Please, everyone, if you witness this type of rude behavior, speak up. We are all, male, female, undecided, both etc. responsible for improving treatment of non-males in tech. Take an active role.
How are we meant to know this is "rude behaviour?" unless we are privy to allot of information about their personal lives they could have a previous relationship, could be married, or be hooking up.
If I see a guy put his hand around a women I am not going to try to intervene because I don't know the background there. It is just unrealistic to suggest people should do otherwise.
Now if she had previously mentioned this behaviour or the individual in a negative way I might say something, but based on the situation (and most situations) that wasn't the case.
"Oh, I haven't been introduced. So how are you two connected?"
You'll to have to step out of your comfort zone for this even if it is immediately obvious. And if it's normal, you've lost nothing.
Yeah, before you say it, "me feeling uncomfortable" is a pretty selfish excuse for not helping somebody that is feeling a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than I. I'm not going to make excuses for that. I'm just not going to start interrogating people in public about the nature of their relationships.
If the woman feels she has a sympathetic supporter, it is easier to defend herself and if the jerk thinks there is an eyewitness to his assholish behavior, he may tone it down without you needing to say something. I think saying something may be counterproductive (because when accused people are quick to justify, and that makes them LESS likely to back off, not more) but just being aware can sometimes help.
If I see something that seems off, I might try to enter the conversation. If I see something that really seems off, I might ask if both of them are okay. If it is more extreme than that, I am open to taking more extreme action.
What I'm not going to do is orbit the room interrogating people about their relationships without seeing any warning signals.
But if a woman's body language seems particularly bad, or you know your friend/acquaintance only just met this person? That seems like a good opportunity to speak up without "interrogating" people, as you put it.
Truth be told, it's more about friends who enable their friends' asshole behavior by looking the other way. Assholes cannot be 100% friendless, nor only friends with other assholes.
That seems reasonable to me. You make a good point about friends enabling assholes too.
"I have daughters. I lift weights. I'm watching how you treat women."
Okay, so it could use some wordsmithing, but if a few of us were to make it clear that this is an issue and we are willing to do something about it, the gropers might think twice.
If you don't know who any of these people are, or how they know each other, it's hard to tell what's going on. Having said that, I'm all for banning gropers from meetups.
By default, a meetup group of strangers is an environment that should be free of harassment, it is better to speak up and be told that contact is OK than to say nothing and let someone fend for themselves.
Do people on here even leave the house? They've really out of touch with reality.
If people get weird about it, apologize. "Sorry, I was just worried for a second that you were, like, groping her!" Laugh it off. Women are likely to respect you for the fact that you're even aware that this is a problem.
If people would interfere too soon, feminists wouldn't be happy either. Because that kind of behavior would imply that women are weak and unable to take care of themselves.
I'd rather take a tongue lashing for being an interfering white knight wannabe than not say something and find out that the woman was too uncomfortable, for all the reasons being discussed in this thread, to extricate herself from the person bothering her.