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It's Different for Girls

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Re: It's Different for Girls

#181

Post by orionblastar »

It is the same for men in some situations.

When I worked my male bosses asked me to give them a blowjob in exchange for a promotion or drop my pants and be sodomized instead. I refused and was never promoted. They told me they did this with everyone. I complained to HR, but they refused to do anything about it.

I don't really consider myself an attractive man, I think they were doing it to be mean and have some dirt on me. In order to be promoted they need dirt on you to keep you in their control. It is more of a bully and domination thing.

Manager of HR, said she would fix it if I slept with her, by the way.

You will find that a lot in big businesses, smaller businesses not so much. Which is why I try to startup my own small business and never do those things and go by ability to do the job, experience, talent, and skills as well for promoting people.

Re: It's Different for Girls

#182

Post by fmdud »

pekk wrote: post #167
fmdud wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, this is a pretty fucking horrible comment. >You can't lure a client with your looks >And if instead, you just want to pin all the blame on men for being pigs and expect them to change, well good luck with that. It's perfectly reasonable to expect men to not commit sexual assault in the workplace. What world are you living in where anything like this is remotely acceptable?

You are right that it's a completely horrible comment. But even so, where did he say that we should expect men to "commit sexual assault" in the workplace? Flirting with someone or asking them to coffee is not sexual assault, though it is inappropriate for the workplace.

I've seen this argument so many times at this point they blur into one. It's a watered down version of "She was asking for it" when talking about about a rape case. The way someone looks or the clothes they have on doesn't give you carte blanche to harass/assault them.

I'll show you what I mean:

>If you are an attractive woman and want to do business under such potential circumstance, then your best bet is to try to make yourself look unattractive.

This is the exact same kind of victim blaming as in "She was asking for it". He's telling women to make themselves look unattractive, implying that they are partially to blame for their own harassment because of what they were wearing, or how they looked. Saying "well, it's bound to happen" isn't good enough.

>You can't have it both ways.

>And if instead, you just want to pin all the blame on men for being pigs and expect them to change, well good luck with that.

These two quotes both show that he really is talking about harassment and assault. The OP article wasn't talking about relatively harmless (if inappropriate) workplace flirting; some couples meet at work. That happens. The difference is that those kind of things generally begin with very subtle signals over an extended period of time. The context of this article, this thread, and implicitly this comment (by explicitly agreeing that women are asking for this harassment to stop) is one of harassment and assault.

>You can't lure a client with your looks and then always expect totally platonic behavior from them.

>Mother Nature quite clearly has other designs.

I don't need to break this down. It's so shitty.

Re: It's Different for Girls

#183

Post by _tlf7 »

I was so happy this was published. As a female founder, the grossest things happen. It sucks, there are some VC firms where I no longer feel safe attending their events. I don't get why men I ask for business help to this day still feel comfortable asking me out knowing that a) I'm a very vocal feminist and b) I state very clearly that I need business assistance.

Re: It's Different for Girls

#184

Post by frozenport »

>>My partners are concerned that when you have this baby you are going to lose interest in the company and not be a good CEO

As a practical matter this is a legitimate question. For example, "why are you taking this job when you plan to be busy for the next 6 months?" (or even longer).

Re: It's Different for Girls

#185

Post by _tlf7 »

guelo wrote: post #109
jawns wrote: post #6

I think the big takeaway here, not just for women but for anyone in the workplace who feels uncomfortable with or offended by something someone else has said, is to consider the intent. Sometimes somebody says something offensive, and they don't even know they're being offensive. And in those cases, you can take them aside, explain to them why it's offended you, and hopefully they'll say, "Oh, dreadfully sorry, I did…

That is not the big takeaway. The big takeaway is that straight white men's privilege gives them an advantage over everybody else since they face fewer obstacles such as having their hands forced onto a penis while closing a business deal.

exactly

Re: It's Different for Girls

#186

Post by eli »

beaner wrote: post #147
enraged_camel wrote: post #117

I have an ex-coworker who is a really attractive girl, and she used to tell me lots of stories like this about places she had worked at previously. Vice presidents calling her to their room and offering her promotions if only she would give them weekly blowjobs, prospective customers turning away from million-dollar deals at the last minute after she refused to sleep with them, etc. The really sad thing about is that…

Don't understand why we don't start naming and shaming. It's a lot easier to not see as a real problem when it's always stories of nameless men in unspecified locations and situations. And the kinds people who are prone to this behavior are being given a free pass, only to do it again later.

The point is it's a systemic problem. Internet mob justice is generally terrible to begin with (for a lot of reasons) and it doesn't solve the problem.

Also, at the risk of stating the obvious: there are potentially very serious ramifications for the person doing the naming and shaming too. Most people don't like being called sexist assholes even if they are, in fact, sexist assholes.

Re: It's Different for Girls

#187

Post by teacup50 »

jacalata wrote: post #169
teacup50 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> straight white men's privilege The article didn't actually include the man's race.

yea, but it did say she was dealing with VCs 10 years ago, so an educated person can make a pretty confident guess.

I hope you can see the racism inherent in your "confident guess".

"yea, but it did say she was dealing with [community organizers] 10 years ago, so an educated person can make a pretty confident guess."

"yea, but it did say she was dealing with [an H1B immigrant] 10 years ago, so an educated person can make a pretty confident guess."

Re: It's Different for Girls

#188

Post by tedivm »

ars wrote: post #160
offbrand wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way you are phrasing this is super offensive and border line disgusting. Do you really think its a privilege that women have this "option"? What if someone offered you a promotion if your wife gave him blowjobs? Would you consider that a sweet opportunity? You want to picture that?

I don't think it's a privilege, but some people would. But I have no idea if this actually happens as often as jokes and books/movies claim it does.

Those people are wrong, and have no concept of empathy.

Re: It's Different for Girls

#189

Post by _tlf7 »

I'm a woman who is new to hacker news. I've been told I have to be on this thing if I ever want to apply for YC. I don't know if I'll ever do that but I don't want to ruin that opportunity. I've been reading through all these comments and a lot of them make me sick to my stomach. Articles that surround women in the work force interest me because my startup is in this space, but at what cost of my sanity do I have to put up with all these sexist comments to have value to this community?

Re: It's Different for Girls

#190

Post by smtddr »

selmnoo wrote: post #142
evilduck wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think another important thing to consider is that not everyone who takes offense to another's use of language is always a victim, but they'll gladly play the role of victim if we allow it. Sometimes people are actively looking to be offended. Take this one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc

> Sometimes people are actively looking to be offended. Take this one for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc That reminds me of a conversation I had nearly a decade ago with a black (African immigrant) friend. I don't remember the details, but basically he said that he was annoyed that the words "dark" and "black" had negative connotations. I knew him well enough to know that he wasn't trolling, and…

I'm of Nigerian descent and I do notice that "black" and "dark" is usually used in the negative. But I know that's not based in racism.

The concept of dark/black being scary I'm confident pre-dates any racism towards african americans.

Also, there are a few things where black is used as positive.

- Finance; If you're "in the black", you're flushed with cash. There's some kinda dark irony here. ;)

- Rich people tend to wear expensive black clothes, expensive black cars... etc. Black is always in fashion and a symbol of wealth... which somehow, again, is ironic. ;)

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