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It's so weird to see people defend this because this seems like fairly textbook power harassment. If this was to occur at work where some managers were organizi

It's so weird to see people defend this because this seems like fairly textbook power harassment. If this was to occur at work where some managers were organizing their pods or such so that they're the only man in a group of women for the sake of dating it would clearly be seen as a problem. If the story is true, people auditing courses should be treated with a higher level of responsibility. Giving preferential treatment as a result because you want to date them or find them attractive isn't the purpose of auditing at all. This isn't to say it's wrong to potentially date someone while auditing a course, but the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters.

ShredKazoo 4y ago
>fairly textbook power harassment I thought "power harassment" is when you have power over someone. How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students? >the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters What's wrong with having an intention of finding someone to marry? Suppose a woman signs up for eHarmony with the intention of meeting her future husband -- is that problematic?
- texaslonghorn5 4y ago
  if you know the material and are offering the tutoring sessions then you clearly have power over the person whom you are tutoring. similar reason why dating your student as a TA is questionable.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    If you know the material, that gives you the power to offer tutoring sessions, which is power over people who don't know the material. >dating your student as a TA is questionable TAs are paid employees who often grade student papers. Seems like a very different situation.
    - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
      if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different
      - ShredKazoo 4y ago
        >if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic Sure, and if I pay a fast food worker to make me a burger, I'm taking advantage of the "power dynamic" of me having more money than they do. >sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different I think the right response for the professor in this situation is 1. Don't reduce the amount of help that would normally be offered to students in the class. That way there's still someone getting paid to lead lab sessions. 2. Pull aside the seniors and say to them: "I know what you're doing, and I'm ok with it, as long as you help everyone who asks for help, including people you're not interested in. If you're making the students you're not interested in feel terrible, I'm going to announce what you're doing to the entire class."
- fzeroracer 4y ago
  Really? They're seniors in a class. It's heavily implied they're joining classes they know and are easy so that they can wow people. They offer tutoring and assistance to other individuals they seem attractive. And the classroom is a place to learn. eHarmony last I checked is not a classroom so can you explain to me what exactly was the point of your comparison? It's literally an apples to oranges point you're making.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    >And the classroom is a place to learn. eHarmony last I checked is not a classroom so can you explain to me what exactly was the point of your comparison? It's literally an apples to oranges point you're making. This was in response to a user who said "the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters". My point is that having an intention to meet your future spouse is not bad. >And the classroom is a place to learn. Having lots of tutors available to help people facilitates that objective. My guess would be that the net effect of the practice described in the OP is to increase student learning.
    - fzeroracer 4y ago
      So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Like they join the company, do nothing except look for women to date. Not only that, but if management found out they would not be allowed to fire them.
      - ShredKazoo 4y ago
        >So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Getting a job and then not doing your work makes you a shitty employee, and being a shitty employee is bad. You're violating the spirit of your employment contract, that your employer gives you money and you do work for them in return.
        4y ago
- steele 4y ago
  Grading curves in prerequisite courses, for one thing.
- troupe 4y ago
  > How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students? I believe the logic is that the upperclassmen have more knowledge of the subject and therefor have more power to help others do well in the class. I've definitely had classes with annoying fellow students, but I never felt that I needed to study with anyone that I didn't feel comfortable studying with.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    >I believe the logic is that the upperclassmen have more knowledge of the subject and therefor have more power to help others do well in the class. They have that power regardless of whether they audit the course. See https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...
Spivak 4y ago
Thank you! Fuckin’ a, I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find someone who actually understands the dynamic here. People help each other out and study together in college courses. These guys know that and are orchestrating the situation to position themselves as a valuable resource to their female classmates and selectively dole it out based on their desire to (generously) date them or (realistically) sleep with them. Ew. I can’t even imagine how pissed I would be if I found out a guy I was talking to used that app. Like oh cool you’re not actually helping me because we’re classmates taking the same course together, this is actually some weird scheme where we trade tutoring for “access” to me but I’m of course not allowed to know this arrangement because it would expose how gross the whole idea even is.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  >I can’t even imagine how pissed I would be if I found out a guy I was talking to used that app. Like oh cool you’re not actually helping me because we’re classmates taking the same course together, this is actually some weird scheme where we trade tutoring for “access” to me but I’m of course not allowed to know this arrangement because it would expose how gross the whole idea even is. I think you should recognize that your feelings aren't necessarily representative of all women. Women vary a fair amount in the ways that they want men to approach them: >I mentioned to several of the people I interviewed for this piece that I’d met my husband in an elevator, in 2001. (We worked on different floors of the same institution, and over the months that followed struck up many more conversations—in the elevator, in the break room, on the walk to the subway.) I was fascinated by the extent to which this prompted other women to sigh and say that they’d just love to meet someone that way. And yet quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. “Creeper! Get away from me,” one woman imagined thinking. “Anytime we’re in silence, we look at our phones,” explained her friend, nodding. Another woman fantasized to me about what it would be like to have a man hit on her in a bookstore. (She’d be holding a copy of her favorite book. “What’s that book?” he’d say.) But then she seemed to snap out of her reverie, and changed the subject to Sex and the City reruns and how hopelessly dated they seem. “Miranda meets Steve at a bar,” she said, in a tone suggesting that the scenario might as well be out of a Jane Austen novel, for all the relevance it had to her life. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex... There's no good way to predict in advance whether for a given woman and a given situation, she will find it to be gross vs romantic comedy meet-cute. Hold a door open for a woman and her reaction could be anything from "woohoo I guess chivalry isn't dead!" to "what a patriarchical misogynist!"

ShredKazoo 4y ago

>fairly textbook power harassment I thought "power harassment" is when you have power over someone. How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students? >the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters What's wrong with having an intention of finding someone to marry? Suppose a woman signs up for eHarmony with the intention of meeting her future husband -- is that problematic?

texaslonghorn5 4y ago
if you know the material and are offering the tutoring sessions then you clearly have power over the person whom you are tutoring. similar reason why dating your student as a TA is questionable.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  If you know the material, that gives you the power to offer tutoring sessions, which is power over people who don't know the material. >dating your student as a TA is questionable TAs are paid employees who often grade student papers. Seems like a very different situation.
  - texaslonghorn5 4y ago
    if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different
    - ShredKazoo 4y ago
      >if you take a class purely to offer tutoring to less advanced students for the purpose of looking impressive, finding dates, etc., then you are taking advantage of this power dynamic Sure, and if I pay a fast food worker to make me a burger, I'm taking advantage of the "power dynamic" of me having more money than they do. >sure this is different but if the advanced students are engineering situations where they are leading lab sessions then it's not that different I think the right response for the professor in this situation is 1. Don't reduce the amount of help that would normally be offered to students in the class. That way there's still someone getting paid to lead lab sessions. 2. Pull aside the seniors and say to them: "I know what you're doing, and I'm ok with it, as long as you help everyone who asks for help, including people you're not interested in. If you're making the students you're not interested in feel terrible, I'm going to announce what you're doing to the entire class."
fzeroracer 4y ago
Really? They're seniors in a class. It's heavily implied they're joining classes they know and are easy so that they can wow people. They offer tutoring and assistance to other individuals they seem attractive. And the classroom is a place to learn. eHarmony last I checked is not a classroom so can you explain to me what exactly was the point of your comparison? It's literally an apples to oranges point you're making.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  >And the classroom is a place to learn. eHarmony last I checked is not a classroom so can you explain to me what exactly was the point of your comparison? It's literally an apples to oranges point you're making. This was in response to a user who said "the intention behind joining in the first place is what matters". My point is that having an intention to meet your future spouse is not bad. >And the classroom is a place to learn. Having lots of tutors available to help people facilitates that objective. My guess would be that the net effect of the practice described in the OP is to increase student learning.
  - fzeroracer 4y ago
    So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Like they join the company, do nothing except look for women to date. Not only that, but if management found out they would not be allowed to fire them.
    - ShredKazoo 4y ago
      >So just to establish: You would be okay with someone say, joining a company with the explicit purpose of dating and not doing their work, yeah? Getting a job and then not doing your work makes you a shitty employee, and being a shitty employee is bad. You're violating the spirit of your employment contract, that your employer gives you money and you do work for them in return.
      - 4y ago
steele 4y ago
Grading curves in prerequisite courses, for one thing.
troupe 4y ago
> How does auditing a course give you power over fellow students? I believe the logic is that the upperclassmen have more knowledge of the subject and therefor have more power to help others do well in the class. I've definitely had classes with annoying fellow students, but I never felt that I needed to study with anyone that I didn't feel comfortable studying with.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  >I believe the logic is that the upperclassmen have more knowledge of the subject and therefor have more power to help others do well in the class. They have that power regardless of whether they audit the course. See https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-ethics/ https://blog.jaibot.com/the-copenhagen-interpretation-of-eth...

Spivak 4y ago

Thank you! Fuckin’ a, I can’t believe I had to scroll down this far to find someone who actually understands the dynamic here. People help each other out and study together in college courses. These guys know that and are orchestrating the situation to position themselves as a valuable resource to their female classmates and selectively dole it out based on their desire to (generously) date them or (realistically) sleep with them. Ew. I can’t even imagine how pissed I would be if I found out a guy I was talking to used that app. Like oh cool you’re not actually helping me because we’re classmates taking the same course together, this is actually some weird scheme where we trade tutoring for “access” to me but I’m of course not allowed to know this arrangement because it would expose how gross the whole idea even is.

ShredKazoo 4y ago
>I can’t even imagine how pissed I would be if I found out a guy I was talking to used that app. Like oh cool you’re not actually helping me because we’re classmates taking the same course together, this is actually some weird scheme where we trade tutoring for “access” to me but I’m of course not allowed to know this arrangement because it would expose how gross the whole idea even is. I think you should recognize that your feelings aren't necessarily representative of all women. Women vary a fair amount in the ways that they want men to approach them: >I mentioned to several of the people I interviewed for this piece that I’d met my husband in an elevator, in 2001. (We worked on different floors of the same institution, and over the months that followed struck up many more conversations—in the elevator, in the break room, on the walk to the subway.) I was fascinated by the extent to which this prompted other women to sigh and say that they’d just love to meet someone that way. And yet quite a few of them suggested that if a random guy started talking to them in an elevator, they would be weirded out. “Creeper! Get away from me,” one woman imagined thinking. “Anytime we’re in silence, we look at our phones,” explained her friend, nodding. Another woman fantasized to me about what it would be like to have a man hit on her in a bookstore. (She’d be holding a copy of her favorite book. “What’s that book?” he’d say.) But then she seemed to snap out of her reverie, and changed the subject to Sex and the City reruns and how hopelessly dated they seem. “Miranda meets Steve at a bar,” she said, in a tone suggesting that the scenario might as well be out of a Jane Austen novel, for all the relevance it had to her life. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex... There's no good way to predict in advance whether for a given woman and a given situation, she will find it to be gross vs romantic comedy meet-cute. Hold a door open for a woman and her reaction could be anything from "woohoo I guess chivalry isn't dead!" to "what a patriarchical misogynist!"