Tinder sued for sexual harassment by former co-founder

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/07/01/us-tinder-lawsuit-harrassment-idUKKBN0F52JC20140701

by smartera • 12 years ago

156 148 12 years ago

uk.reuters.com

wellboy2• 12 years ago

Wow, if this is true, what a horrible person. All the efforts to get more women interested in tech, trampled. Hopefully, people will learn from this how to not do it and that still in 2014 misogynism is completely present and will get swept under the carpet.

purringmeow3• 12 years ago

The article stated the lawsuit has been started and I didn't see any verdict. So let's not be quick to judge, we've heard only 1 side of the story.

MangezBien2• 12 years ago

Is there another side that would make any of these actions acceptable? I can't think of any.

j4kp072• 12 years ago

Really? One bad breakup between two C-types and "ALL" of the efforts to bring MORE women into tech is trampled?

IMHO...this has nothing to do with Tinder or the parent company. Because, guess what happens when you decide to enter the dating world? You may get burned, called bad names or become generally upset.

So don't shit where you eat and then blame the cafeteria for the bad taste left in your mouth.

Loughla• 12 years ago

No, but that's why many cafeterias have a 'no shitting where you eat' policy that results in immediate termination.

instaheat4• 12 years ago

Thank you. I agree. I don't know why I got downvoted so much for my comment.

wellboy2• 12 years ago

One bad breakup between two C-types and "ALL" of the efforts to bring MORE women into tech is trampled?

Well, yeah. Only half of the efforts trampeled?

zacharycohn• 12 years ago

This has everything to do with Tinder when the CEO is aware of harassment and abuse, yet does nothing.

easytiger2• 12 years ago

IMHO this has nothing to do with tech either. Could easily replace tinder with a used car sales company and no one would be suprised.

DanielBMarkham4• 12 years ago

I don't want to comment on this particular story. These are terrible allegations and they deserve their day in court. There's also a drive-by, rubber-necking, gossip-mongering aspect to these stories. Hate to contribute to it.

I would like to comment on all the heat sexual discrimination cases are getting in the public eye lately. (I have no idea if the number of actual cases are increasing, decreasing, or staying the same). Big, public, messy scandals are no good for anybody, and they're not a new phenomenon.

We have various professions where lawsuits of a sexual nature can be especially damaging. A couple that come to mind right off the bat are politicians and religious leaders.

I've heard that in many cases, the threat of an unfounded lawsuit is so great, and it could cause so much harm, that folks are sticking with same-sex environments where there are always 3 or more people in a room together.

I wonder if we'll see such adaptations in the startup industry. It could be that the public outcry after so many of these things, to include more women, might actually drive out more highly segregated work environments. It bears watching.

ChuckMcM2• 12 years ago

I was wondering a related question, which is whether or not there is a higher, similar, or lower incidence of sexual harassment in "technology" firms than other firms of similar size (number of employees, annual revenue).

It is not uncommon for people who work together, to get romantically involved in spite of advice against such relationships. But I don't see anything specifically 'tech' related that would make this more or less likely. Hence the question.

DanielBMarkham4• 12 years ago

Call me cynical, but when I read all the comments on sites like this and others about these lawsuits in the tech industry, it leads me to believe that a lot of writers and editors somewhere are not idiots -- they're digging these things up and feeding them to us.

That didn't answer your question, I know. My point is that there are tons of tech companies. It can certainly appear to be a tremendous surge when in fact it's just a small extra effort made in reporting cases. Without a statistical survey we can't be sure.

We can be sure about the economics of creating content, though.

With this kind of visceral reaction, it's a publisher's dream. Not only can you report the allegation, then you can report the reply, then the comments from the community, then the play-by-play action in court, etc. Just gauge how much effort to put into it by how many pageviews you're pulling. Newspaper 101 stuff.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

It is not uncommon for people who work together, to get romantically involved in spite of advice against such relationships

Is there any correlation between long work-weeks and romantic relationships between employees? Have any studies been done of this?

I'm reminded of Philip Greenspun's "How To Make Your Software Engineers Work 80 Hours A Week" article [1] about ArsDigita where he got his employees to work crazy hours while he was dating one of his employees. That's the part that was most offensive to me when I first read it years ago ("girlfriend for me but not for thee"). Other parts offend me more these days, but I'm still wondering if a good policy against sexual harassment is to make sure your employees have time outside of work to find someone to copulate with.

[1] http://philip.greenspun.com/ancient-history/managing-softwar...

tbrownaw2• 12 years ago

anything specifically 'tech' related

Two possibilities come to mind.

One, the nerd/geek stereotype where those of us more interested in high tech are supposed to have worse social skills; this would lead to more defective attempts at starting relationships, and to more of the relationships that do happen going bad.

Two, the inherent necessary hubris of startup culture and the noise around "10x" or "rock-star" or "A-player" etc programmers, the apparent canonization of people like Jobs and Zuckerberg; the resulting pervasive sense of entitlement and superiority would also not make for healthy relationships.

dsr_• 12 years ago

What professions have lawsuits of a sexual nature that are not especially damaging, please?

gormo2• 12 years ago

Politicians.

tptacek5• 12 years ago

I don't know about politicians and religious leaders, but somehow or another law firms, accounting firms, management consultants and medical practices seem to manage without needing rules about having "always 3 or more people in a room together".

Look at the numbers. There are still pay equity issues all over the place, but in terms of participation, every other white collar industry puts technology to shame. 66% of staff attorneys are women. ~40% of biglaw partners are. And in law, 40% is a problem. In technology, it would be a dream.

DanielBMarkham4• 12 years ago

I'm not arguing what is required. I'm simply pointing out the adaptation some actors have used in similar circumstances. I'm also making no comment one way or another about women in tech.

alexeisadeski3• 12 years ago

Pay not at parity = problem

Participation not at parity = problem

Harassment suits not at parity = everything is fine?

easytiger2• 12 years ago

And yet technology implementation is the single most accessible industry I can think of, with most of those, esp in Europe, who succeed at it, being largely autodidacts. Everything you need to learn is there and free and you can do it in your bedroom.

The industries you cite are largely people businesses with restricted knowledge paths and require intense experience and with outcome of individual projects being much more vague and often predetermined by the inputs they received when taking on the project.

In technology, it would be a dream.

My feeling is that females in tech are largely suffering from the outcome of some inherent risk analysis that we experience. Girls are more likely to take definite paths with known success ratios.

This brings the question, why don't we have significant outliers in female in tech given the low barrier to entry at the root level.

samd• 12 years ago

Implicit in your comments is the idea that you can't work with women without the risk of lawsuits. This is classic victim-blaming.

The problem is not the lawsuits. The problem is harassment, and further, the men who are so incapable of not harassing women that they segregate their workplaces.

We should recognize that the number of lawsuits pales in comparison to the incidence of actual harassment. We should be blaming the perpetrators of this harassment, and the men who would avoid working with women rather than change their behavior. We should not be blaming the women who raise these suits, or decrying their nature, as there is a very real and serious problem of sexual harassment in our industry.

crassus• 12 years ago

Allegations of "Victim blaming" are a classic tactic to shut down discussion by implying that anyone who steps out of the appropriate mental box will be deemed an accomplice.

gizmo686• 12 years ago

Allegations of victim blaming tend to be used to shut down conversastion rather then contribute to it. There are times when mentioning victim blaming is appropriate, but you have to be extra careful with this concept.

If anything, this case is system-blaming. More importantly, it is looking at how the system works, and what unintended effects are attempts to improve have. Specifically, observing that the increase is lawsuits leads to the creating of single gender environments, harming other metrics of gender equality. There is no concept of blame in this observation. It is merely a conjecture about cause and effect which can be used to make more informed choices.

Having recognized this we may decide that sexual harrasment lawsuits are not worth it, in which case I may leave the country. Or we could look for ways to conduct these lawsuits in a way that is less damaging. Or we may decide to use/develop other responses to sexual harrasment before going to a lawsuit.

This is a discussion that needs to be had, and your response preculudes it.

byerley• 12 years ago

Nothing of that nature was implied; rather, you read misogyny into the comment due to your own biases.

The original post was very careful not to put either sex in either role. It even went so far as to not exclude homosexual relations by suggesting that you'd want three people in the room despite a segregated workplace.

Your post, in contrast, insists that harassment suits are always filed by woman against men. It goes so far as to suggest these hypothetical employers must be men and that their motivation is an inability to control themselves.

The implication was simply that as sexual harassment cases become more costly, it may be pragmatic to take more drastic measures to prevent them. I'm very disgusted by your post.

vor_5• 12 years ago

Your post is an example of concern-trolling. You're implanting the idea that this lawsuit is part of some greater threat of unfounded sexual harrassment lawsuits, disregarding the fact that the inappropriate messages were confirmed by his employer. Additionally, you've "heard" that the filing of sexual harassment lawsuits has caused some sort of draconian same-sex policy, somewhere. You end with the threat that there will be a public backlash to "so many of these things" being filed by women, implying that they should keep quiet.

_delirium2• 12 years ago

The complaint is here, fwiw: http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...

spaldingwell• 12 years ago

Some pretty bad stuff that Buzzfeed found in the complaint: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm...

raverbashing• 12 years ago

Crap, that's really over the top

swalkergibson2• 12 years ago

Wow.

What a steaming pile of useless crap Mr. Mateen is. Those texts are ruthless and unrelenting. I hope that she gets millions in compensation and this asshat gets fired immediately. Fucking prick.

sergiotapia3• 12 years ago

He-said-she-said, bleh. And these things come to light after a breakup between the two of them. Seriously, who would trust what either of them say? It'll get settled in court no doubt, but let's not jump on the bandwagon here.

Edit: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm... - If this is real the guy is a real piece of shit. -This- is the type of guy who should be removed from his company. If the guy in Github was forced to leave this is probably a sure-thing.

kibibu• 12 years ago

He-said-she-said, bleh

Documented by text messages in the complaint

sergiotapia3• 12 years ago

Then that's good, no more hearsay nonsense. Let's hope justice is served. The complaint wasn't linked in the original article.

kaonashi2• 12 years ago

He-said-she-said, bleh.

It sounds like there is documentary evidence, so I'm wondering why you would characterize it like that.

jessaustin4• 12 years ago

TIL it's a bad idea to date your direct report or your boss.

sergiotapia3• 12 years ago

Hahaha, I know right. You think this is common sense...yet here we are.

danielweber8• 12 years ago

If this really is a TIL then it needs more reporting. Every professional should be aware of this guideline, and why it's important.

EDIT on re-reading this was pretty obvious sarcasm that I missed.

jrockway2• 12 years ago

In the other article, there was a link to the actual court filing with exhibits. The cofounder was definitely harassing her, unless the text messages were faked or grossly out of context.

You could say that she egged him on and was not exactly the pinnacle of maturity, but harassment is illegal and egging someone on is not.

renaudg2• 12 years ago

"Harassment is illegal and egging someone on is not."

Isn't that the root issue ?

xienze7• 12 years ago

unless the text messages were faked

It's not that far-fetched to believe that. The texts are just screen captures of iMessage, not phone company records.

nailer• 12 years ago

The texts: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm...

Edit: changing my opinion on this one. Originally I thought, reading those texts, it was a case of relationship drama at work, from what seemed to be the end of an existing consensual relationship. Relationships at work are dumb, but not illegal.

However, texting "you'll regret acting this way" to a subordinate is pretty damning.

kaonashi2• 12 years ago

"We unequivocally condemn these messages," the spokesman said, "but believe that Ms. Wolfe’s allegations with respect to Tinder and its management are unfounded.”

Uh-huh.

dbloom9• 12 years ago

Before we all jump on the "he-said-she-said" bandwagon, keep in mind that IAC (Tinder's parent company) has confirmed that Mr. Mateen did send harassing messages to Ms. Wolfe:

"Through that process, it has become clear that Mr. Mateen sent private messages to Ms. Wolfe containing inappropriate content." <http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/06/30/tinder-sexual-...

The rest of the allegations are unproven, but the allegation that Mr. Mateen harassed Ms. Wolfe is, for all intents and purposes, 100% factual. There's no reason to defend this guy.

j4kp072• 12 years ago

Key word: Private.

Where do you draw the line when you work with and are dating the same person? The only fault I see here on IAC is hiring people who are dating.

aikah• 12 years ago

IANAL but AFAIK if I send a mail to you it's not private and can totally be accepted as evidence in a court of law.There is no notion of privacy in sending a mail,a text message,... the only thing that would not be admissible is if I recorded a conversation between us without telling you you are on record.

dbloom9• 12 years ago

Key word: Private.

This is a ballpark guess, but probably about 99% of workplace harassment is done privately.

Where do you draw the line when you work with and are dating the same person? The only fault I see here on IAC is hiring people who are dating.

If a manager has a relationship with a subordinate, the manager should be held accountable for that, not the subordinate.

tootie• 12 years ago

I think the accusation is that she was mistreated at work because of this.

alttab3• 12 years ago

I say shame on them both for getting romantically involved as co-founders. IAC probably didn't know or know the extent.

DanBC3• 12 years ago

It seems she was willing to talk to him about work and had asked him to concentrate on work stuff. It seems he declined to do so.

It also seems that some of his comments were made from work accounts, to work accounts, on work hardware, or face to face on work premises.

walshemj3• 12 years ago

I hate to be that guy but if you suspend some one to investigate serious allegation you don't blurt out "he did it" before the investigation is complete and you have disciplined the employee.

to misquote alice and wonderland "Trial first then the sentence"

danielweber8• 12 years ago

The standard procedure in any harassment case is this bulleted list:

* Put the worker on leave and conduct investigation.

dbloom9• 12 years ago

So you're saying that Ms. Wolfe can accuse him of sending harassing messages, but IAC can't?

Even if IAC has irrefutable evidence that it happened?

cjslep• 12 years ago

I agree with you. What I really dislike though is how this kind of hate begets more hate. I was surprised to see so many downvoted-into-oblivion comments so soon after submission. There's already foul name calling, and hints of intolerance.

So on top of "there's no reason to defend this guy", I don't think it is constructive to attack each other here in such negative ways.

Edit for clarification: Now that there are 80+ more comments it seems more constructive. There were quite a few in the first ~20 that were pretty sour.

dbloom9• 12 years ago

The reason that I downvote most (not all!) of those comments is:

1. They emphasize a culture of doubt about these accusations, which may discourage people in a situation like Ms. Wolfe's from stepping forward. On the other hand, the accused people in power really don't need our help to defend themselves.

2. They're formulaic, repetitive, and uninteresting. Most could probably have been written by a misandry chatbot. They don't bring any new ideas to the table.

And while I try hard to be diplomatic when I write critical replies to those comments...I can empathize with those who are a little harsher.

tptacek5• 12 years ago

You can read the actual complaint here:

http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex...

It's bad.

rayiner4• 12 years ago

The allegations, if true, are bad.

Mr. Mateen went on to say that he didn’t want boys trying to date Ms. Wolfe due to her co-founder status, and that being a female co-founder of Tinder was 'slutty' because it is an app people use 'to hook up.'

On a tangential note: it's interesting to see the very weak bargaining on her part on pages 64-65, where she's trying to talk to Sean Rad about her equity. Textbook wrong way to approach it for both parties. He should've been soft, to encourage her not to sue, and she should've been the one with a hard edge, seeing as how she was effectively being driven out of the company she helped co-found.

instaheat4• 12 years ago

Sounds like a typical bad breakup to me, these two people just happen to work in high profile positions in the Tech world.

Girl finds new man, guy gets angry and lashes out by calling her a whore.(Unfounded) Nothing to see here folks!

Unless you're into this sort of drama...

dbloom9• 12 years ago

So why did the woman get fired? Why didn't the man get fired? Does this seem fair to you?

instaheat4• 12 years ago

Of course not.

I am not endorsing his actions.

klipt• 12 years ago

Probably because in this case the man was the boss, and bosses tend to fire underlings more than the other way around.

And this is why dating across workplace power differentials is a bad idea: it makes a bad breakup exponentially worse.

bdcravens• 12 years ago

If your ex works with/for you, you have a legal obligation to keep your mouth shut, no matter how emotionally torn up you are.

davidw• 12 years ago

Previous go round on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7969301

teamhappy• 12 years ago

I'm shocked, shocked ...

ctide• 12 years ago

Posts like these remind me how many socially maladjusted misogynists exist on this site just waiting for stuff like this so they can throw their 2c in.

It says right there that IAC confirmed he sent the messages. The rest of this honestly does not matter at all, it's just kindling on the fire. Those alone are enough to prove that he sexually harassed her. If you're honestly trying to argue that we 'don't know all that facts' and that 'we shouldn't jump to conclusions' then I feel bad for any women who have to interact with you because you're probably a fucking scumbag too.

bitchypat• 12 years ago

You might work on your delivery of the whole "If you don't agree with me, then you're a fucking scumbag" thing. People more sensitive than I might construe that as inappropriate - perhaps as harassment.

vor_5• 12 years ago

He didn't say that if you didn't agree with him, you're a fucking scumbag. He said that if you're still claiming we should reserve judgement after it's been confirmed that the messages were sent, you're a fucking scumbag. In my opinion, that's a non-controversial statement and likely to be true.

Edit: Here are the messages: http://www.buzzfeed.com/sapna/tinder-sued-for-sexual-harassm...

xienze7• 12 years ago

It says right there that IAC confirmed he sent the messages.

I would call it CYA. All they submitted to the court was screen captures of iMessage, so presumably the company saw the same thing. They felt compelled to comment on that, that's fine. But to me, sorry, screen captures of iMessage aren't good enough. That can easily be faked with you and a friend sending over-the-top messages to each other. I would want to see phone company records.

xienze7• 12 years ago

Just curious, does anyone want to argue the point about the texts being relatively flimsy evidence or just downvote? I guess that's what passes for debate these days.

cfield• 12 years ago

By signing the pleading, Ms. Wolfe's attorneys are certifying that they have made "an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances" and believe "the allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, are likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery." [1]

While it's certainly possible that the evidence included in the pleading is manufactured, her lawyers have staked their own reputation and careers on the evidence not being obviously fake.

[1] California Code of Civil Procedure Section 128.7

snvzz• 12 years ago

These private message things are appropriate until (possibly years after breaking up) it's convenient for one party to say otherwise.

This bullshit should be put to an end.

aqme28• 12 years ago

"Mr. Mateen told Ms. Wolfe that the reason she could no longer hold herself out as a co-founder was that she was a 24-year-old “girl” with little experience. Once again he said that holding her out as a co-founder “makes the company look like a joke” and “devalues the company.” Mr. Mateen tried to justify the situation by saying “Facebook and Snapchat don’t have girl founders, it just makes it look like Tinder was some accident.” Further, as Mr. Rad informed Ms. Wolfe, IAC would not let her be publicly recognized as a co-founder."

It's rare to see sexism in tech spelled out so blatantly. If the above is true, that's absolutely despicable.

tomp5• 12 years ago

Don't be silly, that has nothing to do with sexism in tech and everything to do with sexism of a single idiot. I, for one, would be really happy to have a girl co-founder (I would be equally happy to have a guy co-founder, though).

muglug• 12 years ago

That's great for you. But (if he wrote it) he didn't write that in a bubble. He wrote it in an environment where an overwhelming proportion of startups are founded by young white men. Put another way, a man in a rural southern town calling Obama the n-word is just a solitary act, but one cannot discount the racism of that man's peers in promoting the use of that word to describe black people.

rayiner4• 12 years ago

The deep irony if this is that at the time this conversation allegedly took place, Mateen was just a 26 year old "boy" a few years out of school. It takes a lot of balls to pull the age card on someone two years younger than you.

discardorama2• 12 years ago

It's rare to see sexism in tech spelled out so blatantly.

Read some of the comments here; you won't be disappointed.

angersock• 12 years ago

There's a decent chance to get into racism as well, if you look at the content of the texts and the sender.

As an aside, I found it a little hard to take the texts seriously--such atrocious spelling and grammar! On an old candybar I've typed more clearly and at greater length. For shame.

rayiner4• 12 years ago

Don't forget the casual homophobia!

bmm6o• 12 years ago

It's so many levels of weird thinking. You have to be really far down the VC-istan rabbit hole if you're worried about your founders' genders and how that is perceived. None of Tinder's users care about the co-founders and the company's creation myth - they are worried about the perception among funders, and this is the same community that's always trumpeting about what a meritocracy it is.

tomp5• 12 years ago

Let's just keep in mind that these are merely allegations, and that no-one was convicted, and no investigation has completed so far. I hope the media and the courts don't ruin another person's life based on allegations that turn out to be false, as in the case of Julian Assange and the recent Oxford Union scandal.

Also, keep in mind that it is in Tinder's interest to put all blame to the employee that sent the allegedly inappropriate private messages. We have no idea what the true nature of their relationship was, how it evolved, and if it ended on a bad note.

I'm not saying that he is innocent, but he should be treated as such until he is proved guilty.

ikt• 12 years ago

"the courts don't ruin another person's life based on allegations that turn out to be false, as in the case of Julian Assange"

I think your bias might be leaking but the case against Assange was never shown to be false. As far as I'm aware he's still in an embassy avoiding his trial.

tomp5• 12 years ago

Exactly. They weren't shown to be true, either. He is in the embassy waiting to be charged, not avoiding trial.

bradleyjg• 12 years ago

One not completely obvious lesson that can be drawn from this, has to do with preventing cases like this from being filed in the first place. If you look at the last exhibit in the complaint, even at the very end the CEO (Rad) could have negotiated what sounds like a very modest settlement if he had been willing to be a little understanding and flexible. Instead he went into some legalistic lock down mode and refused to consider even a token severance.

Now perhaps before signing anything Ms. Wolfe would have consulted a lawyer and so there would have been a lawsuit anyway. And as a disinterested observer, I would kind of hope so. But the pragmatic lesson for people who might be in a similar situation is that a little humility and understanding can go a long way. I'm reminded of the study finding that doctors who apologized for medical mistakes ended up being sued less often for medical malpractice.

Of course, by far the best thing is to avoid such situations altogether!

danielweber8• 12 years ago

Even if she got a lawyer, that doesn't mean there would be no settlement. Her lawyer would highlight the stuff on page 6 and 7, in which corporate policy was apparently that having a "girl" as cofounder devalues the company, and ask for more money. And, if they were smart, they would have agreed. Insurance might have even covered it.

It's not fool-proof; sometimes people are treated so awfully that they want the feeling of justice from a trial. As you say, best to avoid these situations altogether.

_delirium2• 12 years ago

Instead he went into some legalistic lock down mode and refused to consider even a token severance.

I can see going into some kind of "legalistic lock down mode" if you suddenly are worried about a lawsuit, but in that case it might be prudent to get an actual lawyer's advice. I'm not a lawyer myself, but it seems unlikely that the CEO's actions here are something that the company's lawyer would've advised. It sounds like she was asking for honestly much less than she should've been asking for, and unless there's something I'm missing, I can't believe it was in the company's interests for him to refuse that offer. She was offering to resign in return for quite modest severance conditions, and my guess is that a corporate lawyer would've been happy to advise the CEO to accept the offer and close the affair.

nelsonenzo• 12 years ago

That was just plain straight up sexual harasment, you can ask any HR person. It really doesn't matter what she did, once a person asks you to stop harassing them, they really really really should stop, legally speaking. I was going to get the Tinder app myself, but forget it. I can't support assholes like this who give guys and tech a bad name. I hope she, or someone else, mounts a marketing campaign asking females to delete their accounts from the app. Let it become another tired wasteland of a cockfest, and then they will know how important a female founder can actually be. p.s. -no, i'm not a female, i just get pissed because tech guys constantly have a bad name and i constantly need to defend the fact that we are not all assholes.

vachi• 12 years ago

IDK how many of you have read the texts, http://www.rezlaw.com/News-Events/06-30-14_Complaint_with_Ex... They are incredibly sad, The fact that individuals who wrote them can call themselves executives of any position is baffling, From the side of Ms. Wolfe, i do have to hey texts are very calm, well the screens chosen do depict that, however the texts of Mateen and Sean, are bizarrely foul, if they are true as there is no doubt that the moment that they are not, Ms Wolfe should shit on these fuck faces

randyrand2• 12 years ago

Is this really an entire suite about name-calling? How old are we? Calling people names should be protected by free speech.

These sexual harassment cases do more to hurt women than help them IMHO. It reinforces the viewpoint that women are seen as a liability.

vajorie• 12 years ago

These sexual harassment cases do more to hurt women than help them IMHO. It reinforces the viewpoint that women are seen as a liability.

Let me translate what you just said: if someone harasses you at your workplace and elsewhere, and as such causes harm to you, and do so also by deploying systematically dissipated stereotypes (yes, they are social weapons), you shall not press charges, because if you do, you would be a petty little girl who is causing harm to your company.

...

randyrand2• 12 years ago

That is not what I said at all....

If someone harms me I'm obviously going to press charges. The issue is whether those charges should actually have legal basis.

JoachimSchipper• 12 years ago

Tinder is "casual sex: the app". Sexism is a very real and very serious problem in the IT world. But Tinder is not the most boringly neutral tech company you can find, especially in this particular sense.

It's good to keep the special-ness of this case in mind. For instance, sexism usually doesn't get this bad. On the other hand, an atmosphere that isn't as hostile as this can still be, well, bad.

Tinder sued for sexual harassment by former co-founder

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