I was pretty torn up at the time. Life is so much better now. 
She had already been making serious bad decisions before she started going out with the college guy. That fellow wasn't such a bad guy, just not smart enough to keep up with her once she matured.
There's a reason for this plague of know-nothings: The bumbler's perpetual amazement exonerates him. Incompetence is less damaging than malice. And men — particularly powerful men — use that loophole like corporations use off-shore accounts. The bumbler takes one of our culture's most muscular myths — that men are clueless — and weaponizes it into an alibi.
...
Breaking that alibi means dissecting that myth. The line on men has been that they're the only gender qualified to hold important jobs and too incompetent to be responsible for their conduct.
Its a far more interesting article than that when read in full. Firstly, its written by a woman, and is talking about the potential damage to womens careers if this gets out of hand. Not genuine harassment, but if it extends past harrasment into treating every interation as a potential threat. But judge for yourselves. And remember, this space is supposed to be about challenging the accepted liberal viewpoint, not just reinforcing it.Primula Baggins wrote:It looks like a familiar kind of handwringing that occurs when any group of people begin to assert their rights more emphatically—"they should be nice about this or no one will like them any more." But I can't read the whole thing.
Toward that argument in general, which we've all certainly heard in regard to this issue, Black Lives Matter, etc.—but particularly in regard to women, what have we lost if "flirtation" is no longer considered OK at work? If in exchange women are safe from "flirtation" (which may be nonconsensual and much more repugnant than "flirtatious" men realize—really, honestly, guys), but also safe from the kinds of things we've been reading about lately, that anyone would find gross and frightening? Because it's much farther to reach that extreme now, and women can safely assert their nonconsent at a much earlier stage?
The sisterhood is turning women into victims
clare foges
Blurring the line between assault and flirtation makes employers less likely to hire female staff
If the scandal in Westminster has left male MPs confused about what is and is not acceptable, they should heed the late Julian Critchley, long-time Conservative MP, who advised that “the only safe pleasure for a parliamentarian is a bag of boiled sweets”. I confess to being somewhat confused by the way trivial incidents have been cast as serious offences — and concerned, too.
I fear for the damage this will do to the reputation of women in work. I worry that when women are “empowered” to label the most minor incidents as sexual harassment, half the population is cast as perpetual victims, not potential leaders. By “calling out the patriarchy” at every clumsy flirtation, some self-described feminists are, unwittingly, constructing invisible barriers to female ambition. They are painting the rest of womankind with the same brush, the stereotype of the irrational drama queen that women have been trying to shrug off for decades.
I’m not suggesting anyone who has experienced real harassment should just buck up and take the gropes. But when a female journalist is allegedly brushed on the knee by the deputy prime minister, and he then faces calls for his resignation, this is not a victory for the sisterhood. It is a sop to victimhood. It affirms the views of all those misogynists who like to imply we are too weak and wilting to be taken seriously.
The more that women are perceived as hypersensitive, the riskier they will be deemed by employers. Imagine a recruitment situation in which a twentysomething man and woman are the final candidates. Many things will be taken into account: qualifications, experience, interests. The recruiter will also consider whether the person before them is a PPITN, a Potential Pain in the Neck. In future colleagues, we look for benign team-players, non-troublemakers. Not, please God, a PPITN. Yet now that a man brushing against a woman’s knee can be regarded as harassment, now that millennials may be “triggered” by the slightest infraction of their personal space, how many employers might fear that the female candidate is a risk? A PPITN?
Already many see it as a greater risk to employ women. In 2014 a survey of 500 managers showed a third would rather hire a man in his twenties or thirties over a woman of the same age, for fear of maternity leave and its costs. Yes, we should be glad that we live in a country where discrimination is taken seriously, and where there are pregnancy and maternity rights. But we must be alert to the danger that the way these rights are used and abused can make it less attractive to employ women.
In recent months I have had conversations with two senior executives: one the head of a finance company, the other the director of a creative firm. Both had been taken to the cleaners by an employee who had recently had a baby. On returning to work, these women had demanded the same role, on the same pay, but with far shorter hours. When their demands were seen as unreasonable, the employer was accused of being inflexible and the women started legal proceedings on the grounds of indirect sex discrimination. Both organisations knew it would be easier to settle out of court. What struck me was how resigned they were. The women were just doing what was financially rational, they said. They’re right, because sex discrimination awards are uncapped, making it highly attractive to make a claim.
The bar for discrimination is set low, too. Citizens Advice suggests that “where there have been one or two incidents of name calling or banter” a tribunal “would be likely to award between £1,000 to £5,000”. This is by no means the limit. A BAE Systems manager commented to a female secretary that “women take things more emotionally than men” and it cost the arms manufacturer £360,000 in compensation.
Such cases may be rare but they add to the impression that female employees can be riskier prospects than men. Now, to add to employers’ concerns, we have the febrile climate around sexual harassment. Under the Equality Act 2010, an employer may be liable for the actions of his or her employees, including harassment. Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, has said that businesses must “offer specific training on sexual harassment”. If only it were that simple. If only employers could just hold some death-by-powerpoint presentations about boundaries and respect. The trouble is that the bar for harassment has sunk so low, well into the grey area of flirtation, that it has become almost impossible to guard against it. Would it be any wonder if employers became wary of young women who might treat a Carry On joke from an older colleague as tribunal-worthy?
Of course, women must have the ability to complain about men who genuinely harass them. There should be a place to report them that is independent, confidential and powerful enough to get that person removed. I’m not proposing we dismantle the Equality Act either, or repeal maternity rights.
But the bar for what constitutes discrimination and harassment has been set too low. Receiving a flirty text is not even on the same spectrum as rape. Off-colour office jokes are hardly compensation-worthy. Being asked by your employer to work reasonable hours after maternity leave is not discriminatory. Ultimately, those who encourage women to see harassment in every clumsy flirt and discrimination in every slight are doing womankind no favours. In the echo chamber of Twitter, these might feel like victories against the patriarchy. In the real world, they undermine women in the long and tiring battle to be taken as seriously as men.
