Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley
elaineou.com
elaineou.com
What? I'm not sure I know what "old-fashioned word" the author is talking about...
The author then goes on to explain that men have to put up with shitty people to raise money as well.
As a man who has dealt with shitty people in an array of business situations I can say that none of my run-ins have included sexual assault.
The stories coming to light are not about "unwanted sexual advances" as much as they're about actual assault, or at the very least harassment.
The only people who benefit when we are dismissive are the abusers.
I think she means "put up" as in "gave in", and the word is "prostitutes", because of course consenting, adult women cannot choose who they have sex with without This Author's Holy Writ.
It's just sexism on behalf of the author, it undermines her whole message (which, as far as I can tell, isn't anything in particular?) and strikes me as extremely distasteful.
From the article - "The only thing more timeless than the abuse of power is the tolerance of abuse by those who most need the money.". Many people want the funding bad enough to keep interacting with unpleasant people and tolerate the abuse and hence ensure it continues.... they do have at least the choice to walk away, same as men, or better yet bring it to public awareness. Yet many choose to take the money and then complain - at that point they have no right to complain, because they have actively perpetuated the cycle of abuse in exchange for money and helped the abuser grow a little more powerful.
If any founder desperate for money took money from a terrorist group, we would condemn them for colluding with the enemy, not give them sympathy for how hard it is to get funding.
You can't take the bad guys money, knowing full well what it cost you AND complain about it. That is the problem. I explained more in another comment here.
So basically, if the problem is endemic, you're screwed and you should be happy about it.
If someone continues to do business (and thus helps) with a bad actor, that action of doing business and taking money speaks much louder than any words they may have.
If you genuinely care about sexual harassment but you still take the money, the net effect of that is the bad guy gets another portfolio company and grows stronger. It conveys a childish attitude - a wish for the world to be perfect while taking actions only in your interest, that help the bad guy in this case.
All talk and no action doesn't freaking help anyone, except perhaps the authors reputation. As a society we are all supposed to applaud these people as heroes? Sorry I will save my applause for those who take action - the others have my sympathy the same as millions of other people dealing with bad people.
I'm sorry, but what you are describing seems, if not childish, incredibly naïve. It presumes a scenario where there is always ample access to opportunity without facing sexual harassment.
The widely-discussed Dave McClure quote was definitely an unwanted romantic advance (I don't know whether I should date you or hire you). And most of the VC revelations that I've read seem to be in this vein, though I admit I've not read every detail of every article. Have there been allegations of sexual assault/rape? I'm not sure what harassment looks like in the case of VCs/entrepreneurs, since there's no employment or education context that would make the behavior illegal (for better or worse). That is to say, there's no legal definition here, and it's hard to have a productive conversation about a phrase that could be so broad as to include anything that annoys the recipient.
I'd also point out that there's a difference between an "unwanted sexual advance" and an "unwanted romantic advance". The latter are unavoidable and therefore cannot be objectionable in general. (They of course can be objectionable and even illegal in certain contexts, such as employment or education.)
The phrase "unwanted sexual advance", on the other hand, implies that the language overtly refers to (1) a sex act or (2) certain body parts. Many people find these advances objectionable/offensive if not preceded by reciprocated interest.
When discussing behavior that may be objectionable or illegal, I find it useful to use the broader term ("romantic") unless the narrower term is applicable. Otherwise it can give the impression that the interested party was acting in a manner that was at the very least crude, when in some cases this is not what occurred.
The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances because they were desperate to raise money for their
startups. There’s an old-fashioned word for what these ladies are doing that I shan’t repeat here.
I know it must be very difficult, but basically powerful people get away with all kinds of things including but not limited to sexual harassment because of the same fears women have against reporting them - burning bridges, fear of repercussions, they might have strong reputations and powerful friends etc etc. For most of us, the only choice is to leave that environment because of that fear. Harassment, unfortunately it can be a bigger offense, but women face the same choices as anyone else - leave or risk a fight with a powerful person... It sucks but it sucks the same way for everyone.
She ultimately makes a good point - "The only thing more timeless than the abuse of power is the tolerance of abuse by those who most need the money.". Many people want the funding bad enough to keep interacting with unpleasant people and tolerate the abuse and hence ensure it continues.... they do have at least the choice to walk away, same as men, or better yet bring it to public awareness. Yet many choose to take the money and then complain - at that point they have no right to complain, because they have actively perpetuated the cycle of abuse in exchange for money and helped the abuser grow a little more powerful.
You can't take the bad guys money, knowing full well what it cost you AND complain about it.
This is something I think about a lot. I am white & I am male, so my race and gender are naturally things that I don't think of very often (and I understand that constitutes a level of privilege). An exercise that I like to do sometimes is just imagine the situation I'm experiencing as if I was female, or as if I was black. If I'm in a meeting and everyone ignores what I'm saying, as a white male, there is no voice in the back of my head saying "it's because I'm female." If I don't get a job, or the interviewer was condescending, there is no voice in my head saying "it's because I'm black." So I entertain these ideas every once in a while, and it's actually amazing how many misfortunes I can quickly associate to being black or being female, that had I actually been black or female I would have ABSOLUTELY attributed to those features.
What makes this interesting is that my point isn't to say that a female or person of color won't actually have a different experience, and face real instances of racism and sexism...because they absolutely will. The thing that I DO find interesting is that they basically have no "control" experience by which to measure their victimhood. Once you've taken on the role of a victim, any number of injustices that are just part of human nature can be attributed to whatever you perceive as the source. The end result is a major overestimation of remaining institutional injustices, in my opinion, and the constant reinforcement of this victimhood status is largely responsible for continuing to plant this voice in the head of individuals that is constantly asking "am I being treated this way because I'm ________."
The inverse is obviously true in that a white male is very likely to underestimate the injustices encountered by a black person or a female, but I find this to be much less interesting. The reason being that no person is very aware of the injustices we DON'T face, we are acutely aware of the injustices that we DO face. If a black man experiences a 15% increase in injustices vs a white man, the white man is likely underestimate the impact of those of the black man. The black man, however, can rightfully attribute those extra 15% to the fact that he his black, but there is no clear differentiator between those that were truly racial in nature vs those that would have been encountered regardless of race.
IME shrugging of shitty behavior makes life seem less stressful for a while, but the hidden stress of holding everyone on arms length so they cannot hurt you takes its toll. Sometimes you break down, sometimes you just get cynical and start seeing everyone as an asshole.
Concrete example: I see a lot of complaints from women about being talked over in conversations at conferences. I used to get talked over a lot too. It seems frequent that there are one or two people in a conversation who will talk over anyone with a less-pushing conversation style. I think most of these people are not doing it on purpose, they just really want to say things and don't properly gauge the social balance of the conversation. Also there are other weird human tendencies happening -- for example, someone habitually wanting to display how smart they are -- which, while being mildly negative, are not negative in a way that involves hostility to others.
Why do you think this is happening? When a woman is ignored in a meeting, she doesn't think "it's because I'm a woman". She thinks "every single day people make jokes about me sleeping my way to the top, they try to hit on me while I'm doing my job, they criticize my outfit even though they've worn the same suit every day for five years straight, they refuse to meet with me alone, why would this meeting be any different?"
Next time something bad happens to you, don't just imagine being female or black in that moment. Imagine if you've been female or black for your whole life, and have direct daily evidence of people not respecting you.
I mean, that's not really newsworthy. "I experience a lot of racism, but today someone was a dick to me for a racially neutral reason." It's hard to imagine someone being motivated to write this story, since it's such an obvious fact of life. I hope you don't think that people who talk about racism believe that every negative event in their life was solely caused by racism.
Have you discussed this stuff with any women or non-white people? I find it's a lot easier to understand when you're having a friendly conversation rather than reading an angry blog post.
There is even more to it: people can be just randomly shitty to you and use your gender to carry out the shittiness simply because you react to it. Female programmer: you'll never be a real programmer, male programmer: you'll never be a real man. The thing that matters is your personal insecurity, not the attacker's bias against any gender.
Add the fact that some people are really allergic to others complaining about being oppressed for no discernible reason and you are on a straight way to some very unpleasant life experience.
On the frequent occasions that I do work with female engineers, I have noticed that things mostly go one of two ways: 1.) she is acutely aware that she's an engineer in a "male" profession, and will either act with extreme imposter syndrome constant self doubt, or go to the other extreme to the point that it becomes noticeable and odd 2.) just be an engineer, seemingly unaware of her gender
What is strange is that I have met some absolutely fantastic female engineers who fall squarely into camp #2, and if you were to ask them how many grievances they've faced because of their gender, they would probably be nuisanced that you're even asking about it. They act like engineers and they get treated like engineers. If you were to ask the female engineers who fall into camp #1, they would have a completely different story. They'd be likely to say that they can never get a word in, or people walk right over them, people review their code more harshly. In my observations, the biggest hurdle is an internal struggle for a female engineer to see herself as an engineer, because people will see treat you like an imposter if it's clear that you see yourself as one. The more female engineers there are, the less they will feel like imposters, and the less they will be treated like them.
In other fields, I imagine things aren't exactly comparable, but I do think it's absolutely ludicrous for you to say that "every single day people make jokes about you sleeping your way to the top." This is not reality. If someone said that once, or that is some guy's "go to joke," it's obviously in poor taste and not funny, but this is not something that women experience every single day in the workplace. At this point, I've worked with more women than men (engineers excluded), under more women CEOs than male. I'm in the offices...these conversations are not happening "every day." For the most part, I would say that most of the places I've worked at largely feel like the women run the show, to be honest. That kind of shit does not fly anywhere outside of some very odd working environment unlike anything I've ever encountered.
The next time you talk to one of these awesome engineers, please actually ask them this question. Maybe I'm misreading your comments, but at no point have you talked about discussing this with someone besides yourself. Don't just rely on your own observations and experiences, talk to people with different ones. I've never encountered a work environment like the one I'm describing either, but I've encountered plenty of women who have.
Obviously this can't be true for literally every woman in every office, but we're both generalizing here. This is true for quite a few people in the US and probably the world. When you read these blog posts where people are talking about actual incidents that are blatantly related to race or gender, do you think they're all lying or something? It's not really debatable that this stuff is incredibly common. And you don't need to rely on the huge number of anecdotal blog posts, there's plenty of statistics too if that's what you prefer. For example: http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
Finally, if none of this convinces you, consider the idea that the appearance of corruption is just as harmful as actual corruption. Even if we pretend that discrimination no longer exists in America, there's clearly still a problem if so many people think discrimination exists and act accordingly. So what do we do about it? Ignoring the problem and telling everyone else to ignore it doesn't seem like it'll work.
So I asked some women what their experience was, explaining that I was truly interested in understanding, and listened to them.
It's different. Soooo different.
You and I might get ignored, or disrespected, or treated badly, this is true, and part of normal human behaviour as you say. And if this constituted 85% of the picture, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
I was going to list a bunch of treatments that we don't get because we're white males. But I decided not to. Go find out for yourself. Ask some female friends who you respect about their experiences. Make sure to make it clear to them that you're trying to understand, because most women will actually minimise their grievances so that they're not seen as whinging or complaining.
Remember, we don't have a "control" either. We don't get to experience our reality and then another person's reality. It's easy to dismiss. But in order to fix it, the first step is to understand it. And the only way we're going to do that is by listening, really listening, to the other's perspective and experiences.
Good luck :) It's eye-opening, it really is.
A, ignore the injustices, this allows the person to function better without the victimhood mentality, and generally blend in with the mainstream better.
B, recognize the injustices and try to raise awareness and fight against them, it's easy to fall into victim mentality because of reason you mentioned, and also counter-productive for the purpose of blending into the mainstream.
So generally speaking, option a is easier, with a caveat, that if everyone chooses the easy route, then who will fight against those injustices?
In my experience, people are often jerks. They will harass you, abuse you, mistreat you, and bully you for a variety of different reasons. Being a visible minority is one of those reasons, but it is far from being the most common one. I've suffered much more from the usual office politics in companies where I'm not a visible minority, than from discrimination in companies where I am.
Standing up to a bully is fantastic if you win. It's not fantastic if you are pounded into the ground with no hope of success. Sometimes it's hard to be patient and wait until the best time to act, but it is important. Anyway, anyone who has ever experienced abuse that they could not escape from should be able to relate, even if the circumstances are different.
I'm not sure I followed you reasoning for why this situation was less interesting.
I follow that people will tend to be blind of injustices they do not face, and will be aware of injustices that they _do_ face. I don't see the connection to why that makes the lack of perspective of the experience of others' less interesting.
I personally find the opposite. The more I learn how significantly different people's experiences are the _more_ interesting I find hearing these other perspectives.
If I am treated equally and they are dicks, they are dicks against new dudes around too.
That is how I tell them apart - there are enough groups who treat me equally to see difference agains those who do not.
The other difference is that I was flat out told that women can't code or "guys are too good in it" and it was not meant as a joke - in one case it was meant to inspire me to change major. I know it is not just in my head.
People looking for investments in their businesses are not panhandlers. They are not begging. They do not deserve to have any abuse tossed their way. They are people working in a business environment trying to create a mutually-beneficial arrangement. They are professionals, as are their investors.
> The Times describes some founders who put up with unwanted sexual advances because they were desperate to raise money for their startups. There’s an old-fashioned word for what these ladies are doing that I shan’t repeat here.
This is wildly offensive and just stupid beyond all belief. A woman who has a start-up she's trying to raise money for is a WHORE if she puts up with unwanted sexual advances from investors? Or is Elaine Ou saying that a woman who has a start-up is a WHORE because women who go "begging" for money deserve to be treated like sex objects?
Am I misreading that? I must be. Please help.
She is saying that if you put up with this kind of behavior rather than cutting it off, you are part of the problem.
To be fair, this goes for men, too. I have had the "joy" of turning down funding because the person involved was such a jackass. Fortunately, he wasn't offering a huge sum of money.
Add another zero, and my partner and I would probably have been in a major argument. And two zeros and I probably would have swallowed my pride. I acknowledge that I can be bought--I just hope my price is high enough to make it worth it.
I really don't envy women in this environment. Lots of people running VC funds really like to throw the power imbalance around even towards men. Adding sexual dynamics to the mix has to be ferociously toxic--think about the abuse of Hooter's waitresses and then dial the restraint to zero.
I have a very hard time understanding what kind of mind, when given the choice to support rich powerful people who abuse their power or women who just would like to get their work done and build a career in a professional environment, chooses to believe and stick by the former.
Given that this is on the front page already I expect my post to be heavily disagreed with, but at least people who have experienced discrimination/harassment can see that not all of the HN users think it's their fault.
So in fact the abuse is happening...
It's understandable for a woman to come out and say "look it's not that bad", because it's true that in a majority of cases, women in tech are treated fine and the media shouldn't make the tech environment look like it's a giant college dorm.
But, at the same time, it is true that some pockets of college dorm culture still exist. And because the tech culture is so homogenous (geeky male college grads) and isolated, extreme and abusive behavior towards those outside the culture arise more easily.
Media attention is necessary so that the people who evolve in that culture day in day out can have a reality check.
More plainly: this is HN clickbait. Ignore, please, read on at your peril.
If that world ever comes to pass what would be the positive consequences if any. Would it solve most sexual harassment issues since in that world most sexual harassment would be recorded? How often would it be clear sexual harassment vs individual interpretation?
While on the topic of individual interpretation you might find this season of The Heart interesting.
Not about painting people who've made mistakes with a brush. Not about placing blame.
If a friend / family member of yours, a woman you cared about, was in a situation where she was being harassed by someone with a cheque in his hand, what would you want her to do?
Previous HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9642186
Edit: I appreciate the questions of the relevance of this fact. My perspective was that Ms. Ou appears to consider Silicon Valley / the startup world a place where the usual rules do not, or perhaps should not apply. I should have been more explicit about this in my original post.
EDIT: Particularly ironic, given your username.
Is this satire?
It's good that bad people are exposed, but when the opinion starts to shift more and more towards grouping all "privileged" people in same group (like you are doing in this very post) it is only creating a bigger problem by making gender and race the primary thing that defines a person instead of their character.
Just because one room is saved does not mean the rest of the house is therefore no longer on fire and we can all go home. There is still work to do, and "good enough" for 51% of the population, is just not good enough.
Now if you want to make the case that an opinion or idea that makes you feel good is inherently as legitimate as one backed by numerous anecdotal accounts, solid demographic data, and downward trends in the industry then you're free to die on that hill, but I will not be doing so.