Thread by @jhamby

I bet 70% of straight men have probably been reported to HR for making some kind of inappropriate advance at least once. Maybe not groping or anything that would make the news as a horror story. Maybe not things that would get them fired. Even me. I did learn from my mistakes. 😞

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by @dearsarah view original on Twitter

I think a lot of men are laying low right now for making the wrong comment to the wrong person. Might not even be something sexual. White people especially say unintentionally racist (or transphobic, etc.) stuff that gets them in trouble with HR.

I think all the talk of backlash comes from fear that everyone’s times that they made anyone uncomfortable ever will be called out on Twitter & they will be lepers forever.

I bet I’m on at least one informal “shitty men” list for asking inappropriate questions in private emails.

But that was some years ago. I’ve since learned that it’s never appropriate to mix tech professional & romantic feelings, even if you’re not in any sort of working or managerial relationship.

The downside of a bad reaction is too strong, no matter the original intentions.

Even just asking someone if they have a boyfriend can lead to instant blocking & lifelong excommunication from someone’s circle of friends if they feel threatened by a man.

This isn’t written down anywhere; corporate harassment training focuses (like HR) on corporate liability.

They’ll throw all employees under the bus, both the victims & the harassers, to protect the bottom line.

Case in point: extremely senior search engineer Amit Singhal got fired from Google for sexual harassment. Or he would have been fired if he hadn’t suddenly resigned.

I do wonder how many women in tech Sergey Brin has hit on, at Google, at TED talks, and so on.

Brin always seemed to me like someone who would be impulsive enough to use his charisma, & not necessarily for good. Eric Schmidt is the other major “playboy” there. No firsthand info.

It’s the stuff that happened outside of work that’s going to be in the news. Hopefully people have been more careful since events like “Donglegate”.

Appropriateness is a real blind spot, especially if you have ADHD or are on the autism spectrum. We have to be especially careful.

And that’s assuming you actually *want* to be appropriate & not creep women out, or their friends, who you might have to work with in the future.

If you’re a predator in tech who just wants to abuse people… you can end up with an Uber situation fast. Even Tesla sounds gross.

So HR does probably do a good job, 90% of the time, in stopping people, especially men, from causing trouble due to their hormones.

But they’re often not proactive because they don’t want to enforce strict bounds at “social” events & harsh anyone’s mellow.

Anyway, Silicon Valley is an extremely sexless place, because the gender imbalance sets so many people on edge for long periods of time, and nobody wants to get in trouble (again) with anyone else.

The stories coming out are a consequence of behavior that never got called out.