So now it’s all about the “nice guys.” It’s not just that mean, mean Rebecca Watson slandered the good name of all men in the world by suggesting that one amongst their number had committed a somewhat creepy act in an elevator at 4 AM. Now some commenters are accusing her of something like a hate crime against the Nice Guys of the world.
According to cranky sometime-Men’s Rights blogger The Damned Olde Man, the woman he refers to only as “Rude Elevator Bitch” has publicly humiliated a man whose only crime was that he was a little bit shy. Embroidering liberally on the scant few facts we know about the case, Olde Man sets forth a brand new narrative of the incident — based largely on his own imagination –with the mysterious man at the center of the story now transformed into a sweet, awkward fellow he calls Nice Elevator Guy:
By all accounts, NEG appears to be a rather shy, somewhat unconfident nerd or geek who appears to be lacking in the social graces.
When Olde says “by all accounts” he actually means “by no accounts.” We have no idea what sort of personality this fellow has, only that he apparently propositioned Walker in an elevator in Dublin at 4 AM.
It was probably not a good idea to ask REB for coffee just after she finished a lecture on how she is offended by men who sexualize her, especially late at night in an isolated elevator. That would be her point of view which she and all of her supporters have stated quite eloquently. So if one only accounts for REB’s feelings, it was the wrong thing to do. But how about looking at the situation from NEG’s point of view?
That is, from the imaginary point of view of the imaginary character Olde has simply superimposed on a real man we know almost nothing about.
A shy, socially awkward nerd who lacks confidence is likely to feel uncomfortable in any situation where he intends to proposition a woman. But he is likely to be terrified of doing it in a public setting with plenty of people around to witness his humiliation when she turns him down. So from his point of view, an isolated elevator in the middle of the night is probably the ideal location, especially since he was probably never going to have this opportunity again.
Note to shy guys of the world: this is not a good idea. It’s not going to work out well for you.
I’m not quite sure if that’s necessary. I’m a shy guy, and I’m pretty sure most of us shy guys already know that propositioning a woman when the two of you are alone in an confined space is a bad idea. Many of us who sometimes feel awkward in social settings have what is known as “empathy” towards other people and thus are aware when something we do might just make someone else feel awkward. Olde Man continues:
His fear of humiliation is probably not as irrational as her fear of rape and in hindsight, it was definitely more justified. He didn’t rape her, she did reject him. She not only rejected him, she humiliated him, publically, for all the world to see.
Yeah. She “publicly” humiliated a guy she never named. According to a guy who has just written a long post in which he repeatedly refers to her — a blogger who posts under her real name — as a “bitch.”
It’s bad enough to read this bullshit in MRA blogs, where it’s irritating but hardly surprising.
It’s a bit more troubling to find much of this dumb argument repeated – in somewhat more polite language, admittedly – in Psychology Today. In a post entitled “What’s a Shy, Geeky, Nice Guy to Do?” cognitive psychologist Scott Barry Kaufman offers a very similar version of events, in which
a nervous, presumably geeky, socially awkward guy gets on [the elevator] ]with her … [his] heart probably beating fast and palms sweety as heck … .
“Presumably,” “probably” – in other words, these details are simply invented.
While Kaufman acknowledges that the mysterious (alleged) Nice Guy’s approach was “lame,” he, like Olde Man, turns the story into one in which Nice Guys are the real victims:
many entitled, narcissistic males have commented to the effect “what an ungrateful bitch, she should be grateful for being complimented!”, and quite a few feminists have commented “good for Rebecca for scolding men, they need to be put in their place!” All the while, shy, geeky, genuinely nice guys have sat there, reading these extreme comments, no doubt scratching their heads and wondering what in the world they are to do.
What is a shy, geeky, nice guy to do?
Then Kaufman gives some advice on how the Nice Elevator Guy could have handled the attempted pick-up better:
Don’t be creepy. Asking a girl to your hotel room in an elevator at 4 in the morning when the girl has already announced she is tired shows very poor mating intelligence. …
Well, yeah. He continues:
Look for indicators of interest. Any dating coach will tell you how important it is to look for signals of interest. Pay attention to her state. Does she look exhausted?
Generally speaking, when a woman gives a talk about how she hates being hit on at atheist conferences, then later announces that she’s tired and wants to go to bed, these are what you might call “Indicators of Leave Me the Fuck Alone.”
Kaufman goes on:
Does she cringe when you start talking? That’s probably not the right time to put your arm around her.
Can’t argue with that one, really. Cringing: never a good sign.
Kaufman barrels ahead with this mixture of the obvious and the creepy:
Build some sort of rapport first. The guy in the elevator was a complete stranger. There was zero connection. What could the guy have done to increase his chances of receptivity in this particular situation, when she clearly was not in the mood? It’s hard to imagine he could have done anything, but at the very least he could have tried to make some sort of connection.
Or, here’s a radical notion: he could have just LEFT HER ALONE. This one tired lady in the elevator is not the only lady in the world. There will be other chances. Stand down, dude.
But Kaufman, who can’t leave well enough alone himself, goes on to imagine a scenario in which Nice Elevator Guy manages to charm Watson utterly.
RUPERT: Oh, hi Rebecca! I’m a huge fan of yours. I really liked your ideas earlier about skepticism…feminism…blah…blah…And I totally hear you about the guys here. They really are creepy, aren’t they? [Insert witty joke here about how if you were a female at this conference you’d become a lifelong skeptic of geeky men]
WATSON: [Laughs] Yea, thanks for understanding. You were really listening to what I said earlier. What do you research?
Ungghhhh. Excuse me, but I have to go lie down for a moment. The stupid here is too much.
After a bit more of this imagined witty banter, the charmed WATSON is inviting HIM to HER room!
It was at this point that I discovered that there was another whole page worth of this shit. I couldn’t bring myself to read it.
Welcome back, caseymordred. Want to continue our conversation?
And yes, the one little bit of the whole Schrodinger’s Rapist doctrine that I can’t quite logic my way out of is the fact that men like me are always watching other men like a hawk.
Imagine this is in comic form.
Panel 1:
Sister: I’m off on my date now!
Brother: Okay, just be careful, you don’t know this guy.
Sister: Hehe, thanks for worrying.
Brother: Of course.
Panel 2:
SIster: Good afternoon, brother!
Brother: Hey, Dexter said you were mean to him, what happened?
Sister: I felt uncomfortable around him. Call it ‘womens intuition.’
Brother: Ah, Dexter is a harmless nerd.
Sister: I don’t know that. How many of these so called ‘harmless nerds’ have Nice Guy Syndrome? He could be very bitter for all I know, and didn’t you always tell me to be careful of guys I didn’t know?
Panel 3:
*Brother’s expression is of shock*
summer_snow: for a little bit, perhaps. not sure how long I’ll be at the keys.
I think also, the problem is not the fear or mistrust, it’s that it’s based on gender.
And yes, the one little bit of the whole Schrodinger’s Rapist doctrine that I can’t quite logic my way out of is the fact that men like me are always watching other men like a hawk.
So your point is that men like you would know if nebody you knew was a potential rapist? o_O
No, I my point is that because I am always scrutinizing other men, how can I tell women to not do the same?
Okay, here’s where we were. This was the statement of mine that you were closest to agreeing with:
“You say we should judge people as individuals, and I am all for that. I have had many conversations with many men, and by no means do I think they’re interchangeable. But here’s the thing. When I don’t know a man at all, I have no idea how he will feel or react when I bring up conversation topics such as ‘being hit on in an elevator at 4 AM is an uncomfortable experience for women’. I don’t know how a strange woman would react either. BUT, this is important, in my experience, there is a general trend that I have noticed, in which a small minority of men have reacted badly to this kind of conversation. And this is a larger minority in men than in women that I have encountered. So is it okay for me to keep this in mind when starting this kind of conversation with men?”
You said it was almost reasonable, but you were wary that I’d go all reductio ad absurdum if you conceded this point. We are both arguing in good faith here. Do you agree with me about this, or do we need to keep talking until we can find something to agree about? We can discuss nuance once we know what we have in common.
No, I my point is that because I am always scrutinizing other men, how can I tell women to not do the same?
Oh ok :]
I was just confused by your point :3
It wouldn’t be “bad faith” to take a concession and press your advantage in an argument. Just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean you’re wrong.
I suppose the only objection I can verbalize is to again restate that my problem is not so much being feared or mistrusted, but that it’s because I happen to be male.
Perhaps some or even most women can just keep it to generic, non-gendered distrust of strangers (which I certainly have in spades), but because of sites like kateharding or shakespearessister or the like, we see that it can become more of a conscious “men can’t be trusted” complex.
Okay, so you’re a bit wary, but you think that I’m on the right track.
On to the nuance.
Gender is one of the many factors I take into account when I’m debating things like ‘women’s experiences getting hit on’ with someone. I also pay attention to things like who they hang out with, what sort of stuff they’ve been reading, their political background, etc. There are an awful lot of context cues that I can read to tell me whether someone is likely to respond well to a particular topic. Gender is one of those context cues, since it generally comes with a whole bunch of socialization and experiences. By no means is gender the deciding factor in whether I decide to broach a sensitive topic with someone.
If someone disagrees with my politics, hates all the characters I love in books, and has a social circle prone to making jokes that make me uncomfortable, I will not feel okay discussing my views on women and pick-up lines, even if that person is a woman. If I get a whole bunch of green lights instead, I will be very hopeful about my chances getting my point across to that person, and his gender will not be a source of worry.
Do you get where I’m coming from here?
caseymordred: Who is it that you are concerned about fearing and distrusting you specifically because you are male?
@ Alex: I’ve noticed that Schrodinger’s Rapist is actually a pretty terrible 101 article. I’ve never really met a guy who didn’t respond defensively to it, because the title causes a knee-jerk ‘don’t call me a rapist’ reaction.
@summer_snow yeah : there’s a lot that’s not great 101.. incl a lot of language…
my friend actually said at first he reacted the same too, until he showed it to a female friend who wasn’t a feminist, and she said “yeah that sounds about right” and then it started to make him rethink things…
Ami: even anti-feminist women can be misandrist.
That said…I think another aspect of this is that, I would be more fine with being distrusted based on gender, if men were allowed the same courtesy.
However, the argument against that seems to go “men are privileged therefore any little bit of misogyny they harbor is inherently more dangerous than even a lot of misandry from a woman,” which is how they dismissively brushed aside the analogy of being automatically cautious of blacks.
In other words, I feel like there is a power imbalance in discussing these things with those further along the feminist spectrum because it appears, either through my bias or through the objective fact that they are indeed doing so, that they are saying they have the moral upper hand in the argument regardless of their attitude.
Point being, I could not get away with expressing the same sort of sentiments towards women, as women are expressing towards men.
summer_snow, that nuance makes it even more rational sounding.
However, tell me…do you take women to task who express blatant distrust or hatred of men? And even if you do disagree with them, do you feel it is more “understandable” than if a man were to do the same towards women?
Also, I probably should have made my dialogue 4 panels, not three.
Ami, that’s what kirbywarp said too on one of these threads. I think it scares guys who are having trouble distinguishing between “weirded out and uneasy, hoping this guy won’t call her a bitch” and “genuinely fears that this man will rape her, kill her and eat her corpse right now” when women say they feel creeped out. There’s a lot of space there that some men have trouble seeing if you mention the word ‘rapist’ or ‘creep’ because they think it’s an attack.
caseymordred, I’m really glad you’re getting where I’m coming from. I was worried that I came across a little too strong, actually. I didn’t mean to imply that someone’s gender, in and of itself, was a source of worry for me. What I should have said is more along the lines of the gender you grow up as provides a context of experiences and opinions much like the political environment you grow up in, and it tends to shape your worldview. Remember, at no point am I claiming that most or even many of the men I’ve talked to about gender issues call me a bitch. A very small fraction of men do that. But in general, it is often harder to get my point of view across to men, since we are often working with different narratives of gender that we’ve been told while growing up, different roles we’re expected to play, and different perspectives on things like women being hit on. I’m sorry if at any point I implied that your gender is worrying to me, because it isn’t inherently bad at all. I just meant to say that it’s a different perspective that can add vitality and well-roundedness to a discussion, but can also make it a bit harder for me to find a way to communicate my stories to.
Now, moving on.
“However, tell me…do you take women to task who express blatant distrust or hatred of men? And even if you do disagree with them, do you feel it is more “understandable” than if a man were to do the same towards women?”
Absolutely. It is bigoted for a woman to hate men for being men, or distrust men for having a characteristic she sees as inherently masculine and bad. On these boards, we will call out women for being bigoted. You may have noticed that people here didn’t like it when you went around playing Poe and shrieking about privilege denying. I’ll call out jokes that are sexist against men, as well as ones that are sexist against women.
If a person has had really, really terrible experiences with the other gender, I absolutely support their decision to redraw their boundaries until they feel comfortable. It’s their right, if they feel scared, and I’m sorry they got hurt and frightened enough to want to do that. However, male or female, I would not tolerate them excusing their actions by claiming that the other gender is terrible or untrustworthy. It’s okay to have a personal preference, but not to generalize your experiences and say that everyone should feel the same way.
Yikes, that “absolutely” applies to the first sentence of that quote, not the second! Curse you, lack of preview button!
Yeah, it’s a very fine line to Poe really good. As one of the MRA trolls said, it’s hard to tell the difference between a true self-flagellating male feminist, and a parody of the same.
In my case, that meant I had to consider that if I didn’t say it loud enough I’d just blend in too much with the rest, which would go against my purpose of exposing the flank by illustrating just how kafka-trappy the whole privilege issue is.
On that note, I also have trouble with the seeming subtext of some of the above comments as saying “Schrodinger’s Rapist isn’t 101 material.” That sounds to me kind of like “we have to save the controversial stuff until we ease them in with safer sounding stuff.” Sounds a bit calculated and manipulative to me.
But we can save that discussion for later.
In any case, I firmly believe that a woman can have all the boundaries she wants, without it meaning she is distrusting of all non-asexual male attention.
Even in the dialogue above, it could be said that she was simply responding to the creepy vibes that Dexter was giving off, not that Dexter is creepy.
Do you see the distinction?
@summer_snow that was Kirbywarp I was talking about actually xD
caseymordred: It is entirely possible for a guy to do something creepy once, without being a creep. A creep is someone who keeps doing creepy stuff after people have warned him that what he is doing is creepy. Something ‘creepy’ is something that makes people uneasy by violating social boundaries. Sometimes a person can be ‘creeped out’ when the person who flubbed the cues really meant well. ‘Creeps’, or ‘creepy people,’ are the ones who do creepy things deliberately. Does that seem like a fair distinction to you?
There’s an awful lot to discuss, and we’re going to have to save some of it, like the concept that Schrodinger’s Rapist is likely to offend people without much feminist background reading, for later. Controversial stuff is, well, controversial, and I’d rather talk about things I think we can agree on. I am carefully choosing what I’m saying in this conversation, because I think it’s a valuable conversation and I want to make sure that it goes well for both of us. I think you could call that calculated, but I’m not pulling out a scoreboard and chalking up Number of Times I Am Right And You Are Wrong So I Win. That’s really not what I hope to get out of this conversation.
I feel like we’re going to talk past each other if we discuss your scenario up there unless we cover a bit more of the basics. Can we go back do discussing the word ‘creepy’? Because I think there’s a world of nuance we need to hash out.
@ Ami: My, what a small world! Everything is connected by six degrees of kirbywarp! 😀
XD Well he is also my friend 😀
It’s fair, sure. The rub comes when people are hearing less of your skillful nuance, and more of “zomg gtfo you mansplaining creepy nice guy” from the louder ones on certain blogs.
In any case, such calculation in saving stuff for past 101 reminds me of this awful book I read where it suggested “don’t tell your boyfriend bad stuff about your past until later in the relationship.”
That seems pretty creepy to me. Sure, saying right out that, for instance, I had an eating disorder in high school might be creepy too, but it’s far preferable to hiding your issues until he can’t make a clean break, in my opinion.
Am I saying you have any truck with such terrible books? No, I’m simply drawing a comparison as to why calculation of any sort seems suspect to me.
But yes, sure, we can keep covering “creepy.”
Your move.
As I said in my post on my blog, I dun think I have a right to tell other ppl what they should fear or be concerned about : I may not AGREE, but it’s not my life, my body, and I’m not the one who has to live w/ it if nething happens : I may not agree w/ MRAs fearing women will entrap them into child support, but if they judge a woman as being that sort of person, or a situation where they fear that… and dun want to go w/ the woman… it’s their life ultimately, and if nething happens to them, I’m not the one who has to deal w/ it, live w/ it, etc :
Also, most of the time ppl do things, I have no idea why they do it xD As long as they aren’t assaulting ppl, I can fight the narratives in society that I may believe contribute to it (transphobia, etc) w/o thinking that I should have a right to what they individually thought (ppl leaving the washroom if I go in, b/c they are disturbed by me)… -_- As for whether ppl are concerned or have boundaries for the “right” reasons? o_O I dun see the point xD
As an interesting aside on that sort of thing, Ami, I honestly think that a lot of the horror stories that, say, Cobalt posts on the MGTOW forum, does come from being a horrible judge of character.
i.e. they had the misfortune of choosing a psycho bitch, but over there they interpret it as “most women are psycho bitches” or more conservatively, “society enables psycho bitchery so it’s too dangerous to trust women because you never know.”
@ caseymordred: As you’ve seen, it does take an awful lot of nuance to talk about this sort of stuff. We’ve taken pages and pages to establish that we can agree on a few small things. It’s hard work, and not all feminists want to or can do it. You’re just one person and this is the first time I’ve tried to have this conversation with a stranger online. Imagine if I were trying to have this conversation over and over and over with every stranger who wandered onto this blog. I’d get tired and snappy and use shortcuts or bingo or whatever to express that I was fed up with rehashing the same things over and over before I could go back to discussing other topics. A lot of feminists get people wandering into their nuanced discussions of feminist topics without knowing enough nuance, and many feminists get tired of dealing with derails before they can go back to the conversations they really want to have. It is unfortunate that a lot of feminists brush off newbies, but some feminists just want to talk to other feminists, not educate people who aren’t feminists. Sadly, as Ami and I were saying, there just aren’t a lot of good, patient intro-level discussions of feminism, and feminists get trolled an awful lot, which is part of why many of them have stopped cutting people slack. It’s just a sticky situation.
(posting this so I don’t miss out on whatever you or Ami say next. I will start talking about the meanings of ‘creepy’ in my next comment once I refresh)