#MeToo Must Start Making Distinctions

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

As the laws now favor women, more and more men are just gonna go their own way. Women will be replaced by sex bots and they can fix their own cars and toilets. It’s already happening.

I’m sure women can fix toilets and cars if they need to, and I’m equally sure some already can. Sex dolls already exist and are very real-looking, though most overdo it in the tits and ass are. However, the have mouths, vaginas, and anuses that are functional for sexual purposes, though I’m sure not nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

[UnseenParticipant]

Simon Paynton wrote:

I agree that his offences seem to be on the mild part of the spectrum, but the whole spectrum of unwanted attention is unacceptable.

Sure, the whole spectrum is unacceptable, just like assault and battery. But in the case of assault and battery, punishments (at least ideally) try to fit the harshness of the crime, recognizing that there’s a big difference between a harsh verbal assault and clubbing someone to a pulp with a bat (baseball or cricket, take your pick).

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

You are using anecdotes for the most part. How about prostitution laws? Women are getting arrested far more often than men. How about abortion laws. Sure if it is a contest between the father and mother…dad says have the kid and mom says no the mom is gonna prevail unless there is a violation of an abortion law. But there has been a tendency since Roe v Wade to erode women’s right to abortion. I can’t imagine the law would be so controlling if the baby producers were men. I practiced law for fifteen years and did some family law which utterly sucked. Seems to me that best interest of child is something most judges are following with a bias in favor of mom getting custody. All things being equal it is less likely a man will receive an award of alimony from his wife. Property settlements are usually fair. Women sometimes get hosed cuz they can’t afford a lawyer and the husband can. So yeah there is a residue of paternalistic protection of women. It is a result of men viewing and treating women as subordinate. No surprise and consistent with unjust social hierarchy, historically women have been at a disadvantage. Primogeniture favored male heirs. Women got raped and men raped with impunity. No vote. Disadvantages in inheritance laws. etc. So if in some instances the tides have turned and women have some advantages it is turnabout.

Some people argue that males make better single parents for several reasons.

“…across a variety of assessments of psychological well-being (self-esteem, anxiety, depression, problem behaviors), children (especially boys) did significantly better in the custody of their fathers. Moreover, children in father custody had the advantage of maintaining a more positive relationship with the nonresident parent, the mother. These differences in children’s well-being were not eliminated by statistically controlling for the custodial parent’s psychological state and adequate income or the child’s contact with the nonresident parent—other variables that also predicted children’s well-being. No same-gender advantage was found for girls in mother custody. For these children, well-being was predicted by close ‘parentlike’ contact with the nonresident father—participating in a variety of activities and spending holidays together.” (source)

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

There are studies that cut in either direction.  I would say they are fairly worthless unless it is to counter a presumption in favor of mom having custody which dad has to rebut.  The rebuttable presumption standard is unfair.  Each custody dispute ought to rest on the merits of the parents and best interest of kids.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

It is moved to the next level of stupid.

“Male and female student have a drunken hookup. He wakes up, terrified she’s going to file a sexual misconduct complaint, so he goes to the Title IX office and beats her to the punch. She is found guilty and suspended.”

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

Surely the two students could have laughed it off and forgotten about it, at the start.  I don’t really understand why they freaked out, unless it is because of the repressive hot-house atmosphere on campus.

[UnseenParticipant]

As a generalization, I think single mothers tend to want to be “friends” with their children. Single dads will tend to be more into discipline. And before you respond by telling me that’s just a generalization that doesn’t necessarily apply to any particular instance, remember that I’ve already admitted as much.

[Daniel W.Participant]

My personal take, which is highly personal…

When I was about 21, I was an undergrad working in a science lab.  One of the grad students asked me to proof-read her dissertation with her.  She brought it to my place to go over it.  During that reading, she literally jumped me, started pulling off my clothes.  I was not the least bit interested, but wanted to keep the job, and thought being male it was expected that I should do the deed, and I did it even though I felt kind of grossed out about it.  At the time I was naive and lonely, and that was more than 40 years ago.

In my 30s, I was working in a computer lab at another university.  The woman in charge of that lab, in her 50s, would “supervise” me by reading my programming work over my shoulders while I was sitting at the terminal.  She would press her breasts against the back of my shoulder.  This happened several times.  I was embarrassed, figured she was unfulfilled and just left it at that.   I liked her as a person, she was very nice in many ways. It never led to anything and in fact I kept that job for several years.  Mostly, I regarded it as awkwardness.

In my 50s, I was working at a clinic where an obese RN would use her body mass to “accidentally” push against me, including with her breasts, in the somewhat narrow hallway.  It never happened with anyone else.  She was kind of psycho, stalking me by being at my house when I went home from work.  I complained about her, and she finally left the job or was fired, I’m not sure which.

A few years later, 3 women where I worked filed complaints against me to my boss.  It was a very high stress job, an office that was about 80% women, and there was rife backstabbing and gossip.  What saved me was that our work was all highly supervised and documented with many performance measures, and I was very diligent.  The complaint about me was that I looked unhappy (I was, I haad 2 parents dying of cancer & Alzheimers at the time) and they were of the opinion that unhappy man = shooting people at work, and said they were worried I would “go postal”.  Which means, they thought I would murder my coworkers.  The only risk of that, is I am male.  The only outbursts at work, in face, were women yelling at people, not the men and not me.  This got bad, I threatened lawsuit for defamation, provided documentation of my work, demanded documentation of any complaints against me (there were none), and demanded transfer to another office.  I got it, one of the women was fired, one demoted, and one died of an convenient cancer (I don’t believe in karma but I wasn’t unhappy about it).  I did have another occasion when a male colleague made a false complaint against me, and again I depended on documentation to vindicate myself.  It’s a dog eat dog world, whether the dog is male or female.

I had many, many good experiences and opportunities over my career.   These are only a few things, and I don’t usually dwell on them.  We are at a juncture where mistreatment of women is justifiably being taken seriously, but it’s in a context of, almost, women are victims, men are predators, and all of the bad things are sexual.

Of all of those, the most traumatic event, the one that gave me PTSD, and was career – changing, was the backstabbing episode, which was completely nonsexual, but women were the instigators against me, a man who was well meaning, and hard working, diligent, and helpful.   Some breasts pushing against me and an unwanted episode of coitus just didn’t bother me.  I was grossed out, but that’s all.

So I look at MeToo, and I think, yes, there is a lot of bad behavior.  Maybe most, by far, of it is men.  But it’s not all sexual, not all being frat boy obnoxious, and some is women doing it when they have power too.  People in power can be assholes, regardless of gender.  I am against abuse of power, by men against women or vice versa.  But the fact is, women are not always  innocent victims, and not all men are predators, and not all abuse is sexual, and sometimes, abuse that is  completely nonsexual is worse than some of the things going around about men just being jerks, or awkward, or whatever.

[Reg the Fronkey FarmerModerator]

I was recently asked over lunch at work, by a male, in the company of 2 other men and 4 women as to what behavioural changes I might consider making towards women in light of the #MeToo movement. I replied with an emphatic “None”. This was met with blank stares by the women and some “tut tutting” by him and nods of disapproval by the men.

I think he was trying to impress one of the women in the group when he then said “Well I will be making efforts to improve myself. I think it is important to take the movement seriously. Very seriously. One of the biggest women’s problem today is violence against them and we men should do our part in help them out.”

I glanced at the 3 women who were trying not to roll their eyes.  Nope, I reiterated, I will not be changing my attitude. I intent to treat women with the same level of respect as I have always done.  However if you need to change the habits of a lifetime then please do so.

[Daniel W.Participant]

@regthefronkeyfarmer, so what the guy was saying, was he would no longer commit acts of violence against the women he works with? Did they compliment him on his commendable change of behavior?

[UnseenParticipant]

Daniel W. wrote:

I had many, many good experiences and opportunities over my career.   These are only a few things, and I don’t usually dwell on them.  We are at a juncture where mistreatment of women is justifiably being taken seriously, but it’s in a context of, almost, women are victims, men are predators, and all of the bad things are sexual.

Men ARE predators. We are a predatory species and save for the fact that we get our prey in a relatively automated fashion, we’d be out there impaling our prey on arrows or spears or chasing them into pit traps where they’d fall down onto sharpened stakes, or driving them over a cliff, or whatever. We are predators. It’s in our genes. If women are victims, they are certainly less so now than when we were drawing stylized bisons or outlines of our hands on cave walls. There could be no courtship before there were courts after all. It’s a romantic notion. Now, Neanderthals were far more sophisticated and intelligent than we’ve given them credit for in the past, as we’re now discovering, but I don’t think they went out on dates, and when a male wanted to spill some seed, I doubt if his chosen got to say “No, I have a headache and I have to get up at 5 tomorrow morning.”

• This reply was modified 6 years, 4 months ago by  Unseen.

[.Spectator]

Have I mentioned that Jordan Peterson is my new hero? I think he nails it here: sane women need to stand up for men. And sane men need to stand up to women who are out of line. That’s what I’ve been saying is this entire metoo movement is the most toxic thing ever to where it’s actually having a devastating effect on women. It’s hurting all of us. It’s horrible. I hate it with a passion.

 

[.Spectator]

*for women against men who are out of line*

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@regthefronkeyfarmer – OUCH!!!  lolllll

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

@belen – we have to remember that Peterson is faced with crazy Social Justice Warriors as part of his job (of being JP), so his view of “crazy” people in general is very skewed compared with most of us.

When do most of us come into contact with people who are off their heads, or at least, angry?  Not too often probably.  The last time I was faced with a raging woman, I just stayed polite and stated my case, and ended up walking away.

One thing I noticed on mental wards is that women’s wards regularly “kick off” big time while men’s wards tend not to.  Presumably it’s more “costly” for men to do so.

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