>“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…
Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
61–70 of 216 posts
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#62Cry 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'm not here to pile on, I just want to understand why this point of view is so common. I have always felt incredibly blessed by my circumstances (straight white male). Would you really rather be some other gender and/or race? Do you truly believe it would make life easier?
Thus, they cannot "put themselves in the shoes" of another person experiencing different challenges than themselves. For example, think of every Republican who is anti-gay until their kid comes out (Cheney), misogynistic except when it comes to their daughter, or opposes abortion until they need one, etc.
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
The sexism I see in her post: Upon joining, her manager sexually propositioned her; a subsequent manager sabotaged her performance reviews and attempts at transferring to keep a woman on his team; they gave leather jackets to SREs as a gift, but would only get jackets made for men (I think this is what you refer to as "the shirts"); she recalls many emails that she does not describe; HR claims she is the problem in a…
Honestly, it sounds like a sociopath was in charge of HR.
The very topmost post in this thread you're posting in discusses how people should be educated that the whole function of HR is not to be a moral arbiter, but to protect the company's financial interests, which is 100% true IMO.
Therefore, it seems that nearly every company of any size has a sociopath running HR. How else can you explain people who would protect sexual predators in their companies and enable victims to be abused, all because it improves the company's bottom line?
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#64Speaking of Uber and Susan Fowler - had the current CEO frog marched out everyone that authorized, worked on, did not block, did not fight against what she experienced especially after the publication of her post? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/books/review/susan-fowler... If not, why has not the board frog marched the current CEO out?
Such destructive cleaning of house creates the wrong incentives. Most of the people involved would have lacked either the full story or the power to do anything about it. If it's a fireable offense to be near a big scandal, the rational response isn't to start fighting against the problems you see - it's to build a massive silo to minimize the number of problems you can see.
That's the accountability. Someone makes a decision. That someone gets to be accountable.
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#65Cry 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…
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I remember reading that post and being surprised how little of it was actually sexism (the only thing I saw that qualified was the thing about the shirts), and how much of it was just maltreatment of programmers of all types. But I guess if you have to slap the label "sexism" on it to get it to be taken seriously, we take what we can get.
I have to disagree. > Some of the women even had stories about reporting the exact same manager I had reported, and had reported inappropriate interactions with him long before I had even joined the company. It became obvious that both HR and management had been lying about this being "his first offense", and it certainly wasn't his last. Within a few months, he was reported once again for inappropriate behavior, and…
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#67That first article she wrote, exposing the culture at Uber, was profoundly upsetting and an important moment in the history of our industry. Kudos to her for standing up to one the most egregiously hostile work environments I've ever read about.
Susan Fowler is a hero; it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage to hit the 'send' button while knowing her life was going to change. My niece is about to graduate into the SDE work force and I have little doubt that the culture is incrementally better because of Fowler.
Google didn't help with this acronym.
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#68>“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…
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#69Cry 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…
For hundreds of years, women were in effect property of men. They would go from being controlled by their fathers to their husbands. Their legal rights were narrowly circumscribed, and their practical rights were even smaller.
This is on the decline, but the changes are quite recent. Women couldn't vote until 1920. It wasn't until 1974 that women in the US could generally get credit without a male cosigner. It wasn't until 1993 that the US fully outlawed a husband raping his wife. It wasn't until 2005 that half the law and medicine degrees went to women. And, as Fowler demonstrated, there is still significant anti-woman bias backed up by institutional power, even at newly formed companies in that most forward-thinking industry, tech.
That's what sexism is: gender bias plus systemic power leading to broad harm in a way that maintains that systemic power.
So no, there's no such thing as "sexism against men" because even if non-men had sufficient bias, they don't have the power. Most of the things you're complaining about are not "sexism against men", they're anti-sexist action, working to dismantle centuries of oppression.
Now I get that we dudes losing our systemic power is uncomfortable. Loss of privilege is still a loss, and loss is never fun. But you have a choice. You can retreat into MRA/incel lingo, become bitter over that loss, and eventually die cranky about how things were better in your day, when men ran things. Or you can decide that sexism is bad, work to dismantle it, and be pleased to see a little progress toward freedom. I know which I'm picking.
Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such destructive cleaning of house creates the wrong incentives. Most of the people involved would have lacked either the full story or the power to do anything about it. If it's a fireable offense to be near a big scandal, the rational response isn't to start fighting against the problems you see - it's to build a massive silo to minimize the number of problems you can see.
There were people who authorized either employees or contractors to harass her, dig the dirt out on her, etc, etc, etc. There were people who read/compiled/presented that information to the higher ups in management/executive levels. Did those people write memos/emails to their bosses saying that based on their view they should not be doing it but since they may not be fully aware of the full context they need their b…