Since MeToo, the Number of Men Who Are Uncomfortable Mentoring Women Has Tripled | Hacker News Reader

Since MeToo, the Number of Men Who Are Uncomfortable Mentoring Women Has Tripled

fortune.com

14 pointsakerro13 comments

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Yeah no kidding. This is a risk no longer worth taking.

Here’s an interesting thought experiment. What happens if this continues?

Women become increasingly excluded as management avoid them to protect themselves.

As a result less women go into/stay in the workforce. Chances are they can’t progress or be included so why bother?

This extends to outside of work too. Men will no longer approach women. There’s too many risks for men.

We have a population of men who avoid interacting with women on professional and personal environments.

We have women who are seen as a major risk. Self esteem plummets and they have little self worth.

I'm a male at a tech company, and since the #METOO incident, I have taken defensive steps to ensure I am not embroiled in any career-ending accusations of sexual harassment.

I have: - avoided directly talking to female coworkers other than "hello, top of the morning to you"-style greetings, unless I am forced to during meetings. I do not want anything I say to be taken out of context, whether it be a joke, a comment, or a discussion. It may seem cold, but this is my career and livelyhood on the line. To me, having female friends at work is not worth the risk of potentially losing my career. - Never be caught alone with a female coworker unless the situation is being recorded, at least via audio. I record on my phone every conversation that is not exchanging pleasantries for my protection. My state is a one-party wiretapping law state, so I am covered legally. - If I am forced to be alone with a female coworker during business travel, I bring a handheld recorder with battery life measured in days and record every minute of our time together. - I do not offer help to female coworkers unless asked via chat or email.

These may seem like extreme measures, but even just the accusation of sexual harassment can cause the end of a career. I love my job too much to sacrifice it for the minor benefit of being friends with females at work.

I also find it interesting how I am supposed to be the one to #mentorher, when I am the only one set to lose anything in this exchange. I can lose my time, my job, or even my career in the blink of an eye. For what? So I can earn feel-good points from people who don't give a hoot about me and would surely mock me behind my back, were a female I was trying to mentor make a false accusation? Maybe I will have a brigade of people on social media release my private info to the internet, as has happened in some cases.

So no, Mrs. Sandberg, I will not #mentorher. I will not take all the risk for the marginal benefit of making female friends at work. It's just too dangerous of a position to take. As a non-rich white male, working in the tech industry, I can say I already feel hated for just existing. So honestly, just shove off, don't ask me to do any extra work while risking my career, and leave me alone to program in peace.

Your behavior seems to be formulated as if there is a huge issue of "false" accusations going on within the metoo movement. I haven't seen anything to make me think that there is a serious risk of being falsely accused.

I agree with you. Most people are not making false accusations.

There are a small group of people who will destroy other people to advance themselves.

These are the people you have to protect yourself from.

One false accusations is enough.

ExpectedValueOfSaidMentoring = -inf * chanceFalseAccusation + negligiblySmall * (1 - chanceFalseAccusation)

This is what OP meant.

Chance need not be huge. Anything times negative inf is negative inf. Your career will be hurt by any false accusations, no matter how unlikely. Your family won't care how unlikely the accusation that ended their livelihood was.

In that case, I wholeheartedly disagree that mentoring people, especially very talented ones, be they women or men has little or no value for one's career and/or life.

Staying in your own little homogeneous bubble and avoid contact with anyone not like you or doing anything outside what objectively gives you direct, measurable value seems like a surefire way to stagnate your career.

And the chance of a false accusation has always been around. So to act so indignant now seems more to throw water on the movement than to truly be worried about your personal career progress.

I mentor plenty of people, women included, thank you very much. I am always willing to help.

What I am not willing to do is stick my and my families' neck on the line and take unnecessary career risks. I don't run in fear of women, I just take necessary precautions when dealing with a hazard.

I didn't create this environment where males, especially white middle-class males, are morally wrong for simply existing. And where any comment you say could be posted on twitter and you have a mob of people who say such nice things as "kill white people" are ready to harass you until you lose your job and everything you worked for. I am just reacting to it in a way that prevents me from falling victim to what I see as a threat to my career and protects my livelyhood and family.

Twenty years ago, I never felt like being alone with a woman in the office was a danger. Now, I feel like if I am not taking active measures, I could be crucified by HR, females, and the twitter / internet mob in the blink of an eye for simply making a comment that was taken the wrong way.

Ok. It has a lot of value. A lot is finite. Negative inf is still overpowering in that equation. That's the point OP made that you seem to be trying very hard to avoid addressing.

Because "negative infinity" is just hyperbole in this case. Some careers have been harmed or even destroyed, but we aren't seeing accused men wondering the streets homeless just yet (or whatever you want to equate to the most terrible outcome).

Yeah? So where are they currently employed? Homelessness takes time to reach after your income goes to zero. It's not instant. But it is certain

Most that have been reported in the news are wealthy enough to retire in comfort already. Beyond that, I'm not sure there is a huge number of non-public people losing their jobs over accusations (especially false ones).

If we assume that all accusation are true unless proven in a court of law, and all ""false"" accusations to be false unless proven in court, then the risk is very small.

Otherwise the rate that I tend to see in articles about it is estimated to be around 10-33% based on game theory.

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