What should I do, as a man who is sensitive to seeing women and other vulnerable people being subtly harassed, when I witness it? The author of the "No Right to Be Presumed Harmless," article seems to be saying that men should intervene on behalf of women. I'm not sure I agree with that idea. For starters, he's on the right track but his philosophy seems both poorly formed and a little stubborn.

Intervening on a stranger's behalf has two problems: 1) Almost any intervention is likely to escalate the situation. 2) It invalidates the woman's self-determination and independence to solve the situation with her own resources.

Maybe I'm just sending out into the ether that if I witness harassment, I'm doing my best to fight it behind the scenes and I'm also keeping a wary eye to make sure you're safe, but I don't want to make things worse by being some White Knight jackass, either. Or maybe I'm just making up excuses to keep myself feeling safe.

In my personal and professional life I'm trying to find that balance between intervening and empowering others, so, despite resurrecting a sensitive topic, I'm also trying to make sense of something that's timely for me. Specifically, I'm in a position of leadership right now with some room to model good behavior. Yesterday I did something really cool and really subtle (basically, offered someone who was upset a cup of coffee) that deescalated a conflict at work that was noticed by my supervisors, but I don't feel like I'm a strong enough person to always know the right way to intervene or the right time.

I wouldn't want anyone to intervene unless they thought I was in physical danger. Because, as you mention, it would strike me as very "White Knight" syndrome for someone to jump in for something less than a pressing danger, and that would probably creep me out more than anything anyone could say to me.

(I'm referring specifically to random street harassment, and not other kinds).

Hang back and make sure nothing physical occurs. MAYBE say a few nice words afterwards if someone seems particularly beaten down the encounter, but really, it's not your situation to fix.

I think that in, NRtBPH, the author was referring to the specific situation when a friend, acquaintance, or collegue of yours harrasses a woman (or, really, anyone). I don't think he/she expects you to walk into any situation presuming to be the knight in shining armor.

For example, if you're walking down the street with a friend of yours, and he says to a random stranger, "Hey, hot stuff, wanna show me a good time?" then, in my mind, you would be complicit in the harrasment if you don't say, "That's rude and inappropriate."

I think if you see a woman getting harassed and she looks really uncomfortable or upset but isn't saying/doing anything about it, it might be okay for you to call out the harasser in whatever way you see fit. If a woman is getting harassed and is either piping up for herself or simply stonily ignoring it, an intervention from you could be unwanted/unneeded/escalatory.

Personally, if I was getting harassed (more than one "hey baby shake that thang" comment) and a random guy intervened with a snappy something, I'd be appreciative, but it would have to be a style of intervention that I was comfortable with and appropriate according to the rules I've made up in my head about it.

I didn't write that real gud so I hope I've made myself clear.

To elaborate my point a bit, we female feminists don't expect anyone to crusade for us, but we do expect "sensitive, feminist males" to pull their weight. Part of that weight is to speak up when something's going on that we're not comfortable with. A lot of men and women in this country were taught to deal with the opposite sex in rather destructive ways, and we're not going to change that by being silently offended.

What they've all said.

And I think Hugo's point in the article I linked was more, when you're hanging out with your male friends and they start talking shit about women, even if there are no women present, then it's part of your responsibility to tell them that kind of shit's not cool. Which I think is what tempers the "white knight" thing -- it's not that you should defend women's rights only when doing so would get you a feminist cookie from a woman, it's something you should be doing at all times.

(Just as white people should be calling each other out on their racism, whether or not people of color hear the racist comment; or straight people should be calling each other out on their homophobia, whether or not a gay or lesbian person is around to hear the comment; etc.)

Another Hugo Schwyzer post that explains more of what he suggests, I think.

One of the best ways I ever saw this solved was at a train station in Baltimore. A creepy guy was haranguing a couple of girls who didn't seem like they spoke much English. A random college age guy suddenly turned around and snapped "Dude that is fucking OFFENSIVE and I hope those girls kick your nuts off for it." He said it loudly, from across the platform, and it got everyone's attention. Creep realised everyone was staring at him and vanished.

Sometimes that level of contempt / public humiliation is the only thing that works, and granted this was a fairly unique case of an extreme social imbalance in action - both girls appeared to be Middle Eastern, possibly Muslim, and may not have been well socially equipped TO speak up for themselves. Was the kid right to speak up in their behalf? Probably, and in my unbiassed opinion, definitely. It also seemed like the harrassment was in the process of escalating, and I was tempted to speak up myself, but hey, I'm just another bitch.

What I have done, is just sorta linger in the area for a bit. I have done this a couple times, and it's mellowed a couple situations out.

If my presence was commented on, I have no idea what I would do then, though.

> For example, if you're walking down the street with a friend of yours, and he
> says to a random stranger, "Hey, hot stuff, wanna show me a good time?" then,
> in my mind, you would be complicit in the harrasment if you don't say, "That's
> rude and inappropriate."

I guess I'm also thinking along the lines of, a witness of oppression is also oppressed. One cause of child abuse is when children are witnesses to the abuse of others in the home. So, as an observer I feel harmed and helpless and I'm not sure how to deal with those feelings productively. Other observers in the situation are also harmed. (Say, other women or girls internalizing witnessed oppression, or young men internalizing the inappropriate behavior.) In this way, the power of the perpetrator is magnified.

Meanwhile, my power as a change agent is diminished if I limit my ability to make change to merely my close acquaintances. Because, eventually, they will either change or they will refuse to change and I will have to set boundaries: i.e. "Everytime we're together, I feel very uncomfortable because you are acting inappropriately to women. I don't want to associate with people who do this, so if you want to hang out with me, then you'll have to stop. If you don't stop this behavior, which is harmful to me and others around us, then I will have to choose to spend less time with you."

In any event, I don't have any friends who are so outwardly nasty and I really wouldn't want to spend any time with anyone who is. If anything, I spend the most time with people who split hairs about what is and what is not privilege and oppression.

It seems like the resolution is to always be reaching out to new people indiscriminately and touching people's lives in order to make change. That's a huge, lifelong act to undertake, compared to how perpetrators need to do so little to undermine it. It also goes against my nature as an introvert.

As far as practical solutions go, has anybody ever tried the, "Do you have the time/a light/directions to the gas station?" approach? How might that play out? Would that ever be appropriate/inappropriate?

Skwirl you may also be effective just as a witness. At a bus stop, walking down the street, someplace where people are "out in the open" so to speak. I've found sometimes when people are being jerks -- I work at a high school so there is a lot of boy/girl hijinks that sometimes seems to be crossing the line into "hey I don't like that!" territory, I just sort of stand around, as an adult, and keep an eye on things. If I think the person who is being aggressive may have a sense of humor or is at least not a total crazy person I may pointedly stare and/or say "um..."

For me it took a really long time to realize that, in many situations, I AM the adult, ridiculous as it sounds to me and that I have a responsibility to people who aren't as well-equipped, to help people out in a jam. This can be just giving someone a ride home from school, saying "it's okay you can go in there" or loitering if they're in a situation that seems not entirely under control.

That's good advice, too. I've actually gotten myself out of a potentially dangerous situation by pointing out all the eyeballs nearby.

Along the lines of what jessamyn is saying, when I get harassed on the street my major reactions are fear and humiliation. The fear abates if there are other seemingly-harmless people around that I think would respond if I needed to yell for help. The humiliation abates if I feel like the people around have mentally taken my side, that they think the harasser is out of line and that they aren't now mentally fucking me too -- and I mean that literally.

What I hate about being harassed is that it takes me out of the role of "effective adult" and thrusts me into the role of "fuckable object" and it's like those recurring dreams where you're naked in public. Seeing sympathetic faces in my direction, or pissed-off or disgusted faces in the harasser's direction, shifts that dynamic into something more manageable.

Having other strange men approach me and try to *start* a conversation would keep the dynamic going in an unmanageable way. I think. Maybe there's a way to do it without making a woman feel further invaded, but I'm not picturing one just now. And if you meant approaching the harasser and distracting him with an innocent earnest question, then I think that would probably make me feel like you were taking his side.

I guess in the end, what I wish is that there was far more gender-nonspecific open contempt and hostility towards this sort of behaviour in society, rather than the typical passive aggression, uncomfortable silent IGNORE IGNORE I CAN'T HEAR YOU response. I'm good at sticking up for myself (hey, I was a bike messenger; I've kicked my fair share of fenders...) but I also wouldn't take it amiss or get all selfrighteous if some random PERSON (gender very not important) reacted in the same fashion as college kid did for those girls in that train station.

I mean hell, when this stuff goes down in public, even if everyone in the area were to simply turn around and face the perpetrator with an openly hostile glare? How much you wanna bet he'd fuck off, and fast? No one would even have to say anything.

The reason this shit gets done, bottom line, is that these assholes know they can get away with it.

Gah. Again.


The fact is, it's so hard. I enforce in my house - no hate speech. When I'm out and about, or in someone else's house, it's much much harder. And I dwell after when I'm silent on stuff. Shouldn't I have said something? It's awful.

Skwirl, you seem to have a really good, strong take on stuff. It's ok that it's hard.

Late, but here, fwiw: Enlightened or Helping witness

It seems like the resolution is to always be reaching out to new people indiscriminately and touching people's lives in order to make change. That's a huge, lifelong act to undertake, compared to how perpetrators need to do so little to undermine it. It also goes against my nature as an introvert.

It's true that this is a big responsibility. Taking it on will be harder because you're introverted. Would you rather take on the responsibility or neglect it? It's up to you.

Every person answers this question through their actions. Nobody avoids it. We're grown up.

Abusers need role models to reform their actions as individuals, but they also need social interactions that reform their ideas of what a society is. You role may be to be the role model (what I think you think of when you say "change agent"), but it may be to act with other strangers in creating public social interactions which show abusers what society really is. Namely, we're saying that in society it's members aren't harmed.

That having been said, the kind of change agents it seems you refer to should be professionals.

I hope that makes sense. I'm under the weather a bit.

Finally, determining the principles under which you will act and determining how you will act are two separate and equally difficult projects.

This essay deals with white privilege, rather than male privilege, but I like his emphasis on the systemic issues rather than on individual acts. I also like his comment, "My thought is that power can be interrupted either by giving it up or by using power to confront it. Both seem like they might help in different situations."

Which leaves us with four choices for disrupting power: Giving up power in an individual act, giving up power in a system, wielding power in an individual act, wielding power in a system.

Your question (though not necessarily your overall philosophy; I don't know enough on that to comment) seems to be focused on wielding power in an individual act. But perhaps it would be more helpful, in the grand scheme, to give up power in both individual and systemic ways on this particular issue?

I feel the largest barrier to stopping harassment on the streets is that men, in general, don't believe women who talk about it. I find that more frustrating than random comments from cretins. So perhaps your role in this issue is giving up power by ceding the expert role to women, in both individual circumstances (like MeCha threads) and on a systemic level (by challenging men who don't believe women).

You may already be doing this, and I don't mean to suggest you're not. But your framing of the question brings in the White Knight thing, I think, because it's focused on wielding power rather than relinquishing it. And, obviously, there are places in which wielding the power that comes from your privilege is appropriate (and, really, challenging men to listen to women is both yielding your power to the women and wielding your power over men).

I don't think you necessarily need to take it on yourself to go out and change everyone, and I guess I'm challenging you to think about why you're assuming that's the most helpful thing you can do. And obviously, that's how privilege works, by giving you power, and of course it's appropriate to use it in helpful ways sometimes. But think about the flip side of the coin, too.