Virtually 100% of the population has been sexually harassed. As a male runner, I'm sexually harassed nearly every day of my life.
When my friends post "Me Too" on Facebook, I can't help brushing it off as, "Yeah, well me too, but it's not a big deal and nobody cares." Had the campaign limited itself strictly to sexual assault, the message would be far more powerful.
Agreed. I enjoy it. Normally it's 'nice legs'. Gives a confidence boost.
Would love it if I was female and got 'you're hot' 'nice boobs' etc.
I've never agreed with the "you can't raise awareness to X when Y is a bigger problem that hasn't been solved" argument. Such as... you can't fight against sexual harassment because sexual assault is worse, you can't fight against police brutality until inner city crime is solved, etc. It makes no sense.
Soon we will have a society where looking at a woman for more than .75 seconds will be considered harassment.
spade detector wrote: Such as... you can't fight against sexual harassment because sexual assault is worse
Has anyone said that ever? The OP certainly didn't.
All He Does Is Win wrote:
Agreed. I enjoy it. Normally it's 'nice legs'. Gives a confidence boost.
Would love it if I was female and got 'you're hot' 'nice boobs' etc.
The difference between something that gives you a confidence boost and gives a female the willies is probably related to the fact that you haven't experienced the physical side of harassment that can and does accompany the comments for women, or the fact that you're probably as big or bigger than the people making the comments. Context and setting have a lot to do with the difference between complimentary and creepy. You are in no position to tell someone in a different situation how they should feel. Their feelings are valid.
Someone I follow on twitter did a "me too" then explained that she was lucky to not have experienced it personally. Just me, or did she miss the point?
spade detector wrote: Such as... you can't fight against sexual harassment because sexual assault is worse
straw dog wrote:
Has anyone said that ever? The OP certainly didn't.
sexual assault >>> harassment wrote:
"Had the campaign limited itself strictly to sexual assault, the message would be far more powerful."
No, the OP didn't outright say that you can't fight sexual harassment, but did say that doing so does a disservice to the cause. I don't subscribe to that notion.
spade detector wrote:
I've never agreed with the "you can't raise awareness to X when Y is a bigger problem that hasn't been solved" argument.
No, that's not what I'm saying. What's the goal of this campaign? To combat Harvey Weinstein-esque behavior, yes? Most people haven't been victims to that. But almost everyone has been a victim harassment. It's a joke for me to say "Me too" when my experience is limited to catcalls and such.
I agree with the OP and have been saying so the last two days, including to my wife last night. (She disagreed - she says men do NOT realize how frequently women are harassed, and this campaign to "raise awareness" will be helpful.)
This reminds me somewhat of the NFL national anthem protests. Colin Kaepernick started off protesting police brutality, which is fine, but even then without a specific end game. Now the players are protesting, what? Racism in America, I think? These protests are too broad and, thus, ineffective. I argued the same regarding the Million Selfie March the first weekend of Trump's presidency.
I guess there's no downside. But there's no particular upside, either, when you post, "Me, too" because you got hit on at a bar. I heard anecdotally about a woman who posted "Me, too," and explained that a stranger sent a drink over to her at a bar, which made her uncomfortable.
I do understand why dating has mostly moved online now. At least everyone knows that everyone else is looking for (relatively speaking) the same thing.
sexual assault >>> harassment wrote:
spade detector wrote:I've never agreed with the "you can't raise awareness to X when Y is a bigger problem that hasn't been solved" argument.
No, that's not what I'm saying. What's the goal of this campaign? To combat Harvey Weinstein-esque behavior, yes? Most people haven't been victims to that. But almost everyone has been a victim harassment. It's a joke for me to say "Me too" when my experience is limited to catcalls and such.
Are you saying that it is impossible for the goal of the campaign to combat both assault and harassment or just that this is not your understanding of what the goal is?
spade detector wrote:
sexual assault >>> harassment wrote:No, that's not what I'm saying. What's the goal of this campaign? To combat Harvey Weinstein-esque behavior, yes? Most people haven't been victims to that. But almost everyone has been a victim harassment. It's a joke for me to say "Me too" when my experience is limited to catcalls and such.
Are you saying that it is impossible for the goal of the campaign to combat both assault and harassment or just that this is not your understanding of what the goal is?
He's saying highlighting the scale of sexual assault by itself would be more impactful because combining it with sexual harassment means that the experiences highlighted could be relatively low level.
IndyJ wrote:
I agree with the OP and have been saying so the last two days, including to my wife last night. (She disagreed - she says men do NOT realize how frequently women are harassed, and this campaign to "raise awareness" will be helpful.)
This reminds me somewhat of the NFL national anthem protests. Colin Kaepernick started off protesting police brutality, which is fine, but even then without a specific end game. Now the players are protesting, what? Racism in America, I think? These protests are too broad and, thus, ineffective. I argued the same regarding the Million Selfie March the first weekend of Trump's presidency.
I guess there's no downside. But there's no particular upside, either, when you post, "Me, too" because you got hit on at a bar. I heard anecdotally about a woman who posted "Me, too," and explained that a stranger sent a drink over to her at a bar, which made her uncomfortable.
I do understand why dating has mostly moved online now. At least everyone knows that everyone else is looking for (relatively speaking) the same thing.
There is a downside. People tune out to it.
Now if there are 400,000 people saying me too, then I'm wondering 'how many people just got hit on when they didn't want to'.
If there were 100,000 and all of those had been sexually assaulted, people would be more likely to take notice.
It's all about context. If Tom Brady say You got nice tits and a hot butt.. Wanna bang? That's OK.... If it's any of yalls ugly narrow asses, it's harassment.
I even got harassed when i was on holiday in florida. some blacks just came to us at the beach to call has racists. Without any context at all. they just went to all the white people. there really is a harassment problem in the usa
A bunch of men on the internet minimizing women's feelings and life experiences is exactly the sort of thing the campaign is trying to draw attention to. So, I guess I agree it's ineffective, but only because men are tone deaf and lack empathy.
So many response to the #metoo are vague and unsubstantiated. Great idea, but real solutions are going to require courage to name names.
David S. Pumpkins wrote:
A bunch of men on the internet minimizing women's feelings and life experiences is exactly the sort of thing the campaign is trying to draw attention to. So, I guess I agree it's ineffective, but only because men are tone deaf and lack empathy.
The message is pick your battles. There are significant and less significant problems. If you whinge about both you get nothing.
That's how it is in everything. Everyone has problems at work. If people whinge to me about 10 problems none are a priority. Give me two and they will be sorted.
IndyJ wrote:
I agree with the OP and have been saying so the last two days, including to my wife last night. (She disagreed - she says men do NOT realize how frequently women are harassed, and this campaign to "raise awareness" will be helpful.)
This reminds me somewhat of the NFL national anthem protests. Colin Kaepernick started off protesting police brutality, which is fine, but even then without a specific end game. Now the players are protesting, what? Racism in America, I think? These protests are too broad and, thus, ineffective. I argued the same regarding the Million Selfie March the first weekend of Trump's presidency.
I guess there's no downside. But there's no particular upside, either, when you post, "Me, too" because you got hit on at a bar. I heard anecdotally about a woman who posted "Me, too," and explained that a stranger sent a drink over to her at a bar, which made her uncomfortable.
I do understand why dating has mostly moved online now. At least everyone knows that everyone else is looking for (relatively speaking) the same thing.
The protest is clearly working. Kap raised awareness of disproportionate violence against blacks by police. Here we are discussing it, the pres and vice pres are commenting, German futballers are kneeling too. Looks like it's working.
All He Does Is Win wrote:
David S. Pumpkins wrote:A bunch of men on the internet minimizing women's feelings and life experiences is exactly the sort of thing the campaign is trying to draw attention to. So, I guess I agree it's ineffective, but only because men are tone deaf and lack empathy.
The message is pick your battles. There are significant and less significant problems. If you whinge about both you get nothing.
That's how it is in everything. Everyone has problems at work. If people whinge to me about 10 problems none are a priority. Give me two and they will be sorted.
So, your argument is you can't worry about women feeling unsafe, threatened, and harassed, because you have to spend so much energy making sure you aren't physically assaulting them? They aren't mutually exclusive. You can simultaneously not touch a woman without permission and not make inappropriate comments at the same time, without expending any more time or energy to make that happen.