How Not To Be "That Guy"

[coraa]

I was going to shut up about this now, but this is too useful and true and excellent not to share.

From synecdochic, Don't Be That Guy. Where That Guy is the guy who sets off women's creepdar (and often rightly so). How to recognize what behaviors you might have that make you look like an entitled creep, how not to do them, and how to back up women who are encountering them without making yourself creepy in the process. Covers such topics as I-deserve-your-attention entitlement, but-I'm-a-feminist-so-I-deserve-some-tail-too entitlement, why "no" doesn't mean "maybe" and why you might think it does, why you may want to avoid being a Man Who Explains Things, why it's okay to fuck up but not okay to get dismissive, and why "men can be raped, too!" is a non-starter of an argument.

Yeah, these aren't creepiness flags that Every Woman Everywhere find creepy -- but I can tell you that they're dead-on accurate for me, at least, and I know I'm not the only one.

Also, as a follow-up to the Back Each Other Up pledge, via shaysdays, a post on how women can back up or 'rescue' other women without putting themselves in a dangerous situation (as might happen if they confront a creeptastic guy directly), and also on how to spot body language that means 'I do not want to talk to this guy or even look at him but I'm too polite and/or frightened to actually say so or walk away.'

Most of the how-to-back-up tips there are more appropriate for women rescuing women (the body-language tips are generally applicable) -- it's trickier for men to do so, because so many women (including me!) have had one of two bad experiences. Either a guy tries to 'rescue' me in a way that's actually alpha male posturing, faux-chivalric 'I shall rescue you and then surely you will bestow a kiss upon your knight' stuff, which is ew. You shouldn't try to get a woman away from a creep so that she'll pay attention to you instead. OR: guys leaping straight into trying to Solve The Problem and chase the other guy away before they even determine that I want to be rescued -- at which point it gets directly into I Know Better Than You, Helpless Female territory. synechdochic's suggestion for how a guy can back up a woman is brilliant: he should join the conversation and start talking to the guy, thus providing a distraction and allowing the woman to more easily make her excuses and escape. That way, if she was enjoying talking to potential-creep, she can continue, and if she wants to get away, she can.

At some point I'm going to pull together my post on Hugs Of Inappropriate Length (kind of like the more gropetastic cousin to Rodents Of Unusual Size), but not today. Today I'm making earrings and writing a story.

Comments

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Mm. On the one hand, yes, your opinions shouldn't be dismissed out of hand, certainly. On the other hand, I do think that in general, when dealing with situations where one person is privileged and the other is not, the privileged person should make more of an effort to listen and less to talk, because, as a factor of being privileged, we (and I say we because I'm privileged along every vector except gender, so this is true for me when it comes to race, class, etc) already get to do most of the talking.

Maybe "you don't get it" would be more usefully phrased as "listen to me for a minute before you start to argue."

[marvinalone.livejournal.com]

I talked to a friend about this thread, and she said that I can't just reply to the posts I disagree with, I also need to say when I agree. That makes sense to me. So here I am, saying "Yes, you are right. More listening would be a good thing!".

[coraa.livejournal.com]

Yay!

More listening all 'round.