[camelite]

> Men hold the vast majority of power in our society. No cards are stacked against them.

If you "believe women who report sexual harassment", and more specifically, if you believe women who report sexual harassment in "less clear cut" scenarios than Susan Fowlers, then you are deliberately stacking the deck against the specific men who are accused of sexual harassment, some of whom will invariably be innocent. How much comfort the fact that other people with the same genetalia tend to fill the boardrooms provides to the accused, I will leave to your imagination.

> They aren't constantly reminded by our culture to be gentlemen or look handsome or bring home the bacon or do anything they don't want to.

Men aren't reminded constantly by their culture to do things they don't want to do? Where do you live, because it sounds like paradise to me.

> To say "think of the men!" here is either willfully ignorant or just being a dick.

It's neither. It was an attempt to puncture what I saw as misguided rhetoric. A good old WhatAboutTheMen is an efficient approach because the commenter's default reasoning for not "just believing" men would likely mirror mine for not "just believing" women. And so I don't have to spell it out for them.

[zipppy]

I'm not going to nitpick about any individual discussion points you guys have going on, but I'll chime in to say that your approach to thinking about men/women in our society seems...disingenuous.

We can imagine utopia and then imagine how we would treat people in that setting. That seems to be what you're doing. But if we're not actually in utopia, then we really are tipping the scales in some way. And that does suck, and sometimes that means that one group is going to be treated unfairly, but often it's about the lesser of evils.

[camelite]

disingenous: lacking in frankness, candor, or sincerity; falsely or hypocritically

I'll do you the honor of not questioning your sincerity without even making an effort to address any specific thing you said. Seems like an almost...pusillanimous...thing to do.

> We can imagine utopia and then imagine how we would treat people in that setting.

I am not suggesting a solution to the existence of injustice, which is what a utopia would entail. I am merely pointing out that simplistic rhetoric about believing accusors will not solve the problem.

> But if we're not actually in utopia, then we really are tipping the scales in some way. And that does suck, and sometimes that means that one group is going to be treated unfairly, but often it's about the lesser of evils.

And there we part ways. Adding up all the bad stuff that happens to one group, comparing it to all the bad stuff that happens to another group, and saying "if this makes the bad stuff in the big pile smaller, then having more bad stuff in the small pile is acceptable collateral damage" is not a good approach. Applied in the large it would quite likely lead to two much bigger piles. I know you probably don't recognise that as what you're doing, but your reasoning is far too simplistic given the complexities of the problem.

[zipppy]

I was commenting on the mindset one would have to take the positions you have, which is why I didn't address individual points. I guess that was lost on you.

edit: fine, apparently people get downvoted if they're not pedantic.

"and saying "if this makes the bad stuff in the big pile smaller, then having more bad stuff in the small pile is acceptable collateral damage" is not a good approach. Applied in the large it would quite likely lead to two much bigger piles."

Show your work. Why is that "likely" to lead to two bigger piles?

[camelite]

> I was commenting on the mindset one would have to take the positions you have, which is why I didn't address individual points. I guess that was lost on you.

There's a word for that, you know.

> Show your work. Why is that "likely" to lead to two bigger piles?

If we both agree that we want fewer incidents of harass ment, a higher fraction of harassers punished, fewer false allegations, and fewer incidents of innocent people being punished... then that's a pretty complicated problem, right? Now multiply that by the number of potential harassers and harassees in the world. My "work" is simply the observation that a complicated problem isn't solvable by simplistic rhetoric. Of course, given the climate, that spiraled, as it does.

[parzivalm]

Seems to me that the some of whom will invariably be innocent will be significantly low.

Saying "just believing" isn't the best phrase the OP could have picked but neither was your rhetoric. It just contributes to the divide between men and women.

[camelite]

My rhetoric has the advantage of being true.

[xor1]

>Men aren't reminded constantly by their culture to do things they don't want to do? Where do you live, because it sounds like paradise to me.

blackrose is exclusively thinking of rich and powerful men when framing his argument.

[blackrose]

I'm neither rich nor powerful, and I don't feel pressure to do anything outside of ensure my own survival. I mean, I could get a girl pregnant and still have a hell of a lot less to worry about than she does.

[edit: removed paragraph]

[nilkn]

> you're just a selfish dick.

This is a lot of aggression, and it makes me think that you are just as closed to alternative viewpoints as those with whom you are discussing this topic. I think you should completely re-evaluate your approach to debating this in the future.

[blackrose]

I see what you're saying, but I've laid out many other, less aggressive points and remained open to any good counter-argument.

I'll take the downvotes for this, but I think certain stances people are spouting on this thread are aggressively perpetuating the poor societal values I've been arguing against. They're aggressively playing down the consequences of their sexist mentality and normalizations. And because I'm a not-impoverished white dude who doesn't worry about being persecuted for my opinions, I expressed them.

(Also, the "selfish dick" part isn't meant to be taken personally. Many people are selfish, and own up to it, and wear the badge proudly. That's great. But to argue for sexism under some pretense of a noble cause is bullshit.)

[xor1]

I didn't have a chance to read this before you deleted it, but let's get one thing out of the way immediately: I'm not a white male, yet you seem to be attacking me (and others who think you are doing more harm than good) on this presumption.

You need to understand that the way you engage others on the internet is harmful to your viewpoints. You honestly come off as hostile and even childish. You're fabricating complete strawmen and attacking them. I honestly have to question whether or not you have some sort of personality disorder, given how upset you get over things that the people you are attacking have not said or even implied. You also seem to be extremely self-loathing, and you want to project that onto others.

[blackrose]

> You honestly come off as hostile and even childish. You're fabricating complete strawmen and attacking them.

> You also seem to be extremely self-loathing, and you want to project that onto others.

These are funny sequences of statements.

Anyway I wasn't attacking you; I was arguing against the ideas presented, that we should "think about the men!" first when we're discussing women reporting sexual assault. The paragraph I deleted implied that anyone who holds this worldview either hasn't ever listened to a woman or is self-centered. I could've put it better, but frankly I was tired of arguing.

And I was fixing the record because you said "blackrose is exclusively thinking of rich and powerful men when framing his argument." Which is false, and I believe I offered good evidence for in my simple example.

[dang]

Your second paragraph breaks the site guidelines. It's not ok to argue like that on HN, especially on divisive topics. If you have a substantive point to make, please make it thoughtfully; otherwise please don't comment until you do.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html

[blackrose]

Thanks dang. Removed.

[dang]

Thanks!

[blackrose]

> then you are deliberately stacking the deck against the specific men who are accused of sexual harassment, some of whom will invariably be innocent.

This is really a stretch in logic, and the oxymoronic "some of whom will invariably be innocent" gives away your motives on this topic.

Parent comment was saying we should give a little more credibility to reports that women make about sexual harassment in the workplace. It's a pretty good idea that would make everyone's lives better (even ours, the men!). But if your reaction to that mild suggestion is hostility and misleading arguments, you're contributing to the problem and encouraging more "manly" behavior that necessitates women's blog posts and company culture course-correction.

[camelite]

> This is really a stretch in logic

It's not even a tiny weeny little stretch of logic. It is self-evident to anybody who is thinking clearly about the matter.

> Parent comment was saying we should give a little more credibility to reports that women make about sexual harassment in the workplace.

No. Wrong. Parent comment said "believe women who...", not "give a little more credibility to reports that women make about sexual harassment". Do you understand how those two statements are different? Your one doesn't even make sense. Crediblity is "the quality of being believable or worthy of trust". Credence is probably the word you were thinking of. I don't think I'm smarter than you, but these sorts of mistakes do go to show that you are not thinking clearly.

> It's a pretty good idea that would make everyone's lives better

Not the falsely accused. They are men too, right?

> But if your reaction to that mild suggestion is hostility and misleading arguments, you're contributing to the problem and encouraging more "manly" behavior that necessitates women's blog posts and company culture course-correction.

The suggestion is not mild. My reaction was not hostile. My arguments were not misleading. I'm not contributing to the problem of some men being sexual harassers, except perhaps at some absurdly theoretically removed degree, which would leave me damned for pretty much any I comment I could make. I'm not encouraging manly, or even "manly" behaviour. My comments don't necessitate women's blog posts, if by that you are referring to Fowlers call-out. The latter is in fact an absurd charge against me on a personal level, as I'm sure you would recognize after mature reflection. That I necessitate company culture course-correction is likewise absurd, though flattering.

[blackrose]

> Parent comment said "believe women who..."

Luckily we have the power of inference and ability to understand what statements mean even when people use different words -- unless, of course, we have an axe to grind, which is what I'm seeing here in your comments.

Your counter arguments haven't convinced me. But it was nice discussing this. Hopefully others will see this thread and make their own decisions.

[camelite]

I can see you're trying to rise above your instincts here, and that is a good effort. However, you should have left out the parting shot about the axe.