A MeToo Reckoning in China’s Workplace Amid Wave of Accusations | Hacker News Reader

A MeToo Reckoning in China’s Workplace Amid Wave of Accusations

nytimes.com

130 pointsLopRabbit77 comments

Having worked in several Chinese tech co's, this is not in the least surprising to me. In one company I worked in, the CEO used the girls in the office like his personal harem. Women are hired based on looks and age, and whether they are married or not.

The one surprising thing, to me, is that the accusations are gaining traction, which is good to hear.

If the traction is informationally contained to enemies of those in positions of power, that would be pretty insincere, but if they let it happen and managed to create a new standard for how people in power should act in private-- that would be good news.

That was my first reaction as well, that this could end up in line with Xi's crackdown on corruption. As the article mentions, censors are silencing some discussions, but I wouldn't be surprised if censors let through and amplify those speaking out against abusers who also happen to be critical of Xi's government.

I mean, if the accusations are true, then who cares who it hurts.

The injustice would be that OTHER people aren't being brought to justice, not that one group IS.

Except for the dangers of concentrating autocratic power. You make a good point, but context still matters.

You're getting downvoted because you're failing to see the bigger picture here, in much the same way journalists deciding "even if we got handed this by the russians, it's true, so we should publish it" is missing the bigger picture.

Not to say that we shouldn't seek justice against these people, but that blindly making good local decisions may not end up with good global decisions.

Well wouldn't the reverse also be just as bad and exploitable? The classic is 'ignore misconduct because it might help 'the enemy' make us look bad' is in itself failing to see the big picture and one of the oldest ones in the book for the wicked to retain power.

The proper solution morally of course is to reject false-dichotomies and oppose wrong on all sides - especially within 'your own'.

You're right, "ignore misconduct because it might help 'the enemy' make us look bad" has its own downsides, but the answer isn't "who cares who it hurts".

There are many ways to deal with misconduct - letting adversaries weaponize information against your own at a time they choose with no care for the implications is probably not the best way.

I have spent a good amount of time in the mainland as a foreigner. The way that men talk about women, particularly in professional settings, is decades behind imho. KTV alone - I have heard some pretty terribls sounding stories there as well although have been lucky to only have gone to the normal ktv. A simple example is booth babes at tech shows. In the US, general consensus is that this is exploitive. In China it seems quite normative.

> In the US, general consensus is that this is exploitive. In China it seems quite normative.

We're not that great about it in the US either. It's still an issue that people are having to fight, repeatedly. The US is definitely getting better, but it's far from solved.

At least people are trying to solve it in the US, and those people also include a sizable amount of men.

I think the distinction that he's drawing is that in the US, the cultural consensus is that this behavior is not ok, even though it still goes on. There's this in-between space that we get to about things like this where we all (mostly) decide its not ok, but lots of people still do it and/or protect those that do. China seems to still be in the first stage though, of not having culturally come to agreement that this sort of thing isn't just normal and acceptable.

Not surprised! Check out this overtly sexist recruiting video by Alibaba:

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000005795093/chines...

Before clicking the link I was expecting some light sexism, I was not prepared for women employees opening bottles stuck between men's legs. Wow

One thought that crossed my mind is the extent to which Xi's government can ride this wave and use it to eliminate political enemies. The old way was to accuse political enemies of corruption and have them jailed. I wonder if the new way is to get them accused of sex crimes, or just ruin their reputation in China so that they become radioactive to work with.

I think whether or not these posts are censored will tell you what's likely. If they are taken down quickly, it's probably not government instigated, but if they're not removed, then it leads to the suspicion that the government wants these published.

That really cuts directly at the business cultural in China and China is very passionate about ridged reasoning and rebuking things they don’t like as not being Chinese. MeToo in China goes for the jugular of these attitudes, good for them.

It is a weird dynamic, from what I understand to China is pretty far behind (just needed a word here so I chose "behind") socially in that area. Sort of Me 2 meets mid 20th century attitudes in the US?

The US started mass employment of women in the late 1800s. It took until the 2010s for MeToo to be taken seriously. (And by seriously, I mean that there are consequences for such actions.)

Given that China actively destroyed its culture during '49-'79, and then saw the fastest growth spurt of industrialization and services ever seen in human history, it's not surprising that they're playing massive catchup.

The interesting thing would be to compare womens' working conditions in the PRC vs. the ROC, HK, and Singapore, Sinosphere countries of which none of which suffered similar political turmoil and had much less compressed development.

MeToo is far from the first time this stuff has had teeth in the US.

It’s more that you get waves of action, back lash, then build up for the next wave. Really you can trace US legislation back to the 70’s, but social progress is slow.

The pendulum effect. Cultural change typically tends to go first too far in one direction then retreat and go too far in the other direction. Repeat every few decades. And maybe not fair to say it swings equally in both directions. Long-term progress is made but it tends to happen in a series of over-reaches and then pull backs.

It's definitely past the mid-point right now. I'm fortunate to have begun my career just as the excesses of the second wave reached their peak, so I've spent my entire worklife assiduously avoiding any appearance of impropriety. I have never met with a female coworker alone in an office, and have never socialized with women coworkers outside of work. Many have tried to shame me into going out with a group, but I have always declined. It hasn't hurt my career advancement, so no regrets.

Has it hurt the development of some of the women who have been my direct reports over the years? Probably, but it has also protected the women I care about the most, namely my wife and daughter, because it has prevented any kind of accusations from getting traction.

Yes, remarkably, and despite carefully avoiding any sexual talk of any sort at work for over thirty years now, I have been falsely accused of sexual harassment a handful of times over the years, but nothing has ever stuck. I think it is, in large part, because I have been so careful.

This is the consistent counsel I offer to younger men at work. Some listen, most don't. A few have suffered serious career setbacks as a result of fishing off the company pier or other indiscretions, yet it could have been so easily avoided. I'm glad I only have another ten years or so to go. It would be a lot tougher to survive in today's climate as a young man.

Not knowing anything beyond your irrational refusal to have meetings with women and your apparent contempt for their careers, I'm inclined to believe the (multiple?!) sexual harassment complaints against you. It's really not normal to be regularly accused of that kind of behavior.

Three accusations in thirty years hardly qualifies as a "regular occurrence." Having spent part of my career in HR, it is not nearly as rare as you would like to think for people (both men and women) to be accused of sexual harassment.

I do meet with women, regularly, just never alone. My refusal to meet alone with women is hardly irrational. It is one of the safest and sanest choices a man can make in the current environment where a mere accusation is often enough to cause the loss of a job and future prospects.

I sincerely hope it never happens to you, but odds are high that it will if you acquire enough power at work. Not a popular view, I know, but still true.

No, it's really weird for you to refuse to have a regular 1:1 with your direct report because she's a woman. That's creepy and not normal at all.

That's one of the weaker attempts at shaming someone into doing something foolish and unnecessary that I've encountered.

Contrary to popular belief and widespread practice, 1:1s are not essential to developing employees. There are lots of other very effective ways to develop people on a team. (That's right, the men on my teams didn't get 1:1s either. And yet, somehow we got stuff done.)

This is exactly why I don't manage anyone any more. It's so tiresome when people with ten or twenty or thirty years less experience fight you every step of the way. I made enough doing that, now I make enough doing something else.

Obviously you are not up to date with the current state of militant feminism in many parts of the western world. Some women will easily make up accusations for personal reasons and even for career advancement. Not meeting them one-on-one in a professional setting is a perfectly valid protection from this. (Why would you need to meet them one-on-one in a workplace anyway? Do you have secret projects you don't want other co-workers to know about?) (Not all women do this obviusly, but a small part. Just like not all men harass others. But it takes one to destroy a career.)

No, it's getting quite common. The pence rule, they call it in America.

I've been on the pointy end of a false accusation by a woman in my team who was upset I insisted on supervising and double checking her work (which was extremely poor). Lucky me, the accusation wasn't sexual and double lucky she was a terrible liar. But if you think false accusations are rare you are pretty naive and probably just were never in a position to make an enemy of a woman.

It's not at all common. "The Pence rule" is noteworthy because it's so weird; it's reported as evidence of how out of the mainstream Pence is. If it was common, or becoming increasingly so, it would not be newsworthy when it's discovered that, for instance, he tried to organize an all-male jogging group "because he is married".

If the accusation you were at the other end of "wasn't sexual", I'm not sure what it has to do with this story, this thread, or with the gender of the accuser. I've been falsely accused of things at work by dudes, too. That is a thing that does happen.

"Irrational refusal"?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/06/linus_torvalds_targ...

> I have never met with a female coworker alone in an office, and have never socialized with women coworkers outside of work.

> Has it hurt the development of some of the women who have been my direct reports over the years? Probably, but it has also protected the women I care about the most, namely my wife and daughter, because it has prevented any kind of accusations from getting traction.

Jesus. You're aware that you could get yourself and your employer sued for admitting this, aren't you?

> Yes, remarkably, and despite carefully avoiding any sexual talk of any sort at work for over thirty years now, I have been falsely accused of sexual harassment a handful of times over the years, but nothing has ever stuck. I think it is, in large part, because I have been so careful.

If you need the Billy Graham rule, then I am entirely sure the accusations against you had more merit than you'd care to admit.

No, I cannot be sued for admitting this, because in my current position no one reports to me. And ironically, the bogeyman of being sued is not that scary. I have been falsely accused three times over the years, and completely exonerated by the EEOC and a court of law in one case. (The other two cases crumbled under the weight of the accusers' accumulated lies before getting to that point, so bad that their lawyers withdrew from representing them.)

But it's easy in today's climate to make a baseless accusation.

And you realize that you could be sued for defamation of character by falsely accusing me of sexual harassment in a public forum, right?

Haha, great answer, I'm impressed at how you aren't backing down on this. Three times with legal action in all cases sounds terrible though, glad you were ok.

Not meeting alone or socializing with female coworkers is a pretty intelligent move these days for men, and will probably become the norm until we have cameras watching and recording our every move as proof nothing happened.

The problem is that most are guilty until proven innocent....and even when proven innocent many still lost their careers and livelihood in the process and companies just don't want the bad press.

It's about as intelligent as women avoiding being alone with men in fear of being attacked.

In some contexts, perhaps? Generally, no. There are dangers in a lot of interactions yet we still engage in this, there's nothing new about that. This is extreme.

Legislation happened in the '70s, but I would characterize those earlier movements as countercultural.

MeToo, as far as I'm aware, is the first time where allegations against sexual harassment are with the prevailing winds of modern American culture, and when people other than politicians have suffered actual blowback and consequences from such behavior.

It is far from the first time men have suffered consequences for sexual misconduct at work. MeToo is really just Hollywood and the media being held to the same standard that most of corporate America has had since the late 70s or early 80s.

Christ, you'd think they invented it, even though the vast majority of people have lived under these rules for over two decades.

CEOs and important upper management being pushed out and boards resigning over sexual harassment and fraternization is a relatively new development. And it's more than just media companies.

Barnes and Noble: https://www.retaildive.com/news/barnes-noble-axes-ceo-over-m...

Humane Society: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/02/us/humane-society-ceo-sex...

Social Finance: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/technology/sofi-cagney-sc...

Black Parent Initiative: http://www.wweek.com/news/2018/02/20/entire-black-parent-ini...

Urban League: https://kdvr.com/2018/03/01/urban-league-president-ceo-resig...

Wynn Resorts: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/steve-wynn-casin...

Fidelity Investments: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/11...

WPP: https://www.adweek.com/agencies/wpp-parts-with-former-jwt-ce...

Silicon Valley Community Foundation: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/04/26/silicon-valley-commun...

Intel: http://fortune.com/2018/06/22/intel-ceo-brian-krzanich-sexua...

Tronc: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-ferro-retires-...

Yes, I'll admit that the consequences are occurring further up the ladder in some cases. Still, the point stands that the vast majority of people have had to live under these rules for two or three decades. It's nothing new, except that a tiny number of powerful people who were previously exempt from the rules now aren't. For the rest of us, it's business as usual.

That’s more perception than reality. Many powerful men and some women have been removed from upper management in industry or government due to sexual harassment. Add to that many very large monetary payouts resulting in policies and training for decades, the difference is before social media these things have been mostly kept quite.

Hollywood has also been something of a holdout as people hold power without being someone’s supervisor.

The removal of CEOs and boards is a relatively new development; it would be hard, particularly for public companies, to hide such drastic actions, and for it to happen over sexual harassment and similar policies was certainly not very common over the years. Government is a bit of a different case, particularly in the case of elected officials where a lot of times it's more viewed in terms of what it means about the official's morality, and less about what the actual victim's allegations were.

A non-exhaustive list of changes in CEOs and boards and upper management in recent times: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17635067

If you compare ‘Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson’ to these cases the trend is much less extreme situations having significant repercussions. Which eventually hits more CEO’s becase their simplicity are fewer CEO’s of major organizations and thus fewer CEO’s committing extreme over the top acts. Aka more cases of comments than inappropriate touching, more touching than grouping, and more grouping than rape.

However the impact of CEO’s vs the 1000’s of lower level managers is less in that they directly impact fewer people even if they have oversight over large organizations.

As to removal over time that’s extremely sensitive when dealing with CEO’s so the bar has been rather high. Still you can find cases 10+ years ago.

The really weird thing for me living here a few years is Mao once said "Women hold up half the sky" but are still accorded second class (non-official) citizenship in many ways to this day.

no worries, our future will be sexless anyway. It takes time.

Didn't women play a substantial role in the Cultural Revolution? Such as Jiang Qing and Nie Yuanzi?

What's that got to do with modern workplace sexual harassment.

I'm not sure.

But maybe it has something to do with the evolution of gender equality in China? That is, maybe reaction against the Cultural Revolution and the Red Guards has reinforced male dominance?

Baggage aside, the current Chinese government seems more Confucian than Communist.

Isn't it better to see it from the perspective of 'people in power can be sinful', rather than 'because there were some female leaders early on in a (highly propagandistic) movement then they most be on the side of women? Even still, there are many women who harbor men with bad behavior for personal gain.

Of course it's better, but how often does human behavior act in better or more logical ways? Humans are not the rational, well-informed beings of economics.

Not sure how this relates to my comment..

What I'm wondering is whether the Red Guards -- notwithstanding all the horrible stuff -- were less sexist and more egalitarian than the norm today.

I have no clue. I'm not Chinese, or lived there, or even studied China carefully. And maybe I'm too influenced by Cixin Liu's "Remembrance of Earth's Past" trilogy.

I think the general consensus is that the Communist movement (50s and 60s) actually did a lot for gender equality, given that that was one of the explicit precepts of the new society. China was coming from way, way behind, though, so even if a huge amount of progress was made, it ain't no UC Berkeley. But observing other "psuedo-Confucian" societies like Korea or Japan, it often seems like China's actually comparatively relaxed about gender.

Years of living in China left me with the impression that women themselves have come a long way: there are a lot of "tough women" in China, and many of them are very independent minded. Sure, there's also a lot of anxiety about being 26 and unmarried (the horror!), but at this point that anxiety comes as much or more from family pressure, the women themselves are often very "modern-minded".

The men, on the other hand, are mostly still in the stone age. The goal of life is to amass money and power, and one of the first things you do when you've got that is get a mistress. Having pretty young things in the office is a must. One of the main perks of authority is that you can screw who you like. The typical university environment, for example, is absolutely disgusting, the male professors are shooting fish in a barrel.

And because political and social power is held by men, the government comes down hard on feminism. I always had a hard time getting my head around the way feminism is treated like a political sin, and is censored as such.

> maybe it has something to do with the evolution of gender equality in China?

Women played prominent roles in many revolutions. That didn’t stop the resulting societies from developing depraved sexism. This is a problem many civilisations have faced and solved. Looking for uniquely Chinese causes is a goose chase.

It's arguably not that China has developed "depraved sexism". I mean, foot binding!

Edit: My point is that perhaps evolution of gender equality since the 1949 Chinese Revolution got derailed somehow.

> I mean, foot binding!

One could probably find mid-century American housewives who would bind their feet if it meant their husbands would stop legally raping them. Point is, we outlawed that behaviour and allowed it to be debated. China’s dictatorship doesn’t seem to be doing that.

I think most Chinese people would blame Mao for the CR, not women...

I'm sure the crowd control mechanism (social credit system) can be utilized in some way here no?

The government is actively censoring such posts, so no.

Forgot the /s Chances are that it will rather be utilized against the women...

Perhaps the downvoters are unaware of the specific Chinese program of the social credit system experiment ongoing even right now? https://www.wired.co.uk/article/china-social-credit

If so, it is understandable that they would not see this as any serious matter, because in the west, the maximum that such a system is worth of is a Black Mirror episode. In China, this is now an everyday reality for many people.

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