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It’s probably both. The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Regardless of how rational this fea

by awb 6y ago

It’s probably both. The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Regardless of how rational this fear is, they are stereotyping new female founders they’re meeting for the first time based on what an X% of other female founder’s have done in the past. For the men, it’s probably a risk/reward calculation. Keep your head down and be polite and have ~0% chance of being accused of sexism. Or, speak up and maybe ruffle some feathers and have a ~X% chance of being accused of sexism. You can see the problem on both sides of the equation, but withholding advice based on gender alone does meet the definition of sexism, regardless of the intentions of self-protection rather than hate.

julianmarq 6y ago
I don't know the solution to this problem, but I do think that turning it into a Morton's fork ("men are sexist regardless of whether they speak or not") is not it. Instead of playing semantics by saying that "it is technically sexism" (and I'm not saying I agree with whether it actually is or not), we could choose to at least stop phrasing the situation like that.
- awb 6y ago
  You’re not sexist if you give honest feedback to both genders. But you are at risk of being falsely labeled sexist if you do. It’s a bad situation I agree, but we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled.
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled. But we can't fix it by doing otherwise—asking people to stop being "overly" cautious—either. Another comment put it best: that solution is akin to asking people to self-sacrifice, except that at the very least jumping on a grenade gets you a medal; in this case, it gets you vilification.
    - awb 6y ago
      It’s really not though. People can spread any rumors they want. Giving blunt advice or not funding a company or whatever other perceived slight still exposes you. The risk is still there from the first contact to the last. But in any legal setting this will get shut down immediately unless there’s valid proof.
      - julianmarq 6y ago
        > People can spread any rumors they want. And those rumors kill careers, as TFA mentions. > The risk is still there from the first contact to the last. This is correct, and that's why this problem is very likely only going to get worse... And the people being cautious still won't be the ones to blame. > But in any legal setting this will get shut down immediately Outrage mobs don't need a legal setting to ruin someone's life (or livelihood). I feel like we're probably not talking about the same thing.
        awb 6y ago
        What I mean is that if you’re operating out of fear, you’re doing it wrong. The only way rumors kill careers is if we fear the rumors. If everyone is giving honest, straightforward feedback, then everyone has a rumor about them and it becomes powerless. But if most people are afraid and one person gives honest feedback and is subjected to a rumor, the one rumor seems significant. I guess I brought up the legal stuff because I think believing rumors is silly in general. If you’re actually the subject of discrimination, you should prove it in court for the benefit of yourself and society. I’m not sure that we’re disagreeing entirely. I do agree with what you’re saying as well. Just hoping we can chart a new path.
        julianmarq 6y ago
        > If everyone is giving honest, straightforward feedback, then everyone has a rumor about them and it becomes powerless. But this leads me back to my previous comment: this isn't a feasible solution because it means basically asking people to self-sacrifice until the "rumors" lose power.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Based on your original post, I guess you could say that if you give honest feedback to men but not to women, you could also be labeled sexist. But the chances of anyone finding out that's what you're doing is pretty low, perhaps lower than getting labeled sexist for giving honest feedback to everyone. I feel like "giving into the fear of being labeled" doesn't fully capture the risk involved. For many people that labeling means the end of their career, or at the very least a lot of personal and professional embarrassment, plus a big negative mark on their record. I have a hard time looking down on anyone too hard for giving in to that fear.
  - tachyonbeam 6y ago
    In a culture where there are huge negative consequences for being labeled a $BAD_PERSON on twitter, people are obviously going to be more careful with everything they say. To expect them to behave differently is nonsense. You can't expect everyone to want to risk their careers and face painful, public, humiliating backlash for your own benefit. It's normal and healthy for people to want to protect themselves, in the same way that it's normal not to immediately trust strangers. The real problem is the cancel culture. That's what needs to be fixed. A twitter mob shouldn't be able to cause as much damage as they do. There should be laws preventing people from being fired because of social media. Maybe everyone who's ever been fired or had negative career consequences due to a twitter mob should get together and bring on a massive class-action lawsuit. Force twitter to fix their toxic lynch mob problem, and let that be an example for any other social media company that wants to capitalize on harmful gossip and mob behavior.
    - gwd 6y ago
      > The real problem is the cancel culture. No, the real real problem is that in while there is some behavior that is obviously $BAD and others that are obviously not $BAD, there's a large range of behavior for which it's difficult to tell whether it's $BAD or not. Consider the criminal justice system. Some people are obviously guilty and others are obviously innocent. But in between, there are lots of situations where it's difficult to tell whether the person is guilty or not. Vow to be more "tough on crime", and innocent people spend years in jail (or worse, end up executed). Vow to protect the innocent, and lots of guilty people get away scot-free. And there are criminals who are very good at exploiting this uncertainty. There was a very insightful essay I saw many years ago which I can't find now unfortunately; but the main point was this: In superhero comic books and movies, the real superpower is certainty. The good guys always know who the bad guys are; it's just a matter of defeating them. In the real world, we have plenty of power to defeat the bad guys; it's just not always clear who the bad guys are. So take the example from TFA, where the investor thought male founder A would be a better CEO than female founder B. Implicit bias is a real thing, and has been proven in dozens of studies. (For instance, where people are asked to rate the qualifications of a range of CVs, where the gender of the name on the resume is randomized.) Does the investor think A is better than B because of implicit (or not-so-implicit) bias? Or is A genuinely a better fit than B? It's basically impossible to know; even the investor themself may not know. In the past, things swung very heavily toward "let the guilty go free", which meant implicit bias was allowed to stand unchallenged (leading to more men in leadership, leading to more implicit bias). "Cancel culture" is an attempt to swing things the other way. But it falls victim to the "certainty superpower" delusion: they think they know who the actual bad guys are, and end up taking down innocent people in the process. What's the solution? In some sense there is no solution: until we have an Oracle of All Truth which we can consult, we will always have uncertainty; which means either punishing the innocent, letting the guilty go free, or some mixture of both. The best thing we can do is honestly acknowledge the situation and try to balance things as best we can.
  - smsm42 6y ago
    We won't fix it, but demanding to fix it from the people who stand to lose the most and has the least means to fix it might be not the best way to approach it either. Maybe if we became a little more attentive to the potential of false accusations and less tolerant to people who falsely accuse others of sexism, the balance could start moving back to where people wouldn't be afraid to talk candidly just because they talk to a female.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled Individuals will consider their jobs and thus their dependents' welfare more important than risking being publicly slaughtered to fix a mindset that's pretty ingrained now.
HunterWare 6y ago
There isn’t reason to assume the increased perceived risk is do to a pre-judgement of increased bad behavior of the “opposing” party. It could be just calculating a different risk based off your own increased vulnerability to any bad behavior.
golergka 6y ago
> The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Well, I think that unlike women or bin-binary people, a man wouldn't be able of accusing another man of sexism in his direction.
- awb 6y ago
  You can accuse people of anything. I think maybe what you’re saying is that a man accusing another man of being sexist against men would be far less believable. Regardless, we’re talking about social judgements. In a legal setting the burden of proof would be on the accuser.
  - incompatible 6y ago
    Presumably, since a man complaining about a woman getting special treatment "because she is a woman" would hardly be unprecedented.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    The legal setting doesn't matter. In these cases the damage is done reputationally, in the court of public opinion, well before any legal matters come into play. And like many legal outcomes, just being accused is its own stigma. Someone accused of murder but then later (let's say objectively, truthfully, correctly) found not guilty will expect to face social discrimination and alienation. It's not right, but it's unfortunately how people operate.
vmception 6y ago
I just want to say that all the light greyed out comments match my upbringing and worldview as well Without an explanation about which parts people find disagreeable, assuming thats how people are even using the voting system here, I have no idea what the real world consensus is or what they wish for it to be
- bbarnett 6y ago
  This comment is an incredible thing to use as an example. You made this comment hours and hours ago. Yet in that time, 'what is grey' has changed. Things have been voted up and down. And who's to say that 5 years from now, 10 years, the 'web theme' of this site won't change. And then grey means something else. Now what you've said has changed, due to how the 'culture' on this site has changed. Meanwhile, there have been people examining comments, and actions, people made even decades ago. Comments and actions taken out of context, single sentences quoted out of paragraphs from emails/etc, and then social media destroys them without care. Not only must people now 'clam up' against current threat, but all potential future threat. A comment well received by a friend, can 20 years later be taken out of context, that context being historical, cultural, and personal. And on top of all of that, a friend can become an enemy 20 years later, for entirely non-sexist, just normal person-to-person reasons. People can and do change over time, sometimes not for the better. So: * fear what you say now * fear the future, for people will misquote 20 years later * fear even female friends, for some may change over decades, and destroy you later I don't think this is here now. But if the perception of what is happening continues much longer, it may. Heck, I recall reading an article which coached men to "never be alone with a woman", for "she could claim anything later". This thought process makes it highly difficult to even give advice in private!
  - krageon 6y ago
    > never be alone with a woman This isn't exceptional or even new, it's been solid advice for anyone in a position of public visibility for at least the past thirty years. The same goes for being alone with teenagers: It doesn't take that much effort to have witnesses and keep the door open, especially considering what a volatile other party will do to your life if you don't.
brindlejim 6y ago
People's reputations and careers can be destroyed by a simple accusation of discrimination made on social media, let alone by an accusation levied by a founder against one of their investors. If the accused also have a powerful position at a company, then that company also faces large liabilities, both reputational and financial. Everyone knows that the costs of litigation in the US are astronomical. It is less known but equally true that the costs of arbitration (and to a lesser extent, mediation) can be high. Prohibitive for a startup, still painful for a larger company. Which means that all a potential accuser needs to do to get their pound of flesh is threaten litigation, and name an amount less than what would be paid in arbitration. So our current system, on social media and in the courts, puts a tremendous amount of power in the hands of those who might accuse. And yes, the gender _alone_, or protected minority status _alone_, is enough to set off alarm bells in an executive who has already been burned.
DoreenMichele 6y ago
The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Not necessarily. In a social situation, you may be more afraid of what other people will think than of what that one person will think. If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem. It only becomes a big career-ending problem when a whole lot of other people agree that you doing X is some major issue that "obviously" was rooted in some kind of nefarious intent, such as sexism.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem. The problem is that the story will usually be told by the person who misunderstood the argument, and the other side's defense wouldn't have as much reach. "X is a sexist jerk" will gain way more clicks, attention and support than "I thought X was a sexist jerk but actually I misunderstood and we're all good - nothing to see here". Furthermore nowadays there are plenty of people out there who love the drama and will be more than happy to keep pouring fuel into the fire, either for entertainment or in an attempt to virtue-signal how "better" they are by (appearing to) care about the issue. Worse, entire industries (social media) happily profit off this and encourage it by promoting the divisive content.
- DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
  > It only becomes a big career-ending problem when a whole lot of other people agree generally agree but have seen plenty cases on social media where the barrier to that agreement was incredibly low. I've even watched myself at times backing the wrong side -out of solidarity[1]- simply because I followed that person already for years and agreed to most of their other opinions. [1] and what monster would not "always believe the victim"? As a proud father of a gorgeous and smart daughter I have an almost automatic response to see women's rights as something I need to protect. I'd always be harsher on my won sex when it comes to blame or "whodunit" (I'm aware of it so I'm able to counter it but no doubt that this pattern is always present like some muscle memory)
  - DoreenMichele 6y ago
KptMarchewa 6y ago
It's not just only stereotyping, it's just that there's real possibility. That would never happen with men. Women have the power to label you sexist, men don't.
tomp 6y ago
No, men are (correctly, IMO), assessing the general public's level of sexism. Even if the gender of the accuser has no effect on the probability of the person accusing someone of sexism, it has a massive effect on the probability that such accusations are believed and weaponised by the public / mainstream media.
stcredzero 6y ago
The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Are they, necessarily? This could be entirely up to expected value and cost/benefit. Right now, current day, on average, the amount of power and attention wielded by a woman making an accusation of sexism is far larger than that which would be wielded by a man. This gender skew in outcome causes the cost/benefit calculations made by advice givers to also be gender-skewed. As a result, women get one cost/benefit calc, and men get another. The problem is precisely systemic societal inequality and sexism. It's sexist to automatically value the word of one gender over that of another. However that is essentially what our society does in this context, made worse through social media's amplification of the mob mentality. It's this amplified societal gender skew which is the problem. The way out of this is to value and respect evidence. The way out of this is due process and the concept of innocent until proven guilty. The way out is through principles which we know can counteract the evils and dysfunction of the mob, which we have known and codified, and whose value has been borne out by history, since nearly a millennium ago. Only this time, let's apply these gender neutrally.
dcolkitt 6y ago
Okay. Let me draw an analogy. Say you're in occupied Hungary circa 1956. Whenever you hear anybody walk by speaking Russian, you clam up for fear that they might be Soviet secret police. Would you describe this person as "racist" against Russians? I don't think a reasonable person would apply that label. I think they'd say they're responding rationally to the specific circumstances of their immediate situation. That sort of behavior shows no inherent animosity to Russian people in general. (And before anyone cries foul, I'm not in anyway saying sexism accusations in 2021 corporate America is anywhere near the same as the KGB. I think that should be patently obvious. The reason I picked this specific example was to stretch the underlying logic to a situation that's clear enough to be cut and dry situation.)
- roenxi 6y ago
  > Would you describe this person as "racist" against Russians? Yeah, they're making decisions and treating someone differently based on the person's (anticipated) race. Something being rational doesn't make it not racism. > That sort of behavior shows no inherent animosity to Russian people in general. Racism has nothing to do with animosity. Consider that men have the opposite of animosity towards women and yet sexism is something between humans.
  - virgilp 6y ago
    Right. Label common sense as racism, and then be surprised that men clam up.
  - Leherenn 6y ago
    > Something being rational doesn't make it not racism. That's the really tricky part with racism, not the mindless extremism. What is the acceptable limit between rationalism and racism? Is there one? If we take the example of the GP with Russian secret services, if 99% of the Russian speaking people you encounter are from the secret services, does it make it acceptable to discriminate against the 1% to save your life? If yes, then what is the limit? 50%, 10%, just one person, ...?
    - 6y ago
0dayz 6y ago
No, since investors have nothing to fear when they give criticism to males, since they can predict the outcome to about 99%. With female its the potential unknown predictability that causes the fear.
friedman23 6y ago
Society's perception of what qualifies as sexist has changed drastically in a few years. Who knows, maybe well meaning criticism will be considered truly sexist by society in another 10 years. Why take the risk?
esyir 6y ago
The core issue here is that getting cancelled may be a low risk, but it's 1: substantially higher than it used to be; and 2: An existential / Severe setback tier event. The fact that the wolves would be out regardless of the veracity of the claims, and that there is no viable avenue for recourse here aggravates this. Wrapping this up as "sexism" is the same kind of logic that gets you the removal of women-only sports as "sexism".
teatree 6y ago
There is a reason we differentiate terms like "accident" and "collision" in the English language. Using the same term to define multiple things is not helping men or women. Feminism, I believe, needs to make better use of language. Even the law, which is usually the last to evolve, clearly understands the difference between a death caused by self defense and murder.
smsm42 6y ago
It's not only X% chance of being accused of sexism, but a very high chance to lose one's career - and possibly become un-hireable by any large company or to any position of responsibility at least for a while. It's not just that someone says "you're sexist" and you say "no, I'm not!" - it goes way beyond accusation, and accusation itself almost universally is considered as good as definite proof. This is a serious risk, and it's totally understandable that people want to avoid it.
MonsterBurger 6y ago
I would take zero over non-zero given the consequences.
knighthack 6y ago
1. 'Sexism' should be limited to acts of discrimination that undermine another sex. 2. Advice (which is essentially a gift of knowledge/experience) is not something you are entitled to by virtue of your sex. 3. A man cannot be said to be 'sexist' when he chooses not to give advice that could potentially incriminate him, especially falsely. If a person (whether a man or a woman) chooses to keep silent, and especially where no fraudulent aspect is involved, that is part and parcel of doing business. You are not entitled to call a person 'sexist' just because they do not want to give advice to you. 4. There are virtually no consequences to the woman who accuses. Yet in comparison, the long-lasting consequences of an investor being falsely accused in public far outweigh any advantages to the contrary. This is enough to make any man clam up, and is a legitimate cause to withhold advice. 5. More importantly, in a commercial setting, no one is obliged to give you an advantage just because you're a woman. If you expect such an advantage/benefit because of your gender, then you are being sexist. A woman who wants to do business should not posit that a man is actively being 'sexist' if he chooses not to help her. That makes no sense.
- sopp 6y ago
  > There are virtually no consequences to the woman who accuses So, women are being segregated before having any occasion to accuse men of sexism, and yet you claim that they would face 'no consequences' if they actually did?
  - knighthack 6y ago
    Women are not 'being segregated' (which is a strawman argument on your part). Men are refusing to giving advice, because there is past history of women falsely accusing them of being sexist when they do give it. Your claim purporting that it never happens - i.e. 'before having any occasion' - skews the time-perspective. And is against the odds that male investors have faced, which is why they now clam up. This is nothing to do with 'segregation' - that's a silly interpretation on your part. Investors are wising up to hold their tongue, than to let aspersions be (falsely) cast upon them otherwise.
sepin4 6y ago
Sooo, damned(sexist) if you do, damned(sexist) if you don't. I hope you see the paradox that PC culture is.
brigandish 6y ago
I don't wear a seatbelt because I'm stereotyping the driver of my car as a dangerous driver though, nor am I stereotyping other drivers either. Risk is the combination of chance of occurence with effect. If the effect is large then a tiny chance is worth making active protections against. Given what we've seen in the past few years and how such incidents appear to be on the increase, the chance doesn't even seem that tiny.

by awb 6y ago

julianmarq 6y ago

I don't know the solution to this problem, but I do think that turning it into a Morton's fork ("men are sexist regardless of whether they speak or not") is not it. Instead of playing semantics by saying that "it is technically sexism" (and I'm not saying I agree with whether it actually is or not), we could choose to at least stop phrasing the situation like that.

awb 6y ago
You’re not sexist if you give honest feedback to both genders. But you are at risk of being falsely labeled sexist if you do. It’s a bad situation I agree, but we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled.
- julianmarq 6y ago
  > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled. But we can't fix it by doing otherwise—asking people to stop being "overly" cautious—either. Another comment put it best: that solution is akin to asking people to self-sacrifice, except that at the very least jumping on a grenade gets you a medal; in this case, it gets you vilification.
  - awb 6y ago
    It’s really not though. People can spread any rumors they want. Giving blunt advice or not funding a company or whatever other perceived slight still exposes you. The risk is still there from the first contact to the last. But in any legal setting this will get shut down immediately unless there’s valid proof.
    - julianmarq 6y ago
      > People can spread any rumors they want. And those rumors kill careers, as TFA mentions. > The risk is still there from the first contact to the last. This is correct, and that's why this problem is very likely only going to get worse... And the people being cautious still won't be the ones to blame. > But in any legal setting this will get shut down immediately Outrage mobs don't need a legal setting to ruin someone's life (or livelihood). I feel like we're probably not talking about the same thing.
      - awb 6y ago
        What I mean is that if you’re operating out of fear, you’re doing it wrong. The only way rumors kill careers is if we fear the rumors. If everyone is giving honest, straightforward feedback, then everyone has a rumor about them and it becomes powerless. But if most people are afraid and one person gives honest feedback and is subjected to a rumor, the one rumor seems significant. I guess I brought up the legal stuff because I think believing rumors is silly in general. If you’re actually the subject of discrimination, you should prove it in court for the benefit of yourself and society. I’m not sure that we’re disagreeing entirely. I do agree with what you’re saying as well. Just hoping we can chart a new path.
        julianmarq 6y ago
        > If everyone is giving honest, straightforward feedback, then everyone has a rumor about them and it becomes powerless. But this leads me back to my previous comment: this isn't a feasible solution because it means basically asking people to self-sacrifice until the "rumors" lose power.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Based on your original post, I guess you could say that if you give honest feedback to men but not to women, you could also be labeled sexist. But the chances of anyone finding out that's what you're doing is pretty low, perhaps lower than getting labeled sexist for giving honest feedback to everyone. I feel like "giving into the fear of being labeled" doesn't fully capture the risk involved. For many people that labeling means the end of their career, or at the very least a lot of personal and professional embarrassment, plus a big negative mark on their record. I have a hard time looking down on anyone too hard for giving in to that fear.
- tachyonbeam 6y ago
  In a culture where there are huge negative consequences for being labeled a $BAD_PERSON on twitter, people are obviously going to be more careful with everything they say. To expect them to behave differently is nonsense. You can't expect everyone to want to risk their careers and face painful, public, humiliating backlash for your own benefit. It's normal and healthy for people to want to protect themselves, in the same way that it's normal not to immediately trust strangers. The real problem is the cancel culture. That's what needs to be fixed. A twitter mob shouldn't be able to cause as much damage as they do. There should be laws preventing people from being fired because of social media. Maybe everyone who's ever been fired or had negative career consequences due to a twitter mob should get together and bring on a massive class-action lawsuit. Force twitter to fix their toxic lynch mob problem, and let that be an example for any other social media company that wants to capitalize on harmful gossip and mob behavior.
  - gwd 6y ago
    > The real problem is the cancel culture. No, the real real problem is that in while there is some behavior that is obviously $BAD and others that are obviously not $BAD, there's a large range of behavior for which it's difficult to tell whether it's $BAD or not. Consider the criminal justice system. Some people are obviously guilty and others are obviously innocent. But in between, there are lots of situations where it's difficult to tell whether the person is guilty or not. Vow to be more "tough on crime", and innocent people spend years in jail (or worse, end up executed). Vow to protect the innocent, and lots of guilty people get away scot-free. And there are criminals who are very good at exploiting this uncertainty. There was a very insightful essay I saw many years ago which I can't find now unfortunately; but the main point was this: In superhero comic books and movies, the real superpower is certainty. The good guys always know who the bad guys are; it's just a matter of defeating them. In the real world, we have plenty of power to defeat the bad guys; it's just not always clear who the bad guys are. So take the example from TFA, where the investor thought male founder A would be a better CEO than female founder B. Implicit bias is a real thing, and has been proven in dozens of studies. (For instance, where people are asked to rate the qualifications of a range of CVs, where the gender of the name on the resume is randomized.) Does the investor think A is better than B because of implicit (or not-so-implicit) bias? Or is A genuinely a better fit than B? It's basically impossible to know; even the investor themself may not know. In the past, things swung very heavily toward "let the guilty go free", which meant implicit bias was allowed to stand unchallenged (leading to more men in leadership, leading to more implicit bias). "Cancel culture" is an attempt to swing things the other way. But it falls victim to the "certainty superpower" delusion: they think they know who the actual bad guys are, and end up taking down innocent people in the process. What's the solution? In some sense there is no solution: until we have an Oracle of All Truth which we can consult, we will always have uncertainty; which means either punishing the innocent, letting the guilty go free, or some mixture of both. The best thing we can do is honestly acknowledge the situation and try to balance things as best we can.
- smsm42 6y ago
  We won't fix it, but demanding to fix it from the people who stand to lose the most and has the least means to fix it might be not the best way to approach it either. Maybe if we became a little more attentive to the potential of false accusations and less tolerant to people who falsely accuse others of sexism, the balance could start moving back to where people wouldn't be afraid to talk candidly just because they talk to a female.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  > we won’t fix it by giving into the fear of being labeled Individuals will consider their jobs and thus their dependents' welfare more important than risking being publicly slaughtered to fix a mindset that's pretty ingrained now.

HunterWare 6y ago

There isn’t reason to assume the increased perceived risk is do to a pre-judgement of increased bad behavior of the “opposing” party. It could be just calculating a different risk based off your own increased vulnerability to any bad behavior.

golergka 6y ago

> The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Well, I think that unlike women or bin-binary people, a man wouldn't be able of accusing another man of sexism in his direction.

awb 6y ago
You can accuse people of anything. I think maybe what you’re saying is that a man accusing another man of being sexist against men would be far less believable. Regardless, we’re talking about social judgements. In a legal setting the burden of proof would be on the accuser.
- incompatible 6y ago
  Presumably, since a man complaining about a woman getting special treatment "because she is a woman" would hardly be unprecedented.
- kelnos 6y ago
  The legal setting doesn't matter. In these cases the damage is done reputationally, in the court of public opinion, well before any legal matters come into play. And like many legal outcomes, just being accused is its own stigma. Someone accused of murder but then later (let's say objectively, truthfully, correctly) found not guilty will expect to face social discrimination and alienation. It's not right, but it's unfortunately how people operate.

vmception 6y ago

I just want to say that all the light greyed out comments match my upbringing and worldview as well Without an explanation about which parts people find disagreeable, assuming thats how people are even using the voting system here, I have no idea what the real world consensus is or what they wish for it to be

bbarnett 6y ago
This comment is an incredible thing to use as an example. You made this comment hours and hours ago. Yet in that time, 'what is grey' has changed. Things have been voted up and down. And who's to say that 5 years from now, 10 years, the 'web theme' of this site won't change. And then grey means something else. Now what you've said has changed, due to how the 'culture' on this site has changed. Meanwhile, there have been people examining comments, and actions, people made even decades ago. Comments and actions taken out of context, single sentences quoted out of paragraphs from emails/etc, and then social media destroys them without care. Not only must people now 'clam up' against current threat, but all potential future threat. A comment well received by a friend, can 20 years later be taken out of context, that context being historical, cultural, and personal. And on top of all of that, a friend can become an enemy 20 years later, for entirely non-sexist, just normal person-to-person reasons. People can and do change over time, sometimes not for the better. So: * fear what you say now * fear the future, for people will misquote 20 years later * fear even female friends, for some may change over decades, and destroy you later I don't think this is here now. But if the perception of what is happening continues much longer, it may. Heck, I recall reading an article which coached men to "never be alone with a woman", for "she could claim anything later". This thought process makes it highly difficult to even give advice in private!
- krageon 6y ago
  > never be alone with a woman This isn't exceptional or even new, it's been solid advice for anyone in a position of public visibility for at least the past thirty years. The same goes for being alone with teenagers: It doesn't take that much effort to have witnesses and keep the door open, especially considering what a volatile other party will do to your life if you don't.

brindlejim 6y ago

People's reputations and careers can be destroyed by a simple accusation of discrimination made on social media, let alone by an accusation levied by a founder against one of their investors. If the accused also have a powerful position at a company, then that company also faces large liabilities, both reputational and financial. Everyone knows that the costs of litigation in the US are astronomical. It is less known but equally true that the costs of arbitration (and to a lesser extent, mediation) can be high. Prohibitive for a startup, still painful for a larger company. Which means that all a potential accuser needs to do to get their pound of flesh is threaten litigation, and name an amount less than what would be paid in arbitration. So our current system, on social media and in the courts, puts a tremendous amount of power in the hands of those who might accuse. And yes, the gender _alone_, or protected minority status _alone_, is enough to set off alarm bells in an executive who has already been burned.

DoreenMichele 6y ago

The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Not necessarily. In a social situation, you may be more afraid of what other people will think than of what that one person will think. If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem. It only becomes a big career-ending problem when a whole lot of other people agree that you doing X is some major issue that "obviously" was rooted in some kind of nefarious intent, such as sexism.

Nextgrid 6y ago
> If that one person misreads you and hates you, it's not some big career-ending problem. The problem is that the story will usually be told by the person who misunderstood the argument, and the other side's defense wouldn't have as much reach. "X is a sexist jerk" will gain way more clicks, attention and support than "I thought X was a sexist jerk but actually I misunderstood and we're all good - nothing to see here". Furthermore nowadays there are plenty of people out there who love the drama and will be more than happy to keep pouring fuel into the fire, either for entertainment or in an attempt to virtue-signal how "better" they are by (appearing to) care about the issue. Worse, entire industries (social media) happily profit off this and encourage it by promoting the divisive content.
DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> It only becomes a big career-ending problem when a whole lot of other people agree generally agree but have seen plenty cases on social media where the barrier to that agreement was incredibly low. I've even watched myself at times backing the wrong side -out of solidarity[1]- simply because I followed that person already for years and agreed to most of their other opinions. [1] and what monster would not "always believe the victim"? As a proud father of a gorgeous and smart daughter I have an almost automatic response to see women's rights as something I need to protect. I'd always be harsher on my won sex when it comes to blame or "whodunit" (I'm aware of it so I'm able to counter it but no doubt that this pattern is always present like some muscle memory)
- DoreenMichele 6y ago

KptMarchewa 6y ago

It's not just only stereotyping, it's just that there's real possibility. That would never happen with men. Women have the power to label you sexist, men don't.

tomp 6y ago

No, men are (correctly, IMO), assessing the general public's level of sexism. Even if the gender of the accuser has no effect on the probability of the person accusing someone of sexism, it has a massive effect on the probability that such accusations are believed and weaponised by the public / mainstream media.

stcredzero 6y ago

The men are assuming based on the female founder’s gender _alone_ that she might accuse him of sexism. Are they, necessarily? This could be entirely up to expected value and cost/benefit. Right now, current day, on average, the amount of power and attention wielded by a woman making an accusation of sexism is far larger than that which would be wielded by a man. This gender skew in outcome causes the cost/benefit calculations made by advice givers to also be gender-skewed. As a result, women get one cost/benefit calc, and men get another. The problem is precisely systemic societal inequality and sexism. It's sexist to automatically value the word of one gender over that of another. However that is essentially what our society does in this context, made worse through social media's amplification of the mob mentality. It's this amplified societal gender skew which is the problem. The way out of this is to value and respect evidence. The way out of this is due process and the concept of innocent until proven guilty. The way out is through principles which we know can counteract the evils and dysfunction of the mob, which we have known and codified, and whose value has been borne out by history, since nearly a millennium ago. Only this time, let's apply these gender neutrally.

dcolkitt 6y ago

Okay. Let me draw an analogy. Say you're in occupied Hungary circa 1956. Whenever you hear anybody walk by speaking Russian, you clam up for fear that they might be Soviet secret police. Would you describe this person as "racist" against Russians? I don't think a reasonable person would apply that label. I think they'd say they're responding rationally to the specific circumstances of their immediate situation. That sort of behavior shows no inherent animosity to Russian people in general. (And before anyone cries foul, I'm not in anyway saying sexism accusations in 2021 corporate America is anywhere near the same as the KGB. I think that should be patently obvious. The reason I picked this specific example was to stretch the underlying logic to a situation that's clear enough to be cut and dry situation.)

roenxi 6y ago
> Would you describe this person as "racist" against Russians? Yeah, they're making decisions and treating someone differently based on the person's (anticipated) race. Something being rational doesn't make it not racism. > That sort of behavior shows no inherent animosity to Russian people in general. Racism has nothing to do with animosity. Consider that men have the opposite of animosity towards women and yet sexism is something between humans.
- virgilp 6y ago
  Right. Label common sense as racism, and then be surprised that men clam up.
- Leherenn 6y ago
  > Something being rational doesn't make it not racism. That's the really tricky part with racism, not the mindless extremism. What is the acceptable limit between rationalism and racism? Is there one? If we take the example of the GP with Russian secret services, if 99% of the Russian speaking people you encounter are from the secret services, does it make it acceptable to discriminate against the 1% to save your life? If yes, then what is the limit? 50%, 10%, just one person, ...?
  - 6y ago

0dayz 6y ago

No, since investors have nothing to fear when they give criticism to males, since they can predict the outcome to about 99%. With female its the potential unknown predictability that causes the fear.

friedman23 6y ago

Society's perception of what qualifies as sexist has changed drastically in a few years. Who knows, maybe well meaning criticism will be considered truly sexist by society in another 10 years. Why take the risk?

esyir 6y ago

The core issue here is that getting cancelled may be a low risk, but it's 1: substantially higher than it used to be; and 2: An existential / Severe setback tier event. The fact that the wolves would be out regardless of the veracity of the claims, and that there is no viable avenue for recourse here aggravates this. Wrapping this up as "sexism" is the same kind of logic that gets you the removal of women-only sports as "sexism".

teatree 6y ago

There is a reason we differentiate terms like "accident" and "collision" in the English language. Using the same term to define multiple things is not helping men or women. Feminism, I believe, needs to make better use of language. Even the law, which is usually the last to evolve, clearly understands the difference between a death caused by self defense and murder.

smsm42 6y ago

It's not only X% chance of being accused of sexism, but a very high chance to lose one's career - and possibly become un-hireable by any large company or to any position of responsibility at least for a while. It's not just that someone says "you're sexist" and you say "no, I'm not!" - it goes way beyond accusation, and accusation itself almost universally is considered as good as definite proof. This is a serious risk, and it's totally understandable that people want to avoid it.

MonsterBurger 6y ago

I would take zero over non-zero given the consequences.

knighthack 6y ago

1. 'Sexism' should be limited to acts of discrimination that undermine another sex. 2. Advice (which is essentially a gift of knowledge/experience) is not something you are entitled to by virtue of your sex. 3. A man cannot be said to be 'sexist' when he chooses not to give advice that could potentially incriminate him, especially falsely. If a person (whether a man or a woman) chooses to keep silent, and especially where no fraudulent aspect is involved, that is part and parcel of doing business. You are not entitled to call a person 'sexist' just because they do not want to give advice to you. 4. There are virtually no consequences to the woman who accuses. Yet in comparison, the long-lasting consequences of an investor being falsely accused in public far outweigh any advantages to the contrary. This is enough to make any man clam up, and is a legitimate cause to withhold advice. 5. More importantly, in a commercial setting, no one is obliged to give you an advantage just because you're a woman. If you expect such an advantage/benefit because of your gender, then you are being sexist. A woman who wants to do business should not posit that a man is actively being 'sexist' if he chooses not to help her. That makes no sense.

sopp 6y ago
> There are virtually no consequences to the woman who accuses So, women are being segregated before having any occasion to accuse men of sexism, and yet you claim that they would face 'no consequences' if they actually did?
- knighthack 6y ago
  Women are not 'being segregated' (which is a strawman argument on your part). Men are refusing to giving advice, because there is past history of women falsely accusing them of being sexist when they do give it. Your claim purporting that it never happens - i.e. 'before having any occasion' - skews the time-perspective. And is against the odds that male investors have faced, which is why they now clam up. This is nothing to do with 'segregation' - that's a silly interpretation on your part. Investors are wising up to hold their tongue, than to let aspersions be (falsely) cast upon them otherwise.

sepin4 6y ago

Sooo, damned(sexist) if you do, damned(sexist) if you don't. I hope you see the paradox that PC culture is.

brigandish 6y ago

I don't wear a seatbelt because I'm stereotyping the driver of my car as a dangerous driver though, nor am I stereotyping other drivers either. Risk is the combination of chance of occurence with effect. If the effect is large then a tiny chance is worth making active protections against. Given what we've seen in the past few years and how such incidents appear to be on the increase, the chance doesn't even seem that tiny.