4 ms·
I don't think it's toxic, it's an accurate observation. As soon as you let gender politics into the building, you've started an unwinnable war between the sexes
by malvosenior 8y ago
I don't think it's toxic, it's an accurate observation. As soon as you let gender politics into the building, you've started an unwinnable war between the sexes that will ultimately rip your company apart. It's very telling that the people commenting on this have to do it with Blind as they're obviously afraid of voicing their opinion in public. That type of fear is only going to fester and grow.
Same with the comment from the black ex-employee about how there are more Black Lives Matter posters than actual black employees (which I don't doubt for a second). There is no way to play these progressive games at work that won't come back and shoot you in the foot from the left, right and center. Keep politics out of the workplace.
- shaki-dora 8y agoIt’s impossible to keep “keep politics out of the workplace”. What you’re advocating is just as political. You just don’t notice it because you consider an office full of bros to be the “natural” state of affairs.
- malvosenior 8y agoThe absence of political activism is not a political statement.
- davidgould 8y agolt very well can be, both: * Silence is consent. * If you know what is good for you, you will be quiet. Are political.
- lawnchair_larry 8y agoSilence is consent.* Wait, what? Are you sure you want to assert that? Because that's going to make things really complicated for the #MeToo movement.
- davidgould 8y ago"Silence is consent" has a long established meaning: if you do not object to something you can be construed to approve it. I'm not asserting it, I'm asserting that the lack of activism at Facebook is still a political statement because it can be construed as consent. Pretending not to understand common idiom in service of misogyny does not address this argument.
- lawnchair_larry 8y ago"Silence is consent" has a long established meaning: if you do not object to something you can be construed to approve it. I understand what you're saying just fine. I don't think you're picking up on the issue I'm drawing attention to (and I'm choosing to ignore the misogyny comment - come on, you're better than that). Think about how this statement sounds when we apply it to what is perhaps the biggest issue today that is related to discussions regarding consent. You can't default to two opposite positions here, and I'm pretty sure after only a moment's thought you'll agree that we're better off sticking to the rule that silence is very much not consent.
- davidgould 8y agoI don't see why you are taking this line. The topic was not sexual abuse, my comments are not about sexual abuse, obviously the statement about consent has a very different interpretation in that context. But we were talking about working at Facebook and not speaking up. Why are you mixing these topics?
- malvosenior 8y agoYou're stating that it's literally impossible to not be political. I don't agree. You can very well keep politics out of the work place. A ban against any political statements accomplishes that.
- lawnchair_larry 8y agoCongratulations, you seem to be experiencing http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html. I'm not sure why, though.
- davidgould 8y agoSuppose you work in a factory that you learn primarily makes nerve gas. Continuing to work there is a political statement.
- malvosenior 8y agoUnless you can't get another job and need that job to support your family. One of the many reasons politics shouldn't be injected into the workplace is because many employees have no option but to have that job and now you're subjecting them to political battles they have no choice but to endure. In the case we're talking about, the politics don't even have anything to do with the host company, they're a foreign agent in what would be an otherwise apolitical environment.
- shaki-dora 8y agoAlso: the comment about posters was intended to criticize the lack of black employees, not the abundance of posters. ...which makes your take, i. e. That removing the posters would solve the problem sort of funny, in a very depressing way.
- malvosenior 8y agoRemoving the posters solves the problem of injecting politics into the workplace. If there’s also a racism problem, that would need to be dealt with on a case by case basis. I took the original post by the black ex-FB employee to mean he saw the posters as meaningless virtue signaling that had no effect on what he saw as a racism problem at Facebook.