Hmm. Would Harvey Weinstein have blown up the way he did if Susan Fowler hadn’t moved first against Uber?
I'm curious about the phenomenon. We had mass acceptance of horrifying behaviour. Switches flipped and what was dirty but tolerable became unacceptable. If we wish to replicate this process in other domains, it would be helpful to understand what happened.
Also, of course, it was not exactly advertised that this was going on.
"When we were looking for funding or a home for our VR group, we were warned in private conversations against SO MANY funders and leaders within companies, by their equally powerful white dude colleagues. Often several separate warnings against the same dude. I KNOW YOU KNOW."
Sounds to me like the upper echelons know and don't care.
[1]: https://twitter.com/vihartvihart/status/938212942356537345
I don't mean to diminish Fowler at all. But the moment we have arrived at is a huge collection of interconnected events, not a straight line from A, through B, to C.
I know that's not your main point, it's just important to point out culpable people like the Clintons were instead of seeing them (or the campaign) as victims.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/05/us/harvey-wei...
In late September, emails show, he was discussing a documentary television show he was working on with Hillary Clinton. He had long raised campaign cash for her, and her feminist credentials helped burnish his image — even though Tina Brown, the magazine editor, and Lena Dunham, the writer and actress, each say they had cautioned Mrs. Clinton’s aides about his treatment of women. Now, Mr. Weinstein exchanged questions about distribution rights for the show. “I am hopeful we can get a good price for this,” Robert Barnett, Mrs. Clinton’s lawyer, replied.
Two days later, Jeff Bezos, founder and chief executive of Amazon, interrupted a vacation in Hawaii to field advice from Mr. Weinstein, according to the emails. The Wall Street Journal was reporting on turmoil at Amazon Studios, one of Mr. Weinstein’s business partners. He recommended an aggressive response that involved hiring some of his own team, including a libel lawyer who “makes sure everyone sticks to the right narrative,” Mr. Weinstein wrote. He added, “I’m happy to coordinate with whoever you’d like, as a friend of the court.” Mr. Bezos declined to comment.
That said, it's a fascinating thought exercise to wonder where President Clinton would be today, if the same sexual assault revelations happened. As the first female President married to someone accused of various sexual improprieties I suspect it would be a very difficult needle to thread.
[0] https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/from-aggressive-ove...
Not to be dramatic, but I think this example is very timely and appropriate for showing the impact of an uncensored internet. We can only guess whether impact like this will still be possible without net neutrality.
(I realize the irony in my typing this, that I appear to be saying Weinstein was responsible for something a number of people would argue a woman started, but hey. That's not what I'm saying, and you get my point and what I'm trying to say.)
Put another way, Susan didn't go after a high-profile leader directly. She went after systemic issues in a company. Weinstein, on the other hand, showed a lot of people that high-profile leaders are vulnerable to public attention, and that became a slightly different species of snowball. Both are cultural contributions.
Edit: The reason I find Fowler somewhat unique is that her background, credentials, writing skills, etc, made her hard to dismiss. It was very believable, perhaps to some that might have tended to challenge similar stories.
So it seemed to open a door for women that had similar stories, but not the same level of gravitas. It also primed the media to pay attention to this area.
That, to me, indicates that something else shifted culturally to allow the Uber thing to help contribute to that environment. What is that? Was it the scale of Uber? Was it something about Fowler? Was it that the same power dynamics that suppressed revelations about Weinstein were starting to degrade within insular tech? I'm personally curious about it, and I don't think Fowler's blog post was solely responsible and folks should start making conclusions about cultural shifts, is my only point.
Edit to your edit: Careful; you're lightly claiming that accusers before Fowler were unbelievable and easily dismissed.
Heh. Hopefully I'm given the benefit of the doubt on that. She bordered on unassailable, which is difficult to do when recounting anything.
Edit: Ugh, really? You're reading something that isn't there.
Travis' mother died. He thought he could mourn and be CEO at the same time, but he decided he couldn't handle both