
“Just tell them you have a boyfriend” - DinahDavis
https://medium.com/code-like-a-girl/just-tell-them-you-have-a-boyfriend-7080ccdc568a#.u7a5f3eib
======
doktrin
> That’s the advice from a prominent thought leader in tech to women suffering
> from harassment at tech events. “Just make it clear you’re in a
> relationship.”

So I clicked on the linked article, and - sure enough - this suggestion is
made, but it's also only 1 of 6 bullet points on the topic. The rest being :

    
    
        Don’t assume people are hitting on you. 
        Make friends with the men. 
        Make friends with the women. 
        Leave before the party takes that turn. 
        Recruit help. 
    

Honestly, those tips strike me as more germane and helpful than those put
forth in this rebuttal :

    
    
        Be compassionate: just because your experience is different, it doesn’t mean the experiences of others are less valid or not real.
        Be compassionate: tactics that work for you may not work for everybody.
        Be compassionate: don’t blame the victims or those reporting negative behavior.
    

That sounds like a great ideal to strive for, but doesn't strike me as
particularly useful advice. The world would be a better place if we were all
appropriately compassionate, but most people will probably get more utility
out of advice that targets the world as it actually is rather than how it
ought to be. Advising someone to avoid a dodgy neighborhood isn't victim
blaming - it's risk mitigation.

~~~
keyanp
Notice that the author writes:

> Way to put all of the responsibility back on the people reporting the
> harassment.

This is the key point. Notice that the six bullets above are all demanding
preventative measures from the victim. We do not need to provide victims with

> advice that targets the world as it actually is

but instead we need to provide all members of the community advice that
targets how they can (and should) be preventing transgressions against others.

~~~
doktrin
> We do not need to provide victims with advice that "targets the world as it
> actually is"

Unless I'm completely misunderstanding you, this is nothing short of
delusional. We _absolutely_ need to provide victims - and potential victims -
with the tools to handle (or avoid) unpleasant and dangerous situations.

> but instead we need to provide all members of the community advice that
> targets how they can (and should) be preventing transgressions against
> others.

As others have mentioned, these aren't mutually exclusive options. Social
norms can - and have - changed for the better, but it's more than a little
ridiculous to expect victims to wait a generation or two in the hope that
society will become more self aware. What's so evil about advice that is
intended to improve their quality of life _now_?

------
trcollinson
Just a fact check for a moment. I would rather not speak to the authors point,
but how she is mounting the defense of her point. First, the article she wrote
it named “Just tell them you have a boyfriend.” She then seemingly quotes "a
prominent thought leader in tech" (Stormy, a VP of Developer Relations at
Cloud Foundry) as saying "Just make it clear you’re in a relationship." This
is all in the first paragraph of the article.

Now she is quoting Stormy from an article "Events are not cesspools of
harassment" [1]. Stormy makes 6 points which have helped her to enjoy
conferences as a woman in technology. The first point is "Make your intentions
clear." She then goes on to explain that when she is talking to people at
conferences and she feels the need, she will explain she is in a relationship.
To quote: "So for the past decade and a half I’ve made it clear that I’m
happily in a relationship." She also makes this following caveat to this
advise: "If you don’t have a partner or kids, you’ll have to work on a
strategy that works for you but it’s still possible to make your intentions
clear."

I think the most upsetting part about the parent article is that the author,
Cecy Correa, seems to mis-represent what Stormy has written. Stormy never says
"Just tell them you have a boyfriend." Nor is there any wording in her article
which says "Just make it clear you’re in a relationship." She does say "Make
your intentions clear."

Now, maybe this still leads to the same conclusion, if you have to make your
intentions clean, this is victim blaming. Maybe it does not. But if you are
going to quote, please actually quote.

[1] Stormy's original article - "Events are not cesspools of harassment" \-
[https://medium.com/@storming/events-are-not-cesspools-of-
har...](https://medium.com/@storming/events-are-not-cesspools-of-harassment-
ebef6bf3e2b6#.cf6tbniem)

------
brayhite
I'm married so I may be ignorant to this, but how often is the hopeless
romantic pursuing his love interest perceived as harassment? Thinking back,
maybe asking my now-wife multiple times to go out on a date with me and
formally be in a relationship despite going away to live with her parents
would be seen as harassment. Neither her nor I see it that way though.

I guess my point is I think making the assumption that guys realize they're
harassing and not being a try-hard may be where the err is. But I haven't seen
that kinda thing in person myself, so I may be way off.

~~~
untog
The key part here is professional context. If you've met that person because
you are both attending a tech conference it's very different than someone
you've met in a purely social context.

~~~
brayhite
My only reply to that would be that I imagine a significant amount of couples
met originally at work in what was likely supposed to be a professional
environment.

~~~
untog
I'm sure you're right, and I'm not saying it should never happen, but that
it's a different environment that you should be aware of.

Tech conferences are a little different than the average workplace, too - it's
not as if you have the time to get to know a person, or usually live anywhere
near each other to be able to form a relationship.

------
mikelyons
Telling someone who sexually harasses others not to do it isn't going to stop
him or her. Just like how gun laws don't stop criminals who are determined to
own guns ... The best thing you can do is to teach people how to not be
victims because you'll never breed-out the minority of people who are hell-
bent on sexually harassing others.

We already put all the onus on the offender not to do it by making it illegal!

------
dsl
I work to better the long term economic state of my hometown and help people
to find meaningful contributions to society other than a life of crime.
However, I also don't let my aging mother go to the bad part of town.

Having a solution for _now_ doesn't preclude you from working on a long term
solution.

Sure it is "victim blaming." But sitting on our hands for the perfect solution
isn't progress either.

------
pfarnsworth
I get it and I agree. What happens when the "I have a boyfriend" response
stops working? Then what? People should just learn to stop harassing people.

~~~
mikelyons
Never going to happen. If a guy is attracted to a girl, and the only chance is
to engage with her right then and there, if that guy wants a shot at getting
what he wants in his life, he's going to go for it. Then it's up to the girl
to make her disinterest clear. If the guy can see she's disinterested then he
backs off. If he's the kind of guy who respects women then he'll back off. If
he's the kind of guy who harasses women, he'll harass. Teaching me that it was
wrong to steal candy from the candy store when I was a kid didn't stop me,
getting caught stopped me. I just happen to have respect for women and great
social intuition, so one of two things happens in my personal experience. The
girl is into me, and it ends up being a really cool start of a lot of fun for
both of us. Or she shows me she's not interested and I tell her it was nice
meeting and I move on. There's never going to be a world where all men behave
as well as I do. Tell victims how to prevent it, maybe some will be prevented.
Tell offenders not to offend, then maybe some of them will change their mind
about what they think they can get away with...?

~~~
mikelyons
This adds an important angle to the discussion, and that's that people who
want to harass someone don't care if you tell them not to.

I am being downvoted simply because its an unpopular opinion and not because
it doesn't add to the discussion.

------
Overtonwindow
The problem is much broader in society today. This is just my opinion, but I
think we've become so sensitive to romantic advances that people
subconsciously assume that when the opposite sex speaks to them it is for
romantic or sexual reasons. I don't disagree that sexism exists, nor any of
the concerns with sexism and sexual harassment. However I do think people have
become conditioned to assume things that predispose them to negative reactions
to others.

~~~
beat
And that's where compassion comes in - we need to recognize that women _are_
conditioned to expect men to be hitting on them (and oblivious to resistance),
and _why_ they're conditioned (because men actually do hit on them all the
time and are oblivious to resistance), and _respect_ that.

Whining about how unfair it is that "Nice guys like myself get lumped in with
all those jerks" is disrespectful and uncompassionate. It's not about you! You
know that thing where other not-nice guys have conditioned women to be
cautious? The next moves in that game are insults, name-calling, public
humiliation, physical assault/rape, stalking, doxing, etc. Every woman -
_every_ woman - has experienced these behaviors themselves, or knows women who
have experienced them. Every man knows women who've experienced them too,
although many men don't realize it.

That stranger asking a woman for her name, where she's from, trying to make
social links online, etc... how is she to know that stranger won't be
cyberstalking her and showing up at her home later? Because women have _good
reason_ to fear that.

------
Nickersf
Is there any data on "harassment" rates at Tech events? Also the article fails
to clearly define harassment in the given context. When sexually developed
human beings interact the possibility of flirtatious behavior is destined to
happen. It's kind of hard wired into us. If someone hits on someone and they
say they're not interested is the adult thing to do. If after that the person
becomes aggressive or persistent there is a problem.

------
jiiam
What about, instead of "I have a boyfriend", tell them you are uncomfortable
and would rather them stop talking/harassing/being around you?

Of course, I might be minimizing and, in fact, the molester might not be a
rapist but still a fully fledged harasser.

Isn't there any security service around at these conferences? Is it absurd to
hope they are trained to deal with such situations if need be?

------
aznpwnzor
Although I understand her point, what else does she recommend that is an
immediate solution for women dealing with immediate problems? Of course re-
education or somehow restructuring the sexual arms race that results in
aggressive males is the correct long-term solution, but what else would
someone answer that isn't let's change an entire generation and the system?

------
mikelyons
So the definition of harassment is when you tell someone "no" and they keep
bugging you about it. Right?

------
Nadya
Or be honest: "I'm not interested in a relationship" or "I'm not interested in
you that way."

Courting is what humans do. Flirting is what humans do. Being polite shows
interest to most people. Be rude. Be absolutely disinterested. Tell them to
fuck off. They aren't going to magically read your mind and know you aren't
interested if you are either signalling _that you are interested_ or they
aren't picking up the (usually weak, when I read stories like this one) signal
that you aren't interested. If you send a strong signal of your disinterest or
communicate clearly (not trying to "signal") there are only two types of
people who keep pushing on:

1) Actual harassers (far and few between)

2) People who think you're playing hard to get (which is an actual thing that
people actually do) unfortunately this is equivalent to (1) for some portion
of society

I've mistakenly sent that "I'm interested" signal to others while trying to be
polite. When Ender's Game came out I was speaking with a coworker and seeing
as we were both interested in the book, she had asked if I wanted to see the
movie when it came out. Not wanting to be rude, I said OK. It turns out she
thought I had accepted a date. She was quite dressed up when we met up, while
I was in extremely casual attire. And guess what? That was my fault not hers.
I had accidentally communicated interest in some way, although
unintentionally. She wasn't a harasser, it wasn't "her fault". She couldn't
read my mind and know I wasn't interested.

Almost every story I see about these scenarios (which often boil down to
"unwanted flirting") I think of the above and I pity the person being made out
to be a harasser when, in almost every scenario I've read, they were only
"misreading the signals" if there were any signals at all.

Her perspective: "He's _obviously_ flirting and I'm just trying to be polite,
I wish he would stop."

His perspective: "I'm flirting and she's _obviously_ playing along or she
wouldn't be so polite! This is going well."

~~~
powera
Your advice to women at conferences is really to "be rude"?

~~~
Nadya
If her intuition is "this guy is flirting with me and I don't like it" my
advice was to clearly state that. Being rude is one way to do that, yes.

"Don't blame the other person for your failure to communicate." is my advice
taken as a sound byte. Not just to women, but to everyone. Never blame someone
else because you suck at communicating something.

ps. I love how you took two words out of my entire reply and ran with those -
ignoring the rest. For example, the first sentence telling them to be honest
and communicate their disinterest (mentioning nothing about tone). Their weak
signalling obviously isn't being communicated to or read properly by the other
party. And yes, there are people who are bad with social cues or even
"stronger signalling" and need actual words to be said to them.

------
mikelyons
It's this type of discussion where you get downvoted simply for having an
unpopular opinion, not because you're not adding to the discussion.

------
smt88
There's an even better reason that "tell them you have a boyfriend" is bad
advice and deeply sexist.

It implies that a woman only deserves to have respect and boundaries when
another man has already claimed her. It tells the woman, "You'll never get
respect on your own, so pretend there's a man demanding that you get respect."

~~~
dsl
I've had to tell women that I have a girlfriend.

It implies you are in a committed relationship. You seem to have taken it to
the level of ownership, which is not healthy in a relationship period.

~~~
Blackthorn
He's not implying anything. The sad truth that I've seen play out over and
over again is that men won't respect a women saying no, but they'll respect
another man's "claim" on her.

~~~
y4mi
this claim of yours is retarted.

they'd respect a females 'claim' as well. its just that they don't accept "no"
if the person in question isn't in a relationship. This is _not_ sexist.
nonetheless still annoying to the pursued person, but thats a different story

~~~
smt88
1) Personal attacks aren't allowed on HN.

2) I love it when people call others "retarted". If you're going to attack
someone's intelligence, you should at least spell the word correctly.

~~~
karmajunkie
And also one should not use intellectual disability as an attack on another.

------
mikelyons
Men should be taught regularly how not to harass all throughout public
schooling.

~~~
mikelyons
This is clearly a ridiculous suggestion, I wanted to see if I would be upvoted
or downvoted.

------
cmurf
Lie to avoid harassment? Sounds like not enough women have brothers, and not
enough men are brothers.

~~~
mikelyons
Elaborate on this, what are you saying? Having a brother makes a women better
able to show disinterest clearly? Being a brother makes a man better at not
harassing women when making advances?

~~~
cmurf
Having a brother to kick the ass of some jackahole who thinks it's OK to
harrass my sister? Most men who are brothers understand how irrationally angry
a guy gets if his mom or sister are trash talked.

It makes me crabby even thinking that a woman needs a brother to become a dick
in order to keep a some random dude half way civil.

------
mjolk
edit: If I'm wrong, correct me with facts/logic/cogent arguments. Jumping to
"burn the witch" whenever gender is involved _is the core of the problem_ --
differential treatment over gender identity.

>[https://medium.com/***code-like-a-girl***/..](https://medium.com/***code-
like-a-girl***/..).

Weird to pull gender into the application of logic to solve problems. I wonder
if there's a narrative that the author wants to sell.

>Thank god I recently got engaged, otherwise all I’d have to look forward to
is harassment at tech events.

Oh neat, another inflammatory article about invented sexism and harassment!

>Compassion is what lets me understand that even though I have never been
harassed at a tech event, it doesn’t mean it is not a very real problem women
face.

The author doesn't even make it 50 words before showing that she's hungry to
be offended:

>"Thank god I recently got engaged, otherwise all I’d have to look forward to
is harassment at tech events...even though I have never been harassed at a
tech event"

Never been harassed at a tech event, or expectation of harassment at tech
events because it's omnipresent? Which one?

> A woman recalls an attempt by a man to try to get her number during a Lyft
> Line ride in NYC:

Are Lyft Line rides tech events? No. They're not. Quit it.

\---

This kind of hungry-to-be-offended garbage is detrimental.

~~~
mikelyons
It's all harassment until it's from someone she's attracted to.

~~~
mjolk
It's not even about that, it's about authors importing drama into the tech
community with self-indulgent rants about problems that didn't even happen or
were intentionally misconstrued.

------
sharemywin
"I really thought I had made my disinterest clear, but here was a third party
observer, convinced he was witnessing a mutual courtship. Apparently
begrudgingly answering an extremely talkative stranger’s questions while
trapped in an enclosed space is the same thing as wanting to spend time with
them on purpose."

Yep, that statement reaks of compassion.

\---ooops, missed the part about him asking for her number...sorry.

~~~
mikestew
I'm not sure what your point is, but those are not the words of the author.

~~~
sharemywin
why be compassionate for someone that show's no compassion for others. Not
saying I wish them ill but it goes both ways.

-miss read the original article.

~~~
rz2k
I also don't understand the point you are trying to make. It was a pull out
quote from a post about a guy that was using Lyft to get 20-something minute-
long captive audiences with women he thought were attractive.

The driver said he'd done it about 25 times in his car. Regardless of the
false premise and manufactured spontaneity being somewhat sleazy, some of the
interactions may have been mutually pleasant. But, we also know that at least
one of them was not at all.

It shouldn't take so much imagination to remember how unpleasant it has been
to be trapped in conversations you did not want to be in. It sounds like she
was just being a nice person who was not interested in scoring points against
someone by rejecting him. Expressing a lack of interest through neutral
responses isn't a lack of compassion. It sounds like her "mixed signals" were
an unwillingness to be openly mean to someone who was overly insistent. If he
had been more compassionate he would have recognized that he was putting her
in an uncomfortable position.

~~~
Jtsummers
> The driver said he'd done it about 25 times in his car.

Correction: The guy told the driver he'd been successful with this method 25
times. The woman's encounter was the driver's first as well (or first where
he'd had an ongoing conversation with the guy). Your version makes the driver
complicit much more than he actually was.

~~~
rz2k
You're right, and I didn't mean to make the driver sound complicit. From the
post:

> “So, that guy literally uses this as a dating app,” our driver explained. He
> clearly could not wait to spill the beans. “That girl you saw before he got
> in your ride — she was from another Lyft ride. He said he’s gotten with 25
> girls through Lyft Line so far.”

...

> “Yeah, so he told me all about it, he’ll specifically order rides that are
> really far — ”

On a second reading, it seems possible that it is heavily influenced by the
guy trying to portray himself as a really clever pickup artist to the driver.

