However, admittedly, as a guy maybe I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

It's hard to do any of that when 5 minutes in, you're shoving somebody and chastising them publicly.

The groper is not going to react well to that. They're not going to think they did anything wrong (if they did, they wouldn't have done it in the first place). So they'll see her as the aggressor and complain loudly.

I keep seeing people talk about how the groper is going to react... seriously, who gives a shit how the villain acts, he's the fucking villain in the situation. You may as well point out that a rapist isn't going to react well to being made to stop raping someone; I'm stunned you'd even think this a valid point to make.

When people act inappropriately, it's doesn't matter what they think or how they react; they're in the wrong, their feeling are irrelevant. Concern yourself with how the victim feels and stop sympathizing with the groper.

Look back at the story of the woman who stood up for her feelings at the tech conference by calling out behavior she thought was inappropriate. Some people agreed with her, but others derided and attacked her.

Whether one side or the other was more morally correct in your eyes is not the point. The point is that it sucks to be the object of social tension.

And it's not really fair for you to define how tolerant other people should be of that pressure.

It provides the suggestion that if he proceeded differently, there might be a chance, but if he continues this way there is not. That suggestion might be enough to restore at least a semblance of normal interaction?

So nowadays I am of the shove the offending body part off and "get your hands off me" mindset because it doesn't really matter. I don't need to be nice about someone invading my personal space especially if I'm going to be known as a frigid bitch anyway. It's also not my problem to educate that person on basic human interaction no matter who they are and no, I refuse to accept stereotypes as an excuse for what they did. (I would expect no less if I were doing the same to someone else - minus the frigid bitch part.)

Regardless, the other problem with confronting something as it happens - that a lot of people here right now don't seem to recognize - is that sometimes you don't even fully realize what's going on until after it's happened or started. Either you're in shock, or you're not noticing how fast something escalated. You also might have no idea what to do because you're worried about the consequences (which range from physical force to losing your job and death threats and "frigid bitch" namecalling). It's not easy. I only wish it were, and I speak from a rather privileged perspective where I work for myself, don't care about what people say about me most of the time, and have a big, tall, hairy fiancé and a big, tall, intimidating roommate to back me up.

Awesome, as a guy, that's what I think women should do.

There will be women that can't do what I'm willing to do for a lot of reasons. People, even. There are people still having problems with what they've done in the past to discourage bad behavior even though they were the victims. There will never be a shortage of that, ever.

So whatever you think someone else should do, don't forget you can help too. Discourage this behavior in everyone, support codes of conduct or implement them in your own groups, and follow said codes of conduct. The community will become a better place for it, not just for women but for everyone in general, and you can't go wrong with that.

Think about it from the perspective of the groper. He perhaps doesn't understand why the action was uncalled for, in his mind he was just being 'friendly' or 'flirty', a little forward but nothing more. How is there this disconnect between these mostly harmless intentions and the inappropriate actions that followed? Certainly a level of ignorance and/or lack of emotional intelligence is at play. So as men, what can we do to help change this?

Yes, I agree. But of course not every woman is willing to be outright confrontational and thus resort to "grin-and-bear-it", which is why I was thinking about other possible avenues based on my experiences receiving blowback.

I realize it's a different story actually there in the moment than it is for me, an armchair warrior, but the only ways I know of to get around that are 1) making choices to avoid the situation (which never go over well in discussion) and 2) behavioral changes. I avoid #1, and #2 is not an issue with anyone I have any influence over; everyone I know would immediately ostracize that person if word ever got out. So all I've got left to discuss is possible reactions. :/

On a sidenote, I was much younger. I went to college and started to go to tech conferences and events at 15. You will not believe how many men, including married men and men old enough to be my father, would hit on me and worse. One of my pipe dreams is wishing I could tell them that they tried to grope a 15 year old. Alas it was almost a decade ago and I can't do anything about it now (except making sure that everyone has resources to discourage that behavior).

True, but men are generally outright confrontational and when dealing with men, speaking their language is likely to lead to them understanding in the moment what just happened.

I agree, and so my personal advice to individuals is to not be meek.

But one of the points of civilized society is to defend the meek.

So, the two messages (stop being meek for your own sake; we need to defend the meek) are not incompatible.

I know I already replied to you, but I had one more thought- your frustration is not with assholes & sexual assaulters, your frustration here is really with humans in general :) This is a classic, classic human trait that shows up in just about every type interaction.

There are good people for sure here, I'm getting married to one in two months. The rotten apples are just more vocal and this is a community I'm trying to care about improving.

You must meet a lot of real assholes :( Again, not a woman, but I've literally never heard a man speak those words, at least that I recall.

Edit: I may have heard it spoken before in the context of ex-wives

It was worst with dating and relationships, where on okcupid and fetlife and other such communities some guy would message me saying I'm hot etc. and sometimes go into some disgusting and inappropriate fantasy about sleeping with two women because I say I'm bisexual, and then call me a ugly whore because I rejected him with a "sorry we're not really a match" ...because it's true. This happened with surprising frequency. I eventually made my profile visible to other women only, and then I gave up altogether soon after that.

I would also try to go to events with friends because just that one act tends to make creeps think twice, often because they believe you're "just" a girlfriend/wife (another terrible stereotype). In addition, I had a couple fake wedding rings for going out at night in general. Now I have a real ring and it's funny how the new assumptions are now sticking around for good. And I still only go out to events with my fiancé or limit myself to events run by women-focused or women-only groups. Being in SF this is easy, not so much in LA where I used to live and elsewhere. Also, I make a point of not giving this advice out to anyone because it smells a lot like the "don't wear revealing clothes/don't walk alone at night or else you might be raped" victim blaming so take it with a grain of salt ;) But a lot of women do this in general. It's kind of sad but it's life. It's also one of many reasons why tech sucks balls for women to be in.

I'm pretty sure for every asshole of a guy I encountered there were others and especially other women in his life that would speak well of him. I'm convinced most people that cause problems just need a small reminder to not be creeps. Unfortunately the internet and pseudonymity makes that hard, and makes it easy for real, persistent assholes to perpetuate their bullshit.

At the hand on the thigh, remove it firmly, say with some volume "Please don't put your hand on my leg, it's inappropriate." Then stand up to move seats. If there are no seats, ask "Can someone spare some room down this (other) end of the table?"

Don't characterize my statement to be blaming the person who was "victim" here. I'm just reiterating that the original poster is not being unreasonable to suggest such a response might have been appropriate and even expected. Given the circumstances, I'm actually somewhat baffled as to why it did not happen. The person was at local meeting with other people and her male friend. She wasn't some lone girl on a subway train packed to the gills where some vile beast was surreptitiously pawing at her.

She certainly isn't obligated to say or do anything, but suggesting she or questioning why she didn't is an entirely rational way to follow up to hearing a story like this.