And here's the next article I found on the subject, from last year, looks like it's not going so well: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.opindia.com/2022/11/women-o...
> Nine service personnel on a nuclear submarine have been discharged from the Royal Navy after testing positive for drugs.
> The revelations come after claims earlier this month of inappropriate sexual relationships among some of those on board HMS Vigilant, one of four Vanguard Class submarines which maintain the UK's nuclear deterrent and is armed with Trident missiles.
> The submarine has recently been embroiled in controversy over allegations of an onboard relationship between a male and female.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/navy-nuclear...
More stress means more temptation to take drugs.
> OpIndia is an Indian right-wing news website that frequently publishes misinformation. Founded in December 2014, the website has published fake news and Islamophobic commentary on many occasions. OpIndia is dedicated to criticism of what it considers "liberal media", and to support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Hindutva ideology. According to University of Maryland researchers, OpIndia has shamed journalists it deems opposed to the BJP, and has alleged media bias against Hindus and the BJP. In 2019, the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) rejected OpIndia's application to be certified as a fact checker. IFCN-certified fact checkers identified 25 fake news stories and 14 misreported stories published by OpIndia from January 2018 to June 2020.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_rights_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminism
The Men's Rights page now includes criticism of the movement in the summary section. Note how that is entirely absent in the Feminism page. Over the years they've stripped more and more useful information out of the Men's Rights page. Especially anything which portrays the movement in a positive light. Almost anything without a citation, for example. While this is technically within Wikipedia's rules, this level of scrutiny isn't applied to the Feminism page. Not even close. Take a look at the section for suicide on the Men's Rights page:
> Studies have also found an over-representation of women in attempted or incomplete suicides and men in complete suicides.
I mean, what the fuck? On a page for men's issues like suicide, the person who moderates the Feminism page added stuff about attempted suicide for women. Many other sections contain a similar tone of, "but women also..."
The real cheery on top is the byline at the very top of the article directing people elsewhere with a hyperlink. Because how dare you research a movement which isn't pro-feminist:
> Not to be confused with the pro-feminist Men's liberation movement.
You'll note no similar byline on the Feminism page, directing people to pro men's rights feminist movements.
I could go on, but you get the picture. Over the years I've heard from dozens of people who have experienced similar issues, and have either been blocked, banned, or constructively cut out of moderating the pages they've been passionate about for so many years. ALL of them cite the same reason: ideology. Wikipedia long ago abandoned truth. Ideological compliance is now baked into the complex moderation structure. You would be horrified to learn how much is deleted and suppressed now. Just take a look through the moderation logs of any politically contentious pages for a seriously eye opening experience.
> Bullying, misogyny and sexual harassment on Royal Navy submarines EXPOSED: Whistleblowers including trailblazing female officer reveal 'crush depth rape list' of women, stolen underwear and claims of assault
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11366169/Bullying-m...
And the Times (right-leaning):
> Royal Navy nuclear sub whistleblower: misogyny inquiry a ‘whitewash’
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/royal-navy-nuclear-sub-wh...
The nature and politics of the times has to make this such a volatile work environment especially when one can't 'go home' during off hours.
I've also worked in mixed company. Decades ago, I worked in a somewhat crowded building of some hundreds of people. My office was small and in an isolated part of the building and I shared it with three young attractive women who were part of my staff. Whilst I also had male staff they worked in other sections of the building.
Working with these women in close quarters was very different to working in an all-male environment which I had been used to previously. I enjoyed their company and we got along well together, and I was always well behaved and there were no complaints about my behavior. In fact, as their superior, they'd gang up and bully me—they ruled the office, not me.
Times have changed, there's absolutely no way I would accept working in that situation today as it'd be just too risky. Similarly, I wouldn't expect my employer to allow me to work for eight hours per day under such risky conditions.
Sure, women have rights to equality and I'd never deny them that right, but it seems to me that mixed company on a submarine is an 'explosive' environment and it's inevitable there will be trouble. (A group of males locked up and isolated without sex for three months but still in the tempting presence of women isn't natural.)
One has to feel some sympathy for all of those submariners.
I have always been courteous to coworkers, especially women.
Your comment has just validified my point about today's politics. Decades ago no one would have thought in those terms let alone wrongly accused someone of them.
Just for clarification's sake, when I mentioned I'd be worried about accidentally saying something out of place I wasn't referring to me making sexual innuendos but rather that these days innocent comment is so easily assumed to be offensive or taken the wrong way.
It's why so many of us now simply say nothing, as it's safer to do so. Your hair-trigger assumption again proves my point.
What's worse risk of being shot as the messenger or saying nothing and letting situations get more out of hand? I've always preferred the former but as I've witnessed here many prefer to remain silent.
Tell me you don't have military experience without telling me you don't have military experience.
This statement is patently absurd.
I thank you for reaffirming my thoughts on it more eloquently than I ever could.
I don't blame HN for this because such action stops the thread turning into a brawl where both sides become even more polarized and arguments get even more heated.
When I made my initial post I thought I was just making an observation on the story and I gave experiences which I would not repeat from my observations of cultural shifts of recent years. It certainly was not my intention to inflame and I didn't anticipate a large portion of these comments would have to be removed as a result.
Unfortunately, forums have to so act to keep some semblance of order. The tragedy is that issues such this topic—women working in traditional male roles such as the military, the Me Too movement, stuff about kids, veganism, etc.—can no longer be discussed in a rational manner seemingly anywhere in society without them flaring up into melees that have to be quashed to keep order.
Why in recent years many people have become so polarized and indignantly and or righteously argumentative about such issues is a complex matter and I don't think anyone fully understands why. There's little point me speculating about the reasons here except to say that there are many HN stories I choose not to comment on for reasons not out of fear they will be flagged but because it's clear to me that even if I put a moderate and well-reasoned case they'll nevertheless draw comments that will likely result in them being flagged.
It's not that HN posters are any more rowdy than elsewhere—in fact, HN is one of the more civilized places on the Web—it's that I know such stories will draw attacks by virtue of the topics themselves. In these situations I prefer to self-censor and don't post because if I were to add anything meaningful to the conversation it would draw wrath and ire of many, and as I see no virtue in adding innocuous or irrelevant comment, it's better to remain silent—a point I've already made earlier.
For better or worse, people on these ships are going to have sex (even when it's just men.. don't tell me you've never heard about sailors.)
What about quality of socialisation, and how they fare later in life in terms of relationships
Whether this is true or not, which I doubt except perhaps at the very edges, I am very glad I went to a coeducational school. I ha no female sibling at home so being at school and mixing with girls made me comfortable to be around them.
I'm personally not worried about working in a mixed team, no matter how small the office is. I just keep things professional ... and that's it.
Having said that, conditions in a submarine might be different, and office experience might not be applicable.
Monday morning to save face, she accused me of groping her and spread it around the company. I left shortly after that incident, it became untenable to stay on.
Women have reputations to uphold, so will often lie to maintain them, laws are in their favour.
I can't stress enough how everything is different "when one can't 'go home' during off hours". I used to be an enlisted sailor, then an officer. It's sometimes hard to have a few minutes alone in an entire day (night included), especially on smaller or older ships. After a few months any small thing can become a very nasty fight very fast. The word "microagression" suddenly makes a lot of sense. I once got into a fight because some guy thought I had slightly moved his towel that was in front of my bunk. This man had been at sea on the ship for more than 6 month, I had joined mid-tour a month before.
I've seen a male-only boat (there were one or two female officers, which was accepted because of the bathroom configuration) get one female enlisted sailor, a talented and very professional young woman. Everything changed in one day. Though submariners are often a bit more mature than others, managing a mixed crew on a small ship is very different.
Remember the average age on a military ship is rarely above 25. Sexual harassment is not the hardest, since everyone is with everyone 24/7, most cases are very clear cut. I've seen a few very nasty cases (sexual predator that went undetected for months or year, a guy that wasn't reported despite a suspected rape attempt and went on to assault someone on his next ship under my command, a false rape claim) but it's mostly straightforward to handle. A lot of officers don't close their doors when doing personal review or other one-to-one interviews and conversations with female sailors but the paranoia mostly stops there.
Dealing with "regular" harassment, rumours, jealousy etc is way less simple with a mixed crew, regardless of the personal qualities of the people. And of course your management style has to be adapted. When you have more than a few (young) women in a team, you have to lead differently. (Women over 40 are rarely on the "bad" side (when there is a clear one) of those problems).
I've seen quite a few of those cases. Sometimes, we've been successful in stopping them before harm gets done, sometimes someone's life was ruined for months or years or people had to be transferred because trust had been broken too deep and some people couldn't work together anymore. And a few cases with legal proceedings (harassment lawsuit etc), but never handled one myself.
On a personal note I (male) have had to share a two beds room with a female for a few months. We didn't sleep a lot, and often not at the same time, never had any problems. It was a male-only boat with less than five women.
Hope this gives you an impression of what it can be like.
This chimes with the view that gender segregation is only seen as a bad thing when it's male only spaces.
1. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/24/we-have...
2. https://www.statista.com/statistics/381373/london-homelessne...
Now, what was that about gender equality again?
Eton (1440-), Harrow (1572), Radley (1847) are all prestige "public" (for very rich well connected 'public') boys-only schools; the jewels in a crown of many more [1] that serve as introductions to a sea of men only clubs that still exist aplenty.
With examples of an exclusive to women apartment building, many exclusive to male schools and clubs the only thing demonstrating gender openess in England here is homelessness - which might be dominated by men but still admits women to wander sans roof on the streets.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_boys%27_schools_in_the...
How does the uber-elite having men-only spaces make it OK to exclude men from housing opportunities.
This often seems the case to me, the ruling classes (and the very wealthy) do something and because this group is dominated by men then all men, no matter their station nor their moral objections to this groups actions, get tarred with that brush.
Then we get "it's fine to exclude men from housing because this group [of HNW, rich, uber-elite] have no housing problems".
It's almost like discrimination on irrelevant characteristics is wrong.
Nobody with the slightest bit of understanding honestly believes that there is a single man without access to accommodation that would be able to move off the streets if only a owner-occupied new build development in New Barnet was open to men purchasing a flat there.
On the other hand, there are a large number of hostel beds (much larger than the New Barnet project celebrated for its uniqueness) potentially accessible to London's homeless which are reserved specifically for men
[1]https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/23/meeting...
As a male, I can assure you that the types of comments that you think “pass without thought” isn't considered desirable by all of your fellow male colleagues either. Sure they won't necessarily complaint about it publicly, but they'll still see you in a negative way.
Maybe you should accept that you're not a teenager anymore and that there are things that you shouldn't be saying out loud in a professional environment just because you think it's funny, it's not.
You seem to have missed his point. It isn't whether his comments are considered desirable. He doesn't care, and neither do I. It is whether comments are raised to HR, management, or for personal lawsuits. This is potentially career ending. Part of living in a society with free speech is that we sometimes say things which hurt others people's feelings. We accept this because the alternative is self-imposed segregation. Which is, again, what they are pointing out. In the office today I am very careful never to be alone in a room with a woman. I don't "banter" with women because I am worried that one of my comments, however harmless in intent, will be perceived poorly. This means my dynamic with male colleagues is different because I trust they will not attempt to end my career over a misunderstanding.
In some imaginary world maybe, but in practice we have many people with mountains of documented misbehavior still being in charge, so we definitely don't live in that world. First of all, very few women report even blatant misbehavior like groping, forced kisses or even rape, and then there are even fewer HR department that react properly when such reports are raised. The risk of a misunderstanding ending your career is basically null. The risk of ending a woman's career when she reports misconducts is much, much higher.
> Part of living in a society with free speech is that we sometimes say things which hurt others people's feelings.
Insulting your boss will almost always lead to you being fired, threatening a cop will get you legal troubles. Free speech is not absolute, and was never supposed to be.
> In the office today I am very careful never to be alone in a room with a woman. I don't "banter" with women because I am worried that one of my comments, however harmless in intent, will be perceived poorly.
Then you have a problem when communicating with women, and you should probably spend more time around them to learn. Yes at the beginning this will likely mean that you'd need to weight all your words to avoid saying something inappropriate, but at the end of the day, you'd have learned how to behave
> This means my dynamic with male colleagues is different because I trust they will not attempt to end my career over a misunderstanding.
That's a pretty bad assessment, as men are much more likely to throw you under the bus at the first occasion than women, because rivalries are much more intense between people of the same sex. Being afraid of your women coworker because they could report you is as irrational as being afraid of your neighbors because they could murder your family.
* "I don't 'banter' with women because I am worried that one of my comments, however harmless in intent, will be perceived poorly"
Don't you think these behaviors are negatively impacting the careers of these women?
Obviously his first priority is his own career. How can you expect it to be any other way? Get real.
True, and I was one of them (and one of the few, but it never bothered me that much even if I didn't partake—as it was the cultural norm).
It's amazing how people read meanings into comment that was never said let alone meant as subtext. That 'teenager' reference I consider offensive because many of the things you presume I must have been saying I likely never thought let alone ever did say out loud.
You clearly aren't of the same generation as me, it's a shame we don't have hidden recordings of those times so you could fully appreciate how truly different they were to the present.
Moreover, even then, the ethos was very different depending on what part of society one was in. Such comment was from my experience more common in the military but it was still pretty much accepted the norm in 'polite' all-male company.
Using banter for high-stress situations is quite a British thing. There's a story I was told about British troops during WWII in wet rat ridden trenches, cold and low on rations, having banter to keep morale high - much to the Americans surprise.
I can't liken my situation to theirs (thank goodness), but in a tough spot I was in male only company and we openly discussed who we would eat first, who we would keep around for company, etc.
> Times have changed, there's absolutely no way I would accept working in that situation today as it'd be just too risky. Similarly, I wouldn't expect my employer to allow me to work for eight hours per day under such risky conditions.
Unfortunately this rings true.
> Sure, women have rights to equality and I'd never deny them that right, but it seems to me that mixed company on a submarine is an 'explosive' environment and it's inevitable there will be trouble. (A group of males locked up and isolated without sex for three months but still in the tempting presence of women isn't natural.)
Not just that, but if an allegation is made (which is much more likely in this situation) then it's almost impossible to deal with. You can't isolate people from one another, you can't do any real investigation - it just sucks.
It's okay saying "believe all women", but I know at least two women now that have used claims of sexual assault because they had cheated on partners and got caught. The accused had the claims dropped against them, but lost their jobs and lives as a result.
can depth crush rape list be categorised as banter?
I imagine from your perspective there is never an acceptable time when such things can be thought, let alone uttered. I understand this, but it's only afforded to idealists.
There is a different perspective where you have a large group of people that are experiencing a mixture of extreme emotions (fear, loneliness, anger, regret, etc) and are unable to express them. Sometimes the more extreme the situation, the more extreme the distraction needed.
When I was discussing eating my friends - there was no serious plan in place. We had zero intentions of eating each other, and we had never before or never will eat another human (depending on how food inflation goes /s). It was an extreme distraction that broke the ice in a high-stress environment that just got everybody talking. It kept morale up, it did its job.
I've been reading and watching videos on European cultures. Many say in European cultures small talk is not a thing. I know UK is not Europe in that sense but are geographically. Things like the "German stare" where they don't talk but stare at people. But actually now that I think about it supposedly on UK subways talking is taboo. Someone from the US or Canada would be trying to make small talk in lines/queues for anything.
European cultures are quite a broad range, from Sicilian to Finnish and Basque to Serbian. Percentage wise and excluding Russia and Turkey, I'd wager that small talk on average is common in European cultures (so every other country apart from Germany, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, maaybe Netherlands?)
We never had any problems with harassment or anything like that... for one, the women i met there were at least twice as tough as the men in the same unit and had an attitude that let you forget really fast they were from another gender. I never understood there could be any form of problem... though, perhaps the infantry just attracts other kinds of women than more "civilised" forms of duty.
Uh, unless you're in the habit of saying things like "I want to rape her, her and her, lol", it's really not anything to be stressed about.
If you make an innocent mistake, someone may tell you about it and you get to learn something. That's it.
It's about the sexual tension, the emotions, jealousy, consensual pairing causing drama, etc.
And why is no one asking women if they even want to be in such a spot. I know I'd feel odd if the genders were reversed and it was a very female dominated space that was asking me to be one of the 10% of men quota.
That was a direct reference to the article linked by the grandparent of my original post, regarding bullying suffered by women serving on UK nuclear subs.
Someone responded to that with a comment I read as "yeah, working with women can be a minefield". Sorry if it seemed a bit out of the blue.
> It's about the sexual tension, the emotions, jealousy, consensual pairing causing drama, etc.
Surely this is just part of the human experience. Learning to deal with it is part of growing up. That's not to diminish the difficulty experienced by people going through this stuff, but what's the alternative?
Don't have women on submarines. I mean, that's the alternative whether it's palatable (for any number of reasons) or not. And, as someone in favor of having mixed teams in general, it's admittedly difficult for me to imagine the warfighting advantage of a mixed submarine crew.
Anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, reconnaissance, special operations support, land attack, and nuclear deterrence don't seem to have any particular characteristics where the presence of women on the crew would be advantageous. This is in contrast with something like civil affairs or certain types of special operations, where women bring new capabilities to the table. That said, the berthing in new boats is designed around mixed crews so clearly the horse left the barn a while ago, so it's beyond time to figure out how to make it work.
The issues are with both innocent mistakes and of those of which one is not even aware of having made, and of the fact that if accused of sexual harassment or rape and even if found completely innocent—which is seemingly increasingly difficult to do—then some mud will still stick because that's the first thing people will remember whenever one's name is mentioned.
Fortunately, I've never been accused but I'm increasing aware of the possibility—just being male puts one in the risk zone.
Personally, being falsely accused of rape is not something I've ever spent time worrying about because it's not happened to me, anyone I know, or - to my knowledge - any friends-of-friends.
The odd case is reported in the news from time to time - but who knows why particular stories get picked up by the media [0]. Paying attention to that stuff gives you distorted sense of how likely something is, by providing a bunch of bogus input to the brain's availability heuristic [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_bites_dog
[1] https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/availability-heuristic
I did not use those words, this is the second post where I have had to correct wrongful assumptions about what I have said. Why is it that everyone nowadays automatically makes the worst assumption about anything that's said? This is a very noticeable and nasty trend of recent decades that wasn't common when I was younger.
If I have to spell the obvious out in detail then I will. First, working in my office alone with three women wasn't the first time I had worked with women, there were others in that organization that I worked with and also in previous employment. Second, I was both friendly and behaved properly and professionally with the women in my office. Not only were they my friends but also my closest allies in the bureaucratic wars with other departments (they were part of my IT help desk team and they always had access to strategic information which they freely offered without pressure or bribes from me. We worked well as a team should.
Moreover, they were on a first name basis with my partner who would phone regularly and they would take great delight in talking to her about me behind my back. Being the only male in the office of course I was bullied but in the nicest sense. I was lucky that they all got along well together and all of them with me. Later, I was promoted and moved office, there I was alone this time with only two women both of whom I also got along well. However, that was over 25 years ago and whilst harassment issues were alive and well back then they were nothing like as acute or as corrosive as they are today—it seems that little else permeates the work environment or work culture to the extent this matter does. It's clear to me these unresolved and difficult submarine harassment matters are testament to the fact.
I have been lucky in that I have had a good professional relationships with all women I've worked with but I cannot say that about all the men.
Given the heightened state of the politics surrounding these issues nowadays I reckon I wouldn't be so lucky next time round even if I were to be even more professional than I have been previously.
Simply, had I need to repeat my time over today then I wouldn't repeat that exposure as a precautionary measure.
What I and perhaps others found a little off-putting is that you replied to a story about women being subjected to rape jokes and other bullying with the risks you think the modern "political climate" poses for men.
My point, perhaps irritably expressed, is that I think those risks are overblown. Certainly more so than the risks women face.