Cancel culture IRL

[Emily's Cat]

Seems that the context of tech-bro culture, in which this particular industry is notorious for being heavily male dominated and prone to sexual harassment and other forms of sexism, is relevant.

Sexism? Sexual harassment? Oh my, here I thought that discrimination was against women, not females, and was on the basis of gender identity, not sex!

A company trying to assure their women employees might do well to avoid someone who wrote a book that is explicitly derogatory to the exact kind of women that are going to be employed at the company.

This is a very good example of the problem here. He didn't "write a book that is explicitly derogatory" to women. It was a SINGLE PASSAGE in a book about the tech industry, which was not addressing FEMALES IN TECH in any way at all, and was in fact, highlighting the difference between "average Bay area chicks" and "this particular self-sufficient, strong, independent chick" that he fell in love with.

You're taking a single passage from an entire book, and you're taking it out of context, and you're exaggerating the impact to frame it so that somehow this represents the entirety of that person's view of females.

What he actually wrote is far more akin to "most females are gossipy girly gigglers, but I really like females that are smart, serious, and strong".

Framing that as if it somehow makes female employees "unsafe" is so ludicrously hyperbolic that it is no longer even remotely in the realm of normal.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It's usually pretty easy to hire people that haven't published sweeping, derogatory claims about entire classes of people they are expected to work with.

Well, I suppose it's a good thing that you're not a published author and post here under the thin veil of anonymity... otherwise you *might* be expected to work with females who are gender atheists.

 

[Dr. Keith]

Sexism? Sexual harassment? Oh my, here I thought that discrimination was against women, not females, and was on the basis of gender identity, not sex!



This is a very good example of the problem here. He didn't "write a book that is explicitly derogatory" to women. It was a SINGLE PASSAGE in a book about the tech industry, which was not addressing FEMALES IN TECH in any way at all, and was in fact, highlighting the difference between "average Bay area chicks" and "this particular self-sufficient, strong, independent chick" that he fell in love with.

You're taking a single passage from an entire book, and you're taking it out of context, and you're exaggerating the impact to frame it so that somehow this represents the entirety of that person's view of females.

What he actually wrote is far more akin to "most females are gossipy girly gigglers, but I really like females that are smart, serious, and strong".

Framing that as if it somehow makes female employees "unsafe" is so ludicrously hyperbolic that it is no longer even remotely in the realm of normal.

If I publicly opined that most female attorneys are horrible to be around, but I found and hired one who was not, I would expect to be fired. And I'm not even sure my boss knows if we have any anti-discrimination policies. He would just fire me for being too dumb to trust to do my job.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yeah, and I mean, come on, he didn’t even say ‘most women’ are useless, just ‘most Bay Area women!’ And it’s not like he’d be working with women from the Bay Area anyway... oh wait..

ETA: I’m not even as annoyed by the front half as by the ‘traded for (other) goods’ bit. I might complain to HR about a hire like that myself. If it’s unreasonable of Apple to decide to let him go over it, that’s on them, not on the people who honestly said they found that **** objectionable.

These Bay Area women sound exactly like the types that would be useful in such a scenario. Identifying and expelling predatory creeps is a valuable community service that would only be more necessary in a world where guys like this feel uninhibited.

This guy sound like the type that would die of dysentery alone in a ditch because his particular toxic brand of "rugged individualism" made him unwanted in every semi-organized community.

You know you people are basing all of your opprobrium and desire to excommunicate this person from society on LITERALLY a single paragraph. One paragraph. One that is obviously hyperbolic, and in the context of writing for entertainment.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

You know you people are basing all of your opprobrium and desire to excommunicate this person from society on LITERALLY a single paragraph. One paragraph. One that is obviously hyperbolic, and in the context of writing for entertainment.

Ahh yes, the "sexism as just a cool story" exemption.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Ahh yes, the "sexism as just a cool story" exemption.

I'm starting to wonder if you've ever read a book or watched a comedian or a film or a TV show in your entire life.

ETA: Also, seriously? I'm pretty frickin harsh on sexism in general, and I'm a pretty dedicated feminist. I don't brush aside actual sexism. But I also understand artistic license, generalities in context, and other core concepts that most humans grok when they don't have some virtue-signaling agenda to adhere to.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I'm starting to wonder if you've ever read a book or watched a comedian or a film or a TV show in your entire life.

ETA: Also, seriously? I'm pretty frickin harsh on sexism in general, and I'm a pretty dedicated feminist. I don't brush aside actual sexism. But I also understand artistic license, generalities in context, and other core concepts that most humans grok when they don't have some virtue-signaling agenda to adhere to.

Maybe you're right. Feel free to go tell those women employees that made the complaints that you actually know better than them. Good luck!

 

[Dr. Keith]

I'm starting to wonder if you've ever read a book or watched a comedian or a film or a TV show in your entire life.

ETA: Also, seriously? I'm pretty frickin harsh on sexism in general, and I'm a pretty dedicated feminist. I don't brush aside actual sexism. But I also understand artistic license, generalities in context, and other core concepts that most humans grok when they don't have some virtue-signaling agenda to adhere to.

I see the issue of taking a dig at a sizable chunk of the people he would be expected to work with for no apparent reason. Add onto that the struggles that women have traditionally had in the industry and it is just not a good look at all.

I don't have to talk about how bad female attorneys are to talk about how great the attorney I hired is. I'm not even a good writer and I know that.

ETA: Would you be happy if your boss introduced you to colleagues as "the one woman I could find who could actually understand numbers"? Hey, it's a compliment.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

Is there any career where writing a brutally honest tell-all autobiography that is often derogatory towards one's colleagues is a good idea?

I'm sure his candor and lurid details helped make the book a better seller.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I see the issue of taking a dig at a sizable chunk of the people he would be expected to work with for no apparent reason. Add onto that the struggles that women have traditionally had in the industry and it is just not a good look at all.

I don't have to talk about how bad female attorneys are to talk about how great the attorney I hired is. I'm not even a good writer and I know that.

ETA: Would you be happy if your boss introduced you to colleagues as "the one woman I could find who could actually understand numbers"? Hey, it's a compliment.

This isn't even comparable though. I mean, not even a little bit. He didn't make any comments about females in tech at all.

It would be more akin to if you wrote a book about your life and in it you said "most females in Texas are loud and boisterous and religious, and annoying as all hell... but I fell in love with this wonderful soft-spoken, sophisticated atheist".

Then you got fired because the female lawyers you work with felt "unsafe" because of your horribly derogatory view of females.

Because unless you're looking to have a personal intimate relationship with your female colleagues, your preference regarding personality in a companion are completely irrelevant.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Is there any career where writing a brutally honest tell-all autobiography that is often derogatory towards one's colleagues is a good idea?

I'm sure his candor and lurid details helped make the book a better seller.

Oh, please do share the lurid details that you found in their book! I'd love to hear your personal take on their views!

Go ahead, I'll wait.

 

[autumn1971]

And just during a civilization convulsing crisis!

Nope. His first sentence makes clear their thoughts on “most women” being useless and weak.
The next sentence makes a specific example of “most” of these women being objectively worse less than ammo or fuel in the event of a crisis.
Personally I think HR should have been used to explain why the passage can be seen as uncomfortable to coworkers, and hopefully it ends there.
I think the dismissal seems unjustified and hasty.

I also think that pretending that social opprobrium is a brand new concept is childish.

People got fired for just as many ******** reasons at every point since the invention of employment.

 

[d4m10n]

Is there any career where writing a brutally honest tell-all autobiography that is often derogatory towards one's colleagues is a good idea?

I think you may have confused "colleagues" with hypothetical survivors of a civilizational collapse, who were only connected to actual persons by way of treating obvious hyperbole as straightforward description.

For what it's worth, when this guy wrote that his gf had a bed which "consisted of a cheap foam mattress about the width of an extra-jumbo-sized menstrual pad" I don't think he meant that part to be taken literally, either.

As to whether your typical Bay area women would actually "end up a useful ally in...postapocalypse, doing whatever work—be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a shotgun blast to someone’s back— required doing," I've no opinion one way or another. I've met few such persons myself, of any sex or gender, but then I'm in the American Midwest. Perhaps people are much hardier out west.

 

[Dr. Keith]

This isn't even comparable though. I mean, not even a little bit. He didn't make any comments about females in tech at all.

It would be more akin to if you wrote a book about your life and in it you said "most females in Texas are loud and boisterous and religious, and annoying as all hell... but I fell in love with this wonderful soft-spoken, sophisticated atheist".

Then you got fired because the female lawyers you work with felt "unsafe" because of your horribly derogatory view of females.

Because unless you're looking to have a personal intimate relationship with your female colleagues, your preference regarding personality in a companion are completely irrelevant.

Sorry, Silicon Valley is as much tech as rodeos are beef. He didn't say California, did he?

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It's even funnier to me that people would think it's an injustice that this guy got fired, so I won't try to convince otherwise. It must be tough for reactionaries, to be constantly getting owned for no good reason.

 

[ponderingturtle]

I mean why should someone be fired just because they are a lawsuit waiting to happen. Once again we are proving that Bill O'Reilly was as victim of cancel culture, when suddenly sexually harassing your employees became a bad thing.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

I concede that it totally sucks that this guy had a job offer and then got fired like 5 seconds after landing. Management seems to be woefully out of touch with their workforce for them to be surprised that hiring this guy might have been a problem.

 

[d4m10n]

It must be tough for reactionaries, to be constantly getting owned for no good reason.

It must be weird to have name-calling as a signature move.

Even weirder to think pushing back against capricious management is a conservative stance.

 

[TurkeysGhost]

It must be weird to have name-calling as a signature move.

Even weirder to think pushing back against capricious management is a conservative stance.

Hey, if firing a bunch of racists and sexists is what it takes for unionization to finally take off in the US, it'll be all worth it.

Don't hate the player, hate the at-will employment game.

 

[d4m10n]

It would be quite something to see if a tech giant found it couldn't fire problematic people like James Damore or Antonio Martínez nearly as easily because of union protections. [emoji106]