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Saturday, December 15, 2018

Post #3914 M: Unintended Consequences of the MeToo Movement; Pro-Liberty Legislators

Quote of the Day

Everyone takes the limits of his own vision 
for the limits of the world. 
Arthur Schopenhauer  

The #MeToo Movement Results in Risk Mitigation Strategies

As a single white male in academia and then as a high tech professional, I've always been very wary of meeting with female colleagues, students, or supervisors one on one, of doing or saying the wrong thing, to be accused of leering itself. I've never said or written anything of a sexually suggestive nature, I required my office door to be open whenever a coed visited my office while working in academia. I've never dated a student or female colleague or supervisor. There have been a handful of times I did try to ask out a former student or a work colleague, but it didn't happen (they weren't interested and it stopped there): in fact, my job was threatened twice after unsuccessful attempts (one manager had a strict nepotism policy and had fired his receptionist when she married a fellow programmer/analyst). Most guys have felt the disappointment of rejection: just imagine how it feels to have your colleagues and management learn of the rejection.

In the other case, the woman claimed that I had been badgering her for dates, refusing to take no for an answer. This was a blatant lie. I only tried to ask her out twice, months apart, and I asked her to lunch at the building cafeteria. The first time she said she had a boyfriend, she was hoping for a marriage proposal; I said something like "Well, if I'm not your type, I won't ask you again." And she said--this is verbatim, "No, I would like to keep my options open." Now, ladies, if you're not interested, don't say something like that; it sends out a mixed message. I was giving her an easy out. I didn't know if and when I should ask again; maybe I should have waited for her to make the next move. I didn't have her personal contact information. She worked in another row of cubicles at work, and we didn't work together on any project or work assignment (she basically worked as a sales associate, and I was a DBA; we basically supported the same major client, but it ended there). I never approached her for over 2 months; if we saw each other it was only like passing each other in the hallways, etc.

To this day, I don't know what happened. All she had to do to my lunch invitation is say, "No, thank you, and please don't ask again. I'm not interested." No, she was out to get me fired. Don't ask me her motivation; maybe I was her scapegoat for her boyfriend not proposing over the Christmas break. I would later find a predated typewritten letter left at my desk, warning me that she had reached the end of her patience with my attempting to badger her into a date, and she would file a complaint with management the next time it happened. This had no basis in reality; it was a total fabrication, meant to frame me/document her frivolous complaint with HR. What she did was evil, pure and simple. I am not a psychologist; I can't explain her behavior. This incident, of course, killed any interest I had in her, and she was terminated while I was working in Brazil some 6-7 months later: good riddance. (I didn't have anything to do with it, but I do recall one day she had done something at the client site that had prompted our boss to get paged over the intercom several times over a half hour). For some odd reason after my return, an executive secretary gave me purported contact information on a sticky note. I didn't know why--maybe they wanted to see if I would make an attempt to contact her; the last thing I heard was a rumor she was going to get a Master's in psychology. Well, good for her: at least she would finally be seeing a psychologist. I tossed the sticky note on my way out of the building.

So when the MeToo movement insists women (alleged victims) do not lie, I know that's bullshit, because it happened to me, and I'm like the nicest guy you would ever meet. I even worried about making an attempt for a first kiss with the girls or women I've dated.  I'm not in a state of denial that there are real female victims out there, but the idea that women are incapable of lying, including about sexual misconduct, is patently absurd. We already know about convicted rapists who later got their convictions overturned on DNA evidence.

I was always the least likely person to engage in sexual harassment. I graduated high school at 16, started on my first Master's degree at 19, never had a car until I was 22. I was a shy, socially inexperienced geek (at least one former girlfriend laughs at the shyness claim), and at least two gorgeous coeds made the first move while I was in undergraduate school, not that I ever considered myself  God's gift to women.



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Ronald A Guillemette
Ronald A Guillemette Lucas Patenaude Only a Statist would think it's appropriate to celebrate one of their own at the expense of taxpayers or consumers.













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