Seriously, don't be a dick is pretty easy to understand. I've met so many brilliant female engineers that I can't imagine what toxic bullshit causes people to think this way.
The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Let me put it this way: It's incredibly rare that a bear attacks a human. But pretty much everyone will still avoid a bear if they can. This has nothing to do with "don't piss off the bear and you'll be fine" and everything to do with "if that bear does decide to attack you, you are completely defenseless".
> The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Sorry, can you actually name a human being who had his "life/career" destroyed by a metaphorical snap of the finger? I mean, good grief, you have to dig like crazy to even find evidence of a false accusation.
I mean, sure, it happens, in the same sense that sure, you might get hit by a truck. Where does this outrageous paranoia come from? The horrifying thing is that you aren't alone -- half this topic is men posting about how terrible shrews are lurking in the bushes about to steal their careers. And... there are no shrews to be seen.
A charitable read of GP means it might not necessarily be an intentional false accusation.
A simple misunderstanding of a truly collegial touch, an off the cuff remark, a glance, a gesture - all completely normal otherwise and often spontaneous - and you can find yourself on the defensive.
And given social media and the virality of outrage (see Jon Ronson's So You've Been Publicly Shamed, or go Google Johnny Depp and Amber Heard for an example of how he said she said testimony is reported as "Big if true") it's clear that the paranoia stems from the disproportionate reputational damage in the court of public opinion, not the accusation itself.
Which is accurately reflected in the headline as "discomfort" - having to highly self-regulate your words and actions is, by definition, uncomfortable.
Not that it can't and shouldn't be done. But to follow your analogy of getting hit by a truck then mentoring women is like playing a never-ending round of Frogger.
The logic of your comment makes sense, but what in actual reality would be the difficulty level of this hypothetical game of Frogger? Maybe you have different stats than I do, but it seems like it's one where a single truck crosses the screen every minute or two.
So yeah, the game is endless. You'll never escape the possibility of jumping in front of the truck and getting squashed flat.
As someone who has been written up at a prior job for nebulously "being creepy" it would be nice to be able to see the trucks coming. For most things that are against the rules in the workplace, there are a list of things you shouldn't do, and you can avoid trouble by simply not doing them. In my case, nobody in HR would tell me what not to do, even though I asked repeatedly. It was just "we got complaints that you were making women feel uncomfortable so please stop doing whatever you were doing." When pressed for examples, none were forthcoming. How is that actionable? How am I responsible for what is inside the thoughts of other people I work with?
I'm now very careful with my interactions with women at work. No 1:1 meetings, all conversation must be strictly work related, no walking the same direction, avoid eye contact as much as possible, etc. It's a total minefield and you need to minimize how much you walk through it, especially if you have a great job.
How would you deal with real cases of sexual harassment of women then?
When it comes to that, it seems to be that the statistics show that real sexual harassment happens more often then the scenario you are describing. How would you handle this, so it is reduced or eliminated?
This was the original power imbalance, and it can't be forgotten.
Generally a pendulum swings many time before finding equilibrium, I think we're just in that process right now.
I don't have an answer, because the alternative is shitty men taking advantage of the situation and preying on women, and in turn women avoiding men.
Don't mistake my comment as calling woman liars or defending sexual misconduct on men's part. I'm simply analyzing the rational for men not wanting to be alone with women in the work place.
If you analyze it a bit more, you don't find it irrational though?
What would be the motivation of a woman to falsify accusations of someone mentoring her? How often does this actually happen? Wouldn't accusing someone also jeopardize her career prospect? Etc.
I fully understand the response of men not wanting to be alone with women in the workplace, but I can't agree that it's rationale, reasonable and justified. We're all human, and unreasonable feelings of fears and worries is something we all suffer from. That said, the current feelings seem mostly irrational to me, and appear to be put forward by fear mongers.
I am very much in agreement that all are innocent until proven guilty, that the public opinion shouldn't be used as a court of law, and that due process must be followed and respected. That said, I'm still happily mentoring women, and respectfully engaging them at work, and I won't let myself fall prey to these irrational fears.
The problem is the extreme power imbalance, where any woman you interact with can snap her fingers and destroy your life/career.
Let me put it this way: It's incredibly rare that a bear attacks a human. But pretty much everyone will still avoid a bear if they can. This has nothing to do with "don't piss off the bear and you'll be fine" and everything to do with "if that bear does decide to attack you, you are completely defenseless".