| The study is fine. It's reporting some statistics that I find believable. Statistics on men's worries, mind, not on occurrences of actual harm. The reactions I'm seeing are... not helpful for the most part. One reaction is that this is a horrible thing because it is unfair. I agree that it is an unfortunate part of our current reality. So is the possibility of being forced into uncomfortable situations, or more generally, being sexually harassed when you're a blameless woman in the workplace. I don't see a way of resolving that unfairness without any negative impact on blameless men. We can certainly try to work together in good faith to minimize negative impact while creating positive change. But wailing and moaning about the balance of power tipping slightly away from us (I'm a white male) is not acting in good faith. It's just plain entitlement. The #metoo movement's direct impact puts me at more risk than before. And I've taken advantage of my cultural immunity more than once in my life. I'm not proud of some things in my past, and I'm not free from the possibility of doing more things in the future. I have problematic biases and attitudes. But I'd rather live in, and have my kids grow up in, the sort of world that #metoo is leading us towards than the world that (I hope) we're leaving behind. Besides, some of this abject fear over being accused of the things that we've actually done would be lessened if the patriarchal walls of silence and secrecy were torn down so we could all see what is actually happening in the world, rather than the whitewashed appearance of perfect honor and respect that we all pretend is real. I don't think my personal lapses would be judged too harshly if compared against reality. But they look pretty bad if compared to all the guys professing purity and innocence -- because we as a society have somehow fooled ourselves into believing them. 60% of male managers are nervous about mentoring women. What percentage of working women are nervous about what their male coworkers might do one at any point in the future? And fuck that, what percentage have already experienced worse than what a male manager might realistically experience from a complaint about his behavior in a 1-1? And don't bother pulling out the "but what if absolutely nothing happened but the woman accused him unfairly and he lost his job and wife and kids and had to live under a bridge until he killed himself??!" unless you have some solid evidence that this happens more often than women get raped by acquaintances. Or if you don't like that comparison, maybe look at the number of women who lose jobs or careers or get blacklisted as a result of someone else harassing them. |
If the percentage of women that experienced problems were actually really low, and if rape basically didn't happen in the work place, how would that change the way we should have this discussion?
It sounds like you're saying women raped by acquaintances and women having problems in the work place are related. I've always interpreted it as they are acquaintances through friend groups, not necessarily through work. I guess it'd be interesting to see a study of what percentage the acquaintances are known through work explicitly, then maybe that could shed some light on where the tensions come from.