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.
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.