Links - 17th June 2019 (1) (#MeToo)

BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today, Joe Biden and 'personal space' - "Jan Halper-Hayes: In 1991, President HW Bush had the glass ceiling commission. I think President Trump needs to create the #metoo commission and we need to define exactly what sexual harassment, sexual assault really is, because men and women are getting hurt by this very loose definition.’
‘You don't believe that that inappropriate touching is the same as sexual harassment. You know, I don't. I don't. I think we've gone way too far. I think the millennials who in a poll said if he asked me out twice, I consider it harassment. Dear God, what happened to courting, what happened to flirting? What happened? You know, it's basically emotionally castrating men’
‘If a man in a senior position came up to you as Joe Biden's accused of done, wrapped both of his hands around your face and pulled you in to rub noses, would you not feel you'd been harassed?’
‘No, I wouldn't feel I'd been harassed. But I would feel comfortable enough to say that if I wasn't comfortable, that I didn't like that. And that's the other thing. We need to provide more training for women, so that they can speak up. Instead of this repressed anger coming out years later, that, really, why should he be condemned for what he had done years and years ago?’"

Joe Biden told a 10-year-old she's 'good-looking' and touched her shoulders a month after vowing to respect women's space

Me Too Backlash Is Getting Worse - "A stunning 60% of male managers said they’re uncomfortable mentoring, working one-on-one, and socializing with women at work, according to a survey released Friday morning by LeanIn.org, the women’s advocacy group founded by Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg.That’s an increase from last year, when 46% of male managers said they were uneasy working with women after several prominent men lost their jobs over sexual misconduct claims.In this year’s survey, men also said they were much more likely to hesitate to travel or have dinner with a junior woman for work... It’s hard to get men to talk about this. Some told Bloomberg anonymously that they’re trying to be like Vice President Mike Pence ― who notoriously avoids one-on-one interactions with women in social settings. Some said they won’t meet with women in windowless rooms or get on elevators alone with them, according to the report. One said he won’t have dinner with women under age 35.This behavior could wind up backfiring, as the story notes. Treating women differently in the workplace can end up forming the basis for a discrimination suit."

She was once a panelist at a #MeToo discussion. Months later, Rep. Rochelle Galindo used alcohol, influence to seduce young staffer, according to police report - "when she was still a Greeley City Councilwoman, Rochelle Galindo was a panelist for “Perspectives on #MeToo,” an event hosted by the University of Northern Colorado’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences Diversity Advisory Board in March 2018.Galindo had already declared her campaign for Colorado’s House District 50, and as a gay Latina looking to enter a Legislature with its share of problematic behavior, Galindo was tapped to provide perspective at the event... She... hadn’t yet been accused of providing alcohol to an underage campaign staffer and using her power and influence to turn the relationship sexual, even during times that staffer described to police as “blackouts.”... “People are thinking twice about how they approach people, people are thinking twice about what they say, and how these conversations are being had,” Galindo said. “I think that’s going to bring more respect to the victims, to women, from this patriarchal society. Even myself, I sometimes have to think twice about how I am going to approach a woman now especially being in a position of public service, being an elected official.”Five months after uttering those words, Galindo found herself in a relationship with an unbalanced power dynamic, according to police records obtained Thursday by The Greeley Tribune. It appears Galindo was aware of the dynamic, as she’s alleged to have jokingly called the campaign staffer “Monica Lewinsky.”"

BethAnn McLaughlin Started #MeTooSTEM To Fight Harassment In Science. Now Critics Are Challenging Her Leadership. - "An outspoken campaigner against sexual harassment in science is facing a crisis of leadership at MeTooSTEM, the volunteer organization she founded last year to support victims and hold perpetrators and institutions accountable.Since November, seven members of the leadership team have resigned, citing concerns about the behavior of its founder, BethAnn McLaughlin, a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.In their resignation letters, former MeTooSTEM leaders said that McLaughlin kept them in the dark about key decisions and reacted with hostility when they asked about the small organization’s finances and legal structure. They also worried that McLaughlin had alienated allies through her combative tweets. “There have been several instances where supporters of MeTooSTEM have been upset by the tenor of your tweets, up to and including blocking you or being blocked by you”... McLaughlin tweeted angrily at Hontas Farmer, a transgender woman of color who teaches physics at the City Colleges of Chicago. In a thread about student–faculty relationships, Farmer noted that it would be “unenforceable to forbid relationships.”“Get off my time line with your pro-preying on students garbage,” McLaughlin responded. “Grown ups are talking. #STEMTrollAlert.”"
Internalised misogyny!

Neil deGrasse Tyson and the Persistence of the Bad Male Apology - "Such is the state of the male apology, a phenomenon that's emerged with the rise of the #MeToo movement. According to its critics, the male apology—by which I mean, very specifically, men's response to allegations of misconduct—is characterized, first and foremost, by a lack of any genuine remorse... Tyson's apology shares some noticeable qualities with its antecedents. Like CK and Batali, Carson says, Tyson finds opportunities to tout his achievements. He talks about his "professional history with the demotion of Pluto" when addressing the groping allegation against him, and mentions the "grueling adventure-marathon" that was finishing astrophysics graduate school. And then he uses these successes, Carson adds, to tear down his alleged victims, whom he seemingly blames for his alleged indiscretions. The woman with the Pluto tattoo who accused him of groping her upper arm and shoulder? She could've told him of her discomfort "in the moment," Tyson says. The woman who felt uncomfortable during a wine and cheese night? She showed no indication of being uncomfortable during their "long conversation," which he says "had been in the same vein as all other conversations [they'd] ever had." And Tyson makes sure to point out that the woman who says she'd been drugged and raped by him dropped out of graduate school."Every 'male apology' is really a 'man-splaination' of misogynistic culture, that makes women feel shame for feeling uncomfortable by unwanted sexual behavior," Toni Van Pelt, the president of the National Organization of Women, wrote in an email. "Brave women have come forward to tell their truth and the impact their experience has had on their careers and lives. We must believe women." Aside from the ways in which apologies from accused assailants can victim-blame, function as press releases for the accused's personal and professional triumphs, and, conspicuously, be absent of any genuine, or at least explicit, apology, Van Pelt and Carson agree one of the most insidious effects of these public apologies is their erasure of victims' stories."Tyson’s post on being accused was not an 'apology'—it was a long winded attempt to justify his inappropriate behavior towards women," Van Pelt says. "In publicly releasing a denial of sexual misconduct allegations, Tyson has made this conversation about him—it is not about him.""
Accusation = guilt - the story of #metoo

Ex Columbia student accused of rape is victim of ‘anti-male’ bias: lawsuit - "The young woman had allegedly begged him for sex one night that October before forcing him to fool around, ­alleges Feibleman, who filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.The woman told her friends in the days that followed that Feibleman sexually assaulted her and she reported the incident to faculty about a week later, the suit says, but not to police.Columbia investigated the matter and obtained an audio recording of the alleged rape, as well as photos from the pair’s evening together before they went to her room.Feibleman says he and the woman struck up an “hours-long flirtation” that night after meeting up at a reception. He alleges in the complaint that they took a trip to a water tower on top of an apartment building, where the two kissed and the female student pulled Feibleman’s face into her breasts.They allegedly ended up alone in the woman’s room, where Feibleman claims there was consensual kissing and fondling. It is here when the woman allegedly begins to beg Feibleman for sex, his suit says, but he refused — citing the fact that the woman was seeing another man.The refusal didn’t sit well, according to the suit, and the female allegedly berated Feibleman for half an hour.“Please because I can’t let you go without it,” she begged, according to the suit, which accuses the woman of trying to perform oral sex on Feibleman, as well as biting him.“Ben simply did not want to have sexual intercourse with [the woman],” the suit states.The suit says Feibleman eventually started thinking he might be accused of misconduct, so he made a 30-minute phone recording of his encounter in the woman’s room.The recording, however, was unable to convince Columbia investigators that he was innocent. The school found that his female friend was too drunk to consent to any sexual relations and deemed Feibleman — who graduated from Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism — responsible for sexually assaulting her. He was expelled and his degree is currently being withheld.
Evidence is no match for #BelieveWomen!

She Begged Him For Sex, He Says He Refused: Now He’s Suing Columbia University - "Columbia is no stranger to high-profile alleged sexual assault cases. If the past is any indication, Feibleman could have a rough road ahead.In 2014, Emma Sulkowicz lugged a mattress around campus, calling it art after claiming to be a rape victim. Her now-well-known nickname became “Mattress Girl.” The details of the case are raw — in a blunt Facebook exchange, she wrote, “fuck me in the but [sic].” In that case, the accused party, Paul Nungesser, also tried to sue the university for discrimination on the basis of his gender.The case settled for an undisclosed amount in 2017"

Would it work here? New law in Iceland means rape accused must prove they had explicit consent - "The legislation passed unanimously in the parliament on 23 March"
The presumption of innocence is no match for feminism

Chicago Expelled a Male Student 4 Days Before Graduation Because His Ex Made a Dubious Sexual Violence Claim - "According to Doe's lawsuit, their relationship was entirely consensual, and Roe did not dispute that. After they broke up, they continued to have sex, and those encounters were all consensual as well. Roe did not allege wrongdoing until her friends—to whom she had trash-talked Doe, and promised to stop seeing her ex—discovered she was still sleeping with him. She then claimed Doe had engaged in nonconsensual sex with her after she had passed out... he was expelled—even though one of his witnesses, a friend of Roe's, had told the university that the friend had spoken with Roe for an hour via FaceTime immediately before the encounter. This witness, "CG," said Roe did not seem too drunk to consent, and in fact bragged that she and Doe were about to have "angry sex," just before the call ended"

She Didn’t Get An ‘A’ So She Accused Professor Of Sexual Harassment. Then She Held Ex At Knifepoint To Destroy Evidence. - "Summer Naqvi is a senior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)... Naqvi and her friend William Farrell were arrested after holding Naqvi’s ex-boyfriend at knifepoint in order to delete information off of his phone and computer. The ex-boyfriend, who wasn’t injured, told police he thought the information Naqvi sought to destroy related to her claims against the professor... “victim-centered,” or “trauma-informed” investigation techniques require investigators to view every action of an accuser as a result of the trauma she suffered. Even if those actions indicate the accuser is lying, as would be the case in any other crime, “trauma-informed” investigations insist this is evidence of trauma. In other words, evidence of lying is evidence of the truth. The world has turned upside down."

Some Guys Say They’re Paying For Sex In Mexico To Escape The #MeToo Movement - "Because sex work is legal in Mexico, it’s simple to set up a meeting. “You can go to a strip club, call an escort agency, or hit up a massage parlor. It's an easy, prepackaged sex destination,” he said. The women “are the type you can invite to a nightclub or restaurant and no one would suspect she’s a hooker.”... “It's not safe to hit on women in the US anymore,” Hookerfucker1 wrote, but in Tijuana’s Zona Norte, it’s definitely different. “Slapping a strippers ass is not only ok, but encouraged! In the US you'd get kicked out of the club, prosecuted for harassment, fired from your job, and probably listed as a sex offender.”... “It's just too risky to deal with American women in a system that's increasingly becoming hostile towards men who only want intimacy with a woman,” Hookerfucker1 said. “I keep going back because TJ is a literal fantasy land for males. Where else can you pick and choose from 100s of beautiful girls to have sex with?”... “They say they’re more free here than over there,” a 24-year-old sex worker named Laura said of her American “friends,” the term most sex workers here use to refer to clients. “They say that just by looking at a woman, you can get sued. They call it harassment”... The sex industry in Tijuana is a multimillion-dollar enterprise that employs thousands. It’s become such a major driver of the city’s economy that in 2015, city officials considered basing an advertising campaign around the sex industry. Called the Tijuana Coqueta, or Flirty Tijuana, the short-lived proposal would have used “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas”–style ads to lure back US tourists who’d begun avoiding Tijuana because of the drug war... Several sex workers said they had regular clients flying in from as far away as Chicago and New Jersey"

And the least feminist nation in the world is... Denmark? - "It is one of the best places in the world to be a woman, with a narrow gender pay gap, equal employment rights, universal nursery care, and some of the happiest female retirees on the planet.So it comes as a surprise to find, in a global survey of attitudes towards gender, equal rights and the #MeToo movement, that Denmark is one of the least feminist countries in the developed world... just one in six Danes consider themselves a feminist, a third said that wolf whistling at women in the street was acceptable, and two in five had an unfavourable view of the #MeToo movement... “I don’t want to be equal in all senses.”“It depends what you mean. I’m just ordinary, says Charlotte Venvike, a 55-year-old taking her break from the bank where she works. “I’m not marching in the streets.” According to the data, only a quarter of Danish women consider themselves feminists, a stark contrast to neighbouring Sweden, where 46% do, and a smaller share even than in countries like Italy, Spain and the UK, which otherwise lag far behind Denmark on gender equality.Even Denmark’s Equality Minister Karen Ellemann declared that she didn’t consider herself one when she took up the post three years ago... more Danish women are happy to be wolf whistled than called a feminist, according to the survey. Fully one third say it is acceptable, the highest proportion than in any country other than Nigeria.“I don’t mind it so long as it’s done in a nice way,” says Hansen. “I see it as a compliment, actually,” she says. “A lot of Danish women say that they would like men to to be more like in southern Europe and tell you how nice you look”... Rikke Andreassen, Professor of Communication Studies at Roskilde University argues that one reason Danes tolerate low-level sexual harassment is the belief that what is meant well should be excused.“We have had a culture where what you say isn’t racist or sexist if you don’t intend it to be,” she explains. “You can grab a woman, but so long as you did it because it was ‘fun’, then culturally we tend to think it’s not that bad.”... Only 4% of men and 8% of women in Denmark questioned in the survey said they had a ‘very favourable’ impression of the #MeToo movement, compared to 16% and 34% in Sweden, and 19% and 24% across all the countries in the survey. Sara Pihl, 32, who is out walking her baby on the nearby Kultorvet Square, worries that #MeToo will make men feel constrained in their relationships with women. “I think some men are afraid of talking to women at work, in case they get accused of something.”Andreassen’s research on the #MeToo movement has found that while in Sweden the media treated it as a political issue, in Denmark it was covered in the culture and opinion sections of the newspapers, with very few men outed. “A lot of people have been writing about whether it’s really true that women are being harassed, or that women are being too sensitive,” she says. “And they’ve focused a lot of what would happen to a man who has been falsely accused.”"

Is It Sexual Harassment to Discuss this Article? - "Jordan Peterson recently tweeted that, “The STEM fields are next on the SJW hitlist. Beware, engineers.” I’m convinced that Peterson is correct and I feel that my ongoing case has allowed me to see a likely avenue of attack from those who support the equity agenda. They will characterize any discussion of sex differences, no matter how calm and rational, as a form of gender harassment which in turn constitutes sexual harassment. In other words, if you dare to discuss the science of sex differences—even at a university—there’s a good chance that you’ll be accused of violating US law... the mere mention of James Damore awakens a tribal response from supporters of the equity agenda. Saying anything positive about Damore is considered a form of harassment... I expect to see more of this going forward as the #MeToo movement broadens out. Recommendation 3 from the national academies report is to, “Move beyond legal compliance to address culture and climate.” The next phase of the culture war will include attempts to silence any discussion of sex differences within the STEM disciplines"

USC Education Student Filed a Title IX Complaint Because Another Student’s Answer Offended Her - "Here's how one University of Southern California student handled an awkward moment: She complained to the professor, filed a Title IX report when the professor declined to spend an entire class period litigating the matter, dropped the course entirely, and then launched a petition demanding that everyone who offended her be forced to undergo racial sensitivity training... This incident is a strong example of a phenomenon I've noticed among aggrieved leftist students: immediate, constant appeals to authority. It was not enough for the professor to briefly address what was an admittedly stupid move by a fellow classmate—according to this activist, the very curriculum of the education program should be rewritten so as to make offensive statements not merely unutterable, but unthinkable in the first place. And while anyone can make a petition about anything, the Title IX process is a powerful tool for formal adjudication of problematic speech and conduct."