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Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

177 points by ausjke 8y ago

falcolas 8y ago
Personal opinion - the lack of a "innocent until proven guilty" judicial system when it comes to sexual harassment claims is what has caused much of the fear of women. Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion. The records of the accusations remain online forever, with little or no followup. Innocent until proven guilty with a trial by peers. We enshrine these in our public justice system; it needs to be spread to private companies as well.
- piinbinary 8y ago
  edit: what the child comment said
  - slovette 8y ago
    It sorta is (libel/slander laws), but is hugely difficult to get any meaningful result out of.
- ams6110 8y ago
  Really, employers, universities, etc. should not even be involved in these kinds of claims. They are not competent to investigate them. If a crime has been committed, there is a judicial system that can and will deal with that, with established standards regarding presumption of innocence and burden of proof.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    To be fair, there are a number of behaviors which create negative environments for men/women/minorities/majorities which are not against the law. I personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards than "it's against the law" - they simply need to ensure that investigations into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts.
    - max76 8y ago
      Also, sexual harassment laws differ from state to state. It would make sense for an organization operating in multiple states to adopt a universal policy for the entire organization.
    - hoaw 8y ago
      > I personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards than "it's against the law" - they simply need to ensure that investigations into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts. What is missing is a suggestion for how you could avoid that. If business and institution are free to handle these things as they please, which they generally would be granted under labor law and free speech, there are those that are going to disagree with you and there are those that are going to be outright bad at it. Just like they are at handling a lot of other things. If sexual harassment is as important as not being deemed "a team player" at a company or the right of colleges to design their own admissions process (sometimes to the detriment of Asian students) we can expect people to be mistreated, at the least subjectively so, for this as well. You can certainly can judge those involved, but I think it is hard to make a case against the problem as such. Because if you have e.g. extensive rights for companies and extensive free speech, there will be downsides as society changes. But that is an expected part of the process, unless you want to change the process and thereby labor law and the rights of colleges or introduce something like the right to be forgotten.
  - snackbugs 8y ago
    With such disproportionately high rates of domestic abuse in law enforcement professions, you really can't say they are competent to investigate them either. So whose responsibility is it? https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-domestic-violence-nearly-twice-average-rate-2536928.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-domestic-viole...
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    Isn't the topic at hand how businesses should handle the balance between keeping harassment out of the workplace, but not, in the name of that cause, overzealously punishing people who are implicated as having harassed somebody? Surely you're not suggesting that 100% of such cases fall into either: A. Crimes the victims of which should go to the police with. or B. So harmless that no business should ever take any action on it. I would probably agree with an argument, if you were to make it, that the punishments in some of these cases that are driven by the reaction of larger social groups are too quick and too harsh. However, it sounds to me like you're making a much more extreme case that I have to disagree with.
- phicoh 8y ago
  I'm not a lawyer and not playing one here. In any case, it is my understanding that 'innocent until proven guilty' is part of criminal law. In other kinds of law the burden of proof is lower. Of course these claims have to be investigated carefully. But I think it is wrong to try to copy elements of criminal procedures to civil matters. It is important to strike a sensible balance. We cannot have a situation where women would always lose because of lack of hard evidence.
  - snackbugs 8y ago
    Testimony of lived experiences is evidence. It's enough to convict. When you serve jury duty and the case involves domestic violence, you are explicitly reminded of this because most people will assume it is not. Still, we end up with cases like Brock Turner where he does get convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny. And then receives what is essentially a non-punishment.
    - phicoh 8y ago
      Of course judicial systems vary with countries, but I'm not aware of a jurisdiction where only the word of the victim is enough to convict somebody (who denies the act). But maybe there are such places.
      - threevodka 8y ago
        Evidence is evidence. Witness testimony is evidence, photographs are evidence, video is evidence, dna is evidence. All evidence has credibility, which can be challenged. Every case is different: witness testimony can be far more credible than photo evidence, dna evidence can be less credible than video evidence. There is — as far as I know — no legal system in the world that measures the validity of a case based on the amount or type of evidence. You can absolutely be convicted on witness testimony alone in the US. That’s very unlikely but entirely possible under the law.
      - gnicholas 8y ago
        This is possible in the US. Imagine someone rapes a nun, and she testifies to it. She identifies the defendant, and in his testimony he denies it. If the jury finds her testimony more credible — to the extent that there is not a reasonable doubt as to his guilt — they can convict him. Of course, it helps if there is corroborating evidence, but there is no rule that says one cannot be convicted (in the US) based on a victim's testimony alone. It just doesn't happen often because usually there is some sort of corroborating evidence of a crime, and because it's hard to eliminate all reasonable doubt without any.
- netcan 8y ago
  We never really had "innocent until proven guilty" in these circumstances. Legally sure, but courts have little involvement even now. Until recently, the women/victim side was assumed guilty... still are in many places/circumstances. We're leaving judge and jury duty to the public, social media, old media, individuals and (above all) corporate policy. None of these operate on a presumption of innocence.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    > We never really had "innocent until proven guilty" in these circumstances. Legally sure, but courts have little involvement even now. > Until recently, the women/victim side was assumed guilty... still are in many places/circumstances. The victim being "assumed guilty" is just an awkward phrasing of "innocent until proven guilty" for the perpetrator. What do you see as the difference?
    - berbec 8y ago
      I see the difference in the way the victim and perpetrator are treated. If someone robs your house and you see them running away, television strapped to your back, you call the police and give testemony. You say what you saw and the jury judges on the merits of the case. What doesn't happen, in a robbery, is the defense team lining up a slew of witnesses talking about all the times you left your house unlocked, all the times you invited other suspicious people over, all the times you sold something on Craigslist and all the times you Googled the price of the TV that got stolen. The defence doesn't use this testemony to show that you really wanted to give your TV away, and it wasn't actually stolen, and even if it was, weren't you sorta asking for it anyway?
    - netcan 8y ago
      I meant that when word gets out, someone is assumed guilty and socially sanctioned in some way.. at least. Previously it was generally the "young lady in question," as a matter of cultural prudence. I'm not saying that prejudice is right, it's just.. evidently hard to shake.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
- dvtrn 8y ago
  We enshrine these in our public justice system; it needs to be spread to private companies as well. If I've come to appreciate anything-among many things-in the last few years of this cultural evolution full of "social justice" debate, discussion and forums-it's that there are pockets of the social fabric who seem very eager to suspend elements of the public justice system or eagerness to put a moratorium on certain 'memes' inherent to our system of adjudicating wrong deemed absolutely necessary or otherwise considered baked in, incontrovertible features of Western "justice" (because fairness, equanimity, better 100 guilty go free than 1 innocent go to jail etc) in just about every realm that isn't a court room where they would beholden to certain burdens and requirements to satisfy other 'memes' inherent to our system of adjudicating wrong. Edit: I really wish the people who have such an issue trying to explore and openly discuss these ideas (even if you personally disagree with them) would step forward and actually offer a counter response versus driveby downvotes of myself and wutbrodo who replied here-and other comments here in the thread trying to actually explore the issue on a level that isn't surface level, shooting from the hip reactions. Barely fresh for 20 minutes and we're both nearly greyed out.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    This is just called rejecting liberalism, which is happening across the left-right political spectrum. It's exhausting to see how common medieval arguments about the way society should be run have become. That isn't to say that Enlightenment liberalism is unquestionably correct, but the conversation has shifted such that the hoi polloi have started to reject liberalism without having even done the basic work to consider the pitfalls and the counter-arguments to those pitfalls (you will, of course, find more radical strains of thought that reject liberalism, and while I disagree with them, I don't have the same problem, in that they tend to be sincerely held and supported). To be clear, I don't mean "hoi polloi" to refer to some caricature of an uneducated lower class. It was probably five years ago that I had an argument with someone on an internal board at Google, wherein he claimed the presumption of innocence was irrelevant, since it was a legal constraint by which we weren't bound. Again, not saying that its incontrovertibly correct, but the guy had no concept of why it existed in the justice system and whether those principles were generalizable.
- threevodka 8y ago
  The judicial “beyond reasonable doubt” process is far from perfect, it has many shortcomings and is only suitable for the justice system because we’ve decided that it’s much better for someone guilty to walk free than for someone innocent to be incorrectly punished. This doesn’t work in smaller environments, like an office, because if the guilty walks free then the innocent person — the victim — suffers directly by their continued and unavoidable presence in their life. I have served on a jury in a sexual assault trial and after what I’ve seen of the process first hand I would rather work for a company that doesn’t roleplay as the judicial system and instead believes the victim and uses the preponderance of evidence approach for determining guilt. Most people guilty of sexual assault (in the literal sense not the legal sense) will never face any legal consequences because of how the judicial system works: I would never want to work in an office where the same was true.
- kajecounterhack 8y ago
  > Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion If you flip this statement, you find yourself in a similarly bad situation: if you always assume the perpetrator is innocent, the victim is now in a world of hurt until / if they can get a conviction. Unfortunately a lot of times for various reasons (many to do with the psychology of being a _person_, e.g. shame / no report, shock / slow to report) it devolves into "he said she said" because there's no physical evidence anymore << even if multiple people have stories about the same offender. The result is that women live in a state of _perpetual fear of men_. And that's current state. ^ That's not even to mention that women are disproportionately likely to be assaulted / hurt by men than the other way around. I'm not saying _presuming guilt_ is good. But that's not what happens, and your statement is a bit misleading. When you mention "firing/expelling/crucifying" you must remember these are usually done with pretty thorough investigation / good reason to believe the victim; there are far and away more cases of offenders getting away with their misdeeds.
  - guitarbill 8y ago
    > The result is that women live in a state of _perpetual fear of men_. And that's current state. Hyperbole does not help at all, and this statement is several levels beyond hyperbole. A bit of nuance, please.
    - temp-dude-87844 8y ago
      Well, the hyperbole helps in the sense that it's an opinion shared by much more people, including some pundits, academics, and commentators with an audience, than ten or twenty years ago. This alone ought to explain, if not necessarily justify, why some men are starting to practice extreme avoidance of women.
    - kajecounterhack 8y ago
      It's not hyperbole. Some easy ways to check IRL: Do the women in your life not check their routes when walking when it's dark out? Do the men? Do women try to bow out gracefully from relationships even if the onus shouldn't be on them, sometimes from fear of men potentially harming them? Do men do this at all? Do you tell your daughter to watch out for predators before college? Do you tell your son the same thing, or different? Which one are you more worried for? Do you tell your daughter to stop being vigilant in <any scenario> because creeps aren't a threat?
- orwin 8y ago
  My little sister was raped by her boss last year when she was an apprentice[0]. Since she was devastated (and her ex-boyfriend a cunt, pardon my french), she waited 3 day before telling my father, who then took her to the hospital, but it was to late: no evidence we could give the police. Result, the only thing she could do was filing a report at the police station, and now she have to wait for another girl to get raped and go to the police. I still scream "rapist!" when i pass by his restaurant though, twice this year and will do that too at Christmas, and will continue until i get arrested or until i pardon him. I also gave his picture and contact information to all my highschool friends so they can avoid him, as it's a small city and we are around the same age (luckily i'm no living there anymore). My sister's former cooking school now forbid female student to take apprenticeship there (a bit cynical, but well, better than nothing). I was all for "innocent until proven guilty", and still am, but maybe because it's still fresh, i really can't condamn public shaming anymore. [0]I might have the wrong word: she was working on her cooking diploma while working in a restaurant
- songshu 8y ago
  Men are currently taken seriously when they complain about sexual assault and as a man there's no way I would voluntarily give this up. Why would I? What could possibly be in it for me?
- stevenwoo 8y ago
  There's a weird double standard in crime in the USA (probably elsewhere), the conviction rate is greater than 85-90 percent for most crimes except sexual assault/rape, where it's closer to 50%, and the lack of whatever you want to call it leads to less people reporting rape/sexual assault, less investigation, all the way to incarceration, so people might feel that there is an inherent bias in results of the criminal system already, part of it is the victim is put on trial in court and public in a way that discourages participation in the system.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    This is probably because for most crimes, it suffices to establish that (1) the act of the crime occurred and (2) the defendant is the one who carried out this act. In many types of sex crime cases, the prosecution must also prove that (3) the behavior engaged in by the parties was not consensual. People do not generally consensually enagege in battery, theft, or murder. People consensually engage in sexual activities all the time. Also, sexual activities often have no third-party witnesses, which makes proof more difficult.
- pmastela 8y ago
  > Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion. Colleges don't almost always simply believe the victim. It's quite the opposite: “Alarmingly, many universities are compounding this trauma by failing to support survivors and, in some cases, actively seeking to silence them.” [1] Businesses don't almost always simply believe the victim. In fact, "often employees fear that human resources will help the company lash out at the accuser rather than punish the accused." [2] Online communities don't almost always simply believe the victim. Take Twitter for example and how a chunk of that online community turned against Christine Blasey Ford. [3] In the last case involving the accuser and the accused, the accuser had to move several times, hired her own private security detail, and continued to receive death threats [4], all the while the accused got the promotion of a lifetime. Hardly the case of — as you put it — "the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion." I know that what you said is personal opinion, but as far as the data supporting that opinion, I just didn't find it. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/27/universities-actively-covering-up-sexual-assault-and-harassment-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/27/unive... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/business/sexual-harassment-human-resources.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/business/sexual-harassmen... 3: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/conservative-reaction-christine-blasey-fords-testimony-kavanaugh.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/conservative-rea... 4: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665407589/kavanaugh-accuser-christine-blasey-ford-continues-receiving-threats-lawyers-say https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665407589/kavanaugh-accuser-c...
  - wombatpm 8y ago
    Human Resources does not exist to protect the employees. They exist to protect the company from employees. So victims are right to fear HR. In a way it is like Game of Thrones. If you take something to HR, you better win. And sometimes both of you lose.
- closeparen 8y ago
  An employer does not need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you missed your target, mouthed off to your boss, or any number of firing offenses. Association is voluntary, on both sides. Unions sometimes win a quasi-judicial system for firing, which this forum usually bemoans as making it too hard to eliminate low performers. With a judicial procedure only for sexual harassment, companies could always fire you “for” something else.
  - lovich 8y ago
    If male/female relationships in companies devolve to the same level of gaming, backstabbing, and insanity that happens around KPIs, then we might end up with a literal gender war. I think the point of the article is that regular relationships between people turning into this sort of Machiavellian game is a bad thing
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  I saw someone speaking in this way once; they were immediately accused of maintaining and cultivating the "rape culture" and seemed to get more heat than the supposed offender.
danesparza 8y ago
So as a father of two daughters in their 20's, this makes me sad. Instead of attempting to see women as equals and moving to bridge the gap -- the best solution Wall Street can come up with is to further isolate themselves? Why can't these men just learn to treat women like the humans they are?
- jenkstom 8y ago
  From the article: “Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear,” said Zweig, the lawyer. “These men fear what they cannot control.”
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- tomp 8y ago
  It's just common sense for people to protect their future/careers. And it's not just men that think that way - from the article: > A late-40-something in private equity said he has a new rule, established on the advice of his wife, an attorney: no business dinner with a woman 35 or younger.
  - danesparza 8y ago
    Yeah. That's good advice ... because (#metoo movement aside) WHO HAS "BUSINESS" DINNERS ALONE WITH MARRIED PEOPLE? This is something completely different than having dinner with a group of people.
    - netcan 8y ago
      I do.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      I would wager that if you send N (where N>=2) employees to go do something, like drive somewhere and go meet with a client, go remove hardware from a datacenter rack, man a booth at some trade show, volunteer at some university event, etc, etc. and the logistics are such that it will be convenient for each of them to eat a meal or meals, possibly at a restaurant, there is a very good chance that if they go out to dinner they will do so together. Ideally gender and marital status would have no effect on whether or not that is acceptable.
buboard 8y ago
The middle east has been doing this for decades.
- eigenspace 8y ago
  Glad to see we're progressing to the enlightened gender policies of the middle east /s
  - glbrew 8y ago
    I'm not defending their gender policies per se but I am increasingly jealous of societies that actually have a culture other than neoliberalism. Every society has its faults but I'm seriously wondering if ours may be much greater than those we love to attack (like the middle east). At least they have large cohesive families they live close to, share meals with, enjoy traditions with. It seems like most Americans don't even have that anymore. But at least women are "free" to sell junk CDOs to middle America. Thank God!
    - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
      > I'm not defending their gender policies per say but I am increasingly jealous of societies that actually have a culture other than neoliberalism. https://scatteredquotes.com/everything-word-horse-shit/ https://scatteredquotes.com/everything-word-horse-shit/
    - neaden 8y ago
      Yeah, here in America I can't go with my family to a nice public stoning of an adulterous woman. I just have to settle for my wife being allowed to drive on her own and have meaningful rights.
      - glbrew 8y ago
        Which is why I specifically said I wasn't defending a specific country's gender policies. And yeah, here in America where we have an economic system that guarantees mass extinction of life, destruction of the biosphere, mass exploitation of humans you can't see in your daily life. Clearly your culture has it all figured out!
madengr 8y ago
Nothing new. A professor I had 25 years ago would always keep the door open if he had a female student during office hours.
- cwmma 8y ago
  Boy scouts have been doing this for decades, the rule was you were never to be alone with an adult you weren't related to.
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Which was also a form of risk management, given their history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abuse_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abus...
  - neaden 8y ago
    Every organization I've volunteered with that works with minors, including BSA, has that rule. It's sadly necessary.
    - happytoexplain 8y ago
      It's telling that I'm unsure if this line of comments is more concerned with the problem that people abuse other people, or the problem that people falsely accuse other people of abuse.
      - neaden 8y ago
        Sorry, from my perspective it's important to have that rule to prevent abuse. My understanding is that BSA implemented it after several instances of sexual abuse by volunteers, not due to fear of false accusations.
      - stevenwoo 8y ago
        It's both. It's in the guidelines for sporting groups I have worked with that there's an open door at all times with offices and that there is at least one supervising adult/parent of the juveniles present at all times. I assume this is due to insurance and legal liability - all organized sporting groups have liability insurance or it's going on your personal liability. This unfortunately did not cover pathological cases like the US Gymnastics scandal where the doctor apparently even abused his patients in the presence of their parents in the guise of an examination.
stdplaceholder 8y ago
I haven't worked on Wall Street for about 10 years, but when I did it was unbelievably misogynistic. None of our dozens of partners were women. The younger partners referred to their wives as "my first wife" while they were still married to them. The older ones of course were all on their third or fourth marriage. And the president of the firm, who was old enough to personally remember the Hindenburg disaster, just went around grabbing the secretaries' asses.
- jshaqaw 8y ago
  Wall Street has moved on with the times as has the rest of the world in the last 10 years. At this point I don’t think it is an outlier in terms of social attitudes. If anything it is at least outwardly more progressive by virtue of A. Being based in major metro areas B. A shift in skill set demand away from extrovert Lacrosse bros towards quants/techies and C. The amount of money on the line to blow up in a bad HR situation. Are there dinosaurs and jerks? Yeah. But not a disproportionate number.
brodo 8y ago
It’s scary that this is done by people who earn money by managing risk. They came to the conclusion that this is the smartest way to operate. That should not be taken lightly.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  Unless you can demonstrate they are as competent at risk assessment in this arena as they are in finance, you're fine to take it as lightly as anyone else's personal decisions. There's no a priori reason someone good at financial risk assessment would be as good at rationally modeling and reacting to risk in a domain which is significantly more personal and less quantifiable.
- loxs 8y ago
  Or maybe, plain simple, they are right?
mathattack 8y ago
This makes it seem like Wall Street was some kind of paragon for mentorship before. (It never was)
- buboard 8y ago
  i believe it's exactly because of their past and established attitudes that they feel they need to be extremely precautionary
towelr34dy 8y ago
I'd say there are other factors. One big one for me is confounding: "Sex predator/Abuser" will be the label placed on a guy who violently rapes a woman, just as it will be applied to the guy who said something PERCEIVED to be inappropriate (or who might have had consenting sex with a employee) My sister the other day refereed to a guy who cat called her as "Violating her integrity". When there is little distinction in describing: 1- someone saying bad things 2- an act of violently forcing yourself on someone and scarring them for life 3- Inappropriate, but consensual sexual behavior It can be a little worrisome to be accused of saying bad things or of being even perceived as possibly having a relationship with someone.
- threevodka 8y ago
  They’re all interlinked behaviours. For people who are constantly at risk of being sexually assaulted, being harassed by someone is a major indicator of that someone posing physical danger. Although the verbal harasser may never escalate to physical assault, their harassment is a part of the environment that creates risk to potential victims and contributes to their fear. As men it’s easy to think of harassment as isolated but for many women it’s a constant day to day threat and successfully managing that risk means quickly identifying potential threats even if they may not escalate beyond verbal harassment. Verbal harassment can put someone already on edge in fear for their life. He absolutely violated her if that’s how she feels.
  - towelr34dy 8y ago
    So... you think it is fair to the woman in example 1 to have the same term applied to example 2? 1- The first woman's gang rape where she spent months in the hospital recuperating. 2- An upper middle class woman getting told in a loud manner "uuuuhhh girl, you're looking finnnnneeee today" Really? You can't see the difference between 1 and 2? You can't see the need for different terminology? That's on you. I find it silly, and I find the confounding hurts everyone involved. Including girl #2, who has a legitimate complaint, but seems ridiculous using the terminology that is used for #1. It also creates an environment of emotions and hysteria instead of reason and logic applied to resolving problems.
CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
This is cowardice. Rational cowardice, perhaps, but still cowardice nonetheless. > “Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear,” said Zweig, the lawyer. “These men fear what they cannot control.” This reveals so much about the mentality of the people being interviewed. The statistics of false rape accusations do not justify this concern. I would expect that an industry that copes with risk as part of their job to understand this. https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...
- thenayr 8y ago
  More like "these men have probably done some fucked up things that they don't want uncovered and now realize they are at risk of being exposed".
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  What is the difference between cowardice and "rational cowardice"?
  - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
    Cowardice, defined here as the lack of personal integrity in the face of occupational hazards, can sometimes be rational and sometimes be emotional. Some of the men are demonstrating a rational argument (albeit based on flawed statistics), but they're using it to justify running away from the problem rather than addressing it.
    - throwawaymath 8y ago
      I respect your broader opinion but that's not how I would choose to define cowardice.
- throwaway5250 8y ago
  Avoiding unnecessary risk is not cowardice. In fact, most of us are paid, in part, for doing just that.
buboard 8y ago
I see a potential opportunity for gay managers here.
- stemc43 8y ago
  go right ahead
hodgesrm 8y ago
> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.” It's kind of astonishing how long it takes some people see this obvious answer. Expert hint: It also solves a lot of other workplace issues as well.
- csense 8y ago
  How does that protect you from false accusations?
  - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
    That's a negligible risk. https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...
    - sk4rekr0w 8y ago
      You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation. In this context, if you believe that men are in dramatic positions of power, then you would have to find the # that shows how often powerful men are wrongly accused (vs. just the average man).
      - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
        > You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation. In the absence of a more focused study, it's the best we have. Do you have an alternative study to link to?
        sk4rekr0w 8y ago
        I'm not aware of a study - but that doesn't mean you default to bad math.
        CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
temp-dude-87844 8y ago
This sort of fear-based hypercorrection, a misguided but not necessarily ineffective form of risk avoidance, happens in many walks of life. The same calculus is at the root of non-lower-class whites (as well as nearly everyone of high status) in the US avoiding neighborhoods with blacks and latinos. To them, the visible race serves as a proxy to all sorts of unpleasantness they wish to avoid, purely on correlation, and even as racism has moved more and more towards being publicly unacceptable, the habits of racist behavior remain because, unfortunately, of their perceived utility by those who apply them. The utility function here is similar. The men in these situations have a lot to lose because they're in positions of power, yet live in relative obscurity without the social support system afforded to well-known public figures. They may or may not engage in behavior that's actually sexist, and they may or may not engage in behavior that's sexual harassment. False accusations of sexual assault, by all indications, are rare, and any accusation is reputationally costly to accusers in many ways. Data about false accusations of sexual harassment is harder to come by, as it's rarely treated as a criminal matter. But the statistics don't matter when the drastic outcome is so dire: if any of these men were to be accused, the current political climate ensures their careers and reputations will meet a swift end. To many, this is an unacceptable risk that requires mitigation.
- swiley 8y ago
  >False accusations of sexual assault, by all indications, are rare, Personally I've seen just about as many false accusations as true ones. It's not always the woman that makes the accusation, some men use it to hurt other men they don't like.
  - TomVDB 8y ago
    How many false and true accusations have you seen? I'm close to 50, and I've personally never seen either.
    - ryanmercer 8y ago
      >How many false and true accusations have you seen? I've been accused by some random online that I never met. A friend of mine rejected a woman on okcupid, she then made accounts both in his name and various women's names on the former site 'cheaterville' and reported that he gave her multiple sexually transmitted diseases including HIV which cost him an acting job becuase it was the first thing that came up when you googled his name and despite he and I both having screenshots of this psychotic individual attacking him via multiple forms of communication threatening him if he wouldn't go out with her they said 'get it removed or we can't have you be part of the production'. A few years ago at my current employer a woman alleged I sent her all sorts of inappropriate text messages and provided screenshots. One problem, she used an iOS device and all of the messages allegedly from me, were in the color bubble of the recipient not the sender meaning she messaged herself then deleted the wrong color bubbles. So there's 3, 2 of them involving me, all in the past decade. Then Saturday on a friend's IG post about a candle sale at Bath & Body works I commented "Such a girl" a local newspaper reporter than replied to my comment: "Oh ZANG, you sure diminished her! Girls are stupid, with their genders and stuff, lol, amiright?!" To which I replied: "..." To which she replied: "Yes? I'm here." To which I replied: "there's something wrong with you. I made a simple comment a friend that I've known for 8 years post being playful. Not because I'm some woman shaming toxic card carrying member of hte patriarchy. Maybe try enjoying your life instead of lashing out at complete strangers on the internet there slugger" To which she replied: " Ah. Here, let me translate that for you: "I don't like being checked, so I'm going to gaslight and throw some phrases around to seem "woke" and then continue to diminish through patronizing name-calling". At which point I then contacted her immediate supervisor at her publication, his supervisor, the editor in chief as well as an employee of the parent company that owns the newspaper as this woman's IG profile starts "Downtown reporter at @newspapersheworksatsinstagram" as what she did is entirely uncalled for and not at all professional and if she's done this once, she's done it many times. So I have a local newspaper reporter putting words into my mouth, calling my character into question in a public forum, because I happen to have a penis and said 'such a girl' to a candle sale photograph on a post of someone that I've not only known for 8 years but have taken out several times over those years...
ff10 8y ago
I wonder how gay men handle this situation. Are situations that are symmetrical to the heterosexual version causing similar issues?
asianthrowaway 8y ago
I always wondered, why don't women get very harsh sentences if they get caught making up false rape allegations? I think that would discourage that sort of behavior and sort of balance things out.
- neaden 8y ago
  It would lead to pretty much every man accused of rape with threatening to sue/press charges against their accuser and further stigmatize rape victims and lower the number who come forward.
- Dirlewanger 8y ago
  Deeply-engrained cultural/societal biases that women can do no harm. You can see it in the trickle of sexual assault cases involving a woman teacher/underage male student; the women often get a relative wrist-slap of days in prison, if that. And let's not even get started on how routinely and holistically fucked men get in family/divorce courts. You don't hear about these problems talked about though, simply because men are the affected parties.
- buboard 8y ago
  it would be more effective if there was a wide-ranging public campaign in support of men who have been wronged, like a #NotMeToo . Escalating a war of the sexes is madness
  - xiphias2 8y ago
    It's called #himtoo, and it was started by the mother of a false accusation victim a few months ago.
- flukus 8y ago
  Innocent until proven guilty applies to them too. What percentage of false allegations can be proven to be false, like the accused being in a different place at the time? Despite a couple of high profile exceptions I'd wager that's small enough to be a rounding error.
jbob2000 8y ago
> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.” That’s pretty much the bottom line, said Ron Biscardi, chief executive officer of Context Capital Partners. “It’s really not that hard.” Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm and telling people he doesn't do hugs. You literally can be the nicest man in the world and still get #MeToo'd
- CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
  > Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm and telling people he doesn't do hugs. I thought he was being accused of physically touching a clothed area of the woman's arm without being granted consent, not merely "pointing out". The words "pointing out" imply a gesture, which can be done at a distance, not unwelcome physical contact.
  - throwaway5250 8y ago
    > accused of physically touching a clothed area of the woman's arm without being granted consent Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over? (And is it any surprise that we might all deduce the lesson if it is?)
    - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
      > Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over? In isolation? No. It's a social faux pas that should be responded to with apology and remediation. Nobody is perfect, after all. As one incident in an overall pattern of abuse stretching one's career? Different matter. If this pattern holds, the accused doesn't need to be propped up as a role model for science communication.
  - jbob2000 8y ago
    And herein lies the problem with #MeToo. NDT thought he was being curious and pointing something out, the woman thought she was being sexually harassed. This is the problem, that any action can be construed as sexual harassment.
gnicholas 8y ago
> "If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment,” he said, “those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint." This presents an interesting conundrum, and I wonder how it will complicate the process of proving sex discrimination related to mentoring disparities. Even if laws stay the same, I think some jurors will be more sympathetic to the "Pence approach" in the wake of #MeToo. This will make it harder for plaintiffs to win in mentoring discrimination cases, and will mean lower settlement offers as well.
dandare 8y ago
This man-women discussion is incredibly confused - for many reasons including emotions and malevolence - and it took me quite long until I could say I have formed my opinion. If you are interested: 1/ In modern societies women are often wronged, in the form of discrimination, harassment, abuse, and violence. 2/ Some of the policies designed to help women are hurting man by default, for instance, positive discrimination or "guilty until proven innocent". 3/ Some think the amount of wrongness done to women is orders of magnitude bigger than the amount of wrongness done to man. (Including me) 4/ Some think this discrepancy between wrongness warrants the policies that hurt men by default. 5/ Some think the no amount of wrongness discrepancy warrants a policy that hurts someone by default. (Including me)
- loxs 8y ago
  It's much worse... 2/ Most of the policies designed to help women actually hurt them. Positive discrimination usually ends up being much worse than doing nothing.
jseliger 8y ago
It's like no one imagined unintended consequences, or understands that incentives affect behavior.
- mikelyons 8y ago
  Acknowledging incentives and actual human motives/behavior is not politically correct.
wutbrodo 8y ago
This was utterly, utterly predictable, and I'm sure the same dynamic is playing out in milder, more insidious forms in industries that are less openly regressive than Wall Street. I said as much to many of my friends during the nascency of the movement, and was baffled at how novel a concept it seemed to all of them. This isn't fair to women, of course. But Water flows downhill, and people follow incentives. If you create a no-due-process superweapon that a class of people can point at another class, expect the latter to avoid situations where the former can use it. Duh. (In theory, women wouldn't be considered potential false accusers any more than men would, but the fact that the breakdown of gender roles has been intentionally lopsided means that a female accuser is both more likely and more likely to be taken seriously). As die-hard a liberal as I am, I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). But as a left-liberal, one of my primary points of departure with the contemporary left is that it seems to believe to its core that wishing on a star is all it takes for a policy to be effective, with no attention paid to the _actual_ way that a policy is expected to play out in the real world[1]. [1] I don't mean to suggest that the left uniquely has this problem, but I've got less exposure to the man-on-the-street version of the right, since I live in a deep Blue bubble and most of my friends form their beliefs based on whatever the Atlantic et al have on their front page.
- dgzl 8y ago
  > I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). Could you explain this? It almost sounds like you're interested in foregoing proof to decide cases where 'proof is hard'.
  - wutbrodo 8y ago
    It's not a very well-formed idea, but it comes from the fact that I think that carefully-considered pragmatic exceptions to general rules can be valuable. For a simple example, many people don't understand what it is about markets that make them powerful[1]. That doesn't preclude any economic role for government, since markets aren't perfect and there are cases where govt action is more suited to the situation. Along the same lines, and taking a set of claims at face value: if there's an epidemic of rape and various institutions are systematically underserving victims, then it may make sense to shift that burden. I wouldn't say "forgoing" proof when proof is hard, but changing the standard of evidence. Proof isn't binary: for example, the "preponderance of evidence" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" standards for civil and criminal trials are pretty different. For a directly relevant example, I'm not very incensed by institutions cutting ties with Dr. Cosby and Harvey Weinstein despite the lack of a criminal conviction, and I don't think it's very controversial that decades of independent accusations may reasonably add up to a bit more than the initial presumed innocence. It's the formalization of this new standard (which many/most already agree to) that I'm open to. Of course, this is all theoretical. I don't think most people are remotely capable of handling even the bare minimum of nuance we're talking about here, so it's much more likely that we end up overshooting the target and doing blind damage to the concept of due process. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1] I've had conversations with people on HN itself about how Uber's pricing would be more just and just as effective if they did it manually instead of using the distributed pricing system we call supply and demand
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cuddlecake 8y ago
> to protect themselves in the face of what they consider unreasonable political correctness -- or to simply do the right thing. I wish the author spent some time on elaborating what the right thing is. The right thing might be too obvious for me to realize what it is.
nickpsecurity 8y ago
I had to deal with this crap more than once. It's a real thing. The article doesn't mention a helpful strategy that kept false claims off my own record: having a diverse team with plenty of women who respect you and will have your back. Even some that don't like you but have character that they won't lie about you. They told the truth about me to anyone that asked. That included what they liked, shrugged over, or really hated (about 99% shit I'd say). The world of difference between what a few women claimed and what my coworkers said spending years with me in private got those claims discarded before they could touch my record. One I had to hold back so she didn't do something crazy since women hate false claims about this stuff about as much as men. Those claims create false perceptions that undermine attempts to deal with actual harassment and sex crimes. So, a certain percentage of women working with me go all out fighting any BS they see like that. So, that led to a generic solution building on what I was already doing. Just bring more women (and minorities) into your workplace, treat your workers well, spend time with them (in public if you're worried), build relationships, have their back where they need it, and they'll probably have yours, too. I actually don't have much charisma or management skill only working one job like that. I was the favorite boss of most of my people for years, though, just doing the above surviving all false claims of all types. It probably helps that I'm pretty genuine where they just knew what I would or wouldn't do. The people, men or women, who my bosses thought weren't motivated would sometimes work hardest for me. It's just because I treated them respectfully. Also, helping them would where I could. Such tiny things go so far to bring out the best in people. As a side effect, they also reduce the number and effectiveness of false claims. So, I recommend companies just do more of that. Treating people well, inclusive behavior, and so on. Every company I know like that out here gets good results of some kind.
tonyob 8y ago
I mean you see Neil Degrasse Tyson reputation completely destroyed on the news, mentioning he invited his assistant home for wine and cheese and doing some awkward handshake. This could happen to anyone. Better be safe than sorry.

177 points by ausjke 8y ago

Personal opinion - the lack of a "innocent until proven guilty" judicial system when it comes to sexual harassment claims is what has caused much of the fear of women. Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion. The records of the accusations remain online forever, with little or no followup. Innocent until proven guilty with a trial by peers. We enshrine these in our public justice system; it needs to be spread to private companies as well.

piinbinary 8y ago
edit: what the child comment said
- slovette 8y ago
  It sorta is (libel/slander laws), but is hugely difficult to get any meaningful result out of.
ams6110 8y ago
Really, employers, universities, etc. should not even be involved in these kinds of claims. They are not competent to investigate them. If a crime has been committed, there is a judicial system that can and will deal with that, with established standards regarding presumption of innocence and burden of proof.
- falcolas 8y ago
  To be fair, there are a number of behaviors which create negative environments for men/women/minorities/majorities which are not against the law. I personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards than "it's against the law" - they simply need to ensure that investigations into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts.
  - max76 8y ago
    Also, sexual harassment laws differ from state to state. It would make sense for an organization operating in multiple states to adopt a universal policy for the entire organization.
  - hoaw 8y ago
    > I personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards than "it's against the law" - they simply need to ensure that investigations into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts. What is missing is a suggestion for how you could avoid that. If business and institution are free to handle these things as they please, which they generally would be granted under labor law and free speech, there are those that are going to disagree with you and there are those that are going to be outright bad at it. Just like they are at handling a lot of other things. If sexual harassment is as important as not being deemed "a team player" at a company or the right of colleges to design their own admissions process (sometimes to the detriment of Asian students) we can expect people to be mistreated, at the least subjectively so, for this as well. You can certainly can judge those involved, but I think it is hard to make a case against the problem as such. Because if you have e.g. extensive rights for companies and extensive free speech, there will be downsides as society changes. But that is an expected part of the process, unless you want to change the process and thereby labor law and the rights of colleges or introduce something like the right to be forgotten.
- snackbugs 8y ago
  With such disproportionately high rates of domestic abuse in law enforcement professions, you really can't say they are competent to investigate them either. So whose responsibility is it? https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-domestic-violence-nearly-twice-average-rate-2536928.php https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Police-domestic-viole...
- happytoexplain 8y ago
  Isn't the topic at hand how businesses should handle the balance between keeping harassment out of the workplace, but not, in the name of that cause, overzealously punishing people who are implicated as having harassed somebody? Surely you're not suggesting that 100% of such cases fall into either: A. Crimes the victims of which should go to the police with. or B. So harmless that no business should ever take any action on it. I would probably agree with an argument, if you were to make it, that the punishments in some of these cases that are driven by the reaction of larger social groups are too quick and too harsh. However, it sounds to me like you're making a much more extreme case that I have to disagree with.
phicoh 8y ago
I'm not a lawyer and not playing one here. In any case, it is my understanding that 'innocent until proven guilty' is part of criminal law. In other kinds of law the burden of proof is lower. Of course these claims have to be investigated carefully. But I think it is wrong to try to copy elements of criminal procedures to civil matters. It is important to strike a sensible balance. We cannot have a situation where women would always lose because of lack of hard evidence.
- snackbugs 8y ago
  Testimony of lived experiences is evidence. It's enough to convict. When you serve jury duty and the case involves domestic violence, you are explicitly reminded of this because most people will assume it is not. Still, we end up with cases like Brock Turner where he does get convicted not with the victim's testimony but a mountain of corroborating evidence and national media scrutiny. And then receives what is essentially a non-punishment.
  - phicoh 8y ago
    Of course judicial systems vary with countries, but I'm not aware of a jurisdiction where only the word of the victim is enough to convict somebody (who denies the act). But maybe there are such places.
    - threevodka 8y ago
      Evidence is evidence. Witness testimony is evidence, photographs are evidence, video is evidence, dna is evidence. All evidence has credibility, which can be challenged. Every case is different: witness testimony can be far more credible than photo evidence, dna evidence can be less credible than video evidence. There is — as far as I know — no legal system in the world that measures the validity of a case based on the amount or type of evidence. You can absolutely be convicted on witness testimony alone in the US. That’s very unlikely but entirely possible under the law.
    - gnicholas 8y ago
      This is possible in the US. Imagine someone rapes a nun, and she testifies to it. She identifies the defendant, and in his testimony he denies it. If the jury finds her testimony more credible — to the extent that there is not a reasonable doubt as to his guilt — they can convict him. Of course, it helps if there is corroborating evidence, but there is no rule that says one cannot be convicted (in the US) based on a victim's testimony alone. It just doesn't happen often because usually there is some sort of corroborating evidence of a crime, and because it's hard to eliminate all reasonable doubt without any.
netcan 8y ago
We never really had "innocent until proven guilty" in these circumstances. Legally sure, but courts have little involvement even now. Until recently, the women/victim side was assumed guilty... still are in many places/circumstances. We're leaving judge and jury duty to the public, social media, old media, individuals and (above all) corporate policy. None of these operate on a presumption of innocence.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  > We never really had "innocent until proven guilty" in these circumstances. Legally sure, but courts have little involvement even now. > Until recently, the women/victim side was assumed guilty... still are in many places/circumstances. The victim being "assumed guilty" is just an awkward phrasing of "innocent until proven guilty" for the perpetrator. What do you see as the difference?
  - berbec 8y ago
    I see the difference in the way the victim and perpetrator are treated. If someone robs your house and you see them running away, television strapped to your back, you call the police and give testemony. You say what you saw and the jury judges on the merits of the case. What doesn't happen, in a robbery, is the defense team lining up a slew of witnesses talking about all the times you left your house unlocked, all the times you invited other suspicious people over, all the times you sold something on Craigslist and all the times you Googled the price of the TV that got stolen. The defence doesn't use this testemony to show that you really wanted to give your TV away, and it wasn't actually stolen, and even if it was, weren't you sorta asking for it anyway?
  - netcan 8y ago
    I meant that when word gets out, someone is assumed guilty and socially sanctioned in some way.. at least. Previously it was generally the "young lady in question," as a matter of cultural prudence. I'm not saying that prejudice is right, it's just.. evidently hard to shake.
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
dvtrn 8y ago
We enshrine these in our public justice system; it needs to be spread to private companies as well. If I've come to appreciate anything-among many things-in the last few years of this cultural evolution full of "social justice" debate, discussion and forums-it's that there are pockets of the social fabric who seem very eager to suspend elements of the public justice system or eagerness to put a moratorium on certain 'memes' inherent to our system of adjudicating wrong deemed absolutely necessary or otherwise considered baked in, incontrovertible features of Western "justice" (because fairness, equanimity, better 100 guilty go free than 1 innocent go to jail etc) in just about every realm that isn't a court room where they would beholden to certain burdens and requirements to satisfy other 'memes' inherent to our system of adjudicating wrong. Edit: I really wish the people who have such an issue trying to explore and openly discuss these ideas (even if you personally disagree with them) would step forward and actually offer a counter response versus driveby downvotes of myself and wutbrodo who replied here-and other comments here in the thread trying to actually explore the issue on a level that isn't surface level, shooting from the hip reactions. Barely fresh for 20 minutes and we're both nearly greyed out.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  This is just called rejecting liberalism, which is happening across the left-right political spectrum. It's exhausting to see how common medieval arguments about the way society should be run have become. That isn't to say that Enlightenment liberalism is unquestionably correct, but the conversation has shifted such that the hoi polloi have started to reject liberalism without having even done the basic work to consider the pitfalls and the counter-arguments to those pitfalls (you will, of course, find more radical strains of thought that reject liberalism, and while I disagree with them, I don't have the same problem, in that they tend to be sincerely held and supported). To be clear, I don't mean "hoi polloi" to refer to some caricature of an uneducated lower class. It was probably five years ago that I had an argument with someone on an internal board at Google, wherein he claimed the presumption of innocence was irrelevant, since it was a legal constraint by which we weren't bound. Again, not saying that its incontrovertibly correct, but the guy had no concept of why it existed in the justice system and whether those principles were generalizable.
threevodka 8y ago
The judicial “beyond reasonable doubt” process is far from perfect, it has many shortcomings and is only suitable for the justice system because we’ve decided that it’s much better for someone guilty to walk free than for someone innocent to be incorrectly punished. This doesn’t work in smaller environments, like an office, because if the guilty walks free then the innocent person — the victim — suffers directly by their continued and unavoidable presence in their life. I have served on a jury in a sexual assault trial and after what I’ve seen of the process first hand I would rather work for a company that doesn’t roleplay as the judicial system and instead believes the victim and uses the preponderance of evidence approach for determining guilt. Most people guilty of sexual assault (in the literal sense not the legal sense) will never face any legal consequences because of how the judicial system works: I would never want to work in an office where the same was true.
kajecounterhack 8y ago
> Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion If you flip this statement, you find yourself in a similarly bad situation: if you always assume the perpetrator is innocent, the victim is now in a world of hurt until / if they can get a conviction. Unfortunately a lot of times for various reasons (many to do with the psychology of being a _person_, e.g. shame / no report, shock / slow to report) it devolves into "he said she said" because there's no physical evidence anymore << even if multiple people have stories about the same offender. The result is that women live in a state of _perpetual fear of men_. And that's current state. ^ That's not even to mention that women are disproportionately likely to be assaulted / hurt by men than the other way around. I'm not saying _presuming guilt_ is good. But that's not what happens, and your statement is a bit misleading. When you mention "firing/expelling/crucifying" you must remember these are usually done with pretty thorough investigation / good reason to believe the victim; there are far and away more cases of offenders getting away with their misdeeds.
- guitarbill 8y ago
  > The result is that women live in a state of _perpetual fear of men_. And that's current state. Hyperbole does not help at all, and this statement is several levels beyond hyperbole. A bit of nuance, please.
  - temp-dude-87844 8y ago
    Well, the hyperbole helps in the sense that it's an opinion shared by much more people, including some pundits, academics, and commentators with an audience, than ten or twenty years ago. This alone ought to explain, if not necessarily justify, why some men are starting to practice extreme avoidance of women.
  - kajecounterhack 8y ago
    It's not hyperbole. Some easy ways to check IRL: Do the women in your life not check their routes when walking when it's dark out? Do the men? Do women try to bow out gracefully from relationships even if the onus shouldn't be on them, sometimes from fear of men potentially harming them? Do men do this at all? Do you tell your daughter to watch out for predators before college? Do you tell your son the same thing, or different? Which one are you more worried for? Do you tell your daughter to stop being vigilant in <any scenario> because creeps aren't a threat?
orwin 8y ago
My little sister was raped by her boss last year when she was an apprentice[0]. Since she was devastated (and her ex-boyfriend a cunt, pardon my french), she waited 3 day before telling my father, who then took her to the hospital, but it was to late: no evidence we could give the police. Result, the only thing she could do was filing a report at the police station, and now she have to wait for another girl to get raped and go to the police. I still scream "rapist!" when i pass by his restaurant though, twice this year and will do that too at Christmas, and will continue until i get arrested or until i pardon him. I also gave his picture and contact information to all my highschool friends so they can avoid him, as it's a small city and we are around the same age (luckily i'm no living there anymore). My sister's former cooking school now forbid female student to take apprenticeship there (a bit cynical, but well, better than nothing). I was all for "innocent until proven guilty", and still am, but maybe because it's still fresh, i really can't condamn public shaming anymore. [0]I might have the wrong word: she was working on her cooking diploma while working in a restaurant
songshu 8y ago
Men are currently taken seriously when they complain about sexual assault and as a man there's no way I would voluntarily give this up. Why would I? What could possibly be in it for me?
stevenwoo 8y ago
There's a weird double standard in crime in the USA (probably elsewhere), the conviction rate is greater than 85-90 percent for most crimes except sexual assault/rape, where it's closer to 50%, and the lack of whatever you want to call it leads to less people reporting rape/sexual assault, less investigation, all the way to incarceration, so people might feel that there is an inherent bias in results of the criminal system already, part of it is the victim is put on trial in court and public in a way that discourages participation in the system.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  This is probably because for most crimes, it suffices to establish that (1) the act of the crime occurred and (2) the defendant is the one who carried out this act. In many types of sex crime cases, the prosecution must also prove that (3) the behavior engaged in by the parties was not consensual. People do not generally consensually enagege in battery, theft, or murder. People consensually engage in sexual activities all the time. Also, sexual activities often have no third-party witnesses, which makes proof more difficult.
pmastela 8y ago
> Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion. Colleges don't almost always simply believe the victim. It's quite the opposite: “Alarmingly, many universities are compounding this trauma by failing to support survivors and, in some cases, actively seeking to silence them.” [1] Businesses don't almost always simply believe the victim. In fact, "often employees fear that human resources will help the company lash out at the accuser rather than punish the accused." [2] Online communities don't almost always simply believe the victim. Take Twitter for example and how a chunk of that online community turned against Christine Blasey Ford. [3] In the last case involving the accuser and the accused, the accuser had to move several times, hired her own private security detail, and continued to receive death threats [4], all the while the accused got the promotion of a lifetime. Hardly the case of — as you put it — "the accused is vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by public opinion." I know that what you said is personal opinion, but as far as the data supporting that opinion, I just didn't find it. 1: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/27/universities-actively-covering-up-sexual-assault-and-harassment-report-says https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/feb/27/unive... 2: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/business/sexual-harassment-human-resources.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/business/sexual-harassmen... 3: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/conservative-reaction-christine-blasey-fords-testimony-kavanaugh.html https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/09/conservative-rea... 4: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665407589/kavanaugh-accuser-christine-blasey-ford-continues-receiving-threats-lawyers-say https://www.npr.org/2018/11/08/665407589/kavanaugh-accuser-c...
- wombatpm 8y ago
  Human Resources does not exist to protect the employees. They exist to protect the company from employees. So victims are right to fear HR. In a way it is like Game of Thrones. If you take something to HR, you better win. And sometimes both of you lose.
closeparen 8y ago
An employer does not need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you missed your target, mouthed off to your boss, or any number of firing offenses. Association is voluntary, on both sides. Unions sometimes win a quasi-judicial system for firing, which this forum usually bemoans as making it too hard to eliminate low performers. With a judicial procedure only for sexual harassment, companies could always fire you “for” something else.
- lovich 8y ago
  If male/female relationships in companies devolve to the same level of gaming, backstabbing, and insanity that happens around KPIs, then we might end up with a literal gender war. I think the point of the article is that regular relationships between people turning into this sort of Machiavellian game is a bad thing
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
I saw someone speaking in this way once; they were immediately accused of maintaining and cultivating the "rape culture" and seemed to get more heat than the supposed offender.

danesparza 8y ago

So as a father of two daughters in their 20's, this makes me sad. Instead of attempting to see women as equals and moving to bridge the gap -- the best solution Wall Street can come up with is to further isolate themselves? Why can't these men just learn to treat women like the humans they are?

jenkstom 8y ago
From the article: “Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear,” said Zweig, the lawyer. “These men fear what they cannot control.”
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
tomp 8y ago
It's just common sense for people to protect their future/careers. And it's not just men that think that way - from the article: > A late-40-something in private equity said he has a new rule, established on the advice of his wife, an attorney: no business dinner with a woman 35 or younger.
- danesparza 8y ago
  Yeah. That's good advice ... because (#metoo movement aside) WHO HAS "BUSINESS" DINNERS ALONE WITH MARRIED PEOPLE? This is something completely different than having dinner with a group of people.
  - netcan 8y ago
    I do.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    I would wager that if you send N (where N>=2) employees to go do something, like drive somewhere and go meet with a client, go remove hardware from a datacenter rack, man a booth at some trade show, volunteer at some university event, etc, etc. and the logistics are such that it will be convenient for each of them to eat a meal or meals, possibly at a restaurant, there is a very good chance that if they go out to dinner they will do so together. Ideally gender and marital status would have no effect on whether or not that is acceptable.

buboard 8y ago

The middle east has been doing this for decades.

eigenspace 8y ago
Glad to see we're progressing to the enlightened gender policies of the middle east /s
- glbrew 8y ago
  I'm not defending their gender policies per se but I am increasingly jealous of societies that actually have a culture other than neoliberalism. Every society has its faults but I'm seriously wondering if ours may be much greater than those we love to attack (like the middle east). At least they have large cohesive families they live close to, share meals with, enjoy traditions with. It seems like most Americans don't even have that anymore. But at least women are "free" to sell junk CDOs to middle America. Thank God!
  - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
    > I'm not defending their gender policies per say but I am increasingly jealous of societies that actually have a culture other than neoliberalism. https://scatteredquotes.com/everything-word-horse-shit/ https://scatteredquotes.com/everything-word-horse-shit/
  - neaden 8y ago
    Yeah, here in America I can't go with my family to a nice public stoning of an adulterous woman. I just have to settle for my wife being allowed to drive on her own and have meaningful rights.
    - glbrew 8y ago
      Which is why I specifically said I wasn't defending a specific country's gender policies. And yeah, here in America where we have an economic system that guarantees mass extinction of life, destruction of the biosphere, mass exploitation of humans you can't see in your daily life. Clearly your culture has it all figured out!

madengr 8y ago

Nothing new. A professor I had 25 years ago would always keep the door open if he had a female student during office hours.

cwmma 8y ago
Boy scouts have been doing this for decades, the rule was you were never to be alone with an adult you weren't related to.
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Which was also a form of risk management, given their history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abuse_cases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Scouts_of_America_sex_abus...
- neaden 8y ago
  Every organization I've volunteered with that works with minors, including BSA, has that rule. It's sadly necessary.
  - happytoexplain 8y ago
    It's telling that I'm unsure if this line of comments is more concerned with the problem that people abuse other people, or the problem that people falsely accuse other people of abuse.
    - neaden 8y ago
      Sorry, from my perspective it's important to have that rule to prevent abuse. My understanding is that BSA implemented it after several instances of sexual abuse by volunteers, not due to fear of false accusations.
    - stevenwoo 8y ago
      It's both. It's in the guidelines for sporting groups I have worked with that there's an open door at all times with offices and that there is at least one supervising adult/parent of the juveniles present at all times. I assume this is due to insurance and legal liability - all organized sporting groups have liability insurance or it's going on your personal liability. This unfortunately did not cover pathological cases like the US Gymnastics scandal where the doctor apparently even abused his patients in the presence of their parents in the guise of an examination.

stdplaceholder 8y ago

I haven't worked on Wall Street for about 10 years, but when I did it was unbelievably misogynistic. None of our dozens of partners were women. The younger partners referred to their wives as "my first wife" while they were still married to them. The older ones of course were all on their third or fourth marriage. And the president of the firm, who was old enough to personally remember the Hindenburg disaster, just went around grabbing the secretaries' asses.

jshaqaw 8y ago
Wall Street has moved on with the times as has the rest of the world in the last 10 years. At this point I don’t think it is an outlier in terms of social attitudes. If anything it is at least outwardly more progressive by virtue of A. Being based in major metro areas B. A shift in skill set demand away from extrovert Lacrosse bros towards quants/techies and C. The amount of money on the line to blow up in a bad HR situation. Are there dinosaurs and jerks? Yeah. But not a disproportionate number.

brodo 8y ago

It’s scary that this is done by people who earn money by managing risk. They came to the conclusion that this is the smartest way to operate. That should not be taken lightly.

deleted 8y ago
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throwawaymath 8y ago
Unless you can demonstrate they are as competent at risk assessment in this arena as they are in finance, you're fine to take it as lightly as anyone else's personal decisions. There's no a priori reason someone good at financial risk assessment would be as good at rationally modeling and reacting to risk in a domain which is significantly more personal and less quantifiable.
loxs 8y ago
Or maybe, plain simple, they are right?

mathattack 8y ago

This makes it seem like Wall Street was some kind of paragon for mentorship before. (It never was)

buboard 8y ago
i believe it's exactly because of their past and established attitudes that they feel they need to be extremely precautionary

towelr34dy 8y ago

I'd say there are other factors. One big one for me is confounding: "Sex predator/Abuser" will be the label placed on a guy who violently rapes a woman, just as it will be applied to the guy who said something PERCEIVED to be inappropriate (or who might have had consenting sex with a employee) My sister the other day refereed to a guy who cat called her as "Violating her integrity". When there is little distinction in describing: 1- someone saying bad things 2- an act of violently forcing yourself on someone and scarring them for life 3- Inappropriate, but consensual sexual behavior It can be a little worrisome to be accused of saying bad things or of being even perceived as possibly having a relationship with someone.

threevodka 8y ago
They’re all interlinked behaviours. For people who are constantly at risk of being sexually assaulted, being harassed by someone is a major indicator of that someone posing physical danger. Although the verbal harasser may never escalate to physical assault, their harassment is a part of the environment that creates risk to potential victims and contributes to their fear. As men it’s easy to think of harassment as isolated but for many women it’s a constant day to day threat and successfully managing that risk means quickly identifying potential threats even if they may not escalate beyond verbal harassment. Verbal harassment can put someone already on edge in fear for their life. He absolutely violated her if that’s how she feels.
- towelr34dy 8y ago
  So... you think it is fair to the woman in example 1 to have the same term applied to example 2? 1- The first woman's gang rape where she spent months in the hospital recuperating. 2- An upper middle class woman getting told in a loud manner "uuuuhhh girl, you're looking finnnnneeee today" Really? You can't see the difference between 1 and 2? You can't see the need for different terminology? That's on you. I find it silly, and I find the confounding hurts everyone involved. Including girl #2, who has a legitimate complaint, but seems ridiculous using the terminology that is used for #1. It also creates an environment of emotions and hysteria instead of reason and logic applied to resolving problems.

CiPHPerCoder 8y ago

This is cowardice. Rational cowardice, perhaps, but still cowardice nonetheless. > “Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear,” said Zweig, the lawyer. “These men fear what they cannot control.” This reveals so much about the mentality of the people being interviewed. The statistics of false rape accusations do not justify this concern. I would expect that an industry that copes with risk as part of their job to understand this. https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...

thenayr 8y ago
More like "these men have probably done some fucked up things that they don't want uncovered and now realize they are at risk of being exposed".
throwawaymath 8y ago
What is the difference between cowardice and "rational cowardice"?
- CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
  Cowardice, defined here as the lack of personal integrity in the face of occupational hazards, can sometimes be rational and sometimes be emotional. Some of the men are demonstrating a rational argument (albeit based on flawed statistics), but they're using it to justify running away from the problem rather than addressing it.
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    I respect your broader opinion but that's not how I would choose to define cowardice.
throwaway5250 8y ago
Avoiding unnecessary risk is not cowardice. In fact, most of us are paid, in part, for doing just that.

buboard 8y ago

I see a potential opportunity for gay managers here.

stemc43 8y ago
go right ahead

hodgesrm 8y ago

> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.” It's kind of astonishing how long it takes some people see this obvious answer. Expert hint: It also solves a lot of other workplace issues as well.

csense 8y ago
How does that protect you from false accusations?
- CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
  That's a negligible risk. https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-Allegations.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...
  - sk4rekr0w 8y ago
    You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation. In this context, if you believe that men are in dramatic positions of power, then you would have to find the # that shows how often powerful men are wrongly accused (vs. just the average man).
    - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
      > You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation. In the absence of a more focused study, it's the best we have. Do you have an alternative study to link to?
      - sk4rekr0w 8y ago
        I'm not aware of a study - but that doesn't mean you default to bad math.
        CiPHPerCoder 8y ago

temp-dude-87844 8y ago

This sort of fear-based hypercorrection, a misguided but not necessarily ineffective form of risk avoidance, happens in many walks of life. The same calculus is at the root of non-lower-class whites (as well as nearly everyone of high status) in the US avoiding neighborhoods with blacks and latinos. To them, the visible race serves as a proxy to all sorts of unpleasantness they wish to avoid, purely on correlation, and even as racism has moved more and more towards being publicly unacceptable, the habits of racist behavior remain because, unfortunately, of their perceived utility by those who apply them. The utility function here is similar. The men in these situations have a lot to lose because they're in positions of power, yet live in relative obscurity without the social support system afforded to well-known public figures. They may or may not engage in behavior that's actually sexist, and they may or may not engage in behavior that's sexual harassment. False accusations of sexual assault, by all indications, are rare, and any accusation is reputationally costly to accusers in many ways. Data about false accusations of sexual harassment is harder to come by, as it's rarely treated as a criminal matter. But the statistics don't matter when the drastic outcome is so dire: if any of these men were to be accused, the current political climate ensures their careers and reputations will meet a swift end. To many, this is an unacceptable risk that requires mitigation.

swiley 8y ago
>False accusations of sexual assault, by all indications, are rare, Personally I've seen just about as many false accusations as true ones. It's not always the woman that makes the accusation, some men use it to hurt other men they don't like.
- TomVDB 8y ago
  How many false and true accusations have you seen? I'm close to 50, and I've personally never seen either.
  - ryanmercer 8y ago
    >How many false and true accusations have you seen? I've been accused by some random online that I never met. A friend of mine rejected a woman on okcupid, she then made accounts both in his name and various women's names on the former site 'cheaterville' and reported that he gave her multiple sexually transmitted diseases including HIV which cost him an acting job becuase it was the first thing that came up when you googled his name and despite he and I both having screenshots of this psychotic individual attacking him via multiple forms of communication threatening him if he wouldn't go out with her they said 'get it removed or we can't have you be part of the production'. A few years ago at my current employer a woman alleged I sent her all sorts of inappropriate text messages and provided screenshots. One problem, she used an iOS device and all of the messages allegedly from me, were in the color bubble of the recipient not the sender meaning she messaged herself then deleted the wrong color bubbles. So there's 3, 2 of them involving me, all in the past decade. Then Saturday on a friend's IG post about a candle sale at Bath & Body works I commented "Such a girl" a local newspaper reporter than replied to my comment: "Oh ZANG, you sure diminished her! Girls are stupid, with their genders and stuff, lol, amiright?!" To which I replied: "..." To which she replied: "Yes? I'm here." To which I replied: "there's something wrong with you. I made a simple comment a friend that I've known for 8 years post being playful. Not because I'm some woman shaming toxic card carrying member of hte patriarchy. Maybe try enjoying your life instead of lashing out at complete strangers on the internet there slugger" To which she replied: " Ah. Here, let me translate that for you: "I don't like being checked, so I'm going to gaslight and throw some phrases around to seem "woke" and then continue to diminish through patronizing name-calling". At which point I then contacted her immediate supervisor at her publication, his supervisor, the editor in chief as well as an employee of the parent company that owns the newspaper as this woman's IG profile starts "Downtown reporter at @newspapersheworksatsinstagram" as what she did is entirely uncalled for and not at all professional and if she's done this once, she's done it many times. So I have a local newspaper reporter putting words into my mouth, calling my character into question in a public forum, because I happen to have a penis and said 'such a girl' to a candle sale photograph on a post of someone that I've not only known for 8 years but have taken out several times over those years...

ff10 8y ago

I wonder how gay men handle this situation. Are situations that are symmetrical to the heterosexual version causing similar issues?

asianthrowaway 8y ago

I always wondered, why don't women get very harsh sentences if they get caught making up false rape allegations? I think that would discourage that sort of behavior and sort of balance things out.

neaden 8y ago
It would lead to pretty much every man accused of rape with threatening to sue/press charges against their accuser and further stigmatize rape victims and lower the number who come forward.
Dirlewanger 8y ago
Deeply-engrained cultural/societal biases that women can do no harm. You can see it in the trickle of sexual assault cases involving a woman teacher/underage male student; the women often get a relative wrist-slap of days in prison, if that. And let's not even get started on how routinely and holistically fucked men get in family/divorce courts. You don't hear about these problems talked about though, simply because men are the affected parties.
buboard 8y ago
it would be more effective if there was a wide-ranging public campaign in support of men who have been wronged, like a #NotMeToo . Escalating a war of the sexes is madness
- xiphias2 8y ago
  It's called #himtoo, and it was started by the mother of a false accusation victim a few months ago.
flukus 8y ago
Innocent until proven guilty applies to them too. What percentage of false allegations can be proven to be false, like the accused being in a different place at the time? Despite a couple of high profile exceptions I'd wager that's small enough to be a rounding error.

jbob2000 8y ago

> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.” That’s pretty much the bottom line, said Ron Biscardi, chief executive officer of Context Capital Partners. “It’s really not that hard.” Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm and telling people he doesn't do hugs. You literally can be the nicest man in the world and still get #MeToo'd

CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
> Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm and telling people he doesn't do hugs. I thought he was being accused of physically touching a clothed area of the woman's arm without being granted consent, not merely "pointing out". The words "pointing out" imply a gesture, which can be done at a distance, not unwelcome physical contact.
- throwaway5250 8y ago
  > accused of physically touching a clothed area of the woman's arm without being granted consent Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over? (And is it any surprise that we might all deduce the lesson if it is?)
  - CiPHPerCoder 8y ago
    > Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over? In isolation? No. It's a social faux pas that should be responded to with apology and remediation. Nobody is perfect, after all. As one incident in an overall pattern of abuse stretching one's career? Different matter. If this pattern holds, the accused doesn't need to be propped up as a role model for science communication.
- jbob2000 8y ago
  And herein lies the problem with #MeToo. NDT thought he was being curious and pointing something out, the woman thought she was being sexually harassed. This is the problem, that any action can be construed as sexual harassment.

gnicholas 8y ago

> "If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment,” he said, “those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint." This presents an interesting conundrum, and I wonder how it will complicate the process of proving sex discrimination related to mentoring disparities. Even if laws stay the same, I think some jurors will be more sympathetic to the "Pence approach" in the wake of #MeToo. This will make it harder for plaintiffs to win in mentoring discrimination cases, and will mean lower settlement offers as well.

dandare 8y ago

This man-women discussion is incredibly confused - for many reasons including emotions and malevolence - and it took me quite long until I could say I have formed my opinion. If you are interested: 1/ In modern societies women are often wronged, in the form of discrimination, harassment, abuse, and violence. 2/ Some of the policies designed to help women are hurting man by default, for instance, positive discrimination or "guilty until proven innocent". 3/ Some think the amount of wrongness done to women is orders of magnitude bigger than the amount of wrongness done to man. (Including me) 4/ Some think this discrepancy between wrongness warrants the policies that hurt men by default. 5/ Some think the no amount of wrongness discrepancy warrants a policy that hurts someone by default. (Including me)

loxs 8y ago
It's much worse... 2/ Most of the policies designed to help women actually hurt them. Positive discrimination usually ends up being much worse than doing nothing.

jseliger 8y ago

It's like no one imagined unintended consequences, or understands that incentives affect behavior.

mikelyons 8y ago
Acknowledging incentives and actual human motives/behavior is not politically correct.

wutbrodo 8y ago

This was utterly, utterly predictable, and I'm sure the same dynamic is playing out in milder, more insidious forms in industries that are less openly regressive than Wall Street. I said as much to many of my friends during the nascency of the movement, and was baffled at how novel a concept it seemed to all of them. This isn't fair to women, of course. But Water flows downhill, and people follow incentives. If you create a no-due-process superweapon that a class of people can point at another class, expect the latter to avoid situations where the former can use it. Duh. (In theory, women wouldn't be considered potential false accusers any more than men would, but the fact that the breakdown of gender roles has been intentionally lopsided means that a female accuser is both more likely and more likely to be taken seriously). As die-hard a liberal as I am, I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). But as a left-liberal, one of my primary points of departure with the contemporary left is that it seems to believe to its core that wishing on a star is all it takes for a policy to be effective, with no attention paid to the _actual_ way that a policy is expected to play out in the real world[1]. [1] I don't mean to suggest that the left uniquely has this problem, but I've got less exposure to the man-on-the-street version of the right, since I live in a deep Blue bubble and most of my friends form their beliefs based on whatever the Atlantic et al have on their front page.

dgzl 8y ago
> I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). Could you explain this? It almost sounds like you're interested in foregoing proof to decide cases where 'proof is hard'.
- wutbrodo 8y ago
  It's not a very well-formed idea, but it comes from the fact that I think that carefully-considered pragmatic exceptions to general rules can be valuable. For a simple example, many people don't understand what it is about markets that make them powerful[1]. That doesn't preclude any economic role for government, since markets aren't perfect and there are cases where govt action is more suited to the situation. Along the same lines, and taking a set of claims at face value: if there's an epidemic of rape and various institutions are systematically underserving victims, then it may make sense to shift that burden. I wouldn't say "forgoing" proof when proof is hard, but changing the standard of evidence. Proof isn't binary: for example, the "preponderance of evidence" and "beyond a reasonable doubt" standards for civil and criminal trials are pretty different. For a directly relevant example, I'm not very incensed by institutions cutting ties with Dr. Cosby and Harvey Weinstein despite the lack of a criminal conviction, and I don't think it's very controversial that decades of independent accusations may reasonably add up to a bit more than the initial presumed innocence. It's the formalization of this new standard (which many/most already agree to) that I'm open to. Of course, this is all theoretical. I don't think most people are remotely capable of handling even the bare minimum of nuance we're talking about here, so it's much more likely that we end up overshooting the target and doing blind damage to the concept of due process. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1] I've had conversations with people on HN itself about how Uber's pricing would be more just and just as effective if they did it manually instead of using the distributed pricing system we call supply and demand

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cuddlecake 8y ago

> to protect themselves in the face of what they consider unreasonable political correctness -- or to simply do the right thing. I wish the author spent some time on elaborating what the right thing is. The right thing might be too obvious for me to realize what it is.

nickpsecurity 8y ago

I had to deal with this crap more than once. It's a real thing. The article doesn't mention a helpful strategy that kept false claims off my own record: having a diverse team with plenty of women who respect you and will have your back. Even some that don't like you but have character that they won't lie about you. They told the truth about me to anyone that asked. That included what they liked, shrugged over, or really hated (about 99% shit I'd say). The world of difference between what a few women claimed and what my coworkers said spending years with me in private got those claims discarded before they could touch my record. One I had to hold back so she didn't do something crazy since women hate false claims about this stuff about as much as men. Those claims create false perceptions that undermine attempts to deal with actual harassment and sex crimes. So, a certain percentage of women working with me go all out fighting any BS they see like that. So, that led to a generic solution building on what I was already doing. Just bring more women (and minorities) into your workplace, treat your workers well, spend time with them (in public if you're worried), build relationships, have their back where they need it, and they'll probably have yours, too. I actually don't have much charisma or management skill only working one job like that. I was the favorite boss of most of my people for years, though, just doing the above surviving all false claims of all types. It probably helps that I'm pretty genuine where they just knew what I would or wouldn't do. The people, men or women, who my bosses thought weren't motivated would sometimes work hardest for me. It's just because I treated them respectfully. Also, helping them would where I could. Such tiny things go so far to bring out the best in people. As a side effect, they also reduce the number and effectiveness of false claims. So, I recommend companies just do more of that. Treating people well, inclusive behavior, and so on. Every company I know like that out here gets good results of some kind.

tonyob 8y ago

I mean you see Neil Degrasse Tyson reputation completely destroyed on the news, mentioning he invited his assistant home for wine and cheese and doing some awkward handshake. This could happen to anyone. Better be safe than sorry.