"I felt so bad for the first guy. Did he not know the rules apply to us, too?"
Do they though? The first time (and last time, you'll see why) I called out a coworker (who I did not even know was female, the company chat handles are based on first initial last name) for egregiously sexist remarks on a company chat service (something about how all straight men are misogynists in a desperate attempt to reclaim their precarious masculinity from their homophobic terror of being emasculated by being raped by gay men...) the only observable outcome was that I got dogpiled in the chat, she sent nasty emails to my supervisor and supervisor's supervisor, and I was the one investigated for misuse of the company chat.
I appreciate your advocacy for equal responsibility and a return to sanity. I also appreciate that you understand that is still currently aspirational in more places than it should be. Thank you for the article.
Thanks for responding, Steve, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. But it brings up a new question: Did you challenge anyone? The supervisors who got emailed about you? HR? Someone above the supervisors? I say this *not* to castigate you, but to probe a bit to see if a) Men don't always push it as far as it could go with complaints and b) Men are finding themselves in a place women were in not so long ago: Getting in trouble for complaining.
It's a sticky situation, because it can harm your career (welcome to our world, and I say that ironically, not sarcastically). Women have had to drive themselves to speak up more, and with MeToo, there's been a support network for them (sometimes abusived, but still quite helpful and necessary). I know during the Weinstein fuss there was for awhile on Twitter a HimToo, in which men and especially professional actors talked about the shit *they* had to put up with, mostly from other men preying on them but also women too. Maybe it's time to revive HimToo or start a new one. As I've always said, it's victims who have to drive the change and it's damned difficult...but you might be surprised how many allies you have.
You're right, it's aspirational right now. It was once for women, too........
I stood my ground on the matter as best I was able, but I'll admit I was stuck on the defensive. My supervisor's supervisor basically said "What the fuck is this!? Somebody deal with it" without even talking to me directly, my supervisor accordingly just chewed me out for causing an unnecessary problem and "unofficially" ordered me to stay off the company chat from then on, and the investigator spent most of his time trying to twist things into making a case that I had somehow wasted Company time and neglected my duties by being on the chat during my break rather than showing any concern at all about the inappropriateness of the topic I addressed. I received no responses at all to my questions about whether anything was being done about the other person. I had to prove over and over that my conduct was within all written guidance and policies, which I did (I've never been so glad that I read end user agreements), but it certainly wasn't fun dealing with rumors, getting treated as socially radioactive during the whole process, and having my next performance eval threatened. Precisely because I did manage to avoid any "official" action in the end, I also didn't have any realistic channels to appeal any higher. To this day I still don't know what positions the people I pissed off in the chat held, but they clearly had more pull in the organization than my section did. I finally took a transfer out of there to another location.
You might want to consider writing about that here on Substack. You'll find some sympathetic ears (and probably a few crazy chicks who can't stand seeing a man complain about *anything*) and you'll bring to light the problems men face in organizations skewed toward anything female (or LARPing female, whatever). Change can't come if the victims don't drive it, and these are issues that need to be discussed more, whether feminists like it or not. You can always do it anonymously if 'Steven' isn't anonymous enough. I'm serious. Do it!
"In fact, there isn’t enough actual white racism to go around, so 'antiracists’ have manufactured truckloads of ‘white supremacy’ so they have a reason to get up in the morning. It’s in your chocolate chip cookies! And traffic signals! Even Pokémon! Even water is racist! Don’t drink it or bathe in it or you’re supporting white supremacy!"
Brilliant! I am copying that whole paragraph to my notes, as I want to use it (with proper attribution, of course) in an essay that's been percolating in my head for months. Let me know if you want to approve it before I publish. I love every word of this piece -- so good!!
Agree. When I first heard the "Me Too--Believe all Women" troupe, I laughed. Yes, all women should be heard, and their issues considered and investigated, however, it's been my experience that women lie as often as men. As a boomer feminist it didn't matter much anyway because if you went to HR to complain about words and sometimes even deeds, it was highly unlikely they would do anything anyway. This environment required women in the workplace to be more discriminating on who was just being nice, and who had nefarious intentions. Also, to be good at gathering likeminded peers, to stand against these a-h@#!s. I'm not saying I agreed with the policies of that time, but I also don't assume bad intentions for every man who says you're pretty. Like so many other cultural issues of today, we've managed to make women's rights divisive and unhelpful to the cause. Shall we try for civility and sanity? BTW, as I was entering HomeGoods a couple of weeks ago, an older man with a dog said, "I was a pretty little thing," while I walked by. At 69, I was flattered, smiled and said, "Thank you," and then continued my shopping foray. Perhaps I should write about my feminist journey as part of the first year (1976) when women were commissioned from ROTC as an officer in the Army.
I think you *should* write about that. It would be quite interesting. When you say that you think women lie as often as men, do you mean about rape? I think there's a lot of rape lying going on with women too, but not the sort where they claim they were raped and weren't by a specific man whom they accuse. I've suspected a lot of rape lying since the rise of the #MeToo movement, but mostly on social media where they're not accusing anyone specific. I think a lot is women wanting the attention and the 'sisterhood' of being with fellow victims who affirm their victimhood status, so they lie vaguely and are often anonymous so they don't have to risk backlash. Another way I think women lie is to try and shut you up about something they don't like hearing by pulling a rape out of their ass. When I was younger, in the antediluvian '80s and '90s, friends and acquaintances who'd never mentioned a rape anymore suddenly frostily informed me, "I've been RAPED!" in an effort to shut me up about whatever power-feminist message I was talking about. It used to work in shutting me up for awhile but it happened so much I realized at least some of them had to be lying. So I'd start saying things like, "Oh really? You never mentioned this before. Why are you bringing this up now?" or, "Sorry to hear that, but what's wrong with what I'm saying?"
I can't say women aren't making life difficult for some men by making public allegations but not pressing charges - we've seen it on a few college campuses - but by and large, I don't think women are mass-alleging charges that actually damage specific men.
I wasn't speaking specifically about rape lies, but if they lie in general just as men, we can't unilaterally believe all women about rape either. And again, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard, taken seriously, and their alleged crime investigated. Sadly, it's all too easy these days to use rape! racism! misogynist! transphobe! as a cudgel to shut others down or do them harm. What frustrates me is that when using labels and accusations as weapons becomes commonplace, the folks hurt most are real rape victims or those who've truly been discriminated against. When a woman claims a rape from 20-years past, even if I understand how fear might have prevented her from coming forward at the time, there's little chance the crime can be proven, and it can easily destroy a man who's actually innocent. Don't know the answer other than encouraging women to come forward quickly, but this isn't working any better than my generation where women weren't believed unless they were riddled with injuries.
Well ALL people lie...I don't think anyone has the moral edge in that department. And yeah, I think rapes reported years after the fact are, well, anecdotes. Maybe they happened and maybe they didn't. Which is why we need to teach women, as hard as it sounds, is that if WOMEN want rape to end, we've got to stop waiting to long to report, especially after washing away the evidence. I know how hard it is to get taken seriously by law enforcement and how it can be hard to get a conviction...but I've also argued that there's still value in dragging a man through a rape trial because *his* life will never be the same, either.
I'd like to see the statute of limitations *reduced* on rape to discourage women from waiting too long. Like, make it a year or two. That's about 103.5 weeks too late but it beats five or six years. Make it clear to women - because the decision is *ours*, not men's, or the justice system's - that if WE want rape to end WE have to report promptly, and that means we're going to be fighting the justice system *first* to get it to do its job and investigate promptly. I wonder what would happen if court systems suddenly developed a spike in rape cases because of this?
I've written about how false rape allegations (the kind where you destroy actual men) are *just* as serious as rape, but it was awhile back. It's not not Substack, it's on my blog somewhere. I just pulled it up the other day as I've written something about false false rape allegations (i.e., the left and Hamas's sex crimes) but I cut out the stuff about male lives destroyed because it's irrelevant. But, one of these days a false rape allegation will become news again and I'll repurpose the old one further.
"I felt so bad for the first guy. Did he not know the rules apply to us, too?"
Do they though? The first time (and last time, you'll see why) I called out a coworker (who I did not even know was female, the company chat handles are based on first initial last name) for egregiously sexist remarks on a company chat service (something about how all straight men are misogynists in a desperate attempt to reclaim their precarious masculinity from their homophobic terror of being emasculated by being raped by gay men...) the only observable outcome was that I got dogpiled in the chat, she sent nasty emails to my supervisor and supervisor's supervisor, and I was the one investigated for misuse of the company chat.
I appreciate your advocacy for equal responsibility and a return to sanity. I also appreciate that you understand that is still currently aspirational in more places than it should be. Thank you for the article.
Thanks for responding, Steve, and I'm sorry you had to go through that. But it brings up a new question: Did you challenge anyone? The supervisors who got emailed about you? HR? Someone above the supervisors? I say this *not* to castigate you, but to probe a bit to see if a) Men don't always push it as far as it could go with complaints and b) Men are finding themselves in a place women were in not so long ago: Getting in trouble for complaining.
It's a sticky situation, because it can harm your career (welcome to our world, and I say that ironically, not sarcastically). Women have had to drive themselves to speak up more, and with MeToo, there's been a support network for them (sometimes abusived, but still quite helpful and necessary). I know during the Weinstein fuss there was for awhile on Twitter a HimToo, in which men and especially professional actors talked about the shit *they* had to put up with, mostly from other men preying on them but also women too. Maybe it's time to revive HimToo or start a new one. As I've always said, it's victims who have to drive the change and it's damned difficult...but you might be surprised how many allies you have.
You're right, it's aspirational right now. It was once for women, too........
I stood my ground on the matter as best I was able, but I'll admit I was stuck on the defensive. My supervisor's supervisor basically said "What the fuck is this!? Somebody deal with it" without even talking to me directly, my supervisor accordingly just chewed me out for causing an unnecessary problem and "unofficially" ordered me to stay off the company chat from then on, and the investigator spent most of his time trying to twist things into making a case that I had somehow wasted Company time and neglected my duties by being on the chat during my break rather than showing any concern at all about the inappropriateness of the topic I addressed. I received no responses at all to my questions about whether anything was being done about the other person. I had to prove over and over that my conduct was within all written guidance and policies, which I did (I've never been so glad that I read end user agreements), but it certainly wasn't fun dealing with rumors, getting treated as socially radioactive during the whole process, and having my next performance eval threatened. Precisely because I did manage to avoid any "official" action in the end, I also didn't have any realistic channels to appeal any higher. To this day I still don't know what positions the people I pissed off in the chat held, but they clearly had more pull in the organization than my section did. I finally took a transfer out of there to another location.
You might want to consider writing about that here on Substack. You'll find some sympathetic ears (and probably a few crazy chicks who can't stand seeing a man complain about *anything*) and you'll bring to light the problems men face in organizations skewed toward anything female (or LARPing female, whatever). Change can't come if the victims don't drive it, and these are issues that need to be discussed more, whether feminists like it or not. You can always do it anonymously if 'Steven' isn't anonymous enough. I'm serious. Do it!
"In fact, there isn’t enough actual white racism to go around, so 'antiracists’ have manufactured truckloads of ‘white supremacy’ so they have a reason to get up in the morning. It’s in your chocolate chip cookies! And traffic signals! Even Pokémon! Even water is racist! Don’t drink it or bathe in it or you’re supporting white supremacy!"
Brilliant! I am copying that whole paragraph to my notes, as I want to use it (with proper attribution, of course) in an essay that's been percolating in my head for months. Let me know if you want to approve it before I publish. I love every word of this piece -- so good!!
Yeah, I would just like to make sure it's in the proper context. I'm flattered that you want to use it ;)
That’s fair -- I promise to run it by you first if I quote you. Cheers!
Agree. When I first heard the "Me Too--Believe all Women" troupe, I laughed. Yes, all women should be heard, and their issues considered and investigated, however, it's been my experience that women lie as often as men. As a boomer feminist it didn't matter much anyway because if you went to HR to complain about words and sometimes even deeds, it was highly unlikely they would do anything anyway. This environment required women in the workplace to be more discriminating on who was just being nice, and who had nefarious intentions. Also, to be good at gathering likeminded peers, to stand against these a-h@#!s. I'm not saying I agreed with the policies of that time, but I also don't assume bad intentions for every man who says you're pretty. Like so many other cultural issues of today, we've managed to make women's rights divisive and unhelpful to the cause. Shall we try for civility and sanity? BTW, as I was entering HomeGoods a couple of weeks ago, an older man with a dog said, "I was a pretty little thing," while I walked by. At 69, I was flattered, smiled and said, "Thank you," and then continued my shopping foray. Perhaps I should write about my feminist journey as part of the first year (1976) when women were commissioned from ROTC as an officer in the Army.
I think you *should* write about that. It would be quite interesting. When you say that you think women lie as often as men, do you mean about rape? I think there's a lot of rape lying going on with women too, but not the sort where they claim they were raped and weren't by a specific man whom they accuse. I've suspected a lot of rape lying since the rise of the #MeToo movement, but mostly on social media where they're not accusing anyone specific. I think a lot is women wanting the attention and the 'sisterhood' of being with fellow victims who affirm their victimhood status, so they lie vaguely and are often anonymous so they don't have to risk backlash. Another way I think women lie is to try and shut you up about something they don't like hearing by pulling a rape out of their ass. When I was younger, in the antediluvian '80s and '90s, friends and acquaintances who'd never mentioned a rape anymore suddenly frostily informed me, "I've been RAPED!" in an effort to shut me up about whatever power-feminist message I was talking about. It used to work in shutting me up for awhile but it happened so much I realized at least some of them had to be lying. So I'd start saying things like, "Oh really? You never mentioned this before. Why are you bringing this up now?" or, "Sorry to hear that, but what's wrong with what I'm saying?"
I can't say women aren't making life difficult for some men by making public allegations but not pressing charges - we've seen it on a few college campuses - but by and large, I don't think women are mass-alleging charges that actually damage specific men.
I wasn't speaking specifically about rape lies, but if they lie in general just as men, we can't unilaterally believe all women about rape either. And again, that doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard, taken seriously, and their alleged crime investigated. Sadly, it's all too easy these days to use rape! racism! misogynist! transphobe! as a cudgel to shut others down or do them harm. What frustrates me is that when using labels and accusations as weapons becomes commonplace, the folks hurt most are real rape victims or those who've truly been discriminated against. When a woman claims a rape from 20-years past, even if I understand how fear might have prevented her from coming forward at the time, there's little chance the crime can be proven, and it can easily destroy a man who's actually innocent. Don't know the answer other than encouraging women to come forward quickly, but this isn't working any better than my generation where women weren't believed unless they were riddled with injuries.
Well ALL people lie...I don't think anyone has the moral edge in that department. And yeah, I think rapes reported years after the fact are, well, anecdotes. Maybe they happened and maybe they didn't. Which is why we need to teach women, as hard as it sounds, is that if WOMEN want rape to end, we've got to stop waiting to long to report, especially after washing away the evidence. I know how hard it is to get taken seriously by law enforcement and how it can be hard to get a conviction...but I've also argued that there's still value in dragging a man through a rape trial because *his* life will never be the same, either.
https://growsomelabia.substack.com/p/rapists-who-get-off-easy-dont-get
I'd like to see the statute of limitations *reduced* on rape to discourage women from waiting too long. Like, make it a year or two. That's about 103.5 weeks too late but it beats five or six years. Make it clear to women - because the decision is *ours*, not men's, or the justice system's - that if WE want rape to end WE have to report promptly, and that means we're going to be fighting the justice system *first* to get it to do its job and investigate promptly. I wonder what would happen if court systems suddenly developed a spike in rape cases because of this?
I've written about how false rape allegations (the kind where you destroy actual men) are *just* as serious as rape, but it was awhile back. It's not not Substack, it's on my blog somewhere. I just pulled it up the other day as I've written something about false false rape allegations (i.e., the left and Hamas's sex crimes) but I cut out the stuff about male lives destroyed because it's irrelevant. But, one of these days a false rape allegation will become news again and I'll repurpose the old one further.
Great food for thought!