OTOH, there’s the huge confounding factor that it was shortly after I came back from Ireland to Italy, and Italians are harder to creep out than Anglo-Saxon people. Stand one metre from (say) an American and they will freak the hell out; stand one metre from an Italian and they’ll wonder whether they smell.
The example you give illustrates the difference in personal space norms between cultures, I’ll take it on your word that Italians also happen to be less easily creeped out. But the difference in personal space norms doesn’t itself indicate much about who is most easily creeped out. Trying to make a social approach and standing a more than appropriate distance away could itself be creepy (although obviously not as creepy as a personal space invasion itself.)
Neither does French, by the way, which seems to indicate some difference on how that topic is considered in different cultures.
I’m not familiar enough with gender issues in geek conventions in France to tell what forms similar concerns take here; though I do remember a girl complaining that Richard Stallman kept staring at her boobs.
The example you give illustrates the difference in personal space norms between cultures, I’ll take it on your word that Italians also happen to be less easily creeped out. But the difference in personal space norms doesn’t itself indicate much about who is most easily creeped out.
I suspect, based to the limited number of cultures I’m familiar with, that if you did cross-cultural studies you’d find that the two are correlated.
The example you give illustrates the difference in personal space norms between cultures, I’ll take it on your word that Italians also happen to be less easily creeped out. But the difference in personal space norms doesn’t itself indicate much about who is most easily creeped out. Trying to make a social approach and standing a more than appropriate distance away could itself be creepy (although obviously not as creepy as a personal space invasion itself.)
Italian doesn’t even have a good translation for creepy! (Inquietante ‘unsettling’ is close, but not quite there.) :-)
(Smiley obligatory per Poe’s Law, as some people seem to take such arguments seriously.)
Neither does French, by the way, which seems to indicate some difference on how that topic is considered in different cultures.
I’m not familiar enough with gender issues in geek conventions in France to tell what forms similar concerns take here; though I do remember a girl complaining that Richard Stallman kept staring at her boobs.
Have heard that some parts of Europe have very large problems with sexual harassment of an agressive form beyond creepyness.
I suspect, based to the limited number of cultures I’m familiar with, that if you did cross-cultural studies you’d find that the two are correlated.
That wouldn’t surprise me.