Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think it’s good to have a diversity of views and that the forum is better for it. I think your view is empowering, but one thing I want to say is that I don’t think we should describe this as “shyness”. The point is that when there are power-dynamics at play, such as the one described, people are less likely to say how they feel since a lot may be on the line, such as their livelihood. This isn’t just general shyness, because the same person may feel confident to say how they feel in other settings where the same power dynamics don’t exist.
Thank you for your contributions Rebecca and Lauren. My career is the most important thing in the world to me, so I have empathy for women who would take actions that feel drastic to me to protect theirs. I’ve worked hard to see things from your perspectives, but in thinking about them I actually came away more confident that women should feel comfortable standing up to powerful men.
It dawned on me that until I changed my career plans this month, most of my male friends held positions of power in my field very similar to the power gap that I think the post described. They had no direct power over me, but a word from them would have been extremely helpful in getting an interview or a job. I criticize them freely about all sorts of things, and think this is the best way of engaging in these friendships that honestly feel more like peer relationships than relationships of different status to me. The idea of trying to be strategic by not being honest if one of them flirted with me and I didn’t like it makes me even more uncomfortable than not being honest with them in general would. Wouldn’t that mean I was trying to get ahead based on something other than the quality of my work? I’m not suggesting a woman who would feel pressured to do this is doing something unsavory, but rather that a society that tells her she should feel pressured is reducing her to her gender and devaluing her work. I came away thinking the problem may be less about shyness in general than imposter syndrome specifically. Victims of it require our support not judgement (and I certainly feel it myself coming from a very different class than EAs typically do, and honestly being below average in my community in career prowess), but it requires different interventions than the problems you’ve described.
I can’t help but thinking if more women were as comfortable criticizing friends with very different statuses in their field as I am, they would discover that high status EA men typically welcome criticism (my local EA community is the EA hub of the San Francisco bay area, so my experiences probably generalize better than they otherwise would). Importantly, I have this experience even when they are just acquaintances, so it doesn’t seem to be a result of something hard to develop. We’ve just learned that possibly the worst example in the Time article was caused not by the man operating in bad faith in a way that would make him likely to retaliate by not supporting his friend’s career if she stood up to him, but by miscommunication (his severe miscommunication). His post seems to contain the passion for self-improvement I’ve witnessed time and time again in the men with these power differences from me when I’ve criticized them. I encourage more women to experiment with criticizing their male friends with power differences. It can start small! It’s so tragic to me that we are losing all these valuable female voices about things far beyond gender relations to what I think is likely to often be unnecessary imposter syndrome.
I’m discovering in this discourse that my perspective doesn’t seem to be typical for my gender and career stage, so please tell me what you think I may be missing!
Hi Sonia, thanks for your thoughtful response. Maybe this scenario will show an example of a more complex power dynamic than the one you describe having with your friends:
Jen gets a small grant from x and starts working with senior people at y company. She knows all of their names because they are well known people in z community, but doesn’t know them personally. She slowly gets to know them by working with them, and knows that having them as contacts, references, etc will be really important to the future of her career (perhaps she wants to even stay at this company longterm). She has spent a year working with them now, and her ability to get future career opportunities within this community, field of work, and/or company is reliant on them being good references for her, or longterm co-workers. One of the senior males begins to get extra friendly with her. At first it seems like normal friendly banter that may push her professional boundaries a bit further than she’d like, but after a few months it is clear that he is interested in her sexually, and that the other senior people in the group know about this, and talk about it in a way that makes it seem as though they are comfortable with it too. You put up with it and think it might be better to just ignore his remarks and go on with your work, because it isn’t clear what will happen if you say anything negative about how he is acting. You question yourself- is this normal? everyone else here seems to think it is normal? am I the odd one? am I a prude? …this story can be continued but maybe you can see where I am going with this.
I think whether Jen would be comfortable telling the guy off is dependent on many things- one example would be the structures in place that make it safe for her to do so (is there an independent person for her to go to that will make sure that she doesn’t lose career opportunities because of her not accepting his advances?). Another example might be whether or not the co-workers say this isn’t normal and that there are norms in place that make sure there isn’t professional/personal overlap at work.
Note: this is not a real story, and is not meant to be a reflection of the actual story in the OP, but just an example of how power dynamics can get messy.
Oh yes, I agree this would be a very different scenario than the one in the OP and with my friends, and I would feel much the same way you do about it.
I think these points in the OP are similar though (though once again the story is not related):
I should however note that:
We had met via EA and spent a good fraction of conversation time talking about EA-relevant topics
I was older and more central in the EA community
On other occasions, including early in our friendship, we had some professional interactions, and I wasn’t clear about how I was handling the personal/professional boundary
I in fact had significant amounts of power
This was not very salient to me but very salient to her
Thanks for sharing. I actually think that quote from the post describes my relationship with my friends very well except for the saliency and pressure part, although it’s vague enough that it’s possible it’s describing something different too.
I am updating that so many women seem to care so much more about power differentials than I do that norms that cater to them would probably be net positive because otherwise we would have far fewer women in the movement.
This isn’t really about sexual misconduct anymore for me, but a broader issue. If women don’t feel comfortable declining romantic interest from senior men outside the workplace, they must be abstaining from criticizing them in all sorts of other ways too. I’m very disturbed by the mass of knowledge we are missing out on if they are refraining from speaking up at the rate it seems like from the conversation around this post. Do you have any thoughts about how we can encourage women in EA to care less about power differentials outside of sexual misconduct problems?
I think the onus needs to be placed on the people who are abusing their power. There are ways to do this. If the community acknowledges that this isn’t ok, there can be a shift in the broader culture. People need to be aware these power dynamics exist and speak out against people who abuse them and I don’t mean the person on the receiving end of the abuse of power, but their colleagues.
Some concrete steps I can think of moving forward would be:
a) Workplace training on power dynamics and professional boundaries. b) An external source where complaints can be made where the people receiving the complaints do not have connections to the EA community such as personal friendships/collegial relationships.
I’m not sure if this answers your question at all, but I am enjoying this discussion and appreciate the way you are approaching our conversation. Thanks!
Edit: I want to make it crystal clear here that I’m not talking about sexual misconduct at this point, or denying that actual power differentials are a huge problem in EA. I’m learning that the forum requires a clearer writing style that I’m still new at.
The concrete steps you mentioned make sense to me, although my weakly held view is that people with less power caring too much about power differentials is an even bigger problem than actual power differentials. Maybe more workshops about overcoming imposter syndrome would help? I think epistemics would be weaker in the community if we don’t make a large effort to encourage people to be as assertive as I am in the face of power imbalances, but maybe that’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means more diversity? A lot depends on how tractable different interventions are, and ultimately I just care about getting people’s voices heard. I also appreciate how you’ve approached this conversation! I hadn’t said anything controversial on the forum before this weekend, and this has been much less scary than I expected.
(Sorry you are getting downvotes as soon as you affirm that commenting on the forum is less scary than you expected. The irony is real and hopefully you can laugh at it.)
Don’t worry I am. I imagine it was hard to tell I wasn’t denying that power differentials are a serious problem in their own right for someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time critiquing powerful men, or has and hasn’t had the positive response I have. I also think the fact that I was no longer talking about sexual misconduct specifically was lost in the comment thread. I’m glad I said it, because I found the feedback useful. Thanks for checking in!
The main reason I disagree voted your story is the way that it frames women—as helpless children, with a character so weak and insubstantial that having a few other people imply a certain belief about whether a relationship would be appropriate or not is enough to render them helpless and unable to determine their own preferences. If Jen can be convinced that she is wrong to reject a male suitor because nobody else in the community thinks that there is anything wrong with him propositioning her, how can she possibly consent to any sexual activity that takes place in human society? If your story is accurate, you aren’t making a case for better norms around understanding power dynamics—you’re making the case that women are manifestly unsuitable for the workplace. If the mere inference that a business/community thinks that a sexual approach is not by itself improper is enough to render a woman utterly unable to consent, then how can they meaningfully interact in a business environment, where they will be expected to interact with people of wildly differing status on a regular basis? How can a woman being paid to perform a job meaningfully consent to being given work to do by her manager? In the world you’ve presented in your story, they quite simply cannot.
I’ve continued to work hard to see things from the perspective of women like you over the last couple days, and just had another surprising realization. I’ve actually experienced a conversation in EA that I think could have gone in the Time article (similar to some of the milder examples they gave like the man who expressed an interest in adult relationships with large age gaps to a young lower status woman, not the OP’s example). I will give no details because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. I enjoyed the conversation and it took this intense dialogue for me to realize a different woman in my position might feel opressed by it. Not being able to have as many fun, edgy (to me) conversations like that anymore will decrease my quality of life. However, the pain that people are experiencing seems a lot more intense than the joy I get from edgy conversations. I’m really looking forward to the results of the polls EA is putting together about this. My sense is I’m in a minority for my gender and status, but I have no idea by how much.
Hey Sonia, I have been trying to see things from your perspective as well. I think it’s great you’re feeling empathetic for women who might feel differently than you in those situations. I think there’s probably still a lot of ways you can get joy having edgy conversations without contributing to this culture within EA itself. I kinda appreciate Will’s take on this here. I struggle between feeling like “policing” people’s relationships and whatnot is probably bad, while also knowing that not being firm the way I am about professional/personal boundaries likely contributes to a culture where people are taken advantage of. In an ideal world, we could have both your preferences (and the preferences of many others) and a healthy culture, but I don’t actually know if that’s possible.
I’ve continued to work hard to see things from the perspective of women like you over the last couple days
Upvoted!
Not being able to have as many fun, edgy (to me) conversations like that anymore will decrease my quality of life. However, the pain that people are experiencing seems a lot more intense than the joy I get from edgy conversations.
I can see why this feels like a tradeoff, but I do think it’s worth thinking about these conversations in the context that they happened—I don’t think people are (or should be!) advocating for EAs to never talk about sex ever again. But clearly there are contexts where personal topics can be discussed safely, and contexts in which these discussions are inappropriate.
For example, is it important to you that you are able to have these conversations with anyone, in any context, or just that you are able to have these conversations when you feel comfortable to?
Thank you for your contributions Lauren and Bruce.
Personally I get a lot out of being able to have these conversations with anyone no matter how high their status is in EA, as long as we don’t have a specific workplace relationship with a large power differential. For example, the man I’m referring to was one of the top people at an EA organization I wanted very much to work at at the time, but if I already worked there and it happened at work or in a private environment (this was a group conversation), I would have felt uncomfortable.
If I wasn’t allowed to have unique conversations that mention sex/romance with higher status EAs anymore, I wouldn’t be able to have them at all at the moment, because I am in a very early stage of my career (I’m an undergraduate) and all my close friends are EAs. Not centering my social life around EA would be a very large sacrifice I am unwilling to make. However, Will’s post Lauren referred to seems like it might be a good compromise. I don’t personally sleep around, but it appears to be something easier to enjoy with less unique people than edgy conversations are.
I also think reducing global poverty and x-risks is so important that I would be willing to make a lot of sacrifices if it made a big difference to these causes. I’m already planning to donate most of my income to charity starting within a few years of graduation. Surely if my personal enjoyment is the only thing at stake, I can dramatically reduce the edgy conversations I have about sex with my friends. I’m only advocating for us to compromise to the extent that I think this is about broader epistemic quality within the movement.
I should clarify how I interpreted the example in the Time article I’m comparing my experience to, as people have different interpretations of the example they gave. I think I would have experienced it as an edgy conversation that involved bad wording that happened to have a large power differential, but didn’t involve pressure to engage in a relationship. This is because if the man in the Time article had done something concrete that would make someone with my personality feel pressured to be in a relationship with him like ask her on a date, I think the article would have mentioned it. Instead it referred to her feelings, which I think we are learning depend a lot on people’s personalities as well as objective facts. I am open to it just being bad writing and actually referring to something different than my experience though.
Yeah I’d say it’s not always confidence, rather sometimes a strategic/rational decision, that determines whether someone pushes back in these circumstances
Thanks for sharing your perspective. I think it’s good to have a diversity of views and that the forum is better for it. I think your view is empowering, but one thing I want to say is that I don’t think we should describe this as “shyness”. The point is that when there are power-dynamics at play, such as the one described, people are less likely to say how they feel since a lot may be on the line, such as their livelihood. This isn’t just general shyness, because the same person may feel confident to say how they feel in other settings where the same power dynamics don’t exist.
Thank you for your contributions Rebecca and Lauren. My career is the most important thing in the world to me, so I have empathy for women who would take actions that feel drastic to me to protect theirs. I’ve worked hard to see things from your perspectives, but in thinking about them I actually came away more confident that women should feel comfortable standing up to powerful men.
It dawned on me that until I changed my career plans this month, most of my male friends held positions of power in my field very similar to the power gap that I think the post described. They had no direct power over me, but a word from them would have been extremely helpful in getting an interview or a job. I criticize them freely about all sorts of things, and think this is the best way of engaging in these friendships that honestly feel more like peer relationships than relationships of different status to me. The idea of trying to be strategic by not being honest if one of them flirted with me and I didn’t like it makes me even more uncomfortable than not being honest with them in general would. Wouldn’t that mean I was trying to get ahead based on something other than the quality of my work? I’m not suggesting a woman who would feel pressured to do this is doing something unsavory, but rather that a society that tells her she should feel pressured is reducing her to her gender and devaluing her work. I came away thinking the problem may be less about shyness in general than imposter syndrome specifically. Victims of it require our support not judgement (and I certainly feel it myself coming from a very different class than EAs typically do, and honestly being below average in my community in career prowess), but it requires different interventions than the problems you’ve described.
I can’t help but thinking if more women were as comfortable criticizing friends with very different statuses in their field as I am, they would discover that high status EA men typically welcome criticism (my local EA community is the EA hub of the San Francisco bay area, so my experiences probably generalize better than they otherwise would). Importantly, I have this experience even when they are just acquaintances, so it doesn’t seem to be a result of something hard to develop. We’ve just learned that possibly the worst example in the Time article was caused not by the man operating in bad faith in a way that would make him likely to retaliate by not supporting his friend’s career if she stood up to him, but by miscommunication (his severe miscommunication). His post seems to contain the passion for self-improvement I’ve witnessed time and time again in the men with these power differences from me when I’ve criticized them. I encourage more women to experiment with criticizing their male friends with power differences. It can start small! It’s so tragic to me that we are losing all these valuable female voices about things far beyond gender relations to what I think is likely to often be unnecessary imposter syndrome.
I’m discovering in this discourse that my perspective doesn’t seem to be typical for my gender and career stage, so please tell me what you think I may be missing!
Hi Sonia, thanks for your thoughtful response. Maybe this scenario will show an example of a more complex power dynamic than the one you describe having with your friends:
Jen gets a small grant from x and starts working with senior people at y company. She knows all of their names because they are well known people in z community, but doesn’t know them personally. She slowly gets to know them by working with them, and knows that having them as contacts, references, etc will be really important to the future of her career (perhaps she wants to even stay at this company longterm). She has spent a year working with them now, and her ability to get future career opportunities within this community, field of work, and/or company is reliant on them being good references for her, or longterm co-workers. One of the senior males begins to get extra friendly with her. At first it seems like normal friendly banter that may push her professional boundaries a bit further than she’d like, but after a few months it is clear that he is interested in her sexually, and that the other senior people in the group know about this, and talk about it in a way that makes it seem as though they are comfortable with it too. You put up with it and think it might be better to just ignore his remarks and go on with your work, because it isn’t clear what will happen if you say anything negative about how he is acting. You question yourself- is this normal? everyone else here seems to think it is normal? am I the odd one? am I a prude? …this story can be continued but maybe you can see where I am going with this.
I think whether Jen would be comfortable telling the guy off is dependent on many things- one example would be the structures in place that make it safe for her to do so (is there an independent person for her to go to that will make sure that she doesn’t lose career opportunities because of her not accepting his advances?). Another example might be whether or not the co-workers say this isn’t normal and that there are norms in place that make sure there isn’t professional/personal overlap at work.
Note: this is not a real story, and is not meant to be a reflection of the actual story in the OP, but just an example of how power dynamics can get messy.
Oh yes, I agree this would be a very different scenario than the one in the OP and with my friends, and I would feel much the same way you do about it.
I think these points in the OP are similar though (though once again the story is not related):
Thanks for sharing. I actually think that quote from the post describes my relationship with my friends very well except for the saliency and pressure part, although it’s vague enough that it’s possible it’s describing something different too.
I am updating that so many women seem to care so much more about power differentials than I do that norms that cater to them would probably be net positive because otherwise we would have far fewer women in the movement.
This isn’t really about sexual misconduct anymore for me, but a broader issue. If women don’t feel comfortable declining romantic interest from senior men outside the workplace, they must be abstaining from criticizing them in all sorts of other ways too. I’m very disturbed by the mass of knowledge we are missing out on if they are refraining from speaking up at the rate it seems like from the conversation around this post. Do you have any thoughts about how we can encourage women in EA to care less about power differentials outside of sexual misconduct problems?
I think the onus needs to be placed on the people who are abusing their power. There are ways to do this. If the community acknowledges that this isn’t ok, there can be a shift in the broader culture. People need to be aware these power dynamics exist and speak out against people who abuse them and I don’t mean the person on the receiving end of the abuse of power, but their colleagues.
Some concrete steps I can think of moving forward would be:
a) Workplace training on power dynamics and professional boundaries.
b) An external source where complaints can be made where the people receiving the complaints do not have connections to the EA community such as personal friendships/collegial relationships.
I’m not sure if this answers your question at all, but I am enjoying this discussion and appreciate the way you are approaching our conversation. Thanks!
Edit: I want to make it crystal clear here that I’m not talking about sexual misconduct at this point, or denying that actual power differentials are a huge problem in EA. I’m learning that the forum requires a clearer writing style that I’m still new at.
The concrete steps you mentioned make sense to me, although my weakly held view is that people with less power caring too much about power differentials is an even bigger problem than actual power differentials. Maybe more workshops about overcoming imposter syndrome would help? I think epistemics would be weaker in the community if we don’t make a large effort to encourage people to be as assertive as I am in the face of power imbalances, but maybe that’s a price I’m willing to pay if it means more diversity? A lot depends on how tractable different interventions are, and ultimately I just care about getting people’s voices heard. I also appreciate how you’ve approached this conversation! I hadn’t said anything controversial on the forum before this weekend, and this has been much less scary than I expected.
(Sorry you are getting downvotes as soon as you affirm that commenting on the forum is less scary than you expected. The irony is real and hopefully you can laugh at it.)
Don’t worry I am. I imagine it was hard to tell I wasn’t denying that power differentials are a serious problem in their own right for someone who hasn’t spent a lot of time critiquing powerful men, or has and hasn’t had the positive response I have. I also think the fact that I was no longer talking about sexual misconduct specifically was lost in the comment thread. I’m glad I said it, because I found the feedback useful. Thanks for checking in!
I’m curious if the people who disagree voted my story could explain why? What is it that you disagree with?
This post is a few days old, but sure!
The main reason I disagree voted your story is the way that it frames women—as helpless children, with a character so weak and insubstantial that having a few other people imply a certain belief about whether a relationship would be appropriate or not is enough to render them helpless and unable to determine their own preferences. If Jen can be convinced that she is wrong to reject a male suitor because nobody else in the community thinks that there is anything wrong with him propositioning her, how can she possibly consent to any sexual activity that takes place in human society? If your story is accurate, you aren’t making a case for better norms around understanding power dynamics—you’re making the case that women are manifestly unsuitable for the workplace. If the mere inference that a business/community thinks that a sexual approach is not by itself improper is enough to render a woman utterly unable to consent, then how can they meaningfully interact in a business environment, where they will be expected to interact with people of wildly differing status on a regular basis? How can a woman being paid to perform a job meaningfully consent to being given work to do by her manager? In the world you’ve presented in your story, they quite simply cannot.
I’ve continued to work hard to see things from the perspective of women like you over the last couple days, and just had another surprising realization. I’ve actually experienced a conversation in EA that I think could have gone in the Time article (similar to some of the milder examples they gave like the man who expressed an interest in adult relationships with large age gaps to a young lower status woman, not the OP’s example). I will give no details because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. I enjoyed the conversation and it took this intense dialogue for me to realize a different woman in my position might feel opressed by it. Not being able to have as many fun, edgy (to me) conversations like that anymore will decrease my quality of life. However, the pain that people are experiencing seems a lot more intense than the joy I get from edgy conversations. I’m really looking forward to the results of the polls EA is putting together about this. My sense is I’m in a minority for my gender and status, but I have no idea by how much.
Hey Sonia, I have been trying to see things from your perspective as well. I think it’s great you’re feeling empathetic for women who might feel differently than you in those situations. I think there’s probably still a lot of ways you can get joy having edgy conversations without contributing to this culture within EA itself. I kinda appreciate Will’s take on this here. I struggle between feeling like “policing” people’s relationships and whatnot is probably bad, while also knowing that not being firm the way I am about professional/personal boundaries likely contributes to a culture where people are taken advantage of. In an ideal world, we could have both your preferences (and the preferences of many others) and a healthy culture, but I don’t actually know if that’s possible.
Upvoted!
I can see why this feels like a tradeoff, but I do think it’s worth thinking about these conversations in the context that they happened—I don’t think people are (or should be!) advocating for EAs to never talk about sex ever again. But clearly there are contexts where personal topics can be discussed safely, and contexts in which these discussions are inappropriate.
For example, is it important to you that you are able to have these conversations with anyone, in any context, or just that you are able to have these conversations when you feel comfortable to?
Thank you for your contributions Lauren and Bruce.
Personally I get a lot out of being able to have these conversations with anyone no matter how high their status is in EA, as long as we don’t have a specific workplace relationship with a large power differential. For example, the man I’m referring to was one of the top people at an EA organization I wanted very much to work at at the time, but if I already worked there and it happened at work or in a private environment (this was a group conversation), I would have felt uncomfortable.
If I wasn’t allowed to have unique conversations that mention sex/romance with higher status EAs anymore, I wouldn’t be able to have them at all at the moment, because I am in a very early stage of my career (I’m an undergraduate) and all my close friends are EAs. Not centering my social life around EA would be a very large sacrifice I am unwilling to make. However, Will’s post Lauren referred to seems like it might be a good compromise. I don’t personally sleep around, but it appears to be something easier to enjoy with less unique people than edgy conversations are.
I also think reducing global poverty and x-risks is so important that I would be willing to make a lot of sacrifices if it made a big difference to these causes. I’m already planning to donate most of my income to charity starting within a few years of graduation. Surely if my personal enjoyment is the only thing at stake, I can dramatically reduce the edgy conversations I have about sex with my friends. I’m only advocating for us to compromise to the extent that I think this is about broader epistemic quality within the movement.
I should clarify how I interpreted the example in the Time article I’m comparing my experience to, as people have different interpretations of the example they gave. I think I would have experienced it as an edgy conversation that involved bad wording that happened to have a large power differential, but didn’t involve pressure to engage in a relationship. This is because if the man in the Time article had done something concrete that would make someone with my personality feel pressured to be in a relationship with him like ask her on a date, I think the article would have mentioned it. Instead it referred to her feelings, which I think we are learning depend a lot on people’s personalities as well as objective facts. I am open to it just being bad writing and actually referring to something different than my experience though.
Yeah I’d say it’s not always confidence, rather sometimes a strategic/rational decision, that determines whether someone pushes back in these circumstances