Closing the Harassment Gap

Justyn Hintze
Director of Content
Automatic Summary

Breaking the Silence: Addressing Harassment in the Tech Industry

Hello everyone, I’m Justin Hin and as a pathologist and woman in tech, my core mission is to decrease stigma and close the harassment gap. Today, I'm going to shed light on some alarming statistics from a recent survey chronicling the experiences of women and founders in the tech industry.

Harassment in Tech: A Startling Reality

A shocking 40% of women founders who sought capital for their startups endured some form of harassment. Even more disturbing, almost 60% of those women were propositioned for sex in exchange for support in raising capital. These figures are from a 2020 data set that was anonymous and global, reaching over 1000 tech employees, founders, and investors.

Quick Stats on Harassment Faced by Tech Start-Up Founders

  • Nearly half of women founders reported experiences of harassment, increasing to 65% for LGBTQ founders and 47% for women founders of color.
  • 41% of women founders who encountered harassment experienced sexual harassment.
  • Almost half of women founders faced blatant sexism, being told they would secure more investment if they were men.

The Workplace: Uncomfortable Territory

In the broader tech industry, alarming trends continue. Almost half of women working in tech experienced harassment in contrast to just 11% of men. The trust in companies to handle allegations appropriately is depressingly low, with 67% of women indicating a lack of faith in their company's approach.

On Reporting and Retaliation

The act of reporting such behavior carries its risks. Of the women who did report harassment to HR, 85% stated that the harasser faced no repercussions. Tragically, almost half experienced retaliation after reporting harassment.

Time for Change: What Can We Do?

The need for change is clear as crystal. So, what can we do in creating safer and more equitable spaces?

  • Create checks and balances in the workplace by having harassment reports submitted and reviewed by an external unbiased party.
  • Address systemic issues such as racism, homophobia, and misogyny from the top down.
  • Promote diversity in hiring but do so in a supportive and inclusive manner.
  • Reform reporting mechanisms and processes; provide options outside of HR departments which are often more focused on protecting the company than the employees.
  • Look beyond monetary gains as measures of success.
  • Ensure ongoing trainings are implemented to continually foster a safe, inclusive environment.

Despite the grim statistics, a movement of transparency, accountability, and support can effect change. Remember, we are not alone in this battle. If we stand together in creating a just and equitable tech industry, we can break the chain of harassment and bias. Let's not just imagine a more inclusive future of tech, let's build it.


Video Transcription

Hello everybody. I'm Justin Hin. I am a pathologist. I am a woman in tech and I work a lot to really decrease stigma and close the harassment job survey uh for women and founders in this type of industry on their experience.So uh harassment reporting, uh just general experiences in industry. And so 20 minutes is gonna go by super, super quick. Um I'm gonna see through some stuff. Um But click intro. Did you know that 40% of women founders who set out to raise capital to raise money for their start up based form of harassment and of those were 59% also, nearly 60% were proposition for sex in exchange for way. So our data um women who talk the whole firms, we can start strategies and we sent out an anonymous global survey to over 1000 people. They were tech employee founders and investors and this is 2020 data. So um I'm no longer with someone who tech, but more data is going to be coming out. Um I'm very passionate about this. So I'm gonna go through some of the thoughts real quick and then we're gonna talk about really how to solve this problem um that the problem of drafting but really to help make it have a more hospitable environment and a equitable place for women, particularly women of color and people can be cute.

So uh some quick g on start up founders and tech. So these are all from founders of tech start ups. So uh unfortunately, a little quicker than I wanted to go. But um nearly half of women founders say they 10 for while that 65% for LGBT Q founders and 40 per 47% but nearly half of women founders were women of color say they've experienced harassment. That's astronomical. And part of the issue is this isn't just a, a practice issue at play, but it's also systemic issues in racism and homophobia. So 41% of women founders who experience who were harassed, experienced sexual harassment and that's everything from being proposition for sex, unwanted physical contact, sexual slurs that were directed at them being growth of psychical photos. So it's all absolutely awful. Um Women in the sex industry are placed in this at exponential rates. And as you can see these negative numbers here, those are the increase or decreases from when the survey was done in 2017, between 2017 and 2020. As I mentioned, women of color founders were harassed more by investors. So racism is rampant uh in the tech industry and it needs to be acknowledged because it can't be addressed with it. Not acknowledged. The women of color founders harass 46% were half the potential investors.

Um And it's unacceptable. 40% of women founders who experience, like I said, harassment were harassed by an investor and 59% were I know I've said this before, but I really want to bring that point on because there are investors who time and time again say this isn't an issue and it very clearly is. And uh nearly half of women founders were told they would raise more money if they were a man. Uh So this is uh I talked with a start up founder and she actually said that he was speaking with an investor, we got her, she had a beer. Um And it is breakfast. It is, it is absolutely shows why there is such an enormous spending gap for women like up. So while we talk to founders in the tech industry, we also just talk to employers working in tech. Um A lot of us, right? And 48% and nearly half of women working in tech experienced harassment compared to 11% of men. I think that number still seems low, but we'll see going forward that a lot of people don't work for it. So that could be true here as well. And it's like it is um and like all surveys and data, uh this is only a sampling of people. So lots of people weren't reached in this particular survey as well, which is why we wanted to continue surveys. We need to.

Um So as you see here, 76% of women in fact experience, but it was by another employee or 2% but it was 65 basis of harassment are increasing. In many cases, the funding gas is increasing and all of this is correlated. And so when we look at reporting wasn't super high, but it decreased to 20 by 2020. Uh 45% of women reported the craftsman. Um whereas only 55% in 2017 and 67% of women, in fact, they do not have trust for their company would handle allocation of property. That is astronomical and it, it shows why we wouldn't have yes recording why we didn't have repercussion. Why we wouldn't be able to solve this problem with the root. And 70% of women talk. Obviously, again, this number seems low to me. So they would have that they've been treated differently through to their gender. But as we talked about the issue isn't only rooted in that sexism. It's really system, homophobia, misogyny and it was all the root issues here that needs to be upended from the top down to be able to solve this issue. And unfortunately, the current state of hr is not the answer. Most hr departments are in place to protect the company, protect the company from liability not the employee, so not us. And the issue there is 67% of women who work in tech don't trust the company. You know, we said that number just 37%. So what can we do?

What can we do in CC, what can we do working in tech companies? What can we do to support our college have to do something because retaliation is real. But it shouldn't be a woman who actually did report harassment to hr 85% said the harass no repercussion. Absolutely nothing. And then almost half said that they were in some way for the shortage of harassment. And that is how we about punishment. We saw it and lost the grave shop in the third day. Everything from uh getting fired being demoted, giving less work, being harassed, death being bullied in the workplace. All of these were for real life. Examples of women were giving, giving us in the survey how they were, how they were retaliated against who being the the series and it's just getting requests under the So what can we do? There are lots more stats uh For those that are women who talk about org. Um This is a huge issue and something that needs to be addressed and what we can do, there's so much to be done. It depends on where we are in our company, how much power and privilege we have all of that comes into play. Uh But no one should ever have to be a retaliation for reporting harassment and no one, none of us should ever blame ourselves for sexism for racism, homophobia or transphobia. But what we can do is stand up and bring something out when we see it happening.

So we need to create checks and balances in the workplace. We need to hold companies accountable for creating safer spaces. And sometimes what that looks like is maybe hr isn't who you report harassment to. Maybe maybe that portal is run by someone else and all reports of harassment are submitted through that portal and are looked into and investigated by an external one who is bias. And that's really the only way we're gonna get there. But we need to address these issues head on because if we pretend they don't exist, they're going to only continue the factor, continue to implode and continue to harm women, fear people and particularly people of color as well to diversify the DC. When we look across the board in the tech industry, so much of the DC, this white men and if we're not being intentional about hiring diverse senior leader, so we aren't going to do a better job going forward the recruitment process. So this is often exclusive. It tends to really be um like a meritocracy. So it tends to be people who hire people who look like them and it tends to be white men hiring white men. And if we continue on this trajectory. We're not going to be able to create a more inclusive, deeper equitable workplace to make sure you're not employ, right? Because that's going to be again one of those for face if you're hiring, simply because you're like, oh, let's check a box.

I need a black person, a clear person, a disabled person, you're going to create a really hostile environment because you haven't set up the groundwork for creating an environment or where we will thrive, where we have minorities, minorities will thrive. So it's important that especially if you're in a hiring role, if you're on a board, they qualified diverse people. It isn't hard. It just takes, it takes looking, it keeps putting out more, more um application, putting out the job search further wider for asking people in your network to share it and then have to support infrastructure to prevent that biggest street big treat information, those microaggressions, they may seem like nothing but they are, they're huge microaggressions on micro and it means having trainings in place and not a one off D I training because those don't work, those people fit in.

They don't like then it needs to be ongoing training. They have to be work and to come from the top down and it needs to be implemented in relation to the process from days. W the lawyer is also performing often, we've talked about how many women aren't reporting her out, how many women are harassed how many women aren't reporting and then often they don't say anything. We don't say anything because we're silenced because culture tells us, our culture tells us we won't be believed. Me too existed. And our data found that a too women felt worse about her. They felt like things have gotten worse. Men on the other hand, felt like things have gotten better but they haven't the data shows. And so we need to be doing the work and sometimes that means we need to reach out to lawyer, unemployment lawyer, if you've been discriminated against, if you've been harassed, because someone can help and they'll often offer free consultations. And if hr is there to support your company, they're not there to support you in the same way at any time, they're often set up to support the. It's also important that we reframe what success looks like in the tax right now. Success is about money.

It's about raising more money at all costs, growing bigger, growing faster often and often going to set up for failure. So capitalism is very real. Uh it isn't only about the money. That's not the and that's not what sex law it is right now, but it necessarily, it shouldn't necessarily be that way. So it's expensive about creating pick as product for everybody and everybody that we're talking about that is an incredibly diverse group of people. So we can't create really diverse products, truly diverse inclusive companies without a culture that's already set up to integrate and support those people and creating difficult roles. If the only people creating companies creating products are great like men, where are we, what are we doing here?

Because that is not going to reflect the experience and identity of the majority of the people in this country globally and by this country, I'm in the US and Global Summit. So just look at that out there. I do have a US centric perspective um in terms of where I work and where I do my, the bulk of my research. So the the results in this survey are global. Um So I went more quickly than expected because of 20 minutes. Um I would love any questions. Uh oh I just heard that I'm so sorry, I just saw that it's hard to hear me. Can you not, can you not hear? Is that better? Everybody? OK. Better. Yeah. OK, perfect. So um if anybody has questions, um experiences, things that you want to share, I would love to take a couple of minutes um to hear, hear what your experiences are to hear, any questions you have and you start because it can often sound easy to say a lot of this but they sure implement checks and balances, hire diverse candidates to defeat.

We um but it's not always easy to implement. So any questions, experiences and if not, um I will just go back for a minute, um, because they did go quickly through some of these, um, one there is a company that, um, we'll actually go through and collect harassment stories and work with you. Um, the name that you have to share, um, to reach out to these companies to be able to do this, um, where you have the external checks and balances because I internally where it's not sitting up. Um, so let me just open that real quick. Well, I don't have the company up right now. So if anyone's interested, I will share um, my information and I will send that out to you. Hm, I got a great question. Thanks Sarah. What might you suggest relating to standing up for yourself in the midst of harassment such as if you do say something or not? So I think that it's, if you feel safe, if you feel like you won't be retaliated against, I would recommend I would recommend either saying something in the moment where you feel this is inappropriate and call out why or if you don't feel safe in the moment, if it doesn't feel like a comfortable thing to do, I would recommend sending emails.

You see some people. So there are sentences and so always writing everything down, making sure it's time stamped, dated, collecting that information that you are building that whether it's one time or it happens multiple times again, if you are safe, if you were able to stand up for yourself. Um, if you were able to speak out, I would say yes, absolutely do so. Um, but often that's not often it doesn't feel safe. It, it is a situation where there will be retaliation. So in those cases, um, again, reach out to external companies, um, as standard support, employment lawyers. Um, all of that is going to be helpful when it's not something you're able to do yourself. And it's OK. I wanna like also reiterate that it's not a failure to not be able to do that ourselves because it's not easy, we're not in a culture where it's easy for women to report, for non-binary, for, for people to report. Um And so being able to, especially if you're starting a company, being able to build that from the ground up, they get into the rules.

Um And by rules, I mean, they get into like your guidelines, your company um policies that's going to be so, so helpful and I got my contact info here. So if you have any follow up questions, if you want more access for data, um if you even just want that company that I mentioned, I sorry, I thought I had it in front of me, but I don't so I can send that out to you. Um It's Stepan Ashley at gmail.com. Uh Were there any other question, you know, we have about one minute left. That was a lot of information. I know that um not every topic. Um So the data is maybe dismal and unfortunately, it's, it hasn't gotten better. The funding gap has widened and I do see a connection in all of this. Um I, I worked with a lot of founders and I've helped some pitch investors. And part of the issue there is that there is the discomfort, there is the gap, there is the that the step um racism and homophobia. So being able to really recognize that, call it out and push ourselves will be a little bit uncomfortable sometimes. So if you see it happening, push yourself, it's gonna be an uncomfortable position sometimes to say something, but you would want it done for you. I know I would want it done for you. So uh I hope that it's helpful.

I hope that we all know that we're not alone in this. There is a huge support network, a huge community and you're part of it. So no matter who you are like, I hope that we can stand up and do this together. Thank you all so much for joining and I hope you have a great rest of the conference.