Girls must be protected from being asked out at all costs because they are strong and independent future girl-bosses.
Yes?
I'm capable of saying no, even aggressively when people don't get the hint. I've even done it in the past, numerous times.
How is this any different from Bob talking your ear off about some hobby that he has that you have absolutely zero interest in? You just don't listen or tell him directly you don't care. This thread makes me feel like I'm going insane, this is basic human interaction.
It's totally okay if you say something that's totally not equivalent.
Is it 20 among a class of 600? Or is it 20 among a class of 50? How pushy are they about it? Do they stop if I tell them I don't care once? twice? twenty?
These are all relevant questions but it feels like many folks are automatically treating it as if they make up half the class and they're doing the absolute maximum amount that's just under what would be considered 'harassment'.
For what it's worth, most of the people in my college classes (including myself often) didn't give a shit about any part of the class except for the grade.
And as for how pushy they are, according to the author, these male students are trying to take on a perception of authority (acting like instructors/TAs during classes) which implies some amount of attempted coercion (whether explicit or implicit) is likely taking place.
This type of power dynamic is really dangerous and it's a matter of time before somebody particularly scummy takes part and ends up victimizing one of the female students who are actually trying to pass the class.
I don't mind - I can say "No" 20 times in a single day and then be left alone for the rest of the semester.
Yes, absolutely. If they are getting in the way of my ability to focus by talking to me about Amway products, then no. Likewise, if they ask after class "Hey, wanna buy some Amway?" and I refuse, that's fine -- one bite of the apple is reasonable. If they keep asking me if I want to buy Amway, then that becomes a problem.
A bunch of people with any ulterior motive in my class are fine with me. Those people not respecting my motives (learning) is the issue.
I don't see how there is any issue with this if the men were respectful and didn't actually make unwanted advances. Why does the professor (a woman) feel like women are stupid, or need to be coddled? I can't think of anything more disrespectful to empowering women than assuming they don't possess the agency to make calculated decisions on their own.
Honestly, whatever their motives, that kind of interaction is what group work is for. Having students that can lead and communicate with peers is invaluable.
As a male student during my years in undergrad, I had 2 different instances of team members/partners who outright stated they would not cooperate and would just fail the lab/project unless I did XYZ thing for them. In the 2 cases I remember it was basically "do most of my work for me" despite barely having enough time to complete my own portions. To add onto this, professors often repeated in my courses that "it's your responsibility to make group/pair work succeed" and that students would need to pick up the slack for any deficiencies in the team/pair. To their credit, I occasionally had professors who graded work per team member to prevent this type of leaching but often the answer the professor would give the class was that learning how to pick up the slack was just part of the course.
It isn't much of a leap to see this kind of "if you don't cooperate we can just fail" behavior from someone who already has no academic penalty for failure (as audits don't have final grades) and who joins the class explicitly to try to get laid.