Why Sexual Harassment Is More of a Problem in Venture Capital

The only surprising thing about the recent furor over sexual harassment by Silicon Valley venture capitalists is that people are surprised. This has been happening for a long time. Sexual harassment is prevalent among VCs because of the hard-driving bro culture that confuses the pursuit of money with the pursuit of masculinity. When work becomes a way to prove how macho you are, hitting on female colleagues becomes just another way to keep score. This dynamic is a reflection of what psychologists call “precarious manhood”: the view that masculinity has to be earned, over and over again. The endless game of zero-sum one-ups-man-ship is off-putting not only for most women; it’s also draining and humiliating for many men. If Silicon Valley wants to eliminate sexual harassment, it needs to stop placing an artificially high value on being a “real man” and instead insist on that men—and women—behave like decent, respectful human beings.