These stories leave a bad taste in my mouth. It hasn't yet gone to court, so the guys allegations could be really be anything from the God's honest truth all the way to a complete fabrication. Yet there is a huge amount of irreparable damage by public stories like this.
I was once personally on the receiving end of a complete false sexual harassment allegation from a coworker almost at random (someone I had almost no interactions with, ever). There wasn't even a sprinkle of truth in the whole thing. I was saved by pure dumb luck, where against all odds just happened to have irrefutable proof one of their claims was impossible which led to her dropping the whole thing. I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims.
I guess I feel like "Innocent until proven guilty" is a pretty good model and running a story just amplifying one persons unproven claims kind of goes against that.
The ugly truth is — false sexual harassment complaint is one those things in life you keep hoping and praying it never happens to you. But if it does you’re screwed one way or the other.
The stigma that it “automatically” brings just doesn’t go away. It just doesn’t. You forever become “that” person. And I really don’t know how it can be fixed. That’s just how it is.
The Billy Graham/Mike Pence rule is your best bet: don't let yourself be in any situation where a false accusation could arise. Of course you'll be accused of being a sexist/misogynist/whatever instead but that's easier to ignore or overcome than false accusations of sexual harassment.
Hard disagree. If I decide I can have a closed-door 1:1 or a lunch 1:1 with some of my direct reports but not with any that are female, I’m inherently discriminating against them.
I’d way rather treat all employees fairly and fade a <1% chance of a false accusation than to treat employees unequally and cut that chance in half.
I had a Professor in college who refused to meet with me behind a a close door, and we were both male. He kindly explained that he picked this up from a former professor of his. He wanted zero possibility of a student accusing him of sexual misconduct. At the time I thought it was a bit strange, but I agreed and left the door open. 20 years later, it doesn't sound so strange anymore.
In the end, no amount of evidence will save you when they have it out for you because you're a man. There is the famous case of the German train conductor Ralf Witte and his friend, who were both falsely accused of rape by the friend's daughter. They were falsely imprisoned for a combined 10 years before the ridiculous verdict was overturned, even though the daughter was a known liar, frequently submitted contradicting testimony and they had alibi for several of the dates where the supposed rape took place. Among other things, the daughter claimed that Mr. Witte took her virginity, then later claimed that she had been enslaved in a human trafficking ring years earlier, directly contradicting her earlier statements. Any evidence not fitting the story that the judge and DA wanted to hear were simply explained away as the victim "misremembering".
Had so many problems in one office that they re-architected it so every office had (at least) a large window. Complaints of hanky-panky dropped to zero.
"Odd that sokoloff only has private lunches with the new kid that just graduated."
You're not saving yourself from any false accusations. The people you have closed door sessions can accuse you of SA regardless if you're attracted to them.
It's one of the "possible, but not really viable" solutions I think. I'm probably not going to coordinate schedules in order to have a chaperone present for all of my meetings, not going to cancel meetings when the chaperone is sick/on PTO, not going to take the chaperone on all of my business trips, and probably not going to discuss confidential business topics (upcoming mergers, divestitures, or budget problems brought on by carrying 1/4 of our headcount as chaperones in the company, etc).
Most of these places have seccams every so many feet from each other. Team rooms could have them w/o audio so people can feel at ease to express themselves while also having a silent witness in the event of any physical aspects of the meeting were to come up --obvs there are some limits as most have a def retention of 30 days.
Didn't want to post from my main account to avoid any references and trails. It goes beyond just sexual harassment at work. I was accused by my ex wife. Even before any trials or anything: I lost my job, banks, housing and pretty much anything that requires a background check. I fought this for a year, and everything was dropped, because her friend came as witnesses and explained how she and my ex wife planned on setting me up, because I asked for divorce after found out about afair.
Even with all charges dropped, case sealed, I guess background agencies still have record of it, and I still get rejected.
The whole guilty until proven otherwise can ruin anyone's life, and the accusor in my case walked away completely untouched.
You can blame the #metoo movement for making it such a massive crime. I had a ex resurface in 2011 who was sadly addicted to drugs, she came to me for money. When I turned her away, she contacted the company I was working for (I was an outside contractor) with claims that I raped her when we were high school kids (1996). Shortly afterwards, I was notified my contract would be ending and I had to train my replacement. After contracting there for 3 years, it was not renewed and then I had to train my replacement?!?! I didn't have any real options to fight back and even if I sued her, she wouldn't have shown up and she hasn't had any real job outside of Walmart.
The timeline of getting my contract not renewed was actually a chance for me to move across the country, something I had been wanting to do for over a year.
And imagine, had that friend not come forward, you would've been screwed. People mostly assume chicks are the innocent party, people mostly assume men are the guilty party.
And people's excuse is that men "do the most crime", but it's like: well what about male victims who are left in the dirt, what about the fact that men are also victims of the most crime as well.
In the context of contract law, debt collection and civil litigation, the term judgment proof is commonly used to refer to defendants or potential defendants who are financially insolvent, or whose income and assets cannot be obtained in satisfaction of a judgment.[1]
Being "judgment proof" is not a defense to a lawsuit. If sued, the defendant cannot claim being "judgment proof" as an affirmative defense. The term "judgment proof" instead refers to the inability of the judgment holder to obtain satisfaction of the judgment.[1]
If a plaintiff were to secure a legal judgment against an insolvent defendant, the defendant's lack of funds would make the satisfaction of that judgment difficult, if not impossible, to secure.[2]
> If a plaintiff were to secure a legal judgment against an insolvent defendant, the defendant's lack of funds would make the satisfaction of that judgment difficult, if not impossible, to secure.[2]
Even if they can't collect, wouldn't there be some significant value to the judgement, making it less of a he said/she said thing? When confronted with the allegation, it could be rebutted with the facts that you 1) sued, 2) prevailed, and 3) and are owed a lot of money.
Yes, in civil court. The DA office won't take on false accusations charges.
Edit: I could sue her, but nothing will come of it, she's completely broke, alone and live rent free taking care of old lady with dementia. And as of me, idk, never held grudge or wanted any vengeance upon anyone, it's easier to just cut ties, and never be associated with her
Is that what your lawyer told you? Cuz unless it's a mega corp lawsuits are expensive and they often settle if the demand is under a certain amount and there is a real or mostly-real complaint.
Plus a series of judgements does a good job of illustrating to others that all allegations were false, and were looked at by a court (possibly multiple times) to determine if they had any validity.
3 judgements in your favor is a good rebuttal if it ever comes up again...
What good would that do? OP would likely get a few thousand dollars, and the bank would make that in profits in less time than it just took you to read the word "profits".
You'd end up costing yourself money, just in the sheer time it would take to do it.
More men are going to go through this regardless of whether he sues or not. I can't imagine people who would do this kind of thing being deterred by a small civil claims court case somewhere random.
It’s not deterred because the idea that men will actually stand up for themselves is so low. Mixed in with systemic sexism against men in the courts of course
If you want to change that, men have to hold themselves accountable for protecting themselves against women.
You might not like that reality, it’s not a good one, but it’s true.
Civil court cases don't change anything, it's just dispute. And I don't think it's issue with sexism against men. I think it's social and judicial issue.
I think it's good that people can come out and without expecting any harm accuse someone who caused harm physically or emotionally. But you will have people who will try to exploit the system to gain some lavage.
Do you think social view on me gonna change if she was charged with false accusations? Nope, many would say not only I got away with it but also got her into trouble. And it doesn't remove charges from whatever blacklist I'm on. Issue is deeper than just sexism.
Because those type of crime considered as crime of moral turpitude and it's way easy to throw you under a bus than to have anything to do with you, probably mostly social aspect of it, and hight risk of repetition. Even with name cleared, it's easier to just avoid
Edit: Don't usually wrap other people into this type of issues. But look at case of Justin Roiland, he was only charged, not even pre-trial and everyone from job to friends turned back on him (I don't judge he might or might not be guilty). But once you publicly accused you are guilty even if you proven innocent
Hold account sure, debit card, easy. Credit cards, loans or mortgage good luck getting. Actually murder or financial crimes, and many other types of crime is tolerable by banks
The real issue is that people stopped caring about whatever the justice system is going to decide.
There's a new religion of social justice, and this religion is harsher than even the old religions.
The old religions you were at least judged by an omnipotent being who could see the whole picture. This new woke religion have you judged by a dumb mob. Everyone's playing the judge and everyone's responsible to punishing everyone.
As if punishing a bad person is a virtue. And as if there's nothing wrong about lynching an innocent person.
And this is a direct result of lack of religion. The absence of religion isn't lack of oppression, it's oppression by a dumb blind mob. Religion isn't the truly primitive behavior, the truly primitive behavior is this dumb mob social justice that's spreading now.
Everything in your comment is pretty reasonable until this:
>And this is a direct result of lack of religion
You claim this like it's proven to be true. It's not. The reason for this inherent ask for social justice in my opinion has nothing to do with religion. Instead, I feel like people got disappointed in existing justice system, looking at nasty people going through life unfazed, even though it is painfully obvious they are guilty. Innocent people going to prison over dna evidence that turns out false 10+ years later. Policemen killing innocent citizens and not getting punished. If you fix the justice system, there will be no need for social justice.
So the justice system built by many intelligent professionals failed, but the dumb mob justice will succeed?
It is the lack of religion, because religion is exactly what would fill this gap in the minds of people from seeing injustice. Maybe the earthly judges failed, but I don't need to be cruel and punishing because the criminal will get what's coming for him in the next life.
It doesn't even matter if this argument is true or false, and if there is another life and judgement in it. That line of thinking clearly keeps people more civilized. Here in the present, in an objectively observable way that even complete atheists could compare.
> So the justice system built by many intelligent professionals failed
Yes - clearly the justice system has been coopted and corrupted and "social justice" is one of the expected and observed outcomes (similar but different than mob justice - which is also another expected outcome when you can't rely on actual police/judiciary).
The resolution to all this is to restore faith and trust in our formal justice system - and there are folks fighting for that also.
>So the justice system built by many intelligent professionals failed
No it was built by people like you and me. You know those useless people in your office? They're also in the judiciary. You know that stupid policy that while it may have some uses, leads to other bad outcomes but no-one can be bothered to fix? That's also present.
Not OP and also kinda disagree with them at the surface value of the statement, but maybe not with the underlying premise.
One of the worst people I know are "religious". Some of the kindest people I know are also religious. This gave me cognitive dissonance for while about religion.
Then I realised that all the horrible people were actually communal narcissists who grab onto the lowest hanging fruit, which is performative religion. They just want to be seen as holier-than-thou, and Churches (applies to most other religious communities, I'm just trying to be brief).
Church is no longer the lowest hanging fruit, but social media is; that's their new holier-than-thou platform.
Now, back to their core premise: I don't think religion is what these people are missing, but a sense of wholesomeness and mindfulness.
Different forms of religious practices can give people this wholesomeness and mindfulness.
My preferred practice is meditation, but I'm not really that spiritual. I guess am a bit inwardly, but I doubt anybody would describe me as spiritual.
I think it's no coincidence independent religions have developed similar methods to quiet, direct and focus the mind.
Buddhism and mediation is just the closest thing to a repeatable, scientific approach that developed. Probably because there's little externalities involved.
So, I guess their intuition about lack of religious practices is correct (In my layman opinion), but I think it runs deeper (at a mental/psychological level) rather than a divine one.
A great book I would recommend is "The Mind Illuminated" by John Yates. It covers briefly what I outlined earlier, but with a historic lense, and it also covers the colourful history of meditation and Buddhism (also briefly).
It's not so much about mediation history, but more a manual on how to meditate (written by a neuroscientists who had this same intuition about religious practices I describe above, but he explores it through his expertise as a neuroscientist, and eventually landed on mediation as the "best" practice for the mind).
There's also some spirituality in it, but if you're anti-spiritual, you can gloss over them.
Back on the topic of this thread:
I think all these witch-craft style trends we had in the past are signs of weak, idle and chaotic minds. This isn't to say every progressive person is like this (I consider myself progressive), but some are, and they paint what should be a great movement into something bad.
And let me be clear, those same weak and disregulated minds are not exclusive to the latest woke movement, they are equally as present in the opposite side, but that side just had a much smaller stage currently. That's probably because we, people as a collective, realise that being progressive is good, so we have been more tolerant of the bullshit from one side than we are from the other.
Ideally, we should be progressive without the bullshit. But alas, human nature is flawed, so we have to endure socially fad after fad in the hopes that one day we will finally learn a lesson.
Edit: wanted to add, I in no way mean to say that being spiritual or believing in a higher power is bad. If it works for some: great for them! I just think it's less "robust" if that makes sense? I'm not quite sure how better to describe it; I'd have to sit and think about better formulating it
What you describe in this comment, I would not call religion. I think the better descriptor would be "spiritual practices", and these are closer to shaman rituals of old, in my opinion. I agree, these practices including meditation and practicing awareness are very useful tools. I would even add psychedelics to the list as it can be a massive boon in self-reflection. Unfortunately nowadays in an eye of common public, everything tangential to anything woke has became tainted as undesirable so many people turn to more classic religion that is more about judging people.
> I think all these witch-craft style trends we had in the past are signs of weak, idle and chaotic minds
Can't say that I agree. I think it is more of a consequence of social media having a hard cap on empathy you can feel to a string of letters on the screen in your hands. A lot of people simply don't realize the kind of effect their actions can have on other people, all of that multiplied by mob mentality. Worse yet, social media companies are incentivized to provoke this effect because it is clearly visible in their a/b tests - angry people generate more content. I think the real solution here is in changing social media to me more empathetic, but alas I can't see it happening easily.
Sorry, I meant to write witch-trials/hunts! It must've autocorrected. Thank you for spotting that and calling it out!
And to tie into your reply: the mentality you described is exactly the same one thay current social media mobs share with the "hunt the witches" mobs.
Also, my comment could use some more general word smithing, but it's too late to edit now. I think we agree both that what I described isn't religion, and I meant to say that religion itself isn't the missing bit, but some of the tools that were commonly present in religions. Meditation (and likewise psychedelics) being my favourite tool, personally.
I also agree with your observations on social media making this worse for the reasons you outlined.
> The old religions you were at least judged by an omnipotent being who could see the whole picture.
That is no different than the dumb mob considering that "gods judgment" always needs to be interpreted. Some mobs do that differently than other mobs but they are all mobs in the end.
>> The old religions you were at least judged by an omnipotent being who could see the whole picture.
> That is no different than the dumb mob considering that "gods judgment" always needs to be interpreted.
I don't think you got the point. The idea is that a truly wronged party (and their allies) can still feel like justice will be done if the system doesn't work, without doing anything, because in the end God will do it.
If that's not understood, then the allies will feel justified going after the (potentially falsely) accused extra-judicially or otherwise tilting the playing field in a way that results in more innocents get punished so it's felt to guilty people get away.
>The old religions you were at least judged by an omnipotent being who could see the whole picture
Unless you believe some deity ever really went in person at all these trials, you do realize that this is a complete indoctrinated perspective, don’t you? In all cases, this is only humans judging humans.
>As if punishing a bad person is a virtue. And as if there's nothing wrong about lynching an innocent person.
There is no need to essentialize a person for some bad behavior — did this person actually engaged in this behavior or not.
Letting a person engage in bad behavior without acting to prevent reiteration and hardening along this path is probably no more virtue.
Note that "punishment" is one way to try to bring people to more behavioral changes, but not necessarily the most efficient, nor the less ethically sketchy, and definitely not the only one.
> And this is a direct result of lack of religion. The absence of religion isn't lack of oppression, it's oppression by a dumb blind mob.
I am not especially acquainted with USA justice system, but lack of interference by religion into judiciary system is certainly not the description I would tag over the thin knowledge I have of it. Or do people stopped to swear on bible there and dropped the "in god we trust" motto?
Neither religions nor crowds are 100% sure receipt to oppression, but certainly both can be instrumentalized to achieve oppression. Just like self-proclaimed smart elites.
I believe the parent is using the word “religion” in a different way than you seem to realize, and in a much more general way, similar to how this concept is for example used in archaeological histories of human kind, i.e. the Sapiens book. Religion, in this sense, is not specifically referring to some specific practice of spiritual beliefs, but rather a more general shared abstract perspective among a group of people. Similar with the word “omnipotent“. Though I think this metaphor or definition may be lost on some readers.
I am not sure I get the proper perspective after it, but it is still nice to have a feedback like that.
To my mind religion on a broad view includes practices like animism, for sure. So I would tend to believe I get your point.
On the other hand, a statement like "The old religions you were at least judged by an omnipotent being who could see the whole picture" seems to precise to match a broad sense of religions. Animism for example doesn’t imply that such a powerful entity exists and judges everything you do.
Actually, apart from Abrahamic ones, which religion out there would fit such a restrictive set of beliefs where there is an omniscient omnipotent being so concerned of judging human individuals?
I interpreted it differently, as the "religion of the justice system" where a single "judge" oversees the whole picture, hearing from both sides, to make a proper judgement that is ideally objective and based in the "religion" of law. "Omnipotent" doesn't mean a God, necessarily; indeed one of its main definitions is "having great power and influence", which applies to a court justice.
> And this is a direct result of lack of religion. The absence of religion isn't lack of oppression, it's oppression by a dumb blind mob. Religion isn't the truly primitive behavior, the truly primitive behavior is this dumb mob social justice that's spreading now.
Nah, they're both truly primitive. China doesn't have this "dumb mob social justice" phenomenon and is largely irreligious. Irrationality isn't inevitable.
China has Internet mobs and flame wars too (across many of the same range of issues and sides), but this is usually suppressed by widespread censorship that simply shuts down all discourse.
I would even argue that the mentalities behind the worst performative excesses of social justice culture are even more present in China, by virtue of it being less democratic in practice but more democratic on paper. It’s just harder to accidentally form a mob, or at least that’s the perception.
(And when they do occur you don’t hear about them much. High-profile nationalistic riots and ethnic riots had taken place, offline, at least in the recent past.)
And a lot of religion, spirituality and superstitions, anything from Buddhism to Taoism to folk religion/superstitions to evangelical Christianity. And religious cults too. Yes, even among the educated elite.
It’s just that you don’t often hear about them, because image is everything, and _Jia-chou bu-neng wai yang_.
(Source: grew up there.)
Irrationality is in practice inevitable, because lack of information and motivated reasoning. Complete freedom and moral relativism won’t stop it. Cultural relativism won’t stop it. Authoritarianism won’t stop it. Humans are flawed. It’s better if we all got used to that concept, and both (1) thought more about what we know and how we know it, and (2) try to mitigate the impact of this. How this might work in practice, I do not have a clear idea, but growth driven by engagement metrics needs to die.
Don't get me started on China's social credit. I'll pick the mob justice over an unintelligent oppressive dictatorship. Communism is a whole religion of its own, and it's even more oppressive and pervasive than other religions, and it fosters corruption.
The legal system is nothing to do with justice - it is a general accepted arbitration mechanism but god knows why - there is nothing good about it. In fact there is lots that is bad about it - not least the fact that the governance system can decide what is legal or illegal, but will of course never hold itself to those standards. And then it can do things like mandate insurance payments under threat of revoke your 'license to trade'. Or pass laws to retrospectively tax people for what was legal at the time. All in the name of keeping people safe or something..
The only winners in the system are the governance system that receives fines, and the legal personnel (eg lawyers) that charge fees to use their 'special license' to help their clients navigate the artificial terrain that they know something about.
Duels to serve 'justice', when your honour has been besmirched, is a better system. It is quicker and cheaper, does involve gaslighting everyone into believing in some archaic nonsense, you directly address the cause of your complaint. It would also help crystallise whether this is something one is prepared to die for, or whether it is better to pass.
Exactly, people need religion, so they will stick to the first thing that comes up, ritualize it then prosecute you in its name.
This is why I laugh when I read that like 50% of people in X country are atheists, are you kidding me? My guess would be less than 1% of people are really irreligious, it's a difficult state of mind to be in, but it's also so peaceful when you know you know nothing.
Its a synthetic religion, alright, but it wouldnt have spread that much, if people were happy with the old religions.
At the core is the same mechanism working in other religions. Get the sexual different to provide matrimonial contract security (aka a proto law version), which now is replaced with a provide social security. I suspect, this is one of the reasons of record numbers of men dropping out of working society. When you goto work for nothing directly related to you, why work at all..
But at least it allows those enslaved for contract security, to remain free otherwise. And it is not as repressive when it comes to new things.
I still vividly remember the demonization of video games and all things new by evanglical religions. No fiction allowed by those, who life in fiction.
TL,DR; Yes, it is a religion, but of all the religions its the least worst.
Actually really good point. In times of old if you sinned, all you had to do to get your sins washed away was to go to confess, maybe make some donation. Now instead of that when nasty shit gets leaked, you can make a public apology, maybe make a charitable donation to some noble cause. But then people see you formulaic ass post, donation to a friend's charity and not a hint of change in behavior, and they tell you to fuck off with that fake shit. But if you actually understand your mistake, make a genuine apology, and correct your behaviour, people will forgive you. There are many examples of that.
Did they have that? Guess, some shizophrenic mother performing exorcisms on her daughter needs mercy every day. Did not felt very accepting though of artists and others who pushed the boundaries. Well at least there were books to read, endless versions of the bible - until just the ecyclopaedia becomes a mental save haven.
Your dream might have been somebody elses nightmare?
Old religions were already on the decline for decades as information became mainstream.
Once the initial purpose was done, this lynch mob religion seems to be have continuted with malicious intent of stepping on others without the need for reason, just a target is enough, no need for any process.
At least old religions had the excuse of being ignorant in ancient times, what does the current one have?
Immature bloodlust for anyone considered "others".
Religions revolve around the concept of spirit - the absolute truth that's behind everything. Interpretations of that truth vary, but this cornerstone concept remains the same. DEI is anti-christianism in this regard: it tells people to obsess with their body and emotions, and skillfully divides them into isolated camps.
How would background check services get hold of this information before trial? Were you arrested? I'm sorry, but based on my experience with these systems, this sounds like a fake story.
Even the detail about your bank accounts being closed doesn't add up at all.
Arrest records and charges are public records. Maybe I wasn't very clear about banks - let me try clarify. I lost my house, and it was hard to find place to even rent because of background checks. And ex cashed all money from my saving accounts while I was arrested, since it was shared account, it was totally legal for her to do that. So I have no money, no car, no place to rent - nothing. Tried to open a credit card to get by, banks I tried refused me.
I know someone who lost his entire life, children and financial condition after being levied with false cases in urban India. Yes, even in a country like India in the urban and educated areas the laws are so anti male that there is not much a person can hope for. He was acquited after many years but the wife did not face any legal repercussions.
The issue is instead of helping the women that actually need these laws, they are mostly exploited by a small minority of urban, educated women to their own ends.
The bitter pill to swallow is that there are people of all sexes and demographics who are shitty out there and whatever set of laws there is will be exploited by them for their own ends. Someone's inevitably going to get the short end of the stick, because the government actually isn't and can't be all knowing. (And nearly inevitably it's the disempowed who get the short end of the stick. Not because they're better than the powerful, but because the powerful are best positioned to take advantage of any social situation.)
But all the laws are doing is allowing entrenched corrupt interests including the police, judiciary and few others to use them to their benefit. At least some reforms have been announced by Indian Supreme court, otherwise I doubt these one sided laws would be considered legal in any other democratic country. Surprisingly reading cases in any of the Global North makes me doubt that is the case.
Not quite as damaging, but I was accused of harassment from some blue-haired weirdo on a video call with nearly a hundred people at work. Like you, this was a person I had zero interaction with prior to the call.
I considered getting a lawyer involved because I feared this could blow up, but was talked out of it by my boss, who asked me to apologize and "let's leave it at that".
No, I didn't communicate with them ever again - but my boss wanted me to apologize to "help clear the air". My boss was worried about their position, and went with the best option to help their own career if things blew up.
> Didn't the 100 people on the call see that it wasn't harassment? What could possibly have happened to make the weirdo think you were harassing him?
Some might have, but deciding to jump in to defend the accused would result in a decent chance of the defender getting targeted themselves, in some fashion.
I hope someone will make a study about a possible correlation of hair styles and borderline personality disorder. Coincidentally, the only girl who ever sexually harassed me also had blue hair and BPD.
Happened in a psych ward, so escalating that issue was fortunately very easy and handled professionally.
Sounds to me like someone has had a lot of different hair colors.
Anecdotes aren't data but when it comes to weird people, and non-natural hair colors, I've seen a lot of overlap. Practically 1-to-1, save for a few of the e-girl, OF demographic doing it to make money via cosplay and the like.
I've never dyed my hair but I do think it's noteworthy when someone is using biased language when reporting their side of a story. Calling anyone a "weirdo" is a good signal for how you might treat someone.
> Blue Hair and the Blues: Dying Your Hair Unnatural Colours is Associated with Depression
> A number of lines of evidence, such as studies of religious converts and members of conspicuous subcultures, have found a relationship between holding and expressing a strong counter-cultural identity and mental instability. Here we test whether dying your hair an unnatural colour - something which conspicuously expresses non-conformity - is related to mental instability, using a large dataset of online daters (OKCupid dataset, about n=14k used in this study). We find the expected pattern, which was moderate in size (p = -033 to -0.23, depending on controls). This pattern persisted even when controls for age, race, sex, sexual orientation, body type, intelligence, polyamory, vegetarianism, and political beliefs were included.
Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland was charged last week with domestic violence, and Adult Swim has already cut all ties with him. Maybe he's a criminal asshole who deserves jail, or maybe he's innocent and a fabrication has ruined his career.
He apparently has a long history including explicit texts with minors. He wasn't allowed to be around anyone in the production for years and was just recording lines in his own basement. The real scandal there should be that the studio kept everything quiet and only cut him loose when the evidence they already knew about became public.
I have also seen first-hand what happens when someone makes false allegations, and in this story so far we don't know what may or may not be false. I can see why the media would share this story, because it gets readers' attention and has all that sensational gossip-friendly content. At least they remark on having tried to reach the defendants for comment, though that could mean anything.
The problem is that false allegations can be extraordinarily damaging in the short-term, though hopefully the injury evaporates in the long-term as truth takes over.
I am a male who was sexually assaulted by another male. Strictly speaking I was raped, but I prefer not to use that term because of the emotive nature of it.
There is not much you've said I disagree with, but I do want to show that this goes both ways. I have never made a public accusation about the individual involved in my case because I do not have irrefutable evidence that it wasn't consentual. If I was in the jury of his court case I would find him innocent, so how could I reasonably go accuse him of anything?
Really I think we need to have two serious conversations as a society:-
* Individuals should not be able to weaponise sexual assult/harassment claims in public to the extent they do now. If anything, stories like yours make it even more difficult for legitimate victims to tell their story because the idea of destroying the life based off an accusation I cannot prove is really frightening to me. I would like someone to sit him down, privately, and educate him on consent (leading onto my next point) and to never ever do that to another individual again. That isn't an option though, it is a life destroying public circus or nothing.
* Consent, consent, consent. From as early an age we're willing to give children sex education, we should teach them about consent. Certainly in my time at school I was not once taught the legal definitions or importance of it.
I am very sorry to hear that. Both false accusations and becoming an unprovable victim are terrifying.
I don't see how this all doesn't end with near total personal surveillance of one's life - audio & video.
Will culture change to accept everyone wearing body-cameras? We've made that step for law enforcement. Will there be next step? I wonder if those in charge of children will be next - teachers, priests, scout leaders etc. Healthcare workers? Politicians? And finally, everyone.
I can imagine encrypted systems that only give access to recordings in response to court orders. I can imagine a lot of people would opt-in without coercion just for self-preservation.
Teaching "Consent" doesn't work. The monsters who commit sexual assault don't believe in, and in fact cannot comprehend consent. They view it as a checkbox they have to check, a speedbump that once they're over they can ignore. They absolutely love consent education, because they can claim they had consent, and make it a public circus of litigating he-said-she-said.
I'm not going to use a throwaway - I am a male who was sexually assaulted by another male. It's happened to me more than once, in very different ways, and quite frankly for all that it's scarred me I consider it good experience that taught me a lot.
I know platitudes do not help, but I am deeply sorry you had to go through this. I wish our stories were less common than they are. No one should have to go through that as a 'learning experience', but yes I feel the same way.
Clearly the only way to really test improved teaching on consent would be to change the education system and then wait 10-20 years to measure the impact once those children become sexually active adults. I don't think such a dataset is a reasonable request unfortunately.
It's interesting your phrasing of referring to people who commit sexual assault as 'monsters'. I do not think of my perpetrator as a monster, I do not believe him to be evil beyond redemption. Sure, there are some mentally ill individuals who do sexual crimes so heinous it is hard to imagine any road to recovery, but I don't believe my experience lies in that category. I personally feel a series of events in his life drove him to make that decision that day, and it is possible as a society to course correct future generations not to make that same decision. I have to believe that.
Do I have any concrete evidence beyond faith? No. Maybe all rapists are monsters born that way, but that is such a frightening concept I just can't accept that that is true.
No they shouldn't, because such laws will just open the door to even more abuse. Imagine you are raped by someone. You go to the police to report the crime, but unfortunately, they deny, and you can't provide any real evidence. They can now countersue because you've made a "false allegation" which ruined their life.
Presumably for a "false accusation" conviction one would have to prove that (1) the accusations are false, and (2) the accuser was aware that the accusations were false. Merely failing to prove accusations (such as when there is insufficient evidence) would be insufficient for a false accusation conviction, as neither of these requirements are satisfied.
I really wonder about press standards in this case. Both parties are not public figures. Is it normal 8n the US that both are named and pictures are published. I think here in Germany typically at least a pseudonym would be assigned to protect the individuals. Is there any law to protect personality rights in the US?
> Is there any law to protect personality rights in the US?
Not really. Ever see those "Florida Man" memes? The reason that's a thing isn't because people in Florida are particularly crazy. It's because public records are exceptionally easy to access in Florida, and those include police reports. And anything that's public record is fair game for the media.
In some states (I believe Georgia is one), there are regular publications with mugshots of people who were recently arrested in the local area. Not convicted of anything, just arrested. You can buy them at pretty much any gas station or convenience store. Get arrested for, say, public intoxication, and all your friends and acquaintances may just see your photo in the checkout line the next day.
Media vultures will not hesitate to cash in on your humiliation.
It's also the 3rd largest state in the US in terms of population, and has a lot of incredibly rich + incredibly poor areas; as one friend from FL put it "a weird mix of surfer and redneck".
Point is, lots of bodies and lots of dizzying highs and crazy lows. Then add in ease-of-access to records and ecce florida-homo
Those places are far healthier in terms of trust, because if you fuck up and end up in the drunk tank, everyone knows the sordid details. Everyone takes a piss at your dumb mugshot and moves on. In the societies where those records are hidden, you never know what skeletons someone has in their closet.
I'm talking about arrests, not convictions. You are aware that it's possible to be arrested for a crime you didn't commit, yes? And for far more reputation-destroying things than landing in a drunk tank for a night? How would you like for everyone to "know" about the skeletons in your closet that don't actually exist?
Also, if you have any evidence whatsoever that "those places are far healthier in terms of trust", I'd be keen to see it.
Curious where this sentiment was when all the metoo stuff was happening. The slightest departure from “trust all women” or anything calling for presumption of innocence was met with vitriolic blowback.
> I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims.
Well, you should be. The reputation of the other party should be completely destroyed. How can you attempt to break someone's life and just get away with that as if nothing happened?
Last CCC I attended a free Assange activist told me that a lot of people approached her asking her why she would defend a rapist.
Unfortunately for certain things one the damage is done most people will never notice when it changes. The thing that struck me as odd here is that the news article has photos and names. Not that it would make that much of a difference, but I do remember a time when suspects in the news would be named Ryan O. and Tiffany M. The people directly involved would obviously know who this is about.
In one of the valley startups I worked, I disliked a colleague, because I thought she wasn't good at what she did. I do mumble things(unrelated to people) when I think and I'm a generally distant person to strangers. I kinda knew the feeling was mutual, but what I didn't know until a year after I'd left was that she went around telling people that I talked about her boobs, which was such an odd thing for me to comprehend.
You make it sound like the allegations against Assange were completely fabricated and factually false. The charges were dropped because the statute of limitations expired, but that doesn't say anything about his actual guilt/innocence.
That's not quite right actually - charges weren't dropped, because no charges were actually ever laid. Allegations were made, the case was dropped for lack of evidence, he was allowed to leave the country, another prosecutor later re-opened the case and then an Interpol Red notice was raised for 'questioning'.
Anyway, if you change that to "the case was dropped" then that is technically correct, but the whole case was both so irregular and so politically convenient as to throw the allegations into serious doubt.
It'd take a book to list all the insanity in that case. A book which will get hard to write, because the CPS and the Swedish prosecutors have been deleting evidence like crazy.
One of the few things we do know was that the Swedish prosecutor was threatened when she wanted to drop the case ("Don't you dare get cold feet").
I think the claim is that one is innocent until proven guilty. If they haven’t been convicted of sexual misconduct then calling them rapist is inappropriate.
My last company punished a guy who was accused of some sort sexual harassment by a woman, and they wouldn't tell him who, when, or what the details were. He seemed genuinely confused what it could have been.
Just asking questions, here, but if, hypothetically he actually did do it, and they did tell him, do you think he have been honest with you about it?
It's entirely possible that everyone involved knows what's going on, and he's just trying to save face. People do that sometimes, after they misbehave.
Nope. I had that happen to me at least twice. If you get accused of something unwoke then the accusers identities are always protected, and if the accusation is proven to be false, nothing ever happens. It's a part of how the woke take over institutions.
Oh, it's a still thing, it usually happens when you submit a complaint against your boss to HR, are assured that it will be confidential, and next thing you know, your boss is retaliating against you, because of course the first thing HR does is to go to him, and the first thing he does is to hit you back.
Happens all the time, FAANG firms are constantly getting in trouble for it.
One difference between a courtroom and a workroom, is that a boss can often ruin his accuser's life in the latter. The justice system works because it treats all people as equal. In the workplace, you are not the equal of your manager.
Fortunately, you can always escalate your complaint into a courtroom. Unfortunately, proving retaliation is next to impossible.
The quote from the spokesperson at the very end really makes me think that this situation might stranger than it seems:
In a statement to The Post, a spokesman for Miller denied the accusations against his client.
“This lawsuit is a fictional account of events filled with numerous falsehoods, fabricated by a disgruntled ex-employee, who was senior to Ms. Miller at Google,” the spokesman said. “Ms. Miller never made any ‘advance’ toward Mr. Olohan, which witnesses can readily corroborate.”
Question: is it possible that to have repercussions you have to counter sue, it's just that there are no repercussions during the case against you?
Like, that woman literally lied in court, causing you financial, psychological and image damage, couldn't you have sued for this?
Theoretically speaking, I'm saying.
I think it would require pretty exceptional circumstances to make any sense to try counter-sue.
Like in my case I have pretty conclusive proof that part of her allegation is a lie. And that makes her look sufficiently bad that she's wiling to drop the whole thing.
But if I now tried to sue her, she'd naturally have to revert to asserting her allegations were true in the first place. But only she made some mistakes when remembering the details (oh sorry, wrong event! Trauma!). And I believe I would look vindictive and aggressive, and my real concrete proof is that one part of her allegation is a lie.
For me, it's 10000x easier to just count my blessings than personally consider anything of the sort. I only once briefly entertained the idea just to tarnish her own reputation to the point she would never be able to falsely accuse anyone again.
Shouldn't people names be anonymised in this case? At least in my country it's the law. Often it's just a theater since either everyone knows the alleged perpetrator, or tabloids do sketchy stuff like "Jane D., daughter of a famous actor John Doe").
We had a gaming party at work on a Friday afternoon, and I happened to have recorded my games. Reviewing it, I found I did play against her (and 2 others) in a free-for all. But it was clear she just fabricated the events. Funnily enough while I was playing her, I didn't even know it was her (it was a woman I barely knew and only had spoken to a couple of times).
Anyway, presented with the actual recording she dropped the entire thing and yet managed to have absolutely zero personal or professional repercussions.
That's generally the right way to approach things. And fortunately it seems like there will be some kind of paper trail here, so it should be relatively easy for it to be resolved quickly (probably settled out of court, if his description of things is accurate).
In other stories with other demographic characteristics, though, employers and the press (if it gets to that point) are not nearly so judicious in their evaluations.
Since you didn't mention what happened to the accuser after making the false allegation, I'm going to assume the company just wrote off the incident as a simple misunderstanding.
It has everything to do with gender, she only made that accusation because of her gender. She would got away with no proof and end your career if you had no proof
Ha! But if the victim had been a woman, generally your response would've been more outrage than victim blaming like it is, now.
If we're going to tell male victims that we don't believe them & that they have to prove it we can do the same for female victims; at the moment for female victims, it is treated very seriously from the outset.
However, I almost didn't bother commenting because this distinction between male and female victims will never end, it'll never change and I just have to live knowing that nobody actually really gives a shit about what happens to me; even sitting outside the heterosexual bubble, y'all still reach in with your traditional gender roles BS "men r strong & always do bad things", "women r weak and r always good angels".
> Olohan said he began feeling increasing pressure from his supervisor, who told him that there were “obviously too many white guys” on his management team. In July he was encouraged to fire a male employee to make room on his team for a woman, the suit claims.
This is the most crazy section. Why physical characteristics like gender or ethnicity should be important in the management selection?
And if yes, why only those two characteristics and not considering others like body weight or baldness?
> Their goal is diversity. I think diversity might have been shown to lead to better team outcomes.
I don't think that's actually been "shown," it's more of an axiom that's assumed to be true without proof. IIRC, the idea that "[sex/race] diversity leads to better team outcomes" may even just be an idea meant to mainly lend legal cover to diversity efforts (e.g. university affirmative action race-based admissions) that would otherwise be illegal.
As much as I personally have read on this it's not blanket "diversity", or even "diversity of opinions", but rather quite strictly "diversity of viewpoints/perspectives". You know, like for example when we design urban environments we consider residents, pedestrians, cyclists, disabled and what not.
> Why physical characteristics like gender or ethnicity should be important in the management selection?
To be clear, the below is not taking into account the allegations in the article, but just seeks to explain the thinking without judgement (as I'm frankly not sure which side I fall down on).
There's a school of thought that some degree of weighting helps to redress systemic issues by changing incentives, justified on the basis that there should be an equally capable pool of candidates in the underrepresented demographics.
The thinking then goes that e.g. if promotions at certain levels are biased, the argument for allowing that bias to continue is often that the pool to promote from leaves too few capable candidates of the underrepresented groups.
The problem with that, is that if (to take extreme numbers for simplicity) 100% of people being promoted from VP to SVP in a company are white men, then a lot of women and non-white people will either self-select out or not get promoted at lower level because it's a strong signal they're not valued and have no future there.
That in itself can make it a goal to diversify companies at higher levels irrespective of the current talent available for promotion at the level below.
As a concrete example, in 2006 Norway added a legal requirement for at least 40% of either gender at board level of a public limited company (ASA; usually listed companies as only ASA's can be listed, though they don't have to be) and in some other situations (e.g. companies with significant government ownership), and during the debates over this change, this was part of the arguments:
If there weren't enough qualified candidates, that was itself considered evidence of a systemic bias that making the change was hoped to help address. Both by giving women an incentive to stay on track towards board seats and give companies an incentive to address other biases to ensure there was a capable pool. Over time, it was also hoped that getting women onto boards would further strengthen the pressure from boards on companies to address the, as well as further develop a pool of women with growing board experience.
It was explicitly acknowledged by many proponents that there was a chance that it'd be hard to find suitable candidates initially, but that was seen as a sufficiently temporary problem to be addressed by companies through training and mentoring, not a justification for not changing the incentives.
A cursory look at the way DEI policies are applied shows the claimed justification to be a blatant lie.
If we were actually concerned about tipping the scales properly based on actual income data, white men would not be the primary targets. We would be going after Brahmin Indians, Taiwanese-Americans, Jewish-Americans, men over 6 feet in height, men with facial features that are shown by studies to be associated with "leadership", men born to well-connected families, and any number of other by-birth associations that are actually demonstrated by the data to have high correlations to income level.
"White men" are fairly average when it comes to income in the United States, yet we are gunning for them far more for income equity than we are for their obvious statistical superiors.
This, alone, demonstrates the lie underpinning equity efforts.
This argument is missing the results of the regulation. Otherwise it's a bit circular: gender is important in management selection because it is important for management selection in Norway. :)
2006 is 17 years ago. There should be some results by now. What was the failure criteria for the legislation? Did it fail/succeed according to the criteria? Did anything change at lower positions?
Thanks, this is a great explanation. And combined with OP's last question, raises for me the question, why not incentivize other marginalized classes, like people who are highly unattractive?
Note this a question of curiosity in reasoning, not one of judgement.
The challenge with applying this too broadly, I think is that it becomes a dual problem of objectively enough defining who fits in the marginalised class, and of defining a class that is big enough that you can try to accommodate it without harming other groups, marginalised or otherwise, in an unreasonable manner.
With respect to gender it's fairly simple. Already with respect to ethnicity it starts getting tricky to define objective rules.
It's also a tricky problem to apply at too small scale. E.g. in a small enough team or in a small enough niche, pure chance will end up with some small groups that are not diverse by pure chance even in an idealised setting with no biases. Trying to prevent that all the time could be potentially highly detrimental. Figuring out which imbalances and at which scales are by chance, and which are down to biases is a hard problem.
I can agree with your points, but I think this is happening in one way, at least for my experience.
I have worked for a big defense company and they try to hire as much as women as possible, even if it's not easy to find women in that field (let's say 1 woman over 3 man). Women had also a special career growth path and other advantages.
In front of our building there was the headquarters of one of the most famous luxury brand in the world and more than 80% working there were women. According to people working there they don't care a shit about diversity.
I am okay with diversity (even with some concerns), but why don't apply diversity also in the fields where women are more than men?
Not that I agree and it is more nuanced than this but the argument used to justify such discrimination is compensating for historical exclusivity. Enforce the diversity and let merit catchup someday basically.
I think given modern technology, companies can and should be extremely regulated and monitored on their hiring and firing decisions. At-will should be federally banned. If they define objective, auditable and specific merit based criteria, they should send that information along with every applicant and every decision to look at a resume, interview, call and hire/reject to the EEOC which can look for patterns and investigate on its own to validate the reasons being given in those decisions. I think with that, there could be a path to meritocratic hiring/firing.
But make no mistake, discrimination based on gender, race,etc... is rampant. I am even all for expanding that to cover any arbitrary criteria. If I decide to wear a clown costume to work, the work has to justify why the clown costume materially prevents me from performing profitably.
Eh, it largely is? I remember the pre-crisis world, were the policies were projected as universal - basically the assumption was that us culture would infiltrate all things, and thus all places would have us culture and discussions.
In russia and china, some values were shared, but by now means all values were shared. Europe may come close to having the same cultural discussions, but 10 years delayed compared to the empire core.
Other regions engage in mimicry and may be doing there own thing entirely otherwise. Means, you got a small layer of "international community" among the elites, but the rest of the population, is of other opinions but also never asked.
I agree. However, as a person living in Europe and working for american companies, I can attest gender and race are huge factors when it comes to incentives for hiring, promotion, etc. when compared to companies in my country, which do show some of the same characteristics but not with the same weight.
I understand the reasoning and benefits of positive discrimination but I have also seen rationality being relegated to the point plain bad decisions have been taken in the name of diversity.
My previous job was an US F500 in Europe. We had an open position for a mid-senior role and HR pushed us very much to hire an African girl that was still not graduated and she neither have experience in the domain that we are working (we are looking for someone with experience in cybersecurity and she was completing her master degree with a focus on UI/UX).
Not that crazy. Such allegations against Google are common. There was a recruiter there a few years ago who accused them of tasking recruiters to not hire men.
Probably worth noting this story was first published by the New York Post. Take that for what you will.
That said, this is a pretty wild turn of events. From the initial and continued sexual harassment/assault to the racism, and subsequent retaliation. More curious is the very direct "your team is too male" and the encouragement to fire someone. I've heard this hinted at before, but never said out loud for obvious reasons. If all of those claims can be proven I'm pretty sure this guy won't work another day in his life if his lawyer can read sentences and make it to court on time.
I would like to hear Google and Mrs Miller's side of the story before I cast any judgement though. I don't suspect we'll get that until court.
>More curious is the very direct "your team is too male" and the encouragement to fire someone.
My friend who still lives in the Valley says this kind of sentiment is incredibly common there nowadays, e.g. advertising an open position and having discussions internally that a man won't be hired for the role.
It's pretty surprising to me, because statistics show that most major careers have a gender imbalance in one direction or the other:
Yet the gender imbalance in software engineering receives unique attention, to the point where people are willing to violate ethical rules in order to try & even out the genders in that particular career.
Why is this? What is the ethical justification for why addressing the gender imbalance in STEM/software engineering should be such an urgent moral priority?
My suspicion is that there is no good justification that holds up under scrutiny, and it's all just a moral panic fueled by social media.
> Why is this? What is the ethical justification for why addressing the gender imbalance in STEM/software engineering should be such an urgent moral priority?
Probably just because $$$. Have you ever seen someone advocate for more female coal miners or truck drivers?
Not everyone embraces the long haul trucking lifestyle, there's a much higher percentage of women in fork lifts, bob cats, and the uncounted by that poll (which is freight haul trucking only) dream job - remote 100 tonne haul pak operator.
These are all closer to home, have better hours, somewhat better pay for the light machines and exceptional rates for the Haulpaks.
>Why is this? What is the ethical justification for why addressing the gender imbalance in STEM/software engineering should be such an urgent moral priority?
My conspiracy theory is that software engineering is the last real, single, meritocratic, growing career path that costs a lot of money for employers and they'd rather tank the market by making sure the other 50% of sex is able to participate to wreck wages.
Nobody cares that nurses and teachers are majority female dominated fields ripe with discrimination and harassment because they don't make enough money. They're overstressed, understaffed, and underpaid and society needs more of both yet the bar is so low and so biased against men that nobody is even trying to fix it.
I don't think your argument quite works. Suppose I'm a superintendent worried about the teacher shortage. Wouldn't it make sense for me to try & bring more men into the profession, in order to keep salaries low and fill my vacant teaching positions?
I think maybe there's a workable argument along these lines: Both nursing and teaching are bureaucratic industries with heavy government involvement. The price system doesn't function effectively in those industries, which means that a shortage of workers doesn't cause wages to rise. And the overall dysfunction means that managers in those industries don't think strategically about how to increase the supply of workers, the way managers in the software industry do.
EDIT: Another point is that the oligopolistic industry structure in tech means that big players have a stronger incentive to do things that benefit the industry as a whole.
>Wouldn't it make sense for me to try & bring more men into the profession, in order to keep salaries low and fill my vacant teaching positions?
I think at this point salary already doesn't matter as wages are already depressed. In other words, fishing for true workplace equity isn't an altruistic endeavor as much as cost savings. Once that is achieved, it's irrelevant who populates the industry.
Nobody is interested in hiring male teachers as costs are already down and there's plenty of female applicants lined up, even though they actually should in the interests of equity and workplace representation.
Your government bureaucracy argument brings up an interesting tangent. Government agencies should be one of the most inclusive workplace environments, (looking at some US administrations, they generally try to espouse that trend [0][1][2]) so it's only reasonable to assume that the same principles would trickle down to heavily regulated industries. If anything, heavy government involvement would mandate such quotas. But they don't. Which leads me to believe there's something else afoot.
This general phenomenon is not just a moral panic, and is not caused by social media, though it may have a role in its spread. It is caused by a number of deep-rooted factors compounding on one another. One of them is the increasingly bloated managerial class in Western societies that are trying to hold on to their power. This is done by sowing division in the society, dismantling its former institutions (religion, civil society), and instilling a new set of values which they can enforce. Another one of them is the legacy of the two World Wars of the previous century, in which the West lost belief in the values it once believed in, and postmodernist values took their place. One of the most prominent values among these is a view of any sort of heterogeneity as oppression, and that there is a moral imperative to "correct" it by any means possible. The elites, fearing that they might lose power if people became more class-conscious, channeled this sentiment to certain issues that would not harm them too much, such as gender and race politics.
> My friend who still lives in the Valley says this kind of sentiment is incredibly common there nowadays, e.g. advertising an open position and having discussions internally that a man won't be hired for the role.
Your friend (and your friend's HR organization) should be aware that this is extremely illegal.
It's not actually illegal. For it to be actually illegal, governments would have to enforce the laws but they don't. Left wing governments can't get rid of the laws but they can easily appoint woke allies to enforcement positions, to ensure the law is only enforced in one direction.
I've been in a company all hands, which was broadcast to the whole multi-office company via video link, where the CEO himself announced that the next person to fill a very senior executive role had to be a woman and it would remain empty for as long as it took to do that. Did he care that he just admitted the company would break the law, on video? No because it's not illegal, it's outright encouraged.
Fundamentally, you cannot have left wing people in charge of enforcing equality rules, whether it be legislation or company policies. They point blank will not do it because they think that handing women or racial minorities unique powers is the most morally virtuous thing they can do, and that the system they're tasked with enforcing is immoral.
It may or may not be legal but it opens the corporation up to stockholder lawsuits. Once a corporation begins hiring on criteria unrelated to maximizing stockholder income they've gone down a path that will bring down management.
DEI initiatives harm corporations long-term and will always ultimately fail because the corporation is no longer maximizing profits. This is not a new idea: IIRC even Adam Smith had something to say about such kind of activity.
Yes in theory, no in practice. Such lawsuits are incredibly rare, and this sort of thing is often done with the explicit acquiescence of the board anyway! And in many places they just change the law to explicitly make it legal, like in the UK, where they passed an Equality Act actually makes discrimination legal.
Yes it harms corporations in both long and short term but the people who do it don't care, because their moral code states that corporate harm either isn't real or is actually a good thing. You can't win when arguing with someone's fundamental moral code.
CEOs and politicians are even higher-prestige jobs dominated by men, but the sense of moral urgency around achieving gender balance in those jobs seems significantly lower.
Police officers have a lot of power in society & are mostly male. I think there's a strong case to be made that bringing women into the force would be very beneficial, in terms of improved handling of sexual assault cases and reduced police violence. However, I haven't seen a peep about the need to make policing gender-balanced.
I've thought about this and I think I agree with you about the amount of noise around tech rather than other careers. But what I don't want to do is jump to a conclusion about it, it seems like a nuanced question.
My mother made a left field comment a couple of years ago that I've thought about a lot. She was a programmer starting in the 70s through to the late 00s. I mentioned the lack of women in tech thing and she said "Oh. I've never noticed. I always considered it completely equal and never felt treated differently."
I tend to agree with that. Lawyers have more "prestige", I think. Of course, a huge majority of people studying law are female. However, despite what the general public thinks, lawyers are not highly paid. (I'm talking about the UK. Some lawyers are highly paid, of course, but lawyers are not highly paid on average, particularly if you divide their pay by the hours worked because the famous law firms that offer reasonably high salaries also expect a lot of unpaid overtime.)
:shrug: The first computer scientist (IMHO) was a woman - Ada Lovelace [1]. It's also my understanding that, when computers were first introduced, they were mostly seen as aide to secretarial work, which is why a lot of the early computer pioneers were women - it was actually women-dominated at that time [2].
So there's (IMO) historical evidence that it's not inherently a "male" field; which I see as evidence that the imbalance is unexpected and undesirable.
(That said, I can't speak to why it's an "urgent" priority)
[1] Babbage invented the mechanical calculator. Ada realized you could do calculations on something other than numbers. IMO that makes Babbage the first computer engineer, and Ada the first computer scientist.
At the bottom of the Seattle Times article I linked is a list of occupations that used to be male-dominated and are now female-dominated, e.g. veterinarian.
Can we conclude that the gender imbalance among veterinarians is unexpected and undesirable?
It's a good question, and I am troubled by not having the same reaction.
I would say tho that yes, I think it's unexpected and it's probably undesirable. What I'd want to check is how the male veterinarians felt about it. Do they feel like they're running into issues doing their job because of their gender?
> Probably worth noting this story was first published by the New York Post. Take that for what you will.
I think that even just five years ago I would’ve agreed with you on this, but when the attacks on elderly Asians began to happen during the pandemic, it was one of those painful things that it was the NY Post that could be counted on to make those visible.
As I’ve gotten older, I haven’t become more conservative. But I’ve realized that the left side of the spectrum is a lot sicker than I realized when I was younger, and to not automatically discount everything that goes on in the right, wince-worthy as it may often be.
For whatever reason folks think I made a political jab. I did not. Here's what I said to someone who posted something similar to you:
Frankly, I read this article this morning when it broke on the NYP. The NYP stays in my feed but when I read their stuff I almost always cross it with other sources. There are none though because all that exists of this story right now is the docket. Miller, Google, and Olahan aren't talking.
How victims are portrayed in the media matters a great deal. Media can skewer a case by either poking holes in it or by flatly not investigating. The latter is what I feel is going on here. They could've interviewed potential witnesses at these NYC events, they could've interviewed some Googlers to find out if this "your team is too male" attitude actually exists in any contingent. They didn't do that though, instead, they plugged the hottest claims of the docket which all come from the plaintiff.
My statement was ambiguous on purpose. It says two things simultaneously:
1. If you don't believe this article, wait for better reporting.
2. If you believe this article, wait for better reporting.
I was hoping that might remind some people to temper their expectations until more information is known, which is why the last sentence is the way it is, and why I cited each of the allegations.
> As I’ve gotten older, I haven’t become more conservative. But I’ve realized that the left side of the spectrum is a lot sicker than I realized when I was younger, and to not automatically discount everything that goes on in the right, wince-worthy as it may often be.
Changing perception is usually exactly how one would become more political.
It me quite a while to realize by "not work another day in his life" as actually meaning he will win large sums of money and not have to work, instead of my initial parsing as "he would never be allowed to work somewhere again".
I think there is a general consensus that the New York Post has a credibility gap, so it is not "ad hominem dogwhistle". From it's Wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Post):
"In a 2004 survey conducted by Pace University, the Post was rated the least-credible major news outlet in New York, and the only news outlet to receive more responses calling it "not credible" than credible (44% not credible to 39% credible).[65]
The Post commonly publishes news reports based entirely on reporting from other sources without independent corroboration. In January 2021, the paper forbade the use of CNN, MSNBC, The Washington Post, and The New York Times as sole sources for such stories.[66]"
65: Jonathan Trichter (June 16, 2004). "Tabloids, Broadsheets, and Broadcast News" (PDF). Pace Poll Survey Research Study. Archived (PDF) from the original on June 23, 2004. Retrieved June 7, 2007.
66: Robertson, Katie (January 13, 2021). "New York Post to Staff: Stay Away From CNN, MSNBC, New York Times and Washington Post". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 1, 2021.
I don't know about the New York Post. Maybe it is guilty of publishing false and dishonest reporting.
But I would also point out that a lot of people here on HN (in past discussions) and elsewhere have noted that the New York Times and the Washington Post also publish creatively interpreted news (or outright creative writing) at times.
Despite this news articles from these sources are considered independently without outright dismissal due to past reporting.
It's a tabloid and it is not left-leaning... and it published true and embarrassing things about the Biden family up to the last US presidential election. It also regularly publishes true things about crime (and about who commits it). This is more than enough to explain why some people distrust it.
In my book, it is much more reliable than the New York Times and the Washington Post.
This has to be one of my biggest peeves online. It's such a pervasive tactic to shut down discussion of a topic that's disadvantageous for the "other side". To use a topical example I see pretty much all the time: say there is a reddit thread that has the title "1 in 4 women experience X". There is a pretty heavy implication, and it's there no matter how much people want to deny it, that by extension men don't experience X either at all or to such a degree. Yet, if you point it out that "men experience X just as often though?", you won't be refuted or shown statistics that show they don't, you'll just be accused of "whataboutism" ("what about the men?" - well, the fact that it takes an article like this to start some people saying "woah woah woah... this hasn't been proven yet!!" should tell you something) when what you were pointing out is that aforementioned subtext that men DON'T experience it.
I absolutely despise the word now, to the point I'll cringe a bit even when it's used legitimately.
I don't think that's what "dogwhistle" means. IIUC, dog-whistling is surreptitiously sending a message to some readers, but having plausible deniability and/or non-recognition for the rest of the readers.
To me, all these new terms that have no actual meaning to what they are trying to describe is very annoying. Terms like "phishing", "gaslighting", "bike shedding", "yak shaving", "dog whistle", "gatekeeping" are extremely confusing to understand because there's no direct connection to what they are trying to imply. You literally have to memorize what it means and it's generally unguessable.
Terms like these are often not intended to be understood from just context. They're short references to complex topics that it is assumed the listener is already comfortable with, and will need to be explained if they are not. Just like understanding technical terminology improves your ability to share complex ideas in a technical space, political/social terminology improves your ability to share complex ideas in the social space.
I don't think this is a case of dog-whistling, because AFAICT the author isn't trying to conceal his point.
I.e., he intends every reader to recognize that he's saying that the publisher might be biased. He's not being explicit about what that bias is, but presumably he expects curious readers to look into it themselves.
The OP said previously he wasn’t talking about political leanings.
I’ll would add he was referring to the positioning of paper’s history of being more “low street”, sensationalist with lower journalistic standards as opposed to the high standards gold standard harbinger of Truth publications like the NYT. The reason this description looks so out of place now, it’s because the others suck so much and the Post continues being the Post.
Frankly, I read this article this morning when it broke on the NYP. The NYP stays in my feed but when I read their stuff I almost always cross it with other sources. There are none though because all that exists of this story right now is the docket. Miller, Google, and Olahan aren't talking.
How victims are portrayed in the media matters a great deal. Media can skewer a case by either poking holes in it or by flatly not investigating. The latter is what I feel is going on here. They could've interviewed potential witnesses at these NYC events, they could've interviewed some Googlers to find out if this "your team is too male" attitude actually exists in any contingent. They didn't do that though, instead, they plugged the hottest claims of the docket which all come from the plaintiff.
My statement was ambiguous on purpose. It says two things simultaneously:
1. If you don't believe this article, wait for better reporting.
2. If you believe this article, wait for better reporting.
I was hoping that might remind some people to temper their expectations until more information is known, which is why the last sentence is the way it is, and why I cited each of the allegations.
Once during a hiring panel at a previous role, the hiring manager asked us to be sure we reviewed the candidate as a junior. After we gave feedback, they mentioned they were being pressured to hire a woman and that this was why we were asked to judge the candidate below standards. Ultimately got the job, and while she turned out to be a quick learner and great coworker I still remember how shocked and… helpless I felt to actually witness it for myself. Several other candidates, all male, were not hired because we only had one remaining headcount. I feel like I was party to discrimination and still feel vaguely guilty about it.
I agree with your take despite the downvotes. Ultimately this person went on to be successful and was formidable and honest. They deserved the chance they were given, just as most of the other candidates so far have made it my way (imo) did. People have taken chances on me too. Real life is full of complex feelings. I don’t really think this experience demonstrated anything to me other than that this sort of pressure exists.
Had a manager at one job tell me explicitly that they gave an interview to a candidate but knew it wouldn't move forward to a hire since they wanted to hire a woman. I felt gross hearing and knowing that but it was said and not written so there was nothing I could do about it. And I probably would've gotten fired for raising an issue even if I did have that in writing.
Question for this sort of situation: could you send an email to "confirm the case" to your boss and your boss'boss for this? They would need to respond and get this in writing. At that point, if they fire you they will have a big problem, if they don't hire the person, they will still have a big problem.
I understand that it creates a whole set of bad situations, so just asking what's the theoretical appropriate way to handle this
No. Don't do this unless you have a backup job, or can survive fine for a while on unemployment. If you do want to report the behavior, report the pertinent details to the EEOC (or whatever is equivalent for your country).
They could just not respond at all to the email. They could say the person receiving it didn't understand what the email was asking so deleted it. They could say that the managers never made any such statements and thought the employee (who they would also say had other performance or HR issues) was trying to entrap them, and that they fired the employee for the alleged entrapment.
Document and report. Don't try to catch someone unless you're advised to do so by a lawyer or law enforcement or the like.
Skewing heavily male I will grant you, but not even close to being majority white in almost all cases.
But that puts it right in line with your average computer science or software engineering cohort at any given university, so I'm really not sure what your problem is.
Like I get you might think it's unfair there aren't more women in software but I'm not sure what you want us to do about that my dude.
We can't just force more girls into software if they aren't interested in it.
Closest thing I can find that seems relevant in there:
"Compared to overall private industry, the high tech sector employed a larger share of whites (63.5 percent to 68.5 percent), Asian Americans (5.8 percent to 14 percent) and men (52 percent to 64 percent"
First point would be that doesn't really support your contention that 90% of tech employees are white men.
That said, they can't be measuring what we think of as tech; it's certainly more than the claimed 64% male. I'm pretty sure that restricted to actual tech, it would be both more male and less white.
HR roles, like most others, are numbers driven. Recruiters are expected to deliver a number of applicants, interview a number of candidates, etc. This means that yes, they often interview people they have no intention to hire: It makes the HR person look good.
This can happen if they have a diversity hire directive but interview non-diverse candidates, but it can also happen if they want to hire a white guy but have a company directive to interview diverse candidates for every role. Either way, they can say they looked at everyone before hiring whatever candidate they wanted.
I think it's much less of a problem these days, partly because the talent crunch forced tech companies to hire older employees as well.
It's still present, but not as rampant and intense as it was. Also, note that it was discussed and acknowledged at the time, but that didn't magically make it go away. Zuck stated on record that if you're over 30, successful companies should not employ you, and he was the founder, owner, and chief exec of a major tech corporation.
Everyone knew it was going on, it was also acknowledged, and it was illegal, yet nobody did anything about it, and it kept going. Dispels your illusion of how illegal / immoral practices just go away when they are exposed. The current trend of gender and race-based discrimination won't just go away by itself, either.
I work at a FANG and there was a reshuffling in my team of 30 people as a new manager came in - there were 5 women/25 men. After the reshuffling, the 5 women became the 5 new TLs of the 5 projects our team was subdivided into. And the manager talks all the time about how he wants to empower women. Not sure if that counts. I guess it could have just been coincidence.
Only once or twice this egregious. Most of the time however it’s explicit diversity incentives for executives if they want to hit their perf targets. If you can’t get the hires, the other way to game it is to shrink the denominator if you fail to increase the numerator.
Someone who was the ultimate decider said that the group already had enough "pale males;" a look was given to me and guy in the wheelchair because, by virtue of our disabilities, we were presumed to already be on the Yay Diversity! Squad, despite our pallor and penisness.
That was the phrase, I was in the room, etc. It doesn't just happen, they don't really try to hide it now.
Not in those words, no. But if you're that resentful about being laid off, and talking to the media about what a cosmic injustice it is rather than, "oh, well, I guess I can start spending some of the interest on the fortune I built up from 16 years at Google", then yes, you do still need the job badly.
I don't think he talked to the media. The article appears to just be quoting from his LinkedIn post, and other parts of his LinkedIn page. Also I'm not sure he's saying it's a cosmic injustice.
There are reasons beyond compensation to like a job (fulfillment, relationships, status, etc). If you want to do Google-scale anything, at best you've got 4 other companies to choose from. So you're going to feel hurt if you lose that opportunity for reasons you feel are beyond your control. Especially if you've put 16 years into it and you feel the loyalty is due back.
People who are laid off or fired can get mad for a variety of reasons other than those three you listed. Someone I know worked a lot to build a particular business and was promised by the owner that he'd always have a position there. Then he was let go when the economy went bad. He felt betrayed. Betrayal engenders anger, too.
>Hm? If you need work and are laid off you don't get mad: you get another job.
Some people do both -- from the context, it sounds like Moore also hopes to replace it with a similar job, while also venting to anyone in the media who will propagate his framing about what a horrible injustice it is that Google can pay him a fortune and keep him around for 16 years.
>You get mad if you were working for prestige, connections, or power-- things you can't just replace by getting another job.
And this fits your model of someone eager to trade personal time for the prospect of power even when his material needs are met? From the link:
>>"This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers — especially big, faceless ones like Google — see you as 100% disposable," Moore said.
> hopes to replace it with a similar job, while also venting to anyone in the media
If so, it's a foolish move! Venting in public absolutely makes someone less employable -- making it a freedom that people with less need of employment have more of!
> And this fits your model of someone eager
I don't know him so I could only speculate and I don't really have any speculation specific to him to offer.
The reason I replied was to dispute the position you took that being mad meant he needed the job. I stated it too strongly: I should have just said "people can get mad about losing a job even when they don't need it, e.g. if they were working for prestige, connections, or power-- probably more so since these are things you can't just replace by getting another job."
In other words needing it may be sufficient, but it's not necessary. I think those other reasons are stronger reasons to be mad-- they're harder to replace than a job.
> "This also just drives home that work is not your life, and employers — especially big, faceless ones like Google — see you as 100% disposable," "Live life, not work," he added.
I've heard statements just like that from people who I know have eight figure net worths and continue to work for someone else. ::shrugs::
I worked at a company a few years back where the hiring manager for the engineering and product teams proudly exclaimed that she would actively go against hiring a man, until the teams were at minimum 50% women and would maintain this ratio once she reached that goal.
Totally admirable intention, for sure (if only viewed from the lens of strict equality). But I’m sure the 90% of applicants that were male wouldn’t see it that way. So, poor execution.
> STEM is 100% historically discriminatory to women
Is this a Western/US thing? Woman STEM graduates outnumber man in a number of countries. Mine and Iran for example but most Muslim countries have strong woman numbers.
I don't think STEM in the west is discriminatory to women, out of the blue. It can't be more discriminatory than Iran? Unless, there is data and research that suggests otherwise.
Not just Muslim countries but Asia’s numbers are more even too. Not sure what happened but the West got leapfrogged by a lot of the rest of the world in this regard. We like to think we’re the shining light of progressivism but the reality may be more complicated than that.
There's a study showing more progressive countries have fewer women in tech. Because when people don't have to worry about putting a roof over their head, affording food and medical bills, they're more likely to pick the career that interests them. And fewer women are interested in STEM. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more... In Asia and the middle east people are generally poorer and with fewer opportunities (and there's much less social welfare there), so they need to prioritise economics over interest when choosing a career.
I can only speak of my country (still a Muslim country though more liberal than your average). The reason woman study super-hard is that it gives them freedom. It's not accepted, socially, for a woman, for example, to take a trip to another city and stay alone in a hotel. However, it's totally okay if she is a medical doctor or an engineer in a mission. The same for travelling outside of the country.
These might be strong incentives for woman to pursue STEM degrees. These same incentives don't exist for Western woman since they already have their freedoms unquestioned. Also, a little note: This is just a speculation from me (less than an opinion) might be completely wrong.
Asian countries developed much later. That is why some countries also have mobile payments instead of credit cards. Because credit cards never became the incumbent in the first place. Many western countries have a relatively unbroken history from early industrialism to post-WWII development to home computers in the 80s to early Internet startups. Japan, which developed earlier than India or China, doesn't have a high percentage of women in STEM. The US used to have a higher percentage of women in computer science in the 80s when it was a less popular field. If you instead look at gender distribution in something older like politics or the military western countries often do a lot better than the rest of the world.
This whole thread is nothing but documentation of the reverse; men being discriminated against left right and center, women being given fake interviews where they're guaranteed to get hired anyway due to Diversity! managers, team re-orgs where the explicitly feminist manager somehow totally by coincidence selects every single woman to be a TL and creates exactly enough teams for them to lead, etc.
In contrast this "real and documented" is just an assertion. I never saw any evidence of it.
The main reason why girls are not choosing STEM is because it doesn't intrest them as much. You can try to put the blame on anything you want, but that's reality.
I love technical things and am the father of 1 son and 3 girls. I of course would love to do technical things with all of them. With my son it's easy to get him excited about lego and such. With my girls? Well, maybe you should give it a try. I decided to play with my kids the things they like to play with. And with my girls it's (unfortunately for me) non technical things.
This preference is also highly documented in gender equal societies. So do us all a favor and stop talking bullshit while it's obvious why women don't select STEM: they don't want to.
PS: My oldest daughter is going to follow STEM next year. I'm happy, but mainly wish her to be happy. If she continues it, fine. If she decides she wants to do something else, also fine. She's good at math so that's the main reason she picked it.
I don't know where you did STEM related education, but in my environment a women in a group project would get extra points relative to the rest. So I saw the exact opposite of what you describe.
And at work, women seems to rise to management levels easier than men. But hey, this is EU, not US.
Edit: you're pointing me to something that happened in 1890? WTF???
You claim that STEM discriminates women today because of something that happened in 1890.
I would like to see some evidence of that related to today, not something from 1890. And not your empty statement of "what was once a pattern still persists to a lesser degree".
Doing well in classes doesn't award recognition and opportunity for men either, though. STEM only values experience.
This is the problem: It is believed that, at least historically, STEM only pushed itself on boys. They were given lego, electronic kits, etc. while girls were given dolls, kitchen sets, etc. Once one was ready to enter the working world, men had that experience to lean on. Women not so much.
I'm not sure how applicable that is anymore, though. It's quite okay, even encouraged, for girls to play with 'boys' toys these days.
> Doing well in classes doesn't award recognition and opportunity for men either, though.
Read bio's of everybody who got "Senior Wrangler" from (say) 1850 onwards, it's a great read and a number of them founded majar US seats of learning.
Now read the bio of the women who out thought all of them.
> STEM only values experience.
All of them started out as new born babies and progressed through school having no world experience until they got some on the back of offered opportunities or private wealth.
STEM today is built upon people with no initial experience who gain it along the way.
Gender imbalance on it's own doesn't say everything. You should actually talk with women in STEM. Many of them shared their horrible experiences so far.
I agree we should work to reduce horrible experiences.
My point is that we shouldn't be surprised by a gender imbalance on priors. By itself, a gender imbalance only goes to show that software engineering is like a lot of other jobs.
BTW, my suspicion is that similar experiences happen in many industries, and industries vary according to (a) how horrible a given experience is said to be and (b) social norms around registering a complaint.
>Olohan said he reported the issue to Google’s human resources department the following week, but nothing ever came of the complaint.
The HR rep “openly admitted … that if the complaint was ‘in reverse’ — a female accusing a white male of harassment — the complaint would certainly be escalated,” according to the lawsuit.
I was groped by an gay (and well-liked) coworker at a company retreat. I told my boss a few weeks later at a 1-on-1 lunch and he just made a face and then awkwardly changed the subject. Most people are cowards and avoid unpopular actions at all costs so that they can keep their power. Virtue is all an act for power.
And as a gay man myself I've been groped by female colleagues before, had them come up and stand behind me and rub my shoulders/squeeze my back completely unwanted and I've done n o t h i n g about it, because nothing can be done about it.
That's the sad truth. Can't go to anyone and even if I did, they likely won't believe me, whereas she could retaliate and say I was the one that did the touching and she'd be believed with ludicrous immediacy. Life sucks, man.
That's kind of the way of things in America. I have the feeling that a large segment of the population believes that a woman is incapable of sexually harassing, a man, and I think this totally inaccurate belief has permeated throughout culture and into workplaces.
This isn’t surprising. For pretty much all of history and continues today in some places sexual assault and rape were by definition something only men could do. The FBI in 2012 finally updated their definition to recognize that men can be rape victims. We still dismiss teenage boys being raped by adult women as, “I bet he liked it.”
This belief hasn’t permeated our culture, it is the rock on which the very idea of what sexual crimes are [1]. The cultural shift is the other direction thanks to people fighting for it but we’re a long way from the end of the tunnel.
[1] Which is damage to property of a husband or father sooo that’s uhh something. The laws changed on paper but the spirit lived on.
When I was a young guy way back when, I was sexually harassed at my first two office jobs by women managers. One of them framed it as "payback". Not fun to be on the receiving end of this!
I'd guess there are not that many people who truly believe that a woman cannot harass or abuse someone sexually (I'm sure there are some but they must be a fringe). But there are very many who would say so if pressed on the subject, especially at work.
Women and girls are by far disproportionately the victims of sexual harassment and assault, but that just highlights how much of this women and girls have to deal with. It still leaves a bunch of room for men and boys to get some sexual harassment and assault.
On the lower end of harassment there is no way catcalling is roughly even between the sexes. In particular venues it might be roughly even, but in the world at large, no way.
On the more violent end of rape the majority of serial rapists I've heard about are men. And while some of them are homosexual rapists, most are heterosexual rapists.
> that is because HR exists to protect the company, not the employee
I kind of get annoyed when this statement is bandied about. Not because it's false, but because it's brought up in cases like this one where if HR were actually doing their job well, they would have protected the company by doing a real investigation.
That is, one of the primary purposes of HR is "keep the company from getting sued." But, in many cases, that goal aligns with someone who has a valid, verifiable complaint. For example, if you are being sexually harassed and want it to stop, a good HR team will absolutely do their best to make that happen, because if they don't they are opening the company up to huge liability.
Not saying everything is always 100% cut and dry (particularly when the accused is somewhere very high up and the company thinks it would cause great disruption to fire them), but reading through the details on this case, that doesn't really appear to be true. I'm certainly not making a judgement since we've only read one side of the story, but I do push back strongly against the idea that HR didn't intervene because they wanted to protect the company.
> It may be assumed as a likely outcome based on the percentage of cases where this happens.
Anecdotes is not data. The fact that there are a number of high profile cases where HR royally failed in their job to protect the company from litigation is not really strong evidence that that's the norm. Most importantly, it's much more likely to get reported when HR fucks up than when they do their job as required.
The GP was arguing that this was an expected outcome because HR's primary goal is to protect the company. I'm arguing that this was an unexpected outcome precisely because HR's primary goal is to protect the company.
> By making that statement HR was definitely not protecting the company.
They couldn't have foreseen that this would blow up, but they almost certainly would have predicted company damage if they had NOT parroted the line about white male aggressors.
> I don't understand how refraining from saying that quote to him would lead to company damage.
He's not the audience for that quote.
As we've seen time and time again, a mob will form against almost any company that doesn't parrot lines like that.
Companies issuing statements, whether internally or externally, are never going to issue anything that can be construed as less than 100% in support of women.
On the other hand, the HR person is just a person, and they sometimes make mistakes, like issuing a statement about their official policy when that policy is supposed to be secret.
> It sounds to me like it was a quote made to him one on one. How could he not be the audience for it?
An official statement from a department is no less official and subject to citation just because it was made to a single person.
The official making the statement to the effect of "any and all sexual harassment complaints from women* will be investigated fully and comprehensively"* is saying it because even when it is repeated it is, as far as the issuer of that statement goes, in line with "Protecting the Company from harm".
I'm very curious about why you cannot see the statement "any and all sexual harassment complaints from women will be investigated fully and comprehensively" as something that an HR person would find safe enough to repeat, and to be repeated.
True. And HR is not necessarily this intelligent diabolical force "protecting the company". They are often the biggest source of company gossip! If they see you on their level, they'll say all kinds of stuff. They probably assumed this manager would have some sense and stop getting drunk and touching abs, and then went into ass-covering mode when she went on the warpath.
When you have a division between salary and wage workers, HR has a certain role. Between managers, its all politics.
A systematic and impartial third party review of Google's HR incident and report system's records and/or HR incident related communications records would likely indicate just how much they did, or did not, think it would be an issue.
> that is because HR exists to protect the company, not the employee.
This honestly makes me think that a lot of the story is heavily exaggerated. Why would HR entertain a hypothetical that could only get them in trouble?
> This honestly makes me think that a lot of the story is heavily exaggerated. Why would HR entertain a hypothetical that could only get them in trouble?
Because it ordinarily doesn't get the company in trouble? HR cannot see into the future, you know, and from their PoV, ignoring a male's complaint against a female doesn't usually result in any media firestorm, while investigating a female on the word of a male does.
Honestly, that's the allegation that I find hardest to believe at face value (the close second being "Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees").
While I have no difficulty in believing that, in practice, a similar complaint with reversed genders would be taken more seriously in some|many|most|all (?) HR departments, I cannot believe that any HR rep would openly admit to that fact, let alone to an affected party. It may indeed have happened, but such extreme clumsiness on the part of Google's HR beggars belief.
tbh I'm not even sure that's true given Google's history with what high ranking execs got away with regardless of their gender. They settled a shareholder lawsuit for an entire series of mishandled sexual misconduct cases barely two years ago.
It is so scary and damaging to be accused of moral misconduct of this type. I cannot imagine how many people (independent of the gender) are going through this kind of abuse and not daring to bring it up because of the way it is approached and the whole complexity of proving it.
I have a similar experience:
I used to work at a big tech with +100,000 employees, and had a female co-worker a few years older than me. I was groped, kissed and basically harassed to the point that I left the job that I liked the most and ended up with depression. Note that we are both software engineers.
As a guy in my 30s when I asked for advice from friends outside the company I got the advice to leave with an good excuse because if she decide to she can ruin my career and steal years of my life. I never told my partner about it nor have I spoken about it with anyone else.
In all honesty, if these things had happened to me, I would've kept quiet since most people won't believe a 20-something male. I was in high school when two of the girls (who were considered hot in our class) grouped me and rubbed their breasts against my back. When I told one of the lady teachers about the issue, she thought I was crazy and making things up.
> Maybe in a hundred years, we’ll realize that people are people, and will weaponize / abuse sexuality according to their role / gender.
What does this mean exactly? That you hope that in a hundred years people will still abuse each other sexually but due to a social role based view of gender?
I didn't really know what to make of it at the time, and my first thought was this is wrong. Due to my low self-esteem and lack of confidence, I was socially awkward in high school, and those girls took advantage of my position since they knew I would not take any action. At university, I told a guy who was close to me this story and he responded with "did you enjoy it though?" I replied hell no. Imagine living through your toughest times. Imagine only eating once to save some money, being bullied constantly because you can't afford good clothes, shoes, and some girls trying to take advantage of your situation. But it's not the end of the world, and life goes on.
This is a terrible take. With your thought process anyone who is viewed as attractive is able to criminally interact with someone and, rather than viewed in a criminal/negative light, it should be taken as a positive experience?
Many young men back in my day were seeking an experience similiar to that, I'm wondering if things have changed. It's unwanted sexual contact that may be criminal not all sexual contact. It's someone you view as attractive not anyone who could be considered attractive.
Sexual teasing can be done in a very hostile manner. You've got a great example here: two against one and groping first. This wasn't done out of any desire for him, it was a dominance move to show what they can get away with.
Had he responded, he could have been struck down, and rather harshly as I think we're all well aware. It's taunting, essentially.
This is why I'm so grateful to work in SWE where skills and progress are somewhat objective. If such a situation occured with my boss I could just resign and have a new job in a couple weeks. Their loss.
But in management you've spent years at the company building up to your current role, and you're just kinda stuck with people. Can't imagine how stressful it would be to be in that person's position.
I have repeatedly seen this happen personally, and every single person in my professional network who I trust enough to have a candid conversation with on this topic has seen the same at least once (in fairness, that is only 3 people. but broaching this topic with the wrong person is very risky). There's quite a few people in this comment section attesting to this as well.
Is there a threshold you have in mind for a number of people who would need to speak up before you believe they aren't mistaken or lying? Would the only thing that would convince you this is happening be some kind of large scale study? If so, do you honestly believe such a study would ever actually be conducted, or that anyone would be willing to open themselves up to the consequences of gathering evidence on this? Even if someone was willing to try, do you think it would actually be possible to gather evidence that companies discriminate on the basis of gender or race when making hiring decisions?
I'll happily change my mind in the face of evidence. Usually I see a lot of hand-wringing and speculating about it, rather than anecdotes and data. Proving causality in some kind of observational data set might be difficult, but I am not one to discount individual people's experiences either.
So if you have examples of unqualified candidates being hired on diversity grounds, then I'd like to hear your stories. In my own professional and social circles, it's very rare to see an unqualified hire at all, so maybe my personal sample isn't where the problem happens.
It's extremely common for them to discriminate against asian males as well. It was outside of a hiring context but I've had people in this sphere call me "basically white" multiple times.
Unless you're in traditionally pink collar jobs, in which case they're the ones who would be preferred (except for child care, where men who wish to work in the field are given a long hard look).
I personally haven't seen any evidence of any affirmative action. Mostly because I'm not looking. So I'm speaking from theory. A quick search on affirmative action for nursing pops this up:
https://allnurses.com/affirmative-action-male-applicants-t12...
> "I believe this is already quietly done. It's just not talked about. The community colleges usually do not participate in AA. It's the BSN-level colleges that frequently use AA in choosing applicants - including the application of AA for male applicants."
Usually you mention that sort of compensation opportunity cost and the hiring company can match it with a sign on bonus to make a pain free transition.
We're really assuming a lot about the new employer here. Let's not get too smug about the great employment market we've had for the past decade. It may not last forever, or much longer.
Also, it depends on the opportunity cost. It's great to think you're such a great guy that any employer will pay anything to have you, but that's simply not true for most people. If you're losing out on a major grant or bonus, that could be far more than the new employer is willing to pay. I know because I've been in these situations, on both sides of the table. If we budgeted $500k for some job, you're not getting an extra $250k just because you'd about to get that in two months if you stayed with your current employer.
And no new employer can compensate you for the right to mention on your resume that you completed a major project you were 6 months from completing when some criminal decided to harass you.
it is and there's nothing formulaic here nor any guarantees. Folks can also sit and wait it out and tell the recruiters "now's not a good time but I can reach out to you after X months and we can continue from where we left off once I secure XYZ".
People can also decide to pass on deferred compensation when it's not "life changing money" as I heard one individual express once when he left behind some pension or stock or whatever the carrot was that was held out in the nearish future at a previous company I was at. Basically end this deferred compensation for the promise of a better one albeit with a later maturity date.
Lots of calculus and variables involved in these situations obviously but it never hurts to ask and align on these sorts of things where possible. Folks usually don't get mad when others act in their best interest, they'd do the same if they were in the others shoes is how it seems to me.
"I could just resign and have a new job in a couple weeks. Their loss."
Lawsuits follow you. Once employers do a background checks they will know about any lawsuit you are involved in any way. They are publicly available for anyone to find.
“When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”
What? How can favoriting high-performing employees ever be a valid reason?
The latter removes any scope for taking circumstances/details into account which is an issue irrespective of gender/age etc (e.g. "believe men" or "believe children" would be equally absurd).
But you just said "believe women" is fine whereas "believe men" or "believe children" is absurd. I don't follow the distinction you're drawing here. They're grammatically equal.
I was falsely accused of sexual harassment when I was in 1st grade. I didn't start having anything resembling attraction to women until 3rd grade, by the way.
We had some sort of combined activity with some 6th grade students. I dropped my pencil and crawled under the table to get it, and got back to work and didn't think anything of it. A 6th grade girl at the table got up and left the classroom, and 15 minutes later I was called up to the principal's office. They told me I was in big trouble for looking up girls' skirts and if I had anything to say for myself. I just got really confused and started crying, I told them I had no idea what they were talking about. Fortunately they believed me, but the fact that they took things that far in the first place left a very bad impression on me regarding both school administrators and sexual harassment claims.
Edit: this was in the early 90's, by the way. I'm sure it's only gotten worse.
> In or about June 2022, both Schiestel and Stewart strongly encouraged Olohan to
hire only female applicants for an open management position on his team.
It's the "right" kind of sexism. Everyone knows it's happening, but let's see if anything will come out of it now that it's in the open. I'm guessing there has to be at least one lawyer who's eager to jump on it.
Some folks would say that "The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination." I wouldn't be surprised if this was a popular leaning within Google, given its politics and morals.
Obviously, the federal govt or the state of CA wouldn't support that approach if it were to make its way into a courtroom, but it's accepted as a "necessary evil" in the more elevated and sophisticated circles.
There will be no consequences for google. We all know this happens.
A past suit by a recruiter had emails filed as evidence to the court where recruiters were told to cancel all interviews with candidates who were not women or Black. [1]
And yet if you mention this, you're the racist. You're the White nationalist (even though the media celebrates Black nationalism).
Even so--they also have lawsuits alleging discrimination against promoting Black employees.
There's really nothing contradictory about this. Different individuals can be racist in different ways.
It was interesting watching Google's tolerance of alcohol slowly decrease from 14'-'20. I stopped going after my fourth or fifth company event, the last being where a fistfight broke out between two upper management individuals.
> During a videoconference call, Olohan said he was told by the Google Employee Investigations team that he was being fired because he was not “inclusive.”
> When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”
It's concerning and symptomatic for the current culture in North America how many comments there are insinuating this to be fabricated, without knowing details or it even having gone to court yet.
A person being weird under influence of alcohol (due to loss of inhibition) and being vindictive later on (instead of owning up to their behavior) if rejected is really not hard to believe.
> When he asked why he was non-inclusive, Olohan was told that he had shown favouritism towards high-performing employees and that he was “ableist” for commenting on other employees’ “walking pace.”
"Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense."
I hope anti-ableists don't pick the best heart doctor, lawyer or investment banker for themselves, that would be ableism. When they have kids, they should not select the best teachers because that would discriminate against the less able teachers.
There's some serious irony in a bunch of intellectually high-functioning people with some of the best salaries in the world embroiled in workplace politics over ableist language.
You know, I don't know how practical this is but I've been feeling for a long time that all accusations should be kept confidential (enforced by the court) and trials not be at all public until a verdict is reached. We're supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but people treat others as guilty until proven innocent with some of these accusations.
Remote work has so many benefits. Theoretically, you won't even have to know about your colleagues' and employees' gender / disability / height / race / social class / looks.
I envision a world with millions of 1-10 person remote companies working together. All this crap would simply evaporate.
Yes, but if you are a Woman or Black or Indian (but not if you are East Asian!), you’ve been Institutionally Oppressed, so you can’t be good at your job. Apparently.
An aside to the sexual harassment: If favoring high-performing individuals is now a firing offense at Google, I believe they’ve opened themselves up to competition.
Homo Sapiens, despite all its culture, it is still commanded by Nature to do everything it can to spread its genes. A (nice) side-effect of that is that we are lewd. The problem is that we loose our composure when we drink.
Just playing the devil's advocate here, but let's assume for a minute we could reorganize things a little to avoid matters like this becoming a problem.
Like say, we could make women stronger than men, or we could give people a switch to turn their libido off, or we could invent a drug that when people intoxicate with it they want to speak about math instead of having sex. Any ideas?
Most of the comments here seem to be about false accusations. Its as if they don't want to believe a man could have been sexually harassed. I can't remember seeing so much scepticism when there are stories about harassment against women. Maybe people are more scared to be sceptical when it's a woman making the accusations.
Sexual harassment is difficult to prove so can be abused.
Once an accusation has been made the smear will often stick.
What really needs to happen is that companies need a policy/procedure that handles this.
My wife designs procedures and training for organizations for sexual harassment, this is surprisingly effective and one should make sure you have something in place and understand how to use it.
This is why I made a decision not to immigrate to US six-ish years ago when starting my career as a software engineer and considering future prospects.
I just want to deliver fast code and good user experience, not worry about "politics" and completely subverted safety nets that are now weaponized against men, not even mentioning presumption of innocence flying out the window long ago.
I was working as a busboy reaching up for a glass when an older server woman grabbed my ass so 'deeply' that her fingers almost reached my testicles, then squeezed like she was wringing out an orange. Even though I was unattracted to her, I was flattered at the time. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure that's well past the bar for molestation.
Not an extreme example, but after I started working out more, a female coworker and boss would randomly touch my arms and shoulders when talking to me. Both about double my age.
In my case it didn’t bother me at all, but I just find it funny how little they have to worry about their actions being seen as too far.
Holy crap. Ditto except it was just a pinch and I wasn't at all flattered, I was shocked. I don't remember whether I was still 17 or had just turned 18. It was probably when I was still 17 though, as I went to college just days after turning 18. She was probably 3 times my age or so.
Perhaps you don't hear of it because of stigmas associated with talking about it. The data is there, though preliminary because of those prevailing attitudes:
Every day ten of thousands of people are being sexually harassed, and a thousand + are being sexually assaulted. We don't hear about the vast majority of these cases, even if they are prosecuted, regardless of the sexes of perpetrator and victim.
> Every day ten of thousands of people are being sexually harassed, and a thousand + are being sexually assaulted. We don't hear about the vast majority of these cases, even if they are prosecuted, regardless of the sexes of perpetrator and victim.
Sure, but because of the way male victims are treated, you hear even less about them than about female victims.
It shouldn't be a competition. If a man abuses his power over a female (or male, for that matter) employee, then they should have the book thrown at them. The same should apply for women.
I hate the level of politicisation over this, it's a shitty thing to do no matter who does it.
It's one of those, "see, woman can do X too, so why are we so focused on only men doing X"
Similar too, "white people are shot by cops". Similar to "white people are discriminated against in colleges".
The point is true it is shitty no matter. Though, now the conversation is shifted if a person were to focus on root causes of either problem. Overall, false equivalence.
... so don't talk about it, keep it quiet, because it "shifts the conversation"? :/
Sorry, I see your point, I know that this is used to derail conversations, you're right, but "false equivalence" kinda implies that one thing is worse than the other. It is, systematically, but it isn't, personally. If you were raped, it doesn't help you that the power dynamic is and was different in our society between genders and your chance was lower, you are still as scarred for life.
Maybe say this explicitly also, when talking about "false equivalence". It may be kinda hurtful to hear people say more or less "oh yeah, both shitty, but one thing is the real problem in society, let's not derail" without this very important distinction.
Because you cannot assume that everyone or even the majority makes that distinction. Everyone agrees that people getting shot is bad on the personal level for the victim, because then they are dead. But many people think a e.g. boy getting raped (regardless of the perpetrators gender) is less of a problem on the personal level for the victim.
It is not. It really is not. And it hurts, because even people you trust suddenly say shit like "for boys it's not that serious, they don't keep this baggage for the rest of their life", "they work it out fast". But it's just not true.
I know that you probably didn't mean it that way, I just wanna tell you that that's the way it may be read. Because many people actually say this and mean it in the "on the personal level, for the victim, it's not as bad" way and thus it may be very difficult not to default to the "worse" interpretation, after being burned by assuming the "better" interpretation once before.
It is hard to know whether that would be a willful mis-reading or not. Creates the straw retort, "see, you don't care about victim X at all, you are a hypocrite and not actually wanting to solve this problem! X matter too!" For some, having that kind of dialogue is their goal rather than actually discuss the problem of sexual harrasment.
The false equivalence is not the impact of the problem, but the prevalence of the problem.
AFAIK, most yearly sexual harrassment training at workplaces is mandated in most states. That training makes it clear any gender can instigate harrassment. I'm surprised that this seems like anything new.
If a person wants to deal with sexual harassment, you kinda need to make an impact on the 90% causes of the problem. Instead, this kind of "man bites dog" story does results in debates of nitpicking. Nobody said this isn't horrible for anyone to experience, men or woman. But, creating a false equivalence that this is an equal problem for everyone ignores what are going to be otherwise uncomfortable truths.
It's one of those problems where one side doesn't need to win, just make sure that the other side does not (eg, troll, buy time, change the subject, what-aboutism, attack the messenger, etc..)
The data we have is that sexual assault and harrasment from woman is rare. That does not mean it does not happen, but it is rare. Some commentators stated that men being harassed is under reported, well it is overall under-reported.
In sum, sexual harrasment is a big problem no matter who experiences it. Though, the focus here creates a real risk of a "man bites dog" type of story.
> It is hard to know whether that is a willful mis-reading or not.
It was not a willful mis-reading. I do not think you are a hypocrite, and my comment was not meant to create a "straw retort". I honestly believe you want to erradicate rape. I tried my best to make this as clear as possible, if I wasn't able to convey it well enough that is my fault and I'm sorry. English is not my first language, this is not meant as a justification.
I just wanted to tell you that "false equivalence" in this context can be used in two ways by different people. You used it in the way you restate in this comment. I totally agree with you.
Some people use it in a different way, though. Some people will tell you (in your face, in real life) that sexual assault against boys is not as bad impact wise (*regardless* of the gender of the perpetrator, in the example I'm thinking of it was even a male perpetrator), because they will not be impacted in the long-term and the body parts that are "used" are not as intimate for boys. That's a really shit take, IMO, even more shit if it's close friends that think like that. Stuff like that makes it a bit hard to always assume that "the impact is the same" is really implicitly included. :/
Again, I never assumed (with my brain) you were one of those people and now I know for sure. But those opinions started exactly the same way. They just did not then state that "the impact is bad and / or equal in both cases", but continued that "the impact is not as bad in one case, the impact is not comparable". It's a... false equivalence, impact wise.
I misread it in the latter way initially for a short while (especially because of the comparison to "whites are discriminated against in college"), and I hope you believe me when I tell you that it was not a willful mis-reading. Sometimes the heart reads before the brain, you know? Sorry. :)
That was more or less all I wanted to tell you. That some people may misread statements like "Overall, false equivalence." because they experienced very bad takes on this topic that started similarly in the past, and it may be a good idea to e.g. explictly state "Overall, while the individual impact is equal, women are more often victims of sexual assault.". Because then it is immediately clear what you mean, and "the impact is equal" is not only said implicitly. :)
But if you don't want to, that's totally okay, too, of course! It's only a small suggestion.
Again, I agree with your point. Sorry for the inconvenience, I shouldn't have written that comment in the first place. I'm just a bit too thin-skinned with this subject. Sorry. I hope you have a nice week.
Hehe, no worries. We're in pretty good agreement I think, and I don't think I mis-interpreted your comment either (so no worries, no offense taken).
The OP question was: "why is this political"
My response should have been a lot more concise. In sum:
"This is a 'man bites dog story' that can be used to create a false equivalence for the prevalence of harassment between men & women, which can then be used in an attack-the-messenger style argument of "you don't actually care about sexual harassment, you just want to attack men'"
The amount of nuance here is pretty astounding, so those that want a status quo really want us to be having this conversation.
> Sorry. I hope you have a nice week.
No need to apologize, and the comment was not without its merits! It's a nuanced issue and discussion! My same wishes for you!
The victim isn't the distraction. It's the disproportionate coverage.
Eg: "cyclist kills pedestrian" The town hall and citizenry get up in arms to protect pedestrians, letters to the editors are flying about the menace of push bikes, links are shared and retweeted thousands of times. Laws are passed to enforce bicycle registration, speed limits on trails are imposed and metered, enforcement task forces are created, and proud press releases from the mayor to address the citizens concerns for "getting tough on bikes - we will protect the pedestrians!"
Meanwhile, a pedestrian is struck and killed by a motor vehicle every 85 minutes in the USA. A pedestrian being struck and killed by a bicycle is just rare. While the families of either victim grieve just as much as the other, the measures to protect the pedestrians are virtue signaling and overall a way to avoid dealing with the real problem (like, actually making people drive under 35mph so crashes are survivable for pedestrians, etc..)
Power differentials are the root cause of all of these situations. This is why feminists have long said that rape is about power, not about sex. Unfortunately the 'people in charge' are personally invested in continuing these power differentials (and of course the physical power differential between men and women, on average, or adults and children, on average, is insurmountable).
> It's one of those, "see, woman can do X too, so why are we so focused on only men doing X"
And that's exactly correct in this case. The answer is not "ignore or dismiss people who ask about why we don't focus on women doing X", it's "we should investigate women doing X too, because X is wrong no matter who does it".
women victims have paltry statistics, which is why we know about the depth of them at all
men victims have almost no statistics, because they are not collected
the absense of evidence is not the evidence of absence, this guy tried reporting it and the complaint was tossed in a dusty chamber like a chicago rape kit
In past years, I've seen at least as many news stories about female teachers sleeping with or otherwise abusing their students as I have about a man doing the same. It's possible that's just a "man bites dog" effect, but I suspect stories like that would get aired when either a man or a woman does it.
Not as infrequently as I'd like. Though usually people will chuckle it up and do nothing about it. People actually have a hard time believing men don't like it
The news cycle prefers news that get more clicks and the "high ranking male google boss gropes a female" sells better. I'd be wary to judge by press coverage.
Also, reporting rate is probably different for males vs females.
Yeah, concerts, dive bars, festivals, sporting events. Generally, although not exclusively, older women. They always seem so surprised when I’m not flattered…
Without passing comment on the case, this guy appeared to go to 3 further work events including alcohol after the incident.
Why do people put themselves in these situations at work? I'm nervous having even 1 drink with work colleagues in todays day and age, let alone getting plastered 3 times with the same people after an incident.
There are some positions that require you to follow set of unspoken rules just to belong. It’s both proof of inclusion and signaling.
Depending on place there might be different factors. It can be as simple as attendance, but it might also be about attire, jewelry, watches, presence during cultural events, who knows who etc. etc.
American Psycho’s business card scene is a nice if overdrawn example. Seemingly unimportant object is fetishized. In reality those behaviors are usually much more subtle and can take form of: don’t attend when invited, you won’t be invited ever again.
If you’re a competent and reliable engineer (at the level senior or lower), then social events are optional. No one will care if you do or don’t go.
Sadly for many other fields (especially sales/marketing) or for management positions, social events are essentially mandatory. Sure you can skip one every once in a while, but if you start skipping too many your career prospects in the company will be impacted.
The full quote from Olohan's filing is kind of peculiar, I'm curious what the deal is with "walking pace":
> In response to Olohan’s request during the call for specifics as to why Google
believed he was not inclusive, Google’s Employee Investigations team explained that he had shown favoritism towards high performers, which it considered “non-inclusive,” and commented on employees’ walking pace and hustle, which it considered “ableist.”
From the original NY Post article, he was "managing director of food, beverages, and restaurants" so presumably the staff in question were food service workers, where they have to move around the kitchens or other areas as part of their duties. (I'm not claiming that "walking pace" is actually related to performance. But that was my read of how it was at least tangentially relevant, similarly to how "typing speed" might be tangentially relevant to roles requiring the use of a computer.)
Yeah, that's kinda of my point. Google is a incredibly successful capitalistic entity, but is punishing an employee for being biased in favor of ability. Favoring ability is rather core to capitalism.
That's meritocracy. The core to capitalism is contingent on spending capital to gain more capital, whether this is done through merit, politics, marketing, or what have you.
I was interested to notice how I formed my initial guess about the man's credibility.
The factors included:
- How attractive was he vs. the woman?
- I noticed he has 7 kids, and went to Providence College. So I'm guessing a devout Roman Catholic, which would mean he (publicly, at least) has a world view that values marital fidelity.
- In his LinkedIn profile [0], he claims that his family started basically a charity ice-cream shop. And the start date is 5 months before the first alleged sexual harassment. I guessed that a family with a distressed marriage would probably be unable to pull that off.
- On the other hand, IIUC, it seems like he's in marketing, which would mean he's got experience managing his companies' brand as well as his personal brand. So that raised my guard a little.
I always try to avoid making a guess on someone's credibility in these situations. Such stories are usually polarised for various reasons. In the past, whenever I've made guesses, I'm wrong half the time. My reasoning for one situation was that the harasser was known for making dirty jokes and was misinterpreted, but oh no, he turned out to be a creep.
It's always horrifying to make the wrong call on this, so it's just best avoided until evidence on either side solidifies. We also want to create an environment safe for victims to speak up, even if that means false positives every now and then.
It's fun to gauge personalities like this, but the outcomes can be reversed in a human way as well.
Attraction is personal. Someone can, for example, be biased for and against certain ways people look, and so, their selection don't match the supposed attractiveness. And also, attraction is not just looks. A beautiful person can reek of body odor, for example.
Being religious can't just imply morality, it can imply hypocrisy too. People sometimes lead a very different personal life, compared to their public life, and religion works well for that.
Similar thing applies to the charity ice-cream shop. People take on all kinds of projects in a distressed situation. For one thing, it can be an excellent way to not care about the original problems. It's a thing for example that troubled couples try for children, in order to better their relationship.
The only thing that's worthy of consideration is the marketing angle. But even then, there are a lot of shitty marketers in the world. And many people who can build a certain image, and yet they don't work in marketing.
Women can become extremely vindictive after getting rejected. A-type females with narcissistic tendencies who usually climb the corporate ladder extremely well are known for that.
Asian girls absolutely love European guys, and his sexual market value appears to be higher than hers (judging from the pictures).
If it all turns out to be true, I hope she gets prison time.
Rupert Murdoch rag is not a reliable or credible news source. If this story is importable it deserves to be cited from a source that people will respect.
I was once personally on the receiving end of a complete false sexual harassment allegation from a coworker almost at random (someone I had almost no interactions with, ever). There wasn't even a sprinkle of truth in the whole thing. I was saved by pure dumb luck, where against all odds just happened to have irrefutable proof one of their claims was impossible which led to her dropping the whole thing. I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims.
I guess I feel like "Innocent until proven guilty" is a pretty good model and running a story just amplifying one persons unproven claims kind of goes against that.