15 ms·

I, as a male, try to avoid staring at another female because I fear someone like Horvath accuses me of sexism. This is, sadly, the best thing to do because you

• enneff 13y ago
  I try to avoid staring at people because my parents taught me that it's rude to stare. That's not to say that I don't admire people that I find attractive. I just do it subtly to avoid making people feel uncomfortable.
  • kansface 13y ago
    Somehow, furtive glances doesn't come across much better.
    • enneff 13y ago
      It is possible to check someone out without staring at them and without looking like a creep.
      • deleted 13y ago
        [deleted]
        • enneff 13y ago
          Hmmm nah I'm going to go with it being both possible and totally okay to look at someone and think "I am physically attracted to that person."
    • froo 13y ago
      Try getting sternly lectured for 10 minutes because because you held the door open for a stranger to be polite. That's when you know shit gotten real. For the record, I routinely hold open doors for people that I know are behind me and are leaving/entering a building. It surprised me to know end to get yelled at for it.
      • girvo 13y ago
        I had that happen, so I laughed. Then she got really angry... doesn't stop me, though. I hold the door for everyone, because it's polite, not because someone is whatever gender.
        • stretchwithme 13y ago
          Dudes do it for dudes all the time. Its just one more way to acknowledge others, as is thanking someone that holds the door for you.
        • froo 13y ago
          > I hold the door for everyone, because it's polite, not because someone is whatever gender. Exactly why I do it. I've resigned myself to the fact that some people are just assholes. It's a trait that's not gender specific.
        • smoofles 13y ago
          First time I had that happen I quickly shut the door in the young lady’s face. Didn’t hit her, but it fell in place and she had to open it again herself. She was pretty unhappy about that as well, incidentally.
        • chanux 13y ago
          Woah! Glad to know I'm not alone. I do this all the time. Never had a bad experience yet though.
      • Ensorceled 13y ago
        I'm Canadian too! And been lectured to about it.
        • dgabriel 13y ago
          Where did this happen? I'm curious.
          • MarkTee 13y ago
• jd0 13y ago
  And I, as a male, try not to stare at anybody because I'm not a fucking asshole.
  • chanux 13y ago
    'Stare' is not the best word. I have to agree.
  • atomaka 13y ago
    We bow to your perfection.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • vacri 13y ago
      It really isn't that hard not to stare at people. It doesn't take a perfectionist.
  • cookiecaper 13y ago
    If someone is rendering a public performance, aren't you supposed to look at it? When does hula hooping in a public space transfer to a public performance? Is it public immediately because it's in plain sight? Does it only become public after an audience gathers and the hula hooper continues to hula hoop? What if someone sees the gathered audience and joins in so that they won't be considered rude for not taking interest in the public hula hooping performance? It's not really as clear cut as "staring makes you an asshole." I've found that in a workplace people will have wildly variable interpretations of the same event. The only solution is to work with mature adults who can assume good faith and work out their own issues. This almost never happens, so instead companies create hyper-sanitized environments where everything is against the rules.
    • jd0 13y ago
      hmmm, let's delve into a semantics analysis of human spatial designations When does hula hooping in a public space transfer to a public performance? gee I don't know, I was never one for philosophy! You can throw an infinite amount of what-ifs at any scenario. I was only responding to someone's statement that they do not stare for fear of being accused a sexist (I'd imagine people would call a starer a creep more-so a sexist in that scenario).
• rdtsc 13y ago
  > This is, sadly, the best thing to do because you don't know who is going to take offense. Then excessive avoidance gets reinterpreted as snobbishness, sexism, not wanting to be inclusive, and so on. "Men actively avoid me and sit father away during meetings, they don't invite me for beers after works, it is a hostile environment". Anyway it is a fine line. And one can interpret a lot of behaviors as stemming from sexism or misogynism even if they are not.
  • jd0 13y ago
    I think you'll like this: http://24.media.tumblr.com/c468297d403127b81a0cfa3c5d32cf59/tumblr_mxx2ndCrLV1t4geuco1_500.png http://24.media.tumblr.com/c468297d403127b81a0cfa3c5d32cf59/...
  • oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
    No, it's not a fine line at all. There is a huge chasm between ogling someone undertaking physical activity and excessively avoiding them. You probably behave toward your male colleagues in a way that would fit neatly somewhere between these two extremes. Is it particularly a US issue, this inability to behave like a grown-up at work? In the UK, in my experience, men and women tend to work together, on an equal footing, with no problem whatsoever.
    • jjoonathan 13y ago
      > There is a huge chasm between ogling someone undertaking physical activity If anyone -- attractive man, unattractive man, attractive woman, unattractive woman -- started hula-hooping in the middle of the office I would expect people to stare. Not because it's sexual, but because it's peculiar. The gap between "stare" and "ogle" is hardly objective, let alone a "chasm."
      • oneeyedpigeon 13y ago
        Julie described the group of men as 'gawking'; as far as I'm aware, this is more or less interchangeable with the term 'ogling', in common use here in the UK. This is significantly different from just staring - it implies a sexual undercurrent, i.e. paying particular attention to someone's physical characteristics. Maybe this is a cultural thing, but the clear implication in the original report was that the staring/ogling was inappropriate, particularly because it was undertaken by a group solely consisting of men.
• rtpg 13y ago
  >What I did have a problem with is the line of men sitting on one bench facing the hoopers and gawking at them Gawking and looking are not the same thing. There are also times where even the most socially incompetent will realise that some girls doing things that might be nice to look at is not an invitation to check them out doing it (this is, of course, excepting people who go the reductionist route of thinking that feminists invent their own problems). They're not animals at the zoo, they're people.
  • shiven 13y ago
    ... doing things that might be nice to look at is not an invitation to check them out doing it Then why do any of those things in a non-private setting with reasonable expectation of gawkers being present?
    • rtpg 13y ago
      because in an office environment you can at least expect your coworkers to show a bit of respect?
      • shiven 13y ago
        'Respect' is a pretty loaded word. Are you saying the guys staring at (fellow employee) girls hula-hooping in the same office should just close their eyes? What if the girls were just sitting, drinking coffee? What about juggling 6 balls on the air? What about picking their noses? What about picking each-others noses? Where does this nonsense end? If (almost) all my co-workers are staring at me as I adjust my belt, standing in the middle of the lunch room, I will do that activity in the confines of a men's room next time. If the same thing happens as I stretch my leg muscles before a run, I will do that activity outside. Why is it my co-workers' fault if they stare at me if I do something that is not the norm? If being merely 'looked at' troubles you, then you need to look at yourself before closing others' eyes. "Why are you uncomfortable?", should not be that hard a question to answer, clearly and succinctly, for something that evokes such a strong response from you.
        • 13y ago
• efuquen 13y ago
  I think it's inappropriate to stare at anyone for long, whether male or female. It's normally not considered polite and a bit weird, so I don't get what the issue is? I get it, you find someone attractive and you want to gawk at them, cool. I learned to control that impulse when when I was hitting puberty. Seriously, there really isn't an excuse and it's inappropriate in most situations.
• erikpukinskis 13y ago
  > This is, sadly, the best thing to do because you don't know who is going to take offense. I know you mean well, but your sadness to me belies some ignorance about what it's like to be a woman working in a male dominated field. You'd like to live in a world where you can casually watch beautiful people doing beautiful things. I don't begrudge you that, and I wouldn't accuse you of sexism. That said, I have zero interest in watching women hula hoop at work. None. Not because I am incapable of enjoying a show like that, but because I desire so deeply to work in an environment where woman can just kick ass at their jobs without having to deal with sexual politics. We're nowhere near that point as a culture, but that's where I want to be. So I'm not sad that I can't watch women hula hoop at work. I'm really excited to have positive, professional interactions with women at work about their actual jobs.
  • curun1r 13y ago
    The part that bothers me about this is that we're talking about a one-sided account of events where the terminology being used, "ogling," is entirely subjective. At my work, there is a woman who brings hula hoops to company events. When there's music, she likes to dance and do tricks with them and she obviously practices a lot. When she's doing it, people (including me) stare. But, at least for me, it has nothing to do with any sexual aspect of what she's doing...I'm watching it because I like appreciating the skill and practice that's gone into her performance. And similar things happen at other company functions. For example, we have an employee who majored in music and is an amazing pianist. There's a bar we go to with a piano that he's played a few times. Guess what...everyone stares at him while he's playing. Hell, we've even got a couple of people who are amazing beer pong players that gather a crowd whenever the ping pong balls come out at events with a keg. So when does staring and admiring a skill cross the line to ogling? That depends entirely on the person making the determination and often says more about them and their perspective/past experiences than it does about the people doing the staring. The bottom line is that for those of us who weren't there, nothing in the account we've been provided gives us any information to judge the appropriateness of what went on. We have only one fact: the author of the account, who, rightly or wrongly, has an axe to grind with the company, felt that it crossed some line. It's bad PR, but it's not proof that anything untoward happened.
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]