If there’s anyone else whom I’ve ever made feel uncomfortable or pressured, I’d love to hear about it — I think I might benefit most from a conversation, but I’d also welcome anonymous feedback.”
Sorry if this is uncharitable, but this sentence rubs me the wrong way. It reads to me like “hey people who I might have harassed, it would be good for me if you talked to me”. I think the priority here should not be what YOU benefit from.
You may be right, but FWIW, I read that sentence as, “I think I might understand a lot more and be able to update my behaviour in a more appropriate way if we have the benefit of the back-and-forth of a conversation, but of course I’m also open to anonymous feedback if that’s what you prefer.” (Versus him coming from a place of something like, “I’d personally feel most comfortable with a conversation.”)
Yeah, I agree with that, and I’m really glad how much Owen expresses he’s keen to work on himself.
I’m not sure my anger is appropriate here, but I’ve been in similar situations as this woman. If one of these people asked me for a conversation about their behaviour, I imagine being impressed/glad by them wanting to change but also feeling a bit like, ‘You already made me feel shitty, and now it’s my job to make sure you don’t do this again?’.
I think this is especially because the quoted sentence does not acknowledge the person much—even an addition of something like
’If there’s anyone else whom I’ve ever made feel uncomfortable or pressured <<I’m deeply sorry and regretful this happened. I would like to make sure I never put anyone in that position again.>>”
would have made me feel less bad about the phrasing.
I think for this kind of sentiment you should … make it clear that you don’t expect to hear from everyone who’s felt uncomfortable and this is fine? you’d just appreciate feedback?
(I feel slightly weird about the sentence you wrote above in a “the optimal amount of making women uncomfortable is not zero” kind of a way. Like, in this case there should be clearly much less of it on the current margin, just… as the sort of person some women are going to be occasionally uncomfortable about for dumb reasons)
Thanks Laura, I agree. It feels that whenever these incidents are brought to light, women must still take on a large part of the work in educating men on why/how their behaviour was bad. It is exhausting.
Sorry if this is uncharitable, but this sentence rubs me the wrong way. It reads to me like “hey people who I might have harassed, it would be good for me if you talked to me”.
I think the priority here should not be what YOU benefit from.
You may be right, but FWIW, I read that sentence as, “I think I might understand a lot more and be able to update my behaviour in a more appropriate way if we have the benefit of the back-and-forth of a conversation, but of course I’m also open to anonymous feedback if that’s what you prefer.” (Versus him coming from a place of something like, “I’d personally feel most comfortable with a conversation.”)
Yeah, I agree with that, and I’m really glad how much Owen expresses he’s keen to work on himself.
I’m not sure my anger is appropriate here, but I’ve been in similar situations as this woman. If one of these people asked me for a conversation about their behaviour, I imagine being impressed/glad by them wanting to change but also feeling a bit like, ‘You already made me feel shitty, and now it’s my job to make sure you don’t do this again?’.
I think this is especially because the quoted sentence does not acknowledge the person much—even an addition of something like
’If there’s anyone else whom I’ve ever made feel uncomfortable or pressured <<I’m deeply sorry and regretful this happened. I would like to make sure I never put anyone in that position again.>>”
would have made me feel less bad about the phrasing.
I think for this kind of sentiment you should … make it clear that you don’t expect to hear from everyone who’s felt uncomfortable and this is fine? you’d just appreciate feedback?
(I feel slightly weird about the sentence you wrote above in a “the optimal amount of making women uncomfortable is not zero” kind of a way. Like, in this case there should be clearly much less of it on the current margin, just… as the sort of person some women are going to be occasionally uncomfortable about for dumb reasons)
Thanks Laura, I agree. It feels that whenever these incidents are brought to light, women must still take on a large part of the work in educating men on why/how their behaviour was bad. It is exhausting.