4 ms·

An interesting read. Though, for me, VC in general is not the kind of job that favors people who are nice. When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there

by dreta 9y ago

An interesting read. Though, for me, VC in general is not the kind of job that favors people who are nice. When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. For me, it set the tone for the whole article, and painted a clear picture of her attitude towards the case and people involved. Given the current political climate in SV, it's a poor attempt at manipulation, and doesn't help her come off as reasonable.

icebraining 9y ago
It's your prerogative to have a different perspective on the facts presented. But "manipulation" implies intent to deceive, which shouldn't be thrown unless you have good reasons to do so.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
SeanDav 9y ago
> " I was sure the white men booked on the flight..." I agree, saying it was white men who were booked on the plane did sound a bit off to me, but also consider the environment she worked in: > "When venture capitalists say — and they do say — “We think it’s young white men, ideally Ivy League dropouts, who are the safest bets,” then invest only in young white men with Ivy League backgrounds, of course young white men with Ivy League backgrounds are the only ones who make money for them." There clearly is a culture in her industry of judging people by age, colour and sex so it is likely that she has become used to doing the same, at least in terms of colour. This does not make her comment right but it does give it context and should not detract from her main arguments.
gizmo 9y ago
I disagree. Ellen Pao is a woman of color, and she has no choice but to be aware of how she is perceived by others and by white men in particular. White guys can afford to be color blind, because racism doesn't affect them personally. She doesn't have that luxury. A coworker showing up at your hotelroom door in a bathrobe is not "rude". It's textbook sexual harassment. Sexual harassment isn't just in the eye of the beholder, there are clear rules for professional conduct and those rules were repeatedly violated. Note that the _majority_ of women in tech report having been sexually harassed to some degree. So I don't think your skepticism about sexual harassment is helpful, given how ubiquitous it is. Your suggestion that Pao has a specific negative attitude towards white men (i.e. she dislikes white men) is beyond the pale. This is a really underhanded attempt to discredit her.
- dmix 9y ago
  > White guys can afford to be color blind, because racism doesn't affect them personally. She doesn't have that luxury. This has the natural implication that vast majority of white guys are color blind as a result. This assumption can generate a lot of unfounded biases, especially by those who are taught from a young age to perceive every white male as being oblivious to racial issues in their day-to-day lives. It takes quite a bit of ignorance to be color blind in modern culture regardless of your race. Even without certain groups pushing for awareness at every opportunity. Outside of maybe rural areas in North America and some parts of Europe it's hard not to be confronted with a wide variety of social interactions with other cultures - but even the bubble of rural areas are being broken down by technology as we all grow up with online identities. How one confronts other cultures is a different issue than this inherent color blindness, racism is not necessarily a result of obliviousness or total ignorance but many times a result of some harmful - but willful - ideology. Therefore, I believe it's appropriate to react with at least some skepticism when someone immediately shoehorns peoples races into conversations. Especially when their race would not otherwise have any influence on the subject at hand. In this case it was men talking about sex workers and porn stars, which certainly isn't unique to white men. That said you shouldn't necessarily be dismissive of race in every topic, people's race has an important influence on their realities and I take issue when people try to pretend it has zero influence. My point is merely is that this should not be limited to just referencing white males, as it's unfair to act like this is a unique phenomenon for the majority of white male. Unless of course you're okay with basing opinions upon cultural stereotypes rather than the variety and shades of grey which make up reality. The white males she references on the jet are very much the exception to the rule in any American city. This "frat boy" or "bro" culture is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and is a common problem in the finance world, but that doesn't mean it's a standard feature one should expect from white males generally. And most certainly not a basis from which to stereotype them. Not to mention that sexism is as (or often more) prominent in many Latin American, Arab, and African cultures than you'd find in your average white american male. But even then stereotyping them as such merely based on their race, rather than their local cultures or subcultures, is fraught with risk. Would the men in these racial groups lack of 'color blindness' then make it more or less relevant to bring it up in such a conversation? Or is it only okay as long as it's 'white males'? See the logical issues here? If she had said "white frat boys" I would have had no issue with the inclusion of race. Context and culture matters.
Powerofmene 9y ago
> When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What specifically are you referring to as being rude or trying to use you? If seems based on the legal definition of sexual harassment it was sexism it was harassment and then when they excluded her from meetings, sought negative reviews from people she worked with, withheld positive reviews in order to give her negative performance reviews and ultimately say her work had not improved over time they retaliated for her rejected unwanted advances. So it was not sexism it was sexual harassment and retailiation. Just because she did not win her court case does not make it less illegal behavior. It appears she was out-gunned. Ellen, as I see it, refers to sexism in the industry in the general aggregate....the hiring of few females, the treatment and harassment of women, the lack of promotions that qualified women receive, the lower pay, the unwarranted and unwanted comments, the unwarranted and unwanted texts, the lack of diversity, etc.
spdionis 9y ago
> What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. Exactly my thought. The moment I read that word I stopped being neutral towards the article and started considering it as "shit talking". If you're writing about sexism there is really no reason to point out the men involved were white. It sounds like "Look at those privileged nasty men!!! And they harrassed me!" instead of "These nasty men harrased me!".
- peripitea 9y ago
  Sexual harassment and power structures are intertwined. That's part of what this whole story is about. If they weren't so powerful, it would be much harder for them to get away with this, and they would probably be less likely to do it in the first place. Their whiteness is a part of their power. It's not the only, and maybe not even the primary reason for their power, but it's certainly relevant.
kelukelugames 9y ago
I don't think it's fair to interpret every rude behavior as 100% due to sexism. Nor is it okay to dismiss all sexist behavior as general rudeness. Some people are treated some times different by some people partly due to their gender and race.
wyldfire 9y ago
I didn't get that from this article at all. It seems like she made clear points about how she was treated differently from her male colleagues. The story didn't strike me as "people are rude [and Pao has contorted the rudeness into sexism]." All I could think as I read this is that "gee, I would really hate being a woman in that environment." Maybe the high-stakes of VC just means that the amplitude of this entire system is higher than a "normal" tech job? "Mild/ordinary" sexist things like not advancing and not being allocated interesting/challenging tasks are replaced by conversations about porn stars at work.
- curun1r 9y ago
  I think the implication is that the 'white' part is irrelevant to the sexual harassment she faced and just serves to muddy the waters. Would the treatment she experienced have been any more or less wrong had it been at the hands of non-white men? It's telling that the main harasser in her story, Ajit Nazre, is not white. And yet nowhere in her piece did she mention his ethnicity. It's not a huge leap to assume that the 'white' part of 'white men' is being added for effect and to try to curry sympathy for her cause by conflating two different forms of discrimination when she only experienced one. In fact one of her complaints was that Nazre, another person of Asian descent, was promoted over her. There's no evidence, nor has she ever made the accusation that she was the victim of racial discrimination. Racism and sexism are two very different wrongs that are often found in the same situations. But they have very different origins, motivations, results and remedies. Therefore we should be careful when we talk about them not to conflate them when only one of them applies to a certain situation. It is though, IMHO, wrong to call out Pao for blurring this line when so many of these diversity conversations also blur the lines. There are some fundamental differences between racism and sexism that necessitate taking different approaches to each problem and yet people seem so intent on grouping them together under a single 'diversity' label which is, to my mind, counterproductive.
dlwdlw 9y ago
White males are overly represented but I think it's fair. After all the US is white male culture at the higher levels so those who grew up with this culture have an advantage. They are fish while everyone else are forced amphibians. It's natural for advantages to compound. Change in culture often comes with damage of supplantation of existing cultures. US culture is unique in that is can coexist with other cultures but isn't entirely replaced. At least not the high status portion. The low status portions have been excised. (trump supporters) To replace high status white male culture there needs to be an equivalent high status opponent. Pao's article I think is useful in that it targets this directly and doesn't just stop at discussions on passing whiteboard interviews for IC2 positions. It's expected as with any invasion that there is collateral damage. Trump supporters feel impotent and sidelined. These higher level incumbents are a lot more crafty and a lot more powerful. We can't even deal with rascists except defang them and wait for them to die. This is why high status Chinese/Indian female/male culture doesn't exist in the valley for the most part, at most upper middle culture. There's not enough space at the top and it isn't worth it to start a war. Because in culture wars, home turf always wins. Giving coal power plants unlimited nuclear fuel or tidal plants unlimited sun doesn't tap into the necessary power. Chinese/Indian high culture taps into society. For people in the valley this source of power is removed. I'd say that US high status white male culture is more standalone and deals with pure power in the ability to manipulate or coerce people. Interestingly this spreads more easily across gender than race though often the new entrants must give up their old culture in many ways. For males that don't give up their mother culture they can feel marginalized and impotent, feeling that everything is unfair. For those that do they see no imbalance. The gap for women though still exists.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

by dreta 9y ago

icebraining 9y ago

It's your prerogative to have a different perspective on the facts presented. But "manipulation" implies intent to deceive, which shouldn't be thrown unless you have good reasons to do so.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

SeanDav 9y ago

> " I was sure the white men booked on the flight..." I agree, saying it was white men who were booked on the plane did sound a bit off to me, but also consider the environment she worked in: > "When venture capitalists say — and they do say — “We think it’s young white men, ideally Ivy League dropouts, who are the safest bets,” then invest only in young white men with Ivy League backgrounds, of course young white men with Ivy League backgrounds are the only ones who make money for them." There clearly is a culture in her industry of judging people by age, colour and sex so it is likely that she has become used to doing the same, at least in terms of colour. This does not make her comment right but it does give it context and should not detract from her main arguments.

gizmo 9y ago

I disagree. Ellen Pao is a woman of color, and she has no choice but to be aware of how she is perceived by others and by white men in particular. White guys can afford to be color blind, because racism doesn't affect them personally. She doesn't have that luxury. A coworker showing up at your hotelroom door in a bathrobe is not "rude". It's textbook sexual harassment. Sexual harassment isn't just in the eye of the beholder, there are clear rules for professional conduct and those rules were repeatedly violated. Note that the _majority_ of women in tech report having been sexually harassed to some degree. So I don't think your skepticism about sexual harassment is helpful, given how ubiquitous it is. Your suggestion that Pao has a specific negative attitude towards white men (i.e. she dislikes white men) is beyond the pale. This is a really underhanded attempt to discredit her.

dmix 9y ago
> White guys can afford to be color blind, because racism doesn't affect them personally. She doesn't have that luxury. This has the natural implication that vast majority of white guys are color blind as a result. This assumption can generate a lot of unfounded biases, especially by those who are taught from a young age to perceive every white male as being oblivious to racial issues in their day-to-day lives. It takes quite a bit of ignorance to be color blind in modern culture regardless of your race. Even without certain groups pushing for awareness at every opportunity. Outside of maybe rural areas in North America and some parts of Europe it's hard not to be confronted with a wide variety of social interactions with other cultures - but even the bubble of rural areas are being broken down by technology as we all grow up with online identities. How one confronts other cultures is a different issue than this inherent color blindness, racism is not necessarily a result of obliviousness or total ignorance but many times a result of some harmful - but willful - ideology. Therefore, I believe it's appropriate to react with at least some skepticism when someone immediately shoehorns peoples races into conversations. Especially when their race would not otherwise have any influence on the subject at hand. In this case it was men talking about sex workers and porn stars, which certainly isn't unique to white men. That said you shouldn't necessarily be dismissive of race in every topic, people's race has an important influence on their realities and I take issue when people try to pretend it has zero influence. My point is merely is that this should not be limited to just referencing white males, as it's unfair to act like this is a unique phenomenon for the majority of white male. Unless of course you're okay with basing opinions upon cultural stereotypes rather than the variety and shades of grey which make up reality. The white males she references on the jet are very much the exception to the rule in any American city. This "frat boy" or "bro" culture is a problem that needs to be dealt with, and is a common problem in the finance world, but that doesn't mean it's a standard feature one should expect from white males generally. And most certainly not a basis from which to stereotype them. Not to mention that sexism is as (or often more) prominent in many Latin American, Arab, and African cultures than you'd find in your average white american male. But even then stereotyping them as such merely based on their race, rather than their local cultures or subcultures, is fraught with risk. Would the men in these racial groups lack of 'color blindness' then make it more or less relevant to bring it up in such a conversation? Or is it only okay as long as it's 'white males'? See the logical issues here? If she had said "white frat boys" I would have had no issue with the inclusion of race. Context and culture matters.

Powerofmene 9y ago

> When people are rude to you, or try to use you, there's a multitude of ways you can interpret that. For Ellen, it's sexism. What specifically are you referring to as being rude or trying to use you? If seems based on the legal definition of sexual harassment it was sexism it was harassment and then when they excluded her from meetings, sought negative reviews from people she worked with, withheld positive reviews in order to give her negative performance reviews and ultimately say her work had not improved over time they retaliated for her rejected unwanted advances. So it was not sexism it was sexual harassment and retailiation. Just because she did not win her court case does not make it less illegal behavior. It appears she was out-gunned. Ellen, as I see it, refers to sexism in the industry in the general aggregate....the hiring of few females, the treatment and harassment of women, the lack of promotions that qualified women receive, the lower pay, the unwarranted and unwanted comments, the unwarranted and unwanted texts, the lack of diversity, etc.

spdionis 9y ago

> What baffled me was that in the opening paragraphs she felt the need to point out that the powerful men were white. Exactly my thought. The moment I read that word I stopped being neutral towards the article and started considering it as "shit talking". If you're writing about sexism there is really no reason to point out the men involved were white. It sounds like "Look at those privileged nasty men!!! And they harrassed me!" instead of "These nasty men harrased me!".

peripitea 9y ago
Sexual harassment and power structures are intertwined. That's part of what this whole story is about. If they weren't so powerful, it would be much harder for them to get away with this, and they would probably be less likely to do it in the first place. Their whiteness is a part of their power. It's not the only, and maybe not even the primary reason for their power, but it's certainly relevant.

kelukelugames 9y ago

I don't think it's fair to interpret every rude behavior as 100% due to sexism. Nor is it okay to dismiss all sexist behavior as general rudeness. Some people are treated some times different by some people partly due to their gender and race.

wyldfire 9y ago

I didn't get that from this article at all. It seems like she made clear points about how she was treated differently from her male colleagues. The story didn't strike me as "people are rude [and Pao has contorted the rudeness into sexism]." All I could think as I read this is that "gee, I would really hate being a woman in that environment." Maybe the high-stakes of VC just means that the amplitude of this entire system is higher than a "normal" tech job? "Mild/ordinary" sexist things like not advancing and not being allocated interesting/challenging tasks are replaced by conversations about porn stars at work.

curun1r 9y ago
I think the implication is that the 'white' part is irrelevant to the sexual harassment she faced and just serves to muddy the waters. Would the treatment she experienced have been any more or less wrong had it been at the hands of non-white men? It's telling that the main harasser in her story, Ajit Nazre, is not white. And yet nowhere in her piece did she mention his ethnicity. It's not a huge leap to assume that the 'white' part of 'white men' is being added for effect and to try to curry sympathy for her cause by conflating two different forms of discrimination when she only experienced one. In fact one of her complaints was that Nazre, another person of Asian descent, was promoted over her. There's no evidence, nor has she ever made the accusation that she was the victim of racial discrimination. Racism and sexism are two very different wrongs that are often found in the same situations. But they have very different origins, motivations, results and remedies. Therefore we should be careful when we talk about them not to conflate them when only one of them applies to a certain situation. It is though, IMHO, wrong to call out Pao for blurring this line when so many of these diversity conversations also blur the lines. There are some fundamental differences between racism and sexism that necessitate taking different approaches to each problem and yet people seem so intent on grouping them together under a single 'diversity' label which is, to my mind, counterproductive.

dlwdlw 9y ago

White males are overly represented but I think it's fair. After all the US is white male culture at the higher levels so those who grew up with this culture have an advantage. They are fish while everyone else are forced amphibians. It's natural for advantages to compound. Change in culture often comes with damage of supplantation of existing cultures. US culture is unique in that is can coexist with other cultures but isn't entirely replaced. At least not the high status portion. The low status portions have been excised. (trump supporters) To replace high status white male culture there needs to be an equivalent high status opponent. Pao's article I think is useful in that it targets this directly and doesn't just stop at discussions on passing whiteboard interviews for IC2 positions. It's expected as with any invasion that there is collateral damage. Trump supporters feel impotent and sidelined. These higher level incumbents are a lot more crafty and a lot more powerful. We can't even deal with rascists except defang them and wait for them to die. This is why high status Chinese/Indian female/male culture doesn't exist in the valley for the most part, at most upper middle culture. There's not enough space at the top and it isn't worth it to start a war. Because in culture wars, home turf always wins. Giving coal power plants unlimited nuclear fuel or tidal plants unlimited sun doesn't tap into the necessary power. Chinese/Indian high culture taps into society. For people in the valley this source of power is removed. I'd say that US high status white male culture is more standalone and deals with pure power in the ability to manipulate or coerce people. Interestingly this spreads more easily across gender than race though often the new entrants must give up their old culture in many ways. For males that don't give up their mother culture they can feel marginalized and impotent, feeling that everything is unfair. For those that do they see no imbalance. The gap for women though still exists.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]