
Why Does Talking About Creepers And Harassment Make People So Angry? - decklin
http://www.popehat.com/2013/07/01/why-does-talking-about-creepers-and-harassment-make-people-so-angry/
======
beachstartup
"creepy" is just a code word for "unattractive" or "awkward"

i've been called hot, sexy, and creepy in the same hour span on a night out.

speaking up in the conversation at the wrong time, or just having the wrong
look on your face can be "creepy". staring off into space while thinking about
code? watch out, you could be creeping someone out. overhear something and
decide to but in with a "hey i think i know what you're talking about..." \-
watch out. potential creeper.

it is a word that is rapidly losing meaning due to massive overuse. i'm
guessing a lot of people have been called 'creepy' before without knowing
_why_ (the accuser NEVER, EVER will tell you why, as it's usually a "feeling"
and not a "fact") and that's why the accused are getting upset.

~~~
rosser
_" creepy" is just a code word for "unattractive" or "awkward"_

No, it's not — at least not necessarily, which seems to be your implication.

One can be awkward and not be a creeper. One can be unattractive and not be a
creeper. One can be a creeper and be neither awkward nor unattractive. And,
yes, one can be all three.

The difference between them tends, in my (male, second-hand) experience, to be
one of persistence. Awkward doesn't always stick around long past the point
where it's no longer welcome. Creepers, awkward or not — and unintentionally
or not — do.

EDIT: phrasing.

~~~
Millennium
Actually, I'd argue that over the age of 25 or so, one _can 't_ be awkward and
not be a creeper. If you're still oversexualizing every interaction with women
like some 14-year-old, as evidenced by awkwardness, there is something deeply
wrong.

So the theory goes, ay any rate.

------
mehwoot
Because it is an attack on gender. Creepers and harassment are exceedingly
rarely discussed in gender neutral ways- it is usually a man doing something
to a woman, or sometimes a discussion of the reverse. It is not often both in
a neutral way.

Additionally, the behaviour are things that a lot of people still do. Whereas
with racism, to use the author's example, might draw the same ire (and it does
in certain cases) as it divides people- there is mostly a generally accepted
line that we know is publicly agreed on. But with harassment, until men are
not so testosterone filled to constantly chase women, there will always be an
element of their behaviour that women are going to find "creepy" at some
point.

As such, in every post you are condemning behaviour that around 50% of the
population will have done at some point. You're asking more than half of your
readers to carefully evaluate the proposition and say "I see that my behaviour
sometimes can have adverse affects. This doesn't necessarily make me a bad
person but we should all actually think about how this affects other people
more often, because this is a bad thing". Whereas a good number of people are
simply going to see an attack on them, and reply in kind.

Note that talking about racism does make people very angry when you do the
same thing- if you're talking about something that is murky and not clearly
one way or another- say using a term that some people find offensive but many
do not- then you're going to get exactly the same angry responses because now
a good % of your readers are feeling targeted.

~~~
marvin
I'd also like to add that the word "creeper" should be kept out of these
discussions. It seems obvious that sexism is very common in United States
computer culture. But the word "creepy", when used to describe an undesirable
man, is every bit as derogatory as "fattie" or "slut" when applied to a woman.
It's the kind of word that is used for character assasination.

As you say, it doesn't go well when you imply that every man in a large group
is supporting sexist behavior. The proper way to handle this issue is to just
be direct when someone is behaving inappropriately and not use ambiguous
language:

"Don't touch girls who obviously don't want it - that is _sexual harassment_.
Not cool."

"Stop treating this woman like a sex object in a social setting - it is
inappropriate."

"Don't stare, it makes people uncomfortable."

One final thought which I haven't heard from anyone else: I think one thing
that can make a lot of nerd guys angry when it comes to this kind of behavior,
is that many less-than-socially-masterful guys observe that women may respond
very negatively to behavior that other men get away with. How sexual
harassment is handled by women is very dependent on the situation and
instigating person. The exact same behavior which would be met with disgust
and derision at a tech conference, could be considered flirtatious and hot if
it came in the right tone of voice from a hot guy at a nightclub.

This is obviously no excuse for acting like an asshole in the tech community.
But I think a lot of people severely underestimate the role that status,
attractiveness and social skill has when it comes to these questions. The tech
scene is not the only social environment where sexism and misogny occurs, but
it is certainly the one with the highest concentration of men that can safely
be shamed for it.

~~~
chrisro
>The proper way to handle this issue is to just be direct when someone is
behaving inappropriately and not use ambiguous language

It is not the responsibility of women to educate when they feel uncomfortable
or fear for their safety.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Responsibility is the wrong word here. If women want certain behaviors to
stop, it is logical for them to explain _exactly_ what they don't like.
Expecting already awkward men to read minds is self-defeating.

~~~
chrisro
It is not logical for a woman (or anyone really) to remain in a situation that
makes her uncomfortable and especially not logical to remain in a situation
where she fears for her safety. Responsibility was the correct word--the onus
on creepers to stop being creepers, not the women who are being creeped on or
harassed to explain why that behavior is inappropriate.

Also, awkward isn't synonymous with creepy. See rosser's reply elsewhere in
this thread for a better explanation of creepy:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5975094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5975094)

~~~
hackinthebochs
Of course there are many situations where simply removing yourself isn't the
end of the story--coworkers, friends of friends, etc. One should be encouraged
to speak up in situations where they are made to feel uncomfortable,
especially considering that "creepy" itself is a subjective experience. But
its not that they have a responsibility to, it's simply an effective way to
communicate your wishes to another person. Expecting someone who is being
creepy to just know that they're being creepy seems almost oxymoronic.

~~~
chrisro
Women/people certainly CAN choose to educate. Your presumption that she SHOULD
or, rather, "The proper way to handle this issue is..." is what I took issue
with. There is no "proper way to handle this issue" except the way that makes
the violated feel safer. If that means she moves away from the perpetrator,
then that is proper way. If it means opening a dialogue about improper
behavior, then that is the proper way too. Ultimately, it comes down to the
woman/person in question.

------
Amadou
I think at least part of the problem stems from society's expectations of the
"role" of men in relationships. Right or wrong, men are still largely expected
to be pursuers but the rules are not well defined - often different women will
have different ideas of what is appropriate which makes the whole thing clear
as mud.

One approach is to avoid it all completely, to act as if everybody within a
professional context is completely asexual. I think that approach really only
works for robots and people who have zero social interaction with other people
at work. It's unrealistic, so back to square one with the ambiguity of being
human around other humans.

We end up with a cognitive dissonance born of competing and vaguely defined
requirements and expectations. That's a recipe for frustration in any context
- add the emotional and hormonal aspects and its going to be really stressful
for a lot of guys - and that stress is going to come out in unpleasant ways.

------
jgon
The reason it makes people angry is that "creeper" has become the male
equivalent of slut shaming. I was thinking long and hard about this and it
suddenly hit me.

1) It entirely a judgement in the head of the person making the claim. There
are no objective agreed upon standards for it, so there is no way to refute
the claim. When someone calls another person a slut, they are using their own
standards of sexuality, something about which there is no universal standard,
and judging the person against that standard. Because the standard is the
accuser's own there is no way to claim that they are objectively wrong.

2) Because of the above, it is entirely context dependent. As others have
brought up, this means that the exact same behaviour from two different people
can be called "creepy" in one instance, and desirable the next. Examine the
difference in reactions between a person who does not fit the idealized
marketing body type making themselves sexually avalable and a person
considered "hot". I have seen women called slutty for the same behaviour that
was proclaimed as "awesome" all because they were seen as less conventionally
attractive than the other woman.

3) It immediately associates that person with a negative societal perception
and group. Because of this both words have incredible power, although much
good work has been done to dull the impact of slut but it is still damaging.

Due to all of the above, calling someone a creeper is an incredibly powerful
way to immediately disempower that person, place them on the defensive, and
quickly impact them in a negative fashion. We recognize that a combination of
the above three points makes the word slut an incredibly negative word that
should really never be used, and I'm sure we'll get there with creeper/creepy.
But if you want to know why it makes people angry, well just remember that
question the next time you get worked up over someone casually dropping a
"slut" bomb on someone else.

------
jessedhillon
I think it's because the group in question -- nerds, essentially -- are among
the least sexually successful population of males. And, generalizing here,
that's because in various ways, they typically don't understand other people
in a relatable way. So, owing to not being able to understand women, they get
rejected and they can't understand why -- it feels like a black box. This
feels unfair, and creates a sense of victimization.

So to tell people who are (maybe understandably) bitter and resentful, who are
feeling like rejects and victims, that their behavior is the problem -- well,
that just feels spiteful and insulting. From the perspective of the nerds,
women are arbitrary and cruel, so fuck them and what they think of us.
Further, now that women are becoming integrated into parts of nerd culture,
this feels like an encroachment into the territory which was previously able
to provide a haven/escape from female rejection.

This, at least, is what my experience has been in talking with others. I don't
think I personally ever felt this way, but I also have never identified
strongly as a nerd either. I'm definitely generalizing heavily.

------
parennoob
This entire essay is about how other people perceive a certain thing in a more
extreme matter than would be warranted by logic, but the author makes the
mistake of using the same extremities in his essay, thus nullifying his own
argument. (Did that make sense? If not, it basically means: he is saying
"there are a lot of nutters who are angrily responding to discussions about
creepers and harrassment", but he doesn't really define what a nutter is, and
by calling them a random pejorative term since they are disagreeing with him,
he is making a similarly extreme statement.)

Let us examine some of his statements to illustrate what I'm talking about:

"What I'm doing is questioning the disproportionate and, to be blunt,
disturbed anger that arises over this particular subject." ← What do you mean
by disproportionate? Disproportionate compared to what? Plus, 'disturbed
anger' s kind of a tautology, people are usually disturbed when they are
angry. I have a hard time visualising 'undisturbed anger'.

I'm questioning why the — pardon me — hysterical terms like "lynch mob" are so
quickly brought to bear when this is the subject. ← _Hysterical_ itself is an
extreme term. Why is he using it without clearly illustrating what he means?
Maybe some of the people who are angrily commenting have suffered through
accusations of sexism that they felt were completely unwarranted. Or they
could have psychological problems. We don't really know.

"I'm questioning why on some issues — say, race — incoherent basement-stinking
fury is relegated to places like Stormfront, but when it comes to sex it's
alarmingly close to the mainstream." ← Alternately, it might just you who
thinks that the largely mainstream thought is _basement-stinking_ , another
unnecessarily pejorative term, probably relating to the basement-dwelling
unwashed nerd stereotype

"I'm asking why is it that if I write about racism, truly nutty and racist
response are fairly rare, but if I talk about sexual harassment or sexism, I
can count on being classified as a "white knight" or "mangina" or "pink shirt"
or homosexual or something." ← Well, but you are similarly accusing those who
disagree with your views as having "basement-stinking" fury, right?

In general, I this article provides little logical meat to chew on and more of
the same extreme-termed language that it claims to be against.

(H'm, not sure why I was downvoted on this. Can the downvoter comment?)

~~~
Dylan16807
It's not the language that makes people nutters. They might have downvoted you
for discounting the entire article for something that doesn't matter.

Have you never seen the reactions the article is talking about?

~~~
parennoob
I have seen a wide variety of reactions from people to this issue. They range
from law-oriented, logic-oriented, or biologically-based viewpoints to
exasperated "Damn, it, it was just an invitation to coffee!" types to
completely illogical and counterproductive things like threats of violence.

My point is that the author here doesn't really say which of these he doesn't
"get", but just blanket calls people who disagree with his viewpoint
"nutters", and talks about "basement-stinking" reactions, and then claims that
they are very common and says he doesn't get why. So he/she is really vague
about the issue, and does not give any concrete data or opinions in the
discourse relating to it.

EDIT: Another example, the last sentence of the article: "are these freaks
going to keep jumping up and down on my lawn?" ← Do you think this is a
measured, logical response by a person who is talking about responses to
accusations of sexism etc. at tech conferences?

~~~
Dylan16807
It's not that people that disagree are as a class nutters.

It's that nutters are disproportionately attracted to certain types of posts.

And yes it is a measured response, there are almost always a lot of annoying
nonsensical shouters whenever the topic comes up.

~~~
parennoob
"It's that nutters are disproportionately attracted to certain types of posts.

And yes it is a measured response, there are almost always a lot of annoying
nonsensical shouters whenever the topic comes up"

This is what I disagree with. I don't think posts on sexism attract
significantly more "nonsensical shouters" than posts on, say immigration, or
abortion or any other topic. I don't have direct data on this, but neither
does the article, which is why I'm questioning its propositions.

~~~
Dylan16807
Immigration and abortion also attract a lot of nutters. You realize you picked
some of the most emotionally charged and stagnated arguments in the world,
right?

------
chrisro
I think it's because the men in the ensuing backlash put themselves in the
place of the creeper and empathize with a feeling of persecution or believe
the behavior to be misinterpreted by the author/experiencer. Most men won't
feel intimidated or fear for their safety just by the unwanted presence of a
woman, so it may be difficult for some to empathize with the opposite of this
experience. Add on to this that, as humans, we judge others for their actions,
but ourselves for our intent. Many men are not going to physically hurt women,
and commenters that empathize with the creeper come to assessment that since
they wouldn't hurt her, then she must have been over-reacting. (This fails to
take into account that the woman in the situation doesn't at all know what the
man she is intimidated by is going to do or what kind of harm he could cause
her.) Add the stereotype of the regular nerd culture participant as being
socially awkward and thus unaware of many rules regarding social interaction,
and it's easy to paint a caricature of an unaware fool who was just
misunderstood and is now being bullied for his awkwardness.

"Most men fear getting laughed at or humiliated by a romantic prospect while
most women fear rape and death." -Gavin de Becker

------
b1daly
Is the author of the original post as dense as he professes to be in his total
inability to understand the angry responses to the discussions of "creeper?" I
have a hard time believing that, so I conclude he is writing in a mode of
rhetorical trolling in service of making his point.

either case, his obtuseness as to why labeling people as creepers might cause
anger is dismaying, particularly coming from a high status make with a
privileged background. (Harvard Law and ask that).

Of the many problems with his essay, probably the simplest to point out is the
snide callousness of defining people as "creepers" who allegedly engage in
"creepy" behavior.

As an anecdotal observation, when I hear female acquaintances use the term
creep/creeper it almost always refers to unwelcome sexual advances by lower
status males.

I have not heard the term used much to describe the more harrowing examples of
sexual harassment outlined in helpful internet posts describing just what
"creeping" is. Or if the term is used, there is clarifying language ("asshole,
jerk") to make the distinction that it was a more serious situation.

------
overgard
I wonder if it might just have to do with the fact that the people most
inclined to comment on an article are the people that disagree with the
premise most strongly. That goes with /any/ subject, not just this one. People
that agree usually just hit "like" or move on. So if you're only paying
attention to the direct comments, you're going to get a skewed view of things.

I neither agree or disagree with his premise, but I don't know that you can
take the responses to his articles to represent some "trend", because you're
basically filtering for a certain thing (disagreement) when you write on
controversial subjects and just read the comments.

I guess I just read that article as: "I presented a strong opinion to the
entire world AND PEOPLE DARED TO DISAGREE WITH ME?! WHO ARE THESE MONSTERS?!".
Well I mean, you presented it to the entire world, what did you expect, 100%
agreement? It doesn't necessarily mean anything though.

------
justin_vanw
If I am thinking of the same situations as the author, it goes something like
this:

Person X experiences a completely mundane situation (a respectful but unwanted
sexual advance in an elevator, overhearing a PG-13 discussion at a conference)
and writes a blog post about it.

The initial response is an equal mix of "Hurray for you, Person X! You are the
bravest person on Earth!" and "Wait, this is a completely ordinary and
inoffensive situation."

Later, the person making the advance or having the conversation are fired from
their jobs or questioned by the police, and the "wait, this is not a big deal"
group of people become very upset.

------
altero
> Why Does Talking About Creepers And Harassment Make People So Angry?

Because it is usually followed by demands and hate. "I am woman, you are
sexist because you are a man, now gimme your money".

~~~
cbrauchli
Why wouldn't the same happen when we talk about other forms of prejudice,
e.g., racism?

~~~
mehwoot
It does, if what you're discussing is outside the realm of something that is
clearly racist. If it's open for discussion, people get angry very quickly.

------
michaelochurch
Human nature is often shitty and here's the status ranking that tends to
emerge, except in mature/stable monogamous couplings:

    
    
        High-status men > High-status women >>> Low-status women >>> Low-status men
    

Few people will put it that nakedly, but let's get it out there. I'm not
defending this. I hate that it's that way. It's unfair to women (who have a
ceiling placed above them) and unfair to low-status men (who are treated as
garbage, criminals, effluent).

This rank-order exists because humans are not naturally monogamous. High-
status men can have more reproductive yield than any woman (200+ children,
easily) so there is more incentive to compete and, in pre-monogamous times, it
was aggressive men who took the most risks and ended up on top (or dead). Low-
status women outrank low-status men because they still have wombs (a scarce
resource) while low-status men only have unwanted genetic material (and are a
risk of upset to the high-status people).

Most "creepers" or "sketchy guys" are socially awkward, low-status men who get
scapegoated for the horrible things done by a small minority of (high- and
low-status) terrible men. Most are not guilty of anything other than being
socially unwanted.

Society is so bad at finding and punishing the actual male criminals (who are
still out there) that the hammer tends to fall on the socially awkward
instead... because they're not quick enough to get out of the way when it's
falling.

There's a perfect storm for flamewarring on these issues because both genders
have a genuine injustice to get angry about. For women, it's the fact that
most societies still are pretty horrible to them, that they are forced to
compete in a career game that favors sociopathy (more commonly male), and that
a small minority of very bad men still commits disgusting crimes (and
sometimes gets away with them, especially when it's high-status men involved;
see: Stuebensville). For men, it's the hypocritical nastiness (hypocritical
because the most common offenders when it comes to, for example, rape are
usually the entitled, arrogant high-status men) directed at low-status men.
Note also that almost all men (probably 75%) will have low status at some
point in their lives (especially risky times are the freshman year of college
and the first 2-4 years in the work world).

~~~
marvin
Well formulated.

------
drivebyacct2
For the same reason that people lose their _damn minds_ when the word
"privilege" comes out. They don't understand the issue, they don't understand
what it's like to be on the other end of it. "She should take it as a
compliment", etc. It's a defense mechanism for those that realize they might
be creepers.

------
CyberDroiD
Anytime someone uses the word "Creeper" it quickly identifies the person as a
Millenial. It sounds passive-aggressive.

The word is "Stalker" kids. A creeper is someone who creeps around at night.

~~~
lotyrin
So, the term for someone who behaves in a socially inappropriate and over-
reaching way, but isn't literally stalking anyone is.... ?

~~~
CyberDroiD
It's called stalking.

~~~
lotyrin
No. Stalking is a specific thing (for one, it has a specific subject) that is
not what we're talking about here (generic behavior, amongst other
differences).
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stalking)

------
tokipin
whaat. where the creep pride

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLPZmPaHme0)

