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So, last week, pretty much at random, I came across a relative stranger complaining about sexual harassment. From a guy I know.
My first thought was "Wait, really?"
My second was "Actually, that is pretty consistent with what I've seen of his behaviour around women"
And I had this moment when I stopped and was struck (as I have been before) of how hypocritical it is for me to talk about standing up for what's right etc when there are so many people I'm on good terms who consistently behave in a horrible way(*) to other people (but not me) That while I may make a token bleat of complaint every now and then when people say or do objectionable things, it's always in a non-confrontational way, and I back off if they get too narky, making me in some ways more complicit with their actions than those who say nothing.
But after angsting for a bit...I got over it and moved on.
And then it happened again. Different guy. Different stranger. Different context. Same complete lack of surprise or disbelief.
Which just...argh. Enough is enough.
So, I don't know what I'm going to do about it. For a start I'll try harder to learn not to collapse in a heap when in a confrontational situation, but I think I need to suck it up and learn to let people dislike me.
I'm not going to say who either of them are because
(a) That would be wanky and cowardly, unless I was willing to confront them about it in private and let them defend themselves, which I'm not (yeah, ok, so I am still pretty cowardly)
EDIT:Also, please no speculation in the comments for similar reasons.
(b) I like the idea of letting anyone who reads this and thinks I might be talking about them stew(**), and making everyone else think about the issue in general rather than focussing on individual cases (especially given the fact that you may be quite happy to confront those particular guys, but have other people whose crap you put up with)
So if you are reading this, and you know your behaviour makes women uncomfortable, and you do it anyway? And you can think of several women who might rant to strangers about the way you harassed them? Stop it.
There's no "Or I'll.." after that. Stop it because it's wrong.
And if you know guys like that, or other people who act in ways which make those around them miserable, and you put up with it...why do you put up with it?
And if you don't, got any tips on how to deal with the fallout? :)
EDIT: A few things:
1) Something people have pointed out which I ignored was the fact that speaking up can get you in a mess of trouble, not just from the guy being a bit rude, but from all his friends if noone agrees with your interpretation, and maybe even physical danger etc depending on context. All I'm saying is that even when it is safe and we know other people agree with us, we still say nothing, and that is bad. But other times? Saying nothing may be your best bet.
2)I'm not saying we should 100% ostracise everyone who does an individual horrible thing. Everyone screws up sometimes.. That said, just because someone is mostly nice doesn't mean we should let individual bad actions slide, even if we don't like the person making the accusation etc.
3)I'm not talking about guys who make everyone around them miserable by accident. I do think they need to be confronted, but in a different way. Though as![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
strangedave points out, a lot of skeezy guys are in denial about just how unpleasant they are to be around, so the distinction isn't very clear.
Also, in my experience fandom/unisfa's overall approach is to ostracise/pick on people who do socially unacceptable things (the same way they would treat someone who was just really annoying) which
(a) Doesn't always make it clear to the person why they're being excluded, and easily blurs into cliqueyness (ie standards are higher/lower based on the person's popularity and likability)
(b) Doesn't do much good if the person brazenly ignores the social pressure, since people often don't actively stand up to individual actions.
In my opinion people need to stop the vague teasing etc, and decide as a group that certain kinds of behaviour aren't acceptable in a given context (the unisfa room, swancon, someone's house or lj etc), and if people persist then kick them out unless/until they're willing to stop.
Second cowardly act: I've been feeling intermittently bad at answering email etc lately, so I may be crap at comments for a bit. But I needed to get this off my chest before I lost my nerve. Also, it hopefully goes without saying that I may not be my usual patient self with people who start ...crap in the comments.
*hopes I am not setting myself for a buncha flames*
(*)Sexual harassment is totally not the only issue where this comes up, mind you, it's just the one that was really driven home to me recently
(**)Though I know that if I was a guy I'd be the sort to be automatically paranoid that this was somehow about me, even though I wouldn't fit the description I just gave. So to such guys I say: sorry for the uncertainty, hope it's not too stressful, it's ok, I don't mean you :)
My first thought was "Wait, really?"
My second was "Actually, that is pretty consistent with what I've seen of his behaviour around women"
And I had this moment when I stopped and was struck (as I have been before) of how hypocritical it is for me to talk about standing up for what's right etc when there are so many people I'm on good terms who consistently behave in a horrible way(*) to other people (but not me) That while I may make a token bleat of complaint every now and then when people say or do objectionable things, it's always in a non-confrontational way, and I back off if they get too narky, making me in some ways more complicit with their actions than those who say nothing.
But after angsting for a bit...I got over it and moved on.
And then it happened again. Different guy. Different stranger. Different context. Same complete lack of surprise or disbelief.
Which just...argh. Enough is enough.
So, I don't know what I'm going to do about it. For a start I'll try harder to learn not to collapse in a heap when in a confrontational situation, but I think I need to suck it up and learn to let people dislike me.
I'm not going to say who either of them are because
(a) That would be wanky and cowardly, unless I was willing to confront them about it in private and let them defend themselves, which I'm not (yeah, ok, so I am still pretty cowardly)
EDIT:Also, please no speculation in the comments for similar reasons.
(b) I like the idea of letting anyone who reads this and thinks I might be talking about them stew(**), and making everyone else think about the issue in general rather than focussing on individual cases (especially given the fact that you may be quite happy to confront those particular guys, but have other people whose crap you put up with)
So if you are reading this, and you know your behaviour makes women uncomfortable, and you do it anyway? And you can think of several women who might rant to strangers about the way you harassed them? Stop it.
There's no "Or I'll.." after that. Stop it because it's wrong.
And if you know guys like that, or other people who act in ways which make those around them miserable, and you put up with it...why do you put up with it?
And if you don't, got any tips on how to deal with the fallout? :)
EDIT: A few things:
1) Something people have pointed out which I ignored was the fact that speaking up can get you in a mess of trouble, not just from the guy being a bit rude, but from all his friends if noone agrees with your interpretation, and maybe even physical danger etc depending on context. All I'm saying is that even when it is safe and we know other people agree with us, we still say nothing, and that is bad. But other times? Saying nothing may be your best bet.
2)I'm not saying we should 100% ostracise everyone who does an individual horrible thing. Everyone screws up sometimes.. That said, just because someone is mostly nice doesn't mean we should let individual bad actions slide, even if we don't like the person making the accusation etc.
3)I'm not talking about guys who make everyone around them miserable by accident. I do think they need to be confronted, but in a different way. Though as
strangedave points out, a lot of skeezy guys are in denial about just how unpleasant they are to be around, so the distinction isn't very clear.Also, in my experience fandom/unisfa's overall approach is to ostracise/pick on people who do socially unacceptable things (the same way they would treat someone who was just really annoying) which
(a) Doesn't always make it clear to the person why they're being excluded, and easily blurs into cliqueyness (ie standards are higher/lower based on the person's popularity and likability)
(b) Doesn't do much good if the person brazenly ignores the social pressure, since people often don't actively stand up to individual actions.
In my opinion people need to stop the vague teasing etc, and decide as a group that certain kinds of behaviour aren't acceptable in a given context (the unisfa room, swancon, someone's house or lj etc), and if people persist then kick them out unless/until they're willing to stop.
Second cowardly act: I've been feeling intermittently bad at answering email etc lately, so I may be crap at comments for a bit. But I needed to get this off my chest before I lost my nerve. Also, it hopefully goes without saying that I may not be my usual patient self with people who start ...crap in the comments.
*hopes I am not setting myself for a buncha flames*
(*)Sexual harassment is totally not the only issue where this comes up, mind you, it's just the one that was really driven home to me recently
(**)Though I know that if I was a guy I'd be the sort to be automatically paranoid that this was somehow about me, even though I wouldn't fit the description I just gave. So to such guys I say: sorry for the uncertainty, hope it's not too stressful, it's ok, I don't mean you :)
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