Justin pointed out to me that he’s continued commenting at Andrew’s blog entry, and I see that Andrew says he didn’t block me from commenting there. The last time I tried, it didn’t work, and I didn’t try again — so it was probably just a temporary technical glitch.

Andrew has said a few things in that thread that I think require additional comment, though:

I don’t view Eric or Billy as intellectually honest. Both seem unwilling to engage others’ ideas or give compelling representations of objections to their views. [...]

I’m not saying that Eric didn’t misunderstand, but, as you can tell from his response and the entire Twitter feed, he is entirely focused on me as a person and my character, not the things I say or the arguments I advance, which is why I know it’s pointless to have a discussion with him. But, this is willful ignorance in my view.

I take acccusations seriously. The reason I commented on his blog post in the first place was to explain and retract my accusation that he’d disingenuously put words in my mouth, despite the fact that his Tweet plainly read that way. Typos happen.

I wrote the blog entry above for two reasons:

First, to counter his accusation against me that I had insulted his personal integrity — a claim that I think is false for the reasons elaborated above.

Second, to explain why I’m not engaging his ideas — because I’m not interested in them. For those who know us both, that’s never been a secret, and I’d have told him the same in person if he’d ever asked. That may constitute willful ignorance, at least regarding additional elaboration of Andrew’s views specifically, but I do think it’s honest. Time is a limited resource, and nobody has time to engage everybody’s ideas. There has to be a bar, and Andrew’s ideas don’t meet my bar. That’s all.

One more thing:

Eric put words in my mouth when he said that I was trying to draw some lesson from the Kling post, something I never did, and that I was wrong about that lesson. All I did was tag him with a hyperlink and ask him for his thoughts. As I mentioned in my last comment, I didn’t offer any opinion on the Kling piece.

True enough, although I know Kling’s conclusion about merit pay has some overlap with Andrew’s own stated views about merit pay, and assumed that’s why he shared the article, I have no reason to think Andrew drew any lesson at all from Kling’s piece. Sorry about that, Andrew.

Some genius decides to make some money. He goes to the police department and says “I will raise $1 million for your fraternal organization’s orphaned children fund this year if you let me use the name of your organization when collecting donations.” They say yes because it’s a million more dollars than they would have had otherwise. Then the genius gets some office space, a script, and a whole mess of phones and computers and pays min wage plus commission to workers whose only skill is speaking english. Oh and he gets a whole mess of phone numbers from somewhere. Then the high school dropouts read the script after the auto-dialer does it’s thing and make you THINK that you are interacting with a policeman, or a fireman, or anyone who will be taking care of the community or it’s most disadvantaged members. And enough people actually pledge to pay (and get like a sticker for their car’s back window or something) that the genius spends 9 months out of the year in the Caribbean. Yes, it is nice work if you can get it, but don’t worry about saying “no” to that police officer low life on the other end of the phone line.

I probably conflated two issues that really didn’t need to be conflated. I guess I find Watson’s self objectification offensive only in the context that she is all of a sudden a tried and true feminist telling men not to objectify her. It’s the hypocrisy I’m after, here. I couldn’t care less about men and women objectifying themselves in anyway they wish.

Though, I do believe there is an economic component, here. People very often describe me as cold, intimidating and unapproachable. Other terms like ‘nerd’ and ‘geek’ are also thrown about. This has always puzzled me and in some instances, really upset me.

I have come to realize, however, that I kind of project myself as cold, intimidating and unapproachable without even knowing that I’m doing it. In fact, I quite think I’m the opposite of all those things. I cannot, however, blame anyone who approaches me or describes me as such. That’s more my problem than anyone else’s.

My second point (not brought up by you, but it’s been something I’ve been thinking about) is this: Men often approach other men under the same set of circumstances for the same thing. More discussion and coffee. I’ve had it done to me. I’ve done it to others. Even the qualifier “Don’t take this the wrong way” is used, for exactly the same reasons. “I’m not gay, I’m not hitting on you”, in this case.

So, it seems to me that this is equatable behavior. Which is problematic. I think many men empathize with the elevator guy for this very reason. Sure, ‘coffee’ could mean ‘sex’, but it could just as easily actually just mean ‘coffee’. That Watson and others automatically just assume ‘sex’ seems rather sexist to me.

So, do we treat women the same we would treat other men in the same situation (based on context) or do we treat them unequally because of their gender? This is a rather glaring double-standard, no?

Anyway, just some thoughts I’m working on.

I’m making a concerted effort to empathize with the people (mostly men) who disagree with me on this thread. I’m coming to understand that when many men aren’t getting what some women are saying on the topic, they aren’t feigning ignorance, they really don’t know.

A few days ago I chatted with a female friend (45) and her husband about this specific internet debate. They have a close relationship and he’s a very empathetic person. When I mentioned the “sometimes we don’t like getting hit on issue”, he turned and asked her “Is this really a problem? How much does it happen?” She said “Happened yesterday at the grocery store.” A few minutes later, I asked her “So, it’s less scary being hit on in the grocery store in the daytime than in a hotel late at night when no one is around, right?” She said “Actually I was at the grocery store at 11pm. The guy behind me in the checkout line hit on me and then, as he was buying only one item, walked out a minute after her, following in her footsteps. She’s a petite woman, and I think she feeling a bit wary as she loaded her groceries and heard his footsteps come up behind her and then pass by. (Note, a lot of parking lot caution and alley and elevator caution is from fear of mugging, which some how dropped right out of the online fighting.)

I want to state that I believe the feminist behavior request actually is “don’t hit on women in elevators if you are a stranger”. While some or many women may feel cornered when inside an elevator, I don’t think there’s an absolute rule for a pair of people who have been chatting that they can’t proposition each other. For me, a proposition from a person who I *do* know a is less startling and less unwelcome than one from a man I haven’t ever spoken with.

I understand that many men would not feel threatened by a proposition from a woman in an elevator or off of it. Because my husband has a higher sex drive than I do, I get the idea that most men do not think too much sexual attention could ever be a problem. (I can hear a chorus of voices exclaiming “Now that’s a problem I’d like to have!) I’m sure I lack empathy about how unpleasant the problem of not enough sexual attention is. (I’m trying. And I’m not dismissing the idea that this IS a problem and it sucks). But I admit that if a male conference attendee had blogged about how crappy the conference was because a low percentage of the men there who wished to get laid had any success that weekend, yeah, my first reaction just might have been amusement and light mocking.)

I didn’t really like the argument that I heard during the flame wars that being afraid of all strange men in elevators was misandrist. However, I did try to stop and consider that it might be true. It’s almost an empathy failure on my part. It is really hard for me to grasp what that would feel like to be assessed as a potential rapist. My experience in this area is far removed from a man’s experience. The analogy about fear of pedophiles at the park was a good “consciousness raiser” for me on this topic. (My husband, as a teacher, was trained to never talk to a student alone with the door closed because of the twin risks of abuse and allegations of abuse. This rule applied to teachers and students of both genders.)

It’s great that you referenced Phil Plait. He’s the first person that I saw said “potential sexual assault” to describe the brief elevator journey. I really feel that with that phrase he poured gasoline on the fire and the flames became an inferno. When I first started reading the thread, I figured that Rebecca’s expression of “extremely awkward” meant what I would have felt. Thoughts like “What can I say? How’s he going to react?” Is he going to badger me or (instinctively) loom over me to scare me when I piss him off?” “Will he follow me down the hall to my room?”

I’ll admit that I’m probably somewhat misandrist in assessing men in elevators who want to have sex with me when I don’t. I’m of average height for an American woman. My teenage son is my height right now, but is substantially stronger than me. I looked at the bell curve for men’s heights and 96% of men in this country are as tall as I am or taller. If I assure you that I’m not intimidated by the men who are shorter or frailer than I am, can I get off the hook on the misandry charge and just be a “sizist”? I’m not afraid of all men, just wary of strangers who want sex. This could just be a lack of social skills; I got married young and never got skillful at graciously rejecting men who really don’t want to be shot down. (Being thoughtful when exhausted is also difficult for me.) I identify with Rebecca’s feeling of awkwardness in the situation. He had some time in the bar to craft his pickup line. She had to improvise her response on the spot. Unless she’s hit on a great line that “works” all the time. (Some men will argue with “I’m married. And monogamous.” which are my “go to” phrases for the situation. And I’d start with just “Sorry, I’m married.” But I’d be slightly aggro’d that the dude didn’t ask me whether I was married back in the bar and save us both a bad elevator ride situation.)

The bottom line may be that a lot of people go to conferences who don’t usually go to bars.

That’s not hard to accept at all, once the statement is fixed. Here. Let me help you out. “What is so hard to accept about being told ‘don’t go up to SOME women in a confined space and invite her to sex at 4 am, it’s creepy’”.

I mean, I assume you didn’t mean to speak for all women when you wrote that, as any rational person does not make unfounded, sweeping generalizations, right?

Yes. If you don’t get that, then you really aren’t understanding anything we are talking about. And I think your ignorance is willful.

Yes. The boys socialized to be ‘macho’ because it’s bad for them to be anything less because then they’d be ‘feminine’ are indeed victims of the patriarchy.

We’ve said this multiple times. It’s not a hard concept. And yet…you’ve deliberately failed to grasp this concept. Why?

What is so hard to accept about being told ‘don’t go up to a woman in a confined space and invite her to sex at 4am, it’s creepy?’

Why are you having such a problem with this concept?

Seriously?

Have you ever been to this website? http://www.ihollaback.org/ Look at these stories. This is what the average woman has to put up with. Why are you shocked that we’ve finally reached the point where we are saying, ‘look, guys, enough, please, stop it’.

You aren’t being honest here. And so, to answer your question:

“So, who’s the person with privilege, here?”

You are.

Shoutout to reddit.com/r/skeptic

One of the strengths of our organisation is that it is not overtly political. Skeptics come from all over the political spectrum. The one thing we ask for is evidence. Modern feminism is the opposite in every way, Ms. Watson appears enraged that anyone would dare ask questions. We should have started asking questions a long time ago, but it’s never too late.