WTF is wrong with these people:
Men attending the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this year were worried about a lot of things. A global economic slowdown. Threats to cybersecurity. Populism. War.
And, several acknowledged at the meeting this past week, mentoring women in the #MeToo era.
“I now think twice about spending one-on-one time with a young female colleague,” said one American finance executive, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the issue is “just too sensitive.”
“Me, too,” said another man in the conversation.
***Pat Milligan, who leads research on female leadership at the consulting firm Mercer and advises multinational companies on gender and diversity issues, said many of her clients had voiced concerns over saying or doing “the wrong thing” since #MeToo drew broad international attention.
“A number of men have told me that they will avoid going to dinner with a female mentee, or that they’re concerned about deploying a woman solo on-site with a male,” Ms. Milligan said. “People are concerned and have questions.”
“If we allow this to happen, it will set us back decades,” Ms. Milligan said. “Women have to be sponsored by leaders, and leaders are still mostly men.”
WTF is going on at dinners that I am missing? When I go to dinner with people, we order food, eat it, pay the bill, and leave.
Chicagopat
It’s getting the point you can’t drop your pants around any woman you want to anymore.
Ohio Mom
Mike Pence as trend setter. I did not see that coming.
syphonblue
Cool, great headline blaming this on #MeToo and the women, instead of the idiot men
kindness
Me thinks these Titans of Industry say more about themselves here than they intended to. Maybe they are just now being told taking advantage of someone farther down the food chain isn’t something to be proud of. Maybe they are all Donald Trumps in real life. God I hope they aren’t this shallow, but that is where I’m going with this article.
Mike in DC
Step 1: Wear pants
Step 2: Keep Them zipped
Step 3: Don’t talk about their bodies, ask them out or ask for sex
Wow, that’s difficult. I can see how this is a struggle for them./s
DavidC
This is so bogus. I’ve mentored four younger women in the last 10 years and am in a group where I am the only male. This includes travel and even car-pooling to the airport or to events. It’s actually easy – don’t be a jerk and treat them as the professionals they are.
Shrillhouse
I am a man.
I work in an office.
I’ve found that its really easy to avoid acting like a creepy pervert.
Just don’t do that.
Just One More Canuck
If you don’t want to be accused of being an asshole, don’t be an asshole
ruemara
Men who think females are there to be preyed upon are using that natural part of their behavior to justify holding back women. Because they’re wealthy, no one is saying just stop believing you’re hot to women 15, 20, 30 years your junior and just have to convince them.
bemused
Gosh, it’s almost like those guys have no idea how to behave around women/
Brokaw saying he wished Hispanics would try harder to assimilate made me almost spew my coffee all over the screen. How about old white guys try harder to assimilate to the 21st century. Oh hell, what am I saying? They haven’t tried to assimilate to the last 50 years of the 20th century.
B.B.A.
The matriarchy can’t come soon enough.
bemused
@B.B.A.:
Amen!
sigaba
Some are worried the propositioning will simply be too awkward and they’ll have to stop.
The others are convinced #metoo is a conspiracy of Amazons, and being alone with a woman will make them liable to blackmail by some ambitious, lying jezebel.
(Powerful wealthy people have funny ideas about how the world works. I wonder where they get them?)
Nicole
Lovely. The implication made by men saying #metoo makes them afraid to be alone with a woman colleague is “women are lying crazy bitches” because the threshold for not being called out for being a creep is actually pretty high. And it’s not like they’re concerned about being called out for creepiness by a junior male colleague… gee, why is that, I wonder?
I mean, think of the behaviors that are considered TOTALLY acceptable, even in a business setting, for man-woman contact that aren’t considered acceptable for man-man contact. I thought, while joyfully watching Nancy Pelosi retake the Speaker’s gavel, how interesting it was that virtually every man who congratulated her leaned in to kiss her cheek… which, I imagine, no man did for Paul Ryan. Women already accept a TON of contact that men don’t, so it seems to me, saying to a man, look, just treat a woman colleague the way you would a male one and you’ll be fine, should work in 99.5% of cases. And if the man says, “Well, I don’t know how to do that,” then it’s clear he’s the problem, not the woman colleague(s).
But I think the end of the article had it right- it’s not like men were exactly rushing to mentor or promote women prior to #metoo; this is just another excuse to discriminate.
schrodingers_cat
@syphonblue: Its Garbage Times after all. According to them Kushner is the master negotiator.
Keith P.
@Ohio Mom: All the kids now are bleaching their hair, getting serious, sensible haircuts, and wearing suits that still have the hanger in the jacket.
Sister Golden Bear
Every concern trolling a confession…
B.B.A.
All men are misogynists. Some of us are just self-aware enough to be ashamed of it.
JR
those worries are confessions of intent
Baud
Maybe they should wear body cameras.
Annie
There are some people who will take anything in the wrong way and others who are easily triggered. Example: In the mid-1970s I had a summer job in a law firm in Florida. One of the lawyers there had been brought up to wear a hat, and to lift his hat to ladies. (He was born in 1910.) He was the biggest voice there insisting on hiring women lawyers. He lifted his hat to one of them – and she was furious. The phrase “sexual harassment” didn’t yet exist, especially in this town, but she accused him of being patronizing and insulting. Her women colleagues pointed out that this was the man who had pushed for them to be hired, but this woman was still angry.
2. There’s a really nice man at my current work place who’s afraid to make jokes with any of the women, he’s worried we’ll take it the wrong way. See paragraph 1. And I understand why, though I’m sorry for it; there’s a lot of bitter, brutal stuff that goes on in the legal system and a lot of possible jokes are, to put it mildly, vulgar.
3. After 34-plus years working in the legal system, I’ve finally understood that there are people out there who lie. And some of them are women.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Good, let those Mother Fers squirm on the rules they hypocritically dumped on the rest of us to cover their own BS. Every man below VP in corporate America has to act like drone at work thanks to these clown’s swinish behavior so about damn time the masters of the universe were put under the microscope.
It really just steams f out me to think I had to go threw all that nonsense about how was I being nice enough when I aid good morning at 7:00am, when I have the flue, while the execs were in their corner offices committing outright rape.
Barbara
@Annie: 1. A single instance of an unreasonable reaction to an outmoded practice that is going on 40+ years ago doesn’t prove much.
2. Even some really nice men don’t understand how offensive off color jokes are — not only to women, but to minorities — and if they are made to “feel awkward” about telling them, well, I count that as progress, having felt horrible and demeaned after being forced to listen to those kinds of jokes. You can’t defend sexism and racism on the basis of “blowing off steam.”
3. People lie, but they lie most often when trying to defend themselves against accusations. They lie much less often when it comes to making affirmative accusations. What is more likely is that no one is lying, but they simply see what happened in fundamentally different terms.
Nicole
@Annie: So… solution being, don’t tip your hat to only one gender and don’t tell vulgar jokes in the office. Not exactly a huge sacrifice.
bemused
@Annie:
Decades ago my husband came home from work with a stunned, deer in headlights look on his face and told me a female customer somehow thought he was asking her out on a date. He was totally flummoxed how she got that idea and when he explained the conversation, I couldn’t either. He is such a boy scout and all business so I was laughing hysterically but he was really spooked.
low-tech cyclist
@Mike in DC:
This.
Many of my colleagues are attractive young women, because a lot of government statisticians these days are young women, which is cool.
It really isn’t at all difficult or challenging to relate to them as fellow professionals, to get through everyday interactions with them without drooling or innuendo. I bet these Masters of the Universe could manage it if they put their minds to it.
And there’s no reason to blame it on age, either. I’m just about to be eligible for Medicare, and I bet a bunch of these rich idiots are younger than I am, and few are all that much older. So what’s their excuse?
Punchy
/searches for the snark tag, doesn’t see it. Really hopes it’s an accidental omission.
Luthe
@Annie: Very concern. Much defend. Such troll.
Cry me a river and try not to throw the baby out with the bathwater (made of male tears).
KSinMA
Gotta love the NYT for not including a comment section on this one.
Central Planning
@Nicole:
Guy here. With work colleagues and customers, I always try to offer a handshake and never try for, nor expect a hug/cheek kiss/any other kind of contact. I wouldn’t do it with men, so why would I do that with women.
Funny story, one of my female co-workers and I were finishing up a meeting with a customer. The customer (female) shook my hand, but leaned in for a kiss ON THE LIPS with my co-worker. She turned to the side and got a cheek kiss. We didn’t win that opportunity and joke about her not taking one for the team (and we only joke about THAT because she jokes about it too). My big corp doesn’t expect ANY employee to put up with that kind of BS from anybody, customer/employee/partner/whomever.
bemused
Masters of the Universe have daughters who may be treated as too risky to have meetings with mentors or bosses.
JR
@Annie: Who are you? Honest question.
Luthe
@Punchy: All men are misogynists, just like all white people are racists. It’s not an active, purposeful thing, it’s the product of growing up in a misogynistic society, just like white racism is the product of growing up in a racist society.
The Moar You Know
Because I am in a rather delicate situation, being part of the company ownership while having what would, on an org chart, appear to be a lower-level job, I have to be really sensitive about meeting with anyone under any circumstances. So it’s open door, third party in the room at all times for me. Kinda like Mike Pence. I have little use for Pence, he’d be first on my list to shove out the airlock, but his rules (Mother’s rules moar like it) on meeting with women are not unreasonable.
gordocooper
I’ve worked with and managed many women, and, hell, I’ll even admit that I’ve been attracted to a number of them. But it’s really not that hard to keep those thoughts to myself and act professionally around them, and I’ve never had a problem.
Nicole
@Central Planning:
Excellent. Your palm-to-palm only rule is one small step in service of the larger goal of gender equality. ;) Seriously though, it’s a good thing. It would be lovely to see more of that in offices everywhere.
trollhattan
It’s open knowledge in Sacramento that numerous legislators are now “implementing a Mike Pence” when planning meetings, meals, etc. Yup, that’s what they call it. I’m hoping there’s a Mother for Hire service to help them out.
Given the Leg’s numerous accusations and retirements of the last few years they probably need an overreaction like this to permanently change the culture. With that said, at least one recently ousted Leg with an arms-length list of accusations against him has just hung his lobbyist shingle here. Anyone who hires him is bringing a portion of his mal deeds upon themself.
Frankensteinbeck
@B.B.A.:
I wouldn’t go with ‘all’, but I operate on ‘Whatever I was raised to believe and feel reflexively, do the opposite.’ Mind you, it’s useful here, since I know exactly what asshole conservatives are thinking. I’m terrified of Alzheimers or any dementia, though. I don’t want my filters to go down. They are what let me be a good person.
The Moar You Know
@The Moar You Know: should also clarify that I apply “Pence” rules to men as well, and far more often, because most of our employees are men. My bottom line is simply this: any interaction I have with an employee, I need a witness.
B.B.A.
@Punchy: I have an extraordinarily bleak view of humanity. At least regarding the male half, particularly the melanin-deficient portion of that half, this view has proven itself justified time and time again.
JR
@Luthe: That is the kind of statement that is generically true but doesn’t really say anything. It also is ironically both racist and misogynistic by excluding non-white people from racism and women from gender bias. I don’t mean that in the conservative “whataboutist” sense, but rather that racism and sexism are so prevalent that the outlook of women and minorities is equally affected.
feebog
I used to teach this stuff. It’s not that difficult to understand. I always started by telling the males in the room there are only two types of men; those that don’t get it, and those who get they don’t get it. We spent a lot of time on visual clues; if a female acquaintance approaches and it is obvious she is welcome to body contact such as a hug, then go ahead. When in doubt, avoid body contact other than a hand shake. Avoid kissing altogether, that can get awkward, even with someone you know well. No means no. Some other time also means no. Most of the men had puzzled faces throughout. Most of the women just kept shaking their heads.
rikyrah
@Mike in DC:
It REALLY IS that simple…
Brachiator
@Annie:
A fringe case. And I tire of possibly specious anecdotes with a punchline about an “angry woman.”
@Barbara:
Humor is a tough area. Some people don’t realize (or don’t care) that they used to tell their jokes to a homogeneous group (all white men, etc) or which included people who felt that they could not object.
And objecting can be risky. I have never been considered “one of the boys” among some business colleagues and even had a slower path to advancement at one company because I made it clear that I did not tell, and did not want to hear, racist and sexist jokes.
Yep.
Punchy
Wow. Just…..wow. I’m done here….I cant compete with such stupid hyperbole and ridiculousness.
FlyingToaster
@B.B.A.: Nope. In my experience working in a mostly-male field, it’s consistently about 20%.
As everyone else has noted, if you can be bothered to act like the professional you’re being paid to be, there won’t be any problems. If you insist upon letting your asshole freak fly, well, what the fuck do you expect?
(OT: Just picked up the new glasses; still wearing the contacts. These don’t actually suck.)
zhena gogolia
@Keith P.:
lol
B.B.A.
@Annie: How is the weather in St. Petersburg, comrade?
Nicole
@JR: I think what the statement is trying to say is that all men are misogynist in that they benefit (in some ways) from living in a misogynistic society, much as white folk benefit (in some ways) from living in a racist society that reveres whiteness. Absolutely we are all influenced, even if we are the minority in the situation. Women can be cruel about other women’s appearances as easily as men, for example.
But it’s very, very helpful to recognize when one is the beneficiary of privilege, rather than being upset about being singled out. Yes, we are all affected by misogyny, but only one sex benefits. Likewise we are all affected by racism, but only one race benefits.
Brachiator
@feebog:
Nope. Sorry, don’t agree.
If you are not a personal friend, I ain’t hugging you, and you ain’t hugging me, in a business context.
shecky
Dinner just isn’t dinner unless you get to pull out your dick.
Brachiator
@Luthe:
Don’t agree, but in any case I don’t think this is useful to any discussion of improving relationships in a business environment.
Nicole
@Punchy: That’s because you and Luthe are approaching “racism” and “misogyny” from two different points of view. Racism is a systemic elevation of one race (usually white, or what is agreed on as being “white”) over every other skin color. Misogyny is ingrained prejudice against women, and in this case is clearly being used in the systemic sense.
I had a pretty intense indignant reaction to the first time I heard, “All white people are racist,” but I get now what was meant, which is that white folk benefit from our society’s systemic racism. And if I think I haven’t benefitted, I’m just lying to myself.
The Right prefers to define “racism” as individual feelings against people of other skin tones/ethnicities, probably because it absolves them of having to do anything on a society-wide level.
NotMax
Lesson 1: Wimmens is peoples too,
Blech.
The Moar You Know
@Brachiator: Bet you love those assholes – and it’s a power trip, every time – “oh, I’m a hugger”. Fuck you. You go for a hug in any context with me and get insistent about it and I will kick your nuts into your trachea. I don’t do hugs unless it’s my mom, dad, siblings, wife or any random dog. I am frankly not big on physical contact, period. Don’t even like shaking hands.
I’ve had that go shouty a few times. Demanding to know “what my problem is”. That’s how I know it’s a power trip, not just someone overflowing with the milk of human kindness. I don’t have a problem, I just hate people.
Nicole
@Brachiator:
I respectfully disagree, because I think understanding the overwhelmingness of the culture we grow up (where white, heterosexual and male is “normal” and everything else is “minority”) is important. My husband attended a mandatory office training on diversity (so, business environment) and the first thing they talked about was the concept of bias. He said the term came from the game of lawn bowls, where players roll a ball that is weighted in a particular way to try to get it to stop close to a smaller ball. The player needs a roll or two to figure out the particular bias of that particular ball and adjust the roll accordingly. Much like our brains are our own lawn ball, with its intrinsic biases, and it’s on us to learn to recognize them and adjust our own behavior (our “rolls,” as it were), accordingly. And it’s helpful to recognize how overwhelmingly our society tells us that being white, straight and male is ideal and everything else is “less than.” I think it helps us recognize how that manifests in individual behaviors that are expressing bias.
Tony Jay
@The Moar You Know:
Ha! That’s me to a tee. I do not want to share an embrace with you, random acquaintance, so I’m not going to.
Do hookers call you ‘distant’ too?
JPL
@bemused: Tom was hoping that they’d just lighten up. Tom must remember a time when many immigrants from Europe did not speak English when they arrived in our country, but felt it important for their children to go to school and speak English. It might be time to put Tom out to pasture.
Steve in the ATL
@NotMax: you prefer “minty”?
TaMara (HFG)
@Annie: Oh, I’ve missed DougJ trolling us.
Steve in the ATL
@The Moar You Know:
When I used to do employment law training often, I’d ask the class “who is a hugger?” A name or two would always come out. And I’d tell them, “that’s fine, but not at work”.
Steve in the ATL
@JPL: dude, that should have happened at least twenty years ago. Greatest generation? Bite me.
psycholinguist
To simplistic to say that these worries are indicators that these guys are leaches. I’m a male professor in a field with about 80% women undergraduates. Thanks to a lot of assholes and a culture that still tends to look the other way and protect it’s own, I find it necessary to take steps to affirmatively protect myself, and provide an environment where my students are going to feel safe interacting with me – and a part of it looks something like the Mike Pence rule. I’ve noticed a change since our department chair and dean of the academic program are now women. MeToo is having a profound impact on college campuses, and it isn’t limited to how students are treating each other.
Mnemosyne
Even in the year 2018, there are a distressingly large number of men who never learned how to relate to women outside of a sexual relationship. Women are either fuckable or they aren’t, and women who aren’t fuckable are of no interest. Women who are fuckable must be pestered until they either agree or quit.
WaterGirl
It seems like they are saying “I don’t know how to be around a woman without raping or sexually harassing her.”
Seriously?
The only alternate way I can see this is that grown men who are part of the “leadership” class are saying that they never learned the rules when they were younger and are not all that interested in learning them now.
Third option: Women are liars and you can’t trust them. Not even the ones you thought were the kind of person you would want to mentor.
I truly can not decide which of those is the worst.
The Moar You Know
@Tony Jay: Have not participated in that particular vice. My wife and previous girlfriends didn’t. And I don’t have issues with hugging people who I’m, y’know, close to.
bemused
@JPL:
Guys like Brokaw would have been largely in the dustbin already if media didn’t give them a microphone.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, I did work with a person who tried this. Had to firmly insist, “not with me.” And as you note, they then tried to get rude and angry. But in the end, they left me alone.
Also, as I alluded to, I’ve worked with people who tried to insist on telling racist or sexist jokes to me. Some people tried to pull the “what’s wrong with you” or “why so stuck up?” bullshit.
Note: I love crude humor. Just not cruel crude humor.
B.B.A.
Wasn’t Brokaw accused of sexual misconduct? How is that rapey POS still employed?
WaterGirl
@Punchy: One person makes a comment that you think is stupid and you’re out of here? I don’t get that.
Mnemosyne
@psycholinguist:
Here’s the thing: I don’t necessarily think it’s a bad idea to have an additional person in the room when you’re meeting with someone over whom you have some measure of power (like a teacher with a student). It can actually be very reassuring to the person who has LESS power to know that there’s a potential witness. It can be a very courteous and reassuring thing to do, which is why most doctors now have a nurse in the room while they do a pelvic exam on a patient. It just makes everyone feel better about the process.
Ironically, this was one of the tricks that Harvey Weinstein would use: he would have his assistant in the room when he invited a potential victim for a “meeting,” but then the assistant would mysteriously disappear and Weinstein would make his move. Basically, he tried to lure his potential victims into a false sense of security by having another woman in the room when she first arrived. Asshole. ?
Tony Jay
@The Moar You Know:
Oh, me too. Me too.
Boy, nice drapes in here.
Gex
They are either saying
1) That they know they do things that will get them in trouble
or
2) They don’t believe women and thing women will lie about them
Neither are a good look.
The Moar You Know
@WaterGirl: Two. And I share the revulsion. I’m just not willing to leave. But it would do well for those who make such comments to keep in mind that nobody’s winning any elections without at least a large number of white men on board, and calling us all rapey racists may scratch a lot of itches, but will not get those votes.
To say “all white men are racist’ is in no way different from Trump maintaining “all Mexicans carry diseases”, and builds as much goodwill with the group being slandered.
Not saying you gotta coddle us, we really don’t require it, but don’t hand out gratuitous punches to the face either.
Brachiator
@Nicole:
I never learned this lesson. And society is not quite so monolithic. I did not grow up in a society that either taught or accepted this. Quite the opposite. And my mother and most of the important women in my life were OG Feminists.
Sloane Ranger
@B.B.A.: Annie’s comment doesn’t mean she’s a troll. I used to work in HR and was a trades union rep before that. I had to deal with 2 incidents of women who were angry about a man opening the door for them and created a scene. Both incidents happened in the 1980’s.
I told them that they should have calmly and politely asked the individuals concerned not to do it any more and then see what happened. If the man stopped, great, if he didn’t, they should come and see me, not start shouting at him in the corridor.
Two cases in 40 years seems to show this is not exactly a widespread problem.
B.B.A.
@The Moar You Know: I’m one of the white men I rail against. I used to react negatively to the gratuitous punches to the face, but now I realize that my reaction was yet another manifestation of the toxicities of masculinity and whiteness.
And, uh, I hate myself, but I’m pretty sure that’s a very small part of it.
Luthe
@Nicole: Thank you for getting it. It’s about systemic oppression, not just individual feelings and actions. Those add up to systematic oppression, but not everyone contributes the same amount. However, even the most “woke” individual still had inherent biases and assumptions to overcome; look at how often our esteemed blog host is forced to confront an unconscious bias he wasn’t aware of. And he’s trying to be a good ally! It’s just that racism and misogyny are so ingrained in our society it’s nearly impossible to excise every bias we as individuals have. The only option is to recognize our biases when they are pointed out to us and work to remove them.
Systematic oppression is also why women can be misogynists and PoC can be racist; we internalize the messages around us, even if they hurt us and wind up supporting the status quo. We have to unlearn our own biases, too.
Chip Daniels
Meanwhile, women who are nervous about going to dinner with a CEO for fear of being sexually assaulted are “snowflakes” and need to “toughen up”.
David Evans
Also shocking from that report is this:
“…the World Economic Forum predicted that it would take 202 years for gender parity to be reached in the workplace. That is significantly more than the estimate of 170 years in 2016.”
The only way to believe that is to think we are not going to make it any sort of priority. I think they have a surprise or two coming.
feebog
@Brachiator:
Actually had this happen to me recently. A court reporter I know pretty well came in during a break in the hearing, walked right up and gave me a hug. To say I was a bit surprised is an understatement, but I hugged her back, she obviously was not offended since she initiated the contact.
WhatsMyNym
Social skills are not what made these folks rich. They learnt enough about money and how it’s used in modern society to make more for themselves. Schmoozing/networking is the only social skill they were rewarded for.
If only they could afford to hire someone that would teach them the basics of mentoring younger colleagues and employees.
Terry Calhoun
Last 25 years of my former life was in higher ed administration. Did not grow up in a huggy family. Don’t like it. But, OMG, was hugging prevalent and unstoppable ?
Ella in New Mexico
Also, is it just me or has anyone else lived a life in which they didn’t have to go to a cozy tete-a-tete dinner with their opposite sex bosses (risking “mixed messages” in the first place) as a means to career development? Or with their same sex bosses for that matter.
How many jobs actually require you schmooze regularly with the boss, and frankly, why can’t you accomplish anything you need to back at the office?
Seriously, I did lunch a lot with my boss years ago but that was because we were both attending some kind of meeting or conference and had to eat. If I had to go to some function that was a dinner with her/him, it wasn’t a one on one thing.
Besides the fact that most of us have chores and night school and family obligations and actually have to get up the next morning, I can’t imagine how this issue applies to even 10% of the population of planet earth.
Sebastian
Davos has always had a tradition of old guys showing up with young and beautiful companions. What’s the name for a person escorting you to an event? Tip of my tongue.
lee
@Sloane Ranger:
Thinking back it was the late 80’s or early 90’s I had a lady tell me that she could open her own door (I think I was walking into the mall).
The funny thing is I’ve always opened the door for anyone male or female.
@Ella in New Mexico:
Yeah I don’t get that either. I’m way too busy with other shit to spend time after work with my boss.
dp
This is so fucking true. I don’t know what it is about some members of my gender that makes “not being an asshole” too heavy a lift for them.
Omnes Omnibus
I think one of the issues here is terminology. For me, if anyone says I have benefited from white privilege and male privilege throughout my life, I will have no argument. If, otoh, someone says that I am racist or misogynist, then I am going to ask for something I have said or done that puts me there.
Lymie
I know i have racial and misogynistic biases, but try to notice and act to counter them. It is just the culture I grew up in. I recently asked someone in the family to hurry up, “chop chop!” And suddenly realized where that expression came from! My parents used it all the time.
trnc
@kindness:
No, they’re saying what they want loud and clear. Women want to stand up for themselves? “Good luck with your career, babe.”
Cole, what’s wrong with these people is what’s been wrong since the beginning of time. They’re in the dick club, women aren’t.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
I think the additional thing people are trying to say is that everyone in this country has been subconsciously and unconsciously influenced by racist and sexist stereotypes. It’s the murky water that we’re all swimming in, and sometimes we bump up against a stereotype or belief that we didn’t realize we had until someone pointed it out.
A decent person will say, “Hin. You’re right. I didn’t realize that I was reacting to a stereotype/bias. Thank you for pointing that out. I will try not to do that in the future.”
An asshole will say, “What?! I’m not biased/racist/sexist! You’re the the one who’s biased/racist/sexist against ME for saying that because I said something that everyone knows is true!”