Yes, I agree with what you’ve written here. “This comes from a place of hurt” was actually meant as hedging/softening; “because you have had bad experiences it makes sense for your post to be angry and emotionally charged and it should not be held to the same epistemic standards as a typical EA Forum post on a less personal issue.” Sorry that wasn’t clear.
My response was based on my impressions from several years being a woman in EA circles, which are that these issues absolutely do exist and affect an unfortunately high number of women to various extents, and also that some of what’s described in this post is atypically severe. (Obviously, none of this should ever happen, to any degree of severity, and I really want to see EA get better at preventing it!) Originally, I wasn’t clear on the fact that the post was written as a personal report of harm experienced, and that its descriptions of the severity were not intended as universal claims about what is typical. The author has now made a number of edits which make the scope/intent of the post much clearer, thereby obviating much of my comment. I agree that the idea of “endorsing” someone’s report of their own experience is not useful for the reasons you describe, and on further reflection I do want to be more careful in future to respond to reports of harm in ways that don’t disincentivize reporting—that is the last thing I want to do!
Yes, I agree with what you’ve written here. “This comes from a place of hurt” was actually meant as hedging/softening; “because you have had bad experiences it makes sense for your post to be angry and emotionally charged and it should not be held to the same epistemic standards as a typical EA Forum post on a less personal issue.” Sorry that wasn’t clear.
My response was based on my impressions from several years being a woman in EA circles, which are that these issues absolutely do exist and affect an unfortunately high number of women to various extents, and also that some of what’s described in this post is atypically severe. (Obviously, none of this should ever happen, to any degree of severity, and I really want to see EA get better at preventing it!) Originally, I wasn’t clear on the fact that the post was written as a personal report of harm experienced, and that its descriptions of the severity were not intended as universal claims about what is typical. The author has now made a number of edits which make the scope/intent of the post much clearer, thereby obviating much of my comment. I agree that the idea of “endorsing” someone’s report of their own experience is not useful for the reasons you describe, and on further reflection I do want to be more careful in future to respond to reports of harm in ways that don’t disincentivize reporting—that is the last thing I want to do!