

Changing The Creepy Guy Narrative - wisesage5001
http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.com.au/2013/07/changing-creepy-guy-narrative.html

======
DoubleMalt
I love stories that expose the gender asymmetric nature of typical encounters.
That these asymmetries are so deep ingrained in most of our societies and so
widely accepted is the problem.

It reminds me a bit of the story about the mullah's daughter.

(could not find it on the Internet so you have to bear with my narration)

===================

The daughter of the Mullah comes to her dad and tells him that this honourable
young man asked her out. He swears that he only has honourable intentions and
there will be nothing than harmless conversation.

The mullah pulls his hair "Oh no, my daughter! You do not understand. This is
how this will end: He will pick you up, and be totally honourable when you get
into the car with him. On the way to the city he will remember, that he forgot
his wallet at home, so he will kindly ask your permission to stop by at his
house to get it. Of course you will accept as you don't want to embarrass him.
He will drive to his house and tell you he will be right back.

But after he got out of the car he will turn around and tell you how impolite
it would be to let you wait in the car, and if you would like to come in and
wait in the house.

You will accept his offer and he will open your door, and politely accompany
to the house. There he will introduce you, and then go upstairs to get the
wallet from his room.

But halfway up the stairs he would turn back and apologize for his incredible
rudeness letting you wait in the hallway. He will ask you to accompany him up
to his room.

You will accept his offer and politely he will lead you to his room and all
will be lost!

Once you are in his room, he will have his way with you and rob you of your
virtue and of your honour and of the honour of the family!"

The Mullah almost wept at the imagination of these horrors.

The daughter assured her father that she would make sure nothing of that sort
would transpire, and the mullah, who always had a soft spot for his daughter
did not object to her evening out.

The evening came, and the young man, polite and well bred, showed up at the
door. He made pleasant small talk with the Mullah and assured him of his
incredible esteem of his daughter and his thoroughly honourable intentions.

Then they departed and the mullah anxiously awaited the return of his
daughter, depicting the disgrace she would suffer in ever more colourful
patterns.

Finally his daughter came back. Hysterically he asked: "My Daughter! Tell me!
What happened this evening?"

"Well, he led me to his car, and was the perfect gentlemen. Then he remembered
he had forgot his wallet, and asked if I would mind a stop at his house."

"Oh no " exclaimed the mullah in despair "What then?"

"I agreed because I did not want to embarrass him, and we went to his house.
He said I could wait in the car while he was getting his wallet, but when he
got out he came over to my side and told me how impolite it would be letting
me wait in the car. And if I would like to wait in the house."

The mullah felt panic creeping up "And then?"

"He politely led me to the house and introduced me. The he went upstairs to
get his wallet. But halfway upstairs he turned back and chided himself for his
impoliteness and asked me if I wanted to accompany him to his room"

The mullah was beside himself "Oh my daughter what has he done to you?"

"Don't worry father, as soon as we were in his room, I had my way with him and
robbed him of his virtue and of his honour and of the honour of his family."

------
Amadou
Is it weird that when I saw the headline I thought this was going to be
article about how calling a guy creepy is the same thing as slut-shaming but
for males? And that this guy was going to offer up a sort of fix to the
problem of inappropriately "creep-shaming" men? Instead I got a humble-brag
that reinforces the creep narrative.

~~~
michaelochurch
The problem with the "creepy guy" narrative is that the really bad men out
there aren't the ones who bear the brunt of the nastiness.

The guy he described wasn't a traditional "creepy guy", but a macho alpha
male. Different breed. The latter carries the sense of entitlement and swagger
because, on its own terms, that approach _works_. Many women respond
positively to it (which does not make it right, because plenty of women _don
't_). He's an arrogant jerk because he's gotten away with it for a long time.

The issue with that whole stigma is that there are some really bad men out
there-- for whom that repulsion is justified-- but the guys who get the
"creepy" treatment are the socially awkward men with average intentions. The
fact that so many bad men get rewarded (at least in high school and college)
makes the whole thing worse.

~~~
cbhl
> the guys who get the "creepy" treatment are the socially awkward men with
> average intentions

Perhaps we could address this by fixing the "socially awkward" bit --
explicitly spelling out (perhaps through education, or a book, or something)
what sorts of things are and are not acceptable.

It's difficult enough to get parents to consent to "sex ed" from a biological
standpoint as it is, but I would have found it useful to have had classes in
{elementary, middle} school about how to not treat girls like crap. Do you
think that it would be possible to build a program that addressed this
problem?

~~~
im3w1l
The reason the antagonist of this story treated the woman "like crap" was
because he wanted sex.

Thus, I think the classes you propose would have worked if they dealt with
"how to not treat girls like crap" and still get regular sex from hot women.

------
foobarbazqux
The hidden part about this story is that the woman is still not empowered.
She's now the princess to the knight in shining armor, rescued from the
horrible dragon. The author hasn't changed the narrative, he's completed it.

It's still a story where a man decides the outcome. What he did was indeed
chivalrous, good even, but chivalry is nothing original.

~~~
JulianMorrison
"Empowered" is such guff. Here's the point: if she does anything short of
drawing a weapon on him, there are men out there, _lots_ of men out there, who
will chance taking it physical in order to resist having their dominance
questioned.

 _And society will take the man 's side._ She provoked him. She was impolite.
She emasculated him.

It's like the game of "cat and mouse" in Red Dwarf, the only way to win is not
to be the mouse, well in this game the only way to win is not to be the woman.
Because all the other players in the game - including the cops and the judge
and jury - won't sit still for an outcome where the woman just wins.

And if she does draw on him, well, look up Marissa Alexander.

~~~
foobarbazqux
To empower means to give power. It's empowering for the hero to support her
while she stands up to him.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Far from it.

What's empowering is feminism. Fighting the slow fight to crush and erase this
male centered culture.

A man, standing up for her? If he chose that particular patronizing way, she'd
be well justified in worrying he too was trying it on - the "hero saves
princess, gets the girl" narrative. Out of the frying pan…

And yeah, it's patronizing, because it reckons she chose her choices from
weakness or timidity rather than a well calibrated judgment of her chances _in
this sexist society_.

~~~
foobarbazqux
I think my post must have been poorly worded. I meant to give her agency by
encouraging her to stand up to him, instead of for him to do it (which is what
happened).

If you disagree, okay, but what better actions could he have taken in this
situation?

~~~
JulianMorrison
No, I understood exactly that. You can't "give her agency". "Encouraging her
to stand up to him" is exactly the wrong thing to do, she's chosen her choices
as an adult who knows the score, and doing that is implying she just lacks the
gumption and if only a dude was backing her up… No, it's not that easy. You
may be the best intentioned dude in the world but you are ONE dude, and no,
she is not going to suddenly start _acting like a woman in a non sexist
society_ at the risk of her own life, just because of one dude nominally
taking her side.

~~~
foobarbazqux
Ok, but I'm still genuinely curious if you have an answer to my previous
question.

~~~
JulianMorrison
Oh, apologies, my eyes skipped over it.

Well, he did an effective thing. It's unfortunate he had to rely on homophobia
to get the point across. That has been described as "the fear that another man
will treat you like you treat women" and it's clear that's what stopped creepy
guy here in his tracks. He sure didn't like it when the non-consensual boot
was on the other foot!

~~~
foobarbazqux
Yeah, I also thought that was weird. I don't know any gay guys that would step
in like that.

I found a much more in-depth discussion of the article on meta-filter, maybe
it's interesting to you.

[http://www.metafilter.com/129974/Changing-the-Creepy-Guy-
Nar...](http://www.metafilter.com/129974/Changing-the-Creepy-Guy-Narrative)

------
tempgoogleglass
Honestly while I understand the obvious concerns, I would like to point out
that the writer is doing the job of expressing emotions for all the parties
involved. An important question is whether verbal communication really implies
anything. What if the other guy was stoic and the fact that he himself was
being bothered did not matter. What if he was a bisexual. Its important that
writer wants to frame himself as hero. But from a more neutral standpoint
three people had a conversation and moved on.

~~~
coldtea
Not to mention: I know several very happy couples, were the other person
ignored and or denied the other's approach for a long time, before they
finally clicked.

Should the approaching person had quit, lest he be called a creepy sexist?

------
herbig
"...wore one of those wispy skirts that always make me want to send God a
fruit basket for inventing summer."

Kind of negates the whole "I'm not a sexist" take on the situation. If you're
going to write about how much of a chivalrous guy you are, you should probably
also be more careful with the way you describe the thin skirts that you like
so much.

And the "because I'm a writer" stuff doesn't even make sense. Because he's a
writer he noticed someone being creepy and intervened? I don't understand that
logic at all.

It sounds more like because he's a writer he knew the word "trope" and wanted
to jam it into an article.

~~~
michaelochurch
_Kind of negates the whole "I'm not a sexist" take on the situation. If you're
going to write about how much of a chivalrous guy you are, you should probably
also be more careful with the way you describe the thin skirts that you like
so much._

I agree with you. If someone (male or female) were writing about an
interaction with the genders reversed, you probably wouldn't hear anything
about how good-looking the guy was or what he was wearing.

The (unconscious) sexism is not in finding her attractive (obviously) but in
the fact that her attractiveness is treated as a relevant detail. How would it
be different if she were unattractive? It wouldn't.

~~~
fosap
The outer appearance of the two people interacting are descried. There is even
a picture illustrating how the man looked like.

How this is sexism against the woman is beyond me. How this is sexism at all.

This seems to be a feminist keen-jerk reaction. Outer appearance of a
somebody? That somebody happens to be a woman? What a misogynist!

~~~
michaelochurch
I didn't claim he was a _misogynist_. There's no evidence of that. Now _that_
is an overused word.

Our culture is sexist, and all of us are (in daily practice) to some degree.
With women, there's a strong focus on their attractiveness that doesn't exist
for men. For just one example relative to this society (not OP) people don't
infer radically different personalities for men based on attractiveness
(except, perhaps, for the top and bottom couple of percent) but they do for
women.

Yes, I think that, based on the totality of the OP, there's a latent sexism in
the way the encounter was presented.

~~~
fosap
Yes, it is overused, that's why i used it. The last sentence was not serious,
but a caricature.

> __With women, there 's a strong focus on their attractiveness that doesn't
> exist for men. __

Except there is not in this text. As i said, it is very balanced, if there was
not the picture.

Your posts illustrates exactly what i said. Any mention of attractiveness
leads to accusation of misogynist (or sexism towards woman, I have to say I
don't really know the difference), no matter in witch context. No matter how
the author does this for all genders, at some point somebody points out that
"all genders" in include woman, and that this is not ok. And clearly
discrimination to include women into "all genders".

------
omonra
Brings this to mind
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKY](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBVuAGFcGKY)

------
tomjen3
Men aren't the only ones who just won't take a hint. I had a woman that I
finally had to physically stop her by twisting her hands when she pulled the
chair I was sitting on out because she insited on dancing with me.

So yeah please everybody try to learn to take a hint.

------
rasur
Good man!

