I'm not okay with letting brilliant people be harassed. Even from a purely cost/benefit standpoint, allowing a toxic environment will drive out more talent than we'd lose by eliminating the harassers.
Agreed, but at the same time I think this matter shouldn't be broadcast publicly until the investigation finishes. If he did do what he said, then the investigation should confirm it, and then he should get blackballed for harassment because it's not ok.
But first step should be proving it, not blackballing someone because of allegations. I think we can all agree that removing someone who harassed is a good thing, while removing someone who is only alleged to have harassed is a bad thing. And that distinction probably needs to be made by someone qualified, not an activist or the general public.
> Agreed, but at the same time I think this matter shouldn't be broadcast publicly until the investigation finishes.
As we've seen over and over, very often there's no investigation unless the matter is broadcast publicly. So much easier to sweep things under the rug.
Still, maybe we should publicize that allegations have occurred without specifying against who? And making it public if an organisation refuses to investigate. That should give the same public result without the need to attack someone who is only alleged.
> I'm not totally okay with blackballing brilliant people for touching someone's thigh.
Are you saying you'd be fine with it if they weren't brilliant? Or that touching the thigh of a junior in your organization, who you are also hitting on in texts, should just be OK in general, for both brilliant and non-brilliant managers?
I mean either way I think you were born a few decades too late, but for clarity's sake, I'm curious what you're getting at.
Did we read the same article? More than touching her thigh, the accusation described a prolonged unreciprocated infatuation with her. That would surely make me uncomfortable in my workplace.
There was a lot more and a lot worse than that, as you'll see if you read the post that's now pointed to above. See my top comment for explanation of the change.
It's easy for companies to fire people at the lower levels or even top management who are for the most part replaceable.
The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations (and perhaps eventual convictions). But let's forget the high bar of convictions, for a moment.
If we soon begin to embroil anyone and everyone who may have said something inappropriate or who had someone interpret something as inappropriate, we'll end up including people who are _essential_ to a company or companies.
When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc.
Else, a less discerning competitor could scoop up problematic talent.
Look at the diversity, globally, of behaviors supported by an equally diverse set of culturally formed ethos. It's about dropping orders of magnitude off the frequency of these situations.
There's a lot of assumptions baked into that cake. The most obvious being what's considered acceptable behavior in a man by his female colleagues. There are a lot of countries where this kind of thing is considered part of the job by women.
It should not be a basic human urge to touch peoples thighs and buttocks without their consent. It has never occurred to me to touch someone sexually without their consent and I’m pretty sure I’m normal in that respect.
If your reputation is that important to your career, you will find a way to control your urges. Either that or men don't belong in leadership because they can't control themselves?
The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations (and perhaps eventual convictions). But let's forget the high bar of convictions, for a moment.
You mean like Weinstein, Spacey, and Singer?
When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc.
I haven't seen people get fired for just saying the wrong thing. These cases are mostly way beyond that. Some people have gotten accused (Affleck) but they have been brushed off as either not having evidence or not being serious.
This isn't "oops I made a mistake" behavior, it's predatory behavior and predators are hard to rehabilitate.
Touching someone's thigh when they're presenting their poster at an academic conference is completely out of line. They have to be there to present their work to people, not get sexually harassed, and that's even ignoring his other behaviour. You probably shouldn't be flirting with people at a poster session anyway.
The original Bloomberg article didn't make it so clear, but the blog post that's now linked to above describes a lot more than "the touching of a thigh".
Of course, Weinstein, Spacey are pretty clear-cut predatory [I think]. On the other hand someone who "hits on" or "chats up" colleagues because they are single or because they are cads, isn't necessarily predatory --however can become harassment, non-sexual as well as sexual, if boundaries are crossed.
My point isn't that this case isn't bad behavior, it's that we will get closer to a grey area or undefined area and will have to have a more nuanced response to those (mis)behaviors.
That's . . . not what happened in this article, though. The individual supposedly grabbed her around her waist, torso, and thighs without permission while in a swimming pool. This in addition to his other comments seems reasonably clear cut to me.
You're right. This person did more then chat up and allegedly continued with unwanted physical sexual advances.
Never the less, I think we will come to a time when companies will have to come up with something beside "zero tolerance". It's not a forgone conclusion, but I think we will come to a more nuanced approach as more people get caught up in these scandals.
Certainly the likes of Weinstein and Spacey have very little redeemability (However, we see Polanski had some abroad if not at home) but there is another class of people who do act "ungentlemanly/unladily" whatever, but not all the way to sexual harassment. For example, if we take Dustin Hoffman at his word, yes, it's uncalled for, but is it beyond the pale, given the times it took place?
Have you got any specific examples of a "zero tolerance" response to something that wasn't "pretty clear-cut predatory"?
I think companies and society have always had a clear consensus on these issues; the recent events have merely been pointing out that 'ignore and suppress' isn't a very good response.
Musician cancels his band's tour because of non-public accusation of "sexual coercion" in a relationship. What were his other options when someone presented this claim to him, presumably with some probability of the claim going public?
Who is the party who is imposing zero-tolerance here? The band leader disclosed the problem and also decided the "punishment," such as it was. I understand that you're just one person and are not representing this finding as the maximally bad situation. But I would say that if this is the worst that can be found, it's clear to me that we're in no immediate danger of jump-the-gun, zero-tolerance situations becoming common.
One reason we have such a guideline is that it takes time for the community reaction to actually become clear. The downvote situation usually rights itself, as it has—quite decisively—above. Only a single downvote affected that comment to begin with.
"The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations"
There's already a big precedent. It's Mark Hurd at HP. He was basically asked to resign for less severe incident than what these guys are facing, even though he did spectacular thing to HP stock price after years of Fiorina mismanagement.
Yes, but he's still replaceable. Imagine you have a biotech. The main or _the_ sr scientist there which the whole company's future depends on, gets embroiled in something like this. So they kiss the company good bye, or do they seek to rehabilitate?
Umberto Eco discusses that very issue in his book "How to Write A Thesis". Question: "My advisor is an arsehole." Answer: "Dude, you knew that before."
In its essence, the problem will always exist. What if he/she kills someone? What if he/she has a heart attack? If your problem is depending on a single person for the company to work, then you should count on the fact that you are probably screwed.
True but deaths and incarcerations are not something a company can control (perh some places you can bribe against incarceration) but a company can control when and how they fire or not fire someone for misconduct.
Despite people's egos, I think everyone is more replaceable than they think they are, and often a person's effectiveness is so tied to a single organization that they would be nowhere near as effective elsewhere.
> people who are essential to the success of a company
That's a myth. People leave companies all the time and they continue to exist. Executives are not paid high salaries because they contribute anything special other than what any other person would do. It is just that they, as a group, have the power to give themselves high compensation. If I were part of a group of people who decided their own salary levels I would also increase it!
Indeed. Amit Singhal was allegedly fired for sexual harassment after 18 years at Google. I don't believe someone starts harassing women after almost two decades. But as the head of Search, and a guy who rewrote Google's search engine from scratch back in the day... he was almost certainly protected a long time. And even when he was fired, he got to "retire".
I presume he was too mission critical to get rid of as long as they could keep it quiet.
This is getting crazy. Guilty until proven innocent. Seems overly sensitive to me.... there's a huge different between rape / assault and crude jokes or attempted flirting.
Maybe I just don't understand the other perspective enough.
Isn't the other perspective having a stranger touch your thigh and send you unwanted messages during and after a professional conference?
Is that flirting or a joke? Would you want that?
He's not guilty by law, he's been accused, and it's very possible there is enough evidence behind the accusations to make it warranted. Most people don't want to go out of their way to pretend to be the victim (not great word, but nothing more appropriate) of sexual harassment or assault.
Maybe if there's some compelling evidence or something. But one person's word shouldn't be enough to end someone's career at a company, especially if it's not even at the office.
To me, it seems to be "harassment" if the female isn't interested, but that can be a very fine line between the natural relationship between men and women that almost always requires the man to make an advancement and put himself out there.
But his career didn't end. They suspended him pending the results of the investigation. If the investigation turns up nothing, they would presumably reinstate him.
It would appear his reputation has been well known for a long time, that is precisely how everyone immediately knew who he was even though he wasn't explicitly named in the blog post.
This doesn't seem to be a case of a good man being dragged down by an angry mob. This is a well known jerk being shown the door.
What you think of as "the natural relationship between men and women" is not natural at all. It might seem natural to you, but it is an artefact of the culture you live in.
If you are a phisically attractive man, women WILL make advances at you and try to have sex with you. I don't know about the U.S., but here in Europe and in Canada it certainly is the case.
Try to think of men and women as exactly the same, just with different genitals and bodies. This might be an oversimplification, but it is nearer to the truth then our common preconceptions about men and women. Before I got to that conclusion I used to have only male friends and I didn't get along well with women. Now my closest friends are women.
If you seriously believe this "natural relationship" stuff, you might be part of the problem. Also, you're restricting yourself to a certain kind of relationship to women and you're probably missing out on some great experiences, including sexual encounters.
I'm married. I have only my own dozens of years of anecdotal experience of myself and others. Your world view of "exactly the same" can't be changed, but simple testosterone and estrogen differences alone would argue a lot of differences for the average person.
When women start asking men out at a similar rate as men, then maybe there isnt a "natural relationship" anymore. A large preponderance of data from places like Tinder, OK Cupid, etc completely contradict you in a very statistically signifiant way. Call it cultural all you want. I'm just going to call it common sense.
To me it seems like a witch hunt nowadays.
You need just an unverified comment to get fired and to wear a mark of blemish for life.
When the mobs filled with "righteous hatred" are judge and jury of a non-existent trial we know that there is something scarily wrong with our society.
For now suspended, but do you reckon that his life and his career would proceed like before?
I believe that he is finished.
I don't think that he should go unscathed if he really behaved inappropriately, but between that and destroying him based on an unverified comment there is an ocean in the middle.
I hear these kinds of comments every time there's some pushback against such behavior.
Despite your shrill protestations, there is no "mob filled with righteous hatred" going around. Where action is being taken, it is with a preponderance of evidence.
Only those who have actually indulged in such behavior need to worry.
Excuse me? How would you find "preponderance of evidence" for a leg touch? I'm genuinely curious.
Once while I was stretching on my chair in the office I bumped inadvertently with one colleague that was passing behind me.
Do you think that I should be fired and my career ended if she suddenly wrote in a blog post that I touched her?
That seems hypothetical, if you did that and sent private messages etc. then I do think there should be some repercussions. I've seen those accusations happen twice and no one got fired, but both victim quit shortly after. This did get an discussion going about how to deal with it, and there were very few people who thought it was a firing offence. I hope that is changing with younger more aware people getting into the workplace.
Although we did already know that there is something scarily wrong with our society, given the ease with which many predators have routinely been molesting, coercing and raping for decades.
Yes he touched her leg without her permission. And it would be unpleasant for me if someone touched my leg without my permission. But to be honest it has happened to me before and I think ruining the person's life would be over reacting. A more appropriate response would be to have them on a temporary probationary period.
Most people don't want to go out of their way to pretend they'd been harassed (although some would). But it should not be about either the plaintiff or the defendant. It should be about the actual evidence (if criminal beyond the reasonable doubt) and the punishment should always match the crime.
The academic world runs on reputation, and nothing, nothing else. Putting someone on probation, even once, destroys their career, or at least halts it for decades.
Which is why there are documented murders that people who were in danger of getting hit with academic sanctions committed to prevent those sanctions. Even if secret, the people imposing those sanctions are the ones deciding over the future career of the targets of those sanctions, so secrecy does not matter.
What I mean to say is that, firstly, there will be extreme reactions from individuals to any academic action against them. Truly extreme. At the very least they will blow up any cooperation there might exist. Second, everybody else will understand these extreme reactions, because they are justified by the ridiculous cost these sanctions impose on them. Addendum to the second one: often the supporters of people getting accused will threaten imposing sanctions on students of the professors going against their students, if they consider them valuable enough, for the more vague accusations (like plagiarism. Since technically having a single formula in a presentation unattributed is plagiarism, and everybody constantly does that, ... What I mean to say is that there is a LOT of "usual" plagiarism for more basic things and also a lot of accidental plagiarism, which results in that if you're a member of an academic board, you can bring this charge against virtually anyone at almost any time. Add to that that a lot of professors also have cases of less-than-accidental-but-currently-unpunished plagiarism to their name. Things that they committed where the victim couldn't bring a coherent case, but any of their colleagues certainly can construct a coherent case on behalf of their victims. So with one supporter in an academic board, you can get away with a lot. Without a supporter in an academic board, you're career can and will be torpedoed as soon as anyone in that board thinks it'll help them in some way to do that)
There are 100 academics, minimum, for every position available (which is one reason why so many "little positions" exist, like board members of conferences). That means one flaw essentially means you don't have a shred of a chance to achieve anything.
This means there are no "light" academic sanctions, and the result is that like the medival and muslim punishment for stealing, it causes extreme responses. It means that a thief in the middle east will shoot up a market rather than be arrested for petty theft, and it means a grad student will sue a university for millions to avoid a little note on their diploma saying he got suspended for a week for destroying some university property.
So the system of managing academics need to change, to allow normal investigations without prejudicing future advancement? Sounds fixable. Otherwise we seem to have a system where no action can be taken against an academic because any action could be career threatening.
> I think ruining the person's life would be over reacting.
If lives are ruined, it is the harrasser's own doing. It is precisely the fact that such incidents are routinely shrugged off that harrassers feel emboldened to continue. Perhaps if they realized their careers were on the line, they would check their hormones and act more appropriately.
Furthermore, this line of thought completely ignores the lives and careers that the harassers have already ruined. By treating junior colleagues as sexual opportunities, this robs the field of future talent by pushing them out.
I wonder if time would come when it would be addressed how many lives were ruined by SJW. I doubt that matter would be addressed by ruining _their_ lives, which is kinda sad.
That is not correct. If an overreaction happens the blame would be on the person who overreacts. I do not think that even if we had evidence that disproportionately harsh consequences would prevent sexual misconduct, that the ends would justify the mean if we ruin someone's life by applying an unfair punishment for their wrongdoing outside the legal boundaries.
I would disagree that an isolate incident of inappropriate touch or a suggestive comment or attempt to initiate a sexual relationship with an underling would ruin the victim's life or career. It is a different story if it is proven that the harraser also ignored the rejection or if they used their position of power to pressure the victim for example by threatening to ruin their career. Not differentiating between these two scenarios would not be fair to the harraser in the first scenario and it wouldn't be fair to the victim in the second scenario.
That's a dangerous question to ask. By framing it that way, you turn a clear cut matter of overstepping professional boundaries into a personal question.
Kind of tautological. The thing no one wants is non-consensual behavior, which by definition is something you do not want. So yes it is personal to the extent that you own your consent.
Sure. The question asked if you would want unwanted messages, which is certainly tautological. It's a pointless question if interpreted literally.
I interpreted it more as asking people to think about how they would feel in that situation. That's dangerous, because it opens the door for people to say, "it wouldn't be that big a deal to me."
That would be fine if personal feelings were relevant, but they're not. It's unacceptable for someone to treat others this way, regardless of whether they accept others treating them the same way in return.
Touching someone in a very personal way, at a professional conference, during the professional conference?
Obviously we can only ever speak for our personal opinions, but at a professional conference, during the working hours of that conference, I want professional behaviour. I'm there to hear and talk about my profession; some dickhead who sees it as an opportunity to cheat on his wife feeling me up? I take a dim view. Even some tosser trying his luck with a "cheeky" remark (and those tossers always know just how to pitch it for plausible deniability - I know when I've heard someone being out of line, but they act so hurt and so innocent when you bring it up) ruins the mood, and not just for the target.
It's not crazy. The problem is that lot of these people are position of power (in the sense they can influence your career, rewards, recommendations or job significantly). So even if the gesture is purely suggestive, women has choice of either not give in and compromising their career OR welcome further advancement to make man happy. The bottomline is that there should not be even suggestive gestures in work environment. The relationship needs to be purely professional. If you are not going to grab and squeeze another man's butt then don't do it to a women. Think about your job prospects being dependent on giving in to someone's suggestive sexual advancements. How would you feel about that?
In this climate of hyper sensitivity, I doubt there is anyone who is not quietly reflecting on their past behavior and wondering whether they're going to end up in an HR meeting.
I have never touched someone’s thighs without their consent, much less while they are presenting their research at a conference. I’ve never even hugged without consent in a professional setting. I’m really not worried nor am I wondering when HR is going to ring me up.
I'm not defending those actions. The "showing interest in someone" is something that happens daily in work environments everywhere and all it takes is for someone to feel jilted or have a bad day for an HR complaint to appear.
Frankly, you should just avoid interacting with women in a professional environment unless it's strictly about work.
Search #metoo on any social media platform and you'll find thousands of complaints about coworkers and bosses. HR departments are in a tough position right now attempting to determine what course of action they should take. Should they take all of these allegations seriously? Maybe they should.
Edit: Since I can't reply to your comment, I'll just say: You're asking for something impossible to provide. I can't post formal HR complaints on the internet. But HR should be taking social media complaints about coworkers or managers seriously and just as valid as any formal complaint. If you disagree with that, you should consider reflecting on just how serious this matter is to anyone that has felt harassed by "locker room talk", comments on their looks, and other crass speech in the workplace.
Tweeting is not an HR complaint. So you have any examples of that, or were you exaggerating?
You've twice now given me examples of things that aren't "an HR complaint filed for someone showing interest." That's all I'm interested in. Can you back up that assertion, or not?
Interesting that you've managed to twist "a tweet" into being equivalent to an HR complaint. Perhaps that's the bigger issue.
But I also just scrolled through a few hundred or maybe a few thousand #metoo tweets. I didn't see a single example that fit the definition of "complaining that a co-worker expressed interest".
Can you give some examples of those tweets? I feel like that at least should be possible.
I'm not going to dispute op's claim that he's never sexually harassed someone. I never asserted he did in the first place. My point is very simple: there are a lot complaints about people right now and I believe most people will be be reflecting on their past actions and determining whether they've behaved appropriately.
Don't be snarky. You're not adding to the discussion.
Unverified allegations are a terrible way to deal with any systematic problem. Over time they open the gates to terrible abuses in themselves. That said, this approach has credibility because you have litany of viscously abusive men who managed to make themselves impervious to any other way of being sanctioned.
Get enough of that and a larger number of people will view the ends of dethroning these types as a justifying the means of trial by publicity. But if this bad way of solving things continues, eventually there will be a counter-counter reaction.
However, rather dealing with the situation, "sht storm to sht storm", what would be nice would be to have a process that allows bad behavior to be dealt with immediately and effectively and clear standard letting any potential bad-behaver know they're going to face consequences. The reason for companies to have strong, clear policies on this sort of thing is to prevent events of this sort from causing more chaos.
It seems reasonable that X person who's moving into a position that is going to make them irreplaceable to the company should be investigated even more.
Also, applying strong pressure on a subordinate for sex may seem like "just flirting" but it is actually abusive and illegal because it puts the subordinate in the position of fearing retaliation if the refuse. It's different from a person being offensive to a person that don't have a lot of leverage over.
> Unverified allegations are a terrible way to deal with any systematic problem
In order to deal with any a systemic problem, you first need allegations to be made. Presumably Google's investigative team (which I've heard is very good) will be able to check the veracity of those allegations, and make a recommendation to his manager.
Unverified allegation are a terrible way to deal with this but they are better than nothing.
That said, one would hope that if virtually all universities, corporations and VCs put sufficiently strong policies in place, bad behavior would occur less to begin with and be dealt with quickly when an individual does so behavior rather than having a given individual engage in a long streak of behavior that only stops when a large number of people go public.
Nobody does anything until there's corroborating evidence. Read the entire article; other people came forward and confirmed that "S" had harassed them or someone they knew.
I agree -- this paints a much clearer picture of why the behavior in question was inappropriate.
It reminds me very much of behavior my girlfriend has experienced as a public high school teacher. I could give you an entire laundry list of comments and advances male coworkers have made to her, ranging from mildly questionable to pretty creepy. It really makes me sympathize with Lum, and I find what she's describing here very believable.
I agree. It's the original source and more substantive to boot. We've changed the URL to that from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-16/google-re.... Thanks! We always appreciate better URLs but I particularly appreciate it in this case, because the discussion was being skewed unnecessarily.
Seems a strange version of 'guilty until proven innocent'.
""Google is investigating the matter," Gina Scigliano, a company spokeswoman, said."
...
""I would like to defend myself against her accusations, but the matter has already been referred to my university’s EEO team, which I’m told will be conducting a full investigation into the matter," Carlin wrote in an email to Bloomberg, referring to the University of Minnesota’s Equal Employment Opportunity department. "So I’ve been instructed not to say anything more publicly pending the results of that investigation."
"Evan Lapiska, a spokesman for the university, said the school is "aware of public accusations" involving Carlin but declined to comment further citing privacy protections."
This might be an unpopular opinion but out of the myriad of strong women who are coming out and talking about these horrible experiences, none of them thought about actually documenting them? Like getting actual proof rather than just allegations? I am not saying none of these happened but I am yet to hear of a case where the allegations are supported by tangible proof. (Recordings, emails, etc.)
Facebook likely has the messages. The accusers in these episodes have been honest, and that’s why we are not seeing demands for evidence. You will not hear S demand the Facebook messages. The only defense he will use is being naive, ignorant, or having “issues he needs to work through”. If he demanded proof, then you may hear more reporting on evidence. The interesting thing is that optically, it works out best to feign guilty until proven innocent rather than challenge to be found guilty.
Yeah there was a huge overreaction to Matt Damon making that exact point the other day. Any sort of attempt to bring nuance to the conversation is interpreted as being apologist.
I wouldn't say so. I've seen a few of these threads in my time on this site. It's very common for the first few responses, and the ones that are up-voted early, to be folks doing what can only be described as concern trolling ("I can't date my coworkers?" "Guilty until proven innocent!" or, as in this thread, "zomg blackballing" for a guy that hasn't even been fired, etc.). Often times folks will even flag these stories off the front page.
Later on, cooler, more egalitarian heads seem to prevail, but things are always pretty dirty during the first hour or so one of these stories is on the front page. I can only be thankful that the folks doing the upvoting are not the dominant voice in the direction that we're taking as a society r.e. respect for women in the workplace and elsewhere.
I don't really care about the industry in which he is in.
I'm just wary of witch hunts started from nothing just to destroy an individual.
I'm certain that this is not the case, but how would you react if someone that has a grudge against you would write an accusing unverified comment and your career would be finished because of this?
I don't agree with that take, but I'd like to hear of another industry which has taken a harder stance against SH than tech.
Even progressive Hollywood, as progressive as they are, have not even scratched the surface. I don't doubt there is a reason for the "casting couch" cliché/meme/stereotype. I'm sure there is a lot of housecleaning to be had that's yet to begin.
This is a new consciousness and it will take some time to work things out and figure out how we go forward without going overboard.
If Hollywood isn't composed of progressive people who like the Vision set forth by the Soros funded causes[1] and donate to progressive causes, etc., I don't know who is.
Maybe you're saying they only talk the talk... That might be fair to say.
Why does support for voting rights, civil liberties, human rights, government transparency, media fact-checking, public education, international cooperation and cultural exchange, campaign finance reform, etc. now constitute one man’s capitalized “Vision”? In general those are fundamental western values supported by broad majorities of the American public since long before Soros.
Hollywood is somewhat unique in that (a) it is located in a region with center-left politics relative to the USA, and (b) it has a concentration of rich celebrities who come from an arty background rather than a business background, and therefore have different values and priorities, and use their personal public stature to promote those. That doesn’t mean that it is politically monolithic, or that local businesses and other institutions are particularly “progressive”.
Are you saying Hollywood is not in the 80th or 90th percentile of progressive jurisdictions in the US, cuz I'd stand corrected. All I'm saying is they and the industry composed of progressive types, but you seem to be telling me, they are not progressive. As if they are Biloxi MS.
My point about Soros is he's considered progressive or representative of it.
Yours is one comment that made more sense before we changed the thread to point to its current URL (see my comment at top). The Bloomberg article doesn't make it as clear as the blog post does that, for example, assault was involved, or that the pattern was so persistent over time.
HN has hosted many previous threads about sexual harrassment and sexual assault in the tech industry, and most haven't had the quality you rightly object to.
The beauty of technology, hacking solutions together, and putting petty BS aside to solve a bigger problem is the heart of the developer community. Any attack or criticism based on anything other than merit goes entirely against that. Even if developers don't believe in equality and egalitarianism on a moral level, I'd like to think that on a purely practical level they want both 50%'s of the population to be working at their peak capability.
This is why, jurisdiction providing, you always record everything at work these days. Don't leave it to chance. Whether you need to make an accusation, or you need to defend against one, records clear things up spectacularly fast.
P.S. I recognize that California generally requires two-party consent for recording.
Do you work in an office or just remotely? If the former, do you carry a recorder with you or how do the logistics work? I'd be interested to know more about your implementation if you don't mind sharing
..after I wrote that, I remembered I do know something about that. A few years ago, I was arrested and lost my relationship and was made homeless etc when the police believed false allegations about my behaviour, made by my partner's 11-yr old daughter. (Nothing sexual or too terrible, just that I'd done overly threatening things one night, enough to make her feel afraid.) But I still wouldnt record everything. Sometimes in disagreements with my current partner we wish we had recorded the whole argument; that would be very useful.
Now I think he might have been on to something. Is it really common to go swimming at a conference with others attendees of a different sex? Crazy parties with booze et al at a conference like NIPS? What is going on here? Why even have these non-professional outlets, distracting from the professionalism of the conferences themselves?
A lot of conferences occur at hotels, and most hotels do not have gender segregated pools. So if you fancy a dip and you're at a conference, you're likely going to be swimming with colleagues and counterparts of all genders.
There is a glass ceiling because due to the potential of sexual relationships and misconduct, workplace relations between men and women must be formal. The type of informality men use with other men in the workplace isn't particularly possible between men and women. And that informal mentorship or aspect to work tends to be what drives a lot of advancement.
It's an argument that informal aspects to career success need to be minimized in general. It has other aspects beyond that...all the bullshit of placating or being a puppy dog for your founder or boss in the name of networking, or success too often being who can put a good word in for you rather than a good record sucks.
I don't think it's common, but if you host NIPS in a city with a beach (hey long beach), you may at some point want to go for a swim, and it seems pretty easy to go for a swim without getting handsy. Parties with free booze seem common to most industries with money sloshing about, there was definitely free booze for everyone who wanted some every night, including at the conference venue.
I don't think the Pence rule is necessary or helpful, I would say avoiding sexual relationships in work situations is probably a good idea in industries with highly skewed gender ratios, but many people complain that just doing that is too high a burden.
> "I don't think the Pence rule is necessary or helpful"
It isn't necessary for most people in most industries, but it is a rule that some men may need more than others. That is a matter of personal judgement.
It is also a rule for a man who wields significant power, which requires stronger boundaries to be put in place. Pence is wise to take extreme steps, but most people aren't the US Vice-President, and don't need to go to the same extremes.
Or maybe he's not onto something and it's totally possible to not be an asshole and try to take advantage of the situation when left alone with a person of the other sex?
I don't see how Pence's comment makes any good sense. If you do what he says, you either:
I tend to believe that women are people, and that not all people will respect you if you respect them back.
Also you have presented a classic example of the fallacy of false dilemma. There are other options, such as:
- Worry about false accusations, particularly when you are a person of high power where political stakes are high (and politics bring out the worst in people)
- Are big into risk reduction/minimization. It is undeniable that it is less risky from an allegation standpoint to follow the "Pence rule"
That said, I think the "Pence rule" isn't all good because it has room for unfairness. For example, much business is conducted over meals while traveling. Meals and other outings can be great ways to get to know your boss, subordinates, and other coworkers. If one goes out to dinner with only male coworkers, that is unfair to women in the workplace, particularly when that person is the boss. For that reason I think if one follows "the Pence rule" they need to have the same standard with people from all genders, so never go to dinner one-on-one with another man if they wouldn't do so with a woman. I'm really whipping a dead horse here, sorry.
While I agree with your assertion, with regarding equality that one should not go to meal with anyone else following the Pence rule, however there is something I think you're not taking in consideration.
Right now, socially-wise, women have the upper hand on making claims of sexual harassment. The same power does not go to men.
This imbalance makes the "Pence Rule" make more sense.
If you don't see the "good sense" then maybe the problem is in you. Politicians should probably watch what they say, but they should definitely watch what they do. In the age of a random accusation ending people's careers (this year's events made this painfully obvious to anyone even outside of the college space, the #metoo overreaction and what happened to James Damore being prime examples), it makes perfect sense to watch who you're meeting with and under what circumstances. Don't "trust women"? What about just don't trust people. Blindly trusting women, as if they're a special case of a human, that's like something from a neo-marxist book of a social justice activist. Nonsense. Defending yourself from an accusation is infinitely easier when you can prove that you in fact weren't at the place at the time.
The other side of why this makes "good sense" is the temptation angle - you can't get tempted if you don't have an opportunity. Unlike what the lefties think, Christians are people too and they get tempted just like other people, especially when drunk. Men are like recovering addicts when it comes to mating (all heterosexual or homosexual men with regular levels of libido are like that, if you say this doesn't apply to you, you are a liar). Resisting a beautiful woman/man flirting with you is like being a heroin addict trying to not shoot up a dose in front of you. Of course you can resist, but it's hard, requires a lot of self control and most people are incapable of doing it without first experiencing the drawbacks. Is there another option? Don't put yourself into that situation in the first place... if you're married, there's no reason for you to be alone with likely sexual partners when alcohol is involved. All the cries about "sexism" of what Pence said are absolute nonsense and probably stem from the left's disrespect of traditional family values and marriage (they don't see having 50 partners in a year as a problem and an "open relationship" is almost a goal for them). There were multiple cases this year (not two, but like a dozen) of self-proclaimed male feminists who supposedly "trusted women" and "trusted themselves to demonstrate appropriate behavior" who should be the beacons of proper behavior when it comes to "respecting women" who ended up being sexual harassers, rapists or even murderers in one case. Does this prove anything? No, but it illustrates that "trusting yourself" is easy to say and hard to do even if your stated goal is exactly that.
Not that it matters, but since this accusation is very likely - no, I'm not a Christian... or a Republican... or an American.
"In the age of a random accusation ending people's careers (this year's events made this painfully obvious to anyone even outside of the college space, the #metoo overreaction and what happened to James Damore being prime examples),"
Do you have any specific examples of "a random accusation ending people's careers"? As far as I know, all of the recent media activity has had confirmative evidence and Damore 1) was never accused of anything other than being none-too-bright, 2) is a significantly different case, and 3) was hardly a random accusation.
P.S. The sexism of Pence's statement probably has more to do with the part about requiring any aides that work late with him to be men. Rather limits the career of any female aide, no?
P.P.S. Don't forget that lefties don't have blood like normal humans; they have a thick, black tarry substance that smells of sulphur.
When did "neo-marxism" become a slur? Did people just stick "neo" in the front for no reason? Are there people who refer to themselves as "neo-marxists" or is it just some word that goes next to "postmodernism" and "third wave feminism" as words that make people mad but have been completely detached from their actual meaning.
"Marxism" is actually really out of style in modern left leaning academic and social justice activism circles, since it focuses on exactly one axis of oppression.
> Men are like recovering addicts when it comes to mating (all heterosexual or homosexual men with regular levels of libido are like that, if you say this doesn't apply to you, you are a liar).
For a politician it's good opsec (maybe not great, for the bother it is). Interpreting your post charitably, I questioned whether Pence had these rules as a politician or all life long.
From TA: "During his 12 years in Congress, Pence had rules to..."
- Are concerned about potential damaging baseless accusations/rumors/gossip from third parties that you don't trust?
Necessary disclaimer, because internet discussions are great:
Do not interpret this as an endorsement of Pence's policy. I am not interested in arguing about the character of Pence. I am simply pointing out that there are other valid reasons that someone could adopt such a policy.
Yep - a pool party with professional women at a conference is just asking for trouble.
If you don't invite them you're being "exclusionary." If you do invite them, then 7 years later when you're about to be appointed to the board of directors she writes a blog post about how you drunkenly grabbed her waist and told her she had nice tits.
Tech companies encourage it too... because they want us all to have our entire social lives wrapped up in the company. Oh - you don't want drinks with coworkers after-hours? Maybe you're not a cultural fit? F--- you, I do the job you pay me for, let me keep work and social life completely separate.
I heard of a similar story with Linus Torvalds in that he is worried he would be accused of such things so he avoids mentoring or being alone with women at conferences or gatherings. Is that true or just an unfounded rumor?
(Not that I am implying the person in the article is not guilty or it was an unfair accusation, just commenting on what Pence is doing).
"Is it really common to go swimming at a conference with others attendees of a different sex?"
That is pretty common in pretty much any kind of society where water is present. Swimming is normal social accepted activity and swimming pools ceased to be gender segregated years ago.
"Crazy parties with booze et al at a conference like NIPS?"
Crazy parties are not common, but booze at conferences is common pretty much everywhere except in Arab countries.
"Why even have these non-professional outlets, distracting from the professionalism of the conferences themselves?"
Conferences were always largely networking and socialization - even years ago. Even when they were male only. And they will always be that way - you all could have just exchange papers otherwise.
The old rules about sexual conduct were very clear: making a sexual advance is wrong unless you are married to that person. After the sexual revolution the rules have become very murky. Take the Hollywood scandals. Why exactly is it wrong to offer to exchange sex for career help, according to the new standard? Most people find it intuitively wrong, certainly, but that is mob rule. There need to be new objective rules for the 21st century that are as unambiguous as the old rules.
Not only are they human, many of them young. And humans like to have fun, which include boozing, dancing, socialising, and -- for many -- hooking up (a surprising number or researchers end up marrying other researchers, in my department probably about 1/2). Presenting a paper is great pressure, and once that done ... time to celebrate. Conferences are a great opportunity to see old friends. In 20 years of being an academic, I've never once been to a conference that didn't have social events of some sort. Official events are often followed up by private socialising.
Indeed, making friends is in some sense the most important function of conferences. Who wants to work with somebody they don't like?
Part of the problem here is the culture of toxic masculinity and the acceptance of harassing behavior by men as being normal, even expected.
Even though it's not 100% about men, it still being almost entirely about men and the culture among men which equates sexual aggression with status and power still makes the discussion worth framing in those terms.
We cannot know that. It has not been researched, and the victims don't talk about it.
There was a time, in Finland, when everyone assumed that domestic violence is "almost entirely about men", research proposals were ridiculed and not funded. When they eventually studied the topic, 20% of the perpetrators turned out to be women, and in aggravated assaults 50%.
so the more women speak out about these issues the more you get annoyed by it ? It's good that people realise these issues are as widespread as they are.
I'm glad that people are beginning to stand up to this type of behavior. It is completely unacceptable and has no place in our society, let alone the workplace.
That said, I do fear we may take it too far. Unwanted touching is never OK, and abusive/hurtful language is not OK either. However, I saw a poll the other day where a significant number of respondents said that asking someone on a date was sexual harassment.
There have also been a lot of cases where sex was consensual, but later on one of the parties had regrets, and now it was considered rape (even though it was consensual at the time it was happening). This sort of thing is what happened with Louis C.K. What he did was sick and weird IMHO, but the women actually consented to watching him pet his monkey, but then later after the fact had regret, and what in the moment was fine suddenly became a heinous act. If this is the standard, I think we're all screwed, because we have all undoubtedly "raped" or at least "sexually harassed" somebody.
> Sure, "a lot". But it is a very small percentage of all rape reports (obviously not counting the millions of rapes that are never reported).
Fair enough, "a lot" is most likely not accurate. It's probably a small percentage of all rape reports.
> No it's not. Not in the least.
> No they did not.
Yes, they did. His mea culpa was essentially a statement that he believed that his asking for and receiving consent wasn't valid because he didn't realize that the women's respect and admiration for him would cause them to feel pressured to consent. I don't fully disagree with his analysis there, but if the standard is that anybody who has respect for you cannot consent, we are in some trouble.
The standard is more closely "anybody that works for you cannot consent, especially when you make the first advances" which makes more sense, because it's not always possible to tell if "I want you to have sex with me" includes the subtext "Have sex with me or I'll fire you"
I am trying not to hire any professional women who are not married and old. There is no point to do that, men can do those jobs better than women as proven for years in the most successful industry of the last 30 years, the tech industry.
I don't mind hiring young good looking women for secretarial jobs though, those women don't have a chip on their soldier and are quiet happy with a bit of flirting from the well payed men in the company. The older women are more mature and confident, they can play with the men in the company like toys and are happy for any attention. All together it works perfectly for everyone, I just hope that as the company grows we will get more pressure to employ more women in the engineering side of things, but I am going to stall it as much as I can.
For everyone who seems to be skeptical of this article or skeptical of overreaction, it's just a shitty article. Read the blog post it's reporting on. It's much more damning than 'he made off color jokes' or 'he flirted awkwardly' or anything like that: https://medium.com/@kristianlum/statistics-we-have-a-problem...
This is an example of the "doesn't make sense" referred to by dang above[0] - the original pointed to the "shitty article" and now it points to the recommended blog post.
Hate to go further meta, but a number of the comments that "don't make sense" were made after the switch, and it's bothersome that these are still their takeaways.
Right before I ever attended my first conference, one of the women who was a year ahead of me in my program pulled me aside to warn about him. She told me to do my best to avoid him at the conference but “every woman has a story about him, so it’s only a matter of time.” Of course, she was right. Months before my defense, while at a poster session to present my dissertation work, he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.” I remember feeling deflated.
In the years since, he’s sent me several inappropriate private Facebook messages. In the first, he responded to a Facebook post I had made asking for people’s experiences with Lasik eye surgery with a message that some activities would become much better. Trying to deflect what I thought was going to be an awkward interaction, I responded that I was looking forward to better bird watching. He followed up with a private message that “the activity [he was] thinking about was sex, but bird watching would be better too ;)”. I ignored him. On another occasion, I posted about some data visualizations using data from a medical journal that involved the relationship between age and pubic hair. He sent me a private message explaining how the data is corroborated by his own experiences watching a certain genre of porn. What his personal preferences regarding porn are is something I definitely did not want to know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted about the data given the racy topic, but I thought it was in-bounds since it was a comment on data in a medical journal. I guess I was wrong. I responded but tried to end the conversation quickly. On another occasion, he sent me a private message out of the blue to let me know that there was another researcher with a name very similar to my own who published an article that “is even about sex, broadly defined (fecundity). You guys related?”
>... he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.”
This seems to have been their first interaction. Touching her was plainly a dumb-ass move. Plus his consistent deafness to her repeated "I'm not interested" feedback.
But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women in professional contexts, I'm immediately suspicious. Are they stylishly clueless? Are they trying to manipulate others? Are they making a point about women being free to dress as they like?
I mean, I invite you to log about outfits worn by your male and female professional colleagues. Assess overall tightness, especially legs, butt and breasts. Estimate percentage of bare skin, especially cleavage.
For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.
> But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women...
It's not at all clear from her blog post that she was dressed provocatively, or that he was sincerely commenting on the appropriateness of her appearance. This could just as easily have been a scenario where a man thinks a woman looks good and lets her know that he thinks so, while simultaneously criticizing her for his advantage, ie, negging.
But with the information we have, we just don't know. It's like an ambiguous personal email that one can project attitudes onto; if you're feeling defensive or threatened, then it's easy to read a perfectly neutral message as being hostile or even sarcastic.
When I was a grad student, shorts and sandals is absolutely what I would wear to a poster session. I never had anyone comment on what I was wearing. If I did somehow manage to cross a line, I would expect to hear about it from my friends or my advisor, not from a stranger.
Most of your complaints seem to be that men and women have different standards for work-appropriate clothing. If bare arms are too provocative for you, that is a personal problem that you need to work on.
It's not at all a problem for me. However, maybe it's a problem for them. Prudent men won't comment or act out. But many men (and women) will judge. Like it or not, it's what's so.
No. I thought that I made that clear. Such advice is appropriate from family, close friends, mentors and managers. Everyone else should keep it to themselves.
But the problem is that people gossip. And they judge. Covertly. As in "I don't trust this woman. Why does she dress like that? She'd be disruptive. I'd better not hire her."
> For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.
So . . . burqas for everyone, then?
Seriously, if you can't recognize that fashion norms for women and men are different, and can't tell the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man, I cannot help you.
Yes, "fashion norms for women and men are different" in modern American culture. Of course. That's rather my point. But what's up with that?
Please say more about "the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man". I don't see much substantive difference. They're both an assertion of physical power.
I actually do think that "burqas for everyone" might be a good fashion trend. For privacy, given that there are cameras everywhere. But in professional American culture, it's actually men who are more constrained to dress modestly.
I've taken the time to compile the comprehensive list of people who may (but perhaps shouldn't) give you unsolicited constructive criticism on how you dress:
1. Close friends/family.
2. Professional designers/fashion experts.
As to his dumb-ass move, I wonder what would be your reaction if he'd done that to you, because that's what she felt. I think it would be a bit different from, "that's a dumb-ass move".
These PMs are clearly predatory grooming and not at all somebody who may be interested in dating a colleague. If you're interested in somebody you don't act like Jian Gomeshi or Clarence Thomas constantly bringing up sexual innuendo, touching them or talking about porn. That's what predators in prisons do in what they call the 'punk test' to see how far they can push you. If you ignore them that means they can progress to level 2 and up the harassment.
As for these conferences I always think not allowing alcohol is the best solution for avoiding the pack of idiots the author ran into with one loudly bragging about 'banging smoking hot chicks'. You could have behavior police there kicking out the people acting like they are in a frat party or you could just not have alcohol and at all times push this is a professional conference not a nightclub. You'll still run into creepy predators because that is a fact of human life. The advice I was given a long time ago when in pretrial lockup for bogus charges of violating the CFAA is never let anybody get to level 2 of the punk test, always make it known their behavior is not acceptable by directly telling them or use banter, which is how males typically interact with each other in these situations. With banter you also establish a rapport which makes it easier to tell them to cut out unprofessional behavior. The girl in this story when the drunk creep threw weak banter at her after she gave him the look for his loud creep comments could have responded with her own bantz instead of feeling humiliated, as that was a prime moment for a joke about him being at the wrong conference as it wasn't a fictional story writing con or stats joke on inaccurate analysis, with a direct reminder to keep their frat antics down. No humiliation, and message gets received the behavior isn't appropriate and the creeps will respect that you can keep up with the banter so usually won't persist. This sounds like victim blaming but predators are also good con artists who can insulate themselves with other powerful people to retain their status and deflect discipline so reality must be checked. A large accounting firm here that a friend of mine worked at in HR discovered they had a manager with numerous settled sexual harassment lawsuits none of the employees knew about they tried to keep secret. The company was more willing to keep paying settlements than they were willing to fire the harasser.
You'd think banter would work that way, but in practice it just encourages the idiot to respond with more "banter" of their own. See, a guy who is stupid enough to think it's appropriate to tell you your dress is too sexy for the conference is just not intellectually equipped to face the fact he's being a creep. In his eyes, that creepy stuff he said to you is already "banter". If you reply, you're just accepting his rules for interaction- and that can only lead to more uneasiness or humiliation.
Also, this idea that you should respond with chuzpah to every idiot who bothers you puts the burden on the person who is being harassed to protect his or herself from the harasser, when really the harasser is the one who should be controlling their behaviour.
Finally- some people are just not good with banter. What about them? They just get harassed and it's their fault if the can't come up with a zinger to put the creep in his place? I don't think that's resonable.
We changed the URL from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-12-16/google-re.... Some of the comments below make less sense as a result, which is bad. But the blog post is well-written, substantive, and brings considerable clarity as the original source—which is what the site guidelines ask for. People should probably read both articles since the Bloomberg one adds follow-up info.
While I have you: if you're commenting here, please keep this guideline in mind too: Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
If there was any harassment on online media, the right course of action is to screenshot everything the mofo says and only then publicly shame them with evidence.
What depresses me the most about this is that most people, even ones with elite degrees in stats, are not actually free people.
If this were a free woman, she would have raised her voice, made a scene, and possibly even delivered a well-deserved slap to professor creepy. Instead, there was "struggling", "humiliation", "embarrassment", etc. She didn't even name names in the Medium post!
As to why she is not free, I do not know. Escalation of commitment? Prestige? Financial insecurity?
What I do know is that this is a terrible example for the ladies out there. Saving it for a cryptic blog post and waiting for some godless HR department to mete out justice is a shit plan, even if it did work this time. If this were a rougher crowd than a bunch of stats nerds, this could have ended very badly...
I am not an academic and not in this field. I have dealt with harrassment issues in business though. I hear do much nonsense about 'grey areas' and 'men and women would never meet if we followed HR'.
I hereby advance my theory that it is rather simpler than that. 'If you are in a position of power over the other party, then you should keep some social distance'.
Don't smack their bum, don't message them about their holiday photos on FB. If they come to you tired and emotional, sit them down on the other side of your desk and ask them what is wrong. Tell them you are sorry they feel that way. Talk for hours if you need to...at work. Keep your trousers zipped up.
Is it that hard? If your team socialize, then by all means go with them. If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.
I think it is very easy for a decent human being to avoid.
It's not really even about power: if they're a colleague or your boss, it's inappropriate too. I've never heard of a man being ignorant enough to hit on a female boss, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Even if people don't follow the platinum rule, they should surely recognise that there are interactions they would have a problem with. The people happy handing out "hugs" to people they are attracted to are surprisingly unwilling to receive them from people they find unattractive.
Everyone should be given social space until a mutual agreement that something else happens. This is especially important if there are significant cultural differences between people.
Disclaimer: I am an academic, not in this field. I have never approached any colleague with any intimate or other inappropriate topics.
Here are two points I consider interesting:
* In academia, the only time when you have no power over anyone else is when you are an undergraduate student. After that, almost everyone can be thought to wield some power over anyone, either directly (professor -> student, full professor -> junior professor, senior/accomplished PhD student -> new PhD student) or indirectly (almost everyone you meet is a potential reviewer of your papers, many professors sit on boards which decide postdoc/faculty positions).
I would say that the power is more perceived than real -- having a bad name with one professor outside your university likely does not kill your career -- but I would consider it natural to feel uneasy if such a professor expressed intimate interest in you and you had to turn them down.
* I have a feeling that for many people, already a single bit of information -- namely knowledge that an person with some amount of power considers you attractive -- is something that would cause them uneasiness (in academia or otherwise). And this uneasiness would be permanent and is not dependent on how this bit propagates to you; from the most innocent (an invitation for coffee that is turned down, a smile in a professional discussion that never veers off-topic) to the most inappropriate (as described in the original post).
If that is true, the only solution I can think of is to make sure no such information is shared among any people in your organization -- I abide by that rule personally, but I can understand people opposing such a dehumanization of the work environment.
> I hereby advance my theory that it is rather simpler than that. 'If you are in a position of power over the other party, then you should keep some social distance'.
> If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.
This seems dangerously close to the Pence view of not socializing alone with women.
Is your view actually stronger? That a person should not socialize alone with anyone they have power over, rather than just women?
I'm not sure what Pence's view is. But as a married man, I absolutely believe the best policy for myself, and probably most married men, is to avoid situations that increase the odds of my infidelity. And yes, the includes not developing close friendships with anyone I find attractive.
Doesn't this attitude perpetuate the harmful stereotype that men are not in control of their own sexual urges? Shouldn't someone in a committed relationship be able to control themselves better? Do you really not trust yourself?
I think for some definition of "not in control", I would agree that men are not in control of their sexual urges. More specifically, while I think in most situations I'd be fine, but if I've had one too many drinks, and the social situation "feels" appropriate to me, it might be possible that I do something which I'd later regret.
Short answer: would you say the same thing to a recovering alcoholic regarding hanging out with his old drinking buddies at a bar?
tl;dr
For me, it's a matter of risk tolerance. I have a very low tolerance for the risk of cheating on my wife. So based on my best understanding of the circumstances that tend to increase the likelihood of infidelity, I try hard to avoid those circumstances.
> Doesn't this attitude perpetuate the harmful stereotype that men are not in control of their own sexual urges?
First, "stereotype perpetuation" isn't something that just happens to people. A person has some ability to accept or reject adopting belief in a stereotype. So I'll let other people take responsibility for what they believe regarding this topic.
Secondly, what you're seeing is a male being in control of his sexual urges. My post was simply giving insight into one of the mechanisms by which I do it.
> Shouldn't someone in a committed relationship be able to control themselves better?
Well ideally, yeah. But I didn't design the human condition.
> Do you really not trust yourself?
I try to have an accurate understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, and to plan accordingly.
Per my anthropology class in college, about 10 percent of men and women answered “yes” to a question like “have you cheated on your partner in the last year?”
It’s a little inhumane to make individual men responsible for the weight of western civilization’s treatment of women when they’re trying to do right by their partners. I determined years ago that I’m some combination of unwilling or unable to maintain monogamous relationships, so I stopped making that commitment. Even without that constraint, being romantically engaged with people is at best distracting and at worst destructive, and so structure my life so as to avoid engendering those feelings. When I spend time with members of the sex I find attractive, I inevitably want to escalate.
It’s my unsubstantiated conjecture that this is why traditional societies had separate gender roles. Same sex groups take so much less emotional energy.
> And yes, the includes not developing close friendships with anyone I find attractive.
Which brings in all the problems with the Pence view. It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get excluded from that.
Worse, it's a policy adopted only by the self-conscious people who wouldn't otherwise have crossed the line anyway, and not the bastards going around groping people left and right, which increases the proportion of interactions with the latter category.
The problem seems to be that there are obvious benefits to standing right on top of the line (increased probability of friendship/romance) but nobody wants anybody to cross it, and that can't happen. If you tell everybody to stand as close as they can to an invisible line that nobody can quite agree on the exact contours of, every time a moderate person actually draws their version of the line you'll find a whole slew of people standing on the wrong side of it, because it's everyone even slightly less moderate than that. Ask a conservative (i.e. puritan) person to draw the line and everybody will be standing on the wrong side of it.
Rejection sucks. Nobody wants to get rejected, so nobody wants to be thrust into the position of the villain who has to reject someone. But the world where nobody ever has to reject someone is the completely sterile one.
The uncomfortable no is the price of the opportunity for yes. Nobody who internally knows that the answer is no wants that "opportunity" thrust on them, but how is the other party supposed to know that ahead of time?
And it's no help to point out the obvious cases. There are things that 99.99% of people agree are over the line. The problem is the things that 75% of people agree are over the line, because then 25% of people are doing them.
> It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get excluded from that.
Some might, I don't. Some crap people do crap things. I discuss work issues in work. Out of hours work discussions exclude all kinds of people, people with families, women (again in particular) with children and those who prefer work situations to social ones. I occasionally meet male and female colleagues one-to-one in coffee shops during work hours, to talk things through, but I don't drink alcohol with them.
I haven't studied Pence's view, but I am a married man and I rarely meet women socially one-on-one. I socialize very occasionally with my team . I have seen so many times where a manager socializes with his team, then they do a bit of texting, then one hits on hard times and needs a shoulder to cry on, then they fall out and the company has a sexual harassment case to deal with where maybe it is just a 'lovers quarrel'.
I agree with the other poster that said that having sex with close colleagues is wholly unprofessional. There are plenty of people on earth.
> Which brings in all the problems with the Pence view. It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get excluded from that.
Yeah, and I feel bad about that. Hopefully things like professional societies, meetups, etc. can mitigate those factors.
And realistically, in my experience as an experienced software developer, the whole golf course / LAN party thing just doesn't happen. Or if it does, I'm certainly not benefiting from it either. Maybe for CxO's or people in sales, I wouldn't know.
> And realistically, in my experience as an experienced software developer, the whole golf course / LAN party thing just doesn't happen. Or if it does, I'm certainly not benefiting from it either.
It tends to be much more subtle than most people expect. The boss asks your coworkers about you and people say nicer things about people they're friendlier with. Or you're hanging out with someone outside of work and end up talking about work for a minute, and having the extra information makes you look good. Or your friend gets a job at a better company and then you have inside information and someone to put in a good word for you if you want to do the same thing.
> Which brings in all the problems with the Pence view. It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club
It's a damn shame, too. But the reality for me is that apart from making sure my kids stay alive, my most important commitment in life is remaining faithful to my wife. If that commitment prevents me from personally helping to shatter the glass ceiling or even means I'm unintentionally upholding it, then so be it.
I don't understand this train of thought, then again I'm not married, but why do you think someone would want to have sex with you because they happen to be alone with you? This reeks of misogyny... You're basically saying you have no self control when it comes to 50% of the worlds population. That's just pathetic and comes across as extremely rapey.
People have agency over who they have sex with, you're saying they don't.
What if he agrees with all your allegations that he is rapey and misogynistic? In that case, wouldn't it be better if he adopts the policy than not? I assume you'd agree.
So, if you are misogynistic, following this policy saves you from career suicide and harming others, and if you are not misogynistic, then the price is small. Therefore, it's best to follow this "no socialization with subordinates" policy.
I would disagree that the price is small. Many of my closest friends are opposite gender, and as another user said, avoiding cross gender friendships is likely to be harmful to the gender which has fewer people at the top.
You're probably right. As I mentioned elsewhere, I feel bad about any downsides this has for women. It's probably a downside that we should try to mitigate.
> Is your view actually stronger? That a person should not socialize alone with anyone they have power over, rather than just women?
I didn't say don't socialize, I said keep some distance. The example of being in a bar together is the start of many sorry tails, and yes you should go home.
But the answer is yes, I have a different relationship with my workmates to my friends, deliberately. I do the majority of my business in business hours. I don't find after hours drinking clubs healthy at all.
I might lose karma over this, but there must be something here that must be said.
What the medium post reports is not just a gray area, it is clear sexual assault and unwanted creepiness. I'm starting to wonder if the people upvoting these posts that suggest people dehumanize themselves in order to keep from being accused (!) of sexual assault are doing as some sort of reverse psychology in order to push back against the #metoo movement. That's because such an attitude is exactly the wrong take away from this.
If you cannot find the line between assaulting someone and being their friend, I think the problem might lie with your interpretation of people and their feelings, and not with "being too friendly" whatever that means.
I strongly agree with you, but I suspect this is a confusion due to the changing of the URL (see dang's post). The idea that my fellow men might be barely controlling their urge to sexual assault any woman they have power over is - I hope! - absurdly wrong. The actions accused are not at all a matter of "oops, I shouldn't have done that with someone I have a position of power over," they're things that should just never be done in any situation.
And it's easy enough to separate these actions from benignly asking someone on a date.
>What the medium post reports is not just a gray area
No it is completely obscene. I hope it is severely dealt with, and all of the people who were around and didn't criticize, and promoted even tough they knew are dealt with too.
What I was commenting on is that every time the subject comes up a load of people start the 'you can't even talk to women any more' nonsense.
> dehumanize themselves
It is not dehumanizing to not fuck your colleagues. I see it as extremely unprofessional to get too close to them. I see my self as an extremely kind, thoughtful and empathetic manager. My female staff have brought me issues from menopause, menstruation, man trouble to money problems and I try to give them all a sympathetic ear. When I have dealt with something in a way that has upset them it pains me. I care very strongly for a number of my team, indeed I have one away on secondment and I miss them. I ask them about their weekends, and their families. We even throw the odd innuendo around. One is very flirtatious, and I laugh it away. However at 5.30 they went their way and I went mine. We are colleagues not Fuck Buddies.
I still strongly disagree with what you are saying. First, if you were not their manager, then little of this should change. (Just don't slap bums at all.) Secondly, your suggestion places the problem at "men and women are alone in a room" and not at "some people are choosing to commit sexual assault or harassment". Everyone is completely and totally capable of being in a room with a fellow human and choosing to not assault them. I hate this in part because it makes the guilty party less accountable, as if anyone would have done that in their place. No, no, no!! The problems here aren't that they were alone in a room with a woman, it's that they chose to do terrible things. (And many of these occasions cited were not when alone.) Is this a thing a decent human needs to "avoid" like you stated? No! You don't have to avoid going to the bank because you might be tempted to rob it, you just don't rob the bank.
Your post sounds exactly like the "you can't even talk to women any more" that you claim to not like - you are literally saying that men need chaperones ("If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.").
> men and women are alone in a room
> you are literally saying that men need chaperones ("If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.").
I wasn't saying that at all, you have removed the context reductio ad absurdum. The context was at the end of an evening of socializing. Now we have two drunk people, boss and sub-ordinate, in a bar together after a night and everyone has gone home but them. Presumably everyone else exercised their good judgment that it was time to leave.
I'll tell you what you can take literally, I literally saw that on a sexual harassment claim. In this case it was withdrawn, and my best guess of what happened is that it was consensual, but lead to an awkward situation which they found uncomfortable in their small team.
None of what I am talking about is relevant to the sexual predator scenario. However strong guidelines on professional conduct do help stop predatory behavior hiding behind 'just being playful'
Frankly I don't know what you are trying to say, given that whatever that is, it's not relevant to the sexual predator scenario. The only thing I can think of is that you are suggesting rules to cover one's ass to prevent being accused of being a sexual predator. This seems like something that's smart to do... but why bring it up in the discussion of this article? It sounded like you were suggesting that "S" should have taken these precautions and then "S" would either not have been accused or perhaps would not have committed these acts in the first place. Obviously this makes it sound like you are siding with "S" against his accuses or are suggesting that it's not really his fault, which would put in you uncomfortable company. See why I am concerned by your posts? It's hard to separate what you are saying from this.
Eh, what's dehumanising about remembering the power structure in a typical work environment?
For instance- it's very good sense to remember that the people who are under your management are employed to do as you say and don't just freely decide to grant you their time and attention. When the social context is of communication between work colleagues, you are very likely to make a mistake if you interpret it in the same way as communication between friends.
Consider for instance the situation where The Boss Made a Joke. A sensible boss will recognise that people aren't necessarily laughing at their jokes because they consider them funny- but because it is polite to laugh at colleagues' jokes, and you are expected to be polite to your boss. So a manager who keeps on cracking jokes, thinking that everyone finds them so funny, is not acting sensibly and is making a social mistake. A boss who keeps the jokes to a minimum required to keep morale high, is actually keeping morale high.
At the end of the day, what everyone must realise, managers and reports alike, is that your colleagues are not your friends. To the extent that you don't make the decision who to work with (because someone else hires them, or they hire you) you are also not choosing to socialise with them. You are obliged to socialise with them in the context of work.
Btw, I recognise that the OP is actually totally treating his (?) employees as friends- but there you have it. I think that's inappropriate and can only lead to tears.
You can be friends with your workers if they are friendly. If not, just be professional. There should be no reason to either have to a) force employees to be friends or b) force employees to be robots.
For fuck's sake, the issue here is sexual assault and harrassment, it's a far cry from misinterpretation of comments or intent, which for some reason, people think is a bigger deal than the abuse women and men have faced in the workplace. How about you respect people as people? That seems like a better prescription than forcing people to be cold to each other.
I do agree some of the rules are different with bosses, as the maxim goes, with great power comes great responsibility. But your conclusion that colleagues are not your friends seems ridiculous to me. It ignores the organizations where people are friends and there are no issues.
So I am being a little combative, but please tell me how this opinion is still problematic. I am genuinely open minded and want to discuss this.
I don't mind if you're being combative, but I think, if you're being combative, then it's about something I never said- the bit about "forcing people to be cold to each other". Are you reading more than I wrote, in my comment?
For what it's worth, I consider "being friendly" and "being friends" two distinct categories. You can be friendly to people (or polite, corteous, respectful etc etc) without actually being buddy-buddies with them.
On a personal note, I have been lucky to have had some strong working relationships with (male) colleagues who offered me valuable mentorship. They were great teachers to me and helped make me the professional I am today. Still- we were not friends, in the sense of slapping-the-back, rude-joking, buddy-buddies. I'm not saying that sort of relation (a colleague who's your mate) can never work. All rules are made to be broken etc etc. But I do believe that unless you carefully compartmentalise your professional relationships from other kinds of relationships, you run a very significant risk of making a mess of all your relationships.
Edit: as to ignoring organisations were people are friends and the sky doesn't fall- that's just the survivorship fallacy, innit. Just because you can swim with sharks without being eaten doesn't mean swimming with sharks isn't dangerous, in general.
"Keep social distance around people you have power over" seems extreme (especially if you interpret it like many in this sub-thread do) and almost strawmannish: You could ask, if you're a person of some standing and seek a relationship who are you allowed to ask?
I propose an alternative theory: "Socializing", "getting to know each other outside of work" and even "flirting" are sets of activities strictly disjunct to "discussing your sexual fantasies", "acting out your sexual fantasies" and "showing around pictures of your dick".
Maybe there is mutual interest between colleagues to do more outside of work. That's fine. Go with it, but make sure it's actually mutual. Maybe you get new buddies or friends, maybe (very unlikely) more - but look for clues how the other are feeling and - unless you're already far, far beyond a work relationship, don't ever assume they want sex.
> "Keep social distance around people you have power over" seems extreme (especially if you interpret it like many in this sub-thread do) and almost strawmannish: You could ask, if you're a person of some standing and seek a relationship who are you allowed to ask?
Anyone outside your field and/or occupation. It's that simple.
I actually don't understand this line of reasoning at all. You propose it as a bit of a strawman, but there's always at least one earnest comment in such threads to the effect of "well, now you can't flirt with ANYONE at work!"
That's correct. You can't flirt with anyone at work.
The problem isn't the set of social guidelines that say you don't try to fuck your colleagues. The problem is the people who seem to think that because their personal inclinations make it unpalatable to seek romantic encounters outside of work, that they're entitled to seek romantic encounters at work.
They/ you are not. Find hobbies; ask friends for friends-of-friends that are looking; hit up OKCupid or Tinder or what-have-you. There are any number of ways to seek romantic entanglements that completely divorce you from the issues of power dynamics that occur when courting professional colleagues.
While I appreciate the clarity of this approach ("Don't screw the crew"), when people spend lots of time in the company of someone, and their is mutual attraction, relationships will become romantic.
Work celibacy is not the answer, and it often leads to keeping sexual relationships clandestine, which enables further bad power dynamics.
Discouraging a rapey dickhead enabling culture is a far more successful investment of effort. Policies against inappropriate supervisor relationships are a good idea though.
One of the allegations in the post is that C (the band member - named in the bloomberg article) came up to her and made a comment about her dress being too sexy while she was presenting at a poster session.
If you are a person of social standing in academia, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what a poster session is for - and it's not flirting or criticising people's dress styles, which hardly counts as "socialising". People are there to talk about their work (and have no good options for getting away from you).
Because someone who is "in a position of power over the other party" never falls in love (or plainly lusts -- which, unless we're in Victorian times somehow, should still be considered OK) with the other party, or vice versa.
If only life could be so nicely compartmentalised as anglosaxon cultures dream...
The whole distinction should be in the abuse of such relationship for coercion (e.g. Weinstein style) -- as opposed to the mere presence of such relationships...
The problem is you go home, but then you come back to work the next day.
I am a professor of statistics, and have encountered lots of issues surrounding relationships and harassment involving colleagues as well as once myself.
Based on these experiences, I agree with you for the most part, but am not sure even that is workable advice, unless you want to create an cold, inhuman environment. And even then it raises lots of thorny issues that you might not anticipate.
I can say from one, personally impactful experience, for example, that "talking for hours if you need to" at work, with someone you work with one-on-one for hours daily, can lead to, say, a mentee declaring feelings for you. Maybe this talking started under pressure from other colleagues and students to help the mentee feel more comfortable because of concerns about how they're feeling in general. And because that individual might be a brilliant, amazing individual you've found you share a lot with, after enough time, you might develop feelings for that mentee too, even if you never started out with an inkling of that when you started reaching out to them. The immediate response, you think, is "well, tell them these kinds of things are inappropriate and leave it at that." Ok, but then, without any further context, does that shame the mentee and lead them to believe that their feelings are abnormal? Do you tell them that it's normal, you have feelings too, but nothing can happen as a result, it's inappropriate to pursue a relationship? In that case, even if nothing physical happens, it might lead to severe complications later, purely emotionally, as both of you deal with the consequences of knowing you have strong feelings for each other but nothing can happen as a result. Do you say nothing at all? After all, the mentee confessed feelings for you without you saying anything to them of that sort, and that didn't stop them from telling you that they have feelings that way. Will they try to escalate things if you don't say anything? Do you reach out to colleagues? Will that shame the student or damage their reputation?
Take this a step further. Let's say you do somehow prohibit males and females from becoming close. Do you prohibit purely platonic same-sex relationships from being close? Is it say, sexual discrimination when a female faculty member has her (non-romantically involved) female, but not male, students over for dinners regularly, to chill and watch movies or have small gatherings, shares hotel rooms to save on costs (for cash-strapped students at expensive conferences)? That is, after all, discriminating against male students on the basis of gender. Or are they just being caring and friendly with their students, and careful in avoiding complications with members of the opposite sex? What if a female faculty member never takes male mentees? What if it were a male faculty and male students? Isn't that the "old boys" network? Where do you draw the line? When does differences in closeness of relationships become gender discrimination?
Unlike you, I do think there's lots of gray areas, and I see it as an unavoidable consequence of humanity. I kind of agree with you that ideally, you should just keep work relationships impersonal, but I think that's really unrealistic in practice. What worries me is this kind of blanket idea that any feelings or sexual behavior or relationships between coworkers or supervisors and supervisees is always the result of some maliciousness or failing or something on someone's part. It seems there needs to be a more nuanced approach to these things, or some more realistic discussion that recognizes people do have feelings for one another, especially those they are in regular contact with, platonic or otherwise.
I've heard of all sorts of stories in this area involving other students and faculty, from advisors basically sexually assaulting students, to advisors who end up marrying their students and ending up in very happy, hea...
I have a role that sometimes involves me advising people on their management skills.
Every time I have had to look into a situation where somebody has been accused of inappropriate behavior I find that nothing grey has happened at all, in fact the manager has been stupid. The manager has started texting at weekends, turning up at their house uninvited, plying them with alcohol, commenting on their Facebook etc, right up to 'she offered, and never look a gift-horse in the mouth'. I think these are REALLY easy boundaries not to cross.
> I can say from one, personally impactful experience...
Thank you for sharing, this is a touching story and I'm sure is not an uncommon one with academics. Mentoring must be one of the most rewarding parts of the job. A mentor finding that their feelings for a mentee are strong, or finding the mentee feels strongly for them is going to happen sometimes. I'm sure some heterosexual advisors have very strong feelings for their same-sex mentee's which are above the normal boss/colleague dynamic. Managing it well is going to be very difficult and take some skill, if you are going to continue to work together. Sometimes the difficult choice is going to be that you lose your mentee, but retain the moral high ground.
If however you end up sleeping together, then you have crossed my line, I'm afraid. If you simply have to be together then you need to restructure your professional life so you are not their boss any more.
>There's also things like students and advisors who are close and end up having sex at a conference when they are both completely intoxicated and both regret it later.
And 100% this is misconduct on behalf on the advisor. 100% it is their fault.
> ideally, you should just keep work relationships impersonal
That is not what I said. I said to keep some distance, not to be a robot.
There are lots of gray areas, but the article does not cover any of them; these were not gray areas, but very very dark. I'm not in that field, and no longer in academia, but we should out those a-holes and fire many of them (we as humanity :)
Sexual and romantic relationships among people in direct supervisory relationships are too close to sexual harassment, and prohibited by most HR departments, as they should be. That should be a big no-no. Notice nothing precludes people from acting on romantic feelings after the supervisory relationship ends.
I think talking about gray areas and splitting hairs when we have accounts of horrible behavior is detrimental to solving these issues. Let's get rid of these a-holes, and then we can discuss shades of gray when we have gotten rid of the horribly abusive behavior.
Two patterns emerge which can be found in many of the stories that one hears about these days.
1. A certain type of man who has developed highly problematic habits in regards to repeated, if not very frequent inappropriate (sexual) harassment, and who essentially has been rewarded for this for a long time.
2. A type of person (mostly women, but as far as my observation goes, this general trait is common regardless of gender) who has failed to speak up and push back, often for many many years - who only now that everyone does it, feels "comfortable" enough to speak up.
As a man I am frustrated about group 1) because they are a pain in the ass to women and fuck it up for all other men, and I am frustrated about persons from group 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution.
Fear of losing a job/allies/opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It's more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved.
How many of those misbehaving men could have been stopped from doing what they have done over decades if they'd have received clear, unambiguous feedback on the inappropriateness of their actions, instead of "rewards" for their bad actions? Many of these might be better men today (as long as you don't think they are born that way), and there would not be a need to publicly shame all those men (which will probably come at a cost to society in some form of backlash, making everybody worse off).
I know men who have an extremely hard time to speak up when things happen that they disagree with, and I know women who are very good at clearly, ambiguously showing boundaries as soon as someone attempts to overstep them (note: I am writing here about these sexual harassment cases related professional environments, not about physical attempts of rape). So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion.
What? Victim blaming is saying they deserve their treatment. This is just asking victims to stop "playing nice" with a system that really doesn't reward them as much as they think it does when justifying not taking action.
Well then you are a text book example of someone with a very binary worldview, which consists exclusively of perpetrators and victims, and nothing in between.
This is not how the world looks like, however, even if some are working hard in painting it that way. You are disqualifying yourself with your simple-minded approach of using a label instead of actual arguments.
"Victim blaming" is one of the most problematic labels that are being thrown around nowadays, but it also is a nice way to filter out the people who are not able to have a rational, fact-based discussion.
But to factually approach your accusation:
Saying "It's the person's fault that she/he has been attacked" would possibly be justified to be called "victim blaming" (although even then I personally think there are better ways to challenge a line of argumentation than these highly charged labels. They make people lazy and to disengage with nuanced view points).
In my comment, I wasn't doing anything close to that, though. My point is a completely different one.
“””
2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution.
Fear of losing a job/allies/opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It's more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved.
“””
I’m not trying to be controversial, but from my perspective this is the actual definition of victim blaming - do you agree with this assessment? Not in the sense that a victim is responsible for their own attack, but rather the victim is responsible for every subsequent attack. Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?
From my perspective you’re suggesting it’s the onus of victims to reorient their lives and potentially suffer in their professional career in order to police the voluntary actions of another person. Is this accurate? Would you agree the victim has that responsibility?
“””
2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")
“””
Again, not trying to be controversial - but have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something? I’m curious because from my perspective you’re treating this issue quite flippantly, and with a very narrow minded viewpoint. I suspect that many men who haven’t been in violent situations have a hard time understanding feelings of physical vulnerability. And they have an even harder time understanding why even seemingly mild cases of verbal inappropriateness can cause the same feelings of physical vulnerability.
“””
So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion.
“””
I think your position sounds perfectly reasonable to people who don’t have any experience with it, but breaks down when actually applied in real life. Specifically, I think youre proposing that women just shut down situations they feel unease about, which sounds perfectly logical and may happen most of the time.
But it ignores the other outcome, those which Hollywood is famous for - women that decline the sexual advances of men find themselves labeled as ‘frigid’, ‘uptight’, or ‘difficult to work with’, and watch their professional lives suffer as a result. In my opinion, the conflict aversion is the optimal strategy for when one potential outcome is neutral (the harasser is sorry, and otherwise won’t hinder victims livelihood or career), and the other outcome is highly damaging (the agressor escalates, or the aggressor is sorry but feels the need to harm the victims career to protect their own).
Thanks for your comment and those very clear questions, this is a good way for me to see how my comment can be understood, and it allows me to clarify in case necessary.
"Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?"
Definitely not. If this is how my comment can be understood, then I failed to express what I meant, although reading it again and again, I am a surprised about this. However, it's just a reminder how different the same statement can be interpreted.
My reference was to what I see as a moral/ethical responsibility of an individual to the society at large to do something against a negative phenomenon.
I see everyone carrying a responsibility to make a society work. That means speaking up, that means giving feedback, that means helping people to improve - and yes, sometimes that means giving up or at least risking an opportunity, because sometimes, doing these things which I just described is not received well.
Which brings me to your second point and your question.
"But have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something?"
I have been putting my "career" (in the sense of opportunities and professional relationships) on the line multiple times due to me disagreeing with various terms, or based on certain principles, or simply because I felt that what I was asked to do would not be true to myself, and I have expressed clear and loud disagreements to the extend that I wasn't sure whether voicing this would get me fired. I am generally a person who rather says "no" to something than to say "yes" just to avoid the conflict. This probably impacts the way I look at the whole topic. I wouldn't have written what I wrote if this is not how I try to act myself. For me, my integrity is more important than money, career, power, status.
However, I have not been physical assaulted in that context that we are talking about here (even though I have been physically assaulted in a violent non-sexual context, but I guess that's not really what you are looking for).
Having said that, I have a hard time with this idea of extreme human vulnerability in cases such as the one's we are talking here though. I am a human being myself. Even though I am not a woman and have not had a colleague trying to kiss me at a party or sending me inappropriate text messages, I have had plenty of stressing, uncomfortable, potentially threatening "real life experiences" to state t hat, while everything can leave (psychological) scares , essentially describing women (or individuals in general, as I - as mentioned before - consider the underlying motivator of action or not-action being not gender-related) as completely helpless in these situations is the wrong approach, no matter how "right" it feels.
I have to agree with the assertions that 2. is victim blaming. The group 1. needs to do everything in their power, which they control quite a bit, to stay away from the possibilities of a group 2. situation. People, mostly men, in power need to have the moral and virtuous fortitude to promote an environment for collaboration and camaraderie of work. It is incumbent of those in power to create a culture of cooperation. If that culture does not exist and bad behavior ensues than it is not incumbent of the victim to improve the culture. Especially if that victim is a junior professional.
I'm saddened that this topic even needs to be part of our discourse in our culture today. Perhaps this is a sad old story. Yet we see this all the time of people in power in the news. I hope that we can come to a collective realization that this is doing no one any good to behave irresponsibly.
Your assumption is that group 1. is (or at least has been until 2017) aware of the huge problem of their behavior. I think this is wrong, and this a prerequisite for my comment.
Imagine this: You are John Smith and since you were young, you have been taught that as a man, you have to get laid as much as possible, that women are sex objects, that your self-worth depends on your success as a sexual predator. Your friends happened to think the same (you maybe picked your friends even based on these value, subconsciously), and so, while you grew up, this is how you lived and acted. And it worked. You had sex with a lot of women, you received praise and acknowledgement from your peers, you felt like a real man and so on. And you gt comparatively little push back. Sure, there was something in you which might have told you that you over and over again hitting on the same girl must have been annoying for her - but as every human, you saw things from your perspective, and from that one - which you have learned and internalized over decades - this is what women wanted, and how it was supposed to be.
Couldn't this be how the men from group 1 became those who there are? And wouldn't this mean that what they in fact would have needed was to learn a different way of behavior, through feedback when they stepped over the lines?
Following your logic, decades of social conditioning would automatically disappear. You are using the word "need" multiple times. Of course. But what if they actually really didn't get the memo? Because this is more likely than these men sharing your value set (or mine, for that matter) but violating it constantly and deliberately.
Some would call this behavior "toxic masculinity". And it is. But exactly like the social conditioning that other groups were exposed to doesn't just fall off of people in a second, toxic masculinity does neither.
I like nuanced comments and you make cogent arguments. However, I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough. Anywhere in the course of history where there was a stronger party forcing themselves on a weaker party, the pain of the weaker party is visible in plain sight and ignored by the stronger party.
Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. The answer to that question has been a resounding no, whether it was slavery or war crimes or sexual assault.
To summarize, lack of feedback cannot be the reason, willful ignorance and dehumanization perhaps is and that is something the victim cannot be tasked with rectifying.
I still think you seem to lack the willingness to engage in exploring how these type of men
think, which also means that your verdict about lack
of feedback not being the reason doesn’t appear too convincing to me. Otherwise you would be aware that “being ignored” is widely considered “playing hard to get” among men with this mindset. Emphasis on “play”. If one has been exposed to a certain type of mindset and has internalized it, this person’s viewpoint and their perception of reality might be absolutely different than yours (and mine).
This of course is a re-occuring theme of the past year(s). People not making the effort to understand why others act/behave/vote radically different. It seems to be unbelievably hard to
acknowledge that what might be despicible from one’s own viewpoint might appear completely reasonable from someone else’s in their specific context. Which doesn‘t excuse their actions but explains why they have not been seeing/noticing the obvious damage of their behavioral patters.
In order to change that person’s viewpoint requires work from
the ground up.
Don't be saddened. This is potentially a time for change. A good time. I hope we can look back at this and never be able to imagine going back to the widespread abuse of the less powerful.
While there is some truth to your comment it is both unfortunately phrased in part "pain in the ass to women, fuck it up for all other men" and focuses too much on what (alleged) victims could do.
For instance, you question the ethical and moral responsibility of (alleged) victims who did not speak up at that time. I can easily imagine being one of those people, and I think that most of the time in other situations which are not sexual we see that most people keep their mouths shut and try to make the best of a bad deal: it's why there have been fewer violent revolutions. People with strong, clear ethos who make the choice to "speak truth to power" are rare, everywhere, in every time.
I would ask you also to consider that there were probably more non-victims who were passive observers, privy to at least some of the bad behavior who also did not speak up. Perhaps they should be the main thrust of your comment, rather than people who may already be so psychologically weakened that a brave act is the last thing that is likely?
All, that said, I find the #metoo hashtagging irritating. I do not know why, but something grates about it.
“I think that most of the time in other situations which are not sexual we see that most people keep their mouths shut and try to make the best of a bad deal: it's why there have been fewer violent revolutions. People with strong, clear ethos who make the choice to "speak truth to power" are rare, everywhere, in every time.”
I fully agree with you. I tried to account for that by pointing out that this is a pattern that can be observed irespective of gender, but I guess my striving for brevity meant that this point didn’t come across clearly enough.
I don't think the problem lies with feedback. I think it lies with willful ignorance of it.
I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough.
Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. So as far as I can tell, it is the general problem of dehumanizing victims. The blame does not lie with Type 2 people who did not feel "comfortable" enough to publicly speak up.
Take any crime which doesn't take in public view, let's say child abuse. Is it the responsibility of the victim to give feedback to the perpetrator, or is it the responsibility of the perpetrator to view the child as a human being?
PS - I made a very similar comment down the thread to another commenter as well.
I also like to use analogies. But this one really is misleading.
We are not speaking about juridical crimes here and not about children but adults. It’s one if the main differences between children and adults that society expects the latter to communicate, to express their thoughts, and to take responsibility for their actions or lack of action.
But nowadays in debates like these I see the emergence of a devaluation of these features that until now clearly differentiated children from adults. The individual of age is described like a helpless, voiceless child.
I find this seriously worrying (which is why I spent hours this Saturday in this comment debate, which I rarely do).
As far as analogies go, I'll rescind my analogy based on the difference you have stated. However, it does not negate the point I was trying to make, that the problem lies not with feedback but with willful ignorance of it.
Since, I didn't realize you were the same person, here's my response for the other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15942520) you made. I think I understand what you mean by saying that what appears unwanted to one party might appear playful and wanted to another party based on their mindset. But then what guarantee is there that if the victim escalates the issue, that the escalation isn't considered playful either. Note that escalations can come in increasingly severe degrees and can also have equally "playful" connotations from the perpetrators perspective. If a victim tells her close girlfriends about the sexual assault, to the perpetrator it can sound as "I made such love that she couldn't stop talking about it". If a perpetrator has violated many victims, who have tried to warn their female colleagues, it can sound as "I'm so good that, some women want me for themselves and are spreading rumors about me to prevent others from getting close to me". I feel vile coming up with legitimate sounding sentences such as these, but I believe putting the onus on victims to give feedback need not make the perpetrators realize that boundaries have been crossed.
In my opinion there is an objective measure of whether a person is welcome or unwelcome. Now perpetrators might have a different viewpoint about it in which case no matter what the victims do to escalate the issue, it need not necessarily mean feedback for the perpetrator. On the other hand from the victim's perspective there is a cost to be paid in terms of engaging with the perpetrator apart from other costs which you already mentioned.
Finally, a few perpetrators might have such a removed world view that nothing below public shaming opens their eyes to the harassment, which is the only time we come to know about it. We might assume that no feedback was given by victims, but it might just be that the feedback wasn't nearly enough.
To summarize, the victims do not have nearly enough incentive to give feedback and perhaps many did and the harassment didn't stop until public shaming. It is definitely not the case of victims not having enough integrity to overcome costs to of giving feedback.
In the past, there was another extreme in societies when raped woman could be considered guilty for inappropriate seduction of a men. So those victims could be crucified by society and in some cases even sent to prison.
There were some important changes in societies which made women in many modern countries much more emancipated. This is no doubt was very positive change for economies (more educated workforce) and live in general (free love versus arranged marriage).
In recent decade or two, third wave-feminism took off and ballooned to the point when it became pretty ugly and full of systemic-hate towards males. What I mean by systemic-hate is that under the flag of gender equality, feminists try to explain any disparity between men and women as systemic oppression and discrimination driven by men.
So now, we can see overstretched definitions of rape and harassment and absurd claims that 25% of women experienced sexual assault etc (so called "rape culture", a bizzare term on its own). Just making sexual harassment allegations is enough to consider a person guilty. So any woman can forever destroy carrier of any man just by making such allegations. I can easily imagine situation where socially awkward male tries to make awkward flirt with female and, in response, she will easily destroy his career and life.
I can imagine that sexual self-esteem of young males could be massively degraded in hostile environment created by third-wave feminists. I'm so glad I lived my 20ties in Russia and not being influenced by this bizarre new leftist culture.
As one friend of mine called - horizontal totalitarianism: anyone who question third-wave feminism's dogmas would be crucified/banned and fired for being sexist, supportive of rape (what an absurd!!!!), and against gender equality, considering women as inferior to men etc
When I lived in Russia, I romanticized western world based on movies and politics of 80s and 90s. I imagined western world as individualist and free-market paradise free from government's heavy hand. I imagined that people in the west are open minded and I looked at feminism positively. Now, I'm deeply disappointment by what I see...
Unfortunately, those "absurd claims" are backed by irrefutable data, and their reality is undeniable. If this fact is not personally familiar to you, consider it an opportunity to discover something new (albeit sad) about the world we all live in, and try to learn more about it. I can tell that the facts of the history of the West are unknown to you because "this bizarre new leftist culture" is over 150 years old, and the main change has been a constant decline in the intensity of feminism over that period (read up on what levels of violent protest were required for women to get the right to vote). Feminism today is far more timid than it was 100 years ago. These are well-known historical facts that you can read about everywhere.
I agree that there are some oversteps in the current atmosphere (e.g. equating asking someone out for drinks with harassment [0]), but this doesn't seem like that kind of case at all.
>One night after the conference talks were over, a bunch of conference participants and I went for a swim in the ocean. While I was swimming around, S repeatedly grabbed me under the water, putting his hands on my torso, hips, and thighs. I tried to play it off and swim away. He picked me up and pulled me into his chest. He then started to carry me away from the rest of the group, presumably to have some sort of private moment with me that I had absolutely no interest in sharing with him. I struggled, gently at first and then more forcefully, and he let me go.
Serious question, is that (a quote from OP) something you'd call overreach?
> I felt that this was evidence that, like S, all of the other more senior men who had showed interest in my research must actually have only been trying to sleep with me.
This is one of the intangible yet insidious impacts of harrassment that men really need to stop and take notice of. As a man, I've been fortunate enough never to have been put in a situation where I've had to doubt that interest in my work was merely a ploy to get me in bed. Think of the massive impact such a doubt can have on a young scholar, struggling to prove onesself, fighting self doubt and imposter syndrome. Then when senior colleagues pay attention to your work, and you find out that their interest was more salacious than professional, it must be hugely demoralizing. I'm sure this accounts for at least some of the gender disparity in technical fields, how many women simply vacated the field after people would only use their work as a pick-up line?
> We need to start holding prominent individuals accountable for how their inappropriate behavior negatively impacts the careers of their junior colleagues.
Holding them accountable is not enough, we need to ruin them. Everyone in S's group at Google should submit their resignation, conferences should blacklist him, editors should reject his manuscripts, grant money should be withdrawn, and the entire field should shun him and his kind until the message is clear that science will not tolerate this behavior.
I don't care how good of a researcher he is, how much of a "Bayesian expert" he claims to be, I could never read a paper of his or hear him talk without feeling disgust that here's yet another ego-consumed hyper-nerd who exploits his talents to gain power that he can use as leverage to satisfy his lust. Screw you, S, and the Bayesian prior you rode in on.
I was suggesting they should voluntarily resign, in the current market they will have no shortage of opportunity. It would send a strong message to Google (and others) that the behavior is not acceptable.
In that sentence, I am fairly confident that by "them", 'czep is referring to S and others like him. In the next sentence, 'czep is suggesting that the other members of S's group voluntarily resign to "ruin" S.
>As a man, I've been fortunate enough never to have been put in a situation where I've had to doubt that interest in my work was merely a ploy to get me in bed.
Um, this kind of thing happens quite often to men.
Adding to this, I've had brilliant minority friends pass up opportunity because it even contained the faint smell of “you got this because you’re X.” I think there are categories other than gender where people have sensitivity to the appearance that advancement or favor was the result of alterior motives.
I’d argue anyone with something to give experiences this to greater and lesser degrees too. People write songs about this phenomenon and its complement (“Nobody knows you when you’re down and out”).
I don't use facebook so I'm wondering : isn't there a way to turn a private message into a public one, so that users think twice before sending an offensive one?
On OSX shift+cmd+4 gives you a box selector that saves what you selected as an image to your desktop, where you can share it back on Facebook as a public image.
One night after the conference talks were over, a bunch of conference participants and I went for a swim in the ocean. While I was swimming around, S repeatedly grabbed me under the water, putting his hands on my torso, hips, and thighs. I tried to play it off and swim away. He picked me up and pulled me into his chest. He then started to carry me away from the rest of the group, presumably to have some sort of private moment with me that I had absolutely no interest in sharing with him. I struggled, gently at first and then more forcefully, and he let me go.
How is this not outright assault? Why are the police not involved and why is this guy not being charged with anything? Why is anyone concerned about protecting his privacy?
Checking the author's twitter, it looks like the guy has been named at this point.
And it's not assault because it's not. He was playing in the pool, she disengaged successfully. If you push someone in expectation of a bar fight and they walk away, the police likewise aren't going to pursue charges. That doesn't excuse it, of course. But there's a limit to the protection we can get from law enforcement. Obviously if it happens repeatedly, this can be harrassment, which is something that can be pursued via civil means.
Have a look at the comment I wrote in reply. It is assault. There are reasons why assault isn't prosecuted, but we should be aware of the nature of the offense.
(And, probably sexual assault, but that depends on how it's defined in the jurisdiction. In Canada this would be sexual assault)
When somebody punches you, it's physical assault, regardless if you punch back or not.
Similarly when somebody tries to force you into a sexual situation without your consent, it's sexual assault, regardless of whether you end up escaping it.
It is assault (and in Canada at least, would be sexual assault).
The trouble with both offenses is that 1. They are broad, 2. They are hard to prove criminally
Broad isn't a problem per se. What I mean is that the system is set up to make the offense as wide as possible, but not to prosecute every case.
This occurs with regular assault, not just sexual. For example, I'm sure most people reading this have had someone shove them at one point. I'm also sure that crime was not reported to the police. Even most cases of punching probably aren't reported.
Next, the proof. The problem with both types of assault is that generally there is no evidence other than the words of the victim. Convictions can happen, but it makes it hard to do so in the less serious cases, which leave no mark.
So apart from non-seriousness, that's why shoving isn't prosecuted. Whereas attacking someone and leaving cuts, bruises or broken bones provides definite evidence something happened. It both increases the gravity of the case and the provability.
I've used examples from regular assault to show that low rates of prosecution/conviction aren't merely an issue of sexism. Assault/sexual assault are fundamentally hard offenses.
However, this absolutely has a disproportionate effect on women. Generally speaking, people don't go around assaulting people, and so low rates of prosecution for assault is not really a problem in most cases.
(What I mean here is that not enough people commit unprovoked common assault for it to be a common experience on the receiving end. Domestic abuse is likely the biggest place our system has a gap in this regard.)
But, enough people sexually assault women that it is a common experience, especially for offenses which fit the category of: 1. Leaves no mark or lasting physical harm, 2. Has no outside evidence, 3. Is nonetheless psychologically traumatic.
I don't know what to do about this. I think the solution probably starts by recognizing the nature of the situation, which is why I've spelled it out.
How? This has been an intrinsic feature of common assault since time immemorial. I imagine most cases of assault in the middle ages were not brought to trial either.
But, if something does go to trial, it's still up to the jury to decide.
If you make the offense definition broad on the assumption that not every instance will be prosecuted, then you take the power of conviction from the jury and hand it to the state prosecutor.
If the state prosecutor elects to prosecute, the conviction is guaranteed because the law is not specific. It varies nation by nation as to whether a jury is allowed to directly ignore the letter of the law when passing a judgment, but even in nations where it is not, jury nullification is uncommon.
Thus, the conviction rests on the prosecutors decision to move ahead or not, not on the judgment of a jury of the defendants peers.
>I imagine most cases of assault in the middle ages were not brought to trial either.
Fuck me dead buddy, I hope you're not seriously attempting to use the middle ages as an example of how a justice system ought to be?
>But, if something does go to trial, it's still up to the jury to decide.
In Canada, it is considered the duty of the presiding justice to attempt to prevent the jury from performing jury nullification[1].
So yes, it's up to the jury, but the jury is under pressure from the justice to not consider the ramifications of this system you seem to like so much too deeply. Since we all know very well that humans are easily manipulated by perceived authority to harm their peers[2], I stand by my statement: that sounds like a terrifying way to write laws.
You're reading the least charitable interpretation of what I said. I meant that what's true of assault now has been true the entire history of the English judicial system - that's why the sentence preceding the one you quoted said the system has been like this since time immemorial. So it's not a new law. Can you point to a time in the past when common assault was treated differently? I think it's something intrinsic to the offense itself.
This has nothing to do with jury nullification. That's a situation where conviction is certain, unless the jury finds the law unjust. Assault is far more likely to be a situation where there is reasonable doubt and no conviction, because of the lack of evidence typically associated with the offence.
In short, I think you're believing me to be saying something quite different than I am.
>In short, I think you're believing me to be saying something quite different than I am.
It's possible that you /meant/ something different, but everyone can read what you said. What you say matters my friend.
>This has nothing to do with jury nullification. That's a situation where conviction is certain, unless the jury finds the law unjust.
Nonsense, jury nullification is inherently intertwined with this topic, because if we're writing laws that may be unjust in order to ensure that they cast as wide a potential prosecutorial net as possible, the only defense that the citizenry has against a corrupt bureaucracy is consistent defiance via jury nullification. The problem is, consistency is incredibly hard to achieve across a whole population, which is why we should not be writing laws that can be abused by the corrupt.
You've broken the HN guideline that asks: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
As usual, dang helicopters into a conversation, snipes out the least relevant part of it, makes a fuss and leaves.
He has executive power by dint of the admin controls, but for the health of community driven sites it's important to ignore people like him, or no discussion can be had.
Your opinion and words still stand visible, I'm afraid.
> Generally speaking, people don't go around assaulting people, and so low rates of prosecution for assault is not really a problem in most cases. But, enough people sexually assault women that it is a common experience
That can't be the right distinction, because with that broad a definition of assault, people do go around assaulting each other all the time.
Thanks, I updated my comment. I meant that due to the comparatively low number of aggressors, most people aren't on the receiving end of common assault. At least, not assaults serious enough to worry about. (Poking is also assault, if unwanted)
To clarify, in high crime jurisdictions, lack of prosecution for common assault or petty robbery actually does become a societal problem. It's still not the case that most people commit crimes, but enough do that all people worry about it.
In most parts of North America, crime has dropped enough that common assault and muggings aren't realistic worries for most people, most of the time. Sexual assault is still done by enough people that all women have to worry about it on a regular basis.
So I think the distinction depends on how many people commit the offense, which affects the percentage of the relevant population which is a victim of the offense or realistically has to worry about it.
While men are often perpetrators, and may have predisposition to do so, I believe a large driver of sexual harassment is power relationships. This means men over women, but increasingly,also power relationships involving a female over male subordinates. Sure some male subordinates might receive it gladly, and women often think that offering themselves sexually is doing a male a favor, not all male subordinates will perceive it this way. Anyway, I just wanted to chime in about how central power relationships are to these things, and how they often lead to abuse, and also abnormal behaviors in people with power.
How can you say men have predisposition to be perpetrators? How come men aren't rallying and getting outraged? What if I said men are predisposed to be better at science and technical careers? Men are predisposed to being better leaders?
By using the word predisposition on sex, are you implying that men and women aren't equal?
Science can be immoral at times. When science and morality are at odds, the right thing to do is to make the moral choice. One just needs to look at the holocaust to see the perils of placing science first.
What you state is a true scientific fact. However, it is immoral because it implies that men and women aren't equal. Thus because it is immoral, the fact cannot be true. Women are equal to men in both intelligence, aggression, height, size, strength, ability and penis length. To imply otherwise is to be sexist.
I expected this to be the millionth blogpost about p-values.
It's pretty clear that any organization is gonna have some powerful men (people?) in it who sexually harassed people. I don't think any industry is free from it, though some industries may more conducive to it (hollywood and academia for example are industries with cults of personality, and a lot of people desperate to be involved in it).
320 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 284 ms ] threadAll of this requires a lot of context.
But first step should be proving it, not blackballing someone because of allegations. I think we can all agree that removing someone who harassed is a good thing, while removing someone who is only alleged to have harassed is a bad thing. And that distinction probably needs to be made by someone qualified, not an activist or the general public.
As we've seen over and over, very often there's no investigation unless the matter is broadcast publicly. So much easier to sweep things under the rug.
Still, maybe we should publicize that allegations have occurred without specifying against who? And making it public if an organisation refuses to investigate. That should give the same public result without the need to attack someone who is only alleged.
Are you saying you'd be fine with it if they weren't brilliant? Or that touching the thigh of a junior in your organization, who you are also hitting on in texts, should just be OK in general, for both brilliant and non-brilliant managers?
I mean either way I think you were born a few decades too late, but for clarity's sake, I'm curious what you're getting at.
The question will become more difficult when people who are essential to the success of a company or product become entangled in allegations (and perhaps eventual convictions). But let's forget the high bar of convictions, for a moment.
If we soon begin to embroil anyone and everyone who may have said something inappropriate or who had someone interpret something as inappropriate, we'll end up including people who are _essential_ to a company or companies.
When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc.
Else, a less discerning competitor could scoop up problematic talent.
You mean like Weinstein, Spacey, and Singer?
When that time comes, I think companies and society will have to reach a consensus on how to deal with borderline cases (things uncouth but not illegal). Will society ostracize and black ball all cases, or pursue ways to rehabilitate people --like they rehabilitate drunk drivers, etc.
I haven't seen people get fired for just saying the wrong thing. These cases are mostly way beyond that. Some people have gotten accused (Affleck) but they have been brushed off as either not having evidence or not being serious.
This isn't "oops I made a mistake" behavior, it's predatory behavior and predators are hard to rehabilitate.
Most people call it flirting (I mean the touching of a thigh).
Let's not make guys stupid romantic attempts out to be like rape.
If in a professional context, it's definitely inappropriate and must be called out.
Folks: someone touched someone on the thigh at a conference (inappropriately), and it's making international news? This is ridiculous.
My point isn't that this case isn't bad behavior, it's that we will get closer to a grey area or undefined area and will have to have a more nuanced response to those (mis)behaviors.
Never the less, I think we will come to a time when companies will have to come up with something beside "zero tolerance". It's not a forgone conclusion, but I think we will come to a more nuanced approach as more people get caught up in these scandals.
Certainly the likes of Weinstein and Spacey have very little redeemability (However, we see Polanski had some abroad if not at home) but there is another class of people who do act "ungentlemanly/unladily" whatever, but not all the way to sexual harassment. For example, if we take Dustin Hoffman at his word, yes, it's uncalled for, but is it beyond the pale, given the times it took place?
I think companies and society have always had a clear consensus on these issues; the recent events have merely been pointing out that 'ignore and suppress' isn't a very good response.
https://www.facebook.com/Pinegroveband/posts/101557485055597...
Musician cancels his band's tour because of non-public accusation of "sexual coercion" in a relationship. What were his other options when someone presented this claim to him, presumably with some probability of the claim going public?
One reason we have such a guideline is that it takes time for the community reaction to actually become clear. The downvote situation usually rights itself, as it has—quite decisively—above. Only a single downvote affected that comment to begin with.
There's already a big precedent. It's Mark Hurd at HP. He was basically asked to resign for less severe incident than what these guys are facing, even though he did spectacular thing to HP stock price after years of Fiorina mismanagement.
That's a myth. People leave companies all the time and they continue to exist. Executives are not paid high salaries because they contribute anything special other than what any other person would do. It is just that they, as a group, have the power to give themselves high compensation. If I were part of a group of people who decided their own salary levels I would also increase it!
I presume he was too mission critical to get rid of as long as they could keep it quiet.
Maybe I just don't understand the other perspective enough.
Is that flirting or a joke? Would you want that?
He's not guilty by law, he's been accused, and it's very possible there is enough evidence behind the accusations to make it warranted. Most people don't want to go out of their way to pretend to be the victim (not great word, but nothing more appropriate) of sexual harassment or assault.
To me, it seems to be "harassment" if the female isn't interested, but that can be a very fine line between the natural relationship between men and women that almost always requires the man to make an advancement and put himself out there.
This doesn't seem to be a case of a good man being dragged down by an angry mob. This is a well known jerk being shown the door.
If you are a phisically attractive man, women WILL make advances at you and try to have sex with you. I don't know about the U.S., but here in Europe and in Canada it certainly is the case.
Try to think of men and women as exactly the same, just with different genitals and bodies. This might be an oversimplification, but it is nearer to the truth then our common preconceptions about men and women. Before I got to that conclusion I used to have only male friends and I didn't get along well with women. Now my closest friends are women.
If you seriously believe this "natural relationship" stuff, you might be part of the problem. Also, you're restricting yourself to a certain kind of relationship to women and you're probably missing out on some great experiences, including sexual encounters.
When women start asking men out at a similar rate as men, then maybe there isnt a "natural relationship" anymore. A large preponderance of data from places like Tinder, OK Cupid, etc completely contradict you in a very statistically signifiant way. Call it cultural all you want. I'm just going to call it common sense.
Despite your shrill protestations, there is no "mob filled with righteous hatred" going around. Where action is being taken, it is with a preponderance of evidence.
Only those who have actually indulged in such behavior need to worry.
Do you have an example of that?
Which is why there are documented murders that people who were in danger of getting hit with academic sanctions committed to prevent those sanctions. Even if secret, the people imposing those sanctions are the ones deciding over the future career of the targets of those sanctions, so secrecy does not matter.
What I mean to say is that, firstly, there will be extreme reactions from individuals to any academic action against them. Truly extreme. At the very least they will blow up any cooperation there might exist. Second, everybody else will understand these extreme reactions, because they are justified by the ridiculous cost these sanctions impose on them. Addendum to the second one: often the supporters of people getting accused will threaten imposing sanctions on students of the professors going against their students, if they consider them valuable enough, for the more vague accusations (like plagiarism. Since technically having a single formula in a presentation unattributed is plagiarism, and everybody constantly does that, ... What I mean to say is that there is a LOT of "usual" plagiarism for more basic things and also a lot of accidental plagiarism, which results in that if you're a member of an academic board, you can bring this charge against virtually anyone at almost any time. Add to that that a lot of professors also have cases of less-than-accidental-but-currently-unpunished plagiarism to their name. Things that they committed where the victim couldn't bring a coherent case, but any of their colleagues certainly can construct a coherent case on behalf of their victims. So with one supporter in an academic board, you can get away with a lot. Without a supporter in an academic board, you're career can and will be torpedoed as soon as anyone in that board thinks it'll help them in some way to do that)
There are 100 academics, minimum, for every position available (which is one reason why so many "little positions" exist, like board members of conferences). That means one flaw essentially means you don't have a shred of a chance to achieve anything.
This means there are no "light" academic sanctions, and the result is that like the medival and muslim punishment for stealing, it causes extreme responses. It means that a thief in the middle east will shoot up a market rather than be arrested for petty theft, and it means a grad student will sue a university for millions to avoid a little note on their diploma saying he got suspended for a week for destroying some university property.
If lives are ruined, it is the harrasser's own doing. It is precisely the fact that such incidents are routinely shrugged off that harrassers feel emboldened to continue. Perhaps if they realized their careers were on the line, they would check their hormones and act more appropriately.
Furthermore, this line of thought completely ignores the lives and careers that the harassers have already ruined. By treating junior colleagues as sexual opportunities, this robs the field of future talent by pushing them out.
I would disagree that an isolate incident of inappropriate touch or a suggestive comment or attempt to initiate a sexual relationship with an underling would ruin the victim's life or career. It is a different story if it is proven that the harraser also ignored the rejection or if they used their position of power to pressure the victim for example by threatening to ruin their career. Not differentiating between these two scenarios would not be fair to the harraser in the first scenario and it wouldn't be fair to the victim in the second scenario.
That's a dangerous question to ask. By framing it that way, you turn a clear cut matter of overstepping professional boundaries into a personal question.
I interpreted it more as asking people to think about how they would feel in that situation. That's dangerous, because it opens the door for people to say, "it wouldn't be that big a deal to me."
That would be fine if personal feelings were relevant, but they're not. It's unacceptable for someone to treat others this way, regardless of whether they accept others treating them the same way in return.
Obviously we can only ever speak for our personal opinions, but at a professional conference, during the working hours of that conference, I want professional behaviour. I'm there to hear and talk about my profession; some dickhead who sees it as an opportunity to cheat on his wife feeling me up? I take a dim view. Even some tosser trying his luck with a "cheeky" remark (and those tossers always know just how to pitch it for plausible deniability - I know when I've heard someone being out of line, but they act so hurt and so innocent when you bring it up) ruins the mood, and not just for the target.
Frankly, you should just avoid interacting with women in a professional environment unless it's strictly about work.
That coworkers sometimes show interest in one another? Or, that HR complaints sometimes arise from coworker relationships?
Here's a nice article from WaPo if you'd like to read about a deluge of new complaints at HR departments and social media.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2017/11...
That article is paywalled.
Edit: Since I can't reply to your comment, I'll just say: You're asking for something impossible to provide. I can't post formal HR complaints on the internet. But HR should be taking social media complaints about coworkers or managers seriously and just as valid as any formal complaint. If you disagree with that, you should consider reflecting on just how serious this matter is to anyone that has felt harassed by "locker room talk", comments on their looks, and other crass speech in the workplace.
You've twice now given me examples of things that aren't "an HR complaint filed for someone showing interest." That's all I'm interested in. Can you back up that assertion, or not?
Interesting that you've managed to twist "a tweet" into being equivalent to an HR complaint. Perhaps that's the bigger issue.
But I also just scrolled through a few hundred or maybe a few thousand #metoo tweets. I didn't see a single example that fit the definition of "complaining that a co-worker expressed interest".
Can you give some examples of those tweets? I feel like that at least should be possible.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Don't be snarky. You're not adding to the discussion.
Get enough of that and a larger number of people will view the ends of dethroning these types as a justifying the means of trial by publicity. But if this bad way of solving things continues, eventually there will be a counter-counter reaction.
However, rather dealing with the situation, "sht storm to sht storm", what would be nice would be to have a process that allows bad behavior to be dealt with immediately and effectively and clear standard letting any potential bad-behaver know they're going to face consequences. The reason for companies to have strong, clear policies on this sort of thing is to prevent events of this sort from causing more chaos.
It seems reasonable that X person who's moving into a position that is going to make them irreplaceable to the company should be investigated even more.
Also, applying strong pressure on a subordinate for sex may seem like "just flirting" but it is actually abusive and illegal because it puts the subordinate in the position of fearing retaliation if the refuse. It's different from a person being offensive to a person that don't have a lot of leverage over.
In order to deal with any a systemic problem, you first need allegations to be made. Presumably Google's investigative team (which I've heard is very good) will be able to check the veracity of those allegations, and make a recommendation to his manager.
That said, one would hope that if virtually all universities, corporations and VCs put sufficiently strong policies in place, bad behavior would occur less to begin with and be dealt with quickly when an individual does so behavior rather than having a given individual engage in a long streak of behavior that only stops when a large number of people go public.
For any mods reading, it might be better to point the link to the primary material here.
It reminds me very much of behavior my girlfriend has experienced as a public high school teacher. I could give you an entire laundry list of comments and advances male coworkers have made to her, ranging from mildly questionable to pretty creepy. It really makes me sympathize with Lum, and I find what she's describing here very believable.
""Google is investigating the matter," Gina Scigliano, a company spokeswoman, said."
...
""I would like to defend myself against her accusations, but the matter has already been referred to my university’s EEO team, which I’m told will be conducting a full investigation into the matter," Carlin wrote in an email to Bloomberg, referring to the University of Minnesota’s Equal Employment Opportunity department. "So I’ve been instructed not to say anything more publicly pending the results of that investigation."
"Evan Lapiska, a spokesman for the university, said the school is "aware of public accusations" involving Carlin but declined to comment further citing privacy protections."
http://www.vulture.com/2017/12/matt-damon-shares-all-his-bad...
Later on, cooler, more egalitarian heads seem to prevail, but things are always pretty dirty during the first hour or so one of these stories is on the front page. I can only be thankful that the folks doing the upvoting are not the dominant voice in the direction that we're taking as a society r.e. respect for women in the workplace and elsewhere.
Er, James Damore, anyone?
Even progressive Hollywood, as progressive as they are, have not even scratched the surface. I don't doubt there is a reason for the "casting couch" cliché/meme/stereotype. I'm sure there is a lot of housecleaning to be had that's yet to begin.
This is a new consciousness and it will take some time to work things out and figure out how we go forward without going overboard.
Maybe you're saying they only talk the talk... That might be fair to say.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_projects_supported_by_...
Hollywood is somewhat unique in that (a) it is located in a region with center-left politics relative to the USA, and (b) it has a concentration of rich celebrities who come from an arty background rather than a business background, and therefore have different values and priorities, and use their personal public stature to promote those. That doesn’t mean that it is politically monolithic, or that local businesses and other institutions are particularly “progressive”.
My point about Soros is he's considered progressive or representative of it.
HN has hosted many previous threads about sexual harrassment and sexual assault in the tech industry, and most haven't had the quality you rightly object to.
P.S. I recognize that California generally requires two-party consent for recording.
Doing so has saved me not once, not twice, but three times from blatantly false allegations regarding my speech/behavior.
I HATE living my life this way...but what choice do I have?
..after I wrote that, I remembered I do know something about that. A few years ago, I was arrested and lost my relationship and was made homeless etc when the police believed false allegations about my behaviour, made by my partner's 11-yr old daughter. (Nothing sexual or too terrible, just that I'd done overly threatening things one night, enough to make her feel afraid.) But I still wouldnt record everything. Sometimes in disagreements with my current partner we wish we had recorded the whole argument; that would be very useful.
Now I think he might have been on to something. Is it really common to go swimming at a conference with others attendees of a different sex? Crazy parties with booze et al at a conference like NIPS? What is going on here? Why even have these non-professional outlets, distracting from the professionalism of the conferences themselves?
It's an argument that informal aspects to career success need to be minimized in general. It has other aspects beyond that...all the bullshit of placating or being a puppy dog for your founder or boss in the name of networking, or success too often being who can put a good word in for you rather than a good record sucks.
I don't think the Pence rule is necessary or helpful, I would say avoiding sexual relationships in work situations is probably a good idea in industries with highly skewed gender ratios, but many people complain that just doing that is too high a burden.
It isn't necessary for most people in most industries, but it is a rule that some men may need more than others. That is a matter of personal judgement.
It is also a rule for a man who wields significant power, which requires stronger boundaries to be put in place. Pence is wise to take extreme steps, but most people aren't the US Vice-President, and don't need to go to the same extremes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/09/upshot/as-sexual-harassme...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/01/upshot/members-of-the-opp...
I don't see how Pence's comment makes any good sense. If you do what he says, you either:
- Don't trust yourself (or don't care) to demonstrate appropriate behavior
- Don't trust women to respect you if you respect them back.
Also you have presented a classic example of the fallacy of false dilemma. There are other options, such as:
- Worry about false accusations, particularly when you are a person of high power where political stakes are high (and politics bring out the worst in people)
- Are big into risk reduction/minimization. It is undeniable that it is less risky from an allegation standpoint to follow the "Pence rule"
That said, I think the "Pence rule" isn't all good because it has room for unfairness. For example, much business is conducted over meals while traveling. Meals and other outings can be great ways to get to know your boss, subordinates, and other coworkers. If one goes out to dinner with only male coworkers, that is unfair to women in the workplace, particularly when that person is the boss. For that reason I think if one follows "the Pence rule" they need to have the same standard with people from all genders, so never go to dinner one-on-one with another man if they wouldn't do so with a woman. I'm really whipping a dead horse here, sorry.
Right now, socially-wise, women have the upper hand on making claims of sexual harassment. The same power does not go to men.
This imbalance makes the "Pence Rule" make more sense.
The other side of why this makes "good sense" is the temptation angle - you can't get tempted if you don't have an opportunity. Unlike what the lefties think, Christians are people too and they get tempted just like other people, especially when drunk. Men are like recovering addicts when it comes to mating (all heterosexual or homosexual men with regular levels of libido are like that, if you say this doesn't apply to you, you are a liar). Resisting a beautiful woman/man flirting with you is like being a heroin addict trying to not shoot up a dose in front of you. Of course you can resist, but it's hard, requires a lot of self control and most people are incapable of doing it without first experiencing the drawbacks. Is there another option? Don't put yourself into that situation in the first place... if you're married, there's no reason for you to be alone with likely sexual partners when alcohol is involved. All the cries about "sexism" of what Pence said are absolute nonsense and probably stem from the left's disrespect of traditional family values and marriage (they don't see having 50 partners in a year as a problem and an "open relationship" is almost a goal for them). There were multiple cases this year (not two, but like a dozen) of self-proclaimed male feminists who supposedly "trusted women" and "trusted themselves to demonstrate appropriate behavior" who should be the beacons of proper behavior when it comes to "respecting women" who ended up being sexual harassers, rapists or even murderers in one case. Does this prove anything? No, but it illustrates that "trusting yourself" is easy to say and hard to do even if your stated goal is exactly that.
Not that it matters, but since this accusation is very likely - no, I'm not a Christian... or a Republican... or an American.
Do you have any specific examples of "a random accusation ending people's careers"? As far as I know, all of the recent media activity has had confirmative evidence and Damore 1) was never accused of anything other than being none-too-bright, 2) is a significantly different case, and 3) was hardly a random accusation.
P.S. The sexism of Pence's statement probably has more to do with the part about requiring any aides that work late with him to be men. Rather limits the career of any female aide, no?
P.P.S. Don't forget that lefties don't have blood like normal humans; they have a thick, black tarry substance that smells of sulphur.
"Marxism" is actually really out of style in modern left leaning academic and social justice activism circles, since it focuses on exactly one axis of oppression.
Citation needed.
From TA: "During his 12 years in Congress, Pence had rules to..."
- Are concerned about potential damaging baseless accusations/rumors/gossip from third parties that you don't trust?
Necessary disclaimer, because internet discussions are great:
Do not interpret this as an endorsement of Pence's policy. I am not interested in arguing about the character of Pence. I am simply pointing out that there are other valid reasons that someone could adopt such a policy.
If you don't invite them you're being "exclusionary." If you do invite them, then 7 years later when you're about to be appointed to the board of directors she writes a blog post about how you drunkenly grabbed her waist and told her she had nice tits.
Tech companies encourage it too... because they want us all to have our entire social lives wrapped up in the company. Oh - you don't want drinks with coworkers after-hours? Maybe you're not a cultural fit? F--- you, I do the job you pay me for, let me keep work and social life completely separate.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
(Not that I am implying the person in the article is not guilty or it was an unfair accusation, just commenting on what Pence is doing).
That is pretty common in pretty much any kind of society where water is present. Swimming is normal social accepted activity and swimming pools ceased to be gender segregated years ago.
"Crazy parties with booze et al at a conference like NIPS?"
Crazy parties are not common, but booze at conferences is common pretty much everywhere except in Arab countries.
"Why even have these non-professional outlets, distracting from the professionalism of the conferences themselves?"
Conferences were always largely networking and socialization - even years ago. Even when they were male only. And they will always be that way - you all could have just exchange papers otherwise.
Are all rules equally good?
Not only are they human, many of them young. And humans like to have fun, which include boozing, dancing, socialising, and -- for many -- hooking up (a surprising number or researchers end up marrying other researchers, in my department probably about 1/2). Presenting a paper is great pressure, and once that done ... time to celebrate. Conferences are a great opportunity to see old friends. In 20 years of being an academic, I've never once been to a conference that didn't have social events of some sort. Official events are often followed up by private socialising.
Indeed, making friends is in some sense the most important function of conferences. Who wants to work with somebody they don't like?
A large majority of harassing is probably done by men, but it's not 100% men.
Even though it's not 100% about men, it still being almost entirely about men and the culture among men which equates sexual aggression with status and power still makes the discussion worth framing in those terms.
We cannot know that. It has not been researched, and the victims don't talk about it.
There was a time, in Finland, when everyone assumed that domestic violence is "almost entirely about men", research proposals were ridiculed and not funded. When they eventually studied the topic, 20% of the perpetrators turned out to be women, and in aggravated assaults 50%.
That said, I do fear we may take it too far. Unwanted touching is never OK, and abusive/hurtful language is not OK either. However, I saw a poll the other day where a significant number of respondents said that asking someone on a date was sexual harassment.
There have also been a lot of cases where sex was consensual, but later on one of the parties had regrets, and now it was considered rape (even though it was consensual at the time it was happening). This sort of thing is what happened with Louis C.K. What he did was sick and weird IMHO, but the women actually consented to watching him pet his monkey, but then later after the fact had regret, and what in the moment was fine suddenly became a heinous act. If this is the standard, I think we're all screwed, because we have all undoubtedly "raped" or at least "sexually harassed" somebody.
Sure, "a lot". But it is a very small percentage of all rape reports (obviously not counting the millions of rapes that are never reported).
> This sort of thing is what happened with Louis C.K
No it's not. Not in the least.
> the women actually consented to watching him pet his monkey
No they did not.
Fair enough, "a lot" is most likely not accurate. It's probably a small percentage of all rape reports.
> No it's not. Not in the least. > No they did not.
Yes, they did. His mea culpa was essentially a statement that he believed that his asking for and receiving consent wasn't valid because he didn't realize that the women's respect and admiration for him would cause them to feel pressured to consent. I don't fully disagree with his analysis there, but if the standard is that anybody who has respect for you cannot consent, we are in some trouble.
He did not get consent from the women to expose himself.
And even the fact that these women had to decline his earnest requests to masturbate in front of them is itself deeply offensive.
Between 2% and 8% according to the numbers I can find, similar to the rates of false accusations of other felonies.
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15938382
Describing "S"'s behavior is one thing, describing the behavior of a Senior Researcher at Google is another.
Right before I ever attended my first conference, one of the women who was a year ahead of me in my program pulled me aside to warn about him. She told me to do my best to avoid him at the conference but “every woman has a story about him, so it’s only a matter of time.” Of course, she was right. Months before my defense, while at a poster session to present my dissertation work, he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.” I remember feeling deflated.
In the years since, he’s sent me several inappropriate private Facebook messages. In the first, he responded to a Facebook post I had made asking for people’s experiences with Lasik eye surgery with a message that some activities would become much better. Trying to deflect what I thought was going to be an awkward interaction, I responded that I was looking forward to better bird watching. He followed up with a private message that “the activity [he was] thinking about was sex, but bird watching would be better too ;)”. I ignored him. On another occasion, I posted about some data visualizations using data from a medical journal that involved the relationship between age and pubic hair. He sent me a private message explaining how the data is corroborated by his own experiences watching a certain genre of porn. What his personal preferences regarding porn are is something I definitely did not want to know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted about the data given the racy topic, but I thought it was in-bounds since it was a comment on data in a medical journal. I guess I was wrong. I responded but tried to end the conversation quickly. On another occasion, he sent me a private message out of the blue to let me know that there was another researcher with a name very similar to my own who published an article that “is even about sex, broadly defined (fecundity). You guys related?”
...and it goes on.
This seems to have been their first interaction. Touching her was plainly a dumb-ass move. Plus his consistent deafness to her repeated "I'm not interested" feedback.
But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women in professional contexts, I'm immediately suspicious. Are they stylishly clueless? Are they trying to manipulate others? Are they making a point about women being free to dress as they like?
I mean, I invite you to log about outfits worn by your male and female professional colleagues. Assess overall tightness, especially legs, butt and breasts. Estimate percentage of bare skin, especially cleavage.
For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.
It's not at all clear from her blog post that she was dressed provocatively, or that he was sincerely commenting on the appropriateness of her appearance. This could just as easily have been a scenario where a man thinks a woman looks good and lets her know that he thinks so, while simultaneously criticizing her for his advantage, ie, negging.
But with the information we have, we just don't know. It's like an ambiguous personal email that one can project attitudes onto; if you're feeling defensive or threatened, then it's easy to read a perfectly neutral message as being hostile or even sarcastic.
Most of your complaints seem to be that men and women have different standards for work-appropriate clothing. If bare arms are too provocative for you, that is a personal problem that you need to work on.
But the problem is that people gossip. And they judge. Covertly. As in "I don't trust this woman. Why does she dress like that? She'd be disruptive. I'd better not hire her."
So . . . burqas for everyone, then?
Seriously, if you can't recognize that fashion norms for women and men are different, and can't tell the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man, I cannot help you.
Please say more about "the connotative difference between a sleeveless shirt on a woman and a tank top on a man". I don't see much substantive difference. They're both an assertion of physical power.
I actually do think that "burqas for everyone" might be a good fashion trend. For privacy, given that there are cameras everywhere. But in professional American culture, it's actually men who are more constrained to dress modestly.
1. Close friends/family.
2. Professional designers/fashion experts.
As to his dumb-ass move, I wonder what would be your reaction if he'd done that to you, because that's what she felt. I think it would be a bit different from, "that's a dumb-ass move".
If someone had done that to me, I would have gracefully fended them off, verbally and physically.
As for these conferences I always think not allowing alcohol is the best solution for avoiding the pack of idiots the author ran into with one loudly bragging about 'banging smoking hot chicks'. You could have behavior police there kicking out the people acting like they are in a frat party or you could just not have alcohol and at all times push this is a professional conference not a nightclub. You'll still run into creepy predators because that is a fact of human life. The advice I was given a long time ago when in pretrial lockup for bogus charges of violating the CFAA is never let anybody get to level 2 of the punk test, always make it known their behavior is not acceptable by directly telling them or use banter, which is how males typically interact with each other in these situations. With banter you also establish a rapport which makes it easier to tell them to cut out unprofessional behavior. The girl in this story when the drunk creep threw weak banter at her after she gave him the look for his loud creep comments could have responded with her own bantz instead of feeling humiliated, as that was a prime moment for a joke about him being at the wrong conference as it wasn't a fictional story writing con or stats joke on inaccurate analysis, with a direct reminder to keep their frat antics down. No humiliation, and message gets received the behavior isn't appropriate and the creeps will respect that you can keep up with the banter so usually won't persist. This sounds like victim blaming but predators are also good con artists who can insulate themselves with other powerful people to retain their status and deflect discipline so reality must be checked. A large accounting firm here that a friend of mine worked at in HR discovered they had a manager with numerous settled sexual harassment lawsuits none of the employees knew about they tried to keep secret. The company was more willing to keep paying settlements than they were willing to fire the harasser.
Also, this idea that you should respond with chuzpah to every idiot who bothers you puts the burden on the person who is being harassed to protect his or herself from the harasser, when really the harasser is the one who should be controlling their behaviour.
Finally- some people are just not good with banter. What about them? They just get harassed and it's their fault if the can't come up with a zinger to put the creep in his place? I don't think that's resonable.
While I have you: if you're commenting here, please keep this guideline in mind too: Comments should get more civil and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If this were a free woman, she would have raised her voice, made a scene, and possibly even delivered a well-deserved slap to professor creepy. Instead, there was "struggling", "humiliation", "embarrassment", etc. She didn't even name names in the Medium post!
As to why she is not free, I do not know. Escalation of commitment? Prestige? Financial insecurity?
What I do know is that this is a terrible example for the ladies out there. Saving it for a cryptic blog post and waiting for some godless HR department to mete out justice is a shit plan, even if it did work this time. If this were a rougher crowd than a bunch of stats nerds, this could have ended very badly...
I hereby advance my theory that it is rather simpler than that. 'If you are in a position of power over the other party, then you should keep some social distance'.
Don't smack their bum, don't message them about their holiday photos on FB. If they come to you tired and emotional, sit them down on the other side of your desk and ask them what is wrong. Tell them you are sorry they feel that way. Talk for hours if you need to...at work. Keep your trousers zipped up.
Is it that hard? If your team socialize, then by all means go with them. If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.
I think it is very easy for a decent human being to avoid.
Even if people don't follow the platinum rule, they should surely recognise that there are interactions they would have a problem with. The people happy handing out "hugs" to people they are attracted to are surprisingly unwilling to receive them from people they find unattractive.
Everyone should be given social space until a mutual agreement that something else happens. This is especially important if there are significant cultural differences between people.
It's far less common, but it certainly does. You just won't hear about it if they find each other attractive.
Here are two points I consider interesting:
* In academia, the only time when you have no power over anyone else is when you are an undergraduate student. After that, almost everyone can be thought to wield some power over anyone, either directly (professor -> student, full professor -> junior professor, senior/accomplished PhD student -> new PhD student) or indirectly (almost everyone you meet is a potential reviewer of your papers, many professors sit on boards which decide postdoc/faculty positions).
I would say that the power is more perceived than real -- having a bad name with one professor outside your university likely does not kill your career -- but I would consider it natural to feel uneasy if such a professor expressed intimate interest in you and you had to turn them down.
* I have a feeling that for many people, already a single bit of information -- namely knowledge that an person with some amount of power considers you attractive -- is something that would cause them uneasiness (in academia or otherwise). And this uneasiness would be permanent and is not dependent on how this bit propagates to you; from the most innocent (an invitation for coffee that is turned down, a smile in a professional discussion that never veers off-topic) to the most inappropriate (as described in the original post).
If that is true, the only solution I can think of is to make sure no such information is shared among any people in your organization -- I abide by that rule personally, but I can understand people opposing such a dehumanization of the work environment.
> If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.
This seems dangerously close to the Pence view of not socializing alone with women.
Is your view actually stronger? That a person should not socialize alone with anyone they have power over, rather than just women?
tl;dr
For me, it's a matter of risk tolerance. I have a very low tolerance for the risk of cheating on my wife. So based on my best understanding of the circumstances that tend to increase the likelihood of infidelity, I try hard to avoid those circumstances.
> Doesn't this attitude perpetuate the harmful stereotype that men are not in control of their own sexual urges?
First, "stereotype perpetuation" isn't something that just happens to people. A person has some ability to accept or reject adopting belief in a stereotype. So I'll let other people take responsibility for what they believe regarding this topic.
Secondly, what you're seeing is a male being in control of his sexual urges. My post was simply giving insight into one of the mechanisms by which I do it.
> Shouldn't someone in a committed relationship be able to control themselves better?
Well ideally, yeah. But I didn't design the human condition.
> Do you really not trust yourself?
I try to have an accurate understanding of my strengths and weaknesses, and to plan accordingly.
It’s a little inhumane to make individual men responsible for the weight of western civilization’s treatment of women when they’re trying to do right by their partners. I determined years ago that I’m some combination of unwilling or unable to maintain monogamous relationships, so I stopped making that commitment. Even without that constraint, being romantically engaged with people is at best distracting and at worst destructive, and so structure my life so as to avoid engendering those feelings. When I spend time with members of the sex I find attractive, I inevitably want to escalate.
It’s my unsubstantiated conjecture that this is why traditional societies had separate gender roles. Same sex groups take so much less emotional energy.
Which brings in all the problems with the Pence view. It reinforces the glass ceiling / old boys club, because friends talk about business on the golf course (or at the LAN party), and then women get excluded from that.
Worse, it's a policy adopted only by the self-conscious people who wouldn't otherwise have crossed the line anyway, and not the bastards going around groping people left and right, which increases the proportion of interactions with the latter category.
The problem seems to be that there are obvious benefits to standing right on top of the line (increased probability of friendship/romance) but nobody wants anybody to cross it, and that can't happen. If you tell everybody to stand as close as they can to an invisible line that nobody can quite agree on the exact contours of, every time a moderate person actually draws their version of the line you'll find a whole slew of people standing on the wrong side of it, because it's everyone even slightly less moderate than that. Ask a conservative (i.e. puritan) person to draw the line and everybody will be standing on the wrong side of it.
Rejection sucks. Nobody wants to get rejected, so nobody wants to be thrust into the position of the villain who has to reject someone. But the world where nobody ever has to reject someone is the completely sterile one.
The uncomfortable no is the price of the opportunity for yes. Nobody who internally knows that the answer is no wants that "opportunity" thrust on them, but how is the other party supposed to know that ahead of time?
And it's no help to point out the obvious cases. There are things that 99.99% of people agree are over the line. The problem is the things that 75% of people agree are over the line, because then 25% of people are doing them.
Some might, I don't. Some crap people do crap things. I discuss work issues in work. Out of hours work discussions exclude all kinds of people, people with families, women (again in particular) with children and those who prefer work situations to social ones. I occasionally meet male and female colleagues one-to-one in coffee shops during work hours, to talk things through, but I don't drink alcohol with them.
I haven't studied Pence's view, but I am a married man and I rarely meet women socially one-on-one. I socialize very occasionally with my team . I have seen so many times where a manager socializes with his team, then they do a bit of texting, then one hits on hard times and needs a shoulder to cry on, then they fall out and the company has a sexual harassment case to deal with where maybe it is just a 'lovers quarrel'.
I agree with the other poster that said that having sex with close colleagues is wholly unprofessional. There are plenty of people on earth.
What is so bad about talking business outside of work?
Yeah, and I feel bad about that. Hopefully things like professional societies, meetups, etc. can mitigate those factors.
And realistically, in my experience as an experienced software developer, the whole golf course / LAN party thing just doesn't happen. Or if it does, I'm certainly not benefiting from it either. Maybe for CxO's or people in sales, I wouldn't know.
It tends to be much more subtle than most people expect. The boss asks your coworkers about you and people say nicer things about people they're friendlier with. Or you're hanging out with someone outside of work and end up talking about work for a minute, and having the extra information makes you look good. Or your friend gets a job at a better company and then you have inside information and someone to put in a good word for you if you want to do the same thing.
It's a damn shame, too. But the reality for me is that apart from making sure my kids stay alive, my most important commitment in life is remaining faithful to my wife. If that commitment prevents me from personally helping to shatter the glass ceiling or even means I'm unintentionally upholding it, then so be it.
People have agency over who they have sex with, you're saying they don't.
So, if you are misogynistic, following this policy saves you from career suicide and harming others, and if you are not misogynistic, then the price is small. Therefore, it's best to follow this "no socialization with subordinates" policy.
At least in that way, one gender isn't staying away and keeping away the other, thus potentially exacerbating the problem of gender stratification.
But then again, now we're in the murky territory of privacy, and how many jurisdictions are 2(all) party consent.
Back and forth, round and round. Pence's answer does seem to be the logical, if completely ugly, solution.
I didn't say don't socialize, I said keep some distance. The example of being in a bar together is the start of many sorry tails, and yes you should go home.
But the answer is yes, I have a different relationship with my workmates to my friends, deliberately. I do the majority of my business in business hours. I don't find after hours drinking clubs healthy at all.
What the medium post reports is not just a gray area, it is clear sexual assault and unwanted creepiness. I'm starting to wonder if the people upvoting these posts that suggest people dehumanize themselves in order to keep from being accused (!) of sexual assault are doing as some sort of reverse psychology in order to push back against the #metoo movement. That's because such an attitude is exactly the wrong take away from this.
If you cannot find the line between assaulting someone and being their friend, I think the problem might lie with your interpretation of people and their feelings, and not with "being too friendly" whatever that means.
And it's easy enough to separate these actions from benignly asking someone on a date.
No it is completely obscene. I hope it is severely dealt with, and all of the people who were around and didn't criticize, and promoted even tough they knew are dealt with too.
What I was commenting on is that every time the subject comes up a load of people start the 'you can't even talk to women any more' nonsense.
> dehumanize themselves
It is not dehumanizing to not fuck your colleagues. I see it as extremely unprofessional to get too close to them. I see my self as an extremely kind, thoughtful and empathetic manager. My female staff have brought me issues from menopause, menstruation, man trouble to money problems and I try to give them all a sympathetic ear. When I have dealt with something in a way that has upset them it pains me. I care very strongly for a number of my team, indeed I have one away on secondment and I miss them. I ask them about their weekends, and their families. We even throw the odd innuendo around. One is very flirtatious, and I laugh it away. However at 5.30 they went their way and I went mine. We are colleagues not Fuck Buddies.
Your post sounds exactly like the "you can't even talk to women any more" that you claim to not like - you are literally saying that men need chaperones ("If you find there is only two of you left, then go home.").
I wasn't saying that at all, you have removed the context reductio ad absurdum. The context was at the end of an evening of socializing. Now we have two drunk people, boss and sub-ordinate, in a bar together after a night and everyone has gone home but them. Presumably everyone else exercised their good judgment that it was time to leave.
I'll tell you what you can take literally, I literally saw that on a sexual harassment claim. In this case it was withdrawn, and my best guess of what happened is that it was consensual, but lead to an awkward situation which they found uncomfortable in their small team.
None of what I am talking about is relevant to the sexual predator scenario. However strong guidelines on professional conduct do help stop predatory behavior hiding behind 'just being playful'
For instance- it's very good sense to remember that the people who are under your management are employed to do as you say and don't just freely decide to grant you their time and attention. When the social context is of communication between work colleagues, you are very likely to make a mistake if you interpret it in the same way as communication between friends.
Consider for instance the situation where The Boss Made a Joke. A sensible boss will recognise that people aren't necessarily laughing at their jokes because they consider them funny- but because it is polite to laugh at colleagues' jokes, and you are expected to be polite to your boss. So a manager who keeps on cracking jokes, thinking that everyone finds them so funny, is not acting sensibly and is making a social mistake. A boss who keeps the jokes to a minimum required to keep morale high, is actually keeping morale high.
At the end of the day, what everyone must realise, managers and reports alike, is that your colleagues are not your friends. To the extent that you don't make the decision who to work with (because someone else hires them, or they hire you) you are also not choosing to socialise with them. You are obliged to socialise with them in the context of work.
Btw, I recognise that the OP is actually totally treating his (?) employees as friends- but there you have it. I think that's inappropriate and can only lead to tears.
You can be friends with your workers if they are friendly. If not, just be professional. There should be no reason to either have to a) force employees to be friends or b) force employees to be robots.
For fuck's sake, the issue here is sexual assault and harrassment, it's a far cry from misinterpretation of comments or intent, which for some reason, people think is a bigger deal than the abuse women and men have faced in the workplace. How about you respect people as people? That seems like a better prescription than forcing people to be cold to each other.
I do agree some of the rules are different with bosses, as the maxim goes, with great power comes great responsibility. But your conclusion that colleagues are not your friends seems ridiculous to me. It ignores the organizations where people are friends and there are no issues.
So I am being a little combative, but please tell me how this opinion is still problematic. I am genuinely open minded and want to discuss this.
For what it's worth, I consider "being friendly" and "being friends" two distinct categories. You can be friendly to people (or polite, corteous, respectful etc etc) without actually being buddy-buddies with them.
On a personal note, I have been lucky to have had some strong working relationships with (male) colleagues who offered me valuable mentorship. They were great teachers to me and helped make me the professional I am today. Still- we were not friends, in the sense of slapping-the-back, rude-joking, buddy-buddies. I'm not saying that sort of relation (a colleague who's your mate) can never work. All rules are made to be broken etc etc. But I do believe that unless you carefully compartmentalise your professional relationships from other kinds of relationships, you run a very significant risk of making a mess of all your relationships.
Edit: as to ignoring organisations were people are friends and the sky doesn't fall- that's just the survivorship fallacy, innit. Just because you can swim with sharks without being eaten doesn't mean swimming with sharks isn't dangerous, in general.
I propose an alternative theory: "Socializing", "getting to know each other outside of work" and even "flirting" are sets of activities strictly disjunct to "discussing your sexual fantasies", "acting out your sexual fantasies" and "showing around pictures of your dick".
Maybe there is mutual interest between colleagues to do more outside of work. That's fine. Go with it, but make sure it's actually mutual. Maybe you get new buddies or friends, maybe (very unlikely) more - but look for clues how the other are feeling and - unless you're already far, far beyond a work relationship, don't ever assume they want sex.
Anyone outside your field and/or occupation. It's that simple.
I actually don't understand this line of reasoning at all. You propose it as a bit of a strawman, but there's always at least one earnest comment in such threads to the effect of "well, now you can't flirt with ANYONE at work!"
That's correct. You can't flirt with anyone at work.
The problem isn't the set of social guidelines that say you don't try to fuck your colleagues. The problem is the people who seem to think that because their personal inclinations make it unpalatable to seek romantic encounters outside of work, that they're entitled to seek romantic encounters at work.
They/ you are not. Find hobbies; ask friends for friends-of-friends that are looking; hit up OKCupid or Tinder or what-have-you. There are any number of ways to seek romantic entanglements that completely divorce you from the issues of power dynamics that occur when courting professional colleagues.
Just stop.
Work celibacy is not the answer, and it often leads to keeping sexual relationships clandestine, which enables further bad power dynamics.
Discouraging a rapey dickhead enabling culture is a far more successful investment of effort. Policies against inappropriate supervisor relationships are a good idea though.
Amusingly, using tinder isn't enough to avoid dating within the company for many.
If you are a person of social standing in academia, it shouldn't be hard to figure out what a poster session is for - and it's not flirting or criticising people's dress styles, which hardly counts as "socialising". People are there to talk about their work (and have no good options for getting away from you).
If only life could be so nicely compartmentalised as anglosaxon cultures dream...
The whole distinction should be in the abuse of such relationship for coercion (e.g. Weinstein style) -- as opposed to the mere presence of such relationships...
I am a professor of statistics, and have encountered lots of issues surrounding relationships and harassment involving colleagues as well as once myself.
Based on these experiences, I agree with you for the most part, but am not sure even that is workable advice, unless you want to create an cold, inhuman environment. And even then it raises lots of thorny issues that you might not anticipate.
I can say from one, personally impactful experience, for example, that "talking for hours if you need to" at work, with someone you work with one-on-one for hours daily, can lead to, say, a mentee declaring feelings for you. Maybe this talking started under pressure from other colleagues and students to help the mentee feel more comfortable because of concerns about how they're feeling in general. And because that individual might be a brilliant, amazing individual you've found you share a lot with, after enough time, you might develop feelings for that mentee too, even if you never started out with an inkling of that when you started reaching out to them. The immediate response, you think, is "well, tell them these kinds of things are inappropriate and leave it at that." Ok, but then, without any further context, does that shame the mentee and lead them to believe that their feelings are abnormal? Do you tell them that it's normal, you have feelings too, but nothing can happen as a result, it's inappropriate to pursue a relationship? In that case, even if nothing physical happens, it might lead to severe complications later, purely emotionally, as both of you deal with the consequences of knowing you have strong feelings for each other but nothing can happen as a result. Do you say nothing at all? After all, the mentee confessed feelings for you without you saying anything to them of that sort, and that didn't stop them from telling you that they have feelings that way. Will they try to escalate things if you don't say anything? Do you reach out to colleagues? Will that shame the student or damage their reputation?
Take this a step further. Let's say you do somehow prohibit males and females from becoming close. Do you prohibit purely platonic same-sex relationships from being close? Is it say, sexual discrimination when a female faculty member has her (non-romantically involved) female, but not male, students over for dinners regularly, to chill and watch movies or have small gatherings, shares hotel rooms to save on costs (for cash-strapped students at expensive conferences)? That is, after all, discriminating against male students on the basis of gender. Or are they just being caring and friendly with their students, and careful in avoiding complications with members of the opposite sex? What if a female faculty member never takes male mentees? What if it were a male faculty and male students? Isn't that the "old boys" network? Where do you draw the line? When does differences in closeness of relationships become gender discrimination?
Unlike you, I do think there's lots of gray areas, and I see it as an unavoidable consequence of humanity. I kind of agree with you that ideally, you should just keep work relationships impersonal, but I think that's really unrealistic in practice. What worries me is this kind of blanket idea that any feelings or sexual behavior or relationships between coworkers or supervisors and supervisees is always the result of some maliciousness or failing or something on someone's part. It seems there needs to be a more nuanced approach to these things, or some more realistic discussion that recognizes people do have feelings for one another, especially those they are in regular contact with, platonic or otherwise.
I've heard of all sorts of stories in this area involving other students and faculty, from advisors basically sexually assaulting students, to advisors who end up marrying their students and ending up in very happy, hea...
Every time I have had to look into a situation where somebody has been accused of inappropriate behavior I find that nothing grey has happened at all, in fact the manager has been stupid. The manager has started texting at weekends, turning up at their house uninvited, plying them with alcohol, commenting on their Facebook etc, right up to 'she offered, and never look a gift-horse in the mouth'. I think these are REALLY easy boundaries not to cross.
> I can say from one, personally impactful experience...
Thank you for sharing, this is a touching story and I'm sure is not an uncommon one with academics. Mentoring must be one of the most rewarding parts of the job. A mentor finding that their feelings for a mentee are strong, or finding the mentee feels strongly for them is going to happen sometimes. I'm sure some heterosexual advisors have very strong feelings for their same-sex mentee's which are above the normal boss/colleague dynamic. Managing it well is going to be very difficult and take some skill, if you are going to continue to work together. Sometimes the difficult choice is going to be that you lose your mentee, but retain the moral high ground.
If however you end up sleeping together, then you have crossed my line, I'm afraid. If you simply have to be together then you need to restructure your professional life so you are not their boss any more.
>There's also things like students and advisors who are close and end up having sex at a conference when they are both completely intoxicated and both regret it later.
And 100% this is misconduct on behalf on the advisor. 100% it is their fault.
> ideally, you should just keep work relationships impersonal
That is not what I said. I said to keep some distance, not to be a robot.
Sexual and romantic relationships among people in direct supervisory relationships are too close to sexual harassment, and prohibited by most HR departments, as they should be. That should be a big no-no. Notice nothing precludes people from acting on romantic feelings after the supervisory relationship ends.
I think talking about gray areas and splitting hairs when we have accounts of horrible behavior is detrimental to solving these issues. Let's get rid of these a-holes, and then we can discuss shades of gray when we have gotten rid of the horribly abusive behavior.
1. A certain type of man who has developed highly problematic habits in regards to repeated, if not very frequent inappropriate (sexual) harassment, and who essentially has been rewarded for this for a long time.
2. A type of person (mostly women, but as far as my observation goes, this general trait is common regardless of gender) who has failed to speak up and push back, often for many many years - who only now that everyone does it, feels "comfortable" enough to speak up.
As a man I am frustrated about group 1) because they are a pain in the ass to women and fuck it up for all other men, and I am frustrated about persons from group 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution.
Fear of losing a job/allies/opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It's more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved.
How many of those misbehaving men could have been stopped from doing what they have done over decades if they'd have received clear, unambiguous feedback on the inappropriateness of their actions, instead of "rewards" for their bad actions? Many of these might be better men today (as long as you don't think they are born that way), and there would not be a need to publicly shame all those men (which will probably come at a cost to society in some form of backlash, making everybody worse off).
Julia Galef just did a podcast interview with Timur Kuran about "preference falsification" which touches on this topic . http://rationallyspeakingpodcast.org/show/rs-198-timur-kuran...
I know men who have an extremely hard time to speak up when things happen that they disagree with, and I know women who are very good at clearly, ambiguously showing boundaries as soon as someone attempts to overstep them (note: I am writing here about these sexual harassment cases related professional environments, not about physical attempts of rape). So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion.
This is not how the world looks like, however, even if some are working hard in painting it that way. You are disqualifying yourself with your simple-minded approach of using a label instead of actual arguments.
"Victim blaming" is one of the most problematic labels that are being thrown around nowadays, but it also is a nice way to filter out the people who are not able to have a rational, fact-based discussion.
But to factually approach your accusation: Saying "It's the person's fault that she/he has been attacked" would possibly be justified to be called "victim blaming" (although even then I personally think there are better ways to challenge a line of argumentation than these highly charged labels. They make people lazy and to disengage with nuanced view points).
In my comment, I wasn't doing anything close to that, though. My point is a completely different one.
I’m not trying to be controversial, but from my perspective this is the actual definition of victim blaming - do you agree with this assessment? Not in the sense that a victim is responsible for their own attack, but rather the victim is responsible for every subsequent attack. Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?
From my perspective you’re suggesting it’s the onus of victims to reorient their lives and potentially suffer in their professional career in order to police the voluntary actions of another person. Is this accurate? Would you agree the victim has that responsibility?
“”” 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up") “””
Again, not trying to be controversial - but have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something? I’m curious because from my perspective you’re treating this issue quite flippantly, and with a very narrow minded viewpoint. I suspect that many men who haven’t been in violent situations have a hard time understanding feelings of physical vulnerability. And they have an even harder time understanding why even seemingly mild cases of verbal inappropriateness can cause the same feelings of physical vulnerability.
“”” So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion. “””
I think your position sounds perfectly reasonable to people who don’t have any experience with it, but breaks down when actually applied in real life. Specifically, I think youre proposing that women just shut down situations they feel unease about, which sounds perfectly logical and may happen most of the time.
But it ignores the other outcome, those which Hollywood is famous for - women that decline the sexual advances of men find themselves labeled as ‘frigid’, ‘uptight’, or ‘difficult to work with’, and watch their professional lives suffer as a result. In my opinion, the conflict aversion is the optimal strategy for when one potential outcome is neutral (the harasser is sorry, and otherwise won’t hinder victims livelihood or career), and the other outcome is highly damaging (the agressor escalates, or the aggressor is sorry but feels the need to harm the victims career to protect their own).
"Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?" Definitely not. If this is how my comment can be understood, then I failed to express what I meant, although reading it again and again, I am a surprised about this. However, it's just a reminder how different the same statement can be interpreted.
My reference was to what I see as a moral/ethical responsibility of an individual to the society at large to do something against a negative phenomenon.
I see everyone carrying a responsibility to make a society work. That means speaking up, that means giving feedback, that means helping people to improve - and yes, sometimes that means giving up or at least risking an opportunity, because sometimes, doing these things which I just described is not received well.
Which brings me to your second point and your question. "But have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something?" I have been putting my "career" (in the sense of opportunities and professional relationships) on the line multiple times due to me disagreeing with various terms, or based on certain principles, or simply because I felt that what I was asked to do would not be true to myself, and I have expressed clear and loud disagreements to the extend that I wasn't sure whether voicing this would get me fired. I am generally a person who rather says "no" to something than to say "yes" just to avoid the conflict. This probably impacts the way I look at the whole topic. I wouldn't have written what I wrote if this is not how I try to act myself. For me, my integrity is more important than money, career, power, status.
However, I have not been physical assaulted in that context that we are talking about here (even though I have been physically assaulted in a violent non-sexual context, but I guess that's not really what you are looking for).
Having said that, I have a hard time with this idea of extreme human vulnerability in cases such as the one's we are talking here though. I am a human being myself. Even though I am not a woman and have not had a colleague trying to kiss me at a party or sending me inappropriate text messages, I have had plenty of stressing, uncomfortable, potentially threatening "real life experiences" to state t hat, while everything can leave (psychological) scares , essentially describing women (or individuals in general, as I - as mentioned before - consider the underlying motivator of action or not-action being not gender-related) as completely helpless in these situations is the wrong approach, no matter how "right" it feels.
I'm saddened that this topic even needs to be part of our discourse in our culture today. Perhaps this is a sad old story. Yet we see this all the time of people in power in the news. I hope that we can come to a collective realization that this is doing no one any good to behave irresponsibly.
Imagine this: You are John Smith and since you were young, you have been taught that as a man, you have to get laid as much as possible, that women are sex objects, that your self-worth depends on your success as a sexual predator. Your friends happened to think the same (you maybe picked your friends even based on these value, subconsciously), and so, while you grew up, this is how you lived and acted. And it worked. You had sex with a lot of women, you received praise and acknowledgement from your peers, you felt like a real man and so on. And you gt comparatively little push back. Sure, there was something in you which might have told you that you over and over again hitting on the same girl must have been annoying for her - but as every human, you saw things from your perspective, and from that one - which you have learned and internalized over decades - this is what women wanted, and how it was supposed to be.
Couldn't this be how the men from group 1 became those who there are? And wouldn't this mean that what they in fact would have needed was to learn a different way of behavior, through feedback when they stepped over the lines?
Following your logic, decades of social conditioning would automatically disappear. You are using the word "need" multiple times. Of course. But what if they actually really didn't get the memo? Because this is more likely than these men sharing your value set (or mine, for that matter) but violating it constantly and deliberately.
Some would call this behavior "toxic masculinity". And it is. But exactly like the social conditioning that other groups were exposed to doesn't just fall off of people in a second, toxic masculinity does neither.
Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. The answer to that question has been a resounding no, whether it was slavery or war crimes or sexual assault.
To summarize, lack of feedback cannot be the reason, willful ignorance and dehumanization perhaps is and that is something the victim cannot be tasked with rectifying.
This of course is a re-occuring theme of the past year(s). People not making the effort to understand why others act/behave/vote radically different. It seems to be unbelievably hard to acknowledge that what might be despicible from one’s own viewpoint might appear completely reasonable from someone else’s in their specific context. Which doesn‘t excuse their actions but explains why they have not been seeing/noticing the obvious damage of their behavioral patters.
In order to change that person’s viewpoint requires work from the ground up.
Laurie Penny writes very well about all this sort of thing: https://longreads.com/2017/12/05/the-consent-of-the-ungovern...
For instance, you question the ethical and moral responsibility of (alleged) victims who did not speak up at that time. I can easily imagine being one of those people, and I think that most of the time in other situations which are not sexual we see that most people keep their mouths shut and try to make the best of a bad deal: it's why there have been fewer violent revolutions. People with strong, clear ethos who make the choice to "speak truth to power" are rare, everywhere, in every time.
I would ask you also to consider that there were probably more non-victims who were passive observers, privy to at least some of the bad behavior who also did not speak up. Perhaps they should be the main thrust of your comment, rather than people who may already be so psychologically weakened that a brave act is the last thing that is likely?
All, that said, I find the #metoo hashtagging irritating. I do not know why, but something grates about it.
I fully agree with you. I tried to account for that by pointing out that this is a pattern that can be observed irespective of gender, but I guess my striving for brevity meant that this point didn’t come across clearly enough.
I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough.
Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. So as far as I can tell, it is the general problem of dehumanizing victims. The blame does not lie with Type 2 people who did not feel "comfortable" enough to publicly speak up.
Take any crime which doesn't take in public view, let's say child abuse. Is it the responsibility of the victim to give feedback to the perpetrator, or is it the responsibility of the perpetrator to view the child as a human being?
PS - I made a very similar comment down the thread to another commenter as well.
I also like to use analogies. But this one really is misleading.
We are not speaking about juridical crimes here and not about children but adults. It’s one if the main differences between children and adults that society expects the latter to communicate, to express their thoughts, and to take responsibility for their actions or lack of action.
But nowadays in debates like these I see the emergence of a devaluation of these features that until now clearly differentiated children from adults. The individual of age is described like a helpless, voiceless child.
I find this seriously worrying (which is why I spent hours this Saturday in this comment debate, which I rarely do).
Since, I didn't realize you were the same person, here's my response for the other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15942520) you made. I think I understand what you mean by saying that what appears unwanted to one party might appear playful and wanted to another party based on their mindset. But then what guarantee is there that if the victim escalates the issue, that the escalation isn't considered playful either. Note that escalations can come in increasingly severe degrees and can also have equally "playful" connotations from the perpetrators perspective. If a victim tells her close girlfriends about the sexual assault, to the perpetrator it can sound as "I made such love that she couldn't stop talking about it". If a perpetrator has violated many victims, who have tried to warn their female colleagues, it can sound as "I'm so good that, some women want me for themselves and are spreading rumors about me to prevent others from getting close to me". I feel vile coming up with legitimate sounding sentences such as these, but I believe putting the onus on victims to give feedback need not make the perpetrators realize that boundaries have been crossed.
In my opinion there is an objective measure of whether a person is welcome or unwelcome. Now perpetrators might have a different viewpoint about it in which case no matter what the victims do to escalate the issue, it need not necessarily mean feedback for the perpetrator. On the other hand from the victim's perspective there is a cost to be paid in terms of engaging with the perpetrator apart from other costs which you already mentioned.
Finally, a few perpetrators might have such a removed world view that nothing below public shaming opens their eyes to the harassment, which is the only time we come to know about it. We might assume that no feedback was given by victims, but it might just be that the feedback wasn't nearly enough.
To summarize, the victims do not have nearly enough incentive to give feedback and perhaps many did and the harassment didn't stop until public shaming. It is definitely not the case of victims not having enough integrity to overcome costs to of giving feedback.
There were some important changes in societies which made women in many modern countries much more emancipated. This is no doubt was very positive change for economies (more educated workforce) and live in general (free love versus arranged marriage).
In recent decade or two, third wave-feminism took off and ballooned to the point when it became pretty ugly and full of systemic-hate towards males. What I mean by systemic-hate is that under the flag of gender equality, feminists try to explain any disparity between men and women as systemic oppression and discrimination driven by men.
So now, we can see overstretched definitions of rape and harassment and absurd claims that 25% of women experienced sexual assault etc (so called "rape culture", a bizzare term on its own). Just making sexual harassment allegations is enough to consider a person guilty. So any woman can forever destroy carrier of any man just by making such allegations. I can easily imagine situation where socially awkward male tries to make awkward flirt with female and, in response, she will easily destroy his career and life.
I can imagine that sexual self-esteem of young males could be massively degraded in hostile environment created by third-wave feminists. I'm so glad I lived my 20ties in Russia and not being influenced by this bizarre new leftist culture.
As one friend of mine called - horizontal totalitarianism: anyone who question third-wave feminism's dogmas would be crucified/banned and fired for being sexist, supportive of rape (what an absurd!!!!), and against gender equality, considering women as inferior to men etc
When I lived in Russia, I romanticized western world based on movies and politics of 80s and 90s. I imagined western world as individualist and free-market paradise free from government's heavy hand. I imagined that people in the west are open minded and I looked at feminism positively. Now, I'm deeply disappointment by what I see...
That still happens in some societies today https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatif_rape_case
> So now, we can see overstretched definitions of rape and harassment and absurd claims that 25% of women experienced sexual assault etc
You need to get to know some women.
>One night after the conference talks were over, a bunch of conference participants and I went for a swim in the ocean. While I was swimming around, S repeatedly grabbed me under the water, putting his hands on my torso, hips, and thighs. I tried to play it off and swim away. He picked me up and pulled me into his chest. He then started to carry me away from the rest of the group, presumably to have some sort of private moment with me that I had absolutely no interest in sharing with him. I struggled, gently at first and then more forcefully, and he let me go.
Serious question, is that (a quote from OP) something you'd call overreach?
[0] https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/11/daily-...
This is one of the intangible yet insidious impacts of harrassment that men really need to stop and take notice of. As a man, I've been fortunate enough never to have been put in a situation where I've had to doubt that interest in my work was merely a ploy to get me in bed. Think of the massive impact such a doubt can have on a young scholar, struggling to prove onesself, fighting self doubt and imposter syndrome. Then when senior colleagues pay attention to your work, and you find out that their interest was more salacious than professional, it must be hugely demoralizing. I'm sure this accounts for at least some of the gender disparity in technical fields, how many women simply vacated the field after people would only use their work as a pick-up line?
> We need to start holding prominent individuals accountable for how their inappropriate behavior negatively impacts the careers of their junior colleagues.
Holding them accountable is not enough, we need to ruin them. Everyone in S's group at Google should submit their resignation, conferences should blacklist him, editors should reject his manuscripts, grant money should be withdrawn, and the entire field should shun him and his kind until the message is clear that science will not tolerate this behavior.
I don't care how good of a researcher he is, how much of a "Bayesian expert" he claims to be, I could never read a paper of his or hear him talk without feeling disgust that here's yet another ego-consumed hyper-nerd who exploits his talents to gain power that he can use as leverage to satisfy his lust. Screw you, S, and the Bayesian prior you rode in on.
No you were not. You are full in line with fascists when writing:
> Holding them accountable is not enough, we need to ruin them.
Um, this kind of thing happens quite often to men.
I’d argue anyone with something to give experiences this to greater and lesser degrees too. People write songs about this phenomenon and its complement (“Nobody knows you when you’re down and out”).
How is this not outright assault? Why are the police not involved and why is this guy not being charged with anything? Why is anyone concerned about protecting his privacy?
And it's not assault because it's not. He was playing in the pool, she disengaged successfully. If you push someone in expectation of a bar fight and they walk away, the police likewise aren't going to pursue charges. That doesn't excuse it, of course. But there's a limit to the protection we can get from law enforcement. Obviously if it happens repeatedly, this can be harrassment, which is something that can be pursued via civil means.
(And, probably sexual assault, but that depends on how it's defined in the jurisdiction. In Canada this would be sexual assault)
I don't believe it deserved that. I do think what you wrote has a legal mistake, but there's no malice, and it's a fairly common mistake.
Similarly when somebody tries to force you into a sexual situation without your consent, it's sexual assault, regardless of whether you end up escaping it.
The trouble with both offenses is that 1. They are broad, 2. They are hard to prove criminally
Broad isn't a problem per se. What I mean is that the system is set up to make the offense as wide as possible, but not to prosecute every case.
This occurs with regular assault, not just sexual. For example, I'm sure most people reading this have had someone shove them at one point. I'm also sure that crime was not reported to the police. Even most cases of punching probably aren't reported.
Next, the proof. The problem with both types of assault is that generally there is no evidence other than the words of the victim. Convictions can happen, but it makes it hard to do so in the less serious cases, which leave no mark.
So apart from non-seriousness, that's why shoving isn't prosecuted. Whereas attacking someone and leaving cuts, bruises or broken bones provides definite evidence something happened. It both increases the gravity of the case and the provability.
I've used examples from regular assault to show that low rates of prosecution/conviction aren't merely an issue of sexism. Assault/sexual assault are fundamentally hard offenses.
However, this absolutely has a disproportionate effect on women. Generally speaking, people don't go around assaulting people, and so low rates of prosecution for assault is not really a problem in most cases. (What I mean here is that not enough people commit unprovoked common assault for it to be a common experience on the receiving end. Domestic abuse is likely the biggest place our system has a gap in this regard.)
But, enough people sexually assault women that it is a common experience, especially for offenses which fit the category of: 1. Leaves no mark or lasting physical harm, 2. Has no outside evidence, 3. Is nonetheless psychologically traumatic.
I don't know what to do about this. I think the solution probably starts by recognizing the nature of the situation, which is why I've spelled it out.
Which is terrifying, because it undermines the notion of a jury trial.
But, if something does go to trial, it's still up to the jury to decide.
If you make the offense definition broad on the assumption that not every instance will be prosecuted, then you take the power of conviction from the jury and hand it to the state prosecutor.
If the state prosecutor elects to prosecute, the conviction is guaranteed because the law is not specific. It varies nation by nation as to whether a jury is allowed to directly ignore the letter of the law when passing a judgment, but even in nations where it is not, jury nullification is uncommon.
Thus, the conviction rests on the prosecutors decision to move ahead or not, not on the judgment of a jury of the defendants peers.
>I imagine most cases of assault in the middle ages were not brought to trial either.
Fuck me dead buddy, I hope you're not seriously attempting to use the middle ages as an example of how a justice system ought to be?
>But, if something does go to trial, it's still up to the jury to decide.
In Canada, it is considered the duty of the presiding justice to attempt to prevent the jury from performing jury nullification[1].
So yes, it's up to the jury, but the jury is under pressure from the justice to not consider the ramifications of this system you seem to like so much too deeply. Since we all know very well that humans are easily manipulated by perceived authority to harm their peers[2], I stand by my statement: that sounds like a terrifying way to write laws.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification#Canada [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
This has nothing to do with jury nullification. That's a situation where conviction is certain, unless the jury finds the law unjust. Assault is far more likely to be a situation where there is reasonable doubt and no conviction, because of the lack of evidence typically associated with the offence.
In short, I think you're believing me to be saying something quite different than I am.
It's possible that you /meant/ something different, but everyone can read what you said. What you say matters my friend.
>This has nothing to do with jury nullification. That's a situation where conviction is certain, unless the jury finds the law unjust.
Nonsense, jury nullification is inherently intertwined with this topic, because if we're writing laws that may be unjust in order to ensure that they cast as wide a potential prosecutorial net as possible, the only defense that the citizenry has against a corrupt bureaucracy is consistent defiance via jury nullification. The problem is, consistency is incredibly hard to achieve across a whole population, which is why we should not be writing laws that can be abused by the corrupt.
You've broken the HN guideline that asks: "Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."
Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and take them to heart. We need that in order to preserve the container for discussion here, which is under constant pressure.
He has executive power by dint of the admin controls, but for the health of community driven sites it's important to ignore people like him, or no discussion can be had.
Your opinion and words still stand visible, I'm afraid.
That can't be the right distinction, because with that broad a definition of assault, people do go around assaulting each other all the time.
To clarify, in high crime jurisdictions, lack of prosecution for common assault or petty robbery actually does become a societal problem. It's still not the case that most people commit crimes, but enough do that all people worry about it.
In most parts of North America, crime has dropped enough that common assault and muggings aren't realistic worries for most people, most of the time. Sexual assault is still done by enough people that all women have to worry about it on a regular basis.
So I think the distinction depends on how many people commit the offense, which affects the percentage of the relevant population which is a victim of the offense or realistically has to worry about it.
By using the word predisposition on sex, are you implying that men and women aren't equal?
What you state is a true scientific fact. However, it is immoral because it implies that men and women aren't equal. Thus because it is immoral, the fact cannot be true. Women are equal to men in both intelligence, aggression, height, size, strength, ability and penis length. To imply otherwise is to be sexist.
Read the bottom.
It's pretty clear that any organization is gonna have some powerful men (people?) in it who sexually harassed people. I don't think any industry is free from it, though some industries may more conducive to it (hollywood and academia for example are industries with cults of personality, and a lot of people desperate to be involved in it).