Julie Ann Horvath names harassers | Hacker News Reader

Julie Ann Horvath names harassers

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88 pointsgortok34 comments

This seems to have turned somewhat juvenile at this point, I'm starting to lose more respect for people the more mud they've started slinging. (This doesn't just apply to Julie Horvath, Theresa seemed somewhat bitter in some of her posts but this article [0] does seem to come across as somewhat churlish

[0] http://valleywag.gawker.com/ims-and-email-support-allegation...

For what it's worth there are a ton of details in a blog post that keeps being killed in HN's new thread queue. Probably autokilled by hostname. https://twitter.com/nrrrdcore/status/459405044920500225

Yeah, Valleywag is on the list of autodead domains. Which is a shame, because they occasionally cover important stories.

What does that mean the list of autodead domains, can it be posted in comments? can we look at this list?

Here's a list from a few years ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=499044

This is a PR train wreck and so far every single thing I've seen about it has been "he said/she said".

These screen-shots (unless I'm missing something) don't show much of anything.

One thing they do show is the HR rep not willing to be present in a meeting. That at least is evidence that their HR department should have been functioning better than it was. Not necessarily evidence of anything else, though.

It's not even evidence of that, all you can conclude from that screenshot is that HR is out of the office for much of the next week and is suggesting someone else agreeable.

Everything else is pretty much speculation (but then this entire thing has been like that).

so so messy ... not sure that it really accomplishes that much either, except to make Ms Horvath seem really undesirable as an employee. I just feel like this could have been handled more maturely.

If you want to know why, look at the twitter replies. She's being regarded as a Brave Hero of the movement. Bad for a technical employee. Good for a highly visible position, like startup founder, developer evangelist, head of a female programmer outreach program or anything marketing related.

I'm curious to know specifically what makes you think she's undesirable as an employee?

I'll be honest and say I am now beginning to think the same as @trustfundbaby. The situation has turned almost farcical, and without knowing the absolute truth (which we don't) I think it would be a difficult decision to hire Horvath, knowing her persistence.

Nobody can legally admit to it, but behind closed doors I'm sure there would be a lot of managers who would disregard her Resumé knowing what might happen when someone fumbles, or appears to fumble, regardless of who is telling the truth.

Edit: I'll pose it as a question

You are the CEO of a company, and you come across Horvath's C.V. for a position, you are aware of what is happening between Horvath and GitHub. Do you hire her, knowing that an overheard (and likely innappropriate) comment could be all it takes for her to resign and start a PR campaign against your company's culture?

Yes, even explicitly because of that. I expect to be held accountable for any actions I take, even the seriously horrible ones.

What about something seriously horrible like watching someone hula hoop?

I thought my comment was obvious, but it looks like I got a downvote so I guess I need to explain it sigh.

The point I was making is that there doesn't seem to be any real evidence of any wrongdoing at Github. All the allegations seem to disappear once we hear more details:

- The hula-hooping seems pretty innocuous. Some people start hula-hooping in the office, so other people start watching. It would be a pretty unusual thing to hula-hoop in the office, so it seems natural to watch it. There should be no reason to think the hula-hooping would cause male excitement (and if there was reason to think that, it probably shouldn't have been done). It sounds like nobody else had a problem with it.

- The rug incident seems like a non-event. Why should 'meritocracy' be divisive? The only problem it seemed to cause was preventing Horvath being accepted into a "feminist hackerspace".

- The 'harassment' against JAH from Heather and Tom now seems to disappear given the facts from JAH herself in valleywag. It seems that JAH was accused of starting the rumour against Tom's wife, and that is why JAH was called into the HR office. JAH says that she was harassed because she was accused of starting the rumour, and Heather sat silently. It would seem very appropriate to talk to a worker accused of starting a vicious rumour, and get all the facts. Did JAH actually start this rumour, or was it a lie? That is a bit unclear at the moment.

- The IMs in the valleywag article just seem like a vicious rant from JAH against Tom and his wife. So Tom's wife set up an office at Github. Perhaps not the most sensible idea given that she wasn't an employee, but certainly not harassment.

- Regarding the allegation against Ted Nyman: she now says he reverted her edits because she wouldn't date him (previously it was "fuck"). So all we know is that Nyman asked her out on a date, she refused, and he reverted some edits. Were those two things linked? To be honest I have my doubts, based on JAH's other "false positives".

Overall it looks like JAH is the bully and harasser here. It's also ironic that she has achieved the exact opposite of what she wanted to achieve (advancing the position of women in the industry). Perhaps the lesson - unfortunately - is that it isn't a good idea to hire a feminist.

Just the way she handled the whole thing (which seemed like a misunderstanding that just snowballed out of control because of poor handling on both sides) but more specifically this twitter post ... whats the point of doing this exactly?

Its not like she was assaulted and the company was protecting the assailant (then I'd definitely understand her "outing" them). Maybe I'm just being silly, it just feels unnecessarily histrionic.

But for me after seeing this, I'd be worried that if I hired her and she ran into trouble with other employees that couldn't be resolved to her satisfaction, that I and my company would be ensnarled in this kind of PR mess too.

I'd be worried that if I hired her and she ran into trouble with other employees that couldn't be resolved to her satisfaction, that I and my company would be ensnarled in this kind of PR mess too.

And yet you make no mention of existing employees on the payroll who contribute to this type of misogynistic behavior in the first place? You're not "worried" about that?

Out of interest, which misogynistic behaviour is it that you're talking about?

I'm not disagreeing just asking for clarification as I've found it hard to determine facts in the matter.

The only misogynistic behaviour that I've really been able to glean from the situation is the staff watching some of the female employees hula hoop (which I do agree could make people uncomfortable and am not condoning).

Other than that as far as I've understood it she had a spat with the founders wife, who was (possibly unintentionally) pressuring her into doing work outside of her responsibilities, had a spat with a coworker (who may have been an ex) who (might've) acted inappropriately and she may have spread a rumour about tom preston warner. That's all I've been able to glean from what I've read and only one thing seems misogynistic (the hula-hooping, which really depends on the situation, though all seem inappropriate), so I'd be interested for someone elses summary of events to see how well I've understood the situation/what I might've missed.

> And yet you make no mention of existing employees on the payroll who contribute to this type of misogynistic behavior in the first place? You're not "worried" about that?

not at my fictional company, no :)

On a serious note, I was just making a tangential point, it doesn't minimize the really crappy things that she went through, and without equating the two I think its worthwhile to point out that Ms Horvath might not be going about this in the best way.

Ms Horvath might not be going about this in the best way.

But you see, I believe this is part of the inherent problem we have in IT. We make assumptions about the behavior and motivations of someone after this happens to them AND we're putting limitations on their behavior afterward without addressing the root cause.

I was curious to know why you specifically mentioned that it would be hard for her to get a job and didn't specifically mention that it would be hard for the people she named/shamed to get jobs.

What I don't understand is why, (presumably the only HR person at GitHub) wouldn't be at a meeting as requested? Isn't this a rather important function of an HR position? Why would she suggest someone else be there? Didn't she have the authority to say, "under no circumstances will a meeting take place between employee x and employee y without my presence"?

From the leaked convo, HR person wasn't sure to be in town and suggested Preston-Werner was the one who could decide to postpone the meeting or not.

Stop giving me orders. I feel harassed.

I've been subjected to worse in the past, and I'm a male. I've seen other men subjected to worse. I know multiple people who left the tech industry altogether after suffering actual psychological abuse.

Regardless of everything else, her continued absurd attempts to link this to gender are disgusting, obviously ridiculous, and thoroughly demonstrate that she's not honestly interested in speaking for people who have suffered abuse by employers.

Stating that the same thing happens to males isn't actually justification for taking an issue with what she is saying. It shouldn't be about gender at all.

However, I agree with you in thinking that the attempts to tie this to gender issues are way off base. When I first read the reports on the issues (which are not the whole truth, I understand), none of them read like gender issues. They read like issues between employees male or female, that didn't work well together. Would we have had the same reaction if Tom's wife had interfered in a male employees relationship? We should. Would we have had the same reaction if a female employee was reverting changes from a male? We should.

From what I've seen, it looks like this became a gender issue because JAH is a female, not because there were specific gender harassment issues.

It's about gender because she is directly claiming it's about gender and has done so from the beginning. As valleywag quoted her saying today:

"Would this happen to a man in the same situation? No."

She is wrong, wrong, wrong. Things happen all the time to men in the tech industry that are worse than what she claims happened to her. Even famously so:

http://www.businessinsider.com/ex-color-employee-files-lawsu...

She just made herself completely unemployable, and she'll get sued for millions unless she can prove her allegations (and maybe even then).

She's very smart.

Who would sue her? (I'd ask why you're a new account, created 5 minutes ago, but...)

If I was one of the accused, and I was innocent, I'd most definitely sue her. Being accused of sexual harassment in a very public way, in a very high profile case, is nothing to brush off. I'd want to have my day in court, to get the facts on the table, and exonerate myself.

Would you really? Do you know how much that would cost? Horvath is not a millionaire, something tells me it would just be a giant money pit for lawyers.

Why are you not brave enough to use your normal HN account, why hide?

Does the messenger change the message?

You still have to evaluate it with a grain of salt, but pointing out that it's a new account and 'oh so suspicious' is pointless.

And, of course, we all have to start an account at some point, why not start one for something you feel strongly enough to comment on?

You mean besides for the tidal wave of downvotes?

Thank you, anonymous downvoting coward, for proving my point.

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