They definitely do this WAY more in the music and entertainment industries. The women are probably just less empowered in that industry. The stories of men in power sleeping with young upstarts in the music industry is abundant. If I remember correctly, one of Lana Del Rey's songs (or maybe it was an interview), talked about kissing record label producer or executive or something.. and in her case she didn't have a problem with it specifically.

Here's a testimony on John F. Kennedy's sexism and drug use:

"The dark side of the man she calls "the Great Compartmentaliser", and who would identify himself on the telephone as "Michael Carter", was never far away. One day in the swimming pool, he decided that Dave Powers was looking "tense", and coerced Alford into giving the first friend a blow job. "I don't think the president thought I'd do it, but I'm ashamed to say that I did. The president silently watched." With sex, came drugs. Alford claims she was "the guinea pig" for the president's fascination with amyl nitrate – poppers."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/10/affair-jfk-ken...

Martin Luther King Jr was also a known womanizer.

The tech industry, for all it's faults and transgressions, is still a relatively progressive industry (emphasis on RELATIVE). "Old money industries" have been getting away with this type of behavior for decades, if not centuries. Women in those jobs probably see no point in reporting it or coming forward. Why would they? It's not going to make headlines that the secretary at Goldman Sachs gets propositioned for sex by top executives. She's just going to lose her job, in all likelihood.

So I would argue, it isn't that those industries have less flagrant sexual harassment. It's that you just don't hear about it. It doesn't make headlines.

I would say the tech industry is one of the few industries where a tight labor market means workers have power. When they have power, they are more likely to speak up about abuse and know that they will still be employable.

I'm not sure it's that they're more "progressive" but that seems to point in the right direction. My own thought is that tech has relatively more "white knights" and also relatively more people willing to look at their actions affecting the world, even if it's sometimes a distorted view of changing it with a milk startup or whatever. Letting these things slide creates an uglier world to live in, whereas in other industries there's probably acceptance of the way things are or just a sense of being able to switch industries.

Currently I wonder which side will end up dominating tech culture or if we'll remain at war. Some companies have to send out memos telling people to cut out the sex in the stairwells. Others just don't hire any women and try to make sure they're not discriminating in a way that's illegal (not that hard with "pipeline" arguments, at least for core tech positions). And then others have some balance, and make it work or result in drama like this story.

See Wolf of Wall St for most vivid example. I'll also add it's extremely common in sales all over the country. Especially telemarketing, phone sales, boiler rooms, and so on. A large number of women I've talked to over the years in those positions say it's crazy. That movie even brought flashbacks for at least one I talked to who told me of huge parties with barbeque, pools, drugs, and tabs for employees for beer and hotel rooms. I actually went to the first half of one of that company's parties at her invitation. Too crazy and too many hard drugs for me so I left. I've seen similar stuff at corporate offices of what you'd consider boring industries where on the executive or senior level they'd waste company money on parties with dates, secretaries, hookers or whatever. Nowhere near as extreme as the Wolf but same problems.

So, yeah, I have probably over a hundred anecdotes especially in sales but in general saying the right-leaning, ultra-capitalist areas have a lot of it nobody cares to report. Plus, it gets worse in "right to work" (aka fire without cause) states where there's limited job availability or the man/woman being harassed has been at company so long them not getting a reference can be held over them. Lots of reasons not to report.

The other side of this coin is that many people have sex at work. So when a guy/gal comes in and sees this is the MO they may try to participate.

There's sex at work, but there's also just many relationships that start or get set up at work and lead to marriage. Put men and women together in an environment that already cements a shared general interest and you're going to see that. People who treat every fellow employee the same as an amorphous blob are operating under a strange way of viewing the world.

Anecdotal, but I have friends that live/work in the industry in Hollywood and they claim it is rampant there. It's a husband/wife duo. She's hit on constantly. He's demeaned often with "Yo, your husbands a broke schmuck, I'm rich."

Look up Kesha. Look up Sony emails. Those are just what leaks.

The answer to your question, as other commenters are pointing out, is in the "seem". They seem to have less flagrant issues, but that's just appearances.

While tech still has a very long way to go, at least speaking up is becoming acceptable, and won't bar you from the industry for life. An Uber engineer who speaks up will never work for Uber again, but she can still find work in the industry (if she so desires). Someone who speaks up on Wall Street will be "marked" for life and never have the opportunity to work on Wall Street again.

You're absolutely correct about being "marked" on Wall Street.

Unlike tech, most professional services (banking/consulting/law), don't require particularly skill, but rather the right pedigree, connections, and social background.

Getting a job in IBD at a bulge bracket means years of striving: the right schools, the right social networks, the right way of "talking", the right "look". The rewards are massive: $100-200-300K bonuses even as a young analyst is the the norm. Loyalty, being able to "eat shit", etc are the traits most admired on the street. Being a "troublemaker" and speaking out against harassment (not even just sexual in nature, but just plain bullying/hazing) earns you the label as "weak" and out of a job. If you've been striving all your life for one of these coveted jobs, you can imagine the immense pressure to grit it out, collect your fat bonus, and drink, snort, and purchase-expensive-toys your stresses away.

Why is this downvoted, let alone so heavily?

Maybe saying something will correct it.

It is a problem still: http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2016/01/gillian-anderson...

Wall Street is a different animal all together, and in a lot of ways worse. Having lived on both coasts and experienced both types of people (and still working with both types of people) I can tell you first hand that Wall Street is far worse. There is just more easy money to cover stuff up.

One theory I've seen bounced around is that the more process and institution there is in an organization, the less opportunity there is for sexual harassment. When social interaction at the workplace is limited and formulaic, there's no leeway for someone to sexually harass colleagues. Thus staid megacorps have less of these problems than startups/tech companies. Whether this is true or not, I can't personally say, as I've never worked at the former.

For one - we conflate VC as being "tech" when it's simply just finance (i.e. Wall Street). VC's literally take money and put it into investment vehicles and generate profit from selling those investments. That's basically what Wall Street does.

> How is it that the old money industries of Wall Street and Hollywood, no vanguards of gender egalitarianism themselves, seem to have less flagrant sexual harassment issues? Do they keep them under wraps or are they just more mature by now?

Not quite Hollywood, but look e.g. to what's recently happening at Fox News for an industry where that's also pretty extreme...

LESS flagrant sexual harassment? Ohhhh noooooo. Tech has a ton of work to do and you'll hear no excuses about this behavior from me, but if you think it's worse in tech than in finance in particular you're mistaking "more newsworthy" with worse.

They don't get discussed here because this is Hacker News, but this is discussed often in the media:

https://www.google.com/search?q=women+in+wall+street+sexism&...

What is interesting is that there seem to have been a burst of articles in 2016, but nothing in 2017. The first three pages of google results above have almost only articles from 2016, and a few from 2012, 2013, etc.

Maybe sexism sells more when it happens in the tech world, but unfortunately, I think it's happening in every industry , especially where women are a minority.

Perhaps because techies are seen as holier than you types? Sexual harassment stories in churches are way juicer stories than about other organisations.

I assume part of it is that if an industry has that reputation, women entering are on guard for it. Or maybe avoiding that industry altogether.

Old institutions in wall street have processes in place to follow up and lay off employees.

Banks keep records of all communications and emails. Whatever you said, it is not just stored and available for searching, it is also randomly inspected by annoying regulators and backed up in a bunker for the next 5 years.

Last but not least, they are not populated by 20 years old brogrammers.

Contrary to rest who says women are not empowered in other domains as much, I will say the reason is there is lesser liability for making the accusation. I think, by hollywood you mean actors, and the impact on the career can be big as the job period for a movie is short and does not completely dependent on looks and experience. Other than actors, the majority of hollywood, there are completely different dynamics(make up artist, graphics designer etc.). And for Wall Street it's clear. It's not under the wraps. I think general public sees them as sexist much more than coders.

Are you...are you really that naive? This is almost all a matter of media attention, which is all a matter of money. You also won't hear about discrimination at the upper reaches in the fashion industry because, guess what, those advertising dollars speak loudly.

Once the West Coast tech world starts paying into the scam you won't hear about sexual transgressions there any more than you do in the world of Wall Street or Hollywood which are, as you hint, 1000x worse. People are just now hearing about guys like Bill Cosby, but his behavior was standard issue.

They're better at keeping them under wraps. Check out the allegations against Brian Singer, director of the X Men films.

This is simply incorrect. These other industries are just as bad, and widely understood to be so. I don't think you actually need to look very hard to find evidence of this.

One thing that does define a difference between SV and at least Wall Street is that fast growth startups tend not to have put proper HR processes in place fast enough, which can create an environment in which harassment is easier.

It's far more widespread in both those industries. It gets reported on every now and then, but literally no-one is surprised so those stories never get traction. It's expected, plain and simple.

Hardest-charging--gotta-make-it-big--screw-the-rules guys are not heading to Wall Street or Hollywood, but to the Valley. That's where all the money and action is.

So this sorta doesn't surprise me.