bluehat

you're in the wrong ad agency

We used this company to bootstrap software startups. One looks more promising than this company, and splitting our efforts up seems unwise.

Also, we need to travel for the software startup, and this isn't exactly a remote job.

It's more or less "one or the other" and we chose "the other."

Hostels take people over shorter periods, like weekends. Dorms have people for 3-6 months so they can complete an internship.

Hostels are fairly transactional. Dorms involve community responsibilities, including from the residents. This is everything from helping sort clutter each week to running a really cool house every year for the local trick-or-treaters.

Pensions are things where you don't have to work. This is a job, not a full-time job, but it still does require work. There is an aspect of running the place (we order a LOT of toilet paper from Costco) but also we are responsible for a community. We once had a resident whose parent died when they lived here, and yesterday a resident was hit by a car while biking to work (a long way from our place, and yes the doctor said he is fine. He more or less only lost some mustache).

These folks are sometimes a long way from home, often quite young (early undergrad), and sometimes foreign. We are their community out here, and often act as a sort of designated older sibling when stuff really gets real.

The company holds a lease on a small apartment complex

Can't we use peer-reviewed studies instead of entertainment? I really feel like you're not doing your position justice...

I'd rather see it cited in a peer-reviewed study.

I have no evidence it is more sexist than anywhere else. I only said it was a problem and that it needs solving.

Your numbers seem to be of police-recorded offenses. Many studies show that only a very small number of rapes are reported. I cited a study where 4% of men self-identified as rapists for scientific study. Half of those men were repeat offenders, and averaged 5.8 victims.

Complaining about rape doesn't stop people who already rape. I never made that argument. You argued that complaining about rape makes the situation in the world worse, and I was asking what your reasoning was for that.

Your faith that the legal system reduces drama and solves problems is probably the reason my behavior doesn't make a lot of sense to you.

You didn't begin interacting with the technology industry before you were an adult? No summer programs, meetups, or after-school activities? One of the points I wanted to make is that these issues start impacting people when they are still children, and we're going to have to include that knowledge in our solutions.

I'm proud to have the audience working with me at the end. That's what a good speaker does. That doesn't mean they were with me in the beginning. Most of them probably didn't know me before I went up on stage.

I can probably dig up some witnesses if it really would change your mind, or you can ask the DEFCON officials.

What happened to me happened years ago. I wasn't ready to talk about it then. Now I am.

The window for prosecution has closed, so it is not possible to take it to court anymore.

Big events like this take years to heal from. I don't understand why so many people seem to believe that people are incapable of healing any more than they do in the first few days after the event. Like the passing of a loved one, with time, you can come to terms with even very unhappy things.

Your argument is that writing an article doesn't stop rape. I find it true that writing an article won't fix my rape seeing as writing an article is not magic a time machine. However, I find it hard to believe that writing an article would not help reduce rape. Writing this article helps people understand rape is common and hopefully make people be more likely to believe the next person who comes forward and is ready to press charges.

How is writing an article counterproductive though? What am I hurting?

What evidence do you have that the tech industry is less sexist than other places? Are you arguing that women like working with sexist people through your finance experience? Are you arguing that women who talk about rape don't have the respect of their peers and must be bad coders? I don't understand any of what you said.

Yeah I didn't view his actions towards me as rape either. Just really dickish.

Because it isn't possible for that to be true?

It's taken me years to be able to talk about it. The window for prosecution closed a long time ago.

I feel like the three recommendations still stand on their own even if you believe nothing of what I said.

It's gone :/

I want to do something more with my life than make sure some asshole gets what they deserve. I want my life to be about more than that.

Yeah I don't generally talk about this because it brings conversations to a screaming halt, and you have to spend all your time comforting whoever you just told.

Well, I don't know how to reach your empathy, but we do need your help creating safe spaces, educating folks in a non-destructive way, and getting people to talk about these issues until the truth and solutions are found.

Thanks. I try. I think a lot of women are afraid of being taken as 'emotional' or 'overreacting' in the workplace so we start practicing young.

Why is this the most important philosophical discussion to have right now? I just explained how terrible things can be, a thing I called rape only one of a large number of issues.

Why is "was she technically correct in saying rape" the most important takeaway from this? Even if I'm wrong, don't you see other things worth fixing?

Of every claim you have heard, this is the one you think isn't real?

Your eagerness to help is very good, and I think expressing that you care about these issues to your employees is great, but unless you tattoo it on your forehead, most employees won't know about your personal stances. Your personal stance will come much more into play when a complaint is brought to management level, since the odds of you being the one randomly handed it are pretty low.

I think the lowest hanging fruit in your own workplace will be to make sure the escalation structures that already exist are strong, protect those who are afraid, and have clearly defined expected fair outcomes for when a complaint is heard. Too often reports of problems just disappear into management and die down before anything happens because nobody's planned out what they are suppose to do if there is a problem.

This sounds pretty shitty to live. I would like to think we can do better.

I don't work at Medium. I'm taking some time between work right now. I don't think I could have written this if I had a job with a conventional employer. No matter how great my employer is, if the post got popular, it would be pretty irresponsible and could hurt my employer. I'd at least talk it over with my coworkers and have addressed it directly in the article.

Nah, it was nothing like that. I fleshed out the paragraph a little.

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Listening to him quote the sexual harassment seminars was the saddest bit: on one hand he was really trying, but on the other, everything he was quoting made absolutely no sense. I frequently found him putting so much effort in where it didn’t really matter, like obsessively counting how many times he had asked a man vs a woman to carry heavy equipment. He always seemed overloaded with things to remember about “not being sexist” and afraid to get something wrong. It seemed almost heartless to risk getting him in trouble.

It involved people I couldn't cut out of my social circles without dramatic sacrifice. Even getting rid of of him as much as I did without calling him a rapist cost me a great deal.

Not OP, but did write the article. I think everything you've said makes a lot of sense given the data set you seem to be working with, and that most people in the tech industry are very good.

The incident in question was my talk at DEFCON 19 right before the camera started rolling. I want to reiterate that THEY MADE GOOD ON THIS and I am NOT MAD. I feel like everybody learned a lot and things will be better now.

But yeah, there were over 1000 people in the room for that talk, I'm sure if it comes down to a "did it happen" or "did it not happen" we can pull up enough witnesses. That one is pretty cut and dry.

Here's the point series I tried to make in the article: bad things happen, when they happen nobody knows what to do about them, and we won't make systems which handle these problems properly until enough people give enough fucks so that they are actually properly made.