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My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

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Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#531

Post by diehunde »

_f1dq wrote: post #280

There is a lot about the sexual events in this post that, to me, highlights something I feel is important which is: we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex. This girl was feeling uncomfortable and crying but at the same time "didn't think those behaviors were problematic". I can't help but wonder if her parents never sat her down and discussed situations like this and, I ge…

I know it's probably not your intention, but you are shifting the blame from Jon to Yifan's parents. I hope this doesn't stay as the first comment in this thread.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#532

Post by btilly »

belorn wrote: post #230
btilly wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sweden and Uk spent tens of millions dealing with extradition case for just getting a hearing over an accusation with similar amount of evidence. Technically the legal system could do the same in her case.

Piss off a superpower, and you'd be ASTOUNDED at how far backwards law enforcement will bend to take any complaint about you seriously.

I would not take Julian Assange's situation as indicative of anything other than that Assange made powerful enemies.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#533

Post by DoreenMichele »

General PSA from someone who has studied such things:

1. Alcohol is the number one date rape drug and it's problematic in part because men tend to have a much higher tolerance than women.

2. Date rape frequently involves two people from different cultures with different social expectations. This often fosters terrible misunderstandings.

3. It's always problematic to "try a case" in the court of public opinion. Probably better to try to use a piece like this as a jumping off point for general discussion of the problem space and not an attempt to determine what "really" happened in this instance.

4. It's good to think about what women can do differently to try to protect themselves. Trying to talk about that is not, per se, blaming the victim anymore than it is blaming the victim to say "It's a bad neighborhood. Make sure you lock your car."

5. When someone is a habitual offender and genuinely a predator, their victim can do all the right things and still get assaulted.

6. Whether a woman did or did not do all the right things, a man choosing to assault her is still on him, just like you are still a thief even if someone failed to lock their car.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#534

Post by Grieving »

lukasb wrote: post #180
chmod600 wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The problem is that only a tiny percentage of harassers and rapists are ever convicted." How can that be known? Why do you presume that someone is a harasser or rapist if they weren't convicted?

Less than 1% of rapes lead to felony convictions: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/10/06/less-than... Same article notes that between 2-8% of rape complaints are false. Worries about false rape claims are wildly overblown.

>2-8% of rape complaints are false

Complaints is the key here. Obviously, we can't say much about the incidents that don't go reported. If one looks at the conviction rate for rape complaints it's around 2%. So if we take the lower estimate for false complaints, it still means that only 4% of cases are provable one way or the other, and that those which are have a 50/50 chance of being true or false complaints. (I'm looking at '92 stats, at a glance it appears the the rates for both rape and false rape convictions have risen a fair bit since then).

Interestingly, a 2% conviction rate is on par with that of robbery.

https://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2017/07/how-often-do-rape-...

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#535

Post by tucosan »

I find these hit peaces extremely problematic.

The public doesn't have the tools to properly investigate the accusations.

It is impossible for anyone but the parties involved (and maybe not even them) to know what really happened.

This woman could have gone to the police. She could have gone to one of the many support organisations for rape victims here in Berlin or in the US. She could have gone to the police even years later, which would have opened the possiblity of an official investigation. Instead she chooses to publicly write about it, without first even trying to take the legal route.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#536

Post by sixstringtheory »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #413
_f1dq wrote: post #280

There is a lot about the sexual events in this post that, to me, highlights something I feel is important which is: we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex. This girl was feeling uncomfortable and crying but at the same time "didn't think those behaviors were problematic". I can't help but wonder if her parents never sat her down and discussed situations like this and, I ge…

we parents need to get better had having conversations with our children around sex. I'm a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I thought long and hard about this and decided that talking to my children about the existence of sexual predators would rob them of their innocence. I've studied how this works. Sexual predation almost never starts with rape. It starts with myriad instances of boundary violation and disrespe…

My wife told me something a while back about how girls are often taught from a young age to be "sweet" and to defer to adults who demand their affection. I can't remember if it's something she read or came to herself upon examination of her youth. I can see the way that this idea on boundaries can grow to adulthood to having difficulty strongly advocating for oneself. The philosophies you laid out resonate strongly with me, and as a first-time parent expecting a daughter soon, I hope I can correctly instill them in her.

Did you ever deal with an instance where your kids started telling you "no" in response to demands you felt were reasonable, twisting your original explanations to use against you, for things like eating, cleaning up or hygiene? How did you reconcile the difference?

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#537

Post by totony »

WesolyKubeczek wrote: post #513
totony wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If you get drunk downtown, does it make getting your pockets picked and your smartphone stolen your fault? Even if you are not drunk those are still not your fault in the way its argued here. A better (similar) analogy would be: if you are drunk and someone downtown asks you for 60$ and you give them, but tomorrow realize your mistake, is it your fault?

Worse, you can be sober and still defrauded. Again. This might prove you naïve or stupid, sure, especially if uou should have known better, but not at fault or less of a victim.

I think your framing is wrong. If you willingly give money to someone, they haven't defrauded you (there's no false pretense).

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#538

Post by that_guy_iain »

shakkhar wrote: post #492
swyx wrote: post #20

similar stories are emerging: - https://killnicole.github.io/statement/ (edit i see she has added it to the article itself) - https://twitter.com/brianclapper/status/1387115214064193537?... - https://twitter.com/adelbertchang/status/1387090351626723329... there seems to be some coordination here, as this came out pretty much at the same time. https://typelevel.org/blog/2021/04/27/community-safety.html Yifan also link…

When there's proof, only one story is enough.

What world are you living in? Sexual predators even when there has been proof (and sometimes they‘ve admitted) it often get away with to little to no punishment.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#539

Post by GavinMcG »

voces wrote: post #519
GavinMcG wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> regardless of me saying I didn’t want to Why are you making up this story that she couldn't say no? She says she said no .

> Want to hook up again later? > I am not in the mood right now, no. > Are you sure? What happened after? Rape with her shutting down as a robot? Maybe she even cried during the sex, but he just would not stop? I am getting all these crazy unsavory visions, that could have been stopped had she poked her attacker's eye or broke his pinky finger or went to the police the next morning or something.

This is the definition of victim-blaming.

You are going to lengths to imagine a way she is at fault.

Re: My experience with sexual harassment in the Scala community

#540

Post by lowbloodsugar »

the-dude wrote: post #55
fabian2k wrote: post #13

The "share an AirBnB to be able to afford the conference" part seems particularly damning to me. That seems entirely premeditated and predatory.

To me it sounds generous and possibly completely harmless.

Do you think that accomplished, intelligent rapists like to drag helpless women down dark alleys by their hair after punching them out, or do you think they would prefer a situation where a naive response might be "That sounds generous and possibly completely harmless"? I am going to assume that you are an innocent, not a troll, and ask you that you think like a rapist. What situations would benefit a serial rapist, both in terms of creating a power disadvantage for the victim, a physical opportunity, and a plausible alternative explanation for the public? Bingo.

Let's turn it around. You are a respected figure in a community. You are aware, and have read on HN threads like this, how there are terrible women who smear men with baseless, yet career-ending allegations of sexual advances or worse. In what situation are you comfortable with that risk to your career? There is only one such situation: where you are the predator, and you have groomed a naive victim.

As a professional, you have no business sharing accommodation, of any kind, with a person of the opposite gender (or the same gender if that is your sexual preference). Frankly unless you are very good friends, not anyone at all.

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