Statistics, we have a problem
Two patterns emerge which can be found in many of the stories that one hears about these days.<p>1. A certain type of man who has developed highly problematic habits in regards to repeated, if not very frequent inappropriate (sexual) harassment, and who essentially has been rewarded for this for a long time.<p>2. A type of person (mostly women, but as far as my observation goes, this general trait is common regardless of gender) who has failed to speak up and push back, often for many many years - who only now that everyone does it, feels &quot;comfortable&quot; enough to speak up.<p>As a man I am frustrated about group 1) because they are a pain in the ass to women and fuck it up for all other men, and I am frustrated about persons from group 2) who selectively deny their personal ethical&#x2F;moral responsibility as adults and their ability to use free will (&quot;I was too feared to speak up&quot;)- which they of course in all other scenarios would insist in - when it suits them - but still now, that they finally tell their stories, ask for full retribution.<p>Fear of losing a job&#x2F;allies&#x2F;opportunities for not having spoken up over long amounts of time is not a valid excuse, in my eyes. It&#x27;s more a sign of lack of integrity. And lack of integrity seems to be the big problem here anyway, for everyone involved.<p>How many of those misbehaving men could have been stopped from doing what they have done over decades if they&#x27;d have received clear, unambiguous feedback on the inappropriateness of their actions, instead of &quot;rewards&quot; for their bad actions? Many of these might be better men today (as long as you don&#x27;t think they are born that way), and there would not be a need to publicly shame all those men (which will probably come at a cost to society in some form of backlash, making everybody worse off).<p>Julia Galef just did a podcast interview with Timur Kuran about &quot;preference falsification&quot; which touches on this topic . <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationallyspeakingpodcast.org&#x2F;show&#x2F;rs-198-timur-kuran-on-private-truths-and-public-lies.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;rationallyspeakingpodcast.org&#x2F;show&#x2F;rs-198-timur-kuran...</a><p>I know men who have an extremely hard time to speak up when things happen that they disagree with, and I know women who are very good at clearly, ambiguously showing boundaries as soon as someone attempts to overstep them (note: I am writing here about these sexual harassment cases related professional environments, not about physical attempts of rape). So as far as I can tell, the root of this mess is not a gender-related problem, but a general problem of learned social behavior and compulsive conflict aversion.