
Sexism in Tech: Don’t Ask Me Unless You’re Ready to Call Someone a Whistleblower - xena
https://medium.com/@katylevinson/sexism-in-tech-don-t-ask-me-unless-you-re-ready-to-call-somebody-a-whistleblower-e5d545e547b0
======
abalone
I feel so naive asking this, but I really would like to better understand the
specific scenario that led to being raped repeatedly "several times over
months" by a colleague. Especially because it apparently happened to another
female colleague by another man "in much the same way my attacker had raped
me."

I don't doubt FOR A MINUTE that this can happen but perhaps understanding the
circumstances could provide a focal point for specific change.

For example, how do colleagues end up even physically alone in the same space
together especially after the first RAPE? Does this stem from unsupervised
after-work parties that employees feel obligated to attend? Is it related to
conferences or work travel? Clearly she would seek to avoid being near her
rapist alone but couldn't. Are there things companies can be doing to better
avoid such scenarios?

~~~
rayiner
Story from a friend of a friend's law firm. Young associate worked for this
partner. Over the course of months, he coerced her into giving him blowjobs.
Eventually she quit.

1) Why is this rape? Because coercion doesn't just take the form of physical
violence.

2) Why not report to the police? Because it's mutually assured destruction.
Even if you bring the guy down, you'll be known as the woman who called the
police on her boss.

3) Why let it happen more than once? If you've ruled out calling the police,
what are you going to do? Can you afford to quit your job on the spot? Can you
compromise your long term future at the firm by bringing it to the management?
You've worked years to get to where you are, and you just want to do your job
and try to get ahead, just like your coworkers who didn't catch the eye of
some creep.

~~~
golemotron
I'm sure that as a heterosexual man, regardless of my financial circumstances,
no one could coerce me into giving blowjobs under the threat of losing my job.
I'd quit and take my chances. What am I missing here?

~~~
JohnBooty
From one heterosexual man to another, surely we can see that we're in a
different situation than this woman was. Also,

    
    
      > Young associate worked for this partner
    

I don't know how the legal profession works. But:

1\. It's quite likely that leaving firm as a young associate carries a huge
negative connotation. In other words, her choices might not have been "give a
blowjob" or "quit and find another job." It might have been more like "give a
blowjob" or "quit and find another job, and maybe not find another job because
there's this _huge negative_ on her resume."

2\. The law profession has a reputation for being quite chummy. If she had
quit over this harassment, even if she filed no charges then it's quite
possible that this partner would have gone on the offensive to discredit her
character to other influential people.

~~~
graeme
In the US, if she was at Biglaw, then my impression is that leaving is
basically unheard of. You're intended to work for a firm for 2-4 years and
move on, or stay at the firm on a partner track.

Once you're out, it's very hard to get back in. So in practice firms have
quite a bit of leverage to demand things like work 100 hours in a week,
staying until 2am, cancel plans with family on short notice, etc.

 __Edit: __I mean unheard of to leave with no new job and try to get another
one in Biglaw.

~~~
rhino369
Its not that unheard of to leave. In fact probably 50% do by year 3. Though
quitting without a job is really damn dangerous.

------
mattmaroon
I'm sorry but this is insane. I guess I can only speak to the segment of the
tech industry I've been exposed to, but a woman would not be labelled a
liability for reporting a rape or an assault, unless maybe it turned out to be
false, in which case that's no different than any other industry. I am sure
workplace rape and assault happens in every industry, unfortunately, but I've
seen no evidence it's more common or accepted in tech than anywhere else. It's
certainly not systematized or condoned. I can't believe Google (for whom she
has worked) has any more lenient of a policy on sexual harassment or assault
than any other Fortune 500.

And if it were this bad, why would she fear being ostracized? If my options
were to stay in an industry and be repeatedly harassed, beaten, and raped, or
switch careers, I don't think it'd be a tough call.

~~~
jusben1369
If you look through the comments here and in other similar threads you'll see
numerous variations on the "what wait? just leave." It's an understandable but
wrong response to these situations. It shifts the problem from the perpetrator
to the victim. It's similar to asking women to be covered from head to toe so
that they can't somehow tempt males. The onus isn't on the male to control his
desires it's on the female to ensure that his desires are not aroused. So if
rape and sexual harassment is happening at a workplace don't blame the victim
for not leaving blame the perpetrator for bringing that into the workplace.

~~~
alextgordon
You unwittingly fall into an enclosure filled with angry chimpanzees.

A crowd gathers, and shouts "Leave the enclosure, climb out, there's a
ladder!"

Another crowd gathers and shouts at the first crowd "Shut up. Stop blaming the
victim!"

Which crowd has your best interests at heart?

~~~
snowwrestler
Tech companies are staffed with humans, not angry chimpanzees; this analogy is
stupid.

------
smt88
I didn't understand what this was about, based on the title.

As it turned out, it's an incredibly interesting, important, and sad essay on
the severe consequences that exist for women who fight for their own
physical/emotional safety (and the safety of others).

If you want to know how people can repeatedly rape coworkers and get away with
it, you should read this article.

~~~
tracker1
I think it all sucks... on the one hand, being falsly accused of something
because someone made a bad decision in a moment, or exaggerated is pretty bad.

* Two people get drunk and hook up after a party... afterwards the woman cries rape. (there's a difference between rape and a bad decision)

* A person asks another person they work with out. (this isn't harassment, though once a firm no is given they should not ask again)

The problem with the first, is it does happen, for any number of reasons...
the second less so, but often women will give a soft decline instead of just
saying they aren't interested.

On the flip side, continual harassment, rape, sexism and just general asshole
behavior does exist, and should rightly be called out. The trouble is, without
repeated offenses, it's almost impossible to know the difference as an
outsider.

~~~
cstrahan
> * Two people get drunk and hook up after a party... afterwards the woman
> cries rape. (there's a difference between rape and a bad decision)

Did I miss somewhere in the post where the regret of a (mutually) drunken one-
night-stand was equated with rape? Or are you bringing this up because you
believe such occurrences happen often?

If it's the latter, would you mind sharing sources? I've heard people suggest
that these things happen (where the "victim" was either embarrassed of
sleeping with the person, or perhaps was ashamed due to their morals), but I
have never seen a man or women ever claim that they were raped when it was in
reality just "a bad decision" ... which makes me wonder if the mentioning of
the scenario you give is just a common device for distracting from the topic
of rape.

~~~
tracker1
As someone who _WAS_ falsely accused of rape (in my early 20's), I'm pretty
sensitive to the issue... and yes, it does happen often enough.

------
anaximander
It seems to me that a lot of women are left with pretty much two options in a
lot of these situations: the lethal option, and submission. Calling the police
or going to HR is the "lethal" option, meaning that, in all likelihood, there
is going to be a big problem, and somebody is going to suffer.

I think the following scenario should be easy to understand (if not familiar)
for most people: A person is walking down the street, when somebody approaches
them and tells them to surrender their wallet. What would most people
recommend in this situation? "Let them take your wallet, there's no point in
risking your life"? What if the person being mugged revealed they were
carrying a weapon capable of deadly force? Would you recommend that they use
it to defend themselves?

Would your recommendation change if the threatening person in question had a
position of default trust (e.g. a police officer), or a member of a powerful
gang?

Now imagine a person in a scenario where, instead of just walking down the
street, they are approached _in their office_ by somebody they trust, and
instead of being asked for their wallet, they are asked for something
incredibly more traumatic and unrecoverable, under the threat of complete
financial destruction or possibly even physical harm.

I would never want to find out which way I would decide, in any of these
situations. It's abominable that anyone should have to make that kind of
choice, and it's worse still that it seems to be happening under our very
noses and nobody can see it.

I think this article sets forth some very powerful, actionable ideas that are
not only gender-neutral, but generally applicable in many other industries for
many other classes of people who need options.

------
Jemaclus
As a hetero male that is relatively new to management, what can I do to let my
direct reports, indirect reports, and other colleagues know that they can
report these kinds of things to me, and I will take them seriously? I don't
have any women reporting directly to me right now, but it's very likely to
happen over the next year, and I want to be proactive from the get-go.

~~~
bluehat
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.

------
empressplay
I've heard men in the tech space who I would normally have considered very
nice people say extremely sexist / homophobic / transphobic things. When I've
called them out on it, they've been surprised that anyone was offended. As
I've said, otherwise really nice guys, but they seem to have just thought such
comments were acceptable in the context of the 'community'. Strange stuff.

~~~
randyrand
"they've been surprised that anyone was offended"

What did they say?

------
jrochkind1
Wow. This is such a good piece. Seriously, this is incredibly well-thought out
and well-written, in a very intentional way. Thanks to the author.

I am pleased that it's on the HN front page. And I was at first pleased to see
such a long comments thread, that people were interested in discussing it.

But man, this discussion is depressing me. Arguing about the legal definition
of rape, really, that's what HN feels like talking about in response to this
piece?

~~~
MichaelGG
The discussion on the definition is because we're shocked that someone could
be repeatedly raped without calling the cops. From accounts I've heard, rape
seems much more serious than, say, being mugged or stabbed. If someone were to
say they were mugged several times by a colleague, we'd ask why the cops
weren't called. Hence it's terribly upsetting to hear a colleague repeatedly
does worse.

But if the definition of mugged was that someone's colleague repeatedly left
them with $500 bar tabs that they felt compelled to pay, then we might say,
yeah, I see the issue. It's not actually a legal mugging in such a case, even
if it's effectively as bad (minus the trauma of having, say, a gun pointed at
you).

~~~
jrochkind1
"From accounts I've heard, rape seems much more serious than, say, being
mugged or stabbed."

For real, bro?

So let me get this straight, you're either upset that someone was mugged or
stabbed without calling the cops, or you're upset (but maybe not as upset)
that a colleague has done something worse than mugging or stabbing (a
colleague of yours? that you know of? Have _you_ considered calling the
police?)

You can 'see the issue' with $500 bar tabs, but not with muggings? Or wait, by
'you can see the issue' you mean you _don 't believe_ the author, you think
she's lying or confused when she writes 'rape', unless she says that she
didn't _really_ mean rape, in which case now you 'see the issue' and are
wiling to support doing something about it? If you don't believe the author,
it would be less confusing if you just said so. Or is it that you're only
willing to do something about $500 bar tabs if you can first convince the
person subject to them to stop calling it a mugging, cause that's the
important thing here, eliminating that mugging/bar-tab confusion which is a
scourge on our society? Me, I'd start out assuming if the author wrote rape
she didn't mean a $500 bar tab. But the ironic thing is that most of the essay
isn't actually about rape.

Man. Yeah, I'm not contributing to a useful conversation, I realize. I have
_no idea_ how the author manages to engage in this sort of conversation --
which the OP article is, an engagement in this sort of conversation, as well
as the author's participation in this reddit thread -- while maintaining such
an even temper, and always making the most charitable possible interpretation
of everyone's comments (or at least successfully pretending to). I am
impressed. I would need to work a lot harder than apparently I'm willing to,
to pull that off.

~~~
MichaelGG
I'm not quite sure I follow. My reaction was to the article was shock, when I
read that she was raped repeatedly. Then, like most people, I assume, the
question that springs to mind is: how can that happen? It violates a lot of
assumptions we have about civilized society.

One way of making sense of it is determining that an unlawful act wasn't
committed. Then, yeah, you can't call the cops, it's not "really rape"
(according to the law), and it's terrible because there's no recourse without
destroying one's career.

I'm not saying that's what happened to the OP. Just explaining why the
definition of rape matters. If it was legal rape, then we're left wondering
even more why going to the cops wasn't an option. If it wasn't legal rape,
then it's much more difficult.

(And in case my writing wasn't clear, I'm suggesting that a $500 bar tab could
be called a mugging, if you didn't willingly pay for it. But the law wouldn't
consider that a mugging. So if someone meant a colleague pulled a knife on
them repeatedly, then yeah, the response is "what about the cops"? Whereas in
the bar tab scenario, I can " see the issue " of no recourse. Same way that
you might sleep with someone because you felt you had to, but the law wouldn't
consider that a rape.[1] I'm not saying this is what happened to the OP, at
all, just responding to your questioning of why HN would discuss the
definitional aspects.[2])

1: This is further aggravated by some people thinking rape is over claimed,
perhaps in response to other people suggesting that two drunk people having
sex means they taped raped each other. And by extension, that means people on
permanent medication, who are never "sober" are always being raped. Totally
unrelated to the OP, yet a driver of rather useless discussion.

2: And I probably am terrible for saying this, but I just don't tend to
empathize with such stories much. The huge amount of suffering in the world
overall (let alone the disgusting implications of MWI) has numbed me. Plus the
situation described is not very relatable to me. While I experienced the
outrage when personal (eg when something happened to my daughter), other
accounts tend to provoke a more... distanced reaction. Having nothing to
contribute or say regarding the actual problem, I'll respond to branching
topics like yours. Terrible as that is, perhaps that's another explanation for
the type of discussion you find here. And I'm probably not the only guy on HN
with similar feelings, maybe.

~~~
bluehat
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.

------
meric
_I feel they could have done it without making my boss feel like he was being
directly threatened with a huge HR complaint. It’s a real shame for our tech
culture that there is no way to get somebody tutored about what is and isn’t
appropriate without also landing them in deep trouble._

I'd like to add the only education available to teach people social
interactions, outside of being self-taught, is PUA material, as well as in-
house education on how to influence masses in the intelligence community.
Which means if you weren't in a situation to talk to enough people while you
were growing up, later on in life you'll miss out on jobs, you'll feel
insecure, you'll make inappropriate comments, you'll have difficulty making
friends, you'll have difficulty seducing a potential mate, you'll get divorced
later on due to inability to manage arguments and fights and conflicts.

Families have been getting smaller - first people stopped living with close to
their relatives, then people stopped living with their parents and siblings,
and now people begin to stop living with their husbands or wives, and children
without at least one of their parents, and parents having fewer siblings in
general.

People are receiving less practical experience in interacting socially as they
are growing up. You either fit in at school and do well, or you don't and
isolate yourself and fall behind.

We have a mess at university campuses. We have a mess in tech companies. We
have growing numbers of men who are 'losers'. We have growing numbers of women
who can't get married if they want to. We have growing instances of
inappropriate behaviour at work. Men and women resorting to electronic means
to communicate, and avoiding face-to-face interaction, even among friends.
Parents sent to nursing homes, pension spending growing and unsustainable.
People growing up with little to no spiritual values besides materialism. etc,
etc.

I think all of these stem from smaller families, causing less exposure to
social interaction with others of the same age as well as with the older
generation, resulting in less wisdom passed down, and decreased social ability
of people growing up.

And it's only going to continue to get worse.

Though maybe people getting poor and being forced to stay with their parents
for long might just be where the second derivative is beginning to turn.

~~~
frandroid
Because there was less rape when there were larger family. Right...

~~~
meric
Dude. From the article:

 _I had a boss once who knew he was sexist (also homophobic and transphobic),
but was trying to get over it. He said some incredibly dumb things, like
offering to have a company meeting at a strip club. He genuinely had bizarre
concepts of what’s appropriate and inappropriate behavior. He was ashamed of
this and really trying to improve. 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.

On the whole, however, I don’t hold against him all the inappropriate things
he did. The best I could do was kindly remind my boss when something made me
uncomfortable, but he always looked panicked when I did. I didn’t want to get
him in trouble; in fact, half of my comments to him started with phrases like
“you know people are going to take it the wrong way if they hear you saying
that.” I wish my male peers had helped him more in this regard. I feel they
could have done it without making my boss feel like he was being directly
threatened with a huge HR complaint. It’s a real shame for our tech culture
that there is no way to get somebody tutored about what is and isn’t
appropriate without also landing them in deep trouble._

And yes I think with a larger family you're less likely to have men thinking
its OK to corner a woman in office, because they'll have better upbringing. If
you want to change culture the best chance you have is the educate your
children because of all people they will be most receptive of your
perspective.

Thanks for the snark anyway, I deserved it because I see family as a good
thing to have, and as such I'm a rapist. And thanks for derailing the points
OP and I were making. I deserve to be hanged by the side of the road, by
social activists like you (according to your profile).

~~~
frandroid
You quoted a bit from the article that had nothing to do with family, and then
instead of justifying your point, you just re-iterated it. Then you made up
what you thought my opinion of you was. Like, get a grip.

You know what increases in large families? Chances of sibling sexual abuse.
[http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/111312p18.shtml](http://www.socialworktoday.com/archive/111312p18.shtml)

> social activists like you

You say it like it's a bad thing. :)

~~~
meric
_You quoted a bit from the article that had nothing to do with family_

She suggested a phenomenon and I suggested a cause.

 _Because there was less rape when there were larger family. Right..._

Your sarcasm indicates you think there was more rape in larger families, yet
you claim our culture have become a rape culture.

If there hasn't been more rape, then it's just culture, or there is more rape
nowawdays, and nowadays there are small families, and there would have been
less rape when there used to be bigger ones.

Anywhere you have men and women together there's always a chance of hetero-
sexual abuse, you suggest smaller families will reduce chance of sexual abuse,
but why not suggest female only offices to reduce chance of work place abuse?
Of course that's not the right thing to do, and the right thing to do is to
educate men not to sexual abuse in the first place. How are you going to get
people to educate their children, if their children spend all day with a 14
year old babysitter watching tv (and you know, porn) while their parents both
work, and never visit their aunts, uncles and grandparents?

It's getting to be a long discussion and I'd like to hear more logical and
well-argued points than snark and rhetoric from your perspective, if you can
leave your email or have a website or something we can continue this
discussion there. Maybe you're on mobile, that's why I'm unconvinced.

------
fenomas
#2 of the recommendations at the end (correction without punishment when
appropriate) is an excellent point that I've rarely/never seen discussed in
articles like this. It reminds me of a past job where a friend of mine
silently put up with (relatively low-level) harassment because she didn't want
to get the guy pilloried.

I think one confounding issue with sexism in tech is that companies find it so
uncomfortable to talk about that they shy away from real analysis - adopting
whatever policy comes to mind without seriously examining what the root cause
was and whether they're addressing it.

The only solution is cogent discussion, like this excellent article.

------
mrbig4545
I can't help but think this is a problem in america and not a problem in tech.
Over here (UK) I've never seen or heard of anything like this.

I don't know, maybe I'm wrong and I've just never seen it.

Either way, it's not on and it needs to stop

~~~
RowanH
I'd like to say having worked in both Canada and New Zealand over 18 odd years
now and I've never seen anything like this also. I read these articles and I'm
simply stunned. I keep wondering what the heck is going on in
companies/cultures/environments for these things to happen.

Every time I read an article along these lines I feel even more grateful to
work in environments where there haven't been glass ceilings, hiring is on
merit and the workplaces are incredibly diverse.

~~~
jusben1369
Other people have made this comment but I'll repeat it. Have you ever talked
about this with female colleagues? It's scary what they tell you. I would say
95% of males get through their entire working career without ever feeling
sexually uncomfortable or worse from another colleague at least once. I'd say
about 10% of females would say that was true. Seriously, go talk with them.

------
danso
I don't know what it's like to be raped or sexually harassed, but I am
frequently amused at how skeptics think it's so cut-and-dry to just report the
issue. This came up in Kelly Ellis's public revelation yesterday that she had
been sexually harassed at Google.

The Twitter thread starts here:

[https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574092972624490497](https://twitter.com/justkelly_ok/status/574092972624490497)

The following is Ellis's statement, and then one of her more earnest "Oh
really?" critics:

Ellis: _Rod Chavez is an engineering director at Google, he sexually harassed
me, Google did nothing about it. Reprimanded me instead of him_

Twitter user: _That 's a very serious allegation. Hope you have evidence to
back it up._

Ellis: _Lol already dudes going, "where's the proof?" Do you expect women to
wear wires whenever they're sexually harassed? Trust women._

Twitter user: _there is a difference between questioning and accusations. I 'm
not calling her liar. Just requesting evidence...In general, to have been a
victim of a crime, and not seeing the offender be punished must be awful. But
there is a reason...we have the right to a fair trial. We all know the
consequences of letting random people on the Internet serve justice._

Again, I've never been raped. But the last time I made a criminal complaint,
it was when I was robbed of my phone at gunpoint a few years ago in New York.
Granted, I acted quite foolishly...not having my phone, and not having used a
payphone in years...My first instinct was to continue heading home, which was
about 6 to 7 blocks away, so that I could lookup the nearest police station
and walk over there...not realizing I could dial 911 anywhere, or at least go
into the nearest storefront. So that bizarre behavior led to me getting quite
the grilling from the first detective to respond, who outright accused me of
making up the story because I didn't want to admit that I had a rough night
with a hooker who robbed me of my belongings (apparently it's weird for a man
to walk alone through Greeenwich Village at night)?

Anyway, long story short, no big deal. I knew I had plenty of evidence that
this happened to me, including having tracking software on my (Android)
phone...and while that was my first time being a victim of a violent crime,
I've had enough experience with cops (being a former cops reporter) to
understand where the skepticism was coming from, and also, to know that it was
pretty tame compared to what other victims get. That said, if that was the
treatment that _I_ got, for an extremely cut-and-dry kind of crime (not too
many debates over what constitutes armed robbery)...can you imagine the
process that a rape victim has to go through? Or in the case of Ellis, someone
who experienced non-criminal sexual harassment? Reporting a crime or a
violation isn't as simple as hitting a button, it always consists of a non-
trivial process (for me, besides the 4 hours of waiting for and then talking
to the detective on the night of the incident, I missed a couple days of work
to go to the station, fill out paperwork, do more interviews, etc).

To use the parlance of today's times, there's considerable "friction" in
reporting an incident, regardless of the complexity of the issue. Whatever
your stance on "is sexual harassment a prevalent problem or not?", at least
recognize that the reporting of such a problem is easier to think about than
to actually _do_.

edit:

To elaborate a little more...in my situation, the choice to report a crime was
pretty obvious: I want my phone back, and also, the robber is obviously in the
wrong. Quite frankly, I don't think I would've gone to the cops had it been a
midnight phone-snatching (it's New York after all)...but since the robber
escalated it by introducing a weapon, can't really just ignore the incident.

From my understanding, a rape or harassment victim does not have even remotely
such an easy decision. Besides the emotional trauma, there's a huge amount of
plain confusion -- rape/harassment is almost always perpetrated by someone who
knows the victim, and sometimes someone the victim considered to be a friend.
If a friend randomly punches me and takes my phone, after the "WTF was that
about?" that I'd go through...I'm not even sure I could just go straight to
the cops...Maybe my friend was drunk? Or pulling an elaborate prank? I'd at
least want to call him (or email him, since he has my phone). And I guarantee
that unless the punch caused serious injury to me, the cops are going to say,
"WTF is wrong with you and your friend?", not immediately put out an all-
points-bulletin to arrest my friend. And even if he's clearly in the wrong,
think about all awkwardness in your social network that comes when the cops do
arrive and arrest your friend...and we're not even at the indictment phase
yet.

So again, just making assumptions, but when the crime is as controversial and
"he said/she said" as rape or harassment...the decision to make a report does
not at all seem like an easy one.

~~~
brighteyes
The Ellis example is a good one, I think.

She went public with concrete names and bad things that happened to her while
working at Google, regarding both an engineering manager Rod Chavez, and a VP,
Vic Gondotra. While there were a few of the expected "where's the proof"
people on Twitter, as Kelly said, the large majority of responses she got were
supportive, from lots of men and women.

In addition, in the google+ thread, several people from inside Google
expressed shock (they only heard about it now, it wasn't common knowledge
across the company) and mentioned that a lot of noise is going on internally
right now about this.

Gondotra isn't still with Google, but Chavez is. I would bet that won't be for
long.

Overall, the responses internally at Google were horrible, back then. HR tried
to save the company from liability, not help her. But when she went public
now, the responses were good, and change might actually happen.

As the saying goes, sunlight is the best disinfectant. The article here is
correct to say that it's scary to be a whistleblower, but Kelly Ellis shows
it's possible to be brave, and that the industry and community will in fact
react positively when you do.

~~~
teraflop
> While there were a few of the expected "where's the proof" people on
> Twitter, as Kelly said, the large majority of responses she got were
> supportive, from lots of men and women.

You raise a good point, but the problem is that not all supportiveness is
equal.

There are a lot of people who share their opinions when an incident like this
goes public, and depending on what communities you happen to draw the
attention of, the response may well be more positive than negative. But
there's a much smaller number of people (like bosses and future bosses, for
instance) whose response will have a real, tangible effect on your career and
future.

If those few people happen to be an unlucky random sample -- like, say, the HN
commenter who said about Kelly Ellis that "the only thing I have learnt from
this and the Adria Richards nonsense is when I am hiring I will screen for
radical feminism" \-- then the supportive comments from complete strangers
don't mean much. And so it's understandable why someone would be reluctant to
take that risk.

~~~
brighteyes
The reluctance is understandable. But we can't understate the positive: In
that very google+ thread, more than one former colleague from Google said
something to the effect of "I've always considered you someone to try to hire
for my future startup, and I still do."

In other words, even if some wary bosses would see any whistleblowing as a
risk factor, the fact is that the large majority of responses she got were
positive. People believe her, and people strongly feel she got treated
unfairly. She's also, according to many accounts, a talented engineer. Signs
for her future employment are very positive.

She also mentioned herself that her current job at Medium is with a very
supportive team. (edit: i misunderstood something here)

Once more, none of this is to diminish the understandable concerns with going
public with allegations. But in the Ellis case, I think we see that the
overall outcome can be quite positive. It's good for the whistleblower, it's
good for the tech industry as a whole, it's really just bad only for the small
amount of bad people we need to get rid of.

~~~
bluehat
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.

~~~
brighteyes
Oh - sorry! I must have misread something.

------
datashovel
"I have been raped by a colleague — not just once, but several times over
months."

As much as I want to read this as hyperbole it doesn't look like that's the
case. I guess it may be because I consider myself a level-headed person, and
have (to the best of my knowledge) never even interacted with someone that
vicious.

A person like that doesn't deserve just to be reprimanded. They should be in
jail.

------
yason
I cannot fathom how it is possible to get raped by a co-worker several times.
This is obviously a sore point socially so I'll emphasize here that that's
what I assume has happened _because she wrote so_. I'm just curious about how
that could, in reality, happen?

I can think of a few cases where rape could plausibly happen in a work setting
but I can't see how they could continue:

1) violent rape using physical force: there will be fighting back, injuries,
scars, and blood from the assault, and the victim goes to file a report to the
police, and gets to a doctor to be examined and her (his?) intimate cavities
analyzed for the rapist DNA. These facts can be verified quite easily if the
rapist is known.

2) a dinner, for example, at a work trip together with the co-worker went one
step too far: depending on what actually happened this could translate back to
1) or fall in the grey area in which case the bare minimum that can be done is
to not spend time with said co-worker alone again in non-public places.

A majority of rapes fall into domestic relationships, dating gone wrong,
passing out in wrong company after too much alcohol, or other circumstances
projected on an established or a potential sexual relationship, and these
might traditionally be the cases where women generally don't report them as
rapes for one reason or another. Maybe she is loyal to her abusing husband. Or
maybe she thinks she gave wrong signals at the end of the date.

But work relations do not by default imply sexual relations: there's no
pretense that could escalate in a horribly wrong way. This sounds stupid but,
for example, you can't go to too many meetings and let someone interpret that
as a "yes". So I'm just wondering that barring 1), the violent assault, how
does this happen?

------
brandonmenc
> he frequently came out with scary-harsh messages that had little relation to
> reality, like being worried about who he asked to help carry heavy equipment

That's "scary-harsh?"

Fact: women are not as strong as men. It's not even a question.

Go look at weightlifting records, if you don't believe that. Even elite,
lifelong female powerlifters max out at weights that a man in the same weight
class can throw up for reps with just a moderate amount of training.

Disclaimer: I believe everything else cited in the article is absolutely
horrible, but this particular thing is not.

~~~
Thriptic
> Even elite, lifelong female powerlifters max out at weights that a man in
> the same weight class can throw up for reps with just a moderate amount of
> training.

That's not a true statement. A quick look at the IPF female world records
shows an unequipped lifter putting up a 230 kg squat at 107 kg body weight.
That would be considered almost an elite lift for a male of the same weight
class, which requires far more than "moderate" training.

Regardless, the main point of your post holds true.

~~~
donw
Massively offtopic, but powerlifting records
([http://www.usapowerlifting.com/records/national-
championship...](http://www.usapowerlifting.com/records/national-championship-
records/)) support that yes, elite female powerlifters top out at what would
be considered a rep weight for a male lifter in the same weight class.

~~~
Thriptic
I'm not arguing that males aren't stronger than females in the same weight
class. I'm saying an untrained male can't receive moderate training and
suddenly massively out lift elite female powerlifers in the same weight class.

~~~
donw
Oh, certainly. To address the original post, though, the numbers that the top-
tier gals are putting up are in the same league as male lifters with 2-3 years
of training, which sounds fairly moderate to me.

------
hrktb
The title with punctuation:

 _Sexism in Tech: Don’t Ask Me Unless You’re Ready To Call Somebody a
Whistleblower_

I found it intersting, but there is a part I couldn't really understand.

Does she define rape as an aggretion and not just grey area sex? Because as I
understand it it would fall under criminal charges, not 'sexism', most of the
time there would be physical/tangible proofs attached to it, and the police
arresting a co-worker wouldn't be whistleblowing, just basic law inforcement.

~~~
SwellJoe
It's dangerous to go down the path of talking about "real rape", which is
kinda where you seem to be going with this.

Most rape is not "real rape" according to the rapist. Most rape is date rape;
the rapist finds a target who is too intoxicated to meaningfully consent (and
wouldn't consent when sober), or the rapist is in a position of power over
their target (such as a manager with an employee), or they simply don't take
"no" for an answer and their target feels they would be in more danger from
fighting than from submitting.

Our justice system is not helpful to most rape victims, because it is not
"real rape"; with fighting, injuries, blood, bruises, etc. And, most rape
victims choose not to report the crime because it would further harm them to
go through the process of being grilled by police and forced to relive the
experience for an audience of likely unsympathetic or even overtly hostile
people (this is not to say all police officers are unsympathetic or hostile to
rape reports, but the fear that they will be is real and valid).

 _" most of the time there would be physical/tangible proofs attached to it"_

Most of the time it is a "he said, she said" situation, and any proof can be
interpreted as consensual sex, depending on the person hearing the story.

~~~
ricardobeat
I honestly had a similar question in mind. The phrases "raped by a colleague —
not just once, but several times over months" and "female colleagues told me
later that he raped some of them, and in much the same way my attacker had
raped me." got me confused. Rape is defined as "unlawful sexual intercourse",
is there a movement towards broadening that definition to encompass other
kinds of sexual assault? Or am I being too naive?

~~~
SwellJoe
_" is there a movement towards broadening that definition to encompass any
kind of sexual assault?"_

Not that I'm aware of (and I'm relatively familiar with the feminist activist
community and current feminist writing). I read it to mean she was raped by a
colleague, not that she was sexually assaulted by a colleague, though either
would be inexcusable and _should_ be subject to the person being fired. But,
again, in a workplace that is hostile to women, dismissive of women's words,
and in which the person doing the raping or sexual assaulting or harassing is
in a position of power over the women being raped, assaulted, or harassed, it
can go on for a long time before someone is willing to throw away their career
to make a public accusation, which is _exactly_ what this article is about and
why I think it's valuable.

There are, clearly, a lot of men in our industry who have literally _no idea_
that this stuff is happening. Zero awareness to the point their instinctive
response is to deny that it is true, or to attempt to redefine the words to
mean something more palatable.

So, let me be clear: You've read an article about someone's experience in the
workplace as a woman, and you're first response is effectively to say, "This
cannot be true."

The author of this article is not the only woman to discuss these issues or to
experience this kind of behavior in the workplace, particularly in tech though
it is true in many industries. As long as the response of men in this industry
is to read these experiences and immediately deny the words and counter-accuse
the woman of lying, exaggerating, or "being dramatic", the problems will never
go away.

~~~
ricardobeat
I asked a honest question and did not accuse the author of lying. I really
can't get my mind around such violence being common in the workplace without
the attackers suffering any consequences. I'm astonished.

~~~
SwellJoe
Apologies for misinterpreting your intentions. In my experience, denial is a
very common response from men when faced with this kind of story. It is
disappointingly common among men in tech, in particular.

~~~
pgeorgi
And the accusations are equally predictable and disappointing.

Maybe some (or many) those "disappointingly common" cases aren't quite the
clear-cut misogyny but more similar to what you ran into in this thread?

~~~
SwellJoe
This conversation has a few misunderstandings (all of which, I think, have
been resolved through polite clarification) and a number of clear examples of
misogyny, which are more difficult to resolve through mere clarification.

------
hashed
This girl is lying, the story doesn't make sense and everybody here are too
nice to point it out so they try with this typical programmer passive nice way
to point out how the story doesn't add up and how nobody actually faced this
kind of environment anywhere.

Guys, have some balls, call bullshit when it's due. The tech industry is not
more sexist than any other industry, the opposite. I have seen much more
mischief in one coked up night among traders than my whole career in tech. And
you know what, girls love those people and want to work with them or do other
things with them, because they don't apologise and they call girls on their
bullshit. That's why you will see more women in finance or law than in tech.

It's also easier and you don't have to spend your days and night secluded in
front of a monitor. It is all excuses by women who don't want to put the time,
effort and social price that it takes to become a good software developer. The
women who do it right and i have worked with some during the years, don't
complain about rape, they write great code and everybody respect them for
that.

~~~
bluehat
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.

~~~
hashed
What evidence you got that it is more sexist?

Girls don't like sexist people, they like confident people and I have learned
it from life.

As for the last claim, I don't know how you read it from my comment.

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

------
lettergram
I don't want to openly doubt rape, but jesus, several times over several
months? Call the police, or at least avoid a situation if possible. Clearly
she is willing to talk about it, so where's the police report?

Also, every time I read one of these articles I cringe. There's a big movement
to "include women in tech", but it's interesting to note that (in my
experience) there is a large group (bordering on majority) of women in tech
that are just as disgusted by these articles.

My girlfriend finds it particularly offensive, her comments usually being
something along the lines of: "If women want to be treated as equals, they
should act like equals, not complain." Point being, she finds these articles
counter productive, and most of the women whinny. She thinks a lot of the
people in tech can be weird, and this can lead to people believing it there
sexism, when in actuality it is just awkward behavior.

Finally, and my personal opinion, no one supports rape, sexual harassment or
racism, and _any_ subconscious bias is pretty hard to discern. It would be
better to involve the authorities if you feel you are being rapped or
harassed. From my personal point of view I have seen SO many women complain
about being harassed or put down, and the fact is they may have, but I have
never seen it. I work regularly with women in my jobs and I've never seen or
had a problem. Some are bad team members and some are good. They are usually
treated by skill level from my experience, and I have seen this taken as
sexism more than once.

Other places are different (apparently) and if that's the case, punish the
crap out of the people who harass women/race.

BUT FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, stop putting me in a group with these people. I'm
calling bullshit on not just this article, but half these articles. There is
definitely less women in tech, and nothing is inherently wrong with that. If
there's something I can do to make it more inclusive, I will. However, please
OP and anyone reading this, come at it with an open mind. Just because women
aren't in tech does not imply something is wrong. Women and men are different,
it's okay as long as it is not a sexist barrier. Just not having a lot of
women does not mean there is that barrier.

Every situation is different, and you may have indeed been wronged (and I can
sympathize), but stop generalizing. It's borderline sexism to claim "everyone
in tech is sexist against women," we all know males have to watch themselves
and be careful. That's probably why the OP was offered money, people are so
scared of being called sexist, because it's so blown out of proportion. Handle
it like everything else, with a clear mind.

If we are going to talk about sexism, give me the facts, give me the barrier,
and give me a way I can fix it besides just being "subconsciously and
uncontrollably bias." If that can't be done, then there probably isn't
justification to discuss the concerns (yet).

~~~
empressplay
See? This is what I mean. I'm sure the parent poster is generally a nice
person, but while they make what I'm certain they believe is an innocent
comment, they claim a) women are less suited for technical careers (which has
no basis in fact and is sexist as hell), b) suggest that women should "not
complain" because by complaining they only cause men to reject them even more,
but then c) on the flip-side say that if a woman is being harassed or raped
they should call the police (which is certainly going to end their career if
even talking about it is a no-no), and finally d) if there is a problem, I
have nothing to do with it and should have no responsibility for it (which has
all sorts of negative historical connotations).

All of these statements are questionable but were presumably made in good
faith, by what I assume to be a reasonable person. That's the curious thing
about all of this.

~~~
lettergram
Wow, well... to be honest I have no idea where you are coming from:

> women are less suited for technical careers (which has no basis in fact and
> is sexist as hell)

a) All I claimed was that it isn't inherently bad to have less women. It could
be due to sexism, a distaste for sitting in front of a computer all day, bad
food or something else. My point is each situation should be based on it's own
merit, and not generalized. I am sick of being called sexist if I don't think
everyone is sexist.

> suggest that women should "not complain" because by complaining they only
> cause men to reject them even more, but then

b) My claim is that a complaint should have merit, be taken care of
immediately. I'm sick of posts like this, where the OP is claiming something
happened years later, without proof or taking action. More over, I am claiming
that there are a large group of men and women who believe it is easier to
prove equality, as opposed to articles which create a further divide (by
claiming everyone's a sexist).

Further sick of being criticized for sharing an alternative view, and
immediately called a sexist.

> on the flip-side say that if a woman is being harassed or raped they should
> call the police (which is certainly going to end their career if even
> talking about it is a no-no),

c) I hope you are joking. It wont end their career, it's just like every other
job in the world. If your boss rapes you or co-worker THEY get in trouble.
Trust me, the police aren't in this tech sexism too. They only care that
someone was hurt. No employer would be like, "oh hey, I see you were sexually
assaulted by your last boss..." No, not going to happen, this is fear
mongering, and is just a downright distasteful argument. Not one that should
be an actual concern.

> if there is a problem, I have nothing to do with it and should have no
> responsibility for it (which has all sorts of negative historical
> connotations).

d) Where the hell did you read this? I made the claim that I need evidence,
proof, something I can see and fix. If I have no direction what can I do? I
have rarely heard clear arguments about sexism and the issues. It is always
like the OP, just a bunch of claims without a way I (or anyone) could help.

You say:

> All of these statements are questionable but were presumably made in good
> faith, by what I assume to be a reasonable person. That's the curious thing
> about all of this.

You may disagree with my statements, but your statements are even more
curious. It is as if you didn't read what I wrote and just decided to call me
a sexist for having an alternative view point. Especially, your "a" point:

No where did I claim:

> women are less suited for technical career

Stop putting words in my mouth, stop calling me a sexist. The tech world isn't
out to get women, just make cool stuff and money. If anything, we are scared
of being called sexist and annoyed with these constant comments.

~~~
naturalrecursin

       Where do these people live/work where going to the police and reporting an assault/rape or whatever is going to end there career? I'm starting to think that all these stories about sexism against women in tech is some sort of ploy to convince women to not get into the industry. But then I realize that the people spreading this nonsense are the same people who are crying out that there is not enough women in tech and we should do something about it.. It just makes no sense.

------
aviziva
U.N. Finds ‘Alarmingly High’ Levels of Violence Against Women - About 35
percent of women worldwide — more than one in three — said they had
experienced violence in their lifetime, whether physical, sexual, or both, the
report finds. One in 10 girls under the age of 18 was forced to have sex, it
says.

------
peteretep
I didn't read the whole article on my first read, and missed the most
important parts, which are "What can I do?". So I'm going to throw HN
etiquette to the wind, and just quote it verbatim.

    
    
        > What needs to change is three-fold.
        > 
        > The first thing needed is pretty simple: In all organizations, demand that there
        > exists a code of conduct and clear methodto report misconduct. Imagine right 
        > now that you have just witnessed something inappropriate in your workplace, at 
        > a conference or in a community. Do you have a place you could report it? Do you
        > trust that it would be handled properly, or would they just try to avoid
        > liability? Do you believe you would personally suffer for making such a report?
        > If you’re not comfortable with any of those answers, you have work to do.
        > Reconsider what systems have been created, and fight for ones that treat this
        > like a whistleblowing issue, not something to be “kept under control.”
        > 
        > Second, while there will always be truly malicious people, most people are just
        > don’t realize the harm of their action. There needs to be correction without
        > punishment for people who are not malicious. With such a mechanism in place,
        > people who see sexism in action can help fix it. At the same time, it allows
        > those who are doing things wrong to learn in a safe environment. For more about
        > this approach, check out some of the great articles about call-in culture. The
        > goal is simple here: help your well-intentioned friends figure out they are
        > hurting people without making it seem like a threat or shaming. It’s easiest for
        > you if you aren’t the one being wronged. This step is important because
        > whistleblowers need allies, and we need people to not be afraid of announcing
        > they are allies. This means two things: One, that we be welcoming and patient
        > with those striving to be better, and two, that our allies (and those of us
        > trying to lead the charge) be committed to self-improvement whenever the
        > opportunity presents.
        > 
        > Third, and most important, is making a serious personal commitment to solving
        > this. You’re tired of hearing about this “women in tech” stuff, and we’re tired
        > of living it, but there are some big issues here, and we’re not going to solve
        > them by pretending they don’t exist because we’re bored or afraid of them. We
        > need serious discussions, and we have to have educated opinions about what’s
        > wrong and how to fix it. We need to mull these ideas around until we come to
        > some combination of hard data and cultural consensus before we can get
        > meaningful change.
        > 
        > Making a personal commitment means forming an opinion on more than just the
        > broad concepts. It also requires learning about specific instances of
        > harassment. Spend enough time reading material from both sides to develop a
        > well-informed opinion, or be honest about not knowing enough. Don’t defend an
        > opinion that isn’t well thought through. Then, use that opinion to make sure
        > whistleblowing is taken seriously. When we fail to engage whistleblowing in our
        > own lives or in institutions we deal with, we’re hanging the whistleblowers out
        > to dry. At best, we allow them to be marked as “liabilities”; at worst, we leave
        > them to suffer from enemies we don’t care to protect them against.
        > 
        > For clarity, I’m going to now state my three specific requests:
        > 
        > 1. Make sure the systems to handle malicious abuses of power against women have
        > teeth, and that they seek to let the disenfranchised blow the whistle, rather
        > than simply “keeping stuff under control.”
        > 
        > 2. Help your well-intentioned peers who are still making mistakes do better
        > without threatening them or humiliating them.
        > 
        > 3. Make a public commitment to taking potential whistleblowers seriously. Commit
        > to educating yourself, to having an opinion, and, if you believe the
        > whistleblower’s claims might have merit, to helping. Live up to that commitment.
        >

------
AstroChimpHam
> Realistically, only bad things happen to the whistleblower. So when someone
> tries to discredit one, ask yourself — what could the whistleblower’s motive
> possibly be? They’re knowingly ruining their own lives.

Whistle blowers become folk heroes to a lot of people. No one cared what
Edward Snowden, the NSA analyst had to say. Everyone cares what Edward
Snowden, the whistleblower has to say. If you want that kind of popularity and
respect, be a whistleblower. I'm by no means saying that's the motivation for
all whistleblowers, but I'd be dumbfounded if it wasn't the motivation for
some, and separating the two is frequently difficult.

------
somereddit
[http://www.reddit.com/user/bluehrair](http://www.reddit.com/user/bluehrair)
<\- that's her reddit account

------
gretful
This is a sad article. There used to exist guidelines to beahvior, one being
"don't fish off the company dock". Following that would eliminate almost all
of the sexual harassment BS.

------
kendallpark
Every time an article like this gets posted, ignorant commenters pretty much
prove the thesis of the article.

So far I have learned from HN commenters:

\- a hetero male would never give a BJ to a superior male no matter what
therefore it is hard to understand why a woman would feel coerced into do so.

\- It is not possible/credible for a woman to be raped multiple times by a
coworker.

\- It is the clearly the woman's fault for being raped multiple times because
she should've reported it the first time and/or known how to avoid her rapist
in the future

\- Women calling out sexual harassers in tech will hurt the cause of getting
more women in tech, therefore they should stop

\- "You can't simply cry abuse and magically learn data structures and
algorithms. You can't tweet or sue (well, suing require hard evidence) your
way to gainful employment as an engineer. You also don't need social support
to study programming, it's a hobby you can master regardless of what you look
like. How did you manage"

Disappointing.

~~~
imaginenore
Writing whiny articles is counterproductive. A rapist is not going to read it
and think - "Uh oh, turns our rape is bad, I should stop".

If there's some abuse/assault/rape, you deal with it like in any other field -
you call the police, and then you press charges, and then you sue. It's the
only thing that really stops the abusers/rapists.

~~~
bluehat
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?

~~~
imaginenore
Rape is actually not common at all. 26-27 per 100,000 population. So one in
3700 - 3840 people get raped. 91% of them are women.

And it's steadily declining.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_statistics)

Again, how does complaining about rape stop a rapist?

~~~
bluehat
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.

------
bluehat
I'm really sad this got downvoted off the front page (this article is only one
hour old with 9 points, things 3 hours old with 9 points are still on the
page). It's cool if not everybody is interested in talking about this, but I
feel like the entire point of this article was that making whistle-blowers
harder to hear is not good for society.

~~~
dang
It didn't get downvoted; medium.com is in a class of websites that get mildly
penalized by default pending moderator review. Not a great solution, but the
alternative is reams of blogspam and fluff making the front page just because
so much of it gets posted. We remove the penalty from solid articles (and
typically reset the clock on them to restore a fair time window for upvotes),
but it sometimes takes a while before that happens.

In the long run we intend to have the community do most of this, but finding
and implementing the right mechanisms for that is a lengthy process.

~~~
bluehat
I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear that. Thanks for telling me!

------
aaron695
You run the risk when trying to say two issues, which many people consider
separate, are related that you will just battle harden the opposing side. This
is not a healthy article for discussion on either issue.

