I suspect people will be reactionary because of the title, but the content is much different than what I was personally expecting.
As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man.
The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable).
There is no easy answer, men will in most cases have a certain level of physical dominance over a woman and thus we will always be a potential threat and _must_ endeavour to walk on tippy-toes.
However this requires women to meet us half-way. Make your intentions known and don't think less of men for not being instigators.
As another, unrelated point; As a guy it is _scary_ to attempt being what men are told they should be (confident, assertive, charming) and it takes a significant amount of bravery to do it in what I would assume is the majority of cases. If our intentions are misconstrued or our conduct falls to the side of what's acceptable (remember; we're usually winging it) then we risk a significant amount of social ostracism. Even approaching a woman is exceedingly difficult.
The irony here is that those who don't care about their social credibility are the ones that give the rest a poor name by sending unsolicited pictures of their genitals, cat calling and pestering women in workplace environments. </rant>
I'm a single man, I date, and it's confusing as hell. The examples given in the article are no surprise to me since my whole adult life has been peppered with similar events. Women who later tell me they wanted to sleep with me but I didn't push hard enough, etc. Not pushing women to sleep with me has likely cost me a lot of opportunities, but it's also meant I haven't accidentally assaulted someone. On my birthday I had 5 previous sexual partners call or message to wish me a happy birthday, so I figure my philosophy of treating people well is doing ok.
How assertive should I be when interacting with women I am dating, given that every woman is a unique individual with their own preferences?
I suspect that "how assertive should I be" is the wrong question to ask-- there are many ways of being "assertive", only some of which work well! As a society, we are still in the process of developing-- and raising awareness about-- workable and effective sexual/dating "scripts" that men can stick to, and trust that they won't run into obvious problems. As the article hopefully makes clear, even the outwardly-trivial problem of how to ascertain full consent in a way that doesn't "ruin the mood" for the typical girl who was expecting the guy to "just man up and go for it!" is far from easy to solve. (This is not to say that such solutions, and more generally, such workable scripts don't exist somewhere already - the whole problem however is how to coalesce trust around them, from both the "male" and "female" perspective.)
If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day. It's a complex issue, and it's my belief that the traits that women find attractive in men and the traits that women would like to find attractive in men are two different sets with less overlap than you'd imagine.
>If we develop a set of working scripts to indicate availability, then women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day.
Some will, some won't, some will in some circumstances and won't in others. Women aren't actors playing roles to deceive men or buggy data sets for which a properly efficient sexual algorithm has to be discovered, they're just human beings and you just need to deal with them as individuals, get to know them as people, and communicate with them. And accept that if they don't find you attractive, or don't want to sleep with you, that's fine.
> ... women will still go for men who are "bold" enough to deviate from the script and seize the day.
There will be lots of ways to signal the kind of "boldness" you (and women) want, while still staying well within the 'script'. So hopefully this won't be a big issue in practice. (Though it's hard to say since we don't even have broadly-acknowledged 'scripts' yet!)
Since my bisexual wife has very similar problems when dating women I'd say the answer isn't simple.
There were times early on where we'd gone on a triple date with a nice girl and eight hours of talk had elapsed without any action. I could tell the girl wanted to be kissed. I could tell my wife wanted to be kissed by the girl. Real movie lean-in moments. Neither of them could bring themselves to be the initiator.
It would have been easy for me to initiate both because I'm good at reading those signals and good at feeling and accepting implicit rejection in an unenthusiastic kiss, but if I'd taken the reigns my wife wouldn't have had the opportunity to explore her own relationship with feminity. So I sat and chatted and watched the opportunities float by.
The next day my wife would express a paradox of frustration that she couldn't just borrow my assertiveness and gratitude that I was letting her find her own path. (edit: Important to note here that the women would tell her the same thing, that they'd felt the moment but hadn't been able to take advantage of it.)
Eventually she figured out that more assertive bi women were an important group to look for.
So it isn't entirely a gender thing and it's not about "pushing" anybody to do anything. It's about learning how to sense signals, how to make signals, how to recognize people who want you to take the level of initiative that you're comfortable taking, and how to gracefully accept that incompatibility on this one point is incompatibility per se, not just a missed opportunity.
I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners. There is demonstrated intent on both ends. It’s like google’s search intent being the value. Online dating provides safety through... intent of intimacy I guess
> I’ve simply come to believe that online dating is the safest way for people to evaluate partners.
I came to the opposite conclusion. If your potential partner can overpower you, then you have to worry about being assaulted or murdered by a complete stranger before you even get the chance to evaluate them.
Sure, you might meet a drifter at a bar that no one knows and thus can get away with harming you more easily, but online dating significantly lowers the barrier of entry for malevolent actors, especially those who wish to remain somewhat anonymous.
All I ever find with dating sites is an endless stream of bots and constant 'seen'/'deleted' receipts.
My feeling is I don't have enough "marketable" photos of myself to make the few real users out there take notice among the endless stream of spam they must get.
I end up feeling that the psychological impact from 'playing that game' results in diminishing returns, so fall back to just doing my usual hobbies in the real world and hope in the back of my mind that one day someone might find the things that I do interesting.
Maybe we've redefined what patriarchy means, but going by the dictionary this article, and the associated viewpoint, is clearly reversing the cause and effect.
In context of broad society patriarchy is "control by men of a disproportionately large share of power". It is obvious that, given there are a small number of leadership roles, if one gender is more assertive, aggressive or violent (or indeed prone to risk taking - although the article does not mention that one) then that gender will end up with a disproportionate representation in the military and from there social leadership positions.
Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.
I'm throwing an assumption here that armies lead governments. Most countries need a few military victories early on to legitimise their control of territory.
> Patriarchy doesn't cause male behavior, male behavior causes patriarchy.
There doesn't have to be a behavioral difference between men and women for societies to trend towards patriarchy. The simple fact that women bear children and are pregnant for nine months is enough to have limited their political prospects in pre-modern times.
A society of antiquity that allows women to fight in battle will have fewer women to bear children, which means fewer bodies to grind in the next war. Societies that forced their women into domestic roles could have faster manpower replenishment and win more wars, taking more territory and spreading their customs. Political power was inexorably tied to warfare, and women, often lacking the crucial military influence enjoyed by generals were locked out of the elite decision making classes.
Today, we no longer fight wars of annihilation, and a society that promotes women in the workforce has access to more brilliant minds than one that doesn't. I think there's more to gender relations than human psychology. Natural selection among human societies can be a powerful driver of cultural change.
I think it's deeper than that. Men are more assertive as well as many women preferring it that way. The easiest place to see it is online dating apps, a system that has only existed for a decade or so. Size, strength, and status symbols (like having a nice car in your picture) are big selection factors for profiles of men seeking women. But these factors hardly matter for women seeking men. This clearly influences males to seek positions of status and power moreso than females, even though they're equally capable.
I would argue that eventually this small selection bias causes generic personality bias toward more assertive traits, larger size, and aggressiveness in males. In humans and many ape species this selection runaway has gone so far I doubt we can do anything about it.
It would be interesting if we could find a closely related species where the females are larger and more dominant. Human "dominant male" sexual dimorphism isn't the norm across the animal kingdom but is very common in apes.
Anecdotal, but I've heard MANY women say "I wish I had a male boss", but I've never heard the opposite from either male or female friends. Could this be related to similar selection factors? Who knows, but researching this kind of stuff is nearly radioactive to your career so we may never know.
And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though? Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources. It could easily be argued that women are "responsible" for this via setting up the incentive structure that men responded to in the ancestral environment.
> And what causes the extra risk-taking by men, though?
Probably Testostorone
> Male reproductive success is heavily tied to being able to successfully acquire economic and sociopolitical resources.
That has only been true for something between a few thousand years to maybe a hundred years (when true upwards mobility was established). So as much as I like to think that humans can overcome their inner animals, it can't be ignored that a lot about us is governed by traditional evolution (which movea much much slower than our social systems).
Trying to place blame here on either sex in the current social system is not really productive here. Trying to place blame on women, who had (and in some places of the world still don't have) little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners up until a few generations ago, is historically short-sighted at the least.
No. When accounted for gender Testostorone do not have a correlation to risk taking for men.
> traditional evolution
One of the research findings among primatologists about 50-70 years ago is that female choice has a significant impact. That "little/limited say in their choice of reproductive partners" is actually not that little or limited, but simply different compare to male primates. The research on prehistorical human behavior is also extreme speculative, so great caution to attribute anything specific down to it.
What are you talking about? Baboons, macaques, gibbons, great apes, capuchins, howlers, or squirrel monkey do not conduct arranged marriages, nor marriages at all for that matter. Looking at evolution and how it formed us and we find very little of arranged marriages.
Arranged marriages also limits men and women equally (the definition is the bride and groom are selected by individuals other than the couple themselves) so I am not sure what argument you are trying to make in the first place.
A while back I read about a study that found that when a woman is friendly toward a man she doesn't have sexual feelings toward, often the male will mistakenly believe that she does, and act on those feelings.
My response was, how is the male supposed to tell the difference? If there is a clear, observable behavior difference between how women behave when they are sexually attracted, and when they are just being friendly, then females should explain it to males when they get old enough to be interested.
On the other hand, if there is no observable difference, then females are just creating problems and should not be surprised if things go badly.
Women want to be respected as equals. That's fine, but in some ways respect has to be earned, and part of how you earn respect is by being open in the signals you send other people, instead of expecting them to read your mind, and then being upset when they fail to do this correctly.
Start by assuming that not all women who are friendly towards you "want you." That default assumption seems to be ingrained in some (by no means all) men and that is what gets them in trouble.
If you start with the default assumption that women who are friendly are ... just being friendly then misunderstandings are far fewer. Most men who approach you are just being friendly rather than coming on to you. Do you require men to reassure you that they are not coming on to you as well? Most women are not into every man they interact with. It's not their job to convince you otherwise. It's your job not to assume.
That's excellent advice. But I am saying it is a lot more likely men will start thinking and behaving that way if women explain it all to men, and if they behave in a consistent manner themselves.
What, exactly, are women supposed to explain to men? And why is it their job? (Honest question as I'm having difficulty seeing how this is supposed to work on an interpersonal level and no woman can speak for all women.)
Individuals can be consistent, populations are not. Men as a group do not all behave the same (aka "consistent" for their gender) or all have the same expectations, just as not all women behave/expect the same.
There has never been consistency at a population level when it comes to how men and women receive advances from the other.
>There has never been consistency at a population level when it comes to how men and women receive advances from the other.
True, but there are norms and averages.
>What, exactly, are women supposed to explain to men? And why is it their job? (Honest question as I'm having difficulty seeing how this is supposed to work on an interpersonal level and no woman can speak for all women.)
I explained this in my original comment. Women should have a reasonably standard way of behaving when they are sexually attracted and a perceivably different way of behaving when they are just feeling friendly. And they ought to explain to men what the two sorts of behavior are, so men can spot the difference. I don't see why that is unreasonable.
The fact that someone can't perceive a difference doesn't mean it isn't there. People are not as difficult to read as you are making them out to be. And if they seem to be, then that is a problem that other people can't fix for you. It is a skill gap that an individual needs to close on their own.
I've already said why your position is unreasonable, but I'll say it one last time: These homogeneous populations with homogeneous behaviours don't exist. Even within cultures and within generations, behaviour differs according to lived experience. You will falsely rule people in as well as out if you rely on some kind of shortcut rule of thumb to indicate interest. This applies to both sexes.
Just as the article states. Treating a date as a binary yes/no doesn't work when people have contradictory feelings and desires. Perception is everything, and I'm not sure making a legal framework for consent with verbal and written that turns a quiet nonverbal lean in kiss into an assault, is fair to anyone.
This is why I always thought kids should have dating, bullying, assertive training classes. It won't fix every scenario, but it would help some of the misunderstandings, and train young people to be more responsive and communicative to others.
We have HR classes at work, but nothing for youn adults. We know teens will date each other, and hollywood movies don't count as traning. Lets fix this with some simple communication classes.
It seems odd to me that there's such a fervent obsession with women in technology, often times coming from men in technology. Why do I not see endless articles about female lawyers or female doctors or even really female engineers, and how we as a society treat them? There's probably a few reasons (I read Hacker News, not Lawyer News, for one), but allow me to offer a different explanation: there's just too many damn nerds. Tech is inherently more asocial than other fields, combine that with the unique (counter-)culture and you have a veritable melting pot of people who are awkward communicators with unconventional views who are slightly detached from reality.
What this means is that a) male-female gaps in communication skills are exacerbated, b) gender disparities are felt more and c) everyone, male and female, is more likely to respond anxiously (e.g. with negative internal feelings) to perceived slights. This leads to a self defeating obsession - the more we lose our collective shit over the gender gap, the more it will widen. I feel like in other industries there's flirting and office affairs and platonic relationships and power struggles and lots of other human messes, but tech people have a unique kind of anxiety surrounding male-female interactions.
Maybe I'm just projecting because I have had very few female friends and approaching women romantically turns me into spaghetti but it really seems plausible. Also note that the office that I work in has a pretty good ratio and thus I can say with confidence that the women are as much dweebs as the men are. And of course this doesn't mean we shouldn't do anything to recruit women. But I think the best way is if everyone just calmed down for like 2-5 years.
My experience is that women vary a lot in how direct they are. I find I get along a lot better with the direct ones as opposed to the ones who expect you to guess what they are feeling, and beat up on you if you get it wrong. My guess is that life goes better in a lot of ways for the more direct ones, though I could be wrong about that.
>There is nothing wrong with men's rights activism.
In the abstract, no... but in practice, men's rights activism is so wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory and incel misogyny that it does harm both to women and men.
The same kind of unsubstantiated broad-brushing can be done to women's rights activism. It's unfair and not constructive.
>>wrapped up in anti-feminist conspiracy theory
How is that any different than believing that a patriarchy controls society and imposes gendered norms to discriminate against and subjugate women? That's a mainstream view of feminism.
I think if more men were capable of making such a well thought out and logical argument we’d be farther along, but in many cases men have been extremely defensive and the most attention has gone to those responses rather than something more substantial such as this.
That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued not be seen as promiscuous is another problem that feeds into unclear boundaries regarding consent. All part of a larger conversation that can’t be had by pretending there is no problem or by blaming all men or all women.
> That women are socialized to not be the aggressors and must be pursued
I don't understand why everybody, including academics, are allowed to state outright that effectively every behavior is socialized. Almost every single animal on this planet has the female in the position of choosing among male suitors, who in turn will attempt to outcompete one another with various displays of beauty, craftsmanship, or among many other behaviors, aggression. That doesn't mean that we can't socialize to suppress or alter behaviors, but I cannot stand how totally unsubstantiated these claims of social construction are for literally every human behavior.
I am one of the men who feels defensive, although I try very hard to see both sides. I assume you also wish to know the thoughts of detractors so I'll tell you how I feel and why, and you can decide if you believe me.
The topic of social justice is very broad and I'll touch on it broadly as it's (sadly) very complex to distill but needs to be mentioned because the context is incredibly important; I would like to focus on one point but really it's a barrage from all angles and that's important in understanding why some people might feel like me (or, much much worse as the case seems to be).
So, I'll get to the point.
I'm a white guy, I'm nearly 30 and I have a job in tech.
I was raised by a single mother in one of the most impoverished neighbourhoods in one of the most impoverished cities in the UK.
I understand that my life was almost certainly better than those outside of the country so please don't assume I'm making a plea to your empathy, I'm just laying context.
Due to my relatively poor socio-economic status I was not only surrounded by crime, it was a part of my life intrinsically and unavoidably. My mother could not pull herself out of a benefits cycle because I was a sickly child and was the target of several gangs in the area due to my lack of affiliation with any of them and desire to do nothing more than read books about how computers worked.
I was raised in the 90s, again to a single-mother, where as far as I understood, women were to be respected as equals to men, the womens empowerment movement was strong. Indians and Pakistanis were very populous in my region and I learned about other cultures by being very close friends and neighbours with them. They were also poor. Thus many bonds were forged because we had a common enemy: our poverty.
I managed to pull myself out of that situation with the help of a library, lots of missed school and a deep unyielding passion for technology that after much struggling led to a job; for which I had to sacrifice everything and I happily did so.
--
Why is this important?
Mostly because the sentiment is that I should make way for people (based on gender and race) to come into a field that I struggled all my life to get into, something I had a genuine passion for since I touched my mothers commadore64 when I was 6 years old. A job that nobody wanted me to do. (Mother wanted me to be a lawyer or plumber.. not sure what the relation is there).
I'm not sure what makes them more worthy than me to get a job other than their race and genitalia, and for me that feels inherently sexist/racist. Because I never even think about race/gender until someone points a finger at it, I feel like _I_ would have already been giving them a fair shout, if I met someone with a genuine passion for tech that I have, then there's absolutely no way that I'd think less of them based on their skin or genitals-
It's just completely not in the vein of how I'm thinking. It's like looking at an elephant and saying "you could fit a razor scooter in that things butt"; you don't even think about it until it's mentioned. If someone said to you "don't put a razor scooter in that elephants butt" you'd be offended at the assumption that you'd want to do that (or even thought of it) in the first place.. but I digress.
I consider women and people of other races my equals, not that I have any special status I just think we're all struggling with our mortality, fragile bodies, insecurities and nobody is immune to that; I would never be a barrier for anyone capable; but I'm being told I must favour specific classifications people by HR at my company because it makes the company look good. At the same time we have companies like github who actively dissuade white people from managing positions, and list "white" women as being the biggest barriers to inclusion.[0]
We're being told that men have all the privilege, and that may be true right now but while social convention for women is changing in a way that can include choice, men do not have the same freedoms. And while it might be true for now that most top CEO positions are held by men; young women are out-earning their male counterparts in the beginning of their careers hour-for-hour[1]. Add to that women are graduating in significantly higher numbers than men[2] and you see that the future will be wildly different without resorting to tactics that I would consider diversive and polarizing.
We're being told that we're second-class by some very "forward thinking" US companies (Google, Github are strong examples) due to us being too many in technology, as if it's our fault that we were driven to this and should shoulder some blame as a gender/race.
And now there is a movement of people (mostly, toxic twitter users) who expressly do not want me to voice any opinion unless it agrees with them, they do this on the basis of my gender and race. I find this hypocritical in of itself, and it's one of the primary drivers of my victimhood.
Anyway, that's not to say that there are real issues to be address (I live in Sweden where many of these issues do not seem nearly as prescient as in the USA).
This coupled with those insidiously sexist: "the future is female" t-shirts and grossly sexist terms for condescending/obnoxious behaviour such as "mansplaining" or "manspreading" and I can see how some people are upset, myself included.
However, the fact that voicing any kind of opinion against this kind of behaviour leads to people trying to shut down the conversation and tar you with the troll/misogynist/"snowflake" brush is the _biggest_ factor to me feeling like any kind of victim in this narrative.
---
Anyway, this turned out to be even lengthier than I expected. But it's a nuanced subject and I've voiced a lot of opposition so I assume that anyone reading is thinking I'm some alt-right nazi and to those people I can only say to you:
I have really mulled this over for a long time. It's _IMPOSSIBLE_ to have a reasoned balanced opinion because both sides want to tear you down.
We're living in polarizing times and being "otherising" is not helping anyone; I implore you to read what I wrote in good faith and at least take stock that some men feel this way, even if you don't consider it valid.
We're all in this together and we should seek harmony.
Additionally; A good litmus test to see if something might upset people is to reverse the roles.
I have a very similar background to you but well on the other side of 30. I grew up around abject poverty, crime, drugs and watched my neighborhood wither and die from them. Living through that didn't inoculate me from making some of those mistakes myself. I struggled and worked like a dog for almost 15 years barely making it before I landed where I am. I've been through hell -- seen misery -- seen death.
Frequently, in this industry, I am told that my whiteness and maleness puts me in the same socio-economic background as others that are white and male. A lot of assumptions get made about me based on how I look. I don't even make nearly as much as my peers, because why should I get a higher offer when I have no degree, right?
It's hard to hear some of the things that get suggested to me by others that are about me. I worry about a deeply simmering anger that I feel about some of it. It's hard not to tell people, whom I know came from an extremely privileged background, about what real misery and suffering and strife in the world is like. I know they cannot handle it. I know it would sink their ship.
And I would quickly be out of a job.
My advice to others of the wrong gender and skin color in this industry who grew up poor: don't tell anyone. Your longevity in this industry depends on your peers thinking that you are just like them. You would be right to see the irony in that.
This article and my comment are about sexual assault and consent. How does what you’ve said in any way address those issues?
Surely your opinion is important, but it’s regarding an altogether different topic. I can’t think of anything more frustrating right now than trying to have an in-depth and honest conversation about a topic and having some unreletead and lengthy defense.
My response is towards a specific phrase (and incredulity) from the parent.
The parent is wondering “why” men at large would be so defensive and not engage as the author of the main article has. I sought to share my particular feelings, I’m not sure why that is frustrating to you.
It’s frustrating because while your point of view is helpful and feelings are valid it’s entirely misdirected since you don’t reference at all the issues being discussed.
I read and thought about your comment for a while because I am also a white male, mid 30's, low end of the socioeconomic status in my childhood, and at one time had a lot of the same thoughts as you.
Here's what changed my mind. I'm speaking just about my own experiences, it may or may not be useful to you.
1. I realized that survivorship bias was clouding my judgement. This was tough to accept because I first had to philosophically accept that life isn't fair and random chance plays a meaningful factor in everyday life.
2. I realized that this movement isn't about me. When I get defensive over a statement that is statistically true about white men, I'm trying to find a place for myself in a movement that has very little to do with me. I realized that there is and will continue to be a wide gulf between what is true in general and true statistically. Both are important, but in different contexts.
3. I discovered that I had a very poor idea of what non-male and non-white people experience on a day-to-day basis. Even after hearing it I didn't understand until I found myself quitting a job over what were essentially microaggressions towards something I cared a lot about.
For example, when I was in high school there were several different ways to go through school. You could be college-bound by taking the right courses to meet entry requirements. Or you could take a more vocational track through high school, and so on. My guidance counselor assume I would go to college -- it was just treated as fact. A female friend of mine that had a similar GPA to myself had to threaten to sue to get her counselor to schedule the right courses for her. She was successful in college.
One instance of that is trivial, a lifetime of that bullshit weighs you down.
4. I understood that I cannot call for fairness in my own life because I'm way beyond what's fair already. Life isn't fair. It isn't fair that people die of cancer. It isn't fair that people can work themselves to the bone all their life and remain destitute. If I want to yell about fairness for myself, it only makes sense if I'm willing to yell about fairness for everyone else (because if life is "fair" for me, but not anyone else, it isn't really "fair" is it?). If we were to make the world a fair place in socioeconomic terms, given that there are 7 billion people on the planet, is is exceedingly likely that I would lose some privilege. Thus, if I lose some privilege over the course of my life, I choose to be thankful for the extra privilege I had when I was younger, rather than fretting about how much I can accumulate for the future.
5. I stopped engaging with people that were very angry or very toxic about the subject. Though I have a much better understanding now of where that anger comes from, I realized it was subtly affecting my own perceptions and thinking. There's value in limiting the noise a bit.
This is such an unbelievably naïve and frustrating thing to read. I would also like to add that I highly doubt you’d want to be treated or viewed the way you’re statistically likely to be.
Your frustration is noted, but I'm afraid there is nothing of substance in this comment to respond to, except to agree that prejudice is bad.
My point - in case it was unclear - was that it is entirely reasonable to be defensive when your race or sex is broadly maligned. Even if denigrating statements are strictly based in statistical fact[1], they may still be indicative of prejudice or intended to lend support to discriminatory practices.
1. I choose to refrain from citing any specific examples here. If you doubt they exist I invite you to spend some time with the writings of, e.g. Jared Taylor
I know my comment will be deemed unsubstantive but I have to say: as a man I felt identified in that text, all women I've been with were like that. That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with.
>That's why the idea of consent feels so alien to me: it goes against my very experience with the (different) women I've been with.
Presumably, the women you've been with have provided you with consent, or else you've been incapable of realizing when they haven't. But 'consent' exists as an abstract principle not linked to gender, it's merely the capacity of an individual to have agency and ownership of themselves, so your particular sexual experiences should have no bearing on your comprehension of the term or its implications for future relationships.
As a corollary to the article; I've always felt it's critical not to assume too much as a man.
The line between being assertive and creepy is very fuzzy and depends entirely on the womans perception of you (which, is essentially unknowable).
There is no easy answer, men will in most cases have a certain level of physical dominance over a woman and thus we will always be a potential threat and _must_ endeavour to walk on tippy-toes.
However this requires women to meet us half-way. Make your intentions known and don't think less of men for not being instigators.
As another, unrelated point; As a guy it is _scary_ to attempt being what men are told they should be (confident, assertive, charming) and it takes a significant amount of bravery to do it in what I would assume is the majority of cases. If our intentions are misconstrued or our conduct falls to the side of what's acceptable (remember; we're usually winging it) then we risk a significant amount of social ostracism. Even approaching a woman is exceedingly difficult.
The irony here is that those who don't care about their social credibility are the ones that give the rest a poor name by sending unsolicited pictures of their genitals, cat calling and pestering women in workplace environments. </rant>