Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fortythirteen | Hacker News Reader

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Disclaimer: not in any way attempting to diminish your experience. Only adding my own, to broaden the conversation.

It can be a similar experience for men (although it's definitely not something talked about). I've had a female coworker walk up behind me repeatedly and give me unsolicited back rubs and ask me if I wanted to go to an empty office. I've been flirted with and hit on repeatedly. I've had a group of women at work, some of whom were in positions of power, socially shun me because I wasn't romantically interested in one of their friends, another coworker.

Most of this happened when I was younger, and I probably would respond differently now that I have more experience (I just kept my mouth shut back then). But, I still can't help but feel that I wouldn't be taken as seriously by HR, because I'm a man.

I'd like to see us move past the current narrative of "Men do this to Women" and get to a place where we recognize that People shouldn't do this to other People.

Those experiences are awful. I do not dispute that there are male victims, including in the workplace. I absolutely agree that "People shouldn't do this to other People".

That said, women as a group are disproportionately on the receiving end of improper workplace behaviour overwhelmingly perpetrated by men.

And you can't address that dynamic without first acknowledging that it exists and putting words to it. And so, men as a group do this to women as a group and it has real-life ramifications for women. That doesn't mean we don't address what is happening to men. It's not a zero sum game. But it also means we can't ignore how gender is implicated in this discourse for women.

> That said, women as a group are disproportionately on the receiving end of improper workplace behaviour overwhelmingly perpetrated by men.

Yes, that is definitely the case in places where men outnumber women in positions of power, which is still most businesses. I can tell you, from first hand experience, that when that dynamic is flipped, men, perhaps equally as often, become the more objectified party.

IMO this is an issue of human nature and power dynamics, not the genetic proclivities of any one sex or gender identity. I know that my own experiences made me completely avoid mixing work and "attraction". I suspect that the higher percentage of women facing this abuse and coming to the same conclusion also drives the disparity.

But we don't have to single out men and give offending women a pass, even if it's supposed to be temporary, to solve the problem. "Nobody can do this to anyone and get away with it" also solves the problem without making the non-offending men feel unfairly singled out.

I can tell you, it's extremely frustrating to have people assume that I'm a potential offender, only because of my sex and gender identity when, in fact, I've repeatedly been the victim.

> IMO this is an issue of human nature and power dynamics, not the genetic proclivities of any one sex or gender identity.

I think that notion is irrelevant to the problem.

It's the nature of SSD to get corrupted. It's the nature of the internet to be unreliable. Yet many companies in Silicon Valley build robust and reliable services atop those fundamental starting points. "Oh, I'm using an SSD, guess my repo will just become corrupted," is not something you hear technologists utter.

However, it's apparently accepted as natural that employees of some Silicon Valley companies might say to themselves, "Oh, I just turned down that project manager's sexual advances, guess I can't work on that project in my future." That can only happen if the company has no interest in addressing those kinds of problems. I know that sounds flippant, but GNU/Linux was built largely upon the initial work of Linus and Richard-- two developers who apparently wanted and had zero social interaction with one another. So even from a narrow productivity standpoint, it's insane to ignore those problems and throw that value out the window.

What kind of threshold has to be crossed before we recognize women acting as a group?

General principles of human rights broadly forbid notions of collective guilt and collective punishment: one formulation is that everyone is entitled to be treated as an individual before the law. This doesn't mean one can't sue a company or nation; but men don't act as a group in the sense of having a steering committee with clearly articulated policies on gender politics.

So the solution is what? To impose solutions on the individual who never would have done anything untoward anyway?

Creating an online space that empower women, like Leap, is one example of a solution.

OK, now that I have you, what is the benefit of acknowledging that men as a group do something to hurt women? And if that's the case, what is it that women, as a group do to hurt men?

I believe the awareness of the #metoo movement is powerful, in that it allows me as a male, to say stuff like "that's not cool" when needed.

Yeah I'm sure it won't lead to any false accusations or men being fired because of mob mentality. Also your point about women being asked on dates is laughable.

We've banned this account for trolling. Please don't create accounts to break the site guidelines with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not "broadening" the conversation. What you're doing is recentering the conversation as a "Men are victims of women too!"

As a rhetorical device, it's so common it has a name. It's called "derailing".

I didn't read it as an attempt to derail or recenter anything, just as another data point. But i also don't agree that we are in a position to just refer to harassment as 'people treating each other badly' or whatever, given that in a situation where a person is being sexually harassed, the harasser is overwhelmingly likely to be male.

Have an upvote. I agree. While men no doubt are victims as well, does there always have to be that comment? I mean the thread is about a community for women....

It’s fascinating and telling that this comment was heavily downvoted, but not surprising. What’s a bit sad is that in that flurry of attempts to disappear your comment, no one had a reply.

This seems to be a pattern on HN.

Edit @ Brucephillips:

What beat is effectively saying is "Keep your mouth shut about your victimization. We're talking about ours right now." Is it surprising that that sort of callousness would be downvoted?

By the kind of people who would yell at an anorexic support group for saying that their attempts to derail said meeting with their traumatic history of obesity, was inappropriate? No. You’re a smart bunch, but I’ve figured out the reason that you all talk about “soft skills” like some kind of distant light you could never hope to approach.

Is it ironic that a discussion of women trying to establish a site for their own use leads to a subset of this site reacting badly? No.

Am I surprised that any time a group tries to address issues which disproportionately harm them, they get the “all lives matter!” attack? Also no.

I’m no longer surprised when people act like children because they don’t understand how to relate to others, or feel an overweening need to make any conversation about them.

Thanks for asking.

Edit 2: Rate limited.

Why not just reply to me instead of editing your post?

In the hope you wouldn't reply, perhaps?

What beat is effectively saying is "Keep your mouth shut about your victimization. We're talking about ours right now."

Is it surprising that that sort of callousness would be downvoted?

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