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[kaijyuu]

Anecdotes about people acting completely and utterly unreasonably is the entire point of Not Always Right. Certainly, you've got reason to think it's made up and/or embellished, but the same is true for every single story on the site. This one just happens to be about sexual harassment. If you have doubts about that one but not, say, the "evil liberals" one in my signature, welcome to selective doubt land.


Anywho, my point was, there's an unreasonable extreme to people calling out sexual harassment. While I've never met anyone that bad, I have met people with ridiculous personal bubbles who whine whenever they feel it's violated. And since the topic was statistics about sexual harassment, gathering accurate statistics is going to be difficult because you can't just ask someone "have you ever been sexually harassed?" Some people might say yes because a random stranger glanced at them or tried to chat in an elevator. I don't trust any statistic that isn't far more specific about what it's asking.

[GlyphGryph]

Some people might say yes because a random stranger glanced at them or tried to chat in an elevator.

And many many more will say no, because it was their own fault, because they shouldn't have let him go that far, because they didn't do enough to stop it, because they don't want anyone to know, etc. and so on.

You seem to be denying statistics on the basis of false positives, while it seems that false negatives would be a lot more common.

But yeah - crazy people skew statistics. That's what error bars are for, to account for imprecision such as crazy people skewing statistics.

[kaijyuu]

You seem to be denying statistics on the basis of false positives, while it seems that false negatives would be a lot more common.

Nope, I covered that too in my original post, which Leafsnail only quoted part of.

On the far side of the scale for men, you've got the notion that a man being raped is somehow a good thing (even the men being raped can buy into it!).

Just pointin' out extremes~

(there are of course women who would give false negatives and men that give false positives, which do also contribute to statistical inaccuracy, but those are a bit more rare)

[GlyphGryph]

I've completely lost the thread of this conversation. Ah well. Anything new going on?

[Virex]

Some people might say yes because a random stranger glanced at them or tried to chat in an elevator. I don't trust any statistic that isn't far more specific about what it's asking.

You apparently don't realize that a creepy glance can do more the creep a woman out and make her feel violated than any number of comments. It's not about the look itself, it's about the situation, the one doing it, the timing et cetera. All those combined can change into a threatening situation in which the woman feels exposed.

[Leafsnail]

Anecdotes about people acting completely and utterly unreasonably is the entire point of Not Always Right. Certainly, you've got reason to think it's made up and/or embellished, but the same is true for every single story on the site. This one just happens to be about sexual harassment. If you have doubts about that one but not, say, the "evil liberals" one in my signature, welcome to selective doubt land.

I doubt the one in your signature just as much.  If anything even more because it's basically an old joke told as if it were an anecdote.  I'm not sure why you're assuming I'd believe that one (although if it is true then it sounds like the customer is telling a joke that the person telling the story missed).

I mean, it doesn't matter about the veracity of these stories if you're reading them for a laugh.  But if you're actually citing it as an example of a thing that happens then it does matter.  Even if you're trying to provide an extreme it seems unfair to cite a quite possibly made up extreme.

Anywho, my point was, there's an unreasonable extreme to people calling out sexual harassment. While I've never met anyone that bad, I have met people with ridiculous personal bubbles who whine whenever they feel it's violated. And since the topic was statistics about sexual harassment, gathering accurate statistics is going to be difficult because you can't just ask someone "have you ever been sexually harassed?" Some people might say yes because a random stranger glanced at them or tried to chat in an elevator. I don't trust any statistic that isn't far more specific about what it's asking.

If you think that women do overreport sexual harrassment then surely there would be a better source to back this up than an unconfirmed, anonymous personal account written in order to amuse rather than inform?

Nope, I covered that too in my original post, which Leafsnail only quoted part of.

Because I was commenting on your use of a poor source.  So I quoted that source.  If someone wants to read your whole post rather than the bit that's relevant to mine they can click the link.

(there are of course women who would give false negatives and men that give false positives, which do also contribute to statistical inaccuracy, but those are a bit more rare)

Have you got any backing for this statement?

[Ogdibus]

.

[kaijyuu]

@Virex
I can't reply to that without getting into an argument about semantics. Suffice to say not everyone who feels "creeped out" is reacting reasonably, nor is everyone who feels that way acting unreasonably either. Need more information, as you said.

Anecdotes about people acting completely and utterly unreasonably is the entire point of Not Always Right. Certainly, you've got reason to think it's made up and/or embellished, but the same is true for every single story on the site. This one just happens to be about sexual harassment. If you have doubts about that one but not, say, the "evil liberals" one in my signature, welcome to selective doubt land.

I doubt the one in your signature just as much.

Then you make a fair argument. Your doubt of it is reasonable.

Nope, I covered that too in my original post, which Leafsnail only quoted part of.

Because I was commenting on your use of a poor source.  So I quoted that source.  If someone wants to read your whole post rather than the bit that's relevant to mine they can click the link.

Indeed.

(there are of course women who would give false negatives and men that give false positives, which do also contribute to statistical inaccuracy, but those are a bit more rare)

Have you got any backing for this statement?

Nope, and after writing it I figured someone might point this out. I concede any point about "over reported" vs "under reported," as I have no evidence to back up my assumptions. Main point still exists though, that people's definitions of sexual harassment vary (quite a bit), and thus any statistic needs to ask far more specific questions than "have you been sexually harassed."

[Virex]

@Virex
I can't reply to that without getting into an argument about semantics. Suffice to say not everyone who feels "creeped out" is reacting reasonably, nor is everyone who feels that way acting unreasonably either. Need more information, as you said.

I'm not the one you'd be getting into a semantics argument with


Anyway, I'm a firm believer that on the matters of women feeling assaulted that if she says she is, then she is. Every woman's experience is unique and discounting it as irrelevant or mislabeled is pretty idiotic. After all, you're saying that you know better than she does what happened to her...

[GlyphGryph]

There's plenty of situations in life where an outside observer is perfectly capable of knowing more than an involved party what happened in a given situation.

Brains fill in gaps, memories alter in the presence of strong emotions, repression and modification can either suppress or strengthen memories so they become something that never happened happened, for better or worse.

And since sexual harassment is a term we use to communicate, its perfectly possible for someone to understand fully and correctly what happened to them and communicate poorly so that the information they transfer is other than what was intended. So maybe we don't know better than her what happened, but we might know better than her how to describe it with precise and meaningful language. Especially for some traumatic events, which victims may find difficult to describe for a variety of reasons!

People, and this includes any of us, can be wrong, even about things that may generally be fairly subjective.
(I hope this isn't a semantic argument, if I should drop it, let me know)

[Virex]

There's plenty of situations in life where an outside observer is perfectly capable of knowing more than an involved party what happened in a given situation.

Brains fill in gaps, memories alter in the presence of strong emotions, repression and modification can either suppress or strengthen memories so they become something that never happened happened, for better or worse.

And since sexual harassment is a term we use to communicate, its perfectly possible for someone to understand fully and correctly what happened to them and communicate poorly so that the information they transfer is other than what was intended. So maybe we don't know better than her what happened, but we might know better than her how to describe it with precise and meaningful language. Especially for some traumatic events, which victims may find difficult to describe for a variety of reasons!

People, and this includes any of us, can be wrong, even about things that may generally be fairly subjective.
(I hope this isn't a semantic argument, if I should drop it, let me know)

In that case, I think it's up to the person in question to indicate that she needs someone else to stand in for her as she can't make a valid judgement. Anything else and you're overruling someone on potentially shaky grounds, which especially in the case of traumatic experiences is just something you shouldn't do.

[GlyphGryph]

In that case, I think it's up to the person in question to indicate that she needs someone else to stand in for her as she can't make a valid judgement. Anything else and you're overruling someone on potentially shaky grounds, which especially in the case of traumatic experiences is just something you shouldn't do.

Essentially, I disagree. But I think the most important thing to keep in mind, really, is that framing matters. Humans are only, ever, imperfect recorders, and the way you frame the question can lead the answer. kaijyuu's point about "Have you ever been sexually harassed?" being a poor question is a good one. It has fuzzy boundaries, leaving too much up to interpretation, vague memories, and imprecise definitions, and narrows down their experience to a simple yes or no question. It's making a lot of unsafe assumptions and pretty much guaranteeing an increase in instances of reliable testimony. If you're working with statistics, you want consistent understandings of the variable being measured, and that's not a good way to achieve it.

It's why psychological studies don't just ask "Have you ever had periods of depression?" but rather require you to fill out a many page sheet of specific instances and details you are more likely to remember accurately, and then deduce from that whether or not you've had a period of depression major enough to warrant looking into.

Even that is imprecise. But when you're dealing with something with boundaries as fuzzy as 'sexual harassment' in the popular consciousness, at the very least you should define what you mean by it before asking the question, and allow the person to formulate their response within that framework. That's not "overruling their judgements" or arguing "someone needs to stand in for her" - it's simply making sure that communication is as intended. That's at the very least.

[palsch]

The problem here is people are using a (theoretical) vague question to dismiss a non-vague survey. Again, the numbers I cited;

    Nearly 1 in 5 women (18.3%) and 1 in 71 men (1.4%) in the United States have been raped at some time in their lives, including completed forced penetration, attempted forced penetration, or alcohol/drug facilitated completed penetration.
    More than half (51.1%) of female victims of rape reported being raped by an intimate partner and 40.8% by an acquaintance; for male victims, more than half (52.4%) reported being raped by an acquaintance and 15.1% by a stranger.
    Approximately 1 in 21 men (4.8%) reported that they were made to penetrate someone else during their lifetime; most men who were made to penetrate someone else reported that the perpetrator was either an intimate partner (44.8%) or an acquaintance (44.7%).
    An estimated 13% of women and 6% of men have experienced sexual coercion in their lifetime (i.e., unwanted sexual penetration after being pressured in a nonphysical way); and 27.2% of women and 11.7% of men have experienced unwanted sexual contact.

More information and the methods are available here.

None of this really seems especially vague to me. They are not figures about sexual harassment but sexual violence.

They do have a category for non-contact unwanted sexual experiences. That reported as 33.7% of women and 12.8% of men, but with somewhat closer figures for the last 12 months (3% vs 2.7%). These experiences were fairly narrowly defined as;

Non-contact unwanted sexual experiences are those unwanted experiences that do not involve any touching or penetration, including someone exposing their sexual body parts, flashing, or masturbating in front of the victim, someone making a victim show his or her body parts, someone making a victim look at or participate in sexual photos or movies, or someone harassing the victim in a public place in a way that made the victim feel unsafe.

Somewhat subjective, but an entirely reasonable and slightly conservative estimate (explicitly using 'unsafe' instead of 'uncomfortable').

In any case, I would argue that statistics on people subjectively feeling that they have been sexually harassed - even if they don't fit some arbitrary definition of the term - would be entirely valid in this area. Finding out what percentage of people feel their boundaries have been ignored by others would be just as interesting and useful to know as how often specific behaviours are reported.

[Levi]

I find it weird that these progressive threads seem to be mostly about rape.  I'm a little sad some of the other topics on the first page weren't picked up on.

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah, survey is pretty good on that front. There has been... a lot of drift. I forgot what even inspired this conversation, truth be told.

Levi, what would you rather we talk about? I'll totally push that.