7 ms·

Preamble: I'm not questioning or talking against the article at all, just making some notes. The problem seems to be real all around the world, which is yet ano

• cdubzzz 10y ago
  > did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager? Maybe I misread something but it seems like this did not happen, yet this should always be the first step. How do you support this statement? It doesn't strike me as a given and you don't really back it up at all.
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    human language 101: statement != question
    • cdubzzz 10y ago
      To clarify - your statement is, "this [talking to one's harassers] should always be the first step". It is an extremely broad statement and I am curious how you defend it.
      • ambicapter 10y ago
        One man's harassment is another man's ribbing. It is important to clearly define boundaries between two parties before one party decides a boundary has been crossed (n.b. I haven't read the article yet but stand behind my statement in the general case).
      • pmlnr 10y ago
        I may not have used enough words, but you should not add yours either. Talking to someone should be the first step, not talking to their managers, parents, superiors, whatever. If the situation is that bad, call the police, but that is an assault. An example to back my "statement": https://www.gov.uk/how-to-resolve-neighbour-disputes/overview https://www.gov.uk/how-to-resolve-neighbour-disputes/overvie... => 1.1. It's also usually the logical thing adults do.
        • ad-hominem 10y ago
          > It's also usually the logical thing adults do I am saddened that HN people completely miss this, and act like it's completely outside the bounds of normal behavior. Everyone in this story was an adult. She definitely should have spoken to them first.
          • deleted 10y ago
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• adekok 10y ago
  > The only thing I miss from the article: did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager? Maybe I misread something but it seems like this did not happen, yet this should always be the first step. I understand where you're coming from. But... there should be no need for one adult to educate another that bad behavior is unacceptable. Hi! I know you enjoy punching me from behind when I'm doing my work, but could you please stop? The larger issue is that (like most companies) actually doing anything is secondary to management politics. Protecting the bureaucracy is the #1 goal.
  • smsowmya 10y ago
    thank you :-) i think that is the point of the article .. we are in a chicken and egg situation here .. no one believes women when they say there are problems and hence there is no progress ..
    • adekok 10y ago
      > no one believes women when they say there are problems and hence there is no progress .. There are huge public awareness campaigns around all of these issues.
      • gcp 10y ago
        Yes, and for good reason :-)
        • adekok 10y ago
          So when people say no one believes women when they say there are problems, and at the same time, there are huge public awareness campaigns, I have to point out the inherent contradiction involved. Everything I see in the media is that there are not only huge awareness campaigns, but that when something does happen, there are also huge outcries about it.
          • smsowmya 10y ago
• pepve 10y ago
  What you're saying may feel and sound rational. But it is victim blaming.
  • pmlnr 10y ago
    No, it's not. I was asking questions and stating a few thing I made as mistakes - HR as someone to turn to -.
  • deleted 10y ago
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  • yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Congrats, you've assigned an arbitrary label to his questions. Labeling arguments is not the same as refuting them. Now, is he incorrect? If so, why?
  • threatofrain 10y ago
    You can tell somebody about how the bribery system works in another country after they've fallen victim, but that doesn't mean you think they own the blame for a foreign country's bribery issues. And, if something is a serious issue, like HR motivations to build a case against you no matter what, then people should say it out loud.
• smsowmya 10y ago
  I did confront them and ask them to stop, but I still had to work with them, and they didn't entirely stop .. Unless you expect women to have taken Harassment 101 as a college course, they are really flying blind with this one .. when more than one person is involved or supervisors are involved, it's not that easy to say oh here, let me pull so many people into HR .. legalities aside, it's the end of a happy working relationship ..
  • aedron 10y ago
    I have been in adversarial relationships at my workplace that took a huge toll emotionally and eventually physically, just as you described. I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I think it's good that you are talking about it and hope you recover - I still get stressed just thinking about those situations, years later. I did learn the hard way how to deal with it, which I think is mostly about attitude. I think part of your ordeal was that you had certain expectations from the people around you, and a lot of the grief was having those broken. So first of all, I guess you get a little more realistic (or disillusioned...) about workplace relationships, leadership and company policies. Sad as it may sound, loss of innocence and thicker skin will help the next time. Second thing is to nip things in the bud and not let anything fester. At this point I will straight up confront anyone if I feel treated unfairly and not let it rest. More often than not this solves the situation. If not, I will move on. Life is too short to stick around and being miserable somewhere, as long as you have the freedom not to. It sounds from your writing like you've already learned these lessons, but I just wanted to share my experiences.
    • AJ007 10y ago
      Workplace abuse is definitely a massive problem. Like personal relationships, it isn't something that the abused party can simply walkaway from without a major impact on their own life. I would guess a double digit percentage of jobs globally are abusive. A big chunk of which wouldn't even qualify as consensual employment - either through unpaid slave labor or misleading information about wages and work conditions. There needs to be more transparency about employment and the people involved in them. I think we will eventually see something like LinkedIn but which provides both positive and negative feedback about people and doesn't require a user to sign up for a profile to exist. There is a hard question as to where to draw the dividing line. Without robots, some jobs are just abusive - period. Many jobs lower the life expectancy of the workers, and I suppose the alternative would be (without robots) that no one does them. In the West we kind of get to firewall ourselves off from this, and we get to use, sell, or consume the product after all of the dirty work is done. At the minimum, reducing non-consensual employment will help push the true economic costs of produced goods closer to reality and eliminate the market forces which benefit non-consensual labor (basically cheating.) In terms of adversarial work environments, which if not addressed can easily become mutually abusive, no matter what the policies of a company are, the fired workers are going to end up working somewhere else. A big company like Apple may be capable of implementing ideal processes and eliminate those workers, but what happens at the next company they show up in? Should an employment blacklist exist at the federal level, or should employers only allow known abusive employees just to work in isolation?
• SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
  > s/women/people Harassment get target _anyone_ But does it target everyone _equally_ ? Of course not, far from it. This is why we pay attention to the groups that get targeted a lot. > Please don't make harassment part of the gender wars. Assuming that it isn't already.
  • keymone 10y ago
    but by targeting harassment properly you'd help all the groups at the same time.
    • SideburnsOfDoom 10y ago
      Isn't that basically the ""everyone should get their fair share" argument? https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/eli5_why_is_it_so_controversial_when_someone_says/ https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3du1qm/e...
      • keymone 10y ago
        thanks for the link, it was a nice read. i still have a problem with this: > Saying "target all harassment" is dismissing the very problems that the phrase is trying to draw attention to the problem is harassment. not just women harassment, not just racial harassment. isn't it just as dismissive to say "focus on these kinds of harassment, everybody else will just have to wait because they can consider themselves lucky enough to even be white males"? they key bit is "targeting harassment properly". of course dismissing is not proper handling.
    • deleted 10y ago
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    • deleted 10y ago
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  • pmlnr 10y ago
    > But does it target everyone _equally_ ? LOL, wat? Each and every case is unique, there is no equal in this. I even gave an example, which has happened to me, to friends, to my wife equally...
• smsowmya 10y ago
  And the thing about questioning, I understand innocent until proven guilty, but putting the onus of everything on the victim is pretty unfair ..
  • tomp 10y ago
    I agree with you. I definitely wouldn't trust an employee's accusations without a proper investigation, but contacting the alleged abusers and reminding them to behave professionally doesn't seem to be a problem. Especially since (in general) they might be unaware of the effect their behaviour has on you!
  • AlexB138 10y ago
    No, actually, it's not. You're accusing someone of something very serious that puts their livelihood at stake. You need to have proof in that situation. It's a very intense and emotional experience, but that doesn't mean everyone needs to automatically assume the alleged victim is being honest.
    • smsowmya 10y ago
      And that's what makes victims think 100 times before making a formal allegation .. and why most don't report it.
      • AlexB138 10y ago
        What does? The necessity that you should actually show something is occurring before a company destroys someone's reputation and livelihood? Reality is that people lie. Do you genuinely believe that an accusation should be taken as 100% truth simply on one person's word? Do you not see how easily that become a weapon? Even reprimanding a person, when there's no proof they've done anything wrong, establishes a bias against them. That's a great way to alienate an employee who may have done nothing wrong, not to mention opening the thread of legal repercussion.
        • SolaceQuantum 10y ago
• yummyfajitas 10y ago
  There are no labor unions any more; those are the ones that would actually care about your wellbeing. Actually labor unions tend to protect people accused of sexual harassment. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/nyregion/found-to-have-misbehaved-but-still-teaching-in-new-york-city.html?_r=3&ref=patrickmcgeehanFirefoxHTMLShellOpenCommand http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/nyregion/found-to-have-mis... In fact they seem to be legally obligated to advocate for all union members, which would include the people doing harassing.
• kalleth 10y ago
  I'm astonished this is as high as it is. > did she try to talk to her harassers directly before going to a manager? There are a huge number of reasons why you should not be expected to do this. The harasser can be in a position of authority, for example. Even separately to that (and i understand this is a reducio argument, but..) would you ask an abuse victim to speak to their abuser? No, they go straight to the police. > HR is not your friend; it's one of the stakeholders' defense lines. This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending. > When you have weeks, months, in some cases, I think it is all right to expect decisions from anyone. I report an assault. Do I suggest to the police how they should investigate and prosecute this assault? No. The victim reports the behaviour, but other parties should determine how to investigate and proceed with that report. > This is embarrassing - but there are people out there who lie. Especially these days, with the problems of fake news, it's easy to get suspicious. Sometimes, yes, people do lie, but each complaint of any nature should be treated confidentially so reports of abuses like this can be made without fear of repercussion. In the (very unlikely) event of the victim being untruthful, the matter should be dropped, not blow back on the reporter -- or nobody will report real problems for fear of being unfairly punished themselves. > s/women/people This didn't need to be said. The author is talking about her experiences of harassment as a woman in technology. Yes, there are other problems that also need solving. This isn't the hill on which to make this point.
  • sqldba 10y ago
    > > HR is not your friend; it's one of the stakeholders' defense lines. > This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending. Ah, but it's not a gendered problem, and outside of gender laws, there's not much you can do to "fix" something nebulous like this in corporate America.
  • Merad 10y ago
    > This is a problem that needs fixing, rather than a status quo that needs defending. This is not a problem that can realistically be fixed. An organization that's going to work for the best interests of employees cannot be paid by the company, nor can it report to the company or someone with whom the company has significant influence. That means unions.