Has the #MeToo movement become a witch-hunt to a significant degree?

[Xantippe]

That’s not a fair interpretation of a very complex situation. Fewer men defect from North Korea because they have less opportunity. The men are mostly stuck in the Army where there is little opportunity to sneak over the border. I think the last defector was shot several times. The women work in service jobs in foreign countries, where they have a better chance at defecting without getting a bullet in the back.

I wasn’t blaming men for not defecting, just using the female defector numbers to argue to SuperLuigi that women do not submit to oppression as readily and happily as he thinks we do.

 

[Xantippe]

Harassment, assault or rape are not aspects of “incompetence and negligence.” They are sins of commission, not omission nor lack of competence.

They can be.

For example, my husband is a professor. For a professor or a teacher, part of being competent is having good boundaries with students, which includes not having inappropriate relationships with students. That sort of relationship can be extremely detrimental to the well-being of the student, which would be “incompetence and negligence” from the professor or teacher. The same goes for sexual harassment or rape–it’s detrimental to the well-being of the young people under their care.

The same applies to many people who have professional responsibilities to young people or other vulnerable people (the elderly, the disabled, etc.).

Someone could be very competent and very well-suited, ability-wise, for a job, but may have some unjustifiable though psychologically understandable prejudice against another race. That does not entail they are not “well-suited.”

Being a concierge or other customer service worker is about polite service. Being rude to the customer (however unintentionally) is failing at at least 50% of the job. And yes, there are other jobs that aren’t as taxing in terms of the demands on social skills as customer service.

I can go literally years without hearing a racial slur in real life–avoiding racial slurs is not an unusual achievement.

 

[Xantippe]

(2) “An awful lot” means enough that it’s something women think about when they meet a guy who questions ideas of consent - because there are bad men out there and many of them think they’re perfectly ok guys who are just acting how they have to act to manage the irrational behavior of women.

Right–from their point of view, they are just doing what they have to do to get what they want and deserve.

The cause of Rape or sexual assault is not because America (or similar) is not based on catholic values/catholic society. A person doesn’t have to be Catholic to understand the law of “decency”.

Yep.

Now you can move to addressing the problem @DarkLight has with “focusing too much on what…[she sees]… as negative” regarding men. Can you get her to agree?

As a matter of fact, both DL and I have been emphasizing that being rape-y isn’t actually normal for men, rapists are generally a small (but active) minority, and that part of safety for girls and women is teaching them that Not All Men Are Like That, so that bad behavior will register as a danger sign, rather than just being seen as the price of admission for dating men. That’s pretty darn positive in my book.

It’s the other side that argues that all men need to be treated like rapists all the time or the woman is being careless of her safety.

Edited to add: I think it’s also a positive thing to tell good men what bad men’s patterns of behavior are, and to encourage them to try to be more distinct in their behavior from bad men.

 

[HarryStotle]

It kind of seems like you’re trying to make my words mean the most horrible awful thing you could possibly make them mean, rather than what I actually said under a standard interpretation of the english language.

Ah, yes!

You now have grasped the “kind of seems” impression I’ve been having all along in this thread.

I’ve written one thing and it “kind of seems” to have been completely reworked to mean something else, entirely.

 

[Mi_Rose]

Nope I can add. Read my comments.

 

[Lea101]

I’ve written one thing and it “kind of seems” to have been completely reworked to mean something else, entirely.

…like what you have been doing to me and others here…?

 

[HarryStotle]

As a matter of fact, both DL and I have been emphasizing that being rape-y isn’t actually normal for men, rapists are generally a small (but active) minority, and that part of safety for girls and women is teaching them that Not All Men Are Like That, so that bad behavior will register as a danger sign, rather than just being seen as the price of admission for dating men. That’s pretty darn positive in my book.

You mean as in what a Pareto distribution model would predict?

It’s the other side that argues that all men need to be treated like rapists all the time or the woman is being careless of her safety.

Perhaps what was being argued is that Pareto would predict that if a woman dresses or makes herself up to look provocative she can expect to draw that attendant kind of attention because dressing that way is a stronger magnet for that kind of men. As in, how did you word it, “a danger sign?”

Edited to add: I think it’s also a positive thing to tell good men what bad men’s patterns of behavior are, and to encourage them to try to be more distinct in their behavior from bad men.

So treat men like idiots who don’t know and can’t judge good behaviour from bad and as morally tepid or cowardly because they also need “encouragement” from women to act decently?

Perhaps you are projecting your own lack of confidence with regard to being a “confident” woman – you know, the kind for whom cosmetics and apparel are necessary to bolster confidence?

And then you wonder why your opinions are being treated with just a touch of cynicism, as if women’s role in all this is merely to set all men straight – either regarding their bad behaviour, or their cluelessness about bad behaviour, or their moral timidity.

Why not just go with the Pareto model on all of those and assume the large majority of men don’t need “fixing?”

It might resolve, oh IDK, say 90% of the illusive problem.

Perhaps the real problem is that too many men have listened to that kind of advice and have contorted themselves trying to please vocal women’s views and the social propaganda against men. Which is why we have feminist men like Trudeau thinking they are – and are being promoted like they are – the paragons of manhood. I’ll go with Pareto on that one, too. The assumptions about men in the media and in many of the posts upthread are largely delusional.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

How are these points NOT all textbook examples of some faulty generalization or composition fallacy?

Probably because your take-away isn’t actually what I said.

Yes, but each is fully consistent with what you said. That is the problem with hasty generalizing.

 

[pensmama87]

The thing is, men DON’T know.

My husband was flabbergasted when he asked me why I carried my keys between my fingers when I walk to my car in a garage or at night, or when he cracked a joke about women going to the bathroom together, and I explained why. I’m not paranoid, but they’re habits I learned young to stay safe.

(Though, #metoo, and go figure, it was a “friend” I thought I could trust.)

My husband is far from stupid. But men and women are different and he’s never been fearful of being attacked. So yeah, I told him about it. And we’re in agreement on how to teach our boys (we have four sons) how to show girls and women that they are safe and trustworthy, and to not stick up for men who aren’t.

 

[DarkLight]

So treat men like idiots who don’t know and can’t judge good behaviour from bad and as morally tepid or cowardly because they also need “encouragement” from women to act decently?

I think @Xantippe’s argument was best exemplified by the discussion upthread of taking a woman for a hike on the first date. Some guys think it would be romantic to be just the two of them. They’re not ill intentioned. But it’s a first date and the woman likely doesn’t know that yet. And a man who intended her harm would do the same thing, trying to get her alone.

Women often find themselves in a double bind, where men will get insulted and accuse them of being negative and misandrist when they take precautions around men they don’t know. The man knows he’s not a rapist, why would a woman consider such a thing? Yet women are taught to be careful around strange men, because they want to avoid being hurt and it’s been drilled into us since little girls to be careful.

Yes, but each is fully consistent with what you said. That is the problem with hasty generalizing.

Lots of things are consistent with other things. So unless you mean something else, I’m not sure what you’re getting at. The mere fact that none of what you said was contradictory to what I said doesn’t mean a whole lot.

 

[HarryStotle]

Even a blind pig finds an acorn, once in awhile.

Ah, yes, but the enduring question is: Can you put lipstick on that blind pig and increase her confidence level while she is looking for that acorn?

 

[HarryStotle]

The mere fact that none of what you said was contradictory to what I said doesn’t mean a whole lot.

It also means you didn’t say a whole lot because if what you said is consistent with pretty much everything else that can be said, then your propositions are too general to convey much in the way meaning.

 

[DarkLight]

It also means you didn’t say a whole lot because if what you said is consistent with pretty much everything else that can be said, then your propositions are too general to convey much in the way meaning.

No, no it doesn’t.

You have a name based on Aristotle, you should know that. For any given statement, many, many statements will be consistent with it.

If I make the statement “not all men are rapists”, that’s consistent with any of the following:

“No men are rapists”
“All but 1 man is a rapist”
“Exactly 50% of men are rapists”
“All men who have had sex are rapists”

That doesn’t mean that there’s not much meaning conveyed by “not all men are rapists”. It means the space of statements you can make is really, really broad.

 

[HarryStotle]

The thing is, men DON’T know.

Except we weren’t talking about what men know about why women behave as they do. We were talking about men knowing what it takes to be a man.

Granted, with the high frequency of family breakdowns as they are, the rate at which fathers abandon their offspring, the numbers of women choosing to parent alone, the influence of third wave feminism and the effects of post-modernism/moral relativism on the education system, the social constructs that helped men become men have thrown much of what ordered society and sustained productive human interaction into disarray.

I wouldn’t blame “men not knowing” for all of those. I suspect we all share some of the responsibility, some more than others.

 

[HarryStotle]

HarryStotle:

It also means you didn’t say a whole lot because if what you said is consistent with pretty much everything else that can be said, then your propositions are too general to convey much in the way meaning.

No, no it doesn’t.

You have a name based on Aristotle, you should know that. For any given statement, many, many statements will be consistent with it.

If I make the statement “not all men are rapists”, that’s consistent with any of the following:

“No men are rapists”
“All but 1 man is a rapist”
“Exactly 50% of men are rapists”
“All men who have had sex are rapists”

That doesn’t mean that there’s not much meaning conveyed by “not all men are rapists”. It means the space of statements you can make is really, really broad.

Look at your listing of “broad space of statements” and extract from any of them a significant piece of data, one that is actually true, and then explain again why “not all men are rapists” is saying anything significant that adds anything meaningful to a discussion.

Feel free to contribute such broadly spaced but meaningless statements to a discussion, but then don’t be surprised when others doubt that you have actually made a significant contribution to that discussion.

Why not just keep “Everything is everything,” or “Everything is not nothing” copied to your clipboard and paste that into your posts? You will never be wrong, and always be speaking the truth, and be entirely consistent with a very broad space of statements.

No one will ever again dispute what you have said.

There will be general concord, and peace and friendship will reign on Earth. @starshiptrooper will return from his thousand year voyage through distant galaxies and #MeToo will usher-in the new Edenic paradise. You will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for your efforts. The DarkLight will shine in the heavens. Matter will merge with antimatter and a renewed universe will become a reality.

Don’t get your hopes up.

 

[PetraG]

Except we weren’t talking about what men know about why women behave as they do. We were talking about men knowing what it takes to be a man.

Granted, with the high frequency of family breakdowns as they are, the rate at which fathers abandon their offspring, the numbers of women choosing to parent alone, the influence of third wave feminism and the effects of post-modernism/moral relativism on the education system, the social constructs that helped men become men have thrown much of what ordered society and sustained productive human interaction into disarray.

I wouldn’t blame “men not knowing” for all of those. I suspect we all share some of the responsibility, some more than others.

I went to a university that was afflicted for a very short length of time with a rapist who targeted men. He would find men who were alone, push them into alleys, and commit sexual offenses against them.

All of a sudden, the men I worked with also had to find a friend to walk with them when they went across campus alone at night or they had to wait for campus safety to come and escort them. Before that happened to them, they did not know. When they had to think all the time what they would do if they were ambushed by a sex offender, though, then they knew. I am afraid that the women they worked with pretty much said this:

Welcome To My World. How Do You Like It?

 

[HarryStotle]

I went to a university that was afflicted for a very short length of time with a rapist who targeted men. He would find men who were alone, push them into alleys, and commit sexual offenses against them.

All of a sudden, the men I worked with also had to find a friend to walk with them when they went across campus alone at night or they had to wait for campus safety to come and escort them. Before that happened to them, they did not know. When they had to think all the time what they would do if they were ambushed by a sex offender, though, then they knew. I am afraid that the women they worked with pretty much said this:

Welcome To My World. How Do You Like It?

So are you going to advocate for all men everywhere to walk with a friend everywhere they go because of that one isolated incident? Or will you use evidence to determine the actual danger posed and to what extent action is required?

Or perhaps instead of moving about cowering with fear, what if some real men decided to form a band of “concerned citizens” to find the perpetrator and actually address the issue rather than surrender to that one individual the power to hold the entire community in fearful abeyance?

One of the pitfalls of maternalistic society is the prescribed approach taken to solve these kinds of problems. The maternal approach vs the truly paternal approach.

Perhaps, we’ve had enough of men patterning their behaviour after women – walking about in pairs and in fear – and instead return to noble male chivalry?

And just perhaps the reason women are so fearful is because of the feminization of men through years of maternalistic child care and the education system where boys are taught to be passive and inordinately restrained instead of being shown how to become men.

Maybe women fear or lack confidence because they need the kind of protection, against the 10% of men, that women generally cannot provide for themselves – which accounts for the rise of the nanny state. Just perhaps, NeoMarxists are not stupid – they know where the soft targets for initiating social change are hiding.

 

[Theo520]

I wasn’t blaming men for not defecting, just using the female defector numbers to argue to SuperLuigi that women do not submit to oppression as readily and happily as he thinks we do.

As a gross generalization I’d say the genders do respond differently, with men more likely to respond with aggression and women with more subtle forms of resistance. Which approach is better probably varies with the circumstances.

 

[pensmama87]

Well, I tried. You ladies are much more patient and/or stubborn than me.

 

[DarkLight]

Look at your listing of “broad space of statements” and extract from any of them a significant piece of data, one that is actually true, and then explain again why “not all men are rapists” is saying anything significant that adds anything meaningful to a discussion.

For any given linguistic statement, there are going to be infinite other statements that are consistent with it. So unless you’re arguing that linguistic communication is inherently impossible and nothing we say has any significant meaning, you’re going to need a new argument there.

Or perhaps instead of moving about cowering with fear, what if some real men decided to form a band of “concerned citizens” to find the perpetrator and actually address the issue rather than surrender to that one individual the power to hold the entire community in fearful abeyance?

How exactly do you propose men - or women, for that matter - do that? It’s not like the rapist is going to be walking around with a sign on his forehead that reads “I’m a rapist”. A given man can often be overpowered, and the rapist isn’t just going to come out and challenge a group. Your average man isn’t really better equipped to overcome a stronger or armed attacker than your average woman is - yes, even if he’s armed himself, unless he walks everywhere with a weapon drawn and ready. He’s going to need trained professionals to be able to figure out who the guy is and actually track him down and arrest him.