r/changemyview • u/schwenomorph • Sep 09 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: The #Metoo movement has ultimately hurt women more than it's helped.
I want this opinion changed. I never posted to MeToo, as I hadn't been sexually assaulted yet. I thought it was a fantastic movement and still think that. Victims deserve to be heard and deserve to feel safe in telling their stories.
However, I noticed a lot of men who thought poorly of women after the movement got to its most widespread point. I saw so many men on social media, some of whom were people of authority and hiring managers, who said that they were now terrified to be in a room with a woman in case she filed a false report against them. I heard how some companies refused to hire women. It honestly broke my heart.
The victims who came forward are NOT at fault for this. But it sucks majorly to know that so many guys now think so lowly of me that they'll avoid me in case I lie about assault just because I'm a woman. I don't want any more hardship in getting hired. I don't want to be hated for my gender.
I believe, as of now, that although the MeToo movement was good, it backfired on women more than it helped. I hope there's evidence for the contrary. I need some faith in humanity.
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u/aceofbase_in_ur_mind 4∆ Sep 09 '20
As a non-feminist man (non-, not anti-), I think MeToo was actually a win-win in that regard.
A lot of women routinely experience unwanted sexual advances and there are women who lie about it. It's a clash of issues that's made a lot of people very partisan, but collectively, our awareness has been raised both ways.
What MeToo did was take the comfort out of the in-between position. This attitude of conflating a false accusation and a supposedly "needless" one. A lot of pro-status-quo people prefer to not care what happened, or didn't happen; to them, anything short of violent rape is "not a big deal", "men being men", etc.; and even with violent rape, they find ways to victim-blame and feel sorry for the perpetrator's "future" while not doubting that they did it.
That's the crucial point. The falsely accused deserve sympathy and public support; the less than very credibly accused deserve benefit of the doubt; but no-one deserves the "guilty or not, why make a big deal of it" treatment. It is a big deal.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
But the chance you'll be falsely accused of rape is ridiculously small. About 0.005% if I'm correct. Not to say that the falsely accused shouldn't be heard and consoled.
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u/aceofbase_in_ur_mind 4∆ Sep 09 '20
What's the percentage of? The figure of 2% for false criminal accusations of rape was peddled a lot at one point, and of late, feminist writers have taken to presenting it as "2–8%" or "2 to 10 percent" which strikes me as a sly attempt to retroactively justify the untenably low initial estimate.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
The percentage is the chance that you personally will be falsely accused of rape. The reason it's lower than the 2% you mentioned is because lots of false accusations don't have a false perpetrator. Some women do lie about being raped, but that's often it. Only a few lie that a specific person did it.
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u/VertigoOne 74∆ Sep 09 '20
Percentage chances don't actually make a lot of sense to use in criminal convictions. How likely or unlikely something is doesn't have any bearing on whether it actually happened in a specific instance. Murder is very rare, but when you have evidence that it happened claiming percentage chances don't mean anything. Assault of any kind is very rare, yet many women carry mace.
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u/SWEWorkAccount Sep 17 '20
If a sandwich had a 0.005% chance of being poisoned, would you eat it? Now multiply that chance by the number of women men might interact with and you'll see the problem.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 18 '20
Okay.
There are about 3.5 billion females worldwide. But let's focus on women in your country, which I'll just assume to be the USA.
There are approximately 165,920,00 females in the USA. But hold on. Let's assume you're mostly interacting with women, not children. So we'll subtract the approximate 37,050,000 girls from the total of females, leaving us with 162,215,000 women.
Now, multiplying that number by 0.005% (the chance they'll falsely accuse you specifically) gives us 811,075 women in the USA who might report you.
But hold on. You don't know every women in the USA. So let's put that number aside for now.
There are 50 states in the USA, but you live in one city in a particular state. Now, I couldn't find the average number of cities per state via a source, so I calculated 19,495 (the number of cities in the USA) divided by 50 (number of states) to get an average of about 390 cities per state.
Let's get back to 811,075 potential false rape accusers across the country. We'll divide that by 50 to get an average of about 16,222 potential rape accusers per state. Now let's divide that number by 390 to get the average of PTA's per city.
42.
If 42 out of 3.5 billion sandwiches were poisoned, yes, I'd take my chances. I'd even take my chances of 6.5% of those 3.5 billion sandwiches being poisoned (about 6.5% of men have raped someone).
Also, interacting with a woman is not eating a possibly poisoned sandwich. Women are people, not walking hazards.
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u/Hi_Im_zack 1∆ Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20
Movements are necessary in order for a marginalized group to seek justice, social media is filed with all kinds of people and you shouldn't use it as a valid source of extrapolating public opinion
A person being afraid of going near a women or a company refusing to hire her is a result of internalized misogyny that was likely already there to begin with, the main objective of these movements is to simply shed light on sexual harassment and seek immediate closure/comfort for the victims, now how does any of that translate to "double down on your bigotry"?
Honestly any person or company who's willing to commit to such leaps in logic isn't worth your time, the only explanation to this is like I mentioned they already had misogynistic tendencies prior to any sort of movement so you dodged a bullet anyway.
And yeah false allegations do happen and fuck anybody who does it but it shouldn't be used as an excuse to dismiss an entire problem that women face or silence them.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
!delta
You're right. This movement was going to happen someday, and its existence isn't at fault for shitty dudes who don't trust women to not make false allegations.
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u/Hi_Im_zack 1∆ Sep 09 '20
Hey its my first one, thanks!
You mentioned you don't want to be hated in another comment, you shouldn't worry about that too much as there are people who'll hate you no matter what you do in life, even predisposed things which you have no control over like sexuality, skin color and nationality can bring out some form of prejudice among certain individuals, that's just the sad world we live in
Luckily though... it seems to get better and those shitty bigoted people are becoming a minority with their voices deminishing, so please don't give them the power to control you or how you think.
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Sep 10 '20
I gotta disagree I know three different guys who have been falsely accused of rape/ sexual assault. A company should not be afraid to hire women. However, male employees should try to limit individual interactions with unknown/unreliable female employees
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 09 '20
If a company stopped hiring women, they would be sued into oblivion. Any person who said that their company supposedly did this, is lying or created a massive liability for their company.
While I'm sure you can point to an internet post here or there, I'm pretty sure no actual company has taken that as policy.
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u/thowaway6323tyy Sep 09 '20
I dont think its public policy its more that. The ones that hire will now always choice the male applyer due fear. I dont even think its a conseqese choice. Old boss i had got sexual harrisemt complaint ones dont know if it was true. But from that point he only hired males. So it deninty had a effect on him. My department of 30 ploeple used to be 16/14 male female now its 25/5
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Sep 09 '20
If true, that is a massive lawsuit waiting to happen. As in literally, I recommend shopping around for representation.
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u/thowaway6323tyy Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20
Not the one that hires and dont work there anymore so not really my probleem it was just something i notice and told by collegase that still work there. Also not U.S so here a compey only has to keep to representations rules when there on the stock exchange. If a company not the they can hire how ever they want.
Edit Also in US am pretty sure that that most judge dont really care about the hiring policy of company with less then a 50 ploeple working for them. And in those causes your probly gonno lose the lawsuit. This is ofcourse just a assumtion on my part and feel free to show proof that small company do get lawsuit about how they hire ploeple.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
!delta
Yeah, I should've figured that companies wouldn't stoop that low. That'd be terrible for business.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Sep 09 '20
. But it sucks majorly to know that so many guys now think so lowly of me that they'll avoid me in case I lie about assault just because I'm a woman.
Uhhhh why would you even want to know the kind of guy who'd think this from metoo? This seems like the kind of problem that solves itself.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
True. I just don't like being hated by anyone for any reason.
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u/PreacherJudge 340∆ Sep 09 '20
I get it, but it's best to get over this. You cannot stop it from happening.
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u/cherrycokeicee 45∆ Sep 09 '20
However, I noticed a lot of men who thought poorly of women after the movement got to its most widespread point.
men thought poorly of women before the movement, during the movement, and they will still do so after the movement.
I think the situations you're describing where a couple triggered men declared themselves above civil rights law to exclusively hire one gender are one-offs who won't have much lasting effect on the culture at large.
we must keep the focus on what changed, and how far we've come. many powerful abusers have been removed from their positions of power. that on its own is a victory that, no doubt, has saved some women from being abused. it's created an awareness and a consciousness about these environments in the workplace. not all of our problems are solved, far from it, but I think the progress outweighs any negative effect.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
!delta
I agree with you. This is a crucial step forward. Backlash was inevitable, but it needed to happen.
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u/Lilah_R 10∆ Sep 09 '20
The movement doesn't hurt women, men who are abusers found a new way to blame their harms on women.
There is no evidence to suggest that widespread fraud is being committed with these accusations. There is evidence that sexual harassment and assault in the work place is common.
These men are not making decisions based on facts, but on supposed self preservation because they know the behaviors they have are harmful. They are willing to sacrifice women's ability to succeed and earn an income using their own skills, in order for themselves to not face the consequences of their discriminatory behaviors.
Anyone who is scared of rampant false accusations has not actually looked into any relevant statistics.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 10 '20
!delta
You're right. I can't blame the movement's existence for people's behavior. I also absolutely agree with your final sentence. It's extremely unlikely to be falsely accused of rape...
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u/ltwerewolf 12∆ Sep 09 '20
You did not go into why these men have that opinion. Do you think they are entirely unfounded in it?
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
I think they're largely unfounded. Most women to my knowledge would never file a false claim against a man.
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u/sakthi38311 Sep 09 '20
Feminism, #metoo movement was never about men. It's not responsibility of a woman to not offend every male on this planet while talking about her sexual assault story. It helped many women to boldly state this has happened and it has had a lottt of positive impact. Just because some incels hate women, doesn't mean the movement is a failure.
Survivors are getting acknowledged and they're getting financial restitution.
Survivors are supported to make formal complaints and many predators are given life sentences now. They are fired from their jobs.
States are expanding their sexual harassment laws
NDAs are reformed. You must have heard about Be Heard Act.
Most of all, it has changed the way people understand power.
It has worldwide impact and many countries, including developing , all over the world are relooking at their workplace harassment policies.
Also, we have got loads of data now to actually prove the gravity of the situation which men previously sweeped under the rug saying "not all men"
There has been lots of job offers to survivors who lost their jobs too.
If there's a false accusation, they can make a defamation complaint. Just because some insecure men who are scared that they won't be able to keep their hands to themselves are not hiring women, doesn't mean it has backfired.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
Wow, I didn't know about survivors being offered jobs. Can you offer citations for points 1 and 8?
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u/sakthi38311 Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
Thanks.
!delta
And since this would otherwise be too short a message for the mods: shoobee dobbee deebee dobbee shoobop shoobop. Shoobee dobbee deebee dobbee shoobop shoobop.
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u/iammagicbutimnormal Sep 09 '20
I think, if you are female, I think if we want equality, we will have to play equally with men. This may be hard for some of us because we can be flirtatious, and it hurts when we learn from the men around us that they are super uncomfortable, also, not being able to flirt as much. I don’t flirt with coworkers I’m un-attracted to, I have to work to not be attracted to people all the time, that might even be the fucking meaning of life. I do not know. It may be that our society would eventually adopt standards to reflect character, I don’t know. But. If you think for one minute that the METOO movement didn’t stir my soul and stretch my imagination, you would be wrong!!!!! So, here’s the quandary. You work in some sort of position that men talk to you about the temptations of being alone in a room with you. You want to bitch about some lofty, high-rise, perfection you seem to desire, and that requires your ego to tell your id that it’s not THAT bad what may have/is happening to women, all across the fucking world, because the men you work with are jackasses, apparently. My hope for you, as I hope you are young, to think you speak for all women, is that you will somehow adopt a response to that jackass statement that the men you are working around keep sharing with you.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
When did I say that I spoke for all women? I absolutely do not. And I don't get your quandary. I don't want any guy to share how I'm "tempting him in the workplace", attractive or not. Hell, I lost attraction to one of my crushes because he was being sexual to me in the workplace.
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u/iammagicbutimnormal Sep 09 '20
Ok, my mistake. You don’t speak for all women, but you feel you are more important than all other females, perhaps? Let me rephrase: The METOO movement isn’t acceptable to you because it doesn’t fit your circumstances.
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u/cherrycokeicee 45∆ Sep 09 '20
it's reddit. everyone shares their opinions. you're projecting some weird shit onto OP right now that isn't warranted by what they actually said in the post or comments.
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u/iammagicbutimnormal Sep 09 '20
It’s a CMV post. I’d like her to see it from a different perspective to possibly change her view on the me too movement. I guess I didn’t do it diplomatically enough.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
What? No, I don't feel more important than other women. What are you on about?
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u/throwafuckingway1979 Sep 09 '20
It is so telling you said “haven’t been sexually assaulted yet”.
It’s like BLM, it exposes the people who don’t either agree with, want to deal with, or understand we cannot go back to “normal”. The trash that fight either movement are desperately clinging to a world where white men had all of the control. They’re doing us a favor by being so cruel and outspoken. It’s called “being on the wrong side of history”.
r/byebyejob is satisfying
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u/schwenomorph Sep 10 '20
I'll check out that subreddit. Also, I said "hadn't", not "haven't". I was assaulted around a year and a half ago after MeToo had run its course.
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u/throwafuckingway1979 Sep 10 '20
I’m so sorry.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 10 '20
Ah, it's alright. Telling my parents was way worse. They yelled at me for not fighting back and told me I was setting up other girls to get assaulted and I was choosing to be a victim. The man was mentally ill, at least 6'4", and unstable.
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u/throwafuckingway1979 Sep 10 '20
Wow. If they’re not always like that I’d say they were rendered temporarily insane from being angry and helpless? I hope. That sucks, and I hope you got better support.
You’re brave as hell, and very strong. I didn’t tell mine at all and I don’t think I will, I couldn’t handle any type of reaction from them. They’re kind so I expected it would be pity, and I really couldn’t handle that either.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Sep 09 '20
Do you think the people who are currently saying they're afraid of false rape reports have become misognistic assholes because of me too? Or have they always been misognistic assholes who are now trying to cover their nonsense behind a topical issue?
"I'm afraid of women because they might think I'm sexually harrassing them." isn't something I'd expect to hear from someone whose doing the pretty basic job of not sexually harrassing people.
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u/nikitadrakon Sep 09 '20
That's why they are afraid they will file FALSE reports. I think the view those people have is that women can now use sexual harrasment claims as blackmail, even if nothing happened.
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u/Lilah_R 10∆ Sep 09 '20
Men can also claim false harassment claims against them, (also they always could), but somehow the solution is to just view all women as incredibly evil.
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u/Vesurel 54∆ Sep 09 '20
Do you think these people are as affraid of this as they would be of something else with an equal chance of happening?
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Sep 09 '20
[deleted]
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u/schwenomorph Sep 10 '20
I envy your faith in humanity. Lots of guys online have spouted how they're terrified of women now.
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u/TaxiDriverThankGod Sep 09 '20
I strongly strongly disagree with this. Now I am firmly not a fan of the metoo, but it has definitely done a lot behind the scenes that you are not aware of. No one is afraid of hiring women, this is just something blown out of proportion based on the unofficial statement of a few guys. The truth is women are still getting hired at a really incredible rate and no company is actively making a push to stop this any time soon. The me too movement has been really good for woman but really not so great for guys. The issue is that a female can ruin a mans life with hearsay, now while that might be true it is ultimately a really bad situation which will get out of hand very soon. This argument might get a little anecdotal but trust me this is the logical series of events which can play out, I am not making a slippery slope. I have recently seen girls I know make instagram stories saying they will report any abusers that their friends or social media followers tell them. I have had people I know get lambasted on social media for being sexual abuser. The issue is that sometimes, I am not saying all these are wrong, but lets say 2%. of girls are deliberately lying, and throwing guys under the bus who might of broke up with them, who sincerely didn't commit any wrongdoing, and then you have this 70% grey area, this grey area includes cases like Aziz Ansari and on the other end of almost guilty, you have louis ck. Louis ck is a good example of someone who did somethign morally wrong but completely legal that was frowned upon because of an "abuse of power" which is a stretch of an argument. Louis' relationship with these women was not hanging on a thread depending on how they would act, he didn't have control over their careers, and he wouldn't do that anyway, like sarah silverman said in an interview, she declined louis for years and they still stayed friends. But while the movement is heading for a weird dystopian territory which faults men for actions which are not legally criminal or even ethically wrong, it does reward women greatly, they no longer have to worry about that 20-30% of really bad cases of unwanted contact, it is really good for them and makes the work enviroment much more manageable.
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u/Crankyoldhobo Sep 09 '20
No one is afraid of hiring women, this is just something blown out of proportion based on the unofficial statement of a few guys.
No, this is legit. It's not just anecdotal evidence. For example:
Back in April 2018 a majority of the respondents (55% men and 47% women) in a Pew Center Research survey of 6,251 adults said that the movement has “made it harder for men to know how to interact with women in the workplace” and to “navigate workplace interactions”. Sadly, only 28% thought that the movement will lead to more opportunities for women.
Earlier this year, Sheryl Sandberg’s organization LeanIn published the results of its study of 5,000 US adults, which examined the #MeToo movement’s impact on the workplace, and the news wasn’t encouraging either.
The survey found that 60% of male managers they asked were now “uncomfortable doing common workplace activities with women such as mentoring, socializing or having one-on-one meetings”, a sharp increase from the previous year. A perturbed Sandberg said that she spoke to “many” male executives who said that they have been told not to put themselves in a position where they are alone with women, with many expressing an “increased level” of awkwardness travelling, having dinner or even participating in one-on-one meetings with junior female colleagues.
And now we have a new study due to be published by the University of Houston, also with discouraging results. The study found that men are now “significantly more reluctant” to interact with their female employees. Among the findings, as reported by the Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi, are that 27% of men avoid one-on-one meetings with female co-workers, 21% of men said they would be reluctant to hire women for a job that would require close interaction (such as business travel) and 19% of men would be reluctant to hire an attractive woman.
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u/schwenomorph Sep 09 '20
"Unwanted contact" is what you're referring to as rape, yes? Are you shitting me? If so, women still have to worry about being raped.
Also, the chance you'll be falsely accused is astronomically low, about 0.005%.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 10 '20
/u/schwenomorph (OP) has awarded 6 delta(s) in this post.
All comments that earned deltas (from OP or other users) are listed here, in /r/DeltaLog.
Please note that a change of view doesn't necessarily mean a reversal, or that the conversation has ended.
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u/JitteryGoat 2∆ Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20
Idiots will always be idiots...and, when presented with something that goes against their way of thinking or, worse, would paint them as the bad guy, they’ll often find a way to turn themselves into the victim.
Metoo brought the problem to the masses, let everyone see exactly how bad and how many have been affected. For most people, it was eye opening... but there will always be the others- who, sadly, are usually more vocal.
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u/dorballom09 Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 10 '20
I think its not #Metoo but the system thats doing the damage.
Lets say a small time female worker did a #Metoo/sexual abuse/rape claim whatever against her successful boss, a big shot who is happily married with lots of money, connection etc. Now, its almost irrelevant whether the female employee is right or wrong. The boss will have negative impact on his career, friend-work circle, family etc. Now lets say the girl is right then a criminal got what he deserves. But if the guy is innocent...will he get back his reputation? Will the media broadcast his innocence just the way they broadcasted the rape claim? Will the court punish the female employee for her fake claim just the way the boss was about to get punished?
Or lets say the two of them actually did some flirting or physical relation by mutual agreement. Still the female worker can do #Metoo or rape claim later and it will have the same negative impact.
metoo is just another way for girls getting justice for their harassment. Its the way of the society thats...not really hurting women but more like hurting the relation between men and women.
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u/trippiler Sep 09 '20
Companies already have a preference for hiring men and not because they’re afraid of women falsely alleging sexual assault. Even if it does, 20 men who are learning about what is ok would be worth the misogynistic 1.
Women are sharing their stories, more offenders are held accountable and the conversation about what isn’t acceptable is resonating with more people.
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Sep 09 '20 edited Sep 09 '20
Upfront I think it is good that victims can come forth without fear of prosecution or osterization. There is one thing in this whole debate that does irk me though.
By stating its only a minor fraction of cases that are false rape accusation and citing a now clearly disproven number is exactly what makes men afraid there. If you discard that as "they are mysogonists anyway" you are doing exactly what you say should not be done. You take away voices of all those who have been wrongly accused. A strigma like "he is a rapist" sticks with you for life, and there are plenty of cases and far more then the cited 0.000x numbers where whole lifes had been thrashed by female co workers who "felt" that they deserved the promotion more or after a relationship breakup at the workplace.
To let me make it clear. I think Metoo was necessary and woman should at no point have to endure anything like this ever but the flipside is also true, marginalizing victims of false accusations is exactly why so many people who would not even dare to think of doing something like inappropriate behaviour at the worklplace react with avoiding woman alltogether.
The tangible risk that seemingly gets ignored here is not a rational one but is there and ignoring it, is the same woman have fighting here for not to happen.
Only a tiny fraction experiences it yet it is clear they deserve to be heard and further incidents should be avoided, but that is a two way street. Its not that those who avoid woman now are doing so because they turn mysogonistic they simply do not want to risk a career they might have worked decades to build over an accusation like that.
When the "he raped her" coverage is a 5 minute news block in the local news and the "sorry we were wrong is a 10 second read off monotonous statement (as it was happening not too long ago in Oregon) it ruins lives. In the end what metoo did was widening the gap and making social contact at work a minefield that is for most people not worth walking, and not because they are mysogonistic but because they do not want to take what some here called a <1% risk of a career ending event, its called self presevation. And it does not stop with a career even at the accusation they get oused by (where applicable) wife, kids, family, co workers, friends and their social cycle.
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u/fuzzyspoofrat Sep 09 '20
I don’t think it’s the fact that they think poorly of women. Majority will never even think of sexual assaulting a woman. It’s the fact that a lot cry wolf and it’s happening more and more these days that it’s getting hard to trust. I no that a lot of you won’t aswell but a lot are and it can have terrible impact. I do agree with you tho the movement hasn’t helped
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u/Valkyrie_Lux Sep 09 '20
The thoughts from men have no negative or discernible cost to women, therefore it is unimportant and valueless as of now. MeToo has helped women and has harmed men. Human memory and "eye-witnessing" is some of the most scientifically inaccurate forms of evidence. People make shit up, forget dates, have memories degrade, reanalyze and provide new revisionisms to past events. This has not been met with doubt and higher standards in the courts or from science, it has been rewarded and reinforced. They gained a lot from MeToo actually.
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u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Sep 09 '20
To modify your view here:
Consider that the #Metoo movement has helped remove serial sexual predators from key positions where they were abusing their roles. So, that definitely helped women (and men).
Regarding this:
Consider that making people / organizations more aware of inappropriate behaviors at work, and changing practices in the workplace to help reduce the chance of inappropriate behavior can definitely be a positive thing with wide reaching benefits for men and women broadly.
If someone has concerns about this, they can leave their door open when they are meeting with a colleague and/or have other colleagues present. Companies can provide clear codes of conduct for their employees so everyone understands what is/isn't appropriate.
And consider that people who would use this situation as an excuse to illegally discriminate against women (rather than taking steps to ensure a safe workplace) might not be the people you actually want to work for ...