The Art Of Not Asking Why

Girl on the Net (I will call her GOTN moving forward) wrote about the Cornell rape allegations. There’s plenty to read on her website and in the Wikipedia page if you want the details — it’s unfortunately a familiar story in American colleges.

What moved me to think was this part:

Far harder to start an awkward conversation. One-on-one or in the group chat with your guy friends. Somewhere there aren’t any women to show off to.

Yeah. I know exactly what she’s talking about. I’m an IT guy. I work with IT folks who are still about 90% men, and yes, I’ve heard some messed-up things. I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Sexist jokes happen because sex happens, and some people are less mature than others. Some are just trying to break the ice, or be “one of the guys,” or god knows what. It doesn’t matter. Some of the things I’ve heard made me cringe, and I knew they were wrong the moment I heard them. I didn’t do anything and just moved on.

The why is easy to answer. The people who said the cringy things are people I work with day in and day out. These are people I rely on. Some are my friends at work. Standing up and saying something won’t just be awkward, it would be a showstopper. It would derail a whole meeting that is otherwise important, and it might scare these people off from talking to me openly again, because “I can’t take a joke” or whatever. It wouldn’t be an understatement to say that it would damage my job.

The other part of rape culture GOTN talks about in this post is the hero flaw: men wait to be heroes and stop the evil villain who is about to do something “rapeful” to an innocent poor woman, and they will swoop in to save the day, just like in the movies. Obviously, this doesn’t usually happen, so if you’re waiting on this, you’re probably not going to do anything in the end.

Thing is, if something like this happened around me, I’m not sure I’d be able to act. I’m not a big guy; I’m a lifelong geek who was bullied in school growing up (worth mentioning here while we’re on the topic that one of the most persistent bullies was a girl). But reality is not a fantasy, and I know similar situations from my past when I had to do something, and I did. And it was probably as remote from being a hero as you could imagine.

It’s scary, and you need to fight against your instinct on both counts. Your instinct tells you to shut up, laugh along, or move to another car—There is no hero instinct¹.

GOTN and probably others who read this post would say it’s nothing and doesn’t really help, and they are probably right. I’d just like to say it doesn’t help enough. It’s something. I had her article saved for two weeks and it was something I wasn’t sure I wanted to write about. I could have just shrugged and move on, but I didn’t at the end. And even though I don’t think folks would believe me if I say it’s not about guilt, I’ll say it anyway. It’s not about guilt. It’s just something worth saying that needs to be said.

Maybe I can’t be as obnoxious as GOTN would like me to be. After all, my connections at work are very important to me (as a manager, that’s often what gets stuff done). But her post made me think, and I might be able to do something more next time. Maybe, if you read all the way to this point, you would also. And while it’s not enough — it’s something.