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Comment by ythn | Hacker News Reader

> Also, why is the solution 'women and minorities need to toughen up' (If that's not the intended reading of your comment, feel free to clarify)?

That's not the sole solution, no. But that's still part of the solution. If a woman or black man feels attacked for their gender/color even when anonymous... that means they've been conditioned to take offense by default and we need to figure out how to remove said conditioning as the default response.

My point is that getting negative feedback on an assignment, for example, is not necessarily sexual harassment. If the negative feedback specifically calls out gender, then yes, but I'm afraid a lot of these cases are just women being offended that they got negative feedback even if they would have gotten the same feedback had the assignment been submitted anonymously. Then again, I haven't read the publication.

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Let me repeat my question:

""" The question is, why do you think they take 'extra offense'? What about the structure of their lives would train them to recognize offense? """

What are you referring to with the "even when anonymous" comment?

Apparently my original comment was flagged and removed (I don't know why - maybe a moderator can shed some light). It said:

> I read an article (semi) recently posted here where women and other minorities felt attacked on Stack Overflow because of their gender/color, even though they were (for all intents and purposes) anonymous! Could this be the case here as well - women interpreting something that's not sexual harassment as sexual harassment? I.e. if a professor criticizes a woman's paper, she might interpret that as an attack on her gender, even if it isn't: > The most common type of sexual harassment is gender harassment, the report finds. Such behaviour conveys the impression that women do not belong in the workplace or do not merit respect — “the put-downs as opposed to the come-ons”, Johnson says

Is this self-reported harassment? If so, a "put-down" is highly subjective and the SO article shows that women and minorities can take extra offense where none was intended.

It sounds like you're suggesting folks reporting non-overt events as harassment are potentially falling victim to misattribution?

That is, they're drawing the wrong conclusion for, say, a rebuke or lack of praise.

Yes, exactly! Concisely put. That is my concern, supported by the StackOverflow survey results a few months ago

You really really want to believe harassment is not real, but as TFA shows it is a very real problem. I don't know what survey you are referring to which apparently proves harassment is not real?

> You really really want to believe harassment is not real

Nothing about that implies that harassment is not real, but rather that some subset of claims are not actually harassment.

I'm sure you are right... but just for my curiosity can you provide a link to this mysterious survey? Apparently it was linked in a deleted comment.

I would if I could, but I'm not the one who had posted it. Just a casual HN pedant. Sorry!

So you have no idea if this alleged documentation even exist? But you still felt you needed to assert that those "not actual harassment" cases (e.g. women interpreting "lack of praise" as harassment etc.) do exist, and we need to be concerned about them.

I am not surprised.

> So you have no idea if this alleged documentation even exist?

No, it exists and I saw the original link. I don't have it off-hand.

> But you still felt you needed to assert that those "not actual harassment" cases (e.g. women interpreting "lack of praise" as harassment etc.) do exist, and we need to be concerned about them.

'ythn did not more than question the methodology of the study, and point out that for non-overt events, the underlying assumption that something was harassment may be incorrect, and was brigaded into oblivion for this.

Something that was not mentioned, and is also a problem is intentionally false claims. Having been falsely accused of harassment in school, I know first hand it does occur and how damaging it can be.

Unfortunately it is people like you with a scared cow and agenda who cannot stand someone not toeing the party line.

You act as if all claims are legitimate and anyone who dares question the lynch mob is himself derided and attacked. Harassment is all too real, but we cannot lose sight of reality for a false utopia. Not all claims are rooted in fact, and some are actually meant to create harm.

I just asked for a link to the Stack Overflow harassment survey in question because I was curious. To be honest I did have some doubt about the validity of the interpretation since the comment implied that users on Stack Overflow are anonymous, which is clearly not the case for everyone. So I suspected there was some misinterpretation in play. In any case I can't really have an informed opinion either way since this document remains elusive.

> No, it exists and I saw the original link.

Well I guess I have to take your word for it then. Apparently asking for the link rather than accepting the claims unquestioning means I am a brigadeering lynch mob scared cow with an agenda who cannot stand someone not toeing the party line? While referring to the claims without being able to provide a source is totally fine.

I am prepared to apologize for assuming you hadn't actually read the alleged source. I do think it is fair to ask for a source though.

Sorry to hear about the false allegations raised against you, hope you are better.

Do you have a link? People are not necessarily anonymous on SO, so harassment could be real.

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