Some geeky types will be tempted, upon founding a startup, to thus not have ANY women in significant roles in the company, and to keep it as guys-only as possible; outsourcing as needed and doing the other legal legwork as required to stay under the headcount (is it >50 people?) to avoid the EEOC.
I'd rather just have a "zero fuckwits rule" in hiring. It sounds like Github breached that rule, leading to this problem. You could possibly avoid all sexual harassment by having only men in the workplace, but if they were still fuckwits and assholes, you'd have other employment problems.
Yeah, I've been in a place where one founder's wife was the ex-gf of a second founder, and for no good reason whatsoever she was brought in to do the books, and kept on talking out loud about what the second founder was like in bed.
Some people use companies to work out their interpersonal problems.
I saw similar things happen with male employees. A spouse of a manager/founder (well, anyone really) having power without any official position is a disaster waiting to happen. The situation I experienced was with an all-male team. The result is people leaving, so having a small team really doesn't fix anything. Quite the opposite.
I've been in this position as a co-founder, having to deal with a contractor who was also the spouse of a co-founder, and who managed to drive everybody crazy, including other contractors and employees, other co-founders, and their own spouse.
I'll be more than tempted. To be 100% honest, I have that thought every single time I read any article or blog post about sexism in tech. If programmers with a Y-chromosome are exponentially less likely to either sue us or get us labelled sexist jerks in the press, then that's who we're hiring.
"To be 100% honest, I have that thought every single time I read any article or newspaper report about a shootout or burglary in the community. If people with a white bloodline are statistically less likely to either rob us or get us labelled racists jerks in the press, than that's who we're hirig." -- do you now see what's wrong with this kind of thinking ?
No, because I read 1000x times more of the one than of the other, and I personally see and experience one and not the other. That you'd even bring up the comparison makes me think you're not taking this seriously, as a reality to deal with and not an internet crusade.
Read the statement again. I'm not laying blame on any party. I am only taking the position that whatever the cause is, I don't know any better than anyone else how to avoid it.
I guess the point I was trying to make was lost on you somehow.
I wasn't trying to say this is the exact same thing and that racism is something you'd hear about as frequently as sexism these days ! I was trying to make the parallel that just a few decades ago it would've been a perfectly acceptable thing to play it safe and say ".. than that's who we're hirig." based purely on this kind of skewed reasoning about races.
The reason you hear more about women bringing up these issues is because more women are bringing up these issues, which until recently were either non-existent (because there weren't as many women in tech), or were ignored/hushed or 'dealt with quietly' -- much like race issues ...or for that matter general quality issues between the sexes. The reason you "...personally see and experience one and not the other." is precisely because the other (ie: racism) was brought up ...repeatedly ...dirt was kicked up ...fingers pointed ...positions defended ...often under the guise of 'ah well, this issue isn't about being racists as much as it is about the individuals'. In the end though, most people 'got it'. Hopefully you now see the parallel I was trying to make.
About your statement " That you'd even bring up the comparison makes me think you're not taking this seriously, as a reality to deal with and not an internet crusade." ..well, I personally feel this is a very serious matter and if you got any other impression from what I said, it possibly is due to my inability to get the point across.
About your statement "Read the statement again. I'm not laying blame on any party. I am only taking the position that whatever the cause is, I don't know any better than anyone else how to avoid it." ...I'm sorry, I really don't see how the 'I don't know any better than anyone else how to avoid it.' bit is supposed to be implied by " then that's who we're hiring." bit ...maybe my comprehension skills are lacking although I suspect they aren't and you're just trying to somehow deflect your earlier statement by misdirection.
>If programmers with a Y-chromosome are exponentially less likely to either sue us or get us labelled sexist jerks in the press, then that's who we're hiring.
That you would even think this says to me that you have zero appreciation for the unique capabilities women bring to the workforce. In my mind it's so obviously worth the risk.
To use a metaphor you might understand I think you're programming around the bug instead of debugging.
Maybe, shocking as it is, women are reacting to real injustices in these cases that you read about in "any article or blog post about sexism in tech". If your immediate reaction to someone being called out for sexism is to distance yourself from women, have you ever considered that perhaps your attitude is sexist? You're assuming in all scenarios that the man is right and being attacked unfairly, disregarding evidence.
This is the sort of fucked up attitude that's turning the public increasingly against the tech industry. The attitude seems to be "we can do anything that we want, because we're smart and we know the loopholes"
If you really believe that the public considers watching women hula-hoop or a rug that says "meritocracy" to be sexual harassment, please give some thought to the possibility that you might be living in a bubble.
