100 female French writers, academics... negative on new “puritanism” sparked by sexual harassment...

[BigT]

@octopus

100 French women need to prepare to be Pitted! Oh noes!

And harassed, as they’ve just put a huge target on their back, telling the harassers they won’t get them in trouble over it.

I worry that this is what it will take to get these women to stop trying to undermine the antiharassment movement. We have to deal with the fact that most people in this world are profoundly selfish, and will only care when it actually affects them.

It’s why I prefer movements like #MeToo, where the people who disagree are kinda roped into publicly agreeing. We use their selfishness for a good cause. What they think in private is largely irrelevant as long as they don’t spread it.

Hell, that’s what capitalism tries to do–even though it’s not perfect.

[Starving_Artist]

@BigT

Yes, you say you’re anti-harassment. But then you perpetuate false claims about the current anti-harassment movement, claiming it’s about looking at women, complimenting them, or asking them out. None of the people who have been disgraced by this movement have been kicked out for such, so that claim is false.

No, but the repercussion of both it and the claims being made by its advocates are having a ripple effect throughout society and the workplace that are just as I described.

@BigT

So, while you say you’re anti-harassment, you’re actually fighting to stop the current anti-harassment movement.

No, I’m fighting to keep it on point and where it should be aimed, and against the exaggerated and scatter-shot way it’s being conducted now.

[octopus]

@BigT

And harassed, as they’ve just put a huge target on their back, telling the harassers they won’t get them in trouble over it.

I worry that this is what it will take to get these women to stop trying to undermine the antiharassment movement. We have to deal with the fact that most people in this world are profoundly selfish, and will only care when it actually affects them.

It’s why I prefer movements like #MeToo, where the people who disagree are kinda roped into publicly agreeing. We use their selfishness for a good cause. What they think in private is largely irrelevant as long as they don’t spread it.

Hell, that’s what capitalism tries to do–even though it’s not perfect.

The problem with modern communications is that outrage is random and terribly amplified. In many cases it could do more harm than good. Most people want a low or no crime environment. They don’t want vigilantes or death squads enforcing the law though.

[jtur88]

It is a witch hunt. The petitioners are asking for moderation and common sense, not a swing to the opposite extremist radical position.

[Filbert]

‘Common sense’ is a the easiest term to bandy around, and it means totally different things from person to person.

For me, it’s common sense that unless a) you have an existing relationship with someone where you’re sure your actions are welcome, or b) you’re in an environment such as a pick-up joint where the default expectation is that heavy flirting is welcome, you shouldn’t do anything directed towards women that you wouldn’t be comfortable if a man did directed at you. I call it the Sven standard.

If you’re at work, would you be OK with Sven from accounts pinching your ass when you bent over to refill the coffee machine? Possibly, if you were good friends with Sven, or maybe if you were into guys and thought he was hot (though even then that does indicate a lack of boundaries at work, unless you’ve indicated interest), but if you’re not into guys, and you don’t really know him, the odds are pretty heavy that you’d think that’s really not OK. Let’s assume you’re not into guys, and your interactions with Sven until this point have been on the level of asking where the photocopier paper is.

Would you like it if Sven told you your butt looks great in those pants?

If Sven just made a vague pass at you? Most non homophobes would consider that OK, even if they weren’t personally that comfortable with it, but they’d damn well expect Sven to take the hint if you weren’t interested. If he was then waiting outside ‘just by chance’ at finishing time, despite you indicating lack of interest, smiling, making ‘accidental’ contact, asking if you fancy getting a drink? OK?

Then he does it again next Friday after you politely said no, because you don’t want to cause drama at work? He’s just flirting!

If you complained to your manager, who told you that maybe you shouldn’t have worn those pants if you didn’t want him to do that, and you should probably be flattered, how would you react?

If you were in a (Gay) bar, then, well, the rules are different, and you expect comments about your body, but there’s a time and a place for jumping to more than expressing an interest without encouragement, and no means no. Simple as that.

(No offence intended towards Svens of the world, it’s just a fun name to type).

[jtur88]

To me, “common sense” is to look with suspicion on any sudden appearance and escalating repetition of behavior that appears to be furthered by a shrill extremist fringe movement and that the news/social media amalgam grabs hold of regardless of its lack of informational value.

[Little_Nemo]

@jtur88

To me, “common sense” is to look with suspicion on any sudden appearance and escalating repetition of behavior that appears to be furthered by a shrill extremist fringe movement and that the news/social media amalgam grabs hold of regardless of its lack of informational value.

Who are you going to believe? Twenty people who all accuse one person of a crime or the accused person when he says all twenty of his accusers are lying?

There’s common sense and there’s a refusal to believe something no matter how much evidence there is.

[johnod]

@Little_Nemo

Who are you going to believe? Twenty people who all accuse one person of a crime or the accused person when he says all twenty of his accusers are lying?

There’s common sense and there’s a refusal to believe something no matter how much evidence there is.

But there is no evidence, all there is accusations.
That to me is the main problem.

I don’t believe that the rules of law requiring proof should be suspended, just because women are making the accusations.

[Nava]

When the new teacher “overstepped boundaries” with 12 of his pupils, all there was was accusations.

From 12 children of both sexes who belonged to two different class groups, several of whom barely spoke to each other (not as some sort of cold war thing, we just had little in common), which happened to include two of the best students in the year…

The reaction of most of the people involved was to believe us. The fact that my mother did not and used her influence on the teacher’s side is one of the things I don’t know if I’ll ever forgive her. She believed it 30 years later, when the subject came up in casual conversation involving several of our classmates (not a single one of the 12) and “they all spoke of it as of a thing which was clearly and surely known.” But she’s a compulsive liar and not even a good one; her reaction to anything I told her that she happened to dislike was, almost without exception, “don’t lie!” and a raised hand.

[Pantastic]

@johnod

But there is no evidence, all there is accusations.
That to me is the main problem.

I don’t believe that the rules of law requiring proof should be suspended, just because women are making the accusations.

Eyewitness testimony is evidence in the legal system, so the idea that there are just accusations and no evidence doesn’t stand up in the first place. You, and people like you, want to suspend the rule of law that eyewitness testimony has any meaning, which has the practical effect of allowing just about all forms of sexual harassment and sexual assault as long as there’s not an audio or video record.

[MoodIndigo1]

Changed my mind about posting on this topic today.

[TriPolar]

There are extremists on both sides of this issue.

[Gatopescado]

I can tell you where my Cack-Handed self is planning his next vacation!

[mikecurtis]

@Filbert

. . .but they’d damn well expect Sven to take the hint if you weren’t interested. If he was then waiting outside ‘just by chance’ at finishing time, despite you indicating lack of interest, smiling, making ‘accidental’ contact, asking if you fancy getting a drink? OK?

Then he does it again next Friday after you politely said no, because you don’t want to cause drama at work? He’s just flirting!
. . .

I agree with everything you’ve said - and in general I agree that the current environment of taking workplace harassment more seriously is a good thing. Sven pinching your ass when you bend over is not ok, Sven continually flirting with you and asking you out, however. . .this is one area where I think women need to step and admit their culpability in this

We, as men, are taught, by women, that this is something we must do. That women want to be wooed; that women need to be wooed. Every teenage novel where the nerd finally gets the hottie to notice him by the “grand romantic gesture” teaches us that that is what you want, that that is what we are supposed to do. Everytime romcom Sandra Bullock doesn’t notice romcom Harry Connick til the final scene of the movie, even tho he’s been there the whole time, showing up for dinner and bringing her flowers and getting friendly with her daughter and mother; only then does she realize that he’s “the one” - teaches us not to give up on the woman even when she says we should. You teach us through everything you say to us, and make us watch with you, that even tho no means no, it doesn’t always mean no forever. So, when Sven keeps showing up hoping that, even tho you keep saying no, you will eventually say yes, that’s as much on you as it is on Sven.

And this might be the point Ms Deneuve and her friends are making; if you want to be able to fall in love with Harry Connick at the end of the movie you are gonna have to put up with Sven at the end of the day.

mc

[johnod]

@Pantastic

Eyewitness testimony is evidence in the legal system, so the idea that there are just accusations and no evidence doesn’t stand up in the first place. You, and people like you, want to suspend the rule of law that eyewitness testimony has any meaning, which has the practical effect of allowing just about all forms of sexual harassment and sexual assault as long as there’s not an audio or video record.

What eyewitness testimony?

[johnod]

I’ve never maintained that there is not any sexual assault.
I said that it should be proven, not just a social media assault on some guy.
We should not be accepting someone’s story as truth simply because they’re a woman, nor disbelieving someone else’s story simply because they’re a man.
That seems to be what we’re being asked to do, all men are the villain , and all women can do no wrong.
If there are eyewitnesses, that would be proof, or might be proof if the court would deem them reliable.

I don’t recall any eye witnneses?

[Little_Nemo]

@johnod

But there is no evidence, all there is accusations.
That to me is the main problem.

I don’t believe that the rules of law requiring proof should be suspended, just because women are making the accusations.

How does your legal theory work? If twenty women say they witnessed a man committing a crime and the man says he didn’t do it, we should believe the man? Because accusations by women don’t count as evidence?

[johnod]

@Little_Nemo

How does your legal theory work? If twenty women say they witnessed a man committing a crime and the man says he didn’t do it, we should believe the man? Because accusations by women don’t count as evidence?

Twenty women ,relating twenty separate stories is not the same as twenty witnesses.

Accusations by anyone are not evidence, they’re accusations.

[Corry_El]

@Pantastic

This is the whole problem with ‘witch hunt’ complaints like the one in the OP, or the one - I haven’t seen anyone proposing a “highly restrictive code of behavior”, especially one “just for men” (or “just for men interacting with women”). Like you point out later on, none of this is based on minor behavior blown out of proportion, it’s for really egregious stuff. The idea that “giving women a choice between ‘have sex with me’ or ‘never work in this industry again’ is bad” leads to something that can reasonably be called ‘puritan’ doesn’t seem to be based on reality.

Seriously, how many men would be perfectly cool if a larger man who was interested in you followed you into the parking lot and got between you and your car to ask you on a date? What if a guy just came up to you and started massaging your shoulders or smacking your ass? Hell how many guys will even comment on how pretty another guy looks in the office?

If you consider not doing that stuff a ‘restrictive code of behavior,’ you’ve already embraced a restrictive code of behavior, you just don’t apply it to women from men. And if you do think it’s perfectly cool behavior, you’re in a definite minority.

Although you started off very selectively quoting my post, I think you ended up showing why I have a point.

Yes as I said, most of the recently publicized cases involve people (men behaving badly towards women with a handful of exceptions) doing stuff that’s not defensible.

However, once you get into the hackneyed mode of ‘what if as man this happened to you’ you started to demonstrated my point, I think. First of all those analogies never work for stuff which isn’t obviously unacceptable. Then if it’s obviously unacceptable we don’t need those analogies. Adding a homosexual element when the targeted man might not be a homosexual makes them work even less well (FWIW same would go for men insistently hitting on women they know are lesbians, that would be an aggravating factor).

Touching people in an any way sexual way in the workplace isn’t acceptable. However with complimenting somebody, that I think tends to get to my point about mismatch between post-modern morality and neo-puritanism. Just as we both say, the celebrated cases aren’t about (possibly unwelcome) compliments, or even rubbing shoulders. They are generally for assaulting and (career at least) threatening.

But the more marginal cases are also on people’s minds. That’s presumably why you gave such an example as a (perhaps unwelcome) compliment. Those are the cases which in my view are complicated by the modern view that casual consensual sex is in and of itself always fine. And I’m not here to debate whether it is or not in some absolute sense. Just saying that under a previously prevailing societal view that an overtly sexual interest in someone you weren’t ‘courting’ for marriage was itself scandalous, it was easier to draw a line at something like a compliment. IMO there’s more of a problem drawing lines when it’s socially acceptable to just go have sex in a closet right then as long as both parties are amenable. In theory the answer to this is easy: ‘consent is all’, without consent nothing is OK, even a compliment. In practice not so easy, IMO.

BTW I’d suggest in a post where you probably meant ‘if one thinks that’s perfectly cool’, to just use that albeit somewhat archaic pronoun. When you say ‘you’, one, I in this case might take it to mean you’re trying to put me on the defensive suggesting I engage in improper sexual behavior. In which case I’d have to tell you to go fuck yourself. The pronoun ‘one’ avoids that confusion.

[Pantastic]

@johnod

What eyewitness testimony?

Is your assertion that a person who is a victim of a crime cannot also be witness to the crime? That’s bizarre and doesn’t match anything I’ve ever read about the US legal system.