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Comment by leokun | Hacker News Reader

Eh, publicly shaming doesn't work without considerable and undeniable proof. It will just backfire into internet rage and dossing ala dongle gate. If there is real harassment best just make it hurt through state harassment arbitration. When they get tired of paying through the nose for all the stupid insensitive things naive and oblivious coworkers are bandying about, maybe they'll get serious.

Start writing things down and then contact a local equal opportunity office and start the process. It will not be cheap for them. If people keep doing this they'll change their ways.

Going public on Twitter or Hacker News though hasn't done much other than bring out nasty and unproductive fights between Social Justice Warriors and Men's Rights fanatics. They make everyone look bad and we all walk away feeling like maybe we've lost faith in humanity when in reality a serious problem just stems from mostly unintentional, but hurtful ignorance.

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This is exactly what I don't understand. If I was being harassed to the point that I was considering quitting my job, I would simply gather all the evidence I could (she mentions emails, I would also carry a voice recorder) and hire an attorney. I wouldn't tweet about it, I wouldn't write a blog post about it or give a talk about it. None of those things are going to fix the problem. File the lawsuit and let the facts speak for themselves.

That's what Ellen Pao did. She got shit too, including being fired. Let's see how it pans out for her.

Counterexample: Pao's husband sued his employer for discrimination and made a sweet million:

Fletcher sued his employer, brokerage Kidder Peabody, for discrimination and won $1.3 million in 1991.

what does that have to do with anything?

> File the lawsuit

That's not how it works, at least not in California. That is if you use the equal employment opportunity system. You go through arbitration first. The two sides have to meet and negotiate an outcome, someone is there to help the process. Likely it will be settled there with money exchanged unless there was never any enough evidence for it to go to arbitration. Once there is arbitration, both sides have to compromise. If this fails, then you can file a law suit. The arbitration will be part of that I imagine, but I've never seen how the process works after arbitration. I think usually fixing it in arbitration is the norm.

You don't still have to work at that place to file the grievance. So this individual can still do that. I think if you've gone public with your accusation you are less likely to have success at arbitration because I would think at least.

The amount of money I've seen exchanged is usually a few months salary. You have to come in with a big number though, because you will be pressured to bring it down.

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