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Comment by Frondo | Hacker News Reader

When men openly discuss not meeting with women because of a fear of being falsely accused (which itself is exceedingly rare) of inappropriate behavior or molestation, what are women supposed to conclude?

That they aren't being denied networking opportunities or opportunities to build working relationships?

What is a positive take-away for women from powerful or monied men saying, in public, "I am afraid of meeting with women, so I no longer will"?

For the record, I'm a dude and when I hear men say this, I think much less of them--for being cowardly and shutting women out of industry for their cowardice.

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I think we lack empathy. How would we men feel if the situation was switched?

At work we discussed a customer who wouldn't shake hands with women because of his religion. A coworker said that's not sexist and the company should accommodate the customer. I asked him how he'd feel if a customer's religion bars handshakes with white dudes. He looked down and had no response.

What if white bosses said the same things about black employees? People's unit tests are tots broke.

i suppose it depends on there being a similar circumstance. if accusations of interpersonal 'racial harassment' became more regular, you would probably see a shift in behavior with some people going out of their way to avoid 'risky' situations.

The chicken littles claiming this problem exists in the first place are publicly scared they are next. This they admit outright. I'd wager that people making these claims probably _do_ have this as a risk, for good reason.

this mindset seems a bit like a 'if you have nothing to hide...' view on privacy. they're only concerned because they're villains?

You are putting words from a totally different argument in my mouth. Weak rhetoric.

your statement was thus:

> I'd wager that people making these claims probably _do_ have this as a risk, for good reason.

why do you think they have this as a risk? why for good reason? why do you wager this situation?

your phrasing seems like a sneering insinuation, but framed such that you can say it doesn't mean any one concrete thing, should someone respond. this seems like "weasel wording" and it seems disingenuous to reply the way you did.

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