It just didn't happen when I'm around, because people who are jerks and abusers are, unsurprisingly, very crafty in doing it only in contexts when they are unlikely to get called on it. So male perception of this bullshit is almost totally unrelated to how much it happens.

As an aside, it made me really happy to come across a poster last week for the #stoptellingwomentosmile campaign: https://twitter.com/williampietri

I am upvoting both of you.

This is what people are like: only a minority of people will go through the motions of self examination, and only a minority of those will do that effectively. Where real change happens, or where outdated misbehaviors persist, it's basically a matter of primate see, primate do. Real change has to have a component of motivation at this level.

If women want to compete with men and not just be their toys, they need to exercise agency and own their decisions that "No, I am not up for a relationship with you. Because I say so, not because of some other man's property rights over me." If a woman says "I would get with you if I weren't with someone else" she needs to really and truly mean that. It shouldn't be a polite fiction. Such polite fictions tend to lead to worse trouble than the one they thought they were trying to cleverly sidestep.

I would argue that there is a concept of "relatedness" encoded into Homo sapiens on the instinctive level. The notion of "family" is at least in part a cultural construct on top of that. Also, who said I was arguing against "mine-ness?" I certainly didn't. I'm just highlighting possible unacknowledged/unsupported assumptions in this thread. (Like your apparent assumption of a particular stance on my part.)

http://bit.ly/patcon-budget

It's the same logic behind insulting a man by calling his mother a whore. Why should he be insulted by an insult to his mother? Because a real man is supposed to defend the honor of the women in his family.

Also, at the risk of stating the obvious: there are potentially very serious ramifications for the person doing the naming and shaming too. Most people don't like being called sexist assholes even if they are, in fact, sexist assholes.

I think that what Heidi did is basically perfect - she's educating people that this does go on, it does have an effect on the women who are subjected to it, and they shouldn't have to put up with it. But she's doing it in a neutral, non-defensive tone, without calling out specific people. That's usually much more effective at changing behavior.

But if you could get over those hurdles, it should happen, regardless of those shamed "digging in". Seriously, this kind of behavior seems much more authentically shameful than a lot of illegal activities carrying multi-year sentences. Sorry but knowing that inappropriate behavior has hard consequences works as a deterrent, maybe not for the first guy confronted but for the tenth guy, who at that point knows they just better not do that.

In my view, the problem is the behavior of some guys, enabled by a much larger number of guys who are ignorant or indifferent. I think the solution mainly lies with waking up that latter group.

But if some sleazy fucker knows that the worst consequence of harassment is social disapproval it drastically lowers the stakes for him. You have to count on the harassed person to want to make the harassment very, very public so that the people outside his close also-sleazy social group find out, remember, and hold him accountable.

Beyond losing friends and contacts, any retribution would have to happen in the business world; how do you hold someone accountable inside a system were sociopathical ignorance of the social consequences of your actions (and the actions of other) is rewarded. My entire life has been a series of events crushing the pleasing ideals I was taught as a child regarding morals, they just don't matter in business. Some businesses have them, and it costs them money to exercise them.

Legal recourse is how society turns externalities into internalites.

It's great when that happens. But take a look at what happens to people who report rapes, a crime for which their is often physical evidence. E.g.: http://msmagazine.com/blog/2011/04/15/woman-pays-for-reporti... or http://www.xojane.com/it-happened-to-me/it-happened-to-me-i-... http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/38671/test-case-...

And I can't quickly find the links that were the stories I found most compelling, the ones with the enormous social consequences. The questioning of what "really" happened. Getting smeared as crazy, a bitch, manipulative, etc, etc.

It's great when people who are already traumatized willingly go through that. But it's a great deal to ask of someone in that state.

It's the whole reason presumed innocence is a cornerstone of every modern justice system.

I'm not sure how you know that the vast majority of men think that women complaining about being solicited for blowjobs are "being bitchy." That seems like a really jaundiced generalization of men.

Some difficulties with discussing this sort of misbehavior are the different contextual meanings of "often." Even if a bad behavior is rare, it can still cast a constant shadow, especially when it can happen without warning, and especially when it comes disguised as something else. Even more so when it's attached to highly personal subjects, and even more so when the circumstance is something one has been born into and experienced ones whole life. I'm not sure there is any effective way to understand such an experience without living it.

It bothers me too. The article is otherwise great.

google, define: girl "1. a female child. 2. a young or relatively young woman."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl: "A girl is any female human from birth through childhood and adolescence to attainment of adulthood when she becomes a woman."

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/girl: "a : a female child from birth to adulthood

...

d : sometimes offensive : a single or married woman of any age"

In this case, it seems like she is trying to sound cute or informal while unwittingly reinforcing the perception of women as child-like.

And, she does call herself a girl once more, not just in the title. Perhaps someone said that sentence in a movie, so it will somehow not mean what it says either.

And even if it is an unspoken reference, that doesn't explain how the title should be interpreted differently. It's a pop song, and according to wikipedia the lyrics aren't especially relevant to the contents of her post.

So I started using 'lass' instead (I am not in an area where this is in common use). I haven't yet found anyone who bridles at this, when before I certainly did with 'girl' and 'woman'. No-one seems to particularly care for or against 'lass', with the exception of some elderly women, who seemed to like the suggestion of youth in the word. The experiment part was that I'd stop using 'lass' when someone complained about it, like they did with 'girl' or 'woman', and to see how long that would take.

I'm not particularly suggesting this as a course of action for the general public, it's just a story to relate.

Meanwhile, while it's easier for men to be taken seriously, and they much less often have to deal with sexual harassment, they often have trouble getting laid—especially with the aforementioned attractive young women. It may be true that "the vast majority of guys...are simply not aware that women...go through this stuff all the time". But it's also true that the vast majority of women are simply not aware of how hard it is for young men, especially nerdy young men, to get appealing women to have sex with them. They would be utterly flabbergasted if they learned just how many computer geeks, science grad students, etc., have never even kissed a girl, much less had sex with one.

We see that there are plusses and minuses to each respective situation, but arguably men have it worse off, because women can complain freely of the terrible things they have to put up with, and they're generally met with sympathy by the mainstream (and backed by the full force of Federal law). Meanwhile, men who complain that attractive young women won't sleep with them are shamed and belittled, and told that no one owes them sex. Which is true—but is hardly helpful to the proverbial 40-year-old virgin.

Seriously, no. Don't do this. Don't do "being attractive to men unsurprising comes at the cost of sexual assault." Don't do "not having sex when you want to is as bad as being forced to have sex when you don't want to." Don't do "attractive young women are the only women worth having sex with." Don't go for the mathematical impossibility that women get to have more sex than men. Don't go for "reporting sexual assault is a sympathetic experience with no negative consequences," when women are still basically put on trial for it.

In all sincerity, if you don't get why you are shamed and belittled when you complain about unfairness with respect to women, here's the key to make sense of it: you live in a caste system, and you are the higher caste. Women were literally second-class citizens under the law until very recently (assuming they no longer are in your country), and a society doesn't shake that off overnight. Men have real problems, but you can't talk sensibly about them until you get how stacked the deck is to start with. (And, honestly, a thread about a woman who was trying to cut a quarter-million dollar deal when the man on the other side put her hand in his pants? That's a thread that doesn't need to be about men's problems.)

http://dontmarry.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/the_manipulated...

Biology is no excuse for behavior. It can explain a tendency, but it does not justify yielding to that tendency.

Both men and women are owed the respect of not being offered frequent unwanted sexual requests. Of getting people to take them seriously, based purely on the merits of their work.

Both men and women aren't owed sex. And it's not a "downside" to not have something you're not entitled to not be given to you. It would be a downside to have to pay for clean drinkable water. Or not be allowed to get public transport to work.

If someone approaches you in public and asks you to have a coffee with them, you don't owe it to them to have it, and your refusal is completely ok. They have no right to get upset if you refuse. Just because everyone else has refused them before doesn't make them suddenly entitled to have coffee with you now.

If no one wants to have coffee with you, you need to make it appealing for them to have coffee with you. This isn't just looks, and you need to stop feeling sorry for yourself and blaming things you can't change.

This often settles down around age 30 when a woman no longer youthful settles down with a nerdy man.

It's also deeply offensive to compare as pressing a need as the healthy male's sex drive (typically stronger than the need to eat, as you can easily see when you offer a healthy man the choice between sex with an attractive young woman and food), with something completely frivolous like locking in a husband?

Assuming not all (attractive) women will publicly or privately complain about such behaviors by men, will the others submit to such behaviors by the men in those positions? Will some women complain (public/privately) and still submit to such behaviors, and what circumstances is that more likely to happen? And is that act submission more socially accepted than say, if the sexes were reversed?

Tangent: I wonder if such things could be analytically studied? Some one could mine sites like HN, twitter, etc for a signal. Check the various states of the author of such. But then it would be hard to match that with the outcomes of submitting to such behavior or not without some kind of surveillance.

Meta: My tangent makes me really wonder what the world could be like where the current information asymmetry when it comes to present and technically possible surveillance systems, did not exist, where nearly everyone could leverage such scale of information in the same way that nearly everyone can leverage the atmosphere to breathe…

Edit: So I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted since I'm not trying to lead any bias towards any group that could be placed on either side of the interactions, It could be Martian's propositioning some being from Alpha Centauri system. Is pondering a way to study such things (and how one could even approach to) so controversial such that no one will respond yet shame at the same time? It's like we're not even allowed to try to explore what is going on. We all must trout out more anecdota, spout out more faux outrage about what has been going on (we're all apart of the status quo, and even with the internet outrage we haven't progressed very far in understanding it seems, who could have guessed…), and damn everything else. Anyone going to propose another reason to refute that's not what's going on here? Maybe someone can point me to a place where I could attempt to frame such ideas/questions/ways to approach studying such things and doesn't cost $xx,000 per year, since apparently, HN isn't for such. Amusing HN…

I didn't downvote you, though I was tempted.

I think what's happening people are taking offense at exactly your detached tone, where what they're looking for is a human response.

Involved Person: Oh my god, did you see that guy who was just shot.

Disengaged person: Yeah, the way the blood spurted out of his head was fascinating, I've cut up with an equation for the arc it took.

You see how an involved person can take offense at someone's disengagement?

Well, considering that most people aren't willing to admit that words emanating from this account is the work of some amazing AI platform straight from DARPA, or a being not of this world that is traditionally accepted by the masses, what you really mean is that I didn't illicit a k̶n̶e̶e̶ ̶j̶e̶r̶k̶ reaction (human response: I was tempted) or provide more anecdota to illicit more k̶n̶e̶e̶ ̶j̶e̶r̶k̶ traditional socially accepted reactions?

Meta: But doesn't socially accepted reactions change over time? I wonder how that happened? Did no one try to study human behaviors and some how try to influence such, and we just magically change to the present?

If I took to the forums for all the ways people treated me for the color tint of my skin or other groups I may be subscribed to (black, male, college dropout [some of the things some people would describe me as], etc…), will I learn that all these people behind the their internet connections really give a fuck about me (and vise versa) and that will some how magically change the world now that my ego would have been pandered too? Sure, maybe more people would know that such things happen, but then what? We just keep on keeping on after we log off? Shame on me to even suggest that is/will take the form of actively maintaining the status quo?

Was that human response enough? Now what did we learn that could forward our understanding of such dynamics that take place in a society and change the way people interact for the "better"?

Probably great advice for the meatspace, but I question if such needs to be the lowest common denominator for online interactions. But I guess some people must be thinking: "How could this person not derive any pleasure/fun from deriding another human being (or in this case, anonymous men who abuse their position in power or in society for a variety of reasons not made apparent but must be inferred by the audience, but human being nonetheless), especially when its socially accepted to do so?!?! How dare he (go figure, but he's admitted to being black [gasp!] so now I'm confused!?!?!) not partake in a sadomasochistic expression of the human condition!?!?!"

I don't really think it's a thought of "why don't you take pleasure joining in", but a very base judgment of whether someone is with-us or against-us. Since you're not outraged at this very important subject, you must not share my values. And since you have different values, you must be a contributor to the problem.

Agreed. I figured maybe if I could try to frame the issue in a technical means that might interest people of this community in the context of controversial present uses of technology (trying to expand beyond the mob behaviors in the community towards present asymmetric usage of such) that could benefit us in many spheres if used to study our behaviors if the means were more available/accessible to all.

It's just funny because now people in my position have been pushed towards pursing startups in order to try to address social behaviors using technology because no such freedoms are granted in academia until one is grey haired, and even then you must pander the present status quo in academia which I have friends whine to me about all the time.

At least on HN, I can have a way to even find people trying to do similar things, and I wouldn't know if I didn't state what I was thinking which I think outweighs the fear of being grey out (it still is pretty unpleasant since that affects whether some people who may help pursue such ways of trying to address things may over look, but maybe it attracts those people even more, so maybe not!).

All in all, I'm still pretty hopeful that such interactions here and in derivative spaces like github/twitter can draw me towards people who want to think of/build something to address something like this one day. It's worked form getting me interested in decompiling firmware, network bruteforcing, learning different programming languages, writing code to mine twitter for social information corresponding to crowd sourcing campaigns and their influencers, etc…

> […]but a very base judgment of whether someone is with-us or against-us. Since you're not outraged, you must not share my exact values. Since you don't share my values, you must be part of the problem.

Yeah, I can understand that, but I just stated how such judgements can be construed as (with an intentional mocking touch placed in that train of thought). And this is coming from someone who had an official position at an Ivy League university before I dropped out, as a "Minority Peer Counselor". Funny enough, even there, people who normally initially associate with others (and me) on the basis of their skin (for a multitude of reasons, most predominantly surrounding some internalized fear of rejection/and derivatives from prior experiences or teachings) didn't like when I brought up such phenomena.

In your delusion, you also conveniently ignore that (within certain limits) being attractive is very much a lifestyle choice that brings with it all manner of intense advantages. Your ex-coworker made the choice of being attractive precisely because of all these advantages.

The reason women complain about being 'discriminated' is because it works so well for them: there's always, in the lingo of modern social thought, a "white knight" who's willing to believe them because he's so desparate.

Women tend not to report on minor sexual harassment incidents, since it is socially disadvantageous to do so. They only speak about it in aggregate terms, which will have zero effect, except in the very long term, on the number of sexual harassment incidents they will experience. Speaking about in aggregate terms, also draws in attention from people sympathetic to the woman's situation, at the expense of other people who may be in even more need of attention, (e.g. say starving children in africa, elder women unable to pay bills, foster children being abused), and enables the attractive women to earn additional privileges.

I agree it probably isn't their deliberate intention to have that effect on society, but I do think that effect exists.

There's a woman who's written a book about this sort of thing: http://dontmarry.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/the_manipulated...

Probably the most bullshit thing I will have read this month.

(edit: obviously sarcastic)

The style of your post is typical for white-knights who, in my considerable experience, reflexively hit-out against any man who doesn't defer to the feminist/misandric party-line that woman must not be held responsible, that women have only rights, no responsibilities. The great Africa-American philosopher and gender-researcher Christopher Julius has pithily summarised the underlying motivation for this disposition.

I'm not debating this point because it is completely irrelevant. Your argument boils down to "if a woman is attractive, it's perfectly legitimate for her to suffer from discrimination, because she is privileged". There is a word for that, it's "misogyny" (as if your "white knight" dig wasn't sufficient). Women have the right to makeup and skirts, and they have the right to not have strangers grab their hand and put it on their dick. Of course, you're free to disagree with this statement, and you'll find a number of countries, particularly in the Middle-East, agreeing with your views, but that's not what I consider a part of modern western values.

I think this is mistaken. First, the burned-out hacker can always just say no. Second, he has the advantage, not the disadvantage.

When you can use your mobile as a universal recording device and you carry it everywhere I find stories like this incredibly hard to believe.

Is it that hard to download a recording app, like the aclu police recording app, and have the most water tight sexual harassment suit ever? I mean you don't need to know that's happening before hand, when things start to get weird just say you got a text message and start recording.

At the end of the day remember that stories are just that, and people, both men and women, lie. Without evidence believing anyone because they are a woman is just as sexist as the people who supposedly made those passes on her.

Historically, recording/taping conversations was a "spec-ops" act against someone, which could be only used by those in power to abuse/blackmail people, and it made sense to restrict it.

Nowadays, recording devices are ubiquitous, and easily available even to, say, poor disadvantaged teenagers, and the majority of their use actually seems to be for the "little guy" to protect against abuse by obtaining evidence of it. IMHO we should consider a way (details, conditions, restrictions, etc) to make it generally legal to make recordings of things that are said to you or done to you.

I think if a person made a complaint to law enforcement, they could get a waiver - or maybe even a court order - to record a specific person for a specific time for a specific reason. Maybe that should be easier, but I don't think the process should be any less regulated.

The whole point is that you should be able to record now, and handle any permission/admissability later; and you shouldn't require cooperation of government beforehand - it's likely for police or court to say that your case is not important enough for them; but it's not a valid reason to restrict your ability to protect yourself.

What you intentionally say to me isn't your private secret anymore - if I had the right to hear it, then I have the right to remember it and to repeat that to any court; and I should have the right to remember it perfectly&permanently on a durable medium, and hand at to any court as valid evidence. In short, it makes sense to require permission of a participant in recorded conversation, but not all participants.

So you're suggesting the solution to sexual harassment is for women to go deeper into an already uncomfortable situation and gather evidence for the 'nuclear option' that can potentially ruin the careers of both parties? That's complete nonsense. Nobody wants to hire somebody they think might sue them. Since women who file big sexual harassment suits face serious repercussions in the job market later, it's usually an option of last resort.

I'm really curious about the numbers here - what percent of women have ever agreed to such offers for the purpose of getting ahead (at any point in their lifetime).

I'm hoping the number is in the single digits, because if it's higher this type of harassment will never stop.

Oh yeah, that's another thing that happens: when a good-looking woman is successful, others (men and not-so-good-looking women) will assume she must have done sexual favors for someone in power - as opposed to because she's smart and capable.

(You may have asked the question innocently, but... there be dragons.)

1. She gets a promotion she doesn't totally doesn't deserve because she submitted to sexual harassment by her her boss at work. She's happy about this.

2. She submits to sexual harassment because she is afraid she'll lose her job if she doesn't. She feels dirty and exploited.

And this is unfair to men how? Because they don't have to put up with sexual harassment at work as much?

I can't take claims of the above seriously in the US, because women are 100% legally protected from professional retribution when declining said "deals". I can't speak to outside the US, but here, the protections are vast and absolute.

It's not 1913 anymore, any anybody who claims otherwise needs to wake up to the current legal reality.

I don't know. That's why I asked. Do you know?

And there is a 3rd option where she refuses.

Jokes/books/movies makes it seems like it happens all the time, but I don't know if it really does.

But I have no idea if this actually happens as often as jokes and books/movies claim it does.

Which doesn't justify when a woman gets a job by blowing someone, but as a man i'm not exactly concerned about the relative amounts of privilege I receive relative to the blowjob "opportunities"/discrimination women do...

I am of course doing my small part to fix this by offering to blow every Manager i meet if they'll promote me :( You gotta do what you gotta do for equality...