# \#MeToo backlash is hurting women (Bloomberg article) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 5, 2018, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626 "2018-12-05T19:09:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/221 "2018-12-06T21:24:22Z")
> [@BrainFireBob](#): > > [Warning: Telling a Lame Joke in an Elevator can Endanger Your Career](https://quillette.com/2018/11/23/warning-telling-a-lame-joke-in-an-elevator-can-endanger-your-career/) This is an example of a generational reference being taken as sexualized, and therefore offensive. They investigated (fair), concluded he had done nothing inappropriate and she had misunderstood him (OK), and fired him anyway (ridiculous). Is this all we have? this is an example of an anecdote. Do you know this person? Am I supposed to take his word (seemingly self-serving) that his version of events are accurate? You seem willing to. If they investigated him and found he did not act inappropriately and fired him anyway, I would expect that this would be actionable. Has he filed a lawsuit? Or is it possible that his firing actually had nothing to do with inappropriate comment? ---
**Author:** ![BrainFireBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@BrainFireBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainFireBob)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/222 "2018-12-06T21:26:35Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Okay… Then, as you said that “believe women” is the same as “don’t believe men”, then are you saying that you don’t believe men? Ah. Before addressing the rest, please confirm where I said this. I didn’t, you have me confused with another poster, I believe. I’d ask you re-read my comments in the thread stripped of the association, because I’m fairly certain I didn’t say that. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/223 "2018-12-06T21:29:25Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > I was taking the posters word on it. I saw that he was censured, but I really didn’t investigate the article too hard, as it was just whining and whining. > > If he wasn’t even fired, then not only was the poster I was responding to sorely mistaken, but the person he is defending is even more of a whiner. > **[People | Department of War Studies | King’s College London](https://www.kcl.ac.uk/warstudies/about/people)** > > People in the Department of War Studies His bio is still on the King’s College website. So… has his life been destroyed by this case? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/224 "2018-12-06T21:32:57Z")
> [@BrainFireBob](#): > > MeToo hasn’t morphed into “believe all women,” it’s morphing into “If you don’t take immediate action that’s publicly visible, you’re showing you don’t believe women.” …#metoo has always been about something very simple. “I hear your story. It happened to me too.” Its always been about solidarity. About empowering. About showing the scale of the problem of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape in our society. And one of the reasons sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are at near epidemic proportions in society is because as a society we like to pretend that all these bad things didn’t and don’t happen. So making the process more transparent, making the process more accessible and having a process that strives to not “punish” either party prior to the end of the investigation is one of the things that, to be quite frank, has to happen. So if #metoo has morphed into taking “immediate action that’s publicly visible” (the reality though is that it hasn’t “morphed” into anything) then I don’t know how you can argue thats a bad thing. The pendulum has never been “at the middle.” Its always been very far away from justice and what is “fair.” If you don’t understand that: then you really don’t understand what #metoo is all about. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/225 "2018-12-06T21:38:06Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > And one of the reasons sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape are at near epidemic proportions in society is because as a society we like to pretend that all these bad things didn’t and don’t happen. Or that when they do happen, they’re not really that big a deal, or that they’re just natural behavior for men, or that women aren’t using the right behavior to prevent them, or that women aren’t using the right behavior to stop them, or that women are at fault for not avoiding them, or that women are at fault for taking them too seriously, or any or all of the above. ---
**Author:** ![BrainFireBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@BrainFireBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainFireBob)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/226 "2018-12-06T21:43:13Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > But, once again, the available evidence we have, however tentative, indicates that false allegations are really rare. At least within the legal system, we’re looking at 2-10% of rape allegations being false - which, given the rarity of such allegations to begin with, leads to a very low number. If there is _any_ evidence that false allegations of harassment are common in business environments, I have yet to see it. In terms of things to worry about at work, “I might be falsely accused of harassment” has _no business_ being near the top of anyone’s list. It’s like if stewardesses’ biggest fear on the job was being murdered by a passenger while en route - we’d be laughing at them, mocking them for being afraid of ghosts. > > And yet, here we have a bunch of (allegedly) adult men _pissing themselves_ over the idea that this could happen to them, and instituting harmful, sexist social rules to avoid any risk. Maybe it’s just male fragility (analogue to [white fragility](https://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2017/12/15/white-fragility-word-of-the-year-2017-shortlist/)) - they’re so used to never having to deal with any kind of gender-based risk that the moment something they can remotely relate to turns up, it freaks them the hell out. Over what? How often does this happen? And given that men report being sexually harassed at work at a rate of about 10%, why aren’t we implementing the Pence Rule towards _men_ as well? And let’s not get started on things like workplace bullying, where men are far more likely to be bullied by men than by women - and we know workplace bullying is a thing that _actually happens_ with some regularity. > > This whole thing is a bit like never hiring black people because they’re technically more likely to be criminals - it’s using bad statistics to gin up a mostly-fabricated fear that makes things worse for a marginalized group. Three comments. 1. The sexual assault figure, in addition to being in dispute for various reasons (ie, 2-10% not being small, 2-10% only being the provably falsifiable, etc.) doesn’t apply to harassment complaints. Those are numbers for assault. That’s like counting elephants in Africa and coming to a conclusion about pandas in China. 2. I alluded to this earlier and am bringing it back up: Generational standards aren’t the same. This isn’t saying that older people are off the hook for inappropriate behavior, but behavior that they were literally trained was fine decades ago- “Don’t slap your secretary’s ass, but telling you like her new haircut is OK” is now not OK “Indicating you like her haircut implies sexual attraction!” The executives doing the disinviting aren’t the young people. Standards have changed in the last two decades, and any system has relaxation time! For human systems, it’s 13 years for changes to primary education, minimum, but what, 40 years for the workplace? _Words_ have literally had their meanings shift- telling anyone they can do anything is, last I was informed, an expression of white privilege and a racial microaggression, to use a racial example, when ten years ago it was a … pep talk? 3. The issue isn’t the probability of false claims, it’s the degree of the personal and political backlash suffered. As a society, we’ve begun to embrace the old adage “There’s no smoke without fire” without restraint; that’s a concern. Because I’m short on time: I cross remembered the link without reviewing. This gentlemen was censured. I was conflating him with the British scientist that was hit a couple years back. That was sloppy, I apologize for that. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/227 "2018-12-06T22:19:53Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > There is quite an easy fix to avoid all these errors: Don’t talk about non-work stuff at work. I’ve never had a job or heard of a job where being an asocial robot was the norm. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/228 "2018-12-06T22:53:34Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ve never had a job or heard of a job where being an asocial robot was the norm. …well he did say it was an “easy fix.” The more difficult fix, to but it bluntly, is more **difficult** , but ultimately more rewarding for everyone. But if you are having trouble discerning what is and what isn’t appropriate behavior in the workplace, then perhaps the “easy fix” is the best way forward. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/229 "2018-12-06T23:02:08Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ve never had a job or heard of a job where being an asocial robot was the norm. You’ve never heard of the software industry? ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/230 "2018-12-06T23:02:30Z")
> [@BrainFireBob](#): > > Ah. > > Before addressing the rest, please confirm where I said this. I didn’t, you have me confused with another poster, I believe. I’d ask you re-read my comments in the thread stripped of the association, because I’m fairly certain I didn’t say that. No, not confused with another poster. you said: > [@](#): > > No, it’s the attendant “believe all women” meme, not that a substantial number of accusations are false. First, you mistake the theme. It’s not “believe all women”, it’s just “believe women”. > [@](#): > > It’s that accusations are to instantly be treated as true or as evidence of a crime, regardless of male behavior. This is untrue. it is only that they be treated seriously and not dismissed nor automatically disbelieved. > [@](#): > > Since women span the same gamut of law-abiding to criminal that men do as a gestalt group, even a man who has done absolutely nothing can face a false accusation. Which is why you can’t belive women, amiright? > [@](#): > > This happened to a college student in the last few years- his face was plastered all over campus as something like “Rapist of the Month”; he was essentially randomly pictured (no rape, he was in fact a virgin) to “bring attention to the problem” by an activist group. While straightened out formally, the social impacts can and do last. When I was in first grade, someone made up a rumour that I had picked my nose and put the booger on page 52 of my science text book. While I straightened it out formally, there were social impacts that could and did last. > [@](#): > > Is it likely that any individual woman will make a false accusation, or an accusation based on incomplete context? Absolutely not. Agreed, here. > [@](#): > > Are there women who will? A small minority. Is there any way of identifying who might wield this power arbitrarily? So, what can we do? Oh, I know. Don’t believe women! > [@](#): > > Nope, not unless they’ve developed such a pattern and documentation to this extent is provable (Tawana Bradley’s escalating accusations against men who poked holes in her story, her identifying as rapists the men it was most convenient for her to have raped her in an escalating story is such a pattern). Solution: Avoid the situation, eliminate the risk. Ah, even better than not believing the women, marginalizing them is a better solution. Then they are not even around to not be believed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainFireBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e495f1/32.png) [@BrainFireBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainFireBob)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/231 "2018-12-06T23:15:23Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > No, not confused with another poster. you said: > First, you mistake the theme. It’s not “believe all women”, it’s just “believe women”. > > This is untrue. it is only that they be treated seriously and not dismissed nor automatically disbelieved. > > Which is why you can’t belive women, amiright? > > When I was in first grade, someone made up a rumour that I had picked my nose and put the booger on page 52 of my science text book. While I straightened it out formally, there were social impacts that could and did last. > > Agreed, here. > > So, what can we do? Oh, I know. Don’t believe women! > Ah, even better than not believing the women, marginalizing them is a better solution. Then they are not even around to not be believed. You’re creating a false dichotomy, where if one doesn’t just “believe all women”, it becomes “don’t believe women.” That’s a strawman, pure and simple. Take the accusation seriously- but discretely until resolved. Honest mistakes and honest miscommunications do in fact occur, and so do malicious claims. We’re agreed there. The prominent virtue signaling surrounding #MeToo has made it more than merely “believe women.” Anyone that didn’t things seriously when an allegation was leveled is an idiot. That doesn’t mean we should create a public shame list of accusations, with no vetting as to their truth or content, and given that such a list exists and there is a power of “moral-suasion” being assigned to women who have such an experience to confess, you’re tempting exploiters who want the notoriety- like the woman who claimed she wrote the Kavanaugh letter because she wanted the attention. ---
**Author:** ![raventhief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raventhief/32/4_2.png) [@raventhief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raventhief)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/232 "2018-12-06T23:17:16Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Why cant you use adult language? What? ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/233 "2018-12-06T23:17:45Z")
> [@BrainFireBob](#): > > The prominent virtue signaling surrounding #MeToo has made it more than merely “believe women.” Anyone that didn’t things seriously when an allegation was leveled is an idiot. That doesn’t mean we should create a **public shame list** of accusations, with no vetting as to their truth or content, and given that such a list exists and there is a power of “moral-suasion” being assigned to women who have such an experience to confess, you’re tempting exploiters who want the notoriety- like the woman who claimed she wrote the Kavanaugh letter because she wanted the attention. …here’s a question for you: why do you think these “public shame lists” started? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/234 "2018-12-06T23:51:41Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > > [@BrainFireBob](#): > > > > Solution: Avoid the situation, eliminate the risk. > > Ah, even better than not believing the women, marginalizing them is a better solution. Then they are not even around to not be believed. What’s especially baffling about this viewpoint is: **If you think women should be marginalized and shunned because of the comparatively tiny risk that a woman might falsely accuse a man of committing sexual misconduct, then why don’t you think men should be marginalized and shunned because of the comparatively much greater risk that a man will actually commit sexual misconduct?** Even here there is general agreement that sexual assault and harassment is actually a much worse problem than false accusations of sexual assault and harassment. So I guess the guys moaning about how it’s too dangerous to keep women in the workplace, because there’s a chance one of them might falsely accuse somebody, would concur that it’s even **more** dangerous to keep men in the workplace because there’s a much greater chance that one of them will assault or harass somebody? If men shouldn’t have to put up with a small risk of women falsely accusing them, why should women have to put up with a much larger risk of men assaulting or harassing them? Let’s get the men segregated into their blue-collar-ghetto jobs, under competent female supervision of course, and leave the positions of power and authority to the women who are statistically far more likely to be able to keep their hands off non-consenting co-workers and employees. And furthermore, when all the men are safely segregated in the lower-status maintenance/service/etc. jobs and all the women are safe in the boardrooms and operating rooms and so forth, it will be much more difficult for a woman to falsely accuse a man of sexually misbehaving with her. Win-win! There is no logically consistent reason why men who advocate shunning and excluding women from an integrated workforce, due to the potential danger of their making false accusations, shouldn’t be even more on board with shunning and excluding men because of the far greater dangers **their** behavior poses. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2018, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/235 "2018-12-06T23:59:38Z")
> [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Knowing someone who was demonstrably accused falsely of sexual harassment “cancels” one hundred real ones. Do you not realize how utterly horrible that is? You just admitted that, because of a single false accusation, which only resulted in the guy having to change jobs, it’s okay for 100 women to be raped. Their lives are permanently ruined, while your guy can just leave and move on. > [@](#): > > I don’t care how few the false accusations are, if it’s against me it’s 100%. And that is the core problem. It’s all about you. Since you aren’t worried about being raped, you don’t care about rape. There is an extremely rare chance you might be falsely accused, so you do care about that. And, since you don’t care about women, it’s really hard for me to give a crap if you feel like you can’t talk to women anymore. It keeps you from being afraid, and they are better off not forming any attachment to someone who doesn’t care about them and whether they get raped. What you have described is exactly why so many of us have a lack of sympathy about people troubled by the #MeToo movement. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/236 "2018-12-07T00:21:41Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > What’s especially baffling about this viewpoint is: **If you think women should be marginalized and shunned because of the comparatively tiny risk that a woman might falsely accuse a man of committing sexual misconduct, then why don’t you think men should be marginalized and shunned because of the comparatively much greater risk that a man will actually commit sexual misconduct?** To be fair, that last line in your quote is not from **BrainFireBob**. I was part of the quoted sarcasm from **k9bfriender** ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/237 "2018-12-07T00:22:39Z")
> [@BrainFireBob](#): > > You’re creating a false dichotomy, where if one doesn’t just “believe all women”, it becomes “don’t believe women.” That’s a strawman, pure and simple. > > Take the accusation seriously- but discretely until resolved. Honest mistakes and honest miscommunications do in fact occur, and so do malicious claims. We’re agreed there. > > The prominent virtue signaling surrounding #MeToo has made it more than merely “believe women.” Anyone that didn’t things seriously when an allegation was leveled is an idiot. That doesn’t mean we should create a public shame list of accusations, with no vetting as to their truth or content, and given that such a list exists and there is a power of “moral-suasion” being assigned to women who have such an experience to confess, you’re tempting exploiters who want the notoriety- like the woman who claimed she wrote the Kavanaugh letter because she wanted the attention. Sigh. Virtue signalling is not a thing. It is a term made up by the right to say that the left doesn’t actually hold the values they say they hold. It’s all just for show. And the concept here is particularly nonsensical, since saying that this is about virtue signaling would mean that the #MeToo movement don’t care about rape and are only doing it in order to look good. No, the woman who wrote the Kavinaugh letter didn’t say she wanted attention. She said she was angry. She was angry that the Ford allegation was not being taken seriously. And because the only way that these things get taken seriously is if there are multiple accusations, so she gave one. Is that right? No. But trying to blame that on notoriety is ridiculous. Keeping things discreet is why nothing ever happened. It’s why Weinstein got away with it so long. Because not responding to allegations was entirely normal and how everything was dealt with. It was kept under wraps. So #MeToo shines the light on all this crap. We bring it public, because that is literally the only thing that gets these people to actually give a shit. The stuff they would have just swept under the rug, they can no longer do so. You might as well say that everyone molested in the Catholic Church should remain quiet and let them investigate. Staying quiet doesn’t work. Staying discreet means justice is not served. Getting the public involved is the only reason why this shit is actually now being dealt with. And the only “list” is a list of people who we personally have evaluated the evidence we’ve seen and decided that the allegations against them are credible. That’s the same for literally every other kind of accusation out there. Trying to act like rape is special and should be kept quiet not only fails as a tactic, but is ethically inconsistent. No one says that you should keep quiet about murder accusations until the person is found guilty of murder. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/238 "2018-12-07T00:27:12Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > To be fair, that last line in your quote is not from **BrainFireBob**. > > I was part of the quoted sarcasm from **k9bfriender** Yes, that was indicated by the nested quotes in my post. Didn’t those quotes show up as nested? They do for me 😕 ---
**Author:** ![nelliebly](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nelliebly/32/5422_2.png) [@nelliebly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nelliebly)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/239 "2018-12-07T00:46:04Z")
> [@Urbanredneck](#): > > Well then your damn lucky. > > I know some women who are better dealing with men, even crude ones, than others. A crude male coworker would have to go pretty darn far before they would go to a manager. > Want to hear something funny? The women I know like this STILL prefer to work with men over other women because they will take make sexism and crudeness over other womens cattiness anyday. > Then I know other women who will accuse almost each and every man they work with in order to get a reaction, get a promotion, get sympathy, etc… I think this encapsulates the attitude toward women by many of those who see #Metoo as Antifa for women–or maybe ISIS would be a better example. It starts with the stereotypes we see above and in this thread: catty devious hypersensitive overreactive OR They’re good girls who take sexual harassment as a compliment and appreciate it, as good girls should. But geez, even THOSE women might take off a mask to reveal…a #Metoo-er! :eek: If you believe those stereotypes, it’s a short step to “Oh, my God! The women! You look cross-eyed at 'em, and you get a sexual harassment charge that will end your career! You don’t even _have_ to look at 'em! One of 'em could just be bored one day, pick your name out of the company directory, and the next thing you know, you’re out on your keester!” Maybe the real problem is that those so strongly opposed to #Metoo, so adamant that men falsely accused of sexual harassment is not simply a problem to be acknowledged but one more important than sexual harassment itself, view women as the unknowable Other. If this is how you see women, if you truly believe men getting falsely accused of sexual harassment is not simply an issue, however infrequent, to be acknowledged but _more important_ than sexual harassment, itself, then your own distorted perceptions are the reason for your fear and outrage, not #Metoo. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626/240 "2018-12-07T02:29:17Z")
> [@octopus](#): > > I’ve never had a job or heard of a job where being an asocial robot was the norm. Actually doing work while you are at work makes one an “asocial robot”? Strange. If you have friends at work, that you see outside of work, then sure, talk about non-work stuff. Colleagues that you don’t hang out with after work, or subordinates? Treat them professionally, which means keep it work related. You never heard of “professional behavior” before? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/metoo-backlash-is-hurting-women-bloomberg-article/825626.md?page=13)