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Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

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Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#151

Post by [deleted] »

LockeWatts wrote: post #106
omegaworks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it's always the women that make things dramatic. Not the power fetish of the founder's wife, the unwanted advances of coworkers, or the reverting of legitimate contributions to the team's project. Can't you see past the fact that she's a woman? Don't you see how demoralizing any of this would be?

Can I ask a question about phrasing for a minute? What's inherently wrong with an unwanted advance? Advances have an unknown state until they're responded to. If she had accepted it, it would've been a welcomed advance. There's no way to know that until you walk up to a woman and say "Hey, I think you're pretty cool. Want to go get a drink sometime?" If she says no, that's unwanted, but I don't see how it's inappropr…

[deleted]

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#152

Post by enneff »

LockeWatts wrote: post #106
omegaworks wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it's always the women that make things dramatic. Not the power fetish of the founder's wife, the unwanted advances of coworkers, or the reverting of legitimate contributions to the team's project. Can't you see past the fact that she's a woman? Don't you see how demoralizing any of this would be?

Can I ask a question about phrasing for a minute? What's inherently wrong with an unwanted advance? Advances have an unknown state until they're responded to. If she had accepted it, it would've been a welcomed advance. There's no way to know that until you walk up to a woman and say "Hey, I think you're pretty cool. Want to go get a drink sometime?" If she says no, that's unwanted, but I don't see how it's inappropr…

> What's inherently wrong with an unwanted advance?

I don't want to be hit on at work. It is totally inappropriate and unprofessional. And if I were a minority in my office I would find it very hard to deal with.

From the article, he did not say "Want to get a drink some time?"

> [He] asked himself over to “talk,” and then professed his love, and “hesitated” when asked to leave.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#153

Post by curiousDog »

To me, it seems like this sort of problem occurs more in start-ups because the boundaries between professional and personal lives are blurred.

I've heard similar stories from people working at Facebook as well. This sort of forced camaraderie to fit into the clique isn't healthy at all. When I worked at Microsoft, we had quite a few talented female engineers on our team. I don't think at any point their gender was brought into question or discussion. We'd just solve problems, write code and have the occasional team lunch where we'd talk about the latest software paradigms, competition etc and go home.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#155

Post by enupten »

balozi wrote: post #116
bitops wrote: post #53

As usual, another HN thread that perfectly exemplifies victim blaming and a collective burying of heads in the sand. There's a few people on here who seem to get it, but most don't. I'm sick of it. Goodbye, Hacker News.

The only victims here were the other poor employees that had put up with this nonsense from this crazy cast of characters.

That explains the hoola-hooping incident I suppose.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#156

Post by zaqokm »

enneff wrote: post #90
csense wrote: post #64

I don't think this was an instance of institutionalized sexism. Rather, the founder's wife seems like an unbalanced individual, and nobody effectively set any boundaries. The other founders and HR seemed unaware or unable to set the situation to right. As for her romantically inclined co-worker -- I don't see how his behavior qualifies as sexist or hostile. Merely a bit clueless, but isn't it to be expected that empl…

Why are you making excuses for these people? What purpose does it serve? I'm especially shocked to see you trivialise the actions of the jilted engineer. Reverting someone else's work without explanation is a blatantly hostile and disrespectful act that should be treated seriously in isolation, and is made more serious still in the context of the inappropriate sexual stuff.

> Why are you making excuses for these people?

Probably because there are ample reasons why someone may revert someone's code for legitimate reasons.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#157

Post by lutusp »

LockeWatts wrote: post #135
lutusp wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because human beings have a desire to express opinion and emotion? Well, half of them, anyway.

Which half?

Without trying to start a debate, it's well-established that women talk about personal things more readily than men do, and at greater length, and express emotion more readily than men do. This real difference between men and women is often described as a character flaw in men by women, and in women by men (if that wasn't too hard to unravel).

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#159

Post by gexla »

lgleason wrote: post #92

I'm not going to get into what is right or wrong. With that being said, in the US HR is not your friend as an employee. Their job is to protect the company. http://abcnews.go.com/Business/20-job-tips-hr-exec/story?id=... Any way you look at it you have a bad situation. This sounds like a clash of personalities. While the behavior is not right, the fact is that a lot of companies will 'manage out' people unfairly etc.…

Right or wrong, the story has blown up and the problem actors have to be dealt with. There is too much at stake.

That the wife, a non-employee, was in a position to be a main character in this story seems to be a blunder by the founder. If I'm an employee there, would my wife be able to put herself in that same situation? Probably not.

Would the wife make a good employee? Would she get hired to be in a position of such influence? Probably not.

Yet, there she was and here is our story.

Personally, I have been in relationships which were okay in my personal life, but I would have been horrified if my significant other would have anything to do with my business other than attend outside work functions with me always present. Bull in a china shop.

Re: Julie Ann Horvath Describes Sexism and Intimidation Behind Her GitHub Exit

#160

Post by hrktb »

There seem to be a lot of "it's not the organization, just some bad apples", but if individuals do shitty things and the organization (HR, the other founders, colleagues) can't do much about it, it's a company culture problem.

The simple fact that a non employee (founder's wife) can boast influence on the decisions, stay at will on the work floor and just gets moved to another floor after proven problematic behavior feels horribly fucked up from an organizational perspective.

And then every other aspects of this story are so shitty, and these happen so much in companies where indivuals wield so much more power that what their job title says.

Of course, it's assuming the fact of the article are true.

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