[throwawayable]

So when there is no evidence one way or the other, you're saying you'd believe the accuser. This pretty much supports the grandparent's statement.

I know of a woman who has made a successful career of extorting "settlements with mutual confidentiality agreements" out of a succession of positions as a PA to multiple high level executives, with each exec settling for tens of thousands to avoid this person leveling damaging public accusations against them. She can get away with it because there is a general consensus that without evidence, the "victim" should be believed and that men are probably guilty.

[mc32]

I don' think you understood what I said.

My point is that a woman (or man) will not come out of a 1:1 or a drive home or talks over dinner and take an ambiguous statement or thing they thought they saw or heard and run to HR. People are rather loath to make the wrong conclusion and will give other the benefit of the doubt.

Now, bad, vindictive, extortionists, etc., will not need you to take them out for drinks or have a 1:1 to get their way. So it's beside the point. I'm speaking of interpersonal communication, work relationships, etc. with normal people. We need not fear normal people.

[3131s]

> Now, bad, vindictive, extortionists, etc., will not need you to take them out for drinks or have a 1:1 to get their way.

This is the key. It is so foreign to me the idea that I would be afraid to be alone in a room with a woman. In the rare case that someone is actually that crazy and malicious, they will fabricate a private meeting entirely if need be, and as was said before, the accusation can be enough to damage a career. How is it even possible to avoid brief periods of private communication with the opposite sex all day every day?

[TheOtherHobbes]

The problem - of course - is that bad, vindictive, etc, people can appear completely normal.

They can even be unusually charming and disarming.

[throwawayable]

I was responding to the part of your comment where you wrote:

> "I would say it would be extremely rare for a woman (or man) to make baseless accusations from uncertain interpretations. People who bring forward accusations are typically people who've had the same untoward thing done to them repeatedly."

To me, this sounds like your default position would believe the accuser over the accused where no evidence exists. Apologies if this is not what you were trying to convey.

I do agree that vindictive individuals are probably rare, but I do believe that they are out there and I also believe that there are lot of people in the world who look to take offense in innocent situations as I have been confidants of such people in the past and things that I interpret as innocuous can easily be interpreted in a poor light if the person has their "default" mindset to interpret things in a negative light.

And yes, your point about vindictive people is a good one, but I still think that avoiding 1:1 situations would make it much more difficult for such accusations to have as big an impact.