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by macspoofing 3297 days ago
>In this case, Marissa Mayer, Cheryl Sandberg, Ellen Pao, Elizabeth Smith, Sophia Amoruso, the last two being founders and not coming into rescue companies in crisis, who also both have experienced troubles, lawsuits, and failure.

I fail to see the connection between these individuals. Cheryl Sandberg is a successful executive ... so is Marissa Mayer for that matter - having had a senior position at Google and then led Yahoo. Sophia Amoruso ran a company that went bankrupt (it happens). I don't know anything about Elizabeth Smith and Ellen Pao implemented some needed but highly controversial and unpopular polices at the reddit cesspool but also fired a popular moderator, Victoria.

What is the connection here besides these are all women?

>I brought this up because you used the word malicious that I would even bring up the idea that women CEOs face a bias.

Yes. It is malicious. You can't just assert racism or misogyny. Those are very powerful words and they are completely misused, frequently to push some ideological agenda. If I'm being charitable, it reminds me of the way UFO conspiracy theory nuts reason. They'll look at some phenomenon and argue "I can't think of anything that could explain X, therefore X must be aliens".. No. That's not how it works. If you don't know the cause of X, don't assert a conclusion. Aliens are not the default position for unknown stellar phenomena. Misogyny and sexism is not the default position every-time a woman gets fired or criticized.

>Please reread my statements about her remote work decision, and how the data was related to not meeting remote work standards, and no data whatsoever was provided about remote work in relation to parenting

But that doesn't change the optics of this policy contrasted with her private nursery.

>but news had no problem conflating the issues, and readers had no problem assuming there was hypocrisy in the decision, despite there being no data to prove hypocrisy existed in the decision.

Sure. You're trying to argue her criticism is unfair - nothing wrong with that. It may be unfair, but nuances and subtleties are lost all the time and certain narratives take hold. For example, I don't think Uber is a sexist organization, but now there's a narrative that they have a sexist culture top to bottom. All subtly is lost when Uber is discussed on HN. It happens. Argue against it and move on.

1 comments

> What is the connection here besides these are all women?

My first statement in my first comment

> Yes. It is malicious. You can't just assert racism or misogyny.

We both agree overt name calling is malicious. We both agree you can't assert racism or misogyny. If terms like "she devil" is used, I'm going to assume misogyny. If name callers want to be recognized as name callers, but are particularly sensitive about also being labeled as misogynists, I will leave it up to them to find another word to use. Enough on this topic, I think, as in my first statement where I asked if there was a slight bias and did not state or assert there was one, is enough to reiterate my agreement on all of these things with you.

>But that doesn't change the optics of this policy contrasted with her private nursery.

Again, commonplace for a long time that personal secretaries are hired to manage private lives of CEOs, in this case it seems the money was oriented towards childcare. But its commonplace CEOs have long since hired or invested in personal management secretaries or other arrangements in their offices. I've never seen it criticised before, but I'm open to proof that it has been.

you are correct, the optics do not seem to be an issue when secretaries are hired to manage the private lives of male CEOs, but the optics of investing in personal life management of the CEO do appear to be an issue of optics here. We agree.

>Sure. You're trying to argue her criticism is unfair - nothing wrong with that. It may be unfair, but nuances and subtleties are lost all the time and certain narratives take hold. For example, I don't think Uber is a sexist organization, but now there's a narrative that they have a sexist culture top to bottom. All subtly is lost when Uber is discussed on HN. It happens. Argue against it and move on.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/13/uber-board-member-gets-sex...

There is no sexism on this point. We all agree that if a person is added to a board meeting, there will be more talking, assuming the board member talks.

Again, I'm not disagreeing that humans who are paid to discuss and vote on issues increase the amount of talking, I'm just asking why its pointed out specifically in the context of a women, and where the proof is that if a woman is added to a board meeting, the net amount of talking is more than if she isn't there.

I would love to not only see the data for this, but have the opportunity to hear the things women say in board meetings with men like this.

We also agree. The subtlety is definitely lost on me here, and a new narrative took hold so quickly on Uber over this sentence that the billionaire resigned. There is no subtlety retained here. We agree.

Speaking of Uber, how much does the CEO make and when was the last time someone thought the CEO of Uber paid himself too highly or maybe...noones thought to bring that up yet? I guess it just has not popped into anyones mind yet. Perhaps noone knows how much the CEO of Uber makes because there are not enough women on his board asking those questions. As we agree with the now previous employee of Uber David Bonderman, women just result in so much more "talking" in board meetings, maybe they can talk about this next time.

>you are correct, the optics do not seem to be an issue when secretaries are hired to manage the private lives of male CEOs, but the optics of investing in personal life management of the CEO do appear to be an issue of optics here. We agree.

No. We don't. We aren't close. I think you're so tuned to view the world through a particular ideological bent that you are blind to anything else.

This just reminds of dealing with conspiracy theory nuts like the UFO guys, like the 9/11 truthers. With them (and you) it's a constant barrage of red herring and non sequiturs arguments. You yourself are bringing out every single example of what you think is misogyny. All we're talking about is whether or not Marissa deserves to be criticized for her job as CEO. You live in ugly world governed by sexism and I wish you find yourself out one day.

Oh well come on now. Don't be too dramatic.

I don't entirely live in an ugly world governed by patriarchy and sexism. I work with and under plenty of great men and a few awesome women, as I've stated previously in this thread that you have chosen to ignore (a blind spot on your part maybe?) but I do somewhat agree that there are facets of society that seem to have some overarching elements of patriarchy and sexism.

and I appreciate your best wishes, I have every intention of finding my way out of these situations.

It seems that the more women "talk" according to David Bonderman, the more people like David Bonderman "resign" or get fired, so I do think there is definitely light at the end of the tunnel for overcoming sexism and the patriarchy.

>Oh well come on now. Don't be too dramatic.

Maybe a little but we have reached an impasse. I just don't see the world like you do, and I know you can't provide evidence for the kind of generalizations you made.

>I work with and under plenty of great men and a few awesome women, as I've stated previously in this thread that you have chosen to ignore

I didn't ignore it. There was simply nothing I could add to that. Of course you work with good men and good women. You work in tech, one of the most progressive industries around.

You sir (or madam) have just been trolled. And pleaaaase, don't be too melodramatic! The hypocrisy of that comment made me lol
>You sir (or madam) have just been trolled.

I don't mind that kind of trolling. I'll just answer it straight.

I think we both realized we're just not on the same page and we simply view things differently - so there's probably frustration on both sides that neither of us can convince the other with reason and argument. And to be fair usmeteora did put in significant effort to answer my points and argue their cases prior to the last 1 or 2 messages.

(he doesn't get it lol)
Well..thank you for this very informative conversation :)

Lordy.