6 ms·

This doesn't seem to be minor one time thing... Right before I ever attended my first conference, one of the women who was a year ahead of me in my program pul

This doesn't seem to be minor one time thing... Right before I ever attended my first conference, one of the women who was a year ahead of me in my program pulled me aside to warn about him. She told me to do my best to avoid him at the conference but “every woman has a story about him, so it’s only a matter of time.” Of course, she was right. Months before my defense, while at a poster session to present my dissertation work, he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.” I remember feeling deflated. In the years since, he’s sent me several inappropriate private Facebook messages. In the first, he responded to a Facebook post I had made asking for people’s experiences with Lasik eye surgery with a message that some activities would become much better. Trying to deflect what I thought was going to be an awkward interaction, I responded that I was looking forward to better bird watching. He followed up with a private message that “the activity [he was] thinking about was sex, but bird watching would be better too ;)”. I ignored him. On another occasion, I posted about some data visualizations using data from a medical journal that involved the relationship between age and pubic hair. He sent me a private message explaining how the data is corroborated by his own experiences watching a certain genre of porn. What his personal preferences regarding porn are is something I definitely did not want to know. Perhaps I shouldn’t have posted about the data given the racy topic, but I thought it was in-bounds since it was a comment on data in a medical journal. I guess I was wrong. I responded but tried to end the conversation quickly. On another occasion, he sent me a private message out of the blue to let me know that there was another researcher with a name very similar to my own who published an article that “is even about sex, broadly defined (fecundity). You guys related?” ...and it goes on.

mirimir 9y ago
>... he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.” This seems to have been their first interaction. Touching her was plainly a dumb-ass move. Plus his consistent deafness to her repeated "I'm not interested" feedback. But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women in professional contexts, I'm immediately suspicious. Are they stylishly clueless? Are they trying to manipulate others? Are they making a point about women being free to dress as they like? I mean, I invite you to log about outfits worn by your male and female professional colleagues. Assess overall tightness, especially legs, butt and breasts. Estimate percentage of bare skin, especially cleavage. For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.
- helpComputer 9y ago
  > But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women... It's not at all clear from her blog post that she was dressed provocatively, or that he was sincerely commenting on the appropriateness of her appearance. This could just as easily have been a scenario where a man thinks a woman looks good and lets her know that he thinks so, while simultaneously criticizing her for his advantage, ie, negging. But with the information we have, we just don't know. It's like an ambiguous personal email that one can project attitudes onto; if you're feeling defensive or threatened, then it's easy to read a perfectly neutral message as being hostile or even sarcastic.
- daveFNbuck 9y ago
  When I was a grad student, shorts and sandals is absolutely what I would wear to a poster session. I never had anyone comment on what I was wearing. If I did somehow manage to cross a line, I would expect to hear about it from my friends or my advisor, not from a stranger. Most of your complaints seem to be that men and women have different standards for work-appropriate clothing. If bare arms are too provocative for you, that is a personal problem that you need to work on.
  - mirimir 9y ago
    It's not at all a problem for me. However, maybe it's a problem for them. Prudent men won't comment or act out. But many men (and women) will judge. Like it or not, it's what's so.
    - daveFNbuck 9y ago
      There isn't any outfit a woman won't be judged negatively for wearing. You could do a lot more good by speaking up when people are judging.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        Sure. But conservatively stylish presentation is arguably the best strategy for career advancement. At least, in academica.
hackermailman 9y ago
These PMs are clearly predatory grooming and not at all somebody who may be interested in dating a colleague. If you're interested in somebody you don't act like Jian Gomeshi or Clarence Thomas constantly bringing up sexual innuendo, touching them or talking about porn. That's what predators in prisons do in what they call the 'punk test' to see how far they can push you. If you ignore them that means they can progress to level 2 and up the harassment. As for these conferences I always think not allowing alcohol is the best solution for avoiding the pack of idiots the author ran into with one loudly bragging about 'banging smoking hot chicks'. You could have behavior police there kicking out the people acting like they are in a frat party or you could just not have alcohol and at all times push this is a professional conference not a nightclub. You'll still run into creepy predators because that is a fact of human life. The advice I was given a long time ago when in pretrial lockup for bogus charges of violating the CFAA is never let anybody get to level 2 of the punk test, always make it known their behavior is not acceptable by directly telling them or use banter, which is how males typically interact with each other in these situations. With banter you also establish a rapport which makes it easier to tell them to cut out unprofessional behavior. The girl in this story when the drunk creep threw weak banter at her after she gave him the look for his loud creep comments could have responded with her own bantz instead of feeling humiliated, as that was a prime moment for a joke about him being at the wrong conference as it wasn't a fictional story writing con or stats joke on inaccurate analysis, with a direct reminder to keep their frat antics down. No humiliation, and message gets received the behavior isn't appropriate and the creeps will respect that you can keep up with the banter so usually won't persist. This sounds like victim blaming but predators are also good con artists who can insulate themselves with other powerful people to retain their status and deflect discipline so reality must be checked. A large accounting firm here that a friend of mine worked at in HR discovered they had a manager with numerous settled sexual harassment lawsuits none of the employees knew about they tried to keep secret. The company was more willing to keep paying settlements than they were willing to fire the harasser.
- YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
  You'd think banter would work that way, but in practice it just encourages the idiot to respond with more "banter" of their own. See, a guy who is stupid enough to think it's appropriate to tell you your dress is too sexy for the conference is just not intellectually equipped to face the fact he's being a creep. In his eyes, that creepy stuff he said to you is already "banter". If you reply, you're just accepting his rules for interaction- and that can only lead to more uneasiness or humiliation. Also, this idea that you should respond with chuzpah to every idiot who bothers you puts the burden on the person who is being harassed to protect his or herself from the harasser, when really the harasser is the one who should be controlling their behaviour. Finally- some people are just not good with banter. What about them? They just get harassed and it's their fault if the can't come up with a zinger to put the creep in his place? I don't think that's resonable.

mirimir 9y ago

>... he touched me on the leg and told me that my dress was “way too sexy for a poster session.” This seems to have been their first interaction. Touching her was plainly a dumb-ass move. Plus his consistent deafness to her repeated "I'm not interested" feedback. But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women in professional contexts, I'm immediately suspicious. Are they stylishly clueless? Are they trying to manipulate others? Are they making a point about women being free to dress as they like? I mean, I invite you to log about outfits worn by your male and female professional colleagues. Assess overall tightness, especially legs, butt and breasts. Estimate percentage of bare skin, especially cleavage. For example, you may see women in tight sleavless tshirts aka wifebeaters, plus short skirts. How many men will be wearing tight wifebeaters with short pants and sandals? Not many, I bet.

helpComputer 9y ago
> But his comment about professional dress could have been made far more constructively. When I encounter provocatively-dressed women... It's not at all clear from her blog post that she was dressed provocatively, or that he was sincerely commenting on the appropriateness of her appearance. This could just as easily have been a scenario where a man thinks a woman looks good and lets her know that he thinks so, while simultaneously criticizing her for his advantage, ie, negging. But with the information we have, we just don't know. It's like an ambiguous personal email that one can project attitudes onto; if you're feeling defensive or threatened, then it's easy to read a perfectly neutral message as being hostile or even sarcastic.
daveFNbuck 9y ago
When I was a grad student, shorts and sandals is absolutely what I would wear to a poster session. I never had anyone comment on what I was wearing. If I did somehow manage to cross a line, I would expect to hear about it from my friends or my advisor, not from a stranger. Most of your complaints seem to be that men and women have different standards for work-appropriate clothing. If bare arms are too provocative for you, that is a personal problem that you need to work on.
- mirimir 9y ago
  It's not at all a problem for me. However, maybe it's a problem for them. Prudent men won't comment or act out. But many men (and women) will judge. Like it or not, it's what's so.
  - daveFNbuck 9y ago
    There isn't any outfit a woman won't be judged negatively for wearing. You could do a lot more good by speaking up when people are judging.
    - mirimir 9y ago
      Sure. But conservatively stylish presentation is arguably the best strategy for career advancement. At least, in academica.

hackermailman 9y ago

These PMs are clearly predatory grooming and not at all somebody who may be interested in dating a colleague. If you're interested in somebody you don't act like Jian Gomeshi or Clarence Thomas constantly bringing up sexual innuendo, touching them or talking about porn. That's what predators in prisons do in what they call the 'punk test' to see how far they can push you. If you ignore them that means they can progress to level 2 and up the harassment. As for these conferences I always think not allowing alcohol is the best solution for avoiding the pack of idiots the author ran into with one loudly bragging about 'banging smoking hot chicks'. You could have behavior police there kicking out the people acting like they are in a frat party or you could just not have alcohol and at all times push this is a professional conference not a nightclub. You'll still run into creepy predators because that is a fact of human life. The advice I was given a long time ago when in pretrial lockup for bogus charges of violating the CFAA is never let anybody get to level 2 of the punk test, always make it known their behavior is not acceptable by directly telling them or use banter, which is how males typically interact with each other in these situations. With banter you also establish a rapport which makes it easier to tell them to cut out unprofessional behavior. The girl in this story when the drunk creep threw weak banter at her after she gave him the look for his loud creep comments could have responded with her own bantz instead of feeling humiliated, as that was a prime moment for a joke about him being at the wrong conference as it wasn't a fictional story writing con or stats joke on inaccurate analysis, with a direct reminder to keep their frat antics down. No humiliation, and message gets received the behavior isn't appropriate and the creeps will respect that you can keep up with the banter so usually won't persist. This sounds like victim blaming but predators are also good con artists who can insulate themselves with other powerful people to retain their status and deflect discipline so reality must be checked. A large accounting firm here that a friend of mine worked at in HR discovered they had a manager with numerous settled sexual harassment lawsuits none of the employees knew about they tried to keep secret. The company was more willing to keep paying settlements than they were willing to fire the harasser.

YeGoblynQueenne 9y ago
You'd think banter would work that way, but in practice it just encourages the idiot to respond with more "banter" of their own. See, a guy who is stupid enough to think it's appropriate to tell you your dress is too sexy for the conference is just not intellectually equipped to face the fact he's being a creep. In his eyes, that creepy stuff he said to you is already "banter". If you reply, you're just accepting his rules for interaction- and that can only lead to more uneasiness or humiliation. Also, this idea that you should respond with chuzpah to every idiot who bothers you puts the burden on the person who is being harassed to protect his or herself from the harasser, when really the harasser is the one who should be controlling their behaviour. Finally- some people are just not good with banter. What about them? They just get harassed and it's their fault if the can't come up with a zinger to put the creep in his place? I don't think that's resonable.