Thanks for sharing this. Reading Dave's post the first time, all I could think was "this seems like the most bland, cop-out, vague apology I've ever seen." He didn't list the specifics of what he felt bad about, and the whole thing read like a PR release to get ahead of any potential fallout.
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant.
Not in any way to defend Dave, but I think it would have been wrong for him to publish specifics as that could cause further distress to the victims involved.
But I strongly support them coming forward and telling their own stories. That has value and gives the accusations their proper perspective and gravity. It truly is different to be confronted with the details.
> but I think it would have been wrong for him to publish specifics as that could cause further distress to the victims involved.
But he did publish specifics, selected to make it look as if he had just misread the situation. Which in fact did cause further distress to the victims, see linked article.
>With respect to the NYT article above and Sarah Kunst specifically, I’d like to sincerely apologize for making inappropriate advances towards her several years ago over drinks, late one night in a small group, where she mentioned she was interested in a job at 500. While I did not offer her a job at the time, a few days/weeks later I did refer her to my co-founder Christine Tsai to begin a formal interview process with 500, where Christine and others on the team met with her. Ultimately, 500 decided not to offer Sarah a job. Again my apologies to Sarah for my inappropriate behavior in a setting I thought was social, but in hindsight was clearly not. It was my fault and I take full responsibility. She was correct in calling me out.
>In 2014, Sarah Kunst, 31, an entrepreneur, said she discussed a potential job at 500 Startups, a start-up incubator in San Francisco. During the recruiting process, Mr. McClure, a founder of 500 Startups and an investor, sent her a Facebook message that read in part, “I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you.”
>Ms. Kunst, who now runs a fitness start-up, said she declined Mr. McClure’s advance. When she later discussed the message with one of Mr. McClure’s colleagues, she said 500 Startups ended its conversations with her.
Agreed, it's not an abuser's place to decide for their victim what details are made public.
But, the direct apology to a victim should be clear and not place blame on them for how they interpreted a situation, "I'm sorry if you felt X" is the opposite of an apology, it is redirecting blame.
Direct aplogies to victims are addressed to those victims, they do not tend to be written as open letters for the world to read and don't usually attempt to whitewash the situation in which the encounter took place so the perpetrator looks better. If he'd left that part out it would be a lot better, if he left out the self congratulatory bits it would look better still. If that had been the only case then the book could be closed but it appears that that one encounter really was the tip of the proverbial iceberg and I really hope for mr. McClure that there isn't any worse down the line for him because this could end up being both expensive and possible a legal issue. Just this encounter alone would be enough to get him booked in many places.
Oh, I agree with you on that. It's just easy for there to be a lookie-loo sort of situation where people want to know the sordid details and end up re-centering the narrative on the abuser and the story they want to tell.
McClure's public apology, above all, should have been honest and sincere; more detail isn't strictly necessary, to be honest and sincere. It sounds like it wasn't honest or quite sincere. And, it sounds like his private apology, in this case, was decidedly dishonest and redirected blame.
He wouldn't have had to name names. His "apology" went along these lines:
> I made advances towards multiple women in work-related situations, where it was clearly inappropriate [...] I put people in compromising and inappropriate situations, and I selfishly took advantage of those situations where I should have known better. My behavior was inexcusable and wrong.
Dave made it sound like he'd hit on women in the context of offering them a job or investment. His one example re: Sarah Kunst specifically mentions he hit on her in a group.
All of the above -- while clearly unethical -- are a world away from getting drunk with an investee / business partner in her apartment, waiting until everyone else had left, and making aggressive physical advances towards her, including having to be told no multiple times.
Dave's message underplayed his behavior and, I think, really reinforces that he doesn't understand that what he did was wrong. He could have apologized for all of the above and only Dave, Cheryl, and the handful of people Cheryl told would have any idea he was referring to Cheryl.
I frankly think Dave was still hoping to underplay his behavior to keep his job. Also, the fact that 500 let Dave represent them in Australia with no warning to their Australian partners makes Christine Tsai seem complicit [1].
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant
Perhaps cynically, the only conclusion I can derive from this is them thanking him for not lifting the veil too high and revealing how the system has worked with these forces in play. In the absence of this I have to wonder if the SV VC industry is one big missing stair[1].
When I read the original, I thought it was pretty reasonable as apologies go - it was directly saying what he did was wrong, which is better than the non-apology "I'm sorry you were offended"s you see (low bar, but still). Of course, it now looks like, at best, he was just copping to the "less bad" bits to try and quell it before the worst bits got out.
While "less bad" is obviously still damaging and there is a lot to talk about there, what's given in the post sounds like a clear-cut crime.
We have half of the comments here trying to figure out what "sexual harassment" actually entails which makes a pretty darn good point in my opinion - people get triggered in different ways. This could be anything from an actual sexual advance to a poorly placed bad joke or a simple misunderstanding due to inability to read social cues. Some employers, usually large corps, blur the lines even more by allowing and even encouraging dating co-workers which presents a whole different perspective on this issue. Bottom line is it's a grey area and I don't really see how we fight this by improving incident reporting. I think if anything it would just make interacting with female co-workers terrifying (it already is to some extent if you're a male). I think this is a social issue and there has to be a mind shift of some sort in order to combat this. Maybe even taking this to schools and teaching kids workplace etiquette.
As the father of three daughters I always cringe a bit when I read things like this. Thanks Cheryl for sharing your story, and men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it.
I think there's more to it than that. When peers proposition each other or express desire to have more than a professional working relationship (and a polite rejection ends the discussion), that's one thing. But a person in a superior position has a different and greater duty, as rejection can have a negative consequence for the other more vulnerable party. That's why many companies' ethics rules forbid, for example, romantic relationships between a supervisor and his/her direct reports.
I completely agree it would be inappropriate to seek a romantic or sexual relationship with someone who you report too, or who reports to you.
Generally though, when going through the various 'keeping it legal', 'managing within the law', etc type classes that managers often have to take a large corporation as part of their training, the reasoning behind forbidding relationships between employees in a reporting hierarchy was always presented as being there to prevent the appearance of favoritism or impropriety.
The idea being that you may be blindly analyzing everyone's performance against the same metric but in answer to a complaint you would have to prove a negative, that you didn't tip the balance for your partner.
It's not really about how either party feels, it's about what is professionally/socially and legally acceptable. What he did was wrong, regardless of whether either of them thought it was.
No. If you think that is the only way - to interact without a shred of empathy or self-awareness of your own actions - then you may be part of the problem.
Try to recall the character of someone who doesn't get accused of assaulting or abusing other people, or making them feel uncomfortable -- someone who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics -- and then behave like that.
It's not that hard, really. Just be a grown-up. Put away the childish fantasies of finding self-worth by bedding lots of women and flaunting wealth and power, and treat everyone you interact with as though they're actual people.
It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone, just for asking a few logical questions on the web.
I don't come at this as the pushy sexual conqueror you seem to assume. My perspective is from social anxiety. I already am very hesitant to approach women, because everything seems forbidden and inappropriate.
What I hear OP saying is that there is nothing I can do to be sure some woman doesn't find my sexual or romantic propositions inappropriate, which means I'm a sexual harasser and possibly a criminal.
The standard of just becoming a person "who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics" is extremely ambitious. I don't think I can reach that in my life time. If you have, congratulations!
And even if I can identify a role model like that, how do I find out how he propositions women?
It really, really isn't that complicated, I promise. Step one: communicate your interest politely and ask her on a date. Step two: if you are rebuffed, don't be a jerk.
You will notice that nowhere in here is "she will act shocked and think you are a harasser." Because that's not how it actually works, despite the considerable efforts of some folks to convince you that it is. Perhaps you should meditate on why they'd spend so much effort on that.
I wasn't describing you specifically. Maybe I was unclear, or maybe you're trying to steer a discussion about inequity towards a group of people into a discussion about your discomfort as a non-member of that group. Or maybe both.
I also don't think this is the appropriate time and place to write a manual on dating. Here's one hint though: when you meet a nice woman, your first thought shouldn't be, "how do I proposition her?"
It's going to be pretty impossible to sow doubt about the 'setting' on this one like he did with the previous instance. Makes you wonder how often this sort of thing played out, 10's of times? 100's?
At least 12 women according to the update in Cheryl's post. Most, if not all of these women, are also people of color according to Sarah Kunst.
<<Update>> I just spoke to Sarah Kunst and learned from her that at least 12 other women including me, have faced sexual harassment or advances from Dave of various degrees. Some of them are portfolio company CEOs like myself. They’re afraid to come out, but some eventually will. I had doubts publishing this, but after talking to Sarah, it is clear to me now that I can’t just sit silently and trust that Dave’s behavior will stop, or that we can just file his misconduct under “Dave being Dave.” This is about protecting other women who might otherwise be subjected to his future unwanted sexual advances.
Because there are tons of apologists in the valley. Men who also harass women like McClure and feel they're entitled to it, especially against women of color.
The overwhelming majority of HN votes don't come from "the valley". And to the extent we have data on this the geographical trend is probably opposite to what you're suggesting.
There's really been a considerable change in HN in the past few years. A couple of years ago, a thread like this would have been 100% apologists and victim-blaming, laced with a heavy dose of outright misogyny. It would have been flagged off the the front page in minutes. Today, the threads are much better with only a small amount of that.
I'm unclear whether this is because a) Silicon Valley is changing b) the user composition of HN is changing or c) the misogynist types are just feeling less confident. Regardless of the reason, it's a change for the better.
I have to credit 'dang and 'sctb's public moderation and tone-setting for a lot of it (and I've been a critic of weak and permissive moderation here in the past, so credit where credit is due). HN still has some really profound problems with punching down, but so does everywhere else and it's improved significantly; amongst the places I hang out it's gone from perhaps the most egregious example of the kind of nastiness in the industry to somewhere better than the median.
Good article - at first I was wary because of vagueness in the first few paragraphs, terms like "inappropriateness", "sexual harassment", "non-consensual sexual advances" etc. that are flung around so freely nowadays yet so open to interpretation, and which often go viral and get people fired.
But in fact that was the point - that the devil's in the details and specifics really help. And the specifics in her case were clearly not cool. Kudos for putting them out there.
Question for me is when did Christine Tsai know and why was nothing done sooner?
She tweeted (now deleted) about Caldbeck a week before asking “Where’s the Outrage?” when it now sounds like she kept the real reason why McClure was put in a “limited” role in April for reasons unknown to even the 500 staff (and obviously the public until this past weekend) https://techcrunch.com/2017/07/03/employee-email-claims-500-...
Hard for me to defend the public moral outrage she showed for the Binary cap situation when she clearly kept silent about similar issues with her own firm.
One of the most eye opening experiences I have ever had in the workplace was in a sexual harassment class which was required for a big corp. The instructor laid out the rules, but people in the class had a hard time grasping the logical structure. Two different scenarios which clearly had the same structure would trip people up by swapping out variables. I was never good with math, but I picked up on these structures right way. Maybe the class should have been taught as a philosophy class from the start. It was amazing to me how difficult such an important subject was for people to pick up.
As difficult as sexual harassment is to learn and teach, I imagine most smaller businesses / start-ups don't make much of an attempt, if at all. Obviously HR is lacking. This might be a good place for improvement for a start-up to tackle.
'Don't try to sexually force yourself on someone who just asked you to leave their residence' is not a complex issue limited by inadequate HR training. It's basic sane social behaviour. McClure didn't do this because he was unaware of the intricacies of workspace laws and regulations. He did it because he thought he could and would get away with it.
I like it - the all or nothing approach is terrifying as a guy, and defining levels of inappropriateness with exact descriptions of actions is very helpful for those who are freaked out they are going to unwittingly harass someone they are attracted to even just acting naturally. I'm hopefully not belittling the recipients of undesired advances of VC assholes like McClure, but I hope it's also not wrong to say these scandals induce anxiety in a ton of well meaning lower level guys who get circled over as part of the problem, and thinking of a solution that considers this large segment of guys is nice to hear.
I have to agree... there are absolutely shades of gray. I've always had a personal policy of if you ask someone out, and they decline, give it a while, then ask a second time, in case of a timing issue, then never bring it up again.
Though, I'm not one to force myself onto someone like that, we all have feelings, emotions and desires. It's not always easy to read a given situation. And the those outlined in TFA are definitely over the line.
It would be great if people could just follow a maxim like "don't be a creep", but clearly that's impossible in today's culture and so some official guidelines do need to be adopted by some organizations.
However, Level A and Level B outlined near the bottom of the article takes it too far. Treating people like children is not going to solve anything, it's just going to promote further awkwardness, fear and resentment.
Suggestions like Level A and Level B are sucking the life out of life. When implemented, they punish everyone just because a small minority don't know how to set their own boundaries and respect the boundaries of others.
Asking permission before touching people, and not arguing when they say no goes a long way.
Want to be able to touch someone without asking every time? Ask them permission for that! "Hey is it ok if I touch your arms and back without asking in the future?"
Often the counter-argument to this is that it feels artificial, unnatural, and it will definitely kill the mood. So I want to preemptively address it.
When a guy asks before touching me, and of course I'm already interested, it makes me melt. It is so sexy and it definitely improves the mood. I just want to point to myself as one data-point.
If you're having trouble believing it, imagine that a hot swimsuit model walks up to you and asks if she can rub your shoulders. Would you be like, "Uh, no, by communicating with me you have completely killed my interest"?
> If you're having trouble believing it, imagine that a hot swimsuit model walks up to you and asks if she can rub your shoulders. Would you be like, "Uh, no, by communicating with me you have completely killed my interest"?
I hate to be this person, but yes that would kill my interest. I'd be put off by her asking to touch me without any attempt at building a rapport first - that's sort of weird, just like it'd be weird if you switched the gender roles. And if she established a rapport, I'd very slightly lean towards wishing she hadn't asked. All things being equal, yes, I'd prefer she just initiated without asking (after establishing a rapport).
I don't mean to invalidate your point, but I have this feeling you thought that example would sort of just "make it click", and it didn't (at least not for me). It seems like this is probably a preference thing.
I'm convinced the whole "kills the mood" line is coming from folks where the mood never existed but they thought it did. It's basically victim blaming :/
As a person who asks, I can tell you that you're wrong. My spouse confided in me (years after it happened) that when I asked to kiss them the very first time, they thought it was kind of a turn-off and wished I had just done it. (But they said "yes", so there's that.)
As a woman who is submissive sometimes, I totally want certain people to do things to me without asking, but there are other people I don't want to do these things.
Explicit communication is not a barrier for me experiencing submissiveness because the fact I consented years ago to my partner doing such things to me does not make it any less fun.
I'm definitely willing to forgoe some fun on the first date to avoid having it done to me by someone I'm not into or don't feel safe around (separate variables!).
> Want to be able to touch someone without asking every time? Ask them permission for that! "Hey is it ok if I touch your arms and back without asking in the future?"
Sorry but this is just absurd. Courtship doesn't (and will never) work that way.
Proposing that standard for human contact implies a lot of negative things about how all of us have conducted our relationships, about how all of our families and parents met and fell in love, and I'm honestly a little offended by your suggestion.
> Sorry but this is just absurd. Courtship doesn't (and will never) work that way.
Im a woman and it works well for me. Do you have a specific technical reason for thinking it wont work?
> Proposing that standard for human contact implies a lot of negative things about how all of us have conducted our relationships
Saying explicit communication is useful and best-practice is not saying that everyone who doesn't do it is evil or every time it wasn't used someone was hurt. It's just a useful method for avoiding hurting people.
Is there so much anxiety involved in following simple rules like don't touch people at work and don't talk about sexual topics?
There might be more anxiety involved in trying to find the line and getting as close to it as possible. Is a shoulder rub allowed? Can I touch her arms? Can I make a suggestive joke? I'd definitely be more anxious trying to keep that straight in my head.
Sorry but no, "Too much eye contact" "Your vibe get flirty" (or conversely "Your vibe gets weird") get thrown in; it's anxiety inducing when you have to worry about anything that's natural or involuntary when in the presence of someone you're attracted to being policed as causing discomfort to someone. Hence enshrining detailed coordinates means you don't have to worry about that (presuming the list actually excludes such involuntary innocuous behavioral changes as extra eye contact).
Where do they get thrown in? Outside of internet forums where men come up with absurd situations to justify their feelings of prosecution, who is exactly reporting co-workers in the Valley for too much eye contact?
You're in a comment thread about sexual assault for reference.
Oh c'mon, it's a thread about solutions too, which was the focus of my original comment; I intended it to be "Thanks for a solution that is helpful to guys anxious about all of this," not a detailed discussion about the validity of those feelings or anxiety. If you insist of the latter,
This has nothing to do with "men forums," thanks. People I know working in tech actually think holding eye contact is harassment. I had a female coworker complain about the vibe of another coworker who was clearly attracted to her; just the vibe, imagine how that affected other coworkers when that got around? You're free to dismiss this sentiment, but it's still something on the mind of a large group of well meaning guys whether you dismiss its validity or not.
Again, enumerating detailed descriptions and tiers feels like a good solution for everyone.
Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.
If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile.
It just amazes me that people who have both the means and ability to get what they want do foolish stuff like he's doing.
> Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely.
That's not the point. The point is precisely the power and coercion. Paying someone or finding someone like-minded doesn't hit that button anywhere near the same way that assault and blackmail does.
If you're strong-arming women into sex, it's not about the sex, it's about the strong-arming. The very inappropriateness itself is the goal.
People say this all the time, but is there any actual rigorous evidence or argument for it?
As far as I can tell it's just a way to demonize and dehumanize a group of really unpopular people in order to feel better about taking retribution against them. Comparable to saying, "She didn't murder her kids because of depression, but because she wanted them and her husband to suffer. The pain itself is the goal."
So is this really a rent-paying belief? Or is it rather a way to feel good about hating someone and absolve yourself from the responsibility to understand the internal experiences of people who do bad things?
This is important, by the way. If the goal is to feel good about hating people who did wrong, dehumanize away. If the goal is actually to prevent other people from doing wrong, you need understand accurately why the wrong was being done in the first place, and that's what I'm afraid isn't being done here.
It's probably some mix of a lack of impulse control and enjoying the chase. He meets an attractive woman and pursues her, without stopping to think whether or not what he's doing is inappropriate or even assault.
Edit: I just finished reading the article. I hope this comment doesn't seem like I'm dismissing him as "Dave being Dave", because what he did was horrible. Plying her with copious amounts of alcohol and then backing her into a corner, refusing to leave her house. That's really messed up, like a frat boy's limited understanding of consent.
People like him may be bored of using money as a means to get girls (no need to resort to prostitution for this even). Instead, they probably get off from methods like these.
What a terrible story. I'm sorry she had to go through that and appreciate her sharing it.
I'm curious about the legal aspect of it. "Sexual assault" is a crime, right? The worst repercussions I hear from these stories are maybe a resignation at best. But if this is truly a crime shouldn't it be prosecuted?
Many victims decline to prosecute to avoid the mental toll the process takes, including having to relive their trauma, having their credibility torn to shreds and possibility of the perp being acquitted even in face of compelling evidence. Trying to recover and generally move on with their lives is already hard enough.
Depending on the jurisdiction, strictly speaking it's not up to the victim to pursue charges. The prosecutor can bring charges whether the victim wants to or not.
In practice if the victim doesn't want to testify there's usually no way to get a conviction so it won't be prosecuted. But the decision lies with the prosecutor.
It's a classic he said / she said situation. Based on how he isolates the women, this is exactly the scenario he wants. No witnesses and plenty of time and space to wiggle out of his own culpability if it should arise.
These accounts happened in Malaysia, so someone would have to initiate an investigation and then seek extradition. It's not likely to happen.
On the other hand, this man has apparently a history of this behavior, so potentially there are similar actions in the US and people have yet to reveal them.
There is one point i am curious nobody mentions. If we do not want companies run like fraternity houses, how about not hiring actual fraternity alumni as executives?
Thanks for stepping forward. It takes a lot of courage to come out publicly with such a personal story, especially when the offender is as well-known as Dave McClure.
Wow. Reading that, I would be too grossed out to touch the hand of someone like Dave. Creep is not putting it strongly enough - serial sexual assaulter is correct.
I have experienced similarly persistent (or arguably even more persistent) unwanted sexual advances from other men, but I certainly didn't feel "assaulted".
As a socially clueless gay man, I was hoping someone could help elucidate the most problematic parts of McClure's behavior here. The two factors that stand out for me are
1) McClure controlled the funding of the agency Yeoh was heading, so he was in a position of power
2) McClure is a man and Yeoh is a woman, so McClure can be assumed to be more physically imposing
Would it be correct to say that these two factors are what make McClure's behavior inappropriate? In any other context, I would consider asking someone something a third time after two "no"s to be an example of annoying badgering, but not necessarily harassment.
Would it be correct to say that these two factors are what make McClure's behavior inappropriate?
No, it would not be, at all.
"At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me,"
I don't know if anyone will believe me that I'm asking in good faith. But I still think that sentence, as written, could describe a wide range of situations. If it went like:
A: Firmly: "You need to leave. Now."
B: Shoves A's body multiple times until she is in the opposite corner of the room. Presses his lips to her face without hesitation.
I would be mad as A. But if the scenario went more like:
A: "I'm tired and it's late. You really gotta go, sorry."
(A and B walk to the door. There is a sofa by the door.)
B: Leans body toward A's.
A: Takes a step back. Is now up against the sofa and the wall.
B: Puts hand on A's shoulder and leans in slowly for a kiss.
A: Refuses kiss.
Here as person A I would simply brush B off as an aggressive suitor, unless the two aggravating circumstances I mentioned above were in play. Please tell me if that is unfair.
Imagine you go to a business meeting, after which you invite a group of the participants back to your apartment to chat about business. You hang out for a while and one of the other guys deliberately plies you with alcohol beyond your usual comfort zone. Then after a few hours the other people abruptly leave, and you’re alone with the guy who you expect to leave too. You ask if he’s leaving, but he says he isn’t (already weird), so you say “okay, I guess you can crash on the couch”. You think you have successfully put him to bed on the couch in the other room, but he follows you into your room and asks you point-blank for sex. You say “No. I think you should leave”. You start to herd him out the door, and instead he asks again, now pleading. You say no. He pushes you into a corner and tries to kiss you.
If you think that scenario could possibly be described as “annoying badgering but not harassment”, then “socially clueless” is far too generous.
The mass flagging / censoring of comments people disagree with below seems a little petty, I'm curious what the original posts are. I'd rather hear a dumb opinion and make my own choice.
I've seen a few comments on this and articles like this to the effect of "so any time you proposition a woman it could be assault?" and I think it's worth responding to that idea in general.
Yes, there is generally an expectation that men initiate romance, and that is an unfair burden both on men (who have to do the propositioning) and women (who have to decline unwanted propositions). For game-theoretic reasons, this is difficult to change, but it is changing slowly.
In the mean time, restrictions on how to initiate disproportionately affect men, and a lack of restrictions disproportionately affects women. Even more so in situations of gender imbalance (look up "Petrie Multiplier" for more on this). I believe it's for this reason that some men are resistant to "err on the safe side" type policies; as long as they are expected to initiate, they can't succeed without taking risks.
But it's impossible to address this without also including the effect of power imbalance. Even in a world where women initiate 100% of the time, men would in almost all cases still be more physically powerful, and sometimes hold other kinds of social or institutional power. This power can be used to coerce, assault or rape but, even if it isn't, the consequences of a power disparity can be an implicit part of the equation (cf "I hope you can see your way clear to letting Flynn go").
So, what was wrong about Dave McClure's behaviour with Sarah Kunst? Not propositioning her at all, but propositioning her in the context of a power imbalance as a potential employer that made it more difficult for her to say no. Worse still, "I was getting confused figuring out whether to hire you or hit on you" makes that relationship explicit.
And what was wrong about Dave McClure's behaviour with Cheryl Yeoh? Not propositioning her at all, but propositioning her in the context of a power imbalance as a physically stronger man alone with her in her bedroom, and then forcing himself on her when she said no. I repeat: he could only have done this because he was physically stronger, and even if he didn't, the possibility was there.
So to anyone who's wondering if this means men hitting on women is now outlawed, I hope this can provide a healthy framework for thinking about it. It's okay to hit on people, but avoid doing so in situations with a power imbalance that could mean there are consequences for saying no. And also if they do say no don't assault them.
Unfortunately, as a man, you probably have the ability to physically overpower most women if you want. Hopefully you don't want, but it's worth considering that you have that ability, and she may not know whether you're going to use it.
Let's stop perpetuating this myth that this is a "few rotten apples".
This is a systemic problem in our industry, and we need to all realize this, so that we can start teaching each other what behavior is and is not appropriate in a very clear, concise, and precise manner.
I think it's important to clarify what "our industry" means, though. I think it's a mistake to lump it all into "tech", because that misses some important root causes. I think there are a bunch of different things going on:
1. With respect to VCs preying on female entrepreneurs, this doesn't shock me in the slightest. Wherever you have this huge power imbalance, coupled with large numbers of people who are extremely reluctant to jeopardize their "big break", you will see this kind of abuse. It was/is common in Hollywood, and I think the Catholic Church sex scandals have a ton in common. If you have a situation with that type of power imbalance, unless you have a very detailed and specific process to deal with predators, that kind of abuse will happen.
2. I think what Susan Fowler described re: Uber has a ton to do with the extremely aggressive culture Uber set up. In fact, a lot of the "villains" in Susan's story were, surprisingly, women. I think the tough question is how to you "rein in" that type of aggressive culture when it was so successful for Uber originally.
3. Finally, with regards to how women are treated in general in tech, I think a lot of the unconscious biases people hold, how people react differently to men's ideas vs. women's, need to be discussed more openly and with a goal of making everyone more aware of their own prejudices without fear.
I agree that we can teach each other what kind of culture we want to instill, and one that allows people to work in an environment that boosts their potential.
However, from my observations, to flat out list a finite list of behaviorism, will manifest yet another set of behaviorism, which will manifest another list.
I do not view this as a simple systematic problem, but rather a deep-wedged symptom of a sick society. We all are complicit.
A society that is focused on results and ego and success will always encourage such behavior (of debasing others, exploiting others regardless of their being — even white men are exploited and debased by other "higher-paying" white men). No set of rules will change this until we change our society's culture.
The culture cannot change through scolding, but rather a deep, opening conversation that will be conversed again and again until people find no use for the word harassment or sexual harassment or the desire to hurt or debase others in name of success.
My thoughts exactly. There's a gold rush in Silicon Valley (or the tech industry in general) and usually, these rushes attract jerks. You can't create a system of fierce individualism and predation and then act surprised if this behaviour extends to every facet of life.
I read somewhere, a while ago, that assholes moved in herds to Wall Street in the 80s-90s, and now they've decided to move to California.
It is not just a handful of rotten apples. The enablers are right there in the Twitter quotes.
It isn't enough for the assholes to stop assholin'. We all have the opportunity to contribute positively by moving the norms, and we will all be better for it.
The people that have the ability to fix it are the incredibly brave women coming forward. That's what's changing things.
Otherwise, most of us have already been doing all we can. We don't do bad things, and we don't enable people doing bad things. It's ok to admit that we didn't cause this nor have the ability to fix it.
We're all in this together, and even when it falls to others to lead, we can all contribute in a supporting role.
For example, there's lots of victim-blaming in these threads. We have an opportunity to speak up and counter it. In so doing, we support the brave women on the front lines.
Wow, that's really incredible optimism. I'd be more than happy if there was a 50/50 split between the kinds of apples but I fear that it is more along the lines of 20/80 or worse based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot.
Women locker room talk is not about sexual coercion but it's often about using their sexuality to gain advantage. While this is obviously not equivalent to sexual assault, it's not ethical either.
possibly could have been better phrased: I was trying to point out that a woman 'using her sexuality for personal gain' only works if men treat her solely as a sexual object
At the workplace, the supposed appropriate authority is Human Resources. The obvious problem with this is that since Human Resources' role is literally to treat the humans at or attempting to be in, the company as resources, during a case of sexual harassment their systematically correct behavior is to weigh the assessed value of all parties involved, predict the value deltas for each possible way to resolve the case, and implement the resolution with the predicted net highest value to the company.
> If you're aware of harassment and assault of women, please contact the appropriate authorities.
Are you kidding? I wouldn't have enough time in a day. Just some stats, 1 out of every 6 women has been the victim of attempted rape or rape.
I'm aware of several such cases in the last 2 years alone, none of these resulted in an arrest or a court case and I have absolutely no reason not to believe the women.
Besides that I do not have the right to go to the authorities on behalf of someone who does not want to go to the authorities herself because more often than not they are part of the problem and tend to make the whole affair into an exercise in victim blaming.
This is an extremely complex issue and even if we can all agree that it is not normal there is no set recipe for how to deal with such situations.
Apparently we cannot agree that it is not normal, because you claimed that, optimistically, half of men are like that, with a more "realistic" estimate of 80%. The point is that, if the numbers are that bad in your experience, then you do have a very not normal experience.
> if the numbers are that bad in your experience, then you do have a very not normal experience.
That would be good news. But I fear that it isn't. Here's an experiment for you: ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you. If you feel brave ask someone who spent time in an orphanage or jail or some other place where they have little access to representation and are at the mercy of people that have power over them.
>ask the women you are close to in your life if they've been raped or assaulted. The answers may surprise you.
That is not the number under dispute. There are two fundamentally different theories about what is going on: 1) Most men sexually assault women, or 2) A minority of men sexual assault a large number of women. Based on statistics of victims, it is impossible to distinguish between these two scenarios. However, understanding which scenario we are in is vitally important to forming our response. You seem to believe that we are in scenario 1.
I will admit, I do not have any evidence handy that we are in scenario 2, because it is not a proposal I have ever seen seriously suggested. However, you have presented no evidence that we are in scenerio 1, which seems to be the less believable situation. Until such evidence is presented, I will continue to believe that it is a minority of men that cause a majority of sexual assault [0].
[0] Yes, not all sexual assualt is by males, but I am reasonably confident that it is enough that this general statement holds.
What I've seen professionally makes me believe this, definitely. And that view is consistent across 30 years in the industry with stints in various sub-branches of IT and/or fields that require IT services (which is pretty much anything nowadays).
Let me reprhase this in a more direct way so there is no misunderstanding:
I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
If you know of such companies it would be nice to list them.
If there is such a thing I would love to be surprised, I suspect that it is going to be the ones run by women, but they are rare enough that I have not had much exposure to them.
>I have yet to see a female friendly company in IT.
This is a very different claim than what you made above. Even within a company, a minority of people can cause a majority of the problems. Indeed, for any toxic behavior I can think of, it only takes one employee to take down a team, and the problem often spreads beyond that team. I see no reason to believe sexual assault is any different.
Again, the question of if we are in situation 1 or 2 is vitally important. If we are in situation 1, then we are looking at a generational struggle to change men's attitudes towards women. Essentially, we need to wait for the old guard to die off, then wait for the new guard to die off, then hope that our actions made the new-new guard behave respectably.
If we are in situation 2, then the above solution is almost useless. Instead, we are facing a managerial problem where we fail to root out the bad actors. As with any other toxic behavior, this can cause them to contaminate the entire environment. Of course, in this context, "manager" does not only refer to the managers of companies, but also the "managers" of social communities. Effectively, in this scenario, the problem description is not so much that too many people rape, but rather that we are ineffective at dealing with those who do.
I strongly believe this is a societal problem, not a 'women in tech' problem, though it is quite probably a fact that women in tech have it somewhat harder than women in society on average but judging by who run the worlds corporations and who make the worlds laws it's probably a safe bet that that gap is smaller than it seems just because we happen to look at the world through a filter shaped by technology.
If every time I hear about a woman being harassed I would get myself mixed up in the case I don't think I'd have many friends left. Just in the last year alone one of my female friends was raped in her own home and if she wanted me to do something I'm pretty sure she'd be more than willing to ask, all I can do instead is to be there when she wants to talk about it.
What bothers me is that people seem to think this stuff is rare.
What I can do - and do - is when something is happening around me and I'm aware of it when it is happening to step in, but after the fact if you are not a party to something then you are not going to help matters if you on your own without the consent of the victim approach the authorities, and you also don't have the right to take matters in your own hands.
So seriously, what the fuck, realize that if you are not in any way shape or form a party to an event that you may not have the right - and definitely do not have an obligation - to approach the authorities.
I'd like to apologize for the misunderstanding, I said what I said because of the phrasing in your original post "[...] based on what I see and hear around me when no women are within earshot."
I get what you're trying to say, but I don't agree with your defeatism. While I cannot single-handedly stop all sexual assault, every person that I can indirectly protect is precious. I will never stop trying.
Protection is useful before and during some action. In the few cases that I was a witness I definitely stepped in and did something about it, but in most cases you only hear about things long after they've happened (in many cases years afterwards).
So you will 'never stop trying', but tell me, how often have you been there when it happened? For me those instances are a small fraction of the number of cases that I'm aware of and I suspect that the whole reason this number is so low is because of how these things play out, see the linked article here: mr. McClure did not bother to harass her until he'd isolated her. Who would stop him other than the woman?
It seems more that as with most types of abuse and non-retributive violence, the sexual abuser tends to be in a position of disproportionate power to the abused. Also, because of the greater variance in the Y chromosome, human males display more phenotypically outlying (in this case, aberrant) behavior than human females.
Could be due to the location. Might be different in different countries. In the places I have worked (always women in the team, startup and more enterprise-world), I never seen sexism happen apart from once.
Of course there is the problem that it could be hidden (IMs or whatnot). Hence my optimism :-)
I am seeing an enormous percentage of comments here flagged, including one of mine which is a first for me on this site, or any site.
Upon trying to figure out what's going on I think we need a meta-instruction for comments here?
Like, perhaps the intention is to keep comments focused more on the general problem of sexual harassment in the industry and to not start making a bunch of assertions regarding the specifics of the author's story?
Although I personally think khazhoux's comment pointing to alcohol being a common factor is a pretty good one.
I'm actually having trouble understanding where the line is here so personally going to run away from the thread, but I think a better indication of the ground rules might be helpful to everyone.
First of all, let me just say I don't think your comment reflects poorly on you as a person. Your perspective is very common, and it's easy to accept it uncritically. It's interesting that you mention khazhoux's comment, because I think they come from largely the same place, and I flagged both of them for similar reasons.
I flagged these comments because, though you probably don't realize you're doing this, you're providing tools for abusers to justify and minimize their abuse. Obviously flagging isn't going to solve the problem on its own, but maybe if I go into more detail it will help a little more.
Both comments focus on what their authors imagine themselves doing in a similar situation:
> …I never drink more than a wee amount (one glass max) when I'm with co-workers in any sort of work setting.
> …I can't imagine it haunting anyone for years, especially not someone who has the strength of will to start a company.
Then they generalize their imagined behavior to what all people should do or should be able to do:
> But on general principle, he shouldn't have gotten drunk (which I assume he was??), nor she.
> Just because someone else did something wrong is no reason to carry it with you for years.
Who are these comments being written for? In both cases, the person being imagined is the person being abused. It's possible to read these as advice for people potentially facing abuse: don't drink, don't dwell on the past.
There are a few problems with this interpretation. First of all, they take abuse as a fixed part of the world that we just need to deal with: "Because in my world people do that." The conclusion is that people being abused need to change their behavior to avoid it. But the truth is that the abusers are the ones who need to change their behavior.
The second problem is that the advice doesn't work. People are abused whether they drink or not. Memories and thoughts have a way of surfacing whether you intentionally dwell on them or not. If you can't imagine an event haunting Cheryl for years after she has explicitly told you that one has, the problem is with your imagination, not her experiences.
So as advice, these comments are relatively weak. Is there a sense in which they have a stronger function? Let's see:
"I never drink more than a wee amount" isn't excusing Dave's behavior directly. But it makes a strong implication -- if you do drink more than that, you're less responsible for what happens. Do you think Dave kept pouring scotch into her glass on accident? He knows society has a tendency to excuse behavior from a drunk person that they'd never accept from someone sober.
"I can't imagine it haunting anyone for years" doesn't mean Dave's behavior was inconsequential. But it makes a strong implication -- that the consequences of his behavior would be much less if Cheryl didn't make such a big deal out of it.
Both of these perspectives enable abuse. Abusers intentionally use alcohol to provide cover for their behavior. Even when they were planning to do it all along. Dave McClure abused his power to put Cheryl Yeoh into a position she "shouldn't" be in -- so he could turn around and use the very fact she was in such a position to minimize people's reaction to his abuse!
Then, when she admits how much the abuse affected her, he relies on comments like yours to remind us that his role in this was incredibly minor -- just one event that probably lasted less than a minute. The real abuse was just in her head. I don't think you would put it this bluntly, but that's the story the abuser is hoping you take away.
That is to say, the primary function of comments like these is not actually providing advice to people who might be abused. Following this advice will not help them. Whether intentionally or not, their primary function ends up as tools that abusers use to justify and minimize their abuse. That's why I flagged them -- to take these tools out of abusers' hands in whatever small way I can.
I started reading your response, got about halfway through, then realized: you can't have your cake and eat it too.
If you want a reasonable discussion, downvote and comment.
If you flag, you are ending the discussion. You are indicating a comment is egregious, as per HN guidelines, and categorizing it as not worthy of debate.
I'm fine with being told I'm wrong. I also think I might have a useful point hidden somewhere in my poorly worded comment, that could have been teased out through conversation. Or perhaps others could have learned from a discussion explaining why I was wrong.
None of that occurred, because you flagged my comments.
> If you want a reasonable discussion, downvote and comment.
That's exactly what `panic` did -- and put considerable effort into the reply. HN users don't have the ability to "flag" comments distinct from downvoting -- comments instead acquire the "flagged" state through an accumulation of downvotes from multiple users.
I hope you will reconsider and read all the way through `panic`'s comment.
EDIT: I was mistaken about flagging vs. downvoting, per detaro's reply.
I don't know if it's still true, but the system used to let you either comment or downvote, but not both. That is, if you replied in a comment any downvote to what you replied to would not be counted. Always struck me as a bit of a misaligned incentive, but I've always had many concerns about the way karma is used/applied on this site.
So the mere idea of avoiding drinking, or that different people will react to an event in different ways is so dangerous and empowering to potential abusers that the entire HN readership needs to be protected from seeing it? Are we adults here? Sorry to be critical, I'm sure you meant well. For a weak comment though, "flagged" seems like a really extreme reaction.
It's not the idea of avoiding drinking: it's the creation of a situation (being drunk with coworkers) which you shouldn't be in. Once an abuser can get you into such a situation, they have an excuse for their abuse -- you shouldn't have been in that situation in the first place.
And it's not that different people will react to an event in different ways: it's the idea that you could always have reacted to an event in a certain way. If you didn't react to it that way, that's on you -- it's not the abuser's fault.
Put enough of these "mere ideas" together and you get the culture responsible for this environment of abuse that women are facing. We should try to chip away at as many bad ideas as we can!
You're right that flagging may not be the right tool to use here, though. Everyone says they want a reply, but in practice that tends to produce long discussions that rarely end up anywhere useful. What would you suggest? Maybe a mod could weigh in?
Agreed, ideas create culture - I guess I've found personally that respectful discussion with those of opposing viewpoints is more productive than 'fighting' them or shutting them down entirely, which flagging kinda seems like. Those have the paradoxical effect of making the person more defensive and angry and work harder to promote their point. So a downvote and a reply with a more convincing argument seems reasonable. I don't know the HN systems that well though, I only post occasionally. And yeah, the discussions may not go anywhere. That's democracy :)
To an untrained eye, this looks more like an "MO". Maybe it's insecurity, maybe it's inability to relate, maybe he needs something to "relax" him [and target], maybe it's what's worked in the past for him. I don't know him. But it appears that his MO involves getting people to drink alcohol and him laying it down thick [in parlance, "put his moves on"].
Do you think Dave kept pouring scotch into her glass on accident? He knows society has a tendency to excuse behavior from a drunk person that they'd never accept from someone sober. You're not excusing his behavior directly, but by suggesting that alcohol is relevant to this situation, you're promoting a narrative that abusers love to exploit.
Excellent point. I opened up the book "Why Does He Do That?" about abusers to find a relevant quote, but when I got back to the thread you had beat me to the punch. Here's what I was going to post:
Alcohol does not a change a person’s fundamental value system. People’s personalities when intoxicated, even though somewhat altered, still bear some relationship to who they are when sober. When you are drunk you may behave in ways that are silly or embarrassing; you might be overly familiar or tactlessly honest, or perhaps careless or forgetful. But do you knock over little old ladies for a laugh? Probably not. Do you sexually assault the clerk at the convenience store? Unlikely. People’s conduct while intoxicated continues to be governed by their core foundation of beliefs and attitudes, even though there is some loosening of the structure. Alcohol encourages people to let loose what they have simmering below the surface.
The book argues that the common thread among all abusive people is a sense of entitlement.
Intimacy is one of the only things we (should) entirely get to choose who to share with. For everything else, there's societal expectations of some degree of doing things even though you don't really want to - but intimacy is the one case where as a society, we supposedly strongly believe that there should be no expectations that you are intimate with anyone you don't want to be intimate with. Women tend to get taught this idea more than men, who are instead taught that if they don't want to be intimate with someone, then something is either wrong with them or wrong with the person in question.
Now have someone force you to perform intimate acts with them, after a lifetime of being taught that you get to decide who to be intimate with.
As a terrible analogy: a lot of middle-class people for whom part of their primary goal in life is to own a house tend to never quite recover from being burgled. The reason for that is that they consider their house the one safe place they have. For many women, intimacy is the one safe thing they have.
Edit: For clarification, the (now flagged) parent commenter was expressing that he did not understand why women are so affected by unwanted sexual advances. He mentioned that men have come onto him without his consent, and he was (on a separate occasion) beaten up bad enough to end up in the hospital, but his quality of life did not decrease to the same degree that he sees in women who are kissed against their will. He said he didn't understand why being kissed without permission is such a big deal in comparison with actually being beaten up. Following is my response:
Sexual assault & sexual harassment are not isolated events. They are symptoms of a world that can be very fucked up if you're a woman. You've been beaten up, but after the beating you were still (I assume) physically bigger and stronger than ~50% of the human population. That might influence how you feel about the things that have happened to you.
Here is an excerpt from the link above:
Credibility is a basic survival tool. When I was very young and just beginning to get what feminism was about and why it was necessary, I had a boyfriend whose uncle was a nuclear physicist. One Christmas, he was telling–as though it were a light and amusing subject–how a neighbor’s wife in his suburban bomb-making community had come running out of her house naked in the middle of the night screaming that her husband was trying to kill her. How, I asked, did you know that he wasn’t trying to kill her? He explained, patiently, that they were respectable middle-class people. Therefore, her-husband-trying-to-kill-her was simply not a credible explanation for her fleeing the house yelling that her husband was trying to kill her. That she was crazy, on the other hand….
Even getting a restraining order–a fairly new legal tool–requires acquiring the credibility to convince the courts that some guy is a menace and then getting the cops to enforce it. Restraining orders often don’t work anyway. Violence is one way to silence people, to deny their voice and their credibility, to assert your right to control over their right to exist. About three women a day are murdered by spouses or ex-spouses in this country. It’s one of the main causes of death in pregnant women in the U.S. At the heart of the struggle of feminism to give rape, date rape, marital rape, domestic violence, and workplace sexual harassment legal standing as crimes has been the necessity of making women credible and audible.
I tend to believe that women acquired the status of human beings when these kinds of acts started to be taken seriously, when the big things that stop us and kill us were addressed legally from the mid-1970s on; well after, that is, my birth. And for anyone about to argue that workplace sexual intimidation isn’t a life or death issue, remember that Marine Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach, age 20, was apparently killed by her higher-ranking colleague last winter while she was waiting to testify that he raped her. The burned remains of her pregnant body were found in the fire pit in his backyard in December.
> But all I can glean from this article is that the woman who wrote it is blowing her interactions with him a bit out of proportion.
Where do you get this from? It read pretty factual and dry to me.
It also puts the lie to his statement about that other encounter that he 'misread the situation', there clearly was no misreading the situation here and yet he persisted, twice.
You've crossed way over the line into trolling. Since you don't appear to have a history of doing this on HN we haven't banned you, but if you don't stop, we will.
It's one thing to bring up real questions and/or complexities of the broader issues—people have been doing that a lot in these threads recently. The timing for that hasn't necessarily been good but one can at least see how it might come up in good faith. Outright denial is something different.
If you tell someone to leave (NOW!) after they indicate they want to sleep in your bedroom when they've been offered the couch and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.
When someone has sex with another person without their permission it is rape.
I'm by no means a burly red-blooded gentleman, but I can't think of any example from my previous relationships that did not start with either myself or the other making a move which could later have been construed as assault.
Of course adding context to all those situations, it's easy to see that I or the recipient would in all probability welcome the advance, and so it is not assault, however the fine line between "assault" and "relationship" at that point is entirely down to perception, and it makes this entire area massively ugly to try and delineate.
Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.
You're confusing the absence of explicit consent for its explicit denial. Yes means yes, no means no, and starting things up without an explicit conversation is a long and convoluted debate... And what happened here was not that. This was firmly "no means no" territory. Once somebody has asked you to leave, that's a pretty goddamned firm "no".
Yes, there are long and troubling discussions about how so much of sexual advances are silent and how it's hard to discuss consent with those, but this story was way the hell outside of that grey area.
You seem to be identify a valid problem of defining "assault". This is a real problem, and something that policy makers will need to tackle at all levels, but it is not what is being discussed. After someone responds to your request to sleep with them by asking you to leave, you have left the realm of ambiguity.
If you are hanging out with a friend and start getting a bit handsy, then I could see the grey area. But it the cases where it is not wanted, a simple "no", or movement away, or pushing his hands off, etc would be enough to clarify where the line is, and ignoring that would turn it into unambiguous assault.
The situation and context matters. David McClure knew that the event at her apartment was a business meeting, there were many other colleagues, he followed her into her bedroom after the business meeting finished despite her objecting, he propositioned her and she objected and moved away, and THEN he finally tried and failed to kiss her after pinning her into a corner until she could no longer escape. Were your actions in your previous relationships like this? I hope not - for your own sake. Your strawman about a "written legal waiver" does not apply to this scenario.
> Asking for a written legal waiver before planting a kiss on someone you're passionate about seems essentially where all this is leading, and I really can't stand the thought of that.
You won't need a written legal waiver, you could simply ask if it is ok.
If you don't ask you're taking your chances that the other person reads the situation just like you do. Just yesterday a friend of mine ended up in an elevator with someone she ended up having dinner with because their flight got canceled. He tried to force himself on her in the elevator, I'm sure he thought it was ok and I'm also 100% sure that she did not give him any reason to think that kiss would be welcome. Now maybe there is a chance that such a kiss would be welcome, but if it is there is no harm in asking and if it isn't there is a lot of harm in assuming that it is welcome.
It's pretty clear cut to me. And I've never kissed any one of my former partners without making sure that such an attempt was welcome, but then again I haven't had that many opportunities to put this to the test.
I think the written legal waiver was mentioned because it would be the only verifiable evidence to defend yourself against someone claiming such advances were unwarranted.
That's one more reason to make sure they are. If there is ambiguity it is safer to err on the side of caution. Note that anybody that you were in a room with could make up such a story, so you're always going to have to rely on good faith to some extent and false accusations really do happen.
> and then they forcibly kiss you that is in fact sexual assault, in fact even if none of the former had happened it would still be sexual assault. Force => assault.
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
I understand this incident occurred in Malaysia, which doesn't follow US law, but I don't believe they consider it sexual assault either. Some cursory review of LEO online forums is indicated a forcible kiss would be considered the lesser "sexual battery".
"The primary difference between sexual battery and rape is that with battery there is no penetration between the sexual organs. With sexual battery, all that matters is the non-consensual touching of another person's sexual organs. Sexual assault, like the broader crime of assault, constitutes the threat of force."
Even under that definition, I'm unsure if a kiss is considered either sexual assault or sexual battery, since sex organs aren't involved.
IANAL.
Edit: Appreciate the replies! You learn new things every day.
This isn't how you evaluate whether something is criminal in the United States. Virtually all sexual assault (or sexual battery, depending on the jurisdiction) is prosecuted under state statutes. In many states, any coerced sexual touching done for the purposes of gratification constitutes sexual battery. If you search for cases, you will indeed find forced kisses on the mouth prosecuted.
Obviously, the physical coercion McClure used to trap this woman against a wall is, even without the sexual component, itself an assault
"Usually a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person's body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person's consent."
A forced kiss could definitely be interpreted in that way, especially after being told to get lost.
The involvement of 'sex organs' is optional.
Let's parse that statement that you quoted:
> Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.
Lack of consent: check
Sexual contact or behavior: check
Note the 'any type'.
> Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape
Force: check
These are things that definitely fall under the term sexual assault, and a kiss goes quite a bit further than 'fondling', especially if it has already been indicated that such a kiss - and then there are kinds of kisses - is not welcome.
If I was on the defending side I'd hate to have to try to present the McClure case in a way that it might end up in this bracket, possibly that list is exhaustive and as long as the word 'kiss' isn't in the list you might get into 'sexual battery' but frankly I think that's just terminology, if the lady felt assaulted I don't fault her for picking the wrong narrow legal term and I suspect that in plenty of places the judge would see it in the same way.
If you're going to toss out legal language you might want to learn the difference between "battery" (contact happened) and "assault" (no contact required).
Thanks! I've made a note to dive deeper into the difference between the two, although I think the confusion might be more common:
"Historically, battery and assault were considered separate crimes, with battery requiring that the aggressor physically strike or offensively touch the victim. In that way, a battery was a “completed” assault. Many modern statutes don't bother to distinguish between the two crimes, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase "assault and battery" has become as common as "salt and pepper." These days, statutes often refer to crimes of actual physical violence as assaults.
Really?! Does it matter what she was wearing, too?
From the story, she had a bunch of people over, most of them left, one stayed, propositioned her (not assault), heard no, was asked to leave, then forced her into a corner and kissed her (very clearly assault and very clearly sexual harassment IMO [1]).
There are many "grey area" situations surrounding behavior in apartments with alcohol. This, IMO, isn't one of them.
[1] - This previously said "clearly sexual assault" in the parentheses.
He didn't proposition her, he physically sexually assaulted her even when she was very firm that it was not welcome.
I get that there are cases where you can be sympathetic to the guy for misreading the situation or coming off creepy when he was just clumsy about what he thought was a respectful advance. I get that those things happen - this is an industry full of awkward nerds, mistakes are made.
But that's not what happened here, and nobody should pretend otherwise.
As a matter of law you are incorrect (at least in the United States).
"Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape."
That's what the DOJ says. But the standards in the individual states, where these cases are certain to be prosecuted if at all, vary wildly. In some, the assault has to involve an intimate body part. In some, the contact has to be (ugh) "penetrative". In some, any form of coerced touching done for sexual arousal will qualify.
I was responding to "Sexual assault is when someone has sex with another person without their permission" which is incorrect in that it too narrowly defines sexual assault.
Replace "sex" with "sexual act" and you've got it almost word for word. I suppose you could say there's a difference there, though one just seems like a shorthand for the other.
If you two were alone, you had sex, and you go to a doctor later and there are no signs of violence, how can you prove you actually said "no"? Honest question.
It's damn near impossible. Given the amount of pushback women get from the system, something should be done to help. Suffering systematic abuse then having a system that basically says, "You wanted it," must be extremely draining.
Our system is only slightly above ones that require a male relative to have witnessed the assault before accepting that it wasn't the woman who committed a crime.
You probably can't. That affects whether or not you can reasonably pursue it, but doesn't change the objective fact of whether or not it was consensual.
From the article: "After the meeting, Khailee, Dave, and a few others (including two other females), came over to my apartment to brainstorm about 500 Startups’ new Growth / Distribution Accelerator, Cerebro (later rebranded as Distro Dojo) and also a hashtag for MaGIC, the organization that I was leading."
Does this sound like "inviting someone over to your apartment to drink scotch"? Do you think it's appropriate for someone to "come on to you" in this scenario?
Your definition of sexual assault is also completely incorrect. The definition of sexual assault from the US Department of Justice is: "Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient."
I don't know in which country you live but I'm pretty sure that your definition of sexual assault (specifically where you say it is "where someone has sex") isn't what the law says in most countries of the world.
And remember that in most legal systems "ignorance of the law is not excuse".
"At this point, I led him to the door and told him he needs to leave. On the way out, he pushed himself onto me to the point where I was backed into a corner, made contact to kiss me, and said something along the lines of “Just one night, please just this one time.” Then he told me how he really likes strong and smart women like me. Disgusted and outraged, I said no firmly again, pushed him away and made sure he was out my door."
WTF? Where on earth did you get your definition of 'came on to' ?? In my mind, 'coming on to' someone was usually just trying to catch their eyes, attempting to start an awkward conversation to gauge their interest in you etc. etc.
In what universe does forcibly pushing someone physically smaller than you up against a corner and planting your lips on theirs against all their protests count as a standard every day pick up routine????
If a guy who is bigger than you and had the kind of leverage he had did that, I wonder if you would say "aw let's give him a break, he's just hitting on me".
He forcibly backed her into a corner and kissed her, after Cheryl had already rejected his previous advance and asked him to leave. How is that at all okay? WTF is wrong with you?
> Sexual assault is where someone has sex with another person without their permission.
You keep posting that in this thread, but that is wrong both as a matter of common usage AND as a matter of law, at least in Western, english speaking countries.
Good luck as a foreigner in Malaysia approaching the local police to file a complaint for assault based on a forced kiss against another foreigner who happens to be a millionaire. But that doesn't make it right.
Note that it is extremely hard to get these cases to go anywhere in the West where you know the law and where the lines tend to be drawn rather sharper than in Asia (unless there is drugs involved).
I do not believe that Malaysian police take a laidback attitude to sexual assault reports sd you have implied here. Even cases of a woman being sexually assaulted by another woman is also taken seriously in Malaysia. I think you need to stop having preconceived ideas about South East Asian countries. They might look similar but they are not.
"Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape, including marital rape, is a criminal offense,
as are most forms of domestic violence. The penal code states that rape is
punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years and whipping. Marital rape does not
have a minimum penalty, but the maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment.
According to women’s groups, an average of 10 women were raped each day;
more than half of these women were under 16. A study by All Women’s Action
Society found only one in 10 reported rape cases came to court. A report by the
Women’s Centre for Change showed that perpetrators were convicted in only 4 to
6 percent of cases. The latest police statistics available showed 2,718 rapes were
reported in 2013, of which 52 percent involved girls age 16 and below.
Cultural attitudes and a reported lack of sympathy from the largely male police
force resulted in many victims not reporting rapes. Many government hospitals
had crisis centers where victims of rape and domestic abuse could make reports
without going to a police station. NGOs and political parties also cooperated to
provide counseling for rape victims. Women’s groups asserted that courts were
inconsistent in punishing rapists."
So, how much do you think would happen if a foreigner reported a forced kiss by another foreigner?
I have edited my comment in light of your response to more precisely reflect my claim that it is assault and sexual harassment, but depending on jurisdiction I agree that it may not meet the legal definition of sexual assault.
There's no doubt legitimate criticism to be made of that comment but taking only the worst part of it, exaggerating it uncharitably, then doubling that and flinging it in outrage is the sort of cheap tit-for-tat users need to avoid here—regardless of how righteous their cause. If you want to play that game, there are other places on the internet.
You have a long history of posting abrasively and indeed abusively to Hacker News. Even though we've cut you a ton of slack and given you more warnings than most, that path leads to getting banned. Please stop.
This. I find it hard to believe the entire "teach English in Asia" industry is fueled by people who base their decision on some fantasy to have sex with Asians (or just their students? I'm not sure what they are implying), and it certainly doesn't mesh with my experience of English teachers abroad.
Moreover it's not only westerners (or only men) who go teach over there. I see people teach English (and to lesser degree other languages) who are not white [diff people from Africa, South America, etc.,] who teach English --moreover, those teachers typically stay in a country a year or two and return home or go onto another country and region; inexplicably, there seem to be an overrepresentation of Canadians. Many of them take the job because it pays relatively better than the alternative back home.
Do _some_ suffer from some fetishism[1], I'm sure --but in my estimation, it's not many.
[1] Charisma Man speaks to the stereotypical western geek who suddenly finds himself attractive in a different culture trope.
'Censorship' has become more pejorative than informative, but you're right that users are downvoting and flagging comments; I think pretty fairly. Wherever moderators have intervened (in any way that affects comment visibility), we've posted comments saying so. That goes for the previous threads too.
Not every kind of comment is welcome here. HN is trying for higher-quality discussion. (Trying and failing, of course. But we can always fail better.) Comments that destroy the possibility of higher-quality discussion should certainly be flagged—otherwise the community is hostage to every kind of trolling.
Trying to re-frame a discussion about the victimization of women to include offhand comments about men is not just off-topic but insensitive too. In the general case, you can't do that in any discussion where tensions are high without either doing it deftly and articulately or being quickly shouted down.
Out of all the topics that come up from time to time on HN, this one is pretty much unique in that there is strictly one point of view acceptable to put forward, and every other one is guaranteed to get you instantly flag-killed under the guise of "wanting high quality discussion". If I valued my Internet Points, I'd just steer clear of these altogether and go click through to a React vs. Angular discussion instead.
That's not true at all, as anyone who skims through the last few days' threads on the topic can easily see.
The one thing that ideologically committed HN readers all seem to agree on is that the community is full of (and the mods secretly in league with) their enemies. If you were in my shoes I bet you'd find it as surreal as I do how consistently we get hit with this critique from all sides. The sincerity these claims get made with is similar in all cases, but obviously they can't all be right because their interpretations are opposite.
I don't imply 'we must be doing things right if all sides are criticizing us like that'; that's a bad argument because the truth doesn't average out that way. But I do think that perceptions of this question are dominated by cognitive bias in way that makes it hard to have a clear conversation, and also that this criticism will be made at approximately the same rate regardless of what we do.
Hey, dang, I agree mods in any public forum have a thankless job, and there will always be people assuming you're part of whatever conspiracy they think exists to censor them--it goes with the territory. You guys do your best to keep this place troll-free, and because of that, HN seems to be, for most topics, one of the last bastions of civil discussions left on the net. I'm sure it's why a lot of us keep coming back, so thank you.
My point was, whenever you have that mix of 1. an emotionally charged topic, 2. strong, existing community norms, and 3. a public, linear (up + down = 0) voting/flagging system, you're bound to get the results we're seeing in this discussion: comments that reinforce the community's norms being promoted and comments that don't being demoted. This shouldn't surprise anyone who's been on the Internet for more than a few days. Reasonable people can debate the normal run-of-the-mill HN topics, but ones like these don't seem to have much room.
Anyway, I wasn't planning to continue this discussion, but since you provided a thoughtful reply I figured I owed an attempt to do the same.
Every comment I've seen so far that has been dead or flagged down had these two properties:
1. Honestly attempting to contribute new information and views to the conversation, or asking new questions.
2. Opinion or assumptions would be considered immoral from a certain (currently dominant) point of view.
It seems pretty clear to me that "high-quality" is being conflated with "reinforces my moral convictions" or "upholds my tribal sacred values".
There should be an effort to push back against this (though it'd take a really deep commitment to free speech and against moral/tribal orthodoxy as a general principle). It seems unlikely but one can hope.
EDIT: Hilariously, I'm getting downvotes for this. There's an Inception joke in here somewhere.
HN isn't an ideological battleground. In general, it's for whatever gratifies intellectual curiosity. The flagged comments may have contributed information, but most of them share a common trait: they're incendiary.
The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral. It's not easy to do. People are generally passionate about their points of view, and I've been guilty of this myself. But the ideal is worth striving for.
In particular, complaining about downvotes is also against the rules. I did this the other day and regretted it; it unfairly catapulted my comment to the top of the thread due to the overcorrection, and by then it was too late to edit. It's better to let a comment stand or fall on its own merits, as difficult as that is.
>The way to introduce a controversial idea on HN is to be substantive and neutral.
I agree in principle. But standards should be applied the same way to all comments with regard to viewpoints.
What I'm seeing is that the same standards aren't being applied to different viewpoints.
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
I understand people are tribal and some just want to suppress dissent and maintain the power of their orthodoxy. But I also hope a place like HN can rise above such tribalism.
(regarding downvote complaints I don't disagree with the general policy.. if you're referring to my comment you replied to here I didn't intend to complain, only to point out the irony and perhaps try to cue some downvoters to consider what they're doing from a further remove).
You can see the content of flagged comments by going into your profile settings and turning on the [showdead] option. Currently there are 26 flagged comments, so to pick a few random ones:
"By that standard, the only way to never do anything inappropriate is to never do anything."
"It's interesting that you construct a whole evil persona for someone..."
"When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex..."
"I cannot understand why sexual harassment takes such a toll on women. I've been sexually harassed by other men before, and somehow it wasn't as big of a problem..."
I didn't cherry-pick the above examples; they were just the first few that showed up with Command-F [flagged]. "Incendiary" is still probably the best way to describe these comments, which is why they're flagged. The other reason is shallowness on a controversial topic, which usually leads to flamewars.
If you see a comment that breaks a specific guideline in https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html then you're encouraged to flag it. (You need a certain amount of karma to see the flag button.) The main reason that the comments you mention aren't flagged is usually because they don't violate any of the guidelines. The system isn't perfect, but it seems to work remarkably well given the size of HN's audience.
Regarding talking about downvotes, I understand and can relate to the point of view. To clarify, I didn't mean anything by the word "complain." The reason to avoid mentioning "downvotes" at all is because (a) talking about downvotes spawns low-quality subthreads almost instantly, and (b) it gives your comment an unfair advantage. HN's voting system fluctuates wildly thanks to the diversity of the people that now have the privilege of downvoting, but in general, high-quality substantive comments tend to rise.
If you want to give a few examples of comments you feel were unfairly flagged, or unflagged comments that you feel break the guidelines, I'd be happy to chat about those. (We're currently in a flagged subthread, so there's no harm in continuing our conversation.)
EDIT: To address one specific point more thoroughly:
An orthodox viewpoint can be written casually, unsourced, tinged with moral judgment, etc, and still get away unflagged and not downvoted. An unorthodox viewpoint will get ripped apart on the tiniest error, missing source, or mis-chosen wordage.
Unorthodox, controversial viewpoints are indeed held to a higher standard, but the reason is because it fosters better conversation. For these, HN is optimized for substantive-but-neutral. Deviating from either axis tends to produce flamewars of the worst caliber.
Not every flagged comment has been flagged undeservedly, but some of them have.
I agree that there is a trend on HN where comments that go against the "moral convictions" or politics of the majority are flagged. It's disappointing to see this happening.
Flagging a poorly worded or clearly incendiary comment is fair. That's not what has happened to some of the comments for this article. I hesitate to call it censorship, but it comes close.
I feel that my two comments, although tone deaf, possibly misguided, and certainly not well worded, were good faith comments that did not overtly violate guidelines.
I've never had my comments on hn flagged before and can't help but think I wandered into a minefield. Nearly half of the top level comments on this thread are flagged. If you include the ones that are downvoted into oblivion it is fully half at the time of this writing.
Is that because this article is beset by trolls, or because the conversation is being stifled?
Hard to say. But I know my intention was good faith.
How many times do you have to choose to not walk down a particular street at night because of the real risk that you will be raped?
How many times have you have to 'politely' brush off some random creep, without hurting his feelings, to avoid being intimidated, coerced and assaulted?
It's almost impossible to comprehend if you don't live with the very real possibility hanging over your head that today is the day when someone, most likely someone you know, is going to try to rape you
All it takes is one incident to indicate the possibility that something can occur. It can profoundly change your outlook on the world. Depending on the event this can be irreversibly negative.
> Generalized sexist statements and behavior that convey insulting or degrading attitudes about women (e.g. Insulting remarks, obscene jokes or humor about sex or women in general)
This should be generalized to include both sexes. I often see insulting or degrading comments about men by people in the tech world, especially with terms like "mansplaining".
People sometimes ask me why I think Silicon Valley should be razed and the earth salted once the rubble is cleared. This thread and the people in it are a great example of why.
Don't date women from work. Don't dip your pen in the company ink, guys. Just from a power perspective, there's no way to get it right, even if you think she's your peer.
That's good advice for people _already_ in a relationship. I don't think that's good advice for singles. Outside of school (writ large) work is one of the places people get to know each other, socialize and mingle. It would be sad to see one of the main places people get to meet to be set "off-limits".
There is nothing mysterious. Just don't be crude. Don't buck convention. Know accepted social norms.
Oh goodness, why take that risk? Why would a single guy aching for sex start their hunt in the workplace? Your concept of what the workplace is for is really screwed up. Unwise. Foolish danger.
I have been told stories of companies with no-dating rules where inevitable attraction and secret love affair between coworkers led them to both quit in order to go public with their romance.
That's not what I'm talking about. Obviously, nature is powerful, and attraction between coworkers can just simply happen. I'm not talking about accidents, which are hopefully few and far between. I'm talking about conscious choices that men make.
It's not like there aren't equally convenient ways to meet women to those at work. If you want a (chaotic) hookup, get on Tinder or Craig's List or the local club. If you want the thrill of the meat market, try Match. If you'd like to get married, goto eharmony.
Not defending McClure but it's worth noting sexual assault and 'unwanted touching' are different problems that require different solutions. Any classification system used here should probably differentiate the two. When you combine them you suggest they're the same which does a disservice to those who have been sexually assaulted (defined as assault with/on a sexual organ). The low-fidelity of language here confuses people which then confuses statistics which leads to ineffective policy.
I do think there is a possible SAAS app here for employees to report these incidents in a confidential way and to help shape the culture by providing an immediate notification to the McClure-types that their behavior is both being tracked and isn't going to be tolerated. This would promote immediate action on the part of the company instead of needing a dozen or so claims, a viral blog post, and or a nytimes article before action is taken.
Reading the "kudos" from men who thought he was a great guy for coming forward only after years of harassment came to a head was unpleasant.
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