[zzalpha]

Because VCs are all populated by serial harassers who now realize they can't get away with this crap?

Or are you saying these will be seen as false accusations and thus it'll scare off VCs who aren't run by mysogynist pieces of sh-t?

Because I'm not sure what the alternative is. If a VC is not in the habit of harassing women, they have nothing to fear. In fact, it'll give them an opportunity to court talented entrepreneurs driven away from the immoral part of the VC spectrum.

[prodmerc]

Everyone has plenty to fear. Any sexual harassment/rape accusations (no matter how untrue) are incredibly damaging, it's very biased towards the accuser.

The people who actually do this shit are scumbags, but there's plenty who will take advantage of this when things don't go their way, and reputation damage is worse than physical for a lot of people.

[chrischen]

"If you're not doing doing anything wrong you have nothing to fear."

Ahh--if only this were ever true.

[zzalpha]

Again, that statement is only false if these are false accusations.

Are you saying they're false accusations?

[chrischen]

My point holds as long as false accusations are possible. Women, like men, are not all angels. Sexism, or even patriarchy, has no gender.

[hanspeter]

But false accusations are possible about anything. By this logic VCs should avoid talking with anyone.

[pluma]

Sure, if you completely ignore the cultural context.

Rape and sexual assault (of women) is seen as one of the worst possible crimes[0] a man can commit in most Western societies[1]. These crimes are so heinous that even accusations are enough to destroy someone's career and social status, even if the accusations are dropped or proven false.

This is further complicated by these crimes generally being very difficult to prove without recorded evidence and eyewitnesses, creating a dilemma of either treating the accusation as fact (foregoing "innocent until proven guilty") or risking that a criminal can avoid consequences and may go on to repeat his crime. The media often favors the former, people close to the accused often prefer the latter, although even a disproven allegation can sow permanent doubt.

There aren't many crimes a VC could be falsely accused of that have the possibility of such dire consequences and such a low burden of proof.

[0]: The only crime I can think of that society treats as worse than sexual abuse of women is sexual abuse of children.

[1]: This isn't about the relative severity of legal punishments, or in any way a judgement on what crime is "less bad" than another, just how people (and the media) generally react to people being charged with these crimes.

[grey-area]

Since the current president celebrates his past assaults on women with no consequences, and threatens his accusers, again with no consequences, and Cosby was recently freed, your thesis that mere accusations damage prominent men rings hollow. The exact opposite is true.

It is so damaging for the women involved (career, socially, and withstanding the barrage of slander, misogyny and distrust that they always seem to face) that it is very hard to step up and simply tell the truth, and you are part of the problem here, with your needless insinuations about false accusations and talk of a low burden of proof.

[azernik]

The cultural context is pretty much the exact opposite. The cultural context is that men with power tend to get away with sexual harassment of subordinates for years before anyone gets caught. Only when there is a mountain of evidence and a small army of accusers does the world actually believe them.

For all of the VCs described in this story - this was a pattern, corroborated by independent sources, and with details in writing. There is in fact a very high burden of proof before anyone even gets blasted in the mainstream media, let alone fired.

[plandis]

Are you suggesting the false sexual harassment / rape accusations never happen? I think there are some athletes from Duke who were subject to character assassination and would entirely disagree with you.

[icelancer]

>Are you saying they're false accusations?

Of course there are false accusations out there. It's not the majority of them or even a significant number. But it's not zero.

[notgood]

It is a significant number. For example in Hardvard campus 20% of the allegations were determined to be false[0]; but this is a controversial subject and the numbers all over the place[1] from state to state and even more from country to country but overall most quote numbers that are not an insignificant number.

[0]http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/report-1-in-5-campus-rape-...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

[nnfy]

So long as there are incentives to make false accusations, there will always be false accusations. Just as there will always be true accusations.