7 ms·

I'm sorry but this is insane. I guess I can only speak to the segment of the tech industry I've been exposed to, but a woman would not be labelled a liability f

I'm sorry but this is insane. I guess I can only speak to the segment of the tech industry I've been exposed to, but a woman would not be labelled a liability for reporting a rape or an assault, unless maybe it turned out to be false, in which case that's no different than any other industry. I am sure workplace rape and assault happens in every industry, unfortunately, but I've seen no evidence it's more common or accepted in tech than anywhere else. It's certainly not systematized or condoned. I can't believe Google (for whom she has worked) has any more lenient of a policy on sexual harassment or assault than any other Fortune 500. And if it were this bad, why would she fear being ostracized? If my options were to stay in an industry and be repeatedly harassed, beaten, and raped, or switch careers, I don't think it'd be a tough call.

stepjump 12y ago
> unless maybe it turned out to be false I'm assuming most of the people who have been sexually assaulted have no proof of the incident. So while it wouldn't necessarily "turn out to be false," there's a definite risk of people thinking that she was making the whole incident up for attention/out of spite/to get the other guy fired, etc. I think that's where the author's fear is coming from.
bluehat 12y ago
I don't know that it is more common in tech because I have only worked in tech. Does that make it OK in tech if it happens everywhere else too? Would that make you want to fix it any less if you knew it was wrong that it happened everywhere?
geofft 12y ago
I don't think there's a particular reason to believe this is significantly worse in tech than it is elsewhere (although if this I'm wrong, I'd definitely appreciate being corrected on this). But there are a few things I'd say: - Tech has this particular weird cultural self-view that we all see ourselves and each other as middle-school nerds emerging victorious, as people who got past the bullies and the ills of "normal people" society, as people who were friendless (and dateless) in school but have found our own little environment now where we can be accepted as we are. So there's a tendency to think that we're not capable of the same sort of awfulness, and that we're better people than the other industries. There's a tendency, subconsciously, to think that if someone's saying something bad about any of our people, they're no better than our middle school bullies. We need to get over that and admit that the tech industry is like any other industry. - On a different and simpler note, tech is our industry. I don't have nearly as much say about the culture of, say, big law firms or furniture design studios, than I do about the culture of companies where I work and where I might consider working. Regarding Google, did you see this discussion, which was on the HN home page yesterday? https://plus.google.com/+KellyEllis/posts/L4wawXpNt25 https://plus.google.com/+KellyEllis/posts/L4wawXpNt25
- mcantelon 12y ago
  I find it doubtful that tech is worse than, for example, the finance industry (with its rich history of decadence and debauchery). I also find it "interesting" that the tech industry seems to have replaced the finance industry (whose shenanigans put the West into recession) as the focus of media critique.
  - pron 12y ago
    So your own coworkers suffer, and your response is, I find it doubtful that we terrorize women more than others? So what if that's true? Is the important story here how we've become victims of the media? Also, software is one of the very few (only?) industries where women participation has been dropping steadily[1], so I find it likely that the situation in tech is worse than in finance (they've had years to learn). Besides, it is Silicon Valley that likes to wave the false flag of meritocracy. [1]: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...
    - nitwit005 12y ago
      Our coworkers suffer, but so do the people I know who work in completely different industries. I have no idea how the tech industry compares to other industries in terms of treatment of women. What I can say for certain is that we do not have the amazing complaints of cocaine fueled parties filled with hookers that seem to regularly emerge from the world of finance.
      - ForHackernews 12y ago
        > cocaine fueled parties filled with hookers that seem to regularly emerge from the world of finance. Your finance industry stereotypes are about 30 years out of date. Wall Street is way less flagrant about their excess these days. Meanwhile, in tech... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titstare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titstare
        12y ago
jusben1369 12y ago
If you look through the comments here and in other similar threads you'll see numerous variations on the "what wait? just leave." It's an understandable but wrong response to these situations. It shifts the problem from the perpetrator to the victim. It's similar to asking women to be covered from head to toe so that they can't somehow tempt males. The onus isn't on the male to control his desires it's on the female to ensure that his desires are not aroused. So if rape and sexual harassment is happening at a workplace don't blame the victim for not leaving blame the perpetrator for bringing that into the workplace.
- hrktb 12y ago
  Perhaps I'll give another perspective. A coworker had sexual harassment problems with one of our managers, and eventually she left the company. I cross checked, and the other managers knew about it but didn't do anything. I also left the company. A place where abusing a coworker is OK is just a bad place to work. You might not be the target of the abuse at that time, but you'll get shafted for any other reason on any other subject (e.g. raises, project assignments, perks...). Basically if it's just one bad apple, you should get help outing the problem. If most of the company is fucked up, you'll have to decide if you really want to stay there, and for me more often than not it's not worth it. Leaving a job can be seen as a privilege, but if you're actually getting regular abuse, it might as well be the only sane choice.
- alextgordon 12y ago
  You unwittingly fall into an enclosure filled with angry chimpanzees. A crowd gathers, and shouts "Leave the enclosure, climb out, there's a ladder!" Another crowd gathers and shouts at the first crowd "Shut up. Stop blaming the victim!" Which crowd has your best interests at heart?
  - JoeAnzalone 12y ago
    Yeah except the ladder leads directly into the shark tank. (Unemployment, retaliation from your rapist, damage to your reputation/resume)
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
pron 12y ago
> a woman would not be labelled a liability for reporting a rape or an assault Well, but that's the problem. She's not saying she will be labelled a liability, but that the environment she works in makes her fear that she would. As sexism is all about power[1], this is how power works. It's not only in the written rules, but in the atmosphere. Those in the position of less power feel afraid to take advantage of the law/rules, because they're afraid this will somehow be used against them, whether this is what will actually happen or not. You see this not only among women in tech, but among groups that have for a long time been on the receiving end of law enforcement when it comes to calling the police. This fear that the rules won't work in your favor is a great demonstration of how power works. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political)
detcader 12y ago
It's your word against her's. She has been exposed to the internals of many instances of abuse, either by being the victim or talking to the victims as a woman, so I will be believing her over you -- why shouldn't I?
snowwrestler 12y ago
> but a woman would not be labelled a liability for reporting a rape or an assault, unless maybe it turned out to be false This is the crux of the matter and where most men run into trouble with this whole discussion. Let's say she comes forward and accuses a coworker of rape. The coworker denies the allegations and says she's lying to punish him for some work-related disagrement, or because he turned her down for a date or something. She doesn't have any recordings or physical proof. It's just her word against his. Now what?? Well if you want to get a sense of what typically happens, take a look at this thread, in which multiple men are spending thousands of words debating the fine points of what exactly is bad enough to count as "rape", and why didn't she just quit, etc. Basically: when there is not solid proof, guys tend to stick up for each other--and there are way way more guys in tech than women. That's why she would fear being ostracized.

stepjump 12y ago

> unless maybe it turned out to be false I'm assuming most of the people who have been sexually assaulted have no proof of the incident. So while it wouldn't necessarily "turn out to be false," there's a definite risk of people thinking that she was making the whole incident up for attention/out of spite/to get the other guy fired, etc. I think that's where the author's fear is coming from.

bluehat 12y ago

I don't know that it is more common in tech because I have only worked in tech. Does that make it OK in tech if it happens everywhere else too? Would that make you want to fix it any less if you knew it was wrong that it happened everywhere?

geofft 12y ago

I don't think there's a particular reason to believe this is significantly worse in tech than it is elsewhere (although if this I'm wrong, I'd definitely appreciate being corrected on this). But there are a few things I'd say: - Tech has this particular weird cultural self-view that we all see ourselves and each other as middle-school nerds emerging victorious, as people who got past the bullies and the ills of "normal people" society, as people who were friendless (and dateless) in school but have found our own little environment now where we can be accepted as we are. So there's a tendency to think that we're not capable of the same sort of awfulness, and that we're better people than the other industries. There's a tendency, subconsciously, to think that if someone's saying something bad about any of our people, they're no better than our middle school bullies. We need to get over that and admit that the tech industry is like any other industry. - On a different and simpler note, tech is our industry. I don't have nearly as much say about the culture of, say, big law firms or furniture design studios, than I do about the culture of companies where I work and where I might consider working. Regarding Google, did you see this discussion, which was on the HN home page yesterday? https://plus.google.com/+KellyEllis/posts/L4wawXpNt25 https://plus.google.com/+KellyEllis/posts/L4wawXpNt25

mcantelon 12y ago
I find it doubtful that tech is worse than, for example, the finance industry (with its rich history of decadence and debauchery). I also find it "interesting" that the tech industry seems to have replaced the finance industry (whose shenanigans put the West into recession) as the focus of media critique.
- pron 12y ago
  So your own coworkers suffer, and your response is, I find it doubtful that we terrorize women more than others? So what if that's true? Is the important story here how we've become victims of the media? Also, software is one of the very few (only?) industries where women participation has been dropping steadily[1], so I find it likely that the situation in tech is worse than in finance (they've had years to learn). Besides, it is Silicon Valley that likes to wave the false flag of meritocracy. [1]: http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-women-stopped-coding http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2014/10/21/357629765/when-wom...
  - nitwit005 12y ago
    Our coworkers suffer, but so do the people I know who work in completely different industries. I have no idea how the tech industry compares to other industries in terms of treatment of women. What I can say for certain is that we do not have the amazing complaints of cocaine fueled parties filled with hookers that seem to regularly emerge from the world of finance.
    - ForHackernews 12y ago
      > cocaine fueled parties filled with hookers that seem to regularly emerge from the world of finance. Your finance industry stereotypes are about 30 years out of date. Wall Street is way less flagrant about their excess these days. Meanwhile, in tech... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titstare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titstare
      - 12y ago

jusben1369 12y ago

If you look through the comments here and in other similar threads you'll see numerous variations on the "what wait? just leave." It's an understandable but wrong response to these situations. It shifts the problem from the perpetrator to the victim. It's similar to asking women to be covered from head to toe so that they can't somehow tempt males. The onus isn't on the male to control his desires it's on the female to ensure that his desires are not aroused. So if rape and sexual harassment is happening at a workplace don't blame the victim for not leaving blame the perpetrator for bringing that into the workplace.

hrktb 12y ago
Perhaps I'll give another perspective. A coworker had sexual harassment problems with one of our managers, and eventually she left the company. I cross checked, and the other managers knew about it but didn't do anything. I also left the company. A place where abusing a coworker is OK is just a bad place to work. You might not be the target of the abuse at that time, but you'll get shafted for any other reason on any other subject (e.g. raises, project assignments, perks...). Basically if it's just one bad apple, you should get help outing the problem. If most of the company is fucked up, you'll have to decide if you really want to stay there, and for me more often than not it's not worth it. Leaving a job can be seen as a privilege, but if you're actually getting regular abuse, it might as well be the only sane choice.
alextgordon 12y ago
You unwittingly fall into an enclosure filled with angry chimpanzees. A crowd gathers, and shouts "Leave the enclosure, climb out, there's a ladder!" Another crowd gathers and shouts at the first crowd "Shut up. Stop blaming the victim!" Which crowd has your best interests at heart?
- JoeAnzalone 12y ago
  Yeah except the ladder leads directly into the shark tank. (Unemployment, retaliation from your rapist, damage to your reputation/resume)
- snowwrestler 12y ago

pron 12y ago

> a woman would not be labelled a liability for reporting a rape or an assault Well, but that's the problem. She's not saying she will be labelled a liability, but that the environment she works in makes her fear that she would. As sexism is all about power[1], this is how power works. It's not only in the written rules, but in the atmosphere. Those in the position of less power feel afraid to take advantage of the law/rules, because they're afraid this will somehow be used against them, whether this is what will actually happen or not. You see this not only among women in tech, but among groups that have for a long time been on the receiving end of law enforcement when it comes to calling the police. This fear that the rules won't work in your favor is a great demonstration of how power works. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(social_and_political)

detcader 12y ago

It's your word against her's. She has been exposed to the internals of many instances of abuse, either by being the victim or talking to the victims as a woman, so I will be believing her over you -- why shouldn't I?

snowwrestler 12y ago

> but a woman would not be labelled a liability for reporting a rape or an assault, unless maybe it turned out to be false This is the crux of the matter and where most men run into trouble with this whole discussion. Let's say she comes forward and accuses a coworker of rape. The coworker denies the allegations and says she's lying to punish him for some work-related disagrement, or because he turned her down for a date or something. She doesn't have any recordings or physical proof. It's just her word against his. Now what?? Well if you want to get a sense of what typically happens, take a look at this thread, in which multiple men are spending thousands of words debating the fine points of what exactly is bad enough to count as "rape", and why didn't she just quit, etc. Basically: when there is not solid proof, guys tend to stick up for each other--and there are way way more guys in tech than women. That's why she would fear being ostracized.