Aubrey de Grey's response: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=6528005127224941...
SENS's response: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=4242081739160861...
More info from Laura Deming: https://mobile.twitter.com/LauraDeming/status/14253652124844...
We also are surrounded by people who are well meaning but make mistakes and our socialization prepares us to be forgiving of them. To give time for repair. Abusers use those social structures (consciously or unconsciously) to give themselves space to do what they like. It's a big move to fully separate yourself from someone, and abusers see that if they can make it more comfortable to simply live further away from them, that they can continue without changing or facing the damage they have caused.
I really encourage anyone who doesn't understand why assault or abuse reactions look this way to imagine what actions they might take if their current boss were to suddenly grab their genitals without warning or permission. There's an element of the personal violation that, I think, is difficult to appreciate - but the practicalities of addressing it are, I think, obvious once you start to imagine it. Who would you tell? What consequences would you suffer? How outlandish might you seem to peers, other managers, etc? Personal violations like this are deeply treacherous and the people who commit them take advantage of that fact to keep doing it.
Writing love letters to 17 year olds who work for you? Come on. You should know/do better.
Expressing romantic interest in a co-worker or classmate is not de-facto inappropriate. Your advice is solid for folks in positions of power, but for the rest of us, not so much. The idea that young men and women who work together should be forbidden from exploring relationships with with classmates or coworkers is a kind of bizarre neo-puritanism. (Your human nature? That's bad! Ignore it!) And for what? To prevent the occasional, momentary discomfort of rebuffing a respectful advance?
Of course nobody should have to endure sexual harassment, socially inept creepiness, or blind persistence from unwanted suiters. And people who engage in these behaviors should be paid a visit from HR (and eventually receive a pink slip). But the vast majority of adults are capable of tactful communication, and should not be prevented from exploring the full possibilities of their interpersonal relationships simply because the relationship began at work.
If every female co-worker gets multiple unsolicited advances per year, that could be a problem, even if the advances are tactful, between equals, and listen to rejection.
At some level you just want to go in to work, not be spammed with advances all the time. It's different for most guys we don't get nearly the amount of interest, even if we're attractive. So it would be crucial to try to understand what women experience and what they want out of a workplace instead of just going on abstract concepts.
The problem with that is, what happens if the relationship goes south as relationships tend to do over time. Then the two of you have to work every day with someone they hate. It's just more sensible to keep things professional to begin with.
It certainly minimizes the potential drama that comes with being in a romantic relationship with a colleague.
I've witnessed many beautiful things happening between people that met each other at a workplace. I've also witnessed a lot of shit shows as a result of that same thing.
Not playing the game excludes both of the situations, and while you can't win and have a beautiful thing in the end, you also can't lose. I personally chose not to play that game.
Norms have changed, and in 2021, it is inappropriate. That's kind of what #MeToo meant.
Think about this from the other side- do you want to finely parse the harassment quotient of flirtation and dinner invitations forever, or do you want to just ban it?
In practice, I think you'd have to be insane to mix romance and work, supervisory relationship or not.
Careful with this. IME, everything you feel gets expressed eventually. You either make some choices about that expression, or it leaks out of you - usually in toxic ways (passive aggression, overly controlling behavior, snipe-comments, etc.)
Have close friends (and a therapist!) that you can talk to about just about anything. A lot of times, feelings are signals for exploration; "here be learning", as it were.
Aubrey even names it, without realizing it (IMO) when he says "could treat [me] as an equal on every other level". I'm betting that if Aubrey had taken the time to feel and understand, he'd have realized that Deming (at that time) wasn't someone he could actually treat as an equal on every level. (And, probably, that he had a need for more people in his life that he could).
I dunno. Ill-advised, sure. Inappropriate, maybe. I've had all kinds of personal conversations with coworkers and bosses, there was never anything more to it. Yes, that she was 17 means he should have been more professional about it, but in and of itself, without knowing the contents of the email, I don't think its any more strange than perfectly normal but personal conversations I've had with people I've worked with.
Without seeing the email and the context around which it was sent, I don't think we can judge in either direction based off the existence of the email alone.
> "Laura references an email I wrote - inadvisedly, for sure, and which I unreservedly regret - to her when she was 17"
We know she felt uncomfortable over it, but we do not know if he wrote it innocently-but-stupidly or if there is more to it.
To be absolutely clear (and play devils advocate to a degree), he did not admit to that. What he actually says is:
Laura references an email I wrote - inadvisedly, for sure, and which I unreservedly regret - to her when she was 17, but she explicitly states that "I wrote it off as a mistake"
He notes she initially wrote it off as a mistake, and the email was inadvisable. He's walking a fine line here, where he's not outright saying she was correct in thinking the email was a mistake (it's also a bit unclear what this means from her, a mistake on his part or a mistake in her interpretation, but I assume the former), and he regrets is, but the reason for that regret is left for us to intuit. You assume (as I do) that it's because he actually was attempting to solicit a relationship, but it's left such that it could plausibly be explained later as him regretting that he was so loose with his words that it could be interpreted that way.
I mention this not because I think he's innocent of that specific accusation, but because he's worded this very specifically, and while I think the implication is that yes, he did hit on her, he hasn't actually admitted that, and make statements that he has just confuses the issue to some degree and causes backlash in those that see statements like this and then read the source later, and notice the discrepancy and side with the person in question because "people are obviously out to get him by twisting his words". His words are fairly damning when laid out exactly as they are, so better to use them that way, IMO.
The only defense against things like that are to stick to the facts and be clear and correct based on what other people have said and what we think that actually means. e.g. "I think the implication is clear, even if it's not outright admitted." Anything else helps them by giving them ammunition to lob back later.
But that's really not the point, everything else you said is.
And just because it's legal doesn't mean that it's socially acceptable, for all those reasons.
It's not as if there weren't accuser pre-Lewinksy either.
The follow-up with "the very next day she wrote to me without the faintest hint of ambivalence, asking for additional feedback on her presentation" is also completely disingenuous. He's in a position of absolute power and SENS is writing her paychecks. If I had an argument with my wife and the next morning's text was "please pick up milk", that is not evidence that things are good between us.
Innocent until proven guilty is a trial standard. I doubt any of this will go to court, so we have to make up our minds based on what's available. He admits there's evidence he was hitting on a 17 year old and his rhetoric wouldn't convince me the sky is blue, on top of it being tone deaf. More women don't need to come forward and upheave their lives to try to bury this guy's career, he's digging his own grave.
Neither of the accusers allege anything terribly egregious. The premise of their post is that their experiences are part of a pattern, that there are many more victims and that some of de Grey's behavior goes beyond merely inappropriate.
The repsonse denies that pattern. It doesn't allege "brain-washing," just that the accusers have been misinformed. I would bet that his behavior is part of a pattern but it seems like a fine idea to wait and see.
"In order to orient you"? "Laura references an email I wrote - inadvisedly, for sure, and which I unreservedly regret - to her when she was 17"?
Even if this is the watered-down, best-light scenario, this is very weird.
And then tries to use Laura's words against her- she previously dismisses it as an honest mistake and then changes her mind when presented with apparent new evidence. And somehow portrays this as them being deceived.
Why would anyone try to trick two women into making allegations that a guy is a creep? They fully well know that these allegations will blow up their careers and are very likely to be unsuccessful in influencing Aubrey de Grey's career long term. If one wanted to smear Aubrey de Grey, she-said-he-said creepiness is one of the least effective ways to do it because a wide swath of the population aren't bothered enough to affect someone's career over it-- the only reason consequences are newsworthy is because they're so uncommon.
I think the law deals with similar concerns by not basing a judgement on how someone feels, but rather on actions and agreements. Did they lie, cheat, steal, deceive, coerce, manipulate, intimidate, threaten, abuse, etc in context of some agreement or lack thereof. But that's just the law; obviously there is an entire world of morality/ethics that exists outside the law with different considerations.
I'm just saying, he hit on a minor, and he doesn't appear to be a moron, so screw this guy.
Shouldn't be an issue. Like, if your act was so marginal that a friend saying "no seriously, that sounds like creeping to me" can tip the balance from okay to not okay, maybe you shouldn't be doing that.
The person or people that would be tricking other people in this scenario into coming forward wouldn't necessarily have a career blown up, just the people they tricked.
I think the implication he's going for is "I had two, and just two somewhat sketchy interactions in the past, and neither were all that bad, and then those people were convinced there there were a lot more that happened they didn't know about, and so felt compelled to step forward with their experiences to help others, even though those additional experiences never happened."
On the one hand, I can see a possibility where that's possible, and this wasn't even premeditated to this extend, and it was just someone on the board badmouthing him and implying stuff, and it traveled between people and got out of hand, but on the other had, that seems pretty unlikely. You'd think someone willing to publicly speak about their experiences like this that might expect backlash would be more careful than to do so without making very sure to investigate a bit more, so the "it's really just you two and wasn't great, but not all that bad" defense isn't really a strong one, at least not if any other evidence comes forth. If none comes forth, that will be interesting (but at the same time we'll all have moved on and will likely associate Aubrey de Grey with this even if he's later somewhat vindicated in some way).
From the look of the Twitter feed of one of the accusers, it doesn't look to be doing anything but promoting them and putting them up as brave, etc.
it's not impossible that people try to rise the temperature on old events shed in today's light