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Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

nytimes.com

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Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#551

Post by nostrademons »

morgante wrote: post #477
nostrademons wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd question that. My wife is a former bond trader. At one point, the guys on her trading desk took her out to drinks, and one asked her, "So, are you still a virgin?" She was about 25 at the time.

Why is her age relevant? It's not an appropriate question for a colleague anyway, but I'm curious why that would make it worse.

It's context. The scenario plays out differently in most peoples' heads if said to a 40-year old veteran of the industry vs. a 25-year-old new hire vs. a 19-year-old intern. I'd agree that it's inappropriate for all of them, but it's inappropriate in different ways.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#552

Post by Grustaf »

notjack wrote: post #118
ronilan wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it. Nope. These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes. Never attribute to rational decision making what can be attributed to rotten character.

Then why does their behavior disproportionately affect women, who have less power to complain about their behavior? If this were entirely an aspect of their character or personality they'd be an asshole to everyone equally, not opportunistically take advantage of people who have less ability to stop them.

>Then why does their behavior disproportionately affect women

I'm sure they use their positions of power in many different ways that affect both men and women, but their sexual advances obviously target women because most of them are straight.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#553

Post by [deleted] »

tuna-piano wrote: post #225

This type of behavior also takes place in the White House. For those who haven't seen the current president's recent interaction with an Irish reporter, it made me say "yuck" out loud. I really feel bad for people, like this reporter, who may feel like they are valued more for their looks than their skills. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8wLx4WYbX4

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#554

Post by manfredo »

watwut wrote: post #540
manfredo wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really doubt you truly mean "whatever gets the person away is rational". Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to discourage subsequent approaches? There's a vast difference between a firm rejection and accusing a co-worker of a fire-able offense - potentially even a crime. If somebody is insulted by the former then the have their only their own insecurity to blame. On the other hand,…

> Is it okay for me to call anyone who asks me out harassers in order to discourage subsequent approaches? The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same. For that matter, rational is different category then "fair". Unfair or even unethica…

> The word harassment does not even appear in parent comment. Neither is HR. You added it to shift the topic which is an open and easy to see lie. "You are making me uncomfortable" and "fire him hr please" are not nearly the same.

Please re-read my original comment in this chain, I'm dealing with two hypotheticals depending on what exactly is said.

> In this story she unambiguously informed him that he is making her uncomfortable. That is not even as open rejection as can be

If that's what occurred then this is the situation I describe in the 2nd paragraph, which I explicitly write is a reasonable thing to do.

> but also feedback on what the reason for not continuing conversation is.

Depending on what exactly is phrased it may also be feedback conveying "there is a good chance I am telling HR you're harassing me." Again, as per my original comment I'm describing my opinion of the situation depending on what exactly is said.

> You are extrapolating her rejection to entirely different things as words says. That is expecting her to walk the fine line, guess in advance how you re-interpret words and come up with answer perfectly tailored to your personality. She tried nice as overwhelming majority of dudes would understand correctly, did not worked, she started to be direct. But she apparently should not be too direct.

I am not expecting any line to be walked. She should not avoid trying to be too direct, but just the opposite. This whole problem likely arose because the first response was interpreted overly optimistically (thinking she wanted to see the movie on a different day, when she just wanted to say "no") and interpreted the second response overly pessimistically (thinking there's a good chance she was going to report him or her to HR, when she just wanted to say "no"). Again, indirect speaking is exactly what I'm attempting to dissuade because it creates situations such as these.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#555

Post by qb45 »

watwut wrote: post #431
curun1r wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If she touch his junk or send him text invitation for sex, then absolutely we should call it harassment and call that out.

I wouldn't call it harassment if the CxO or investor in question desires such behavior.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#556

Post by curun1r »

zbraniecki wrote: post #501
curun1r wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did I ignore that? I called their behavior reprehensible. I'm just saying that it's unlikely the behavior exists in a vacuum and that things are never as black and white as they're made out to be. Historical oppression doesn't justify questionable behavior. I've seen many instances where women have "dated up" to help their careers. I even saw one instance where a female director dated the CTO and later the CFO…

This article, and this conversation is about one pathology. You bring up a different one and say "we should treat them equally!" - that's not very different from the "all lives matter" bullshit. Sexism and discrimination of women in tech industry is a massive problem. What you described probably exists in some cases, but is not a) related to the problem at hand and b) orders of magnitude less profound. By bringing it…

Everyone keeps mistaking my meaning. I'm not trying to excuse the behavior or say that it's okay. I've repeatedly condemned it. But we need to decide what we want as a result of bringing this kind of behavior out into the open. Do we want to punish and ostracize the guilty or do we want to minimize the occurrence of this behavior going forward? If it's the former, then by all means get out your pitchforks and we can condemn these men as fundamentally flawed human beings and women can continue to be subjected to this BS. But if it's the latter, then we really need to approach it from a more empathetic position. We need to understand the thought processes of these men to understand why they thought the behavior was in any way acceptable.

I see a lot of the vilification in these threads, but very little effort towards trying to understand. Chalking it up to "patriarchal society" may be fine from the standpoint of PC talking points, but it is intellectually lazy and just makes the situation more adversarial rather than one where we can come together and figure out the best ways to avoid this happening in the future. We want to make sure that the men who are in a position to abuse women like this learn why the behavior is wrong and not the steps to avoid (sms/fb/etc messages) getting caught.

This is why both pathologies are relevant. I'm not trying to blame the women who try to use their sexuality to their advantage or even those that engage in consensual relationships with men in a position of power. But because those instances exist and these men have likely witnessed them personally, even if they're rare, they create the possibility in the minds of these men. It's an exploration of the thought process that led them to act in this way. Perhaps it's not what these men were thinking...it's just my projection, but no one has presented any argument or any other substantive possibility. They've just, like you, overreacted and sought to distort what I was trying to say because it didn't match the outrage and need for vengeance that they feel.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#557

Post by icelancer »

stale2002 wrote: post #229
chrischen wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point holds as long as false accusations are possible. Women, like men, are not all angels. Sexism, or even patriarchy, has no gender.

False accusations are basically not possible though. The people getting in trouble right now are not the borderline cases of someone saying an awkward comment here or there. The people getting in trouble are the serial harassers who are so egregiously bad that a multitude of incidents are documented. Your big standard subtle sexist or tech douche bro has nothing to worry about.

>False accusations are basically not possible though.

Of course they are. There is opportunity, therefore it is possible.

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#558

Post by [deleted] »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #335
voidlogic wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nope. These people are being assholes because they ARE assholes. To be fair, even an asshole may show some restraint when they have a clear understanding of consequences. Thinking their money buys them immunity from consequence is an enabler as they don't believe they have the slightest need for this kind of rational self-interest. You are both right, an asshole is an asshole as you suggest, but even so, assholes ar…

I think it's important to distinguish that these aren't people who are necessarily assholes to everyone. They have plenty of friends and acquaintances who would never believe they'd do something like this. And others who upon hearing it, would've assumed it was a harmless misunderstanding. I think one of the larger problems that society is struggling with is the idea that two different people can be in very similar p…

[deleted]

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#559

Post by 2017throw »

bt4u2 wrote: post #497
matt4077 wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't know if it is appropriate to say, don't. don't don't. > but I think overt preference in hiring females is one of the biggest cause. nope. inappropriate. > Almost every tech company hire women with less qualifications to improve the the diversity. Wrong Wrong Wrong > I know it is for the best, but in personal experience, it is very spoken thing between some males. It isn't. >"I was getting confused figuring…

Why are comments like this allowed? Putting fingers in your ears and scream "no!!!" over and over is not very useful or constructive

It works for them on TV, politics, marches, reddit etc. Why not try it on HN?

Re: Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment

#560

Post by ezequiel-garzon »

fjfkdjfjfjd wrote: post #489

This is a little off-topic so mods, please flag/move as needed. (Wasn't sure if I should make this an Ask HN or not). I feel I may be a victim of a false accusation of sexual harassment. I am really not sure how to proceed at this point. I have not put up a fight for fear that I could loose my job (which may already be in the works at this point). Management has not used the term "sexual harassment", only the verbiag…

Do you know what comments made that woman uncomfortable? If not, have you asked management? Maybe it's not a false accusation at all (in fact they don't use the term sexual harassment, which is important), but a valuable lesson for your future, and for you in general.
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