I'm really turned off by these posts, too. I roll my eyes and mutter "Christ, not another one". But I'm a male who doesn't have to worry about being groped and I keep my hands to myself.
But let me guess how the reality turns out for her:
- She says something about it.
- The guy who is misbehaving is probably physically bigger than her. She may feel fearful of speaking up.
or
- She speaks up and gets called a "prude" or, ironically, a "slut". Maybe they'll blame it on her sweater being a little too form-fitting, or a little too low-cut.
Then, she follows your advice and posts what happened and the resulting action which results in even more criticism, death and rape threats than the course she actually took here.
If you have a young daughter, these are the kinds of issues she'll have to deal with some day. Might as well think about this now.
It's not just about having a young daughter. People need to teach their sons that they shouldn't be putting their hands on women's waists and legs. That is the other reason to write blog posts on this--to make men aware that they shouldn't be doing things like this.
From my observation, most parents teach their sons some euphemism-laden variation of the idea that they shouldn't make unwanted sexual advances—that they should be respectful to women, "treat a lady right" etc.
Even if they didn't it would be irrelevant: when it comes to sex, teenagers and young adults are much more influenced by their friends and by culture at large. A music video has much more influence than mom being bossy again.
Entirely speculating, but I think that's because a lot of parents avoid the Sex Talk until it's way too late. I think that if parents instill this kind of respect for consent at a much younger age, it will stick in the face of their children's peers' confused notions about what is and isn't okay.
I'm pretty sure everyone younger than 30 is well aware that such things aren't acceptable. In case you haven't noticed almost all cases are by people in their 50s or older who grew up in a different period and have different norms for social interaction.
At least that is certainly the case where I grew up. You keep your hands to yourself (and typically leave it to women to initiate things since doing otherwise will often result in issues).
> I'm pretty sure everyone younger than 30 is well aware that such things aren't acceptable
This is a severely optimistic take. There is a generational aspect but the main problem is lack of respect and empathy and those follow no generational boundary.
I would identify lack of respect and empathy as the primary source of the problem, rather than lack of education. The issue is less "some people under 30 do not know that treating others that way is not acceptable" and more "some people under 30 _do not care_ that treating others that way is not acceptable"
I mean, technically I suppose the empathy and respect may be something that you can teach, and if those are lacking then education aimed at raising empathy and respect needs improvement. However I think we are dealing with an issue that will be more difficult to resolve than just adding this material to high-school curriculum. Teaching empathy and respect is much trickier. (And with some people, it may be flat out biologically impossible (though google seems to be suggesting to me that researchers believe that psychopaths can choose whether or not they feel empathy, which is better than I suspected.))
I think we need cultural changes: teaching that is hard enough but almost impossible when some people provide an excuse shield anytime someone is called out on boorish behavior. This can't be an only in school kind of message - you have to see it actually practiced on a broad scale.
Unusually the writer of that comment has received 12 separate gifts of reddit gold subscription (from 12 separate people) -- reddit's social tipping system (they're $4 or so each).
I've never really understood the potential-physical-confrontation argument. It must be a very, very small minority of men who's first reaction to being embarrassed and shamed by a woman is to physically assault her in public?
I am not a woman. I am a large, muscular male who doesn't get bothered by anyone.
But it doesn't have to lead to actual physical assault to be uncomfortable or cause negative lasting effects in one's life. The intimidation, the mental abuse aspect of it is enough. If you've been mugged without being shot, it might make a little more sense to you.
And really, he put his hands on her inappropriately, so he's already committed physical assault -- not to get all bleeding-heart emo feminist or anything. But that just ain't right.
This from the guy who lived in his mom's basement learning to code[1] and whose "goal in life" is to get rich in an acquihire[2]. I have some pretty legitimate doubts that you know the slightest thing about either primitive lifestyles and their hardships, or modern lifestyles and their hardships.
As I'm reading, all I can think "Are you even remotely serious? We now can't have a discussion about gender without rfnslyr derailing the conversation, this time because he wants to harken back to early pioneer days?"
Your trollish derailment of gender threads on HN is rather telling. Or do you have any point related to how this woman was groped without her consent, repeatedly?
Right, this is like responding "first world problems" to anything and everything. Great, so basically anything except food and shelter is meaningless. What would you like to discuss now?
Yeah actually I do. I have a huge problem with it. I have a huge problem with: some douchebag acted less than human towards me -> this is how it is like to be a woman in the tech industry.
Next time somebody gives me an off handed remark about something, I'm going to generalize as well and cry wolf online.
It's blowing up a problem that isn't a problem at all, way out of proportion.
I get groped at bars all the time by women, I don't make a whiny blog post about it. Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".
She clearly suffered a fair amount of emotional trauma from this rather mild leg grabbing. Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.
Women in the tech industry is the next phase of Shakespearean drama.
Every time some retarded bullshit gender article meanders across my front page on HN, I'll shit post it. Why? Because HN is not your personal feminist platform. Flood twitter with your personal garbage.
It's very amusing and ironic to me that you are completely projecting the air of "generalization". I didn't see the author anywhere saying "All bitcoin users are like this" and in fact, you'll find me chiding someone else, here, for saying that.
You just want to reduce this to something that you can dismiss and ignore, because it's complicated and you can't hold your own when it comes to the details. And, in this case, you're just putting words in the author's mouth in order to invent a way to demean and dismiss her. Classy.
>Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.
I don't even know what "Of course" is supposed to mean there, but I'm pretty sure it says something not-so-great about your default position and open-mindedness on this issue.
edit: Can't keep up with your edits (it's okay, I do it too)
>Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".
And again, you'll note that this is very much a recount of what happened. In fact, she explicitly said she doesn't think she was violated (and I disagree with her, but that's her prerogative).
The fact that this article even exists means she didn't do anything about it. It's not a helpless matter at all, but she's acting as if this is such a big event it warranted a whole essay on the matter. Like she just couldn't WAIT to leave the male stronghold of this meetup to seek emotional counselling online.
I am very open minded to problems that matter. There is no problem here. She ran into a super duper asshole, didn't outline her boundaries immediately, and instead is further polluting the tech industry with this gender nonsense. Next time some random grabs me by the shoulder that I don't know, I'm going to write an essay on it as well.
Did she get fired from a company because the CEO hates women? No.
Did she get physically assaulted or raped because she's a woman? No.
Is her pay significantly lowered simply due to the fact that she is a woman? No.
Did any significant change occur in her life from this encounter with this ONE douchebag? No.
Those are real problems which beg real discussion. This is an emotionally unstable girl who feels the world revolves around her and her gender. I know the type.
So why do I care? Why is it only women who blog about this emotional hot air?
It creates a false view of the field for other women, and when they go into it after reading crap like this, they assume this is what it's like.
Well not just that. If anyone at the meeting made it clear that the comments that were happening were not appropriate or welcome either I missed it in the article. It most people this creates the perception that it is acceptable behavior according to group standards. I would bet this perception of group standards is studied phenomena that is the default perception by the majority of people. So it seems reasonable that most people would get uncomfortable by the situation.
Well, how about this analogy--you see a really beautiful girl and you try to hit on her. You're not afraid she'll throw her drink in your face, because most beautiful girls would never do such a thing, but wow, she's really drop-dead gorgeous and you don't know how to handle yourself and you find yourself getting really, really tongue-tied.
It's like that for women confronting large men, except without the happy butterflies in your stomach.
Of course no analogy is perfect. The point of the analogy was to illustrate that even without someone actively trying to beat you up, acting normal can be difficult. That is the only aspect which I think those two situations share.
I would agree that the men who would hit a woman would almost exclusively fall in to the group who would grope them and say inappropriate things to them. However, I know way more otherwise well-socially-adjusted men who would make sexist comments but would never hit a woman.
Yeah, let's just get it over with and say he basically raped her. Let's increase the counter for "women get raped in public all the time" up by one. After all, even if he didn't rape her, the psychological damage was the same, so it counts. Also, let's put that guy in jail for rape.
"I wouldn't trust him after seeing him display that behavior. Would you?"
Of course I wouldn't. Neither would most people in the Bitcoin community. Nevertheless, now we have "this is how women are being treated at Bitcoin meetups".
Btw not only would I not trust him, I also wouldn't like him.
I don't think this guy represents any group of people either.
I was commenting on why the woman might be justified in worrying about a physical attack if she embarrassed the creep because he obviously doesn't have much in the way of boundaries.
Sorry, I probably really misread you. I also read the article again and personally I don't think the situation sounds that threatening - there were a whole bunch of people there, including a good male friend.
Nevertheless, "she could have said something" is of course not an excuse for rude behavior. I wouldn't want to excuse his behavior. As I said, if I knew him, I probably wouldn't like him much and certainly wouldn't encourage him to attend further meetups.
Ok. I am a big, intimidating looking guy (or so I've been told). Next time I see you, how about I just go ahead and put my hand on your waist, lead you to a chair, sit you down next to me than put my hand on your leg while saying shitty things about whatever group you might identify.
I've seen a one guy sucker punch another over a woman, dropped him straight to the floor. All three were total strangers to each other, also everyone was probably drunk though. I agree that it is unlikely, but it isn't beyond the realm of possibility... also to assess the violence situation you have to factor in the crowd. If you're going to potentially start shit it matters if you happen to be surrounded by his friends.
Anyway, although I agree with treating unwanted advances with reciprocal escalating naked hostility, the meetup organizer is really the only one with the power/knowledge to enforce standards of behaviour.
Well he damn near sexually assaulted her in public. Once he rested his hand on on her leg like she was his girlfriend, she had every right to be weary of this guy.
In a situation like that, we're not talking about cold, rational threat assessment. You're dealing with instinctive assessments of, as another commenter said, power balance, from a part of your brain that's a) very concerned with physical survival and also b) attuned to the support of other people around. And if the guy got away with putting his hand on her leg in public, so reasons the lower brain, who knows what else he can get away with?
Disclaimer: I'm a man so I've never dealt with that exact situation, but I've observed the above thought processes in awkward situations, and I would assume it's amplified in the described situation.
Spot on response. It's pretty absurd the number of people whose knee jerk reaction is some variant on "deal with it the way a man would". That line of thinking is so screwed up on so many levels to be absurd.
I do wonder about this sometimes. Like, when have I ever cared what the guy who hit me with his car thinks of me? When have I ever cared what the guy who stole my MP3 player thought of me?
I know "stop caring" isn't useful advice, but I wonder sometimes why any woman would care what an assaulter has to say in the first place.
I think the concern is more with what people in the immediate area (who may not have particularly been paying much attention) think. There is also the concern of escalating the situation beyond your control (fear that they might react violently).
Maybe the analogous situation is if you got mildly rear-ended, damaged cars but no injuries. Do you loudly call out the other driver and accuse them of negligence/recklessness, or do you calmly exchange information, file a police report, then let the situation be addressed when you are back home?
It's not really a good comparison, but I think it at least makes a little sense that you wouldn't try to call out the other driver on the side of the road after the accident (at least not without police present).
She specifically mentioned looking at this as a professional opportunity: beyond the immediate concern of possible retaliation by the attacker there's the concern for what other people might think. His friends might defend him and uninvolved people would remember her for the incident rather than as a professional and potential business partner.
Note that all of the property crimes you mentioned are different in one key way: a large subset of society doesn't initially try to blame the victim when it happen. Nobody is racing to explain that your car was asking for it or that you must not have taken enough steps to make your MP3 player unappealing, all of which are depressingly routine for victims of sexual assault.
I have two daughters and I would tell them to say forcefully "Get your hand off my waist/leg" so everyone can hear it, and then physically remove his hand from her body. Then it's her option whether or not to make it a police matter or stay at the event and blow it off, depending on how she felt about it.
But let me guess how the reality turns out for her:
- She says something about it.
- The guy who is misbehaving is probably physically bigger than her. She may feel fearful of speaking up.
or
- She speaks up and gets called a "prude" or, ironically, a "slut". Maybe they'll blame it on her sweater being a little too form-fitting, or a little too low-cut.
Then, she follows your advice and posts what happened and the resulting action which results in even more criticism, death and rape threats than the course she actually took here.
If you have a young daughter, these are the kinds of issues she'll have to deal with some day. Might as well think about this now.