>For example: if she found him hot, we wouldn't be reading this post.

You don't know that. It is an unreasonable and unfair assumption, and reflects the expectation of your own immaturity as a gold standard.

Your comment only serves to distract from the point - No woman is going to post a blog post talking about "wanted advances", even though we know they exist, from friends we know who met in workplaces.

I don't think "advances" are bad. This woman experienced continuous harassment after politely declining an "advance." That's where things should have ended, but didn't.

The fact that we need to suggest social education to educate professionals in the workplace about when a person is not interested in them is kind of shocking. It should be considered basic communication skills.

There's no formal education for basic communication skills. We rely on informal methods such as talking to friends and family, but there will always be people who miss out on practicing on one or more aspects of socialising with women. And they will be the harassers. I don't think shaming them and locking them up straight away is the way to go.

I have had crushes on various females since primary and secondary school. The first one or two instances you could almost say I too had harassed someone. It wasn't until I had more experience "advancing" I finally got when girls want you to continue and when they don't. Not everyone is lucky they pick this skill up early, even as I wish I got the hang of it earlier than I did.

Sure, everyone has had embarrassing social experiences. But we are discussing grown professionals who are speaking at conferences. Not children in school.

And this isn't a case of not knowing how to act socially, it's actual aggression and harassing behaviour when he doesn't get what he wants.

On a side note, there are formal communication skills courses in education. My university had a course called "Communication Skills for Engineering" or something like that. It was a mandatory short course for anyone in engineering, maths and computer science.

The only place where you can 'formally' learn a 'Sorry I'm really busy, maybe some other time? :)' is a straight out rejection, and that you should stop pursuing this woman, is in a PUA school. The other way you can learn it is receiving enough of these rejections to finally figure out what they mean. Not everyone had enough contact with women to learn this by the time you're grown professional. I'd say at least 20% of HN readers wouldn't know it either.

You don't learn that in engineering communication courses.

The way the man acted is like a child throwing a temper tantrum, because that is exactly where his skill level in managing his emotions is when dealing with women!

Right, but we expect professional engineers to learn difficult things. Having an expectation of them to also learn how to behave like adults seems like a reasonable one. Doesn't matter that it's "hard because they were scared of girls."

It's also reasonable to expect them to pass their engineering subjects, yet at the same time, we know in universities, the pass rate of some subjects can be as low as 60%, and usually around 80-90%. There will always be people who didn't make it through with all the knowledge pieces in the head intact and we need a system of making sure no one is left out. No one wants to lock up the 20% of engineers who aren't good with girls and have exhibited behaviour that constitutes harassment or being "creepy".

The problem with your remark is the implicit way that you want to make sure no men get left out. De facto alienating women is fine. It sounds like "girls" aren't really people in your eyes.

If you're suggesting I should refer to girls I've interacted with when I was 9 years old as women, then I disagree with your suggestion.

You have no solution besides shaming and locking up men who are harassing women. Is it working? Women are getting harassed and men are getting shamed. If that's your ideal of male-female relations then I suggest it is you who has a problem with not wanting to find out the root cause of societal issues, and enjoying the shaming and denigrating socially inept men as a hobby at the cost of other women who are getting harassed. Revenge is fun, I get it, and helping other women who are harassed can feel good too, yes. That doesn't mean solutions to reduce the propensity for men to harass women shouldn't be explored.

No, that is not my ideal of male-female relations. I have a track record of speaking out against that. You suggesting I have a problem amounts to a personal attack and one that is wholly unfounded given my track record. I was only trying to point out a flaw in your logic. I am very conservative about trying to suggest solutions because I think we have yet to adequately flesh out the problem space. Trying to come up with solutions when the problem isn't well understood tends to produce bad solutions that make problems worse.

Then don't start personal attacks to begin with.

We could focus on the women and you'd complain it's men who needs to change. Focus on the ways to change men and you're complaining we aren't focusing on the women.

I hereby put my hands up and give up caring about women I don't know being harassed. They can solve their own problems and me caring about it only gets me attacked personally, no matter what ideas I offer. Seems like the only behaviour you'd suggest is to have a negative outlook towards men and that not something I'd agree with. I have a pretty good guess a lot of harassment comes from a man not knowing how to deal with women, because it's something that happened to me. Instead of willing to consider this viewpoint you dismiss the idea completely and go after me and my logic. You have a strong track record and you don't need people like me to tell you what's happening.

It will be for the best.

No one is suggesting to "lock them up." They just don't get sympathy from me in cases like this, especially when they want to speak at a conference and interact with other professionals.

No, they don't deserve sympathy.