In the situation listed I probably would, then would anonymously leak that there was extreme pressure to sign, or recant it once I got a new job at another place where the threat of firing wasn’t over my head. In a general sense, I’m extremely skeptical of ‘good character’ letters, and probably wouldn’t sign one absent a threat. A friend of mine had a good friend of his who was accused of molesting a little girl. He was asked to come in as a character witness, and he agreed, so he came in to court and took the stand, telling the court what a stand-up guy his buddy was and how he couldn’t believe he’d do such a thing. Then after the character witnesses were done, they revealed that the accused had accepted a plea bargain. So right after saying what a stand-up guy the accused was, my friend got to hear the rather disturbing confession of exactly what the accused did to those little girls. It didn’t exactly make him feel like he did the right thing.
You got a cite supporting the idea that men that harass women will never choose only a few good targets, and instead will indsicriminately harass a huge percentage of the women they come in contact with? Because that’s the direct opposite of my experience - people who don’t respect consent tend to be pretty selective in picking victims, since if you just grope everyone who comes near you then you get caught fast.
Wait a second. Isn’t this YOUR false dichotomy? You said this:
“It’s unlikely that a guy would be around thousands of women over the course of decades and only harass one or two of them. Obviously even an egregious harasser will not harass everyone, but most will harass quite a few. Not all, but most.”
Lots of qualifiers there, to be sure, but you set up a scenario where a guy would be unlikely to pick on one or two women. And then you go to say that they will most likely harass quite a few.
I agree with Pantastic. I think it’s completely reasonable that a predator will be cautious with who he chooses as a victim. That he would avoid victimizing women that might tell someone. That he might start with ‘minor’ harassment to test the waters and move onto more egregious behavior over time.
Therefore, many letters of support wouldn’t be of great use to ‘prove’ their innocence. This is part of what makes ‘he said/she said’ situations so difficult for all parties.
“Quite a few” is very different than “indsicriminately harass a huge percentage of the women they come in contact with” or “everyone who comes near you”.
Even if you’re “pretty selective in picking victims”, you’ll still rack up a nice body count over the years, considering the amount of people that you meet over the course of your life.
Working closely with someone, you figure out quickly their qualities and deficiencies, especially the ones relevant to their jobs.
If you work in construction, you figure out quickly which one of your coworkers is physically stronger than the rest which one has a less endurance. In law, who is better speaking off the cuff and who need major prep.
Show business and media are industries that involve an immense amount of direct interpersonal interaction and chemistry as part and parcel of the job. This is not being an office drone with someone and later being surprised that he/she stalked and killed people in their spare time. Yeah, that’s reasonable.
In a business where interpersonal connections and links are the basis of career advancement, such proclivities will become known. Weinstein, Spacey and even Cosby’s antics were well known in the industry for years, unless you displayed a Meryl Streepesque level of deliberate obliviousness.
So in such an industry, if there is someone who is accused of actions, of a type s/he has never shown any inclination to in my own interaction nor have there been any rumours of such activities, then, yeah, I would sign such a letter, absent compelling evidence of misconduct.
I would say that someone who only harasses 2% of women he comes in contact with is being ‘pretty selective’ in picking victims, but you specifically claimed that if someone only harassed 2% of the women he came in contact with, you wouldn’t believe it. I don’t think it at all unlikely that someone would only harass 5% of fewer of the women he comes in contact with, but apparently you believe that such a thing is impossible. (Note that the 2% is unlikely to be all of the victims, since some may not come forward for a variety of reasons). And I also think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that someone who harassed 98% of the women he came in contact with was “indsicriminately harass[ing] a huge percentage of the women they come in contact with”.
You made a claim using some rather specific figures, with the implicit claim that it’s doubtful that any harassers only harass 2% of the women they come in contact with and common for them to harass 98% of the women they come in contact with. I disputed that claim, and it if there is any false dichotomy it’s one you created with your claims, not me.
You created a false dichotomy by presenting exaggerated caricatures as the only two options, as I’ve already demonstrated, with quotes and all.
Heading further down that path, you’re now implying that I’ve made some sort of claim about “someone who harassed 98% of the women he came in contact with”, which is not a scenario I’ve suggested or otherwise referenced. No idea how you could have come up with that one in good faith.
What I’ve said, again, is that it’s less likely that a guy would A) harass two women over the course of many years and have 100 other women who worked with him see and experience nothing of the sort, than B) have a guy harass two women with the additional possibility that his other female coworkers have experienced or seen more of the same. Therefore, establishing that we’re dealing with A) and not B) changes the likelihood somewhat, while of course not definitive.
The “not definitive” part is relevant as well, because this is something I’ve said before. I wrote “Not that this is conclusive evidence, of course” in my first post on the subject, underlined it and everything. And yet you managed to spin that into “you wouldn’t believe it” and “apparently you believe that such a thing is impossible”.
I believe what I wrote is fairly obvious, and it’s evidently presenting you with some trouble as well, as you seem to be able to counter it only by means of false dichotomies and by simply making stuff up.
I think that just splits hairs and doesn’t answer my point. OK, say it’s worse than being a jerk if you like, I’ve no particular attachment to the word ‘jerk’. Do you still recognize the possibility of bad behavior worse than being a jerk that’s less than a serious crime?
My point is that if something is serious crime we shouldn’t care much in general if the person almost always acted well other than that. We need to get to the bottom of that incident and hold the person to account for it. We don’t need to hear general testimonials, or at least until we decide the sentence, maybe.
But for things less than serious crimes it is more relevant whether the person often or frequently acted that way. Not that once or a few times is ‘OK’, but we’d recognize a matter of degree compared to serious crimes, and view people who act badly rarely less unfavorably than people who act badly often. And we’d keep in mind that just about everybody acts badly at times, though that recognition again does not mean it’s ‘OK’. So a general testimonial of good behavior toward female colleagues is relevant in a case like this IMO, and no reason to assume it must prove the accusers wrong to be relevant, or that it’s existence is a statement against the accusers. Although subject to the three problems with this particular letter I listed in last post.
If I had a strong belief that a friend was innocent of the accusations made against him or her, and I felt that my signing a letter to that effect would make the pain of the experience more bearable for them and their family, then yes, I believe I would sign it. I assume any investigators are going to do what they need to do and any accusers will have access to the processes they have no matter what I say or don’t say, it’s not about that.
Letter of support? What the hell for? Either someone should be investigated under due process of law or whatever official method of oversight that the organization uses, and punished appropriately (or not), or…not. A letter of support doesn’t mean shit, it’s not evidence of anything.
Impossible to say without further information. If I had articulable reason to believe that the guy was innocent, I’d say so. If I had articulable reason to believe that he was guilty, I’d say that too. If I didn’t have any particular reason to believe one way or the other, I’d keep my mouth shut. And no, hunches like “He’s a great guy” or “I always thought there was something off about him” don’t count: I don’t trust my hunches, and I certainly don’t expect anyone else to trust them, either.
And what I did was call you out on it, and ask for some kind of cite to back this extraordinary claim. The idea that someone might only harass 2% of the women he works with does not seem unlikely to me, and I’m unaware of any evidence that supports your claim that a situation where a man only harasses 2% of his female coworkers is so incredibly rare that we should consider the two women coming forward to be liars if there are 100 claiming he didn’t harass them.
You’re posting a lot of words and dodging around a lot to avoid standing behind your own numbers, but they simply don’t seem to be based in reality.