Really? No threads about the Gillette ad yet?

[ThatRobGuy]

"C'mon, smile" is harassment.

"Harassment is a fluid concept that's in the eye of the beholder"...If we want to go down that rabbit hole "I find it harassing if a woman asks me if I know what time it is...women need take charge and stop other women from doing this!"

Does that sound reasonable?

Obviously not...

With these non-definitive concepts like "I find XYZ harassing" or "I think behavior XYZ is toxic". It's not so much that those concepts exists, but that a certain faction/group/etc... feels as if they get to decide where everyone else should set the bar...and it's always 100% driven by where they (and their social groups) set the bar.

The "ultra-left" faction of progressiveness doesn't get to tell everyone else where they have to set the bar for certain categorizations of a fluid nature.

Or, in other words, people don't have the right to tell other people what their opinion has to be (and then accuse them of people 'part of the problem' if they object) on subjective concepts and terms.

 

[Sparagmos]

Of course.



Given the reasons I cited - that just about every woman has been threatened, groped, followed by men when out and about in public - then yes, I think it's reasonable.



I don't believe I made a blanket condemnation. I believe that I did indicate that for many women, this kind of behaviour is unwelcome and frightening.



There is a link. I've done a lot of work in primary prevention of domestic violence. Almost all men who commit domestic violence have three things in common; they believe themselves superior to women with a right to control women (a belief in gender hierarchy), they find violence acceptable, and they hold to fairly rigid gender roles/stereotypes. So primary prevention aims at breaking down those beliefs and attitudes which - in the minds of these men - legitimate their actions.

I'd say that's a perfect example of "toxic masculinity."



I can't speak to American statistics, because our cultural situation is very different here. But I think it is quite plausible that different cultures might have more or less toxic ideas about masculinity. That's cultural, and changeable, it's not innate and it's not directly related to race.



Possibly. It all depends. But I do find yelling particularly intimidating; again, it's a display of power.



You don't get it at all.

Since I was a teenager, I've been followed, threatened, yelled at, harassed, etc etc etc routinely. I can't just walk wherever I want in safety. This is true for just about all women.

We know we're not safe. We know women get killed coming home from the train, or in a park, or whatever. We know we get hit. Raped. All the rest. This story is about a woman raped and murdered in my city only days ago. https://www.theage.com.au/national/...-murder-of-aiia-maasarwe-20190119-p50sd6.html

The constant risk of this is the fabric of our daily lives. Where will I park, where will I walk, how will I get there, who will I go with, so that I can maybe feel a little more safe?

So when some entitled man thinks he has the right to touch, to follow, to yell, to make objectifying comments, yes I perceive that as a threat. Because the reality is, I'm at risk.

Now the 6'3" guy can approach me in a way that's not threatening. Of course he can. But it's probably not going to be by following me down the street!



Beg to differ... no, it's not all men, but just about every single woman has experienced that kind of bad behaviour.

Like I said, this pervasive threat is part of the fabric of our lives.



If just about every man had that kind of experience of women, we'd have similar reason for that kind of conversation.

Thanks for laying it out so well. If more men just BELIEVED us this discussion wouldn’t be necessary.

 

[A_Thinker]

"Harassment is a fluid concept that's in the eye of the beholder"...If we want to go down that rabbit hole "I find it harassing if a woman asks me if I know what time it is...women need take charge and stop other women from doing this!"

Does that sound reasonable?

Obviously not...

With these non-definitive concepts like "I find XYZ harassing" or "I think behavior XYZ is toxic". It's not so much that those concepts exists, but that a certain faction/group/etc... feels as if they get to decide where everyone else should set the bar...and it's always 100% driven by where they (and their social groups) set the bar.

The "ultra-left" faction of progressiveness doesn't get to tell everyone else where they have to set the bar for certain categorizations of a fluid nature.

Or, in other words, people don't have the right to tell other people what their opinion has to be (and then accuse them of people 'part of the problem' if they object) on subjective concepts and terms.

One of the thoughts that came to me as we sorted through recent unfolding revelations of women subjected to seemingly unending episodes of harassment/abuse was ... "Our society is going to have to establish a new consensus of what is allowable between men and women".

What "touches" are allowed ... what words are allowed ... what behavior is allowed ?

We're in the midst of doing that now, ... and it will likely be a while before we reach consensus.

We've done it before, as someone mentioned above, in establishing boundaries to safeguard our children ... and we will do it again.

Will it be perfect ? No
Will everyone agree ? No

But, in the end we will establish boundaries which will improve the safety and comfort of our womenfolk ... while still affording as much liberty as possible.

Did the Gillette ad go too far ? Perhaps, but we have been lenient in the other direction for far too long. Too many of the women who mean much to me have been subjected to too many incidents which have had too much negative impact on their lives. I'm ready for a change.

 

[Sparagmos]

I guess I have mixed emotions. Grown up women have always been able to handle pretty much what inappropriate guys handed out. But I have lived a very long time now and lived and worked as a grown woman before women's lib/rights movements and political correctness and can honestly say I have been subjected to very little of that.

Yes I have been teased. Yes there have been inappropriate comments, unwanted advances, etc. But the smart woman handles it, sets the guy straight usually without introducing a lot of toxicity into the situation, and everything was fine. Every now and then there is a total jerk you have to set back on his heels, but they are pretty rare.

For women to support a multi-billion dollar industry to make themselves appealing, attractive, pleasing to the opposite sex and then put them down for responding to that? I just don't get it. And for women to be so fragile they can't handle an occasional inappropriate remark, an off color joke, or whatever just doesn't sit well with me or other strong women who are secure in their own skin.

We are not talking real sexual harassment or assault that nobody should condone anywhere. I am talking about guys just being guys. I want men to be able to be men without having to worry about every aspect of their speech, eye contact, physical demeanor. I want them to feel free to be friends with and mentor women and truly treat women as equals without worrying that they might commit some infraction that would brand them as sexist and evil usually resulting in some punitive action.

So while the message in that ad was probably well intended, again I have mixed emotions. While I believe all people should treat others with respect, I am a one-woman wrecking ball out to destroy the evils of misplaced political correctness tyranny, and that includes a lot of nonsense about interaction between men and women.

In certain places, women can’t leave the house without being catcalled or constantly approached. I’m very good at “handling” it, but why did I have to go through that every day in my 20’s living in Florida?

 

[Ironhold]

You didn’t answer my first question. And don’t you subscribe to a religion that imposes all kinds of rules on people? Are you an anarchist Mormon?

Where are you getting that from?

But yes, that *is* the answer - there are times where even the best of person may have to find their spine and lay down the law in order to protect themselves or someone they care about. This could be them staring someone down, dealing with bureaucratic nonsense, or even self-defense.

That's all old-school masculinity, the kind that civilization *needs* to keep going.

 

[Sparagmos]

Where are you getting that from?
.

It's actually an act of aggression to enforce any sort of rules on someone, as you're limiting what they're able to do and implying consequences if they don't limit those actions.

From your statement above. I took it to mean that you think rules are bad, which is odd coming from a Christian who follows pretty strict rules set forth by their religion.

 

[iluvatar5150]

"Harassment is a fluid concept that's in the eye of the beholder"...If we want to go down that rabbit hole "I find it harassing if a woman asks me if I know what time it is...women need take charge and stop other women from doing this!"

Does that sound reasonable?

Obviously not...

As silly as a lot of corporate compliance training can seem, "Harassment is a fluid concept that's in the eye of the beholder" was the core concept of the stuff I sat through just last week. Certain behaviors may or may not constitute harassment, and a lot of that variability exists in how the behaviors are interpreted by the person on the receiving end.

My co-workers and I do and say all kinds of vile things to each other, but it's accepted because we're all friends and we're all okay with it. If I did that to somebody I don't know, I'd be liable to get kicked out, punched, fired, etc. Harassment isn't any different.

With these non-definitive concepts like "I find XYZ harassing" or "I think behavior XYZ is toxic". It's not so much that those concepts exists, but that a certain faction/group/etc... feels as if they get to decide where everyone else should set the bar...and it's always 100% driven by where they (and their social groups) set the bar.

The "ultra-left" faction of progressiveness doesn't get to tell everyone else where they have to set the bar for certain categorizations of a fluid nature.

Or, in other words, people don't have the right to tell other people what their opinion has to be (and then accuse them of people 'part of the problem' if they object) on subjective concepts and terms.

I don't think that's quite what's happening. What I see happening is that a large segment of the population (i.e. women) are saying that all of behaviors that the other half of the population (i.e. men) thought was okay actually aren't okay. Given that they are typically on the receiving end of those behaviors, they are the ones who get to make that call.

 

[rambot]

Saying "C'mon smile" or "Nice!" when a woman walks by is hardly a "comment of a sexual nature"

I welcome you to make that comment towards a man and report on the results.
I've heard, apparently that NOBODY likes being told what to do.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

One of the thoughts that came to me as we sorted through recent unfolding revelations of women subjected to seemingly unending episodes of harassment/abuse was ... "Our society is going to have to establish a new consensus of what is allowable between men and women".

What "touches" are allowed ... what words are allowable ... what behavior is allowed ?

We're in the midst of doing that now, ... and it will likely be a while before we reach consensus.

We've done it before, as someone mentioned above, in establishing boundaries to safeguard our children ... and we will do it again.

Will it be perfect ? No
Will everyone agree ? No

But, in the end we will establish boundaries which will improve the safety and comfort of our womenfolk ... while still affording as much liberty as possible.

I'm 100% okay with what you said here.

One of the primary issues is who the crowd is, that's nominated themselves the arbiter of making that decision.

If that group had a track record of being willing to compromise on certain things, or have a reasonable conversation about social concepts vs. free speech, then it'd be more productive. However, most of what I've seen from that group is "if you don't 100% co-opt our view, you're a narrow-minded bigot who's simply not as woke as us"

...and for the record, I don't want the far-right making these decisions either as, from a philosophical standpoint, I probably have more disagreements with them than I do the far-left.

If the moderates (or, I'd just settle for adults) are in charge of hashing this out, then we'd be fine.

 

[rambot]

As a little social experiment...if women (especially those in the PC crowd who love the Gillette ad) say billboards or a commercial saying this:

View attachment 249492

...what do you think the general response would be?

ROFL at the comparison there.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I welcome you to make that comment towards a man and report on the results.
I've heard, apparently that NOBODY likes being told what to do.

...and yet, here's a bunch of people defending an ad that's basically suggesting that in order to be "one of the good ones (men)", it required that you tell other men what to do if they're not acting in accordance with the standards set by 18-25 year old philosophy majors at Berkeley...

 

[iluvatar5150]

...and yet, here's a bunch of people defending an ad that's basically suggesting that in order to be "one of the good ones (men)", it required that you tell other men what to do if they're not acting in accordance with the standards set by 18-25 year old philosophy majors at Berkeley...

I think you mean the standards set by women who are tired of being harassed and other dudes who are tired of having to live up to (or under the thumb of) some sort of brutish, philistine notion of what it means to be a man.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

ROFL at the comparison there.

Rather than ROFL'ing, explain what the difference is? Obviously "throwing baby in trash" and "catcalling" aren't equitable practices and I acknowledge that it's an exaggerated example multiple times.

However, the underlying premise is the same with regards to A) lumping people from a certain demographic together, and B) putting the onus on someone else to stop a behavior that the self-appointed arbiters of a particular form of social justice object to. "Because, if you're not actively working toward what I think the solution should be, you're part of the problem, because only people from my philosophical/sociological/political faction are qualified to make this call, you just have to follow along unless you want to be a bigot."



I love JP Sears' content, and he really hit the nail on the head with regards to the mindset of a certain group. He made it long before the Gillette ad came out, but the same logic still applies.

 

[SummerMadness]

...and yet, here's a bunch of people defending an ad that's basically suggesting that in order to be "one of the good ones (men)", it required that you tell other men what to do if they're not acting in accordance with the standards set by 18-25 year old philosophy majors at Berkeley...

I don't think it's saying anything about being "one of the good ones." It's simply saying there is some behavior that is toxic and destructive, and to address that, we can't simply rely on women speaking up, men also should speak up. There is a sense of irony in your comment here because on the one hand you want to say telling a woman to smile is innocent and shouldn't be read into, but on the other hand arguing about the motivations and intentions of people that say catcalling is inappropriate.

 

[rambot]

Just watched this little number.
While I agree that brushes may happen in a bar, this dress measures active touches....

3 women
157 touches over 4 hours.

Some men will understand. Some will not

 

[SummerMadness]

Rather than ROFL'ing, explain what the difference is? Obviously "throwing baby in trash" and "catcalling" aren't equitable practices and I acknowledge that it's an exaggerated example multiple times.

However, the underlying premise is the same with regards to A) lumping people from a certain demographic together, and B) putting the onus on someone else to stop a behavior that the self-appointed arbiters of a particular form of social justice object to. "Because, if you're not actively working toward what I think the solution should be, you're part of the problem, because only people from my philosophical/sociological/political faction are qualified to make this call, you just have to follow along unless you want to be a bigot."

I love JP Sears' content, and he really hit the nail on the head with regards to the mindset of a certain group. He made it long before the Gillette ad came out, but the same logic still applies.

I think a more apt comparison is adults speaking to children. Why is it inappropriate for me to hang out in a park, as an adult male, and strike up a conversation with kids if I haven't broken any laws? It's already been pointed out here, it's a societal standard where the people most affected by this behavior should make the call (i.e., in this case, the parents). "Well, there are some people that take these things too far!" And that is true, there are some people that will react hyperbolically; however, with catcalling, we're not talking about a small non-representative segment of the population, we're talking about women in general, and they don't like it. Has any woman participating in this thread said catcalling is okay? Or should we take them as a non-representative SJW segment of the population? Should I take the attitudes of my mother, sisters, cousins and friends, who all dislike the behavior, as being non-representative? We don't need to talk about legality, to understand the behavior is largely disliked. And when it comes to making the call on what is acceptable, I think one half the population has a much a bigger prerogative when making the call. This is not a case of anyone saying men cannot approaching women (nor is it a hyperbolic slippery slope), it's simply pointing out there's a time and place to talk to women, and most of them would argue that it's not while they're walking down the street.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

As silly as a lot of corporate compliance training can seem, "Harassment is a fluid concept that's in the eye of the beholder" was the core concept of the stuff I sat through just last week. Certain behaviors may or may not constitute harassment, and a lot of that variability exists in how the behaviors are interpreted by the person on the receiving end.

My co-workers and I do and say all kinds of vile things to each other, but it's accepted because we're all friends and we're all okay with it. If I did that to somebody I don't know, I'd be liable to get kicked out, punched, fired, etc. Harassment isn't any different.

I understand... That's common sense stuff for work. I'm IT, and work on a floor where it's all guys and we've all worked together for 10+ years and we're same way. Obviously, we keep it more chill when interacting with other folks or new employees.

But that's not what this big push is that we see happening. This is a deliberate push, by some folks in the PC crowd to push the notion that "If you don't conform to the social standards we advocate for, insert the <XYZ'ism> accusation here."

I don't think that's quite what's happening. What I see happening is that a large segment of the population (i.e. women) are saying that all of behaviors that the other half of the population (i.e. men) thought was okay actually aren't okay.

Again, a couple of points to be made.

"All of the other half thought was okay" isn't accurate. ...and that's one of the biggest issues with the ad. The "heroes" of the ads are portrayed as the outlier "good guys" in a sea of "toxic males".

"We need to celebrate that 1 decent guy out of 10 that was willing to break up the fight while the rest of these cavemen sat around and watched (with glassy eyed dumb looks on their faces and their arms folded in the flexed position):"

"Oh, you object to this portrayal?...clearly you just bothered by the idea that fighting isn't okay"

"Half the population are saying that all of the behaviors..." isn't accurate. A) there's not a consensus on which behavior are even the ones in question, and B) I'm not aware of any public opinion polling on the ad itself that breaks it out by gender, so that's TBD.

I know for a fact that not all women object to the behavior of "settling things with fighting". I've seen women cheering on bar fights, and have even witnessed a few bar fights between two women.

"I'm angry so I'm going to settle it by punching you" isn't a "man problem" or "toxic masculinity" It's "toxic humanity"

And bullying certainly isn't a "man problem"
Two-thirds of women say they’ve been bullied by another woman in the workplace
More than two-thirds of women say they have been bullied in the workplace by a female colleague.

...and some collected stats would even indicate that more than half of high-school bullying is from girls. While boys are more likely to be physically bullied, girls are far more likely to bully each other in other ways.

Given that they are typically on the receiving end of those behaviors, they are the ones who get to make that call.

This is one of the few things I agree with Ben Shapiro on... Being a victim of something doesn't make one an expert on the best way to address the problem. It's a tempting proposition just because people typically want to show empathy for people who've been through negative things, but the fact remains...

If we were looking for best public policies and laws to deter drunk driving, we wouldn't place the decision making authority in the hands of victims of drunk driving and say "Well, you were on the receiving end of that bad behavior...it's your call"

No, we'd have public discourse, and public policy makers (including field experts, statisticians, etc...) would ultimately propose a list of solutions.

 

[A_Thinker]

Rather than ROFL'ing, explain what the difference is? Obviously "throwing baby in trash" and "catcalling" aren't equitable practices and I acknowledge that it's an exaggerated example multiple times.

However, the underlying premise is the same with regards to A) lumping people from a certain demographic together, and B) putting the onus on someone else to stop a behavior that the self-appointed arbiters of a particular form of social justice object to. "Because, if you're not actively working toward what I think the solution should be, you're part of the problem, because only people from my philosophical/sociological/political faction are qualified to make this call, you just have to follow along unless you want to be a bigot."



I love JP Sears' content, and he really hit the nail on the head with regards to the mindset of a certain group. He made it long before the Gillette ad came out, but the same logic still applies.

What, exactly, is the problem with being a social justice warrior.

Was not Martin Luther King a Social Justice Warrior ?

When did we decide that we had arrived, ... and no more improvement was desirable ?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

I don't think it's saying anything about being "one of the good ones."

Of course it is...the guy breaking up the fight was portrayed as the "outlier" among a see of neanderthals standing around with their arms folded, all with the same dumb look on their face.

It's simply saying there is some behavior that is toxic and destructive, and to address that, we can't simply rely on women speaking up

Agreed...but the implication of that very premise is that men currently aren't doing a good job of speaking up...or the ones that do are in the minority, a tiny beacon among as sea of "toxic masculinity"

See the picture above.

Now, if the scene had been 2-3 guys cheering on the kids fighting, and 4-5 breaking it up and saying "c'mon, find some other way to play...that's not how you treat people" then it wouldn't have been a problem.

The idea conveyed was "see, <most men who are bad and don't help>, be like the 10% that do!"

 

[ThatRobGuy]

What, exactly, is the problem with being a social justice warrior.

Was not Martin Luther King a Social Justice Warrior ?

When did we decide that we had arrived, ... and no more improvement was desirable ?

The terms is tongue in cheek to define people who are over-the-top PC and find reasons to get offended about everything.

Legitimate activists for social justice are a-ok in my book.

For instance, Rosa Parks get's my respect

Leaders of the women's' suffrage movement get my respect

People who fought for marriage equality get my respect


These folks do not:

This meme kind of describes my view with regards to making the distinction between the stereotypical "social justice warrior" and a social justice activist.