I’m a little bemused when people say this is a problem in the “tech industry”. It appears to be a problem in every industry. Tech people with blogs haven’t worked in other industries, apparently.
As members of a community/industry we have a collective responsibility for what goes on; for our own behaviour, for the behaviour we let men get away with, and for supporting victims.
I don't think I've commonly seen that claim, aside from an "all lives matter"-style dodge used to try and derail conversation in tech e.g. "tech has this problem" "not just tech", the original claim was never that the issue is exclusive to tech, only that it exists in tech.
How does that make it any less than "a problem in the tech industry"? There's no "only" implied in "it's a problem in the tech industry".
Give you profess to be "bemused" that people call it "a problem in the tech industry", it seems you either believe it's not a problem at all, or it's specifically not a problem in the tech industry.
Good on you, but that does not change that this is very much the way your original statement comes across as.
> I'm just not convinced that it is a problem particular to tech.
Cool cool cool, I happen to agree with that, and even think that — assuming it's even possible to objectively quantify the problem — there are probably other industries much worse off than tech (as oft-repeated, the "casting couch" has been a long-standing "joke" in movie and TV).
However expressing that statement in a discussion following from witness testimony about the problem being observed in the tech industry helps fighting the problem… how?
At no point does the article state that the issue is exclusive to the tech industry, and your comment is the highest-rated one which infers one such claim, the next one (by user Spooky23) merely asking about it.
In my opinion lots of folks tend to infer the "only" because it helps them avoid uncomfortable thoughts.
A similar example is responding to "Black Lives Matter" with "All Lives Matter". Nobody was claiming that all lives shouldn't matter. The claim in the case of BLM is that black lives seem to presently matter less. That claim makes people feel uncomfortable so they subconsciously reframe it into being something unreasonable.
In this case, it may be that men in tech can feel better about themselves if this is a universal problem. If men in tech are just "typical guys" that eases the insecurities plenty of us have about being outsiders or social misfits (speaking for myself, obvs). On the other hand if it's a bigger problem in tech than other industries then suddenly those anxieties around other-ness are amplified.
If you re-read my comment you'll see that I didn't suggest you don't think there's a genuine problem.
My point was that people in general seem to frame situations in a way that causes them the least cognitive dissonance. That's natural human behaviour.
In this case (and this is semi-educated guesswork on part) I suspect men in tech will much prefer to frame this as a problem with men in general than a problem with men in tech specifically. A problem with men in general is less uncomfortable than a problem with men in tech.
This will manifest as a gut feeling that's then rationalised, rather than a conscious thought process so please don't take it as an accusation of low intelligence, morals, or character. It's absolutely not.
I brought this up because you were being vocally skeptical but not bringing evidence to the table. Maybe you have evidence to base your opinion on and this isn't an instance of the thing I described, in which case apologies.
Actually, apologies either way, it's tough to have your motives examined like that regardless of whether your behaviour fits this description.