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Why didn't you back me up?

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307 pointsmyko416 comments

If you (man or woman) work somewhere where the culture is harassing/hostile to women (or to anyone), you should take it seriously and either work elsewhere or try to stop it.

It's surprising how far some men will go if the behavior is tolerated. Often socially dominant men or those who have some kind of position of authority will get worse and worse. They will often not address the comments at anyone in particular but will just say lewd things and talk about sexual topics when doing so is not invited or warranted, often mixed with humor.

When a joke is told by a person with some authority, the response is typically laughter, even if the joke was inappropriate. Even those who might otherwise disapprove tend not to say anything.

Many women are just ambitious enough to ignore it, thinking that such behavior is in their best career interest (and it may be).

Some people have a knee-jerk negative reaction to feminism, but the important thing to realize is that when you are a woman you have to constantly turn down sex and sexual interest from males. This is true 100x for attractive women. When coupled with organizational power dynamics this is a very serious issue because it causes the victims extra stress and is bullying and unfair.

To generalize, don't ever hire or work with anyone you'd characterize as a bully.

I agree very much with all of this, except, women aren't responsible for fixing male violence and objectification, we men are. So I would concur with the first sentence if "you" is aimed at men.

Just to clarify, you was aimed at men and women equally. We all have to act to fix it.

Women don't have do, do they? "Have" implies responsibility. See my reply to esgoto.

I don't think it implies responsibility beyond just being partly responsible for the overall corporate culture and being willing to do something about it when something is harming it.

I think what we are dealing with is male culture, not any sort of corporate culture. If we're talking about a corporate culture of not being able to hold people accountable for mistakes in general, then I would agree.

I've observed that some women buy into it and seem to like/admire those who do some of that behavior.

"Some women" believe that women are meant to serve their husband's every command, but this is not consequential to the responsibility of the men in these subcultures (like those often within religious communities, for example). You note that women "buy", but what is the merchant?

Not sure how to respond to this. I don't think responsibility matters in this case, it's more of a pragmatic question of how can those of us who do care about it make a positive impact in a world where many people don't care to (for one reason or another).

That's good, I agree that there are avenues pretty much anyone can take to make change in the world.

Women are free to do that, because they're the oppressed group. They aren't members of the patriarchy, they're oppressed by it. Whether or not they're behaving that way due to internalized sexism or personal preference is irrelevant to the point that this is a pattern of male sexual aggression.

Thanks, this is what I was trying to say, but without words like "oppressed" and "patriarchy" because most of my fellow men don't understand what these words mean or deny the reality the that they refer to.

Yeah I feel like whenever "patriarchy" gets into my posts, I get 500 downvotes. I'm a white male too, fwiw. Go team.

EDIT: Aaaaaaand there we go. Finally.

I'm a man who happens to not participate in that culture.

You think I have any responsibility with regards to this issue? You think that, despite me not making lewd comments, encouraging lewd comments or behaviour, I am partly responsible for the fact that this happens? No. You don't get to put a collective blame on me just because I happen to have a penis.

That's akin to saying we non-murderers aren't responsible for fixing murders, only murderers are. Anyone can help fix this. You're right that ultimately it comes down to men's attitude and actions but anyone can help achieve the changes necessary.

I never said that women can't help or change things, I said it is not their responsibility. If it were, even by a tiny degree, and men continue to hurt women, we could say that women just didn't do a good enough job changing men. "Why didn't you leave the company? Why didn't you talk to all the men about appropriate behavior before one of them attacked you?"

I don't see why it's massively more the responsibility of men that don't harass than women that don't harass. It really is a societal problem, involving everybody, like the murder rate.

>could say that

People will use anything as excuses. Don't give in to them, and don't use their conclusions to make arguments about the premises.

You use the word "societal". But how are women, who make up more of any human "society" than men, contributing at all to the "problem"? Can you give any examples, or a general idea?

I'm not "giving in" to anything, why is this about me? Do you know what I meant by the word "we"?

You're giving in to the (abstract but real) person that says "If it were, even by a tiny degree, and men continue to hurt women, we could say that women just didn't do a good enough job changing men." That person is wrong and terrible. That person will demonstrate that a particular woman has the smallest iota of responsibility and then blame them 100%. Don't listen to that person. Don't use their flawed argument to support your argument.

>But how are women, who make up more of any human "society" than men, contributing at all to the "problem"? Can you give any examples, or a general idea?

Non-abusing women and non-abusing men both sometimes act as enablers for abusers. By not speaking out. By not firing bad actors. Etc. The abusers are directly to blame, and everyone is indirectly to blame. There is no sane way to conclude that all men but only men are to blame.

I'm not saying that they are right, I am saying their argument would work; in fact there is rich historical documentation of that exact argument working, in all of the common situations of male violence against women: rape, domestic abuse, etc. We can find court records including the attire of women as relevant facts to the violence of the man. We can see how many female victims of male domestic violence are asked "why didn't you leave" "why didn't you try to deescalate?"

If that argument was blocked, they would come up with a different argument.

Don't deny women agency in the interests of logically proving bigots wrong. They don't care. They make up excuses.

Anyone that's been in a position of power where they could have stopped harassment without much risk, and didn't, is a part of the problem. This includes many men, and many women. It is important to shame harassers as much as possible.

"If that argument was blocked, they would come up with a different argument." And? What difference does it make? If we disarmed and abolished nuclear weapons, we'd use non-nuclear weapons, but that says nothing about the legitimacy of disarmament campaigns. I don't think you are engaging honestly and genuinely.

But you're the one letting the nuclear argument go uncorrected. You're trying to block it not by saying that the logic is incorrect but that the very idea that women share in creating all of society's roles is flawed. I agree, kill the nuclear argument. But kill it by pointing out that it is wrong, not by denying women agency. Realize that you can't compromise while fighting that argument, because they have a hundred more.

I don't know how I can convince you I'm being genuine...

You don't understand how often women experience harassment. My ex-girlfriend used to walk to work from where we lived. It was about a 15 minute walk. She experienced street harassment an average of 3 times every time she walked to or from her job. Is she supposed to cross the street and have a long talk with someone every time that happens?

EDIT:

Since I can't reply below (submitting too fast, somehow...), I'll reply here:

I'm using her experience as an example. Every woman in a position of power experiences a steady stream of harassment and microaggressions pretty much her entire life, because she's a woman. It's hard for men to believe (it certainly was for me) because our experience is so different. No one yells at me out in public. No one. No one follows me down the street and into a coffee shop just to leer at me.

You're arguing that a woman in a position of power is obligated to shame harassers. I'm saying it happens so often that women often have to choose whether to be the sexual harassment police, or work in the career of choosing. Whatever their decision, you can't condemn them either way. You certainly don't get to make that choice for them.

I don't think she's in a position of power with no threat of retribution there.

Edit to your edit: They're no more obligated to do it than all the men passively letting harassment happen. And I can lightly condemn society as a whole if I want to.

Also, the amount of harassment a person faces isn't really connected to my argument, because I'm talking about harassment people are in a good position to stop, which is almost always harassment of others. (Because if there are no drawbacks to stopping harassment of yourself, you'd already have done it.)

> Anyone that's been in a position of power where they could have stopped harassment without much risk, and didn't, is a part of the problem.

You don't get to tell victims they have an obligation to work against victimization. It doesn't matter what they're a victim of, it doesn't matter what position they're in, and it doesn't matter how easy it would be for them to do. Victimization is not the victim's fault, it's the perpetrator's.

Amount of harassment is relevant, because the amount is enormous. There are huge drawbacks to spending all of your time addressing harassment in the workplace. Most women don't aim for professional success so they can spend all their time calling out bad male behavior.

Fundamentally, our difference is that you are equating women in positions of power with men. Their experiences are vastly different; women must overcome far more obstacles than men in order to achieve the same success. You can't then say they're equally obligated to fight against bad male behavior. They've been doing it their whole life. It's up to men and the male community to fix our own behavior, and to make it right. Women simply have no obligation here, no matter how powerful they are or how easy it would be for them to act.

You're not replying to what I said. I'm not talking about victims.

The obligation might not be quite equal for various reasons, but I think it's ridiculous to suggest that suffering you face in situation X removes your moral obligations in unrelated situation Y. If there is an obligation for empowered bystanders to help, it applies to everyone.

I'll endeavor to reply directly to what you said.

Let's use a hypothetical (I love these). There's a female CEO of a company, and one of her female employees is sexually harassed by one of her male employees. Is there an obligation for the company to have a sexual harassment policy and for it to be carried out? Absolutely. Is the female CEO ultimately responsible for this? Yes. If this process fails is she ultimately responsible? Of course. This is the law in the US.

My argument is that you're focusing entirely on the wrong thing. There's not some kind of crazy problem where women in power are overlooking sexual harassment. The problem is that there's an epidemic of men sexually harassing women. In that context, focusing on the female CEO's obligations is deliberately missing the point. It's the same thing as when there's a discussion about sexual harassment, to remind everyone that something like 5% of workplace sexual harassment claims are made by males. Sure, that's a problem, but it's not a problem that holds back an entire class of people, it isn't rooted in centuries of discrimination and oppression, and it isn't pervasive in every institution from schools to courthouses. The problem is with male behavior. I don't know how many times I have to say it, but I'll keep saying it.

===

I'll try and crystallize it even further.

> Anyone that's been in a position of power where they could have stopped harassment without much risk, and didn't, is a part of the problem

No. Oftentimes women who stand up against harassment are harshly punished for it. So even when they are in positions where they can, "without much risk" stop harassment, they won't, because they remember how it went last time. They're victims. Promotions and positioning don't change that at all.

But it's important to say again that many women are impressively brave, and even in the face of consequences speak truth to power. But again, that's always their choice, and you don't get to condemn them because you don't understand the concept of victimization.

EDIT:

I just saw this article: https://medium.com/@katylevinson/sexism-in-tech-don-t-ask-me.... You, and everyone else should read it. It's fucked up.

> The problem is with male behavior.

I agree with that, I think. But those men do not automatically drag in all other men and only men as far as obligation to fix the problem.

> Oftentimes women who stand up against harassment are harshly punished for it. So even when they are in positions where they can, "without much risk" stop harassment, they won't, because they remember how it went last time.

Nothing in that sentence is particular to women. Remember that I'm only talking about speaking up about the harassment of other people.

> But those men do not automatically drag in all other men as far as obligation to fix the problem.

If not them then who? Or do you not agree that women aren't obligated to fix male problems? OR, are you going non-gender binary on me?

> Nothing in that sentence is particular to women.

Men are rarely punished for speaking up about harassment. Men are also rarely harassed, and there isn't an institutional, cultural, societal epidemic of men being sexually harassed in the workplace. I thought we were talking about men harassing women in the workplace re: the topic of the thread.

This is a "but what about the men" comment that, again, deliberately misses the point. Men aren't victims of systemic sexism. Yeah sometimes they're sexually harassed or raped, and that's all horrible and ought to be dealt with. But those events are separate from the institution of sexism that has oppressed women since the inception of the US. We're talking about a huge, entrenched social problem that disadvantages women, not about isolated incidents where men are victims.

> Remember that I'm only talking about speaking up about the harassment of other people.

"Other people" doesn't make a difference. I don't see why you think it would.

>If not them then who? Or do you not agree that women aren't obligated to fix male problems? OR, are you going non-gender binary on me?

I think there are two reasonable answers.

1. The people that do the abusing are the only ones responsible.

2. The people that set society's expectations are partially responsible.

Group 1 is a subset of men. Group 2 is 99% of adults, though men have more responsibility because of how the patriarchy works.

I do not see any reasonable way to declare all men responsible and zero women responsible.

>Men are rarely punished for speaking up about harassment.

I'm going to have to ask for statistics about men and women speaking up about the harassment of third-party women.

>"but what about the men"

It's not meant to be. I'm not trying to ask for any sympathy for men. I'm completely ignoring any men that get harassed, because that's not the problem we're focusing on here.

>"Other people" doesn't make a difference. I don't see why you think it would.

I have no idea what you mean. I will assume my sentence was unclear and restate it. I am talking about a situation where Man A harasses Woman B, and then person C, who has significant resources they can use to help, does something about it. I think if person C has an obligation to help, they have it regardless of their gender.

Edit: Also the answer to "if not them but who" would be the police. (In an ideal world)

> I think there are two reasonable answers.

> 1. The people that do the abusing are the only ones responsible.

> 2. The people that set society's expectations are partially responsible.

Men are responsible for nearly all workplace harassment, and white men have set society's expectations. The standard of beauty in our society is set by what white men find attractive. The standard of dress, hygiene, speech, appearance and behavior is as well. Notice how all the "workplace appropriate" hairstyles are traditionally white hairstyles, for example. Try getting a job with dreadlocks, or if you don't speak the white dialect of English, or if you can't afford a suit.

It's up to members of the patriarchy to acknowledge our privilege, and speak out about these issues that exist in our own community. You can feel indignant about having never harassed a woman and yet still being responsible for the bad behavior of other men. But it's nothing like the harassment women face, and to continually focus on it is entitled.

Or in your own terms:

1. The people who do the abusing (harassment) are likely not the best actors to fix the problem of harassment

2. White men are the ones who set society's expectations

> I do not see any reasonable way to declare all men responsible and zero women responsible.

I feel like you've ignored practically all of my responses to you.

Are you talking about a hypothetical female CEO (or something similar)? Already addressed.

Are you talking about addressing street or workplace harassment of a third-party, like a bystander? Already addressed by my example of my ex-girlfriend experiencing street harassment. The reason she doesn't engage in these things is that she's been physically stalked by groups of men, multiple times, after calling them out. She didn't expect that to happen. There's no way for her to rationally gauge whether or not she "could have stopped harassment without much risk", because the last time she did that, she was put in a situation where she unexpectedly feared for her life. Many, many women have similar stories. Sometimes when women speak up about harassment, they get shot. There is no way to rationally gauge risk in these circumstances. Harassment is violent behavior.

Speaking up for a third-party woman makes no difference in this situation, which is why I keep saying third-party doesn't matter.

> I'm going to have to ask for statistics about men and women speaking up about the harassment of third-party women.

Third-party doesn't matter. But I will point you to the EEOC's charge statistics: http://eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm

You have to make a leap to get there though; the vast majority of sex discrimination charges are filed by women, and you can't file a retaliation charge unless you've first alleged sex discrimination. I admit the data isn't perfect, but to deny it would be disingenuous.

But I'll also ask you: do you think men are frequently retaliated against for speaking up about the harassment of women? Is this really something I should have to find evidence to dispel?

> I think if person C has an obligation to help, they have it regardless of their gender.

I understand the hypothetical you're making completely. If person C is a woman, she has no obligation whatsoever. It doesn't matter what her job is or what resources she has. She has no way of ascertaining risk in that situation. She also has no obligation to report the incident after the fact. Women are punished heavily for reporting harassment, as the EEOC charge statistics show. Women are forced out of school and their jobs for reporting harassment. Often times third-party women themselves are harassed by the person they reported, to say nothing of the onslaught of harassment they can experience from third parties. Filing sexual harassment complaints in Silicon Valley can get you blacklisted. The mythical situation you're conjuring where a woman can stop harassment when she sees it without risk to herself or others simply doesn't exist. It's an elaborate strawman.

===

Police can't bring about cultural and social change. They can punish harassment, but they can't stop it from happening. If this were how law enforcement worked, the US wouldn't lead the west in incarceration.

>I feel like you've ignored practically all of my responses to you.

Sort of. I'm ignoring the parts that are building on others. The problem is we disagree on fundamental principles.

As best I understand it, the basis of your argument is that white men have set society's expectations, so they have all the responsibility.

As best I understand it, the basis of my argument is that everyone in society (unevenly) sets society's expectations, so they all (unevenly) share responsibility.

There's no way to reconcile those two.

----------

If you want comments on specific points I'll make some, but please realize everything after this line is much less important than what's above it.

>Are you talking about a hypothetical female CEO (or something similar)? Already addressed.

Sorry, I got confused by your CEO argument because you suddenly mentioned harassment by women, that was me reading too fast, sorry. But now I'm more confused. You say the female CEO is responsible, then you keep repeating that no women are responsible.

When it comes to a woman walking down the street, I keep largely ignoring it because someone walking down the street has no particular power. A non-harassing man calling them out is also at risk of being stalked and jumped.

>But I'll also ask you: do you think men are frequently retaliated against for speaking up about the harassment of women? Is this really something I should have to find evidence to dispel?

Probably not, but that's because nobody reports the harassment of others to the extent that they should. The victims have to file, and then they get retaliated against.

Victims get punished for reporting harassment, and that's terrible, and that's mostly women, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion of how everyone around the harassment should act. Because in a group of 20 people, even if all the women get harassed once, they're the bystander 90% of the time.

>Women are punished heavily for reporting harassment, as the EEOC charge statistics show.

I don't think you have shown sufficient evidence that women reporting the harassment of others are punished heavily, and also that they are disproportionately punished compared to men.

I seriously have no idea if men are punished as much. I want to know. I would expect a slight bias but for all I know men are 50x as able to report harassment without being retaliated against. But it needs evidence.

> As best I understand it, the basis of your argument is that white men have set society's expectations, so they have all the responsibility.

> As best I understand it, the basis of my argument is that everyone in society (unevenly) sets society's expectations, so they all (unevenly) share responsibility.

> There's no way to reconcile those two.

Sure there is: one of us is wrong :). I'm happy to focus on this part if you like, but I'll do so at the end.

===

> "CEO Stuff"

There are different levels of responsibility and accountability. A CEO, male or female, has legal obligations. Your argument is that women with means have a moral obligation to stop harassment if there is little or no risk to them, otherwise they're complicit. Moral obligations are different than legal obligations for many reasons, but specifically in our discussion, a moral obligation implies responsibility for the situation. I think you agree because you argue that women who don't stop harassment in these cases are "part of the problem". I disagree entirely. Nothing a woman could do would make them "part of the problem", because the problem is male behavior. By definition, women are excluded.

>> But I'll also ask you: do you think men are frequently retaliated against for speaking up about the harassment of women? Is this really something I should have to find evidence to dispel?

> Probably not, but that's because nobody reports the harassment of others to the extent that they should. The victims have to file, and then they get retaliated against.

> I don't think you have shown sufficient evidence that women reporting the harassment of others are punished heavily, and also that they are disproportionately punished compared to men.

> I seriously have no idea if men are punished as much. I want to know. I would expect a slight bias but for all I know men are 50x as able to report harassment without being retaliated against. But it needs evidence.

There is tons and tons of evidence showing that sexual harassment is primarily a problem with men sexually harassing women. This article is well cited: http://www.nwlc.org/resource/fatima-goss-graves-testifies-ee.... Some choice bits:

* Women account for over 82% of sexual harassment charges that make it to the EEOC

* 1 in 4 women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace (at least once).

* Of those 18 million women, 70% of them did not report it.

* In contrast, 1 in 10 men have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace.

* Two-thirds of [low-wage] women workers felt they would face negative repercussions if they complained about or reported sexual harassment from management.

* 46 percent [low-wage] felt there would be negative repercussions if they complained about or reported sexual harassment from co-workers.

* 70 percent [low-wage] felt there would be negative repercussions if they complained about or reported sexual harassment from customers.

* A significant majority of women workers felt they would experience negative consequences, including financial loss, public humiliation, or job termination if they tried to report sexual harassment from management and customers.

Additionally, although not perfectly topical, this article finds that "62 percent of [military] women who reported an assault said they experienced retaliation": http://www.nwlc.org/press-release/dod-report-shows-continued...

Granted these aren't stats about men or women experiencing retaliation in your cooked up, mythical scenario. But if you're going to ignore all these statistics because your friendly neighborhood feminist ally (that's me) couldn't dig up exactly the stat you wanted, you're planting your head firmly and deeply in the sand.

===

> Victims get punished for reporting harassment, and that's terrible, and that's mostly women, but it has absolutely nothing to do with a discussion of how everyone around the harassment should act. Because in a group of 20 people, even if all the women get harassed once, they're the bystander 90% of the time.

I feel like this is the crux of our argument. You believe "bystanders", male or not, are obligated to step in and stop harassment according to their relative power. They're not; women are not obligated to do this. It's not their fault someone is being harassed, they're not responsible for the patriarchy. Women are retaliated against heavily, and they already start at a disadvantage. They are under no obligation to subject themselves to further, disproportionate hardship to fix a problem they have nothing to do with.

I've made several points in that paragraph, and I'm interested which ones you disagree with:

* Do you disagree that it's not women's fault someone is being harassed?

* Do you disagree that women are not responsible for the patriarchy?

* Do you disagree that women are far more likely to suffer the effects of retaliation compared to men, because they're far more likely to experience harassment?

* Do you disagree that women start from a point of disadvantage compared to men, and therefore are not obligated to spend their hard-won resources fixing a problem that isn't their fault and that has already disadvantaged them, especially when they can't guarantee that something bad won't happen to them?

I might be biased, but I find it hard to disagree with any of those points.

===

OK, now I'm ready to talk about even vs. uneven responsibility.

Your argument hinges on the idea that if you can do something, anything, about a problem, at little to no risk to yourself, you have a moral obligation to do so. In this instance, even though women may not be able to do as much as men about harassment, the fact that they can do something morally obligates them. I have multiple counterarguments.

1. Having the means to solve a problem in no way morally obligates you to do something about it. I have something like $5,000 in a savings account. With that money, I could buy a lot of soup for hungry people. I am under no moral obligation to do this. Very few people in society think this, because while hunger persists, almost everyone else has savings. There are multiple problems I can work on with this money. Why should I spend it on soup when I could donate it to mosquito nets? Why should women use their resources against sexual harassment when they could put it towards reproductive rights, or a new set of tires for their car, or whatever they want because it's their money?

2. No one is morally obligated to solve a problem for which they are not responsible. I am not obligated to try and stop ISIS, for example. I bear no responsibility for ISIS' actions. Could I do something? Sure. I could donate to a charity. I could fly to Baghdad and sign up as a resistance fighter (would they say no? I don't know). The fact that I am doing nothing does not make me "part of the problem". Why does bad behavior on ISIS' part constitute some kind of obligation to stop them on mine? Why am I a part of the ISIS problem in your eyes because I'm not on a plane to Baghdad right now?

3. You can never fully ascertain risk, especially in these circumstances. We're not talking about a moon landing here, we're talking about volatile, unpredictable human behavior. This isn't hypothetical; women sometimes experience violent repercussions when confronting harassment. Therefore, a major pillar of your argument ("at little to no risk to yourself") falls.

4. It is grossly entitled for a system that oppresses women to ask women for support so it can stop oppressing them, labeling them as "part of the problem" if they refuse.

5. Given the current situation, which simplified could be characterized as men having $10,000 to solve a problem and Women have $7,500 to solve a problem because the problem has already cost women $2,500, why are women obligated to spend any money at all to fix the problem? Hasn't the problem cost them enough already?

>There is tons and tons of evidence showing that sexual harassment is primarily a problem with men sexually harassing women.

Yep, never disagreed with that.

>Granted these aren't stats about men or women experiencing retaliation in your cooked up, mythical scenario.

What??? My scenario is "men harasses woman, someone else sees". Your stats are impeccable, but they are about victims reporting, and that is totally unrelated to my argument.

===

I'll leave the middle part for last.

===

> 1. Having the means to solve a problem in no way morally obligates you to do something about it. I have something like $5,000 in a savings account.

This is a reasonable point. I may or may not accept it entirely, but it's entirely valid.

>2. No one is morally obligated to solve a problem for which they are not responsible.

Yep, I agree here, the question is about how to define 'responsible'.

>3. You can never fully ascertain risk, especially in these circumstances.

Agreed that you can never be sure. This applies to everyone so it doesn't change my argument at all. It just changes where you draw lines, not if you draw lines.

>4. It is grossly entitled for a system that oppresses women to ask women for support so it can stop oppressing them, labeling them as "part of the problem" if they refuse.

It's entitled to do this to anyone who is not a harasser, but someone's gotta explain that it's not okay.

>5. Given the current situation, which simplified could be characterized as men having $10,000 to solve a problem and Women have $7,500 to solve a problem because the problem has already cost women $2,500, why are women obligated to spend any money at all to fix the problem? Hasn't the problem cost them enough already?

This hits right at the core of how you and I disagree. I don't think unfair treatment should come before moral obligations. Moral obligations are there no matter how you've been treated.

But perhaps you say the obligation is for the rich to help first. That is totally valid! White straight guy has to help the most, because he had it easy. I can get behind that! But then Man Z, who only has $300 because life screwed him over, I don't think he's more obligated to help than the woman with $7,500 is.

===

Now your bullet points.

* Do you disagree that it's not women's fault someone is being harassed?

Depends on what 'fault' means. They have no direct fault, they share in societal fault.

* Do you disagree that women are not responsible for the patriarchy?

Women are partially responsible for the patriarchy. They are not slave caste. They are mistreated and much of their rightful power is stolen from them, but not all of it.

* Do you disagree that women are far more likely to suffer the effects of retaliation compared to men, because they're far more likely to experience harassment?

I agree that women are far more likely to suffer retaliation because they experience more harassment. However I am not convinced about retaliation unrelated to self-reporting. In particular I am not convinced that women trying to fix societal flaws are far more likely to suffer retaliation than men.

In other words, I'm not sure the problem goes beyond "people are really shitty to victims".

Hoo boy. I'm going to split this one up.

> women start from a point of disadvantage compared to men

Yes.

> therefore are not obligated

Disagree.

>a problem that isn't their fault

Same for non-harassing men.

>and that has already disadvantaged them

This is true, this sucks.

>especially when they can't guarantee that something bad won't happen to them

For trying to change society's standards? This is technically correct, but this applies to men too, and is totally unrelated to the retaliation inflicted upon victims.

===

So in summary:

Some men harass women.

These men and only these men are directly responsible.

In a broader sense, the patriarchy is indirectly responsible.

The patriarchy gives disproportionate power to men, but it is made of up men and women. It is the current form of society. Everyone contributes.

There are many reasons men have more blame. But they do not have all of it.

Men do not directly pass on the secrets of harassment to other men, out of sight of women. It is a problem that is owned by the entire patriarchy, and the entire patriarchy is owned by everyone.

>> Granted these aren't stats about men or women experiencing retaliation in your cooked up, mythical scenario.

> What??? My scenario is "men harasses woman, someone else sees". Your stats are impeccable, but they are about victims reporting, and that is totally unrelated to my argument.

You've yet to explain why the third-party thing is important.

=== I'll leave the middle part for last. ===

>> 2. No one is morally obligated to solve a problem for which they are not responsible.

> Yep, I agree here, the question is about how to define 'responsible'.

Well google dictionary defines responsible as: "being the primary cause of something and so able to be blamed or credited for it".

>> 3. You can never fully ascertain risk, especially in these circumstances.

> Agreed that you can never be sure. This applies to everyone so it doesn't change my argument at all. It just changes where you draw lines, not if you draw lines.

This isn't merely a theoretical argument. When a woman steps in to stop harassment, there is a real threat of violence. There's no way to reasonably determine what the amount of risk is. Even if the woman reports the episode after the fact, there is always a chance of retaliation, either by the harasser or by the reporting woman's boss, or by prospective employers because she's been blacklisted. It's critical to understand that because of this, your scenario does not exist.

>> 4. It is grossly entitled for a system that oppresses women to ask women for support so it can stop oppressing them, labeling them as "part of the problem" if they refuse.

> It's entitled to do this to anyone who is not a harasser, but someone's gotta explain that it's not okay.

There are two issues with the argument you're making here:

1. The system oppresses women so it's unfair. The system doesn't oppress men (OK you can make a gender roles argument, but let's stipulate for now), in fact, white men built this system, so it's fair.

2. The issue with your argument that you make here is your phrase "to do". Women don't control the patriarchy, they can't direct society to force white men to police themselves. They obviously can't, because it's not happening. You're implying equality between white men and women when you say, "it's entitled to do this to anyone". It isn't, because women aren't responsible for the patriarchy, rape culture, and so on.

>> 5. Given the current situation, which simplified could be characterized as men having $10,000 to solve a problem and Women have $7,500 to solve a problem because the problem has already cost women $2,500, why are women obligated to spend any money at all to fix the problem? Hasn't the problem cost them enough already?

> This hits right at the core of how you and I disagree. I don't think unfair treatment should come before moral obligations. Moral obligations are there no matter how you've been treated.

I vehemently disagree with this. I have no obligation to treat someone who beats me with respect, for example. Or if I'm married and my partner cheats on me, my moral obligations change significantly. Do you disagree?

> But perhaps you say the obligation is for the rich to help first. That is totally valid! White straight guy has to help the most, because he had it easy. I can get behind that! But then Man Z, who only has $300 because life screwed him over, I don't think he's more obligated to help than the woman with $7,500 is.

This is where the analogy, like all analogies, breaks down. In the patriarchy, we deal in the currency of privilege, and privilege is relative. If a man has $300, there's a comparable woman with $225.

===

Now your bullet points.

>> * Do you disagree that it's not women's fault someone is being harassed?

> Depends on what 'fault' means. They have no direct fault, they share in societal fault.

I more or less mean "responsibility", which again is "being the primary cause of something". Therefore, even if I buy into the idea of societal fault (which I don't), women clearly have no responsibility for this. They're obviously not the primary cause of the patriarchy.

>> * Do you disagree that women are not responsible for the patriarchy?

> Women are partially responsible for the patriarchy. They are not slave-caste.

I actually feel like this is the root of our disagreement. Let's use actual slaves as an analogy. There were free blacks in the US during slavery. Did they bear any responsibility for slavery? Your argument says that they did, even if it's a small amount, because they had at least some power. But, of course, this is ridiculous. They didn't create slavery, and given its druthers, slavery would oppress them (if it hadn't already). Same thing goes for the patriarchy.

The oppressed are never responsible for the system that oppresses them. How could that even be the case?

It seems like you're implying that the patriarchy is a problem that affects us all and we're all in it together to dismantle it. But that's incorrect. The patriarchy was created by white men, and it benefits 1/3 of the population while oppressing the rest. The oppressed are not responsible for the system that oppresses them, therefore it's morally incumbent on those who benefit from the oppressive system to fix it.

>> * Do you disagree that women are far more likely to suffer the effects of retaliation compared to men, because they're far more likely to experience harassment?

> I agree that women are far more likely to suffer retaliation because they experience more harassment. However I am not convinced about retaliation unrelated to self-reporting. In particular I am not convinced that women trying to fix societal flaws are far more likely to suffer retaliation than men.

Again you've yet to explain why third-party is important. I will also clarify and say that regardless on the retaliation risk to men and women, men bear responsibility because it's our system, and because we know for a fact that women experience high levels of retaliation.

===

I'm not gonna quote all the junk for the last point and the final section, because HN isn't really equipped for these kinds of discussions. What I will say is that it boils down to this:

Women are not members of the patriarchy, any more than blacks were members of slavery, or any other oppressed group is a member of the system that oppresses them. Even if you argue that contemporary white men did not create the patriarchy, white men are the only ones that benefit from it. You cannot morally obligate the oppressed to fix the system that oppresses them. The only group left is the group unoppressed, and that's white men. This is why all men are responsible, and no women are responsible.

Well thanks for the conversation. I think we're pretty close done at this point though. Sad that we haven't resolved much of the disagreement.

I don't think the current system is comparable to slavery. Slaves in the US really had next to zero power. They were not part of the same society. The oppressed groups today do have some power. You could say we're halfway to fixing the problem. It's terrible but it's less terrible.

I just think you're wrong to view it in black and white terms. There are people in privileged groups that have been treated terribly anyway. There are people in oppressed groups with massive power. There are (not common enough) privileged people that work extremely hard to make things more fair. There are (rare) oppressed people that work extremely hard to perpetuate oppression. There are certain groups of men that have far less privilege than certain groups of women, because of other factors like race and orientation.

>You cannot morally obligate the oppressed to fix the system that oppresses them.

I obligate anyone that perpetuates oppression.

Straight white men have the most obligation to fix things, but if they all ceased to exist one day there wouldn't be a single type of oppression fixed. Sexism, racism, everything else would still be there.

Because those things are usually irrelevant, have been tried to no effect or will make the situation worse. Women get raped wearing tracksuit pants and a hoodie, and leaving a domestic violence situation is often the trigger for more violence (including murder) when the abuser catches up.

Because it's male behavior.

It's also white behavior, black behavior, human behavior, woman behavior...

(Full disclosure: I'm a white male) Statistics overwhelmingly document sexual violence (and all violence, by the way) as male behavior and historical record shows that the ideological and individual defenses of it is also overwhelmingly male. Your sentence is non-sequitur in this context.

The patriarchy is white, male, and oppresses members of other groups (black men, white women, etc.) Can women sexually harass other women? Absolutely. Is there a huge societal problem where women value other women based solely on their appearance and ability to please men, reducing their opportunities for education, employment, earning, and general success? No. White men hold the cards in US society, and it's the case wherever you look: JDs and MBAs granted, PhDs granted, wages earned, wealth accumulated, income from small and large businesses, statehouses, Congress, the presidency, the board room, Hollywood, etc. etc. etc. You really just can't equate one woman sexually harassing another with an entire institution putting bricks on the heads of half its population from birth.

>The patriarchy is white, male, and oppresses members of other groups (black men, white women, etc.)

And yet you grouped all races together for some reason.

Edit: To elaborate: The current power structure is bad, but it's not a simple male vs. female thing.

> And yet you grouped all races together for some reason.

Oh you mean when I said "male behavior" instead of "white male behavior".

Social issues in the US are complicated. Can black men benefit from the patriarchy, do they have some privilege because they're male, even though they're black? Yes. Do white women have some privilege solely because they are white? Yes. Are black men or white women part of the patriarchy? No. The patriarchy is a white, male institution that oppresses anyone that isn't.

White women can be racist against minorities, but they can't be sexist against men. Black men can be sexist towards women, but they can't be racist against minorities. This is because racism and sexism are cultural and institutional. They can be rude, they can be discriminatory, but they can't bring cultural and institutional pressures to bear on members of the oppressing group. That power is reserved solely for members of the oppressing group.

> woman behavior...

Sexual harassment is almost entirely male behavior, white, black, etc. It's up to men to stop it. Women have no obligation here. The incidence of women sexually harassing each other is so low, it has practically no social consequences. Therefore, it's not a societal problem we have to fix, and this suggestion is a strawman.

Harasser implies male. Male does not imply harasser.

If you want to talk about the people that decide to harass, use "harassers". Harassers have an obligation to stop.

If you want to talk about how society influences people, use "society". Everyone influences what is seen as acceptable.

Men do not have special control over other men. Saying the fix is "up to men" is inaccurate no matter what you mean. It's either insulting by implying that all men are harassers, or it's insulting by implying that women have no power in shaping society.

So if you want to talk about how men have somewhat more obligation in shaping behavior because of power structures, that sounds like a very interesting conversation. If you want to tell me women have no power/responsibility at all, that's just obnoxious.

> Harasser implies male. Male does not imply harasser.

Sexual harassment is a problem in the male community. It is perpetrated almost entirely by males. Women have no responsibility to solve male problems. Our behavior is in no way their fault.

> Everyone influences what is seen as acceptable.

No, in our society the patriarchy has decided what is acceptable. In the 18th and 19th centuries, we had laws governing women's dress so they physically couldn't do male labor. We also prohibited them from standing up in stage coaches. There's a long list. You can say, "that's the past", but it's our societal history, like it or not. FWIW, it persists to this day, with different dress codes for male and female high school students, and with men allowed to be shirtless and not women.

> Men do not have special control over other men. Saying the fix is "up to men" is inaccurate no matter what you mean.

I'm not saying men have special control over other men. I'm saying women have no obligation to solve a behavior problem in the male community, especially when they're the victims of that behavior. And if we eliminate women, we're left with... men.

> It's either insulting by implying that all men are harassers

This is a non sequitur, and a strawman. Just because I don't personally harass women doesn't mean I don't have an obligation to stand up to my peers when they do. People are often the best advocates inside their own communities, so for my white male peers, my voice, for better or worse, carries more weight than that of people of color or women. Look up Tim Wise some time.

> or it's insulting by implying that women have no power in shaping society.

Women do have power, but if it were sufficient, there wouldn't be a wage gap. There would be 220 congresswomen instead of 84, and 51 women senators instead of 20. There wouldn't be a war on their reproductive rights. Women fought for 150 years for the right to vote. American male slaves got the right to vote before women did. Marital rape wasn't considered a crime until the 1980s. Women were passed over as estate executors in favor of distant male relatives for decades.

> If you want to tell me women have no power/responsibility at all, that's just obnoxious.

Women fight harassment, sexism, misogyny, and disadvantage every day, even if they're not aware of it. Women pay more for health care. They pay higher mortgage rates and they pay more for cars. They get paid less at work. They're less likely to be hired and less likely to be promoted. When they take initiative in the workplace, they're likely to be penalized, as women are still evaluated on the basis of "likeability". They're basically the sole victims of sexual harassment, and outside the prison system (where the perpetrators of rape are still overwhelmingly male), they're far, far more likely to be the victims of rape. I'm struggling to come up with an area where women have it better than men, and I really can't come up with one.

And after taking stock of all the shit women deal with every day, I think it's wildly, shamefully entitled to argue that on top of all of it, they still have more obligations. To their credit, many women do work hard against sexism, even when it's not their job. But that's their choice, and you don't get to decide for them.

I don't think we're going to reach an agreement on this.

Women have it harder, it sucks. But I don't think all that shit they deal with affects their basic moral obligations. I think moral obligations are tied into the level of power people have, and women have nonzero power so they have nonzero obligations.

Talking about a "male community" to argue they have the obligation and nobody else is a false grouping. You could just as easily lump "abusive men" and "women that know spanish" and start saying the responsibility lies on mexico to stop the abusers.

There is no male-only cabal with 3 billion members. There is a fucked-up patriarchy where men have more power but not all of the power.

When you say that women have some level of moral obligation, you're assigning them responsibility for the current state of affairs. They've had nothing to do with setting up the current social/cultural/institutional system that oppresses them. Not a single thing. They do, however, make tough decisions to try and survive and thrive in it. Our society in the US is not a woman's society. It's a white male society and it's up to white males to fix it, by listening to women and minorities and doing our best to acknowledge and respond to their experiences.

If you like terrible analogies, here's another. What you're arguing is that an inmate falsely imprisoned is obligated to keep others from being falsely imprisoned if they have significant resources and there is little to no risk to them. Stipulating for now that there's a way to objectively quantify risk and that there are situations that are definitely low or no risk (which is a tenuous claim), the former prisoner owes society nothing. They were oppressed. They're trying to get her their life together, and even if they can deem a given situation low/no risk, and even if they somehow clawed their way out from under a felony into success, they're under no obligation to use their hard-won resources to fix society's fucked up "justice" system. They'd go broke in 10 minutes, for one thing.

You've argued that amount of harassment isn't an issue, but it absolutely is. If every woman in a position of power were obligated to spend their resources fighting harassment, that's all they'd do (or, according to you, they'd be part of the problem). This is an unfair responsibility you're assigning to women, who are in no way responsible for the current mess.

> women have nonzero power so they have nonzero obligations

They also have nonzero risk and aren't responsible for society's oppression of them. They also have less power as a result of the patriarchy; you can't tell someone who just got robbed that they'll have to pay some money to catch the thief. They just got robbed! You can't tell women to spend their resources to fight the patriarchy, the patriarchy saps their resources every chance it gets.

I really don't see how responsibility enters into it. The only people responsible are the people actively harrassing - and expecting them to self-police without anyone calling them out on it is unrealistic. Saying that men as a gender are responsible makes the assumption that all or most men are like the people portrayed in the OP.

I agree with the comment above that the sorts of men who harass are the types that won't listen to complaints from women - so it's necessary for men to speak out about it. In addition to that though, the culture won't change until we shine a light on the abuses that do happen, and given that these are often private conversations, we need women to speak out when they're harassed as well, if we hope to accomplish anything.

It isn't a question of responsibility. It's about all of us, men and women working towards creating a better workplace culture, where this kind of shit doesn't fly.

>expecting [harassers] to self-police without anyone calling them out on it is unrealistic

Yes, that is why I charge all of us men with "policing" each other. The non-violent of us should be trying to get the violent of us unlearn the ideologies that justify the violence. It is men who maintain the culture and benefit from it, and it is women who lose, every time.

Harassment often happens in private. You may know harassers without realizing it. It's really necessary that women speak out about this.

Women do speak out, and they have been for hundreds of years.

The problem is that when a man is accused of harassment, assault, or rape, that man is usually in a position of power and defended, while the woman is usually blamed, discredited, or otherwise attacked. Many women choose not to speak out because of the negative effect it can have on their career and their peer group, to say nothing of the onslaught of harassment that usually follows. It's much more necessary for society to change its thinking about women who report these actions than it is for women to report them, at this point. Women have been doing it, largely against their own self interest, from the beginning.

Doesn't this thread highlight how useful specific examples can be though? Discussions about a nebulous sexist atmosphere at tech companies don't generate the type of attention that specific examples like this one does.

I'm not implying that women have been derelict in calling things out. I'm just saying that we should continue to encourage women to come forward with these types of abuses.

Encouraging women to come forward and supporting them when they do is one thing. Arguing implicitly (not that you're doing this, but grandparents are) that women bear any responsibility for workplace harassment because they're not vocal enough is victim blaming.

It's also not strictly necessary for women to report harassment in order to fight against it. Men can create a culture where harassment is unacceptable. Instead of joking about how hot Sasha Grey is, or how you want to fork a repo with a big dongle, we can talk about how fucked up it is that women are constantly groped and belittled. We can look for patterns of violent, misogynistic behavior in our peers and call them out on it. If we ourselves see harassment or sexism happening, we can step in appropriately. We can take women seriously when they do report it (something like 1% of rape accusations are false, for example). Harassment occurs because men have the power in society, and it's therefore incumbent on us to use that power to stop it.

Many men are good at this, but many more deny that there's even a problem. This thread is great evidence. Take a look at which comments are grey and which ones are still black; it's pretty clear how SV thinks about these issues. If you need more proof, find an Ellen Pao thread, same story there.

Are people that make sexual remarks more likely to be violent?

Violence is a spectrum, on which harassment sits. If we were not talking about "sexual" harassment and violence, this would be uncontroversial as an implicit assumption.

Well said, I salute you!

> Saying that men as a gender are responsible makes the assumption that all or most men are like the people portrayed in the OP.

No, that's not what it assumes. It assumes that only men are capable of fixing the "boys club" attitudes. And that is spot on. A big part of the problem—and the part that is most easily addressed—is what happens when women are not around. Men need to take responsibility for fixing that.

I addressed this later in my post. I'm 100% in agreement that men need to call out this behaviour when they see it, not only because it's said when women are not around, but also because the type of men disrespectful enough to harass women are likely to not listen to women. But by the same token, posts like this one highlighting specific incidents of harassment have so much more power than just whispered murmurings, so to solve this problem, women need to call out incidents of harassment, since men aren't always around to witness it.

The language of "responsibility" isn't the correct way to frame it though. I'm not "responsible" for corporations that pollute heavily, but I'm still going to argue against it in order to improve the world for future generations. I don't see how this is all that different.

I agree that everyone can help.

However, I disagree that claiming that men should take primary responsibility is wrong and I think your analogy is a bit off: unless you're claiming that all men are harassers, which would be pretty hyperbolic.

For better or worse, the men who do this kind of stuff listen to other men a lot more than they listen to women, probably largely because you probably don't respect women if you're harassing them. A clear message that harassment isn't acceptable, coming from other men, is much more likely to reach these people than if only or primarily women are saying it. This kind of behavior thrives when the person taking part in it can rationalize it as normal or OK--and making it clear that isn't the case goes a long way.

Men can try (and take their lumps along with the women trying to do something about these problems). But there are some fundamental cultural splits across which men certainly don't listen to each other. For many, it matters much less whether I am male and much more what religion I observe.

In some subcultures, and cultures, it really is considered the woman's fault if a man feels inclined to harass her (or rape her, as the case may be). I can't sympathetically reach people who stick firmly to these views and are reinforced by large numbers of other people who reject all my arguments and fundamentally reject me, because they just don't share any part of my worldview, we have completely different values. They have me encoded as a threat to tradition, or a nonbeliever, or as not a real man, or as a cultural imperialist, and they just don't want to hear anything I have to say about this.

I can confront these people, and that may carry a certain amount of satisfaction for me, but that sort of confrontation rarely convinces anybody.

In that case maybe we need to stop thinking we are always going to get people to listen to us. What is a rational response to that realization?

No, you're a little off. If we accept your example, then you're arguing that murder victims are responsible for fixing murders.

There are plenty of differences between murder and sexism (you can only murder a single person and once, sexism has oppressed multiple people multiple times for centuries... millennia?, sexism is a social/cultural phenomenon perpetuated by the patriarchy, murder isn't). The analogy really just doesn't fit.

The responsibility for fixing a problem is never with the victim.

I'm not responsible for violence either, even though I'm not a woman. Only the perpetrators themselves are responsible for the violence.

> If you work somewhere where the culture is harassing/hostile to women (or to anyone), you should take it seriously and either work elsewhere or try to stop it.

A thousand times this. We all have a responsibility to stop workplace harassment. As a manager, it would infuriate me to learn that a member of my team had been treated this way.

It saddens me to think that for most people, incidents like these won't reduce people's interest in working for Google.

The description of Vic Gundotra, if true, is disappointing. One would think that someone so polished and smart would have the sense to realize that such behavior is over the line.

You mean this tweet?

> After hours, having drinks with Vic and the gang. Vic talking about how G+ was promoting Sasha Grey. Starts talking about how hot she is.

I may be entirely clueless, but is this not considered an acceptable topic for after hours drinks?

Edit: I found another Vic tweet that you were more likely referring to:

> "You look amazing in that bathing suit, like a rock star." -Vic Gundotra, to me, when I was a junior engineer at Google. In Maui.

You know, when you are as high up in a company as he is (and as highly compensated) you should probably assume that you are the face of that company 24/7. Anytime you're chatting with anyone you don't know intimately, in a setting outside of your home or that of a friend, maybe just keep it to polite topics. That's why they're called polite topics. Rightly or wrongly, people are liable to interpret you as representing your company and its culture.

Talking with a subordinate about how hot a porn star is doesn't seem even slightly sketchy to you? Even if you think he was just really excited to have someone using Google+ can you imagine how someone whose career is substantially in your control might wonder about whether there's some other expectation or even whether they can say “I'm not comfortable having this conversation” without consequences?

In any case https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574268362051584001 makes it clear that there was more to it:

> "You look amazing in that bathing suit, like a rock star." -Vic Gundotra, to me, when I was a junior engineer at Google. In Maui.

> Vic G to Matt S within earshot of me, on a boat in Maui: "doesn't Kelly look amazing heh heh"

… and it's looking like this wasn't just an isolated misunderstanding:

> anyone who has worked with Vic knows he constantly makes comments about women's appearances.

https://twitter.com/jasonpjason/status/574267705714339840

None of Vic's compliments, which by the way happened outside the office, constitute sexual harassment. By vilifying innocent remarks, you're only further making men not want to work with women, while promoting a culture of oversensitivity and political correctness. Who wants to work in an environment where they can't make a simple compliment without being publicly ousted as a mysogynist offender? I sure as hell don't.

> None of Vic's compliments, which by the way happened outside the office, constitute sexual harassment.

1. "Outside the office," is irrelevant (it's ALWAYS wrong to make inappropriate remarks about a colleague or—worse—subordinate), and since the remarks were made at a company offsite they can be considered in a "work environment."

2. You're way off base. Commenting on a colleague's personal appearance to other colleagues is totally inappropriate. Commenting on a colleague's appearance in a bathing suit is totally inappropriate.

> By vilifying innocent remarks, you're only further making men not want to work with women

I hope men like you feel uncomfortable enough to get the fuck out of this industry. I don't want to work with you, and I'm male! Get lost!

> while promoting a culture of oversensitivity and political correctness

The problem is that the offenders in these situations aren't AT ALL sensitive to the feelings of others. There are a plethora of examples of men alienating women with their shitty and insensitive comment and attitudes. Reactions to this are not about "oversensitivity" but rather a plea for ANY KIND OF SENSITIVITY AT ALL PLEASE.

> Who wants to work in an environment where they can't make a simple compliment without being publicly ousted as a mysogynist offender?

If you think these remarks are appropriate and non-sexual then you should probably just keep your mouth shut.

I am curious if you believe that there is a standard for human sexual behavior that is safe and never inappropriate.

I think it is quite likely that Gundotra is a sleazy slimeball and Google has covered its ass by trying its best to ignore the complaint. He should probably be fired and Google should never be allowed to pretend it doesn't have a sexist culture.

However: I do not think that things are as simple as declaring the rules of a "work environment" and enforcing them.

After-hours events or company vacations can be considered work environments, but they're also deliberate attempts to escape the work environment. If you extend the logic of standardizing all work environments, what you might find is that it's simply inappropriate to be around coworkers in sexualized situations. (And if you don't think bathing suits are designed to sexualize bodies, I'm not sure where you're drawing the line.)

Edit: Perhaps I should make it clear that I find nothing inconsistent in demanding that work events be completely professional, that all corporate interaction be sterile, and that's basically what I expect from my employer. No booze cruises. No getaways to beach locations. No employee dating whatsoever, not even a hint of acceptability for that kind of relationship.

I just don't know that this is a realistic expectation, and I don't trust anyone that is certain of a solution. Sometimes problems cannot be solved and we can only punish who we can punish and move on.

> He should probably be fired

Gundotra left Google many months ago.

> None of Vic's compliments, which by the way happened outside the office, constitute sexual harassment.

In or out of the office doesn't matter if it's a work event – and off-site retreats, conferences, etc. certainly qualify. Even if it's not, a manager still has to be responsible for what they say to a subordinate and make it clear that this is unofficial and not connected to their job.

> By vilifying innocent remarks, you're only further making men not want to work with women, while promoting a culture of oversensitivity and political correctness. Who wants to work in an environment where they can't make a simple compliment without being publicly ousted as a mysogynist offender? I sure as hell don't.

I'm a man and I don't have a problem working with women. The difference is that I know my job isn't a singles bar and in no case would I want someone to think that there would be professional consequences for not reacting favorably to something they didn't like. That doesn't mean that you can't be friendly with people you work with, only that you have to pay more attention to what you say than you might with a group of close friends, because your friends have already given you more of an idea for what's okay or not and, critically, if it ceases to be fun they can leave with no professional or financial consequences.

Finally, you're very quick to use loaded language which implies knowledge that Vic's actual intention was completely innocent. Using terms like “simple compliment”, “innocent remarks” says that you know more about what he meant than someone who was actually there or the coworkers who've voiced support for her interpretation. Given that the most common reaction seems to be “That sounds bad – Google better do something” and not “Off with his head”, I'm not sure you should be criticizing anyone for oversensitivity.

I think that's mainly a consequence of the work climate in the US. Unfortunately people have to act as if they were asexual. Or, at least pretend they completely uninterested in sex. It's a shame to think that one of the greatest preoccupations in people's minds has to be subjugated and buried. I think that's a bit unhealthy for society.

Don't read that as saying harassment is okay. Harassment is not okay. However, talking about sexual topics bringing them up, etc., is not sexual harassment, prima facie. But this is where we are, unlike Europe. I dare say in Europe there is less sexual harassment in the workplace, but simultaneously there is more open talk about sex at the workplace; people don't have a puritanical knee-jerk reaction to sex. Talking about sex and complimenting people in the workplace is not some weird taboo. They understand people are sexual creatures and don't try to pretend they are not.

Again, it's reprehensible and bad to sexually harass people. I think any normal person would agree --but I would have to disagree with saying that to combat sexual harassment it's necessary to extirpate sex from people's conversations at work. It's unnatural. What's next, sing a contract explicitly allowing consensual sexual talk at work to ensure correctness?

To put this another way, women also like to talk about sex in the workplace. What they don't like is talking about sex turning into an invitation to sex. It's not. Sometimes people just want to talk. And it's not as if women are sexless beings without impulse. As men, women too have sexual thoughts about people at work but they don't typically act on them in a repulsive way, where as men don't control their impulses as well (plus tend to have the power imbalance in their favor).

I don't think you even remotely understand the problem. The problem isn't the place human sexuality plays in conversation, but the fact that women in Silicon Valley work in male-dominated environments that have been getting increasingly hostile towards women over the last two decades, and people working in such environments quickly sublimate the power structure. It's not that talking about sex makes the atmosphere hostile, but the other way around: women (and men) don't feel comfortable where they don't feel safe. If all employees felt safe, secure, and respected, they -- including women -- will be happy to talk about many subjects, including sex.

No, I get it. My issue is that they get conflated in the media and in discussion. Combating sexism and harassment is good, no two ways about it -it is a problem? Yes, I know of women who have to turn down repeated requests for dates, from the same people over and over and over. Myself I remember some guy asking me out repeatedly --knowing very well I'm not into guys. But, it's a shame that there is no nuance and any semblance of sexuality is automatically seen as treading the very thin ice of harassment.

People aren't sure any more if a compliment is going to be interpreted as harassment. Harassment meanwhile goes unabated, and as you conclude, may be getting worse.

But the harassment, in this case, is only a symptom of the sexism that is making its way into the very core of SV workplaces. Everything gets amplified when the perpetrator enjoys more power and the support of the boy club. This case is just one more demonstration that the problem is not the limits of propriety, but a very unfair distribution of power.

If someone hurts you, whether or not you will experience the offense as a dangerous threat depends very much on whether the offender makes the offense knowing they enjoy the protection of power, which allows them to harm people who don't.

It can't be a symptom of sexism, else I could not ever be accused of harassing a man. Yet, could be capable of harassing a man, or a man harass me. Or one woman another. And power amplifies it, or squelches it (one rarely sees a superior get sexually harassed, but it's not because a potential harasser does not exist). Harassment is to me, more a disorder, at least that's how I have experienced it.

This particular harassment -- and the great distress it has caused -- is a symptom of sexism.

It isn't that you have to pretend to be asexual.

Just don't sexually harass people who work under you as subordinates; that's abusing your position.

Who wants to work with creeps always making comments re: a co-worker's rumpus? Not me.

> which by the way happened outside the office

The proximity to the office is irrelevant according to NY and CA law.

> you're only further making men not want to work with women

I hadn't realized this sentiment existed.

> while promoting a culture of oversensitivity and political correctness

There is a big difference between oversensitivity and a reasonable response to being treated differently because of one's looks/gender. Imagine if you walked into work every day and an executive said "Nice legs" or "nice blouse" to you. By your definition that is harmless.

It's not a simple compliment. At best it's a complicated compliment.

Then give up your job and go home. You don't have a right to a job, and you don't have a right to make inappropriate comments.

During the whole Real Names debate, VG's standard example of a name he didn't want on G+ was "dogfart". That example was named repeatedly, becoming a trope. Google's top many results for that term are ALL for a porn company.

I think I read that he said something like "bla bla Sacha Grey is hot"... That is fine.. But then he allegedly goes on to say "Has anyone seen any of her movies?" This is crossing the line. At this point he's asking coworkers to share details of their sexual life with him. Like you wanna know what kinda porn I jerk off to? Get some common sense.

It's casual conversation, stop overanalyzing it.

It's casual conversation with a close friend or intimate partner. It's not a "group discussion" topic for coworkers with varied backgrounds. I come from a very liberal, non-christian European background and the experience of discussing what kind of pornos I watch in my private time with a boss is getting frighteningly close to a circle jerk.

EDIT: then again circle jerks are more common in some places than others.

I've talked about porn with my bosses and co-workers. It's not really a big deal.

Actually it sort of is. It sounds like you might be a problem.

You're imposing your personal conservative standards on others. What if I told you that you can't talk about rap music because it offends me? That'd be incredibly arrogant. I think the problem is you.

Not all issues are equal. Porn, in particular, has a lot of history of abuse of its participants and objectification of a large class of people.

Rap music is a genre. If you said "rap music that talks about running around murdering police officers", despite the fact that no police officers were murdered in the making of that song, it would probably also be offensive.

What if I told you that you can't talk about rap music because it offends me?

Do you mean ever, or do you just mean to you (or in a group conversation in which you are taking part)? Because the latter would be absolutely fine. You don't want to talk about that, no worries. I won't bring it up. What's the problem with that?

Saying these things to strangers on a cruise ship would make you pretty much a creepy greaseball, unless you already had a good idea this kind of discussion was welcomed by your audience. Even just thinking about it, I want to cringe and feel embarrassed at how socially inept and inappropriate it is.

Being a creepy greaseball is not illegal, we have social ways of dealing with that. But this wasn't that situation, it was a more serious one, because these were subordinates he had control over; in that position it's just not ethical to push people to talk about porn and to accept your announcement that you want to grope them. And it's bad business when we are talking about people who were not hired as prostitutes but as long-term assets for the company.

Talking about porn makes you a creepy greaseball? I guess that makes me one.

Talking about porn in the presence of people who's attitudes towards porn you are not sure of, yeah, that makes you a creepy greaseball. Talking about porn socially with people who's attitudes you know? That's not creepy at all. Talking about porn with a subordinate of <appropriate gender>? Never OK.

The thing here is understanding context and the way other people's feelings need to be respected.

Seeing how down-voted you are makes me scared of the US work environment. Looks like the only way to avoid any potential trouble is to act like a robot not just at work but also at company outings.

Standing up to something in the moment, individually...is really hard and can actually be rather embarrassing. If you found you kept your mouth shut or laughed along at something so as to avoid social awkwardness, that doesn't mean you failed. You still have the opportunity to right things. Reach out to an colleague for moral support.

To quote pervocracy:

""" When I worked on an ambulance (this is my personal "one time in band camp"), we were at a nursing home, dropping a patient off after a routine transport, when we saw something disturbing. A nurse was giving liquid medication to another patient who was clearly choking on it. The patient was gagging horribly, the nurse was holding his head in place and forcing the oral syringe down his throat even as he was thrashing and making drowning noises, and after she finished she walked away even though he was coughing up medication all over his pillow.

My work partner and I saw this, and, with that creeped out feeling of "did I just see what I think I saw?" and "something's not right," we... left and took another call and went off to the hospital. Then we grabbed some lunch. Then one of us--I don't even remember which one--blurted it out.

"That thing at the nursing home... you saw that too, right? That was kind of fucked up, right?"

Those two sentences started the chain of events that lead to us filing a formal elder abuse report.

"""

http://pervocracy.blogspot.com/2012/07/just-one-ally.html?m=...

Exactly. If enough people do something small it can make a big difference, it's not necessary to vocally confront anyone or even do anything publicly (though if you do all the better).

doing the right thing is hard. we need to encourage it more...

> If you (man or woman) work somewhere where the culture is harassing/hostile to women (or to anyone), you should take it seriously and either work elsewhere or try to stop it.

This is true. However, this incident - by itself - isn't evidence of a "culture that is harassing/hostile to women" at Google. All I see in this incident is evidence of a single employee, making a single inappropriate comment, with an over-the-top, attention seeking reaction by its recipient. This is a matter for HR - not for Twitter/Google+.

On the bright side, this is probably the most action that Google+ has seen in quite a while.

She pinned a single quote, but she alleges much more: a pattern of behavior, and willful ignorance or worse by HR.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9163769

3 statements, one of which seemed to be made under the influence, and the other 2 which where simple quick compliments (and in no way harassment), made offsite, and years apart, is not a pattern. It's dots.

Her further allegations of being pigeon holed or moved out because of this are not proven, and might not be true at all.

If you mean that we shouldn't destroy a man's or a company's reputation based solely on these allegations, I absolutely agree.

And congrats, you are the problem.

Either

1 - you didn't read her claims; or

2 - you don't see the problem in a supervisor making such a comment, necessitating the employee's career advancement stop so she wouldn't report directly to him. So it's not just a single employee, but other people involved making sure she doesn't report to him. The instant he made that comment Google had to choose, and they chose him over her.

And claiming she needs a reprimand... I don't even.

"this incident isn't evidence of a "culture that is harassing/hostile to women" at Google."

Bad apple or a culture of making bad apples? The standard you walk past is that standard you accept ~ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U

If you actually read through it all, you'll see that she poured her drink on him after that ridiculous comment, then he reported her to HR for that. She got reprimanded, he got promoted.

At least that is what is being alleged. Your comment is pretty insensitive in that context.

>Your comment is pretty insensitive in that context.

I'm not sure how. He made an an inexcusable comment to her. If she felt this strongly about it, she should have taken her drink with her to HR - immediately (or as soon as practical thereafter). She would have been in a much stronger position at that point. He acted inappropriately, and she responded inappropriately.

My comment was not intended to deny the possibility of a hostile culture at Google. My point was that this incident, by itself, doesn't stand up as evidence of such a culture. Too many people read a single headline and interpret it as the rule, not the exception.

Members of HR do not come with us to team offsites. Maybe they should, but they wouldn't have been around then.

It's insensitive in that your are making a false balance fallacy by equating his actions with her reaction by saying something like "He acted inappropriately, and she responded inappropriately". She was sexually harrassed, her reaction is pretty minor in this discussion.

>her reaction is pretty minor in this discussion

Let me be clear that I believe this guy to be a jackass - not only for making the comment, but then having the nerve to officially complain about the drink. I likely would have terminated him. But by reacting the way she did, she took away any leverage that she had, and that was reflected in the outcome.

So, no, her reaction isn't "pretty minor in this discussion". It actually had a huge impact on the negative outcome.

It's not minor, it's borderline assault. Whether you're offended or not, you don't get the right to go around assaulting people like that.

Now, don't get me wrong, the guy was a dick, and it sounds like it was sexual harassment. And it should be dealt with swiftly by HR, but that should be the end of it.

I don't know about you but I would not under any circumstances WANT this kind of attention, let alone go seeking for it. Who in their right mind would?

If it were just a "single employee" as you say, then that "single employee" would've been dealt with swiftly and removed for his comments. That didn't happen. Instead, this individual was protected, and moved up in the company, preventing the recipient from doing the same.

And it's not just one situation. This person was brave enough to speak up about it. Would you be able to? I certainly wouldn't. I imagine many others also aren't, and I hope some of them feel more comfortable going forward.

If one employee sexually harasses another employee in a one-off incident, maybe it's an exception and not a culture of sexism.

If it's one executive, that executive is contributing to a culture of sexism - though it's possible he's just the bad apple spoiling the barrel, and maybe there is no broader problem, and the problem can still be easily nipped in the bud.

The smoking gun lies in Google's response to the incident. When HR backs up sexual harassment of employees by their bosses, that makes a strong case that there is a systemic cultural problem that goes beyond the influence of one executive, and won't be fixed just by firing one executive.

That's the real story here. Not even the incident, not really the executive, and certainly not the employee, but Google's response. When HR's own response isn't appropriate, that does become an issue for the public.

This needs to be investigated quickly. We don't know the details. She forced their hand and they'll have to respond publicly about this. It sounds like a last resort type action after stonewalling and lack of support.

If this is true, it is very sickening. Often this is talked about in general terms -- there is sexism, harassment, comments, jokes, etc. out there -- in the "industry". But in this case there is particular person and particular incident that took place. Hopefully this is not ignored.

We just recently talked about Adria Richards again (the Pycon incident from a few years back). And one point I was trying to make regarding that incident was that it should have been separated from harassment and discrimination discourse. It was about PR and about a personal agenda. The reason for it, is because if it is isn't, it hurts and diminishes other future sexual harassment allegations -- it reduces them to "she is just probably pulling an Adria on us". Besides the harm caused to all the parties in that controversy, there was a much larger harm, and that is a future harm to cause of preventing and rooting out these horrible things.

I have a daughter, and it sickens me that one day should have choose to persue a career with these companies she would have to deal with this kind stuff. And if this is true, I somehow didn't expect this from Google. I could see this happening at an investment firm, at a hospital, at a legal firm but not with Google, which seemingly go out of their way to tell the world how inclusive, and non-discriminantory and not evil they are.

Thanks for pointing this out; people will often believe that because someone is telling a story on Twitter, we need not take it seriously. What if the most used internet forums are the only place where some women can air the truth, after trying all other avenues?

> It was about PR and about a personal agenda

You say this like it's a fact. Did I miss some detail of this incident that came out later?

> You say this like it's a fact. Did I miss some detail of this incident that came out later?

Yes, the part from the Esquire article revealed a few more things that was disappointing to hear, such as that she notified Hank's (not his real name I understand) employer wanting them to force Hank to remove the part of the HN comment where he said he lost his job. That is significant because it reveals her intentions of turning this into a PR campaign presenting herself as a victim. (Nevermind other references to herself of Joan of Arc). She shouldn't have cared about that part of the comment, but she zoomed in on it, because she realized her game was up -- she wasn't the public victim anymore, people will start sympathizing with Hank from that point on.

From everything I've read, now including the Esquire article, I disagree with your interpretation. But if you believe that her actions were about "PR and a personal agenda" then I think you'd also have to agree that "Hank"'s apology was just as much about "PR and a personal agenda".

Esquire article: http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...

I don't understand how it can't be for personal agenda and PR when her response to two adults making juvenile jokes to themselves is to publicly shame them.

Since kindergarten children are taught to politely ask somebody to stop as their first step, and escalate from there -- not go nuclear right from the get-go.

Or maybe I'm out of the loop on this -- I could be. I really only read about this the other night -- I get a healthy enough dose of drama just in my own life without having to read about somebody else's :-)

We don't really need to speculate why she did it. She details it quite articulately on her blog http://butyoureagirl.com/2013/03/18/forking-and-dongle-jokes...

> I decided to do things differently this time and didn’t say anything to them directly. I was a guest in the Python community and as such, I wanted to give PyCon the opportunity to address this.

So if "personal agenda" includes being fed up with tech industry sexism, then yeah it was very obviously because of a personal agenda. PR? Sure, she was trying to manage how her story was received by the public. Wouldn't you?

The line is crossed when she wants to obscure the truth in her image's favor.

Like how you're using a throwaway to obscure the truth in your image's favor?

...I really don't know what you even intend to mean with this. The truth is that this is a forum that allows anonymous discourse, and I'm not pretending my participation is anything more than that.

I hope you explain yourself, because from what I can tell, you're attempting something ugly.

People try to control how their stories are told, how their stories are received. You are doing so by using a throwaway.

As I said in this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9164064, I don't think Adria Richards did anything out of line in asking for an apology to be modified. You're allowed to be anonymous in this context, you are allowed to try to control how your story is told.

That is a fatuous, petty equivalence. I am not a subject of a story being told in the public eye. I am not being asked by anyone to modify the telling of my story to please their agenda.

Asking someone to bear false witness is not comparable to posting as a throwaway.

And in any case, your logic of narrative control is contradictory: Adria was trying to override Hank's control over how his story was told. She didn't ask him publicly, she went through back channels to his previous employer for social leverage.

Hank is allowed to try to control how his story was told. Adria tried to interfere with that right.

Not contradictory. Everyone's allowed to TRY to control how their story is told. She tried to get him to modify his apology to be less muddy. He tried to mitigate the damage of being called out by playing for sympathy. I see no contradiction, and I see no foul play in either of those actions.

> She didn't ask him publicly, she went through back channels to his previous employer for social leverage.

I'm sure going public would have resulted in people accusing her of "going nuclear", or adding insult to injury, etc. Considering this guy was recently fired, I wouldn't want to speak directly to him if I were her. That leaves going via his former employer. You can choose to see that as using "social leverage" but there's no real way to know. If that was the point, it wasn't enough leverage, because he didn't change it.

Facing down this king of online scrutiny and doubt of your motives is exactly why women tend to keep quite about this kind of stuff, and then things don't change because nobody's talking about the problems.

I suppose you're correct that Adria's actions are within the rules of the game ('anything goes!'), but what I'm saying is she played the game poorly by trying to prevent people from knowing she got someone fired.

>Considering this guy was recently fired, I wouldn't want to speak directly to him if I were her.

Did you know that she responded directly to his comment on HN? (See here)[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5399047].

Adria portrays herself as a fearless crusader against injustice. She has failed in this portrayal in several ways and appeared opportunistic and hypocritical.

Would you be willing to admit there's 'no foul play' in that failure? I don't know if I'd go that far, because my point is more about the nature of the court of public opinion than it is trying to assign blame.

>Facing down this king of online scrutiny and doubt of your motives is exactly why women tend to keep quite about this kind of stuff

It's a problem, sure, but the court of public opinion is extremely volatile and doesn't like being misled, which is part of why it's considered a 'nuclear option'. Adria deliberately used that option and it backfired. This is not doubt of her motives, it's a plain reading of her account of events.

How can you protect someone that chooses to engage in a game of social russian roulette? How can you protect someone that then pulls the trigger six times? You can't, and now Adria is jobless while Hank has a new job. And it's sad and really unfortunate that things have worked out that way for her.

I haven't been trying to make a point like "Adria deserved it" though you probably heard that, and there's an "unfair" amount of that going around (though it's not foul by the rules of the story-telling game you're describing, right?).

There simply isn't anything to be done about mob justice except be aware that it will betray you for the slightest infraction.

...I've been tracing back through the beginning of this conversation, because I was focusing on where exactly I think Adria made a significant mistake "in the eyes of the court" and I wanted to make sure we were still topical.

>>But if you believe that her actions were about "PR and a personal agenda" then I think you'd also have to agree that "Hank"'s apology was just as much about "PR and a personal agenda".

I don't disagree actually with that statement in isolation, but I think you're missing the point here. When they say things are about "PR and a personal agenda," what they mean is there's a sense of dishonesty detected. You can shape the narrative, but get caught distorting it and the mob pounces.

Wow, I hadn't seen this, so thanks for the pointer. From the Esquire article[0]:

> “The next day,” Hank said, “Adria Richards called my company asking them to ask me to remove the portion of my apology that stated I lost my job as a result of her tweet."

Has Richards commented on this claim?

[0] http://www.esquire.co.uk/culture/books/7933/exclusive-extrac...

I don't really see how this is a big revelation. If somebody publicly apologized to me for, say, driving drunk and hitting my car, but then went on to play up how they'd lost their job because of it I would call that a bad-faith apology.

While I don't personally read "Hank"'s apology as "bad-faith", I can easily see how she might see it that way.

Your analogy doesn't include contacting the drunk driver's former employer and asking them to ask him to change his apology.

She can feel whatever she wants to about whether it was in good faith. But it feels a little underhanded to allegedly try to secretly get him to modify specific statements she doesn't like (possibly with intentional extra leverage by including the former employer.)

I say secretly, because another option would be including the request to modify his comment in her own comment[0], and removing it from her own if he did. Yes, that would look silly and be easily discovered, which is probably why she allegedly tried to do it non-publicly. (To her credit, contacting the employer may have been just because it was the only means she had to privately contact him.)

I wonder if she immediately saw the tidal wave coming for her when he posted he'd lost his job. If so, it's hard to blame her for trying almost anything to avoid it. Still, it fits into the original comment above, that this was a person deliberately trying to control a narrative to suit her agenda, that being transparent was less important.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667

> Your analogy doesn't include contacting the drunk driver's former employer and asking them to ask him to change his apology.

Sorry, I thought it was implied by the context that I believe that would be an appropriate way of responding to a "bad faith" public apology.

> Still, it fits into the original comment above

Sure, it fits. But there are plenty of other interpretations that fit the information. I'd propose that the reason this narrative is winning is that it's the one that challenges people the least, not because it's the one that fits the facts the best.

Fair enough. I guess for me, reacting that way (trying to modify the apology) to a "bad faith" public apology wouldn't occur to me as an option, so I didn't realize they were directly connected for you.

I agree there are multiple interpretations, mitigating factors, biased accounts, etc. I've already "picked sides" and I doubt much would change that. I don't know that there really is a way to "fit the facts", because all the "facts" we have are colored by two emotionally invested adversaries, probably both speaking from a calculated PR mindset. At this point they're both also speaking through journalists, who may be adding their own spin.

All I was objecting to was OP presenting the opinion that she was only concerned with "PR and a personal agenda" as a fact and not an opinion.

It's a pretty nuclear step, this. Not just because it forces the employers hand, but because for standing up and shouting about this she's going to be a target for a tirade of misogynist abuse from the trogolodytes of the net.

You don't even have to say anything to incur the wrath of the misogynists and trogolodytes. Recently: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/curt-schil...

I'm glad that she made a big deal out of it. The more attention that's brought to these situations, the more likely more people will stand up against this type of behavior.

> I could see this happening an investment firm, at a hospital, at a legal firm but not with Google

Less than 5% of senior VCs, and 5% of F500 CEOs, are women, while more than 20% of F500 general counsel are. Some people are immune, of course, by virtue of their status, but for most people, it's an environment where you don't want to develop a reputation. Especially if you're young--1/3 of new large law firm partners are women in recent years.

I would imagine the situation is similar for medicine too. I can have an easier time picturing this sort of comment at an investment bank, but these days even Wall Street is more drug tests than it is hookers and blow.

My experience in both fields is why I think that the gender disparity needs to be addressed directly, because it is self-perpetuating. An environment where 90% of your bosses and 80% of your coworkers are all men is conducive to a culture that keeps those skewed ratios in place.

>Wall Street is more drug tests

Really? That's surprising. I can't imagine any tech company testing for drugs (maybe testing the drugs themselves though). Are there regulations on that for finance? What's in it for the employer? Is drug use negatively correlated with performance?

Once you deal with other people's money, you want to keep risk factors out of it. Since few drugs are legal, drugs are a risk because their users have to interact with the more shady parts of society.

Also just the fact that once you hit 53,000 people, you can't really say "I didn't expect this from X company" as if the company is a single person whose character is automatically imbued into every employee.

I say it vis-a-vis the public image that company is presenting. Google for years reaped the benefits, so to speak, from presenting themselves as ethically and morally a better entity than others. But now they also have to reap the criticism due to their perceived hypocrisy.

It's all about perception I guess. Even if you have fewer occurrences of it per X employees (not saying they do - I don't know) and you actually are better, it's easier to talk about it like it's the new norm.

I think, in general, people aren't that upset that Rod Chavez harassed her. Based on her claims, he's an asshole, but if you pick 50k people from the general population, you're gonna get some assholes. I'd bet the majority of upset people are upset because of Google's response. The response of the company -- ending her career, likely managing her out, leaving Rod alone -- is what is correctly attributed to google.

For those who don't recall the Adria Richards / Pycon incident, here's the HN discussion, including a comment from the guy who got fired and a response from Adria:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5391667

Please don't take this as an excuse for sexual harassment, but:

As a manager, I wouldn't go on a beach/bikini/swimsuit trip with my team, and certainly not one with large amounts of alcohol (which wasn't necessarily part of the story posted). So many reasons:

* I don't WANT the people who report to me to see my pale un-muscled body. Or the people above me!

* I don't want to accidentally glance at someone and make them feel uncomfortable.

* I don't want to get so loose and comfortable (cue alcohol) around my team that I forget the role I must play as a leader.

I recently declined the opportunity to go on a boat beer bash, just to maintain the proper professional relationship (and these were peers in the org).

I agree. I would have removed myself from the situation.

There is an excellent argument to be made that the prevalence of alcohol in American work culture is weird and stupid. Partly because it fuels sexual harassment, partly because it pressures people who don't or can't drink, and partly because really, the purpose of alcohol in a social context is to suspend your self-control at least a little bit, why would you want that at work?

Not saying you're right or wrong, but aren't there dozens of cultures across the world where where alcohol plays a much, much bigger role in work culture? The UK and Japan, for example.

Yeah, "US" is just what I'm familiar with and what the topic of the story is. I wanted to be precise (because people do rightly criticize folks who complain about US-only culture problems as if they're universal) but was too precise. :)

Australia and New Zealand. The US just happens to be the country where the occasional sexually motivated comment generated by mixing bathing suites, bikinis, alcohol, and men and women is shocking.

I hear in finish work culture going to the sauna (obviously naked and sex mixed) and getting wasted together are somewhat common. Haven't heart much that this leads to harassment.

I all come down to weather people are assholes or not, not weather they drink.

I think a large group of people would really like their workplace to be more social.

Quite a long thread but holy crap, this behavior and what is described on Kelly's twitter feed (https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok) are sickening.

Quite shocked that this is considered acceptable at such high levels at Google.

Yonatan Zunger's comment on the G+ post is illuminating:

"Damned straight, I wouldn't. But at this point numerous legal issues kick in so I can't say anything further in public, including any of the obscenities I'm thinking right now."

My read on that is that he doesn't consider it acceptable, but any public show of support or acknowledgment that the incidents in question occurred would be construed as an admission of guilt by Google, which would open them up to a sexual harassment lawsuit. So ironically, the same laws that are designed to protect women in the workforce strip them of support from anyone who is a high-ranking official in the company that employs them.

I wouldn't be surprised if the eng director in question got a private reprimand, but doing anything career-affecting (like removing him from a management chain, or firing him) requires significant documentation of a pattern of behavior...which is hard to generate when his accusers (quite understandably) leave the company.

What would be the consequences to Zunger if he did elaborate? Why must he protect Google from a lawsuit?

He doesn't have to on a personal level, but on a professional level, he is an agent of the company and must act in the company's best interests. If he doesn't, he's not doing his job and can be fired.

The irony is that if you escalated to Larry I bet he'd think that the quotes documented here are appalling - and his hands would still be tied. Because he has a fiduciary duty to the shareholders of Google Inc, and it is not in their interests to get sued by an employee. Which again goes to show how dumb the idea of "maximizing shareholder value" is, but then, it's the environment we live under.

According to your analysis then, he is currently protecting himself. Even though, from how I see it, if action were taken against him, it would generate a lot of publicity and support for him and he would not necessarily sacrifice his lifestyle and living means (this is arguable, but I think it's an important argument as to what extent it matters)

I really doubt that anyone's hands are actually tied. He could say whatever he wants, like how it's totally unacceptable and anyone acting like that should be dismissed. He could easily say it's in the company's interest because it shows Google stands up for women, which is good for Google's image and talent recruiting.

That's why when people pull out "maximizing shareholder value", I think they're quite exaggerating on what that entails. I'd be surprised if any laws or penalties apply to normal operating judgements. It's gotta be more for scenarios like a company selling a subsidiary at below-market price, or obviously negative-financial stuff like that.

Thanks, this is exactly what I was getting at. I don't know why every hour and day he delays is not an indictment on his character; maybe he is tied in ways I don't know, but if not, why isn't he acting?

I question whether his hands would be tied.

He would be accountable to the board, and whether or not it was fiducially responsible to accept the risk of exposing Google to a civil suit would certainly be a topic for discussion. However, strategic decisions are within his purview. This is a endemic human resources issue that affects the well-being of the company. It would be entirely and justifiably within his discretionary power to react however he saw fit, unlike a more junior office holder who would have a specific job description, a clear set of powers and responsibility, and less political power within the organization.

I am not arguing that speaking out would be the correct decision at this time. In fact, as angry as the incident may make him, it might well be counter-productive to address it directly. However, I am not sure that it would correct to say that his hands would be tied.

I am speaking from reason rather than experience, and I have no real knowledge of Google's governing structure. I am adding this disclaimer because I am trying to kick the habit of seeming to know more than I do.

I think you are wrong here.

It is empirically possible for a CEO to take a stand. Consider the recent case where Tim Cook told an activist shareholder to "get out of the stock" if he didn't recognize certain imperatives beyond ROI (http://www.businessinsider.com/tim-cook-versus-a-conservativ...).

IIUC, Larry, Sergey and Eric control >50% of shareholder voting rights thanks to the GOOG stock split in 2014. So Larry can do anything he wants with Google as long as Sergey and Eric support him.

It isn't that he must protect Google from a sexual harassment lawsuit, but rather he needs to wait until a proper investigation is done to prevent publishing anything that might be considered libel on the part of himself or his employer.

That makes sense, though I'm not sure that it makes up the whole of what nostrademons was talking about.

I think it's more than that. Yonatan said "multiple" legal issues - my guess is that there's a legal issue around a potential sexual harassment suit from Kelly; there is a legal issue about a potential libel suit from Kelly, Rod, or Vic; there is a legal issue about a potential wrongful termination suit from Rod if they fire him; and there may be others I haven't even thought of.

When you have a complex situation involving the rights of multiple parties, the best thing you can do is stay silent until you have all the facts. This is usually infuriating to the people involved and seems apathetic to bystanders, but you end up doing everybody a disservice if you don't. That's probably the reason for the "multiple obscenities" that Yonatan is thinking; he is in a situation where doing the right thing means being crucified by many people, some of whom are even right according to the information they have available to them, until he can actually ascertain the facts and weigh the rights of each party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiet_period

Just a couple of links and quotes from the EEOC. TLDR: Harassment at a work retreat is still harassment. One inappropriate comment is usually not enough from a legal point of view. She is protected from retaliation.

http://eeoc.gov/laws/practices/index.cfm

"Harassment outside of the workplace may also be illegal if there is a link with the workplace. For example, if a supervisor harasses an employee while driving the employee to a meeting."

http://eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm

"Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted)."

http://eeoc.gov/laws/types/retaliation.cfm

All of the laws we enforce make it illegal to fire, demote, harass, or otherwise “retaliate” against people (applicants or employees) because they filed a charge of discrimination, because they complained to their employer or other covered entity about discrimination on the job, or because they participated in an employment discrimination proceeding (such as an investigation or lawsuit).

She was reprimanded for accusing the person directly, in front of other employees. Huge difference and I can't see the EEOC covering that.

I'm glad that Kelly Ellis chose to include a direct quote from Rod Chavez. Without any additional context, it definitely looks very harassing, and he should be fired for it. That said, some of the stuff she's written in the past is over-the-top radical (from https://medium.com/@kellyellis/commuting-by-myself-714e6dc47...):

If you are a strange man trying to talk to me on my way to or from work, when I am commuting alone, you are a harasser, pure and simple. You are threatening. And you need to leave me the fuck alone.

I hope this isn't another Adria Richards, Virginia Tech, or Duke Lacrosse situation. I wouldn't necessarily characterize what Vic Gundotra said as harassing, either the compliment or the Sasha Grey comment. Sasha Grey was absolutely hot-as-in-buzz, which would be relevant to someone working on Google+. I'd like to hear the other side of the story before stoning these guys, given the propensity some women have for playing up their victim status to self-promote in the media. That Kelly characterizes herself as a "bitch software engineer, doing what I can to smash the patriarcy", really drives this home. It would be a shame if these men's careers are destroyed for anything less than a whole-truth. Kelly certainly seems predisposed to view any slight as the result of her gender, and any comment that could be construed inappropriate as inappropriate. It would be a true tragedy if men disengaged from female peers and reports out of a fear of career destruction, even from the smallest gaffe, in the same way that many have shied away from interacting with children.

I don't think a desire to be left alone is radical. Most women desire this, they don't want strangers coming up and talking to them when they're stuck on a train/bus where there's no option to leave. A simple "hi" is the limit of social interaction you should try to push on a stranger in this situation.

I've heard women complaining for the exact opposite. Men not brave enough to engage with them casually. I guess it depends if the man looks like George Clooney.

That's pretty much it. It's creepy and harassment if a regular guy approaches them. It's what they want if the guy is attractive and she's in the right location. There's no way to know if they find you attractive so it's always harassment from the guy's perspective.

A desire to be left alone is perfectly fine. Automatically describing people as harassers if they try to strike up a conversation, with no qualifiers, is over the top and comes up against the fact that a lot of people (including women) welcome social contact in the same context.

Now let me be clear that I am speaking in general. I don't think it is justified to judge her, or her harassment claim, on the basis of that. It is that it is very understandable to see being approached as negative based on her specific experiences with it.

E.g. I've seen this in the past with female friends, who have in very general terms denounced being approached in public, and when I've pointed out that they've previously gushed over approached by guys they found nice (and ended up going out with in some cases), I've gotten the reply of "but that's different because ....".

Often what such statements boils down to is that they don't want to be approached in creepy ways by creepy people. They just can't (and most of us can't) clearly delineate, what makes an approach creepy and what doesn't.

That's hardly "over-the-top radical." If you're a young-ish woman pretty much anywhere, that strange man getting in your face on your way to work is not a nice fellow but a creep. Every woman I know has described this experience.

Also, to say that Adria Richards "[played] up her victim status to self-promote" is pretty hilarious looking at how things worked out for her.

There's no "tragedy" if men are a little worried about what they say to women. Caution is probably a good idea if your social skills need help. Systemic widespread harassment of women is the real tragedy, happening every single day.

When I first read the quote I thought: Of course this is way over the top! Then I read the article. If I'd experienced what she describes, I would probably haven an even more extreme stance.

This seems pretty damn unacceptable.

I'm sick of working with overgrown children in our industry, who can't behave like reasonable human beings around women. It's just wrong.

I'm also sick of all-male teams put together by male managers who have decided women can't do this work.

Grow up. Drop the prejudice. We'll all be better off.

Those seem like pretty large generalizations for someone telling others to drop prejudice.

Assessing a culture involves "generalizations", and thank goodness we can assess cultural climates. Without "generalizations" we could say nothing about how whites treated blacks post-slavery, as the laws and lynchings would be isolated incidents.

>Without "generalizations" we could say nothing about how whites treated blacks post-slavery

Any negative generalization about a non-white group would be characterized as racist, yet you think it's okay to make generalizations about whites.

Historical record shows many different groups to be acting in self-interest, even if those actions are "negative" -- for an example most people, including yourself hopefully, already understands completely, we can point to the Nazis. I don't believe you are engaging genuinely and honestly.

(Full disclosure: I'm a white man)

I've worked in a dozen or so places in three countries. In my experience it's commonplace. Hence why I expressed that I am sick of it. If you haven't come across this at all then IMHO you're very lucky and perhaps you'd like to share the names of your enlightened employers?

What is the common factor in all these destructive relationships with co-workers over so many different companies and environments?

I read the parent post three times. I didn't see any generalizations in its text at all.

I suspect the issue is that many people in the computer industry never had the opportunity to develop a proper social skillset and thus frequently end up behaving in ways that are socially unacceptable. Add to that the prevalence of Aspergers in the industry, and you have a pretty explosive mix.

If I had a magic wand I'd make people take training on how to relate to others, especially the opposite sex, how to develop emotional intelligence which so many of us lack. Just because you're not born with it, doesn't matter you shouldn't learn it.

Why, when someone behaves like an asshole, do we so quickly reach for some pathology to explain it?

"He's behaved like an asshole" isn't enough, it has to be "he behaved like an asshole; he's probably got Asperger's".

Calling someone an asshole doesn't help you diagnose the problem, it just lets you vent and confirms your personal biases.

If you want to get to the root cause of this, you need to understand why that is happening. I strongly suspect that in most cases it's lack of emotional/social intelligence, and also frequently (how much is unclear) due to pathologies.

Sure, sometimes you know that what you're about to say is totally inappropriate, and you do it anyway, but I'm willing to bet that's a serious minority of cases.

> Calling someone an asshole doesn't help you diagnose the problem, it just lets you vent and confirms your personal biases.

In order to diagnose the problem you also need to have the relevant qualifications.

Do you?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I know that name calling will not get me an inch closer to understanding the situation.

Ignorantly ascribing poor behaviour to neuro-atypicality, with no evidence of such, is worse.

You do nothing to understandthat actual behaviour and you stigmatise people who are neuro-atypical.

Sometimes assholes are just assholes.

This is probably the Linda Problem -- the conjunction fallacy.

"Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations.

Kahneman and Tversky stripped the quiz down and tried again. They had students read the same profile of Linda. But then they simply asked whether it is more likely that Linda is (a) a bank teller or (b) a bank teller who is active in the feminist movement?"

Most people say (b) because they feel the need to explain Linda's social conscience.

This feels like making excuses and really doesn't explain much. Much of the stuff I've seen comes from people who were in management. Some of them were married. This is not nervous-geek-can't-relate territory, it's bad attitudes.

No, Asperger's doesn't make you more likely to behave like an asshole or a misogynist. Please read up on the subject of autism spectrum disorders before making such prejudiced and completely false remarks!

That said, in my experience, the biggest jerks and assholes have also had excellent social skills. Therefore training people to become more socially capable to reduce the number of jerks completely misses the point.

On her twitter page she describes herself as:

Kelly Ellis - "bitchy software engineer. doing what i can to smash the patriarchy."

I'd really like to know the context of the quoted "harassment" statement, if this was at work or during drinks afterwards, if it was a badly timed joke, a badly worded praise for fixing an issue, if this just happened once, or multiple times. And the reason for making this public...

Before I start publicly crucifying anyone and removing them from all future gainful employment.

Harassment is repetitive pressure or intimidation. Not a once off joke made by a person because he though they where getting together well and he brought down his guard for a second.

Had the exact same reaction, but you've got to read the whole twitter stream to realize that this is maybe a global management issue, and not just one guy.

She did complain to her bosses, that did nothing, and the guy clearly isn't the only one to make those kind of remarks in the company.

From what I've been able to put together, she posted all the instances of the alleged "harassment", which consists of the quoted comment, and this one (made by another Google employee) -

"You look amazing in that bathing suit, like a rock star."

It also seems like both statements where made years apart, and possibly happened after work.

And one of the accused persons already has made the statement that he had little to no contact with her aside from being in the same org.

It seemed to me like a general atmosphere very male oriented, which she felt very akward with ( eg the comment about the pornstar). But the fact that she complained to HR and that as a consequence she ended up feeling like she had to leave makes me think there could be an issue.

Although as a european, of course all of this debate seems very American ( except maybe the ass grabbing part, which could only have been excused if under influence).

> But the fact that she complained to HR and that as a consequence she ended up feeling like she had to leave makes me think there could be an issue.

There may very well be an issue, but note that you are now repeating an unsubstantiated allegation and describing it as fact.

If what she wrote is accurate and factual, and they very well may be, then at least the director in question likely went far over the line, regardless of context, and there may very well be issues with the general culture too.

But we have a few tweets, and don't have the other side.

Can someone summarize what is alleged to have happened, including names of those involved? It's a pain to piece together all the fragments of information.

Maybe companies need to just stop having retreats/events that have all the outward appearance of social gatherings but all the same professionalism rules as the officeplace except for the not wearing a swimsuit to work part.

Do you believe that prohibition of sexual harassment is a "professionalism rule"? Because this would imply that in other areas of everyday life, where professionalism is not relevant, you believe that sexual harassment is/should be permitted.

I guess this needs explaining. An employee might sexually harass another employee, for which he or she should be punished. But a company can also be liable for creating conditions which allow sexual harassment to flourish. I am arguing that hosting events that blur the line between work and not-work contribute to sexual harassment. These things are not as black and white as some people on Hacker News think they are. Also, you're begging the question. Outside of a professional setting, telling someone they look good in a bikini being sexual harassment is HIGHLY dependent on context.

Does "telling someone they look good in a bikini" characterize the situation at hand? I really don't think so.

I think it would be hard to categorize social events as potentially creating a bad environment or not. A different solution would be explicit rules for all social events, no? This would be easy to implement.

I used that example because it is the lower bounds (in terms of offensiveness) of the claims made by the complainant. She obviously felt it was a problem.

No, the question is as to what constitutes as "sexual harassment".

I would like to hear the man's side of it. Is it bad to ask that? Would I be vilified for not trusting the woman?

I don't know about vilified. I would ask why you don't trust the woman, and do trust the man, given the historical record.

Is there a historical record?

Sure; we can start with the history of male violence against women in all recorded civilizations, and any statistics on male violence against women.

Either way. What we all should be asking is: "Why aren't we considering both sides of this?"

Why frame all of this in terms of 'trust'? Must you trust either of the genders? Why not look at the facts of the matter? For that, you need to start by looking at both sides of the story instead of taking sides.

The rich historical record of male violence against women is why.

Very funny. It took less than 5 minutes to confirm that the violence goes the other way at least half the time. It's just not taken as seriously because... well, have you heard the phrase "you hit like a girl"?

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid...

http://www.saveservices.org/2012/02/cdc-study-more-men-than-...

https://www.google.com/search?q=domestic+violence+gender+rat...

http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=domestic+violence+gender...

Wow, it took less than 5 minutes to find random internet justification for your wildly unrealistic notion. Bravo sir on your googling skills.

I think your question suggests an unfair representation of the request. A desire to hear both sides of the story is just that. The question would be just as valid in a opposite scenario.

He didn't say he doesn't trust the woman. Just what the other side of the story is. It's probably unlikely there's any justifiable reason given the quotes, but maybe there was a valid context.

(As a theoretical example that's unlikely: he might have been replying to an explicit invitation.)

Or hell, I'd like to know what he was thinking, just out of curiosity - like, what made him think the comment was acceptable?

He asked "Would I be vilified for not trusting the woman?" and I answered the question. I think it was straightforward dialogue to understand.

I think everyone is curious...

It's a little disingenuous to ask so innocently.

The guy said something off-color enough to get a drink in his face, and he didn't suffer for it. Internet's a big place, if he wants to tell his side of the story it's easily done.

Meanwhile you're worried about being "vilified" for second-guessing a run-of-the-mill harassment story. Don't worry, if anything you'll get hordes of gamergaters rushing to your defense.

She then added "full disclosure. I'm not proud, I poured a drink on him. It became about that."

http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/03/07/former-google-e...

The only thing I have learnt from this and the Adria Richards nonsense is when I am hiring I will screen for radical feminism.

Too risky to hire, even if I feel my workplace shouldn't have anything that would set them off it's still too risky.

It's an unfortunate side-effect of there being so few women in tech. You're semi-forced into hiring potentially toxic personalities so you can keep up your 'quota'.

I kept thinking there was more to this story, but this article makes it plain that there isn't: http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/03/07/former-google-e...

Lines that you use on women in clubs should not be used with co-workers. That's the lesson here basically. I doubt either of those guys had any inkling they were causing emotional trauma.

Also, it sounds like Google might have screwed up in their handling of the situation. The guy should have gotten some kind of reprimand. I suspect the current Google employees won't be happy about how this has been handled, and will force management to do something. I wouldn't be surprised if there is an internal investigation.

If Google HR had handled this properly in the first place, Kelly would still be working there, everyone would be happy, and this would never have become a news story.

If they didn't have any idea, they should not be in any sort of management position.

I don't really feel like chasing down and piecing together hundreds of tweets to understand what happened here. Anyone who did it mind giving the whole story?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9163769

You don't really have to chase down hundreds of tweets. Just open up https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok and start scrolling.

If you want to go chronologically, the first tweet I see is https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574068442749255680 .

My favorite? This idiot right here:

https://twitter.com/AndrewMDodson

Really. I .. ignore his profile description for now. Read the links to Kelly's tweets and look out for this gem. He's a master of being an asshole, but among lots of peers.

If you're in the mood: Get back to the link above, read his self-description and .. cackle. I mean.. What?

(I might fall for a troll account, because .. I have a hard time believing that someone is that far removed from reality)

No he's serious and there really are people like him out there.

Plenty of dudes like that in this thread as well.

I want to make this very very clear to everyone, especially young coders new to the corporate world. HR is not there to protect you. They are there to protect the company. And in 99.9% of the cases they will always support the ones higher up in the corporate structure, managers, and especially senior VPs. Does that excuse all this? Certainly not, but I'm completely unsurprised that HR didn't do anything about this.

Sounds to me like HR did not even protect the company here.

So every time there is an HR dispute it is news worthy? Let the lawyers settle this.

This story appears to go beyond a simple HR dispute, but is endemic of a culture all too common in our industry that we should have zero tolerance of and should work to undermine. It appears that not only were inappropriate statements made, but other high-ups at Google weren't willing to stand up for what's right. Considering this happened at an employer of many readers on this site who may have additional insights or stories to add, I think it's perfectly reasonable to have posted here.

Exactly. It would be interesting to hear from some Google employees here, both men and women, about their good or bad sexism related experiences at the company.

Off-topic: Going over the 100 or so comments over the pas 30mins was dare i say entertaining. It took me a few mins of self-reflection after i finished reading this on HN and thought - Why am i feeling happy after reading this?

This discussion has all the elements of a hit reality tv show. A victim, an aggressor, opinion extremists on either side, moderators on the fence.

I despise reality tv shows and make it a point not to watch them or read about the latest "incident" on show X etc. Now i cannot stop feeling that reading this discussion has broken my >1year-long streak of avoiding reality shows.

Believing women about male violence they have experience is not "extreme", given the historical record and the facts of statistics.

I would say that you know this already.

Some of the more significant tweets:

" At Google I was sexually harassed by someone who was later promoted to director

I was put in a position where I couldn't be promoted because it would've meant reporting to my harasser

I was actually reprimanded for undermining him in front of his reports.

Google caring about women is 100% lip service PR bullshit.

When it comes down to it, they punish victims and reward the perpetrators. COME AT ME BRO

People above his level knew; reprimanded me instead of him.

...

Full disclosure. I'm not proud. I poured a drink on him. It became about that

Things other women have said to me: "he is a legal liability for Google"

They 100% supported him, let me be in a position where I couldn't be promoted. My career was ended in that moment. Yet I got in trouble

...

[name redacted] is an engineering director at Google, he sexually harassed me, Google did nothing about it. Reprimanded me instead of him

...

TBH [different name redacted] has always been a creep and a half too. This will surprise no one who's worked with him.

Thanks for all the bathing suit compliments over the years, [name].

...

"It's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now." -My boss's boss, to me, when I was a junior eng at Google.

"You look amazing in that bathing suit, like a rock star." - [name redacted], to me, when I was a junior engineer at Google. In Maui.

Drinks after work with powerful men. Being the only woman there. Feeling uncomfortable with what some of them were saying. Crying about it.

Not wanting to say anything because having those social relationships were helpful to me, my visibility, my career. It's such a boys' club.

...

"He feels like you humiliated him in front of his reports." Something HR actually fucking said to me.

...

Of course, whenever anyone said something that made me uncomfortable, I had to laugh it off. None of this is stuff I ever talked to HR about

...

[name redacted] to [name redacted] within earshot of me, on a boat in Maui: "doesn't Kelly look amazing heh heh"

...

After hours, having drinks with Vic and the gang. Vic talking about how G+ was promoting Sasha Grey. Starts talking about how hot she is.

Asks if people've seen her movies. At this point I run away and cry because I felt so outcast. This is just one example of many

The harassment "training" at Goog? Mostly about not getting in trouble. Nothing about respecting humanity of your peers. "

I would love to be a fly on the wall to see how this discussion is taking place at Google. This is especially relevant now that Google is hosting a Women Techmakers event for International Women's Day.

It's so strange reading this thread. Everybody seems to know each other. I wonder if something like this happened at my workplace, if the discussion would also go public like this..

What's the context of the statement? For all we know, it could've been an offhand joke by a drunk co-worker at a happy hour while the two were flirting.

https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574069743134486528

There is no context where that would be appropriate.

Sure, but the severity of the allegations completely depend on the context.

Yes there is. If they were drinking and saying they were attracted to one another. If they were lovers and hiding it infront of co workers.

Wr dont know the context , and while i agree it doesnt sound that way, it may be explainable.

Its more likely some douche with beer in him and should be fired, but there is a case where that comment is appropriate.

Yeah, if either of those were the case, we'd never hear about it, would we? She felt sufficiently disturbed to call him out.

I take a pretty skeptical 'two sides to every story' stance on many of these kinds of reports but I can't think of any context given what's happened that this Director's actions toward an employee would be anywhere near appropriate. It is not even close. Unless she is a liar and pulling this out of thin air (and there is no reason I know of to think so) this is a serious breach.

I certainly agree, i just dont like the idea that this sort of comment is never appropriate. Hell ive said something siilar to that to my wife on occasion.

Since when did Twitter became the platform the lunge civil or criminal complaints against some one?

When you use "social media" in such manner there is only one goal for this and it's to turn the media fed sheep herd into the judge, jury and executioner.

If any one is harassed at work make a complaint with HR, they don't do shit, then escalate it to which ever authority manages this in the state (and I'm 100% sure there is one even tho it's not the "civilized union of socialists states" AKA Europe).

If that doesn't work and you feel like you are being derailed sue them, I'm pretty sure that there will be a 1000 lawyers willing to take your case for a chance of a payout a tech giant of the scale of Google will have to cough out even if the complaint is completely bogus.

However I have no sympathy for people who use these types of platforms to settle disputes or to report wrong doing even in such cases in which they were actually harassed. I do hope she, and any one else man, woman, or other that uses such tactics to get what they want gets fired.

But heck as long as we using verbatim - "bitchy software engineer. doing what i can to smash the patriarchy." rock on "bitch"!

Twitter in this case is being used as a platform to make information public, as letters (including anonymous ones) to newspapers for hundreds of years. I don't see the difference that makes one less legitimate than the other, could you explain it? If you can do so with slurring women further perhaps.

I don't see sending letters to a newspaper any better in such circumstances. An accused has a right to face their accuser, this should be done in court or in case of such disputes in a disciplinary hearing.

In such cases in which the public actually has the right to know there might be some merit of using the media to pursue such action when all other avenues have been exhausted.

However when you do use proper media (which is an oxymoron of some sorts today) you gain something very important, an "unbiased" journalistic view of the events which can judge if the case is of an sufficient interest to the public and if it is they can investigate the events on their own and publish their findings.

Calling some one on twitter is libel pure and simple, true or not it doesn't matter.

Libel is a legal term. Can you point to a specific instance of speech from Ellis that you are talking about? I think the truth of a statement matters in libel laws in the U.S., but I'm not a lawyer.

You disregard the possiblity that Ellis is trying to warn other women more than she is trying to make an accusation that would lead to the appropriate action against him.

Libel is also a dictionary term. "Libel is a method of defamation expressed by print, writing, pictures, signs, effigies, or any communication embodied in physical form that is injurious to a person's reputation, exposes a person to public hatred, contempt or ridicule, or injures a person in his/her business or profession."

I'm not qualified to turn this into a legal discussion, and i don't think many of us on these site are either, but heck.

I don't disregard anything i just don't think she has any right to do so, and neither does anyone else. Being accused in such cases especially when sexual assault of one type or another is involved is just as harmful as being found guilty of that.

Accusing someone without actually going to court is even worse because it doesn't give them the platform to clear their name. When the only thing you have is "she said, he said" it tends to create a "guilty by default" situation, if nothing else than just because most people would rather err on the side of caution.

I don't know which dictionary you used, but any dictionary I checked says libel is a false statement. I checked oxford and merriam webster.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/libel

The definition you cited appears to come from Cornell's Wex legal dictionary. The libel page says libel is a form of defamation, and the defamation page says defamation involves falsehood.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation

You said, in an earlier comment "Calling some one on twitter is libel pure and simple, true or not it doesn't matter."

That's just not correct, you're using the word libel wrong.

Well since we had a "legal" discussion, i thought i would use a legal terms dictionary, so is the one i used ;)

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/libel

Apparently based on actual court cases the falseness of a statement is not a necessity what is tho is the malicious intent to cause damages.

So not sure where you got that it has to be false, not from that link for sure.

As I said above, libel is a form of defamation; that's on the libel page. And if you click through to defamation, it says a defamation case (such as libel or slander) must prove four elements:

1) a false statement purporting to be fact; 2) publication or communication of that statement to a third person; 3) fault; and 4) damages, or some harm caused to the person or entity who is the subject of the statement.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/defamation

The comments about malice on the libel page relate to punitive damages. That has nothing to do with the elements of libel itself.

This is a pretty incredible comment -- if I accuse someone of behavior, I'm obligated to give them a platform to defend themselves? Is there some rationale to this besides to protect the powerful, or a single place in the law besides in your head where this is written? Rod has plentiful methods of defense, up to and including a lawsuit for libel. Which you also don't understand; in the united states, a necessary condition of libel or slander is falsehood. See, eg, wiki [1]

   Truth is an absolute defense against defamation in the United States,
   meaning true statements cannot be defamatory.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_defamation_law

> When you use "social media" in such manner there is only one goal for this and it's to turn the media fed sheep herd into the judge, jury and executioner.

So, so much this. So far we only have a vary small, partial recounting of the events that transpired a YEAR ago. It may be the truth but it also may not be. Not only that but exactly as you said if HR doesn't do anything you must escalate to break the cycle. Don't let it continue to harm others.

One of my friends who worked at Google said during their training they were given the exact quote about ass grabbing to explain their sexual harassment policy which is interesting which made me somewhat skeptical.

>>If any one is harassed at work make a complaint with HR

I agree with you in general, but no, please don't do this. The reason has been discussed many times on HN. Basically, HR is not your friend. They aren't a "mommy" or "daddy" figure that you can complain to when someone mistreats you. Their primary job is to protect the company from troublemaker employees - such as those who file complaints about their coworkers. If you report a coworker, especially for a potentially litigious thing like harassment, HR will nod and assure you that they will handle it, but secretly think "this guy is a walking lawsuit" and find a seemingly unrelated reason to terminate you (or make you leave).

I only talk to HR for administrative stuff, such as benefits paperwork and other such trivia. I advise everyone do the same.

In Europe, or at least in the UK many companies have actual "external" companies that manage harassment cases.

I can't speak for Google or US law for that matter, but I'm pretty sure that there are enough options to get this matter settled without getting fired if the case is just. And if not you are fighting the wrong battles, if the laws and policies of such companies in the states do not provide an actual safe environment to make complaints then that's the battle you should be waging.

Protecting the company can also include firing the person who is opening the company up to lawsuits. Firing someone after they report sexual harassment would also open the company to wrongful termination suits, especially since the communications will be recorded. Copying a personal lawyer on those communications would help as well.

What is most likely to happen in cases of harassment is making the accuser happy, since that provides the company with the most protection. And since so many companies have zero tolerance policies against harassment, it becomes very simple to terminate an employee who is a liability for that company.

> find a seemingly unrelated reason to terminate you (or > make you leave).

That doesn't make sense. The guy who is going around harassing people is creating the liability, not the victim, and will probably create more liability in the future.

I would be very surprised if there was any jurisdiction in the world where terminating an employment contract terminates employer liability for harassment; a terminated former employee who has been harassed is a much bigger threat to company profits than a current one.

The only reason any reasonably competent HR department would fire someone for making a valid complaint of harassment would be if they were ordered to by their superiors to protect themselves or their management colleagues (which is, sadly, a risk in some companies).

Obviously, going to HR should not be someone's first move for a one off comment. The person probably doesn't realise that they are being offensive, so a reasonable escalation is to tell them you are offended (and why) first, and if it continues, then go to HR. If it still continues, and HR doesn't do anything meaningful to address the problem (or fires you wrongfully in retribution), then escalate by hiring an employment lawyer to bring a lawsuit against the company, or depending on your jurisdiction, complaining to the relevant government body. This is fair to the person making the remark (they have a chance to learn that their conduct is offensive), the company (they have a chance to know about and address the problem before facing any external action), and the person who was offended (the problem is fixed one way or the other).

In this case, both sides were potentially in the wrong - throwing your drink on someone could be viewed as an assault and more serious than a single offensive remark. I think that had Kelly Ellis followed a reasonable pattern of escalation, there would be less harassment at Google now, all three parties (i.e. the two people and the corporation) involved would be better off, and we wouldn't be hearing about this now. Obviously it would be even better if the remark had never been made in the first place.

It makes me wonder if Google HR does not give employees training about not harassing people and how to respond to harassment - that is pretty much standard at most big companies of their size, and probably pays for itself in reduced liability (if they get sued out of the blue, they can point to the training to try to shift the blame to the person doing the harassing rather than the company - obviously that won't work if the plaintiff complained to them and they did nothing).

> (and I'm 100% sure there is one even tho it's not the "civilized union of socialists states" AKA Europe).

Go 'Murica!!

Man, It's 4 in the morning here, I just arrived utterly drunk, and shit is raining here like is no tomorrow. (Which there clearly is, becouse I'm in it). Wha the hell.

I believe her, and I believe by the historical record that her male harasser incapable of being a "director" of people, that is, the word "people" defined to include women.

This guy sounds like a major league twerp. And frankly, reading Kelley's twitter profile, so does she.

I would look into this to determine who I thought was more at fault, but really, twerp soap operas aren't my thing.

I don't know which I dislike more. Guys that act like asshats, or ladies that put up with it as long as they think it's getting them somewhere then scream bloody murder when it isn't anymore. Or maybe articles written about the subject. Or comments taking the sides of any one particular twerp. It's a toss up I guess.

https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574248445780733954

A compliment alone should not constitute sexual harassment, that would be total madness. However with the other stories she tells I understand why she included this.

Nevertheless this got me thinking: could we consider overly sexy looks a form of harassment too? (Unrelated to the specific story; I'm sure she didn't intentionally try to attract her bosses' attention.)

As a male, the mere presence of an overly sexy woman can put me in a state similar to fear: rising heart rate, mild trembling, goosebumps, inability to concentrate on whatever I was doing (talking to someone or doing work) etc.

>>A compliment alone should not constitute sexual harassment, that would be total madness.

That definitely depends on the compliment; exactly what attribute about the person you're complimenting.....

How about lets start with visible items of clothing which are on public display. "You look amazing in that ___, like a rock star." If that is harassment, I guess I'm harassing my coworkers pretty much daily.

The original tweeted "quote" was absolutely offensive. The tweet linked by @marczellm, umm... I guess I just don't get it. I've probably said the exact same thing many times to colleagues. I can guarantee women say the same to women on a regular basis, and men to men. But a man uttering the same words to a woman and all of a sudden you're fired and here's a lawsuit to boot? What if a woman complements a man's outfit? How is any of that even remotely sexual harassment?

I think there are reasonable bounds that people generally agree on what is and what is not "sexual harassment". There is some really disgusting shit going on in some of these workplaces... there's more than enough actual harassment going around. If you are calling out basic complements on what you are physically wearing at the moment... frankly I would not risk working with someone who thought an honest complement was sexual harassment. How can you work with someone under those conditions, how can you take the risk they wouldn't go on Twitter and start libeling you?

I don't want to work with anyone I can't build camaraderie with, and that means being able to pay someone an honest complement, without worrying in the back of my mind if the coworker is going to run on Twitter and claim I harassed them. I am certainly more skeptical of the TFA tweet after reading the second posted by @marczellm.

What's different is that he continued after it was clear that she (and apparently other women) didn't appreciate it. Note the part which said “People above his level knew; reprimanded me instead of him.” – if that's true, it's a textbook harassment case because that's changing it from a potentially misunderstood comment (hypothetically - some of those quotes were pretty clear) to redefining the job as taking abuse from him.

I can't actually understand / follow the flow of conversation as it's been reduced to 140 character chirps. And to be clear there is a big difference between one quote and the other. So maybe it would be better to not comment at all, but reading just this in a vacuum https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574248445780733954 ... makes no sense to me at all.

I would strongly agree that having this on Twitter is making it more confusing than, say, a blog post would be. The replies & conversation on her Google+ thread from other people at Google makes me believe that the context supports the more negative take.

While you may intend a compliment on a woman's physical appearance as honest, in the same way you would compliment a man's tie or his shoes, the situations aren't the same. Men don't have centuries of history of being valued solely on their appearance. Men aren't harassed based upon their appearance. When men are raped, they aren't asked about their appearance, or if their appearance was provocative.

I don't mean to put too fine a point on it, but many women view comments on their appearance as demeaning and threatening, largely because of harassment they've experienced all their lives. Their experience is different than yours, and it's important to acknowledge this. Women aren't men, and treating them this way papers over centuries of oppression and misogyny. It's important to be sex and gender conscious, not sex and gender blind.

It sounds like what you're talking about is women who have PTSD and are potentially triggered in situations like this. Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to know if someone is dealing with that, and I'm also not going to walk around in life assuming every woman has PTSD and could be triggered by an honest complement.

It may be triggering but it still is absolutely not sexual harassment. If someone is triggered by things that come up regularly in ordinary work environments, first, that's a terrible situation. At some point they might want to consider disclosing at least something about the trigger to their colleagues so the colleagues can try to avoid it and understand it, versus hiding behind a claim of "sexual harassment" when it actually is not.

I get that's not a good answer, because most people will absolutely not understand what a trigger is and why it happens, and most importantly what being triggered actually feels like while it's happening. But even in light of all that, it's a past crime echoing into the present, and not a new transgression, even though it may certainly feel that way to the person being triggered.

No I'm not talking about a disorder or any kind of mental illness. I'm saying that a woman's experience with comments about her appearance makes her view them completely differently than a man would.

> Unfortunately, it's impossible for me to know if someone is dealing with that, and I'm also not going to walk around in life assuming every woman has PTSD and could be triggered by an honest complement.

You should actually assume a woman doesn't want you to comment on her appearance.

> It may be triggering but it still is absolutely not sexual harassment.

The EEOC does a good job of defining what [harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/harassment.cfm) and [sexual harassment](http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/sexual_harassment.cfm) are. Importantly:

"Harassment is unwelcome conduct that is based on race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information."

Basically, you can't separate out, "Hi [woman], you look great in that dress" from "Hi [woman], that dress makes me sexually attracted to you'. That's an unwelcome sexual advance. And since you can't separate them out, you ought to stay away from them altogether. You don't have the right to say whatever you want to someone. There are lines, and comments about a woman's appearance are on the wrong side of them.

> You should actually assume a woman doesn't want you to comment on her appearance.

I was taught both in dance/etiquette school and by my grandma that I should ALWAYS compliment if a woman looks great.

Harassment is easy to define, and very rarely illegal. Otherwise, just about everyone's boss in here would be behind bars. Sexual harassment is a completely different beast. Talking about "harassment" in general is moving the goalposts and a distraction from the topic at hand. From the same source you just quoted, it defines sexual harassment as;

  ...unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual
  favors, and other verbal or physical harassment of a
  sexual nature.

Sexual in this case means sex, as in coitus and other related physical stimuli, not gender.

Furthermore, even some conduct which may be considered "sexual harassment" is not illegal. It is only illegal if it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment. Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment, quite the opposite!

> You should actually assume a woman doesn't want you to comment on her appearance.

If you're talking about strangers, I would absolutely agree. I'm not talking about cat-calling someone in the street, I'm talking about natural conversation with coworkers and colleagues, regardless of their gender. E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.

> Basically, you can't separate out, "Hi [woman], you look great in that dress" from "Hi [woman], that dress makes me sexually attracted to you'.

First, actually, yes you can separate out the two. It takes a few hundred milliseconds to register the change in your interlocutor's facial expression which tells you if they took your comment as it was intended or not. Particularly between two people who have known each other and worked together for more than a week. But even more to the point; telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment, and it's certainly not illegal. The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.

Personally, I'm not willing to "err" on the side of pretending my coworkers are ethereal beings without corporeal form. If someone finds something I say or do offensive, I expect them to let me know, and I will apologize and modify my behavior. That way, even if someone believes I'm making an unwanted sexual advance, I can clarify that no, in fact, I was not talking about sex, and I can try to be more clear about that in the future. In other words, if the only way you're comfortable working with me is by me treating you like a robot, please let me know, and I'll do my best to accommodate you, but I sure as hell am not going to act like that toward the majority of my coworkers.

> Harassment is easy to define

Yeah I already posted a link to the EEOC's definition.

> ...and very rarely illegal

EEOC charge statistics say otherwise: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm

> Sexual harassment is a completely different beast.

It's a specific type of harassment, like a Labrador Retriever is a specific type of dog. They're not completely different.

> Sexual in this case means sex, as in coitus and other related physical stimuli, not gender.

No, it's not restricted to physical stimuli. To reference the reports in this thread, telling a woman "it's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now" is sexual harassment, even if no one is touched. Do you really think otherwise?

You also conveniently left out the rest of the definition:

    Harassment does not have to be of a sexual nature, however, and can include offensive remarks about a person’s sex. For example, it is illegal to harass a woman by making offensive comments about women in general.

So you're really just 100% wrong, regardless of your opinions or feelings.

> Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment

They can if they're inappropriate and unwanted. I really encourage you to thoroughly read the definitions I linked to.

> If you're talking about strangers, I would absolutely agree. I'm not talking about cat-calling someone in the street, I'm talking about natural conversation with coworkers and colleagues, regardless of their gender.

I'm talking about the workplace and work-related functions, because that's the topic of this thread.

> E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.

It's extremely entitled to think that someone, man or woman, changed their appearance to elicit a reaction from you.

> The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.

To be pedantic, you're quoting the EEOC (I assume), which isn't the law, it's just EEOC's description. Further, you've misquoted them:

    Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent *or severe* that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

> First, actually, yes you can separate out the two.

You can, because you personally know your intent. But no one else can, and your intent is irrelevant. If your actions create a hostile work environment, it doesn't matter if you meant to or not.

> But even more to the point; telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment, and it's certainly not illegal.

Yes it is, it's an unwelcome sexual advance. If you keep doing it, you're sexually harassing someone, or if you do it in a severe enough way, you're sexually harassing someone.

You don't have a right to say whatever you want to someone. You may intend it to be an honest compliment, but your intent is irrelevant. Someone's attractiveness and physical appearance isn't relevant in the workplace, and it's inappropriate to bring it up.

> The law says, repeated unwanted sexual advances which are so severe that they create a hostile work environment.

Again I assume you're quoting the EEOC, which is not the law, and again you misquoted them:

    Although the law doesn’t prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents that are not very serious, harassment is illegal when it is so frequent or severe that it creates a hostile or offensive work environment or when it results in an adverse employment decision (such as the victim being fired or demoted).

> Personally, I'm not willing to "err" on the side of pretending my coworkers are ethereal beings without corporeal form.

This is entitlement, pure and simple. You're not willing to stop commenting on womens' appearances in order to avoid potentially making them uncomfortable, because you have a burning need to compliment? Indefensible. Your need to compliment isn't something that we have to protect. Womens' ability to feel comfortable and safe in the workplace is. It's infinitely more important; any suggestion otherwise is wildly selfish.

> In other words, if the only way you're comfortable working with me is by me treating you like a robot, please let me know, and I'll do my best to accommodate you

You have this backwards. Your default should be professional, workplace-appropriate conduct. Only in very specific circumstances can you act differently. I know we disagree on what workplace-appropriate conduct is, but your argument that it's up to women to "opt out" of your compliments is oppressive. The onus isn't on them, it's on you. And if you disagree that it's oppressive, remember that you're the one complaining about how onerous it would be for you to stop complimenting them. How hard would that really be, honestly?

> EEOC charge statistics say otherwise: http://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/enforcement/charges.cfm

How do you figure? Less than 100,000 charges of harassment, in a world where someone is harassing you pretty much on a minute-by-minute basis. I'd say that thoroughly substantiates my claim that harassment is almost never illegal.

>> Honest complements, by definition, cannot create a hostile or offensive work environment

> They can if they're inappropriate and unwanted.

They can only if they're inappropriate and unwanted... and so frequent or severe enough. Which honest complements cannot be. A complement on someone's appearance is not sexual nor inappropriate. It may be unwanted, which goes back to my point about how well-meaning humans communicate through things like eye contact and facial expressions. I'd ask you to point out a single case of proven sexual harassment based on someone simply paying complements to a co-worker, but it's probably not worth your time.

If sexual comments are inappropriate, unwanted, and are so frequent or severe that they create a hostile work environment (did I get the quote right that time?!), then they rise to illegal sexual harassment. It seems simple enough to me. Clearly a complement fails the 'severe' test, fails the sexual test, and so I'm left to just guess where you're coming from -- perhaps you're imagining a coworker doggedly pursuing an uninterested colleague, which, again, would not be what I call a honest complement.

>> First, actually, yes you can separate out the two.

> You can, because you personally know your intent. But no one else can, and your intent is irrelevant. If your actions create a hostile work environment...

Certainly I agree the definition of a 'hostile work environment' does not hinge on the harasser admitting fault or intent. However, I also do not think a hostile work environment can be something that "just happens" without some actual physical manifestation of harassment. When we tell co-workers to speak up it's about identifying these moments when a line is crossed. Long before honest complements could somehow even remotely approach the point of creating a hostile work environment, I am quite comfortable the vast majority of people's ability to recognize that. And I am convinced that calling for a outright ban on complementing someone's appearance in the workplace is incredible overreach.

> You don't have a right to say whatever you want to someone.

Whatever you want? Surely not. But this is a logical fallacy I won't chase.

> Someone's attractiveness and physical appearance isn't relevant in the workplace, and it's inappropriate to bring it up.

You're overgeneralizing here. In most workplaces physical appearance is absolutely relevant to some degree.

But ignoring the obvious cases where physical appearance is relevant, I'm honestly not sure what you mean by 'relevant in the workplace'. My workplace is not an assembly line where I don't interact with humans; quite the contrary. Interaction with humans is a large part of most workplaces, and conversing with, building rapport, trust, shared understanding and common goals is a major component of most workplaces. Part of team building is also building relationships and friendships, and that will naturally include people talking about themselves and talking about each other. While we should all expect this is always done in a positive and inclusive manor, we don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Comments about peoples apparel, or appearance are natural, unoffensive, and should not be banned in the work environment. The damage in sterilizing the workplace of this type of camaraderie far outweighs to potential for harm. My general thesis is, that this is an over-reaction to the base and vile things that sometimes, but rarely, do occur in the workplace.

>> E.g. If a colleague, male or female, comes in on Monday and their hair is a different color, I think not noticing it is more insulting by far.

> It's extremely entitled to think that someone, man or woman, changed their appearance to elicit a reaction from you.

Huh, what?! That's not what I said at all, please re-read it. I think something just shifted in your tone, and I'm sorry to see it go in that direction. Please try to remain charitable in light of the limited bandwidth of the communication medium. I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, probably because I was trying to be too cute while saying it.

The point I'm trying to make is, I don't think it's a reasonable trade-off, in fact I think it's massive overreach to strictly enforce a sterile workplace because someone might be offended by an honest complement. It's actually not about "me" it's just that pronouns get messy in comment threads. Please keep ad hominem out of it, because I'm actually trying to have a productive conversation here.

I'm not complaining about how onerous it would be for me to stop complementing someone. What I think we do need to protect is our ability to be human and humane to one another, to empathize with one another, and to have the option of connecting on a remotely personal level to people we spend the majority of our days with. I think this happens naturally and copacetically 99.99% of the time. I think your quoted Charge Statistics support my conclusion.

> I'd say that thoroughly substantiates my claim that harassment is almost never illegal.

Or it's drastically under-reported. Other stats bear this out, google around (or look elsewhere in this thread).

> They can only if they're inappropriate and unwanted... and so frequent or severe enough. Which honest complements cannot be.

I believe Vic Gundotera was honest when he was sexually harassing Kelly Ellis via compliments. Why is honesty a defense? Intent is irrelevant in harassment; it's the environment the harasser creates and the feelings the victim feels.

I think you're misusing the term "honest compliments". If I were to tell a woman, "hey your legs are very attractive", that's an honest compliment. It's also sexual harassment if I keep doing it. I think when you say "honest compliment", you mean "hey nice shoes".

The problem is, which parts of a woman's appearance can you compliment without being sexual? Avoid her body? "Hey nice skirt" is still pretty sexual. "Hey nice hose", "hey nice necklace", hey nice blouse", etc. can all draw attention to parts of a woman's body. Tone can also be a factor. "Hey nice hair" said in one tone can seem like what you would call an "honest compliment". "Hey nice hair" with a certain tone and closeness can imply, "I'd like to run my fingers through it".

1 in 4 women experiences workplace sexual harassment. It's very possible they associate comments about their appearance with that experience. They shouldn't have to opt-out of your compliments.

How can you avoid all of tihs? Stop complimenting a woman's appearance.

> I'd ask you to point out a single case of proven sexual harassment based on someone simply paying complements to a co-worker, but it's probably not worth your time.

You should just google around for legal advice regarding comments on appearance being sexual harassment. It's absolutely sexual harassment if it is frequent or severe enough. I just googled "workplace appearance comments harassing", and basically all the results were good.

> You're overgeneralizing here. In most workplaces physical appearance is absolutely relevant to some degree.

Only if it becomes a problem. And I'm overgeneralizing because that should be the default approach. Don't comment on a woman's appearance unless necessary.

> Interaction with humans is a large part of most workplaces, and conversing with, building rapport, trust, shared understanding and common goals is a major component of most workplaces.

Which is all why you should be professional and appropriate, because in most workplaces you have to interact with others, and women shouldn't suffer these kinds of "compliments" just to have a job. The things you listed are critical to creating a positive work environment. When women are constantly judged by and harassed based on their appearance, that positive work environment dissipates.

> The damage in sterilizing the workplace of this type of camaraderie far outweighs to potential for harm.

This is hyperbole. There are already tons of topics completely unsuitable for the workplace. Adding one more doesn't suddenly make the workplace "sterile". Feel free to talk about crazy things that happened to you, or food that you've eaten, or sports, or any one of a million things humans experience.

> Huh, what?! That's not what I said at all, please re-read it. I think something just shifted in your tone, and I'm sorry to see it go in that direction. Please try to remain charitable in light of the limited bandwidth of the communication medium. I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say, probably because I was trying to be too cute while saying it.

I'm trying to assume the best, but this logic is the kind of logic street harassers use to justify their behavior. "She wouldn't dress that way unless she wanted compliments", or "it would be an insult not to holler at that dress". I'm not saying you're a bad person. I'm saying, from what you've been writing here, that your behavior is problematic.

I appreciate that the context is different, but I don't think that you appreciate that the difference in context matters very little.

> Please keep ad hominem out of it, because I'm actually trying to have a productive conversation here.

I wasn't specifically talking about you. I'm saying that belief indicates a strong sense of entitlement. If you're of that belief, then I think you're entitled. I don't know how to correct someone's behavior without saying their behavior is bad.

> I'm not complaining about how onerous it would be for me to stop complementing someone. What I think we do need to protect is our ability to be human and humane to one another, to empathize with one another, and to have the option of connecting on a remotely personal level to people we spend the majority of our days with. I think this happens naturally and copacetically 99.99% of the time.

1 in 4 women experiences sexual harassment in the workplace. Often they experience it multiple times, especially women in low-wage jobs. In my workplace, we don't comment on the appearance of women, and we still manage to have a blast. For Christmas, we went to an Irish pub together and swapped hilarious stories. Someone told stories about competing in a triathlon, someone else told stories from when they were in boot camp. I wouldn't call us friends per se, but I would say we're very collegial. Your assertion that banning comments on women's appearances would sterilize the workplace is simply not true. So don't worry about it :).

Instead, worry about how millions and millions of women are sexually harassed every day. I really think that issue is far, far bigger.

When I say 'honest complement' I really mean one that is offered as a way to build rapport, camaraderie, friendship.... That means first, you need to know the person, and it must be accepted in the same vein it was offered. It's a way to be nice to someone, to show them that you care about them, or brighten their day just to spread good karma. It is nothing at all like the pattern of of behavior alleged in TFA, and in the context of those allegations, Vic's comments certainly are not honest by my measure.

But what I thought was really interesting in that quote @marczellm linked to, and more specifically in the Twitter replies discussing it (they're now private, so I can't go back and quote them)... someone asked something like "how can this be harassment?" followed by some nasty personal attacks and then statements like "this is always harassment" and "you can never say anything like this". And so I'm looking at the statement completely outside the context of TFA (because that's just tweeted allegations after all).

It would be terribly disheartening to learn that I can't actually do/say those things because women are so overcome by constant harassment it becomes too likely that a complement or nice gesture would actually be harassing. I'm not quite convinced this is true, but I am certainly more attune to the possibility than I was previously.

>> Sexual in this case means sex, as in coitus and other related physical stimuli, not gender.

> No, it's not restricted to physical stimuli. To reference the reports in this thread, telling a woman "it's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now" is sexual harassment, even if no one is touched. Do you really think otherwise?

I do not think otherwise, you simply misread what I wrote. I was opining on the qualifier sexual in the phrase sexual harassment. Grabbing someone's ass, or threatening to grab someones ass, or telling someone you are imagining yourself grabbing their ass, all obviously qualify as sexual harassment. Harassment which is rooted in sex or other related physical stimuli. Sexist remarks against women in general are what I would call 'gender harassment' not sexual harassment.

It's worth mentioning that the term "sexual harassment" was invented, a so-called "term of art" whose definition is far from settled. "Because of this, one cannot simply appeal to the 'facts' to determine which behaviors fit the category and which do not. There is disagreemetn about what the relevant 'facts' are. People must establish that there are identifiable features of certain behaviors that make it useful to label them sexual harassment. This leaves open the possibility for disagreement about which behaviors, if any, count as sexual harassment." [1]

[1] - Margaret A. Crouch, Thinking about Sexual Harassment: A Guide for the Perplexed ;-)

>> But even more to the point; telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment, and it's certainly not illegal.

>Yes it is, it's an unwelcome sexual advance.

You're wrong here, because if we ban people from revealing their attractions, then no one will enter relationships, and humankind will be extinct.

> telling a coworker you are attracted to them, guess what, it's not sexual harassment,

It's really disappointing to see people defending vile behaviour on HN, and is the reason I normally flag these threads.

> Personally, I'm not willing to "err" on the side of pretending my coworkers are ethereal beings without corporeal form.

You've set up some bizarre distortion of what you're being asked to do, which is very simply "don't comment on a person's appearance unless you know that person well enough to do so (and almost certainly never if they're a work colleague).

I don't think this conversation is about any obviously vile behavior. In fact, this conversation has gone much past TFA into a much more nuanced and interesting discussion. I'm sorry if you missed that in the sea of text.

From what I understand from @camgunz replies, "unless you know that person well enough to do so" is not an acceptable exception in @camgunz mind. I specifically said I'm not talking about cat-calling strangers or anything remotely obviously offensive.

Recall the starting point, with my claim that telling a colleague, "You look amazing in that ___, like a rock star." is not harassment. To which @camgunz replied that women can't be complemented the same way as men, and "many women view comments on their appearance as demeaning and threatening".

My point was, in the workplace, between colleagues, and forget about the specific person being indited in these tweets, can you pay a colleague a complement? I think emphatically, why yes you can. I almost can't believe I'm having the argument.

I should have called you out on some more of this earlier, but re-reading your reply, I feel like I need to comment on two points even though it's quite tardy;

> Men aren't harassed based upon their appearance.

I have been harassed based on my appearance, and many of my friends have reported the same. Anecdote isn't data, but your statement is categorically false. The harassment may be different (e.g. men being put-down or physically provoked versus women being cat-called) but it is all harassment.

> When men are raped, they aren't asked about their appearance, or if their appearance was provocative.

Also, categorically false. Questions as to consent, or mistake of fact regarding consent, are always raised at trial by competent defense. Let me clear, provocative appearance is not even remotely consent, but it is regularly part of the story told by the defense, regardless of the gender of the accused and the victim. I'm just stating legal fact here to debunk your claim, not endorsing anything.

Sorry I got lazy. I meant, "there isn't centuries of history of men being sexually harassed by women based on and valued almost entirely by their appearance". There are a lot of qualifiers and I get tired of typing them all out. Louis CK puts it pretty well in one of his bits when he's talking about being called a cracker: "Oh no, you're taking me back to the days where I owned land and people". There's a big difference between white racial slurs and slurs regarding other races. White racial slurs invoke our privileged history. Slurs against other races invoke their oppressed history.

The same thing goes for harassment based on appearance. Certainly men can be harassed in this way, but it's nothing like when women are, because the history is totally different.

> Questions as to consent, or mistake of fact regarding consent, are always raised at trial by competent defense.

These are different for men than they are for women. Men have to face the "can men really be raped?" argument, where as women have to face the "was she asking for it?" argument. You can see how men's appearance doesn't factor into this; it's the gender stereotype of men being willing to have sex with anything that's at play. But we agree that both are pretty fucked up.

> I'm just stating legal fact here to debunk your claim, not endorsing anything.

Haha, things are getting a little hot in here I guess. I don't think you're defending rapists or anything :).

As a male, I don't really have that reaction. I'm not really sure that people's personal reactions to their own work environment ought to be called "harassment," and I think "inability to do your job" is probably closer to the right term.

I can sympathize with that reaction for, like, deadlines. I do get a rising heart rate and an inability to concentrate on my work, as a tight deadline approaches and I'm behind on things. I don't think that banning deadlines from the workplace is really the right answer. I'd rather just acknowledge that I'm bad at my job if I let this problem continue, and I should figure out a way to deal with this personal problem, if I want to keep my job.

Showing up to work naked is already considered grounds for reprimand. If you can't be around a clothed woman without breaking down mentally just because she is clothed in a certain way, that is your problem.

> If you can't be around a clothed woman without breaking down mentally just because she is clothed in a certain way, that is your problem.

Yes, thank you. The whole "I'm a victim of being attracted to pretty people" schtick has gone quite far enough. You're an adult in a place of business, try acting like it.

I have a pair of pants that I bought from a friends' startup which are, um, well-fitting enough that my wife has told me:

1) they're her favorite pair of my pants.

2) wearing them at work might be sexual harassment.

The manufacturer brands themselves as professional, so it's not like I'm trying to do a David Bowie impression. They're very comfortable and look nice, so I'd prefer to keep wearing them unless they're actually improper. Is there a good way to definitively determine this without asking awkward questions of the women in my office?

Ask your wife if she would be ok with you wearing them to dinner with her parents.

Unless they are literally crotch-less, the cut and fit of your jeans is a topic for your workplace dress code. It is not, and can never be, "sexual harassment".

It's incredibly inappropriate for a manager to make sexual remarks about one of their employees.

> As a male, the mere presence of an overly sexy woman can put me in a state similar to fear: rising heart rate, mild trembling, goosebumps, inability to concentrate on whatever I was doing (talking to someone or doing work) etc.

You sound like you're speaking on behalf of all males. You don't. If that's really your reaction, you should seek counseling. Trembling and being unable to work are not really normal reactions.

> You sound like you're speaking on behalf of all males. You don't

I'd like to amplify this.

A compliment, when given by a superior about a subordinate's physical appearance, could be considered harassment. Here's a handy guide from The Guardian [1].

> could we consider overly sexy looks a form of harassment too?

Probably not. If you're unable to work near an "overly sexy woman" and she is following your company's dress code, then I'd say that's probably your problem, not hers. For it to be harassment, her appearance would have to be somehow directed at you, or somehow encroaching on personal boundaries. If someone who is clothed and just trying to do her everyday job puts you "in a state similar to fear", that's pretty unfortunate for you.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/womens-blog/2014/apr...

I think Marczellm means "can my looking at, staring at, another person be considered harassment" and not "can someone who looks attractive be harrassment?"

That's not how I interpreted it, but I could see how that could have been what he meant.

In that case, I do think staring can, in certain contexts, be considered harassment. I would hope that it could be solved by a conversation ala "please stop staring at me".

That's not what I meant.

My apologies.

Please reconsider this line of thinking. Setting aside that "overly sexy looks" is the most arbitrary measure in the universe, you're basically saying "my reaction to attraction to someone means they are a problem".

If you continue down this line you basically end up at the conclusion that women should not be allowed in the workplace because they distract the men. Which is as ridiculous as saying that men should not be allowed in the workplace because they are distracted by the women. Neither are reasonable places to end up.

You are focusing on the most innocuous of a string of comments, one of which was "It's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now."

Don't try to make this something it's not, this is a very clearcut case of harassment.

Right, because the other allegations, if true, would be obvious, while this one in particular makes for more interesting discussion.

The comments section isn't about providing a trial-by-internet-jury. I find it's more interesting to explore the hypothetical than to focus on trying to analyze or even come to some conclusion of guilt based on allegations made over Twitter.

Maybe start thinking with the head on top of your shoulders, not the one inside your pants.

Just to reiterate what others are saying, that's on you and something you need to learn how to manage to work in a professional environment. Otherwise, you're expecting someone else to accept an extra burden which they didn't ask for and may not even know about – and do all of that as an unpaid distraction from their real job.

The answer is simple: find a counselor whose full-time time is helping people debug their brains.

> Otherwise, you're expecting someone else to accept an extra burden which they didn't ask for and may not even know about

Poor woman who needs to accept an "extra burden" and dress somewhat modestly, instead of going out half-naked in a working environment. Yes, it's definitely the OP's fault here.

“Overly sexy” doesn't tell us anything more than it's beyond what he can handle. You'll get very different answers for that question depending on who you ask, so it's really premature to say “somewhat modestly” when you have no idea what that means or automatically assign blame to the woman.

Beta blockers man, beta blockers.

I doubt this is a male/female issue. This manager most likely lacks respect for all people.

Why can't it be both? Ellis knows the man better than you do.

What? That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, I'm sure he would have been just as likely to say "It's taking all of my self control not to grab your ass right now" to a dude, right?

You're a moron. It's possible for a man to disrespect a man.

I agree with your second point and disagree with your first one. I don't see how either is a rebuttal to what I wrote, though.

It is pretty amazing that we've taken computing, a field that has traditionally been a refuge of social outcasts, and turned it into an environment where being a tactless creep is outrage worthy.

> social outcast

> tactless creep

What does either of these have to do with the other? I don't think social outcast implies tactless creep, and unfortunately, tactless creep clearly doesn't imply social outcast.

You're setting up a straw man of equivalence.

> I don't think social outcast implies tactless creep

Of course, because there is more than one way to lack social skills.

> tactless creep clearly doesn't imply social outcast

Outcasts go on to form their own organizations (eg Google). Someone can progress to fit in reasonably, but that doesn't mean they're completely normal (in this instance, hitting on someone who is not interested).

A manager at Google abusing a woman and being protected for it is outrage-worthy. Your attempt to frame that reality as less serious is unimpressive.

I read the tweets before commenting. The only specifics I saw were several verbal remarks (please correct me if I missed something). Framing poor taste compliments as "abuse" is less impressive.

Are you implying that "verbal abuse" is entirely impossible? But verbal abuse is a widely recognized category of abuse in law enforcement and domestic violence support networks around the world. You can see the top-level comment by kelukelugames for more info

Verbal abuse is a thing. Unwanted compliments do not immediately constitute verbal abuse.

Did you see kelukelugames's comment that I mentioned?

Yes. Our disagreement comes from you framing the issue as unquestionable "abuse" to shut down rational discussion. You are assuming that a disinterested third party would conclude the environment was indeed hostile, and you are also asserting that a hostile environment necessarily implies abuse rather than differing perspectives.

At this point I know the game. It is to keep me engaged so that my tangential comments can be picked apart to show what a shitlord I am and to make my original point easier to ignore. Enjoy your political dystopia.

"Unwanted complements"?

C'mon. That is not a compliment. 'Nice hat' is a complement. "I'm having a hard time not grabbing your ass" is not a complement. In the best light it is a clumsy pass at her. And that is being overly generous.

Well, that is bad!

NOT a good sign when his Google+ profile publicly contains photos like this (NSFW): https://plus.google.com/+RoderickChavez/photos/photo/5184662...

Definitely a creeper.

Depends. If that's a random coworker who wasn't expecting that, then yeah. If it's... say... an S/O he's doing home improvement projects with (the impression I get from the rest of the album it's in), not so much.

Of course, you'd think someone working at Google would have a better understanding of how the G+ privacy settings work (and of the dangerous capriciousness of the Internet)...

True, the content itself isn't necessarily malicious in nature, but the way you present yourself publicly says a lot about your personality (or at least, how I will perceive it). I didn't consider the possibility that maybe he doesn't understand privacy settings, which would be pretty odd for a director of engineering.

You know the problem with these claims is that you never know what actually happened. I find that quite often these threads just reinforce the hate and blindness in people - it doesn't fix anything.

You get called out for kindly offering a woman coffee when you're making yours at the machine. Offering it to a man is ok. Being a woman offering it to a man, the man will looked at as if he's manipulated her to do that. That's fucked up.

This is very bay-area specific, and it's quite toxic.

When you see something that is obviously wrong, or know the facts, do act. Make it stop.

When you don't, be curious - instead of hating with passion. Remember that people are actually innocent until proven guilty. Even if it's cool to hate (specially white males). Otherwise, it destroys you and the very things you're fighting for. Every single time.

I believe her, which means I believe I know what happened. It is you who is electing to entertain the possibility that she is lying.

You believe.

And that's exactly why people died for principles such as innocent until proven guilty. Regardless of the cause. Heck, if people didn't believe stuff at random we'd have far less wars.

You are acting like a fool through-out these comments. I get the feeling that you are projecting your own women hating feelings onto everyone else. If your reason for "believing" someone is only their gender then you sir are sexist.

Why do you need back up? Why couldn't you deal with it at the time?

Its a shame perhaps that men and women are not typically given the same upbringing, or have the same natural tendencies, when it comes to confrontation.

Not doing anything about it at the time, then moaning about it after the fact, as a man, is social suicide - its cowardly and makes you look weak.

As a woman these same behaviours are lauded as self control and intelligence - and the opposite, as being reactionary and thoughtless. You may be labelled as bossy, a control freak or worse...

Neither of these attitudes is quite right... however I do think that people need to stick up for themselves. Don't expect any back up and fight your own corner... but then I am a man, and this is our default attitude. 'being a man' very much means being strong, independent, self-reliant and unassailable... without asking for attention or rewards for doing so. I'm not sure why women shouldn't be encouraged to do the same - these are imo objectively good properties of a successful human being, regardless of gender.

>"Not doing anything about it at the time"

For starters, were you there when the events were taking place?

good point. i just assume this based on the moaning happening after the fact...

Why do you use the word "moaning"?

> Ellis recognized that the proper channels were stacked against her, clearly.

My experience makes this very hard to believe. If that is the case then that should be the topic of complaint, not the individual's actions, and especially in a way so lacking in context and detail.

In the context of the workplace this sort of behaviour is bad, not just for the individual, but for the company. I find it very hard to believe that Google would do nothing about it. of course this is just belief. If they are willing to act in support of this kind of inappropriate behaviour then the company should quite rightly get a slamming for it...

Part of modern society is not taking the law into your own hands, whether that is giving someone a whack for being a jerk, or making a big public stink about it. I find it very hard to see this as being any better than punching someone in the face because you don't like their attitude.

i can't reply to your deeply nested comment.

i use the word moaning because it fits... i could use 'complaining' but the would mask my disdain for this sort of behaviour.

if this were a man, i would be even more aggressive with my language. although i also suspect this sort of thing coming from a man would receive zero attention and immediately be written off...

there is a way of dealing with these problems in modern society, and it is not to go rabble rousing with inflammatory social media posts, but to either deal with the problem at the time informally or go through the 'proper' channels.

i don't want to defend the harassment, and I think there is a time and a place for this sort of social media attack... this is just very, very far from it.

i myself for instance, will do this sort of thing when very many people are being victimised by a large company, because when you are outnumbered and outgunned you have to fight dirty. if it was just me, and one individual in particular, i'd have a much harder time justifying it.

none of that makes it any less of a dirty fighting strategy.

one guy being a jerk is something to deal with in person, then go to HR if its a real problem that you can't deal with normally, and if that fails the next step is probably to bring legal action against the company for discrimination in the workplace... only if all these things fail and you really are at a disadvantage should you stoop to dirty tactics. imo.

my problem here really is that women are not discouraged from this sort of behaviour in the same way that men are, and i'm pretty sure it is to their detriment. in fact, as you can see here, it is being supported...

Ellis recognized that the proper channels were stacked against her, clearly. To quote myself in another comment, "you disregard the possiblity that Ellis is trying to warn other women more than she is trying to make an accusation that would lead to the appropriate action against him."

We men should be the primary focus of the discouraging, because of the historical record and the documented statistics.

(sorry i can't reply to the deeply nested comment)

"'being a man' very much means being strong, independent, self-reliant and unassailable"

So you are only a man if you fit this very specific characteristics?

I really recommend you watch this documentary: http://therepresentationproject.org/films/the-mask-you-live-...

i don't mean it so literally, it is a misfortune of how these words are commonly used to describe character traits that have nothing to do with gender. its nothing about masculinity, or machismo...

this concept of 'being a man about it' i think most people understand if you say it that way, which is why i use those words.

its a shame that it is such a gender specific term because 'manning up' and 'not being such a girl' are things that i believe women should equally be encouraged to do as men. the fact that the terminology is classically steeped in sexism really sucks because it quite literally turns 'being a man' into a compliment and 'being a girl' into an insult...

all people should be encouraged to be strong and self-reliant.

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