In my Facebook newsfeed this morning, I saw this post by Lu Fong at the Good Men Project: The “Creepy Factor.” Fong, a staff writer at GMP, used the word “creepy” in one of her recent posts, and was called on it by Jeremy Paul Gordon. Gordon’s take on what he calls “the worst thing a woman can call a man” is here. And it’s, well, creepy. Gordon:
Without a doubt, creepy is the worst casual insult that can be tossed at a guy. A guy can publicly scoff at something you say and be a “douchebag;” sleep with your best friend, never call her back and become an “asshole;” cry while listening to Neutral Milk Hotel and forever be a “pussy.†But creepy is not that simple. It doesn’t relate to someone’s appearance, actions, or behavior. More accurately, creepy is a vibe. You can’t define it — you just know it. It’s when a guy looks at a girl for a little too long, when he friends her on Facebook a little too quickly, when he doesn’t understand that no actually means no, not “Try harder.†It’s a tag that isn’t easily dispelled — after all, what are you supposed to say? “I’m not creepy! I’m NORMAL! I say normal things and act like a human being!â€
Well, Jeremy, when a guy “doesn’t understand no actually means no”, that is — at best — creepy. When you stare at someone longer than is polite, or refuse to take no for an answer (read Gordon’s post for an example of where he had that problem) then the epithet is well-earned. In a world where women have good reason to fear men’s potential for sexualized violence, a man whose behavior or words suggest that he doesn’t grasp boundaries well is rightly called a “creep.” Merriam-Webster defines creepy as “producing a nervous shivery apprehension”, and women are not overreacting when they’re apprehensive or nervous in the presence of a man who sends the unmistakable signal that he’s not good at taking no for an answer.
Guys like Gordon complain about being labeled as “creeps” (or more commonly these days, “creepers”) even when their own words make it evident that they’ve done more than enough to invite the tag. Convicted on that point, they tend to fall back on an appeal to male cluelessness. “Judge me by my intentions, not by my clumsy actions”, they beg. To put it another way, these lads are asking women to be mind-readers, to possess the magical ability to distinguish between genuine danger and mere social awkwardness. That’s a huge over-ask.
What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to be capable of sufficient self-control so as to hear a “no” for what it is, a no. What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to know the obvious difference between an appreciative smile and a hungry leer, and to refrain from offering the latter. And when we fail to do these basic acts of self-regulation, it is an over-ask to insist that women not call us “creepy” because it, well, hurts our feelings.
I’m not asking guys to man up. But jeepers, lads, clue in! Your capacity for empathy and intuition is there, it really is. Use it.
There’s a limit to justifiable self-protection, and the term is so nebulous that, probably a good bit of the time, it means nothing more than “he showed interest but I don’t like him.” Some of that described behavior, agree, deserves the term. A lot of other “behavior”, if it even is “behavior”, does not, and lumping it all together is an act of deliberate cluelessness in its own right.
“There’s a limit to justifiable self-protection” ???
yeah. maybe. like bomb-shelters, or x rays at the airport.
The limit in this context comes when the term is not being used to define some articulable danger that another person presents and is just another vehicle for sublimated social aggression and an attempt at ostracism. It’s like calling a woman a “cunt”. What does it mean? Does it mean anything other than “I hate her”?
Problem is, “creepy” gets used to describe a lot more than just not taking no for an answer and other objectionable behavior; it’s used in other contexts (i. e. nonsexualized social interaction) as a pejorative synonym for “weird” in order to bully people who have a hard time fitting in.
“And when we fail to do these basic acts of self-regulation, it is an over-ask to insist that women not call us “creepy†because it, well, hurts our feelings.”
No, no, no. You don’t get to say ‘US’. Don’t pretend like this is a problem you’ve ever had to deal with.
I love that the URL reveals that you began with the delightfully succinct title “On creeps,” but then you went back to change it to the properly Schwyzerian “Earning the epithet: men, deliberate cluelessness, and deserving the label “creepâ€.”
On the substance of the post, I completely agree with you.
Professor, you’re entirely right that a man should always be willing to take no for an answer. And I don’t think that it’s any woman’s problem if a man is unhappy or can’t find a partner. And I found several problems in Gordon’s post, like the second of the alternative reactions he imagines having made to being shot down by the girl at the party. And like his whole overreaction to this alleged “killing word”. Homeboy needs to grow a thicker skin, at the least.
But, just to take the particular instance narrated in Gordon’s post, I think this is a good example of the “gray area” or “fog of war” that exists when people are getting to know each other, when a single person is trying to meet another single person and pursue them romantically.
If the girl really was drunk (as his 2nd imaginary reaction suggests she might have been) then he had no business making a serious pass at her. But let’s assume she wasn’t drunk. Then, I think (if the narrative of the incident is true) the girl sent him some inviting signals while at the party. So then, there’s nothing wrong with him making a pass at her when they’re in front of her apartment. When he asks “are you sure?” he might have been acting like a creep; a lot depends on tone of voice and body language and everything else that is subjective in-the-moment. It’s never acceptable to put any pressure on a girl. But, he might just have been trying to play along. A guy doesn’t know how much a girl likes him until she tells him. How else was he going to find out if she was “persuadable” or not?
I think a woman is likely to say that it’s “creepy” when a guy makes a pass at her, when for whatever reason she doesn’t like the guy; and if she likes the guy, the pass (as long as it is respectful, cool, tasteful) is welcome. And a guy never knows until he tries.
I think it was a bit unfair for the girl to call Gordon a creep. If it were me, walking a girl home, who wasn’t drunk, who I’d met at the party where we’d got along very well and had left together, I think quite a similar exchange at her front door might have taken place. Nothing in that dialogue, absent any off-the-transcript wierdness, warrants being called a creep. Of course, she’s under no obligation to do anything at all with me, she’s perfectly within her rights to say thank you and go inside alone. Homeboy might have asked for her phone number if he hadn’t blown it – he might have been able to catch signals that his pass wasn’t looked for. But neither men nor women are mind-readers…
What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to be capable of sufficient self-control so as to hear a “no†for what it is, a no.
Exactly. For some people (male a female) social interactions are harder to manage and understand (I’m a woman who has this difficulty) but when someone else’s sense of safety and comfort is concerned, it’s well worth the extra effort to be careful, respectful, and take the time to be sure that the other person is okay with an interaction. I believe men are as capable of this as women.
What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to know the obvious difference between an appreciative smile and a hungry leer, and to refrain from offering the latter.
This I can see as a bit of a gray area, because not everyone’s definition of a leer will be the same. I’m extremely shy — any flirtation freaks me out, and I remove myself from the situation. This is where what is most important is men not believing that they are entitled to a positive response from a woman. A guy who hits on me might be doing something that would be successful with another woman, but it will not only turn me off, it will chase me out of the room. And the guy needs to leave me the f— alone at that point, whatever his intentions were. I’m not interested. Here we’re back at “no is no.”
@Comrade Svilova: an appreciative smile is no guarantor — and never should be — of an enthusiastic response from anyone. But men do of course have the right to notice with a passing glance a woman whom they find attractive, and they are free to smile. But not to stare, nor to demand that the smile be returned.
@Recall: of course I have a right to blog about this. I heard the word “creep” too, back when I was a young teenager, and had earned it. I made a choice to use empathy and intuition and to think things through — they weren’t qualities I was born with, like my blue eyes or my melanin-deficient skin. They were qualities I acquired through reflection and use. Unless someone is off the charts on the autism spectrum, he can find it too.
@Stentor: You know my style. And I find that the more descriptive my title, the higher the number of readers and the more likely it is to be linked elsewhere. I’m mercenary that way!
“And of course I have a right to blog about this, Recall. I heard the word “creep†too, back when I was a young teenager, and had earned it.”
Which is a much more forgiving time, seeing as everyone has to figure out the rules. How long has it been since then?
Once, as a younger man, I found myself in a situation I was badly misreading (details not important) and a female friend told me I was starting to come across as a little creepy to her. Rather than sink into the depths of despair and rage against the refusal to correctly intuit my alleged good intentions, I took this comment as a reason to assess the situation from other’s perspectives and consider how I could be seen in such a light.
In other words: I was able to take a verbal cue from another human being that my actions and words were badly missing the mark (the particular word creepy conveyed very clearly precisely how that mark was being missed), to reconsider how those actions/words might reasonably be conceived by others, and change those actions and words. This process is at the very heart of learning to interact with other people. Mr. Gordon is thrashing about for excuses to not learn.
(That said, jfpbookworm certainly has a point, albeit one that relates to a secondary function of the word)
@djw: lucky you to have someone to walk you through it. For that matter, lucky you to have someone who would say it right to your face.
What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to know the obvious difference between an appreciative smile and a hungry leer, and to refrain from offering the latter.
I’ll go a half-step further than the good Comrade and point out that not only can people have different ideas of what a leer is, but if you’re the one being perceived as leering, you don’t actually know what you look like at that moment. This is the kind of thing that, at best, takes experience and an open mind to figure out- getting a feel for how your face is set and what kind of reactions you provoke. But, especially given the premium on eye contact, if you’re doing this wrong, it can take a while to figure out why.
In no way am I arguing that a woman should feel compelled to stick around if a weird leer is the “only” creepy sign they’re getting, in case the guy is otherwise totally cool. If she’s uncomfortable, she can and probably should bail. And I basically agree with the rest of your post. The general advice to look inward rather than outward for reasons why a woman might get tripped out for reasons you can’t immediately discern is good; to say a guy should be able to easily tell the difference between his various facial expressions, that he can’t see, is kind of unrealistic.
I think you’re missing the point here, Hugo. The author was complaining about benign (showing romantic interest) and really really bad (rape) behaviors being folded into one nonspecific label.
“This process is at the very heart of learning to interact with other people. Mr. Gordon is thrashing about for excuses to not learn.”
Where do you get that from? His reaction was to reconsider what he had said.
SA: yes.
I think what’s being conflated here is “active” creepiness, wherein someone is transgressing others’ boundaries, not taking no for an answer, etc., and “passive” creepiness, wherein someone’s behavior is not harmful, just merely off-script, but other folks are made uncomfortable thereby.
The problem is, there’s not always a bright-line test; I think a lot of people, especially those whose social skills are not as well developed, have a hard time distinguishing between when someone else’s bad reaction is a sign that their behavior was unacceptable and when the reaction is just a sign of that other person’s lack of acceptance.
Yes, but the author’s point was that “a lot of them (us?) are simply naïve and overeager.” I agree that there are times that women do assume men “only want one thing” to the exclusion of any other possibility. But “naive and overeager” isn’t women’s problem to solve — it’s men’s. It’s not a woman’s job to say to herself “Self, is this fellow genuinely predatory, or merely naïve and overeager? I shall use my magical female intuition, the kind that came with the ladybits, and I shall discern his intent.”
Men — even young ones — need to do their own work, so that they are more adept at signaling their intentions. This isn’t easy, and I know it isn’t, but it’s not half as hard as what we expect from women when we expect them to read men’s minds.
“But “naive and overeager†isn’t women’s problem to solve — it’s men’s. It’s not a woman’s job to say to herself “Self, is this fellow genuinely predatory, or merely naïve and overeager? I shall use my magical female intuition, the kind that came with the ladybits, and I shall discern his intent.â€
At the risk of resurrecting something SamSeaborn used to get on about around here, “standpoint epistemology”, doesn’t that more or less assume a priori that the labeler’s definition of either “predatory” or “naïve and overeager” is, in fact, apt (and that an assessment of either is going to, by default, lead to being publicly labeled with the worse of the two assessments)? I thought of the discussion about modeling within the last couple of weeks, and how size 12+ (or whatever it was) is considered “plus-size” (when the average women’s size in America is a 14). What determines which set of standards is the correct one in which circumstance? It should be clear that some non-trivial proportion of men have been labeled as “creepers” who weren’t even a bit predatory (and, I’d argue, ought not to have been labeled as predatory for the High Misdemeanor of being “naïve and overeager”.)
I’m a pretty intense, shoot from the hip type of guy. I might speak my mind, in some people’s opinion, at inappropriate times. I make direct eye contact which makes some people uncomfortable. I don’t think I’ve ever been called creepy. I think there’s a social/cultural perspective qualification; I can picture a more materialistic, shallow-spirited person calling me creepy, but I find that the type of person I like usually “gets” me, and admires those same traits that others might find creepy. So, if a guy like me doesn’t get called creepy, I must agree that guys who do sustain the label probably deserve it, whether due to lack of education, or genuine creepiness.
I use the word “creep” frequently, and it is always well-deserved.
I will admit that when I was younger, what would be “creepy” coming from a guy I wasn’t into would be welcome from one I wanted. I think that’s true for most women. The key thing is that I only used the word creep to describe someone who was a boundary violator. A totally gross guy who asked me out? If he politely took no for an answer and went away, he wasn’t going to get called creepy even if it made me feel creepy to think about him. That same sort of guy who persisted? Definitely a creep. So I think it’s a fair term to use.
The key thing is that I only used the word creep to describe someone who was a boundary violator. A totally gross guy who asked me out? If he politely took no for an answer and went away, he wasn’t going to get called creepy even if it made me feel creepy to think about him. That same sort of guy who persisted? Definitely a creep.
You made the point so much better than I did. My boundaries are set really high, so it’s easy for a well-meaning guy to accidentally cross my boundaries, and the first boundary violation wouldn’t get the guy labeled a creep by me or my friends.
But if I stop talking to a guy, move away, and leave the room, it’s those who still follow me at that point that get called creeps. Not all women have the same standards, of course — like anything, we have variety amongst the members of our gender.
And not all women will behave well, so there’s definitely a problem of decent guys who are less attractive or simply socially awkward being called creeps. But a lot of the women I’ve heard using the word are referring to persistent, repetitive boundary violators. It’s those guys who are definitely getting suboptimal results from their efforts to attract ladies, and would benefit themselves and the women they encounter by examining their behavior.
@chris: I guess it comes down to how you define “deserve”. I’ve seen guys who act in a way that I would readily describe as creepy, but I also know that I may have done the same thing in the past (in certain cases, I know for sure that I did) and am reluctant to assume that the creepiness is more than superficial.
In that vein, one simple thing that might help a lot is if people were willing to consider “creepy” and “acting creepy” as separate concepts.
Consider: A pedophile is creepy to the core. A nineteen-year-old kid who doesn’t get out much sees a pretty girl at a party and can’t stop staring for too long; he’s not. In the latter case, no one can claim the girl needs to try and be nice to the kid. But, if she tells her friends he’s “creepy”, they’re not going to think of him much differently than they’ll think of a guy they hear about who hangs out by the local elementary school.
On the other hand, if she says he’s “acting creepy”, it’s much more likely one of them will go to the guy and tell him what the problem is. There will still probably be some negative feelings and embarrassment, but it’ll be enormously easier to recover from. That ability to come back from finding out you’re being perceived negatively is enormously helpful, if not outright necessary, for anyone who suffers from a degree of social awkwardness.
P.S. Telling a guy he’s acting creepy could also be a relatively diplomatic way of getting him to leave you alone. I doubt many guys will take it well, but “acting” lets him save some face by either making him realize he’s coming off wrong, and you’re not impugning his truly decent character, or if he’s a real creep, giving him a chance to bounce before you call him out in full.
Of course, some guys will try to stop acting creepy and start acting “normal”, and still not leave you alone, but that seems like it isn’t much of a problem if you’re saying it because he won’t go away in the first place.
@Spiffy, it’s definitely always better to focus on labeling actions rather than labeling people, i.e. assigning identity based on actions. Great point.
“Creepy” has different connotations for me now than it did when I was younger. Because I’ve been exposed to more genuinely creepy people.
I wouldn’t use the word to describe a young man who’s clueless and socially naive, misreading (or not reading) signals….unless I saw this was a repeated behavior with obvious disrespect for “NO” messages.
I would use the word to describe a behavior that is more obviously trying to snatch an undesired sexual interaction. A man (or woman) who hasn’t developed the social skills or maturity to directly earn another’s trust and have a real relationship, who (secretly and shamefully, usually) uses some sneaky and invasive approach to get his rocks off……like “peeping Tom” behavior…(that’s just one example of many.) Or, the married man who used an incredible array of manipulation and trickery (masterfully justifying his behavior) to try to seduce me at the bar the other night. THAT is CREEPY.
A guy who won’t take no for an answer because he’s confused about the “playing hard to get” game girls play…..I cut him some slack. Unless he’s old and experienced and still hasn’t figured it out!
@Spiffy and Comrade, I’m reminded of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Ti-gkJiXc
Labeling people gmakes them throw up walls and deny their behavior. Labeling the behavior itself allows the person to save face but, more importantly, it’s more likely to facilitate introspection.
Haha, this is a must-watch video for anyone who has to deal with bigoted family during the holidays.
The best vaccination to prevent being called “creepy,” IMHO? Learn to verbalize.
Learn to ask for you want, and don’t demand, assume, or display dominance. Raise yourself up from fear/shame or lower yourself down from grandiosity/bragadoccio and just ask. And stay in the room to hear the answer, WHATEVER it is, and respect it.
I am so glad that you brought this up because I struggle with guilt over the consequences of how I handled a situation with a creepy guy.
I used to work at nights in an isolated lab on a college campus. Most nights the lab was the only room open in that building, and many nights we were the only thing open on that side of campus. It was not unusual for me to be entirely alone or have just one student. I am a middle-aged mother who believes that her age and disposition gives her some degree of invulnerability, so the isolation didn’t bother me. I had been working there for just about two years when one night a middle-aged guy, who I will call Student X, came into the lab. He behaved in a way that I can only describe as creepy. There was nothing he did that was overtly inexcusable. I caught him lurking near my personal belongings, and he asked a lot of personal questions. But Student X didn’t violate any rules or do anything really wrong. Yet I have never met anyone who was so very…again, words fail me so I’ll have to revert to creepy. I think it may have had something to do with him being completely socially inept. But it felt like the key ingredient of creepy was sneaky.
In any case, I was so wigged out by Student X, that after he had been there for about half an hour, I called my husband “just to check in†and asked him if he would “drop off a book I forgot.†I had to make the call in front of Student X, so I used our family’s coded distress signal to make sure that he understood I was not simply asking for a favor. (Btw, I have never used that before or since.) My husband came in, and Student X left almost immediately thereafter. My husband insisted that I report my experience to the administration. They took my report very seriously and called the guy in for a talk. They set some sort of limit on him; I don’t remember what. But I didn’t have any problems with him or really see him even for about a month.
Then one night he came back to the lab and behaved in a way that thoroughly wigged me out. I was so spooked that when my husband was not available I actually called in my boss. He instigated a full-scale administrative investigation. The administration asked female faculty and staff members open ended question about their experience of Student X. About half were fine with him and about half had gotten a creepy vibe. But none had felt so threatened that they had filed a report. In the end, the administration refunded his tuition and banned him from the campus. I felt so guilty because in truth he actually done nothing wrong really.
What still befuddles me about the situation is that his very presence frightened me in a way that I can’t explain. No one has had that effect on me before or since. It was a very particular form of fear that I have felt about a *place* on two other occasions. The first time I was young and ignored it. That was a mistake; I was attacked so brutally it took emergency surgery and blood transfusions to save my life. The second time was last month. I had a less intense version of that same fear about entering a small isolated vestibule in the building that I live in. I struck a compromise between my instinct to go another route, and my chagrin at being such a nervous-nelly. I entered the vestibule cautiously and with an aggressive posture. I was thankful that I had at least somewhat listened to my instinct when I opened the door and there was a guy on the other side with his hands down pants which were already half way down his hips. He ran from me. (Of course, that proves no ill-intent. He could have had really bad jock-itch and I might have just scared the living hell out of him.)
On one hand, my experiences might indicate that I should trust my creepy-alarm and forgive myself for my role in Student X’s banning. But I worry that because of my history I misjudged a mal-adjusted but perfectly innocent guy. Maybe his obvious emotional/social problems triggered something in me. Or perhaps I was responding to how isolated I was and my knowledge that campus security was comprised entirely by an unarmed rail thin man in his sixties who napped in his truck on the other side of campus. Yes, my accusation of generalized creepiness was affirmed by other women, but none of them had felt seriously threatened by it. (To be fair: none of them were in an isolated room with him at night either.) And half of the women who dealt with him had no problems with him at all.
I hear what you are saying, Hugo, that creepy is a charge with merit. But having made that charge and seen its consequences, I feel incredibly guilty. I don’t know, maybe I did the right thing. Maybe I screwed up a guy’s life for no good reason. I just don’t know. I have often replayed the incident, imagining that Student X had the most innocent of intentions. In those scenarios, he was the victim of a grave injustice.
Given the facts as I have presented them, do you have little sympathy for Student X?
@FWC: I have little sympathy for Student X for two reasons: One, he came back and his behavior hadn’t changed. No matter how understanding we want to be, people need to be able to figure themselves out, especially a middle-aged guy, at least to the point where being in the same room is not a hassle for either party. And two, if you had been the only one complaining, it’s highly unlikely they’d have kicked him out. To ban him on the basis of one person having negative experiences, without any physical harm done, would open them up to some potentially serious lawsuits.
Look at it like this: You may have gotten a guy booted who was, deep down, an innocent little bunny. But you also may have gotten a guy booted who eventually would have straight tripped and assaulted somebody. In truth, neither scenario seems likely from your description, so the school is probably better off without him. And given the state of higher education today, if he’ll spring for the tuition, someplace else will take him in. You haven’t ruined anyone’s life.
Although I think that this conversation is a worthy one to be having, I am completely baffled as to how you got here, from the post that you linked to, Hugo. I had to read it over three times.
There are two separate examples that JP Gordon gives in his article, the first the experience of a female friend to which I agree with him, the behavior was genuinely creepy. (Honestly, if she had been my friend I would have advised her not to bother with the damn repayment of $5 herself, I would have delivered it for her. That situation just seems too strange.)
In the second example, it takes me a second read to grasp the vibe that the lady was commenting on, and I guess the best way I could characterize it is that Gordon fell a bit flat and lost his, uh, mojo for a lack of a better word, for a moment there.. and missed the opportunity to perhaps thank the lady for a nice time and ask for her number. Which is the point that he himself seems to have gotten after some reflection.
I think JP takes a little too seriously the value or impact of being casually called creepy. (If your genuine persona does not usually present those vibes to most of the people you encounter, I fail to see how an anomaly every once in a while is going to personally damage you forever…) However, I think you Hugo kind of miss the point that in social interactions between heterosexual people, misreads happen all the time, and it’s not always because someone is genuinely creepy in a stalker or serial sex offender way.
By asking, not just once, but twice if the woman he’s just walked home is sure that she just wants to turn in alone and go to sleep, Gordon sounds as if he’s incredulous that she could possibly have any other reason for wanting him to walk her home than wanting to go to bed with him. But, aside from the possibility that she might just have wanted to enjoy the pleasure of his conversation for twenty minutes more, there’s also the fact that women are frequently cautioned about the dangers of being out alone after dark (e.g., keep your keys in your hand, when walking to your car, the better to fight someone with them). So an alternate possible reason why she’d want him to walk her home is that she may have thought he was protecting her from rape (possibly not a realistic assessment of relative dangers, but surely not an uncommon one). In which case, discovering that the guy she thought she’d invited along to protect her is having trouble taking no for an answer would feel, yes, creepy. (I don’t think the fact that he hoped for sex at all is the “creepy” part; I think she escalated to “creepy” because he wasn’t hearing her “no.”)
‘When you stare at someone longer than is polite, or refuse to take no for an answer (read Gordon’s post for an example of where he had that problem) then the epithet is well-earned. ”
Is this really what you want to say? By this logic it’s perfectly accpetable to call a woman a slut for the same behaviors. Come to think of it, Clarisse has pointed out how “slut” and “creep” are broadly analogous, and both amount to gender forms of slut-shaming.
“I think JP takes a little too seriously the value or impact of being casually called creepy. ”
It’s generally accpeted, Ari, that that the person who is the target of a behavior – insults, for instance – is the one who gets to characterize its impact.
Creepy is a very accurate description of a lot of leering, slobbering, semi-stalking behavior. Too bad when the term gets cheapened.
I’m afraid I can sympathize with his piece a bit. As a teenager, I, too, got called a creep on a couple of occasions by girls for some accidental offputting behavior – e.g. staring a couple of seconds too long. Being a bit low in self-confidence at the time myself, that stuck to me in a way that I don’t think some of the folks here appreciate it could. For a while I felt like there _was_ something inherently creepy about me, which made any sort of encounter with women scary in an entirely new way. Should I have simply learned from this and gotten over it? Maybe, but no one was really there to set me straight about how to get through that.
And so FormerWildChild’s story about how she got a student tossed out of school for being vaguely creepy absolutely _terrifies_ me. When I was younger I could imagine having found myself in such a situation a little too easily. It’s entirely understandable that women would be afraid when faced with a guy who behaves this way. But it also would be nice if it were recognized, if only from a distance, that it might _not_ be some sort of sign of his true character – i.e. that he’s a “creep”. And that’s the one valid point that this Jeremy guy has.
I was thankful that I had at least somewhat listened to my instinct when I opened the door and there was a guy on the other side with his hands down pants which were already half way down his hips. He ran from me. (Of course, that proves no ill-intent. He could have had really bad jock-itch and I might have just scared the living hell out of him.)
Yeah, but it was your safety at stake so I think listening to your instinct was right here. You shouldn’t think of yourself as being wrong in that instance.
Brill,
don’t you think that you – were you in place of the student in FWC’s story – would have gotten the message after the first talk with the university administration?
david,
“don’t you think that you – were you in place of the student in FWC’s story – would have gotten the message after the first talk with the university administration?”
I don’t know, david; I’d certainly have felt quite mortified after being called in for such a talk. But I wonder: what did they tell that guy, exactly? I don’t think being told “You scare the bejeezus out of half the women here for some ill-defined reason no one is really putting their finger on, so, uh … go be less creepy, OK?” would have made it that much _easier_ for me to behave in a more reassuring fashion around them.
Give yourself some credit, Brill. The mere fact you’re here discussing it strongly suggests you would not have been a problem.
Look, I take the issue of being inappropriately tagged seriously, but it takes a special person to reach the level of FWC’s Student X. Several of my friends and I all had some degree of that socially awkward, “creepy”-under-some-circumstances thing going on when we were in our late teens that tons of guys (and a number of women) can relate to, because it’s almost entirely an offshoot of not connecting with social norms. When you’re in a place where the norms feel more natural- for me, punk shows- your interactions never seem to have those kinds of problems, including the odd occasion where you might interact with a cutie.
Student X, going by the description, was tripping people out regardless of the circumstances (I doubt half the women interviewed knew him through impromptu late-night lab sharing). You could argue that maybe he never had that comfort zone at school, and maybe that’s true. But if you’re not a 20-year-old kid, you’re told that something, even something undefined, about your behavior is causing problems, you should have the maturity to talk to people until you get it figured out. And if you have any sort of actual comfort zone, then by middle age you should be able to draw on those experiences to help you figure out how to behave with at least minimum acceptability elsewhere.
“What still befuddles me about the situation is that his very presence frightened me in a way that I can’t explain. No one has had that effect on me before or since.”
It is very real when it happens, and it is very different from some kind of sterotyping. That was a very specific reaction.
It would be one thing if had just been you, FWC, but it wasn’t. When that many people pick up on something, something is up. What it is is a bunch of people reading body language, and it’s very typical for people to be unable to articulate it. It truly is subliminal, people don’t know they are noticing it. Evo-psych – this time it’s real. This evolved for a reason.
I understand how you would feel guilty – it sounds to me like you are feeling remorse over a bad situation simply because it happened, not because you did anything wrong. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you were objectively guilty of anything, and in fact you may very well have prevented something horrible. Have you ever looked at it like that?
I think Brill has a important point here. It is very possible that the student don’t know himself why he is perceived as creepy (FWC said he seemed socially inept) and when the FWC herself couldn’t verbalize what about him made him creep out then I would say that we can’t expect him to able to dial back on the creepiness.
FWC, I’d like to thank you for sharing that story. It probably wasn’t easy. I am sorry you feel guilt over this, but in some ways you come better off than you would you didn’t at all.
You did state that the administration placed some limit on him, but you didn’t say whether he broke it or not. If he did and the limit weren’t too draconian I would say that that justified the de-facto expulsion.If he did not break these and if there was no other reasons he creeped you out the second time (you didn’t specify which behaviour led to the creeping out the second time) I will admit that it seemed draconian to have someone removed in this way based on a gut feeling. However, it didn’t sound like you did anything but report that he crept you out and any overreaction which were made were made by the administration.
What bothers me about this, I think, is that Hugo acknowledges he was boundary pushing and creepy, and that he’s fucked up multiple times, and took a lot of errors to be put on the path he’s on now. (Not just here, but consider his whole body of work.) But doesn’t allow any leeway for those of us who’re trying to figure out how to make it work without making those errors. Of course someone who’s flirted with hundreds (thousands?) of people is going to have a much better sense of what’s appropriate/inappropriate than someone who’s flirted with a dozen people.
I dunno – there’s a huge problem of self-identification into groups. I too think Hugo putting himself into this group, even if he’s been called creepy, is an overstreach. (But then, I want to include myself, and I’ve never been called creepy to my face. If you asked me to produce a list of women who’ve found me creepy, it’d probably overlap almost completely with a list of women I know, less my mother. But there’s no real reason to suppose that my lived experience this way is actually right.)
But I certainly don’t know how to deal with being too quick to friend somebody on facebook putting you on the boundary-violating creep spectrum.
Calling someone creepy for being too quick to friend someone on Facebook does seem extreme to me. Calling someone creepy for not understanding that no means no, not so much (though I’ll allow for an occasional question for clarification, if asked in an “I’m not sure if I understood you right” tone rather than an “I can’t believe you really mean no” tone).
I agree with Taman and Bill on one thing here: it seems clear to me that student X had no idea what he was doing that was freaking people out. I had difficulty articulating it, and that is why I gave very neutral accounts to my boss and to the administration. I did not want to push the issue. I would have been much more happy had they simply scheduled regular security checks.
But I do know that they had extensive conversations with him and that they coalesced the concerns raised by a number of woman into rather specific items like: “you stare at the women when you think that they can’t see you but they pick up on your intense stare in reflective surfaces. You ask questions that are not asked of people you just met such as “what is your address” and “when you leave here, does anyone walk you out?” “How often does the security guard come by.”
The limit placed by the administration, as I recall, was that he was not allowed to be in the lab with me if we were the only ones there and that he needed to not talk to me unless it was about lab businesss. On the night it went really south, when he came in, there was another person there, she was in an adjoining lab doing a makeup test. He didn’t talk to me, instead he wrote very troubling violent snippets and posted them on various computers. I would come to close out the computer he had just vacated and read, “He held the knife against her throat while the cold rain down his face and matted the hair on his chest.” Anytime I looked up he was looking at me as if he were deciding which bones would be easiest to snap. He said he was writing a fiction story and having difficulty with the computers and that was why he kept going from one to the next. When I went down the hall to call for help, I caught him lingering just around the corner listening for what I was saying. He went into the men’s room next to the women’s room when I went an he made loud grunt/groaning noises that sounded like masturbation, but he assured the administration it was just the bad tacos he had eaten. None of this was seriously bad. All had innocent explanations.
I think the one big problem a faculty member had was that she suspected him of masturbating onto the door of her office. But of course, that was sheer speculation.
So I still don’t know. But I do appreciate the fact taht no one flamed me.
About a year ago, I used to frequent the chat-room of a heavy metal radio show because a friend/co-worker of mine was on the show (the chat-room went on simultaneously). There was an ardent fan of the radio show who went in the chat-room every week and always called in and won all the prizes, he was a stereotypically socially-awkward guy two years younger than me who didn’t “have a life” outside metal and Sonic the Hedgehog…I was the ONLY girl in the chat room (well, there was usually only three or four people to begin with, so I was usually the only person there), and I found out from my friend on the radio show that the awkward kid Google-searched me and tried to track me down. At the time I thought this was just derpy (and in a weird way “flattering” because he went to such great ninja-lengths to find out about me) but in hindsight I found it CREEPY AS HELL…mostly due to the fact that I feel like an invasive creep when I Google search people I want to learn more about (like acquaintances or low-level celebrities, to an extent)…it feels kinda like an invasion of privacy (but I guess I’m projecting because I’m an intensely private person and if someone finds something about me that’s embarrassing I’d flip my shit).
So do any of you guys think this kid exhibited creepy behavior? WHAT DO?
You still don’t know? Srsly? If all of what you just described above were true, this guy was beyond creepy and into borderline sex-offender territory. The university was entirely right to intervene. There’s no way that this was innocent behavior.
Jim is right about about social instincts about people evolving for a reason. There’s a good book on this topic call “The Gift of Fear”.
I think that the distinction comes between legitimate fear and social aggression. In the example from the Gordon article, it sounds as if the girl he left with was dropping mixed messages (possibly because she was drunk) and played the “creep” card so as not to run the risk of having the “slut” card played back on her (because she left with him). That, to me, read as pre-emptive social aggression.
I’d be surprised if anyone here doesn’t think you did the right thing in this instance.
Brian:
“I dunno – there’s a huge problem of self-identification into groups. I too think Hugo putting himself into this group, even if he’s been called creepy, is an overstreach.”
I think the fact that he ascribes intentionality to the misbehavior the group he supposedly identifies with puts it way over the top.
“I’d be surprised if anyone here doesn’t think you did the right thing in this instance.”
Agreed. My only concern is that people seem to have no problem using the same label to describe both a glance that takes too long and displaying violent rape fantasies.
For the official record, since Emporiumsexus wrote a post that included my thoughts on Hugo’s history of sleeping with his students, I will take the opportunity to point something out: I knew Hugo when he was sleeping with his students. One of my friends was one of the girls he was with, and I was also a student of his at the time. He never hit on me, but I thought what he was doing was very creepy. My friend had a great time with Hugo both sexually and emotionally, but it icked me out. The point is that in Hugo’s case as well as in other cases, two women could look at the same guy and the same actions and one thinks he’s a total hottie and another thinks he’s a complete creeper.
I think a situation where a man friend-requests a person on Facebook “too soon” is best described as “clingy,” if one needs to assign a negative label to the action. There is a female equivalent to that, of course, which is the same word.
But “creepy” is, in my experience, really only used to describe guys who are sexually aggressive in a way that makes the recipient uncomfortable, and who doesn’t let up after numerous, socially-recognized “hints” to dissuade him from continuing to pursue her. In other words, I agree with your definition.
Where Hugo says
“What isn’t an over-ask is to expect men to know the obvious difference between an appreciative smile and a hungry leer, and to refrain from offering the latter.”
and also
“But men do of course have the right to notice with a passing glance a woman whom they find attractive, and they are free to smile.”
Why? Why do men have this “right”? Why is it a right for a man to offer ANY kind of judgement, positive or negative, on a woman he does not know at all? What is a “passing glance” and why do they at all feel free to smile at strangers? (Many women will easily attest to the fact that smiling at strange men is such a huge no-no in their daily lives, specifically because of the sexual/physical danger men represent.)
When there is such a huge difference between men-smiling-at-women and women-smiling-at-men — how can this “right” men have not be seen as a problem??
I’m sure we all agree the patriarchy exists, it is real, and has some very troubling consequences for women – all of which stem from this supposed “right” that men have to consider women in a particular light i.e. consumables. An “appreciative” smile is a man essentially saying, “Hey lady, you pass the Fuckability Mandates I, the MAN, have in place! I would totally fuck you, lucky lucky you!”
Why is it a right for a man to communicate this, in ANY way, to a woman?
Like a commenter said earlier, the difference between a leer and an appreciative smile is so, SO subjective. Not to mention that this smiling and appreciating further feeds in and perpetuates the idea that women are ‘on show’ for men, that they need to display and present themselves in a specific way (for men!) and that men then have a “right” (for the love of!) to either pass or fail these women.
Why is no one else having an issue with this?? Why is this okay? Where are the ever-lovin’ feminists on this blog ffs??
Why? Why do men have this “right� Why is it a right for a man to offer ANY kind of judgement, positive or negative, on a woman he does not know at all?
Lol, are you serious? Do you propose forming an elite Smiling Police task force to arrest men who look the wrong way at women?
I have no idea where you live, but women smile at me all the time. Women of all ages. Some of them are probably “passing judgment” on me, some are perhaps just being friendly- I have no idea. But do you honestly think women do not admire attractive men on the street? If so, you’re deluded.
all of which stem from this supposed “right†that men have to consider women in a particular light i.e. consumables
Thanks for articulating exactly why attention like which Hugo describes does indeed bother me. It’s that feeling of being an object for contemplation and appreciation — it really bothers me. I will avoid men who seem to regard me in that way.
With that said, I’d hesitate to use the word “creep” to describe a smile (or even a leer). Since this thread is about the label “creep,” I have to agree with the idea that it’s the man’s behavior after the woman’s first “no” that matters. If he backs down and respects the “no,” no problem. If he doesn’t, that’s when “creep” begins.
I’m also interested to read how surprised some commentators are that a woman who was on the receiving end of threatening stalking behavior would doubt herself and be uncertain about whether the behavior was *really* threatening, and deserved the punishment. This is so, so very common. As a teenager, I was often followed across campus at night by a man in his fifties who stood too close to me, sought out my company all the time, and did other things that seemed slightly inappropriate but not clearly wrong. But following me from building to building in the dark at eleven at night? It freaked me out. But I didn’t want to be that bitch who misunderstood or misinterpreted a man’s actions and got him into trouble. So I just tried to avoid him (largely unsuccessfully) and felt nauseous every time I saw his silhouette walking behind me as I went from the library to my dorm at night.
So while I fully agree that “creep” is used hurtfully by women to label inoffensive men, I also feel that many women are socialized to be terrified of damaging a man’s reputation by suggesting that he might be a creep. And when I told my parents about that older guy who was following me around at school, they told me not to imagine anything, that it was just coincidence, and that I would be doing a really terrible thing if I made a big deal about it. There’s also an element of “what? You vain, wicked girl, do you really imagine that you’re so attractive that someone would stalk you? You sure are full of yourself, aren’t you?” There are so many forces that tell women to doubt themselves, to trust that a creepy-acting man doesn’t really mean them harm.
Yazzi, while women might choose not to smile at strange men in the interest of self-protection, there is no moral rule that requires women to not smile at men.
@FWC: I agree with the others who are saying that Student X was way over the line, and that the university was entirely right to intervene.
@Tom: In the example from the Gordon article, it sounds as if the girl he left with was dropping mixed messages (possibly because she was drunk) and played the “creep†card so as not to run the risk of having the “slut†card played back on her (because she left with him).
The signals, as described, were mixed, I agree, but they were mixed at least partly because both possible results of leaving a party together are common enough to be entirely normal. Some people will sleep with someone they just met at a party, and some won’t think of it; some women frequently have men escorting them home and then not having sex (such as male friends who are at least ostensibly protecting them from needing to walk alone after dark), and others do so far less often. I met my husband at a party, talked with him basically for my entire time at said party, and we left together (he offered to take me home so I wouldn’t have to bike half an hour in the dark). We celebrated our twenty-second anniversary this past April, but I didn’t invite him in that night; rather, he asked me for a date as he was dropping me off, and I accepted. Also, in this case, I think “Well, what did you expect?†was not (as Gordon perhaps took it to be) an actual question, but a “back down and stop pressing me on this.” So “creepy” was actually her second escalation.
@Yazzi: I think of myself as an ever-lovin’ feminist, and I both notice people I find attractive with passing glances and am OK with the same being done to me (not that this means everyone needs to like that kind of attention, just that it doesn’t cross my personal boundary). So I actually do think that men have the right to give passing glances and smiles; I just don’t think they have the right to have said glances and smiles reciprocated. (It may be prudent not to smile at strangers, to avoid inviting danger if you’re a woman or to avoid appearing to pose danger if you’re a man, but I’m unwilling to consider a smile a severe enough thing to make a moral rule against it, or consider that a guy who’s merely smiling has crossed the “creep” line.)
@Comrade Svilova: So while I fully agree that “creep†is used hurtfully by women to label inoffensive men, I also feel that many women are socialized to be terrified of damaging a man’s reputation by suggesting that he might be a creep. Yes. Very true. One of the problems I see in these discussions is that many men seem to assume that women habitually err only in one direction.
I’m also interested to read how surprised some commentators are that a woman who was on the receiving end of threatening stalking behavior would doubt herself and be uncertain about whether the behavior was *really* threatening, and deserved the punishment.
I don’t think it’s hard to understand in the abstract, but it’s a lot harder when you have the details explained and those details make a pretty clear case against the stalker, especially in light of the things he was leaving on the computers for her to find. The situation you were in, I don’t think your response is too shocking, especially if nothing like that had ever happened to you before. But sometimes the specifics cast a neon “GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS GUY” over someone’s head. Even though someone might understand that self-doubt in one’s read on the stalker can happen, at some point you hit the wall and say, “How does (x, y, z) not make it utterly obvious?”
Is that unfair? Unreasonable? Unsympathetic? I don’t know. But it’s common.
I’m not sure if I follow your point, Spiffy.
What I was trying to say is that often people (not just women) who are being stalked or have encountered some other type of creepy behavior, are unable to really acknowledge that the behavior is unacceptable *despite* how obvious it is to outsiders.
For women, it’s often our training to be nice and to not presume that we’re *that* attractive (as if being attractive is what causes stalking!) and to second-guess our instinctive reactions. For men, I think it’s often the complete societal denial that a man could be endangered by a woman and the emasculating implications if a man admits that he feels threatened by a woman (although it may more more complex than this — this is what I’ve heard from male friends and relatives who have been in these situations).
My overall point is that we have two extremes — the people who are unfairly labelled creepy just for being different, and then the people who *should* be labelled creepy/threatening, but who get away with their behavior because their victims do not feel comfortable applying such a harmful label. I’m just thinking that we need to develop a dialogue that helps people who are victimized by someone who is “creepy” (or worse) to feel comfortable using the label — while avoiding using that label for someone who is just awkward or different.
On another note:
So I actually do think that men have the right to give passing glances and smiles; I just don’t think they have the right to have said glances and smiles reciprocated.
Exactly. This is where this discussion intersects with the other thread about entitlement.
I may have misunderstood you, CS. I took what I quoted as referencing people being surprised FWC was hesitant to go after the creepy guy at her school, specifically. So I was just saying, I think in that particular instance, it might be surprising because of the severity of his behavior, even to a person who generally understands that it can be hard for someone on the wrong end of threatening behavior to run the perpetrator in, that they want to be sure there’s really a problem, and so forth.
I pretty much agree with what you’re saying, though.
Ah, thanks for clarifying, and I agree, it sounds like his behavior had gone beyond what could be construed by anyone as acceptable.
Well, because women also have this right, and because noticing when people of the preferred sex are attractive to you is not only just fine, but perfectly normal, and some might even say necessary. Patriarchy, or kyriarchy, whichever term you believe most accurately describes the ways in which our current society oppresses and privileges various people for various reasons, makes many men feel entitled to take their perfectly normal passing appreciation of the attractiveness of women further, into “creepy” or otherwise dangerous territory, but a man looking at a woman and personally appreciating that she is attractive in the ways that he finds the most desirable is not inherently bad or oppressive in any way.
Another great post Hugo, thank you, and I hope your Christmas continues to be as wondeful as it sounds.
My direct experience of a ‘creepy’ guy was when I was 15, nearly 16 and my then 22 year old date bought me a pair of very expensive shoes and then got very heavy handed in the back of a taxi. Not so that I couldn’t fend him off, but enough to make me feel very uncomfortable, and subsequently end things with him. Creepy is quite mild, I think, – it’s an alarm bell for the strong possibility of much worse things to come – but it doesn’t refer to those much worse things actually happening. Asking people to ignore those alarm bells is a bit like asking them to stroke a crocodile – he may or may not intend to bite, but would you take the chance?
Re: Yazzi. I also want to add to the voices who think there’s a big difference between a creepy stare and a warm smile. Men have the right to look, they don’t have the right to give a penetrating undress-you-with-the-eyes gaze. I’m sure men understand the difference but choose to ignore it.
This is the best blog I have ever read. Ever.
I completely agree.
I think I would describe a great deal of creepy behavior, and I think this is what FWC is referring to with Student X, as “loitering with the intent to lurk” (to borrow an expression from Garrison Keillor). It’s when a guy (usually a guy, anyway) is just hanging around with no clear reason for being there and stares and acts inappropriately in subtle, hard-to-put-your-finger-on ways. Actually, he might have a putative reason for being at the lab or wherever, but that reason is really just an excuse for lurking.
“There’s also an element of “what? You vain, wicked girl, do you really imagine that you’re so attractive that someone would stalk you? You sure are full of yourself, aren’t you?†There are so many forces that tell women to doubt themselves, to trust that a creepy-acting man doesn’t really mean them harm.”
Yeah, I’ve had a lot of encounters with “creepy”/”stalkerish” men where I’d try to brush it off as them just being benign by saying to myself, “Oh come on! Don’t flatter yourself, it’s probably nothing”, coupled with the fact that I didn’t want to “RUIN ANYBODIES LIEF FOREVAR~!!” by saying anything about it, because I’d end up feeling bad/guilty FOR TEH POOR MENZ.
BTW, due to the fact that most of the creeps were less “conventionally attractive” then me (and I’m pretty LOW on the hotness totem poll…probably around the bottom, and I’m fat), I’m becoming more comfortable calling out the creeptitude for what it is.
What’s up with the “TEH POOR MENZ”? I find it dismissive, insulting and grating.
FWC certainly could put her finger on specific ways that student x behaved very creepy and I think good for her that she reported him. From what she described student x’s ways were neither subtle nor hard-to-put-your-finger-on. She got no reason in my book to feel guilty about what the administration decided to do with him.
One criticism about the misuse of creep is that less attractive men tends to get this label moreso than attractive men – even for the same behaviour. So if one tends to only apply this label to less attractive men one might want to examine if this bias plays a part – because being ugly is not what makes a man dangerous and letting that be a large predictor can be dangerous for the woman as well as unfair for the not so good looking fellows.
But Tamen, I can haz feminism speech is soooooo in these days.
Not at “I Blame the Patriarchy,” however, where “I can haz feminism,” baby talk (teh poor widdle menz), and, of course, ellipses, result in automatic comment filtering/deletion. All commenters are encouraged to proceed from within a rigorous framework of excellent articulation and thorough theoretical grounding in the concepts discussed. You should check it out!
“Why? Why do men have this “rightâ€? Why is it a right for a man to offer ANY kind of judgement, positive or negative, on a woman he does not know at all?”
Wow, Yazzi, just wow.
“”Why? Why do men have this “rightâ€?
Because those are their eyes in thier bodies?
“Why is it a right for a man to offer ANY kind of judgement, positive or negative, on a woman he does not know at all?”
Because people are entitled to thier own opinions?
Or is it just certian people with you that have these rights, Yazzi?
“When there is such a huge difference between men-smiling-at-women and women-smiling-at-men — how can this “right†men have not be seen as a problem??”
What on earth are you talking about? Where are you, Saudi Arabia? Because here in the US women are licensed to smile at men, women are in fact licensed to put their hands on men….. sometimes it crosses a line, and they get excused when they shouldn’t, but humans are fallible and that’s the price we pay for it.
I Blame the Patriarchy is a terrible blog and exactly the kind of thing that drives people away from feminism. Actually, I guess I should thank them, though I don’t think that’s their intention.
Now is the time to remind commenters that this is a feminist blog, and that comments that are openly hostile to feminism (or to other feminist blogs like Twisty’s) are inappropriate. Stay on topic, folks, and the topic is NOT the failure of feminism to understand human sexuality.
[citation needed]
I mean, is there anything to this assertion other than the desperate need to believe the problem isn’t the behavior, but the stuck-up bitch complaining about it?
“I mean, is there anything to this assertion other than the desperate need to believe the problem isn’t the behavior, but the stuck-up bitch complaining about it?”
Yes, but you will have to be willing to listen to the arguments and to the experiences of men.
And I think calling Twisty Faster’s blog feminist is pretty hostile to feminism in itself.
Jim, please refrain from attacking other feminist blogs.
Hugo, your credibility and that of feminism hangs on your willingness to clall out and distance yourself from hater-mongers. It’s that simple and it is well-documented; the failure to do so is probably the commonest reason women cite for not calling themselves feminists. There’s your credibility problem. It’s really a matter of moral consistency.
I mean, is there anything to this assertion other than the desperate need to believe the problem isn’t the behavior, but the stuck-up bitch complaining about it?
Oh come on. If you don’t believe the essence of what he said, I’m sorry, but you need to get outside a little more.
Wow, the credibility of the entire feminist movement — the credibility of the idea that women are people too — depends upon whether or not Hugo Schwyzer admires or derides IBTP?
What would Susan B. Anthony say if she were alive today? All her work and that of countless other women (and men) is balancing precariously on the edge of the abyss!
But seriously, I think that the credibility of the general point of feminism — that women are people too — will survive whatever position Hugo takes on IBTP. Some feminists are too radical for your tastes, Jim, but the basic premise that women are fully human? Surely you can get behind that one. You don’t have to agree with all feminists — no feminist agrees with all other feminists — but let’s at least agree that the idea that women are human is credible!
Oh come on. If you don’t believe the essence of what he said, I’m sorry, but you need to get outside a little more.
Proof by “come on, you know I’m right.” I’m amused by the stand off
.
Seriously, though, as a general rule “unattractive people get judged more harshly than attractive people” is true for men and women alike, and I can certainly find both personal experience and citations to back that up (for example, good looking people get better jobs: http://scienceblog.com/cms/who-knew-good-looking-people-get-better-jobs-14974.html). So I’m open to the possibility that unattractive men might be more likely to be judged creeps for the same behavior, just as I’m open to the possibility that unattractive women might be more likely to be judged as clingy potential stalkers for the same behavior. But I can’t say I’ve personally observed the effect. So, in the absence of a cite, it’s not obvious to me that “men being called creeps” is an area where the “halo effect” of attractiveness operates more strongly than “men being hired for jobs.”
“Wow, the credibility of the entire feminist movement — the credibility of the idea that women are people too — depends upon whether or not Hugo Schwyzer admires or derides IBTP?”
You might try asking all your sisters who cite the misandry they see in feminism as the main reason they are uncomfortable with the lable. They are not comfortable with the man-hatred they find in feminsism, or they think they see. So yes, denouncing TF (“decrying” ? – I think you were looking for a different word – decrying means to laugh at.) is important because it is a step in restoring the egalitarian bonafides of the movement. And we need that. there is a lot of work to be done.
“What would Susan B. Anthony say if she were alive today?”
Ummm, the same racist drivel she was spouting when she demanded to know why balck veterans of the Civil War might be given the vote before rich white parasites like herself? That was her wasn’t it? If not, then some fellow traveller of hers. Credibility of the movement?
“Some feminists are too radical for your tastes, Jim, but the basic premise that women are fully human? Surely you can get behind that one. You don’t have to agree with all feminists — no feminist agrees with all other feminists — but let’s at least agree that the idea that women are human is credible!”
The radical notion that women are human beings – as if anyone in this society had ever said you weren’t – it’s this kind of histrionics and distortion that make feminists look dishonest and sloppy, the kind of dishonesty and sloppiness that make feminst scholarship so….prone to being dsicredited on examination by people outside the “discipline”. Women really deserve better than this.
There are radicals and there are radicals. A radically feminist feminist who insisted on absolute of equality of males and females would just baout be radical enough for me. But she would mavbe the entire weight of the feminist community come down on her. Those that ake this opistion get hereticated. Because back in the 80′s the movement make a Faustian deal with the patriarchy and eecided ot take advantage of all that chilvarous privilege women in this society had been enjoying, and that earlier feminsts had been decrying. and BTW this is what an old-line feminst has to dsay about that last bit:
http://daisysdeadair.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-feminist-collaboration-with-state.html
“Yazzi, while women might choose not to smile at strange men in the interest of self-protection, there is no moral rule that requires women to not smile at men.”
ha. ha. no moral rule, really? with a whole culture of victim-blaming and “women, this is how YOU can prevent YOURSELF from being RAPED” followed by ten thousand tips that have not worked for MILLIONS of women etc you’re saying there’s no moral rule? with men constantly misinterpreting and then getting pissed off when women make eye contact/polite-smile at them? no moral rule? it may not be written into law, but it sure as hell exists.
and of course men are going to look at women in all sorts of ways (i’m not stupid, i know they do that) but i don’t think it’s a “right” i think it’s a privilege. because men constantly ‘checking out’ women and rating them on their hotness (something that is far FAR more prevalent amongst men than women) is one major reason that women get pressured into “performing femininity” which is time-consuming, expensive, and creates self-hatred i.e. an example of men contributing to global misogyny.
i have no problem with ninety percent of guys being labelled creeps because that’s what they are.
i await more of your pomo bs.
Yazzi, I agree with you that male privilege leads to a dynamic that means that, functionally, there are more severe consequences for women if they behave as men do — so that, yes, while women have the legal “right” to check men out, the context in which that happens is very fraught. And most women don’t behave as freely as men, because of the potential risks.
I think something that complicates this discussion, however, is that a lot of men don’t understand how it feels to be constantly objectified. Hugo really opened my eyes when he explained that, for a lot of men, the idea of having that kind of positive reinforcement of one’s attractiveness is extremely appealing. Because it happens to rarely to men, it seems like a desired thing, an acknowledgement that the man is desirable. Whereas for most women, just being alive means feeling continually evaluated, self-conscious, and uncomfortable.
Personally, I wish men *wouldn’t* smile to acknowledge my looks (or leer, or anything). It makes me feel like public property. I’m with you that it’s something that wouldn’t happen in my feminist utopia. But I think a problem in discussion is that most men really don’t understand that being objectified constantly feels *horrible*. Most men I know think that — as long as there’s equal opportunity objectification — that all is fine. For me, I’d like to eventually move to a point where no one is objectified — male or female.
But for now, a lot of men think that equal-opportunity objectification is the goal.
All this is of course extremely heterocentric, too.
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“Personally, I wish men *wouldn’t* smile to acknowledge my looks (or leer, or anything).”
Yes, and this is not a hard distinction to make. There is a straightline smile of acknowledgement that people use with strangers – men use it with each other. It works fine with women too. There is also a general smile a man can give a women to acknowledge that she has put effort into her appearance, and it’s different from that hubba-hubba smile. The difference is the degree of intrusion. At least that’s what it feels like from the male side. I have done it as a gay man – I can’t bring the hubba-hubba smile off even as a pose – but I have never sensed the slightest displeasure – sometimes not much notice either, for that matter. Timing matters too. Leering is a sustained stare, quite different from a flicker of esthetic enjoyment at what you happen to see. It’s the same smile as when you see a particularly graceful branch in a tree or something.
The radical notion that women are human beings – as if anyone in this society had ever said you weren’t
Okay, I should have said that it’s the radical notion that women are equal human beings — and if you personally have never noticed evidence to the contrary, I invite you to check out this:
http://blog.shrub.com/archives/tekanji/2005-11-22_72
Finally, Jim, I totally get the difference between a leer and smile of appreciation. And I don’t like either of them. So if a man does “smile in appreciation” of the fact that somehow I managed to fem-bot myself up to meet the standards of Patriarchy 2K, I’m going to avoid him for the rest of the evening. I’m not going to punch him or call the cops (or even call him a creep) but it’s something with which I am not comfortable.
Why? Maybe because of this:
It’s the same smile as when you see a particularly graceful branch in a tree or something.
I’m not a graceful tree branch “or something“. And I feel like a “thing” when I’m the object of one of those smiles.
But my only point is that some women will be won by a leer, some by an appreciative smile, and some by being treated straightforwardly as equal human beings. And a guy doesn’t know what kind of woman he’s encountering. So rather than try to determine exactly what smiling strategy works for “women,” guys are better off figuring out what fits with their own code of ethics, and they’ll attract women who find that attractive (i.e. a guy who decides to go for the appreciative smile probably won’t attract Yazzi or I). You can’t win ‘em all.
And actually, just two days ago, Justice Scalia said explicitly that he doesn’t believe that women are covered under the equal protection clause of the 14th Ammendment:
http://www.callawyer.com/story.cfm?eid=913358&evid=1
… according to Scalia, when the Constitution says: nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws…
… “person” only refers to male citizens.
So yes, within the past two days, one of the most important legal minds in my country said that women are not “persons” for the purposes of equal protection.
Distortion much? He’s simply stating the fact that sex discrimination was not the explicit issue at hand when the amendment was passed. That is true. It does not mean that, for the purposes of today’s society, women are not included under that clause. Because as he says, the Constitution is interpreted through the lens of the present.
Orb, as an originalist, Scalia does in fact believe that — even in 2011 — the Constitution should be interpreted based on the intent of the original lawmakers. So yes, this means that one of the nine Supreme Court Justices is saying that there is no Constitutional guarantee of full citizenship for women, because they are not included in the word “persons” in the 14th amendment when it was originally added to the Constitution. That’s not distortion, that’s representing the originalist argument accurately.
I personally prefer the “living document” approach that you outline, but Scalia is very openly on record as an originalist, in the interview to which I linked as well as in other instances.
If you read the interview you’ll see that Scalia says:
Certainly the Constitution does not require discrimination on the basis of sex. The only issue is whether it prohibits it. It doesn’t. Nobody ever thought that that’s what it meant. Nobody ever voted for that. If the current society wants to outlaw discrimination by sex, hey we have things called legislatures, and they enact things called laws.
Unfortunately, the ERA has never stood a chance of passing, so we do not yet have laws on the books that would protect against the gender-based discrimination that Scalia believes is not addressed by the equal protection clause.