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by greggarious 1235 days ago
I think one people miss is that lack of interaction can be a form of harassment.

>we routinely have cases where a young man is leading open labs as if they're a teacher themselves (in order to "wow" their female classmates, offer "private free tutoring sessions", etc). Some of the young students in my class take up these offers, and this further demoralizes other female students seeing this happen (i.e. only attractive women being offered tutoring sessions).

Imagine how it must feel to be sincerely interested, possibly struggling because they didn't have a great K-12 experience and thus didn't have things like pre-Calc or AP credits and then... being brushed aside so someone can "tutor" their crush 1:1?

Speaking as someone who's had the unpleasant experience of having someone treat me differently at work based on if I'm "datable", it's incredibly demoralizing, it makes you want to leave an entire field. On my end it made me leave a specific strain of research, but had it happened earlier on I'd have probably switched majors entirely.

4 comments

I'm sorry for your situation but this is just ridiculous.

You cannot ever harass someone through non-interaction, which is by definition aggresive and unwanted interaction.

People complaining the women aren't being offered enough "private tutoring" in a post about how men offering women "private tutoring" being harassment.

Being mildly autistic you can see why I don't date either gender with ridiculous sentiments like these being blown around.

>You cannot ever harass someone through non-interaction

Maybe not harass, but it's a form of discrimination -- only giving professional opportunities to people willing to fuck you is absolutely not kosher.

>Being mildly autistic you can see why I don't date either gender with ridiculous sentiments like these being blown around.

I'm also on the autistic spectrum, and I've never had an issue finding partners, and I doubt that complaints about tutoring are the reason your sex life has taken a pause.

>>Being mildly autistic you can see why I don't date either gender with ridiculous sentiments like these being blown around.

> I'm also on the autistic spectrum, and I've never had an issue finding partners,

This is a major difference between males and females and it is hard to get either side to understand the experiences of the other. As a guy on the spectrum who managed to cross over somewhat to the dating side, I have sympathy for the OP's confusion. You may also have some confusion, but it doesn't stop you from having a relatively normal life.

It sounds like everyone in the class can clearly see what's going on, which means there's probably not a lot of "tutoring" going on in these 1:1 sessions. So no need for the other girls to worry much about that. That said, even if they were I'm not seeing the problem. If two people start dating is one not allowed to help the other with homework now because it's "unfair" to single people? I helped my wife (then girlfriend) with her work in college. In fact I helped her in her 1 semester general optics course in the physics department when one of my majors was optical science, so almost the exact same situation (though we met in a math class). Should I have offered to help her classmates too? Does it make a difference that she's older than me? Or that the other students didn't know I was giving her 1:1 attention?

I get that rejection is demoralizing. Probably almost any man understands that. But we can't exactly expect people to prioritize fairness to everyone in their personal relationships, nor does it make sense to ban students from seeking those relationships.

> Imagine how it must feel to be sincerely interested, possibly struggling because they didn't have a great K-12 experience and thus didn't have things like pre-Calc or AP credits and then... being brushed aside so someone can "tutor" their crush 1:1?

Imagine how life must feel for these males, who, desperate for attention, spend large amount of effort going to classes which are useless to them, solely to get it (potentially). And then they're, IDK, reading threads on HN about themselves being _predatory_ and _manipulative_. Because they tried.

But of course, men don't matter. Can't wait 'till society decides to cull unattractive men or something - they're "dangerous" after all. I guess world war would be really handy, so that people unworthy of empathy can be dealt with.

I mean, seriously. You're blaming them for not trying to interact with people they're not attracted to?

Do you blame attractive women for not interacting with unattractive men? Ever thought about it?

> I think one people miss is that lack of interaction can be a form of harassment.

I don't think you actually think, that - be honest with yourself, have you ever spoke up on behalf on incels, claiming that they are actually a group of harassed males because females are ignoring them?

>be honest with yourself, have you ever spoke up on behalf on incels, claiming that they are actually a group of harassed males because females are ignoring them?

"Involuntary celibate" is a rapey, entitled, oxymoron of a phrase. Everyone wants physical affection.

I remember being distressed after the Elliot Rodger shooting, and discussing in therapy how I was... not like that... and still very lonely. I developed an eating disorder, because I had my PhD adviser and coauthors trapping me in academia by playing fast and loose with reccomendations -- only giving good ones if it'd benefit them getting tenure and keep me working on their grants, and meanwhile I had zero social life despite trying very hard.

(In retrospect, I should have taken a year off of drinking and dating and given it another go when I was healthier rather than fail upwards onto K Street, but that's a story for another day.)

Anyways... I'm talking about refusing to tutor someone unless they're pretty, not refusing to date them.

If you shut down any "fatties" or "uggos" who ask you how to smash the stack, you're engaging in a form of harassment.

I'm sorry that correctly stating a fact (giving different levels of support depending on if you've got romantic prospects) is a form of harassment apparently triggered so many.

Not only have I not spoken up for incels, I've actively advocated they should feel free to exit this planet (sans spree killing) if they feel that upset about their dating prospects.

(I'm not in the best place myself -- I got some bad advice on how long it takes to get an EU passport, so I'm stuck in a country I don't consent to living in with no job prospects because I'm not some alt-right lunatic and tried to stick up for people. But at least if I decide to leave this earth, I'll do it alone. But at least I know I can dial out for a booty call if I get sad, because I'm not some weirdo.)

> Anyways... I'm talking about refusing to tutor someone unless they're pretty, not refusing to date them.

Yeah, still not harassment. Discrimination maybe, definitely not harassment in any known dictionary.

> I'm sorry that correctly stating a fact (giving different levels of support depending on if you've got romantic prospects) is a form of harassment apparently triggered so many.

I don't think you know the difference between harassment and discrimination.

> Not only have I not spoken up for incels, I've actively advocated they should feel free to exit this planet (sans spree killing) if they feel that upset about their dating prospects.

Are you or are you not claiming that $GENDER_A ignoring $GENDER_B is a form of harassment?

If you're making the claim that MEN ignoring WOMEN is a form of harassment/discrimination, but WOMEN ignoring MEN isn't, then you're experiencing some severe form of cognitive dissonance.

>I don't think you know the difference between harassment and discrimination.

Semantic difference. It's discrimination to only help the hotties.

>If you're making the claim that MEN ignoring WOMEN is a form of harassment/discrimination, but WOMEN ignoring MEN isn't, then you're experiencing some severe form of cognitive dissonance.

I've had folks politely turn down coffee, but I literally never had a female classmate refuse to help me with something related to an engineering course.

> >I don't think you know the difference between harassment and discrimination.

> Semantic difference. It's discrimination to only help the hotties.

>If you're making the claim that MEN ignoring WOMEN is a form of harassment/discrimination, but WOMEN ignoring MEN isn't, then you're experiencing some severe form of cognitive dissonance.

> I've had folks politely turn down coffee, but I literally never had a female classmate refuse to help me with something related to an engineering course.

Are you or are you not claiming that $GENDER_A ignoring $GENDER_B is a form of harassment?