It is unfortunate that these kind of things happen. They shed a bad light on our industry as a whole due to (hopefully a few) rotten apples.
Thanks for writing this, takes courage!
Thanks for writing this, takes courage!
This is a systemic problem in our industry, and we need to all realize this, so that we can start teaching each other what behavior is and is not appropriate in a very clear, concise, and precise manner.
1. With respect to VCs preying on female entrepreneurs, this doesn't shock me in the slightest. Wherever you have this huge power imbalance, coupled with large numbers of people who are extremely reluctant to jeopardize their "big break", you will see this kind of abuse. It was/is common in Hollywood, and I think the Catholic Church sex scandals have a ton in common. If you have a situation with that type of power imbalance, unless you have a very detailed and specific process to deal with predators, that kind of abuse will happen. 2. I think what Susan Fowler described re: Uber has a ton to do with the extremely aggressive culture Uber set up. In fact, a lot of the "villains" in Susan's story were, surprisingly, women. I think the tough question is how to you "rein in" that type of aggressive culture when it was so successful for Uber originally. 3. Finally, with regards to how women are treated in general in tech, I think a lot of the unconscious biases people hold, how people react differently to men's ideas vs. women's, need to be discussed more openly and with a goal of making everyone more aware of their own prejudices without fear.
However, from my observations, to flat out list a finite list of behaviorism, will manifest yet another set of behaviorism, which will manifest another list.
I do not view this as a simple systematic problem, but rather a deep-wedged symptom of a sick society. We all are complicit.
A society that is focused on results and ego and success will always encourage such behavior (of debasing others, exploiting others regardless of their being — even white men are exploited and debased by other "higher-paying" white men). No set of rules will change this until we change our society's culture.
The culture cannot change through scolding, but rather a deep, opening conversation that will be conversed again and again until people find no use for the word harassment or sexual harassment or the desire to hurt or debase others in name of success.
I read somewhere, a while ago, that assholes moved in herds to Wall Street in the 80s-90s, and now they've decided to move to California.
It isn't enough for the assholes to stop assholin'. We all have the opportunity to contribute positively by moving the norms, and we will all be better for it.
Otherwise, most of us have already been doing all we can. We don't do bad things, and we don't enable people doing bad things. It's ok to admit that we didn't cause this nor have the ability to fix it.
For example, there's lots of victim-blaming in these threads. We have an opportunity to speak up and counter it. In so doing, we support the brave women on the front lines.
Wow, that's really incredible optimism. I'd be more than happy if there was a 50/50 split between the kinds of apples but I fear that it is more along the lines of 20/80 or worse based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot.
(I'm male but) I have and let's just say, there's a female "locker room" as well just down the hall from ours.
Sure, women talk dirty too, rather less of them are guilty of sexual coercion and assault then their male counterparts, I would hazard
Are you kidding? I wouldn't have enough time in a day. Just some stats, 1 out of every 6 women has been the victim of attempted rape or rape.
I'm aware of several such cases in the last 2 years alone, none of these resulted in an arrest or a court case and I have absolutely no reason not to believe the women.
Besides that I do not have the right to go to the authorities on behalf of someone who does not want to go to the authorities herself because more often than not they are part of the problem and tend to make the whole affair into an exercise in victim blaming.
This is an extremely complex issue and even if we can all agree that it is not normal there is no set recipe for how to deal with such situations.
That would be good news. But I fear that it isn't. Here's an experiment for you: ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you. If you feel brave ask someone who spent time in an orphanage or jail or some other place where they have little access to representation and are at the mercy of people that have power over them.
That is not the number under dispute. There are two fundamentally different theories about what is going on: 1) Most men sexually assault women, or 2) A minority of men sexual assault a large number of women. Based on statistics of victims, it is impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. However, understanding which scenario we are in is vitally important to forming our response. You seem to believe that we are in scenario 1.
I will admit, I do not have any evidence handy that we are in scenario 2, because it is not a proposal I have ever seen seriously suggested. However, you have presented no evidence that we are in scenerio 1, which seems to be the less believable situation. Until such evidence is presented, I will continue to believe that it is a minority of men that cause a majority of sexual assault [0].
[0] Yes, not all sexual assualt is by males, but I am reasonably confident that it is enough that this general statement holds.
What I've seen professionally makes me believe this, definitely. And that view is consistent across 30 years in the industry with stints in various sub-branches of IT and/or fields that require IT services (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
Let me reprhase this in a more direct way so there is no misunderstanding:
I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
If you know of such companies it would be nice to list them.
If there is such a thing I would love to be surprised, I suspect that it is going to be the ones run by women, but they are rare enough that I have not had much exposure to them.
This is a very different claim than what you made above. Even within a company, a minority of people can cause a majority of the problems. Indeed, for any toxic behavior I can think of, it only takes one employee to take down a team, and the problem often spreads beyond that team. I see no reason to believe sexual assault is any different.
Again, the question of if we are in situation 1 or 2 is vitally important. If we are in situation 1, then we are looking at a generational struggle to change men's attitudes towards women. Essentially, we need to wait for the old guard to die off, then wait for the new guard to die off, then hope that our actions made the new-new guard behave respectably.
If we are in situation 2, then the above solution is almost useless. Instead, we are facing a managerial problem where we fail to root out the bad actors. As with any other toxic behavior, this can cause them to contaminate the entire environment. Of course, in this context, "manager" does not only refer to the managers of companies, but also the "managers" of social communities. Effectively, in this scenario, the problem description is not so much that too many people rape, but rather that we are ineffective at dealing with those who do.
Seriously, what the fuck. If you don't care enough to do anything, at least have the decency to stop hand wringing about it on the internet.
If every time I hear about a woman being harassed I would get myself mixed up in the case I don't think I'd have many friends left. Just in the last year alone one of my female friends was raped in her own home and if she wanted me to do something I'm pretty sure she'd be more than willing to ask, all I can do instead is to be there when she wants to talk about it.
What bothers me is that people seem to think this stuff is rare.
What I can do - and do - is when something is happening around me and I'm aware of it when it is happening to step in, but after the fact if you are not a party to something then you are not going to help matters if you on your own without the consent of the victim approach the authorities, and you also don't have the right to take matters in your own hands.
So seriously, what the fuck, realize that if you are not in any way shape or form a party to an event that you may not have the right - and definitely do not have an obligation - to approach the authorities.
So you will 'never stop trying', but tell me, how often have you been there when it happened? For me those instances are a small fraction of the number of cases that I'm aware of and I suspect that the whole reason this number is so low is because of how these things play out, see the linked article here: mr. McClure did not bother to harass her until he'd isolated her. Who would stop him other than the woman?
Of course there is the problem that it could be hidden (IMs or whatnot). Hence my optimism :-)