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Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

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Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#41

Post by komali2 »

wavepruner wrote: post #32
komali2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and white men in particular It's difficult for a man to experience sexism at the level a woman does for the same reason that it's nearly impossible for a white person to experience racism. Going this out of your way to "defend" white men is in direct opposition to the cause of feminism and fighting racism for a simple reason: centrism favors the status quo, and the status quo is still in 2020 that a baby born in Am…

"the status quo is still in 2020 that a baby born in America white and male is among the luckiest babies in history." Millions of these "luckiest" babies are suffering from crippling illnesses, yet they are treated like they are awash with privilege solely because they are white and male. This is racism and sexism. Disabled white men are not privileged.

They're certainly more privileged than disabled black babies.

Take any example you like. Poor. Genetic disease. Whatever. Stick black on that baby and you've just made their lives another degree harder.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#42

Post by dudul »

komali2 wrote: post #29
dudul wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For example, in this very thread Can you provide quotes and/or links to examples?

Turn on the ability to view flagged comments and scroll down.

So 1 comment with 17 negative responses in a full thread of 36 comments is "the majority of the community?

That's kind of the part that really surprised me. That it exists, OK, but "the majority" in this thread? I feel like on the contrary, in the scope of this thread, it is a tiny minority.

Edit: Since I can't reply to the comment below. By "17 negative responses" I meant negative to the one "bad" comment.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#43

Post by jerf »

devchix wrote: post #24
Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

"Why must it be this way[?]"

Follow the money.

I don't mean that as snark; I'm serious. I think people in general don't follow the money enough. Even some people who occasionally advocate for it are very selective about it and frequently just treat it as a slur to deploy sometimes. But it's more important than that. It should always be part of the analysis of a business. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the beneficiary of it.

In the case of HR, if you are a productive, profit-center worker for the company, you may in fact at least be partially paying for it, and may get treated accordingly, though I wouldn't count on that for much. But if you are not clearly in that category....

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#44

Post by dangus »

raxxorrax wrote: post #37
dangus wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Escalation never helps. I think we have to acknowledge that discrimination and oppression will be followed by retaliation. Even if white people and men are treating black people and women, respectively, with perfect equity (spoiler alert, they’re still not), those groups have already been wronged and have been conditioned to understand that those people consider them to be sub-human. It is logical for women and black…

No, you get there by minimizing discrimination. The black man in your case is the offender by insinuating racism. Your idea is to sanction innocents. edit: for some form karmic or historical justice that I would think is pretty flawed.

I actually do think he’s in the wrong as well, in this particular case, I agree.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this person has already been affected by racism. The only hope there is to allow the passage of generations to ease that pain.

In other words, by engaging and escalating the argument, even though the white guy was likely correct, he is reinforcing these tensions rather than reducing them.

If people stop treating others badly, you’re left with the next generation scratching their heads saying “my grandma is so racist, it’s so weird, I don’t see the difference” which is what we want.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#45

Post by ra07312006 »

there should be no "WHY" someone had to sacrifice their career/life to expose systemic industry wide treatment of people that is unjust. There is only that this treatment exists and that the industry is not going to progress without everybody's collective effort to change it

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#46

Post by [deleted] »

crimsonalucard wrote: post #8
ecmascript wrote: post #4

Cry me a river, the overwhelming majority of sexism in the IT-industry is towards men and white men in particular. Men also don't get the privilege of getting any media outcry or changes for the sexism against them. Just to give a few examples on top of my head: There has been no conferences that has been [1] shut down or postponed [2] because of the skin color or sex of the speakers. It has definately been so for me…

I don't agree with your opinion, but I vouched for you (after you were flagged) because you didn't violate any of the rules and I believe that your opinion is worth discussing. Feminism can go extreme at times and your opinion has a level of validity. Additionally I would like to probe how a person like you would arrive at that conclusion. Another thing that gets me is that you didn't do anything wrong. You aren't sl…

[deleted]

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#47

Post by wpietri »

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

> I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business.

The problem with running that campaign is that the actual companies, which have much more ability to "educate", will say the exact opposite. "We're different," they say. "We really care about our employees." And as with insurance, one doesn't really find out how good the product is until something pretty bad happens.

I'll also note that in my experience, HR often fails to reach the level of protecting the business. HR's first goal is to protect HR, especially at a dysfunctional company.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#48

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

I could not agree more. I too was once somewhat naive individual thinking HR is there to, you know, make work a place where I don't have to fear of having to go to work each morning.

I won't bore with details. The unit had a high turnover. Since a good chunk of those were people, who eventually just quit, it did not affect company's employment insurance. The boss was the worst boss I could wish on anyone.

Eventually, being a young idiot, I went to HR to complain since it was getting really bad. It helped that a day before I went, another person quit in a rather explosive fashion.

Anyway, moments after HR talk I was placed on an improvement plan of sorts. I won't give you the whole back and forth, but I survived 4 months before I found something better.

As my wife would attest, I was coming back from work livid.

But manager in question was friends with CEO and numbers look good. HR looks at this says: couple of burned out people is just cost of doing business.

Bottom line is.. if you are going to HR, you better have a plan.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#50

Post by jbay808 »

devchix wrote: post #24
Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

I think many people believe on some level that men are on one team helping each other, and women are on a different team helping each other, as though middle school never ended. But in my experience it really isn't like that. Women are often more willing to go out of their way to help men, and men are often more willing to go out of their way to help women. (In general but not true for all individuals. And especially not for abusers, of course!)
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