> This summary from her website doesn't make Apple sound all that terrible in my opinion:
Looking past her editorializing, the Apple communications she leaked aren't really unreasonable. She raised concerns about harassment, so Apple started an investigation. She then complains that the investigation was "nonconsensual", despite being the one to raise the concerns. She then requested a second investigation, which Apple started. The part about being placed on administrative leave is particularly confusing, because this article says that she requested to be placed on the administrative leave.
Her Tweets are hyper-dramatic. She calls her Employee Relations contacts "Employee Retaliation" and even insinuates that she thinks Apple might assault her at her home after they requested a meeting:
> Any bets if I get a literal knock on my physical door from #Apple today?
> Hey #Apple, "This feels a little like witness intimidation. I let @NLRB know." Love, Ashley
> Clutches panic button & Mace while still laying on floor pondering the brutality of U.S. capitalism...
Yeah. I think she has real concerns that need to be addressed to make her whole. I'm not sure this is "the world needs to know"-level stuff though. Good on her for speaking her mind anyway. The "open kimono" stuff sounded bad to me (edit: depends on the context [2]).
At the same time, she is giving these veiled threats to Apple while an investigation appears to be underway,
> .... also makes me wonder what would happen if I shared the incidents [redacted] investigated and said weren't "policy violations" like [redacted] [1]
I can see why Apple would want to part ways with that. It's standard for everyone to keep their mouths shut while an investigation is underway. If you don't understand and follow that contract then you're tainting the investigation.
The "open kimono" thing is inexcusable in 2021, but I don't think it's anything more than someone cluelessly using an outdated catchphrase. It was semi-common business lingo in the early 2000s in certain circles: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/o/open-kimono.asp
Self-help guru Tim Ferriss even copyrighted the phrase and made a big deal about publicizing a $10,000 seminar in his "Opening the Kimono" event in 2011: https://tim.blog/2011/04/12/opening-the-kimono/
Then the phrase quickly died, as it should have. Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.
This thread is political correctness madness gone wild.
The phrase comes from Japanese<->American business relationships in the 70s through 90s. It is not sexist or racist. It literally means providing transparency to internal affairs.
> Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.
"Look, I will let you invest a million dollars in Apple if you will sort of open the kimono on Xerox Parc." -- Steve Jobs, Xerox Parc, 1979
Under the Xerox Parc kimono, he found a prototype of the modern computer mouse.
Investopedia says the term is "offensive" but the only reason they cite is an NYT article from 1998:
> New York Times reporter Stephen Greenhouse became one of the first to draw broad attention to the term when he noted that marketers at Microsoft (MSFT) had embraced it. At the time, he did caution that the use of open kimono may have originally indicated a disrespectful attitude toward the Japanese businessmen who were buying American companies.
It wasn't even disrespectful because of race, it was because Japanese businessmen were buying lots of American companies and doing due diligence. Also, kimonos are worn by men, women, and children.
In reality, Investopedia is probably labeling it "offensive" for people like me who know it is not offensive, but are unaware that using it could lead to problems.
> In reality, Investopedia is probably labeling it "offensive" for people like me who know it is not offensive, but are unaware that using it could lead to problems.
Nothing is objectively inoffensive. Whether something is or not depends on delivery and to whom it's delivered. Clearly "open kimono" does imply nakedness, so if you ask a person to be "open kimono" I can see how someone might be offended by that when just saying "be more open" would serve. I don't know the exact phrasing that this employee found offensive. It could just be a misunderstanding where a manager was saying they need to "open the kimono" on a product, such as by making an API that other people can use to easily interface it.
There's almost 0 chance that managers at Apple got the colloquialism wrong and were using it in any sort of sexual or racist way. And if they were, Ashley would have surely brought it to light. This was not a misunderstanding.
What happened here is that Ashley thought the term sounded offensive enough to weaponize, and so she did.
From the Slack reaction emojis, and from our own sibling HN comments, we can tell other people also feel grossed out by the "open kimono" phrase. Particularly people who have never heard it before.
The obvious conclusion is that the phrase just doesn't pass the vibe check in 2021, and no additional research is required. It sounds kind of old and maybe a little racist or sexist, so anyone that uses it needs to be called out, so we can erase this uncomfortable phrase from the tech lexicon. Problem solved?
The real problem is that adopting such a niggardly view of workplace language leads to precisely the type of in-group/out-group division and discrimination that people like Ashley claim to be fighting against. Of course, if it works, she ends up in the in-group with power because she knows the rules. The in-group is then free to exclude other cultures because they're seen as crude or offensive or somehow "less than" the enlightened rule makers of civil society.
I'm really having trouble phrasing this because I feel like ultimately we agree, but does passing the vibe check actually matter? Or whose doing the checking?
Cause some may say you haven't passed the vibe check either, as far back as 1999 and at least as recent as 2011.
* criticism from the "peanut gallery" -- that's a reference to poor seating for black people during the Vaudeville era, which is super racist by any standard
Things that unsurprisingly don't pass the vibe check but should if people were more educated:
* "jimmies" for sprinkles has a pop culture reputation for being racist and people have corrected me for saying it, but actually ice cream sprinkles were just invented by a guy named James
* "niggardly" shares no root with its racist homophone
* "那个" is a filler word that chinese speakers need to be careful with because of the same racist homophone
I get that language is always evolving and the vibe check does matter to lots of people, so I try to accommodate the sensibilities of the masses.
I know that "niggardly" is so uncommon these days that it practically is a racist dog whistle (though it really shouldn't be), so I wouldn't use it in daily speech.
But I also think it would be a shame if all the interesting turns of phrase that have stuck around over the years are intentionally censored and removed until we have nothing but bland language without metaphor or history or anything that could possibly cause offense.
"Opening the kimono" is certainly not a phrase worth censoring. I think you could make a good faith argument that trying to censor it is actually a reflection of racist and sexist American stereotypes about Japanese people.
He may have dropped niggardly in there in order to "prove his point" about people creating in-groups and out-groups. Now he's a victim too. It's a common reaction from people who don't want to accept that other people are expressing emotions, and may come from the fact they haven't been allowed to express theirs either. In other words, "Nobody accepted my sadness, why should I accept yours?"
> There's almost 0 chance that managers at Apple got the colloquialism wrong and were using it in any sort of sexual or racist way. And if they were, Ashley would have surely brought it to light. This was not a misunderstanding.
That sounds more like jumping to conclusions than objectivity. We're not going to know the truth on either side of this. The facts are, she felt harmed, reported it, started an investigation, threatened to publicize some details, and was let go.
> What happened here is that Ashley thought the term sounded offensive enough to weaponize, and so she did.
You think she pretended to be offended in order to raise a stink publicly, thereby risking her job over a false claim? That doesn't pass the smell test for me. More likely is she truthfully felt wronged, wanted it made right, and overstepped herself a bit along the way.
> The real problem is that adopting such a niggardly view of workplace language leads to precisely the type of in-group/out-group division and discrimination that people like Ashley claim to be fighting against. Of course, if it works, she ends up in the in-group with power because she knows the rules. The in-group is then free to exclude other cultures because they're seen as crude or offensive or somehow "less than" the enlightened rule makers of civil society.
Not everything's a conspiracy. Quit looking at the world in black and white. People are complex.
“Open the kimono” isn’t that another way of saying “open the article of clothing primarily worn by women”? To be honest this is the first time I’ve heard the term but it sounds rather problematic.
Edit: explain downvotes and don’t downvote just because you don’t like the perspective. Sure there are men’s kimonos but ask some random person on the street and ask who wears kimonos and men will not be the answer.
Look I don’t make American culture, I’m simply pointing out how a huge chunk of office workers will perceive it.
Anyway, I can tell people can see this perspective, but want to pretend it’s invalid because they don’t like it. those against what they call “cancel” culture then reacting to opinions they deem unpopular by downvoting shows they don’t care about the principal of what they call “cancel” culture in general but only care that what they are used to is being “cancelled”.
Has anyone tried googling the term to see what comes up? Many posts explaining or talking about why the term is problematic. People downvoting are trying to ignore facts they dislike, but that doesn’t make facts go away.
Well according to the past hacker news thread I linked, it’s not racist but people find it sexist. That is also what many of the top google results for the term report
Because people come from a wide variety of backgrounds with a wide variety of experiences and knowledge that informs their opinions of things, so that one group of people such as many hacker news commenters may take the term to be non-controversial there are other large groups that have different experiences. wishing they didn’t won’t chance that fact.
On hacker news it may seem like there is little difference in opinion, but keep in mind hacker news readers are a fairy like minded subsample of the population.
No I mean in what sense could it possibly be “sexist”? It’s not demeaning to women, at least not more so than to men. It might be a bit raunchy, but in a gender neutral way.
It appears that the beliefs of most of the people who are opposed to it are based on incorrect assumptions (for example kimono -> geisha). Put another way, the people who are using it are neither intending to be insulting, racist, or sexist, and the people complaining about don't have a legitimate reason to be unhappy, because their analysis is just wrong.
That line of argument is probably not going to convince HR or a lot of 50% of the nation.
If you play a word association game, having people say the first word or words that come to mind when they see the word “kimono” what do you think the top few will be?
My guess is that for an average American, the top three would be Japan, geisha and clothing.
What do you think most Americans would say? And what are your top three?
This is so stupid I don't even know what to say. Geishas have kimonos hence expressions involving kimonos are sexist?
Samurai also wear kimonos, as do priests and sumo wrestlers. Sure, the general public is uneducated but come on, this is reaching.
I seriously doubt most people even make the connection between geishas and kimonos. In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s.
That also makes more sense for the expressions, since they are easy to open. An actual kimono takes 10 minutes to open, it's probably the least sexually suggestive garment in the world.
Okay righty there you got it. You just said why many people would find the phrase sexist (you actually say most people)
> “ In fact, most people don't even mean kimono when they say kimono, they mean a vaguely asiatic thin robe, pretty popular in the 80s”
The difficulty in understanding how most people would react to the phrase appears to be because you’re judging it based on your understanding of the term, not on what you yourself said is the general public’s understanding.
No, that's the thing. Even if we pretend it's a female garment (even American "kimonos" aren't), I really don't see why using the word in a turn of phrase would be "sexist".
It's not implying in any way that women are prone to flashing, that women would be in any way inferior, or that actual women should open their actual kimonos. You are just using the image of a (supposedly) female garment.
Just like saying "like a kick in the balls" isn't sexist. It doesn't imply you want to kick men or anything like that.
I would be more than happily to be pulled up to HR if a coworker reported me for saying "open kimono" (not a phrase I would normally say). I'm sure HR would have a wonderful time talking to my lawyer.
As others have already explained: it’s not an offensive phrase and kimonos are certainly not most commonly associated with women, so what’s your goal here?
They’re basically t-shirts. The cut differs on men and women as a function of fashion, suitability to body type, and some formal rules (e.g. wearing a family crest historically made it a different kimono subtype).
There was a period during the late 20th century where kimonos were only in fashion for women (men wore western styles except at weddings) but both historically and presently kimonos are for men and women. Random people on the street who say differently are probably just misinformed about a culture they don’t live in.
Tying it back to the phrase used… this cultural dissonance is why it’s generally difficult to import phrases/metaphors from foreign cultures: people simply misunderstand you.
It's both racist and sexist that Ashley thinks kimonos are female attire and that opening a kimono is sexual.
If your mental image of a kimono wearer is a vulnerable Japanese woman, as it may be if you are an American that's still reverberating with echos of WW2 racism, then Ashley's disgust makes some sense.
Why would "open kimono" be "inexcusable"? It just means "without hiding anything". Like almost any abstract expression, you're taking something concrete and using it in an abstract sense, it doesn't mean she should actually be naked, even as an innuendo.
I really don't understand why it would be offensive. Is it because kimonos are (originally) an "ethnic" (i.e. non-American) thing? Or is it related to the American panic about nudity?
It's because some have deemed that anything that has origins from a foreign culture is off limits.
The one that gets me the most is someone taking the phrase "Chinese wall" as being offensive. The phrase means a hard separation of business units in some companies, such as analysts evaluating companies and investment banking units trying to win business from those companies.
I always took it to mean "Well, there is one country that's rather famous for having an incredibly extensive barrier that serves to separate 2 areas." I literally have no understanding of how this could even be considered racist, if anything it's praising an incredible human feat and using it metaphorically.
> Strange to hear an Apple manager using it, but I wouldn't assume they were implying anything or had ill intent.
Yes, I can imagine oblivious men repeating it if they did not realize it could be interpreted sexually. However you do deserve to be called out if you continue using it while feigning ignorance. Your response should simply be, "oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize the implications of this phrase. I'll stop using it." And if you can't do that then HR should get involved. It sounds like that is what was happening. Then she threatened to make her case more widely known and Apple decided, "alright, it's better if you're not employed here while you pursue that."
Looking past her editorializing, the Apple communications she leaked aren't really unreasonable. She raised concerns about harassment, so Apple started an investigation. She then complains that the investigation was "nonconsensual", despite being the one to raise the concerns. She then requested a second investigation, which Apple started. The part about being placed on administrative leave is particularly confusing, because this article says that she requested to be placed on the administrative leave.
Her Tweets are hyper-dramatic. She calls her Employee Relations contacts "Employee Retaliation" and even insinuates that she thinks Apple might assault her at her home after they requested a meeting:
> Any bets if I get a literal knock on my physical door from #Apple today?
> Hey #Apple, "This feels a little like witness intimidation. I let @NLRB know." Love, Ashley
> Clutches panic button & Mace while still laying on floor pondering the brutality of U.S. capitalism...
Source: https://twitter.com/ashleygjovik/status/1436080433175818259