Investor Shervin Pishevar Accused of Sexual Misconduct by Multiple Women
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
So in other industries it should be fine? If not, we should be filling prisons with these people.
What an odd thing to take away from that statement.
I'm guessing that this could become a substantial purge.
It's possible that this is already happening to some degree. One of Ellen Pao's complaints against Kleiner Perkins is that females were not invited to some social outings with the other partners/execs. As this becomes a more serious issue, and like you - I am expecting an ongoing purge, the status quo is going to be shaken in ways other than taking out the trash.
Women should be given the freedom to disclose these things on their own terms and this has been taken away from her.
/s
But the author decided to open the article with secondhand accounts of abuse towards a woman who did not want to speak about it.
It's very poor journalism.
All people, not just women.
I can certainly see an emotional argument for what you're saying, but logically I don't think this is very cogent.
I think there's a logical argument to be made that if you have one victim who does not wish to speak publicly but multiple other women who will, you respect the privacy of that woman.
I wonder if it is because there's more comfort in finally sharing or because reporters are looking for scoops more.
Either way, it's good I think.
There have also been several high profile media people who have been fired for sexual misconduct so that has probably made the upper level management in the media afraid to continue covering up these stories.
It's valid to ask what's wrong with these men, but you should also ask what's wrong with cultures which reinforce predatory masculinity and allow it to propagate.
For the most part the accused have been unusually physically unattractive and to say their personalities don't make up for it would be quite the understatement. So they have a situation where if somebody is interested in them it's almost certainly because they're interested in their money. And if they hide their wealth from people - then nobody would be any more interested in them than your average aging unattractive individual.
So sure they can get laid by prostitutes and gold diggers, but that in many ways has to be incredibly emasculating. Imagine how awful it must be to know that if somebody shows interest in you, that they're probably lying to you and just after your money. The wife of Weinstein was a head and shoulders commercial girl. George Clooney's wife is a high profile lawyer whose clients include Julian Assange, the former PM of Ukraine, etc. Anecdotal, but there are plenty of very attractive and charismatic wealthy individuals. Yet, at least for now, it seems like they're not the ones engaged in this behavior. And there I would imagine it's because your stereotyping holds much more true.
Possibly because you believe your power and position makes you entitled, or because you lack self control. Or possibly because you don't understand personal boundaries or don't respect them in people under your status.
But where we're at now, sexuality is just feared by timid people, and exploited by scumbags.
And I, for one, find his affiliation with Uber to be of particular interest given Susan Fowler's story.
He's a little bit more than merely an Uber investor. Quoting: "He is a strategic advisor to Uber, and served as a board advisor to the company from 2011–2015." [1]
He also invested in many more companies than merely Uber. [1]
Therefore a case can be made for both keeping Uber as well as removing Uber from the title.
Meanwhile, the woman who was allegedly harassed refused to comment for the article, so with regards to that particular allegation it is just gossip.
It's not a national story to learn that a middle manager at a department store harassed employees for years. It's depressing for sure, but not exactly news.
The vast majority of sexual misconduct reports made to HR will never be reported in the media.
really, all of them? or just ones you've seen on [WhateverNewsSite].com?
i suspect a situation at, say, a random local hardware store is unlikely to make major news outlets.
And almost certainly irrelevant to the story at hand.
https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...
there isn't necessarily a line. if you keep "trying to get laid" after being told someone wasn't interested, you're doing both.
M: Can I have sex with you?
F: no you cannot have sex with me.
Also, the default view should be to assume a person under 30 does not want to have a casual fling with a 50 year old, overweight executive.
This happens way more than you imagine. I've known several cases myself.
Causal hookups are about physical attraction, for both men and women. And if genders were reversed, and this was an overweight, 50 year old woman trying to hookup with young, good looking guys, the men here would think to themselves, "eww, no."
That is exactly what these young women thought (and said as much in the article)!
Jail for rape, jail for physical assault. But jail for verbal intimidation and dangling career prospects? That is probably too much.
At least in the case of the sexual harassment (not physical assault), these guys are getting a proportionally bad remedy (being fired, ostracized, etc)
For some reason, "We're" happy with extralegal punishments, and then sweeping them away as some sort of 'rights of the employers'. More and more claims are being made by a single person, and used to fire and blackball them. It's Salem Witch Trials all over again, but with respect to "Sexual Harassment".
THIS is a problem:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/internet-shaming-when-mob-justi...
https://www.newstatesman.com/voices/2014/01/dangers-public-s...
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/20/social-media-t...
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1d34nj/student_w...
Edit: I see the -1's hit me again. I've made the case there is some real problems with the way Mob Justice is being handled. That includes up to the death of people indicated. Now I'm not calling for the protection of sexual predators. I AM calling for due process before we start throwing people under the bus.
I'm getting rather fed up with "Sexual * accusation leads to firing" again and again and again. How about proof/courtcase/dismissal if guilty? What about the rights of the accused, or are we going to stand for "Social Media Courtroom" slamming out guilty verdicts?
Edit: I'm trying to open up a dialog about the rights of accusers AND accused. The ramifications here are "Loss of income, loss of house, approaching poverty and destitution". The current trend is using "Virtual Mob Justice" - whom here agrees with this approach? I sure don't. I've seen what Mobs will get you, and it ain't pretty.
A company doesn't need to win a court case to fire someone. You're not entitled to a job. This is America.
No one is locking these people up without a trial. However, being shunned by most of society does not require a court case.
Someone makes a claim, another person loses their job. It may be true, or not. No recourse. Start the spiral of poverty, destitution, and homelessness. And they had better hope they get off that spiral before too long.
> However, being shunned by most of society does not require a court case.
It IS a problem when being "shunned by society" entails in living under a bridge or in a tent city.
In the US, you'd have to prove that they are lying which is obviously impossible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law
It's hard to think of a way to have a situation where both of: Women are safe from harassment in private and Men are safe from the possibility of being destroyed by three women who don't like them
Are true
It doesn't sound like you understand US law very well.
Proving that someone is lying is not impossible.
Holding an entity liable for defamation is also not impossible accordingly. See: the recent Virginia case, which Rolling Stone magazine lost by jury verdict. [1]
You can sue someone in the US for defamation at any time you like. During the process, you can show the lack of evidence on the other side, and you can show the evidence to support your case. In a culture that strongly favors free speech, there should be a high burden to criminalization of opinion.
If someone claims you sexually assaulted them on June 24th at 8pm, at Some Restaurant - and you can demonstrate you were never there, you're very likely to win that in court. In the US, the consequences of losing such a defamation case, are typically very punishing, which helps to limit any kind of actual free-for-all of false accusations.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/business/media/rolling-st...
In most cases, at least when considering the higher-profile ones of the last few weeks, stories have been about multiple occurrences. The reporting typically identifies a pattern of behavior from multiple sources who were confirmed to have told friends, family, or colleagues at the time of the incident.
If a single, unverifiable account was thought to be sufficient, I'd be with you. But when you have multiple occurrences and patterns, you can argue that it's clear that the person is creating a toxic work environment and can be dealt with more swiftly than the legal process.
My understanding (based, I admit, on a brief reading of the BBC's report, so maybe there's lots more I haven't seen) of the MPR/Garrison Keillor case seems like an example of that.
I agree, as far as we know this is what has been happening. An exception being Roy Moore, as far as I know he has stridently denied the accusations made against him.
I do think GP has identified a slippery slope. Not everyone is honorable and some people will start to get the idea that they can take down a boss they don't like by simply leveling a sexual assault charge. If in today's climate there is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence, or even an attitude "easier to fire him than deal with an investigation" then pray you're never on the wrong side of that scenario.
Hell, and there a ton of craziness that goes on in the dating scene. If I was still dating, I'd record with my phone, to prove "No, (s)he did consent. Here's the proof." The opposite of this, is fighting off a potential rape allegation. That scares the living fuck out of me, since a buddy had that happen.
But maybe there's a case for a device that records, in a sealed storage. Think of it as insurance on claims of wrongdoing.
I've also been sexually harassed by a manager (I'm a guy, manager was a woman). Worked at a subway. She grabbed my ass deep enough she fondled my testicles. Turns out the district manager came in the back door. Fired her on the spot. Makes me a weird exception, in that it was female doing to male subordinate, and it was solved.
It's widely reported that, for example, the Washington Post ran an in-depth investigation into one accuser of Roy Moore, and found out she was lying to discredit their reporting. They did this due diligence even after every sane person was already convinced that Roy Moore was a creep. So, presumably, they would have had more reason to believe her than anyone accusing someone previously not connected to such allegations.
As to why this stuff doesn't get dealt with in public? "They all asked not to be identified, citing fears over the investor’s history of filing lawsuits and concerns that he could wield his influence in the tech industry to ruin their careers. Earlier this year, Pishevar got a U.K. court to prohibit a local newspaper from reporting on his arrest following a rape allegation against him. London police investigated and didn’t charge him."
What you're talking about is more in the realms of civil cases and business cases, where the burden of proof is smaller. In this case, if he felt that this was untrue he could sue under the existing libel laws. The reason that doesn't happen in most of these cases is that there actually is a fair amount of proof but it just hadn't been acted on and the person involved doesn't want to actually drag that evidence into the public scrutiny of a trial.
Most of the accusations we've recently heard of also speak of actions that aren't crimes. Criminal law allows you to give as many sex toys to your interns as you want. Employment law, and common decency, are something different. They also don't require the standard of proof you're demanding.
Due process, standards of evidence, and so on were invented for some good reasons, and on this particular topic we seem to be prepared to ignore all that. Sadly, at the moment I don't see how we're going to restore some kind of balance between the rights of the accuser and the accused.
Absolutely. And some of the evidence proving it that Ive seen has been damning. I don't doubt that powerful people get away with sexual assault.
This quote comes to mind: "And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." ~Donald J Trump.
> However, the current culture of insta-trial by social and/or mass media, and the assumption of guilt on the basis of unproven allegations, troubles me greatly. Anyone remember the Salem witch trials?
I look at "Social Media" as a form of a lynch mob. It's extrajudicial, and amounts to end the livelihood of a person. If they did something wrong, sure, nail their ass to a wall. But I'm done with "Twitter Justice", "Facebook Social-Death Squads" and the like. Destroying someone's ability to survive is even more cruel than throwing them in a jail cell where they are provided for.
> Due process, standards of evidence, and so on were invented for some good reasons, and on this particular topic we seem to be prepared to ignore all that. Sadly, at the moment I don't see how we're going to restore some kind of balance between the rights of the accuser and the accused.
Look at the responses I've received thus far. They defend companies doing whatever they want. That's what we're up against. Doesn't matter if it's your livelihood at stake. Just hope $you aren't the next 15 minute subject of the "Internet Death Squad".
> they let you do it.
How is it assault if the other party is onboard ?
Instead, if I threaten you with job loss and blackballing in the industry, and "Ask" if I can fondle you, you're probably going to say yes.
Coercion, blackmailing, and credible threats are also all against the law. Criminal law.
I suppose if the accusation is untrue they can sue the company for being unfairly fired due to untrue rumours. For those who are self-employed that's not gonna help though.
As a society we should be wary for a shift if burden of proof but that goes for all controversial subjects including terrorism, nazism, paedophilia, and sexual abuse. Journalists being able to put time and effort into research is an important tool and pillar for that goal.
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approa...
Republicans are angry, and would rather a situation in which he gets some serious punishment. There are good reasons why he can't be tried again for the same incident with different charges and why they can't just charge him with conflicting accusations and let the subsequent investigation and trial determine which ones stick. Democrats have generally disagreed, largely because he's been picked up as an argument for stronger immigration laws and enforcement
And yet there's also a similar movement among liberal circles towards ruining people's lives because of accusations that have not been proved until rules of law because they're obviously scum, just like Republicans think this guy is.
In general we seem to have abandoned the rule of law everywhere but in most actual courts of law because of people we want to villify. And they're often actually terrible people, but we're on a slippery slope that we can't see because all the rhetoric is playing on people's emotions.
If you don't want this stuff dealt with in public, the procedures for dealing with it in private have to work. And hitherto they generally haven't.
Go ask the person that Redditers highlighted as "guilty" in the Boston bombing. He didn't do anything wrong, and ended up dead as a result.
Its also why Reddit now does livethreads to control Doxxing and finger pointing.
The problem is the way people react, not the fact that it was taken public. Private channels should have worked too - that's also a problem.
The third response is to deny a limited claim. Someone like Jeremy Piven comes to mind. He steadfastly denies the charge against him.
I think it's reasonable to assume that some of the charges are fraudulent; people are human and prone to the human condition. But when there's a preponderance of evidence, it's pretty easy to tell who's being disingenuous.
As an aside, I am a bit concerned how many of the accusations are being lumped together. A boss hitting on a subordinate is very different than a forcible rape. Both are wrong and should be addressed, but grouping them together lessens the seriousness of the later IMO.
Yes. Look at how the accusation against George Takei never took off. It was one person. With everyone else (e.g. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Eddie Berganza, John Lasseter), it was well-known in certain circles that the person was a creep, and there were multiple independent accusations. Takei, on the other hand, had a reputation for being an absolute gentleman in a time when the gay scene was notoriously grabby.