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A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

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Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#11

Post by sametmax »

hyperliner wrote: post #3

The biggest issue here is not that Dave is a creep and that he has been let go. The biggest issue is that the leaders of this 500 Startups organization let this go on for years without taking action. Who are the people who let their organization's logo and name appear in this guy's slides together with the words "GET YOU LAID (=SEX)"? https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-... It does not matter…

You assume a company should be all serious. There are way worse stuff in South Park, Monty Python or Naked Gun. The slide is just an attempt at being funny. It may not make you laught, you may find this humor borderline, you may want this should never happen in your company, but it's not shocking that they allowed this in there.

What are shocking are sexist actions. Any agressive/unfair action toward somebody actually, this is not a gender issue.

The dubious slide ?

Meh.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#12

Post by rainbowmverse »

PLenz wrote: post #6

The fact that a backlash against self-evidently disgusting behavior needs to 'build' is disturbing.

People have different thresholds where the perceived (or real) danger of speaking out is low enough. For some people, they don't need any backup. For others, they need to see a lot of people talking about it. Most people are somewhere in the middle. The snowball takes a while to reach the bottom.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#14

Post by rf15 »

sametmax wrote: post #10
hyperliner wrote: post #3

The biggest issue here is not that Dave is a creep and that he has been let go. The biggest issue is that the leaders of this 500 Startups organization let this go on for years without taking action. Who are the people who let their organization's logo and name appear in this guy's slides together with the words "GET YOU LAID (=SEX)"? https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-... It does not matter…

You assume a company should be all serious. There are way worse stuff in South Park, Monty Python or Naked Gun. The slide is just an attempt at being funny. It may not make you laught, you may find this humor borderline, you may want this should never happen in your company, but it's not shocking that they allowed this in there. What are shocking are sexist actions. Any agressive/unfair action toward somebody actuall…

> You assume a company should be all serious.

Except nothing about this is funny, and if you think it is, it only shows how detached you are from reality and humanity. It's like casual racism.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#15

Post by Insanity »

sametmax wrote: post #10
hyperliner wrote: post #3

The biggest issue here is not that Dave is a creep and that he has been let go. The biggest issue is that the leaders of this 500 Startups organization let this go on for years without taking action. Who are the people who let their organization's logo and name appear in this guy's slides together with the words "GET YOU LAID (=SEX)"? https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-... It does not matter…

You assume a company should be all serious. There are way worse stuff in South Park, Monty Python or Naked Gun. The slide is just an attempt at being funny. It may not make you laught, you may find this humor borderline, you may want this should never happen in your company, but it's not shocking that they allowed this in there. What are shocking are sexist actions. Any agressive/unfair action toward somebody actuall…

But those movies are clearly meant as comedy and everyone watching it knows that.

Some comedians say things that are accepted because they are comedians and anyone repeating their jokes in public in a setting where it might be taken quite differently than as a joke might get into some trouble for doing so.

I really do not see how the two compare..

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#16

Post by api »

Alex3917 wrote: post #4

Now that women can mostly route around the venture industry by doing crowdfunding, have the demographics of teams that raise money changed significantly? Already one of the biggest ICOs, Tezos, is run by a female entrepreneur, and so is the upcoming AI Gang ICO, but I don't know of any overall statistics. I wonder to what extent, if any, these scandals are coming out now due to things like AngelList and ERC-20 being…

There's a meme around that if you crowdfund the VC industry will see this as "negative signaling" and blackball you.

I have wondered first of all if it's true. Good numbers are good numbers right? Is a VC going to pass on a great deal because they crowdfunded a prior round?

Secondly if it is true it seems self serving protectionism, like taxi companies trying to scare you away from Uber and Lyft.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#17

Post by te_chris »

hyperliner wrote: post #3

The biggest issue here is not that Dave is a creep and that he has been let go. The biggest issue is that the leaders of this 500 Startups organization let this go on for years without taking action. Who are the people who let their organization's logo and name appear in this guy's slides together with the words "GET YOU LAID (=SEX)"? https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-... It does not matter…

Don't forget this clusterfuck from Mr. McClure http://gawker.com/5985094/tech-bros-google-sponsored-trip-to...

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#18

Post by FLUX-YOU »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #7
hyperliner wrote: post #3

The biggest issue here is not that Dave is a creep and that he has been let go. The biggest issue is that the leaders of this 500 Startups organization let this go on for years without taking action. Who are the people who let their organization's logo and name appear in this guy's slides together with the words "GET YOU LAID (=SEX)"? https://www.slideshare.net/mobile/dmc500hats/how-to-pitch-a-... It does not matter…

Is this real? This seems like some sort of poor excuse for a joke.

Even removing the context of his resignation, his slides are a poor attempt to be funny and shocking and memorable. I'm pretty sure he was not a comedian.

Things get weird when money is involved. It was probably tolerated in 2010 because of that. 2017 was the breaking point (Why it took 7 years to reach a breaking point is a dark mark for Silicon Valley)

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#19

Post by Sacho »

eevilspock wrote: post #8

I'd love it if someone with the skills could do a sentiment analysis of all the comments under SV sexism/sexual harassment articles posted to HN, and quantify the amount of denialism versus recognition there is, as well as graph whether there is at least a downward trend in denialism, whether the tipping point mentioned in the article is happening. On this topic I've been disappointed in HN more often than not. HN us…

> HN users pride themselves on objectivity, but sadly much of it is ditched in favor of defensiveness (or the other dismissive reactions mentioned in the article) when SV culture is put under a critical microscope.

Can you clarify how exactly objectivity clashes with opinions on fairly subjective matters(e.g. sexism)? Is there an objective standard of sexism that was applied in a rigorous analysis of "SV culture"(whatever that is..) that HN users are being defensive about? Can you provide some examples to what you mean?

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#20

Post by macspoofing »

PLenz wrote: post #6

The fact that a backlash against self-evidently disgusting behavior needs to 'build' is disturbing.

There are many facets to this backlash (if indeed there is one). At the most fundamental level nobody disputes that women have a right to the same kind of respect that men receive (including not being harassed), or that women have a right to the same opportunities as men do.

But the devil is in the details. For example, there are a lot of insane ideas thrown around as to how to fix the problem. There are people who argue accusations of harassment should not only be taken seriously (which everyone agrees with) but also be automatically taken as true regardless of their veracity and verifiability, and with the the social, personal and professional cost suffered by those accused being an irrelevant detail.

Second, is this is a Silicon Valley problem, or every-industry problem? How are women treated in the NY Times newsroom compared to Google compared to GM? This is always side-stepped or is treated in a sloppy manner. This sloppiness is evident in the original NY Times article which profiled personal experiences of a number of women in tech with no attempt to verify the claims or set it in a wider context. In the most memorable example, Dave McClure was outed by name in the article for asking one of the women out as she was applying for a position of at his company. Unprofessional? Yes. Creepy? Yes. But that crime relative to the public shaming in an international newspaper read by millions, isn't justified. The irony of that specific case is that there were more egregious examples of McClure's conduct that may actual warrant this public shaming, but that would require some actual journalism.

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