It does not excuse the behavior, but it may very well be that coworkers who broke off a relationship are more likely to falsely accuse each other of harassment and/or overreact to innocent or trivial incidents. It may not be true in this case, but if it's true in general, it is a reasonable factor in evaluating how they reacted to her complaints.
Yes, because I can recognize factors that may reasonably influence whether you should take someone's complaints of harassment at face value, I am clearly advocating rape.
I'm not asking you to take them at face value, I'm asking you simply to consider them at all without immediately jumping to possible alternative explanations of the same set of facts that are a lot more complicated than the original one, that she claims that she was harassed and then ignored and that was the end of it.
Occam's razor and all that.
Harassment does happen, and in cases like this the person that steps up has enough problems on their hand without being dealt more crap.
The prior situation has no bearing on what she claims happened, it either did or it did not, and even if it did not the complaint should have been taken serious.
So we're not even getting to 'taking the complaints at face value', we're simply establishing that she claims that her complaints were ignored. That's a pretty low bar to have to jump over, if someone claims sexual harassment and you ignore them then you're simply wrong, regardless of whether or not the complaint is true.
Do you agree that Occam's razor slices differently for others? For example, if you agree that women are human beings, you also agree that they are just as prone to any human to misrepresent the facts in their favor. And Ms. Pao stands to make a great deal of money from this suit if it goes through.
I'm not a VC, but, to be comprehensive, you'll need to put the negative impact of the suit publicity - whether she wins or loses - on her career against what she might gain by winning.
If you sue McDonald's for food poisoning frivolously, have the bucks to do so, and are somehow immunized against a countersuit, there's no downside.
Pao, win or lose, is going to have a very different VC career than if she never filed suit. That's a pretty big downside.
The harassment incidents to me honestly don't seem to be the most relevant part of the lawsuit. HR ignores your complaint, yes it is wrong; people make mistakes occasionally, it isn't a lawsuit situation, it's a "send another complaint" situation (or "contact the director"). HR repeatedly or even systematically ignores complaints and you start to have to do something about it.
But the unequal pay, promotions, projects, and participation? That is a rather unequivocal situation.
