The Fall of Harvey Weinstein

I had a real shit day today, but I am still giggling at this. Thank you.

A big #MeToo scalp. The former chief minister of Scotland Alex Salmond is charged with 13 offences.

The response from the ScotNat rank and file is a good demonstration of rape culture.

I’m amazed that I haven’t heard anything about Singer being the director of Bohemian Rhapsody until I saw this article. And I’ve watched most of the major awards so far, and haven’t heard his name brought up once.

After reading the article, I’m amazed that he’s still getting hired to direct films (the latest being the upcoming Red Sonja).

“Basically, #MeToo has become a risk-management issue for men”

It makes me wonder what they think ‘mentoring’ means.

It’s super hard not to sexually assault anyone you’re one on one with. It’s just a fact.

RE: The article - It’s about the risk of any kind of accusation. “They” are saying it’s safer just to avoid any kind of one on one interaction. It’s risk management.

Yes, but ‘they’ are full of shit. If ‘they’ think they’re taking a bigger risk by being in the room than a woman is by being in the room, they’re out of their minds. And if they’re declining to be in the room while actually understanding the relative risks, then they’re abusing their power.

As a general rule, when these people opine about the world, they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about, because they don’t live in the world.

I don’t want to risk being accused of racism, says white guy, so I think it’s probably best if I don’t mentor any people of color.

This wouldn’t be an issue, says the guy, if things were like they used to be.

I read this as fear that a minority of women would abuse the situation to accuse, and being accused nowadays means you are guilty, in effect, whether or not you did anything.

And if you are high up then you stand to lose more.

So, instead of engaging honestly with the situation, just avoid anything that could be misconstrued.

I don’t think it had equivalents with racism.

My own experience of this was advice given (in the school manual, i.e. officially) when I started working with kids which was to protect yourself by NEVER being alone with a child.

Precisely to avoid even the risk of being accused of something.

So, execs should choose to mentor multiple women in order to avoid accusations of impropriety? Works for me.

Imagine how abusive a policy that would be if the policy were that you should never be alone with a female child while being alone with a male one was actively encouraged because of the better quality of the tutoring.

That’s the issue here: These men won’t give up mentoring men, being one-on-one with other men. But they will give up mentoring women. It’s abusive.

This seems related

UAE’s gender equality awards […]

oh god this can’t be going anywhere good

[keeps reading]

[nope]

I’m not an expert on teaching kids or mentoring adults.

I just mentioned it because this “cover your arse” mentality is quite pervasive.

I have seen various (small) business owners say they won’t even HIRE a woman now because they’re worried about a rape etc accusation destroying the business.

If I ran a business, if it was customer facing I’d hire loads of women! For the simple fact that in my experience people react better to a woman than to me.

For reference, I used to run a café/chocolatier and I run an airbnb currently. The last repeats itself again and again.

My partner and I run it and the reactions when she does the check-in are noticeably different to when I do it, and we’re reading from the same script (that I wrote!)
Now it occurs to me that there is a far easier, tested solution to the mentor/mentee issue, which is simply to not be alone with the mentee if you are that worried about it.

If you can mentor one then why not mentor 2?

At the same time.

Not everything has to be one or the other. It can be both.

I worked with an attorney 20 years ago, long before “#MeToo.” He had a strict policy of never being alone with a woman client in his office. I knew the guy, he was as liberal as they come (he was a criminal defense attorney, and not one of the “men are falsely accused types,” just a big ole lib). He really did not want to take the risk.

But for many, like these corporate executives, there is also an element of petulant, pouty reaction, and punishment of those damn women who keep making things hard by trying to resist sexual assault. “Oh, so the poor little women are going to claim sexual harassment? Fine, I’ll just go nuclear and cut them out of the work place activities necessary for them to prosper. They brought this on themselves!”

The latter isn’t even from people who harass women. It’s from conservative nutjobs who are just upset that anyone dares get uppity and try to change things.

I have first hand experience, having a name that is predominantly female, and working in huge companies. If I’ve never talked with or met someone at work then they usually assume I’m female. And it generally seems they’re more helpful and friendlier as part of that assumption.

People who say they won’t hire women because of the “risk” are either total idiots or misogynists. They’re also opening themselves up to a lawsuit just for saying that (see the “total idiot” part).

The world is not overrun by women falsely accusing men of harassment. It’s just hard for some people to believe that it really is that pervasive.

It is not. And yet, it is a thing that does happen that is reasonable to take reasonable steps to insulate oneself against if one is in that sort of position.

“Reasonable,” of course, is a lot more “don’t get into poorly documented or potentially compromising situations one-on-one with a woman who works for you” than “don’t hire women because you might get accused of harassment.” The latter is rightly mocked for being absurd.

Is it? Are you more likely to be struck by lightning?