I’ve had enough of this article. It’s never going to end. Let’s just let the world end with Trumps leadership.
Why are woman harassed by women not coming forward in this. It happens.
9
About 20 years ago, I was working for a major NY ad agency. My boss said I needed to stay late to finish a project. She called me to her office, asked how I liked her "tushie", and told me to "sit down and have a drink" with her.
I said I couldn't break to company rule about drinking at the office, and said she was "ordering " me to have a drink. I declined and went back to my office to finish the project.
I was laid off in a week. She was later fired for groping and kissing her female assistant. Meanwhile, I had found a better job.
3
As a reserved teenager, I actually relished and still relishing reading Vice. It is a magazine that produces interesting and creative work unrivaled by other news outlets. Their documentaries are particularly intriguing: not even the New York Times could have matched the brave and numerous Vice documentaries in Mosul. And much of their work targets millennials like me who are interested in culture and trends.
However, it never crossed my mind that Vice would have a culture that harbors sexual harassment. And it is extremely pathetic to see the permeating theme of men finding it unproblematic to grope or kiss women forcibly. There was an air of misogyny and patriarchy. And more pathetic is Vice's response. Why does the President still have his job? Why doesn't Vice scrap away NDAs? And why didn't it solve these problems way before the Times did its investigation? I fear their apologies are more of "Sorry we got caught" than "Sorry we groped and forcibly kissed women and threatened them legally".
I hope that many people get fired there at Vice and it's culture is radically reformed. Ditch after work parties. Ditch NDAs. And definitely ditch pervs. In the meanwhile, I will keep reading Vice albeit in shame.
Editor’s note: This comment has been anonymized in accordance with applicable law(s).
12
Via the entertainment industry, female promiscuity is constantly being validated and in fact is being -- with great zeal -- encouraged. Yet males are expected to suppress their very strongest drive -- and not objectify females -- and not be aggressive towards them -- even as these females loudly and proudly advertise their sex appeal and signal their openness to casual sex.
1
Let’s go women of WB, FOX, SONY, YAHOO, CBS, ABC, FACEBOOK, APPLE! I know you’re coming. Some true and a lot probably most with selective memory and magnifying minds. Proof sister. Recollections get distorted. Eye witnesses in law are terrible. I think there a lot of liars out there girls. A one time pass becomes an attack.
5
The angle on this story is so-o "regressive." As if sexual harassment is "old-school." Old-as-the-hills, yes. Old-school, no. After all, look at the internet porn the millennial pubescents grew up on. Objectification of women is putting it nicely.
5
Some things are alright with "Me, too" - others are not.
a) It is right to raise your voice when someone gropes you - but do it right then!
It you do it 40 years later, one wonders: How bad could it have been?
b) It is good to be harsh (up to the law), if the grope was harsh - but not for a tickle or a kiss. If you are a sex-hater, of course, every twig over the doorstep is an atrocious attack.
c) It is right to go for a prison sentence or fine, if the grope was criminal (or even rape) - but if you want a financial settlement, I'll doubt there was one, because a real victim does not want profit!
d) It is right to say "No!", even to the boss - but once you took payment in whatever form, e.g.: movie/film/ballet part or career, you're in the business.
e) It is right to say "We victims" - but not "we women", because that is sexist denial of the same to others.
f) It is right to say "molesters" or "abusers" - but not to say "Men", because there are also women who grope, and "lady" bosses and other women who use sex as a weapon, or for profit.
g) It is right to say "please, leave me alone" - but not to criminalize even the most decent (maybe old=fashioned) ways of courting, e.g. that even telling you "you look nice" is a "sexual assault". It destroy too much of good human relations. And, unfortunately, that is far too common these days!
1
KIDS Who grow up using the Internet tend to be exposed early to sexually explicit materials there. When they view porn, soft- or hard-core the message that they get is to grab whatever they wish. Meaning that personal, emotional, physical and sexual boundaries have all shifted due to social media. Not entirely--but to a large extent. Employers need to have screening processes to eliminate job candidates whose attitudes are that they can express themselves sexually without the consent of their intended partners, ranging from holding hands to the whole range of intimate, sexual interactions. Employees need training so that they can hear the message loud and clear--that they must conform to company standards of professional conduct or face disciplinary actions, dismissal or reports to law enforcement. There are mistakes in figuring out what's OK and what is not. For example, preschool and primary school kids who may hug or kiss each other during recess need to be redirected in a supportive way by staff, as they are in the process of learning to understand and cooperate with social norms, as a developmental process. But for the most part such behaviors among older kids need to stop. Still, there are cultural differences. I visited a spring vacation spot for Argentine teens, where the kids were greeting each other with hugs and kisses--boys and girls, girls and girls and boys and boys. Those were the culturally accepted greetings. Cultures have different rules.
1
There is no reason, and no excuse, for this abhorrent mistreatment of women. Do any of the more-recent sexual harassment incidents rise to criminality? If not, surely, civilly, Vice stands to potentially lose even more, as it should.
For the men out there, THERE IS NO EXCUSE EVER IN ANY ERA for sexually harassing women.
8
Vice was so so naughty when they started. They dumped their magazines out on the steps at Centre and Kenmare for free and we laughed at the Dos and Don'ts. They were funny back then like the donald was funny when we knew he couldn't win.
6
When the #metoo movement started and travelled from Hollywood to corporate America, and Washington, I asked my twenty-something son if we just needed to put people under the age of forty into the leadership positions. His response: People under 40 are just people who haven't had enough time to make mistakes. You have to change the culture. There are decent people of all ages and genders and we all have to make sure the less decent ones don't get to lead.
29
All sexual harassment is wrong. Period. But going after Vice seems too easy. The allegations against Ford Motor Company and the UAW are far worse.
Infuriating, because people write and talk of this behavior as if it’s new.
18
Infuriating, because people write and talk of this behavior as if it’s new.
[ Perfectly stated. ]
2
The reporting here runs contrary to the things I've encountered about the inner workings of Vice. I won't mention my sources but they would not agree with this characterization. I'm not doubting the integrity of the reporting. However, I feel like Ms. Steel is pushing the angle a little too hard. For instance, what supervisor needs to be told dating employees is a bad idea? That person shouldn't be a supervisor. What employee thinks partying with a superior on a regular basis is a good idea? Most people are only willing to tolerate a drunk boss once a year and that's at the mandatory holiday party. There's nothing about workplace culture that causes or fixes bad decision making. The HR department can't cure stupid. You don't have to stay out all night drinking with co-workers. I'd say the parties shown here actually damage Vice's reputation in a different way. Vice looks pretty lame to me.
2
Vice looks pretty lame to me.
[ No, the company looks and has been accepting of intolerable abuse. ]
4
Dare I say this? To what degree are women complicit in their treatment? I'm speaking about our culture, not the woman at the water cooler confronted by some macho brute. Or the allegations by multiple women who have described their encounters with men of power over the last several months.
Do we promote aggressive behavior? From cheerleaders in skimpy outfits to beauty pageants for children and adult women, we need a cultural change,.
Look at the cable news stations. Do you see any women who resemble your neighbor Shirley down the hall who is a little portly and wears thick glasses. She even has an IQ of 140. But no, the stations prefer a knockout lady who competes with others for the shortest skirt on the cable news sofa.
And how many women have used their wiles to get ahead? Some actresses who couldn't act their way out of a paper bag have made careers for themselves in flaunting their wares.
6
Comments like, ‘what do you expect from a show called Vice’, suggest that most people here don’t watch a lot of Vice. They put together remarkably in-depth and balanced reporting for a 15 minute format. It’s orders of magnitude better than 60 minutes. In addition, and more germane to this discussion, they employ a talented array of female journalists. Considering this, it’s quite sickening that those hard-working women had to endure this frat-boy culture to produce such insightful pieces.
For example, it’s almost worth the HBO subscription to watch Isobel Yeung’s report on the anti-homosexuality practices endemic to Uganda from 2015. She does a fantastic job of highlighting the indoctrination of young children, has disturbing conversations with men who boast on camera about raping women, and then concludes with a heartbreaking interview involving a lesbian women who was raped by these types of men and who bore her rapists’ child. One’s soul cannot help but be stirred as a tearing Ms. Yeung empathetically reaches out and touches this women’s hand as she tells her sad story. To think that after the reporting for this story was done that this thoughtful and brave journalist had to come home to face a form of macho-culture that was similar in kind but different in degree to what she observed in Africa is despicable.
9
Those settlements are way too small.
6
My favorite revelation:
"Nancy Ashbrooke, the former human resources director at Vice, stating that since she joined the company in 2014 sexual harassment had “not been an issue.” (Ms. Ashbrooke worked as vice president of human resources at Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films from 1991 to 2000.)"
Really? When do we start holding complicit HR departments accountable? Unbelievable!
12
I watch Vice nightly on HBO. After watching the feminist rants over the past couple of months, I burst out laughing thinking these exact women walked back into the office and faced the exact same thing they were reporting on. Easy to take the high road on #MeToo. Harder to bite the hand that feeds you.
2
Please don't let this bring Bill Maher down. He's just too good.
2
If ending Maher will help Dem politicians get re-elected, he's toast.
2
Some food for thought for Vice an toxic climate and sexual misconduct. Two interviews with Marketplace Morning Report:
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/12202017-us...
And,
https://www.marketplace.org/2017/12/20/business/should-we-think-about-se...
It's really simple, they believe the end justifies the means. A liberal journalistic belief for the last 25 years. And then news outlets wonder about their newest title, fake. In this case the male journalists believe that sex, the end, justifies the means, which is manipulation, deception and illegal activity. Their reporting is simply an extension if their ethics, or lack thereof.
Why is it that, with very few exceptions, the cretins who perpetrate this egregious behavior towards their female colleagues are not good looking and in many cases, hideously ugly? Is this the reason they feel they must use coercion to get women to pay attention to them? Seems like a cliche, but there must be something to it, I reckon.
5
Apparently men aren’t the only humans who make sexual judgments, and judge advances to be welcome or not, on the basis of appearance.
2
So, no mention of co-founder and alt-right misogynist Gavin McInnes? Think that might have something to do with the ethos of the place?
6
Instead of teaching math to poor kids in the ghetto or rural New York, these women chose to pursue a career at a place where, just like every other bougie workplace, there was a known "party" atmosphere. And almost all likely used their looks to get these kinds of jobs.
I am rapidly losing sympathy for this crusade on behalf of the already rich and well-off.
4
Oh, yeah, all you self-impressed "disruptive" millenial tech wonks think you are so forward and "cutting edge." Nope. Not so much. You're still social neanderthals. You're still adolescent boys (and some girls) who never grew up, no matter how much money you make or how many Teslas you drive on your way to drink that artisan IPA. Well, good luck with that.
5
I would suggest VICE do a sexual harassment story on VICE.
6
Its all disgustingly cynical. Once you get through the veneer, the PR edginess, the trendiness, you get hipster Madmen. You see this deep phallocentrism manifested in many different here in Silicon Valley, teamed with rampant capitalism. The pose is the "sharing" economy, "disruption," when the reality is dodging regulation, hiring cheaper immigrant workers, maximizing profits, and then moving profits off shore. Just ask Apple, Google, Sun Microsystems and many others
9
Women join an organization named Vice looking for some sort of twisted equality? Why? Because Vice is cool and Virtue is dumb?
What do you expect?
I can think of former progressive movements headed predominantly by men--Beat Generation, British Romantics, American Civil Rights, Black Power--and despite the progressive credentials of these movements, they were also quite sexist and biased against female leadership. I'm not surprised that Vice is the same way. Think of William Burroughs shooting his wife. Burroughs and the Beat poets were progressives, but at the end of the day the Beat men liked traditional relationships with their wives.
8
Hopefully Vice rights the ship, in a media landscape where so many news outlets are content to sit in their offices and repeat the political talking points Vice is one of the few institutions that shows up anywhere they think there is a story.
4
Above all this company was started up from grants from the province of Quebec, only to become a multi-billion dollar corporation years later. Clearly Vice not only violates workplace ethics, but also those in doing business
2
Susan,
Agree 100%, harassment and sex offenses not fringe issues
But in Virginia the GOP still got a majority of the white women’s vote, although less than Trump had
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/local/virginia-politics/gov...
All politics are local so maybe Virginia has other factors.
But the pattern is the same: the Democrats are being powered by minorities voting in larger numbers.
If white women just vote a few percent lower for the GOP there’d be a tidal wave change.
2
This is such a naive article. No amount of cultural enlightenment can change what we are and what the forces of nature made us into. Textbook example of a textbook trying to prove its actual physical value beyond just being a weighted doorstop. Gravity is a force that does not like to be fooled with.
No way to condone some of the behavior cited in this article. Having said that is any one surprised that lines were crossed in the drug/booze filled parties/working environment populated by people in their twenties and thirties....who were pretty edgy to begin with? That's like saying "I enlisted in the Marines and had no idea they were going to scream at me." Please. I have to think based on their reputation and if not that based on signing a “non-traditional workplace agreement,” everyone knew they were in for a wild ride.
34
But the point is who disproportionately bore the bad consequences of the wild ride: women.
8
Nobody should expect to be sexually assaulted - EVER!
8
And nobody ever expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Yet here it is again!
1
I appreciate the journalistic intent of Vice, but ethical matters can never be shunted aside and abuse of women is intolerably unethical. Go on from here, but ethically.
15
I am hardly surprised. Sexual harassment is epidemic.
What is shocking is how little the white female electorate cares about this issues. Or at least cares enough to make a mark at the election booth.
Trump and Moore both enjoy majority white female support.
Imagine the change that occur if white women voted on this issue.
28
Shockingly, American female voters see more value to the government sticking to its business and growing the economy than settling political scores from the fringe liberal identity groups.
White and black and Asian and Latino women will always choose leadership that means the best for their families' lives. Would you want it to be any other way?
This is a prime reason Democrats have been fired from 1250 elective seats since Barack the Brittle signed the unconstitutional PPACA law.
9
Fair Verona NJ,
Sorry but the sweep of your facts are off - white women and minority women do not vote the same
Minority women (and men) did not vote for Trump or Moore.
Further, putting aside your opinion about the constitutionality of ACA (since factually your statement isn’t backed up by the Supreme Court) interestingly folks vote economically in increasing numbers to use it while politically they vote against it.
It’s amazing how many folks vote against their own self interest, instead voting for the red meat sensationalism of the far right.
31
L'osservatore, harassment issues are not 'fringe' issues for women--they are central to our economic well-being. Trump lost the overall women's vote by historic margins, so did Moore. And in the recent Virginia elections women of all stripes catapulted Democrats into a General Assembly tidal wave.
23
As a former investigative reporter, I welcome Vice's exposes and focus yet cringe to think it generates a warped culture
2
I did like the party animal picture of Creighton and Smith in the article. Real tough guys of the sort that don't think about how they treat others at all. I've known supervisors and co-workers like that. They treat those on their level or higher with respect and look down their nose at anyone else.
Vice was no different than a lot of companies I've worked for. It was run like a boys club. Whether CEOs of any corporation want to admit it or not that's how a great deal of business is done in America. The women are ignored or belittled. The men do all the talking, backslapping, golfing, and dining. Women are the handmaidens except in a few rare cases where they've proven themselves.
It's no wonder women are paid less than men for the same work. As soon as a woman can do it it's not worth as much. That goes for work and bearing and raising the children but especially the latter 2. If men had to live under the regime they impose upon women at home, at work, in public they'd go crazy or lose their tempers in a minute. Men are lucky that women are more willing to explain themselves or blame themselves than they realize.
How many more years must this go on? Must we sue a major company's CEO and board of directors for a small fortune before the men in charge or the men doing the harassing realize it's not okay to harass us on the job or at an office party outside the office? It will happen if things don't change.
65
Exactly right, hen3ry.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we hear an avalanche of accusations with Facebook, Yahoo, WB, Sony, Paramount, and the NFL, NBA the WWE and every related agency.
16
It is almost guaranteed that such behavior exists all across the board. That is one reason I never bought a ticket to any sport event. I will not attend any game even when given a free ticket. I will not contribute even in the smallest way to enriching horrible individuals.
1
There’s a consistent statement I’ve found in business for ever. If someone starts with “I distinctly remember ....” it was always a lie.
I just remember that. lol
8
Kellyanne and Huckabee Sanders on their experience in business!
3
Would it not be easier to report on places where sexual harassment does not exist? Seems the list would be a lot shorter.
19
This story is not surprising but certainly necessary to read. People wonder why women are coming forward all of the sudden and making claims. Well, they have not been believed before now and were essentially told to shut up before now. Why do "cutting edge" companies reduce their success through bad behavior?
26
This is the part I loved, about the human resources person who worked to deny plenty of harassment claims: "Ms. Ashbrooke worked as vice president of human resources at Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films from 1991 to 2000."
I reckon Vice found the perfect Harassment Denier, after she built up a nice resume doing so at Miramax.
24
Perhaps the claims lacked merit.
3
Nancy Ashbrooke should do well in her HR career, as her approach appears to be protect the company at all costs
14
As it has always been. Never think HR is there for the employee - their entire job centers around protecting the company - whether it be from lawsuits, reputational damage, or anything else that might affect the bottom line. Source: I worked in HR.
13
The fact that Ashbrooke did HR for Weinstein all those years explains a lot about her approach at Vice. Let's hope the new HR director takes women's concerns seriously.
3
Vice does precise and important reporting. To know that this abuse goes on is just deplorable!
2
I don’t care how this impacts that company. Not one bit.
12
Problem is, the good-old-boy culture is very much ingrained in men. Add a corporate culture that tells its male employees with a wink, "you are entitled, because you are cool" and you have a culture of misogyny.
I've been married for 45 years, we raised sons and daughters, we taught them through our example to respect everyone. Yes, even the women scantily dressed....and NO means NO.
20
I agree, not something that may ever vanish completely.
2
No means No is so 1977.
Just last week we learned from the new gender editor at the Times that Yes also means No.
What word can women now use to express Yes to men? Because not all women want to say No all the time.
I looked at Vice once or twice and I found it disgusting. To imagine that the attitudes of the people who are behind it are any better is naive.
19
Please dont victim blame.
1
This is not surprising at all. Vice has always read to me like a bro magazine, written by and for men. Yes they have some great reports, but that kind of culture is implemented at the top. The management team should be ashamed of themselves and replace all the complicit execs with women.
29
In the 1970s, I worked for a magazine publishing company where the vice president in charge of advertising constantly sought to have sex with the receptionist. She turned him down numerous times, but in the end, consented to his demands.
He fired her, by phone, the next day. I have no idea what happened to her, but he's still around.
Some things, sigh, apparently never change.
16
These accusations should be weighed upon there individual merits as to whether they are factual. Its a feeding frenzy and potential money can fog the vision of many a woman. Many are liars too. The country and the planet are in peril. Individual rights are important.
This story gets less compelling every day.
8
Elias, don't you mean "more compelling?"
5
Vice is owned in part by Fox.
Is there any reason to be surprised that a Fox entity would have these issues ?
17
Just wondering - all harassment is bad, but is there someone - anyone - in New York or California whose identity isn't centered on their "victimhood"?
Is anything related to sex", in and of itself so devastatingly offensive to one gender - that an unwanted proposition destroys the capacity to enjoy life from that point forward ?
Is it possible that since women obviously control men's access to 100% of heterosexual sex - this recent obsession with victimhood is simply a power play intended to discriminate against and degrade men ?
Just asking ...
20
Actually, I believe there are many, many women who enter their adulthood with an identity centered primarily around their professional dreams, ambitions, and work ethic--yet find themselves stymied by persistently hostile, sex-obsessed, boys-club environments that diminish and endanger the women as human beings. You could be myopic and call that a "power play" but a fairer term would be something like "equity quest."
As a woman, I agree with most of what you say. Unwanted propositions most certainly did not make me a victim, and I'm tired of hearing about it day after day. Men seek sexual partners-- they are biologically wired to do so. The only way to find out if someone is interested in having sex is to ask them. : )
Unwanted touching or kissing is a different story, but still-- why are people so proudly claiming victim status? Also and I think I've said it in comments on other stories, but how about shifting the focus back to actually harmful sexual predation-- not a grope when out drinking with colleagues, but a violent rape. These stories are all about white collar professional women being groped or having a consensual relationship with a superior and then regretting it (which I have done, and WHY exactly would I sue that person now?) There is actual violence against women in this country who have no voice and no resources. They don't sue their attacker; they struggle to recover. I support a shelter for women who are actual victims and survivors. They need our help.
James Hamilton, and other men who think women are obsessed with viewing themselves as “victims:” how do you know that? Do you know these women in real life? Have you talked to them, worked with them, gotten to know them as whole human beings? In an investigative article about sexual harassment on the job, the stories and perspectives of the women profiled are going to be.....unsurprisingly......about the harassment or discrimination they’ve experienced on the job! Much like an article in the Sports section, profiling the win of a football team, the perspective and quotes of the players profiled in that article would ONLY be about their experiences as football players, in the particular game. Does that mean that these players have nothing else to say, or focus on, or BE in their real lives? Ditto for victims of a terror attack; if they are quoted in an article, and state how greatly they have been effected by an act of violence, would you assume they see themselves as a “victim” in all aspects of their lives?
It’s a sexist & tone-deaf perspective to assume that just because women are speaking up about sexual harassment, that this means we traipse through life talking about it non-stop to anyone who crosses our paths. Believe it or not, we are multi-dimensional people, with many interests and sides to our perspectives & personalities! Speaking about this issue during this moment in time is about proving how rampant the problem is in our culture, period.
7
Guess the 3rd wave of feminism, with its theme of "let's cater to what men find hot and call it empowering" hasn't been very successful at changing the way men view women...
39
The article states,
"People worked long hours and partied together afterward. And that’s where the lines often blurred. Multiple women said that after a night of drinking, they wound up fending off touching, kissing and other advances from their superiors."
What the article does not state is how the majority of women who attended such events experienced them. Did they view them as just another form of work? Did they consider they were socializing among colleagues who were also friends? How many women developed satisfactory intimate or romantic relationships with the people including their supervisors with whom they socialized at such events? What was the ratio of such women to the women who were victims? Of all the sex that occurred among Vice coworkers, what proportion was regretted or considered abusive by women participants?
The problem with omitting these facts from your reportage is that the whole significance of the phenomenon shifts depending on them This is an organization with 3000 employees. If the ratio of victims to satisfied women participants at these parties was 1:200 that is a very different result than if it was 1:4.
The NY Times needs to train a few cultural anthropologists as journalists if it seeks to continue to descend on workplace cultures looking for debauchery. Otherwise, like early colonial settlers in the Americas, you are at severe risk of simply projecting your own values in breathless dispatches home about the local savages.
27
It’s time to boycott Disney. It’s unforgivable that a media company which caters primarily to children supports VICE Media and rape culture. As a father of two young daughters 6 and 8 I am disgusted and profoundly sickened by Disney’s financial support with VICE Media and all that it represents. I urge all those who feel the same to boycott Disney until they completely divest and sever all ties with Vice Media. I do not want my family to associate with any company which supports and enables rape culture in any way whatsoever.
13
Disney is no angel. Nor are WB animation.
5
Everyone in the NYC production community knew personally or heard through the grapevine that working at Vice came with lower wages, wage theft in unpaid overtime, and a potentially unpleasant experience for women in its macho hip-boy culture. This was the word on the street for years. At the same time, VICE also exposes stories that the rest of the media would do well to find first and follow. It gives young voices a chance to do serious investigative reporting, and does an awesome job of creating social engagement among its demo. So, I'm glad these allegations are happening. You can be edgy without exploiting people, and it will be great if the work culture at Vice becomes as cool as its news is.
26
Well heck. Harvey's henchgal headed here after honing the harassment how-to there.
I keep sayin' it. When women stop being complicit, this will end. Until then--keep dreaming.
7
Uh can you prove any of that?
1
Several commenters have suggested that harassment occurs because women dress provocatively, with one drawing conclusions about Ms. Donahue because she has tattoos and is showing a bit of her midriff in a photo taken recently, not when she worked at Vice. But this long overview makes absolutely no reference to how the women dressed, and of course it's completely irrelevant to what is described here anyway. Some of the men at Vice acted very badly and violated common decently and the law: They harassed women; they attacked them physically; they discriminated against them when they didn't get their way with them. That's really the story, not some made-up fantasy about how the women here deserved what they got because of how they dressed.
29
Just stop it guys.
The party is over.
7
Vice is a socialist network. I've watched it a could of times, but they slant everything to the hard left. Thus a Don't waist my tie.I find it funny that they are now in trouble being so socially advanced' and how they look down on conservatives.
2
Take a look at Fox News' history with women and Roy Moore's history if you're going to throw stones based on politics.
6
I never liked Vice. I was in the Williamsburg mix of the early 2000's when it first hit. Having been in NYC on and off since the late 80's my first thought was "Who are these Canadian White Boys trying to rub peoples noses in the "Gritty NYC" they know nothing about and only concentrating on "the edgy"? I met Shane Smith in passing and immediately knew he was a jerk.
Not surprised at the misogyny remembering articles on procuring "Cuban Hookers" (passed of as a travel article drawing attention to the island) among others. It just always left the horrid taste of the "white college crowd" moving in to NY, the impending Millennial vanity and people who were not "true" NY-ers dictating a lense on it to the world. American Apparel (always annoying in a similar way itself) was product of the same "Early Aughts NYC" culture and it's leadership went down in misogynist, vane, creep flames itself.
36
Ha! Well stated.
2
"They were taught that they will have all the same entitlements and privilege as men have always enjoyed."
I take note of this when over my 40 years of being the work force I've seen women and others hired, and I will say men as well, because of how they looked or who they knew. Ive worked very hard all my life and am insulted for someone to say I have 'entitlements and privilege'. I worked thru school, got a degree, and worked my way into where I am today by hard work. This type of statement is generalize and by that very fact a form of racism. I 'enjoyed' nothing, just the opportunity to do my best, and yes I've seen many 'pretty faces' get promoted for just that fact, with no real brains behind it, and they used what they had to get ahead. I don't fault them for that, but to say I had privilege, is just stupid.
5
Porn culture and the anonymity of web forums that allow people to spew all kinds of racist, sexist, ageist, bullying, anti-whatever garbage has permeated real life. Big surprise when the boys who spent most of their adolescence watching porn, gaming and saying outrageous things online through their phones do the same thing IRL. They think it's normal.
23
Bill Maher runs Vice, doesn't he? Just a few weeks ago he was trying to blame wives for the fact that men like Harvey Weinstein attack women. He said, "All these guys are married! They have lousy sex lives, that's why they do this." As in ""The mean wives of these men won't give them BJs, no wonder they can't control themselves and find themselves lunging at beautiful young women!"
9
No. He doesn't.
The point that is all too easily overlooked is that the abuse that has steadily been revealed has reflected abuse of power in terms of sexual abuse.
2
I don't understand why women show so much skin and cleavage in business situations.
I am a woman, so don't tell me I don't understand. When I sit in a conference room of men, I don't wear a sleeveless dress that looks like my underclothes, I dress as businesslike as the men.
I am taken seriously all the time. My own friends pal around with me, as I do them. But we all act professionally, dress professionally, and respect each other. My office staff is not allowed to dress inappropriate either, and just for the record, we do not allow nose rings.
Where are societal standards?
24
How do you know what these women were wearing at meetings?
Would you still wear a business suit on the ferris wheel at Coney Island?
Why is this the women's fault and not the men's?
21
I didn't see anything in the article describing what the women were wearing so I'm not sure why you made an assumption that they were scantily-dressed.
Second, if there are women who are dressing in a unprofessional manner at your company, by all means let HR know and I'm sure someone will mention it to these women. What you may want to reconsider is blaming women because men harass and grab them, regardless of how the women are dressed.
5
Given Vice’s content, why is this surprising to anyone? They have been advertising precisely what their values are since the beginning. Somehow people think that those are separate from their culture? One logically and inevitably leads to the other. Common sense should have told them that.
21
It's sad to see that the sexism and misogyny are alive and well in the millennial generation. Have we made no progress at all? I hold members of both genders responsible, having seen men mistreat women and other women support them when they do so most of my career. Unfortunately, there always seem to be "Nancy Ashbrooke's" around -- women who support the denigration of other women for their own career advancement. (Like the 30 women at SNL who published their support for Al Franken in the face of sexual harassment allegations against him). We obviously have a lot of work to do as a country and culture. The media's coverage of these issues is a good first step. Thanks.
14
If you want to see how much progress we've not made, read American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers - Nancy Jo Sales or Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New landscape - Peggy Orenstein
3
I await the study of how this society-wide phenomenon has affected the family dynamic. Check out TV news: men in uniform (suits), women in costumes.
17
Exactly. The women are judged, hired and promoted based on their looks and sex appeal on camera. The men for their authoritarian posturing and projection. Mika and Joe are good examples. Mika is a smart competent woman but her role is to start reading a headline so Joe can interrupt and pontificate with his personal views and experience while Mika watches in admiration and awe of his brilliance. She almost never gets to complete a thought or a sentence before she is interrupted. This is considered so normal, no one ever brings it up.
When Joe stops interrupting Mika and starts really listening and given equal weight and value to what she has to say, I will say progress has been made.
22
The name: Gavin McInnes rang a bell. He did a hilarious Siri send off in a Scottish brogue. I did a google search, which led me to his Vice article on "How to pick up chicks". Funny and super racist. Shocking in the same way that Richard Pryor was, when I was as a kid. A few more links led to a quote by Alexandra Molotkow describing her experience of reading Vice as a teenager: "I was privately shocked by what passed for normal in its world, so I kept reading until I wasn't."
That kind of sums it up.
16
More like "would not" than "could not". Put me in charge and it is simple to do. Give anybody one warning for lesser types of issues, none for many of these. Fire them, of course you need to make very clear that no such would be allowed.
5
Is anyone really surprised that a company like Vice attracted many degenerates as employees?
12
You're absolutely right. Common sense goes a long way even today. Please tell the millennials to use some common sense. Yes, there are some cute boys working there, but they just might not have your best interests in mind.
5
When one of your founders proudly declaims that they "would just want to get wasted, take coke and have sex with girls in the bathroom." I'm thinking there is probably something wrong with their moral compass to begin with. After, they didn't name their magazine Virtue.
18
For an organization that produces ridiculous documentaries like "Cannibal Warlords of Liberia," how could you not be surprised that they are run by a bunch of sexist frat-boys.
15
" A heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee." William Shakespeare
You men who are so insecure - try a different tactic.
10
So you are suggesting Men use poetic language, class, and romance? Surely you jest...
4
Do you really think most American women are interested in poetry, class and romance?
That wouldn’t explain the Kardashians. Or the female sex toys at Walmart. Watch what products sell to see what people really want.
1
This explains a lot:
“Ms. Ashbrooke worked as vice president of human resources at Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films from 1991 to 2000.”
17
This proves a few differing, and contradictory facts. In the posed pics of Ms. Hopper, she looks as though she is in mourning for the loss of a loved one, and Ms. Donahue is dressed for the streets, literally. Rings, midrift and tats. Sorry, but as I taught my daughter when she was 12, and shopping for her Bat Mitzvah regalia: Every girl (and woman) wants to look pretty, and show off their looks. But if you dress so that others will look at your body, and not your face, they will not take you as a person, but as a sex object. She took that lesson to heart, and to this day, close to nine years later, does so a majority of the time. Her friends admire the class she exudes, and her professors never wince at how she dresses onstage for her performances. She always looks great, yet humble and warm.
As for the men: Just because a woman is sexy, attractive, or nice to you, you have no right to harass, or be rude to her in any way. That includes not asking for sex from someone you aren't committed to in some real way. You don't get to grope, touch, leer or anything worse. Know why? Because these women all have fathers, and if they are like me, your time on this earth won't be long if you force yourself on her. Got it? And if they don't have a father, one of their friends has one who also cares. You could just buy a rearward facing camera and have it surgically implanted on the back of your skull to see if I am coming.
16
No. Women are harassed, groped, propositioned, kissed, and raped regardless of what they look like, whether at work or on the street. Underneath a modest pants suit or a sensible skirt and blouse is the body of a flesh and blood woman. This is the "sex object" that abusers are itching to get their hands on. Blaming the victim for what she wears never was, and still isn't, where the problem lies.
17
There is an old law of physics: For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. If you are saying that ONLY men should take responsibility for their actions, but women should be free from their own responsibilities, then you will switch me from being in favor of stiff penalties for men who harass, to stiff penalties for women who might be encouraging this behavior ALSO.
It takes two to tango, period.
First bad choice--moving to the US; second bad choice--accepting money from Disney & Fox. And finally, correcting misogynistic and "think-with-your-bigD" behavior by forming a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board headed by a male? Cone on! Really?
4
**Come**on. Ooops!
1
"...Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...."
14
Sex and sexual harassment in work place like hotels, bars, restaurants, massage parlors, media and specially in vice Media (even in right wing religious media) has been known and a kind of expected. Child molestation and sexual abuse in churches are unacceptable and unthinkable but has been going on perpetually. Beauty pageant , modeling industries and in Hollywood, sexual activities are well known and not surprising. I am happy that “me too” movement created a revolution. We should hunt all the sexual predators from all corners including president, Congress members, religious leaders and media people first.
7
Yes, but it starts with the home and how the children are raised and who their models are. Then, how they are treated in schools and by their peers as they grow up and want to conform and be one of the cool kids. The media and the culture shape their attitudes. There a Puritanical streak that still comes through when it comes to judging women but men are admired for being aggressive, reckless, bold and even callous risk takers.
"They let you do it when you are a star."
They are expected to let you do it when you have power over their admission, hiring or advancement. And if they don't, they can be replaced by someone who will. If the woman objects or complains, she gets labeled,ostracized, and replaced. Girls are not brought up with the skills needed to handle these situations. Boys are not brought up to control their impulses and consider consequences.
All of this focus on the issue is no where near getting to the roots of the problems. The popular culture is replete with misogyny and just re-enforces the mistreatment, disrespect and degradation of women in all forms and in every way imaginable.
5
Come to think of it, maybe we should ban sex. Some people don't seem to be able to handle it.
3
I'm 70 years old and retired. HR can't touch me.
1
And your conscience?
14
But maybe the courts can.
2
With a name like "vice?" What would you expect.
The definition of the word, should tell you everything, that you need to know.
But now, bowing down to a lunatic like Gloria?
Just another media outlet, that I no longer need to watch.
1
Alpha Males, Alpha Males. Cant work with them, cant work without them.
6
Like Peter Piper says here,
"Sexual harassment = unwanted sexual advances. But ... how on earth would anyone know whether it is wanted or not without asking? And if you ask, then you are guilty of sexual harassment.
EXACTLY!!!
Even my wife agrees with this. In the past, women loved for the man to take the initiative..... and it was up to them to say yes or no to their advances.
Perhaps the women that now dictate what is proper etiquette in America these days could give the men a rule book. Put something in writing. You don't get to change the rules of engagement at your every whim.
13
Here's an idea. Keep all your work relationships professional. Then, you won't have to ask because the answer will always be "no."
15
These are women at work not out at singles bars. It’s inappropriate for your superior at WORK to hit on you. Omg
14
Did you ever express interest in a man at work? If so, why was that appropriate?
What a bunch of creeps these guys are. I quit watching the HBO show long ago because it was so boring. Shane Smith is a lightweight, in all respects, and these revelations surprise me not in the least.
14
"Asked whether the company would release current and former employees who had experienced or witnessed sexual harassment from their confidentiality agreements, the company said: “Like many other companies and policymakers, we are watching developments and considering the issue.” "
That answer (basically "no") says everything you need to know about how committed the company is about starting with a new slate.
#AnnultheNDAs
8
I’m puzzled by all the Vice-hating comments here. Am I watching something different? I see a lot of balanced and in depth journalism created by talented young reporters when I watch a episodes of Vice.
If it wasn’t for the work of Elle Reeve and her crew would we all look at Charlottesville the same? Those are now iconic images. Watch Isobel Yeung’s piece from Afghanistan where she interviews a parliament member who won’t even look at her and suggests that she needs to be raped in order to put her in her place—and tell me you don’t want to continuously donate to an Afghan women’s charity.
The feeling I have after reading this article isn’t schadenfreude or something like that, it’s sadness. Sad that Ms. Reeve, Ms. Yeung, Ms. Toboni and others do such great work in a frat-like culture, enduring things their male counterparts never endure. Put yourself in their shoes, how would you feel?
10
I was riveted by Elle's reporting on Charlottesville. Now, though, I feel sick to think of what she has had to put up with in order to work.
5
It seems that we're all just instinct-driven animals,
especially all-too-many men.
It seems there is no hope of real change.
The only solution is to strictly segregate all workplaces, not only by gender but also by sexual preference. (Tough luck bisexuals, no work for you.)
No contact. No mingling. No intimacy. No nothing.
And definitely no mixed Christmas parties!
But why stop there? Perhaps the Islamic religions have it right with their severe prohibitions ….not.
Of course I jest.
Sometimes we need to smile to keep from crying.
It’s an age-old problem thats sadly has always been with us. But do we now have the new-found capability and courage to change things for the better?
Ironically, in the regressive Age of Trump we may finally make progress.
Perhaps. just perhaps, man CAN change his ways…
2
When men not inclined in these nasty ways decide to be REAL men and take a stand against that behavior is when significant change will occur. And, likely, not before then.
So, fellas, the ball is in your court. Will you do the right thing?
2
There is whole lot of money to be made with these claims, whether they be true or not. Sexual harassment and assault are crimes and some are even felonies. Call the police to investigate professionally and then bring it to the criminal court to be judged, if warranted. This settlement nonsense has to end.
11
I am shocked. Shocked! that the work environment at Vice is harassing and abusive toward women. Never saw that coming.
4
A lot of the systemic problems in these media companies are directly attributable to senior executives in the HR function. Just on the basis of the comments attributed to Nancy Ashbrooke throughout this article, one could be forgiven the impression that Ms Ashbrooke saw her role as that of running interference to insulate senior executives from their repeatedly skanky conduct.
It's a sad and otherwise depressing commentary that more than a few women who have risen to senior executive positions are actively complicit in the maintenance of these misogynistic environments.
3
They are courting Disney? Please Disney say no. HBO where are you in this? Please drop them until it's more than just lip service. Vice says they will make the pay parity equal in a year? It can be done in a month. All the responses from Vice say oh we did wrong, sorry, we will try not to do it again. Which means they have no commitment to change.
7
I started Working in 1966, in corporate America. and continued to work in that atmosphere for 17 years. Yes there were off color jokes, and sexual inuendos in front of both men and women. Looking back it was wrong but at the time I don't believe anyone thought it was harmful,If they did they never expressed it. But everyone knew touching and intimidation was a Line that Could never be crossed. Speeding up 50 years later men in their 20's 30's 40's. know this is wrong. Today with companies having employees take Sexual harassment training ,and as a topic that is discussed in open forums, everyone knows what's right and what's wrong.
3
"I don't believe anyone thought it was harmful...." Really? Did you ask any of the women?
3
Protecting employees IS protecting the company. I spent over 30 years in HR - in both multi-national smaller organizations - and never did my company fail to stand behind me on sexual harassment issues. In fact, on two occasions, I was hired as a consultant by the Board to investigate the top official and when my findings confirmed that harassment was indeed happening, his employment was terminated, in both instances. Granted that not all companies operate with such integrity nor do all HR personnel. I believe, however, that those are the exception. To state that HR works for the company and not the employee is a gross exaggeration.
4
This piece is a perfect example of making much ado about nothing.Sexual assault aside, we are dealing with highly subjective and context-dependent events.What makes one person uncomfortable may not even be noticed by another.Both men and women can be made uncomfortable in the workplace for a myriad of reasons, including business decisions and comments from managers or co-workers.Moreover, I have never seen a man come to work with clothes that are too tight or expose anatomical detail.For women to get their just deserves in terms of recognition and opportunity this nonsense about uncomfortable environments needs to be separated from truly egregious acts.
9
When will people realize that HR exists to protect the company, NOT the employee?
34
it shows thsoe men are cheap: using their power to get free sex instead paying for it. there are plenty of options that would not land them in trouble.
5
Hard to know if you are being serious or ‘tongue in cheek’- but this is about power not sex
4
It’s interesting to read that people were fired only after the Daily Beast article and attention form the NYT. It shows a knowledge of the behavior.
16
Any position stated from producer Bill Maher?
9
Yes..interesting that Bill Maher was missing from the article. ???
3
I keep waiting for the shoe to drop on Maher.
4
Bill Maher Spokesperson says he will comment on this topic once he gets off the mountain where is is negotiating the next 11-20 commandments
4
Sexual harassment = unwanted sexual advances. But ... how on earth would anyone know whether it is wanted or not without asking? And if you ask, then you are guilty of sexual harassment.
15
No. you would not be guilty for *asking* once. But the acts mentioned here were physical, rather than verbal and, in that case, you likely would and should be guilty.
4
How about you just don't ask out people who you supervise? There is a reason many companies have policies in place about this issue. An underling may feel pressured by her boss to date him for fear of losing her job.
2
If you have to ask you can't afford it.
3
A lot of powerful man like to think they’re evolved, whatever the line of work. But they’re just the usual bros. Crude, gawfawing. They rule the roost because they can and everybody, not just the women, have to play their dreary, depressing game. The worst part of it, besides the subjugation, is it’s stupid. And incredibly boring. Too late for me to speak up. I’m retired. But men at work who feel as I do. You could change this. Get mad. Stand up. You know who you are.
16
If you go and party wildly with your male coworkers and bosses it seems almost inevitable that their behavior will be of a sort unacceptable in the day at work! And it also seems unavoidable that attitudes developed whilst partying would bleed over into the daytime. Wild partying is by it's very nature a method of seeking mates and sexual partners. Being kissed by a drunk or stoned male at a party is not the same as being kissed by a sober aggressive male at work.
16
Great cover pic for this story. The bare midriff show how women view their sex as a powerful, legitimate weapon of exploitation and manipulation. Women want to be able to deploy the promise/threat/hope of sex to their advantage, but somehow still want to act surprised when their literal "underwear bomb" blows up on them.
Wake me up when women form a belief system that is at least self-consistent.
28
Women can dress any way they want. What you perceive as inviting is not an invitation to you or anyone. Control yourself, it is part of growing up.
5
Thank you! I had the same reaction to that photo. Her outfit is an advertisement, and not for Girl Scout cookies.
7
Sure, we can dress as we want, but accepting the consequences of our actions, including how we present ourselves, is also a part of growing up, and an important one at that. That being said, social norms around appearance are a form of tyranny.
1
C'mon guys, this isn't rocket science. You just treat people politely at work. A company that waits for their piggishness to be made pubic before they do anything about it hasn't really learned anything and is still just as piggy as they were before. All the executives need to be fired. Here's an idea: make investors liable for misbehaving companies. As soon as a judgement against a company includes confiscating all its stock, we'll see a lot less of this neanderthal behavior.
"The company also said that it has made a commitment to reaching gender pay parity by the end of 2018." News flash! You can fix pay parity in one morning. It's not hard. You just sit down with a list of what everyone makes and what their duties are any you make some rational decisions. Lack of pay parity in today's society is another example of gross incompetence on the part of the executives and should be a firing offense.
Putting that off is just more piggyness.
15
Al Franken should send in his resume
5
Or Donald Trump. Or Roy Moore. (Oh, wait, Moore likes them below legal working age.)
6
THIS LINE THOUGH: “Nancy Ashbrooke, the former human resources director at Vice, stating that since she joined the company in 2014 sexual harassment had “not been an issue.” (Ms. Ashbrooke worked as vice president of human resources at Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films from 1991 to 2000.)” Bam. Nicely done, NYTimes.
Nancy, how do you sleep at night?
14
We - meaning women, people of color, immigrants, refugees - live in dangerous times. White male privilege is being threatened, exposed for exposing.
What we learned or re-learned in 2017: White male privilege is unaffiliated cuts across every aspect of our society. It’s passed from generation to generation. Like water it rises & spreads. Moguls, hipsters, deplorables & the adored, evangelicals, poets & politicians all share in it but deny its existence.
Privilege is a brute, with a brute’s heart.
9
well said!
2
Exactl my point in comment below. Don’t you realize that Alt-Right people - the folks who you call “deplorables” and are probably far poorer than you - can demand the same protections against things in the workplace they find offensive? Then you will shout “First Amendment!
1
Where would you like to put the “camps” for the white men? I think Richard Spencer would like you to pick northern Idaho and western Montana.
I watch "Vice News" M - F in the evening and always learn several interesting and pertinent points concerning the day's news. Since there a no commercials, I assume funding comes from HBO. Even though I consider myself a moderate liberal, I'm not a big fan of HBO's "Real Time". I find Maher to be rude and at best, marginally funny. Often during his rants, he chides the audience for not laughing at his "jokes".
For that reason, I found it interesting that the article did not mention that Bill Maher is one of two executive producers at "Vice News".
12
Let's start with the fact that I hate Vice Media and everything it stands for -- especially the faux radicalism promoted by extremely overpaid and fabulously materialistic internet executives like Mr. Smith.
At the same time it's entirely predictable that The Times, in its Very Me-Too "expose," conflates dirty talk around the office with real harassment such as groping.
As far as dirty talk around the office, precisely what does one expect when they choose to work for a business called "Vice?"
Does the NY Times want us to go back to a circa 1962 American publishing industry, when publisher Ralph Ginzburg was jailed for printing things far tamer than what appears in major museums today? (His prosecutor, incidentally, was U.S. A-G, Robert F. Kennedy!)
And as far the assumption that women, in particular, are harmed by dirty talk, isn't that assumption patently, and ridiculously, sexist?
15
No conflation - Dirty talk around the office can be part of hostile work environment harrasment: https://www.thebalance.com/what-makes-a-work-environment-hostile-1919363
3
Oh, well if “the balance” says so...
Precisely my point - today’s PC activists have defined down “harassment” to be anytiing that a member of a “marginalized” group finds offensive. Just as with PC speech codes on campus, the activists want to impose a new Puritanism on the workplace.
2
I can't help saying that this is one company that is living down to its name. That said, women everywhere deserve better.
3
Never heard of VICE before. Are they actually significant?
4
It is singularly unsurprising that sexual harassment and other inappropriate behavior runs rampant at new media companies full of young employees like Vice. Disruption of cultural norms is the basic ethos, and resistance to the "stodgy" rules followed by older firms is a misguided management principle.
Abhorrent as such behavior is, such companies eventually grow up when they become responsible to stockholders and employees. What should be even more dismaying is the similar and widespread misconduct revealed at companies that supposedly know better, and purportedly have put in place structures to prevent it.
Until we address the perversion of rules and power structures at established firms, we can never hope to solve them at fast-moving startups like Vice.
4
They take action because they get caught. Plain and simple.
7
it is not misogyny; it is cheapness of those men.
2
Do 50 year old women not get harassed?
8
They should've qualified that statement better. I worked at VICE as a freelancer on a project for 6 months, I'm pretty sure she meant because the average age of the staff is about 30, if that. And the execs, though older, are going after the 25 yo's. A 50yo woman in the office would be a stand-out, generally avoided and left outside the convo and culture entirely. Which in and of itself is all kinds of wrong, of course.
27
I don't see the scandal here- it seems that you're trying to hold Vice in the same milieu as The Weinstein Company and that's clearly wrong. Does the NYT plan to run a feature article on every company whose holiday party included unwanted kissing attempts? What about the bars in which those unwanted kissing attempts happened? Shouldn't they get feature articles as well?
No employee should feel uncomfortable due to unwanted sexual advances, but the implication that Vice shares the same pantheon as The Weinstein Company or others is clearly wrong and does a disservice to the subject that you're covering.
Also, why no mention of the very prominent reporting done by female journalists at Vice? Female journalists such as Isobel Yeung, Gianna Toboni, Charlet Duboc, Alexandra Jaffe, Hind Hassan, Shawna Thomas, Elle Reeve and several others have covered extremely important topics such as the war in Syria and protests in Charlottesville. I've always had the impression that Vice made a strong effort to promote the important work of female journalists--why no mention of this? Is this another case of looking for nails with the only hammer you have?
Also, when is the article on the NYT holiday party due to be published?
24
The article wasnt about good female journalists and their articles. It was about sexual harassment that women encounter in the
workplace.
The Weinstein Company subjected women to harassment and assault and so, apparently, did Vice. The difference was in the degrees to which both companies did.
8
The extremely important issues of sexual misconduct and harassment is headed for the dustbin of political expediency.
The NYT rails against companies they pick and choose from yet the United States Congress has members who've settled cases behind closed doors with no oversight using taxpayers money. Where's the demands for those names to be released? Our leadership is poisoned. If you don't start at the top this kind of behavior is never going to end.
5
Yes. Hopefully such an article can be written by reporters whose parents never made any sexual advances. This new paradigm of thought is so exciting - the non sexual world. Think of all the free time we would have. No reason to look nice, no kids to worry about. We can wear drab burlap smocks, men and women alike, as we grimly work nonstop, like faceless automata. Corporate profits may improve for a short while, creating bonuses for elites, before human extinction sets in. Gods be praised.
8
Vice is a media company that demands truth and transparency from others is so opaque itself. I remember watching a video where Suroosh Alvin demanded entry into a Cambodian sweatshop to show what workers were living through. Meanwhile leading a company that requires NDAs, makes secret settlements, and hires Harvey Weinstein’s HR director. Media companies should be required to exhibit the same transparency they demand of others.
19
Not to mention their own sweatshop employing young idealistic journalists.
3
A lot of stories have come out about sexual harassment culture, particular related to work and work settings. One side of the story that has yet to be told, however, involves the form of harassment I have seen and experienced in which women go after men in certain settings. The form of such harassment may often be different from what men perpetrate, but it's there, and those out there who work in such settings, maybe particularly settings that are predominantly female, know what I am talking about. The kind of harassment I have seen and experienced has involved a group of female friends endorsing a workplace attraction that one of them develops, then encouraging their friend to pursue him. If he declines, he becomes a bad guy in the office, with rumors and innuendo spread around about his private life, his sexual orientation, etc. Friends of the rejected will make snide comments in meetings, exclude him from projects, give him poor ratings. If it becomes evident he is seeing someone else, particularly someone within that same workplace, that person will be maligned too. I am a man and have personally been harassed by repeated texts from a female co-worker, by comments about my butt at happy hours, by drop-in visits to my office that were unwanted. Let's cover the problem in all of its diversity, because otherwise there will remain important aspects of workplace harassment that go unattended and, like the roots of a weed, will only serve to keep all of it alive.
23
One thing I can't help but notice about most of the men who have been caught up in all the recent sexual harassment scandals is that they are very unattractive. Hence their attempts to force themselves on uninterested subordinates?
15
It's boorish behavior, I agree. What is an unattractive guy supposed to do to get a date?
2
She would not be my first choice, believe me. That is what Donald Trump said in response to one of his accusers. I find it very hard to tell your mindset apart from his.
3
I have it on good faith that it's "unwanted" when the man is ugly, "wanted" when he's handsome. If not for the latter, we wouldn't be here to comment on it.
I know a lot of "ugly" guys who eventually married the woman he pursued. Met at work. Wouldn't give up on.
4
That Ms. Ashbrooke, though...
7
"including asking about the color of her nipples and whether she slept with black men"
So what? Just conversation. Enough with this victorian era "respect".
5
The color of her nipples and whether she slept with black men has nothing to do with this woman doing her job. She should not be subjected to comments about her body and questions about her sex life in order to keep her job (which puts food on the table).
8
Matt—woud you be cool with your boss asking you about your genital size and what race you slept with? No? Why not, if it’s just conversation?
4
This sounds like the Uber of the media industry
3
Uber has committed criminal offenses in every venue in which they operate. Their operations are plainly illegal in many cities. Their hiring practices are negligent and they abuse their drivers in every way possible.
Uber is in class by itself and is in no way comparable to the troubles at Vice (which, by this account, are being seriously addressed by its management. Please do not slander Vice by comparing it to Uber.
3
You mean the very management that participated, enabled, and encouraged the very behavior they are now sworn to correct?
1
You'd think, given the intelligence apparent in Vice journalism, that this could never happen. Turns out the darlings of brash reporting are mere louts flogging a style.
6
Most of us males get the angle of this piece: Men running trendy media company geared to millennials and known for exposing corporate misconduct are sexist pigs as much as men running other companies.
Good reporting. A woman has a right to go to work each day without worrying if her boss or male co-worker is going to harass her and grope her. The men running Vice failed their female employees, and those men should be fired.
If a man is so clumsy or inept dealing with women that he has to use his leverage as a boss to find a sexual partner, he is pathetic. Such men should never be allowed to work around women.
Executives of HBO or 20th Century Fox, heavy investors in Vice, should be very nervous.
20
Nothing substantive in our American rape culture will change until the rapist, groper,and sexual harasser in chief is removed from the White House.
Donald Trump was accused of marital rape by his first wife, Ivana, during their divorce proceedings. In the divorce papers, Ivana had to sign a signing statement that even though Donald Trump did not rape her but only forced her to have sex with him against her will. Some tortuous legalese wrangling by Trumps divorce lawyers.
10
You seem to making a lot of unfounded accusations. What has been proved so far? And by the way, the divorce papers were sealed, so how do YOU know anything?
3
Oh, really? Shocked, shocked I am to hear that there was naughty behavior going on in the offices of Vice Magazine! I must retire to my fainting couch.
What's next, NYT? A breathless expose of Hugh Hefner's parties at the Playboy Mansion? No doubt some of his employees ended up feeling "uncomfortable."
This is all getting a bit silly.
13
So why does the digital tomes put in as its lead in to the vice story the picture of the "attractive young woman"?
6
It's time we consider a grand social experiment. Limit porn for a year and measure if there is a correlation with porn and all of this abhorrent behavior that seems pervasive. I suspect there is a connection and it is a driver.
9
Ok, Tipper Gore.
4
Men think woman are theirs to ogle at, comment about and touch. Keep your hands and minds off of our bodies. That's what the message has to be at home, in school, in the workplace and life in general.
11
I've seen various women ogle at men, and even read it in print from female journalists talking about some shirtless actor. What's good for the goose should be good for the gander.
5
wow, this is so disappointing. I love Vice News :(
2
But they have neckbeards, tats... and they seem so woke!
13
Just another example of the liberal media who aren’t afraid to scold America for not living up to their ideals, has let us down yet again by not living up to ours. It’s time for the media elitists to come down off there high horses & realize they are just as accountable as the the rest of us. Hollywood I would say this applies to you as well, get and keep your own houses in order before you try & judge ours.
5
Vice seems to report the shady news on everyone else. People who live in glass houses ........
9
A quick perusal of the comments shows me how much men, even "lefty" men, hate women.
16
I - We must be perusing different comments since I see no hate of women here.
8
Dear "Tired" -- "isn't this getting a bit silly?"
1
Time to own your projections, I.
Yet another dreary story about male sexual aggression - dreary because it seems so ubiquitous, because it forces women to be on their guard all the time, and that has to be mentally and emotionally exhausting.
Really, the whole situation is akin to, though less widespread and less lethal than, what blacks endure living in a society constructed on white racism: constant stress, made all the more egregious because it's so unnecessary and so counter-productive, and is born of a white male entitlement of power that the society encodes in those males from birth.
And like racism, this sex-based sense of entitlement is so engrained that its practitioners are blind to it - it's a virtual ideology, it's part of the way they see the world and their place in it, and the blindness is part of the disease.
But while they're blind to it, it's not an unconscious thing - these men are very aware of their privilege and take full advantage of it when and how they feel like it in the same way whites take advantage of their racism. It's self-indulgence of the worst kind.
And what really strikes me about it all - sexism and racism both - is the sheer stupidity of it. Such malignancy with such obvious, needless harm to its victims, who after all are people whose full brain power we're losing every minute of every day, to our own peril.
To indulge that malignancy is to embrace it. And who with any brain at all embraces cancer? Like I said - stupid people.
26
Well said.
3
Out of all the comments, the Vice personality most mentioned is Gavin McInnes, a figure the NYT did not interview or even mention one time in this article.
If your readers know more about the subject than you do, how have you actually contributed to the conversation?
97
The late great David Carr put these Vice poseurs in their place quickly and calmly in the "Page One" doc. Their arrogance and hubris back then should have been a clue as to their attitudes about women.
23
The problem is patriarchy. Until patriarchy is supplanted from grade school on up by a system in which it's commonly accepted that women initiate any intimate behavior between the sexes, this will continue. The problem is not men or their sexual attraction to women. The problem is what's in their heads, both consciously and unconsciously.
6
the usual "nostra culpa," the usual rush to remediation with the usual suspects (names of headline value) installed = same old zero.
give the "duh" prize of the week to kayla ruble for her discovery (“This is a wakeup call”) that the misogyny of today is the same as the 50s, "still there...still ingrained," in men in their 20s and 30s.
that the culture has not changed seems to have escaped ms ruble and lots of others, to be fair...the boy-girl dynamics in films and on tv, the "please him to please yourself" fashions, the "thinner, younger looking wrinkle-free you" on sale (and a big hit with younger women too!) at any cosmetic counter...are "still there...still ingrained."
forget the lads in their 20s and 30s, check out locker rooms, (boys and girls), in colleges and high schools...the next wave, already rehearsed, is on its way.
8
Crash and burn. That is the fate of VICE. Nobody will remember this company and its cadre of clowns in 2 or 3 years.
Next....!
6
I never liked them.. I especially never liked how isis never opened it's doors for even Al-Jazeera but it let vice reporters in... and I hate conspiracy theories..
4
I took the liberty of moving two sentences closer to each other to see how they would look:
"Ms. Ashbrooke, who left the company in recent months, said in a statement: 'As a woman and HR professional, I support anyone who believes they have been mistreated and throughout my career, I have worked to help companies build respectful workplaces with no tolerance for inappropriate behavior.'
(Ms. Ashbrooke worked as vice president of human resources at Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax Films from 1991 to 2000.)"
So yeah, totally believable.
19
Although some observers assume that millennial men would be more progressive and respectful towards women, it needs to be remembered that this cohort has grown up in a rampant culture of objectifying women (the norm of "frat" POV movie comedies like American Pie or the Wedding Crashers) and easy and constant access to online porn (women exist for men's pleasure).
16
Maybe *most* of them are more progressive!
It's just that the old sexism has long vestiges and patriarchy remains entrenched.
1
I had a harassing boss. She told me I needed to stay late to finish a project, then called me to her office and said "let's have a drink" as she pulled a bottle from her desk.
I said I couldn't break company rules about drinking on the job. She said she was "ordering me to have a drink." I declined and returned to my office.
I was laid off inside a week. She later was fired for grabbing and kissing her female assistant in similar after-hours circumstances.
13
The exception proves the rule
2
Vice reporters aren't even reporters- each one is a meme, a character, an attitude, a look .. they are an all inclusive package. There's the dorky guy, cool guy, pretty girl aggressive, pretty girl shy, minority and of course the LGBT. Pretty savvy marketing if you ask me..
10
Nancy Ashbrooke says she is a human resources professional. Did she glean this professionalism during her 9-year stint at Miramax? When confronted with complaints of inappropriate behavior, her actions (or lack of) at Vice are quite revealing of her so-called professionalism.
Thank you NYT. It's a good article; enlightening.
9
This statement from Vice is most troubling: "In some cases, it’s clear that the company and our managers made mistakes. In others, we disagree with the way in which the underlying facts have been characterized.”
Recently, Matt Lauer also tried to stir doubt about his victims' stories by saying, "Some of what is being said about me is untrue or mischaracterized..."
Of course it is bitterly ironic that these two supposed "liberal" entities have characterized the victims as purveyors of "fake news." They sound like former GOP senate candidate for Alabama Roy Moore, like Bill O'Reilly; like Rupert Murdoch defending his vicious predators while conceding to pay millions to silence their victims (Fail!) They're all examples of predators adding insult to injury.
Learn from Sen. Al Franken, whose apologies never tried to rob his accusers of what they experienced: "For instance, that picture. I don't know what was in my head when I took that picture, and it doesn't matter. There's no excuse. I look at it now and I feel disgusted with myself. It isn't funny. It's completely inappropriate. It's obvious how Leeann would feel violated by that picture." More here: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/al-franken-apologizes-for-sexual-misconduct...
5
Perhaps some of it IS untrue or misleading. Women are not above lying or distorting. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take allegations seriously but it DOES mean we should not automatically assume every woman is right and every man is wrong or that a woman who actually has been harassed might not look for revenge or pad her story. Accused men have a right to state their case as well.
6
Sorry, not true on Franken. He said he remembers some of the alleged incidents “very differently” than his accusers.
8
There is not a 35 year old man in America who has not spent hundreds of hours looking at internet pornography and playing violent video games like Grand Theft Auto.
How can we be surprised that there is another generation of men who believe women are nothing but sexual objects?
11
And if they have spent years playing grand theft auto, they presumably they also view automobiles solely as an item to steal?
4
Glad to see that all it took for Vice to commit to change was a good public shaming.
2
Aggressiveness in business bespeaks a more general attitudinal underpinning, if the company's leaders are predominantly male. Testosterone is nondiscriminatory in driving the brain, particularly given a history of consistent headstrong behavior — all aspects of "business" are fair game for that aggression. Hence, this should surprise no one. And it's no excuse that evolution may have selected for a higher level of aggression to preserve our species against competitors. If we truly believe our uniqueness to be as a cognitive self-reflective species, then it's long past time that self-reflection modulates aggressive drives in young and middle-aged men. Otherwise, it's somewhat hypocritical to think of our big brains in so laudatory a fashion as we regularly do.
1
No surprises here... Sexual harassment happens to all women and if you are an attractive woman, harassment happens on a daily basis from all kinds of men. It is a constant chore to deal with and has multiple levels of enactment from the street comments to the power plays of bosses. Ask Donald...
5
In other words, the pretty girls have it worse?
Guys,
Women don't think of the creepy ones as old, white conservatives. We think of them as men of all ages, races, sizes, and political affilations. This is a bipartisan miasma. Welcome to our nightmare.
17
You wouldn't last five minutes in Pakistan or the Middle East. Do you know how many billions of women around the world would trade their dreams for your nightmare? First World Problems.
2
Classic red herring response. Telling someone "Oh, they have it SO much worse in XYZ country, therefore your complaints are invalid" is weak debating skills at best.
1
Time for a new edgy media company: 'Truth, Virtue & Prudence'.
3
Let's face it--The United States is a pro-misogyny/racist country. The fact that Trump was elected our president proves it. In other words, the USA enjoys and protects both misogyny and racism and has no honest wish to rid itself of either.
7
Much of Europe is the same....
2
I think at face value this debate makes a good point, that men should not be pigs. Point taken. But, there ARE two sides. Yes, there really are, and you won't be modernizing your way out of that. You're really saying that women don't have the right to have sex with men from work, because it creates a so-called hostile environment. The morality isn't so simple however. If women want to do so to further their careers, then what? Are younger womens sexual choices subject to review by a panel of older women? Why gets to sit on that panel, and what gives them that right?
7
One does not further a career by having sex with the boss. Eventually it all falls down, with the less powerful one being fired.
1
Workers of both sexes have a right to a safe workplace, period. That means one free of sexual harassment, predation and discrimination. That is why, when I entered professional life, intimate relationships were discouraged between employees and were forbidden between those in management and those under their direction.
7
choice... hopefully eventually society will provide a basic income for all -- which does mean closed borders--and women will not have to join organizations such as this to merely survive.. OTOH why are women so competitive with each other and why do accomplished women Hillary Clinton and Huma Wiener come to mind stick with horrible men with no morals?
Why is marriage considered to be normal? wy all this nonsense about the awfulness of being alone. IMO it's GREAT. can be a bit lonely but then there can be problems in partnership of anysort. Getting it tog just for me tkaes lots of energy -- getting it tog for more than me can be very overwhelming and difficult.
PS at 73 I still get hit on... Lovely -- just give me a break.. so tired and tiring..
1
Where are Disney and 20th Century Fox in all this? As owners, aren't they responsible? Why aren't they firing Smith and Alvi as we speak? And without golden parachutes to cushion their landing. The people at the very top, who knew or should have known what was going on in their own workplaces, have to be held accountable. By consumers, by investors, by regulators.
6
Exactly. The only way to truly change American culture is to get in between the owners/managers/elected officials and their money. Impose a hefty penalty for the offense (the kind that would get stockholders and/voter attention) and watch the problem disappear No more settlements, no more apologies. and certainly no more owners/ managers/elected officials being designated as the reformers of the very offenses they participated in, encouraged, and boasted about to enhance their "brand" Once again greed triumphs.
Vice has proven that they are unworthy of the public's trust. They are just another corporate entity more interested in exploiting for profit--- the only difference is that they wear T-Shirts and hoodies in an attempt to show their "street cred"
Smith and Alvi are the Donald Trump and Harvey Wienstein of the "I'm So Cool Millennial/Hip generation."
4
I have to differentiate between just rude behavior and sexual assault. I mean at some point women have to speak up for themselves and not whine about it long after the fact.
Demands for sexual favors in return for employment or in the terms of employment is dead wrong and illegal. Report it immediately.
But, the crude, boorish, and cheesy behavior is something only the women or person affected can stop. You need to take control of your personal space. Shut then down on the spot and leave no question as to how you feel about it.
7
Apparently you didn't read the article. They DID shut it down...and then paid with their jobs.
13
And then be isolated, shamed for having "thin skin" and not being a team player. Welcome to being a woman in a man's workplace.
3
Vice...so the name wasn't enough of a warning?
8
I love Vice News, but it's culture stinks. And it appears still not to get it. I note, for example, the absence of any mention of placing women in positions of power as a partial remedy to cleaning up its culture. Beyond that, how can anyone believe management's commitment to change when its culture is defended by the likes of Ms. Ashbrooke, who was VP of HR at Miramax for almost 10 years, who said, "As a woman and HR professional, I support anyone who believes they have been mistreated and throughout my career, I have worked to help companies build respectful workplaces with no tolerance for inappropriate behavior." Really? You want us to believe that in light of the mess at Miramax? Incredible. Any residue of Ms. Ashbrooke's legacy at Vice must be cleaned up asap.
5
Vice office is very clearly in greenpoint not williamsburg.
2
South 2nd and Kent is south Williamsburg
This tells us once again that refusing to adopt the American traditions of family, respect for everyone, and a religious viewpoint always leaves one open to becoming the worst person people know.
This is the progressive disease that gets worse every day that people are lectured about hating the American President and fully half of the people of this country.
If you just want to go live in a top-down controlled state where people's rights mean nothing and you can live a life of anger, there are plenty of them out there.
Just don't ever expect people with human rights in the U.S. to make you feel at home.
5
I’ve seen Vice grow from its days in Montreal to a global monster that optimises everything that's wrong with late capitalism and its contradictions. Apologies are a tactic to calm a mob and mere expressions to say yes, things are changing. Canadian politics uses this all the time with efforts for reconciliation w/ indigenous cultures but no, it is not enough.
Employees are protected by HR and contractual agreements regulated by law. Parties and interactions on the dance floor are not, in which the culture of Vice bleeds on to. Promiscuity is celebrated as “feminist” - being in control of your body by sleeping with as many men as you like in a groupie culture. Like Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac - when does the women ever find joy in these encounters beyond masochism? Assuming masochism brings any joy at all or only pain and humiliation.
Young women are vulnerable despite even providing consent they may not fully understand what they want, which is to say this problem goes beyond the workplace and harassment suits. This rings true of situations like Carrie Fisher’s encounter with Harrison Ford: http://bit.ly/2izjryo
The stories of young women’s encounters with more powerful men despite them being consensual also reflect naivety, vulnerability, remedies for depression, a desire for escape. These experiences though not crimes, are damaging to women. Yes, we can put bandaids on workplace culture, but it seeps far beyond into complex realms in which women too often do not tell.
6
Pigs being pigs. What else is new? These men-children feed off of each others behavior in a way that is competitive, juvenile, demeaning and psychologically damaging towards their intended targets ( women) ,disrespectful and illegal.
I don't care what Vice as a business does, wants to do, or thinks it does. At the end of the day it is a place of employment for people earning a living. These people are entitled to a harassment and assault free environment where there is an institutionalized sense of no retaliation for those who bring complaints. .
Obviously the hiring of these boorish fiends has to be dealt with responsibly and legally. They need to be held accountable for their action and either suspended, fired, re-trained or demoted. The company can form a committee and work out those details.
On a broader scale the company needs to address the long term effects of sexual harassment on it's victims. The existence of sexual harassment has to be an issue that is inegral to all aspects of employee training..and not just something to talk about when a complaint goes public. System sexual harassment is every employers responsibility to eradicate even if that means men are required to keep their eyes on their keyboards all day, eyes down.
6
This sadly typifies state of affairs in workplaces like Vice. They are male oriented, have few if any female managers, and toxic "Cowboy" culture. The women are prey and the company does nothing. Men are using women to feel "macho" - a characteristic that builds their egos but humiliates women.
Our culture rewards "machismo"- look at ads for oversized Ford 150's, violent movies, misogynist rap tunes. The men mentioned is this article are committing assault - a crime; and it is positively disgusting.
I hope Vice goes bankrupt like Weinstein Co.- it's the only cure- break up this band of wild Mad Men.
6
Sounds like same MO in Silicon Valley.
5
The company is called "Vice." What did you expect?
The entire premise of this article is ridiculous: who really thinks that a company founded by guys raised in the 'hookup' culture would be respectful? And why the cheap shot comparisons with "the 50s" as if that decade represented some sex-obsessed jungle era? Did homo sapiens somehow evolve to shed the male reproductive urge during the last 60 years?
Social attitudes toward sex vacillate with the times, but sexual urges very little. We're animals.
5
Shane should be fired. He created the toxic environment. And the sham company that has no audience on Viceland and no audience on youtube. Walt Disney would be rolling over in his grave that they invested in "Vice" and its low-rent leadership. Where is the board of directors on this issue? And why is Bob Iger not divesting from this cesspool? And if TPG had any integrity they'd fire Shane and/or divest asap as well.
6
I posit that these abusers are fully aware of the nature of their acts at the time of occurrence. Any absence of such consciousness is highly suggestive of alcohol and other drug use and /or psychological pathology making them unemployable among women. Not one of these males would condone this behavior if it were described as an experience of their mothers, sisters, wives or daughters. The inevitability of mutual sexual interest among people working together must be recognized. Taking interest to the next level should be part of the Rules and regulations Manual. Companies and employees pay penalties for indiscretions in this area.
By this time, any business must know that the male myth of our right to dominate by all means is just imaginary. The same energy that has gone into the creation of tax loopholes must be spent on the preservation of near to sacred personal space around the more than fifty percent of our female population. Any breech of this must be negotiated on a level playing field. Risk of spurious accusation will be lessened but not eradicated.
2
Are we really surprised men in their 20s, 30s, and 40s are committing sexual assaults and harassment? Everyday, if we're listening, we hear about a new rapes and predators on college campuses, we hear about the strategies men share, "rapebait," to target their victims, and we hear the stories from their victims in hospitals, clinics, and emergency departments. Do these men just leave college reformed (after they are almost always allowed to graduate)? No. What about the many who aren't caught? No. They move into the workplace and continue their well worn patterns of targeting and harassing women. As a millennial, I have zero surprise.
8
I managed a corrections facility for 20 years. Staff ages ranged between 21 to 60+. The sexual harassment issues I dealt with included all generations, it’s not just a baby boomer problem. Interestingly, it also didn’t seem to be something that training affected much. Some folks just don’t seem to get it, or they don’t think the policies (or human decency) apply to them.
7
Maybe the fact that you worked in a PRISON had something to do with the culture there...? This doublespeaking and delusional denial of reality has got to stop. We are becoming so weak-minded as a people that we need not worry about war with China or North Korea or Russia. At this rate, Luxembourg could conquer us all in ten years.
1
How is it that in today’s world where woman are marines, are ultimate fighting champs, are the new Jedi in Star War, are portrayed as strong they at the same time claim to be so weak and fragile that any joke or off hand comment makes them unravel. And they become “humiliated” and “emotionally distraught”. And they need protection from big bad men? Which one is it? Strong? Or Weak?
I don’t buy it. And I think women are strong and this harassment hysteria is simply an attempt by women to control male behavior. Apparently anything a man says or does has now become sexual misconduct
Men had better wake up and push back or they will soon become second class citizens- will have to ask permission before they can say or do anything.
Men have a natural instinctive interest in having sex with attractive women. When they make an advance it is out of respect for the woman’s attractiveness. Not out of disrespect.
The reason this is so called sexual misconduct is so prevalent is because men see nothing wrong with it. And in fact there is nothing wrong with the activities you described. It is the normal activity of normal men with normal male libidos.
2
Normal men with normal male libidos? Is this the workplace or the wilds of the Serengeti?
2
“We are very slightly changed from the naked apes who ranged India’s prehistoric clay.” — Kipling
So the problem isn’t old men. It’s all men.
5
I am shocked, SHOCKED to find that vice is going on after "Vice" magazine parties.
Who could have imagine that the purity of the Coney Island Ferris wheel would be degraded by "Vice" magazine? It's not like Woody ... ALLEN ever rode on the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island.
This sounds like a lot of stupid, childish behavior by men. At the same time, I would like to point out that the front-page photo for this article shows a young woman dressed in a fashionable outfit, revealing her stomach. It is time for women of all ages to realize that if they present themselves in a sensual way, they will be seen that way by others. Even I, as a man, am aware that the way I dress elicits more or less attention from women, and many different kinds of attention, based on how I preeent myself. Showing skin may be a fashion statement, but it is not professional. Yes, I feel that women have the right to dress how they like, but have common sense. We all know that people are attracted to beauty. If women are so identified with their bodies that they need to present themselves in a sensual way to feel good about themselves, this may need to be looked at, so women have more awareness of their choices. This is not just a problem of men being obsessed with women's bodies. It is also a problem of women being obsessed with their own bodies.
9
Whoa. A company co-founded by Gavin McInnes isn't progressive on gender politics?
2
Trumps in office. Don’t worry. He will straighten everything out.
1
When the NYT does a story on sexual harassment at Goldman Sachs, or Citigroup, or Boeing, or General Dynamics, or Walmart, or Philip Morris, or Xe, or Bushmaster, or Disney, or GE, or Target, or overseas contractors working in the Middle East, then I'll start caring. Right now, other than Fox, the left seems to be mostly the target of all this outrage. Media and entertainment companies are open and easy targets, but let's get to where the real power lies. Oh wait, that is never going to happen, is it?
7
Good to know our younger men are still healthy, was beginning to think they were all zetas.
'taking steps to transform itself'....'as it became aware that The Times and other news outlets were working on articles about ...experiences of women at Vice"..
Reform after being caught is self-interest not penance.
4
Back in the 50s, preparing to teach in secondary schools, we were given this piece of advice: "Never touch your students." Seems to be good advice for the workplace.
9
If you read the (since withdrawn) NDA, it's clear that somebody (or somebodies) at Vice likes the sexually provocative culture of the company and promoted it through forcing consent to such a culture and to "participation in situations" undescribed. The only real question is whether promotion of such a culture was primarily seen as supportive of the business goals of the company or as some possibly illegal strategy to force women to succumb to the sexual and power desires of men. It would have been nice to have a video camera capturing the meeting that was surely held when this truly creepy NDA was created. The mind runs wild with possibilities about what might have been said, or not said or simply imagined by the principals of this company.
47
Young men are self-centered creatures. The reasons for this are probably extremely complex, but it seems that selfish behavior - of which assuming the right to invade a woman's privacy in varying degrees is a prime example - is going to continue at all levels of society and in all kinds of situations involving work and play until those complex reasons are identified and addressed. Raising the young is difficult, and something we seem to be unable to focus on with consistency (what if the payoff for raising a child to be a mature adult at 18 or 20 was the same as for teaching a young man the skills to become a professional athlete?). And as the saying goes - you're only young once, but you can be immature forever. Some men just never find that selfishness doesn't pay - indeed, in our current culture, it often does - and thus there is genuine surprise when they are condemned for behavior that seemed to be not only appropriate but that of successful men. Some men learn from having their mistakes exposed, others simply deny those.
4
Anybody who has employed and celebrated a predator like Glenn Thrush needs to examine and own up to its own workplace culture, not deflect by talking about everyone else.
5
Vice for me has always been yet another example of the inappropriate mixing of news with entertainment. In Vice's case - with some rare and worthy exceptions - there's much more of the latter than the former.
This news about inappropriate sexual behavior imho goes hand in hand with inappropriate journalistic practices.
4
When will this quarrel stop ? So many men are caught with their symbolic pants down that there has to be a logic to all this. Men are not more inclined than women, to be unjust, so it's something else: Culture.
Most of the guys being called out today for harrassment didn't think their actions were crimnal. One has to recognize the fact that men have been encouraged to behave this way for generations. Culture is the culprit and culture must change.
Those who think that culture will change if half of men are publicly shamed and stripped of their jobs, are deluding themselves: That's the fastest way to spark an endless cycle of retaliation.
As for the dispute in a couple, the proper way to handle this is on one hand for women to team up together as they've decided to do today, but also to discuss this cultural issue with men. This is a teachable moment that risks getting ruined by the illusive and aggressive idea that "men must pay".
Mark my words; a year from now the media storm will be over and all our society will get is even more mysogyny and gender polarisation. What we need is more mutual caring, more rational debate, and less name-calling.
Who's profiting from this ? Not women: Lawyers and newspaper editors.
2
The problem with taking advantage of a "teachable moment" is that women are stuck doing all the "teaching." Personally, I'm not up for it, and men are too defensive to talk about it anyway. Just listen to some of the male celebrities tying themselves in knots trying to say the right thing -- Jon Stewart, for example.
Not all women will profit from this. I know that there are ordinary women working in offices and restaurants who don't feel empowered in the way that, say, Uma Thurman does, now that she's an established Hollywood star. And not all men will change their behavior, because it's ingrained. But at the very least, more men will now understand that more women will feel empowered to call them on their behavior now, not years later.
It's culture, but it's not up to women to patiently educate the men until they get it. The men who are compelled and permitted to assault and harass women need to control themselves, whether or not they understand why.
13
What’s particularly troubling to me about Vice’s methods of conducting themselves all begins with the “contract” employees are required to sign. It reads, "Although it is possible that some of the text, images and information I will be exposed to in the course of my employment with VICE may be considered by some to be offensive, indecent violent or disturbing, I do not find such text, images or information or the workplace environment at VICE to be offensive, indecent, violent or disturbing". I'd argue that this is not a valid request for consent. Consent must be informed and voluntary, and this kind of agreement indicates that the employee does not know what kind of potentially offensive content they may encounter.
Offensive “text, images and information” can take all forms, either in media that’s published by the journal, or in office culture. This contract is the slippery slope argument in carnate. How can an already marginalized group expect to be comfortable identifying and calling-out office sexism and racism when they are otherwise instructed to tolerate these kinds of messages?
This contract creates an environment where insurgent and provocative reporting are praised, and any violation of marginalized groups’ rights is mere collateral damage.
5
There is a huge problem with 20-30-something-year-old male reporters and editors in NYC on cultural beats. The ones who aren’t at Vice now will continue to shuffle around and do what they do. And then they go right for the most trusting impressionable entry level women after everyone their own age has figured out that they a little bit actually sociopaths.
Big red flags: They are extremely well read and yet despite all that knowledge cannot seem to conceptialize of women as people—definitely not intellectual equals. Are his favorite authors not even that low key in their misogyny? Do you really think he wants to mentor the interns because he’s a good person? Does he shout over women in meetings and/or completely space out when they open their mouths? Does he go “aw poor guy” if he sees or hears about a guy get turned down, and then, apparently oblivious, starts a story about how a woman humiliated herself and he’s really amused by that for some reason? Has he been fired multiple times for sexual harassment issues but somehow still has a fancy book critic job at, oh , let’s say, NYmag?
All based on true stores; all good questions to ask.
10
The name ‘Vice Media’ was the first clue...
4
When will the NYT write about the issue of sexual harassment in their own business? Not to say they should not report on other media sources, just to say I suspect they have issues also. They would be extremely open about sexual harassment if they would do a story on themselves and this issue.
3
Some readers are grossly mistaken when they say that if you spend 18 hours of your day together there's bound to be misconduct. These people need to learn quickly that the basic relationship is one of employment - if they did not work together, they would not be spending after hours time together. In fact, employees may be pressured by management to "fit in" and be a "team player" by going to these pseudo-social events.
People need to open up their eyes and understand that treating co-workers in a professional manner at all times is what's required.
12
A journalism, Vice always struck me as "lightweight". Its veneer of edginess was a mere distraction...window dressing. These people were never going to win a Pulitzer.
That said, our culture at large always seems to have a fetish for...a place in our hearts for...social and creative settings where "no rules apply". Paris / Berlin in the 1920's, North Beach San Francisco in the 1950s, Haight Ashbury in the 60s, NYC downtown arts / bohemia of the 70' and 80s, 70s gay hubs like the West Village and Castro in the 70s, Studio 54, Rock and Roll...the list is endless. These scenes are usually "led" by very creative AND dominant males who get loads of female attention and receive loads of collateral status enhancement partly from the female attention they receive. Sounds like a job at Vice wasn't merely a "job"...it was a "lifestyle"...and for many, that was the point.
4
Bring back the Victorian Age
The problem in many of the "Hip" media companies is that the product, strategy, and work force is "edgy" . The view by many is that this is what is required for creative concepts.
I am not sure about this as I am in my 60s. That being said, I run a very large international company. By policy we forbid any relationships within the Company (not just between superior and subordinate), any relationships. Moreover, we do not refer to each other by first name it is: Mr. Mrs. Dr. ... etc. I know that this seems harsh but it works. I have over 70% woman in the Company, we are family friendly, we don't have alcohol at any Company events. We do not have parties for employees (we do have in house lunch meetings) only events for outside clients.
Surprisingly, I have no problems hiring young people who are very creative. Everyone is treated with respect. The bottom line I make it very clear that at the Company we are strictly business. My employees (not just senior management) are generously compensated with bonuses for overall performance. It is a safe place with very low turnover. And yes, the men all wear coats and ties and ladies wear professional work attire.
Friends, this works for me.. our compound growth rate is 20% plus. We are professional company not a Frat or Sorority House.
W
5
The policy of 'no relationships' doesn't make sense. I know many people who have met at the workplace and ended up marrying.
1
It's not a problem, until it is.
1
“Executives erected a wall of silence around the company. Employees were required to sign a confidentiality agreement when they joined Vice, stating that during and after their employment they would not publicly disparage the company, according to a copy viewed by The Times.” The meaning of “cool” and edgy have changed dramatically in a generation— the children of Reagan. Of course workers should be able to speak about their experiences. Silence is a right-wing (i.e. not “cool”) demand — the value is loyalty to authority, one that controls your wages, and what people felt there was vulnerability and fear, because they had no control in their work relationships. Sex is not a meal owed to those in power. I do wish people would organize, for goodness sake.
Sounds like Trump's White House.
Even thought I rarely drink alcohol and never to excess, I always laughed at the US Prohibitionists and teetotaling foreign countries that banned consumption. In the last few years I have come to wonder if they are not correct. It seems so much bad behavior stems from excessive public alcohol consumption.
4
No matter what, the fact is we are living in an age, where respect for women is at an all-time low.
The evidence i.e. the almost daily complaint of sexual harassment from men makes it clear that the men who do these things are not only dishonoring these women but also themselves.
They also forget that it also makes the men who strive to honor and respect women
look bad because the fact is the situation is so out of hand that women don't know who to trust anymore.
A man can pretend to be decent but once the woman is in his hands he reveals his true intentions
and the woman is left feeling betrayed and hurt all over.
Fathers ought to see it as a duty to raise their sons to treat all females with honor and respect.
But society must do its bit and stop portraying women like cattle on show for sexual gratification.
We should never underestimate the influence that pornography has on inexperienced people.
The image it continues to portray is that women are here for the use of men.
Should we be surprised to find that as a result when young guys grow up they only see and want what is between a womans legs?
And in extreme cases, they take it whether the woman agrees or not.
All of that and more happens when society decides to stop adhering to time tested morals that previous generations lived by.
At the end of the day we are in charge of our lives.
If we choose to do bad things we will reap the bitter fruits
i.e. a growing lack of respect and trust between male and females.
3
I love how in the past three weeks, when management hurriedly realized it needed to clean up its act to get ahead of the NYT article, they fired three employees.
Funny how they knew EXACTLY whom to fire, even while protesting loudly that "such things don't happen here".
How did they know who to fire for this nonexistent behavior?
8
I’m getting so sick of hearing lame apologies by those in positions of supposed LEADERSHIP. If you’re in charge of something—and I mean actually in charge, not just sitting at the top of the ladder—the culture will be what you make it. It’s your job to ensure that is so, whether you’re at a bank, a media company, or the president. Good leadership is crucial to any “successful” (expanded definition, not just bottom line) enterprise. If what is going on below you is bad, it is happening because of a failure of leadership or by setting a poor example.
If you’re such the big man on campus and you really disagree with what’s going on, then what are you telling us? That you have no control over your company? That you can’t do your job well? How do you say publicly, “I am unfit for my job” and then walk right back to your desk and pretend like you’re earning that paycheck? When we expect that people will fulfill their leadership roles and hold them accountable, then we will have gone a long way towards addressing these and other issues.
We, as a society in the age of “influencers,” are not talking about what it means to LEAD. We don’t even know what it means anymore.
5
Why do companies encourage their employees to work 60+ hour work weeks AND party together? They should encourage better boundaries. People are only so productive after working many hours anyway. If everyone worked their 40+ hours and clocked out, then maybe men would get the hint that they need to look for sexual encounters outside of the office. And now look how much time, effort, and money has gone into investigating and litigating these incidents. I don't think having an alcohol & drug fueled party culture was worth it in the end. It's no better than Fox news network. And that's incredibly sad, considering Vice had so many unique, eye-opening reports.
3
I’m Inclined to agree with the policies that reveal the explicit language and material prior to the employee joining the company.
Then...there is the LAW. No employee ever should sign away their access to the law. Touching with intent is either consensual or illegal.
There should be more policy that allows employees to sue the employee/company as a remedy rather than hushed pay outs that always put a woman as potential opportunist in many people’s evaluations.
Post consensual regret ?
1
Unfortunately HR, even if run by a woman, almost always takes the side of the corporation - they're the ones paying her salary. HR, for the most part, is a farce.
3
How can anyone be surprised over any of the allegations and incidents we have been hearing about for weeks and months? Music lyrics, movies, TV programs, and all of popular culture has been celebrated and looked up to for a generation for being edgy, clever and cool. The behavior everyone is now complaining about is still being glorified by the left and they know it. Why do you think it took so long to draw attention? It's taken fifty years, but someone finally made the wrong move on the wrong person. It all started in the 1960s when the left began its campaign to destroy traditional values that made this country the beacon of the world. Because of the left, up is down and down is up. Right is wrong and wrong is right. The only surprise in today's news is that this behavior is suddenly seen by the left as offensive when it all began with their own sexual revolution! Get over yourselves and deal with the results of your own making.
3
Yes, of course, conservatives/Republicans to the last have always been and continue to be exemplars of moral rectitude, always upholding "traditional values", never engaging in any inappropriate, abusive, immoral, or illegal sexual behavior.
Take your partisan blinders off, sir.
3
"Because of the left" you mean like Bill O'Reilly, Donald Trump, all the other right wing politicians & evangelists caught with their pants down in the men's room? Pretty fair to say this is not a right or left, young or old, black or white thing. Check your history books, every president, all the art, music, literature, & business people: they are all men, all white. Can you off the top of your head name 10 or 20 women authors, painters, inventors the way you can rattle off hundreds of men's names? Probably not. And not because they didn't live & breathe & think & create before they died but because they were not given the same credit or opportunities. Would you consider THAT culture over tens of thousands of years MIGHT be how we got here vs one era in the 1960s? Perspective is key to critical thinking.
3
Weinstein and others are older, but there is no way their conduct was acceptable at any point in the last 100 years. These are immoral men, not men caught out by changing morals. There is a problem, but it is not a problem which will go away simply because time is passing.
2
When are people going to see that we are all a product of our culture, and our culture as revealed through our art (television, advertising, fashion, music,and entertainment) is saturated with violent and sexual content, and rampant material consumption. It should not surprise anybody that this kind of behavior is so pervasive throughout society.
3
So many of these incidents (not just the ones at Vice) appear to be done by nerdy kids who grow up and decide to use new-found power on women they never could get in high school.
5
I am 83 and experienced a very different dating culture from what is described in these comments. I attribute that difference to the experience of Vietnam where rape became part of the US culture, a culture of violence. Violence and misogyny.
2
Who is surprised. Media companies are mostly about manipulating people in the audience. Why shouldn't the guys who work at these companies feel that it's just fine to manipulate women. It's exactly the same as Hollywood and for many politicians.
1
News Corp is one of its major shareholders. With the Disney deal, let's see how it's gonna pan out.
A short paragraph on original co-founder Gavin McInnes, his leaving in 2008, and subsequent founding of the Proud Boys movement would have been illuminating, so I'm not sure why he isn't mentioned at all; he's dreadful. And culpable.
4
Thanks for mentioning that. I wondered why no one had.
1
"People marveled at their ability to make their own rules and blindly disregard everyone else’s,” Ms. Hopper said in an interview. She declined to comment on the existence of a settlement.
-Yet another example of a "new" (digital) era company ignoring the rules and being rewarded for it. Another fraud in the land of the "gig economy."
1
Meh.
Sounds like the White House without any actual power and with some sense of accountability.
There is a cartoon cliché about cave men dragging off women. Men evolved to be bigger and stronger, so that women can be more-easily raped to produce offspring. So why is it surprising that men see women as biological objects to be acquired and manipulated?
As Donald Trump perfectly demonstrates, our society grants respect only to the powerful. Women are smaller and weaker, so there is no need to respect them.
3
When it comes to human behavior, there are no new ideas. Ecclesiastes 1:9: "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." It's not a millennial thing. It’s not a boomer thing. It’s a human thing, and we cannot relax our guard against a human thing.
3
After a few drinks, vices are set free. That's just how it is.
Don't expect decency in alcohol and drug fueled parties. Laws and company policies will not work when people are under the influence.
That's why there are laws against drinking and driving not tougher laws against causing accidents.
3
"...where women said they felt like just another party favor at an organization where partying often was an extension of the job."
So when pray tell is the NYT finally going to write about the finance industry? It can't be because it hasn't heard awful stories, because they are legion. I'm really just mystified and am beginning to think along conspiracy-theory lines.
127
I just made a similar comment. not just banking, but arms manufacturers, oil companies, big retail, pharma companies, etc etc. Where is the coverage on those places?
2
You shouldn't be mystified - it was quite clear, really, this article is about Vice, and no amount of deflection will change that.
3
You got it.
Note: a well-horned level of language of denial has developed to cover incidents and events--all degrading and demeaning, all damaging to business and society--of racism and sexism. It begins with I-followed-the-rules, I-regret-my-actions, this-was-a-one-off-offense and shifts to we dispute the facts, we promise to change, we support fairness and then devolves into fantasy: I never did it, I don't know the person, my voice is not my voice, I was only joking, I am protecting my family, this is an attack provoked by my enemies, this goes against what I have stood for my whole career.
In the mean time, women end up in counseling, hospitals, and still are living in fear, with the invisible consequences of the deep violations of their personhood foisted in the workplace.
As long as the language of denial is a part of the conversation, the pattern of cover-up and justification continues. (Weinstein employed full teams or friends and workers to lob shame and demolish careers.) Let's recognize the spin that refuses to acknowledge the real depth of failure corporations and small businesses have fostered by turning blind eyes to the physical and psychological intimidation of women. Demand a language reset that focuses on truth-telling and confession, honest shame for inflicted pain, consequences for violators.
Right now, the language is an extension of the original attacks.
239
Well said. I hope your insightful summary gets picked up and repeated far and wide. If there's a truth commission examining these attitudes in the workplace, I hope you lead it.
11
Walter's system is ready for anything except the actual innocent person who never took part in any of this stuff.
2
To all: thanks for reading, replies. Do not confuse the language of denial with the language of innocence. My comment focuses on denial, the technical term--and technique--the guilty use to deflect, obfuscate, blame-shift, or smear their victims, or the logic of accepting an accusation as they proclaim their innocence.
The language of innocence is not under contention. Nor is the language of confession. Both have different logic, different expressions, different details than those shared in common by denial. But innocence or confession are not the problem. Witness the Weinstein machine, covered in the Times; Ford, Vice, Trump. Therein is the language of denial; a staged outrage, an obvious hypocrisy--esp, against claims that are supported in key ways: a contemporary report in real time to co-workers, family, or friends; or acts observed by others or affirmed by evidence (the signed yearbooks and cards of Moore).
To speak of innocence distracts--and lets the guilty off the hook! To claim innocence where there is none is denial at its best!
2
The only way an entrenched culture like this is going to change is when Vice's customers, other media companies, quit buying its products because they are afraid of a boycott. With Trump in office, the only thing that seems to work these days is consumer pushback.
27
Good he is making a difference...bravo!
After this came to my attention, I'm no longer watching Vice. Thanks, NYT!
The problem is Vice didn't know how to deal with the issues, a wake up call for most new-media style companies. Companies I've worked at have taken the time to cultivate acceptable standards of dress, behaviour and a professional approach - in the today's language these would be characterised as old, stodgy, less edgy.
Call for ironic laughter?
38
Why do we need a wake up call at all? You assume that if the company made people dress "acceptable" standards it would make behavior acceptable. This is a common error - change the outer shell and inner will follow - but obviously totally incorrect. The wake up call is one for all of us - treat each other the way you wish to be treated. That includes the customer, without whom you would have no business, the one who shows up to work each day also without whom you'd have no business, and indeed, yourself. For if you demean your self you will not understand any of it all. Maybe that's what the dressing well is all about?
2
It’s called lack of discipline
2
"acceptable standards of dress" should not make any difference. Just because a woman is wearing something that some men may think of as "asking for it" does not mean the men should actually be grabbing, groping, or making indecent remarks. You should be able to have a work environment with a common sense and decency "behavior and professional approach" without the dress code restrictions. Dress code restrictions are older and stodgy, and not necessary.
1
I've worked at Vice and I can say that these accounts ring true. But Vice is not unlike most other places I've worked in this regard. The problem is systemic and has very little to do with the partying going on there. While it's important articles like this hold organizations accountable and keep nudging the zeitgeist in the right direction, this reporting does little more than pile on a few names and poor decisions in contractual language at a competing news organization that employs thousands of people. I'd be interested in a more nuanced approach to this conversation. Like let's explore why this happening everywhere. What is wrong with American's patriarchal relationship to work and power. Also I have a feeling if Vice invested the same resources into investigating the NYTs they'd come up with comparable material.
107
We are immature. That's the issue. And it compromises us. When "no" means "yes" to sell a story. $25,000 settlement. Pffft. That's what a fingernail clipping costs on Bedford Ave. To nudge the zeitgeist in the right direction...or maybe rocket-launch it into 2017. Elon, can you help?
There are millions of single men and women out there.
I never understood what compelled people to get involved with, or try to get involved with, with their co-workers or employees.
16
As a young, single urban professional, I can tell you what compels so many of us to do so: many yuppy jobs make huge exactions on the time and energy of their practitioners and they have little time to cultivate other interests. The FIRE economy that results from trade deficit and deindustrialization concentrates gainful economic activity in dense urban cores where the rat race becomes a fool’s errand to afford something better than a rat-infested flat an hour’s commute away. No wonder the young are delaying or foregoing marriage and reproduction. I can’t think of an economic arrangement more ill-suited to cultivating and perpetuating our best and brightest.
Full disclosure: I work a lot less than many of my peers and I don’t seek friends (much less mates) at work. But not everyone is as fortunate as I.
37
In the modern era, that is just about the only place left to meet anyone.
1
There are millions and millions of donuts out there. I never understood what compelled people to eat the one a plate in front of them. Oh, I guess it's obvious.
1
I’ve worked in corporate America for 25 years. Most men and women are sexual creatures. I’ve seen men leverage sex from their positions. I’ve ALSO seen women leverage their positions... with sex. Men have misbehaved. But there are also women guilty of walking right up to the line (and sometimes crossing it) in order to advance their careers. It usually takes two hands to clap. I’m not absolving men... but there has been almost no discussion of women who consciously and actively use their sexuality for advancement. It is just as rampant.
378
Perhaps you need to think more about why women would feel the need to use their sexuality for advancement, in an environment where men are in control. The whole "but women use sex too!" argument is ridiculous. Until men stop treating women like second-class citizens who have mainly one thing to offer, we won't be able to fix the problem you think we should be fixing. So: fix the guys first, okay?
16
Even if you're correct that men and women equally sexually harass each other (a claim that's dubious at best), more men are in positions of power than women and they therefore are more likely to have institutional support and resources to protect themselves, while their victims endure greater consequences for speaking out against the abuse they've suffered. This issue is also *crucially* about misogyny, not just sexual harassment.
11
I would not argue with you that women can cross the line also - but I think you are talking about a different matter. This article and the other recent scandals are addressing harassment, un-solicited nor mutually consensual and with possible negative consequences in their career advancement.
6
Pretty noted for taking the hard worked photo images of contracted women photographers without credit or pay.
25
When I was their age we knew better than to harass and humiliate as part of being boss. It would get you thrown under the bus. Now, with virtually no oversight nor rules we get what we paid for. Children making big bucks to be bullies. Unacceptable.
77
Yes, sadly it seems unchecked power will be abused.
Well said.
Looks like frat boy culture gone wild.
Mr Smith always impressed me as someone always trying way too hard to be cool/hip from the tats endemic to the demographic to the too cool for school affected attitude. The HBO on air stories all seem to have the journalist as star problem, like an image was being sold rather than being an honest broker of the truth. If the news is not the star, it is just another celebrity driven show.
Fish rot from the head.
111
Best comment I've seen here, I have to agree 100%. At the outset--his famous first video story on his trip to North Korea--here was an intellectual but nerdy guy, sweating and rolly-polly in a hipster's version of Michael Palin's great travelogues. As Smith morphed into a billionaire and lost Gavin--who was his reality check--Smith surgically slimmed and began sporting clothes worn by the bucks-up rich, the $30,000 gold Rolex glinting on his counter-culture hipster tattoos, with capitalism and drug-using, left-leaning urbanite mixing. Urbanites only sneer at capitalists until they become a successful one. Smith became more emboldened, as he learned what his money could buy; packs of barking lawyers to pay off complainants and slap NDAs on those who'd been wronged. Now the obvious lesson is on display; Lenin and fellow travelers preached for the distribution of wealth, then fell silent on the subject once they acquired wealth. Nothing changes.
5
Stop all these confidential settlements and investigate each and every claim of harassment- that Is the most legitimate means to weed out true harassers and disincentivize false claim.
55
One co-Founder of Vice:
In a 2012 interview with the Financial Times, Mr. Smith recalled his earlier days with Vice. “I would be at the party and would just want to get wasted, take coke and have sex with girls in the bathroom,” he said.
Another co-founder of Vice is documented sexist, anti-semite, ultra alt-right Gavin McInnes who makes Breitbart look moderate.
That should save you some time wondering how the younger generation, who supposedly has been raised understanding what's allowed in the workplace, could be part of this mess at Vice today.
90
You know very little about Gavin McInnes and would do well to listen to his own recollections about early days at the company.
'Girls in the bathroom??' Surely Mr Smith meant 'women' or maybe not.
1
Please google the video clip of Gavin McInnes' broadcast "Diversity is NOT our Strength" to see the kind of intolerance and hatred Vice's co-founder spews, in his own words.
1
I love the Times' relentless coverage of workplace sexual abuse. Please keep it up. As for the executives of Vice, Ford and the other companies I'm sure the Times is now investigating: you don't need a new HR policy. You need unemployment. Zero tolerance that roots out abusers and those who enable them is the only acceptable solution.
169
Yes, and make restitutions as best they can be made.
This problem won’t get better unless abusers continue to face consequences for their actions. Lawyer-drafted apologies aren’t good enough. Abusers need to keep losing their jobs even if they’re “good guys.” Remember that they’re all “good guys” to someone.
Shane Smith has to go. Four settlements? That’s not “missing the mark;” it’s shooting BBs at the scales of justice. He has zero credibility.
Commenters like Bill V, Ben, and Auggie show how far we have to go. Bringing sexual harassment into the open is “clickbait entertainment.” Forcing yourself on a woman is a “gaff” [sic] due to spending too much time together. My favorite: “multi-tasking women” should be “taking care of themselves.” Hey Auggie, we are. This is what it looks like.
Views like this are, simply, repugnant. Like Smith, these three dismiss the right of a woman to be free from a degrading work environment because ... guys are having fun or lighten up, honey! or [insert excuse].
78
Perhaps we as a culture should all read the book Iron John by Robert Bly.... let's start studying men to try to help them.
8
It’s literally called Vice. What were you expecting?
36
Really? A magazine named vice celebrate recreational drug use and partying has a problem with personal boundaries?
I'm shocked.
49
I sort of agree but it doesn’t mean a woman should have to have sex to keep her job. Put up with dirty jokes and frat boy behavior, yeah. When it actually affects your daily sense of personal safety and your career, that’s where the line is.
36
NO, we shouldn't have to put up with dirty jokes and frat-boy behavior. Don't you get it, clod? These things DO affect one's career and daily sense of, if not safety, certainly dignity. Grow up.
1
Why does she think she was hired? for 'Vice' magazine...?? smell the coffee.
Do you know how many cute women that were planning on flirting and sleeping their way up the ladder are now ticked off that 2017 has totally wrecked their plans? This is not a snark or joke... it's a fact. When they can use their attractiveness to their advantage 9 out of 10 will do so without a second thought.
30
I'm beyond the age that my looks are of any value, according to you. At the same time, while I see that younger women are more appreciated because they have good looks as well as smarts, I know that while it's nice to look nice, it's nice to concentrate on work at work. And the status quo, created and upheld by men, means that the best women often must rely on their physical attributes to maintain their place in the workplace. Someday soon, I hope, we all will be able to write "dear John" letters to our co-workers.
30
Both genders use their appearance to get ahead. It seems almost built-in to humans to prefer what we call 'good looks.' This is the way of the world. But it's a far cry from using sex, whichever gender does it and they both do it, as a workplace commodity.
1
I don't think you'd want to see your career go sideways because you didn't want to sleep with someone you were working for.
1
Women choosing to work for a company named VICE are surprised when they find themselves sexually harassed. Whoever could have seen this coming? Stevie Wonder could have seen this coming...
26
What do you expect? It goes without saying that liberal media engages in this at the same time it calls out the same behavior when it can get away with it.
5
I wish it would have “gone without saying”, as it is very predictable that someone would be compelled to say it. Ok, so you’re that guy that had to for some reason. But look at what you’re reading here, this terrible liberal press is what is reporting it. Brettbart - or whatever right wing mouthpiece you might like better - isn’t. You made a sentence or two but it actually doesn’t mean anything. So you say it, yawn, saw Hannity say it, yawn, but it doesn’t make sense. Would have been better to have it literally go without saying.
1
Still waiting for the NYT to tackle the financial industry. Or is that too close to home? In a recent poll of women in the financial industry two thirds reported being harassed, but this wasn't reported in the Times. By all indications the financial industry is as bad as any.
87
Articles such as this, front page on NY Times website and perhaps in printed version, are essential reading for the entire U.S. Companies such as Vice must be held accountable for its actions.
The statement by Vice founders Msrs. Smith and Alvi says it all: “From the top down, we have failed as a company to create a safe and inclusive workplace where everyone, especially women, can feel respected and thrive.“
It is illuminating that CEO's of companies caught in the cross-hairs of women who've been used and abused for years are finally receiving their comeuppance.
Shame on you companies, for only making your apologies and 'mea culpas' AFTER an entity like the N.Y. Times exposes your years of abuse.
May this article serve as a warning, a Severe Warning, to companies everywhere: ACT NOW. Firmly Address the culture you have built for years; your history of abuse and mistreatment of women.
CEO's, Presidents and Executive Boards everywhere - Take Heed: at the next Board meeting, Sirs, sweep the quarterly earnings report into the trashbin and focus on what is vitally important and what must be addressed Now:
Firmly and Absolutely Erase Your Company's Complacency, Easygoing, Wink And A Nod Culture Of Treating Women As Lesser Individuals Than Men.
DO YOUR JOB, SIRS.
Not only does this make absolute moral sense, it makes absolute business sense as well. And guess what - you might make your workplace a more fun, a more engaging, a more robust, place to work and grow in.
28
Shouldn't Smith and Alvi lose their jobs?
Absolutely And Disney, HBO, and any other investor or entity with a financial stake in Vice should be penalized with hefty financial penalties paid by their shareholders not an increase in price of services or products to the consumer. Hit and hit them hard where it hurts.
VICE.
At least it has truth in advertising going for it
9
Who is raising these men?!!!
50
Despite their ages, they don't appear to be men but more like boys.
1
Probably one worn-out mom and a dad who, if even there, burns all his energy & humanity away making a living. Add in the usual share of people addicted to things or with mental issues, and never having any sort of religious life or proximity to grandparents, and there you go.
3
Ask Trump he's one of them.
1
Ugh. Claiming “ignorance” is incredibly weak. Do you live in the world? Do you interact with women on a daily basis? Aren’t you supposed to be the disruptive tech-media geniuses, worldly, sophisticated, well-educated and well-read? How clueless do you have to be to not know that your frat-boy behavior was completely inappropriate and illegal? You claim that the bias and misogyny wasn’t intentional, but it certainly wasn’t accidental. You thought you could get away with it, and that’s the very definition of privilege.
48
Absolutely! That's why they always call it a 'witch hunt' when they get caught and make these 'Sorry I was silly' statements. I am more interested in 'I did good' rather than "I will do good in the future - honest - now you've caught me'. Yeah right.
What these jerks don't realise is that women meet many ,many men who don't behave like this and act like good colleagues to work with. These crass idiots stand out a mile from the others that's why so many women come forward after one does, one generally doesn't want to be tainted by an encounter one did not initiate.
3
Let me dispel a widespread myth here. Vice has NEVER been a liberal organization. It was founded by a neo-conservative who went on to run an openly misogynist and racist organization called the Proud Boys. Vice trafficked in degrading images of women and content that demeaned them from its inception. The fact that sexual harassment was and is synonymous with its workplace comes as no surprise. I'm shocked that The New York Times failed to mention any of these factors. Look at the content that they profited off of. It only takes eyes to notice. It was not subtle.
274
Definitely. I well remember the early years of the magazine. Always felt shock for shock value's sake.
13
This is so depressing....
1
"These women did not work among older men..." Geez, imagine THAT! Even younger men engage in this kine of stuff! Who knew? Not Ms. Steel!
11
Wuat do you expect at a company named Vice?
7
Workers Rights.
1
Did anyone else think the article was about VP Pence?
6
Is a bit of flirtatious behaivour that bad?
1
And, were the men objectified by the women? If so, should the company be shut down? Why or why not?
Flirting is different from groping and retaliation.
1
Is asking a girl out normally and respecting her answer so difficult?
1
Shut Down Vice and oust founders Shane Smith and Mr. Alvi. Disney needs to take over and appoint new figure heads.
4
Shut down the company? What about the hundreds of people who work there who are not involved in anything untoward? How unfair is that? Off with their heads.....heartless.
Absolutely, Disney and 20th Century Fox have to pull the plug on this whole enterprise, starting with firing Smith and Alvi.
Looking forward to your next article on exploitation and harassment at Hugh Hefner's Playboy Mansion and clubs.
8
Smith should be fired. He set the tone. He needs to go. Germano is a delusional misogynist. I hope his company suffers because of this. And Ashbrooke is complicit. May she never get a job in HR ever again.
15
Yes, not hard to believe she so worked for Harvey Weinstein for years. She was complicit.
Vice is a hedonistic cesspool of modern day counter culture. They'll come up with a way to deal with this showing the women to be wrong simply because they can't be.
10
It's as though we just now discovered sex. Abuse exists everywhere and white women condoned it in the 2016 Presidential election by voting in the majority for Abuser in Chief Trump. All else is whining too little too late.
15
We need a lawsuit or two that find (1) that non-disclosure agreements always violate public policy are thus never enforceable and (2) the mere act of asking a person to sign such an agreement is unlawful.
And we need court decisions to similarly find that asking an individual to sign a binding arbitration agreement in a contract between an individual and a corporation or similar business unit is unenforceable.
16
Further evidence that liberals are the biggest phonies on the planet. Oh, and rising sea levels? Hilarious! Fill a glass with ice and water. Measure the water level. Let the ice melt. Measure the water level again. The difference between your first and second measurement is how much the seas will rise if the ice melts, which it probably won't in a million years. Forward, comrades!
6
Vice was co-founded by neo-con Gavin McGinness. Check your history on the company. About your “science” example: if half of the solid ice cube is above the water level (as Antarctica is), the water level most certainly will rise when it melts and becomes liquid. This is testable so no need to argue it. Just see for yourself.
Yeah, because righties like Moore and O’Reilly are such upstanding honest men.
1
Why would any woman work for an organization led by a self satisfied-narcissist like Shane Smith?
9
It's time for the media to issue an apology to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Because #YouToo.
6
You believe the Catholic hierarchy deserves an apology for its overwhelming complicity in its worldwide scandal of pedophilia? You equate these, of course, disgusting instances of sexual harassment and coercion in individual companies with a massively coordinated campaign to shield individual priests and numerous dioceses and the Vatican itself from exposure. I'd call such thinking the work of the devil.
2
I worked for Vice for 3 years ending in 2012. Thankfully I didn’t experience sexual harassment, but most employees were treated without respect and the superiors were often drunk at work, cursing abuse “to be funny”, and slow on their deadlines while expecting every lower employee to do crazy all-night hours to compensate. They regularly paid freelancers more than 3 months late, HR not giving clear information about when the money would come, causing a climate of panic and fear while still wanting to keep your job. The wages were way sub-standard but everyone working would be patient for their big break, which never came, and so each would eventually quit. They burned us out, it was the strategy. The big bosses like Shane Smith, Saroosh Alvi and Eddy Moretti were arrogant and rude.
80
So Vice is just another "sweatshop" but for young idealistic journalist. The "Big Bosses" attracted huge corporate dollars and it never occurred to them to pay their employees a fair wage? How can a commercial journalistic enterprise have any credibility when it is guilty of the same or related offenses they rage about. When it comes to "alternative journalism" Vice is a Hall of Mirrors.
1
Well, thank God! No Vice manager ‘has more than one settlement,’ confidential or otherwise, against him....perhaps only for lack of trying hard enough.
11
The journalists who find and prepare Vice stories are often brave beyond parallel. They risk going where no other reporters go, experience more deprivation while gathering news and produce accounts that force you to stir and wonder: How can this be happening? And also, Where is everybody else?
Thus, when I read this story, about how when it comes to their own persons, female employees have faced intentional effronteries, and their brave approach to the world may be largely for naught, I grow furious. Who can not be?
With Vice, we learn of missing links in crucial chains of events throughout the world. The stories often present poorly-understood foreign conflicts; little-known medical innovations that restore lives; international corporations whose secretive actions devastate whole communities; and environmental catastrophes that have resolutions our leaders don't care to explore.
And they do this in a manner that fascinates, captivates and compels. How can Vice supervisors and managers and executives produce iconoclastic and convention-blasting reports on the outer world and conduct themselves in such boorish and hide-bound and inhumane fashions against their own co-workers? At risk is the whole Vice adventure.
We have to get to the "why" of the unfolding scandal of sexual misconduct and physical assault, so we can understand what kind of human beings do this. Above all, let's identify and stop them. Take away their power. These predators risk destroying so much good.
18
Why? Because they can without significant consequences.
I know, it's so sad and it's so true, even now. They can get away "without significant consequences."
But that answer alone does not get us to the identification of the potential for wrongdoing, the elimination of vast power imbalances and the prevention of terrible behavior. No resolution to the "why" excuses this. But if we cannot identify the kinds of situations in which this is apt to happen -- like the casting beds of Hollywood hotels -- and how to block them, we can never stop it. The #MeToo voices, their alerts and denunciations, are critical. But by then, much devastation has taken place. In that way, the "they's" largely win and the "we's" have already lost large.
I keep thinking of the damage is to not just preyed upon individuals and loved ones. It hurts otherwise do-good commercial ventures like Vice; potential forces for good like law-making bodies (emphasis on "potential); news-media productions like "CBS This Morning;" and talented co-participants in artistic creations like Miramax films and the "House of Cards" show. Literally thousands of people, collaterally damaged, are now out of work, just in time for the holidays, because of these uncaring and unconcerned perpetrators.
Happy holidays to all victims, and to the evil, a good fright.
The too cool for school kids at Vice just realized that double edged sword is sharp on both sides.
10
The "Bro" mentality, typical of Vice and other companies, is at the root of the harassment issue. The fraternity culture breeds misogyny. In my youth as a female high school student, the "jocks" were notorious for inappropriate behavior. That this article is about a younger group of men isn't surprising. They are tomorrow's older group of men, and they learned their abusive powers very early in life.
36
This should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Vice. Their content has always carried that brash edge of cocky party-culture, the macho, dismissive ethos of a frat-house repackaged behind a shield of subversiveness/adolescent rebellion.
17
Sounds like Trumo and his "Base."
I feel for these women but some of the photos look more like self styled "Photo Ops" with thought out fashion and "candid" poses?
They really seem at odds with the subject being called out and addressed.
18
The photos look like the typical ones that accompany news articles, especially feature articles (speaking as both a longtime reader and as someone profiled in one...local not national though) so not quite sure how you are seeing "photo ops."
15
Comments and thought patterns like this are part of the problem. These are professional photographs from the NY Times of the women who won lawsuits or made accusations. They are not at odds with the subject at all. This is what women look like, and professional publications take professional photos with *gasp* "thought out fashion" that are, indeed "photo ops". Perhaps candid shots of sad women in burlap sacks would be more amenable to what women who call out harassment and assault at work should wear?
19
Why are you paying more attention to what these women look like and less to what they are saying? For all you know these women were photographed at work. Should they have changed into unfashionable outfits so they could be be taken seriously? This seems to be what you are implying.
16
The things people do to climb the ladder, and if they don’t play ball...the company founder should be most to blame for setting the tone, and creating a terrible culture which sadly was backed up by HR, which is never, ever on the side of the employee.
13
another great innovation by the millennial generation
9
Vice is founded and run by boomers and gen xers
3
There comes a point where we all have to step back and say, “Seriously? We’re there literally no responsible adults in the room this whole time?” Want to stop sexual harassment? Fire a few offending male senior Executives/Founders; make sure everyone knows exactly why they were fired and replace them with qualified women (of which there are many in journalism), and presto, you won’t have any more problems, guaranteed.”
24
Women are hated equally by men on the right and left. Expecting that millienial men are somehow immune to woman hating was a lesson Dworkin taught us all.
Men hate women.
35
If it weren't for sex, men wouldn't have anything to do with women at all.
And the reason there's a preponderance of young women in the workforce is that men don't want any women over the age of 40 around.
Women over 40 remind them of their mothers or their wives.
1
YEP.
It is beyond time for women to starve men out of their lives.
Men fear women. That is why they demean us with this kind of behavior. It’s to keep their boys’ club intact. Pathetic, but apparently, it works.
Boys! Boys! Just sign your company over to women and let them run it. You can't be trusted.
19
These guys are guilty of scummy behavior. No morals, no ethics. It's only now that the NYT has ferreted out the truth that these weasels are taking steps.
HBO ought to dump them. Viewers ought to boycott them.
Besides, there's much better stuff out there nowadays.
23
Read Pro Publica.
Can find no comments about the outrageous misogynistic themes in the outdated Lucand Dick Van Dyke shows on CBS last night. So decided to use this story to find anyone who felt the same about returning to when America was great. The Vice story shows that America apparently is still great and needs no return to the good old days.
2
I always imagined the typical (male) Vice staffer: after a week reporting about some pitiful, pathetic sob story over in Africa or Asia, he returns to Brooklyn, smokes a joint, and heads to his local hipster brewpub. And he kicks the first homeless person he sees on the sidewalk. I guess the sexual harassment fits right into this scenario.
16
What a leap and says more about you stereotyping people than about hard working reporters doing their jobs.
Ouch!
I’ve had many men (including my husband) take my hand and put it on their crotch. Now I’m reading about man after man doing this with women as a sexually harassing action. That it is a nearly universal sexual gesture on the part of men is crystal clear; however, I suddenly realize that I have no idea why men do this, and what the message is. Nor have I ever asked the question. So now I’ve asked my husband, and his response is, well, we’re married so it’s okay. But he’s not getting my question, probably because I’m asking it after 30 years of marriage and a great sexual relationship: what is the point of the hand pressed to the crotch? Is the man saying, “look what I have! I’m hard!” My husband says it means, “So do something!” My response is, What woman is going to be turned on by this? I can only understand it as a holdover from cave-dwelling times when it may have actually meant something specific. Mystifying!
40
To Valerie!
I do so agree!
Basically, it is nature, telling the guy, OK here's a good one right beside you and she's bounceable, time to mate, unzip and go to it; after that you can go to a different cave and find another one.
Womens' urges are different; Yes... this hunk looks like a strong fella, he could be a good provider for my children that I'm aching to produce, ouch, he's grabbing me - yikes. ...
3 seconds later; Oh well, that was weird, at least I might get a baby....and maybe I can find him again to get food to us..
We are all trying to evolve.....so - Yes, we know you have one and we know you cannot control it (not your fault, it's biology) but - just keep the hot dog stand closed please. We're trying to stay alive, while worrying about our eggs.
Thanks, I loved your comment. When are men going to get it, it's not a turn on at all' it's juvenile!
It amazes me that sexual harassment is seen as a problem limited to the over 40s.....or to the political right or social conservatives. We need to drop our shock that 20 year olds also commit sexual harassment. Sexism didn't magically age itself out before this generation.What's infuriating about Vice is they were in our faces with it. No one is surprised because sexism was their brand. So why did they flourish? Let's start talking about why Vice was a rising star and what that says about us.
49
Ditto. That people thought younger men couldn't be idiots too means they're so invested in stoking their imaginary generational war that they haven't been paying attention to the rest of the world. If this were limited only to men over, say, 40, why do we continue to have problems on campus? In the military? On sports teams, turned against younger, defenseless teammates? It's got nothing to do with age and everything to do with entitled males thinking they can do anything they want.
12
Alcohol, drugs, power.
If you go drinking with colleagues at a bar after work, don't blame the company for what happens at the bar. A company is not a moral police. It has responsibility for ensuring a harassment-free work environment, but a lot of what is reported in this article is not work-related. Also, if someone makes an advance and is rejected, that should be the end of that, unless there is some of kind of physicality or persistence involved. A polite sexual advance is not harassment -- how do you think people got together (at least before Tinder et al. came along?) Editors twisting words in an article to make it edgy in a publication called Vice qualifies as harassment -- don't think so!
8
It's not the alcohol or the bar environment causes sexual harassment, or it would not happen in offices, factories, restaurants, hospitals, etc, etc. It's male entitlement that allows sexual harassment. And yes, employers can make decisions related to illegal or undesirable actions of employees while off the premises, particularly related to their actions towards coworkers.
Women should be able to enter a bar, order a drink and not be groped, by coworkers or anyone else.
Perhaps you are fantasizing about the mythical olden days when no "respectable" female was seen in a bar, and everyone but white males knew their place.
23
If there's a power imbalance between the subject and object of an advance, then there's a problem whether the advance occurs onsite or off. But, in general, I agree. If a co-worker propositions you, you can say no. If he or she persists, you can take the issue to HR. If they don't cause the activity to stop, you can think about further action. I would also suggest that if the 'culture' at a workplace is not right for you, maybe it's common sense to find a job somewhere else. No one, male or female, has the right to walk into an organization and demand that its mores conform to their expectations and sensitivities. Obviously, straight-up assault and harassment are never acceptable. But if you're going to work at a place like VICE, you probably have a good idea that there's going to be some late-night partying, sexual banter, and flirtation involved. If that isn't your thing, maybe a different journalistic outlet might be a better fit for you and them.
2
Vice began as an edgy magazine that I used to read while I waited for my son at his workplace, a music store. One of the founders went off to to join the alt right; the others have obviously tried to cash in on corporate America's desire to capture the hipster dollar. But some of the management hasn't changed, obviously. Sometimes I think nothing has changed--these creeps remind me of a couple of jerks I used to know in the anti-war movement. Or at my first real job, in a bank. Or in graduate school. Fortunately, I have a sense of humor and a good karate chop, but all this makes me so glad to be old.
16
a couple of thoughts - men are encouraged (perhaps male peer pressure?) to take risks - try it on - push the limits
women are encouraged to be more passive and indirect - not to say 'NO!' to someone's face - but to more subtly deflect/defer - so a guy who's interested in her may tend to keep pushing in the absence of a clear and direct 'NO'
'don't - stop ...' - can be understood two opposite ways
female manager to male subordinate 'would you like to write a report about XYZ' - a month later 'I need that report now for the board meeting - have you got it?' - 'no' - 'huh - why not?' - 'you asked me if I'd like to - I didn't feel like - so I didn't.'
'the reasonable man adapts to his environment - the unreasonable man demands the environment change to suit him - therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man'
in seeking to appear acquiescent and submissive, women may do themselves a disservice when it comes to harassment - silence may be deemed consent, allowing the bad behaviour to continue - and get worse - when a direct 'NO!' and serious face could stop it in its tracks.
2
Cogent points. Are you advocating that all working woman be more aggressive and assertive? These are traits men commonly vilify when present in women.
12
Seriously? "Silence may be..consent?" And women being subservient is such a problem for men...oh, give it a rest.
Women are not subservient when they are silent while being harassed - they are AFRAID. Afraid of being fired. Afraid of being physically hurt. And most of all - afraid of not being believed.
But maybe all that silent theory baloney explains why I was assaulted by a superior, in an office at 7: 30 am: I was silent, not shouting 'NO assault before 8 am today, thank you!"
16
If Frank is in fact advocating that, Robin, then I would agree with him. Women - indeed, everyone - should be aggressive and assertive when it comes to defending their rights and their space. This is particularly true in the workplace, where it's important that no one be able to claim later that any misunderstandings or missed signals were involved in an interaction.
2
Sorry these are smart people, what did they think would happen if they fostered a boys club? It doesn’t matter what age or generation sexual harassment is pervasive. Until the people at the top, middle and bottom in power do better consistently over a very long period of time and the boys clubs stop existing, do not expect change.
7
I cannot understand why the author seems surprised that younger (20s, 30s) men would be as piggish as their fathers' generation. All those women who have been complaining about such things in Silicon Valley are not working with predominantly older men. And most of the middle-aged perps have been spouting the same empty liberal, feminist slogans as and Millennial, there is no reason to think one group is any more sincere than the other.
13
I had the impression that the younger generation was all about parties, drinking, hook-ups and things like that. Then the #MeToo movement occurred, and from most of the comments I had the impression that unbeknownst to me America had become a nation of Puritans. So I really felt out of touch. From this article I learn that my original impression was correct. It’s kind of a relief. It’s not that I approve of such behavior. (I’m the last of the squares.) It’s just that I feel reassured that I’m not completely oblivious to what’s going on in the world around me.
12
James, the younger generation includes the women in their 20s and 30s who are complaining bitterly about being treated this way. They may be into partying and hookup but that does not mean they want to be assaulted. It also includes men in their 20s and 30s who treat women, and other men, politely and with respect. You don't have to be a Puritan not to want to be assaulted or pressured for sex by your boss, on whom you depend for your livelihood. So neither of your impressions is correct.
43
Wow, you need to get out more. No one generation is into parties, drinking and hook-ups. That goes across generations. I know plenty of cool, hard working, serious young ppl. YOU are the Puritan. @James_Eric.
8
Right, plus wasn't the 60's and 70's all about do it in the street and do it with anyone you want. Then along came JFK, Ted Kennedy and their escapades. Then we had Bill Clinton the ultimate predator and his wife who was more than happy on writing the book on how to destroy anyone that would dare accuse Bill of an predation. So I am sure that Vice's HR department had all these policies and procedures for reporting harrassment.
1
So you have a publication called 'Vice', which is devoted to celebrating bad conduct and poor taste. What kind of men do you think will be most likely to seek work there? Conservative Christian gentlemen? I think not...
23
"Conservative Christian gentlemen? I think not..."-Jonathan
Roy Moore, Donald Trump, and, and...?
10
You clearly have never, ever, seen/read a story by Vice. Forget the name, and your literal assumptions. They produce investigative journalism of a high order.
Even better, try to refrain from commenting on things you so obviously know nothing about.
3
" Conservative Christian gentlemen" like Roy Moore and the various other of his ilk who behave in manners equally degrading to women?
14
"the company also said that it has made a commitment to reaching gender pay parity by the end of 2018..."
I really hope that's a typo and you meant "by the end of 2017." Why does a company need a year to implement pay parity? If a company has discrepancies in pay, rectify it starting with the next paycheck.
85
Gender pay equality is a myth. Feminists have taken total numbers of employed men and women respectively and simply divided by two with no respect to part time, maternity leave, seniority. So, if you believe it, I guess you watch Fox News too. A complete myth to rally women at the expense of men.
2
You’re wrong, per your arguments.
Further, are you proud to be alone with only French Guinea in having no paid maternity leave in the world?
1
The modern media are like drug dealers and they are getting ratted out by the lower level sellers. The media pushes sex for views and attention and then somehow it's expected that culture is going to be respectful to women. Tell that to a dude who is high on meth, to control oneself, right.
21
Vice recently did a piece on how robot sex partners will help relieve some of these complications in the future.
11
In front of staff? Slack bathrobe included? New tech, old habits. Not complicated. Short term circular narrative is what makes harassment such a reliable buzz. It's like golf. You write down your own score, and keep moving. Who does that...?
2
Great idea! why should woman get all the 'fun'.
Terrific journalism.
12
To what extent does Gavin McInnes’ influence persist at Vice?
7
Gavin, now a committed family man with libertarian leanings, has grown up since his party days. Apparently his former partners have not.
1
3000 employees. 4 settlements. 2 dozen women who experienced or 'witnessed' harassment. Seems like a pretty good track record to me. Or is the NYT standard- for other companies- zero incidents? If so, please let us know where you find perfect people.
27
you are clearly perfect, and tone deaf, as well.
11
Most rapes aren't reported- estimate is 10%. It's likely that other types of sexual assault aren't as well. When you add in the threat of being fired and/or having an entire career destroyed - even less likely.
10
So you have just added 10% rapes to the pot, although none have been claimed?
1
You know what stuns me? Nothing. Maybe it's because I am old and because I learned what to look for when I was a young woman. Every one of these guys, the Bill O'Reillys, the Trumps, the Matt Lauers...we could spot them a mile away. Shane Smith, pullleaze! I don't say that we should have a defense against these moroms, we just do, because we have lived a long time and know they are out there. Should they be censured, should they be tethered...of course, but let's not pretend they were inivisble and we only got to know them now.
65
It's good to know there's a place for Glenn Thrush to work of his Times reprieve doesn't pan out.
17
There is nothing "cutting edge" about VICE.
9
In terms of the cultural paradigm, anything presenting its self as cutting edge can pretty much be written off as self conscious aggrandizing contrivance; that which amounts to the usually grotesque display of distorted interpretations of reality under the auspice of that which is mistakenly thought of as cool. So even though, having lived in remote isolation deep in a wilderness under a toad stool for as long as I have, I've had no exposure to Vice, it comes as no surprise to me that the people involved find themselves surprised to be subject to the same ordinary, instinctual compulsiveness as the rest of our species. A group of Mammalian order that likes to think of itself as highly evolved without ever taking a serious look at its animal nature.
13
I couldn’t get through a single episode of their HBO newscast. The dumbed down perspective. The disaffected narrators. I can’t believe this is how intelligent millennial-age adults want their news.
37
Yup, it's not just a problem with males who were teenagers in the Mad Men era, absorbing a culture of hatred and disdain towards women in the workplace that was supposedly long ago on its way out. Duh. Who are these millennial frat-boy-types' mothers? Who are their fathers, who assured that male children were taught that such things were acceptable? What familial models did they see growing up, at home?
29
@Lise Believe it. Their "triggers" and "safe places" are how they wish to exist in the world. Their parents have failed. Sadly, the rest of us have to deal with them.
The anti-freedom we are incapable of dealing generation.
3
It is time that we acknowledge that many, if not most, human beings are not very accomplished at romantic interaction. Even in situations where people have the very best of intentions, most people are awkward and unskilled, if not totally lost. Put mating into the workplace and employers become legally liable for every stupid or ill-advised move their employees make. And this becomes even more of a no-win situation for employers when we add the fact that the offense depends solely on the receptivity of the alleged victim. Depending upon the attitude of the person approached, a joke, gesture or touch from one person may cause an expensive lawsuit, while the very same action by another more appealing prospective mate may be the basis of a lifelong love affair. And employers are supposed to referee this nonsense?
Guess what? The only way to create the harassment-free workplace people seem to want is to outlaw ALL social fraternization in the workplace. Doesn't that sound like fun?
21
How do we begin to covet, Clarice?
We covet what we see every day.
1
right on
1
Oh grow up. It’s really not nearly as complicated as you snarkly imply; if touching, and sexual innuendo or open propositioning for sex are not part of the job description, then they don’t belong in the workplace. Period. Or is it your belief that men are simply animals and can’t control themselves? Ridiculous.
11
I'm reading the same story over and over. Where are the stories of and from strong women who have dealt with men all their lives? Who didn't allow men to harass or victimize them? I'm a middle aged man and since I began Crossfit a year ago, I have been reminded again and again of the strength and power of women. They are amazing! Guys harassing these women do so at their own peril. Sure we can try to teach men young and older to behave better around women, but one punch in the nose or kick in the groin would say so much more.
12
I don't know about advocating inter-gender violence, but the overall point of women needing to stop looking at themselves as victims stands as tall as the point that men should not victimize them.
4
Those strong women are the 109 million who deal with misogynist men daily and know people like you in our patriachial society will only further victimize them. The issue you refuse to see is that women have to deal with this. Why is this? Why have men created and perpetuated this?
9
So, I'm supposed to physically respond, to hit/punch/knee someone at work? (Which is, in my stodgy work world, grounds for immediate termination, no questions asked.) How would my immediate termination be good for me?
3
I heard a me2 story claiming that she experienced sexual harassment because her ideas weren't listened too in a high level meeting. C'mon. Can you please start vetting the accusers rather than accusing the entire organization of being corrupt.
13
If her ideas weren't listened to because she was a woman (and this is a constant issue for women there), well, yeah, the company has a problem.
“There is a toxic environment where men can say the most disgusting things, joke about sex openly, and overall a toxic environment where women are treated far inferior than men,” said Sandra Miller...
but the boundary between acceptable speech and unacceptable speech is never clear. one does not really know until he says it, and even then it might not be clear. and acceptable for whom?
also, is it better to gossip behind people's backs or to say raunchy things directly to one's face?
also, using bad words and gossip are ways that both men and women relieve stress or express emotion in or about a stressful (work) environment.
nonetheless, speech is a way to express social hierarchy and institutional hierarchy. those with higher rank use different expressions (either formal speech on the record, or profanity off the record) than those with lower rank.
and if men belittle women, they also can belittle (or worse) other men, especially in a hierarchical institution. so it's not just sexual harassment; it's harassment.
p.s. mixing business and pleasure is a bad idea and will almost certainly led to consequences. mixing business and pleasure and alcohol or cocaine is a recipe for disaster.
8
Why does it seem like power and money lead to sexual harassment almost inevitably? Is there an arena where men are rolling in new money, but restrain themselves from this kind of behavior? If so, I would like to hear about it. This is not to excuse the abusers in any way, just to point out that there is an underlying belief system that needs to be addressed ... and dismantled.
It's obvious that too many men seem to believe it's ok to behave in a way that is disrespectful, oppressive, and even traumatizing to women. What is less obvious and needs to be addressed is how men think they have a "pass" to do this because they have reached some pinnacle of power and money. If this is true, and I think it is, then it means they really do know how wrong their behavior is.
My guess: the ability to extract sexual favors from women (often women who are "out of their league") is one of the most desired perks of success. The idea that sexual favors from women is something you are "owed" when you achieve a certain measure of power/wealth is something that needs to be explicitly and universally rejected. People who act this way should be treated as the boors they are and fired or sued if they have crossed the line into illegality. Young men should not be brought up to believe that this is acceptable or desirable behavior.
And since people seem to handle fawning adulation and excessive power poorly, perhaps we should stop doing it to them.
21
Of course no one is "entitled" to sexual favors from anyone. But it's obvious that there's a large proportion of women (and a great men many as well) who are far more attracted to people with money and power than they are to those without it. It's no wonder that the wealthy and powerful come to view themselves as desirable, and are surprised when their advances are rejected. When what we value as a society completely changes, then perhaps you'll have a situation in which the prospect of sex isn't considered an element of having achieved "success." Given human nature and evolutionary realities, though, I doubt that will happen.
4
"Is there an arena where men are rolling in new money, but restrain themselves from this kind of behavior?"
Yes, there is. It's called the past.
Read the stories of men like John Wanamaker and John D. Rockerfeller, and their generation. Media moguls were busy printing Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben-Hur, and vice was something to be studiously avoided.
Shelley—er, no. Read stories about Stanford White and “Mr. MGM Decency” himself, Louis B. Mayer. Sexual harassment was everywhere, but never spoken about.
1
Looks like "Vice" was the right name.
25
imagine that.....sexual harassment is a result of violation of boundaries....so, who can be shocked by a corporate culture that pushes/erases boundaries having this problem
9
Sounds to me that the real reform needs to be made at the top of organization where the CEO needs to go.
Otherwise, investors will soon find their "investment" worthy of a write-off.
9
What is with the naiveté of these articles? Sexual harassment isn't caused by any particular culture, or incubated in any specific generation. It's root cause is this thing called testosterone. Wherever there are men, there are going to be a subset of men who harass other people. And within that subset, there are going to be a subset of men who sexually harass women. The problem isn't going to go away at any company until they adopt the policy of pre-emptively identifying harassers and refusing to hire them. Go into the halls of any high school and ask the student body who the bullies and the victims are in their environment, and they will be able to tell you almost immediately. Why the "grown up world" either can't or won't, is the real mystery.
Is this realization such a shock to the writing and editorial staff of the Times? I don't understand the childlike understanding of this issue by the media.
246
I keep trying to find a way to say what you said. It is bad boy behavior and we have a long way to go to change human nature. The boys have been getting away with it for a very, very long time. But they should be smart enough to keep sex from being a factor in how women do their jobs. Make a pass - okay. Determine a woman'a professional standing by her reaction? Ridiculous. Really dumb. Eventually it had to come to this.
9
@Steven It's not about victims and solutions, it's about an extreme feminist agenda that has turned into a mob with misplaced anger over other frustrations. They've found their leverage, men. All men.
6
It is because in most cases their paycheck depends upon their compliance.
5
Sorry - but if it's a safe space you crave then perhaps you shouldn't be working at a place that touts itself as being a "boundary-pushing culture." Really, when you think about it - sexual harassment is one the oldest forms of boundary pushing there is.
19
OK, I've thought about it. And I still don't know what you're saying.
8
Here's an idea: a company name can create a corporate image and cultural tone.
vice
vīs/
noun
immoral or wicked behavior
Words are powerful things. (...and no...I don't feel like a genius)
6
You're correct about yourself.
So, when I worked for MCI they bought Disney World for an evening (the gates to the park were closed and locked except to MCI employees) in Orlando and a WOMAN who headed the company (MCI - now Verizon owns it all) who was considered to be a "comer" and who was the President of the company at the time grabbed my hand and said to my manager "I like him, he's a sales type! He lies lots..." Was that cool or what? All I did was to compliment her. A rabbi I know (NYU trained) says if a boy grabs a woman it's harrassment but if a woman grabs a man it's ok. Is that so?
6
No surprises here. Many men with wealth and power are still little boys who thumb through Daddy’s Playboys at night.
It’s going to take time to change that.
16
And many women manipulate with their own sexuality until they don't get what they want, and then they sue. Men don't take that route.
6
The Vice culture sounds and looks like something right out of the movie, Blade. Now let's see, which one is most like Deacon Frost or Dragonetti?
3
America is reeling with a major fever. We will be stronger and more immune, or succumb to these infections and die.
3
@ Want to Keep my Job & Editor,
The Invisible War came out in 2013. That’s actually my movie. I was also part of Klay V Panetta among many other things like helping get the policies we have now. I also worked directly on Marines United with the Joint Chiefs. I do find it interesting that the press isn’t covering Military Sexual Trauma (MST) survivors. It’s almost like they forgot all the horrible groups the Marine Corps got busted on this year alone ... you know like Marines United & Mike in Uniform just to name a couple. I’m also wondering why the press keeps naming actresses, but never a peep from females in the military. Come on now it doesn’t get worse than Marines United & Mike in Uniform. Any female Marine (or other branches) can tell you how bad it is & how they attack relentlessly day after day after day.... & I mean online & in person nose to nose. They let you know they have every intention of doing bodily harm to you. & yes they will hurt you. Marines United show 2 things- 1) Male Marines don’t want us there. They literally despise us (Women Marines)(That’s why they asked to exclude females from infantry MOSes) 2) Marines United & Mike in Uniform & others is written proof of how many male Marines act. Women are second class citizens in the Marine Corps. You can read for yourself what the males think of Women Marines by looking up both groups I mentioned.
55
Men have always had the money in society, hence the business/corporate/economic/political power. They have always had the ego, when combined with power and poor morals, has always wrought havoc on women, in one form or another. Does anyone think that a few flowery mission statements, PR clippings, and "culturally sensitive" hirings will change anything? Yee gawds, look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
9
I have been saying this for years: Vice has an 'interesting' history. Look deeper. Just Google their founder, Gavin McInnes, and you will see what I an talking about.
8
McInnes was a nice and funny guy when I knew him in Montreal in the early 90s... back when Vice was still a fledgling free mag. Who he is today (or who he portrays himself to be) just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get how the fun, nice guy I knew became the monstrosity that he is today. Ach well.
3
It's a good time to reconsider everything you once thought was correct. Some big timers are learning this the hard way. They deserve every bit of shame they receive.
8
Several years ago, I agreed to do a story with Vice, using the portraits I made in Novosibirsk, USSR in 1977. Some of those photographs were used recently in a NY Time Lens Blog on Dec 7th. The Times treated me with respect, listened to me and paid me promptly Vice used those same images, published them in over 25 countries and never paid me. I sent them invoices, made contact with the writer who I worked with and was promised many times I would be paid, but it never happened. While it has become an enormously wealthy corporation, it seems clear to me that sleaze, entitlement, and theft are deep in its heart and soul. The disrespect and treatment of women is, of course, hideous, but part of a bigger problem. One need look no further than our last national election.
453
You should get a good lawyer. If the facts are as you say you have a slam dunk lucrative case, that a good lawyer will take on a contingency fee basis, and you will collect, plus damages.
This is the result of the progressive revolution
4
You should look into how women have actually been treated in the past before assuming it was better then. It wasn't.
6
"Vice has formed a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board, which includes the feminist icon Gloria Steinem" Great, did she tell the young women they only came to work to meet young men because they're boy crazy?
7
What's interesting about all of the tv and film sex allegations over the last few months is that media outlets seem to like to investigate other media outlets on this matter. It's getting a bit tiring reading about media companies. Is this the only universe in our galaxy?
I don't see the media investigating companies that aren't competitors of sorts. How about investigating some of the big name U.S. companies out there? Maybe some of them are advertisers for your publication, ok, but that's not a good enough reason to abstain from such investigations. Putting money above values seems to be the guiding light here. Isn't this trail of news a bit lopsided?
7
New Yorker have a story on Ford.
2
So just *one* incident of putting her hand on his crotch wasn't harrassment? Even for an HR person, trying to protect the company and executives, this was beyond pathetic.
15
A guy placed his hand ion my crotch, in fact more than once. I'm an adult. I removed it with a smile and a direct gaze, an said, No.
Are women not adults? Isn't the feminist movement about empowerment, about having control and the ability to stand up and say no, or even slap someone's hand away, or file a complaint with the company as soon as it happens. One is so traumatized as a grown up, that they then are weeping and feeling "unsafe" and scared and damaged and worthless, and wow!
We can't fire every man, who will do interesting and smart things in the world?
21
"We can't fire every man, who will do interesting and smart things in the world?"
Women.
(And also those men who are not human dumpster fires.)
11
it's unlikely we can rely on only women to come up with interesting and smart things. I know it's a feminists dream to do away with men... Until they need them, but it's not likely. All of this does play nicely into more editorials over Where are the men and why won't they marry? This unfortunate episode provides a lot of jobs for women who want to write about stuff they've been brainwashed with in college.
6
Jeez, what are the odds that a company founded on the principle of "F" the man, the rules, and the norms of society would find it okay to not respect personal boundaries of human interaction?
7
Some years back while in Eugene Oregon the local weekly progreesive newspaper did an expose about the extremist left wing tree sitters, including "Greens" and the Earth Firsters. The paper found many instances of sexual harassment, sexual assault done by the men of those groups. It doesn't matter if a comapny or organization is founded and run by women, or if they're Liberal/progressive, Greens, anarchists, right wing, or religious fanatics. Most men have a need for domination and or abuse just to prove they are king of the hill. Whether it's biological, social/environmental or all the above, there has to be a way of stopping this behavior. Suppressing it won't work for it'll show up somewhere else, and directed at someone else. Time to bring in the psychologists and shrinks. If medication is necessary so be it, but this has to stop.
8
Any harassment, based on sex, race, and any other "protected class" designation is unacceptable, and victims are entitled to redress as provided by law.
However, as I approach the golden years, I'm happy not to be a young man in a society where common sense is dead, and according to the NY Times every woman, is a victim of every man.
Hopefully men will develop the psychic ability to know with absolute certainty whether is kiss or a is "unwanted", otherwise they'll be tarred and feathered if they guess wrong, or subsequent events make it convenient to be offended.
Thankfully, I've raised strong independent daughters who don't need the liberal "politically correctness police" protecting them from jerks of any gender or race. They know companies and corporations are terrified of sex harassment claims. To many, the mere accusation substitutes for rational investigation and evidence of guilt.
30 years ago I tried to kiss a girl who preferred my friend, the star quarterback and whose dad was rich - if she calls you to do a story, please let me know because when he was benched, and her dad went bankrupt, I became a lot more acceptable in her eyes.
Keep up with the daily attacks on men in general, and keep painting anyone who believes immigration laws should be enforced as racists, then gasp in surprise as many see the Electoral College as the final defense against the irrational culture of victimhood.
7
Vice, like many of those people and groups accused lately, are all hypocrites. They shake their fists and imagined outrages from the right while actually committing those acts, themselves. The left has truly begun to eat their own.
4
Ya know, this sure is getting old.
Community college debates they won't stop.
You all do realize that "this" is going to circle back and a second "sexual revolution" of some degree will be coming back. At the moment the mood seems to be that everyone wants Leave it to Beaver.
It makes things worse (obviously) that not all of this is expecting everyone to act like Leave it to Beaver; but, on the regular person scale in America, this topic isn't being spoken about like a bunch of academics, or reporters talking in a room full of public cameras. If you don't believe me, bring this up at your holiday functions right now and see what happens.
2
Oh my goodness...men in their 20s? And I thought young progressives were immune to the tendencies engendered by 4.6 billion years of evolution.
7
I in no way condone the bullying, sexual aggression of the likes of Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump, or the disappointing behavior of Charlie Rose, et al. Some of the others, like Al Franken are, I believe, victims of their time and youthful status as "clowns".
However, let us not forget that all of this bad, really inexcusable behavior, is the product of thousands of years of social conditioning. Women only became "liberated" in the 1960's and even then it was under the guise of the "sexual revolution". But men have still had to be the "aggressors" when it comes to making the "first move". I think that women (as well as the media, legal system, and political wonks) need to recognize this and not be so quick to yell "fire".
This is a consciousness raising issue. Men are dumb. And it will take time. Forgive us, toss the really bad ones, (including Trump), and please, please please be understanding of our long history of societal endorsed aggressor...sexual and otherwise.
11
Relly good points that you are making.
We need to have more dialogue, because otherwise it becomes more reason to hate and blame only.
As long as we say yes to hazing and brutality in fraternities, in the military, and sports, we are raising men to be assaultive in one way or another. And where they can be sadistic and stronger is with women.
Thanks.
1
Stop making the, "first move," at work. Seriously. We come to work to earn a living and acheive our potential. We aren't there to meet your needs.
9
The one activity that consumes more of our time than work is sleeping. Not a good place to meet someone. Where do you look for potential romantic partners...bars?...Tinder? The work environment is also, by default, a social one as well. Until women start making the "first move", men will always be more "aggressive. It's social conditioning.
It seems that a 'party atmosphere' at work (Finance, tech, journalism, entertainment) will eventually lead to some of the worst excesses of male adolescent behavior. There is no reason we can't have fun at work as we spend at least a third of our working lives there. But, guys, we can do better than this sad state of affairs.
We're obviously not all at fault nor guilty of this behavior. But we can certainly say something when we see or hear something. Maybe speaking up will help us all transform our workplaces into something less stifling and less hostile.
9
What a remarkable idea!
Sad thing here is Vice's best field correspondents are the women. Love the reporting and the job these guys do. Will be very disappointed if they don't right this ship. Almost any man in that operation behind the scenes is expendable. Maybe that's why they act out, they know it.
16
I want to say, "DUH" while still acknowledging the importance of this article. I'm a pretty liberal woman who has been in all kinds of so called "progressive" social circles. Practically all of them, to a T, have been difficult and degrading places for women to be. I grew up in circles of teenagers who were Vice's prime audience: skaters, marijuana smokers, casual rec drug users, politically left and destructively sexist. As a young kid I perceived it as a normal, ok thing and tried to be "cool", "one of the guys" and show how "tough" I was all the time. Little did I know I was pulling myself apart bit by bit in service to a culture that had utterly no respect for me as a human being. Drug culture, hip hop, the party scene, the bit of anarchist culture I was exposed to, it was all poison for women and as a adult I realize it's poison for young men too. Vice distills and celebrates our youth culture's macho obsession with being "cool", "edgy" and "extreme" while completely neglecting the need for empathy, gentleness and moderation. Thank you for highlighting this toxic reality. Keep it up.
532
I think this may be the most important comment yet. And it's actually pretty simple. We get what we value. We destroy what we don't value.
Remarkably well put. Thank you.
You dont have a clue who Vices audience is. Its owned by an ad agency for crying out loud.
No females, too much of a liability doing business. No more "safe spaces or inclusiveness", the cost is just too high. Male exclusivity.
2
The females aren't at fault. And men like you don't run the world. As a male business owner, I would fire a worker who said what you just said. We are a team here, and good, decent men and women are in the majority. You are in my view more out of line than a harasser of women, and deserve no less shame.
17
How hard is it for men to go about business with maturity? Does it cost men that much to conduct their work with decency and integrity?
If men can’t seem to accomplish these modest tasks, then how (or why) should we trust their competence or leadership abilities?
Grow. Up.
17
To that comment, I would respond that rather than "male exclusivity" it should be "males excluded". But I think we can do much better than that - at least we can if the men can behave rather better.
8
Holiday party, alcohol and drugs. Beautiful, bright young women and aggressive confident young men. Anything short of ripping off clothing or physical assault is too be expected. Of course women were propositioned and even "groped" -any unwanted touching qualifies. Which hunt are we pursuing here?
3
It's amazing to me that it took this long for people to recognize what has been incredibly obvious in Vice publications and on its website. It reminds me of what people used to say about Playboy: well, the articles are really good. I once saw a doc video on the Vice website about a woman who drove around in a van picking up random men off the streets and having sex with them. The sexist and misanthropic content and culture of the Vice empire has never been hidden, and yet they've been lauded in the media. The New Yorker even ran a fawning tribute to them. The title of this article is perfect: Vice is old school misogyny for the hipster set.
35
Scholarly reporting. Schoolboy behavior. The offenders should face the scorn of their audience. Post their names and pictures on a 30-minute Vice program facing their accusers. Fire them - each and every one. Now straighten up and fly right. You’ve got this one chance only to make it right. One chance only.
15
Wow, and how was the office party this year?
This is pretty depressing, since there are many of us needing good and even edgy reporting. It seems appealing but when you think of the undisciplined, careless and downright hostile behavior, how can you/we trust these people.
Then take the attitude after the fact, which is a combination of denial and blame, and then requests for compassion and forgiveness (as good as the Evangelical politicians who sin, can give). It's kind of pathetic, and I wonder if they will have to close down as the Weinstein Company has pretty much had to.
Thanks for the reporting; it is so important.
11
Until it's really understood that men who are successful automatically think that they are attractive to women, a sincere sense of "droit de seigneur", then these episodes will continue. In many cases, they might strive for success BECAUSE it will give them access to 'better class of' women...and evidence shows it's a strategy that works. Better that women just take over and men sit back and relax...the planet might yet survive.
7
Nothing will change until a greater number (not 2%, not 3%, not measly scraps) of women occupy executive positions, and sit around Board tables. Infuriatingly, HR departments are not there to support whistleblowers but to protect the company. Any company's empty promises to "create an employee hotline..." or "expand mat. and pat. benefits," and "introduce mandatory respect (laughable) and sensitivity training," are just blowing smoke. As a 50+ woman, these issues enrage me.
34
Those of us in the south recognize the use of systemic disrespect as a means of keeping "uppity" folks down, whether they are kept down due to race or gender. And then there's the perk of feeling the power of personal domination of another human being, and such sexual kick as there may be in that mode of doing so. That, not to mention getting rid of half the human race as potential competitors or simply as people who matter, with oneself the beneficiary of that system, is for these unprincipled men simply too tempting a prize to forgo. They aren't dissuaded, either, by the fact that women are human beings, mothers, sisters, daughters, and more to us--I can only imagine what it has done to women's hearts and minds to find so many of us tormenters who profit by their denigration. To say that it must change, and now, seems too weak.
15
As the dark reality of Vice becomes more apparent, here is hoping that some rediscover virtue. Sadly too many will continue to believe that a celebration of vice will not impede virtuous behaviour. The proof is now rolling in that virtuous treatment of woman does not originate in a heart that relishes vice.
1
I would like to know if a toxic environment, somewhat licentious as men relate to women, was an enticement for some to join and hope to have fun, while playing with fire. It could only add excitement to an otherwise dull life, right? How long would it take, one wonders, for the abuse of power, including sexual harassment, become just "business as usual", a minor inconvenience to be brushed off, the 'new normal'? Human relationships, social and work-related, seemed to mix freely at "Vice", so the flirting and 'peccadilloes' could be overlooked...until they wouldn't. If discipline is lax, no freedom is possible, and a climate of 'laissez faire' takes over. And a breakdown of it's purpose.
2
HR doesn’t work for you and the company and legal firm colludes to make sure that you can’t access or afford to access the courts and buy justice back.
Trump won the Presidency on a lie to be the voice of the 99%. The tax plan says otherwise but he is still lying about it because he hasn’t read it yet. Won’t ever read it. Or can’t read it.
Which is it?
It would be real justice if he sets off the largest union movement in US history, and restores the level playing field between companies and workers as an unintended consequence.
13
What on earth does the tax plan have to do with any of this? Try to stay focused,
4
What does this story have to do with Trump? Didn't Vice predate his presidency?
5
Can you, somehow, help us all understand how paragraphs 2 through 4 relate to the article? If not, can you rewrite them so that they are coherent? Thanks in advance.
3
The company also said that it has made a commitment to reaching gender pay parity by the end of 2018...
There is zero reason why gender pay parity could not be accomplished under a month's time. Zero.
315
Also struck me as odd. For such a young company this shouldn’t have even been an issue. Equal pay has been a hot button topic for a long time. Hypocrisy at its finest.
13
It can , because there is no such thing as gender pay parity. It's a nonsense idea . There is no such thing as the "equal work" . VICE knows that, and thus why they can promise the imaginary.
3
Gender parity isn't simply a matter of giving people raises, it's a matter of finding people to fill the high paying jobs.
1
Many liberals like to tell a tale about how, in secular democracies, feminism has done its work and the forward-looking people of Europe and the US are light years ahead of attitudes in developing countries.
Don't believe it. Patriarchy takes different forms and exerts power unevenly, but American men (and many women), liberals as well as conservatives, still want to keep in place distributions of power that favor men.
135
I know of no liberals who say or believe that feminism has "done its work" in "secular democracies", and that women have, I suppose, the battle against societal sexism. But is it really that bad for us to wish that there was a better balance of power at all levels of human existence between the males and females of the species? Have you ever considered that the "liberals" you state "want to keep in place distributions of power that favor men" aren't really Liberals at all, but those who espouse a liberalesque line for personal gain only?
And are you really implying that, perhaps, a "Christian democracy", if such a thing could even be possible, would be more favorable toward gender equality than a "secular democracy"? The last I heard, which was less than a week ago, a large percentage of certain Protestant groups were still preaching the subjugation of women - the "barefoot and pregnant" aspect of American womanhood seems to be quite alive and well within certain sects.
You may be right but in Saddam's Iraq, women could wear Western dress and work as doctors, lawyers, and university professors. Once Saddam was toppled and the mullahs took over, they retrieved the rules of life for Iraqi women from the 14th century and condemned women who once had significant freedom to rules that surely make those women cry in anger and frustration.
I'm not suggesting that Saddam was a champion of women's rights, only that a patriarchal system often has different points on a continuum.
5
what has politics to do with it?
1
I really think we need to discuss the difference between a company that creates an environment conducive to sexual misconduct and a company where an employee on his/her own acts inappropriately. Vice might have been the former instead of the latter, but the opening paragraph of the article creates a false illusion that if an employee receives an unwanted kiss, then that automatically means Vice acted inappropriately. I imagine the most ideal company, one that creates a safe environment for all workers -particularly for women- might be unfortunate to experience sexual misconduct in its offices. The test of a company is how it responds. I work in quantifying risk and one of the things we try to quantify is the likelihood of something occurring. We learn early that few things in this world have a zero probability of occurring. And I imagine that to be the case for the safest company in the world.
30
Companies have "cultures." If the corporate culture encourages--or turns a blind eye--to any number of problems, that realistically should be addressed by the CEO and/or Board of Directors. Sexual harassment, bullying employees, cheating the clients, unsafe construction practices, improper hazardous waste disposal, and many more issues fall into this category and can grow into huge liabilities unless promptly addressed. Which is an important reason for whistle-blowers to have legal protections.
4
Your comment is a good one except for one thing - the first paragraph describes a woman who had a man grab her hand and put it on his crotch during a company event, pressure her for sex, and then she got fired for refusing. That is an order of magnitude beyond an "unwanted kiss" so please don't sully your very well thought out comment by trivializing Sever situations. No one should be forced into sex at work to keep their job. Many women have themselves and their families to support just like men do. I support my elderly mother and I'm putting my son through college right now by myself. I'm an engineer in the tech industry, and while I've had several unwanted gropes, kisses and come-ons, I thank God I've never been put in her position of refusing unwanted sex from a superior and losing a much needed job.
5
If you read the whole article instead of just the first paragraph, you'll see that there is plenty of evidence, of many types and from many sources, that Vice as a company created an environment conducive to sexual misconduct. As a statistician, you should know that sampling only a tiny, non-representative slice of data (or a tiny slice of a much larger story) easily produces misleading results. For shame.
6
Ooooh great a Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Board, things are really gonna change.
232
You mean they might actually start hiring people of color and including them in the decision making process? Actually, this would be a good thing.
3
Lol I don’t think so either
And none of them are the least bit sorry, all these guys live around Brooklyn, educated, knew exactly , exactly what they were doing. Sorry they got caught? Ya, that’s probably true. I’m not though!
1
Congratulations, you have lived up to your name.
158
Wow. All those column inches and you didn't see fit to mention that the third co-founder of Vice, Gavin McInnes, is also the founder of a white nationalist and "proud chauvinist" men's organization? You don't suppose he might have contributed to a sexist and racist climate?
816
Yeah surprised he wasn't mentioned but this article is about higher ups who sexually harassed employees. While Gavin is a Nationalist and his views on women go along with it, it doesn't mean he has sexually harassed anyone. Although, if the media was truly aware they would have realized Vice probably wasn't the best environment for women because yes they did have a Gavin as one of their founding members.
2
The Proud Boys are pretty far to the right but I don't believe they are white nationalists. You can be one without the other. The sexism charge may be more to the point.
1
YES, THANK YOU! I said the exact same thing! It had to be a conscious decision, right? There's no way Ms. Steel and her editor could have overlooked it, right? Mr. McInnes is the first person I think of whenever I see that stupid Vice logo.
4
Vice is junk news. Snowflake bloggers flying chartered, backpacking in remote locations where marijuana is cheap and sexual harassment is, err, required macho behavior. Who needs it? Dropped HBO because of them, but prior to this stuff coming out. It’s amazing HBO still hasn’t acted. Flush please, shut and deport to Canada. These guys have no place here.
204
overreact much?
@ TMK. No, don't send them back to Canada. Take pity on we Canadian females. There are hundreds of thousands more just like him here. Send him somewhere else.
3
Kinda does put paid to the cliche that Canadians are so much more evolved and couth.
2
I’m so disappointed in Vice!!!! They have been my go to for several years now. Not anymore. Left or right- I will not condone any form of sexual harassment or assault. Maybe they should be subjected to what they subjected these women too. Absolutely disgusting!!!!
19
I was done with them after they did their godawful HBO report on "the cure for cancer". They have a lot of misinformation in many of their news pieces.
3
I had a difficult time finishing this article without dialing 911.
16
Ok. It just dawned on me. No wonder Americans elected an unapologetic groper to be the president. Apparently this is accepted as normal behavior amongst some men.
287
Positive proof he groped? Anyone???
4
His admission?
So either he is an admitted, exultant groper, or he is a liar who WISHES he was an admitted, exultant groper.
Your choice, Dingo. What’s your pleasure?
1
Is the fact that he admitted it in a taped conversation enough proof?
Mr. Smith,
What's wrong with you? Why is it so difficult for men to grow up? Time after time we are seeing men normalize their "locker room" talk with actions. Everything trickles down from one jerk to the next...
69
Here is part of the problem: enough women respond favorably to these so-called "unwanted advances" that men are encouraged to keep doing it. And then, when they encounter a woman who complains, they are shocked and confused.
7
Don't accuse all men of this. I'm just a few years younger than Mr. Smith and I have never done what he's done.
6
So they are getting too late of a start to be ahead of the power curve.
One trait that humankind shares with the animal kingdom, the imperative to procreate, It is deep in our DNA it will probably always be with us and some do not keep it in check. What we are talking about here are not the random rapist but people who don't have the tools to resist these urges. The urge sets in at puberty and grows, as it should until sated. For those who gain some power in the working world they use that power in their pursuit of sex.
I wonder what the recidivism rate would be if the men who were disgraced regained the power they had. Looking at their desire that required multiple settlements all round I think they would continue their odious behavior .
These men need some kind of rewiring.
So just another left-leaning and disingenuous pseudo-news organization? Add 'em to the list.
11
Where does Fox News fall?
2
Consider which network Bill O'Reilly came from-a disingenuous pseudo news organization also.
3
I’m politically way to the left and I have not ever perceived Vice as authentically progressive. To describe it as leftist is sort of missing the point.
1
My gosh we women are so sick of specific mens' lame excuses for this neanderthal and disrespectful behavior. Look yourselves in the mirror, stop the caveman act and look upon all women with whom you work with honor and respect. Otherwise go work on a construction site.
51
And for the women who work construction?
How about men just evolve and realize that they can still enjoy beer and football if they (gasp) treat women with the same respect they expect from one another?
8
They wouldn't do very well on a New York City construction site. Did you ever see some of these Vice guys? Somehow I can't picture them working on high steel.
6
Are you suggesting that women shouldn’t be plowed to work on a construction site?! How DARE you make such a sexist remark.
4
"a top-down ethos of male entitlement"
Not likely. It's guys being guys, thinking it's flirtatious. A true male entitlement ethos would manifest in rape, prolonged groping, that sort of thing.
8
So it requires criminal behavior for you to realize that there is a male entitlement culture that allows crude sexual remarks and unwanted touching to take place in the Workplace? This is not flirtatious behavior, it’s harrasment.I have worked in flirtatious workplaces but this sounds like a power trip against women.
10
Sorry these women's problems with their employers and co-workers aren't dramatic enough. Losing work due to a frail man's damaged ego when he's turned down for a wholly inappropriate ask (at work) is absolutely male entitlement at work. Seems like a lot of you just can't handle the competition that competent women present any better than you can handle being unable to use your unequal power to coerce reluctant women into sleeping with you.
With your definition of "flirtatious" I bet you do really well with the ladies, but only if any report to you.
8
“Prolonged groping” - are you kidding me? You think there’s a time requirement for groping to be assault?
You are the problem.
7
We need a national Harassment Reporting clearing center (separate from corporations or government) that all women can file claims with, and to which they can submit progress reports or retaliatory actions. This would be parallel to, and concurrent with, their own internal reporting of the harassment. They would then put their company on notice that they had filed such a report with the claims center. It would keep companies 'honest' and make them reluctant to 'bury' the claims, now that they were on the record with an outside organization. This would also provide a third party, evidentiary foundation for litigation, as many companies 'bury' or 'lose' harassment documents.
67
If it's assault go to the police. If it's not worth going to the police over you shouldn't get to ruin someone over it anyway without a trial.
5
You're making the mistake of confusing the standard of proof needed in a trial (and, indeed, the entire criminal court process) and the way businesses handle employees. There's no "due process" in business.
In the company I work for, the policy is workers are "at will" employees, meaning workers can be fired at any time, for any reason, or no reason at all. A sexual harassment claim may not meet the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard in court ... but business is not bound by that standard.
If they see a worker as a problem, they can get rid of him. That's just how it is.
2
Men are ruining themselves with their own disgusting behavior - the narrative of harassers being ruined by the women who finally report them is tired, misogynistic, and finished.
5
I'm disappointed but not surprised.
I am heartened and strengthened by the women and men who are continuing to come forward with their experiences of sexual harassment and assault.
Sometimes, I want to cry.
We shouldn't have to describe these things in detail to be believed, but I think doing so might help other victims realize that they are not crazy and that they are not alone. Hopefully it will help them report their abusers and start to heal.
When you are subjected to sexual harassment and assault at almost every. single. job. you've had, sometimes every.single.day., you have to decide if you're going to try and stuff it down as the same ole same ole instead of trying to find another job...again. No one should be in that situation. The fact that our livelihoods, and sometimes physical safety (read: the military), depend on holding jobs and going along to get along all the further complicate matters. When you've enlisted in the military, you can't qut.
I hope someone starts taking our military service members seriously as well. How long ago did "The Invisible War" come out? Exactly.
79
This is a great point and one that is overlooked in the calls for women to "just leave and get another job." It's everywhere, and we need to make a living.
17
This year should be called " The year of I'm Sorry... "
1
That would be nice if they were really sorry.
8
More like another Year of Phony Apologies.
6
Or the year of J’accuse.
2
Fortunately, thankfully, I've had an outstanding opportunity to listen to the NYT video series with EmilySteel, Ashley Judd, and other frontline reporters on this significant problem -- with male "power-over."
It gives me great hope that our Groper-in-Chief will eventually take the final fall for failing to support how this global abuse MUST stop.
Giving respect and dignity to all people may be the one thing that can save our planet from narcissists, gropers, dictators, oligarchs, kleptocrats, liars, supporters of greed, corruption, financial fraud, and all the other dishonest vices of anti-intellectualism, anti-science . . . ad infinitum . . .
13
Vice did not begin as a free magazine... it began as a free *newspaper*. A small, perhaps insignificant distinction, but surely evidence of sloppy research. The Nineties aren't exactly the Precambrian, so there's no excuse.
14
The umbrella incident reminds me of something that happened when I was very young--two or three years old? My family was visiting friends. I was dressed in my little raincoat, hat, and boots. We were about to leave, I think, although we might just have arrived. A man I didn't know (although maybe I was supposed to) squatted down and tried to hug me. This was in full view of everyone and no doubt nonsexual. But he scared me and I hit him over the head, hard, with my umbrella, stunning him and shocking the assembled multitude. It was discussed for years. I hope he learned a lesson. (He is no doubt long dead.) Keep your Thirteen umbrellas handy, ladies--they make excellent defense weapons!
24
Yes club anyone that happens to come near you and quickly contact the media for immediate character assassination and lawsuit fodder.
Also, you might want to reconsider that “13” umbrella; they created the misogynist atmosphere that spawned Charlie Rose, after all!
1
Note all the passively constructed statements from Vice leaders. No, “I (we) created an atmosphere...and we allowed it to continue and protected it.” Rather, it’s, “It happened on my watch” and a bad atmosphere and behavior “have been allowed to fester.” With leadership like that, nothing will fundamentally change, no matter how many advisory boards with famous names they create or how many sensitivity classes they offer (it says a lot again about Gloria Steinham that she would lend herself to this farce).
25
In all these "breaking" stories, we have the same theme: an assumption of women's sexual availability as a reward for male political titles, intellectual curiosity, artistic accomplishments and all other various forms and iterations of power. Was the fact that these guys are award-winning journalists supposed to be a mitigating factor? A surprise twist? Newsflash for The NY Times: women know there are zero mitigating factors.
94
This is such an old and sad story, but certainly not one to be discounted. It truly is one that needs to be addressed at home with parents addressing behavior with both their sons and daughters.
First, their sons need to respect the women in their household. If they see disrespect from their fathers or other males in the family, they will emulate that behavior; if so, that needs to be remedied. This requires discussion and reinforcement as often as possible.
Second, the girls in the household need to know that they have to speak out if they are disrespected both verbally or physically. When anyone attempts to say or do something that threatens their well-being these girls need to report it to authorities or if it is warranted, yell out right on the spot, regardless of repercussions. At a party, on the subway, wherever it is necessary! This is something that needs to be encouraged with girls/young women because this is what hinders action on their part.
Third, and probably more important, when reported, the culprit of sexual misbehavior needs to take the blame and the punishment due, not the victim.
6
It is a culture and behavior that did not start for these men at Vice. They have perceptions of women as inferiors for their amusement, not as peers. It is sad, assuming many are educated, that their behaviors are ignorant and primitive.
And how much is fueled by alcohol?
12
Alcohol provides a convenient excuse for bad behavior. One man quoted here said he looked forward to getting wasted, snorting coke, and having sex with girls. Not a particular woman he may have enjoyed a consensual relationship with; "girls." That was a statement presumably made when he was sober, describing how he likes to unwind. It's despicable.
17
We need to stop being surprised where this pops up. Sexual terrorism keeps women in their place and is part and parcel of the so called Old Boy's Network. It's everywhere and it's ancient. Things are going to need to change radically and painfully starting with how we raise boys.
186
"Things are going to need to change radically and painfully starting with how we raise boys."-CDM
How much is it going to hurt you, if you're not a little boy? Come to think of it, growing up male wasn't always a party. The "good soldier" part got a little tiring. Sometimes we just wanted to cry, too. Would that go on the top of any girl's datable wish list, let alone a parent's? Never has, as you say: ancient.
4
It may begin at home and then be reinforced in the wider world, this idea that men can take what they want, even if what they want is a person. So often women are viewed as just another trophy, a Rolex or a fast car or a snootful of blow among on social class of men, or a source of sadistic amusement and a chance to feel powerful among the men at the Ford plants. I suppose since humans are capable of enslaving other humans this shouldn't be surprising but to a certain kind of undeveloped man it feels like their due. Can we please evolve already?
3
"Can we please evolve already?"-raph101
This IS evolved. Evolution doesn't do prayers, apparently. Not alone in that respect, either.
The whole "get out the way" and "sit down" comments yelled at men are so silly. None of us are sitting down or going away aside from really weak and fragile men. We are going to have to work together on this. Perhaps also we might eventually come to the conclusion that sex will never be taken out of the workplace and thus situations like these will never completely go away. It is too much a part of human nature. That doesn't mean we should start trying to change the way men behave, but it also means a bit of realism is called for.
13
Ms. Steel makes a stunning lapse when she says that these men came of age “long after workplace harassment was not only taboo, but outlawed.”
If there is nothing that one can be certain of given the multitude of stories spilling forth in the past months is that workplace harassment has never been “taboo.” It was made illegal, but even this paper continues to employ a journalist it found has a pattern of sexually harassing his colleagues - a situation it seeks to remedy with training it has published studies saying doesn’t work.
Harassment is not taboo when publications like this one are running articles about men expressing dismay that they won’t be able to hug anyone they want to at the office anymore. The real taboo is still daring to say that the creepy office hugger is inappropriate and should not be allowed to touch his colleagues just because he wants to.
These younger men are no different than their fathers because they weren’t taught to be. They were taught that they will have all the same entitlements and privilege as men have always enjoyed. It’s the younger women who have been taught that they don’t have to tolerate it that are the real change in the culture. I applaud them for standing up for their rights.
298
Your point, is well taken. However, there are still women out there, who really want a strong man to comfort, love, and protect them.
What about those?
Aren't they still women, even though they disagree, with todays, feminist norm?
Yes, I am old school.
I love my wife, I love my children and I still remark on a woman's good taste in her decisions.
I have always considered women as equals. Not dominant, nor subservient.
I hate to see, what this new role in social justice, makes my grandchildren into.
As if life, isn't already, confusing enough.
1
It was "taboo" among many of us, not for those arrogant and entitled minority that think they are too important to be constrained.
1
But are mothers teaching their sons how to interact with women in a polite, non-aggressive and professional way in the work place?
1
As a woman, reading this same kind of story over and over again is emotionally exhausting, depressing, and critically important. Thanks to the NYTimes for aggressively and honestly covering the epidemic of sexual mistreatment of women in the workplace. Keep these stories coming- as dispiriting as they are, we can't change the current climate without them.
63
I retired early and do some volunteer work at a senior center where I am a lot younger than those I assist. I am already fed up after just three months because so many of the old men talk at and down to me. They say off color stuff and mansplain constantly. Is this how they keep up their self esteem in the face of declining abilities and health? Men, wake up! Some of you are jerks! And the ones who aren’t, please try to tamp down those who are!
9
"These women did not work among older men at a hidebound company."
The issue is power, not age. This culture has not stopped raising boys to reduce women to body parts and to believe they are entitled to sex. Coupled with a rapid rise to success and power, it is in no way surprising that a new generation of younger men would not behave in a way similar to the generation that raised them. They simply acquired power sooner. A trendy, "push the boundaries" company has a front of stylishness that merely masks and rationalizes the same old pattern of sexual assault.
Until we fundamentally change the messages we send as a society and the consequences for horrid behavior, we will have a 'boy's club culture" wherever there is power and money.
37
I have to admit I haven’t read the article in it entirety but I was a fan of the Vice network initially but I started to notice that there was a serious shortage of female hosts on their shows. I emailed them twice suggesting that a network apparently designed to appeal to millennials (which I’m not) should consider having more women as hosts on their innovative programs. Very little has changed except that I rarely watch Vice anymore and I stopped recommending it to my friends. It’s really sad to me that in 2017, a new “cutting edge “ network would continue the old school tradition of denying women opportunity.
11
Sorry, but as a former HR director back in the 1980's what I read here is lots of lawyer speak, and individuals who other wise would keep doing the same old nasty stuff. I hope the women sue the magazine out of business.
283
Have you seen their piece on the Charlottesville protests? Pretty much the best coverage to come out of there, in any format. Brave, smart, insightful, modern. If they can manage one piece like that every few years they have a great reason to stick around.
And is anyone else getting tired of people wishing death on organizations and people for sexual harassment (not assault)? Honestly, none of the accusations here should be an existential threat to Vice, just a call for reform.
'“Yes, we can change the world,” he wrote, “but first we have to start at home.”'
OK, that's done. So, moving forward...
12
Men. Simply put.
Yes, we know, it's not all men.
But it's always men.
308
Men. Yes.
The things that could be said about women. Yes.
I hope Homo Sapiens makes it another 10,000 years.
5
omg VICE? really?! in other breaking news, water is wet.
8
"Always"... typical woman word.
It's not "always." Woman harass as well.
Way to snatch defeat from the mouth of Victory.
Wise up.
6
I can't believe the company which gave us Gavin McInnes is somehow corroded from within.
30
Now that sexual harassment has devolved into clickbait entertainment content, it might be a good time to come up with something else to tantilize and titillate readers. Perhaps there are other, more death-defying ways to ruin people's careers for an audience, by influencing the court of public opinion to render guilty verdicts until innocence is proven.
33
Tone deaf.
14
I certainly wasn't entertained by this article; I was grieved.
There is an enormous difference between behavior we are should not accept and behavior that can be taken to a court of law. I, and many, many other women have put up with sexually inappropriate behavior in the workplace, and have also known that suing would be an expensive waste of time.
HR's response to a co-worker's grabbing my body parts should not be "We won't listen until you file a lawsuit." HR's response should be to immediately tell the co-worker to knock it off. The record of the Vice lawsuits and settlements shows that Vice hasn't been doing that.
18
How curious that you view this moment as one in which the men facing consequences for their terrible behavior are the victims. Can you give us the name of a single man who's been publicly shamed who didn't do what he's accused of? Strange, too, that you find accounts of women being frightened and abused as "titillating." All around disturbing set of beliefs and values you have there.
10
Let's see if this "startling revelation" affects "Vice's cachet with millennial audiences" and its investment potential.
6
"Yes, we can change the world..." Hmm. Maybe NO, you can't. Get out of the way and let somebody else.
25
Really? You thought harassment was an old people problem? Hardly. It's a predatory problem. It's a leadership problem, it's an ethics problem, it's a lower nature problem.
Dear Gloria, have you read Wheatley's "Leadership and the New Science"? It's a fractal pattern problem and it's roots are in it's ownership.
59
It's a POWER issue.
13
Gloria S. seems a wrong choice - her position with the Clntons' harassment issues makes me turn the channel when I see her.
12
You're hallucinating! Gloria Steinem never sided with Bill Clinton! Are you somehow confusing the adulterer with his victim, that is his wife?
And what is your position regarding Trump's many cases of adultery? That's ok by you, right?
4
"For women"???
I thought that we were all equal.
I thought that women were better, stronger, smarter than men.
Why are we having to 'protect' women now?
Why aren't the multi-tasking women taking care of themselves?
22
Agreed. Sounds like women are finally being treated equal to men in the workplace and they’re misinterpreting it as harassment.
Aside from the obvious sexual assault (for which the offenders should be charged and given the chance to defend themselves in a court of law), these “incidents” sounds like the kind of competitive aggression that young working men direct toward each other.
Pretty soon, men will decide that avoiding contact with women in the workplace is preferable to being accused, convicted and ruined in a sensationalist news article over something that may not actually be a crime.
The those same women will accuse men that they’re being ignored and not “taken seriously as professionals”.
If it wasn’t so distrusting, it would be hysterical.
12
What's up with these men who believe that women should have to endure the same kind of "competitive aggression" as they do? Do they not understand that sexual coercion is a separate thing and is not occurring among sets of equals but instead is coming from men in positions of power over the women? And what's up with acting like all men are sadists, can't be helped, it's just the way things are?
Your commitment to avoiding women in the workplace is commendable, given how you view them.
10
Settlements up to $135,000: they seem to be taking some action.
3
Glenn Thrush, though.
74
Those at vice will keep their jobs too as if there were short supply of reporters or liberal arts graduates.
1
Why shouldn’t the many hardworking people st vice who have not been accused of anything keep their jobs? Is this HUAC?
I enjoy Vice and Vice News. Shane Smth has done some amazing and dangerous pieces in Afghanistan and other troubled areas. One thing for sure, alcohol and dope-fueled parties inevitably lead to incidents like those in the article.
40
I know plenty of men who get drunk and don’t assault women. Saying it’s the fault of alcohol or drugs is allowing men to skirt responsibility.
27
I've been at a bunch of alcohol and dope-fueled parties and I don't see anything "inevitable" about sexual abuse or abuse of power occurring. It's when male predators use those circumstances as an excuse to victimize women that it happens. Lots of studies support this.
13
No it does not!
It might seem amazing to you but people can party without physically assaulting some of them. In this case the women. Those are not incidents they are crimes. What if I claimed that the reason I stole your car was because of an "alcohol an dope fueled party"
15
"during a work event at a bar", "after a night of drinking", "at Carrot's holiday party"... sounds like that company has a drinking problem as much as a harassment problem. But here's the thing that bothers me about all these recent claims, these companies hire a bunch of 20 somethings and work them all for endless hours. The employees end up socializing together because all the people they know are their colleagues. And then when something stupid is said or someone's feelings get hurt it suddenly becomes harassment and evil. If you blur the lines between work and personal life, is it really fair to then throw a bunch of employment law to govern the interpersonal gaffs that are bound to come up?
I know there are lines that exist and shouldn't be crossed, but this article seems to make me wonder what everyone thinks is going to happen if you get a bunch of young smart, attractive people to spend 18 hours a day together in work and in parties.
500
Bingo.
VP Medvedev Pence may be bonkers and evil, but he kinda had a point about not eating alone with other women or drinking without his wife around. Alcohol kills even a monk's inhibitions and makes people do Bad Things, and long periods of presence do for the flesh what absence does for the heart, so way-overtime work hours like Vice's combined with their company parties do exactly what you'd expect.
The Murs interview edit was just plain sad and stupid. I hope the payout to Hopper was as buoyant as any Scrooge McDuck hoard.
2
It's really not that hard for supervisors to avoid sexual contact with his subordinates - with or without alcohol thrown in the mix.
20
What should happen is that they should see if there is mutual atraction and then make a move. Not grab someone's breats and buttocks clearly without their consent. Also, it seems that you are overlooking in your comment all the instances of crude comments and harrasment that occur IN THE WORKPLACE. This only happens because the men at the top think "boys will be boys" and they also wish to conduct themselves with the same behavior.
19
At first, Vice was a welcome addition to my media diet. Then, several years ago, I watched a segment in which a male reporter interviewed Syrian women in a refugee camp. And he hit all the wrong notes.
Instead of addressing the very real problem of women marrying in their teens and giving birth to multiple children, many of whom die, while risking their own health and survival, he talked about getting education for the boys and food for them all. Because the thought that women might have specific problems relevant to their sex never occurred to him. All the children of these women were born as refugees. Daughters will be married young so parents don't have to support them. He didn't talk with them about access to birth control, trained medical staff for deliveries, education for girls, high levels of rape and sexualized violence, or anything else relevant to their lives.
Of course, he couldn't. A male journalist, he couldn't bring up these issues. Which begs the question - where are the trained female journalists, many of whom would speak Arabic and understand these issues, at Vice?
This piece spoke of a very real blind spot at the agency. Sure, they covered important issues, but it was often focused on either gender neutral problems or the problems of men.
Physicians, heal thyself. How about hiring female journalists who will investigate Vice for sexual harassment? Expose yourself, in a good way.
565
I'm sorry, but it's absurd for any one person to think that any given news report will include exactly the things that that person thinks are important.
He could have asked the women about birth control, education for girls and so on and someone could complain: "Why didn't he ask about education for boys and food?"
It's an assumption that he didn't ask the questions you wanted him to ask because he's a male. You've probably read plenty of news reports on the issues that concern you that were researched and reported by men.
Let's stop the male-bashing at every turn. I know we guys are the go-to evildoers these days but how about we confine that to the men (and women) who are actually doing evil?
11
I think you hit the mark about the blind spot. But then Vice Media is one BIG blind spot if not a stain on journalism.
3
There have been many many worthy interviews all over the world by women reporters for Vice. Some are great, some stink. To judge by one story is just dumb.
5
Thank you Emily. Your diligent reporting is helping to make the world better for girls, women...everyone. So grateful.
138
I recently looked up some long-lost people I knew from college. One of them is now working for Vice. Based upon my interactions with him when we were young, the culture and climate being described here at Vice does not surprise me.
99
That's pretty damning evidence.
8
Clearly. Also the strength of the logic there is a great example of the depth of feminist thinking.
4