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Because it needs to be said

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Re: Because it needs to be said

#311

Post by britta »

brazzy wrote: post #281
michh wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Saying "no" isn't enough to claim she resisted. Yes it is. In fact, not saying "yes" is enough.

> not saying "yes" is enough. No, it's not.

...yes, it is. Of course it's not as simple as saying "yes" or "no" in real life, but the point is that if a person is communicating something less than an obvious yes - for example, if a person is unusually quiet, has closed-off body language, isn't reciprocating, is hesitant, or seems uncomfortable - then the other person needs to stop and check in to find out what's going on. The uncomfortable person doesn't need to verbally say "no".

This article has a reasonably helpful explanation of consent and "yes" and "no": http://www.doctornerdlove.com/2013/03/enthusiastic-consent/

Re: Because it needs to be said

#312

Post by epochwolf »

jmduke wrote: post #16

I haven't been to a programming conference before, and I always assumed it was kinda prudish of the people who said that the atmosphere at such events should be toned down. They reminded me of the people on my freshman hall who would give me dirty glances when I stumbled in late and tipsy: who are you to tell me what's wrong? What's the harm? I like whiskey. It's tasty, and makes me more sociable. Now I get it. I'm n…

I've been to a couple of insurance conferences and they have this problem too. One of my coworkers witnessed an assault take place in a bar everyone was at.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#313

Post by makomk »

steveklabnik wrote: post #63
ryan-allen wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Statue of limitations on sexual assault is longer than 9 months. Two witnesses that can be tracked down. You are advising against not even trying to press charges? Character assassination without trial is better? The courts exist for a reason and there were two witnesses. Do you have any citations for the futility of reporting a crime with two witnesses?

> Do you have any citations for the futility of reporting a crime with two witnesses? http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/reporting-ra... http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/43249/ That's just two.

So in other words, no, you don't have any citations but are going to link statistics based on totally different situations in order to make reporting this kind of crime seem futile. In fact, let me quote from one of the links you posted:

"The victim of a rape or sexual assault possesses a rare commodity, the knowledge of the crime (Allen, 2007). In most rape and sexual assault cases there is little physical evidence to prove that there was an assault or to differentiate the assault from consensual sexual activity. Consequently, in any rape case, the outcome of the trial is highly dependent on the testimony of the victim. Therefore, victims rely heavily on their own credibility in the eyes of the public. In reporting a rape, victims are opening themselves up to society’s judgment and public scrutiny of their stories."

It doesn't even consider the possibility that there might be corraborating witnesses because there generally aren't. Also, the main point of the paper - that women don't report they were raped because of the social consequences of doing so - applies even more to writing a blog post about it than it does to reporting it to the police anyway.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#314

Post by arjn »

cefarix wrote: post #49

As an aside, why is alcohol such a big part of things like tech meetups, etc? I've been to a few and there is always alcohol being served and people drinking it. As a Muslim, I've never touched alcohol and never will, and I don't understand the need to "alcoholize" everything. Why can't there be a culture of having just good clean fun, no alcohol, no drugs, no sexualizing? And what place does alcohol even have at tec…

As a counterpoint - there are plenty of Muslims who drink, so that has nothing to do with anything at all.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#315

Post by exodust »

sneak wrote: post #142
exodust wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. She actually lay on the bar AFTER he had his hand on her butt. That's a bit different to her account. Also, she failed to mention the "chomping on her breast". Silly girl.

No action taken by a person entitles others to sexually assault them. There is no such thing as "advance consent". Please stop perpetuating this poisonous meme.

I like your quote, but isn't laughing a signal? And therefore an action? When you laugh after someone touches you (which apparently she did), you're communicating a thumbs up to the toucher. Which is NOT an invitation for more touching, I get that, but it's certainly within the rights of the toucher to believe that further touching has been pre-approved. Level of drunkness influences how someone will wait for a more certain invitation before going ahead and touching again. This happens sometimes in bars and clubs.

She did say she felt suicidal at one point, so that's enough to lay off and put this down to just how far a messy night can go! We'll never know if another catalyst could have triggered suicidal thoughts if the event had never happened, but if I had to bet, I think she was heading somewhere dark before that night.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#316

Post by malandrew »

Kequc wrote: post #121
[deleted] wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

There seems to be this growing idea that isn't helpful to the women's movement, or if not then to feminism. Being propagated in stories like this, which is that women are for some reason less capable of dealing with situations as they are occurring. As men we are expected that if a situation is going somewhere we don't like, to assert that we don't like it. Why isn't the same true for women? "I draw the line at the s…

Totally agree. This line in the original story was also evidence of the expectation of guardianship/protection:

    I was a deer in headlights staring into the eyes of the two 
    male bartenders hoping someone would help me.
I don't know about you, but I can think of exactly one time in my life when I felt like a deer in headlights and that was in 2002 when I had an M16 in my face and a 9mm pointed at my temple. Long story.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#317

Post by lawnchair_larry »

sneak wrote: post #180
conformal wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

posting your personal account of someone's crimes against you in a blog is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with what is clearly a very serious matter. it sounds like what happened was awful and these types of incidents are common in many predominantly male professions, e.g. law, finance. i was recently seriously harassed and more-or-less sexually assaulted by an acquaintance's wife at a wedding in a swimming poo…

> posting your personal account of someone's crimes against you in a blog is not a fair or reasonable way to deal with what is clearly a very serious matter. Publishing the truth is always fair and appropriate.

If you think about what you just said for a few more seconds, you will agree that it's demonstrably false.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#318

Post by anu_gupta »

chris_wot wrote: post #288
anu_gupta wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel I'm being aggressive - can you clarify where you feel the aggression is, and I'll modify my language? I'm concerned for you, and think that taking legal action against VMWare and the venue would send out a powerful message that glasses should not be topped up. Or, if it's not a civil matter, did you consider reporting it to the police?

You must have a problem reading. I'm not taking legal action against VMware. Where do you think I said I was? As for the aggression - your sarcastic comment about my organs being harvested (???) came off as attacking me.

OK, I think we have very different definitions for what aggression is, and also a different understand of what reading means.

Probably best to leave it there, although I would encourage you to consider taking legal action, it really might stop this kind of thing from happening again.

Re: Because it needs to be said

#319

Post by i_am_dead »

steveklabnik wrote: post #139
kenster07 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate that, and if the story is true, I hope the perpetrator suffers the consequences. But we are not the jury here, as fun as it may be. We should not try to ruin someone's life in such a fickle forum.

Absolutely nothing about this is 'fun'.

You sure seem to have a horse in this race

Re: Because it needs to be said

#320

Post by sgentle »

throwaway9848 wrote: post #184
sgentle wrote: post #42

I'm glad this is out there. It's a tragedy that it happened at all, but it would be an even bigger tragedy if nobody else knew the consequences. I think everyone experiences that moment sometimes where you think "is this okay? should I say something?" And after you waver for a second, your decision reinforces itself and you end up doing nothing at all. Maybe you can even convince yourself that it was all okay in the…

Let's keep some perspective. A second ship in one week carrying desperate, impoverished African migrants sunk of the coast of Italy yesterday. Many drowned. That is a tragedy. This is just one of those bad things that happens in life that one has to move on from. While I agree in helping others, people need to help themselves. Everything you wrote about the community needs to be done by the individual, too. Also, one…

I agree, that is a tragedy. There are a lot of bad things in the world, although thankfully less each year because of the efforts of good people who want things to improve.

The Italian government has volunteered to hold a state funeral for those who died, and has asked its fellow EU members for support. In response, the European Commission allocated 30 million Euro towards helping refugees.

I hope we can also help those who unjustly suffer in our community, and find our own ways to make things better.

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