My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community • Hacker News Board

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#121

Post by api » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

ivan_gammel wrote: post #97

fishnchips wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contact law enforcement.

This is generally a good idea and the right thing to do, but cancel culture still exists for some reason. Probably it's because people do not trust conventional justice and do not believe in law enforcement?

In the legitimate "cancel culture" cases you generally find that all other avenues have been tried multiple times, often for years.

In the original #metoo Hollywood case it's that the whole culture was/is rotten and has been for decades. There's no other recourse because the culture normalizes "casting couch" type stuff. That's where the term comes from after all.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#122

Post by choeger » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

faitswulff wrote: post #48

eloff wrote: post #36

> I don’t remember how much I drank. I don’t remember him drinking. But I remember feeling uncomfortable when he made advances on me. I felt being taken advantage of that he had unprotected sex with me when I was intoxicated. Nothing felt right. I remember panicking and crying. I don't want to victim blame here because this guy sounds like a grade A creep and predator. But does a person not have some responsibility h…

Yes, you are victim blaming. Men aren’t wild bears, they’re human beings who should be held accountable for their actions. How drunk someone is around another human being has nothing to do with the perpetrator’s culpability.

Some men decide to behave like wild bears, it seems. So while it indeed doesn't change anything about the responsibility, it is still a good idea to take steps that could prevent becoming a victim in the first place.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#123

Post by indymike » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #36

> I don’t remember how much I drank. I don’t remember him drinking. But I remember feeling uncomfortable when he made advances on me. I felt being taken advantage of that he had unprotected sex with me when I was intoxicated. Nothing felt right. I remember panicking and crying. I don't want to victim blame here because this guy sounds like a grade A creep and predator. But does a person not have some responsibility h…

Would it be ok for the guy to get her drunk, then go to an ATM and talk her into emptying out a bank account?

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#124

Post by btilly » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

JPKab wrote: post #27

Jon Pretty sounds like a complete creep and yes, based on this account, a predator. That being said, there is a court and criminal justice system for a reason. While I empathize with the author, and utterly despise the archetype of high-status men who use their status within programming communities as a tool to target women, I find the nature of these kinds of posts to be counterproductive. Therapeutic to the author?…

I only kind of agree.

In this case a Chinese woman living in the USA apparently got raped in Germany 3 years ago. To involve law enforcement she would have to travel to a country where she doesn't speak the language, to make an accusation for which she has no evidence but her word, against a man who lives in another city.

What, exactly, do you imagine that the police are likely to do with her report?

I hate the court of public opinion as much or more as the next guy. But if this is a real pattern and he is as practiced as it sounds, after 10-20 women come forth then I'll be very confident that the crime is real. And there is also a chance that we can hit a critical mass where law enforcement somewhere may take an interest after all.

I agree with you that ideally this would go to the police first and they would actually act. But in the real world, she picked one of the best of the bad options available to her.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#125

Post by solosoyokaze » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #87

JPKab wrote: post #27

Jon Pretty sounds like a complete creep and yes, based on this account, a predator. That being said, there is a court and criminal justice system for a reason. While I empathize with the author, and utterly despise the archetype of high-status men who use their status within programming communities as a tool to target women, I find the nature of these kinds of posts to be counterproductive. Therapeutic to the author?…

It’s the modern day equivalent of being accused of witchcraft. You get a trial but good luck getting your reputation back. People are trained not to doubt this sort of thing end assume guilt, then when confronted they rattle off some supposed statistical fact that it’s virtually impossible for the accuser to be lying.

Except there's no such thing as witchcraft but sexual harassment is very real. Victims have every right to speak up.

Libel and slander laws are also real. If someone is actually making a false accusation, there's already legal ways to deal with it.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#126

Post by varjag » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

marcinzm wrote: post #70

fishnchips wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contact law enforcement.

You mean the law enforcement in a foreign country that you are visiting for only a few days? The one that would require you to spend untold thousands of dollars, that you don't have, on flights if you had to testify in a court in a language that you do not fluently speak?

What do you do if you're mugged in a foreign country?

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#127

Post by Pfhreak » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #36

> I don’t remember how much I drank. I don’t remember him drinking. But I remember feeling uncomfortable when he made advances on me. I felt being taken advantage of that he had unprotected sex with me when I was intoxicated. Nothing felt right. I remember panicking and crying. I don't want to victim blame here because this guy sounds like a grade A creep and predator. But does a person not have some responsibility h…

> I don't want to victim blame here ... but does the victim bear some responsibility?

The answer to your question is no. The victim bears no responsibility. The abuser took advantage of someone, who bears no fault for the result. There's no "well, both parties were in the wrong here". The abuser should not have abused the other party, no matter how vulnerable the other party made themselves.

You specifically said you didn't want to victim blame, then immediately blamed the victim.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#128

Post by UncleMeat » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

suifbwish wrote: post #87

JPKab wrote: post #27

Jon Pretty sounds like a complete creep and yes, based on this account, a predator. That being said, there is a court and criminal justice system for a reason. While I empathize with the author, and utterly despise the archetype of high-status men who use their status within programming communities as a tool to target women, I find the nature of these kinds of posts to be counterproductive. Therapeutic to the author?…

It’s the modern day equivalent of being accused of witchcraft. You get a trial but good luck getting your reputation back. People are trained not to doubt this sort of thing end assume guilt, then when confronted they rattle off some supposed statistical fact that it’s virtually impossible for the accuser to be lying.

What are people supposed to do then. If your friend sees somebody at the store and says “that guy is an asshole, he used to beat me up in middle school” do you respond “wait I can’t develop any opinion of that person without a trial”?

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#129

Post by andrewzah » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

nicklecompte wrote: post #95

JPKab wrote: post #27

Jon Pretty sounds like a complete creep and yes, based on this account, a predator. That being said, there is a court and criminal justice system for a reason. While I empathize with the author, and utterly despise the archetype of high-status men who use their status within programming communities as a tool to target women, I find the nature of these kinds of posts to be counterproductive. Therapeutic to the author?…

> Imagine a letter like this targeted at you one day, except unlike Mr. Pretty, you are innocent. “Imagine that you were convicted of murder but, unlike John Wayne Gacy, you were innocent.” Seriously what is the point of comments like this? False convictions are real and very very bad, but I know very few social justice advocates who are opposed to locking up serial killers. Likewise, the existence of unscrupulous pe…

Someone should coin a law for this phenomenon: Every single time a ~~woman~~ victim makes a public statement like this, in the comment sections a man must be discussing false accusations or the court of public opinion. I don't think I've ever not seen this.

People who are abused are damned if they do, damned if they don't.

edit: removed specific gender

edit2: I'm not trying to be inflammatory here. This is a phenomenon that I've noticed over the years.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#130

Post by commandlinefan » Tue, Apr 27, 2021, 9:47 PM UTC

nicklecompte wrote: post #95

JPKab wrote: post #27

Jon Pretty sounds like a complete creep and yes, based on this account, a predator. That being said, there is a court and criminal justice system for a reason. While I empathize with the author, and utterly despise the archetype of high-status men who use their status within programming communities as a tool to target women, I find the nature of these kinds of posts to be counterproductive. Therapeutic to the author?…

> Imagine a letter like this targeted at you one day, except unlike Mr. Pretty, you are innocent. “Imagine that you were convicted of murder but, unlike John Wayne Gacy, you were innocent.” Seriously what is the point of comments like this? False convictions are real and very very bad, but I know very few social justice advocates who are opposed to locking up serial killers. Likewise, the existence of unscrupulous pe…

> Imagine that you were convicted of murder

OP points out that we have criminal courts for a reason - he's not comparing this scenario with an actual conviction after a trial with presumed innocence. In your analogy, it would have to be common for people to be fired from their jobs (and blackballed from entire industries) on the strength of a murder accusation that hasn't even been presented to the police, much less been through a trial.