previous relationship with him? Come on.
The exec holding back the donation wasn’t holding it back to speak to a man, he was holding it back to speak to Bradley. The whole peice feels contrived and I feel like it diminishes real sexism that women face. It’s not sexism to want to skip the hierarchy and talk to the person who has been a heavyweight in the organization and wider community for decades.