Push for Gender Equality in Tech? Some Men Say It’s Gone Too Far
Onstage at a recent event, the venture capitalist Vinod Khosla said harassment in Silicon Valley was “rarer than in most other businesses.”
Many men now feel like “there’s a gun to the head” to be better about gender issues, said Rebecca Lynn, a venture capitalist at Canvas Ventures,
and while “there’s a high awareness right now, which is positive, at the same time there’s a fear.”
The backlash follows increasingly vulgar harassment revelations in Silicon Valley.
Warren Farrell, who lives in Marin, Calif., and whose 1993 book, “The Myth of Male Power,” birthed the modern men’s rights movement,
said, “The less safe the environment is for men, the more they will seek little pods of safety like the tech world.”
This turn in the gender conversation is good news for Mr. Damore.
Mr. Graham said in an email that there needed to be more distinction between fact and policy, and Mr. Weinstein said there was “a sea of brilliant women” and
that more needed to be done to “figure out how to more fully empower them.”
Now men’s rights advocates in Silicon Valley have galvanized.
“But we’re talking about women staffing positions — things like autos — where it cannot be explained other than manipulation.”
Those leading Silicon Valley’s gender equality push said they were astonished
that just as the movement was having an impact, it opened up an even more radical men’s rights perspective.