Anyone ever heard of Rebecca Watson?

So what would a "fake phone number" have accomplished, since he wasn't asking for her number?Your comment really was a strange non-sequitur.

I don't necessarily have a problem with her being creeped out in the elevator. Or even that she suggested that men not proposition women in a confined space late at night. Everyone has their own comfort levels.My understanding, however, is that RW also stated that what elevator guy did was sexual objectification and therefore, misogynistic. She added to this by stating that while attending these sorts of conventions, she was being constantly harrassed by atheist men. If she did in fact state this, then I have a problem with it. Granted my skepticism arises through my own experiences as a woman working in a male-dominated field, but I think it's fair and reasonable for me to do so.In my experience working with and attending multiple conferences attended primarily with men (where public drunkenness occasionally ensues) over the last 20 years, I can honestly say that my experience has been overwhelmingly excellent. The men I work with come from a variety of economic levels, education levels, races/ethnicities, religious and non-religious affiliations, and parts of the country/world.So far, there have only been a handful of instances where I felt uncomfortable and these three men came from different economic, racial, and education levels. And I've gone out to dinner, lived in hotels, driven out to the middle of nowhere, and drank alcohol with these men. If they were going to behave poorly, those are surely the conditions in which to do so. Other than the one driller who prank called me every day for three weeks straight, I have never felt threatened or scared to hang out with any of the men I've worked with.That's not to say that suggestive, sexual, and generally inappropriate discussions do not happen. Or that I've never been propositioned. Of course they do. And I have. We are adults and a large proportion of those adults (male AND female) are looking to get laid. It happens and it's mutual. Humans are highly sexual beings as a result of millions of years of evolution that have programmed us to be that way -- and no doubt we are slow to change (evolve) and adapt to new cultural norms. But I don't think we need to go so far as to accuse men of objectifying women or being misogynists because of these natural attractions.At this point, everyone's probably thinking, yeah, but maybe you are so ugly no one would want you anyways. lol I'm average looking and fairly tomboyish, so I'm not everyone's type, but I've never had a problem attracting men.It's possible that I've been extremely lucky or that men in the mining industry just happen to be more polite than your average atheist man or that work colleagues will behave differently than recent acquaintances/strangers, but I have a hard time believing that. That's why I remain skeptical of RW's claims and intentions.

The context starts at like 3:30, but the elevator guy anecdote crops up at about 4:30 That's wonderful news. But, your personal experience isn't data (and of course this applies to RW too). A more interesting question might be 'what percent of men and women have encountered some problem at conferences/wherever and is there any way for people to deal with these situations?' But surely there should be social boundaries in place. Maybe being propositioned in a bar is acceptable - as long as it is not persistent in the face of unwelcomeness. On the other hand, is propositioning a woman in a lift at 4am something that should be acceptable?I think its fair to suggest to men that, given their imbalance of power in this regard, they should try understanding how their 'quarry' might feel about the situation in the context. Being propositioned by a stranger at 4am in a closed space with only one exit, can be unnerving to some people - and I think its fair that men be aware of this possibility before diving in with an oblivious sense of entitlement. I agree. Although it seems calling people misogynist has become the in thing to do, and anyone and everyone seems to get caught up in advertising their non-misogyny or otherwise defending against the same claims.That said, there are some people who seem to be pretty obnoxious when it comes women or feminism. You don't have to have been 'extremely' lucky. The amount of women who have been sexually assaulted is quite high. This article reports on this survey which has just less than 1 in 5 women as reporting having been raped.

quote:

---

Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and
1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United
States have been raped at some
time in their lives, including
completed forced penetration,
attempted forced penetration,
or alcohol/drug facilitated
completed penetration.

---

I expect the number of women having experienced groping, or intimidating persistence or what have you must be higher. So I can well understand that a large number of women, might be feeling nervous about my presence especially when we're alone and she has few options to leave.

Of course. It's anecdotal, no question about that, but I do feel my experience gives me a little bit of insight into how men and women interact during those sorts of events. However, as you stated, this applies to RW's claims as well.What is the percentage of women who have faced what RW claims to have happened to her at the atheist conventions? There are boundaries already in place and the vast majority of men follow them. There will always be those few who will not, regardless of how loudly anyone complains. And most of them pay the price for not following *the rules.* That's how society works.Besides, what is bothersome to one woman will not be bothersome to another, and therefore any sort of proclamation that lists what is and is not acceptable pick-up behavior would be so huge as to essentially prohibit all men from speaking to all women. Sure. Make the attempt to not be creepy stalkers. But again, one woman will be creeped out by an elevator proposition and the other will appreciate the compliment. No different than opening a door for a woman. One will appreciate it, the other will cuss you out. Just be a nice guy. I am familiar with the statistics. I've also not been immune to what happens to women in this world outside of my professional life, but I'm not the type to live in such a prison the rest of my life. Much of where the problem lies as far as assaults go, is between men and women who are acquainted. And those are the ones that go un-reported.This is certainly a problem that requires a concerted effort to remedy. But for the time being, unless you intend to become a woman, women will always feel that little prick of unease when they meet you for the first time, whether it be alone at 4 am or noon on an elevator. It doesn't matter if you look like Samwise Gamgee or Alan Moore. The fact is, either one can hurt you. The only way our opinion changes is when we get to know you better. And even then it doesn't always work out in our favor, unfortunately.Is that something men can change today? No. Is it something that can ever change? Probably. Likely. I honestly don't know. We are the product of millions of years of evolution. It's not going to be easy... unless you have a working version of Pax.

I may be completely wrong here, but I see the overtly violent responses to her reaction as being on the lines of "we'll give you something to really cry about". That is, being hit on in an elevator is nothing compared to the actual real rapes and murders that do go on every day.

I think almost everybody's experience of attending events of whatever kind will observe that men generally behave themselves. I am not aware of any formal study done in this area. There are a number of cases that have been spoken about by bloggers and vloggers regarding questionable behaviour around (usually) women. From memory, the cases are a little more harassing than RW's case, which was just something that made her feel uncomfortable, and I've not heard or read her saying that she thinks it entered into the realms of harassment. Just a sexualization of her in a worrying situation. Unfortunately, while the vast majority of men follow social boundaries much of the time, there are still plenty of men that push the boundaries, and unfortunately too many that simply ignore them as convenient.I think it is charitable to assume that some of this may be down to an education issue ('Guys don't do that'), which has lead to many discussions (though a great deal of heat is produced to the light generated, in my opinion) about what is appropriate behaviour.It won't work in every case, some men are wilfully clueless, others are actually misogynistic. I don't feel like looking for examples, and the one that I remembered could be argued as not being 'truly misogynistic', but I think it reflects on the issue. Here is a quote: **Unpleasant Content hidden, use peek to view**
(source)And, in talking with a rape victim: **Unpleasant Content hidden, use peek to view**(source) I'm not sure that's true. It might be. But many certainly don't pay the price. Most rapes go unreported, and few that do end in a conviction.I think something like groping, or intimidatingly persistent and vocally unwelcome sexual advances would be even less reported.Of course, a guy that acts jerkish in public, is likely to feel at least social penalties for his actions. But I think there are way more jerks that manufacture plausible deniability than not. We already have boundaries, as you say. Committing them to a list won't make them any bigger than they already are.It might be that some women enjoy being propositioned in lifts, but if a significant number of women feel significantly unneasy or fearful in that situation, maybe the ethical thing to do is to find somewhere else to make your proposition - as most women will accept propositions in places other than lifts. I think the nice thing for a man to do, is to make one's propositions in the bar where the girl is near a social group that can offer her protection. I didn't mean to imply you were ignorant of these matters, but getting them written down seemed important to the discussion.I think it's fair to expect men to consider the context before making their 'move'. When a girl is on her own, in a foreign country, at 4am, on her way to bed, in an enclosed space, is not a winning combination. And, on a somewhat unrelated note - what kind of idiot calls a notorious feminist 'interesting' and then runs the old 'fancy a coffee?' line on her? The term the feminists seem to be using to describe this is Schrodinger's Rapist. We can't change women's point of view, but we can choose to modify our behaviour once we discover it.

I agree with everything you've written.I hadn't read anything regarding Schrodinger's Rapist before. I couldn't disagree with much, but I would add that some women will be more paranoid and others less.

"Woman possibly propositioned in elevator. Not many raped"It reminds me of the T shirts worn by the extremist feminists in the 70s "All men are rapists". The women that wore those shirts genuinely had no idea what damage they were doing to their cause or how much it alienated the men that supported it.

They still exist, too. It would be funny, if it weren't so disturbing.

Is that your understanding because that's what her detractors have said she said? I would caution you not to ascribe to Rebecca Watson any words except those which you have heard from her own lips or pen, since her opponents are usually just flat-out lying about her remarks. When, specifically, did she make this statement? So what you're saying is that you've never felt threatened or scared to hang out with any of the men you've worked with except for the man who made you feel threatened and scared to hang out with him.Isn't it a bit of an issue that it happened even once? As a man in the leans-female field of biology, do you know how many times I've been threatened by or harassed by female colleagues?Not even a single time. I don't consider that some kind of amazing achievement on my part; I consider that the bare minimum of working in civilized society. Is there some reason you don't? You know what, though? Adults know the difference between when they're flattering the subject of their attentions by stating their sexual availability, and when they're enjoying the delicious sensation of power from making the subject of their attentions feel threatened and diminished. Nobody calls someone every night for three weeks thinking that's a charming way to break the ice. They do it because they're thinking "that stupid fucking bitch, she thinks she can say no to me? I'll show her." He's sitting there, getting a charge just from the notion that someone else is huddling by her phone thinking about him because she's scared of him. And it's not being "naive" or a "feminazi" to say "that's not right." Did you attract them by making them feel scared inside their own homes? No? You're saying it occurred to you that that would be a pretty terrible way to actually get laid? Then why would you assume that it doesn't occur to men? Your own experience, as stated by you, seems to bear them out. You've just decided to join with the rest of society in saying that when a man decides to derive pleasure from terrifying women, that's not a big deal and nothing to get upset about. But don't you kind of think it should be?

I guess, but then why do public women who aren't saying anything about elevators getting the exact same messages? How do you explain the treatment of Sierra Bates, for instance?

Are you sure that there was even one such t-shirt worn by an "extremist feminist"? My impression has always been that the "all men are pigs" wing of feminism is largely the invention of its detractors, in the same way that nobody actually urinated on troops coming back from Vietnam (but they were spit on, as it turns out - almost always by right-wing supporters of the Vietnam War angered by the progressive views and permissivity of the young people sent to fight in it.)

I've seen forum posts by actual feminists of this nature. Their reaction to misogyny is to jump straight into female-supremacy and male-demonizing. When I'm in a place where I can access what are essentially hate speech sites, I'll see if I can dig up an example or two.Never doubt the depths of madness and hatred to which human beings will descend.

Oh, well, forum posts!As you'll recall, though, I asked you about t-shirts. I mean, are you sure we want to start characterizing entire groups by what people claiming to be them are saying on the internet? I suspect you might be shocked by what we could find young, white males, or perhaps even your demographic, saying on the internet. What is misogyny if not male-supremacy and female-demonizing? In your opinion, why is turnabout not fair play in this situation? With so many voices advocating for a diminished role for women - and with real political power behind that view - why is it so unreasonable to have a handful of voices advocating for the reverse?

Well this was from a while back, but it illustrates Tangle's point.Baltimore SunPlastering the campus with posters with the names of current male students as potential rapists is a bit extreme don't you think?