
Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost - ausjke
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-03/a-wall-street-rule-for-the-metoo-era-avoid-women-at-all-cost
======
wutbrodo
This was utterly, utterly predictable, and I'm sure the same dynamic is
playing out in milder, more insidious forms in industries that are less openly
regressive than Wall Street. I said as much to many of my friends during the
nascency of the movement, and was baffled at how novel a concept it seemed to
all of them.

This isn't fair to women, of course. But Water flows downhill, and people
follow incentives. If you create a no-due-process superweapon that a class of
people can point at another class, expect the latter to avoid situations where
the former can use it. Duh. (In theory, women wouldn't be considered potential
false accusers any more than men would, but the fact that the breakdown of
gender roles has been intentionally lopsided means that a female accuser is
both more likely and more likely to be taken seriously).

As die-hard a liberal as I am, I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining
whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics
that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice
system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should
have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). But as a left-
liberal, one of my primary points of departure with the contemporary left is
that it seems to believe to its core that wishing on a star is all it takes
for a policy to be effective, with no attention paid to the _actual_ way that
a policy is expected to play out in the real world[1].

[1] I don't mean to suggest that the left uniquely has this problem, but I've
got less exposure to the man-on-the-street version of the right, since I live
in a deep Blue bubble and most of my friends form their beliefs based on
whatever the Atlantic et al have on their front page.

~~~
Posibyte
This happened to me. I started on a journey of transitioning to a woman and
gathered a group of friends at work composed of women. They supported me for a
few years helping me through the process.

Then recently (as of this year), a woman came forward claiming I was
harassing, intimidating, and sexually abusing her. This woman was one of the
people who had supported me previously. She had been gunning for my position
(she was just below me) and we had joked about her taking my position after I
moved up. I'm still guessing to this day that was why she made those claims.

We go to HR, her sister presides over the case. I filed a complaint due to
conflict of interest. The woman filing the claim threatened to open up to the
media about this if the company went forward with replacing the woman in
charge of the case.

It's probably no surprise, but they ruled against me and terminated my
employment. I had no violations beforehand, no concerns, no performance
issues, nothing. I was told to confess, just say it, was hinted at many times
to just confess, just confess, we have evidence, anything else you say is a
lie, don't drag it out, but I didn't.

I felt as if my career was over. I was a trans freak who assaulted women as
far as I knew it. Who would want to hire one of me?

Thankfully, I got some good advice to fight it in court, and I did, and I won,
thankfully. And that's when I learned, it's not about the truth, it's about
image.

The company didn't care what the actual ruling was, in fact the company came
from having a very bad image in the past just now forming a new one. And even
though I won the court case, that didn't matter. I still had to explain it to
future employers and that was all it took to shut the door on me.

I'm a die-hard liberal too. But that really shook my faith in the goodness of
people. I had several suicidal episodes after that, only to be barely pulled
out of it by my wonderful husband. It's so easy for someone to point a finger
and that's essentially the only word to say in the matter.

And I guess what I'm saying is, I hope this never happens to anyone. I'm sure
women aren't anything special when it comes to being evil or twisted. That's a
silly thought to me. I fully believe most of the women coming out on the
#MeToo movement are being honest and truthful. But when you can mold the
situation in a way that you know no-one will question you, it only takes one
to flip the world upside down. That's a lot of power to just give someone.

~~~
wutbrodo
Wow, what a horrible story. I'm really sorry to hear you went through that.

------
temp-dude-87844
This sort of fear-based hypercorrection, a misguided but not necessarily
ineffective form of risk avoidance, happens in many walks of life. The same
calculus is at the root of non-lower-class whites (as well as nearly everyone
of high status) in the US avoiding neighborhoods with blacks and latinos. To
them, the visible race serves as a proxy to all sorts of unpleasantness they
wish to avoid, purely on correlation, and even as racism has moved more and
more towards being publicly unacceptable, the habits of racist behavior remain
because, unfortunately, of their perceived utility by those who apply them.

The utility function here is similar. The men in these situations have a lot
to lose because they're in positions of power, yet live in relative obscurity
without the social support system afforded to well-known public figures. They
may or may not engage in behavior that's actually sexist, and they may or may
not engage in behavior that's sexual harassment. False accusations of sexual
assault, by all indications, are rare, and any accusation is reputationally
costly to accusers in many ways. Data about false accusations of sexual
harassment is harder to come by, as it's rarely treated as a criminal matter.
But the statistics don't matter when the drastic outcome is so dire: if any of
these men were to be accused, the current political climate ensures their
careers and reputations will meet a swift end. To many, this is an
unacceptable risk that requires mitigation.

~~~
swiley
>False accusations of sexual assault, by all indications, are rare,

Personally I've seen just about as many false accusations as true ones. It's
not always the woman that makes the accusation, some men use it to hurt other
men they don't like.

~~~
TomVDB
How many false and true accusations have you seen? I'm close to 50, and I've
personally never seen either.

~~~
ryanmercer
>How many false and true accusations have you seen?

I've been accused by some random online that I never met.

A friend of mine rejected a woman on okcupid, she then made accounts both in
his name and various women's names on the former site 'cheaterville' and
reported that he gave her multiple sexually transmitted diseases including HIV
which cost him an acting job becuase it was the first thing that came up when
you googled his name and despite he and I both having screenshots of this
psychotic individual attacking him via multiple forms of communication
threatening him if he wouldn't go out with her they said 'get it removed or we
can't have you be part of the production'.

A few years ago at my current employer a woman alleged I sent her all sorts of
inappropriate text messages and provided screenshots. One problem, she used an
iOS device and all of the messages allegedly from me, were in the color bubble
of the recipient not the sender meaning she messaged herself then deleted the
wrong color bubbles.

So there's 3, 2 of them involving me, all in the past decade.

Then Saturday on a friend's IG post about a candle sale at Bath & Body works I
commented "Such a girl" a local newspaper reporter than replied to my comment:

"Oh ZANG, you sure diminished her! Girls are stupid, with their genders and
stuff, lol, amiright?!"

To which I replied:

"..."

To which she replied:

"Yes? I'm here."

To which I replied:

"there's something wrong with you. I made a simple comment a friend that I've
known for 8 years post being playful. Not because I'm some woman shaming toxic
card carrying member of hte patriarchy. Maybe try enjoying your life instead
of lashing out at complete strangers on the internet there slugger"

To which she replied: " Ah. Here, let me translate that for you: "I don't like
being checked, so I'm going to gaslight and throw some phrases around to seem
"woke" and then continue to diminish through patronizing name-calling".

At which point I then contacted her immediate supervisor at her publication,
his supervisor, the editor in chief as well as an employee of the parent
company that owns the newspaper as this woman's IG profile starts "Downtown
reporter at @newspapersheworksatsinstagram" as what she did is entirely
uncalled for and not at all professional and if she's done this once, she's
done it many times.

So I have a local newspaper reporter putting words into my mouth, calling my
character into question in a public forum, because I happen to have a penis
and said 'such a girl' to a candle sale photograph on a post of someone that
I've not only known for 8 years but have taken out several times over those
years...

------
falcolas
Personal opinion - the lack of a "innocent until proven guilty" judicial
system when it comes to sexual harassment claims is what has caused much of
the fear of women. Colleges, businesses, and online communities almost always
simply believe the victim, and even if a trial should occur and the accused is
vindicated, the accused has already been fired, expelled, or crucified by
public opinion. The records of the accusations remain online forever, with
little or no followup.

Innocent until proven guilty with a trial by peers. We enshrine these in our
public justice system; it needs to be spread to private companies as well.

~~~
ams6110
Really, employers, universities, etc. should not even be involved in these
kinds of claims. They are not competent to investigate them.

If a crime has been committed, there is a judicial system that can and will
deal with that, with established standards regarding presumption of innocence
and burden of proof.

~~~
falcolas
To be fair, there are a number of behaviors which create negative environments
for men/women/minorities/majorities which are not against the law. I
personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards
than "it's against the law" \- they simply need to ensure that investigations
into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts.

~~~
hoaw
> I personally have no problems with a company/college having higher standards
> than "it's against the law" \- they simply need to ensure that
> investigations into those broken standards don't turn into witch hunts.

What is missing is a suggestion for how you could avoid that. If business and
institution are free to handle these things as they please, which they
generally would be granted under labor law and free speech, there are those
that are going to disagree with you and there are those that are going to be
outright bad at it. Just like they are at handling a lot of other things.

If sexual harassment is as important as not being deemed "a team player" at a
company or the right of colleges to design their own admissions process
(sometimes to the detriment of Asian students) we can expect people to be
mistreated, at the least subjectively so, for this as well.

You can certainly can judge those involved, but I think it is hard to make a
case against the problem as such. Because if you have e.g. extensive rights
for companies and extensive free speech, there will be downsides as society
changes. But that is an expected part of the process, unless you want to
change the process and thereby labor law and the rights of colleges or
introduce something like the right to be forgotten.

------
brodo
It’s scary that this is done by people who earn money by managing risk. They
came to the conclusion that this is the smartest way to operate. That should
not be taken lightly.

~~~
throwawaymath
Unless you can demonstrate they are as competent at risk assessment in this
arena as they are in finance, you're fine to take it as lightly as anyone
else's personal decisions. There's no _a priori_ reason someone good at
financial risk assessment would be as good at rationally modeling and reacting
to risk in a domain which is significantly more personal and less
quantifiable.

------
madengr
Nothing new. A professor I had 25 years ago would always keep the door open if
he had a female student during office hours.

~~~
cwmma
Boy scouts have been doing this for decades, the rule was you were never to be
alone with an adult you weren't related to.

~~~
neaden
Every organization I've volunteered with that works with minors, including
BSA, has that rule. It's sadly necessary.

~~~
happytoexplain
It's telling that I'm unsure if this line of comments is more concerned with
the problem that people abuse other people, or the problem that people falsely
accuse other people of abuse.

~~~
stevenwoo
It's both. It's in the guidelines for sporting groups I have worked with that
there's an open door at all times with offices and that there is at least one
supervising adult/parent of the juveniles present at all times. I assume this
is due to insurance and legal liability - all organized sporting groups have
liability insurance or it's going on your personal liability. This
unfortunately did not cover pathological cases like the US Gymnastics scandal
where the doctor apparently even abused his patients in the presence of their
parents in the guise of an examination.

------
gnicholas
> _" If men avoid working or traveling with women alone, or stop mentoring
> women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment,” he said, “those men
> are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex
> discrimination complaint."_

This presents an interesting conundrum, and I wonder how it will complicate
the process of proving sex discrimination related to mentoring disparities.
Even if laws stay the same, I think some jurors will be more sympathetic to
the "Pence approach" in the wake of #MeToo. This will make it harder for
plaintiffs to win in mentoring discrimination cases, and will mean lower
settlement offers as well.

------
towelr34dy
I'd say there are other factors. One big one for me is confounding:

"Sex predator/Abuser" will be the label placed on a guy who violently rapes a
woman, just as it will be applied to the guy who said something PERCEIVED to
be inappropriate (or who might have had consenting sex with a employee)

My sister the other day refereed to a guy who cat called her as "Violating her
integrity".

When there is little distinction in describing: 1- someone saying bad things
2- an act of violently forcing yourself on someone and scarring them for life
3- Inappropriate, but consensual sexual behavior It can be a little worrisome
to be accused of saying bad things or of being even perceived as possibly
having a relationship with someone.

~~~
threevodka
They’re all interlinked behaviours. For people who are constantly at risk of
being sexually assaulted, being harassed by someone is a major indicator of
that someone posing physical danger. Although the verbal harasser may never
escalate to physical assault, their harassment is a part of the environment
that creates risk to potential victims and contributes to their fear.

As men it’s easy to think of harassment as isolated but for many women it’s a
constant day to day threat and successfully managing that risk means quickly
identifying potential threats even if they may not escalate beyond verbal
harassment.

Verbal harassment can put someone already on edge in fear for their life. He
absolutely violated her if that’s how she feels.

~~~
towelr34dy
So... you think it is fair to the woman in example 1 to have the same term
applied to example 2?

1- The first woman's gang rape where she spent months in the hospital
recuperating. 2- An upper middle class woman getting told in a loud manner
"uuuuhhh girl, you're looking finnnnneeee today"

Really? You can't see the difference between 1 and 2? You can't see the need
for different terminology?

That's on you. I find it silly, and I find the confounding hurts everyone
involved. Including girl #2, who has a legitimate complaint, but seems
ridiculous using the terminology that is used for #1.

It also creates an environment of emotions and hysteria instead of reason and
logic applied to resolving problems.

~~~
threevodka
Sure, #1 is uniquely described as “gang rape” and #2 is “verbal assault”. I
don’t think verbal assault and gang rape are equivalent. That’s not what I’m
arguing.

I am arguing that any form of sexual assault is predatory behaviour engaged in
by an abuser and it is completely appropriate for a woman to consider someone
who verbally harasses them to be a sexual assault risk.

Sexual assault is woefully under reported and woefully under prosecuted, you
cannot possibly argue that we have ever applied “logic and reason” to this
issue. The progress that has been made in the last decade has improved the
logic and reason applied to this issue but we have a long way still to go. A
few decades ago you could not legally rape your wife, how is that logical? Or
well reasoned?

~~~
towelr34dy
Err, I was using the term "Violation of a woman's integrity".

According to you, both 1 and 2 can be described that way.

Listen you are right in part. Like when people talk about drugs being ba-a-a-
a-d.

Is cocaine bad? Yes

Is the war on drugs justified by this? No

Same here. You are talking about a real problem. You are suggesting solutions
that hurt everyone involved and then acting like if someone doesn't agree with
you they are denying the problem.

I'm not denying the problem. I pointed out issue with an applied solution and
instead of addressing them, you bring up the problem the issues were supposed
to address, while ignoring the point.

~~~
threevodka
You can’t swing a cat without finding a victim of sexual harassment who felt
violated by harassment even if it wasn’t physical. Your physical body isn’t
the only part of you that exists, if you are harassed to the point where you
don’t feel safe living your life because of the threats posed to you wouldn’t
you feel violated? Your life has been compromised.

If you mean “physically violated” then sure, you cannot be physically violated
by words, but I don’t see the value in making that distinction. If a woman is
afraid to go to work because her colleague shouts obscene remarks at her every
time he sees her, why does it matter (in the context of ensuring she feels
safe at work) if he hasn’t escalated to committing the acts he threatens yet?

Every situation is different, for some women a physical assault can be far
less violating than a daily campaign of verbal harassment.

~~~
towelr34dy
"physical assault can be far less violating than ... verbal harassment."

...

You are the reason for the article above. Congrats. Now celebrate your
victory.

~~~
threevodka
My statement is absolutely true and the fact that you see harassment and
assault as such black and white things makes your ignorance clear — the fact
that you had to edit my single sentence to try and make your point should have
been a pretty clear sign of that.

There are physical assaults that are far less consequential than verbal
assaults, that’s an indisputable fact. Anyone who has experience with victims,
has been a victim _or_ even just someone who uses “logic and reason” would
understand that.

~~~
towelr34dy
I don't see them as black and white. I said there was an issue and gave
examples. I asked a question based on such examples.

Stop moving the goal posts. Stop your whataboutisms. My original post
comparing #1 to #2 stands. You confound such situations. This hurts everyone.

------
jbob2000
> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.” That’s
> pretty much the bottom line, said Ron Biscardi, chief executive officer of
> Context Capital Partners. “It’s really not that hard.”

Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And
yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm
and telling people he doesn't do hugs.

You literally can be the nicest man in the world and still get #MeToo'd

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> Tell that to Neil Degrass Tyson! Would you ever consider him an asshole? And
> yet, here he is getting lambasted for pointing out a tattoo on a woman's arm
> and telling people he doesn't do hugs.

I thought he was being accused of physically touching a clothed area of the
woman's arm without being granted consent, not merely "pointing out". The
words "pointing out" imply a gesture, which can be done at a distance, not
unwelcome physical contact.

~~~
throwaway5250
> accused of physically touching a clothed area of the woman's arm without
> being granted consent

Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over?

(And is it any surprise that we might all deduce the lesson if it is?)

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> Is this really an offense worth ending someone's career over?

In isolation? No. It's a social faux pas that should be responded to with
apology and remediation. Nobody is _perfect_ , after all.

As one incident in an overall pattern of abuse stretching one's career?
Different matter. If this pattern holds, the accused doesn't need to be
propped up as a role model for science communication.

------
buboard
The middle east has been doing this for decades.

~~~
eigenspace
Glad to see we're progressing to the enlightened gender policies of the middle
east /s

~~~
glbrew
I'm not defending their gender policies per se but I am increasingly jealous
of societies that actually have a culture other than neoliberalism. Every
society has its faults but I'm seriously wondering if ours may be much greater
than those we love to attack (like the middle east). At least they have large
cohesive families they live close to, share meals with, enjoy traditions with.
It seems like most Americans don't even have that anymore. But at least women
are "free" to sell junk CDOs to middle America. Thank God!

~~~
neaden
Yeah, here in America I can't go with my family to a nice public stoning of an
adulterous woman. I just have to settle for my wife being allowed to drive on
her own and have meaningful rights.

~~~
faissaloo
Obviously thinking one element of a culture is good means you agree with
everything that culture does.

------
stdplaceholder
I haven't worked on Wall Street for about 10 years, but when I did it was
unbelievably misogynistic. None of our dozens of partners were women. The
younger partners referred to their wives as "my first wife" while they were
still married to them. The older ones of course were all on their third or
fourth marriage. And the president of the firm, who was old enough to
personally remember the Hindenburg disaster, just went around grabbing the
secretaries' asses.

~~~
jshaqaw
Wall Street has moved on with the times as has the rest of the world in the
last 10 years. At this point I don’t think it is an outlier in terms of social
attitudes. If anything it is at least outwardly more progressive by virtue of
A. Being based in major metro areas B. A shift in skill set demand away from
extrovert Lacrosse bros towards quants/techies and C. The amount of money on
the line to blow up in a bad HR situation. Are there dinosaurs and jerks?
Yeah. But not a disproportionate number.

------
tonyob
I mean you see Neil Degrasse Tyson reputation completely destroyed on the
news, mentioning he invited his assistant home for wine and cheese and doing
some awkward handshake. This could happen to anyone. Better be safe than
sorry.

------
dandare
This man-women discussion is incredibly confused - for many reasons including
emotions and malevolence - and it took me quite long until I could say I have
formed my opinion. If you are interested:

1/ In modern societies women are often wronged, in the form of discrimination,
harassment, abuse, and violence.

2/ Some of the policies designed to help women are hurting man by default, for
instance, positive discrimination or "guilty until proven innocent".

3/ Some think the amount of wrongness done to women is orders of magnitude
bigger than the amount of wrongness done to man. (Including me)

4/ Some think this discrepancy between wrongness warrants the policies that
hurt men by default.

5/ Some think the no amount of wrongness discrepancy warrants a policy that
hurts someone by default. (Including me)

~~~
loxs
It's much worse...

2/ Most of the policies designed to help women actually hurt them. Positive
discrimination usually ends up being much worse than doing nothing.

------
danesparza
So as a father of two daughters in their 20's, this makes me sad. Instead of
attempting to see women as equals and moving to bridge the gap -- the best
solution Wall Street can come up with is to further isolate themselves? Why
can't these men just learn to treat women like the humans they are?

~~~
bussierem
When there have already been numerous well-documented instances of people
making false accusations that absolutely RUIN THE LIVES of the defendants, it
can hardly be a surprise that people with a lot to lose would take drastic, if
ill-though-out, measures to protect themselves from that possibility. As
another comment said, even when the false accusations are found to be false,
it's usually too late for the defendant, and their life has already been
ruined. The only way this gets fixes is if we stop implicitly believing people
who accuse someone of a crime, just because of the nature of that crime.
Innocent until proven guilty applies globally, not based on context or
scandals.

~~~
neaden
Hey, can you show me some of these well documented instances? The Duke Lacross
case gets brought up a lot, but all those guys were exonerated and as far as
I'm aware doing fine. Kavanaugh just got appointed to the Supreme Court and
Lois C.K is popping up to do comedy sets, so I'm curious to see these many
well documented cases you refer to.

~~~
tomp
A few outhers are: Oxford Union president, Jian Gomeshi, "The Mattress Girl".

~~~
neaden
I'm not familiar with the Oxford Union president. Jian Gomeshi was credibly
accused, the fact that he was found not guilty does not mean his accuser was
false. I don't know why you include Emma Sulkowicz, I know of no evidence at
all that she falsely accused someone. Also Jian Gomeshi is writing articles
for the New York Review of Books and the man Emma Sulkowicz accused graduated,
so neither of their lives were ruined.

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
The idea that Ghomeshi was “credibly accused” is rather the point. In the only
cases that went to court, he was found not guilty, and the judge went on quite
a tangent about how the witnesses had lied to and hid evidence from the court.

If that’s not enough to clear his name, how can anyone ever escape the stain
of a credible accusation? It seems prudent given that problem to ensure that
no accusation will be credible.

~~~
dvlsg
Witnesses for which side? Or was it both sides?

~~~
SpicyLemonZest
For the prosecution. The accusers had all continued flirting with (and in one
case sleeping with) Ghomeshi after the alleged assaults. One lied about it,
and the other two didn't bring it up until the defense got hold of their
emails.

------
mathattack
This makes it seem like Wall Street was some kind of paragon for mentorship
before. (It never was)

~~~
buboard
i believe it's exactly because of their past and established attitudes that
they feel they need to be extremely precautionary

------
jseliger
It's like no one imagined unintended consequences, or understands that
incentives affect behavior.

~~~
mikelyons
Acknowledging incentives and actual human motives/behavior is not politically
correct.

------
buboard
I see a potential opportunity for gay managers here.

~~~
stemc43
go right ahead

------
nickpsecurity
I had to deal with this crap more than once. It's a real thing. The article
doesn't mention a helpful strategy that kept false claims off my own record:
having a diverse team with plenty of women who respect you and will have your
back. Even some that _don 't_ like you but have character that they won't lie
about you. They told the truth about me to anyone that asked. That included
what they liked, shrugged over, or really hated (about 99% shit I'd say). The
world of difference between what a few women claimed and what my coworkers
said spending years with me in private got those claims discarded before they
could touch my record. One I had to hold back so she didn't do something crazy
since women hate false claims about this stuff about as much as men. Those
claims create false perceptions that undermine attempts to deal with actual
harassment and sex crimes. So, a certain percentage of women working with me
go all out fighting any BS they see like that.

So, that led to a generic solution building on what I was already doing. Just
bring more women (and minorities) into your workplace, treat your workers
well, spend time with them (in public if you're worried), build relationships,
have their back where they need it, and they'll probably have yours, too. I
actually don't have much charisma or management skill only working one job
like that. I was the favorite boss of most of my people for years, though,
just doing the above surviving all false claims of all types. It probably
helps that I'm pretty genuine where they just _knew_ what I would or wouldn't
do.

The people, men or women, who my bosses thought weren't motivated would
sometimes work hardest for me. It's just because I treated them respectfully.
Also, helping them would where I could. Such tiny things go so far to bring
out the best in people. As a side effect, they also reduce the number and
effectiveness of false claims. So, I recommend companies just do more of that.
Treating people well, inclusive behavior, and so on. Every company I know like
that out here gets good results of some kind.

------
ff10
I wonder how gay men handle this situation. Are situations that are
symmetrical to the heterosexual version causing similar issues?

------
cuddlecake
> to protect themselves in the face of what they consider unreasonable
> political correctness -- or to simply do the right thing.

I wish the author spent some time on elaborating what the right thing is. The
right thing might be too obvious for me to realize what it is.

------
asianthrowaway
I always wondered, why don't women get very harsh sentences if they get caught
making up false rape allegations? I think that would discourage that sort of
behavior and sort of balance things out.

~~~
flukus
Innocent until proven guilty applies to them too. What percentage of false
allegations can be proven to be false, like the accused being in a different
place at the time? Despite a couple of high profile exceptions I'd wager
that's small enough to be a rounding error.

------
hodgesrm
> Finally, he landed on the solution: “Just try not to be an asshole.”

It's kind of astonishing how long it takes some people see this obvious
answer.

Expert hint: It also solves a lot of other workplace issues as well.

~~~
csense
How does that protect you from false accusations?

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
That's a negligible risk.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-
Allegations.pdf)

~~~
sk4rekr0w
You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation.

In this context, if you believe that men are in dramatic positions of power,
then you would have to find the # that shows how often powerful men are
wrongly accused (vs. just the average man).

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> You can't take an average and apply it to a specific situation.

In the absence of a more focused study, it's the best we have.

Do you have an alternative study to link to?

~~~
sk4rekr0w
I'm not aware of a study - but that doesn't mean you default to bad math.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
I'd use "better" math if it were available. Until then, I'm going to use the
best tool for the job, even if it's "bad".

To that end, I refuse to make perfect the enemy of good.

~~~
sk4rekr0w
Our difference of opinion is that I think you are refusing to make bad the
enemy of good

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
If you have better, provide it. Otherwise, "the good" is "the best we have"
and "the perfect" is "what we don't have".

------
CiPHPerCoder
This is cowardice. Rational cowardice, perhaps, but still cowardice
nonetheless.

> “Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they
> fear,” said Zweig, the lawyer. “These men fear what they cannot control.”

This reveals _so_ much about the mentality of the people being interviewed.

The statistics of false rape accusations do not justify this concern. I would
expect that an industry that copes with risk as part of their job to
understand this.

[https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idah...](https://web.archive.org/web/20180101025446/https://icdv.idaho.gov/conference/handouts/False-
Allegations.pdf)

~~~
buboard
> This is cowardice.

That's offensive. These men have the right to do displays of virtue (such as
only talking with an open door). Why do you presume that men _must_ risk their
jobs ? It sounds like some some macho-requirement.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
> Why do you presume that men must risk their jobs ? It sounds like some some
> macho-requirement.

One of the cornerstones of _their entire industry_ accounting for the
uncertainty of the future. They're already risking their jobs (and, indeed,
their companies) every day.

Contrast that with a statistically insignificant number of false accusations.

If they are truly afraid of _false accusations_ (like they say) rather than
_true accusations_ , then they haven't clearly done the math.

(If, on the other hand, they're afraid of _true accusations_ , they should
proactively cease to sexually harass women and maybe they'll have a less
guilty conscience.)

I'm not imposing a macho-requirement on anyone, just asking that they exercise
some sense of consistency here.

~~~
nickpsecurity
You're looking at this with statistical, risk management. There's a subset of
risk management that focused on what's called "catastrophic," risk management.
That's when the impact of the event, which is rare but can happen, is so high
that one is willing to go the extra mile to prevent it. This includes obvious
examples like nuclear powerplants having ridiculous security or classified
systems being air gapped with dedicated, physical lines. However, there's
less-obvious cases where the same thinking is employed:

One company's head of security at WTC started doing evacuation drills after
the 1990's bombing thinking something destructive to whole building is worth
having a plan for. He said all but 5 people got out in 2001. In same place, a
bank was running OpenVMS clusters on high-quality hardware with a far-away
site in case something happened to the building (standard concern, too). They
claimed those nodes were the last thing that failed with no transactions lost.
Everything else was destroyed.

People often consider hurricanes, tornados, flood levels, wild fires, and
earthquakes before moving into an area. Lots of folks avoid Tornado Alley and
the Southern/Southeastern Coast for that reason. One person thinking floods
might get bad in Texas put an inflatable, rubber circle filled with water
around their house. It was only one floodwaters went around instead of
through. Likewise, the Hurricane Architecture article said author
[statistically-unnecessarily] went with dedicated servers and architecture for
super-high volume. Became main source for news during flood for entire state
with tons of traffic. Kept folks informed.

Lots of people either don't put political/religious/relationship/work
information social media or periodically delete it to make digging up previous
dirt on them harder. It either takes no effort (former) or small effort
(latter). The endless volume of folks getting quoted before being slammed
online or being fired at work suggests this is a rational practice. Also, as
Schneier says about crypto, the number and effectiveness of such attacks seem
to go up overtime where traditional, risk assessment is nearly impossible.

Certain appliances, like toasters and tumble dryers, cause a disproportionate
amount of homes to be destroyed. Many homeowners make sure they're only used
when someone is there to react to damage. For toasters, some people also
unplug them when not in use (idk if that matters). At least "person is there"
is a costless precaution that prevent loss of entire home.

Another which is sometimes labeled discrimination is folks staying out of the
hood to avoid being violently assaulted. There's quite a few hoods in Memphis,
TN near me. Most people, regardless of race or gender, avoid them if they can
since they don't want to be mugged, raped, beaten, or killed. When weighing
that, people consider the psychological effect it would have on them. If they
don't live there, the choice is (a) go meet people, do stuff, etc where I
almost certainly won't experience violence or (b) go do same stuff where said
violence is reported (or not) several times a day in those same places. Most
people, again all groups, do (a) to avoid cost of (b) since it's _never_ worth
it to them. Some do (b), though, for a variety of reasons. Just saying it to
acknowledge they exist.

In the main article, these are rational, successful people are similarly
facing a catastrophic risk that's got an entire movement behind the tools that
make it work. They don't know odds of it happening but do know the cost is
end-of-career and frequency is increasing. They are rightly thinking in terms
of catastrophic, risk mitigation where the entire class of risk is mitigated
since the cost is unbearable. Although I disagree on specifics, they're
definitely right to mitigate a catastrophic risk increasing in frequency. It's
what they usually do. Me too.

~~~
CiPHPerCoder
This is the most insightful response I've received this entire thread. Thanks
for sharing.

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that women are viewed as potential
catastrophes. That's probably just _where we 're at_ with identity politics
these days.

~~~
nickpsecurity
Thanks! It's not a good situation. I don't think it's identity politics so
much as specific practices that leverage media, corporate and viral social, to
severely punish people for alleged crimes without evidence other than presence
and claims of a woman. Another commenter described it like a superweapon that
women can use against men working with women. If folks are using a superweapon
and it only works on men working with women, then the mere existence of it
will lead to men aiming for prevention to remove the circumstance that gives
the superweapon power: women's presence.

I'd rather the superweapon not exist or be used only based on stronger
evidence given its catastrophic effects. Otherwise, we're back to men wanting
control over their lives/careers minimizing catastrophes by treating women as
potential catastrophes. If not in general, then they'll do it for private or
couple-looking meetings with them. As we're seeing.

