Unfortunately, increasingly, politics are bleeding into tech in a way that is unavoidable and very, very questionable and upsetting.
What deeply concerns me about this particular story is it really looks a case of a consensual relationship ending under the standard circumstances that consensual relationships end.
People don’t want to have sex with each other, they start being less civil to one another. People get angry and break up after personal disputes. Someone doesn’t do the laundry and dishes as much as they should. Then people fight.
Are those people now “victims” and “abusers?” I am very not ok with this terminology being used this way.
This is not a good precedent. In the last three months, a friend of mine who I deeply love was falsely accused of sexist behavior because he nearly had a nervous breakdown from working with a member of the opposite sex and asked that she be removed from his project. She then turned around and filed a harassment complaint with HR when SHE was harassing HIM!
You are not a victim if your relationship ends under standard circumstances. I am sorry, you are not. That is an expected part of being in a relationship: People do not get along sometimes.
People should not get thrown out of their projects for this. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I read Max’s statement, the tweets sent by his accuser and the community statement and didn’t see anything to the contrary.
Did he hit her? No. Did he rape her? No. Did he call her names? Didn’t see a mention of it. Where the police called? No. Restraining order? No. Racism? no. Sexism? no. Death threats? no.
So where is the beef here?
Just a vague accusation of “sexual controlling.” What the hell does that mean? He wanted to have sex with his girlfriend more than she felt comfortable with? That isn’t abuse, sorry. It’s grounds for ending a relationship, sure.
What this is doing is setting a precedent for hyper sensitivity and the weaponization of #MeToo in tech.
From the available evidence it looks like a standard relationship that didn’t work out.
Happy to change my opinion if more evidence comes out, right now this looks like a drive by reputation shooting.