California Lawmaker Targets Sexual Harassment Among Venture Capitalists

The tech industry at-large has a widespread cultural problem with sexual harassment, and the world of venture capital is no different. Investors like Justin Caldbeck and Dave McClure resigned this summer after accusations surfaced that they sexually harassed multiple women who work in tech. Women entrepreneurs often face unsolicited advances from the same venture capitalists gatekeeping startup funds. State Sen. Hannah-Beth Jackson from Santa Barbara, Calif., proposed a bill to explicitly target sexual harassment in the venture capital industry.

This new piece of legislation, SB 224, would add a new clause to a California civil rights law called the Unruh Act to clarify the “unique nature of the investor/entrepreneur relationship.”

Investors would be liable for sexual harassment, just like an employer or a boss.

“Many of these investors act as gatekeepers to an industry,” Jackson said in a statement. “The brave women who have come forward in recent weeks to share their stories and experiences have peeled back the shroud of secrecy and exposed behaviors that are not acceptable in any industry, let alone the growing tech industry which is so important to our economy.”

The issue of sexual harassment is so pervasive that San Francisco technologists Tammy Cho and Grace Choi created the the startup BetterBrave, a digital resource hub to help people report and avoid sexual harassment at work. Several other women entrepreneurs also created Fair Funders, where people can rate and review investors to help women avoid venture capitalists with a history of discrimination. “They don’t have to go waste time pitching to investors who won’t give us fair treatment,” Fair Funds co-founder Layla Sabourian told The Mercury News. This platform is scheduled to launch before October.

The National Venture Capital Association has reportedly lauded Jackson’s legislative response to the crisis, as did several nonprofit organizations. “Sexual harassment can no longer stand between a great woman entrepreneur and the launch of her company,” Noreen Farrell, executive director for Equal Rights Advocates, said in a statement. “If we want to see the venture capital industry change and an end to sexual harassment of women in technology, we need strong legal protections.” TechCrunch reported Jackson plans to take her proposal to the Senate floor in January 2018.

In addition to supporting strong legal protections, there are many steps people in the tech industry can take to curb sexism. For business leaders, there are the basic steps for deliberately inclusive hiring, family leave and promotion policies. For everyone else, the best thing to do is to just listen to women. Leah Stephens, founder of Bitcoin School in Kansas City, told International Business Times about one such instance where a cyberstalker was harassing women in the bitcoin community.

Stephens said Steemit co-founder Dan Larimer took action to create solutions on his tech-centric social media platform after women reported the abuse. Offensive content was flagged and abusive users muted then shunned. “People with high reputation in [the] community can change things,” she said. “I see the entire issue as a problem of economic power. When women don't have economic freedom, they don't have a voice."