Hacker News Reader

I have to agree with the assertions that 2. is victim blaming. The group 1. needs to do everything in their power, which they control quite a bit, to stay away from the possibilities of a group 2. situation. People, mostly men, in power need to have the moral and virtuous fortitude to promote an environment for collaboration and camaraderie of work. It is incumbent of those in power to create a culture of cooperation. If that culture does not exist and bad behavior ensues than it is not incumbent of the victim to improve the culture. Especially if that victim is a junior professional.

I'm saddened that this topic even needs to be part of our discourse in our culture today. Perhaps this is a sad old story. Yet we see this all the time of people in power in the news. I hope that we can come to a collective realization that this is doing no one any good to behave irresponsibly.

Your assumption is that group 1. is (or at least has been until 2017) aware of the huge problem of their behavior. I think this is wrong, and this a prerequisite for my comment.

Imagine this: You are John Smith and since you were young, you have been taught that as a man, you have to get laid as much as possible, that women are sex objects, that your self-worth depends on your success as a sexual predator. Your friends happened to think the same (you maybe picked your friends even based on these value, subconsciously), and so, while you grew up, this is how you lived and acted. And it worked. You had sex with a lot of women, you received praise and acknowledgement from your peers, you felt like a real man and so on. And you gt comparatively little push back. Sure, there was something in you which might have told you that you over and over again hitting on the same girl must have been annoying for her - but as every human, you saw things from your perspective, and from that one - which you have learned and internalized over decades - this is what women wanted, and how it was supposed to be.

Couldn't this be how the men from group 1 became those who there are? And wouldn't this mean that what they in fact would have needed was to learn a different way of behavior, through feedback when they stepped over the lines?

Following your logic, decades of social conditioning would automatically disappear. You are using the word "need" multiple times. Of course. But what if they actually really didn't get the memo? Because this is more likely than these men sharing your value set (or mine, for that matter) but violating it constantly and deliberately.

Some would call this behavior "toxic masculinity". And it is. But exactly like the social conditioning that other groups were exposed to doesn't just fall off of people in a second, toxic masculinity does neither.

I like nuanced comments and you make cogent arguments. However, I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough. Anywhere in the course of history where there was a stronger party forcing themselves on a weaker party, the pain of the weaker party is visible in plain sight and ignored by the stronger party.

Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. The answer to that question has been a resounding no, whether it was slavery or war crimes or sexual assault.

To summarize, lack of feedback cannot be the reason, willful ignorance and dehumanization perhaps is and that is something the victim cannot be tasked with rectifying.

I still think you seem to lack the willingness to engage in exploring how these type of men think, which also means that your verdict about lack of feedback not being the reason doesn’t appear too convincing to me. Otherwise you would be aware that “being ignored” is widely considered “playing hard to get” among men with this mindset. Emphasis on “play”. If one has been exposed to a certain type of mindset and has internalized it, this person’s viewpoint and their perception of reality might be absolutely different than yours (and mine).

This of course is a re-occuring theme of the past year(s). People not making the effort to understand why others act/behave/vote radically different. It seems to be unbelievably hard to acknowledge that what might be despicible from one’s own viewpoint might appear completely reasonable from someone else’s in their specific context. Which doesn‘t excuse their actions but explains why they have not been seeing/noticing the obvious damage of their behavioral patters.

In order to change that person’s viewpoint requires work from the ground up.

Don't be saddened. This is potentially a time for change. A good time. I hope we can look back at this and never be able to imagine going back to the widespread abuse of the less powerful.

Laurie Penny writes very well about all this sort of thing: https://longreads.com/2017/12/05/the-consent-of-the-ungovern...

While there is some truth to your comment it is both unfortunately phrased in part "pain in the ass to women, fuck it up for all other men" and focuses too much on what (alleged) victims could do.

For instance, you question the ethical and moral responsibility of (alleged) victims who did not speak up at that time. I can easily imagine being one of those people, and I think that most of the time in other situations which are not sexual we see that most people keep their mouths shut and try to make the best of a bad deal: it's why there have been fewer violent revolutions. People with strong, clear ethos who make the choice to "speak truth to power" are rare, everywhere, in every time.

I would ask you also to consider that there were probably more non-victims who were passive observers, privy to at least some of the bad behavior who also did not speak up. Perhaps they should be the main thrust of your comment, rather than people who may already be so psychologically weakened that a brave act is the last thing that is likely?

All, that said, I find the #metoo hashtagging irritating. I do not know why, but something grates about it.

“I think that most of the time in other situations which are not sexual we see that most people keep their mouths shut and try to make the best of a bad deal: it's why there have been fewer violent revolutions. People with strong, clear ethos who make the choice to "speak truth to power" are rare, everywhere, in every time.”

I fully agree with you. I tried to account for that by pointing out that this is a pattern that can be observed irespective of gender, but I guess my striving for brevity meant that this point didn’t come across clearly enough.

I don't think the problem lies with feedback. I think it lies with willful ignorance of it.

I believe that most people in group 1, are in fact aware of the problem of their behaviour and are willingly ignorant of it. This is because if they made any unwanted advances against women, even if the women didn't tell them to stop or publicly humiliate them, they surely ignored or tried to get away from the situation. At the very least the victim did not enjoy it and that is feedback enough.

Now the question boils down to whether a perpetrator considers the victim to be a human with a standing equal to his/her own. So as far as I can tell, it is the general problem of dehumanizing victims. The blame does not lie with Type 2 people who did not feel "comfortable" enough to publicly speak up.

Take any crime which doesn't take in public view, let's say child abuse. Is it the responsibility of the victim to give feedback to the perpetrator, or is it the responsibility of the perpetrator to view the child as a human being?

PS - I made a very similar comment down the thread to another commenter as well.

The other commentor was me too :)

I also like to use analogies. But this one really is misleading.

We are not speaking about juridical crimes here and not about children but adults. It’s one if the main differences between children and adults that society expects the latter to communicate, to express their thoughts, and to take responsibility for their actions or lack of action.

But nowadays in debates like these I see the emergence of a devaluation of these features that until now clearly differentiated children from adults. The individual of age is described like a helpless, voiceless child.

I find this seriously worrying (which is why I spent hours this Saturday in this comment debate, which I rarely do).

As far as analogies go, I'll rescind my analogy based on the difference you have stated. However, it does not negate the point I was trying to make, that the problem lies not with feedback but with willful ignorance of it.

Since, I didn't realize you were the same person, here's my response for the other comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15942520) you made. I think I understand what you mean by saying that what appears unwanted to one party might appear playful and wanted to another party based on their mindset. But then what guarantee is there that if the victim escalates the issue, that the escalation isn't considered playful either. Note that escalations can come in increasingly severe degrees and can also have equally "playful" connotations from the perpetrators perspective. If a victim tells her close girlfriends about the sexual assault, to the perpetrator it can sound as "I made such love that she couldn't stop talking about it". If a perpetrator has violated many victims, who have tried to warn their female colleagues, it can sound as "I'm so good that, some women want me for themselves and are spreading rumors about me to prevent others from getting close to me". I feel vile coming up with legitimate sounding sentences such as these, but I believe putting the onus on victims to give feedback need not make the perpetrators realize that boundaries have been crossed.

In my opinion there is an objective measure of whether a person is welcome or unwelcome. Now perpetrators might have a different viewpoint about it in which case no matter what the victims do to escalate the issue, it need not necessarily mean feedback for the perpetrator. On the other hand from the victim's perspective there is a cost to be paid in terms of engaging with the perpetrator apart from other costs which you already mentioned.

Finally, a few perpetrators might have such a removed world view that nothing below public shaming opens their eyes to the harassment, which is the only time we come to know about it. We might assume that no feedback was given by victims, but it might just be that the feedback wasn't nearly enough.

To summarize, the victims do not have nearly enough incentive to give feedback and perhaps many did and the harassment didn't stop until public shaming. It is definitely not the case of victims not having enough integrity to overcome costs to of giving feedback.

“”” 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up")- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution. Fear of losing a job/allies/opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It's more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved. “””

I’m not trying to be controversial, but from my perspective this is the actual definition of victim blaming - do you agree with this assessment? Not in the sense that a victim is responsible for their own attack, but rather the victim is responsible for every subsequent attack. Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?

From my perspective you’re suggesting it’s the onus of victims to reorient their lives and potentially suffer in their professional career in order to police the voluntary actions of another person. Is this accurate? Would you agree the victim has that responsibility?

“”” 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical/moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will ("I was too feared to speak up") “””

Again, not trying to be controversial - but have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something? I’m curious because from my perspective you’re treating this issue quite flippantly, and with a very narrow minded viewpoint. I suspect that many men who haven’t been in violent situations have a hard time understanding feelings of physical vulnerability. And they have an even harder time understanding why even seemingly mild cases of verbal inappropriateness can cause the same feelings of physical vulnerability.

“”” So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion. “””

I think your position sounds perfectly reasonable to people who don’t have any experience with it, but breaks down when actually applied in real life. Specifically, I think youre proposing that women just shut down situations they feel unease about, which sounds perfectly logical and may happen most of the time.

But it ignores the other outcome, those which Hollywood is famous for - women that decline the sexual advances of men find themselves labeled as ‘frigid’, ‘uptight’, or ‘difficult to work with’, and watch their professional lives suffer as a result. In my opinion, the conflict aversion is the optimal strategy for when one potential outcome is neutral (the harasser is sorry, and otherwise won’t hinder victims livelihood or career), and the other outcome is highly damaging (the agressor escalates, or the aggressor is sorry but feels the need to harm the victims career to protect their own).

Thanks for your comment and those very clear questions, this is a good way for me to see how my comment can be understood, and it allows me to clarify in case necessary.

"Do you believe initial victims bear some culpability in their aggressors later attacks?" Definitely not. If this is how my comment can be understood, then I failed to express what I meant, although reading it again and again, I am a surprised about this. However, it's just a reminder how different the same statement can be interpreted.

My reference was to what I see as a moral/ethical responsibility of an individual to the society at large to do something against a negative phenomenon.

I see everyone carrying a responsibility to make a society work. That means speaking up, that means giving feedback, that means helping people to improve - and yes, sometimes that means giving up or at least risking an opportunity, because sometimes, doing these things which I just described is not received well.

Which brings me to your second point and your question. "But have you ever been the victim of a physical assault? Have you ever put your career on the line to get justice for something?" I have been putting my "career" (in the sense of opportunities and professional relationships) on the line multiple times due to me disagreeing with various terms, or based on certain principles, or simply because I felt that what I was asked to do would not be true to myself, and I have expressed clear and loud disagreements to the extend that I wasn't sure whether voicing this would get me fired. I am generally a person who rather says "no" to something than to say "yes" just to avoid the conflict. This probably impacts the way I look at the whole topic. I wouldn't have written what I wrote if this is not how I try to act myself. For me, my integrity is more important than money, career, power, status.

However, I have not been physical assaulted in that context that we are talking about here (even though I have been physically assaulted in a violent non-sexual context, but I guess that's not really what you are looking for).

Having said that, I have a hard time with this idea of extreme human vulnerability in cases such as the one's we are talking here though. I am a human being myself. Even though I am not a woman and have not had a colleague trying to kiss me at a party or sending me inappropriate text messages, I have had plenty of stressing, uncomfortable, potentially threatening "real life experiences" to state t hat, while everything can leave (psychological) scares , essentially describing women (or individuals in general, as I - as mentioned before - consider the underlying motivator of action or not-action being not gender-related) as completely helpless in these situations is the wrong approach, no matter how "right" it feels.

Textbook example of victim blaming.

What? Victim blaming is saying they deserve their treatment. This is just asking victims to stop "playing nice" with a system that really doesn't reward them as much as they think it does when justifying not taking action.

No, victim blaming is holding the victim at least partially responsible for the abuse, which is exactly what the comment does.

Well then you are a text book example of someone with a very binary worldview, which consists exclusively of perpetrators and victims, and nothing in between.

This is not how the world looks like, however, even if some are working hard in painting it that way. You are disqualifying yourself with your simple-minded approach of using a label instead of actual arguments.

"Victim blaming" is one of the most problematic labels that are being thrown around nowadays, but it also is a nice way to filter out the people who are not able to have a rational, fact-based discussion.

But to factually approach your accusation: Saying "It's the person's fault that she/he has been attacked" would possibly be justified to be called "victim blaming" (although even then I personally think there are better ways to challenge a line of argumentation than these highly charged labels. They make people lazy and to disengage with nuanced view points).

In my comment, I wasn't doing anything close to that, though. My point is a completely different one.

If you see something like this taking place but do not say anything, you are a victim?