5 ms·

> My parents met in the workplace. I have a friends who have too. I havn't looked up the statistics but I assume it is double-digit percentages of marriages sta

by dbt00 8y ago

> My parents met in the workplace. I have a friends who have too. I havn't looked up the statistics but I assume it is double-digit percentages of marriages start as workplace relations. It is unfortunate if you think that isn't acceptable, because it clearly is. Conflating financial power relationship dynamics with garden variety workplace romance is some serious moving of goalposts. Seriously, one of the major reforms in venture capital in the last 25 years has been to reduce the amount of power tripping that goes on between VCs and founders. That's the idea that YC is founded on. This is another example, and an incredibly shitty one. Why defend it?

roenxi 8y ago
> Why defend it? Because "unwelcome sexual advances" is a spectrum from acceptable to unacceptable. The acceptable part of that spectrum is very small (being a guy awkwardly asks a girl for sex, she says no, and that is the end if it) and the unacceptable part is very large (fondling, using pressure from corporate power, etc). However, despite the fact it is small, the acceptable part of that spectrum is important to protect because there are a lot of men who are not very socially adept, but want to have sexual relation with women and don't know many outside the workplace. They should be able to seek out relationships in their comfort zone without risk of formal censure. I assume there are a lot of women in a similar position. In this particular instance "unwanted sexual overtures or sexual badgering" is probably more of the badgering end that we don't want, but the language here is important - there needs to be /some/ tolerance of unwanted sexual overtures that do not lead to badgering. Being awkward, being wrong and misunderstanding a situation isn't a punishable offense. Being persistent, using threats or getting physical is. And so I'd like to see a little more clarity on what the low-end standard being used here is. It is important to the conversation. In a minor way.
- tomnipotent 8y ago
  Great, just what more women need - a man telling them how they should feel about being sexually assaulted. "Come on baby, I only touched you a little bit, it's no big deal". Being asked by a VC about sex, going on a date, or grabbing a drink while trying to secure money from them is far worse than being fondled by some random guy in a nightclub.
- nfoz 8y ago
  > The acceptable part of that spectrum is very small (being a guy awkwardly asks a girl for sex, she says no, and that is the end if it) This is actually really inappropriate IMO. Who the heck thinks it's okay to "awkwardly ask for sex"? No. You awkwardly ask for a date or some such, and -- if that is accepted -- then within that context the rest can be opened up. Maybe we're just in extremely different cultures.
- jancsika 8y ago
  > They should be able to seek out relationships in their comfort zone without risk of formal censure. I assume there are a lot of women in a similar position. People should not seek out relationships with those over whom they wield significant power professionally. That's a pretty decent and obvious rule most people live by. While there are exceptions, if someone doesn't intuitively understand the reasons for the rule they should seriously consider dating outside of their professional environment. This is especially true for people who are likely to make such advances to those under them through sheer ignorance of social norms. The set of people who make advances and badger others usually do so in bad faith and have practiced ways to hedge, mislead, and leverage the people around them to remain safely tolerated. That leaves the decent, socially inept people wide open to be made examples of by HR because they never thought to use their power or influence to threaten others. (Or, out of desperation they start to use that influence to save face.) That may sound unfair to the socially inept. But the point is that there is no way to separate the wheat from the chaff-- people acting in bad faith who get caught almost always claim social ignorance, or harmless intentions, mis-communication, etc. There is no credible way to signal to an underling that a sexual advance comes without the threat of badgering or other more subtle repercussions. (And esp. no way to explain one's actions as harmless after the fact.) And that's not even to mention situations where an underling says yes to an ostensibly "non-badgering" advance because a) they confused the wheat with the chaff and b) the power imbalance makes them think they have little choice. If the person making the advance is not particularly socially aware then it greatly increases the chances that they take the lack of error reporting as consent. Meanwhile, the underling is convinced that reporting an error would result in immediate or eventual termination. Not a particularly sound system for exploring romance IMO. Anyway, those are just a few reasons why most people believe strongly in the rule I stated above. It's a field of social land mines. If one is socially inept then an entire class of problems vanishes simply by following the rule. (Besides, widely-available web dating services do exist.)
- DoreenMichele 8y ago
  Because "unwelcome sexual advances" is a spectrum from acceptable to unacceptable. In a situation where there is a lot at stake, socially savvy people generally want to know the answer will be "yes" before the question is asked. Historically, when men were the primary breadwinners and women were expected to be homemakers, a man asking for a date from a woman he had determined was single was not likely to be causing big problems for anyone. If she said "No" and he dropped it, no drama would ensue. This is not true where they are business colleagues and she has career aspirations. I had an entry level job at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. I wanted to get a better paying job more in line with my education in the IT department. One day, a senior programmer asked me for a date. I'm sure he had stopped to consider if he was in the clear and determined he was. He wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't going to get in trouble. I'm equally sure he didn't stop to wonder how it impacted my career aspirations. It basically killed any hope I had of getting a job in his department. Simply asking me out closed doors for me. I left the company shortly thereafter. I left for largely unrelated reasons, but that incident made it clear to me I could basically give up all hope of ever escaping the Pink Collar Ghetto I was trapped in because some powerful man at the company saw me as date material and never stopped to ponder how that framing might impact me. In over 5 years, he was the only person I ever met at the company who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it. He never once wondered what my career goals were, nor what my unusual skills might do for the company. Nope. He just got all excited about the possibility of getting a date. Full stop. This is the essence of why we are seeing studies like this one about the impact on women in specific, even though anyone can be a victim of sexual harassment.
  - sobani 8y ago
    > socially savvy people generally want to know the answer will be "yes" before the question is asked If you need a trillion dollar idea: teach socially unsavvy people how to recognize a yes before they have to ask the question. I know you can make boatloads of money, because I am one of those unsavvy people and every bit of information about dating basically comes down to: "Here are 10 hints that tell you she might be interested. If you want to know for sure, ask. Oh and she might be too polite to actually turn you down, so here are 5 more tips to recognize when a yes actually means no."
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
manfredo 8y ago
It seems like you're writing as though the survey result was "experienced unwanted sexual overtures or sexual badgering, in the course of seeking funding." (Emphasis mine). That italicized portion wasn't actually written, though. Absent that portion, it seem like the survey considers advances harassment even when no power dynamic exists. See this example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225474) for a situation where this is not the case, as well as my other post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225907) to see an example of why explicit wording of question like this can profoundly change the actual meaning of responses to question like this.

by dbt00 8y ago

roenxi 8y ago

> Why defend it? Because "unwelcome sexual advances" is a spectrum from acceptable to unacceptable. The acceptable part of that spectrum is very small (being a guy awkwardly asks a girl for sex, she says no, and that is the end if it) and the unacceptable part is very large (fondling, using pressure from corporate power, etc). However, despite the fact it is small, the acceptable part of that spectrum is important to protect because there are a lot of men who are not very socially adept, but want to have sexual relation with women and don't know many outside the workplace. They should be able to seek out relationships in their comfort zone without risk of formal censure. I assume there are a lot of women in a similar position. In this particular instance "unwanted sexual overtures or sexual badgering" is probably more of the badgering end that we don't want, but the language here is important - there needs to be /some/ tolerance of unwanted sexual overtures that do not lead to badgering. Being awkward, being wrong and misunderstanding a situation isn't a punishable offense. Being persistent, using threats or getting physical is. And so I'd like to see a little more clarity on what the low-end standard being used here is. It is important to the conversation. In a minor way.

tomnipotent 8y ago
Great, just what more women need - a man telling them how they should feel about being sexually assaulted. "Come on baby, I only touched you a little bit, it's no big deal". Being asked by a VC about sex, going on a date, or grabbing a drink while trying to secure money from them is far worse than being fondled by some random guy in a nightclub.
nfoz 8y ago
> The acceptable part of that spectrum is very small (being a guy awkwardly asks a girl for sex, she says no, and that is the end if it) This is actually really inappropriate IMO. Who the heck thinks it's okay to "awkwardly ask for sex"? No. You awkwardly ask for a date or some such, and -- if that is accepted -- then within that context the rest can be opened up. Maybe we're just in extremely different cultures.
jancsika 8y ago
> They should be able to seek out relationships in their comfort zone without risk of formal censure. I assume there are a lot of women in a similar position. People should not seek out relationships with those over whom they wield significant power professionally. That's a pretty decent and obvious rule most people live by. While there are exceptions, if someone doesn't intuitively understand the reasons for the rule they should seriously consider dating outside of their professional environment. This is especially true for people who are likely to make such advances to those under them through sheer ignorance of social norms. The set of people who make advances and badger others usually do so in bad faith and have practiced ways to hedge, mislead, and leverage the people around them to remain safely tolerated. That leaves the decent, socially inept people wide open to be made examples of by HR because they never thought to use their power or influence to threaten others. (Or, out of desperation they start to use that influence to save face.) That may sound unfair to the socially inept. But the point is that there is no way to separate the wheat from the chaff-- people acting in bad faith who get caught almost always claim social ignorance, or harmless intentions, mis-communication, etc. There is no credible way to signal to an underling that a sexual advance comes without the threat of badgering or other more subtle repercussions. (And esp. no way to explain one's actions as harmless after the fact.) And that's not even to mention situations where an underling says yes to an ostensibly "non-badgering" advance because a) they confused the wheat with the chaff and b) the power imbalance makes them think they have little choice. If the person making the advance is not particularly socially aware then it greatly increases the chances that they take the lack of error reporting as consent. Meanwhile, the underling is convinced that reporting an error would result in immediate or eventual termination. Not a particularly sound system for exploring romance IMO. Anyway, those are just a few reasons why most people believe strongly in the rule I stated above. It's a field of social land mines. If one is socially inept then an entire class of problems vanishes simply by following the rule. (Besides, widely-available web dating services do exist.)
DoreenMichele 8y ago
Because "unwelcome sexual advances" is a spectrum from acceptable to unacceptable. In a situation where there is a lot at stake, socially savvy people generally want to know the answer will be "yes" before the question is asked. Historically, when men were the primary breadwinners and women were expected to be homemakers, a man asking for a date from a woman he had determined was single was not likely to be causing big problems for anyone. If she said "No" and he dropped it, no drama would ensue. This is not true where they are business colleagues and she has career aspirations. I had an entry level job at a Fortune 500 company for over 5 years. I wanted to get a better paying job more in line with my education in the IT department. One day, a senior programmer asked me for a date. I'm sure he had stopped to consider if he was in the clear and determined he was. He wasn't doing anything wrong and he wasn't going to get in trouble. I'm equally sure he didn't stop to wonder how it impacted my career aspirations. It basically killed any hope I had of getting a job in his department. Simply asking me out closed doors for me. I left the company shortly thereafter. I left for largely unrelated reasons, but that incident made it clear to me I could basically give up all hope of ever escaping the Pink Collar Ghetto I was trapped in because some powerful man at the company saw me as date material and never stopped to ponder how that framing might impact me. In over 5 years, he was the only person I ever met at the company who knew what GIS was without me having to explain it. He never once wondered what my career goals were, nor what my unusual skills might do for the company. Nope. He just got all excited about the possibility of getting a date. Full stop. This is the essence of why we are seeing studies like this one about the impact on women in specific, even though anyone can be a victim of sexual harassment.
- sobani 8y ago
  > socially savvy people generally want to know the answer will be "yes" before the question is asked If you need a trillion dollar idea: teach socially unsavvy people how to recognize a yes before they have to ask the question. I know you can make boatloads of money, because I am one of those unsavvy people and every bit of information about dating basically comes down to: "Here are 10 hints that tell you she might be interested. If you want to know for sure, ask. Oh and she might be too polite to actually turn you down, so here are 5 more tips to recognize when a yes actually means no."

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

manfredo 8y ago

It seems like you're writing as though the survey result was "experienced unwanted sexual overtures or sexual badgering, in the course of seeking funding." (Emphasis mine). That italicized portion wasn't actually written, though. Absent that portion, it seem like the survey considers advances harassment even when no power dynamic exists. See this example (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225474) for a situation where this is not the case, as well as my other post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225907 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18225907) to see an example of why explicit wording of question like this can profoundly change the actual meaning of responses to question like this.