A study conducted for the New York Times study shows that Americans, especially women, have quite negative views of being alone with members of the opposite sex

A study conducted for the New York Times study shows that Americans, especially women, have quite negative views of being alone with members of the opposite sex. We Americans have always been said to be puritanical. Originally, this was based on religious morality adopted by society. Now, it seems to be based on the constant overhanging fear of men as potential abusers. (Is a constant overhanging fear of men as abusers much different than a constant overhanging fear of brown people as potential criminals? There are statistics to support both.) As a victim of sexual abuse as a teen, I'm well aware of the potential for bad things to happen out of the view of society. However, the frequency with which weird intentions have been erroneously ascribed to me strikes me as a bit off kilter. I've even watched a woman weirdly freak out on me and ascribe such things to me for doing and saying absolutely nothing. One thing you pick up, if you read enough history, is that people ascribe clandestine evils to people as a means of aggression or attack. The Salem witch trials had an economic/resource allocation basis. (Resource allocation problems bring out the worst in people. Jared Diamond's analysis of Rwanda is another example.) There's also a history of women of higher status using such accusations as a means of "punching down" on men of lower socioeconomic status, often across racial lines. Such accusations are particularly potent for being lurid. In mentioning this, I'm not trying to imply that all accusations are weaponized false accusations. What I am saying is that human nature just as much applies to both men and women, both the good and the bad. So what to do, if you live in a world that simultaneously contains innocent people, clandestine evils, and the opportunistic false accusation of clandestine evil? The solution lies in a society that emphasizes openness, truth, and the protection of the individual. The presupposition that someone is prone to do something based on an inherent trait is particularly dehumanizing. It's just as epistemically bankrupt and dehumanizing to presuppose bad intentions to someone on the basis of sex as it is to presuppose bad intentions to someone on the basis of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or their place of national origin. We call out countries that would throw individuals under the bus for their purposes. We should also call out ideologies that advocate throwing individuals under the bus for their purposes. (The protection of the individual is, after all, the foundation of liberal values.) (P.S. You can tell if someone is too far gone as an ideologue if you set a trap for their presuppositions, and they can't help but blunder into it.)