[marbletiles]

I think you've just kicked yourself with your jerking knee.

This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it. Women and those sympathetic to the cause of equality can easily delete their accounts and take alternatives, so they do.

Consider the contra: if this wasn't an oppressive system, if there weren't real causes for complaint, nobody would care-- and so nobody would delete their accounts over the story.

[bArray]

Be aware of your underlying bias.

"This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it." Welcome to 2017, where crying wolf has no negative impact on them if proved untrue.

"Women and those sympathetic to the cause" Because by default, all women are automatically part of the cause.

"Consider the contra: if this wasn't an oppressive system, if there weren't real causes for complaint, nobody would care-- and so nobody would delete their accounts over the story." Of course, there's never been a case where a person has been really offended, got loads of people on side only to turn out to be false?

Regardless of her respect in SV, we can only look at the facts. Why is she the only person to leave Uber over this? Why have there not been previous cases of this? What evidence is there that the events unfolded as she suggested? All these things and more should be considered.

[marbletiles]

> Welcome to 2017, where crying wolf has no negative impact on them if proved untrue.

This smells like underlying bias to me, I'm afraid. Crying wolf in many of these areas has frequent negative impact -- hell, speaking out with good cause has negative impact. Who wants to volunteer to be at the centre of the next ethics in game journalism storm?

But this specific action -- choosing to no longer use the services of a company -- does have few repercussions, which does make it a good way to protest.

> Because by default, all women are automatically part of the cause

This could have been worded more felicitously, sure. Substitute "those negatively affect by the oppression and those sympathetic to them" and the point stands.

> Regardless of her respect in SV, we can only look at the facts.

As others have said, it seems you didn't look at the facts here. But regardless, the original point is not about the author, it's rejecting the idea that people are only able to delete their Uber accounts to protest the patriarchy because the very patriarchy they're protesting doesn't exist.

[bArray]

> This smells like underlying bias to me, I'm afraid. Crying wolf in many of these areas has frequent negative impact -- hell, speaking out with good cause has negative impact.

It said in a mocking sense, but given the benefit of a doubt - it's difficult to read intention.

> Who wants to volunteer to be at the centre of the next ethics in game journalism storm?

Lot's of people. Not everybody of course. There's lot of sociopaths/psychopaths that exist undiagnosed amongst us. I don't think that has any value in the argument as we really don't know this person.

> But this specific action -- choosing to no longer use the services of a company -- does have few repercussions, which does make it a good way to protest.

Ha! PR is one of the most important aspects to a company. Why do you think Google is so successful? Perception often outweighs truth.

> This could have been worded more felicitously, sure. Substitute "those negatively affect by the oppression and those sympathetic to them" and the point stands.

It was just a throwaway point about your default stance. We all have unconscious bias, I'm not holding it against you. My point was that we should all be aware of it.

> As others have said, it seems you didn't look at the facts here.

I've now read a lot of articles regarding this topic (it's interesting isn't it?).

> the original point is not about the author, it's rejecting the idea that people are only able to delete their Uber accounts to protest the patriarchy because the very patriarchy they're protesting doesn't exist.

> This is exactly the behaviour you'd expect under a really oppressive system: given a low-risk way to protest the oppression, people take it. Women and those sympathetic to the cause of equality can easily delete their accounts and take alternatives, so they do.

But this isn't by definition evidence of that structure existing. Simply agreeing or disagreeing with a point of view can lead to the same outcome. And with "a really oppressive system", I would expect to see a much more solid foundation to the accusations.

Signs this may be false:

- No evidence of communications

- No witnesses to the events have come forward

- No names of the people involved

- No pursuit for legal rights

- Disabled comments on blog

- Uber directly addressing the blog (if they knew they were in the wrong, they would want this to go away)

- HR woman didn't sympathize with her accusations

Signs this may be true:

- Uber had an internal meeting regarding the accusations

- Uber are conducting an internal investigation

- Uber's history of being a tough working environment

It's simply not conclusive yet.

[skj]

Your questions are making presuppositions that I'm not sure are true.

[bArray]

I've just read her blog... Fair statement.

That doesn't negate from the fact that there is still too little evidence to call.

For somebody who collected so much evidence you would hope you would be able to see it?

Why did she not seek help outside of the company if the company was acting illegally?

Other witness accounts? Lots of women are meantbto have left over this, where are their accounts?

[lubesGordi]

Her claim is that Uber is an oppressive system and everyone just buys it at face value. Who has the jerking knee? I think it takes more work to assume ALL OF THE PEOPLE she was dealing with at Uber were in on some kind of sexist conspiracy against her than to think that maybe her perception's out of alignment. Even worse is to think that all these employees at uber hr can't recognize sexism and deal with it appropriately... it's her word against a bunch of people who I have no reason to think are unreasonable. Really, it's the assumption that Uber is an oppressive system from the get go that allows people to jump on her bandwagon and start deleting apps.

[manicdee]

Do you realise that racism and sexism are not conspiracies? If they were conspiracies, you would be a prime example of a co-conspirator: dismissing one woman's testimony because no men have testified in agreement with her.

Here is now HR takes part in "the conspiracy": they take no action against a man who is in a senior position because they do not want to lose their jobs.

Here is how "all these employees" take part in "the conspiracy": they do not speak up because the issue is not affecting them personally, they don't want to rock the boat, and maybe they feel that the woman in question is just a pain in the arse because she always talks back and challenges assumptions, so why would anyone stand up for her?

Sexism is not a conspiracy, it's a learned behaviour. You can't eliminate sexism by breaking the conspiracy, you have to find ways to adjust institutionalised behaviour.

Consider the classic story about the monkeys and the electrified bananas: monkeys in captivity were shown bananas. If any monkey went to pick up the banana, the entire cage would be electified, shocking all the monkeys. Eventually the monkeys would best up any monkey trying to pick up the bananas.

Then the researchers started replacing the population, and stopped electrocuting the monkeys. The society still best up monkeys trying to get the banana. Long after there were non of the original monkeys in the group, and none of the monkeys had been electrocuted, they still beat up any monkey trying to pick up the banana.

So too, in any institution the new people learn ways and means from the incumbents. They learn that certain people are beyond reproach, long after any remaining incumbents can remember why. They learn that certain issues are smply not discussed, and do not question why.

How do you get that institutionalised behaviour back to normal?

[marbletiles]

It's a question of who do you give the benefit of the doubt to? The woman who says "things are really bad at Uber for women" (and can point to plummeting diversity figures to back it up) or the company with the dodgy ethical history in many areas of employment law?

And that's also what makes the protest so appealing. The protestors _don't have to justify themselves_ to you; they don't have to meet your arbitrary bar of "yes, this is now real enough for me to consider it as sexism, you are permitted to complain".

They can just decide who they believe, and act accordingly. And have.

[pjc50]

Exactly. If the normal channels worked we wouldn't be having this conversation.