Sexual Harassment in Silicon Valley

The single statistic that received the most attention from The Elephant in the Valley was that 6 in 10 senior women in Silicon Valley had been subjected to an unwanted sexual advance in the workplace (note: holding steady at 59% in my 2018 study)

As soon as I compiled the results, I thought this seemed high, but I had no benchmarks with which to compare the data.

So, I started googling ‘incidence of sexual harassment in the workplace’. It turns out that there are not many good stats on this… The only recent study I could find was published by Cosmopolitan magazine in March 2015 and stated that in 1 in 3 women 18–34 had been sexually harassed in the workplace. Another study from ABC News/Washington Post in 2011 found that 1 in 4 women have been sexually harassed in the workplace.

So yes, 6 in 10 shows that the tech industry is worse than average…

When the 3% Movement fielded the same survey question among women in advertising in their study Elephant on Madison Avenue, we found almost an identical result to Elephant In the Valley…. And, the automotive industry (in a great study entitled Project XX using our identical question by Automotive News) is even worse — 65% of women were subjected to an unwanted sexual advance. A notable exception is in the Marketing Research world. The Insights Association partnered with me to field this survey in my own industry, and I was pleased to see that only 35% of women in Marketing Research have been subjected to an unwanted sexual advance (I know, 1 in 3 is still way too high, but everything is relative).

Trying to keep track of this? Just to summarize:

I wish I had more data on women in law, academia, medicine and other fields (hit me up if you want this survey). But to me, this triangulation of data makes me believe that over half of professional women have probably been subjected to an unwanted sexual advance.

I have many male friends in Silicon Valley, including a VC who fired a recruiter for not bringing him more female candidates. They are all shocked by the incidence of this stat… so I feel the need to share some of the stories that women shared in my survey just to bring this reality to life a bit more.

“A potential candidate has asked me out for drinks and I’ve had two colleagues at work comment on how my ‘arse’ looks in the leggings I was wearing and also about my boobs!”

“Sexual advance at a networking event. We both were entrepreneurs attending the event. He was drunk, and he groped me and pushed me up against a wall. Others included invites to hotel rooms by VCs when I was an emerging entrepreneur. “

“I was targeted by a senior executive as someone he wanted to have a sexual relationship with. When I continually declined, he had me put on a lay off list. Another executive (male) knew about this and moved me in to his group instead, but the behavior was not addressed.”

“Work function at his home. His wife and baby are in the next room when he started massaging my shoulders. I sprinted out of the room and was never alone with him again during my employment there.”

“I don’t get much harassment because I have established a pretty strong reputation as an Ice Queen/Ball Buster. Others who do not have this reputation have gotten worse harassment, for sure. (Not victim-blaming here… no-one should have to endure harassment.)”

Potentially good news? Younger Women Less Likely to Have Been Subjected to an Unwanted Sexual Advance

So, the (potentially) encouraging news is that the stats are less dire among women under 40.

In our 2018 tech study, 53% of women under the age of 40 had been subjected to an unwanted sexual advance vs. 65% among women over 40. The patterns are similar in the advertising community.

The optimistic view on this is that millennial men are more well-behaved and can understand what constitutes an ‘unwanted sexual advance’.

The cynical view is that with more life experience comes a higher probability of coming across an asshole. A conflating factor is that the higher you get in your career, the more likely you are to travel, attend conferences, and be in potentially uncomfortable situations.

For now, I am taking the optimistic view…I plan on re-fielding this survey every few years to see if my hypotheses hold.

Thanks for following me on medium… Next post will focus on who are the harassers, and what are women doing about these unwanted advances?