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Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

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221–230 of 245 posts

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#221
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can’t swing a cat without finding a victim of sexual harassment who felt violated by harassment even if it wasn’t physical. Your physical body isn’t the only part of you that exists, if you are harassed to the point where you don’t feel safe living your life because of the threats posed to you wouldn’t you feel violated? Your life has been compromised. If you mean “physically violated” then sure, you cannot be ph…

Sorry mate, you have good points but they don't justify the reasoning. If a person is being harassed by a colleague and they're not cool with it, then the next step is reporting it and trying to get that person out of their life. > You cannot be physically violated by words, but I don't see the value in making that distinction. Maybe I can point out the value for you... Americans and humans in general have an inalien…

Physical assault is wide ranging, from unwanted groping (touching body without permission) all the way to rape. Verbal harassment is wide ranging, from something creepy said in passing to violent language used constantly.

I don’t think it’s hard to imagine being more threatened and traumatised and violated by someone in a position of privilege detailing the ways they want to have sex with you in graphic detail every day you interact with them, than threatened/violated/traumatised by a drunk person at a party grabbing at your body without permission.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#222
post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm still sympathetic to the idea of examining whether we should shift the burden of proof for cases with characteristics that are systematically difficult to prove (not in the criminal justice system, of course; I think society-sanctioned state violence does and should have a much, much higher bar for protecting the innocent). Could you explain this? It almost sounds like you're interested in foregoing proof to de…

It's not a very well-formed idea, but it comes from the fact that I think that carefully-considered pragmatic exceptions to general rules can be valuable. For a simple example, many people don't understand what it is about markets that make them powerful[1]. That doesn't preclude any economic role for government, since markets aren't perfect and there are cases where govt action is more suited to the situation. Along…

> Cosby, Weinstein

I see your point now.

> decades of independent accusations may reasonably add up to a bit more than the initial presumed innocence. It's the formalization of this new standard (which many/most already agree to) that I'm open to.

How much is 'a bit more' then?

You're essentially saying we should be allowed to substitute evidence if enough people vouch for a claim. In which case, to what degree of guilt can we attribute a person based on this metric?

If the degree has any significance, how is this different than mob-rule Justice?

And you're claiming many/most people already agree to this standard?

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#223
post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry mate, you have good points but they don't justify the reasoning. If a person is being harassed by a colleague and they're not cool with it, then the next step is reporting it and trying to get that person out of their life. > You cannot be physically violated by words, but I don't see the value in making that distinction. Maybe I can point out the value for you... Americans and humans in general have an inalien…

Physical assault is wide ranging, from unwanted groping (touching body without permission) all the way to rape. Verbal harassment is wide ranging, from something creepy said in passing to violent language used constantly. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine being more threatened and traumatised and violated by someone in a position of privilege detailing the ways they want to have sex with you in graphic detail every…

I think you're 100% wrong. Any person would feel more threatened by a person physically assaulting them, than by being harassed verbally. What's hard to imagine is how you ever came to this conclusion.

Verbal harassment doesn't get any more violent than putting the idea of assault in your head. Actual assault is the manifestation of the idea brought by the verbal harassment. It's an entire order of magnitude worse than verbal harassment! It's not even in the same league!

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#224
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical assault is wide ranging, from unwanted groping (touching body without permission) all the way to rape. Verbal harassment is wide ranging, from something creepy said in passing to violent language used constantly. I don’t think it’s hard to imagine being more threatened and traumatised and violated by someone in a position of privilege detailing the ways they want to have sex with you in graphic detail every…

I think you're 100% wrong. Any person would feel more threatened by a person physically assaulting them, than by being harassed verbally. What's hard to imagine is how you ever came to this conclusion. Verbal harassment doesn't get any more violent than putting the idea of assault in your head. Actual assault is the manifestation of the idea brought by the verbal harassment. It's an entire order of magnitude worse th…

I’m not arguing hypotheticals. I know women who have had experiences that were more harmful to them because of what was said and what that represents, more so than physical assault experiences.

I don’t know what your life is like, whether you’re friends with many women, but if you ever have an opportunity to listen to someone speak about abuse I really recommend it. You will learn so much. Abuse is so much more than what you think it is.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#225
post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're 100% wrong. Any person would feel more threatened by a person physically assaulting them, than by being harassed verbally. What's hard to imagine is how you ever came to this conclusion. Verbal harassment doesn't get any more violent than putting the idea of assault in your head. Actual assault is the manifestation of the idea brought by the verbal harassment. It's an entire order of magnitude worse th…

I’m not arguing hypotheticals. I know women who have had experiences that were more harmful to them because of what was said and what that represents, more so than physical assault experiences. I don’t know what your life is like, whether you’re friends with many women, but if you ever have an opportunity to listen to someone speak about abuse I really recommend it. You will learn so much. Abuse is so much more than…

I was verbally abused by my mother all through my childhood, I understand it plenty.

If you make the comparison of horrific verbal abuse to nearly-innocent physical abuse, I could see what you mean. But if you keep the degree of assault identical between physical and verbal assault, physical will always be worse.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#226

I always wondered, why don't women get very harsh sentences if they get caught making up false rape allegations? I think that would discourage that sort of behavior and sort of balance things out.

Innocent until proven guilty applies to them too. What percentage of false allegations can be proven to be false, like the accused being in a different place at the time? Despite a couple of high profile exceptions I'd wager that's small enough to be a rounding error.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#227

This was utterly, utterly predictable, and I'm sure the same dynamic is playing out in milder, more insidious forms in industries that are less openly regressive than Wall Street. I said as much to many of my friends during the nascency of the movement, and was baffled at how novel a concept it seemed to all of them. This isn't fair to women, of course. But Water flows downhill, and people follow incentives. If you c…

This happened to me. I started on a journey of transitioning to a woman and gathered a group of friends at work composed of women. They supported me for a few years helping me through the process.

Then recently (as of this year), a woman came forward claiming I was harassing, intimidating, and sexually abusing her. This woman was one of the people who had supported me previously. She had been gunning for my position (she was just below me) and we had joked about her taking my position after I moved up. I'm still guessing to this day that was why she made those claims.

We go to HR, her sister presides over the case. I filed a complaint due to conflict of interest. The woman filing the claim threatened to open up to the media about this if the company went forward with replacing the woman in charge of the case.

It's probably no surprise, but they ruled against me and terminated my employment. I had no violations beforehand, no concerns, no performance issues, nothing. I was told to confess, just say it, was hinted at many times to just confess, just confess, we have evidence, anything else you say is a lie, don't drag it out, but I didn't.

I felt as if my career was over. I was a trans freak who assaulted women as far as I knew it. Who would want to hire one of me?

Thankfully, I got some good advice to fight it in court, and I did, and I won, thankfully. And that's when I learned, it's not about the truth, it's about image.

The company didn't care what the actual ruling was, in fact the company came from having a very bad image in the past just now forming a new one. And even though I won the court case, that didn't matter. I still had to explain it to future employers and that was all it took to shut the door on me.

I'm a die-hard liberal too. But that really shook my faith in the goodness of people. I had several suicidal episodes after that, only to be barely pulled out of it by my wonderful husband. It's so easy for someone to point a finger and that's essentially the only word to say in the matter.

And I guess what I'm saying is, I hope this never happens to anyone. I'm sure women aren't anything special when it comes to being evil or twisted. That's a silly thought to me. I fully believe most of the women coming out on the #MeToo movement are being honest and truthful. But when you can mold the situation in a way that you know no-one will question you, it only takes one to flip the world upside down. That's a lot of power to just give someone.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#228
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a very well-formed idea, but it comes from the fact that I think that carefully-considered pragmatic exceptions to general rules can be valuable. For a simple example, many people don't understand what it is about markets that make them powerful[1]. That doesn't preclude any economic role for government, since markets aren't perfect and there are cases where govt action is more suited to the situation. Along…

> Cosby, Weinstein I see your point now. > decades of independent accusations may reasonably add up to a bit more than the initial presumed innocence. It's the formalization of this new standard (which many/most already agree to) that I'm open to. How much is 'a bit more' then? You're essentially saying we should be allowed to substitute evidence if enough people vouch for a claim. In which case, to what degree of gu…

I think you're taking my openness to the idea as advocacy. I don't have any stronger a belief in it than your "I see your point now" remark implies. I'm saying I'm open to the idea that there's a problem in the evidentiary standard on pragmatic grounds, and am waiting to see if the movement has any detailed suggestions for a new standard. I'm _not_ claiming that I myself have the details for this new standard, and as I already said, I tend to be a bit of classical-liberal absolutist, so it's not my preferred policy.

I'm simply trying to be charitable to a viewpoint that I'm not personally a fan of; none of your questions about the details of how this would be implemented are relevant to me.

> If the degree has any significance, how is this different than mob-rule Justice?

As I said, I'm talking about in non-justice-system institutions. I don't see why you think the choices here are "use the same bar as criminal justice" and "mob rule". Do you think the civil case bar I mentioned is "mob-rule" justice? Given that there are bars for assigning guilt that are even more stringent than "beyond a reasonable doubt", what prevents those from being the ideal and what makes you refrain from calling BARD "mob rule"? The binary that you're framing this in is not one whose existence I accept; in fact, I don't even think it's logically consistent.

> And you're claiming many/most people already agree to this standard?

Yes, at an intuitive level, I think many/most people agree that Cosby and Weinstein were guilty, despite not being convictable because they don't meet the criminal justice bar (excluding the one accuser that actually was able to take Cosby to court).

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#229

This was utterly, utterly predictable, and I'm sure the same dynamic is playing out in milder, more insidious forms in industries that are less openly regressive than Wall Street. I said as much to many of my friends during the nascency of the movement, and was baffled at how novel a concept it seemed to all of them. This isn't fair to women, of course. But Water flows downhill, and people follow incentives. If you c…

This happened to me. I started on a journey of transitioning to a woman and gathered a group of friends at work composed of women. They supported me for a few years helping me through the process. Then recently (as of this year), a woman came forward claiming I was harassing, intimidating, and sexually abusing her. This woman was one of the people who had supported me previously. She had been gunning for my position…

Wow, what a horrible story. I'm really sorry to hear you went through that.

Re: Wall Street Rule for the #MeToo Era: Avoid Women at All Cost

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why do you presume that men must risk their jobs ? It sounds like some some macho-requirement. One of the cornerstones of their entire industry accounting for the uncertainty of the future. They're already risking their jobs (and, indeed, their companies) every day. Contrast that with a statistically insignificant number of false accusations. If they are truly afraid of false accusations (like they say) rather than…

You're looking at this with statistical, risk management. There's a subset of risk management that focused on what's called "catastrophic," risk management. That's when the impact of the event, which is rare but can happen, is so high that one is willing to go the extra mile to prevent it. This includes obvious examples like nuclear powerplants having ridiculous security or classified systems being air gapped with de…

This is the most insightful response I've received this entire thread. Thanks for sharing.

I'm not sure how I feel about the idea that women are viewed as potential catastrophes. That's probably just where we're at with identity politics these days.

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