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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

#131

Post by username90 »

danso wrote: post #100
rndgermandude wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the propositioning for sex, a uni buddy of mine was propositioned during an interview for an internship by his male interviewer (buddy is gay, interviewer likely is too). It was absolutely vile, unsettling behavior, and it made me think it might be more common than I previously thought. Later, one of my sisters told us about how she applied for some job at a startup (not an IT related job), and after the in…

> What I guess I am trying to say is that this kind of vile behavior is in fact pretty common, unfortunately, and also not necessarily only something men do to women (although I am sure it is more prevalent in that direction). But most of it I wouldn't attribute it to sexism, but to assholes being assholes. So it's true that being propositioned for sex by someone who has authority over you is not something exclusivel…

> an ostensibly non-sexist HR/management would sanction the manager, not Fowler

Are you sure they would have sanctioned the manager if he was gay and harassing a gay subordinate? Everything I've seen says that women are taken much more seriously than men on issues like this, so I'd bet that they wouldn't. They took his side since he was more valuable to the company, not because she was a woman.

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

#132

Post by carapace »

komali2 wrote: post #118
ecmascript wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it seems like you and I live in parallel universes. I don't believe these attitudes are still in place and I believe today's people have nothing to do with what happened 500 years ago for example. I am not responsible for what other people have done so I expect not to be treated as such. In my experience, men are subjects of sexism in the IT industry to a far greater extent than women are. We never hear of this…

> happened 500 years ago for example. I think you should Google when it became illegal in the USA for a man to rape his wife.

Heck, women couldn't wear pants until about a minute ago.

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

#133

Post by rndgermandude »

danso wrote: post #100
rndgermandude wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the propositioning for sex, a uni buddy of mine was propositioned during an interview for an internship by his male interviewer (buddy is gay, interviewer likely is too). It was absolutely vile, unsettling behavior, and it made me think it might be more common than I previously thought. Later, one of my sisters told us about how she applied for some job at a startup (not an IT related job), and after the in…

> What I guess I am trying to say is that this kind of vile behavior is in fact pretty common, unfortunately, and also not necessarily only something men do to women (although I am sure it is more prevalent in that direction). But most of it I wouldn't attribute it to sexism, but to assholes being assholes. So it's true that being propositioned for sex by someone who has authority over you is not something exclusivel…

>After Fowler thoroughly documented this first incident, an ostensibly non-sexist HR/management would sanction the manager, not Fowler [0]

The initial asshole propositioning her isn't really to blame for the reaction of HR and the management, tho HR/management protecting him and making him feel "safe" to conduct himself this way played very likely a role in this ever happening to her. But still, that guy was an asshole, but not necessarily a sexist or an expression of systematic sexism.

While The first quote from her writeup doesn't yet show sexism in HR/management (just general hostility/toxicity) the second quote, where the HR person mused about races and genders, is very clearly sexist (and racist), no contest there.

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

#134

Post by wpietri »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #77
notyourday wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Absolutely. Maybe you don't have the full context of the story - the CEO at the time that Fowler got harassed, Travis Kalanick, ended up being that someone who's accountable.

Travis got held accountable? I see the poor fellow is only worth $2.5 billion. If that's what that means, I'd like to be held accountable too!

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

#135

Post by username90 »

wpietri wrote: post #128
conradfr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Propositioning to her is not really sexism, but it's inappropriate and unprofessional.

It is certainly inappropriate and unprofessional. But it's also sexism, in that for centuries men here have been using power to push women to have sex without regard to their actual interest. E.g., marital rape didn't become a crime across the US until 1993: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#United_States

That isn't sexism, similar things happens all the time in gay relationships. Similarly men murdering women in relationships is not sexism, since gay men murder their partners at a higher rate than straight men. So it isn't sexism, it isn't about men hating women, it is just about men committing a lot more brutal violence on average. Or in this case, it is just about men being a lot more forceful about sex than women, even when they are proposing to men.

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

#136

Post by carapace »

ecmascript wrote: post #102
dangus wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of an incident on a bus recently. This one white guy told a black guy trying to get on that there was no more room on the bus, which was generally true, but it could have definitely looked like (from the tone and wording) that the white guy was talking down to him. The black guy got very upset and claimed that the white man wouldn’t have said this to a white guy, and wouldn’t have said this if the bus…

I am not saying there is more sexism towards men forever, but right now in the IT-industry. I don't care about what happened 200-300 years ago, I care about what happens today. I have stopped listen to women complain in media about sexism because people never seem to give a shit when sexism strikes men. Just as people don't care about racism against whites. It's the same kind of shit ideology and I want to escalate t…

> It's so unbelievably stupid it's hard to actually comprehend that these people actually are capable of being programmers.

As a general technique, when that happens, you can try to imagine a context wherein their POV makes sense.

> As you can see from the sources I pointed out, some of them even thinks it's a good thing.

What do [you think] they think is a good thing? "self-hatred"? "sexism against men or racism against white people"?

> This disgusts me ...

Okay.

> ... and makes me not care about sexism against women.

How does that follow?

If sexism (or self-hatred or racism) is bad then it's bad, right?

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

#137

Post by carapace »

brosinante wrote: post #11
crimsonalucard wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mean, it completely dismisses other people's experiences on the first line, alleges that some kind white knights are running rampart on HN, cherrypicks "points", links to random reddit comments to attempt to prove a position. But sure, what a comment! How dare people thing it's crap.

If you had just omitted your last sentence that would have been so much better.

(It's a general heuristic on HN: Omit your last sentence. Most of our comments would be improved, as we are not as good at rhetoric as our passions would guide us to imagine.)

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

#138

Post by carapace »

buckminster wrote: post #49

You seek to profit by gaining employment at a company built on disrespect for society and its laws and then you are surprised that it doesn't treat you with respect? I have no sympathy for anyone in this story.

Riiiiight? I mean the clue is in the goddamned name: Uber

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

#139

Post by MockObject »

wpietri wrote: post #130
MockObject wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this very thread it shows just how latent misogyny is in the majority of the community Majority of what community? Are you noticing which comments are getting voted high, and which ones are downvoted into nothingness?

This community. Tech. HN. Sometimes these discussions, as here, go relatively well. But that's relative. There's still a lot of misogynist nonsense, both subtle and blatant, and I can watch my antisexist posts get voted up and down. But quite often they go poorly. That's something that's easy to miss if one isn't intentionally antisexist. And since sexism is something guys can ignore if we want, it's especially easy…

My experience here on HN, over the recent past few years, has only ever been consistent with this thread. Anything that could possibly be interpreted or misinterpreted as sexist gets voted down into oblivion. As do any defenders on abstract principles, or who take neutral stances.

This very comment of mine could be interpreted suspiciously as insufficiently antisexist, and be downvoted too.

Further, I use HN as a proxy for the general attitudes of the tech industry.

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

#140

Post by throwaway2048 »

wpietri wrote: post #69
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…

Sorry, but you don't quite understand what sexism is. A quick review is in order. 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…

>even at newly formed companies in that most forward-thinking industry, tech.

I dispute this heavily, I've worked in both tech and some traditionally other heavily male dominated industries, like construction and oilfield work.

While both have their sexists, I find that the problem is far worse, and far more accepted in tech than either. Blue collar workers often just have an old fashioned view of the sexes, but tech workers often have an actively virulent anti-woman persecution syndrome, as extolled by the post above.

Women I have seen go into heavy industry lines of work seem to fare far better, and face less bullshit (anecdotally of course).

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