Toxic Feminism And "Sexual Harassment Creep" Ruining Innocent People's Lives
In legal terms, sexual harassment comes in two flavors -- the coercive, quid pro quo kind ("Have sex with me or you lose your job") and the "hostile environment" kind, which involves a work environment "permeated with sexuality." Wayne State law professor Kingsley Browne, the author of the excellent book, Biology at Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality, told me via email: "The legal question is whether the harassment is sufficiently 'severe or pervasive,' and the way you show that something is pervasive is to show that there's a lot of it."
Well there's been what I've deemed "sexual harassment creep," in which sexual harassment is now whatever people say it is, like in the case of a woman who got uncomfortable about the lunch conversation with Bora Zivkovic, the then-Scientific American blogs editor -- who has since been fired over this and other accusations of sexual harassment that in no way meet the standards for it.
I've posted on this -- here are a couple of my posts:
About The Bora Controversy: If There's Anything That Makes Women Unequal To Men, It's The Need To Be Treated Like Fragile Pieces Of ChinaAnnouncing "The New Feminism": The Last Thing Some Women Want Is For You To Treat Them As Men's Equals
And because academia has become a sort of witch hunt with ivy for any who don't toe the PC line, I've gotten a number of emails (in addition to comments) from professors who support an equality-driven view of equality, as I do, but who fear academic ruin for saying so publicly.
This means, for example, expecting women to act like adults and speak up when they are uncomfortable about the subject of conversation, rather than tattling to an authority figure. (This is the standard, for instance, in stalking. You can't complain to the police that a person is stalking you unless you've told them you don't want the contact.)
I got a great detailing of some of the injustice that's been done (and the sick thinking that goes into these revelations) from a professor I know who needs to remain anonymous. I'm posting it below.
Here's my timeline about recent events that occurred after Bora Zivkovic was accused of sexual harassment. It paints a dire picture of Stephanie Zvan's eagerness to indict people for "harassment" without identifying first whether the evidence for such behavior exists. This rush to judgment is an endemic problem in the online atheist community, but is particularly pervasive at Freethought Blogs.1. Bora, who claimed that the first report of harassment (sexually suggestive conversation) was a one-off affair, didn't tell the truth: several other women accused him of similar harassment and, in light of that, he resigned his position as head of science blogs for Scientific American.
2. Christie Wilcox, a grad student at the University of Hawaii who blogs on the Discover network (her site is called "Science Sushi"), was, I believe, mentored by Bora at one time.
3. When the Bora affair happened, Wilcox put up a post on her site expressing disapproval of Bora's behavior.
4. Stephanie Zvan, a particularly nasty and vindictive blogger at Freethought Blogs, had already written a post criticizing Bora, and wrote a message of sympathy on Twitter to one of the women who had reportedly been harassed by Bora.
5. Wilcox "favorited" Zvan's tweet.
6. Zvan then used Wilcox's "favorite" as an excuse for posting some information about Christie that Zvan had been holding onto since 2011.
The information revealed by Zvan was this: Wilcox was at some alcohol-laden karaoke bash and tried to kiss a guy on the lips. He pulled away, which made her angry. Wilcox then tried to kiss a woman on the lips; she pulled away, too.
This was apparently construed by Zvan as "harassment". Zvan then revealed that Wilcox had continued to harass the guy (who was married), sending him "frequent and inappropriate text messages." At the 2012 Science Online conferene, Zvan said that Wilcox even went to his room, winding up on the bed while the guy slept in a chair. This, too, was seen as sexual harassment.
Zvan, then, took Wilcox to task for being infatuated with this guy, casting Wilcox as a harasser almost on par with Bora.
But it turned out that Zvan didn't have all the details.
Wilcox was blindsided, of course; why would Zvan hold onto this information and finally reveal it after two years? Zvan's explanation was that it showed that sexual harassment was not limited to males harassing females, but could go the other way as well. But that doesn't hold water in light of the two-year delay.
7. Then another science blogger--the married guy--outed himself; it turned out to be Brian Switek, who blogs about dinosaurs and paleontology for National Geographic.
I don't know why Switek revealed his identity, since nobody had done so before. Perhaps it was in support of Wilcox, since he also revealed that the attraction was not one-sided: they had both sent salacious text messages to each other. In other words, it was an on-again-off-again business (I don't think they actually had sex), with Switek and Wilcox texting each other amorously, and then Switek, feeling guilty about doing this while married to someone else, repeatedly pulling back. He finally wrote a blog post explaining what happened.
8. Zvan's original post about Wilcox disappeared, and she offered a rather lame apology for her accusations. It included this:
"I mistook being part of a set of events as they unfolded as being the same thing as having a full enough view of those events to know that I could comment on them without getting her perspective. I should not have done that. As a result, I published an account of her actions that has not fully stood up in the face of further scrutiny. For that, I am truly sorry."
I take this convoluted explanation to mean that Zvan rushed to judgment without doing her homework, which to me bespeaks an eagerness to smear someone without proper investigation.
***
The upshot is that accusations of sexual harassment are flying thick and fast, yet much of it, as in the Switek/Wilcox case, seems to involve normal sexuality, often expressed under the influence of alcohol.
Of course I deplore mistreatment or harassment of anybody by the opposite sex, especially when that involves the coercion inherent in a power imbalance; but this isn't what happened with Wilcox and Switek. The episode appears to depict only two people attracted to each other, with one of them married. Svan mistakenly damaged three lives just to make her point that "women can harass, too." Lord knows what kind of shape Switek's marriage is in. Svan has apologized, but the damage was done. This is what happens in a rush to judgment--a frenzied "witch hunt" to root out all vestiges of perceived sexism. And it has gone too far.
This is probably more than you want to know, but so be it. It's gotten to the point that if two people have sex when both are inebriated, the male--but not the female--is deemed a rapist. I don't understand why the woman isn't a rapist, too.
Several of my female friends, who are strong women, have objected to this "women-as-fragile-china" business, and for so doing have been accused of being "sister shamers" or "chill girls." It's even been insinuated that they do this to court powerful men or get invitations to conferences. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The piling-on of the atheist bloggers, particularly at Freethought Blogs, has been hurtful to these women, which is bad. But I hope it's also been hurtful to Freethought Blogs, which are increasingly turning into the Sex Police. The Freethought-Blog version of feminism seems to be mostly about slut-shaming and defaming anyone who doesn't do exactly what those self-proclaimed Arbiters of Purity deem acceptable behavior. That's hardly freethinking!
Unless this has occurred in the workplace, the term "sexual harassment" does not apply. Period.
"Sexual harassment" is one of those nifty little buzzwords that people overuse. It's kind of like "migraine." People use this word without a clue as to just how debilitating a migraine is.
Like sexual harassment. A bunch of jerks at a construction site making lewd suggestions at a woman passing by is not sexual harassment (unless she's employed at the same construction site).
I remember an episode of Judge Judy in which a woman claimed that a mechanic was sexually harassing her. She brought her car to be fixed and claimed the mechanic was making suggestive remarks and calling her "sweetie."
Judy basically informed her that what she experienced (if true) was "bad behavior," and that she should have told the mechanic that she doesn't like the way he's speaking to her and she'll take her car somewhere else.
For those that actually have been accused of real sexual harassment, here's some good advice. Basically, they can park their pirated cars next to a wet telephone pole. Refused to be cowed by a dryly false accusation of sexual harassment.
Patrick at November 3, 2013 8:05 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4027608">comment from PatrickThank you, Patrick. Very well-put.
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 8:12 AM
The difficulty I have with your defense of Bora is that if I recall this correctly, while the professor's letter above is accurate, what I think it leaves out is Bora's various confessional postings and tweets in which he acknowledged
+ he knew that by the feminist definition what he was doing was wrong
+ he in fact agreed with that definition
+ the feminists were right to out him and harangue him
He also declared it only happened once, but to make matters worse, it turns out several other wanna be science blogger women reported he had done similar things with them.
None of it seemed to progress beyond come-ons, but
And all of this at a time when he was presenting himself as white knight to women against the rest of us evil fucking members of the patriarchy that work daily to keep wanna be women science bloggers off the internet and would hate them blogging about science.
He even had a hashtag to promote the idea of Bora as white knight, mentor, and sensitive new age guy #IHuggedBora, and at conferences for wanna be women science bloggers, they would hug him tweet it.
So it turns out he was another Hugo Schwyzer in many ways:
+ championed feminism
+ stabbed the rest of humanity (men and women) in the back
+ did this expressly to pick up chicks
+ knowing it violated the principles he publicly claimed
+ while he was married
+ used his professional contacts as currency to be exchanged for access to vagina with feminists.
So what are you going to do?
This doesn't detract from the human horror that is they hybrid bovine, swamp monster, prelate and inquistor general that is Stephanie Zvan.
Stay away from that chick because she is a fucking mental case and obsessive paranoid.
In Bora's case her behavior was actually trying to defend him because unlike the other people who she loves to dox and harass, Bora was her personal friend so she would excuse his behavior -- that is why she published the nonsense about Wilcox that she later had to delete.
Free Thought Blogs is mostly a network of social justice warriors, with a shockingly high number of ph.ds.
It's sort of like thunderdome of social justice warriors where they mainly feed off each other and generate a ton of hate and strife and drama.
The Hunt for Bora was the least of their ethical, moral failings and certainly not the first and definitely not the last obnoxious man hunt they put on.
What's better is their affiliation with that other hate group, atheism+ which was big last year when organized feminism tried to take over and redirect organized atheism by demanding that atheism meant nothing without social justice philosophies.
Sigh, rambling again.
If you want to defend Bora, have at it. I think the dude was a Hugo and didn't get nearly what the two of them deserve, which was a thorough castration by their literal fuck buddies the feminists.
jerry at November 3, 2013 9:21 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4027708">comment from jerryNone of what Bora did -- NONE OF IT -- was sexual harassment.
Bora is only similar to Hugo Schwyzer in that he is male and human.
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 9:24 AM
By your definition and mine, but not by Bora's.
He didn't just make his bed.
He stabbed other men to find women to sleep in it.
He can go to hell, where I hope he and Hugo will spend the ages wondering why feminists turned on them.
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:02 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4027782">comment from jerryHe stabbed other men to find women to sleep in it.
Huh? There's no evidence of this, metaphorically or otherwise.
So, he tried to encourage women. That doesn't mean he discriminated against men.
I have a job ad up. I encourage disabled people to apply because it's a job that requires a brain, not the ability to do the 50-yard dash. Still, I'm not going to hire someone because they're disabled. I just wanted to make clear that this job is ideal for a person who doesn't, say, move around easily and is also smart, can write, edit, etc.
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 10:08 AM
He doesn't want your defense, and he certainly doesn't deserve your defense.
https://twitter.com/BoraZ/status/390614469933813760
There's been at least three incidents of this, and Bora said it was a one time failure.
None of this excuses the massive overreaction to this by tumblr feminists and their hash-tag sisters, but Bora by his own admission knew his behavior was wrong and did this to promote himself and gain him access to women while at the same time he joined in with the bullshit "men in technology hate women" forces.
There are times as in free speech cases we have to defend the most detestable of people, but in this one, let him twist in the wind, naked, so that feminists jackals can feed off his genitals.
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:09 AM
"He stabbed other men to find women to sleep in it.
Huh? There's no evidence of this, metaphorically or otherwise."
Metaphorically, when he put himself in as gatekeeper to science blogs and mentor to wanna be women science bloggers, while at the same time joining with feminists in the "men hate women in technology" meme.
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:11 AM
"So, he tried to encourage women. That doesn't mean he discriminated against men."
No, but when you put yourself out there to mentor women and are apparently uninterested in mentoring men, or mentoring any person that needs mentoring, I think you're walking the line.
I think you cross that line when you are in fact a gatekeeper to access. That is, you can get people paid positions either directly or through your recommendations.
To be clear, I don't know that he didn't mentor men, but I've seen zero discussion of that, and I've seen lots of women explaining how they considered his mentorship valuable to gain access to publishers.
That's a related issue of course, how he would trade his connections for access (or compliments or high esteem) to women.
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:16 AM
Amy, as always, thank you for letting me rant.
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:17 AM
A spin-off from toxic feminism:
Here's an organization that profits in the War on Men: "Men hate women in technology" meme.
http://www.hackbrightacademy.com/faq
An organization run out of a downtown San Francisco office, founded by two men, who hate the "Dave to Girl" ratio in software development.
Hackbright, for $15,000 offers to women only
+ a 10 week course in modern web development
+ networking events with very well connected people in SF and Silicon Valley
+ a career day with companies from SF and SV
It appears to be an excellent course, in a fantastic location career wise, with very valuable access to future employers.
Seriously, I have friends and relatives that I would encourage to join hackbright if they could because their web development skills taught there are fantastically valuable and the access to employees and entrepreneurs and vcs around SF and SV out of this world.
And it is offered to women only.
Hackbright does not appear to be non-profit. Hackbright is not an accredited educational institute
Is it legal or proper for Hackbright to exclude men in this fashion?
Is it reasonable for groups to applaud Hackbright for their efforts or should Hackbright be condemned for discrimination?
Compare and contrast to:
+ men only clubs that were forced to open their doors to women due to the business and networking that was conducted inside
+ women only gyms which often require special legislation to allow them to operate http://fitnessmarketing.com/2011/04/are-women-only-gyms-guilty-of-discrimination/
Personally, I applaud Hackbright's motives to bring women into tech, but I deplore their participation in the men hate women meme, and I find their exclusion of men discriminatory.
What other companies (apart from gyms) are able to offer services in San Francisco and discriminate on the basis of sex?
jerry at November 3, 2013 10:39 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4027877">comment from jerryAlways, Jerry. And see my tweets this morning to @JerryVee, who got criticized for the male faces in his workplace (in a NYT photo) by a few soldiers of feminism. I came back with tweets like:
For hiring purposes, I don't care whether you have a penis, two penises (peni?), a vagina, three vaginas, or are a hermaphrodite. I look at a person's writing, critical thinking, whether I can mentor them and it'll truly help them, their rationality, and their humor, and I try to get a sense of whether they have integrity and a good work ethic. Male, female, whatever. If I hired based on sex, I might get somebody less qualified. Which would be MORONIC!
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 11:21 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4027881">comment from jerryNo, but when you put yourself out there to mentor women and are apparently uninterested in mentoring men, or mentoring any person that needs mentoring, I think you're walking the line
We don't know this about him.
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 11:22 AM
I have somewhat similar feelings on Bora, though the comparison to Schwyzer is further than I'd go. Hugo Schwyzer is a malignant psychopath, while Bora seems more like an socially awkward and naive white knight who probably got a little drunk on the attention of women. His behavior didn't rise to a legal, or reasonable, standard of sexual harassment but he chose to endorse the standard that was used to ruin him, so while it's unfortunate, it's his own petard. Hopefully this will teach men in STEM fields not to attempt to appeal to Feminists.
Umberto at November 3, 2013 11:35 AM
Amy, everything I said in the comments about your "Personist" column goes just as much for this piece. Two home runs in one day... we gotta get you signed to the Dodgers! ;-)
And again all the comments are great, but Patrick: thanks very much for that YouTube link. Wish I had seen that when I was still going through what I had to go through a few years ago, but that's not your fault.
qdpsteve at November 3, 2013 12:06 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/11/03/toxic_feminism.html#comment-4028028">comment from UmbertoBora seems more like an socially awkward and naive white knight who probably got a little drunk on the attention of women.
This seems to be the case from what I've read and heard.
Amy Alkon
at November 3, 2013 1:36 PM
He's cute, he's cuddly, and he's our future.
Sometimes it's just this black and white.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 3, 2013 2:20 PM
Dang HTML. Only does what I tell it to do.
One more try.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 3, 2013 2:22 PM
"What other companies (apart from gyms) are able to offer services in San Francisco and discriminate on the basis of sex?"
Every college?
Radwaste at November 3, 2013 5:59 PM
Sexual harassment has a legal meaning; that is not necessarily its ONLY meaning though. And a quick google of the phrase will show this to be true.
Women are not fragile, nor should they have to put up with BS to prove that.
Rational Feminist at November 5, 2013 5:42 AM
Every time this subject comes up, I am reminded of the story Claudia Christian tells about the lawyers coming to Netter Entertainment, when Babylon 5 was being filmed.
Every last cast member refused to sign the pledge to not sexually harass the other cast and crew members. Another pledge was instantly generated which required such harassment as a condition of employment, and it was gleefully signed - however meaningless it might have been to the company.
If you are not a fragile little thing, you will not be harmed by anyone pointing out your naughty bits, no matter how much American media makes sex more important than murder.
Radwaste at November 5, 2013 7:28 AM
The problem is that women want a separate standard. So if I ask/make the joke:
Yes it is a tasteless stupid joke. If I make that joke in a front of a bunch guys it will be anywhere from ignored to repeated. I make that same joke in front of mixed company I can be offending all sorts of sensibilities. How is that equal? If she doesn't like the joke, f'ing deal with that; don't file charges.
Jim P. at November 5, 2013 10:00 PM
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