Silicon Valley Women, in Cultural Shift, Frankly Describe Sexual Harassment • Hacker News Board

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

#771

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:22 PM UTC

dragonwriter wrote: post #324

stcredzero wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desirable. Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having t…

> Basically, power corrupts. No, it doesn't; that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful. Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.

that description negates the agency and responsibility of the powerful.

Huh?

Power (basically by definition) weakens external constraints, including constraints that inhibit expression of corrupt impulses.

You just said the same thing!

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

#772

Post by qb45 » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:30 PM UTC

bogomipz wrote: post #691

taway_1212 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sex worker What's wrong with a word 'prostitute'?

"Sex worker" denotes consensual sex work, while "prostitution" includes human trafficking. Also sex workers includes dancers in strip clubs, phone sex operators and adult magazine models none of which engage in the physical act of sex with others as part of their job: https://rewire.news/article/2008/05/06/sex-work-trafficking-...

Agree about strippers etc, but to me "sex worker" sounds like something that could equally well be voluntary or coerced, just like any other worker.

Wikipedia article on gulags refers to prisoners as "workers" several times.

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

#773

Post by stcredzero » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:32 PM UTC

obstinate wrote: post #319

stcredzero wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know many people like that, and no, they don't derive an enjoyable power trip out of being rejected at all. Theybdon't know they can get away with it. They don't know that they are doing it. These people are rarely evil and predatory. They usually genuinely believe that the behavior they are exhibiting is desirable. Basically, power corrupts. Being a boss, an investor, or an employer comes with power. Just having t…

> Disclosure, this comes to mind because of something that happened between me and a colleague of equal rank in a volunteer organization who went directly from "I don't think I can see a movie tonight" to "This situation is making me uncomfortable" with nothing in between. Did you ask multiple times? This sounds like what could easily happen when someone won't take the initial "no," implicit or not, for an answer. Ba…

3. Rational adults understand and respond to signalling. They don't demand that all communication happen explicitly and on their terms, because they know that such demands are ineffective for all purposes, will not be heeded, and might make them social pariahs.

Which is why people behave that way in airplane cockpits and the bridges of submarines. (Actually, such behavior has gotten people killed in those contexts.)

If someone is insisting on an implicit level of signalling, they can be just as guilty of insisting foolishly as someone insisting on the explicit level. When implicit communications are demanded for 1) a higher stakes situation on the basis of 2) the supposed potential victim status of one party -- something is way out of whack. Not only is the safety of clear communications being abrogated, the danger being borne is skewed to just one party.

Beyond the level of the social white lie, if you're advocating deniability to "be safe" you're probably doing something dishonest on some level. Extending the mechanism of the social white lie to a situation where more is at stake is just foolish.

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

#774

Post by tptacek » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:33 PM UTC

xor1 wrote: post #741

DanBC wrote: post #582

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd really like to sincerely ask if you've had a run-in with it yet. reply Yes, I've met many people with borderline personality disorder. I helped the English NHS create their KUF (Knowledge and Understanding Framework) for borderline personality disorder; I campaign for services to better meet the needs of people with BPD. What you're saying is ignorant bollocks. False accusations are not more common among people…

>Yes, I've met many people with borderline personality disorder. How many of them do you know extremely well? As in you've spent time alone with them for hours or even days on end? Are you a mental health professional who has treated them as patients? You don't really know someone with borderline until you do either of these, IMO, no matter how much research or campaigning you do. >False accusations are not more comm…

We are way off the cliff of inappropriate conversations when we're:

* Attributing mental health conditions to hypothetical strangers

* Insinuating other commenters on HN have mental health conditions

* Impugning entire groups of people based on hypothetical mental health conditions.

That's before we reach the fact that the only reason we're talking about this particular mental health condition was the hypothetical that strangers, who we know nothing about, would be reporting sexual harassment incidents falsely because they might be suffering from that condition.

This is way past uncivil and inappropriate and we can't be having threads here that look like this, something I'm so sure of that I'll say so despite having no formal authority to do so.

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

#775

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:35 PM UTC

ig1 wrote: post #658

I feel deeply uncomfortable on 500 Startups positions on this ( https://500.co/making-changes-at-500/ ) for four reasons: 1) 500Startups considered these issues to be serious enough to remove McClure from his role but didn't publicly disclose this. This meant that he presumably could continue to meet female founders and other WIT while still appearing to be in a position of power. 2) A number of LPs in 500 have state…

Nobody has a duty to disclose information about someone else simply because they became aware of it.

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

#776

Post by qb45 » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:45 PM UTC

cbhl wrote: post #758

qb45 wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You surely could find a definition which isn't intermixed with propaganda.

I don't actually know of any good external resources for defining "derail" in this context. I learned about the concept through work, and didn't want to just blatantly copy-and-paste that document into HN. I did about five minutes of Google searching. Pointers would be appreciated.

I googled "derail thread".

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=derailing%20a...

The act of throwing a thread in a discussion forum off topic, oftentimes so much so that the original discussion is unable to continue.

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

#777

Post by Mz » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:49 PM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #93

Mz wrote: post #41

Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism. The problem is that women are already being ostracized. When you can't get hired or you can't get VC money or you can't get business connections because the only time men will talk to you is to hit on you, you are already basically dead in the water as a business person. How do we get out of this dead end?

> How do we get out of this dead end? It's a chicken and egg problem. The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio, but if the consequences of that are self-reinforcing then the status quo remains. Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and…

The biggest systemic factor is the absurd gender ratio

I grew up in Columbus, GA in the highly racist America Deep South. Blacks and whites each constitute roughly 49% of the population of Columbus, GA. This has failed to turn it into some kind of racial paradise. Also, from what I gather, black slaves on plantations often outnumbered the white owners and their family members.

I don't think gender ratio has a thing to do with it. Using that metric as justification for the problem amounts to excusing it.

Many people have the instinct to turn to anti-harassment policies and enforcement, but that's like trying to fight cancer with aspirin. It might help a little bit but it's no cure no matter how much you use, and too much will cause problems without solving any.

I do agree with this. This is not a path forward.

But "we need more women in tech" is just the problem statement.

I don't think we need more women in tech. We need to figure out how to treat the women already in tech like human beings instead of whoopi cushions. This needs to be done regardless of how many women there are. Waiting until we hit some quota is just excusing bad behavior in the here and now and that will tend to keep it alive.

Nobody seems to actually know how to get there from here.

Or maybe there are people who have some idea, but no one takes them very seriously. In part because not taking them seriously conveniently serves to keep sexism alive and well while looking totally innocent to most onlookers.

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

#778

Post by dreamfactory2 » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:54 PM UTC

ronilan wrote: post #95

dkarl wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think cringe is the wrong word. We cringe when we watch The Office and see people make social mistakes without meaning to. These are not unwitting social mistakes. This is people being assholes because they know they can get away with it. Furthermore, not having met any of these people but speculating based on my experience, I would guess that their motivations go beyond just looking for sex and knowing that one ti…

> 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.

It's cultural and power related. SV aready thinks it has 'droit du seigneur' over everybody in the world's data; no surprise to see entitled power dynamics leak into the workplace.

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

#779

Post by lawnchair_larry » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 7:57 PM UTC

firebones wrote: post #322

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha. You'll want to read the story of what he actually did before making this assumption. If the names were redacted from the Bill and Melinda story, everyone here would be calling for his head.

I can't find anything other than that he awkwardly asked her out (after dating a number of Microsoft employees). Most of the recent stories read like sanitized rewrites of history. But I did find this somewhat interesting 1995 history of the lengths they went to in order to protect their privacy: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=199...

He cornered her in the parking lot after watching her for several weeks and asked for her number. She said no, mentioning something about him not being spontaneous enough. She didn't give him her number.

An hour later he called her at home, having obtained her number through her personnel information, saying, "Is this spontaneous enough for you?"

This is the wealthy CEO talking to a junior new hire.

I can only imagine the mob if someone like Travis Kalanick did that.

According to the standard some posters here are advocating, that makes Bill an evil sociopathic predator that should have been shamed or even locked up for harassment.

Clearly, these simple Dos and Donts are not so simple. It turns out that he made the correct move, they fell in love, and are married to this day.

Had I been his wing man and he bounced that plan off of me, I'd have talked him out of it and said he was crazy. It makes you wonder if he was extremely socially retarded or extremely socially advanced. He took a risk and it worked out perfectly for both of them.

Yet we want to crucify the guy who joked about wanting to hit on someone in an interview. I don't think that was appropriate but I'd be lying if I said I could find where we are drawing the line between what Dave tried and what Bill tried.

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

#780

Post by DanBC » Sat, Jul 01, 2017, 8:09 PM UTC

xor1 wrote: post #753

DanBC wrote: post #749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have lived with people with BPD. I work with people with BPD. I've spent time alone with people with BPD. You appear to have gone through a messy divorce, but that doesn't give you any information about a large (one to two percent) part of the population.

It wasn't a divorce.

I don't care.

You're misusing diagnostic labels to malign a large group of people who face significant and harmful levels of stigma.

You insist that your narrow experience is true of everyone with BDP; you don't frame your discussion as what happened to you but as what anyone else can expect from people with BDP.