[Closed] #MeToo

geetee1972 - Member

I think the problem here is twofold. First a lot of you seem incapable of elevating the debate to a more abstract level of human behaviour, which is what we are talking about.

That's what makes it powerful and thought provoking.

Your post could also have done that, if you'd just joined the #metoo side of it, but instead you decided to try and diminish the experience of others. Quite unbelievable how many on here have tried to deflect this - Graham S included. It's just a simple lack of empathy.

But I didn't commit any of these supposed sins in an effort to subjugate women or prop up the patriarchy.

careful now...

When most people drive somewhere that they could walk or cycle, it's usually not in a conscious effort to increase their carbon footprint. But that doesn't mean it doesn't contribute 😉

Quite unbelievable how many on here have tried to deflect this - Graham S included. It's just a simple lack of empathy.

Huh? Not sure what I'm being accused of there?

Do I come across like I'm trying to deflect or dismiss the #metoo campaign?
Because if so I'd like to make it clear that is very much not my intention.

I [i]am[/i] keen to to hear whether people think that Guardian list is fair but that's a separate thing to #metoo I think.

Most people don't drive to the shops when they could walk in a conscious effort to increase their carbon footprint. But that doesn't mean it doesn't contribute

Yep point taken.

So do you think those rules I mentioned are fair enough and I'm wrong to question them?

Do I come across like I'm trying to deflect or dismiss the #metoo campaign?

For e.g. Of course if a woman goes to kiss you in a European greeting way, you should reciprocate. What were you thinking? That the Guardian writer would say that you should put your hands up and say "Whoa there! I'm not falling for that - next minute you'll be accusing me of sexual harassment".

So do you think those rules I mentioned are fair enough and I'm wrong to question them?

That Guardian list is one (American) woman's take on the issue - and she may have been feeling a bit cross about the patriarchy as she wrote it.

I'd read it as one person's perspective rather than cast-iron rules suitable for every situation, however it does seem a bit churlish to pick holes in it.

Thanks Alex.

It may just be my Engineer's-Spectrum kicking in, but when someone produces a list like that I think it should aim to be definitive and clear.

You said my answers dilute the thread, but to me suggesting "rules" that are so obviously flawed dilutes the rules and the weakens the points they were trying to make. My answers were intended to illustrate that.

If you have a penis you're a pig like the rest of them"

Only if it's curly.

Your examples of when the Guardian questions should be implemented or not sounded very condescending

Just been reading some the comments under the Guardian story and in response to that point I'd say that the word "condescending" appears repeatedly to describe that list.

The top comment, by quite some margin, describes it as [i]"patronising"[/i] and being [i]"spoken to like we're children"[/i].

So perhaps my responses just reflect the tone of that article.

[img] [/img]

[quote=GrahamS ]Just been reading some the comments under the Guardian story

Ah, had forgotten to do that - comments on the Guardian don't at least have the same blood temperature raising properties as on other websites.

My standout comment was "Sorry, most of that does not apply to most of us." which got the following reply "Riiiiiight." I have a feeling there's a similar confirmation bias here to drivers thinking all cyclists jump red lights - and possibly that also applies to the author of the article, hence that last point of hers. Because as I already pointed out, I totally agree with that comment - I don't think most of that does apply to most men. Unless I'm living in my own confirmation bubble and simply not encountering the majority of men who do all those things.

I note that I'm not attempting in any way to diminish the original issue here, simply discussing the Guardian article.

My standout comment was: [i]"I read it, I'm a woman and a feminist and I found it offensive and patronising. I don't want to be included in this game."[/i]

You can probably leave it now mate.

GrahamS - Member
Thanks Alex.

It may just be my Engineer's-Spectrum kicking in, but when someone produces a list like that I think it should aim to be definitive and clear.

You said my answers dilute the thread, but to me suggesting "rules" that are so obviously flawed dilutes the rules and the weakens the points they were trying to make. My answers were intended to illustrate that.

The World has gone mad ..just thought I would throw this into the mix ..
Scot given three-month jail sentence for touching Dubai man's hip

https://search.app.goo.gl/ah11

Shared from my Google feed

WTF? That has got absolutely nothing to do with the discussion. 🙄

Really ...?
Mistaken intentions ..accidently touching someone..not mentioned anywhere in the thread ..go re-read ..
Oh ..Im sorry it happened to a bloke ..my mistake 8)

Really ...?

Going back a bit to the link posted about male behaviour at gigs, this para stood out:

Melbourne indie punk band Camp Cope were midway through a sold-out set at Brisbane's Crowbar in May when a man began aggressively ploughing his way through the audience, leaving many women — called to the front by the band at the start of the set — in his wake.

So I've been doing some research and reviews of the data on harassment and assault. The figure of 25% relates to the percentage of women aged between 15 and 59 who report to have experienced harassment or sexual assault (including rape) at some point in their lives. It is impossible to argue that this figure isn’t anything other than remarkably high.

Indeed it’s so high that it needs explaining. I will leave aside for this purpose the issue that there will be a spectrum of incidents in this set (i.e. the set of instances that are defined and reported as being harassment or assault) that range from the unambiguously criminal all the way through to the those where a jury would find it difficult to decide what happened. We can also leave aside the additional set of reports of ‘street harassment’ since these are highly contentious and have as much to do with politics and power as they do an actual problem. I'm not dismissing or trivialising them, just acknowledging that they need a separate debate.

The biggest problem with the figure of 25% is that no one ever takes the time to equate the number of women experiencing these transgressions with the number of men perpetrating them. What happens in this instance is that everyone assumes that because the frequency is so high, therefore a very large number of men are guilty of making them, perhaps even as large as a quarter of all men. This leads to the narative we see, which is there is a problem with 'men' exhibiting predatory sexual behaviour in general.

It’s never specified but the politics of the reporting and the subsequent social dialogue means that the problem set is defined simply as ‘men’. Not ‘some men’ not ‘a tiny minority of men’, just ‘Men’. This leads to such nonsense ideas that ‘all men are potential rapists’ and that we live in a ‘rape culture’. The narrative is one of men committing routine harassment and assault every day and society turning a blind eye.

In trawling the research and reading around on patterns of offending behaviour (something I did on the weekend), the one thing that is clear is that perpetrators of any crime or transgression are far more likely to be repeat/habitual offenders. Typically you are either a regular law abiding citizen, or you are a habitual offender; this applies across the spectrum of offending or transgressive behaviour. This is demonstrated almost every time a major celebrity finally gets caught; it starts with one or two reports and turns into an avalanche; Jimmy Savile and Harvey Weinstein are prime examples.

Price’s Law is useful to use here. It states that in any population where there is an output or action to be measured, 50% of the frequency of that output will be generated by the square root of the population. So for example, in a company of 100 people, 10 of them are doing 50% of the work. Then 50% of the remaining output is being done by the square root of the remaining population and so on. (note that this was originally devised by studying the frequency of published papers in the academic community but it's since been found to apply to all kinds of populations).

If you take rape as an example of this, 50% of the 83,000 reported rapes that are committed each year are being perpetrated by just 288 men. Run the calculation through and you get a figure of 315 men committing 100% of all rapes, which is 0.00001% of the male population. Now 315 men is not insignificant and 83,000 rapes is horrible and needs serious attention. But that’s not the story that is written. The story is ‘rape culture’ and it’s being written based on a sample of just 0.00001% of the population.

Now I wasn’t sure that number was right so I did some additional research and found another study that confirmed the same thing but to a lesser degree. The vast majority of rapes are committed by serial rapists, with the frequency cited being something like six instances per perpetrator. That would increase the frequency of offending per perpetrator to 0.04%. There is also some more recent research that suggests it may be as low as two, in which case the number would be 0.13%. Those numbers are drastically higher than those given using Price's Law, but they are still statisticallty insignificant if what you want to do is draw any kind of conclusion about the nature of men or masculinity in society.

OK, but so far we’ve only been addressing rape. What about the 6.25m women who cite ‘harassment or assault’, which can include rape but it not limited to that. It also includes thing like groping, touching exposing or any other kind of sexual assault.

Well 6.25m women a very large number (it’s 25% of the female population aged between 15 and 59 after all). If the frequency of perpetration by men was one to one, that would a large number and you could reasonably argue that this is a ‘male problem’ as a result. But none of the data suggests that’s remotely likely. That just does not fit the pattern of offending behaviour in any category and it certainly doesn’t remotely connect with my experience of the world; one if four men guilty of sexual assault, does that seem right?

So apply Price’s Law again to that number. Total population? Well you get a very long tail but it’s around 2,600 or 0.00008% of the population. Now again that seems very low so let’s apply the frequency principle. If it were 12 transgressions per offender then the offending population of men is 1.58%, six and it rises to 3.16% and two gives you 9.47%. It's worth noting that the prison population (which is overwhelmingly male) is about 2.8%.

I don’t believe it’s two. I believe if you’re likely to commit one act, you’re likely to commit many more because all the data tells us that this is likely in patterns of offending behaviour and the factors that drive that kind of behaviour tend to be pathological; they are the result of a personality profile that scores very low on agreeableness (this is where men always score lower than women and counters women’s higher tendency for neuroticism as a negative trait). That low score on agreeableness is why the vast majority of the prison population is male, but it’s still less than 3% of ALL men.

So what is my conclusion on this. I’ll use a Socratic approach to try and summarise:

Is the instance of rape or sexual assault of any kind abhorrent and wrong? Yes, unequivocally.
Is the frequency an issue? Yes
Does the frequency reflect that this is a crime most likely to be committed by a man? Yes
Does the frequency of these crimes suggest this is therefore a problem with ‘men’? No, not remotely.

And this is the crux. Saying that it is is like saying that the problem with radical Islam is just a problem with Islam and that all Muslims are terroritst (or at least a large enough percentage of them are to make that a justifiable statement). You’re judging 50% of the population based on the actions of at most 2.8% and potentially far less. Harassment (actual harassment, not misinterpreted advances or wolf whistles or other socialised behaviour whether you think it acceptable or not), sexual assault and rape are NOT reflective of a problem with male or masculinity, they are a problem with a very tiny minority of men.

I got as far as your maths and switched off. If you seriously believe that 315 men are committing 83000 rapes a year, you're mental as that's a shade over 263 rapes per person per year. You're not stupid so I can only conclude you're intentionally throwing out numbers even a child could see make no sense in order to obscure the important parts of the discussion.

Nobody is suggesting that if 25% of women are assaulted or harassed that 25% of men are responsible but we are all responsible for the solution whether it's 25%, 2.5% or 0.25%. Outright racism is no longer socially acceptable because ALL of us shifted our behaviour away from accepting it as part of life.

You can choose to excuse the behaviour all you want but 25% is a HUGE problem and whether or not you are doing it is irrelevant; men and boys should know better than to do it or excuse those who do whether they are friends, colleagues, family or random people in the street.

Some people really need a hobby,cycling maybe.

edited.

I think GT is hugely, fantastically wrong, but I don't really have time to contribute much beyond a snarky dismissal which doesn't really add much to the conversation.

but GT you seem to take much of the wider discussion as a personal attack which seems to be driving a very defensive reaction imo

I'm not going to question your data..dont have the time or inclination to do so ..but I think that I could have jumped to that conclusion without the detailed research ..

[quote=geetee1972 ]We can also leave aside the additional set of reports of ‘street harassment’ since these are highly contentious and have as much to do with politics and power as they do an actual problem.

Yeah, let's just dismiss all those 🙄

What happens in this instance is that everyone assumes that because the frequency is so high, therefore a very large number of men are guilty of making them, perhaps even as large as a quarter of all men.

cite

Price’s Law is useful to use here.

Given the ridiculous results it's giving you, it would seem not.

Harassment (actual harassment, not misinterpreted advances or wolf whistles or other socialised behaviour whether you think it acceptable or not), sexual assault and rape are NOT reflective of a problem with male or masculinity, they are a problem with a very tiny minority of men.

wolf whistles [b]are[/b] harassment - this is the sort of thing you continuously try to dismiss. I'm guessing you don't have any female friends who have spoken to you about this - that sort of thing is very definitely on the spectrum of things which causes women distress and forces them to change their behaviour. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "other socialised behaviour", but have to assume you mean similar things which are prevalent in society despite being unacceptable.

Yes, it is a minority of men, I'm not so sure it's a tiny minority. But in any case it very much is the responsibility of all men to do something about it, because we're often the ones in a position of power who can change things. This is very much one of the points of the campaign - a point which like so many others you seem to have missed.

If you take rape as an example of this, 50% of the 83,000 reported rapes that are committed each year are being perpetrated by just 288 men. Run the calculation through and you get a figure of 315 men committing 100% of all rapes

Price’s Law is useful to use here. It states that in any population where there is an output or action to be measured, 50% of the frequency of that output will be generated by the square root of the population.

If you take rape as an example of this, 50% of the 83,000 reported rapes that are committed each year are being perpetrated by just 288 men. Run the calculation through and you get a figure of 315 men committing 100% of all rapes,

Say what you want about these rapey blokes, they are certainly dedicated. Some don't even take a day off.

50% of 83000 = 41,500
288 men = 144 rapes per man per year.
315 - 288 = 27 men
41,500/27 = 1637 per man per year.

Price’s Law is useful to use here. It states that in any population where there is an output or action to be measured, 50% of the frequency of that output will be generated by the square root of the population.

Price's contention is questionable in its original context and hasn't been shown to apply outside that context either. However -

If you take rape as an example of this, 50% of the 83,000 reported rapes that are committed each year are being perpetrated by just 288 men

Here you appear to have obtained your figure of 288 very busy men by taking the square root of the output, not the population. If you're going to comb the internet to find any questionable theory that supports your argument at least do the sums properly.

I got as far as your maths and switched off.

That's because you're either ignorant or stupid or perhaps both. Either way you're not interested to engage in an actual exploration of the situation or the problem because it doesn't confirm to your view of the world.

It absolutely does not. It states that half of the scientific papers are contributed by the top square root of the total number of scientific authors.

Er yeah I know. I even referenced that in my post. Did you actually read it? Price's law has been shown to apply to many other populations as well though. If you look at the data on offending behaviour it fits very well to that.

Yeah, let's just dismiss all those

No let's just treat those separately as they are a separate problem. I am NOT dismissing them without debate, just not debating them here. They are a different problem that straddles a much broader swathe of problems in society where any one group is responsible for transgressions against another. Women are just as guiltu of that towards men - ask any man that has been through a messy divorce and he will tell you all about the micro-aggressions, hostility and outright biggotry that women are capable of.

If 288 men are responsible for 50% of the 83,000 rapes then you're saying that another 27 men (315-288) are responsible for the other 50%?

Well I'm suggesting it, offering it as a hypothesis if you like. It's very hard to know for sure and the actual figure could be as high as 2,300, which is about the number of rape cases that result in a conviction in a year (2016 data). We can either assume that rape is only ever committed once by a perpetrator, or we can reason that it's more than once.

If the frequency is either one or two, then the total number of men in a given year likely to commit rape (as defined by a jury) is vanishingly small, just 0.0007% of the male population.

This argument does not account for the fact that potentially up to 90% of rapes are not reported. If you factor that in and scale it up, you reach a population of men likely to commit rape that numbers 23,000 which is 0.07% of the population and that is before you factor in the reality that it is very unlikely that a man who has raped has only raped once. There is data on this you just have to take the time to find it like I have.

Look, for crying out loud, I'm not saying rape is not a problem! Far from it. Just that the way it's reported as being a 'problem with men/masculinity' is as ignorant, bias and prejudicial as tarring any group with the trangressions of a tiny minority.

Here you appear to have obtained your figure of 288 very busy men by taking the square root of the output, not the population

Yes true, a mistake. It would explain why the two sets of data seem vastly different.

Adjusted figures would be about 5600.

Say what you want about these rapey blokes, they are certainly dedicated. Some don't even take a day off.

This is also a good point but it's harder to pick apart. We should try though.

It's true you cannot simply abstract one year of data unless what you want to do is state that in one year what is the population that are likely to commit rape. Those are the figures I've produced so if you factor in a time frame over which the offending behaviour is likely to take place, you will get to a much larger number.

From my reading, it seems to be that the likely total number of men in an given population who might at some point commit rape is at most 9%. That number is obviously a lot higher than the other figures but it's still a very small minority and that is my ultimate point.

Why are we defining the problem as if it were a problem associated with 'men' rather than just 'some men'? And I think the answer to that question is political rather than issue based.

get this man a new spade. he's nearly worn this one out...

the way it's reported as being a 'problem with men/masculinity' is as ignorant, bias and prejudicial as tarring any group with the trangressions of a tiny minority.

Agreed. But you can't hope to argue that case by using obviously flawed mathematical assertions

True but then that's what the debate is all about.

So here's an interesting thought. If the number of men likely to rape or who have raped at some point in the past is materially higher than say 9% (let's say it's really high at 20%), then on this page alone, there are at least three rapists.

I know I'm not one so which of you is it?

I was to wolf whistle good and loud (I can't but that's neither here nor there) and 20 women heard it would they all be equally harassed by it? Do I need to bellow "Not you, her in the crocs!" each time? Is that more offensive?

I can't remember the last time I actually heard a wolf whistle*.

[i]
*With the exception of someone whistling at a dog to control sheep.[/i]

jimjam - Member
I can't remember the last time I actually heard a wolf whistle

"Not you, her in the crocs!"

You utter perv.

The problem is Geetee is that you've completely made up the "Just that the way it's reported as being a 'problem with men/masculinity' "

atlaz put it very well above in his middle para:

Nobody is suggesting that if 25% of women are assaulted or harassed that 25% of men are responsible but we are all responsible for the solution whether it's 25%, 2.5% or 0.25%. Outright racism is no longer socially acceptable because ALL of us shifted our behaviour away from accepting it as part of life.

It's a problem with society. Just think about how many men might have been slightly aware of Weinstein's actions, but didn't dig deeper because it's complicated, or he's powerful, etc. Similarly how many women knew that it had happened to them, but didn't mention it to their friends due to fear of being seen as 'trouble' or other reasons.

The whole point of the #metoo campaign it to try and break down these barriers so that people speak out in future.

So as you've completely made up the 'problem with men/masculinity', your arguments come across as trying to dismiss the potential benefits of wider acceptance that there is an issue that needs addressing.

scotroutes - Member

jimjam - Member
I can't remember the last time I actually heard a wolf whistle

Have you tried wearing high heels and a mini skirt?

Yeah, not so much as a second look. Bloody transmisogynist brickies round here.

If 5600 Muslim extremists blew themselves up, I think we'd be having a pretty big discussion about Islam.

it seems to be that the likely total number of men in an given population who might at some point commit rape is at most 9%

If it’s [b]ONLY 1 in 10 [/b]blokes who are rapists then yes, I can see why you aren’t concerned that it’s a “male” problem 🙄

Ffs, can you even hear what you are saying ?

jimjam - Member
I can't remember the last time I actually heard a wolf whistle*.

*With the exception of someone whistling at a dog to control sheep.

For the sake of brevity I deleted the fact that I can't whistle, forcing me to be forever at the purple faced and pursed lips end of the sexual predator spectrum. Like the autism spectrum, we're all on it, apparently...

OK let's simplify the numbers a little to make easier to engage with the idea I'm trying to get across here. I may be making mistakes but I can trust you all to identify those and maybe we will get to a better understanding of the problem as a result.

OK so there are a [u]reported [/u] 83,000 rapes a year. That's reported, not taken to trial and not convicted, just reported.

If the frequency of offending were just one to one, i.e. a man only ever rapes once, then over a 30 year period, that would put the total population of men who have this problem (i.e. that they are pathologically pre-disposed to rape) as being 7.5%.

Now, it's not remotely realistic to think that this is likely. Let's say the rate of offending behaviour is at least 1.5 instances per perpetrator. That would reduce the population of men displaying this pathology as being 5% (again over the same 30 year period).

Let's also now make a reasonable adjustment for age. We know that serial rapists are likely to offend over a very long period of time but they are also so tiny in number (of perpetrators) that no sane individual could use them to try and prove anything other than the fact that they are very dangerous individuals who should be locked up.

A large swathe of the problem lies in a narrower window of time, between the ages of 18 to say, 35, where men and women are single and the frequency of sexual encounters that have the potential to go wrong and result in rape are much higher. So let's define a window of say 15 years and use that to define the problem.

Then the number becomes 2.5%.

Again, you can attack me, you can slander me, you can say I need 'help', I really could give a ****, my point is that the story we are given is not reflective of men or masculinity. There is no crisis in masculinity, there is only a crisis with a small minority of men who demonstarte deeply predatory and pathological behaviour.

If you're not prepared to engage with an important idea/issue then take your rage elsewhere.

OK so there are a reported 83,000 rapes a year. That's reported, not taken to trial and not convicted, just reported.

Any rage on this thread appears to be yours. Possibly because you're being so poor at getting your point across.