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Comment by j_walter | Hacker News Reader

> The suit was followed by an outpouring of current and former employees saying they’d been harassed or mistreated at the company.

I never understand why in the world we currently live in there are so many people willing to be silent for so long. Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years.

This probably isn't a popular opinion...but when victims choose to remain silent they are complacent in allowing other people to be victimized in the future. A sexist culture is one thing, but straight up sexual assault is a completely different issue.

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Simply? You lose, most of the time, when you "come forward". There is no parade, there are no articles in the New Yorker about your bravery, you just lose your livelihood, your dreams, and sometimes your life.

It's a sad, often poorly understood reality about whistle blowing, given the heavy survivorship involved. For every success story you hear, there are dozens you don't hear about, because nobody believed them, they were successfully demonized, or because it wasn't "big" enough to really, ultimately matter to American society in a way that could effect change.

That's why it's so impressive when people to come forward anyway, knowing this. It's far from "risk free" to come forward, and usually it's a gigantic negative experience, sometimes rivaling the original abuse itself in negative impact on your life. It's one thing to have the worst day of your life happen, now imagine having to relive it publicly, forever.

Exactly this. In such situations the culture of abuse is deeply embedded in the organisation, so everyone from senior management through HR down to junior staff will turn on you; they'll make your work environment unbearable, berate you for any compassionate leave you're granted (assuming you can squeeze that much out of them), hold 'investigations' that exhonerate the company and the accused even in the face of blatant video evidence, downgrade your performance appraisals, and, since senior staff tend to have friends at other companies in your industry, potentially make it difficult for you to get a job elsewhere. Anyone who comes forward in such circumstances (having, let's not forget, already suffered bad treatment through no fault of their own) demonstrates a great deal of bravery.

Nassar is not a good example to compare to - I can't speak to the Weinstein case as I haven't followed it well, but with Larry Nassar athletes were bringing up his actions and their discomfort pretty regularly. One athlete was kicked off the team, if I remember correctly.

The FBI was also extremely negligent - the special agent working the case was inquiring about job opportunities at the place he was investigating.

As for victims "choosing" to remain silent, you have to understand two things:

1. The victims are most often children, and often do not understand that his actions were not okay, especially when the team says they are, and calls them hysterical for feeling disgusted with him.

2. The older victims don't want to have their careers ended by speaking up to power.

Between the way the team and the FBI handled this it's really hard to argue that this is the victim's fault. The people they trusted let them down for decades. You can (and should) educate children about what is right and wrong, but you also need to be willing to investigate claims and ensure people feel comfortable to raise them.

You don't have to be a victim to do something about it.

When any of us remain silent when we witness or hear about abuse we are allowing other people to be victimized now and in the future.

I couldn't agree more...but many people chose to remain completely silent when abuse happens. The culture surrounding this has changed a lot in the last 20 years yet we keep having these types of events that people pile on only after one person comes forward. Then all of a sudden it's a pattern of abuse and a way bigger issue to fix.

And this is where all of us need to actively cultivate a company culture where we maximize everyone's ability to feel safe especially when things go seriously wrong.

Apparently, this does not happen at enough places.

> Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years.

Both gatekeepers for Hollywood and the Olympics.

Yeah, it's almost like people keep silent because of the power imbalance that leads to the abuse and blaming the weak because they aren't able to stand up to the strong is the wrong thing to do.

They could stand up to the strong, but they choose to go along with it for their own personal reasons (ie, make it in Hollywood or become an Olympic athlete). However even after those things happen the abused continue to keep silent.

Aside from the other comments here, another thing to consider is that it's usually incredibly painful to relive abusive treatment, let alone potentially having to endure the humiliation of having it dragged out into the public, where a million and one disinterested onlookers will potentially pull the victim apart and blame them for what happened. Unless you've been in such a situation yourself, you can't imagine what it's like.

who is going to listen to you if you stand up to the strong? unless you have support of anyone in the media (who would also be willing to put their reputation on the line) your message isn't going to go anywhere. not to mention, you think things like 'black cube' suddenly don't exist any more?

It also didn't help that he was a doctor who taught his methods in medical classes and was regarded as a forerunner in the field of sports medicine, especially around gymnastics.

Very few people would've been able to call him out on it because no one had enough experience to call him out on his BS. The only reason he got caught was because he got bold and took it too far.

Victims are silent because there are consequences to speaking out, not only restricted to negative reactions which I believe are rare aside from the accused.

Not only can it destroy your career, there are also consequences when you confide in family and friends. They will treat you differently and maybe you don't even want that and put everything behind you.

Legally there might even be low chances of recourse because you have no evidence. Especially when celebrities are involved, the requirements for that are high.

This might not be something you can change with culture and is intrinsic to the respective crimes.

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