I like it - the all or nothing approach is terrifying as a guy, and defining levels of inappropriateness with exact descriptions of actions is very helpful for those who are freaked out they are going to unwittingly harass someone they are attracted to even just acting naturally. I'm hopefully not belittling the recipients of undesired advances of VC assholes like McClure, but I hope it's also not wrong to say these scandals induce anxiety in a ton of well meaning lower level guys who get circled over as part of the problem, and thinking of a solution that considers this large segment of guys is nice to hear.
Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
171–180 of 416 posts
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#172" It’s not just inappropriate, it’s assault. " I'm going to have to stop reading there. Now, of course, I don't know what happened, I wasn't there. What I'm seeing in front of me are glowing pixels that don't constitute a conviction. In my opinion if you believe you've been the subject of assault you ought to approach the police, or probably a lawyer.
Good luck as a foreigner in Malaysia approaching the local police to file a complaint for assault based on a forced kiss against another foreigner who happens to be a millionaire. But that doesn't make it right. Note that it is extremely hard to get these cases to go anywhere in the West where you know the law and where the lines tend to be drawn rather sharper than in Asia (unless there is drugs involved).
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Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do not believe that Malaysian police take a laidback attitude to sexual assault reports sd you have implied here. Even cases of a woman being sexually assaulted by another woman is also taken seriously in Malaysia. I think you need to stop having preconceived ideas about South East Asian countries. They might look similar but they are not.
I invite you to read: https://www.state.gov/documents/organization/236666.pdf "Rape and Domestic Violence: Rape, including marital rape, is a criminal offense, as are most forms of domestic violence. The penal code states that rape is punishable by a prison term of up to 20 years and whipping. Marital rape does not have a minimum penalty, but the maximum penalty is five years’ imprisonment. According to women’s group…
Note that Cheryl is Malaysian.
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#174(flagged, whatever0
Do you think Dave kept pouring scotch into her glass on accident? He knows society has a tendency to excuse behavior from a drunk person that they'd never accept from someone sober. You're not excusing his behavior directly, but by suggesting that alcohol is relevant to this situation, you're promoting a narrative that abusers love to exploit.
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Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. If you think that is the only way - to interact without a shred of empathy or self-awareness of your own actions - then you may be part of the problem.
So what's another way to do it? I don't know of any way to reliably predict other people's reactions to what I do.
Try to recall the character of someone who doesn't get accused of assaulting or abusing other people, or making them feel uncomfortable -- someone who is respected by people of all creeds and demographics -- and then behave like that.
It's not that hard, really. Just be a grown-up. Put away the childish fantasies of finding self-worth by bedding lots of women and flaunting wealth and power, and treat everyone you interact with as though they're actual people.
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#176As the father of three daughters I always cringe a bit when I read things like this. Thanks Cheryl for sharing your story, and men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it.
It's about recognizing how they feel add stopping before it goes to far. Unfortunately I think her article does a bad job of getting that across
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which is the part that puzzles me. Successful guy, plenty of money. Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely. If he was after something deeper, hire a dating consultant and find something worthwhile. It just amazes me that people who have both the means a…
> Get a high priced call girl, go on a sex site and get a woman who wants what you want. I mean I used to be in a band and it was easy to have a woman in nearly every city you could call when you feel lonely. That's not the point. The point is precisely the power and coercion. Paying someone or finding someone like-minded doesn't hit that button anywhere near the same way that assault and blackmail does. If you're st…
People say this all the time, but is there any actual rigorous evidence or argument for it?
As far as I can tell it's just a way to demonize and dehumanize a group of really unpopular people in order to feel better about taking retribution against them. Comparable to saying, "She didn't murder her kids because of depression, but because she wanted them and her husband to suffer. The pain itself is the goal."
So is this really a rent-paying belief? Or is it rather a way to feel good about hating someone and absolve yourself from the responsibility to understand the internal experiences of people who do bad things?
This is important, by the way. If the goal is to feel good about hating people who did wrong, dehumanize away. If the goal is actually to prevent other people from doing wrong, you need understand accurately why the wrong was being done in the first place, and that's what I'm afraid isn't being done here.
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex then I wouldn't blame you for trying to game the system
> When your worth is defined solely by how horny you make the opposite sex then I wouldn't blame you for trying to game the system Sorry?
possibly could have been better phrased: I was trying to point out that a woman 'using her sexuality for personal gain' only works if men treat her solely as a sexual object
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#179As the father of three daughters I always cringe a bit when I read things like this. Thanks Cheryl for sharing your story, and men please remember it isn't how you feel about whether or not an action was appropriate or inappropriate, it is how they feel about it.
I think there's more to it than that. When peers proposition each other or express desire to have more than a professional working relationship (and a polite rejection ends the discussion), that's one thing. But a person in a superior position has a different and greater duty, as rejection can have a negative consequence for the other more vulnerable party. That's why many companies' ethics rules forbid, for example,…
I completely agree it would be inappropriate to seek a romantic or sexual relationship with someone who you report too, or who reports to you.
Generally though, when going through the various 'keeping it legal', 'managing within the law', etc type classes that managers often have to take a large corporation as part of their training, the reasoning behind forbidding relationships between employees in a reporting hierarchy was always presented as being there to prevent the appearance of favoritism or impropriety.
The idea being that you may be blindly analyzing everyone's performance against the same metric but in answer to a complaint you would have to prove a negative, that you didn't tip the balance for your partner.
Re: Shedding Light on the “Black Box of Inappropriateness”
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
'Censorship' has become more pejorative than informative, but you're right that users are downvoting and flagging comments; I think pretty fairly. Wherever moderators have intervened (in any way that affects comment visibility), we've posted comments saying so. That goes for the previous threads too. Not every kind of comment is welcome here. HN is trying for higher-quality discussion. (Trying and failing, of course.…
Please review my recent comments on this post, which have been flag killed. If you believe they were fairly downvoted and deserve to be flagged, then please delete or permanently ban my account.
Trying to re-frame a discussion about the victimization of women to include offhand comments about men is not just off-topic but insensitive too. In the general case, you can't do that in any discussion where tensions are high without either doing it deftly and articulately or being quickly shouted down.