[HN Gopher] Apple employees petition demanding investigation int...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple employees petition demanding investigation into misogynistic
hire
Author : champagnepapi
Score : 29 points
Date : 2021-05-12 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| fortran77 wrote:
| Unlike his critics, I read his book. I enjoyed it. I'd hire him.
| jollybean wrote:
| I'm generally wary of cancel culture, but I don't even understand
| how a person could even really say such a thing i.e. 'women are
| useless and full of crap' _let alone publish it_.
|
| Forget the bigotry ... just the lack of self awareness is pretty
| crazy.
|
| I don't like the infusion of Damore however, that's a different
| discussion, I wish people would stop crossing streams on such an
| important subject, full of nuance in every direction. This guy's
| statements are of a different kind than Damores.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| Something bad is happening to companies, they become full of shit
| because of nothing. Isn't there a difference between expressing
| unpopular opinions and actually abusing or attacking people? Or
| thoughtcrime is becoming punishable? Someone is working hard on
| adding fuel to misogyny
| SirSourdough wrote:
| Since when can you not judge a person on what they write in a
| published book?
|
| This isn't "crime", nobody is claiming it's illegal. But it's
| still sexist and flat out wrong to essentially say that most
| women are worthless, and it's perfectly reasonable not to want
| to work with or for someone who demonstrates such sexist
| thinking and poor judgement.
| sanity31415 wrote:
| > His hiring "calls into question parts of our system of
| inclusion at Apple, including hiring panels, background checks,
| and our process to ensure our existing culture of inclusion is
| strong enough to withstand individuals who don't share our
| inclusive values," they write.
|
| So they want to exclude someone for having different opinions to
| them, in the name of inclusivity?
|
| Clown world.
| zoeysaurusrex wrote:
| Who is "they"? Don't be shy.
|
| Saying things like "women soft and weak, cosseted and naive
| despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of
| shit." is more than just a difference of opinion. You cannot
| hold that opinion and be a fair leader.
| MyHypatia wrote:
| I think the clown world is hiring someone who wrote:
|
| "Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and
| naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full
| of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism,
| and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is,
| come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they'd become
| precisely the sort of useless baggage you'd trade for a box of
| shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel."
|
| It's especially ironic after an epidemic plague where 70% of
| health care workers are women. But I guess they're mostly
| useless baggage who are full of shit. Unlike this guy. See, he
| really understands how the world is and is just "telling it
| like it is". Let's trade all these useless women for shotgun
| shells, and hire people like this guy instead.
| CheezeIt wrote:
| Yet I see companies like Cisco announcing mental health days
| for their utterly broken employees.
| kbelder wrote:
| Yeah, he should have included Bay Area men in that
| assessment.
| Udik wrote:
| This is a wider excerpt:
|
| "When she was in her teens, her father decided to move the
| family to the United States, where they suffered a financial
| reversal she was unwilling to talk about. Suddenly not among
| the moneyed class, she hustled herself through the redbrick
| boondocks of the University of Vermont. Citibank internship
| led to a Deutsche Bank job, and after a few years she was an
| equity derivatives trader at Deutsche, holding her own
| against the toff sharks of the City of London.
|
| She had wild geen eyes, with unnatural red spots in her
| irises when you pulled close, reminiscent of that Afghan girl
| from the National Geographic cover. Her personality was
| flinty and rough, and as leathery as her skin. She had spent
| years between various jobs backpacking around the rougher
| parts of the world. She was an imposing, broad-shouldered
| presence, six feet tall in bare feet, and towering over me in
| heels.
|
| Most women in the Bay Area are soft and weak, cosseted and
| naive despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full
| of shit. They have their self-regarding entitlement feminism,
| and ceaselessly vaunt their independence, but the reality is,
| come the epidemic plague or foreign invasion, they'd become
| precisely the sort of useless baggage you'd trade for a box
| of shotgun shells or a jerry can of diesel.
|
| British Trader, on the other hand, was the sort of woman who
| would end up a useful ally in that postapocalypse, doing
| whatever work- be it carpentry, animal husbandry, or a
| shotgun blast in someone's back- required doing. Long story
| short, you wanted to tie your genetic wagon to the backing
| horse of her bloodline. Which is why I was less nervous than
| I should have been on a random Saturday in July..."
|
| So it's a passage in a (novel? Definitely a literary piece
| anyway) where, in order to better sing the praise of one
| particular woman, she is compared to another common type in
| the same environment. All clearly point of view of a narrator
| (who might or might not be the author). If these are the
| parameters, we should throw in the bin almost all literature,
| from men and women alike.
| MyHypatia wrote:
| He did not write a fiction novel. He wrote a book about his
| time working on ads at Facebook. He has now been hired to
| work on ads at Apple. Pointing this out is not "throwing
| away all literature".
| tomnipotent wrote:
| > So it's a passage in a (novel? Definitely a literary
| piece anyway)
|
| It's not fiction. It's an autobiography. These are his
| personal opinions and feelings.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| Since when personal feelings and opinions should be
| prosecuted? And who is so entitled to give themselves
| such right?
| tomnipotent wrote:
| Yes. We're allowed to judge people for the things they do
| and so, and decide we don't want to work with them. He's
| allowed his, and we're allowed ours. Many people are not
| interested with working with people that hold these world
| views, not when they have influence over the career
| progression of others.
| Udik wrote:
| The question is not whether it's allowed or not, it is.
| The question is whether it's stupid or not, and I think
| it is, terribly so.
| tomnipotent wrote:
| So women should be forced to work under a known
| misogynist, their salary and promotions tied to a boss
| that thinks them inferior and has _literally_ published a
| book saying so? Yeah, there are no examples of that going
| poorly.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| Nobody forces them to work, and 'known mysogynist' is
| just a personal attack without merit. What actions did he
| take against women in general or any woman in particular
| to be called a misogynist? Remember, if it's only your
| personal belief, if you dislike the book and the author
| of it you're free to look for another workplace. But not
| free to take actions against someone just because you
| don't like them.
| Udik wrote:
| > women should be forced to work under a known misogynist
|
| How do you know he's a misogynist? You read a small,
| absolutely marginal excerpt from a book that is clearly
| written in a literary style. In it, he draws a comparison
| between a particular woman, who is praised for her talent
| and resourcefulness, and "most Bay Area women", who are
| definitely _not_ all women, in the Bay Area and much less
| in general. "Most Americans" is not a judgement on human
| beings, "most American men" is not a judgement on all
| men, so why should "most Bay Area women" be a judgement
| on all women? And this is even assuming that that remark
| corresponds to some deep conviction, which is a silly
| assumption given the style and the context.
| rasputnik6502 wrote:
| Well I'm not interested in working with people who feel
| entitled to targeting someone and mobbing to destroy them
| based on opinions and personal beliefs. This is illegal
| activity imho
| mc32 wrote:
| It's weird for people of Latin descent. If they're on your
| side, they are people of color, if they are not, then, by
| magic, they are no longer. This happens to Hispanic cops as
| well. If they are on the other side of the progressive
| equation, then they're also people of color.
| zem wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| zoeysaurusrex wrote:
| How so? People can have all the opinions they want but saying
| things such as "women are soft and weak, cosseted and naive
| despite their claims of worldliness, and generally full of
| shit." isn't okay. Please convince me how that is employable
| behavior?
| olliej wrote:
| Yup
| olliej wrote:
| Different opinions in this case is that women and PoC are
| inferior.
|
| That's a reasonably difference of opinion to make choices over.
|
| I wouldn't trust performance assessments from him.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| When the "different opinion" involves proclaiming that a whole
| class of your fellow workers are "soft, weak and full of $#!+"
| then yes, you _should_ be resolutely excluded from positions of
| authority since you have willingly forfeited the kind of trust
| that 's required for any such role. Let this guy stay in a pure
| engineering/IC role if he wants, but he should not be in a
| management position.
| [deleted]
| mgamache wrote:
| It's not like Apple is making money from misogynistic music or
| supports a regime that enforces female sterilization. As long as
| Apple employees to have a safe space from offensive ideas and
| people all is okay.
| zoeysaurusrex wrote:
| So you think women should feel okay working alongside someone
| who thinks they are soft and weak, cosseted and naive despite
| their claims of worldliness, and generally full of shit?
|
| It's not about safe spaces or offensive ideas. It's about
| enabling sexism and racism to freely propagate while telling
| minority groups that it isn't harmful despite past experience.
| mgamache wrote:
| I was just pointing out the myopic hypocrisy of the
| complaint. Also, women are not a minority group, but I would
| say that if he's hired to do a job at a company he should be
| held to the same standards as any other employee. If he acts
| in ways that are outside the standards set by the company he
| should be fired. If the company rules don't allow for sexism,
| there will be none enabled. I think pre-screening employees
| based on their speech is a road to nowhere. I don't know
| where the racism part came from did I miss that in the
| article?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Women are a minority of workers at most tech firms.
| legostormtroopr wrote:
| This was buried in the article, but James Danmore is racist now.
|
| > notorious ex-Googler James Damore, who suggest this is because
| women and people of color lack the innate qualities needed to
| succeed in tech.
|
| It seems that people just keep tacking on "sins" to see what
| sticks to people's reputations regardless of the facts. Was there
| anything in Danmores article that even mentioned people of color?
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > lack the innate qualities needed to succeed in tech
|
| James Damore never said anything of the sort. He was concerned
| that women might feel excluded in an engineering-focused
| environment and be less likely to seek such a role because of
| the different aggregation of _preferences_ and _inclinations_
| among women as opposed to men. He said zilch about quality or
| potential for success, or for that matter about any individual
| woman (as opposed to aggregate trends and their influence on
| 'big picture' stats).
| mgamache wrote:
| 'notorious' is a Russell Conjugation unless it The Notorious
| B.I.G.
|
| https://tomdehnel.com/what-is-russell-conjugation/
| MyHypatia wrote:
| A person who wrote that Bay Area women are "soft", "weak"
| "useless baggage" that "should be traded for shotgun shells"
| should not be entrusted with a position where he evaluates other
| people's job performance.
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| The article quotes one of those Bay Area woman in tech who
| finds her job and life "exhausting." A common affliction. Why
| are these strong Bay Area women so exhausted all the time?
| Calvin02 wrote:
| Apple hiring a former Facebook ad products product manager,
| expanding its ads product suite, and expanding ads slots says
| more about how they see Facebook than the privacy changes they've
| made.
|
| Ads is a services market that is growing fast and as the phone
| market saturates, services will become more important for Apple.
| This will also help reduce the margin pressure on iPhone
| hardware.
| Traubenfuchs wrote:
| How can anything ad related still be growing if most people
| either trained their brain to ignore/close ads instantly or use
| adblockers?
| SirSourdough wrote:
| Because good advertising still impacts you even if you "know
| to ignore it", and there's lots of ways to advertise to
| people that aren't ads in the classic sense.
|
| I suspect that adblocker usage is also a lot lower than you
| expect, with a quick Google showing less than half of people
| worldwide using adblockers on desktop and adoption below 20%
| for mobile devices in the US. So there's still a broad market
| to target.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-05-12 23:02 UTC)