I've never really understood the potential-physical-confrontation argument. It must be a very, very small minority of men who's first reaction to being embarrassed and shamed by a woman is to physically assault her in public?
But it doesn't have to lead to actual physical assault to be uncomfortable or cause negative lasting effects in one's life. The intimidation, the mental abuse aspect of it is enough. If you've been mugged without being shot, it might make a little more sense to you.
And really, he put his hands on her inappropriately, so he's already committed physical assault -- not to get all bleeding-heart emo feminist or anything. But that just ain't right.
"The intimidation, the mental abuse aspect of it is enough."
versus
Collecting wood in a forest 40km away so you can stoke a fire and your family can eat.
Tell the guy to get his hands off you, grab a seat, introduce yourself. Everyone needs an emotional baby sitter and therapist nowadays.
Your trollish derailment of gender threads on HN is rather telling. Or do you have any point related to how this woman was groped without her consent, repeatedly?
Next time somebody gives me an off handed remark about something, I'm going to generalize as well and cry wolf online.
It's blowing up a problem that isn't a problem at all, way out of proportion.
I get groped at bars all the time by women, I don't make a whiny blog post about it. Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".
She clearly suffered a fair amount of emotional trauma from this rather mild leg grabbing. Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.
Women in the tech industry is the next phase of Shakespearean drama.
Every time some retarded bullshit gender article meanders across my front page on HN, I'll shit post it. Why? Because HN is not your personal feminist platform. Flood twitter with your personal garbage.
You just want to reduce this to something that you can dismiss and ignore, because it's complicated and you can't hold your own when it comes to the details. And, in this case, you're just putting words in the author's mouth in order to invent a way to demean and dismiss her. Classy.
>Did she do something about it? Of course she didn't.
I don't even know what "Of course" is supposed to mean there, but I'm pretty sure it says something not-so-great about your default position and open-mindedness on this issue.
edit: Can't keep up with your edits (it's okay, I do it too)
>Kind of funny she made the post and claimed to "have a thick skin".
And again, you'll note that this is very much a recount of what happened. In fact, she explicitly said she doesn't think she was violated (and I disagree with her, but that's her prerogative).
I am very open minded to problems that matter. There is no problem here. She ran into a super duper asshole, didn't outline her boundaries immediately, and instead is further polluting the tech industry with this gender nonsense. Next time some random grabs me by the shoulder that I don't know, I'm going to write an essay on it as well.
Did she get fired from a company because the CEO hates women? No.
Did she get physically assaulted or raped because she's a woman? No.
Is her pay significantly lowered simply due to the fact that she is a woman? No.
Did any significant change occur in her life from this encounter with this ONE douchebag? No.
Those are real problems which beg real discussion. This is an emotionally unstable girl who feels the world revolves around her and her gender. I know the type.
So why do I care? Why is it only women who blog about this emotional hot air?
It creates a false view of the field for other women, and when they go into it after reading crap like this, they assume this is what it's like.
Well not just that. If anyone at the meeting made it clear that the comments that were happening were not appropriate or welcome either I missed it in the article. It most people this creates the perception that it is acceptable behavior according to group standards. I would bet this perception of group standards is studied phenomena that is the default perception by the majority of people. So it seems reasonable that most people would get uncomfortable by the situation.
1. Lived in the woods by myself for an extended period. Fun looking back on it now, but was not fun at the time.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7112803 2: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7052008
It's like that for women confronting large men, except without the happy butterflies in your stomach.
You really can't put anything past someone who has absolutely no restraint or regard for people.
But we can say this guy violated her space and insulted her dignity and acted in a way that would make most people cringe if not shun the guy.
I wouldn't trust him after seeing him display that behavior. Would you?
Of course I wouldn't. Neither would most people in the Bitcoin community. Nevertheless, now we have "this is how women are being treated at Bitcoin meetups".
Btw not only would I not trust him, I also wouldn't like him.
I don't think this guy represents any group of people either.
I was commenting on why the woman might be justified in worrying about a physical attack if she embarrassed the creep because he obviously doesn't have much in the way of boundaries.
Nevertheless, "she could have said something" is of course not an excuse for rude behavior. I wouldn't want to excuse his behavior. As I said, if I knew him, I probably wouldn't like him much and certainly wouldn't encourage him to attend further meetups.
Then we'll see how you feel about the situation.
Could you even imagine such a thing?
Anyway, although I agree with treating unwanted advances with reciprocal escalating naked hostility, the meetup organizer is really the only one with the power/knowledge to enforce standards of behaviour.
Disclaimer: I'm a man so I've never dealt with that exact situation, but I've observed the above thought processes in awkward situations, and I would assume it's amplified in the described situation.