5 ms·

500% more female engineers = 500% more risk of sexual harassment lawsuits. If that's not progress, I don't know what is.

justinhj 14y ago
Progress will be when this kind of thinking doesn't occur
- Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
  Lawyers will see to it that this kind of thinking sticks around for a long time.
- yummyfajitas 14y ago
  Is this kind of thinking incorrect?
  - NoahTheDuke 14y ago
    Yes.
    - Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
      In what way?
      - raganwald 14y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433254
  - raganwald 14y ago
    Probably incorrect. And I could just as easily posit the reverse. Say we have one woman and nine men. If we add a woman, does it really double the likelihood of a harassment suit? Why would it? Either one of the nine men harasses women, or he doesn't, why would adding a second women change his behaviour? On the other hand, if we halve the proportion of women by hiring ten more men, I'd say you may have doubled the chances of having a harasser on your staff. I guess it all comes down to whether you walk around thinking that women cause sexual harassment lawsuits or men cause sexual harassment lawsuits. I think it's the men doing the harassing, but whoo-boy are there a lot of apologists out there who believe that women are making this stuff up.
    - cousin_it 14y ago
      I don't completely understand your argument here, on a purely intellectual level... In a very simple model, going from 0 women to 1 woman should increase the number of harassment suits, right? Then going from 1 woman to 2 women should have a similar effect, because all naturally occurring functions are differentiable :-) Intuitively it seems to me that the amount of reported harassment should be proportional to how many opportunities for harassment exist, or (under a different theory) how many opportunities for false claims exist, which is the same number by another name. So it's a little strange to hear you say that anyone who disagrees with you must believe in nasty things like "harassment is made up by women". Do you know how hard it is to figure out causality from observational data? For any possible trend you could find in the data, like "reported harassment scales as the number of women times the square root of the number of men", one could probably make up a just-so story that blames men, and a different just-so story that blames women.
      - raganwald 14y ago
        I think the onus is on you and those who agree with you to discard all this "intuitively" and other hand-wavy stuff and come up with some hard evidence and/or citations, or back down and say, "we're making this shit up because it suits our biases." I wasn't born yesterday. If someone makes a claim without a shred of evidence, it's perfectly legitimate to say, "Well, here's another alternate explanation that's just as unproven, so clearly yours has nothing special going for it." I gave you a Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you're telling me that intuitively, God has a long white beard, not a saucer. I'm perfectly ok with your saying that you choose to believe something without a shred of evidence, to take it as faith. But that won't change the fact that simply making shit up, asking if it's "wrong," and then saying that you'll stick to it unless someone else proves your unsubstantiated prejudices are mistaken is bunkum. That thinking isn't thinking.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        yummyfajitas 14y ago
notahat 14y ago
Wow. Did you really just argue that we shouldn't hire women because, when the men on the team harass them, they might sue? How about this for a crazy idea: Let's build a culture where men don't think it's ok to sexually harass women, at work or anywhere else!
- Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
  Since human nature is so malleable, while we're at it, let's build a culture where men don't care about women's looks, women don't care about men's social status, parents love other people's children more than their own kids, and wearing stripes with plaid is the height of fashion. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
  - notahat 14y ago
    Now you're arguing that culture is hard to change, so we shouldn't do it, even if the existing culture is morally horrible? (Oh, and you're using a straw man argument to do it.)
    - Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
      No, you're the one who's making that argument, if you don't believe that it's possible to condition men into not caring about women's looks and all the rest of it. If those things are possible, no problem. But if those things are not possible...
      - notahat 14y ago
        Like I said, you're making a straw man argument. You're saying that getting men to "not care about women's looks" is the same as getting men to stop sexually harassing women. That's simply not true. And it is definitely possible to change our culture so that sexual harassment is not ok.
lifebar 14y ago
"500% more female engineers = 500% more risk of sexual harassment lawsuits. If that's not progress, I don't know what is." You made 2 critical mistakes. 1. You posted this in white knight infested community 2. bad wording. It should be : "500% more female engineers = 500% more risk of false sexual harassment lawsuits. If that's not progress, I don't know what is."

justinhj 14y ago

Progress will be when this kind of thinking doesn't occur

Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
Lawyers will see to it that this kind of thinking sticks around for a long time.
yummyfajitas 14y ago
Is this kind of thinking incorrect?
- NoahTheDuke 14y ago
  Yes.
  - Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
    In what way?
    - raganwald 14y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433254 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5433254
- raganwald 14y ago
  Probably incorrect. And I could just as easily posit the reverse. Say we have one woman and nine men. If we add a woman, does it really double the likelihood of a harassment suit? Why would it? Either one of the nine men harasses women, or he doesn't, why would adding a second women change his behaviour? On the other hand, if we halve the proportion of women by hiring ten more men, I'd say you may have doubled the chances of having a harasser on your staff. I guess it all comes down to whether you walk around thinking that women cause sexual harassment lawsuits or men cause sexual harassment lawsuits. I think it's the men doing the harassing, but whoo-boy are there a lot of apologists out there who believe that women are making this stuff up.
  - cousin_it 14y ago
    I don't completely understand your argument here, on a purely intellectual level... In a very simple model, going from 0 women to 1 woman should increase the number of harassment suits, right? Then going from 1 woman to 2 women should have a similar effect, because all naturally occurring functions are differentiable :-) Intuitively it seems to me that the amount of reported harassment should be proportional to how many opportunities for harassment exist, or (under a different theory) how many opportunities for false claims exist, which is the same number by another name. So it's a little strange to hear you say that anyone who disagrees with you must believe in nasty things like "harassment is made up by women". Do you know how hard it is to figure out causality from observational data? For any possible trend you could find in the data, like "reported harassment scales as the number of women times the square root of the number of men", one could probably make up a just-so story that blames men, and a different just-so story that blames women.
    - raganwald 14y ago
      I think the onus is on you and those who agree with you to discard all this "intuitively" and other hand-wavy stuff and come up with some hard evidence and/or citations, or back down and say, "we're making this shit up because it suits our biases." I wasn't born yesterday. If someone makes a claim without a shred of evidence, it's perfectly legitimate to say, "Well, here's another alternate explanation that's just as unproven, so clearly yours has nothing special going for it." I gave you a Flying Spaghetti Monster, and you're telling me that intuitively, God has a long white beard, not a saucer. I'm perfectly ok with your saying that you choose to believe something without a shred of evidence, to take it as faith. But that won't change the fact that simply making shit up, asking if it's "wrong," and then saying that you'll stick to it unless someone else proves your unsubstantiated prejudices are mistaken is bunkum. That thinking isn't thinking.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
      - yummyfajitas 14y ago

notahat 14y ago

Wow. Did you really just argue that we shouldn't hire women because, when the men on the team harass them, they might sue? How about this for a crazy idea: Let's build a culture where men don't think it's ok to sexually harass women, at work or anywhere else!

Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
Since human nature is so malleable, while we're at it, let's build a culture where men don't care about women's looks, women don't care about men's social status, parents love other people's children more than their own kids, and wearing stripes with plaid is the height of fashion. Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy.
- notahat 14y ago
  Now you're arguing that culture is hard to change, so we shouldn't do it, even if the existing culture is morally horrible? (Oh, and you're using a straw man argument to do it.)
  - Kudzu_Bob 14y ago
    No, you're the one who's making that argument, if you don't believe that it's possible to condition men into not caring about women's looks and all the rest of it. If those things are possible, no problem. But if those things are not possible...
    - notahat 14y ago
      Like I said, you're making a straw man argument. You're saying that getting men to "not care about women's looks" is the same as getting men to stop sexually harassing women. That's simply not true. And it is definitely possible to change our culture so that sexual harassment is not ok.

lifebar 14y ago

"500% more female engineers = 500% more risk of sexual harassment lawsuits. If that's not progress, I don't know what is." You made 2 critical mistakes. 1. You posted this in white knight infested community 2. bad wording. It should be : "500% more female engineers = 500% more risk of false sexual harassment lawsuits. If that's not progress, I don't know what is."