I lead a team of women doing computational pharmaceutical research. 12 women and 3 males, and 2 female undergrads and 2 male undergrads.
But hey, your narrative is that I'm out of touch with women because I'm not a woman so how could I possibly know, and I wouldn't want to ruin that little victory for you.
I wouldn't call having a woman as a direct report a "close friend." The fact that you immediately reached for your employees as cover, makes me think that you don't have anyone else to use.
I find it doubly absurd to think that your reports would talk to you about these things. First you're in a position of power over them, and we're dealing with a topic that goes hand in glove with abuses of power. Second on a personal note, you appear to be completely dismissive that any such claims could possibly have merit to them. Finally, look at your choice of name. I commend you for not going with "pussypuncher".
You've become uncivil and made personal attacks on HN many times. That's not allowed here, even if your cause is 100% right and all of your views are correct. We ban accounts that do this, so please stop doing this.
You've also been using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That's another abuse of this site, and we ban accounts that do that as well. HN can't both gratify intellectual curiosity and be a battlefield, so please use the site as intended.
I would disagree with your characterization, of "uncivil" and "personal attacks", but I will admit that this has become a flame war.
I will say this, HN's very recent position of trying to remain apolitical when the topic of social and political issues regarding tech companies is completely untenable, and I think the recent discussions about Uber has shown that. You can't bring up the very relevant topics of either diversity or sexual harassment in Silicon Valley, without people coming out of the woodwork and quite loudly declaring that either the accusations are false, or they're not that bad. These positions can not go unchallenged, as they have been shown to be false many times before and with just as many actors, and perpetuate the very problem being highlighted.
So what are we going to do about it? Ignore it? I'm not because I too much about a liberal civil society. Ignoring the ideas doesn't just perpetuate them, but gives them strength and credibility, when they quite frankly they were discredited when I was young.
Since HN has made it a policy to stick its collective head in sand regarding these issues, I think the only option HN is willing to take is clear. Ban me, because I'm not going to stop, because I take these topics very seriously. I don't say that out of some sort of defiance, I say that because I know myself. It will happen again, and again, and again. Either you're going to have to remove all discussions from the front page as soon as these topics come up, or you're going to have to ban accounts including mine to ensure an off topic prosaic comments like "I like the old logo better."
The rule isn't that HN must be apolitical, it's that accounts should not use HN primarily for politics. That's a necessary rule, otherwise the site will drown in flames.
Yes, commenters here show up with all sorts of opinions and competing (often bad) ideas. HN is divided because society is divided. Presumably the same divisions would show up in any large-enough sample. The question is what do we do given these divisions, since we can't eliminate them.
If we stepped back a couple posts and jk had cited the recent, public claims of employees tracking celebs & ex's, Uber self-driving cars exiting SF b/c they are above licensing laws and myriad other slights of rules/regs this discussion could have stayed on point.
Damn, you're right and too late to edit. I was grabbing straws, admittedly not very informed about Uber's goings on. I do recall seeing Uber internal strife claims repeatedly over the last two years. Specific examples do not come to mind at the moment.
Tangentially: Stalking an ex is a perfect example of sexual harassment, albeit not necessarily toward another member in that organization.
But hey, your narrative is that I'm out of touch with women because I'm not a woman so how could I possibly know, and I wouldn't want to ruin that little victory for you.