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Their stories came out slowly, even hesitantly, at first. Then in a rush.
One female entrepreneur recounted how she had been propositioned by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist while seeking a job with him, which she did not land after rebuffing him. Another showed the increasingly suggestive messages she had received from a start-up investor. And one chief executive described how she had faced numerous sexist comments from an investor while raising money for her online community website.
What happened afterward was often just as disturbing, the women told The New York Times. Many times, the investor's firms and colleagues ignored or played down what had happened when the situations were brought to their attention. Saying anything, the women were warned, might lead to ostracism.
Now some of these female entrepreneurs have decided to take that risk. More than two dozen women in the technology start-up industry spoke to The Times in recent days about being sexually harassed. Ten of them named the investors involved, often providing corroborating messages and emails, and pointed to high-profile venture capitalists such as Chris Sacca of Lowercase Capital and Dave McClure of 500 Startups, who did not dispute the accounts.
The disclosures came after the tech news site The Information reported that female entrepreneurs had been preyed upon by a venture capitalist, Justin Caldbeck of Binary Capital. The new accounts underscore how sexual harassment in the tech start-up ecosystem goes beyond one firm and is pervasive and ingrained. Now their speaking out suggests a cultural shift in Silicon Valley, where such predatory behavior had often been murmured about but rarely exposed.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:50AM (21 children)
The actual title of TFA is "Women in tech speak frankly on culture of harassment", and indeed "tech" is mentioned throughout the text. Women in tech. Give me a break.
None of the women mentioned in TFA are "in tech". Doing a non-technical job for a tech company does not make you "tech". Being physically located in Silicon Valley does not make you "tech".
Look at them: Ellen Pao is an attorney. Gesche Haas studied business and operations management. Susan Wu does marketing. Rachel Renock does visual design and communication (i.e., advertising). Claire Humphreys studied business. Kristen Ablamsky does advertising.
So, in reality, TFA is talking about sexual harassment of attorneys, marketing types and business people. This harassment is almost certainly being committed by other attorneys, marketing types and business people. Once we put it in those terms, well:
- One in three women [attorneys] have experienced sexual harassment [pnplegal.com]
- Most women in advertising have experienced sexual harrassment" [adweek.com]
- Sexual harassment horrors of Wall Street" [justiceatwork.com]
Arrogant attorneys, slimy salesmen and rich businessmen looking to get laid, news at 11:00.
I'm not saying all techies are saints, after all, there are assholes everywhere. But I am tired of the drumbeat about how badly the tech world treats women, when most of the cases making the headlines have nothing to do with us.
/rant
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:09AM
But the in-ness of tech-ness is mostly moot-ness. The key as that young start-ups still have old-fashioned views of women.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by aristarchus on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:26AM (1 child)
Just complaining about women in tech being a thing does not mean you are in tech. Just look at bradley! Ewww, sorry, I didn't know. But this is not about lawyers, managers, tech people or anything else, it is about some people being sexually harassed, just like bradley should be sexually harnessed by every Soylentil, and taken to task for being such an ass. We await your apology, since you are not even in tech, bradley11!
(Score: -1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @09:39AM
Wow! You utterly decimated that argument! However, it seems that while you were busy constructing that strawman, I accidentally slipped and my cock fell into your asshole and shot out all of my feces-mating liquid. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Too good!
But wait, what is this I see? Could it be the illustrious and illusionary feces soup?!?! Such a thing of legends could not possibly be here, could it?!?!
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:53AM
How the hell is this a troll comment?
From what I remember I think I generally dislike bradley13, but this a factual claim that can be either confirmed or refuted: "these women have nothing to do with technology".
Furthermore, some of the women complain that they are being harassed by investors, and I honestly cannot call a generic investor a "tech worker".
Is there information on the training and working conditions of the women/men involved?
Who among them is working as a programmer/server room monkey etc?
While you can argue with bradley13's definition of "tech worker", there's nothing trollish about his comment.
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Wednesday July 05 2017, @10:36AM (6 children)
To be fair, those guys that harassed them probably aren't 'tech' either, but management making a living off 'tech'. And harassing obviously. They probably think if they do this to a hundred women, surely one or two will 'byte'. They're not concerned about the other 98, those are forgotten immediately after they refuse to play along.
Most real techs are not even in a position to act like this.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:57PM (5 children)
To be honest, I have mostly tuned out these so-called sexual harassment and unwelcome/unwanted advances complaints. Everything from "He was looking at me wrong" to "I didn't get invited to the after hours drinking party" has become sexual harassment. I once had a female coworker, who knew I was married, walk up to me in my office while I was sitting there on the phone with my wife and straddle my leg while looking into my eyes, smiling. She often tried to get me to drive her home after work. She would tell me whenever she "forgot" to wear any underwear. Did I go whining to managers? Hell no. I took it as a compliment and moved on with my life.
Seriously ladies, if you apply for a job and your prospective boss is a total asshole for ANY reason, do you REALLY want to work there? I've had insecure asshole bosses before and I don't think it would be a great selling point for employment. If your boss makes it clear that you need to sleep with him to keep your job, file a complaint; but if all you got is "He was staring at my boobs" then you better hope I'm not on your jury.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:08PM (4 children)
Your one anecdote about the wiles of women pale by comparison to the volumes of harassment women undergo every day. To paraphrase and slightly misapply comedian Chris Rock, he says women get offered dick every day. 'Can I get that for you? (Would you like some dick?)' Whereas us men are like 'Damn this must be my lucky day' when an invitation falls into our laps.
When the whole effing world is stacked against you because of how you where born you have to make drastic efforts to survive. Since we preach every person for themselves as gospel in this damned country, don't cry foul over the methods some must employ to remain afloat. After all, they show the same concern for you as you do for them. You're just an object to extract money from.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @04:10PM (1 child)
My sympathy will improve when the last woman on Earth for the last time cries her way or bats her eyes to get out of a speeding ticket. Or when the last woman goes on her last date to get a free meal. Life is not fair. Both sexes use their advantages to their own benefit. Whining to the New York Times is just another aspect of it.
And when they cannot politely decline, there is a problem. Otherwise it's a cryfest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:49PM
And do we have any figures on how many white men DON'T get pulled over in the first place precisely because they're white men? How do we know that woman wasn't pulled over because the police officer is actually a creep and hopes one woman will give him a blow job to get out of a ticket? How many men date just for sex? How many stoop to rape drugs? How often do you hear of a gang rape of a man by women? You ignore a vast amount of evidence because it doesn't fit your "life was fine x number of years ago" narrative. Well obviously life wasn't so fine or else we wouldn't be in this situation now.
The one sane thing you've said all thread. Men have used their advantages over millennia to create an environment where women where repressed into baby making machines with no or less rights than the males. So women have had to retaliate in ways that have gotten them labeled as witches and whores to survive in a world that's hostile to them. Welcome to the world YOU want.
You completely ignore the fact that being propositioned in the first place is the problem, not that women aren't just 'manning up' and telling men to go fuck off. Go fuck off.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:45PM (1 child)
That sounds an awful lot like conspiratorial nonsense. Present your rigorous scientific evidence that it's actually true.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @07:25PM
I think bradley13 linked a few research papers in the GP of this drivel. Google it yourself, I refuse to spoon feed you that which you won't believe anyway.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by technoid_ on Wednesday July 05 2017, @12:40PM (4 children)
Sorry to break this to you, but Tech is an industry and along with that there are support roles.
To run a large business, you need people doing things that are not your direct product. Janitors, receptionists, cafeteria cooks, lawyers, and business people are all needed in a large company to provide the end user with product that is technical in nature. Do you think that the techs do all of those functions at tech companies?
The article wasn't titled "Technical Women speak frankly on culture of harassment" as it is about women in the Tech industry.
Your argument is just a way to say "Not my problem" to the issue of people treating other people badly. I don't care what industry this is in, it isn't right and you are just looking for an excuse to not care because it might taint your view of the world.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:48PM (3 children)
Alright, so you have a tech company. If your janitor hits on your office maid, are you going to call that misbehaviour in tech? I can see the headlines: "Floor buffer tech sexually harasses Lemon Pledge tech!"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by technoid_ on Wednesday July 05 2017, @02:55PM (2 children)
It is happening in the tech industry, it can be.
Part of the problem is the culture of the office/industry that allows this to go on. If the company does nothing about the problem, then it is a company problem. If multiple companies in the industry have this problem and do nothing to fix it due to the culture of the industry, it is a problem with the industry.
So yes, it can be a tech industry issue. Part of what your example doesn't take into consideration is that the harassment from the article is serial and affects multiple tech companies, thus the Tech industry and not just a single company.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @03:54PM (1 child)
Your not seeing the forest because of the trees there slugger.
This is rife in EVERY industry. In particular its bad with attorneys and financiers. Blaming that on the "techies" is misplaced.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:37PM
No, it is not! This is the point! We blame the techies because they are not Runaway, and so are susceptible to shaming, being called on their hypocrisy, and they should just fucking know better than to act like this. If you cannot see this, you must not really be a techie, because no true techie would ever discriminate based on gender, or sexually harass anyone. It's just unprofessional.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @01:54PM (1 child)
Ok, thanks for letting us know that you're still OK with sexual harassment in general.
Focusing on the 'women in *tech*' phrasing of the problem, as opposed to, say, the *problem*, is not illuminating you in what can be called a favorable light.
If this article was about 'women in tech' that somehow made it big and are CFOs or COOs or something -- clearly not tech, like the lady at Facebook -- she's just a suit at a tech company -- I can see your ire being more applicable.
Not in this case, though.
However, if this is a tech site, and the article is about women harassed while working at tech companies, and you are focusing on the wrong issue, even if you are, as a techie on a tech site, technically correct. But those soft skills need work, just like all of those non-techs and techs, wherever they work, sexually harassing women for any reason.
You just don't do that, even if you hear about it in stories and movies and other people get away with it, you are still a jerk if you do it. And a jerk for trying to draw attention away from the problem.
The article even has a line or two about how some guys are wondering when the witch hunt will stop. They just don't understand. Focusing on how this isn't female geeks working in tech is just as much of a problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:49PM
That's a complete straw man. I see nothing wrong with desiring to be correct, and that has absolutely nothing to do with "soft skills." Your priorities are misplaced.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday July 05 2017, @05:31PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 05 2017, @06:14PM
While there are Vulture Capitalists who had their start in tech, most of the aforementioned ones are frat boy and trust fund types, not techies who graduated into VC from actually starting/running/IPOing tech firms then moving on to being venture capitalists or angel investors.
Furthermore, most of these guys qualify as the 'SORT OF SHIT WRONG WITH THE AMERICAN ECONOMY' in general, rather than limited to a specific business sector. The real solution, long since passed as a result of the internet/globalization, would have been to regulate the size of corporations/investment banking firms so that cabals could not overcome compromise the free market economy and keep people from voting with their feet and/or wallets to punish socially unacceptable behavior like that in the marketplace.
But since we don't have a free economy, or even an equal opportunity ecosystem, we have to deal with shit like this, even as the economy for the middle and lower class slowly implodes.
(Score: 2) by tonyPick on Thursday July 06 2017, @05:45AM
So, by that definition, Steve Jobs wasn't in "tech"? (He was, after all, on of the "marketing types and business people")