Lessons from being sexually harassed at Google

https://medium.com/@juliachou/it-s-not-your-fault-3e5ad1ccb95c#.4y3a3ov71

by chirau • 11 years ago

57 37 11 years ago

la6470• 11 years ago

Yeah and also some people like to use the f word liberally in office to prove a point or speak some American slang to sound cool. I don't like it and I send memo to HR on each one of them.

someone7x• 11 years ago

Am I witnessing Poe's law?

shifter• 11 years ago

I wholly disagree with the use of that word as being offensive.

That said, you should talk to the person in question if you are uncomfortable so they have a chance to "correct" their behavior when around you. That's the generally accepted best practice.

kelukelugames5• 11 years ago

I think f-word sensitivity may be a generational or regional thing. People outside of tech think its horrendous.

sehr• 11 years ago

American slang? Do you mean fuck, or the other f word?

billiam• 11 years ago

There are a lot of reasons for the persistent sexual harassment and sexism in Silicon Valley. A narrow and self-reinforcing culture, complacency stemming from the misconception that it is a meritocracy, and the relative immaturity of a lot of employees. But as I see more and more talented women at good companies opt out in one way or another, more serious measures need to be taken. More training that is not seen as a joke, and just a lot more large and small ways to show that women will have a safe and supportive workplace. I'm hopeful that that ultimately the selfish demand for good engineers from this immensely talented group will drive change.

mc322• 11 years ago

Sexual harassment is hardly the province of technology focused companies. Its reasons are varied and at times culture affects perception (compare behavior and acceptance in France, Mexico, and the US) not saying one or the other is worse, just different.

Never the less, sexual harassment is an issue, it's an issue in tech, but it's an issue in the workplace in general. I think one difference is the willingness to report sexual or any harassment tends to be higher where the workforce is more economically secure as well as better educated. I other words a server at McDs might not be willing to be as jeopardize a job as someone with alternatives, access to attorneys and support network.

So, it will seem like the problem is more problematic in tech, finance, etc, whereas in actuality the problem may be much bigger in other areas of the economy.

The point is this tech isn't an incubator for harassment, it's present everywhere in perhaps greater degree, so addressing it as such (a big issue) rather than that thing that happens in tech, would better serve American society.

knughit2• 11 years ago

Male on female sexual harassment is worse per female capita (which is the effect people complain about, whether the realize it or not) wherever women are a smaller minority. This is basic math. It isn't anything special about SV culture beyond that. The base rate of male on female sexual harassment varies locally due to accidents of cultural background history. Having females in positions of power can likely help with that, so it is all tied into the virtuous/vicious cycles that relate to gender imbalance.

And techie women are better than average of raising awareness of problems in their industry, because they know how to Internet.

kelukelugames5• 11 years ago

If you look at EEOC cases, most of them are from less prestigious industries. However, of all the elite professionals, tech workers seem the most immature. I think it's a combination of gender ratio and less developed soft skills.

Though my friends have horror stories from law, finance, and consulting too.

Link: http://www.eeoc.gov/search/search?access=p&entqr=0&output=xm...

AdmiralAsshat• 11 years ago

I'm glad that going to HR actually worked for her. Most people (i.e. anyone that's not employed by the company) would tell you to never go to HR.

EliRivers• 11 years ago

It's certainly something to consider; HR exists to protect the company. I suspect it depends on ensuring that the harasser is portrayed as the person threatening the company, rather than the complainant.

tyingq• 11 years ago

Indeed. Going to HR when the harasser has high value to the company might work differently...

http://www.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/2015/03/07/former-google-e...

namelezz• 11 years ago

I am not sure what you mean by "worked out for her." The manager is still at Google. She is the one that moved to a different team and eventually left.

JoeAltmaier• 11 years ago

My experience (working at a company where someone reported an incident to HR) was, the folks responsible for the harassment were gone on Monday. Their offices cleaned out; the entire (2 people) department's duties reassigned; their name off of all lists and meetings. As if they never existed.

This is not incompatible with HR working for the company. They did their damnedest to protect the company from a lawsuit.

gozur88• 11 years ago

If it ends up in court they're going to make the case that they can't be expected to address problems they don't know about.

lern_too_spel• 11 years ago

It's a joke that her manager was allowed to stay and even continue to be her manager and have a hand in her promotion. From several stories I've heard about Google HR, I can't say I'm surprised.

peterwwillis• 11 years ago

I find the switch in culture between companies and even internal departments to be almost frightening. One place you go has competent, adult, respectful individuals, and then you just move down the hall to a different department and it's immature, angry, inappropriate pranksters who never grew up. If anything proves to me that a culture of sexual harassment can survive in this day and age, it's the weird inconsistency of what people think is acceptable behavior, combined with a lack of strong positive leadership.

scotty792• 11 years ago

Would it help to teach on the new employee on-boarding one official way how to tell co-worker, even (especially?) superior one, to f*ck off, that everyone could use as a clear message in case somebody loses his/her mind and attempts to make unwanted personal advances?

It would save HR a lot of work and many young employees a lot of confusion and stress.

knughit2• 11 years ago

What's to teach? Everyone knows how to say "stop it." The hard part is feeling safe saying it.

scotty792• 11 years ago

They could teach to literally say "f_ck off" to your manager in such cases (provided that that's not something employees say to each other casually). I'm thinking of kind of "safe word" that doesn't require thinking or sugaring the pill that you can utter with shocking effect that clearly communicates you don't want to play.

What I mean is that this teaching should instill in employees the confidence that it's totally ok and safe and even advised practice to say "f_ck off" to your manager if s/he makes unwanted personal advances and to report them to HR if they don't.

If the only way to deal with harassment is to report it to HR people will hesitate because it's severe, it's process, it involves other people (and HR is not your friend).

It is all the things that you might want to save the person that might honestly misread you because he's a dumbass.

Companies should kind of own up to the fact that their employees are not asexual and that some people make some misguided attempts to flirt with co-workers and some accept the flirt and reciprocate.

Female colleague from the story who thought she was blowing the situation out of proportion probably had way more liberal opinion of office mating games.

Instead of outright banning this they should just discourage it (because it breeds conflict) and create obvious way for employees to clearly opt-out from this office activity (because those that don't want to play are horrified by human mating rituals, myself included).

I think in old days simple slap in the face had this role (totally unacceptable today, today's men can grow up without being slapped even once so they wouldn't think it's an assault or some SM sh_t). Not sure though what were men doing 50 years ago to fend off female advances apart from wearing a ring and acting completely disinterested.

GVIrish2• 11 years ago

It would take more than that. Bystanders also need to have it impressed upon them to speak up when they see inappropriate behavior as well. The onus shouldn't fall completely on the victim of harassment to report the behavior.

pc862• 11 years ago

It's conceivable that a superior and a subordinate could have a mutual relationship. Yes, there could certainly be obvious cases where the advances are not wanted or reciprocated, but I'm not convinced that having uninvolved third parties filing complaints is the best route.

kelukelugames5• 11 years ago

It takes time to choose the appropriate action because harassment can be traumatizing. But people should always document what happened and decide later. Make a timeline. Record on pen and paper the day and time, exact quotes, behaviors, and people around.

seivan• 11 years ago

You mean collecting actual evidence so it doesn't end up being he said she said?

Isn't that victim blaming? Sorry about the manquestioning and the use of micro-aggressive gendered pronouns.

kelukelugames5• 11 years ago

This is not a legal advice.

Yes, the first piece of legal advice people receive is make a timeline on pen and paper. When you report something to HR, they also write everything down on pen and paper. I don't know why. I'm not a lawyer.

mywittyname• 11 years ago

I've see so much of this first-hand that it was a major reason why I left my previous job (I'm male). My manager was constantly touching female coworkers (back rubs, hugs) and he would always bring up his and their sex lives. One time during our standup, he talked about how much alcohol a female coworker drank with him when they were out of town on company business together -- it was pretty clear that he was implying he slept with her. He's also cornered women at an after work social and asked her how she would like to feel his beard between her legs while another team member kept grabbing her waist.

No one will speak up because he's too important and most of the women need the jobs (single mothers or primary bread winners). He gets away with most of this stuff in full view of the company.

kelukelugames5• 11 years ago

This is a toxic work environment. Harassment happens so frequently that it has become the norm.

Wait a few months and write an anonymous review on glassdoor or publish something somewhere. Things don't get better until we name names.

nshunter• 11 years ago

Honestly, what's described in this article seems to cross into sexual assault rather than just harassment. Moving into blatant physical contact, such as kissing, is escalation beyond suggestion and inappropriate comments.

leshow• 11 years ago

It doesn't sound good, but it depends a lot on the context, I have a lot of friends who are European, and they greet men and women by kissing them on the cheek.

However if she's just sitting in his office and out of no where he lays one on her cheek? Yeah that's weird. Again, context.

ygjb• 11 years ago

but it depends a lot on the context

No. It was unwanted contact. It is, at a minimum harassment, and at worst assault.

Arguing context about one bit of behavior in the context of a pattern of harassment is insulting to a victim of harassment.

JDiculous2• 11 years ago

In that week, I was kissed on the cheek

Yea, that sounds inappropriate, though it'd be nice to get context.

asked to sit on my manager’s lap

Wtf? Yea, that's messed up. Again, it'd be nice to get some context.

told about my manager’s sex life and virility

Inappropriate work conversation sure, but not necessarily "sexual harassment".

told that “all men go through an Asian fetish at some time,”

Again that might be inappropriate work conversation, but I wouldn't necessarily deem that sexual harassment. Definitely depends on the context.

Why wasn't the manager fired?

My one gripe with these kinds of articles is that context is generally ignored. We've seen enough false accusations (eg. Adria Richards) that I think it's important for real victims who're going to write articles on these topics accusing others of wrongdoing to be more detailed in their accounts if they want to be taken more seriously. (Remember the fiasco with the Google employee who claimed that she was sexually harassed because somebody she looked good in a bathing suit at a work retreat?)

pvaldes• 11 years ago

Being sexually harassed is neither acceptable nor funny. I don't want to relativize the real cases.

But being too thin-skinned in the office is also bad. In many european countries it is expected for new people to be (politely) kissed in the cheek as salute when introduced to coworkers of the opposite sex in the team. This is the common salute and social rule and is not seen as harassment at all. This can be a little shocking for people from other cultures; but most fully grown people should be able to fine tune quickly their expectations; and safely navigate around the most common social conflicts.

Lessons from being sexually harassed at Google

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