#MeToo has caught on, good thing or bad thing ?

LLMMLL

[Deleted User] wrote: »

LLMMLL already suggested/stated that it was near on impossible to follow up on the low level harassment... so It's completely illogical to start at the bottom with the areas that you believe can't be enforced.

I said it wasn't realistic to expect a good outcome from trying to report it to police. Not that it was impossible to deal with. I believe metoo is part of changing the levels of low level harasSment

LLMMLL

LLMMLL wrote: »

No I'm saying that the issues that can't be reported/enforced can't be reported/enforced. I'm not saying anything about things that can be reported such as rape or assault.

They can't be reported/enforced yet. And judging by the claims on this thread and on metoo there are plenty of claims of a more serious nature that could be reported.

That makes zero sense to me. Why not address both simultaneously?

err... you've just stated that low level harassment... oh never mind. I'm done.

kylith

Zulu wrote: »

They are not getting it because they are men, they are getting it because they are dicks.

FFS what a crock of sh1t. If that were the case, surely then your ire is better directed at women - mothers & sisters, seeing as men have failed so fabulously to date.

Well then, maybe we need to focus on peer groups. Look to changing the attitudes, as recent campaigns have been doing, that when one of your mates is being a dick you just roll your eyes, but instead tell him to stop being that guy.


[QUOTE=kylith;105047736
The vast majority of women appear to have issues with the behaviour of men they meet. What do you, other men, propose as a solution for this? Suggestions in a clear and concise way, please?
[/QUOTE]

Still waiting for suggestions from men on this. Anyone?

kylith

The vast majority of women appear to have issues with the behaviour of men they meet. What do you, other men, propose as a solution for this? Suggestions in a clear and concise way, please?

kylith wrote: »

Still waiting for suggestions from men on this. Anyone?

I'm not sure what we, as individuals, can do to improve the situation. Actual Intervention is damn risky both from a health (getting beaten up) and legal perspective.

I don't believe that individuals have much power to force social change amongst groups that refuse to conform to mainstream society.

I still believe that the best way to bring about change in the men/women who are behaving in this manner is through the application of the law, and suitable punishments.

Outlaw Pete

kylith wrote: »

Well then where are this guys getting it? They're hardly picking the idea that it's ok to fondle or catcall women up off the ground, are they?

Well, with regards to 'fondling' I don't believe that any of the idiots that fondle a woman in public thinks "it's ok" to do it and again, if they were seen doing it they would be approached. It's seriously scorned upon and would most likely get someone thrown out of club, beaten or (if in public) arrested. The other way around though and it would be laughed at. Amazes me that women in western society moan about such things in the context of it only happening them and it needing to stop given how it's so socially acceptable when it happens guys.

As for cat calling, where do they get ir from that it's 'okay'? Well, maybe they watch Loose Women.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwEN3uZEpp0

Zulu

kylith wrote: »

Well then, maybe we need to focus on peer groups. Look to changing the attitudes, as recent campaigns have been doing, that when one of your mates is being a dick you just roll your eyes, but instead tell him to stop being that guy.

You assume that I don't already do that. And you are somewhat right - I don't, because I don't hand around with "that guy". When I see it within my group I'd tell that person to cop on.

The problem is that recent campaigns are aimed at ALL MEN. When only a minority of jackasses do it. So it accuses me, and blames me, even though I'm not part of the problem. It goes on to tell me I AM part of the problem to boot. And to add insult to injury, it does not speak to the jackasses that are the problem.

So it's a bull sh1t campaign that alienates a vast majority, and doesn't even address the tiny minority that is problematic.

Still waiting for suggestions from men on this. Anyone?

Explain why I'm supposed to be proffering a novel solution to a problem that you tell me exists without any tangible evidence beyond hearsay and a fashionable on-trend twitter campaign?

seamus

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Oh give me a fcuking break.

You think it's not instilled into boys to respect women and girls over men and boys?? Well, you think wrong. It's one of the first things we are told to do and it very much is drilled into us. Constantly in society we hear men being told 'Don't speak like that to a woman' have you ever heard the opposite? If a man is seen even arguing with a woman in public it will get stares and you can be damn sure if he even raised his voice then someone would intervene and ask the woman was she okay.

We live in a largely chivalrous still, despite feminists moans about it over the years. Males disrespecting women is very much scorned upon. How high exactly do you want your pedestal to be?

That's funny, because what you describe are two sides to the same coin. The notion that women should be treated with additional respect is the same attitude that feeds into showing disrespect. You say it yourself - it places women on a pedestal, it's a form of inequality.

Now, we can get into a long post about "how can respect == disrespect", but when you look at the reasons why the pedestal exist in the first place (protecting virginity & chastity, presumption of female fragility, and protecting "property"), it becomes easy to see why teaching boys to be chivalrous particularly towards the opposite sex because of their gender, leads to some to disregard the human behind the gender.
That is, they see them as "a woman", rather than "a person", and all of the respect and dignity we afford "a person" are not assigned to the woman.

To use a simply analogy - when a man has a nice car, you respect that car. You wouldn't dream of damaging the car (out of respect), and you might pull over to let the car by.
But you will also coo over the car, touch it, stare at it and make comments about the parts of it.

You "respect" the car as a nice object. That's OK because it's an object. But chivalry teaches young men to "respect" women as desirable objects. Not as human beings. They respect other men as humans with a mind and an opinion. They respect women as pretty objects.

That's where someone who believes themselves to be a respectful, chivalrous, "nice guy" gets confused and angry when the object of their respect doesn't react graciously to their admiration.

Outlaw Pete

kylith wrote: »

Still waiting for suggestions from men on this. Anyone?

I addressed that in this post and I'm still waiting for a reply from you.

kylith

Zulu wrote: »

The problem is that recent campaigns are aimed at ALL MEN. When only a minority of jackasses do it. So it accuses me, and blames me, even though I'm not part of the problem. It goes on to tell me I AM part of the problem to boot. And to add insult to injury, it does not speak to the jackasses that are the problem.

Well, we are not yet at the stage where we can target ad campaigns on bus stops or billboards to specific people.

Zulu wrote: »

Explain why I'm supposed to be proffering a novel solution to a problem that you tell me exists without any tangible evidence beyond hearsay and a fashionable on-trend twitter campaign?

So ask the women in your life if you don't believe the ones here. Ask your mum or your sister if they get hassled in the street, leered at, or rubbed up against. Maybe you'll believe them.

B0jangles

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Well, with regards to 'fondling' I don't believe that any of the idiots that fondle a woman in public thinks "it's ok" to do it and again, if they were seen doing it they would be approached. It's seriously scorned upon and would most likely get someone thrown out of club, beaten or (if in public) arrested. The other way around though and it would be laughed at. Amazes me that women in western society moan about such things in the context of it only happening them and it needing to stop given how it's so socially acceptable when it happens guys.

As for cat calling, where do they get ir from that it's 'okay'? Well, maybe they watch Loose Women.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwEN3uZEpp0

Who is this acceptable to?

I've seen this point mentioned over and over and over again on boards and I have yet to see any poster who I know to be female laughing at and dismissing such treatment when it happens to a man.

On the other hand, it is all too common for male posters to dismiss sexual assault against men by women as trivial, annoying-but-harmless and not worth complaining about.

So by all means be angry that sexual assault on men is frequently trivialized, but you might want to reconsider who is largely to blame for that.

kylith

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

I addressed that in this post and I'm still waiting for a reply from you.

Apologies for missing that, and I'll respond to it more fully when I've had time to read all the links.

However you never actually answered my question, you just jumped right into whataboutery regarding things women have done to men.

Outlaw Pete

seamus wrote: »

That's funny, because what you describe are two sides to the same coin. The notion that women should be treated with additional respect is the same attitude that feeds into showing disrespect. You say it yourself - it places women on a pedestal, it's a form of inequality.

Now, we can get into a long post about "how can respect == disrespect", but when you look at the reasons why the pedestal exist in the first place (protecting virginity & chastity, presumption of female fragility, and protecting "property"), it becomes easy to see why teaching boys to be chivalrous particularly towards the opposite sex because of their gender, leads to some to disregard the human behind the gender.
That is, they see them as "a woman", rather than "a person", and all of the respect and dignity we afford "a person" are not assigned to the woman.

To use a simply analogy - when a man has a nice car, you respect that car. You wouldn't dream of damaging the car (out of respect), and you might pull over to let the car by.
But you will also coo over the car, touch it, stare at it and make comments about the parts of it.

You "respect" the car as a nice object. That's OK because it's an object. But chivalry teaches young men to "respect" women as desirable objects. Not as human beings. They respect other men as humans with a mind and an opinion. They respect women as pretty objects.

That's where someone who believes themselves to be a respectful, chivalrous, "nice guy" gets confused and angry when the object of their respect doesn't react graciously to their admiration.

Basically what you are expressing here is third wave feminist rhetoric (with regards to chivalry) and with all due respect, it's baloney.

Boys are brought to be respectful to females not because we can gain from manipulating them or because they are objects to be desired. We are brought up to respect women because they are physically weaker than us and for that reason it is in our tradition to treat them preferably in certain situations. That's not the pedestal I was referring to.

Outlaw Pete

kylith wrote: »

Apologies for missing that, and I'll respond to it more fully when I've had time to read all the links.

However you never actually answered my question, you just jumped right into whataboutery regarding things women have done to men.

Nope, that's not the point I was making in that post... look forward to your reply when you've read it.

Also, when you are citing 'sexism' as a reason for why something happens, you can't then use whataboutery as a way of retort given that crying sexism is essentially crying imbalance. How then can someone be expected to rebut an argument of imbalance when they are being told they are limited to only talking about one side of the scales?

Zulu

kylith wrote: »

Well, we are not yet at the stage where we can target ad campaigns on bus stops or billboards to specific people.

That's the excuse? If so, it's pathetic. And lazy.
Groups interested could attempt to break it down further than 50% of the global population if they cared to, if they really wanted to. But there's no appetite for that, why? Why is that?

So ask the women in your life if you don't believe the ones here. Ask your mum or your sister if they get hassled in the street, leered at, or rubbed up against. Maybe you'll believe them.

You assume I've never had that conversation. I have. And it has informed my opinion.

kylith, I'm curious... As individuals, what you expect men to actually do to prevent harassment of women? (Apart from speaking to our direct friends, who probably don't behave in that manner anyway.)

The men who harass women are highly unlikely to respond well to any male stranger butting in on his 'conversation' with the woman. They also rarely go anywhere alone and work in groups.

So, what is this expectation that men should be doing? (hopefully without us getting hospitalized, or arrested for assault)

professore

seamus wrote: »

That's funny, because what you describe are two sides to the same coin. The notion that women should be treated with additional respect is the same attitude that feeds into showing disrespect. You say it yourself - it places women on a pedestal, it's a form of inequality.

Now, we can get into a long post about "how can respect == disrespect", but when you look at the reasons why the pedestal exist in the first place (protecting virginity & chastity, presumption of female fragility, and protecting "property"), it becomes easy to see why teaching boys to be chivalrous particularly towards the opposite sex because of their gender, leads to some to disregard the human behind the gender.
That is, they see them as "a woman", rather than "a person", and all of the respect and dignity we afford "a person" are not assigned to the woman.

To use a simply analogy - when a man has a nice car, you respect that car. You wouldn't dream of damaging the car (out of respect), and you might pull over to let the car by.
But you will also coo over the car, touch it, stare at it and make comments about the parts of it.

You "respect" the car as a nice object. That's OK because it's an object. But chivalry teaches young men to "respect" women as desirable objects. Not as human beings. They respect other men as humans with a mind and an opinion. They respect women as pretty objects.

That's where someone who believes themselves to be a respectful, chivalrous, "nice guy" gets confused and angry when the object of their respect doesn't react graciously to their admiration.

Feminism teaches women that men are a block grouping known as "the patriarchy". What's the difference?

optogirl

professore wrote: »

Feminism teaches women that men are a block grouping known as "the patriarchy". What's the difference?

no it doesn't.

professore

kylith wrote: »

Well then where are this guys getting it? They're hardly picking the idea that it's ok to fondle or catcall women up off the ground, are they?

Maybe from their mammies idolising them and telling them they can do no wrong?

optogirl

professore wrote: »

Maybe from their mammies idolising them and telling them they can do no wrong?

Yeah it's not the rapists fault, it's the mother of the rapist doing something wrong

Pac1Man

optogirl wrote: »

Yeah it's not the rapists fault, it's the mother of the rapist doing something wrong

Cat-callers are rapists now?

optogirl

Pac1Man wrote: »

Cat-callers are rapists now?

sorry, fondlers was who I was referring to. And yes, maybe rapist is a bit harsh. Fondlers then. Either way, blaming their Mams seems a leap too far

LLMMLL

[Deleted User] wrote: »

They can't be reported/enforced yet. And judging by the claims on this thread and on metoo there are plenty of claims of a more serious nature that could be reported.



err... you've just stated that low level harassment... oh never mind. I'm done.

It's unlikely that a woman will ever be able to report a man who follows her down one street. For numerous reasons, both legal and practical. I can enumerate these if you want.

So low level harassment is unlikely to be solved by reporting to an authority. Im not saying it's impossible it will happen but you've probably seen the reaction in france to the proposed dining of wolf whistling.

What I'm talking about when I say dealing with low level harassment is a change in culture. And metoo has a large part to play in this. By making men aware that harassment is very common and encouraging women to speak out when it does happen.

You seem.obsessed with verifying whether these things actually happened. When you have this volume of women with the same experiences then demanding that there be some kind of verification system is churlish at best.

Can you give an idea of how (in the future) we are to verify whether a guy persisted in asking out a woman after she refused in a bookstore? Who investigates it? What level of proof is needed for.you to accept it happened? We're not even talking about prosecution here. It seems you won't believe it's an issue until a large part of these claims are independently investigated.

Outlaw Pete

kylith wrote: »

Well, we are not yet at the stage where we can target ad campaigns on bus stops or billboards to specific people.

But we are at a stage where we can target specific groups.

Domestic violence campaigns, for example, could be targeted at both sexes which are potentially likely to engage in such behaviour, not merely one.

B0jangles wrote: »

Who is this acceptable to?

I've seen this point mentioned over and over and over again on boards and I have yet to see any poster who I know to be female laughing at and dismissing such treatment when it happens to a man.

On the other hand, it is all too common for male posters to dismiss sexual assault against men by women as trivial, annoying-but-harmless and not worth complaining about.

So by all means be angry that sexual assault on men is frequently trivialized, but you might want to reconsider who is largely to blame for that.

Your reply is laughable. Did I say that it was women that were making it socially acceptable? No, so what's the rant about? Here's the quote again and I don't suggest for a second that women are solely responsible for making it socially acceptable:

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Amazes me that women in western society moan about such things in the context of it only happening them and it needing to stop given how it's so socially acceptable when it happens guys.

But yet your reply is essentially: DON'T BLAME WOMEN!! MEN ARE LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT!!!!

So therefore you are doing precisely the thing you claimed I was doing: laying majority blame on a single gender!

I do hope the irony of that is not lost on you but I suspect it will be.

kylith

Deleted User wrote: »

kylith, I'm curious... As individuals, what you expect men to actually do to prevent harassment of women? (Apart from speaking to our direct friends, who probably don't behave in that manner anyway.)

The men who harass women are highly unlikely to respond well to any male stranger butting in on his 'conversation' with the woman. They also rarely go anywhere alone and work in groups.

So, what is this expectation that men should be doing? (hopefully without us getting hospitalized, or arrested for assault)

Just, what you can.

If you see one of your mates drunkenly (or not drunkenly) creeping on a girl, stop him.

If you see someone who's not one of your mates, and it is safe for you to intervene, do. Even just ask her the time, or distract him with a question or something.

If you see a guy in a pub or club groping women try point him out to the bouncers. That kind of creep operates from behind so she is unlikely to be able to give a description.

Because, believe me, if you're nervous about getting into that situation she is doubly nervous about being in it. You don't have to wade in with 'Oi, leave that woman alone'.

And first, and most importantly, believe her. If a woman tells you that she was made uncomfortable don't brush it off as a misunderstanding on her part, or that the guy is actually really nice, or that you never saw it so you can't believe it, and especially don't tell her that not all men are like that we know that. You don't even have to do anything besides saying 'It's really shtty that you were in that situation. That guy sounds like an asshole.' Most of the time that's what she needs in those low-level situations, just someone to acknowledge her feelings about the situation and not invalidate them.

Zulu

kylith wrote: »

Just, what you can.

If you see one of your mates .

You promise to do the same, take the gender inequality out of it, stop ALL harassment, treat ALL harassment the same, and we're all good; we're all in agreement.

No?

LLMMLL

LLMMLL wrote: »

You seem.obsessed with verifying whether these things actually happened. When you have this volume of women with the same experiences then demanding that there be some kind of verification system is churlish at best.

Obsessed? Hmm... Yup. Think of the example I used about a false rape claim. These accusations do ruin lives.

I have a close friend who was targeted for a false claim of sexual harassment in the workplace. She was investigated, and it was found that she was jealous of his position in the company. She lost her job, and he lost his reputation. He had to leave the country to get a job because even though his innocence was proven, people's tongues kept wagging.

So, yes. I am focused on claims that potentially can ruin someone's reputation/life be verified.

Can you give an idea of how (in the future) we are to verify whether a guy persisted in asking out a woman after she refused in a bookstore? Who investigates it? What level of proof is needed for.you to accept it happened? We're not even talking about prosecution here. It seems you won't believe it's an issue until a large part of these claims are independently investigated.

You are so focused on dismissing my suggestion. You pointed out the difficulty of verifying these "lower" types of harassment, and I said to focus on the higher levels of harassment. The serious issues. Which this thread has repeatedly sought to highlight as being widespread. And in return, you dismiss that in favor of complaining about the "lower" types of harassment.

Utterly Bizarre. DO you want to change things for the better, or just have something to complain about?

kylith

Zulu wrote: »

You promise to do the same, take the gender inequality out of it, stop ALL harassment, treat ALL harassment the same, and we're all good; we're all in agreement.

No?

Yes, everyone should do it. If a person sees one of their friends or someone else acting inappropriately, or making another person uncomfortable, then they should do what they can to stop that behaviour. That way everyone will have a more comfortable life.

Zulu

kylith wrote: »

Yes, everyone should do it. If a person sees one of their friends or someone else acting inappropriately, or making another person uncomfortable, then they should do what they can to stop that behaviour. That way everyone will have a more comfortable life.

...and on that, I've no issue!

B0jangles

Outlaw Pete wrote: »

Your reply is laughable. Did I say that it was women that were making it socially acceptable? No, so what's the rant about? Here's the quote again and I don't suggest for a second that women are solely responsible for making it socially acceptable:

But yet your reply is essentially: DON'T BLAME WOMEN!! MEN ARE LARGELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT!!!!

So therefore you are doing precisely the thing you claimed I was doing: laying majority blame on a single gender!

I do hope the irony of that is not lost on you but I suspect it will be.

So why bring it up in a discussion which is focussed largely on women talking about sexual harassment? Why say:

Amazes me that women in western society moan about such things in the context of it only happening them and it needing to stop given how it's so socially acceptable when it happens guys.

Do you think women should just shut up and put up with being harassed and sexually assaulted until men are ready and able to be as vocal about not wanting to assaulted either?

btw, I have to laugh at you calling my response a 'rant' - not everyone is as angry when they post as you appear to be...

Zulu

B0jangles wrote: »

Do you think women should just shut up and put up ...

No, not at all. Just don't be so lazy (or hateful) to blame men, or all men, or a majority of men. Thats all.