6 ms·

I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would

I suspect that if you just announced this fact to the women in the class - either officially, if that doesn't get you in trouble, or under the table if it would - then the problem would basically solve itself. Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago
Women aren't dumb. They almost certainly already know what the deal is, and I doubt they'd be phased by it if they were attracted to a guy.
- rektide 4y ago
  I lament to say it but I tend to agree. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" was my first reaction, and I felt awful & loss hearing your comment (because I simultaenously also agree!), but I'm also back to some transparency in the end, if less hopeful (that this would turn out/cleans us of what feel like thin actions). It's up to people to decide, hopefully from an informed place! Simply posting about this & hopefully awareness taking off & giving folks warnings what is afoot here is basically the one responsible step, that at least tries to inform potential datees about this pretty icky predation (but which alas to everyone, also makes sense). This definitely feels not good to me, in a big sense. But I have a hard time convincing myself it really matters in a case-by-case sense. If someone's cute and has prospects, is doing something actually interesting on their own & has potential I respect, and has the time and slack to come meet & be interested in me while (hopefully) also enjoying & sharing a subject some, I'm not really sure that I'd be all that bothered. Even knowing there's a bit of sham, a bit of a waste, a game at the heart. They're going out of their way to find a connection. Like, ok, this person gave up a sensible path to go do something stupid to come meet me... ok, weird, but ok. I still think there should be a disclaimer at the start, make it known. Not that adolescents really have the fully developed limbic system to handle/make use of the info fully, but at least to open the idea first, give em a better chance. Heck, let's deploy some ML: "HAL 10k reports 20% of the boys in this class have no business here whatsoever; it has no contribution/would be easier than their regular classes, & their intents are suspect!" Match data with data! If the diversity data gives insight one place, equity insists we give counter-data on the un-diverse, and in that seems like a solid chance to start to make pretty strong inferences about what is up. Or just more simply, pointing out the stats in general: that these classes have rather surprising new attendees en-mass, and showing what ranking of predation the class has on the predatory website being described here, for what search critereon. Rather than be specific, just leave it at the general non-judgemental but also generally most would conclude yuck. Let the information go two ways. But to return to my parents point. Yeah. I think we should prepare & equip, make known & make bidirectional some of the what-is-what here. But I also don't think, even knowing & seeing, it'd be that much of a hinderance or burden in many cases. I started with a so what, and that still kind of is my final conclusion. But I still feel the need for sunlight, the need to make it a reasonably fair so-what, versus a Dark Forest scenario.
  - 6510 4y ago
    > "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" A showboat youtube channel?
    - rektide 4y ago
      A quote from one of the truly great Supreme Court justices. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfectant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfec... https://www.google.com/search?q=sunlight+is+the+best+disinfectant https://www.google.com/search?q=sunlight+is+the+best+disinfe... Inspiration for entities such as the Sunlight Foundation. https://sunlightfoundation.com/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/
- scarface74 4y ago
  “If a sexy man compliments me it’s fine. If an ugly man looks at me too long it’s harassment”
  - dymk 4y ago
    Well, yeah
- judge2020 4y ago
  The entire third paragraph (sans the introduction) confirms this.
tiahura 4y ago
Girls must be protected from being asked out at all costs because they are strong and independent future girl-bosses.
- throwntoday 4y ago
  The real issue was pointed out by the professor herself, that only attractive women were being offered tutoring and getting attention. The ones complaining were jaded by the competition. I don't see how there is any issue with this if the men were respectful and didn't actually make unwanted advances. Why does the professor (a woman) feel like women are stupid, or need to be coddled? I can't think of anything more disrespectful to empowering women than assuming they don't possess the agency to make calculated decisions on their own.
  - troupe 4y ago
    She specifically said that some of the upperclassmen were helping run the labs which sounds like it would benefit everyone.
    - bitmunk 4y ago
      A smug upperclassmen != Good teacher
    - throwntoday 4y ago
      I took that as within their lab groups. As-in sitting with their group of 4 or so, they led the group work. Honestly, whatever their motives, that kind of interaction is what group work is for. Having students that can lead and communicate with peers is invaluable.
      - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
        This works great until someone rejects their advances and in retaliation the male student (who is auditing the class so they have no consequences for failure) sabotages the female student's labs and therefore their grade.
JuniorBalleg 4y ago
Why would you think that? Young women aren't oblivious to their own charms. They know what they're doing. They're getting free 1-on-1 tuition from a nerd, and the nerd gets to be within 3 feet of an attractive young woman - maybe even more than that, let's not be naive about college campuses - which might otherwise be impossible. Everybody wins. You might even upset the women most of all! When the quiet part is said aloud, you take away their plausible deniability. You're calling them out even more so than you are the men.
- GlenTheMachine 4y ago
  Because I have an attractive daughter studying engineering, and she tells me that her single biggest problem is that she constantly has to reject, avoid, or otherwise fend off male advances nearly every day. It's exhausting, it makes her never feel at ease in her classes, and she is constantly being distracted when what she really wants is quiet time to figure out integration by parts or whatever. As a male, this is not a problem I ever had, but I believe her. She isn't making it up.
  - groffee 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - GlenTheMachine 4y ago
      Oh, okay. The fact that the engineering world is often unpleasant for my daughter strictly because she is a young blonde woman isn't the fault of the people making it unpleasant. It's my fault. Grow up.
  - onepointsixC 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - bitmunk 4y ago
      "There's people starving and being sexually assaulted, so any concern you have is invalid."
viraptor 4y ago
I was a bit disappointed in how much the question and the answers concentrated on the course/university/app. Students have agency and are relatively intelligent. There's one side of "how to change this in the future" which matters of course. But for making the environment safer? The teacher can literally state what's happening for the first few lectures: "This semester the class composition looks different, because we've been joined by a large number of students using app XYZ to select this class for its high female:male ratio. They're likely familiar with the curriculum already and are hoping for easy grades and the chance to get close to others under the pretext of tutoring. Keep this in mind if approached. You know who you are and you're still free to change your course for this semester. Now for the actual lecture..."
- gameman144 4y ago
  Even this seems over the top. A simple "Wow, the ratio of men to women in this class is much higher than it usually is" can get the point across there, without alienating the men in the class who actually care about the subject material. Women aren't oblivious, and people can absolutely draw their own conclusions with that info.
lelanthran 4y ago
> Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates. You don't know very much about young woman, nor young people in general. The females going on dates already know what the deal is. Telling them about it isn't going to change their mind.

ZephyrBlu 4y ago

Women aren't dumb. They almost certainly already know what the deal is, and I doubt they'd be phased by it if they were attracted to a guy.

rektide 4y ago
I lament to say it but I tend to agree. "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" was my first reaction, and I felt awful & loss hearing your comment (because I simultaenously also agree!), but I'm also back to some transparency in the end, if less hopeful (that this would turn out/cleans us of what feel like thin actions). It's up to people to decide, hopefully from an informed place! Simply posting about this & hopefully awareness taking off & giving folks warnings what is afoot here is basically the one responsible step, that at least tries to inform potential datees about this pretty icky predation (but which alas to everyone, also makes sense). This definitely feels not good to me, in a big sense. But I have a hard time convincing myself it really matters in a case-by-case sense. If someone's cute and has prospects, is doing something actually interesting on their own & has potential I respect, and has the time and slack to come meet & be interested in me while (hopefully) also enjoying & sharing a subject some, I'm not really sure that I'd be all that bothered. Even knowing there's a bit of sham, a bit of a waste, a game at the heart. They're going out of their way to find a connection. Like, ok, this person gave up a sensible path to go do something stupid to come meet me... ok, weird, but ok. I still think there should be a disclaimer at the start, make it known. Not that adolescents really have the fully developed limbic system to handle/make use of the info fully, but at least to open the idea first, give em a better chance. Heck, let's deploy some ML: "HAL 10k reports 20% of the boys in this class have no business here whatsoever; it has no contribution/would be easier than their regular classes, & their intents are suspect!" Match data with data! If the diversity data gives insight one place, equity insists we give counter-data on the un-diverse, and in that seems like a solid chance to start to make pretty strong inferences about what is up. Or just more simply, pointing out the stats in general: that these classes have rather surprising new attendees en-mass, and showing what ranking of predation the class has on the predatory website being described here, for what search critereon. Rather than be specific, just leave it at the general non-judgemental but also generally most would conclude yuck. Let the information go two ways. But to return to my parents point. Yeah. I think we should prepare & equip, make known & make bidirectional some of the what-is-what here. But I also don't think, even knowing & seeing, it'd be that much of a hinderance or burden in many cases. I started with a so what, and that still kind of is my final conclusion. But I still feel the need for sunlight, the need to make it a reasonably fair so-what, versus a Dark Forest scenario.
- 6510 4y ago
  > "Sunlight is the best disinfectant" A showboat youtube channel?
  - rektide 4y ago
    A quote from one of the truly great Supreme Court justices. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfectant https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sunlight_is_the_best_disinfec... https://www.google.com/search?q=sunlight+is+the+best+disinfectant https://www.google.com/search?q=sunlight+is+the+best+disinfe... Inspiration for entities such as the Sunlight Foundation. https://sunlightfoundation.com/ https://sunlightfoundation.com/
scarface74 4y ago
“If a sexy man compliments me it’s fine. If an ugly man looks at me too long it’s harassment”
- dymk 4y ago
  Well, yeah
judge2020 4y ago
The entire third paragraph (sans the introduction) confirms this.

tiahura 4y ago

Girls must be protected from being asked out at all costs because they are strong and independent future girl-bosses.

throwntoday 4y ago
The real issue was pointed out by the professor herself, that only attractive women were being offered tutoring and getting attention. The ones complaining were jaded by the competition. I don't see how there is any issue with this if the men were respectful and didn't actually make unwanted advances. Why does the professor (a woman) feel like women are stupid, or need to be coddled? I can't think of anything more disrespectful to empowering women than assuming they don't possess the agency to make calculated decisions on their own.
- troupe 4y ago
  She specifically said that some of the upperclassmen were helping run the labs which sounds like it would benefit everyone.
  - bitmunk 4y ago
    A smug upperclassmen != Good teacher
  - throwntoday 4y ago
    I took that as within their lab groups. As-in sitting with their group of 4 or so, they led the group work. Honestly, whatever their motives, that kind of interaction is what group work is for. Having students that can lead and communicate with peers is invaluable.
    - CuriousCosmic 4y ago
      This works great until someone rejects their advances and in retaliation the male student (who is auditing the class so they have no consequences for failure) sabotages the female student's labs and therefore their grade.

JuniorBalleg 4y ago

Why would you think that? Young women aren't oblivious to their own charms. They know what they're doing. They're getting free 1-on-1 tuition from a nerd, and the nerd gets to be within 3 feet of an attractive young woman - maybe even more than that, let's not be naive about college campuses - which might otherwise be impossible. Everybody wins. You might even upset the women most of all! When the quiet part is said aloud, you take away their plausible deniability. You're calling them out even more so than you are the men.

GlenTheMachine 4y ago
Because I have an attractive daughter studying engineering, and she tells me that her single biggest problem is that she constantly has to reject, avoid, or otherwise fend off male advances nearly every day. It's exhausting, it makes her never feel at ease in her classes, and she is constantly being distracted when what she really wants is quiet time to figure out integration by parts or whatever. As a male, this is not a problem I ever had, but I believe her. She isn't making it up.
- groffee 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - GlenTheMachine 4y ago
    Oh, okay. The fact that the engineering world is often unpleasant for my daughter strictly because she is a young blonde woman isn't the fault of the people making it unpleasant. It's my fault. Grow up.
- onepointsixC 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - bitmunk 4y ago
    "There's people starving and being sexually assaulted, so any concern you have is invalid."

viraptor 4y ago

I was a bit disappointed in how much the question and the answers concentrated on the course/university/app. Students have agency and are relatively intelligent. There's one side of "how to change this in the future" which matters of course. But for making the environment safer? The teacher can literally state what's happening for the first few lectures: "This semester the class composition looks different, because we've been joined by a large number of students using app XYZ to select this class for its high female:male ratio. They're likely familiar with the curriculum already and are hoping for easy grades and the chance to get close to others under the pretext of tutoring. Keep this in mind if approached. You know who you are and you're still free to change your course for this semester. Now for the actual lecture..."

gameman144 4y ago
Even this seems over the top. A simple "Wow, the ratio of men to women in this class is much higher than it usually is" can get the point across there, without alienating the men in the class who actually care about the subject material. Women aren't oblivious, and people can absolutely draw their own conclusions with that info.

lelanthran 4y ago

> Certainly no males in the class would be getting dates. You don't know very much about young woman, nor young people in general. The females going on dates already know what the deal is. Telling them about it isn't going to change their mind.