… I did not advocate harassment claims merely if a person feels slightly uncomfortable. There are very real boundaries for harassment and rape.

Explain, please, why you qualify the word “uncomfortable”. A lot of (actually quite minor) disabilities have effects that make some people a lot more than “slightly” uncomfortable.

… perhaps you could explain how disabled people really are more likely to be at risk of false harassment suits?

You conflate two issues here. In relation to disabled people (I apologise for the slip where I wrote “men”), I wrote that making discomfort a basis for harassment puts them (us) at risk. That risk does not simply include allegations of harassment (I accept that some disabilities make certain people genuinely uncomfortable), but getting excluded from the workplace completely. After all, if a worker can allege harassment simply on the basis of personal discomfort (at any level), it doesn’t make sense to bring a person with Tourette’s syndrome, or any one of several other neurological variations, into the workplace.

As you wrote above, harassment and rape have actual boundaries. A subjective sense of personal discomfort with another person does not constitute a breach of those boundaries.

As for false allegations, you have already acknowledged that these violate both ethics and the law, and I have nothing more to say about them. I want to clarify the definition of harassment, not raise the bogey of false allegations, except to say that it doesn’t do to make excuses for them.

And your concern about diasbled people doesn’t seem very genuine…. With no proof yourself that anybody has ever made accusations of harassment against disabled people for such a reason.

Kindly avoid making assumptions about what I can and cannot prove, can and cannot document, have or have not actually experienced. And once again, my concerns do not involve the hazard of specific accusations against people with disabilities. If we allow “discomfort” to creep in as a standard for harassment, then we will exclude and marginalize people who make others uncomfortable.

Why no concern about how the OBC is treating these people…

Aside from anything else, because if the standard (discomfort) for harassment exists, then a lot of disabled people will never get their foot on the bottom rung, never have a chance for a mentor at all.

…of course, discussion about any group is actually about men.

No. Discrimination against the disabled affects disabled women as much or more. And while the paradigm defines harassment as something men do to women, general discrimination against the disabled hurts women just as much.

Harassment is something that carries an emotional impact. It does not leave physical scars or marks (That would be assault, on top of harassment). If you can suggest a way of discussing harassment and alienation without mentioning the emotional impact, go ahead. Emotions are a large part of the marginalisation of any group - both in the reasons behind that oppression, and in the opressed group’s reaction.

Again, and for the last time, l’m going to point out that I did not advocate harassment claims merely if a person feels slightly uncomfortable. There are very real boundaries for harassment and rape. People do NOT file harassment suits simply for feeling a little queasy. For a start, people are pressured to minimise their discomfort in the work environment and play nice, and this is especially the case for minorities. They are NOT encouraged to complain, or taken seriously when they do.

This thread was also about alienation, something that is not as obious as secualised comments, but is much more subtle. It can’t be actively legistlated against, and nor was anybody calling for it to be. The post was originally about the many small ways in which women (and others) are discriminated against by the persistence of the OBC, through being made to feel unwelcome, not being chosen, having to prove themselves more capable, and also including harassment.

Since you’re so concerned with being rational (as oppised to emotional. Only them wimmin folks are emotional, and they just accuse everyone of harassment for looking at them crooked!), perhaps you could explain how disabled people really are more likely to be at risk of false harassment suits? Because I can’t see that happening. That’s not to say that disabled people don’t face problems in the workplace, they do. But in the face of the very real problems they definitely face (lack of provisions for them, colleagues keeping a distance, suspicion about their health state),

Funnily enough, it is pretty convenient that a lot of misogynists use that very same defense. ‘I don’t hate all women, but this one? she’s a real bitch!’. Ignoring someone’s arguments and explanations when they don’t suit you (how exactly are my definitions of harassment or rape different from ‘the usual’?), and insisting that they’re too emotional for you to address, IS using a technique often directed at women to silence them and discredit their opinion.

Also, sorry, but you don’t get a ‘get out of jail free card’ on a feminist blog. There’s no reason for anyone to assume you’re not a misogynist since most men are, to varying degrees, and you have done nothing to differentiate yourself from them. From what we’ve seen on this post, all you’ve done is try to change the topic about discrimination against women and minorities to focus on the poor men. If you derail a topic that is NOT about false allegations, you place the much rarer problem of false allegations as being much more important than the real allegations, or the many that are never made. You bring the focus from the oppressed to the oppressor. And your concern about diasbled people doesn’t seem very genuine.

Because apart from the fact that the topic was not about them, you only seem to care about discrimination against them if it’s women making some false harassment allegations because they felt vaguely uncomfortable. With no proof yourself that anybody has ever made accusations of harassment against disabled people for such a reason. Why no concern about how the OBC is treating these people, when that’s what the topic is about? Not to mention that there are many women of colour and disabled women, which are even more vulnerable to alienation and harassment. But of course, discussion about any group is actually about men.

Instead, you bring up this irrational fear (and I’m being emotionalistic?) that if women are allowed to complain, they will complain about even the stupidest of slights. Even when people have explained again and again what behaviour really constitutes harassment. In short, you reduce women to idiots, or at best, angry irraitonal creatures ready to ruin some poor man’s reputation for no reason. This does not bear out in real life. Whilst it would be impossible that no women make false allegations, this is not going to be a significant enough number compared to the number who are harassed and don’t report it, or who do and don’t get taken seriously.

I don’t think we’re going to aagree, and you’ve ignored most of what I’ve said, and dismissed the rest as emotionalistic, so I’m not planning on continuing this discussion, unless something actually relevant is said.

Anyhow, Tim, sounds like a good plan, but not an easy one. I hope more men have the courage to take it. Chareth, spot on. We won’t make progress on the harassment front until more people examine their viewpoints.

As a young female professional in a profession where mentoring is often key, I’m actually pretty sad about your unwillingness to move beyond “cool professionalism” with your female colleagues. I understand you have first-hand experience with an allegation of sexual harassment and that comes to bear on your perception of the issue, just as it would if you had been a target of such harassment, but I strongly urge you to consider the flipside of your risk analysis. Ok sure, a female colleague has the option of going to HR and accusing you and that accusation could very well damage your reputation. But have you thought much about what happens to that female colleague at all? Some people might believe her, at least enough to warrant investigation into the matter, sure, but others are bound to discount her story, even if it’s true. If we’re talking anecdotally, I’ve seen instances where women have been subjected to some pretty heinous behavior from male superiors but been hesitant to report it for fear of looking like a complainer at best, like an out and out liar at worst. No one wants to be the one to take down super popular successful male partner, especially when it’s going to be his word against yours. Sometimes these women get blacklisted–clearly not fired, but given the cold shoulder by management to induce them to leave. A reputation for reporting sexual harassment follows these women from job to job and their careers can just as easily be damaged, if not ruined. I just think you should give more consideration to the incentives and disincentives women have for reporting sexual harassment. I really do think the risk of reporting outweighs any potential damages award in a lawsuit for most women.

I’m not a man, so I can’t speak from the perspective of being worried all that much about being accused of sexual harassment when I didn’t intend any impropriety, but it honestly doesn’t seem all that difficult to determine where the line is between friendliness and sexual harassment. There may be that outlying tiny percentage of women (really, of people!) who would be offended by things that everyone else would not, but they are just that–outliers! Think about how much the workplace would benefit from a more balanced power structure–how many great ideas a female colleague would bring to the floor if she climbed to the top? Think about how much less you would have to worry about being falsely accused if your work environment was simply less likely to be unfriendly to women? I guess it’s too much to expect that some men would be willing to give up one tiny sliver of perceived security from litigation in order to further a more equitable workplace environment. *sigh*

Hugo,
This was a great post, thanks so much for writing it.

Great post. Thanks.

I am sure this is not easy for everyone to do because I suspect most guys who do it, do it to fit in, to be accepted, and to advance their careers. Allow me to make an observation from my own experience: To be relatively immune from the Neanderthals, you may need to be better than the rest in terms of your job skills. If you are so good that the firm or company will appreciate you for what you are, you won’t feel so pressured to join in their nasty games. They will leave you alone, and you will be appreciated by the women AND men who don’t buy into their crap. Perhaps men who think as we do are like the young women who’ve had to work harder to be better than the men, just to keep their place in the company.

And perhaps someday you will be the older guy in the office and you can set an example for the young men that sexism is immoral, that everyone should be treated the same, because people are people. That’s the best thing you can do for young men.

I should not have to add this either, but making the point that one particular person has stated an argument in vague and emotionalistic terms does not mean that I either regard all women as overly emotional, or that I regard the usual definitions of rape and harassment as based on emotions.

Your comments to Anne….

“Your vague emotionalistic comments…” and “First of all, defining the issue in terms of feelings and what “en don’t know”, rather than reasonably objective standards of behaviour…” is judgmental, dissmissive, minimizing and very offensive. Let me be clear…it’s very difficult for women to prove a man forced himself on you…when other workers don’t stand up for fear of losing their job….happens every day and far more than false allegations. You do a great disservice to women by minimizing their valid concerns as vague and emotionlistic because you fear they’re too emotional to demonstrate reason or logic. It’s easy for men, especially CEO’s to divert attention away from themselves by trivalizing women as whore’s and “too emotional” in response to unwanted sexualized behaviors.

I tried to make it clear that I was focusing on the problematic dependance others have on these stereotypes, and how that affects women, both those who are good at ‘manly’ things, and those who aren’t. Sorry if it was unclear.

Ah, the emotional uppity women.

I don’t see why it would threaten disabled men. Like I said, it’s not about some vague feeling of unease, and I did agree that some vague discomfort is not a strong enough feeling to be titled ‘harassment’. Harassment requires the harasser to actually DO something to the woman that she finds degrading (which would also make her feel uncomfortable), such as staring at her chest and making lewd remarks, touching any part of her body against her will, pressuring her to sleep with him when she has said no, throwing sexualised slurs at her and disctiminating her on the basis of her sex. Discomfort is an important part of harassment, but it’s not the only part, and assuming that women need men to define what is acceptable for them, lest they all start accusing every man who catches their eye of harassing them is disingenuous and infantilising of women. Women who complain take a lot more than a little discomfort to snap and turn whistleblower.

Furthermore, women’s vaginas don’t have to be equal opportunity employers. If a woman doesn’t want to sleep with or be addressed in sexual terms by any man, whether he be black, disabled or any other kind, she has the right to it. Even if her reason for not sleeping with them are based in racist or ableist thinking, they don’t owe sex to anybody, and assuming that coloured men, or disabled men should somehow deserve a free pass is rather odd.

Women don’t normally make accusations of any sort lightly, and you don’t see a huge spike in the number of disabled men being accused of harassment. Though I agree women may be conditioned to be more afraid of black men than white, their being present is not any more likely to lead to an accusation of harassment, because in general women know that harassment is not simply feeling a bit uncomfortable.

You’re worried because at heart, you can’t trust that women have enough reason to be able to tell the difference between somebody calling them a ‘frigid cunt’ if they complain about their behaviour, or if somebody sticks a hand up their skirt, and feeling a bit uncomfortable because a man seems a bit off. Let me tell you, in a society where we are taught to fear rape (for good reason), women are always on edge. Since we don’t go accusing every second man we meet, I think we can prove we aren’t the silly little emotional cretins you take us for.

You also might not be able to prove he put his hand up your skirt, or that he forced himself on you (he’ll just say you like rough sex, and the jury will believe him because you wore red underwear that day so you must have wanted it.). There are a lot of non-convictions because of lack of evidence. There are also lots because people always assume the woman must have consented, even when there is evidence. That’s not forgetting that the defence get to pick their jury, and here in the UK they tend to get away with picking all 10 men (out of the 10 men and 10 women they can choose from), and 2 women to sit. My point is that the jury may often be blind to what evidence does exist. Not to mention the fact that the police don’t take allegations seriously.

The fact is, helieving that HE in particular must be the person who commited the crime, and believing that the crime probably took place are different things.

You can worry all you like about the poor men and how there might be a one-in-a-million chance of some woman making completely false allegation out of the blue, for no reason. It’s your choice. I’ll worry about the very real everyday problems millions of women worldwide face.

For example, your use of the term “manly” to describe topics of conversation may well refer solely to the intent of the men involved, but the way you actually worded it suggests that some topics actually do belong to men. And I have dealt with enough feminists with a vague hostility to technology and a willingness to abandon the field of technology to men, that, well, that bothers me. So I want clarity. If you really consider technology and so on “manly”, then say so, and we can argue about that. If you don’t, then please say so clearly.

Your vague emotionalistic comments on harassment and rape worry me even more. First of all, defining the issue in terms of feelings and what “en don’t know”, rather than reasonably objective standards of behaviour does threaten disabled men, just as it has threatened racialized men in the past, and may well threaten them today. That has nothing to do with “false allegations”, by the way; when you define an offence in emotional terms, the truth or falsity of the allegations involved will remain forever unprovable and unproven.

When you speak of “manly” topics, that feeds into certain stereotypes. That some men rely on these stereotypes to limit, belittle, and exclude women doesn’t change that. I consider it perfectly possible to condemn stereotypes without ever buying into them in any way.

Can you? Without mentioning them at all? without admitting that many people DO buy into them? Without trying to analyse where they come from? Without trying to help those that DO follow the stereotypes and get hurt? Tell me, how can you condemn a stereotype without mentioning it exists, and that enough people believe it and follow it to be a problem? It’s as useless an approach as ‘I’m colourblind to race’. If you can’t admit how stereotypes are prevalent, and how that harms people, how people follow them, how exactly can you engage in discourse about them?

Let’s talk numbers, for a second, or at least relative proportions. False reports are believed to be a relatively minute proportion of rape or harassment reports. Futhermore, very few cases get to court, and many fewer get any kind of conviction. The evidence needed to convict makes it relatively unlikely that somebody will be wrongly convicted (considering many that were not false won’t get that far!).

Wrong convictions and false allegations happen for all crimes. It’s regrettable. As I said, I agree women who make false allegations are harming women as well as men.

But the truth is, teaching men to not be assholes would decrease the incidence of harassment, because men would be clear about what constitutes harassment. Sure, diehard rapists wouldn’t change, but I don’t think that’s the majority of them. I think that a very large proportion of men really don’t know how to get consent in a meaningful manner, and what women consider is an appropriate way of interacting with them. Not meaning to rape or harass doesn’t mean you haven’t hurt someone, and isn’t an excuse, but the best way to teal with this is to encourage men to be cautious.

I can’t be sure that a man who says it’s not true didn’t do something, even if I belive he believes what he did wasn’t harassment (or rape) in a society where a lot of men really don’t have a good idea of what either entails. If you take a fairly decent bloke who just isn’t sure how far to go, erring on the side of caution may prevent an incident where the woman feels she is being harassed, (or was raped), which he may not have seen as such. things aren’t black and white, and a lot of people just don’t know (or care) where to draw the line. Encouraging men to take a look at their attitudes

As for completely false allegations, made up of some desperate revenge attempt, you’re mo more at risk of one of harassment than one of vindictively burgling their house, or petty theft. Yes, people sometimes accuse others of something they haven’t done, but I don’t see any way of decreasing the incidence of false reports that wouldn’t have a much more damaging effect on those that are true. In short, whilst it’s very wrong for some five percent of women who make allegations to lie, should I be more concerned about the relative minority of people affected by that, or the 80% or so of rape or harassment victims that aren’t believed?

Also note, I said ‘probably’, because whilst I admit you can be perfectly decent and get accused of something, it’s quite rare. I wasn’t trying to suggest that only sleazebags could get falsely accused (and all men deserve to be accused!), rather that such an accusation is relatively infrequent. And that to my mind, his opinoion may have differed with hers as to what constituted the issue.

Will we have any true idea of how many rape/harassment allegations are false, and how many are unproved? I have no idea. They are wrong, and if it truly is a false allegation then by definition the man does not deserve it. But whilst rape and harassment remain much more damaging, and much more frequent than false allegations, I can’t personally justify worrying more about the events that are the least likely, and least serious.

And if you are a slimy sleazebag (aka rapist), then the allegations would be true. and even if you have reason to worry about them (they enver do, anyway, or they wouldn’t do it), I’m not gonna lose any sleep over hurt feelings.