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I would guess that this happens more often than you imagine. Women often don't share stories like this for fear of retribution at their current company or futur

I would guess that this happens more often than you imagine. Women often don't share stories like this for fear of retribution at their current company or future companies, or because they think you won't believe them. In addition NDA's are often a condition of receiving severance. Most women in Silicon Valley have had experiences similar to those mentioned in the article (HR disbelief, multiple women reporting same man to no effect, retaliation, legal threats, &c, &c). The OP probably declined a severance package to write this.

kbenson 10y ago
Well, it sounds like she quit, wasn't fired/laid off, so a severence package probably doesn't apply (although if the rumors about how bad Uber is to work at are true, perhaps they do offer severance packages to those quitting...).
- kevinburke 10y ago
  I know multiple women at other companies who have been offered severance after they quit just to keep quiet about how bad things are. Not rare.
facepalm 10y ago
Your guessing sounds rather sexist. Why not stick to data instead of guessing? There is enough bias against men already.
- kevinburke 10y ago
  My "data" is every woman I know in tech sharing this story with a comment like, "A version of this happened to me" or "I know so many people who have had this happen to them." Also multiple stories of women reporting harassment and being forced out of companies, as well as multiple women I know signing NDA's as a condition of receiving severance pay to avoid discussing a company's poor treatment or management of harassment.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    Then don't write "I guess it is common", state the number of women who told you such things. Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Also differentiate between some colleague being interested in them and boss proposing sex on first day.
    - socksy 10y ago
      Have you tried asking them? It feels vaguely ridiculous to expect hard data and facts on things of "people told me". I know I have female friends who have told me similar stories, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many, nor would I want to start iterating these anecdotes to a stranger on the internet. In exactly the same way it would be to start statistically analysing any other statement on "people told me [x]". As for the latter, putting lines in the sand is a good way to be seen as not wanting to listen... I'm not saying that's what you're doing in this case, just how it comes across. Like, you've decided in advance what you want the result from the discussion to be, and no woman will be able to cross whatever standard you've chosen for inappropriate propositions (even when this is totally untrue).
      - facepalm 10y ago
        I took issue with the "I guess it is very common that women expect that kind of harassment", because it plays into sexist stereotypes. I think in these matters )(sexism, racism, bias), it pays to be precise. How else can you counter bias? What if countless people told me they had been mugged by black people? Don't understand your comment about lines in the sand. What do you mean?
        kevinburke 10y ago
        A very large part of the problem is that claims of harassment are waved away, and the same people are allowed to harass again and again. There's a lot of evidence pointing to "believe women when they say they are harassed."
- rleigh 10y ago
  It would be nice to believe that all these reported events are exceptional, and to an extent they are atypical, but it is indicative of a fairly broken work culture that such things happen. Until recently, I'd only ever read accounts of bad things like this happening at certain conferences, and not seen anything first hand. A few months back, one of the female staff on our team changed their github picture. When mentioning this in conversation, it turned out that random people (not physically at work, but github users who did not know any of us in person) were harassing/propositioning her solely due to that image. What sort of screwed up person does that?! People should be able to do their jobs without dealing with crap like that.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    "all these reported events" - what do you mean? There was one event reported here, and a "guess" that it happens often. I don't doubt men are often attracted to women, even colleagues. Whether that alone should count as sexist harassment I consider debatable, but in any case it is not the same level as a boss proposing sex on the first work day, with threat of career disadvantages for rebuffing the offer.
    - cbtacy 10y ago
      OMG just stop posting. Seriously.
    - rleigh 10y ago
      There have been a few high profile incidences of fairly bad things happening over the last year; see the code of conduct introduced at some conferences after some of them. Some people just don't know how to behave appropriately, sad to say. This story being a poster child for how not to behave, and how not to handle the situation properly if you're in HR. And regarding the last paragraph, I'm not talking about anything in the workplace between colleagues or otherwise. I'm talking about creepy strangers propositioning people they have never ever met or communicated with, on github. github is not a dating or hookup site for strangers. It's for sharing and collaborating on code. There are other, more appropriate, sites for dating- and hookup-related activities with willing participants who opted into it. No one wants or needs to deal with strangers propositioning them through the tools they use for their professional work. You should not feel required to hide your appearance or identity to be comfortable doing your job without being harassed, unsolicited, by strangers.
- solipsism 10y ago
  I don't channel Reddit very often but... username checks out.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    what do you mean?
- cbtacy 10y ago
  I'm guessing you're male? Time to sit down and shut up for a bit, yeah?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    If you think a comment shouldn't be on HN you can downvote it or flag it. There's a high karma threshold for voting. There's a lower karma threshold for flagging. Flagging (I think) should be reserved for serious violations. The flag button appears if you click the timestamp of the post.
  - projektir 10y ago
    Please do not talk to anyone, male or female, like this.
- headcanon 10y ago
  finding data about underreporting of sexual harassment in the workplace is by definition difficult, since it is by definition not being reported, so anecdotes are all we have in many cases. If you want a source though, here is one: (https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-we-fail-to-report-sexual-harassment https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-we-fail-to-report-sexual-harassm...) In this case, the data is moot. It doesn't matter if 10% of women experience this, or 90%. Whether or not it is a problem is not in debate. It is a problem. Preventing sexual harassment is everyone's responsibility, even if you are not the one harassing.
  - facepalm 10y ago
    Of course the scale of the problem makes a difference. People are also being murdered on a daily basis, but we don't claim it affects the labor force at scale (like "there is a shortage of women in STEM because they have all been murdered"). Just like murders should be prevented, sexual harassment should be prevented. But that doesn't necessarily make it a large scale problem. As for the linked problem, I criticize that it doesn't properly define sexual harassment. The comparison here is to a guy who proposed sex on a first work day and threatened a stunted career. Is that really what women experience all the time. Or is it mostly that an unwanted colleague is attracted to them? The methodology is also not clear (very likely they only asked women, which seems rather one-sided. For "real" crime there is a reason for there being courts and judges).

kbenson 10y ago

Well, it sounds like she quit, wasn't fired/laid off, so a severence package probably doesn't apply (although if the rumors about how bad Uber is to work at are true, perhaps they do offer severance packages to those quitting...).

kevinburke 10y ago
I know multiple women at other companies who have been offered severance after they quit just to keep quiet about how bad things are. Not rare.

facepalm 10y ago

Your guessing sounds rather sexist. Why not stick to data instead of guessing? There is enough bias against men already.

kevinburke 10y ago
My "data" is every woman I know in tech sharing this story with a comment like, "A version of this happened to me" or "I know so many people who have had this happen to them." Also multiple stories of women reporting harassment and being forced out of companies, as well as multiple women I know signing NDA's as a condition of receiving severance pay to avoid discussing a company's poor treatment or management of harassment.
- facepalm 10y ago
  Then don't write "I guess it is common", state the number of women who told you such things. Personally I haven't heard many such stories from women in tech. Also differentiate between some colleague being interested in them and boss proposing sex on first day.
  - socksy 10y ago
    Have you tried asking them? It feels vaguely ridiculous to expect hard data and facts on things of "people told me". I know I have female friends who have told me similar stories, but I couldn't for the life of me remember how many, nor would I want to start iterating these anecdotes to a stranger on the internet. In exactly the same way it would be to start statistically analysing any other statement on "people told me [x]". As for the latter, putting lines in the sand is a good way to be seen as not wanting to listen... I'm not saying that's what you're doing in this case, just how it comes across. Like, you've decided in advance what you want the result from the discussion to be, and no woman will be able to cross whatever standard you've chosen for inappropriate propositions (even when this is totally untrue).
    - facepalm 10y ago
      I took issue with the "I guess it is very common that women expect that kind of harassment", because it plays into sexist stereotypes. I think in these matters )(sexism, racism, bias), it pays to be precise. How else can you counter bias? What if countless people told me they had been mugged by black people? Don't understand your comment about lines in the sand. What do you mean?
      - kevinburke 10y ago
        A very large part of the problem is that claims of harassment are waved away, and the same people are allowed to harass again and again. There's a lot of evidence pointing to "believe women when they say they are harassed."
rleigh 10y ago
It would be nice to believe that all these reported events are exceptional, and to an extent they are atypical, but it is indicative of a fairly broken work culture that such things happen. Until recently, I'd only ever read accounts of bad things like this happening at certain conferences, and not seen anything first hand. A few months back, one of the female staff on our team changed their github picture. When mentioning this in conversation, it turned out that random people (not physically at work, but github users who did not know any of us in person) were harassing/propositioning her solely due to that image. What sort of screwed up person does that?! People should be able to do their jobs without dealing with crap like that.
- facepalm 10y ago
  "all these reported events" - what do you mean? There was one event reported here, and a "guess" that it happens often. I don't doubt men are often attracted to women, even colleagues. Whether that alone should count as sexist harassment I consider debatable, but in any case it is not the same level as a boss proposing sex on the first work day, with threat of career disadvantages for rebuffing the offer.
  - cbtacy 10y ago
    OMG just stop posting. Seriously.
  - rleigh 10y ago
    There have been a few high profile incidences of fairly bad things happening over the last year; see the code of conduct introduced at some conferences after some of them. Some people just don't know how to behave appropriately, sad to say. This story being a poster child for how not to behave, and how not to handle the situation properly if you're in HR. And regarding the last paragraph, I'm not talking about anything in the workplace between colleagues or otherwise. I'm talking about creepy strangers propositioning people they have never ever met or communicated with, on github. github is not a dating or hookup site for strangers. It's for sharing and collaborating on code. There are other, more appropriate, sites for dating- and hookup-related activities with willing participants who opted into it. No one wants or needs to deal with strangers propositioning them through the tools they use for their professional work. You should not feel required to hide your appearance or identity to be comfortable doing your job without being harassed, unsolicited, by strangers.
solipsism 10y ago
I don't channel Reddit very often but... username checks out.
- facepalm 10y ago
  what do you mean?
cbtacy 10y ago
I'm guessing you're male? Time to sit down and shut up for a bit, yeah?
- DanBC 10y ago
  If you think a comment shouldn't be on HN you can downvote it or flag it. There's a high karma threshold for voting. There's a lower karma threshold for flagging. Flagging (I think) should be reserved for serious violations. The flag button appears if you click the timestamp of the post.
- projektir 10y ago
  Please do not talk to anyone, male or female, like this.
headcanon 10y ago
finding data about underreporting of sexual harassment in the workplace is by definition difficult, since it is by definition not being reported, so anecdotes are all we have in many cases. If you want a source though, here is one: (https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-we-fail-to-report-sexual-harassment https://hbr.org/2016/10/why-we-fail-to-report-sexual-harassm...) In this case, the data is moot. It doesn't matter if 10% of women experience this, or 90%. Whether or not it is a problem is not in debate. It is a problem. Preventing sexual harassment is everyone's responsibility, even if you are not the one harassing.
- facepalm 10y ago
  Of course the scale of the problem makes a difference. People are also being murdered on a daily basis, but we don't claim it affects the labor force at scale (like "there is a shortage of women in STEM because they have all been murdered"). Just like murders should be prevented, sexual harassment should be prevented. But that doesn't necessarily make it a large scale problem. As for the linked problem, I criticize that it doesn't properly define sexual harassment. The comparison here is to a guy who proposed sex on a first work day and threatened a stunted career. Is that really what women experience all the time. Or is it mostly that an unwanted colleague is attracted to them? The methodology is also not clear (very likely they only asked women, which seems rather one-sided. For "real" crime there is a reason for there being courts and judges).