Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#91

Post by bdowling » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

devchix wrote: post #24

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

> why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office?

That would not help because an in-house lawyer represents the company and a lawyer can’t represent both sides in a dispute. In other words, company lawyers can’t represent a complainant in a dispute against their corporate clients.

By contrast, HR are not lawyers so HR can pretend to be on the complainant’s side.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#92

Post by guitarbill » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:38 PM UTC

MockObject wrote: post #67

deeg wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Susan Fowler is a hero; it must have taken a tremendous amount of courage to hit the 'send' button while knowing her life was going to change. My niece is about to graduate into the SDE work force and I have little doubt that the culture is incrementally better because of Fowler.

> the SDE work force Google didn't help with this acronym.

presumably "software development engineer" (think mainly Amazon uses this)

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#93

Post by ccsnags » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:45 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #43

devchix wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

"Why must it be this way[?]" Follow the money. I don't mean that as snark; I'm serious. I think people in general don't follow the money enough. Even some people who occasionally advocate for it are very selective about it and frequently just treat it as a slur to deploy sometimes. But it's more important than that. It should always be part of the analysis of a business. If you aren't paying for it, you aren't the be…

Large companies can combat this by aligning its incentives to include worker well-being and retention as part of their equation.

Unhappy workers and revolving-door hiring costs real money. Quantifying these values in terms of dollars can be helpful for creating a work place that encourages personal growth and increases positive feedback for workers in terms of money/bonuses for all levels.

You have to put worker relations in terms of money to get the needle to move, but when you do, you will be shocked how much good you can do for the workers if you can quantify their unhappiness and morale.

Doing the right thing is often just a matter of paying attention to the right metrics. Not every company is short-sited on labor. Companies are in a position to create win-win scenarios for its workers and the bottom line if the incentives are aligned.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#94

Post by MockObject » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:46 PM UTC

SandersAK wrote: post #14

Her work has had profound impact and I’m excited to read her book. It’s amazing to still see the ramifications of her work today. For example, in this very thread it shows just how latent misogyny is in the majority of the community. It’s a special sort of myopia dressed up as factual rational discussion but her work exposes that sentiment for what it is: fear of change, fear of women, fear of losing power over women…

> this very thread it shows just how latent misogyny is in the majority of the community

Majority of what community? Are you noticing which comments are getting voted high, and which ones are downvoted into nothingness?

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#95

Post by octokatt » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:47 PM UTC

devchix wrote: post #24

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

This aphorism that HR is there to protect the company -- I hear it all the time and it's terribly cynical, while also probably true. Why must it be this way; asked another way, why do we accept that it must be this way, that every time we engage HR it must be with the understanding that they are the adversary. Why go to HR at all, why even have HR, why not fold it all in the legal counsel's office? Why can't HR be wh…

> why must it be this way

Companies used to have Ombudsman; literally a board member who did nothing but listen to employee complaints and help them e heard. This tended to lead to unions, which reduced company profitability, and was replaced with the current HR model, which is now giving way to out-sourced HR models.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#96

Post by ecmascript » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

ryguytilidie wrote: post #15

ecmascript wrote: post #4

Cry me a river, the overwhelming majority of sexism in the IT-industry is towards men and white men in particular. Men also don't get the privilege of getting any media outcry or changes for the sexism against them. Just to give a few examples on top of my head: There has been no conferences that has been [1] shut down or postponed [2] because of the skin color or sex of the speakers. It has definately been so for me…

You posted four examples of sexism against men to prove that the overwhelming majority of sexism happens towards men? Do you believe that there are less than 4 instances of sexism happening towards women in Silicon Valley...?

No, as I don't believe there are 4 instances of sexism towards men.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#97

Post by greenhorse » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

commandlinefan wrote: post #5

lordleft wrote: post #2

That first article she wrote, exposing the culture at Uber, was profoundly upsetting and an important moment in the history of our industry. Kudos to her for standing up to one the most egregiously hostile work environments I've ever read about.

I remember reading that post and being surprised how little of it was actually sexism (the only thing I saw that qualified was the thing about the shirts), and how much of it was just maltreatment of programmers of all types. But I guess if you have to slap the label "sexism" on it to get it to be taken seriously, we take what we can get.

You have to almost be intentionally looking the other way not to see the clear sexism at play here.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#98

Post by ecmascript » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:52 PM UTC

andrei_says_ wrote: post #25

ecmascript wrote: post #4

Cry me a river, the overwhelming majority of sexism in the IT-industry is towards men and white men in particular. Men also don't get the privilege of getting any media outcry or changes for the sexism against them. Just to give a few examples on top of my head: There has been no conferences that has been [1] shut down or postponed [2] because of the skin color or sex of the speakers. It has definately been so for me…

Are you trolling or are you unaware of the thousands of years of men and institutions treating women as property, as objects of desire or status, as cheap labor, and the fact that these attitudes are still very much in place? Cry me a river, women's rights movements and feminist culture push back against this millennia-long oppression and some men don't like losing their right to treat women like sh*t. Show me the 80…

Well, it seems like you and I live in parallel universes. I don't believe these attitudes are still in place and I believe today's people have nothing to do with what happened 500 years ago for example.

I am not responsible for what other people have done so I expect not to be treated as such. In my experience, men are subjects of sexism in the IT industry to a far greater extent than women are. We never hear of this since media is very female-oriented and don't care about bad stuff happening towards men.

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#99

Post by SideburnsOfDoom » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:54 PM UTC

puszczyk wrote: post #82

Traster wrote: post #6

>“I felt a wave of relief wash over me when I remembered that I worked at a large company, one with a sizable human resources department,” I feel like someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business. They aren't there as some moral arbiter. If you reported sexual harassment to HR you are going to be part of an equation - is it better for the business…

> someone needs to run an education campaign on what HR is and who it works for. HR is there to protect the business What I still don't understand is why the uber HR acted this way. I think people understand that HR is there for the company, but the assumption is that they want to avoid any bad press. If they protect a person who is a multiple offender. And this person is not C*E or high ranking manager, just a regul…

Point well made that quite often, "the right thing" and "protect the company" are the same, because "protect the abuser" is not good for the company, good publicity etc.

However, people often act for short term gain at the cost of long-term pain. I think that it's fair to say that Uber did when they repeatedly tried to "make the problem go away".

Re: Why Susan Fowler blew the whistle on sexism at Uber

#100

Post by danso » Wed, Feb 19, 2020, 4:56 PM UTC

rndgermandude wrote: post #86

danso wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the typical maltreatment you experience as a programmer? > After the first couple of weeks of training, I chose to join the team that worked on my area of expertise, and this is where things started getting weird. On my first official day rotating on the team, my new manager sent me a string of messages over company chat. He was in an open relationship, he said, and his girlfriend was having an easy time find…

Regarding the propositioning for sex, a uni buddy of mine was propositioned during an interview for an internship by his male interviewer (buddy is gay, interviewer likely is too). It was absolutely vile, unsettling behavior, and it made me think it might be more common than I previously thought. Later, one of my sisters told us about how she applied for some job at a startup (not an IT related job), and after the in…

> What I guess I am trying to say is that this kind of vile behavior is in fact pretty common, unfortunately, and also not necessarily only something men do to women (although I am sure it is more prevalent in that direction). But most of it I wouldn't attribute it to sexism, but to assholes being assholes.

So it's true that being propositioned for sex by someone who has authority over you is not something exclusively suffered by women. And the fact that it happens more often to women than men at Uber may not necessarily an issue of "malicious" sexism, since it just so happens that men in Uber management far outnumber the women.

What elevates Fowler's scenario is the systematic responses by HR and other management to ignore or otherwise suppress this issue, with Fowler and with many of the colleagues she talked to. After Fowler thoroughly documented this first incident, an ostensibly non-sexist HR/management would sanction the manager, not Fowler [0]:

> Upper management told me that he "was a high performer" (i.e. had stellar performance reviews from his superiors) and they wouldn't feel comfortable punishing him for what was probably just an innocent mistake on his part. I was then told that I had to make a choice: (i) I could either go and find another team and then never have to interact with this man again, or (ii) I could stay on the team, but I would have to understand that he would most likely give me a poor performance review when review time came around, and there was nothing they could do about that

The second excerpt I quoted in my prior comment indicates that, according to Fowler, a sexist mindset had become enshrined in management's decision-making:

> When I pointed out how few women were in SRE, she recounted with a story about how sometimes certain people of certain genders and ethnic backgrounds were better suited for some jobs than others, so I shouldn't be surprised by the gender ratios in engineering. Our meeting ended with her berating me about keeping email records of things, and told me it was unprofessional to report things via email to HR.

[0] https://www.susanjfowler.com/blog/2017/2/19/reflecting-on-on...