[reuven]

Maybe it's because I'm in Israel, where I'd like to think that things are better than the US (although I'm far from sure that's true).

Maybe it's because I'm self employed, so I don't have regular "colleagues" to tell me these things.

Mybe it's because I (and other men) didn't make it clear that we were willing to listen, although I sure hope not.

For whatever reason, I believed that sexual harassment is occasional. Not as pervasive, and not as constant as the growing number of stories has made clear.

The more stories we hear, the better (I think) things will be. So keep telling these stories.

[edanm]

For what it's worth (I'm in Israel too), I also recently gained a new perspective on the problem of sexual harassment, though not specifically in the hi-tech industry. This was a few years before the #MeToo movement.

In my case, it was because I had a frank conversation with a female friend, where she told me a few typical stories. Things like her sitting on the bus, and the guy next to her will suddenly start touching her, or trying to kiss her. With her giving absolutely no sign of interest and not knowing the person beforehand (she's actually gay). And similar stories in other situations.

She said it happened to her about 10 times already. This is the kind of clear-cut sexual harassment which I naively thought was rare, but apparently is so common, that it's just shrugged off as a nuisance in many cases. It completely changed my perspective on just how common this is for women, even if I believe only a minority of men act in this way.