An Open Letter To All Startup Founders

The issue here is making both genders feel comfortable in the workplace. You should NEVER hit on someone at work. By doing that, you could be instantly ruining a large portion of their day. Not just one day but every day.

By introducing that dynamic tension is created. Especially so if the other party refuses the advances. Let me illustrate this point with a fake situation:

Sally works 9-5 at company A. She loves her job and enjoys her day-to-day tasks. She has to spend a significant portion of every day at this job, so she is grateful that she enjoys it and feels comfortable. Ted is a fellow employee that recently got assigned to a project with Sally. They work well together on the task at hand. One day, Sally notices Ted's eyes lingering and catches him looking at her when she is working. This makes it harder to concentrate because she feels uncomfortable. After some time, Ted starts flirting with her when they should be working. Normally, Sally is fine with chit-chat but the combination of deadlines and the flirtatious nature causes her much anxiety. She wants to be nice but at the same time, she cares more about the project and her career advancement than this guys pathetic attempts at being witty. One day, Ted asks her on a date as Sally is walking to her car. After a very uncomfortable silence, Sally declines and leaves for the day. That night, Sally cries into her pillow. What was once a great work environment has now turned extremely uncomfortable. Her job is demanding and the added pressure makes it hard to focus. She doesn't want to deal with the extremely awkward situation, especially since it is both unavoidable and takes a large amount of her waking life. What are her options? She can go to a supervisor. If the supervisor doesn't care and writes it off, she will feel terrible. If the supervisor transfers Ted from the project, rumor may get around and everyone in the office will know.

(The gender roles could easily be switched.)

The point of that story is to illustrate that even something as simple as coworker relations can really ruin someone's life. They HAVE to be at their job all day because they need money. It's not like a social circle that they can stop attending. If an awkward or uncomfortable dynamic is created, they have to deal with that EVERYDAY. It's like going to high school and having to know you deal with the bullies.

You can argue that "Sally" needs to learn to deal with it because it's life, beautiful, whatever. But she shouldn't have to. She should be able to go to work and deal with the task she was employed for without having to worry about all that other bullshit.

You know what, I actually think I agree with you more here then you probably think I do.

I don't actually think that all workplaces should become banal, corporate, photocopies of one another.

What articles like this seem to show by the commentary they elicit is that many of these things aren't conscious choices.

I think if a company consciously decides to foster a work environment that promotes a specific culture (within the boundaries of the law), that's their prerogative. But for me, the key word there is "consciously".

And it seems that a good portion of this phenomenon currently isn't conscious. And I feel that is incredibly harmful.

This article tries to portray this topic in a way that I think is very useful, which is to say, it's not making a moral judgement. It's saying "hey, these types of actions have a consequence. That consequence is that it will negatively effect your candidate pool, and probably make you unattractive to investors."

People are free to read that and say "I don't care about that. To me, having a company culture that reflects my values is worth the negative consequences."

I'd be happy with a culture that is at least aware of this (which our current culture appears not to be).

If the other employee isn't your manager or managee, are you really suggesting that "Do you want to go the the pictures tonight?" is in any way related to sexual inequality?

I think it's natural and commonsensical to think that asking people out on dates in the environment where you spend most of your day is a reasonable, normal thing to do. So it comes from not understanding (or not caring) that most women feel like a vulnerable minority in the workplace.

When I first read this post I thought "Great! A story on cases of less explicit forms of gender-discrimination told in a way that makes business and economic sense. Seems like a good argument to have in my backpocket as someone who cares about gender issues." Then, out of further curiosity I checked the conversation on HN.

Gender issues are not like making someone feel uncomfortable for their eating habits, or their consumption of alcohol. Your eating habits, especially in Silicon Valley, are not something that systemically keep you back from achieving success. Gender and implicit sexism do.

Perhaps as a man, respecting women for their brains and their bodies feels "orthogonal" to you, but I doubt it does to most of the women you work with. Ask them, but in a way where they can really respond.

More than anything that's the important idea here. Being a woman in technology is different than being a man. If you are a man and have opinions about this and have not sought out the opinions of the women you work with in a genuine way, in an environment where they can be honest, then you don't know what you are talking about. I've asked and it's always surprised and dissapointed me.

Maybe from now on we should use IANAW to talk about gender issues as men, because honestly, its are stacked in our favor. Only by understanding the other side can we understand what the problems with gender issues look like.