conflicts of interest in grant allocation, work place appointments should be avoided
men should be made more conscientious about hitting on women at EA events, also vice versa. this means honoring ’no’s, avoiding coercion, respecting a person’s choice of poly/mono, etc
any EA event organizer using that venue to hit on women should be removed from organizing EA events again, without question
retaliation for sexual rejection, both social and professional, needs to be addressed.
more women should be encouraged to seek the cops, instead of keeping arbitrating it within the community where bias and power differentials can creep in
Apologise for the confusion. There’s no policy at present, so the ethos represented by Title IX are a start, especially when victims are reluctant to go to cops or if behavior is harassment but not strictly a crime. That said, cops should be involved wherever possible because EA has no expertise in arbitrating SA.
conflicts of interest in grant allocation, work place appointments should be avoided
Worth flagging: Since there are more men than women in EA, I would expect a greater fraction of EA women than EA men to be in relationships with other EAs. (And trying to think of examples off the top of my head supports that theory.) If this is right, the policy “don’t appoint people for jobs where they will have conflicts of interest” would systematically disadvantage women.
(By contrast, considering who you’re already in a work-relationship with when choosing who to date wouldn’t have a systematic effect like that.)
My inclination here would be to (as much as possible) avoid having partners make grant/job-appointment decisions about their partners. But that if someone seems to be the best for a job/grant (from the perspective of people who aren’t their partner), to not deny them that just because it would put them in a position closer to their partner.
(It’s possible that this is in line with what you meant.)
This all seems very sensible and reasonable. But at the time of writing this comment, your post still makes all of the ‘bailey’ claims I mentioned, which rather proves the point that you’re using a central reasonable claim to justify a bunch of related but unreasonable/poorly-evidenced ones. I suspect this muddled thinking is why you’re getting downvoted.
any EA event organizer using that venue to hit on women should be removed from organizing EA events again, without question
I have seen advice on Twitter—from a woman—that a good way for a man to find a girlfriend is to become an event organiser (implied but not stated in the tweet: you should then hit on women at the event, because why waste the potentially short-lived opportunity?). So that’s what I take to be one view from a woman in favour. I guess two, really, because she wasn’t actually the woman who benefited from this behaviour, in terms of finding a partner that she liked—her friend was.
Against that I have seen this post, and a tweet thread by another woman—who is not in EA—complaining that this happened to her at a tech meetup and in hindsight, she thought it had been inappropriate. Although it took her months to decide to speak up about this—it’s unclear to me whether it took her a long time to change her view that the behaviour was OK, or whether it took a long time for her to pluck up the courage to talk about it on Twitter. Perhaps it was the former and her views were influenced by talking to a radical feminist about her experiences.
(To be perfectly clear, I haven’t engaged in this behaviour myself—indeed initially I was actually hostile to the idea as a dating strategy, as it seemed extremely superficial for a woman to like a man merely because he was an event organiser, but I was subsequently persuaded against this view. By a woman.)
So that’s two, or maybe three, women for, versus two, maybe three, women against—I haven’t yet seen any evidence of a consensus among women that this behaviour is bad, and I haven’t heard any actual arguments for why this behaviour is bad, either. Could you provide any?
So first up, I don’t think ‘good way for a man to find a girlfriend is to become an event organiser’ implies ‘you should then hit on women at the event’. It could just be ‘it’s a good way to meet people and make friends, and the more people you meet, the more likely you are to find a partner’.
I kind of want to taboo ‘hit on’ because clearly whether it’s bad depends on what exactly you mean. The lack of consensus might come from different understandings of the phrase! (but it also might come from women having different preferences and experiences—shocker!)
Still, here are some types of ‘hitting on’ that might be bad:
-person A is making obviously flirty and/or overtly sexual comments to person B, maybe touching them or leaning in close, etc. Person B extricates themself from the conversation politely and doesn’t reciprocate the flirtiness (beyond friendliness). Person A continually seeks out B at events and keeps behaving this way, even though B always leaves the conversation at the first opportunity. This is bad because it means Person B has to spend the whole event running away from A rather than just enjoying themself.
-it’s a professional event (eg, EAG) and A and B have set up a 1-on-1. A asks B, apropos of nothing, if they’re single. A is clearly not really interested in talking about professional matters (EA women on twitter have said this happened to them). This is bad because it’s a waste of B’s time—B could have schedule a meeting with someone who actually wanted to talk about work stuff!
-Person A asks B out. B says ‘sorry, I have a partner’. A argues that monogamy is irrational and emotionally immature. This is bad because it’s manipulative and crosses people’s boundaries.
Baileys are overstated imo. If I may:
conflicts of interest in grant allocation, work place appointments should be avoided
men should be made more conscientious about hitting on women at EA events, also vice versa. this means honoring ’no’s, avoiding coercion, respecting a person’s choice of poly/mono, etc
any EA event organizer using that venue to hit on women should be removed from organizing EA events again, without question
retaliation for sexual rejection, both social and professional, needs to be addressed.
more women should be encouraged to seek the cops, instead of keeping arbitrating it within the community where bias and power differentials can creep in
Apologise for the confusion. There’s no policy at present, so the ethos represented by Title IX are a start, especially when victims are reluctant to go to cops or if behavior is harassment but not strictly a crime. That said, cops should be involved wherever possible because EA has no expertise in arbitrating SA.
Updated the post to clarify
Worth flagging: Since there are more men than women in EA, I would expect a greater fraction of EA women than EA men to be in relationships with other EAs. (And trying to think of examples off the top of my head supports that theory.) If this is right, the policy “don’t appoint people for jobs where they will have conflicts of interest” would systematically disadvantage women.
(By contrast, considering who you’re already in a work-relationship with when choosing who to date wouldn’t have a systematic effect like that.)
My inclination here would be to (as much as possible) avoid having partners make grant/job-appointment decisions about their partners. But that if someone seems to be the best for a job/grant (from the perspective of people who aren’t their partner), to not deny them that just because it would put them in a position closer to their partner.
(It’s possible that this is in line with what you meant.)
This all seems very sensible and reasonable. But at the time of writing this comment, your post still makes all of the ‘bailey’ claims I mentioned, which rather proves the point that you’re using a central reasonable claim to justify a bunch of related but unreasonable/poorly-evidenced ones. I suspect this muddled thinking is why you’re getting downvoted.
I have seen advice on Twitter—from a woman—that a good way for a man to find a girlfriend is to become an event organiser (implied but not stated in the tweet: you should then hit on women at the event, because why waste the potentially short-lived opportunity?). So that’s what I take to be one view from a woman in favour. I guess two, really, because she wasn’t actually the woman who benefited from this behaviour, in terms of finding a partner that she liked—her friend was.
Against that I have seen this post, and a tweet thread by another woman—who is not in EA—complaining that this happened to her at a tech meetup and in hindsight, she thought it had been inappropriate. Although it took her months to decide to speak up about this—it’s unclear to me whether it took her a long time to change her view that the behaviour was OK, or whether it took a long time for her to pluck up the courage to talk about it on Twitter. Perhaps it was the former and her views were influenced by talking to a radical feminist about her experiences.
(To be perfectly clear, I haven’t engaged in this behaviour myself—indeed initially I was actually hostile to the idea as a dating strategy, as it seemed extremely superficial for a woman to like a man merely because he was an event organiser, but I was subsequently persuaded against this view. By a woman.)
So that’s two, or maybe three, women for, versus two, maybe three, women against—I haven’t yet seen any evidence of a consensus among women that this behaviour is bad, and I haven’t heard any actual arguments for why this behaviour is bad, either. Could you provide any?
So first up, I don’t think ‘good way for a man to find a girlfriend is to become an event organiser’ implies ‘you should then hit on women at the event’. It could just be ‘it’s a good way to meet people and make friends, and the more people you meet, the more likely you are to find a partner’.
I kind of want to taboo ‘hit on’ because clearly whether it’s bad depends on what exactly you mean. The lack of consensus might come from different understandings of the phrase! (but it also might come from women having different preferences and experiences—shocker!)
Still, here are some types of ‘hitting on’ that might be bad:
-person A is making obviously flirty and/or overtly sexual comments to person B, maybe touching them or leaning in close, etc. Person B extricates themself from the conversation politely and doesn’t reciprocate the flirtiness (beyond friendliness). Person A continually seeks out B at events and keeps behaving this way, even though B always leaves the conversation at the first opportunity.
This is bad because it means Person B has to spend the whole event running away from A rather than just enjoying themself.
-it’s a professional event (eg, EAG) and A and B have set up a 1-on-1. A asks B, apropos of nothing, if they’re single. A is clearly not really interested in talking about professional matters (EA women on twitter have said this happened to them).
This is bad because it’s a waste of B’s time—B could have schedule a meeting with someone who actually wanted to talk about work stuff!
-Person A asks B out. B says ‘sorry, I have a partner’. A argues that monogamy is irrational and emotionally immature.
This is bad because it’s manipulative and crosses people’s boundaries.