Oblivious
Now there’s a shock – men wildly underestimate how much women are harassed. You don’t say!
The survey was carried out after the #MeToo campaign – first ignited by the Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein’s alleged sexually abusive behaviour towards female actors – spread worldwide with women sharing their experiences online.
In Denmark, where a 2012 survey found 80% of women had experienced some form of sexual harassment since the age of 15, the average answer among men was 31%.
In the Netherlands – where a prominent conductor was recently fired due to allegations of sexual harassment – 73% of women reported being affected yet the average answer among men was 38%.
French men put the figure at 41% whereas the 2012 survey found that 75% of French women had been harassed. The survey was carried out just months after footage of Marie Laguerre being struck on a Paris street for responding to sexual harassment went viral.
France previously introduced legislation which include fines in an effort to combat sexual violence in the country.
In the US, where a 2018 poll found that 81% of women had experienced sexual harassment at some point in their lives, American men’s average answer was 44%.
Meanwhile we get a Yale philosopher – a man – expressing bewilderment that there are feminist women who are gender critical.
https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1070036831234940929
https://twitter.com/jasonintrator/status/1070038865732341760
Yes, we got that…every time he said it. Methinks he doth protest too much.
Funny how a man can fail to understand why women are concerned about having male-bodied people in women’s safe spaces. After all, he almost certainly is not concerned about female-bodied people being in male’s spaces. Hey, no danger, amirite? So what’s all the fuss about? But…he takes no stand.
It interests me the number of women I meet who discount sexual harassment. I’ve met a significant number who, when discussing the sort of issues we talk about here, will respond that they’ve never been harassed.
Never had men call out sexual obscenities as you pass?
Never been touched or groped in a sexual way by a stranger or person you did not want to be touched/groped by?
Never had your sexuality questioned when rebuffing a sexual advance?
Never been passed over for work promotion given to a less qualified male?
Never been paid less than a similarly qualified male doing the same job?
Never been talked over or had your ideas rejected, then suddenly approved when a man says the same thing?
Never…
All of a sudden they say “Oh yeah, that happens all the time, but I didn’t think of that as sexist or harassment.”
A friends daughter (young teen) recently asked why people cared if you had boobs. I’m guessing she’s recently experienced her first comments.
As for Jason, not much of a philospher…
Rob, my son, now 35, recently told me he had learned from female friends all the things they have to do to ensure their safety. He was shocked. I’m sure he saw me do those things, take those precautions, but it never sank in, because it was just the things Mom did. They weren’t things Dad did, but when you see it all the time from someone, it just becomes normalized. These things are so normalized we don’t recognize them. I didn’t recognize it as sexist when my algebra teacher in high school never called on me, even though I knew the answer. He never called on any of the other girls, either. He had a good old boys club going with the guys, and we all saw it and didn’t think much of it or realize how it was affecting us. Do you know how surprised I was in college to learn that, not only could I do math, I liked it?
I told my therapist I had never been abused or harassed (I was about 27 then). He listened to the descriptions of my life and asked me “Are you sure?” I started to see things with new eyes.
Iknklast, as is often – ok, usually – the case I agree with you. I’ve learnt the vast majority of what I understand about the issues facing women from talking to, reading and debating with women. Ok, a bit of thinking as well. Being raised by a solo mother under very difficult circumstances undoubtedly helped in my awareness that thee was something to learn. I don’t think it is ever to soon to start talking to kids about this stuff frankly.
This is why anti-feminists hate descriptive surveys (the ones that describe behavior and then ask women if they’ve experienced it), rather than terminology-based ones (have you ever been raped, have you ever been sexually harassed)? The numbers skyrocket when you take the descriptive approach, because so many women have been taught for so long that it’s only rape if you’re caught on the street by a stranger (and even then, what were you wearing, and why were you alone?), and it’s only sexual harassment if the guy actually verbally demands sex AND overtly threatens your job if you don’t comply.
Which is the basis of all sexual-harassment training I’ve been forced to attend at every job I’ve ever had.
It would be a lot clearer if the quote included just what ‘question’ the men were answering.
On first reading, it could have been that they were reporting on whether they had experienced harassment, rather than estimating how common harassment was for women.
iknklast: My most recent HR-mandated company training was a bit better–it actually included scenarios like the boss pressing a subordinate to smile more, or accept off-color humor by her co-workers, etc. But yes, it’s been damned slow in coming, and I doubt that it’s remotely being addressed in, say, MBA programs.
Has anyone else seen the ‘heat-map dress’ thing? Someone implanted a bunch of sensors in dress that fed data back to a computer screen in a back room, and had a couple different women wear it into a club. At no point did the women ever consent or invite being touched, and often aggressively told men to not touch them. And yet, by the end of the night, a good portion of the dress was ‘glowing’ on the heat-map. Guys who’d been asked ‘how often do you think women get groped’ prior to the experiment (and answered pretty much like the article above) were floored when they saw it.
Of course, it was easier to believe, then, because it was men showing them the screen, with technology to support it. So much easier to understand and believe than a woman simply telling them, “This shit happens a lot.”
Freemage, another thing is that it seems hard for men to believe that women are getting touched “there”, and that not getting touched “there” (most men I know can’t even say the word in the presence of a woman) is not a problem. “What, he touched her knee? Big deal! That’s just ordinary contact.” My answer back to that is: “And how many times have your colleagues touched your knee?” The answer, of course, is none, because it is rare in a work setting that you need to touch anyone’s knee…or fanny…or chest…or arm…or hair…or anything much else. And no, one person touching my knee over my entire life probably would not set off any sensors, but by the thirty-dozenth time it’s been done? It’s really gotten on my nerves, and I am ready to slug someone. The men who have touched me against my will should be glad I was brought up to be a “lady”, whatever the hell that means (I do know, from my grandmother, that a lady would never say whatever the hell).
I’ve had this discussion a lot with male colleagues over the years who insist that while sexual harassment undoubtedly happens, it doesn’t happen here wherever ‘here’ happens to be. Those few men who have been (quietly, of course, but everyone knows it) put on indefinite gardening leave for harassment are just outliers or proof that the system works and that sexual harassment is being properly dealt with.
In fairness, the various universities I’ve worked at have been better than most of the other places in terms of opportunities for women. In computer science, at least, it is entirely possible for women to reach the top. And they only have to work about 75% harder than men to do so.
Mrs latsot used to say that she’d never really faced any sexual harassment or discrimination but the more she talked about it, the clearer it became that – as others have said – she just thought of harassment as normal and that it didn’t count. Now she (properly) gets seriously angry when she sees it happening to other people. When she was newly qualified as a lawyer, one of the senior partners of her firm groped and kissed her at the Christmas party then clumsily made occasional propositions, even though he knew she was living with me. She didn’t think this was harassment at the time because she kind of fancied him. The same firm had a strict dress policy for women but no policy at all for men. It had an active policy against partners taking maternity leave, even at a time when most of the partners were women. To her great credit, all these things changed in about the first week of her becoming a partner there. She turned up to her first partners meeting wearing trousers which genuinely cased shock and outrage. I wasn’t there, of course, but I like to imagine monocles popping out and cigars being snapped clean in twain.
Iconoclast @ #3
Wait until those female friends tell your son at what age the sexual harassment by grown men starts. That will be another eye-opener.
Oh screw you, autocorrect. What do you know about spelling people’s internet-names.
JEEZ, autocorrect, do you pay any attention AT ALL?