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A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

21–30 of 37 posts

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#21
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.

Indeed. But it's a shame that speaking out has to be perceived as dangerous at all. And it's a shame that until now the tone of discussion has been sufficiently defensive and denialist that misbehavior has been perceived as acceptable and something certain people can get away with.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#22
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You could say that for most TV, cinema and youtube. We don't all agree on what's funny and what's offensive.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#23
post #19

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"(wha…

What's necessarily subjective about sexism?

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#24

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…

I've never seen a graph or attempt of proof that SV has an issue any worst than normal society.

There is denialism and lack of objectivity going on, but I'm not sure you get what side it is.

Until we see the science, many of us think articles like these specifically blaming the Valley are just tabloid fodder.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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..

If I watch this slide, I'm not going to take it to the letter. Only an idiot would. "bigger is better" ? You take that phrase seriously in a corporate slide ? It's clearly an attempt to humor. I get you don't find that funny. I just don't get how shocked everyone is.

The US elected a president that "grab them by the pussy". You have real problems. Those slides are not.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#26
post #13

Susan Fowler tweeted that Chris Sacca has been DMing her on Twitter, tring to "manipulate" her to stop tweeting about him. This after his blog post claiming to be changing his ways. https://twitter.com/susanthesquark/status/881198112923987968

Isn't such a statement without example a form of public manipulation? The NYT article that got this going only said about Sacca, "At a mostly male tech gathering in Las Vegas in 2009, Susan Wu, an entrepreneur and investor, said that Mr. Sacca, an investor and former Google executive, touched her face without her consent in a way that made her uncomfortable." And Sacca publicly responded, "Yesterday, the New York Times wrote that, back in 2009, a woman I knew well at the time accused me of touching her face at a mutual friend’s party in Las Vegas. At the time, we had known each other for years, were in a private party setting in Vegas, not a work event, with no investor-investee relationship, we were not in business together, we didn’t work together in any capacity, and I also wasn’t even a venture capitalist yet as I didn’t close my first fund until May of 2010. There was no imbalance of power between us."

Given this, would a message to Susan Fowler, concerning tweets, "That's really gross. And so many people praised him for it! Ew! No!" and "Wait, so: the day before a story is published in the NYT about him being a creep, @sacca writes a medium post about how much he's evolving" asking her to not continue attacking him be necessarily unjustified?

A message that encourages her to direct her energy more constructively towards the real perpetrators could be called manipulative, but if many would find them agreeable, they'd never be posted by Susan, as they'd reveal her to be acting manipulatively.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#27

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...

Wait, what? This is an article about some people who were planning on attending a trip organized by McClure, who showed up early, got drunk and naked, and then one guy (Jesse Thomas) took pics/videos of the other (Matt Monahan) and posted it online.

How is that a clusterfuck 'from Mr. McClure'?

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#28
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"(wha…

What's necessarily subjective about sexism?

Lots. Interpretation of some specific event, action, or person as sexist (or not) can be very subjective. For example, if a woman applies for a job and is rejected, she may think it was due to sexism, whereas the interviewer may not.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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"(wha…

What's necessarily subjective about sexism?

I had two objections to parent's point, so forgive me for ranting on a bit here.

The strict definition of sexism is a mindset, and the only way to reliably determine that mindset is to have a mind-reading device. That means that almost every time we evaluate sexism, we use a heuristic, and choosing which heuristics to apply is necessarily subjective. For example, I find most of the sexism controversies do not have clear indicators of sexism, but I acknowledge that I applied my own opinion to determine those, and opinions can differ.

Since the strict definition of sexism is difficult to apply, it's also possible to use an operative definition and still remain objective. If we could agree to a set of heuristics, a set of measurable actions through which we can objectively determine that something is "sexism", then we could use that to make our judgement calls. However, I don't see such a standard proposed and agreed upon - in fact, the reason the issue is so controversial is that it seems there is very little "standard" about sexism that we agree on, and opinions about it have a lot of variance. I think it's normal for HN users to then express skepticism and criticize an ad-hoc application of rules to slap a label on someone when we can't agree on what that label means.

This is why I was looking for an objective standard to replace the dictionary definition of the word, which HN users agreed upon and then failed to apply when "SV culture" was put under a microscope.

EDIT: reduced repetition and improved wording.

Re: A Backlash Builds Against Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

#30
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You could say that for most TV, cinema and youtube. We don't all agree on what's funny and what's offensive.

Usually you should let those being offended decide wether or not it's offensive by definition though.
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