Upton Sinclair was a novelist, but the impact of his work was more akin to today’s investigative journalism. He went undercover to expose the harsh labor and unsanitary conditions in the meat-packing industry, he exposed the sensationalist “fake news” of his day, he pilloried Wall Street as well as the coal, oil and auto companies that drove the American economy. Industrialists hated him; the mainstream press only begrudgingly acknowledged his accomplishments. President Theodore Roosevelt called him “a crackpot,” and said further, “He is hysterical, unbalanced, and untruthful. Three-fourths of the things he said were absolute falsehoods. For some of the remainder there was only a basis of truth.”
I doubt Sinclair cared at all what the President thought, and he probably did have less concern for truthful details than he had for the larger cause of social justice. We should be glad for that. Today we still enjoy the fruits of Sinclair’s relentless fervor and incendiary writing: food safety standards, journalistic ethics, and heightened scrutiny of the giants of business on matters of fair and safe labor practices.
I regard Sarah Lacy as the Upton Sinclair of the tech industry, especially with regard to fair treatment of women in Silicon Valley workplaces. She has been a consistent and powerful advocate of social justice, and her impassioned writing has contributed to highly visible changes in highly visible businesses. She might occasionally trample on a smaller truth in pursuit of a larger justice – and if she can be anywhere near as successful as Sinclair in bringing about social change, I don’t really blame her. But nevertheless, we hold our idols to higher standards than our enemies.
Pando recently published an article about a VC firm, with one partner who had recently resigned due to highly credible allegations of sexual misconduct, one about-to-join partner deciding not to join after all, and the remaining partner dealing with the fallout. Since the firm stridently denied the initial claims of the victims, this remaining partner continues to receive Sarah’s scrutiny. In criticizing the firm’s promotion of “baller bro culture,” Pando published pictures of this remaining partner at parties with women.
This is where she lost me, a bit. These are just pictures of a guy at a party, he does not appear to be doing anything inappropriate. The women in the pictures are not doing anything inappropriate. How is this “baller bro culture”? I felt bad for the women, as it seemed that publication of the pictures was a sort of “party-shaming” implying that these women could have no possible role other than objectification. It seems oddly Puritan and retrograde in a way that doesn’t fit Sarah’s other writing.
But I get her point. If it turns out that these pictures were used in promotion of the VC firm’s activities, then they are illustrative of a “baller” image that the firm wanted to convey. Even if these particular pictures were never used that way, Sarah claims to have enough off-the-record information to be sure that the firm consciously promoted such an image, and I believe her. And more importantly, I believe the women who have come forward to claim that they were victimized by the VC firm. So at the end of the day, we are aligned on the larger cause, even though I am very sure that Sarah has done an injustice to the innocent women in the pictures she used. (She’s taken one of the pictures down, but not because she admits she was wrong, but because the copyright owner objected to its use.)
So I wondered, how can I help the larger cause? If I knew of any investors or company managers that abuse their positions for sexual advantage, I’d speak of it openly. But I don’t, so I asked myself whether I knew of anyone who was promoting a “baller bro image” that supports an environment that disadvantages women …
And here’s where I got stuck. I know one investor who frequently posts images of himself in glamorous locations, often with attractive women (and attractive men, to be fair). I know him pretty well, in fact. Everybody knows this guy, I’m sure Sarah knows him too. And everyone knows he’s a good, honest and fundamentally decent human. He’s known so well and spends so much time around attractive people, with such a sparkling reputation, that it’s basically impossible he could have done anything inappropriate without everyone finding out. Is he baller? Hellz yeah, he baller. Does that mean he uses a “baller bro culture” to promote his business and take advantage of women? I don’t think so …
I feel very confident that he’s never taken advantage of the inherently unfair investor power dynamic to pursue sex. But now we have to consider the question of whether his distribution of the images of innocent fun supports an overall culture in tech that’s bad for women. Again, I don’t think so – but I also don’t think I’m the best judge of this question. So let’s say for the moment that yes, these images contribute to an overall culture that objectifies women. What then? Do I reach out to this guy and insist that he stop posting pictures of his fabulous life? That seems oddly Puritan and retrograde.
WWSD? (What Would Sarah Do?)
I don’t know. Despite how unfairly she treated women in those other pictures, I have a hard time believing she’d engage in a crusade against this kind of aspirational Insta-journaling. I don’t think I can ask her, as she regards my concerns as absurd. So I’m left with few options … other than that impotent cry into the ether known as blogging, aka the last resort of a scoundrel.
ginsudo 