There’s high-status creeping too (like someone putting an arm round someone who doesn’t want him to). This can be very bad for the creepee—the high status means that complaints to the group are likely to be dismissed as oversensitivity or whining.
It’s a natural human tendency to let high-status people get away with things, but I don’t think it’s so immutable that a group can’t develop a culture that reduces the damage.
And if you are the creep, there’s at least a chance that you didn’t mean to be and that you’re willing to modify your behaviour in ways that have large advantages for the creepee and only small disadvantages for you.
If male creepiness is contributing to the gender imbalance on LessWrong, I would expect high-status creepiness to be far more problematic than low-status creepiness. In a social setting, it’s a lot easier to call a low-status member out for being creepy. If a high-status member is being creepy, a newcomer might prefer to leave than to confront him/her or complain about his/her behavior to the rest of the group. Alternatively, if the newcomer does complain about the high-status member, he/she might be scoffed at by the rest of the group, who likes that individual.
Status gets wonky here, though, and online in general. One’s status doesn’t readily translate from one’s RL social network to the internet (celebrities are an obvious exception here), and the cultural makeup of the group’s members, in addition to the social norms they propagate within the group itself, will go a long way toward determining relative status.
It’s one thing if you’re talking Eliezer or Alicorn, but the run-of-the-mill LW member probably fits into this situation. Hence, we don’t need to necessarily see creepy behavior among the highest-status folks here, for it to nevertheless be a widespread norm that affects gender ratios on the site. (Frankly, all sorts of communities, online and off, encounter this in some form).
There’s high-status creeping too (like someone putting an arm round someone who doesn’t want him to).
Yes, but if you’re high-status, a much higher fraction of people do want (or are okay with) your arm around them, and so the GP is right that status affects the probability of triggering the creep classifier.
True, but it’s also entirely possible to want behavior X from person Y and still find it creepy when Y actually does X, depending on how and in what context they do it. Creepiness is often about those details.
That still wouldn’t justify the unhelpful, over-general warning of “don’t do X”, stripped of the specific (correctly-diagnosed) “how and in what context” caveats.
For at least some X’s, the real warning is not “don’t do X, ever.” It’s: “if you do X, you are responsible for anyone being creeped out by X. You might get away with it, depending on how considerate, socially aware, or charismatic you are—just don’t complain if you get it wrong and we have to kick you out so that people can feel safe and comfortable.”
AFAICT, there’s nothing wrong with this rule: in fact, it is close to optimal for the purposes of LW meetups.
Pretty much this. Also, the advice being given might more accurately be “you don’t do X, because you obviously don’t know how to judge the context and details and are therefore very likely to get it wrong”. Except, if someone actually says that, the person it’s being said to is liable to try to rope them into explaining the context-and-details thing, which 1) is very complicated, to the point where explaining it is a major project and 2) most people can’t articulate, so that’s awkward if it happens. Also, it’s often true that once a person does learn how to judge the context and details properly (on their own, generally speaking, by observation and reading many things on the topic), they will then be able to see what they were doing wrong before and how to avoid that mistake, and conclude that they can try again regardless of previous advice.
Most of what I just said isn’t relevant to meetup groups, though; bogus’ angle is much more relevant there.
For better or worse, creepiness is socially defined. WIthin a social group, most people don’t secretly resent high-status people, by definition. If only one person has a problem with it, that’s not being creepy, that’s “he’s being charming and you have a problem.”
It only becomes “creepy” when you come to LW or a group of sympathetic friends and the local balance of power shifts in your favor.
If only one person in a group is allergic to my aftershave, they are allergic to my aftershave. If only one person in a group finds my voice intolerable, they find my voice intolerable. If only one person in a group finds my behavior disturbing or frightening or alienating, they find my behavior disturbing or frightening or alienating.
Yes, that person has a problem. And the question is, what are we going to do about that problem, if anything?
The notion that because they have a problem, we therefore ought not do anything, strikes me as bizarre. It’s precisely because they have a problem that the question even arises; if they didn’t have a problem, there would be no reason to even discuss it.
So, OK. If my behavior frightens or disturbs or alienates you, or my aftershave causes you an allergic reaction, or whatever, you have a problem.The question is, what happens next?
I might decide I care about your problem, and take steps to alleviate it. Or I might decide I don’t care about your problem, and go on doing what I was doing. Or somewhere in between.
You might similarly decide to alleviate your own problem, or decide to ignore it, or something in between. Third parties might, similarly, decide they care about your problem to various degrees, or they might not.
This is not independent of status—if you’re a high-status member of the group, I might care about your problem because of your status; if you’re a low-status member I might not-care about your problem because of your status; if I’m a high-status member third parties might not-care about your problem because of my status, and so forth.
But it’s not equivalent to status, either—if we come from a culture where acknowledging the existence of body odor is taboo, the fact that you have a problem with my body odor might get ignored even if we’re all of equal status, or even if you’re higher status than I am. (Of course, you might then claim a different problem you don’t actually have in order to solve your real problem in a socially acceptable way.)
Similarly, it’s not independent of the size of the affected group, but it’s not equivalent to it either.
If only one person has a problem with it, that’s not being creepy, that’s “he’s being charming and you have a problem.”
And that, folks, is one of the ways that the ~6% of educated males (according to one study, anyway) who are rapists get to do their thing: by being “charming” to everyone but their target, so the target is isolated and feels she has nobody to turn to.
FYI: If one person in my meetup group has a problem with Person X touching them when they don’t want him/her to, I have a problem with Person X, too.
People behave differently in different social contexts, though. If person Y finds person X’s behavior creepy, and no one else finds person X’s behavior creepy, it could be that X is behaving differently towards Y than he/she is towards everyone else.
Obviously, this is relevant to the gender situation, where person X is male and behaves differently towards females than he does towards males.
It’s socially influenced, but you’re being a bit too status-deterministic about it. Take the example of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s (probably true but not prosecuted) rape allegation. Beforehand, he was as high-status as a man can get in the United States, and a vast majority of American women who knew who he was would have found him attractive. Afterward, he seems to have regained much of his status among male Steeler fans, but he has the unmistakable tag of “creepy” (to say the least) among women who follow football.
Since it’s very low-cost to stop touching someone who doesn’t like it, compared to the cost of enduring it, a group where it’s considered “creepy” is a better group.
I’m confused by your argument. Where I live, the visibly religious are high status. Does that mean I can’t resent a religious person’s treatment of me? That’s a strange definition of high-status.
There’s high-status creeping too (like someone putting an arm round someone who doesn’t want him to). This can be very bad for the creepee—the high status means that complaints to the group are likely to be dismissed as oversensitivity or whining.
It’s a natural human tendency to let high-status people get away with things, but I don’t think it’s so immutable that a group can’t develop a culture that reduces the damage.
And if you are the creep, there’s at least a chance that you didn’t mean to be and that you’re willing to modify your behaviour in ways that have large advantages for the creepee and only small disadvantages for you.
If male creepiness is contributing to the gender imbalance on LessWrong, I would expect high-status creepiness to be far more problematic than low-status creepiness. In a social setting, it’s a lot easier to call a low-status member out for being creepy. If a high-status member is being creepy, a newcomer might prefer to leave than to confront him/her or complain about his/her behavior to the rest of the group. Alternatively, if the newcomer does complain about the high-status member, he/she might be scoffed at by the rest of the group, who likes that individual.
Status gets wonky here, though, and online in general. One’s status doesn’t readily translate from one’s RL social network to the internet (celebrities are an obvious exception here), and the cultural makeup of the group’s members, in addition to the social norms they propagate within the group itself, will go a long way toward determining relative status.
It’s one thing if you’re talking Eliezer or Alicorn, but the run-of-the-mill LW member probably fits into this situation. Hence, we don’t need to necessarily see creepy behavior among the highest-status folks here, for it to nevertheless be a widespread norm that affects gender ratios on the site. (Frankly, all sorts of communities, online and off, encounter this in some form).
Yes, but if you’re high-status, a much higher fraction of people do want (or are okay with) your arm around them, and so the GP is right that status affects the probability of triggering the creep classifier.
True, but it’s also entirely possible to want behavior X from person Y and still find it creepy when Y actually does X, depending on how and in what context they do it. Creepiness is often about those details.
That still wouldn’t justify the unhelpful, over-general warning of “don’t do X”, stripped of the specific (correctly-diagnosed) “how and in what context” caveats.
For at least some X’s, the real warning is not “don’t do X, ever.” It’s: “if you do X, you are responsible for anyone being creeped out by X. You might get away with it, depending on how considerate, socially aware, or charismatic you are—just don’t complain if you get it wrong and we have to kick you out so that people can feel safe and comfortable.”
AFAICT, there’s nothing wrong with this rule: in fact, it is close to optimal for the purposes of LW meetups.
Pretty much this. Also, the advice being given might more accurately be “you don’t do X, because you obviously don’t know how to judge the context and details and are therefore very likely to get it wrong”. Except, if someone actually says that, the person it’s being said to is liable to try to rope them into explaining the context-and-details thing, which 1) is very complicated, to the point where explaining it is a major project and 2) most people can’t articulate, so that’s awkward if it happens. Also, it’s often true that once a person does learn how to judge the context and details properly (on their own, generally speaking, by observation and reading many things on the topic), they will then be able to see what they were doing wrong before and how to avoid that mistake, and conclude that they can try again regardless of previous advice.
Most of what I just said isn’t relevant to meetup groups, though; bogus’ angle is much more relevant there.
For better or worse, creepiness is socially defined. WIthin a social group, most people don’t secretly resent high-status people, by definition. If only one person has a problem with it, that’s not being creepy, that’s “he’s being charming and you have a problem.”
It only becomes “creepy” when you come to LW or a group of sympathetic friends and the local balance of power shifts in your favor.
If only one person in a group is allergic to my aftershave, they are allergic to my aftershave.
If only one person in a group finds my voice intolerable, they find my voice intolerable.
If only one person in a group finds my behavior disturbing or frightening or alienating, they find my behavior disturbing or frightening or alienating.
Yes, that person has a problem.
And the question is, what are we going to do about that problem, if anything?
The notion that because they have a problem, we therefore ought not do anything, strikes me as bizarre. It’s precisely because they have a problem that the question even arises; if they didn’t have a problem, there would be no reason to even discuss it.
So, OK. If my behavior frightens or disturbs or alienates you, or my aftershave causes you an allergic reaction, or whatever, you have a problem.The question is, what happens next?
I might decide I care about your problem, and take steps to alleviate it.
Or I might decide I don’t care about your problem, and go on doing what I was doing.
Or somewhere in between.
You might similarly decide to alleviate your own problem, or decide to ignore it, or something in between.
Third parties might, similarly, decide they care about your problem to various degrees, or they might not.
This is not independent of status—if you’re a high-status member of the group, I might care about your problem because of your status; if you’re a low-status member I might not-care about your problem because of your status; if I’m a high-status member third parties might not-care about your problem because of my status, and so forth.
But it’s not equivalent to status, either—if we come from a culture where acknowledging the existence of body odor is taboo, the fact that you have a problem with my body odor might get ignored even if we’re all of equal status, or even if you’re higher status than I am. (Of course, you might then claim a different problem you don’t actually have in order to solve your real problem in a socially acceptable way.)
Similarly, it’s not independent of the size of the affected group, but it’s not equivalent to it either.
And that, folks, is one of the ways that the ~6% of educated males (according to one study, anyway) who are rapists get to do their thing: by being “charming” to everyone but their target, so the target is isolated and feels she has nobody to turn to.
FYI: If one person in my meetup group has a problem with Person X touching them when they don’t want him/her to, I have a problem with Person X, too.
People behave differently in different social contexts, though. If person Y finds person X’s behavior creepy, and no one else finds person X’s behavior creepy, it could be that X is behaving differently towards Y than he/she is towards everyone else.
Obviously, this is relevant to the gender situation, where person X is male and behaves differently towards females than he does towards males.
It’s socially influenced, but you’re being a bit too status-deterministic about it. Take the example of Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s (probably true but not prosecuted) rape allegation. Beforehand, he was as high-status as a man can get in the United States, and a vast majority of American women who knew who he was would have found him attractive. Afterward, he seems to have regained much of his status among male Steeler fans, but he has the unmistakable tag of “creepy” (to say the least) among women who follow football.
Since it’s very low-cost to stop touching someone who doesn’t like it, compared to the cost of enduring it, a group where it’s considered “creepy” is a better group.
That certainly isn’t true by definition and it isn’t even always true in practice. “It’s better to be feared than to be loved”, etc.
(The rest of your comment seems more or less accurate as a description of how social power and moralizing works.)
I’m confused by your argument. Where I live, the visibly religious are high status. Does that mean I can’t resent a religious person’s treatment of me? That’s a strange definition of high-status.