Comment by deltarholamda
2 days ago
What if "he cornered me in the elevator" was actually "he talked to me while we were alone together in the elevator, but I have background trauma that made this extremely uncomfortable for me".
That's the point I was trying to make. One person's interpretation can be wildly different than another's interpretation of the same event. If we are going to assign preference to the interpretation that is the most damaging to both parties involved--she is traumatized, he is fired--then perhaps it is better to completely separate the sexes.
But has this ever in the history of time happened? In the "elevatorgate" scandal you're referencing here:
* The guy _followed_ her onto the elevator.
* The guy explicitly invited her to his room for a 4 AM coffee.
* She didn't identify the guy at all, just mentioned this as an offhand example of something it would be nice for men to avoid doing.
Inviting a person for sex is not harassment unless you keep doing it to a person who told you no, or its done from a position of power, but "elevatorgate" was neither of those.
Women who don't want that sex of course will tell you to stop, but other women who do want that sex will tell you to do it more and that men are too reserved. Men can't read minds so women will just keep having to say no.
Again, "elevatorgate" wasn't anything! A woman discussed one particular elevator proposition that she didn't appreciate. She didn't name and shame the guy who did it, she didn't say that people who do such things ought to be cancelled; she just said that she, personally, thinks it would be nice if guys didn't do it. The original source of the controversy was Internet commentators who were outraged at the idea that there might be a tradeoff between maximizing romantic overtures towards people who might be interested and maximizing your reputation among people who aren't interested.
(Many of those commentators then went on to exaggerate or outright lie about what the original story was, and I wonder whether it wasn't one of those distorted versions you heard, since you seem to agree that it's reasonable for someone to decide they personally don't like this kind of thing.)