‘Everyone’ is commenting Monica Byrne’s revelation that Bora Z was the scientist whose behavior was discussed in her October 9, 2012 post about ambiguous harassment. I thought my bit.
Oddly, my bit is not about the harassment itself, but about
Andrew Maynard’s post discussing why he pro-actively emailed Monica requesting Monica not name Bora in her post. There is one particular feature of his self-justifying post that I’d like to highlight. The quotes are below:
But naming and shaming in a way that is likely to damage lives and reputations in ever increasing circles without the moderating influence of due process and what some might consider appropriate channels worries me.
I also have what is probably a naive belief that there are ways of addressing important issues that are effective at reaching resolution without significant collateral damage.
At Roger Pielke’s he writes
I also have what is probably a naive belief that there are ways of addressing important issues that are effective at reaching resolution without significant collateral damage.
…
Hence a personal email to raise my concerns – not from a position of authority (although Googling me would establish who I am) or through a desire to protect inappropriate behavior, but as an attempt to try and support a way toward effective resolution.
What bothers me in the above self-justifications is this: Andrew’s letter to Monica never, never, never raised the possibility of “reach[ing] a resolution” or taking any action with respect to Bora Z’s behavior. He merely suggested that she leave Bora Z’s name out of the story and the only reason he advanced for her keeping silent were to protect Bora Z’s personal and professional life and to show “compassion”.
Or maybe I’m misreading, but this is the letter:
Dear Monica,
I must confess that this is an unsolicited appeal from a total stranger about your writing, which puts me immediately into the category of interfering busybody, or worse. However, I have been watching the situation surrounding Danielle Lee’s Scientific American blog post unfold this weekend with some dismay, and after reading your update to your Oct 9 post (http://monicacatherine.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/this-happened/) this morning, I felt that the risk of looking a fool was less than that of trying to help avert a potentially serious mess regarding Bora Zivkovic and his personal and professional life.
Let me say first that I have am fully supportive of your original post – and am saddened that you had the experience, as well as recognizing the importance of making information like this available. However, I have serious concerns about naming Bora specifically on the grounds of the tremendous speculation that has spread through the internet over the weekend regarding Danielle Lee’s removed post.
Naming Bora has a reasonable likelihood of destroying his marriage, his friendships and his professional standing in this case. You may feel that this is justified. But I can’t help wondering where the bar lies for wielding a private exchange (which admittedly led to serious distress) to causing serious and widespread damage.
I have corresponded with Bora on occasion, but nave never met him in person. I have no reason to doubt your account of your meeting with him. I do know that he has been a major factor in the rise of informal science writing and web-based science communication in the US and beyond. And that he is highly respected within his community. Whether these are adequate justifications for not calling him out by name I leave with you. But I would advocate for consideration and compassion at this stage.
Yours with just a little chagrin for being such an interfering busybody
Andrew Maynard
There is absolutely nothing in this letter suggesting that any steps be taken to minimize the sorts of harms that could spring from Bora’s behavior, doing anything to remedy any harm that might have befallen Monica or initiating any activity involving “due process” in a way that might address any grievance Monica might have in a way that would “collateral damage”.
I also want to suggest that Andrew’s belief might be more “there are ways of addressing important issues” that might not involve naming Bora Z publicly might be more than a little naive in this instance.
Andrew knew that Monica had blogged about the incident over a year ago keeping Bora Z’s name out of the story. In that time, Andrew was likely unaware of the story. (FWIW: I had read the story. ) But whether he was aware of it or not, it appears that Andrews science communication community didn’t collectively slap themselves on the head, contact Monica and suggest that they all undertake some appropriate action that could be conducted “with[.] the moderating influence of due process and what some might consider appropriate channels”.
In contrast, I think Andrew was perfectly aware that naming Bora Z might actually cause something to happen. Even if hypothetically action might be possible with lesser collateral damage if Bora Z’s name was kept out of the story, it seems to have been a practical impossibility in this case. We know what happened during the year when the story was “out there” without Bora’s name attached: Bubkiss.
Oddly, I would have more respect for Andrew if he had simply said from his view nothing much really happened and so there should be no consequences for Bora Z. But in that case, there would be no need to keep Bora Z’s name out of it, would there? But this sort of mealy mouthed justification for keeping Bora Z’s name out of a story discussing Bora Z’s behavior on the grounds that maybe somehow something might be “done” while proposing nothing other than keeping Bora’s name out of the story? That’s just low.
In any case, I think different people might disagree about what consequences were appropriate for Bora Z under the circumstances. (I might suggest that I and my readers still do not have enough information to know. I exchange about others on twitter has Monica tweeting “@lucialiljegren Oh! Right. Yeah, that’s a ticking time bomb.” Given the thread at Monica’s blog post and on Twitter, I suspect that in the intervening year, she collected emails and testimonials. We’ll see what happens next.)
Monica Byrne didn’t out Bora until the 14th and I see Maynard says he emailed Monica on the morning of the 14th. Who called Maynard’s attention to Monica’s update so quickly? It’s not likely he closely follows her blog.
Maynard says he has corresponded with Bora in the past. Could it be Bora asked Maynard to intervene? I seem to remember hearing it is possible to have your name monitored so you receive notice if you get a mention somewhere on the Internet. Don’t know for sure it is true, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Bora would make use of such a service.
Bob Koss,
In some way it’s faster than that. She updated and old post, so that doesn’t show on her top page. I’ll go see if she tweeted the update…
First evidence on twitter:
https://twitter.com/kejames/status/389945850362740736
I don’t know the hour. But she didn’t link to the post uri.
On this
It is absolutely true. I think the service works quickly for blogs, twitter and news paper mentions. Otherwise, I’m not so sure.
Makes me feel like a stranger in a strange land trying to imagine Maynard’s reasoning. Ignoring the harassment aspect to simplify for a moment; a married man hits on a woman and has some reasonable expectation of confidentiality? When did that happen? What the heck is due process in such a situation? Adding the harassment element back in doesn’t brighten the picture.
I hate shooting from the hip, tend to loose toes that way, but I’m having a hard time trying to imagine what I might be missing.
That Karen James tweet was at 7.48 pm on the 14th. Even if that was UTC it would still be afternoon in Michigan where Maynard works.
Well, Bora Z resigned his position, and that seems perfectly acceptable as an outcome, especially since other harassers will likely take note. Monica’s description of his inappropriate behavior has been corroborated by another woman (a blogger) who seems to have put up with a lot more than Monica over some time… no surprise there, since this pattern is not likely to be a “once and done” thing; I suspect others may come forward.
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What I will never understand is Andrew Maynard sticking his nose into this sorry story. I mean really, how disconnected from reality (and devoid of common sense!) would someone have to be to write that email message to Monica? How can he possibly not appreciate that to protect any organization, and also to protect all the future victims, people like Bora Z absolutely must be gotten rid of? Professor Maynard probably has tenure and is essentially untouchable, which is most unfortunate.
The details in Monica Byrnes tweet indicates 7.52 am. No URL given. Timezone unknown. Is Maynard likely to be a follower? Seems doubtful to me.
I see Monica mentioned Bora friended her on Facebook which stated the whole thing off. Maybe she put the update on Facebook which Bora was monitoring.
I posted about the common date curiosity over at Roger’s blog and Maynard responded thusly.
22. Andrew Maynard said…
@Bob K – Monica updated the blog post on the 13th and tweeted under the #istandwithdnlee hashtag, connecting Bora – this is how I picked it up. She updated the header on the 14th
Maybe he found out on his own. I don’t use twitter and so don’t know how to find it.
Sorry, it’s like a splinter stuck in the back of my mind. Irritating enough that it’s hard to leave it alone, although I feel silly for bothering about it. But here it is:
I think this is the problem. Naming Bora isn’t what’s going to destroy his marriage, his friendships, and his professional standing. Bora’s behavior is what’s going to wreak havoc on those things. Maynard’s talking to the wrong person in my book.
Maybe that’ll take care of that pesky splinter…
SteveF
That’s precisely what amazes me. It’s one thing to suggest Scientific America or Science Online should have an internal investigation and learn more before firing Bora. Or to suggest people might want to wait for more details before rushing to judgement or inflict official penalties or even judge. Or to suggest any number of things.
But to suggest that Monica should keep Bora’s name out of it? Keeping Bora’s name out means that one automatically will not judge Bora, penalize him, make any judgement, have any “due process” or work toward any ‘resolution’ precisely because no one knows who the ‘accused’ is. The fact is: there can be no ‘due process’ against any anonymous ‘accused’, and to suggest the need for ‘due process’ means one can’t name Bora is just nuts.
I am reminded that Bora Z works for Scientific America whose blog did weird things with comments (see discussion about cramers comments in this post: http://rankexploits.com/musings/2012/trends-relative-to-models/#comment-106766 ). The NewYork Times quoted Bora discussing comments at Sciam. Can’t help but wonder if Bora ever used the “method of hiding troll comments from everyone but trolls.” 🙂
Bora Zivkovic has published an apology and admission of guilt on his website.
Perhaps Professor Maynard is unfamiiliar with the on-going investigations into sexual misconduct at the BBC over about 30 years from the late 60s, of which the Jimmy Saville investigations have been the most high profile, but which has also implicated a number of other former high-profile TV and radio presenters in Britain. ‘Turning a blind eye’ to the activities of one sexual predator (in Saville’s case, paedophilia and sexual exploitation of other vulnerable women, in particular hospital patients and disabled people in residential care – all under the disguise of ‘charitable good works’) led to an institutioal tolerance of other sexual offences by a numbers of ‘stars’.
It wasn’t so much Saville’s offences that have caused the BBC’s recent troubles (including the resignation of two Director Generals in the last 2 years, neither of whom were implicated by any of the investigations), but the subsequent covering up, including the relatively recent refusal to broadcast an investigation of the allegations that coincided with Saville’s death and the BBC tribute programme.
Sometimes it is best for those on the periphery to just condemn the actions of the individual and do everything they can to keep the reputation of the wider community minimally effected by the fall-out.
Carrick,
Yes. And he’s also tweeted
But many people are dubious about this claim
At least one other credible, non-anonymous woman stepped forward and said he did the same thing to her.
Scientific American is doing an investigation. So, we’ll see what happens there.
Carrick,
Another woman has come forward (worked with Bora Z) and states that his interactions with her were similarly inappropriate, if not more so….. the typical MO for such creeps. In the post you linked to he says ‘never happened before nor since’…. which seems to be, well, less than true. The guy should just never be in a position where he has any influence on people’s jobs, lest he use that influence to pressure women.
My first impression after reading the link of Monica’s account of what occurred is that this creep needed to be exposed and that I could only hope that by exposing him that it would help Monica feel less creeped-out by the situation. I think creeps like this one depend on the silence of those whom he propositions. Creep enablers add to the problem.
More on why naming is important. Here we have a blog post
http://gotsomescienceonyou.com/2013/10/17/rose-colored-glasses/
where the author (male) read the story — which named Bora. He then sent a quiet email to a younger female colleague who knew Bora and had worked with him:
While I “get” that Andrew might be worried that such an informal process lacks sufficient “due”, had Bora’s name not been mentioned, there would be no way for anyone to do formal or informal inquiries to learn any thing. No one would be discussing the story either generally, or specifically. No one would be collecting information to find out whether this is a pattern or a one time thing.
Of course Bora’s career and family life would remain unaffected by the story. Which seems to be what Andrew was worried about.
Now: I will note there is a downside to the naming of Bora. Of course at this point, even if Scientific America runs an internal investigation and reports that they find Bora only harassed these two women who complained publicly, lots of people will not believe SciAm.
Unfortunately, as a practical matter, there is no alternative. As long as Bora was unnamed, SciAm, though clearly aware of the complaint, continued to employ him in a position of power. Maybe they put in place ‘controls’ that dealt with his problems– or maybe not. These sorts of ‘controls’ are difficult to put in place or monitor– and especially so if there is a culture of silence dictating that women affected should never name names. And as long as Bora was unnamed SciAm’s reputation was unaffected by their decision to employ Bora in such a position.
Meanwhile, SciOnline, likely unaware of any complaint (owing to the informal policy that one is not supposed to ‘name’) also had Bora working in a similar position of power presumably unmonitored. (Bora voluntarily left SciOnline. Of course, that may merely mean they asked him to leave, he agreed and this is called ‘voluntarily’.)
But it is only the naming of Bora that has resulted in people sharing stories about Bora, his leaving SciOnline voluntarily and SciAm deciding to investigate and so on.
Kenneth
In fact, Monica seems to have done well establishing herself and seems perfectly happy with how things are working out for her. She just doesn’t seem to see any reason to treat this as some sort of “secret”. (And why should she?)
Based on reading her blog and tweets, it seems that at the time of “the incident”, she was pursuing various avenues for writing. Science communication was one– and the interaction with Bora sort of dissuaded her from aggressively pursuing that. But, as a recent college grad with general writing skills, she was pursuing other avenues too. She has since had some of her plays produced and has a contract with Little Brown to write book (fiction.)
There are a bunch of things one might take from that– each of which may be true to a larger or smaller extent.
Among other things, the fact that she is now (successfully it seems) pursuing plays and fiction writing means that she is ‘not in’ the science-communication network. That has several possible consequences:
(1) wtr to Andrew’s “protecting” the sci-com group– which his letter and self justification seems to highlight as important– harm to her might not ‘count’. After all, she’s not ‘in’ that group. 🙂 (That said, if she was still just trying to break in, it’s not clear the me that Andrew would have thought someone who was only a “wannabe” counted relative to an ‘established’ person like Bora.)
(2) wrt to Andrew having ‘power’ to intimidate her by sending her an email: he didn’t really have much. This is not to say he would have been aware of her current career path nor his lack of power. In fact, he tells us he didn’t put his title on the email precisely to not use his power. Though, that’s either a bit naive or disingenuous. If Monica had been in a position to worry about those in power, she likely could have googled to find out who he was.
(3) Even before Andrew wrote her, wrt to Monica anticipating harm to herself by “naming” Bora: little could come to her. She didn’t need to pitch her stuff to any Bora allies of the “sci-com” community. She’s now got a niche outside that group.
(4) wrt to evaluating the possible effect of Bora’s behavior: It may very well have dissuaded her from pursuing science communication. This is, of course, the precise harm that people attribute to the sort of behavior Bora engaged in. People treated this way will self select out to avoid this sort of treatment. That said: owing to her own talent and efforts, she seems to have landed well– but that still . . . Had things been otherwise, she might be working as a barrista at Starbucks.
https://twitter.com/KateClancy/status/390851816360927232
Reads
@Mark Bofill (Comment #120223)
“a married man hits on a woman and has some reasonable expectation of confidentiality? When did that happen?” This to me is the interesting moral issue here. As a harassment question, I don’t see any issue or any reason not to name names: someone in a position of power who does that should be outed and removed.
But a normal married man? That I find much more problematic. Leave everyone else out of the picture. A married man hits on a woman: Is she supposed to inform the wife? I have a feeling that the answer to that question is complex, and it isn’t at all the same question as “a reasonable expectation of confidentiality”. That he only has if he goes to a hooker – as that’s part of what he’s buying.
If, in some circumstances, informing the wife is not the best approach (some alternatives come to mind, many of which include threatening to inform the wife if the man doesn’t do ___), then I think it might be reasonable for a third party to tell the woman so, ask her to think about the man’s kids, etc.
“My personal life has nothing to do with my job and is none of your business – no comment.” Don’t you ever wonder why all these politicians don’t say that from the first – who would care? Why do they all destroy their careers with their incredibly incompetent damage control? My impression is that in every one of these sordid tales of initial angry denial, then slow admissions mixed with lies as the truth comes out, then tearful apologies for the sins plus the lies – the real factor driving the whole story is the man trying to keep his wife from finding out. Otherwise, “no comment” is the obvious right answer.
lucia (Comment #120237),
Here is another weird thing about this episode: Apparently Monica brought the issue to the attention of SciAmerican (Scienceonline.com), shortly after it happened, and whatever their response was, it was not the appropriate one: demote or fire the SOB, which they have only done (finally!) after their enabling became public. Perhaps Monica was indeed contacted by other women with similar experiences and that is what prompted her to name Bora, so that SciAmerican would be forced into a more appropriate response.
.
The organization gets very low marks for all of this, which, considering the bald-faced political agenda of alarm that SciAmerican promotes on global warming, at least shows consistency of poor judgement. A publication that actually was once about science has been hijacked by a bunch of political hacks; sad.
I’m looking at this partly because of what someone said over at Roger’s blog. But get this advice by Bora Z to aspiring science writers:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/incubator/2013/04/02/how-to-break-into-science-writing-using-your-blog-and-social-media-sci4hels/
Note: At the time of he wrote this, Bora Z was one of the gatekeeper editors. Also, this was written on April 2, 2013, months after Monica reported his behavior to SciAm, but months before she named him.
So he knew perfectly well that those wishing to break into scientific publishing worked as freelancers and were adviced by many– including him– to ingratiate themselves with gatekeepers, which meant him for those in Monica’s and other young aspiring journalists position.
Also, he writes
So he knows he’s a gate keeper and encourages aspiring writers to contact him for career help.
And he encourages people to pitch him
MikeR (Comment #120244)
October 17th, 2013 at 8:57 am
““My personal life has nothing to do with my job and is none of your business – no comment.†Don’t you ever wonder why all these politicians don’t say that from the first – who would care?”
MikeR, I think that when a politician or other individual in a position power uses that position in attempts to gain sexual favors it is other peoples’ business and should be used in judging his character and how that character might affect the job he does in that position.
See Lucia’s post on the creepy one’s gatekeeping.
Keeping that information hidden does no one involved a favor. We can all judge the person and if some think it does not matter so be it. And let us hear that from the person being judged.
MikeR ,
I basically agree with you. I’d note this though:
You’re coming at this from a different direction than me I think. I don’t believe a woman that has been hit on by a married man has any moral obligation to do anything about it, but she’s certainly not doing anything wrong by outing him for it either. That’s up to her discretion, convenience, whim, whatever etc. as far as I can tell.
Kenneth, I can’t really agree. “when a politician or other individual in a position power uses that position in attempts to gain sexual favors”: that could sometimes be what happens – interns in the White House come to mind – but I don’t think that’s the norm, or the default. Not necessary. The norm is that successful, powerful men are attractive to women. Such men get opportunities from women who are attracted to them. What the men do about those opportunities may be relevant to their marriages; I don’t think it is generally relevant to the jobs they do.
It’s worth mentioning that men are suckers for sexual attraction. Sad but true. I, fortunately, am not rich nor powerful, so I’ve haven’t had many problems with dozens of gorgeous women trying to trip me. And I hope I would have the fortitude to stand up to it if I did. But none of that means that it makes sense for me to stand in judgment of those men who face these challenges; it wouldn’t be easy.
Others may comment, but I have the impression that in much of the rest of the world, this is pretty much taken for granted: Rich, powerful men tend to do this stuff and no one is surprised or “disappointed in their characters”. Wives put up with it if they can.
Wonder if it’s going to be a break like the one Peter Gleick took after his document theft…
Sure sounds like old-boys club at work here to me.
“Others may comment, but I have the impression that in much of the rest of the world, this is pretty much taken for granted: Rich, powerful men tend to do this stuff and no one is surprised or “disappointed in their charactersâ€. Wives put up with it if they can.”
I am certainly not a prude, but my problem with what you say is why the need to keep this a secret. Let us hear those who engage in such behavior say openly to the world: “Look I am a powerful and/or rich guy (or use any other preferred rationale) and we tend to do stuff like this.” He might even want to add that: “My wife puts up with my behavior because she knows that that is what powerful and/or rich guys do and she wants to be married to a powerful and/or rich guy even if she is humiliated once in awhile.”
I think my point, that a man in this case being a gatekeeper is asking about sexual favors from someone he is, or at least potentially, gatekeeping, was lost on you. It is a bit different than a person in an open marriage or marriage of convenience that engages in extramarital affairs with a willing partner who is outside the power of influence of the other.
MikeR
It’s fine with me if you reserve judgement.
But that’s not the issue I’ve been discussing here. I’m not discussing what people should think of Bora nor what they should do.
The issue is whether someone like Monica is required to conceal the man’s identity or whether information about his behavior should be kept secret by fiat. Obvious, if his identity is concealed, people will not judge because they do not know. But the fact that some might advise that we not judge chose not to judge isn’t a compelling reason why the facts of behavior can’t be known nor is it any reason why someone who knows the facts cannot share them.
I think it’s just find for Monica to share his name. In this case, it sounds like sharing his name was the only way for anything to improve and for the multiple voices to come forward.
Sometimes people hold it against them; sometimes not. It depends on the individual people, the details of the story, and sometimes, whether the people who might otherwise judge wish to continue to benefit from the powerful man’s continued power.
But the fact that some people will not be ‘disappointed’ is not a good reason why the facts of the story should be concealed.
Carrick
Sure sounds like old-boys club at work here to me. Wouldn’t surprise me if that’s what’s going on. Certainly, at this point, their taking some action– even a trivial one– is the only thing that can stem the tide of any admissions that might come forward. (And in these things everyone coming forward all at once tends to be more powerful than a trickle of 1 every 2 months over a period of years.) We’ll see what happens over time.
MikeR,
“I, fortunately, am not rich nor powerful, so I’ve haven’t had many problems with dozens of gorgeous women trying to trip me.”
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Fortunate indeed. Men like David Petraeus probably envy you. Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Roosevelt, were they around, would probably share that envy. 😉
To step for a moment in a different direction,
If Maynard and Zivkovic hadn’t admitted to their actions regarding this incident, would it have been dismissed as a ‘conspiracy theory’ to suspect that individuals might be interested in discouraging injured parties from coming forward because of their concern for some larger cause? In this case, does anyone believe a conspiracy existed or was required? I certainly don’t. And yet, is there another (plausible) explanation for Maynard’s efforts, other than that he wished to discourage Bryne from injuring a cause or entity he cared about?
(afterthought: I don’t mean any of these questions to be taken rhetorically, I’m genuinely interested in the opinions of anyone who cares to answer. 🙂 )
“she’s certainly not doing anything wrong by outing him for it either. That’s up to her discretion, convenience, whim, whatever etc. as far as I can tell.” I guess replying to this comment covers some of the others as well. She may need to out him, for some of the reason Lucia mentioned. It may be a good idea to out him, for any of various reasons others mentioned. But up to her whim? I can’t accept that. What about the man’s kids? What about his wife, who probably doesn’t deserve to be publicly humiliated along with him?
Say their relationship was consensual, and then she decides to write a popular novel telling all? I have the same issue. He has no hold over her, but that doesn’t free her from the obligation to take into account the repercussions of her actions.
I don’t see why messing with other people’s lives in such a major way should ever be left to someone’s whim. Either she has a good moral argument on why it needs to be done – which she will frequently have – or she is doing wrong. First Amendment rights and all that, but it’s still immoral.
MikeR,
The man’s wife and kids are not her problem, they are the propositioning husband’s problem. If they are injured, responsibility for the injury lies with him, not her.
MikeR,
In what way is what you are arguing any different from this?
Alice commits a crime against Bob. Alice will only suffer for her crime if Bob elects that it be so. Alice has a husband and kids who depend on her, therefore Bob should not elect for Alice to be punished.
Does this misrepresent your position somehow?
The blame for the suffering of the dependents lies with Alice, doesn’t it?
Golly, people need to take responsibility for their judgment, and use a little judgment before crawling into bed with somebody! You deserve what you get in my book if you’re careless in this regard.
Re: Mark Bofill (Oct 17 14:06),
You tryin’ to mess up my sex life?
Charles,
No!
So long as you’re not propositioning me that is. I’m a married man. :p
Mark Boffil
What about them? Or are those rhetorical questions that are meant to make a point? If you think they made a point, could you tell me what it is?
As for the “who probably doesn’t deserve to be publicly humiliated along with him”, revealing his name doesn’t necessarily publicly humiliate her. And we can put this the other way around. For all you know, his catting around has put his wife at risk and only revealing his name will give her the knowledge that she needs STD testing. The man’s kids my already be suffering owing the the large amount of time he spends catting around. And their college funds are drained because he’s spending the college fund on hotel fees at “Swanky hotel for lovers” down the street.
As far as I can tell, none of these previous rhetorical questions turn my initial assessment that it’s up to the woman who was hit on to describe what happened and reveal the guys name if she so chooses. And you aren’t required to “accept” that. That’s the point of free agency of other people. You get to decide what you do; they get to decide what they do.
Well… what if? That’s a risk the guy took when he got involved at all. In most instances, if it’s a tell all book, either she or the guy were celebrities. So, the guy already took a big risk of getting caught because “The National Enquirer” and others are watching. I don’t see how that obligates the woman into silence even in the “consensual sex” situation.
What if she reveals she was the blogging prostitute turned cancer specialist? You know what: if it’s true information, that’s her call.
If your position is that you get to judge her too: Yes. In your “tell all book” example, you can judge her both for entering into a consensual relationship with married man in the first place or for spilling the beans. Or for discussing her own private consensual relations in public. You can judge her for how she spilled the beans. Possibly, since she willingly participated in the first place, you might judge her rather harshly as the mere existence of the consensual relationship which she entered into created a situation where all these harms you are worried about might arise. It’s not just the revelation here.
But obviously, she’s got the beans, she gets to use her judgement to decide whether or not to spill them. Short of blackmail, she can do pretty much what she likes and that includes spilling the beans to a blabby person during the weepy drunken stage of the break-up (which one might call a whim or accident) or writing a tell all book which might result in a financial windfall for her.
But I would also like to point out that in this specific instance, Bora hitting on Monica was not a consensual situation. It was one sided. So, the whole “consensual relationship” thing is a red herring. And I think it would have been find for Monica to spill the bean on her merest whim. Doing it injudiciously was more likely to hurt her than him– so it wise that she seems to have thought about it carefully and done it in a public way that prevented people from closing the door on her career in mysterious, quiet never admitted ways.
Mark Bofill,
What crime was committed? Is discussing sex a crime even if it’s inappropriate and creepy?
I’m told two women might discuss sex and relationships in quite graphic detail over a coffee. Two men might discuss sex, possibly from a different perspective than the women. I’ve been in mixed groups were the subject of sex has arisen and women have been active participants.
“What about the man’s kids? What about his wife, who probably doesn’t deserve to be publicly humiliated along with him?”
It sounds like you want to make the creepy one the victim here if maybe only by proxy of his family. In your words he should have perhaps explained the facts of life to his family and explained to them that he does what only powerful men do and therefore there is nothing to be humiliated about it.
I think keeping transgressions like this one to oneself is what perpetuates situations like bullying.
In elementary school I was once held by my feet out a bathroom window 2 floors up by two boys 4 years older than me. When they dragged me back in they told me that if I told anyone next time they would drop me. The first thing I did when I left the bathroom was to tell the teacher what happened. The boys were severely punished and I never had any problems with them after that one incident. I think that one should use all the means at your disposal in replying to such behavior.
lucia (Comment #120266)
October 17th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
Lucia, that was MikeR who made the comment in your initial reply.
HR,
This misses my point. The use of the word ‘crime’ was not significant to the point I was trying to make. Say ‘infraction’ if you like.
Actually, there need be no crime or infraction ~at all~. We can rephrase, although it doesn’t do anything to help make my original point any clearer, it shouldn’t make it any harder to follow either I don’t think:
Alice invites Bob to go bowling. Alice’s husband hates it when Alice goes bowling, and he didn’t know about this intended bowling escapade. Alice’s children will suffer if Alice’s husband is angry with her over the incident. Therefore Bob should not tell Alice’s husband that Alice asked him to go bowling?
Horsehockey! This is entirely Alice’s problem! Bob has no obligation in any event.
Well, I don’t see that too many people agree with me, but there you are.
1) Several of the comments keep bringing things back to the present case. I have no problem with that, except that I am explicitly trying to move away from it. As I said several times, there may be good reasons why she needs to out the man, and all of those may apply here. I think that applies to pretty much all the cases Lucia described as well. If there are good reasons, there are good reasons.
2) However, “The man’s wife and kids are not her problem, they are the propositioning husband’s problem. If they are injured, responsibility for the injury lies with him, not her.” Nope. I don’t accept that. We’re supposed to do good to people, not hurt them. That applies to perfect strangers as well. I should not be hurting perfect strangers through my free choice, even if it’s someone else’s fault that we’re in that position. If I can avoid hurting them, I have an obligation to do so. [And again, if I can’t avoid hurting them because of overriding priorities, that’s not what I’m talking about. A number of you keep coming back to that, but it’s not what I’m talking about.]
3) “You [don’t] get to decide what you do; they get to decide what they do.” Obviously. I’m not king. I’m describing what I think is the right thing to do. People should avoid hurting other people, if they can. They should not hurt them “on a whim”, even if it’s someone else’s fault. If they do, they are doing something wrong, even if someone else is even wronger. It’s a horrible thing to break up a family, even if it’s really his fault. I don’t understand how that is getting brushed under the rug.
If someone wants to claim, as Lucia may be claiming, that no one can imagine a situation where there really is no need to speak out, so then I would have nothing to say. I expect they’re probably wrong, though.
Could I make a suggestion? I think I’m hearing (a little) that some of you feel that it would be too dangerous to even think about those kids’ feelings – because the only way to put an end to sexual harassment and the like is to move the burden very far off of the harassee. If we don’t make it as easy as possible for women to speak up, “it’s just fine, don’t worry about a thing”, they will end up being victimized as they have been.
Is that part of what I’m hearing?
This clarifies somewhat. Doing good to people and not hurting them is not a primary at the root of my moral code, it’s a general downstream derivative. There are cases when hurting people is indeed moral by my code, for example in defense of my family.
But what is good in this context? Good by what standard? I’d feel presumptuous even trying to imagine. Perhaps what’s best for the serial womanizer is to force him into the open, rather than helping him to continue, who can say. I don’t seek such justifications though.
MikeR,
But this is my whole point. Do you really think it’s the third party who’s breaking up the family. Why? That person is telling the truth and nothing else. In a sense, the family is broken up already if they can’t withstand hearing the truth, they just don’t know it yet.
Let me phrase this another way. If my wife was cheating on me, there’s decent odds that’d end our marriage. I would prefer to know, and I’d be grateful to be told the truth if it were the case. You don’t agree with this?
No one’s been charged with a crime. Or thrown in jail.
Sure. But Monica’s situation is she was behaving exactly in the way Bora says aspiring writers should behave: They should contact editors, pitch work and so forth. And Bora– in full knowledge he is an editor and she is an aspiring writer who sent him her work when arranging a meeting– ignored all discussion of her work and turned the conversation to sex. This isn’t the same as two women or two men getting together over coffee and discussing whatever the heck they want to discuss.
Context matters here. Bora was being creepy, and using his position as an editor of SciAm. In fact, he ran an “incubator” and so was the specific person at SciAm that aspiring writers should pitch their work to.
The question here is merely: Does Monica have any ethical or moral obligation to protect Bora’s reputation by not naming him?
I get that some people don’t even think what Bora did is wrong, but in that case, Monica clearly does not have any ethical obligation to not mention his name!
MikeR
Yes. I’m going to always come back to the present case to make sure we clarify that some conclusions you seem to wish to draw are irrelevant to the present case.
Many have engaged your point about ‘not hurting’ the wife of kids. But (a) not telling the world does nothing to prevent them from being hurt. And (b) you haven’t engaged the hypotheticals about how they might be harmed by not telling the wife. You are simply assuming that somehow the wife is harmed by the guy being named. I don’t buy that. It’s equally likely the wife might benefit from knowing.
You don’t even know whether a woman naming a man with whom she had an affair would break up a family. Hilary didn’t leave Bill Clinton. Huma hasn’t left Anthony Weiner. Maybe their marriages are stronger for having learned about the infidelities of the husbands. 🙂
If your issue is with the word “whim”, I suspect most people would say the person revealing should consider what might happen. But after consideration, the person having information can conclude all sorts of things. And I don’t think they need to explain it to me. Which in the end means, to me, that for all practical purposes, one might as well say they can do it on a “whim”, even if what would be better would be in full consideration of the facts they have at hand.
Of course I can imagine situations in which there is no “need” to speak out. That’s why the woman who was hit on or the woman who had a consensual relation is not compelled to speak out. If there was a clear need for her to speak out — say to tell the wife she needed HIV testing– than it would be shameful for her to not speak. But otherwise, she can elect to speak out or not.
I’m not saying that and I don’t think anyone is saying that. The woman can decide to not speak. If the kids are a factor, she can consider that. But she is not required to silence for their sake, especially if this is just some hypothetical factor where we really don’t know much other than “the kids exist”. Hilary and Bill had a kid. I had no problem with Drugde breaking the story about Monica. Or other stories being broken.
I do think you are hearing that it’s wrong to suggest that someone who has been harassed must put up with harassment, suffer the consequences of harassment and pledge a vow of silence merely because the harasser has kids and a wife and hypothetically there might be negative consequences for his family and wife if the harasser was named.
Bad things can happen to the family of people who do bad things. But one wouldn’t tell a victim of theft, murder, slander, libel, assault or any other activity that they can’t name the person who injured them because naming them might cause shame, humiliation or embarassment to their spouse or lead to a divorce which would cause the children pain. Revealing someone did those things could cause exactly the same pain (or worse) as revealing that the person was a creepy sexual harasser.
So it seems to me odd to suggest that someone victims of sexual harassment are somehow required to shut up because, hypothetically, revealing their name could cause pain to spouses or children. (Unless you think people who have been assualted or robbed must also shut up about it if they think revealing the thief’s name might incline his wife to divorce him?)
“I get that some people don’t even think what Bora did is wrong, but in that case, Monica clearly does not have any ethical obligation [not] to mention his name!”
Yes, and she does not have an obligation to mention his name either but she may think it is her obligation to mention his name to protect other women.
Exactly: She would have no obligation to talk about it at all. But she could elect to do so, the same way she could elect to discuss the fact that colleagues went out to lunch during a conference break and she could elect to give their names. Or she could not discuss that if it seems not particularly interesting.
My only point is that if there is nothing wrong with activity ‘X’, then someone aware of that person A did X has no obligation to omit person A’s name from a story describing how someone “did X”. So, if someone claimed there is nothing wrong with doing X but also said you weren’t allowed to mention A did X, well… that’s a big much.
“Could I make a suggestion? I think I’m hearing (a little) that some of you feel that it would be too dangerous to even think about those kids’ feelings – because the only way to put an end to sexual harassment and the like is to move the burden very far off of the harassee. If we don’t make it as easy as possible for women to speak up, “it’s just fine, don’t worry about a thingâ€, they will end up being victimized as they have been.
Is that part of what I’m hearing?”
MikeR might I suggest to you that you are being intentionally naïve. Do you really think that wives and children are not already aware of the father’s problem in this manifestation or some other form? I do not see a stigma being attached to children or mates in these cases unless they are enablers or they do it to themselves. Would you take it step further and have us being hesitant in applying justice to a criminal because of the damage or stigma it might create for the family?
I recently saw a program on MHz where a lady Swedish police detective with a son in elementary school was having a tough time with a bully in the school. She notified the school with no results. In fact when she picked her son up from school she saw first hand some physically bullying. She wanted to confront the bully’s parents but her timid husband rejected the idea out of hand because the bully’s parents were neighborhood friends. Finally one day when she was at school to pick up her son she saw the bullying once again. In frustration she went to the bully and told him if he ever did that again she would kill him. A few days later we see a scene where she asked her son how things were going in school and a much relaxed son says things are fine. He then tells her, using the bully’s first name, that he had wet his pants in school.
“Oddly, my bit is not about the harassment itself, but about Andrew Maynard’s post discussing why he pro-actively emailed Monica requesting Monica not name Bora in her post. There is one particular feature of his self-justifying post that I’d like to highlight.
I agree that the enablers do not come across any better than those they profess to defend. I would add MikeR’s name to that of Andrew Maynard’s. Noticed the contorted rationale used for protecting the guilty and silencing the victims.
Kenneth Fritsch
I don’t think MikeR is an enabler. But I think he’s a bit confused.
MikeR evidently want to change the subject to something where the person being silenced (i.e. ‘other woman’ in a completely consensual relationship) might be seen as utterly not-injured, and in that context suggest that revealing the husbands name might cause some entirely hypothetical injuries to the innocent wife might lead to a divorce which might harm the children. While it is true that in some cases, a woman might feel humiliated, divorce her husband and cause harm to the kids, and possibly, the ‘other woman’ should consider that before spilling the beans, it’s not clear that these harms will happen in any specific case or even in the majority of cases. And it’s also not clear that failing to spill the beans would prevent these injuries from happening. If the husband is catting around and the wife would divorce him for this, there is a good chance that will happen. So, even in this case, it’s not clear the ‘other woman’ is not allowed to name the guy, or that if she’s not allowed to do so, the problem springs from injury to “the children” or “his wife”.
But irrespective of that hypothetical scenario involving very different pre-existing choices on the part of the ‘other woman’, the ‘other woman’ scenario is nearly irrelevant to the issue of a woman who is being sexually harassed by a powerful man in the workplace. It is very difficult to see why she must accept on going harm that is actually happening on the general principle that the man’s children might hypothetically, through a chain reaction that might or might not occur, suffer some harm springing from their parents divorcing especially if we — for some reason– are to assume those parents would magically not divorce if only this woman shuts her trap and permits the powerful man to harass her.
The reasons “other women” don’t speak are often different from those why victims of sexual harassment don’t speak. It’s not for concern about the man’s children nor concern for his wife. It is that the “other woman” often will suffer fall out herself. People will judge her for having the affair; (the same people often judge the man too.) If the affair is continuuing, she may alienate her lover. If she’s married, she too may find herself divorced. She may recognize that she and her lover had a tacit agreement not to “spill the beans”.
But such a tacit agreement does not apply to the unwilling victim on job-related sexual harassment. So, the two case are different. The only ‘similarity’ is both involve a man who indulged in dis-approved of behavior somehow touching on ‘sex’. But the fact the two things that differ in so many ways happen to involve a man whose sexual behavior was somehow not up to snuff does not mean woman are required to grant all guys in that category carte blanche on the principle of “think of his children.”
Lucia,
Yes, that’s exactly what I meant.
Kenneth Fritsch (Comment #120279)
October 17th, 2013 at 6:46 pm
—————
That’s a disturbing thought. Sometimes (rarely) I argue positions I don’t particularly believe, or haven’t completely thought through, just to see where they go. . .. … I’d hate to think being wrong (as in incorrect) == being wrong (as in being evil).
But I’m not sure. Maybe I ought to be more careful before opening my mouth, you might have something there.
Mark Bofill,
That seems like good advice for all of us. 🙂
“Let me phrase this another way. If my wife was cheating on me, there’s decent odds that’d end our marriage. I would prefer to know, and I’d be grateful to be told the truth if it were the case. You don’t agree with this?”
I hear that it applies to you. I believe that there are people to whom it doesn’t apply.
As my incontrovertible proof (!) I recall Dear Abby from my youth. A question that occasionally came to her would be something like this: “Many years ago I cheated on my husband. I have never done it again, before or since; I’ve tried to be the best wife I can, and I think we have a happy marriage. But the guilt is really bothering me. Shouldn’t I tell my husband so we can try to work it out? Signed, Come Clean” – or something like that.
Abby would always answer something like, “It would be very cruel to tell your husband, and selfish. Your need to feel expiated is no excuse for inflicting this on him and possibly ruining a happy marriage. Continue to be a good wife to him and never tell him even on your deathbed.”
Obviously, the issues that I’m mentioning are much more clear in cases like that [I’m guessing that most of you would agree that a third party, say, who somehow found out twenty years later has no business telling Come Clean’s husband] – and probably won’t be too relevant in cases of serial offenders (like this case) where the whole situation is bound to fall apart sooner or later. I continue to maintain that decent people care about other people’s kids and other collateral damage, and (to the extent possible) take that into consideration. I see from some of the answers that others agree with that in theory, but have trouble seeing when that could possibly be a real consideration in a real-life case. Which may be true.
“Naming Bora has a reasonable likelihood of destroying his marriage”
When most people get married they swear in front of their spouse, family, friends, colleagues and God that they are going to restrict their sexual activity to the person they are marrying. Making passes as people you are in an asymmetrical power relationship with counts as iffy behavior.
MikeR–
I read Dear Abby like columns too. And I totally agree that if a husband or wife cheated a long time ago and does not want to divorce, they should not suddenly out of the blue divulge the issue. The confession might not only hurt her husband emotionally, he might demand a divorce. And getting a divorce is not the woman’s goal. Her goal is to continue in a mostly happy marriage that is somewhat marred by her ‘guilt’.
This has nothing to do with your previous issue of “the children”. The woman should not reveal the ‘secret’ because it’s not in her interest to do so. Abby (and all successful columnists) never want to be quite so blatant about advocating doing things purely for self interested reasons and so add the whole “cruel” bit. But — even though it would be cruel– that’s not even the main reason here. The main thing is if “Come Clean” comes clean, he might divorce her. Period.
Moreover, no one here ever said that anyone and everyone must or should under any and all circumstances, divulge every single instance of infidelity no matter what. So I’m not sure why you seem to be focusing on providing counter arguments to such a claim. That sort of claim totally irrelevant to the issue of whether Monica should have concealed Bora’s name, whether Andrew Maynard was out of line to ask her to do so and even to whether someone who is not the wife (or husband) should be free to reveal the infidelity of an unfaithful husband (or wife) under circumstances that differ from the one in the dear Abby article. These are different specific circumstances and the differences matter.
Generally speaking, I would imagine I would not have sympathy for a long time past ‘other woman’ suddenly out of the blue decided to spill the beans for no particular reason. Moreover, I would be pretty surprised if any former “other woman” would suddenly have an urge to do this. But even here “the other woman” has a right to gauge the situation for herself based on her own knowledge of circumstances. Generally speaking, if I’m not involved, I’m unlikely to have any information to judge whether her’s happens to be one of the cases where her judgement in suddenly spilling the beans is sound. So I’m not going to judge or advise such a woman unless she asked me to do so and tells me more.
I also find it a bit difficult to believe that the issue of “the children” is remotely relevant in the case of a former lover who appears twenty years after the affair is over. Presumably, twenty years after an extra marital affair is over, in most instances Come Clean’s kids will be adults at this point. (And possibly, they will have learned of the affair and kept silent. Heck, hubby might have. ) So, I don’t see how “the children” has any practical relevance here. As you seem to recognize that many of us are focusing on practical real-life relevance in context of real situations, the notion that people should “think of the children” here seems darn theoretical.
take that into consideration
But the disagreement is on what “taking into consideration” means and how that translates into action. The disagreement is also no how heavily “the children” or other “collateral damage” should be considered given how tenuous the relationship between the naming and the hypothetical consequence of “harming Bora’s children” is.
After all: we can come up with all sorts of other hypothetical consequences. Maybe, the now named Bora will become psychological unhinged, buy guns, break into a movie theater and shoot everyone up. Maybe Bora will jump off a bridge. Maybe Bora will feel demoralized, fall under sway of a commune and do.. whatever. There are all sorts of speculative things he might do now that he is named. All of these are tenuous. all are hypothetical. All could theoretically occur, but none would seem to have much practical importance as it seems more likely his wife is going to stick with him.
So while someone who cares about harming people should consider that all sorts of things might happen, I think one needs to consider what is likely to occur. (BTW: Bora’s blog says ” They have two children: son David (17) and daughter Ruth (14).” http://blog.coturnix.org/about/ But that seems to have been written in 2011. So, possibly they are now 19 and 16.)
Yet you seem to ignore the counter argument that in many cases this collateral damage is entirely speculative and not even very likely to occur. I see no reason to give unlikely consequences prominence in discussions that don’t even posit any specifics about the man’s general behavior, the woman who might spills position and so on. If we are going to say someone has to consider “the children” why not bring up other things?
Seeing that harm could happen in theory is exactly the same as giving real consideration to it happening in a real-life case. We all accept that in some real life cases under some circumstances, some collateral damage– including that to kids– could occur.
But you don’t seem to want to acknowledge that in many real-life cases the ‘harm the children’ issue is a non-issue or that the supposed harm is unlikely to occur. And that the woman who is being told to be silent about the man’s name based on the rational of “the children” may very well have sufficient information to know that in this specific case the harm to his children that might occur “in theory” is either (a) unlikely , (b) likely to occur whether or not she spills the beans or judge that (c) she shouldn’t have to bear all the negative consequences of the powerful mans behavior merely because he is married and has kids.
Bear in mind: for the woman, the negative consequences could mean her kids will lack adequate resources because the womans career or job are affected. So the man’s kids are not the only ones who might be hypothetically harmed. Or the woman’s marriage might be affected because her husband doesn’t know what’s going on because she’s protecting the powerful man. Or other women’s children could be harmed if she doesn’t say. All sorts of collateral damage can occur if she doesn’t name the powerful man. So presumably, decent people would consider all these things also.
So unless someone can suggest the harm is plausible or that it could be avoided if she, quite specifically, conceals information, or that in a specific circumstance, there is some reason she should be willing to accept damage to herself, her own children or those of other innocent women, I don’t see why the harm to the powerful man’s children gets any favored position.
If one is going to get all soft hearted about potential innocent victims who are not directly involved one has to consider all of them and one must consider collateral damage if she fails to name the guy. And that means you consider her kids, those of other women’s kids and so on. All might be harmed if she doesn’t name the guy.
“But you don’t seem to want to acknowledge that in many real-life cases the ‘harm the children’ issue is a non-issue or that the supposed harm is unlikely to occur.” I’m not sure why you’re saying that, as I have acknowledged it explicitly, I think more than once. Everything you’ve said is true, but I’m not sure why you are (continuing to) react so strongly to the idea that the children and/or the couple’s marriage ought to be taken into account and could conceivably be a reason to keep silent. You keep finding cases and reasons why that often won’t happen, or didn’t apply in this particular case – but I’m not sure why it seems like that’s blocking you from acknowledging that it’s not hard to come up with scenarios where it would apply. I gave the Dear Abby case, one can easily think of others. These cases don’t seem uncommon or unreasonable to me. Lots of people mess up, and some of them deserve a second chance, and often that involves keeping quiet.
I’m still feeling that the issue of the sexual harasser (which is after all where this started) is making it impossible to discuss the type of case I was trying to discuss. But we’re going in circles, so I guess I’ll stop.
As a long time follower of your blog, who’s never previously commented (being unqualified in the statistical and scientific stuff 🙂 ) I’m very appreciative of your well considered input to this somewhat smelly issue.
This is an issue so far from climate science as to be foreign. But I do see that one of the lessons is that even for enlightened highly educated and relatively powerful men, the rules about not mixing workplace and sex are valid.
Only certain types of powerful men get to diddle around in the office and more or less get away with it.
Bora Z does not appear to be one of those men.
As far as who should or should not speak, and what they should or should not speak about, there is no way to compel someone into silence without threat or reality of force or law.
Play the game and take your chances.
Caveat harasser/philanderer.
MikeR
You then immediately bring up specific example of real life cases (e.g. the Dear Abby woman, and the hypothethical ‘other woman’ who shows up 20 years after the affair) where the harm is extremely remote and close with the notion that one should consider ‘the children’.
What’s strong about my advocacy? In fact, I’ve never even said one should not that it can’t conceivably be a reason to keep silent. I’ve said it could be– and said so repeatedly.
But I’m also engaging your specific examples– which are ones where the man’s kids issues happens to have no practical importance. And you aren’t rebutting that. Are you feeling my reaction is strong because I am engaging the specific examples you bring up to advocate your “the children” principles? Why not see it for what it is: criticizing your examples as precisely those where “the children” principle has zero practical importance?
I’ve repeatedly said that — in theory– such examples may exist. I’m not entirely sure why you can’t come up with any. I think they are probably pretty rare, but presumably, you have some example in your mind where this principle engages. Otherwise, you wouldn’t keep coming back to it.
The Dear Abby case was one that where “the children” had absolutely zero practical importance. Or do you disagree? If you want to suggest that my saying that was a bad example is incorrect, then explain how harm to “the children” interject itself in that example? As I already said: The affair happened “many years ago”. We don’t know if there are any children, and if there are, they may be grown. And, moreover, there is no public shaming so the issue of naming someone publicly isn’t even relevant. And the greatest potential harm springing from the private revelation would be to the woman who is spilling the beans on herself. So clearly, she doesn’t even need to get to the point of considering the children. The decision goes like this:
(a) If her telling hubby would hurt zero children, she shouldn’t tell him.
(b) If her telling hubby would hurt zillions of children, she shouldn’t tell him.
(c) If her telling hubby would not hurt hubby, she shouldn’t tell him.
(d) if her telling hubby would hurt hubby, she shouldn’t tell him.
So: She doesn’t need to “consider the children” or even “consider hubby”, here. Those considerations are irrelevant. I’m sure we can easily think of plenty of others where “harm to the children” appears to have zero practical importance.
So, if you can easily come up with cases where your principle that one should “consider the children” and where that consideration would mean one should be silent and the basis for the silence really truly is the guilty party’s children, why don’t you provide an example you think is good? Then we can discuss whether we agree that in this specific example, “the children” issue changes ones decision from “spill the beans” to “keep silent”.
What I think is you need is some examples where your notion that one should ‘consider” harm to the guilty party’s children should be ‘considered’ and:
(a) potential harm has practical importance and is probable,
(b) the harm to parties other than the guilty parties children (including the directly injured party, her children, other potential victims of the guilty party or children of other potential victims ) is not of greater importance than the harm to guilty party’s children,
(c) the harm to the person naming the guilty party is not so great that the person who wants to spill the beans wouldn’t be silent even if no harm accrues to the guilty party’s children and
(d) someone is actually considering naming the guilty party.
Because while one would “consider” harm to those children, in cases with features (a)-(c) other considerations mean that the potential harm to the children can have no meaningful impact on the ultimate decision. And of course unless (d) happens, no one is going to name anyone anyway (though some gossipy busy bodies do exist. But if your point is “gossipy busybodies who name people for no reason at all, can cause harm and often should shut their traps”, I really don’t think anyone disagrees with you.)
(Note: the Dear Abby case violates (c) for sure: it was a case where the decision was unaffected by potential harm to children. But it quite likely fell into category (a) owing to the lapse of “many years” during which time any children became adults.)
I think you’ll generally find that in cases where (a)-(b) apply the person you think refuses to “consider the guilty parties children” will be happy to consider the guilty party’s children and say that in that case, one should remain silent. In (c-d) the name won’t name anyway — but “the children” or “collateral damage” issue is totally irrelevant. But none of these cases had any relevance to Monica’s case– but yes, in that case one should remain silent. And your point is such cases exist– sure. I agree with you. You’ve recognized that I agree– but somehow seem to think this is “theoretical”. But in fact, I consider this “real life”. I am considering factors that matter in “real life” when applying this principle of “the children” rather than hanging it out there in a way that suggests it is so vastly important it trumps all other real-life considerations. In my view, the ‘collateral damage’ or “the guilty parties children” issue is just one of many. And its generally one that doesn’t matter because it doesn’t affect a decision.
No. It’s your failure to flesh out an example where the harm to the cheaters children is a reason not to tell that is preventing us from discussing whether we agree that you have come up with an example where the harm to the guilty parties children is something that affects the decision to name and moves it into “you shouldn’t name the guilty’ territory. I agree that these example may exist. I think they are quite rare– but maybe you can think of one. Think about a good example you think we would disagree on. Run it by my a-d checklist and then suggest that.
hunter
Yep. The only reason it remotely touches on climate is bora sometimes discussed climate blogs. See for example
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/16/wuwt-smeared-by-scientific-americans-bora-zivkovic-%E2%80%8F/
also
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/the-scam-gets-worse-an-open-letter-to-bora-zivkovic/
lucia (Comment #120291)
Seems to me the out kilter moral compass which leads to sexual harassment leads also to the unprincipled moderation of comments at SciAm blogs. The obnoxious attitude of “you are wrong so you are not allowed to speak” at those blogs stems from the same certainty of being above the rules of normal human interactions. Apologists like Maynard share that obnoxious attitude…. It goes by the name ‘liberal’; which is as Orwellian a name for a set of intolerant political views as I can imagine.
SteveF–
There is definitely approval of surpression of speech over there. Interestingly, Monica’s decision to update her post was triggered by SciAm yanking a post by DNLee, an african american biologist who blogs at SciAm . DNLee had been ‘invited’ to blog at biology online . DNLee enquired whether she would get paid and was told she’d be paid in “exposure”. DNLee declined the ‘invitation’ and the editor of “Biology online” replied “Are you an urban scientist or an urban whore?â€
DNLee them posted about the incident at her SciAm blog, but SciAm took down her post. An editor posted this as the reason
. At which point, numerous other bloggers, many women, pointed out they regularly posted about ‘not science’ and that they suspected the reason DNLee’s post was taken down was that DNLee was “blogging while black”.
The story evolved from there.
See more here:
“http://blogs.plos.org/thepanicvirus/2013/10/15/a-chance-to-discuss-sexism-misogyny-in-science-communication-dnlee-bora-the-sciam-fiasco/”
Anyway, some aspect of that story is what triggered Monica’s decision to name Bora, an editor at SciAm as the powerful person in her story. Her update reads
In that update the word “this” links to a discussion of the incident with DNLee’s post.
So, this story is specifically triggered by SciAm’s ‘censorship’ though in this case, the specific act of censorship is of DNLee, a zoology post doc not any disagreement with their comments policy.
But I think you are right that SciAm seems to have a tendency to censor. It’s reflected in their treatment of comments over time (the hiding of troll comments from all but the troll changing to auto-moderating view points they don’t like. The yanking of DNLee’s post and so on.)
How this interlaces with possibly listening to any possible complaints of women bloggers, or those who might approach editors? I don’t know. It really doesn’t take all that much censorship to have a very large effect given that numerous young recently trained women want to break into science publishing and currying favors with editors is a path most must at least attempt if they wish to have a reasonable chance of getting a toe hold. Merely passive aggressive ‘censorship’ of saying “oh that’s too bad. we’ll look into it” and then doing nothing (other than ignoring future pitches) and letting women tell their peers what happened can suffice at permitting quite a bit of harassment.
More Bora!! The shoes drop!!
https://medium.com/the-power-of-harassment/3e809dfadd77
http://www.mjrobbins.net/?p=534
But I guess Andrew Maynard’s view might be that all these things that happened were “collateral damage” which should have been avoided?
It continues:
More Bora!! The shoes drop!!
with bora in the room, pants might have been a better choice than shoes
Paul Matthews complained recently of hide the comment from everybody there, but person that posted the comment
I think Geoff Chambers is having the same problem at Sci Am
he linked to his comment (about Lewandowsky) but no show
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/absolutely-maybe/2013/10/14/motivated-reasoning-fuel-for-controversies-conspiracy-theories-and-science-denialism-alike/#comment-207
Willis took Boraz to task for his censorship ideas on climate:
Bora Z:
I am a biologist, so I don’t write specifically about climate science as I do not feel I am expert enough for that. I am gradually teaching my spam filter to automatically send to spam any and every comment that contains the words “warmistâ€, “alarmistâ€, “Al Gore†or a link to Watts. A comment that contains any of those is, by definition, not posted in good faith. By definition, it does not provide additional information relevant to the post. By definition, it is off-topic. By definition, it contains erroneous information. By definition, it is ideologically motivated, thus not scientific. By definition, it is polarizing to the silent audience. It will go to spam as fast I can make it happen.”
and Michael Mann was cheerleading this on twitter…
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/03/05/the-scam-gets-worse-an-open-letter-to-bora-zivkovic/
Well… in the story the woman related, it turns out the woman was truthful when telling him her husband was already asleep in the room as a ‘kinder’ way to turn down Bora’s self-invite to visit her hotel room, Bora didn’t drop his pants in that instance. But did you read some of that stuff!!!
The bit that starts here
It sure sounds like he’s referring to a past incident where she told him not to kiss her, or grab her ass which he thinks he is only doing in a “totally friendly nonchalant kind of way ”!!! Oh, and she made “rule” about where lips and hands cannot go when they hug. Imagine that?
Like someone has to verbalize a “rule” that says “No, you may not grab my ass or kiss me in a friendly nonchallant kind of way. No this is not a non-sexual act especially if– as you admit– you ‘want’ me. Want proof it’s not just my Catholic guilt? Go grab some 6’4″ bodybuilding homophobic guy’s ass down in the bar and explain to him that you did t in some non-challant, non-sexual way and see how he reacts!”
Oh, and Bora goes on to discuss a relationship with some former childhood sweetheart? Or something?
In Email.
Is it any surprise Bora hasn’t denied these allegations?
This passes the depth my B.S. resistant pressure hull can dive to without caving in. I’m speechless.
Lucia,
“But I guess Andrew Maynard’s view might be that all these things that happened were “collateral damage†which should have been avoided?”
.
So the hostess does get to ask rhetorical questions. 😉
.
WRT other shoes dropping: Ya, well, this sort of behavior is not likely a once-and-done thing… who knows how many women (if any) succumbed to his pressure, since those are less likely to come forward. SciAm was aware of the problem and did nothing….. so some legal liability there if one of the victims want to go after them.
SteveF
I usually catch myself…. But as Mark wrote ” This passes the depth my B.S. resistant pressure hull can dive to without caving in. I’m
speechlessleft with nothing but rhetorical questions!”SteveF
Also yes.
Though I suspect the legal situation is going to be complicated by the fact that the ‘science communication’ situation involves lots of freelancing. I don’t know if SciAm actually hires the freelancers or what. Plus, some of Bora’s stuff is under the umbrella of SciAm and some under the umbrella of SciOnline.
Monica was not an employee of SciAm or SciOnline and never was. This schmoozing sort of stuff is not exactly an interview either.
It’s really a bit more like if young professor X goes to a conference. At the conference, she runs into “whoopdedo head of journal Y” who works at university Z. He does not officially work at Journal Y– he ‘volunteers’ as that’s the way these things are done. X would like to get a gig as an editor or associate editor at the journal as that carries some prestige. Head of Journal Y is maybe willing to help but also makes the moves on X. X has no way of knowing if the help/moves is quid-pro-quo or whatever.
The head of Journal Y is creepy. He’s abusing power. But is there any legal liability? If yes, for whom? University Z? He wasn’t really abusing his position at University Z. Journal Y? He’s not employed at Journal Y.
I suspect a fair number of the Bora incidents are going to be like that and Andrew Maynards much vaunted “science communications community” may need to figure out how to deal with this in light of the fact that there is little or no chance of these women successfully winning suits alleging some tortuous activity on the part of… anyone! Because no one is ‘liable’.
yes, Lucia I read them.
Bora has a problem. He should seek professional help.
he seems to enjoy inflicting the distress on his victims more than actually following through. it almost qualifies as a paraphilic disorder.
Mosher
Yes.
I tend to agree with you. One of the features here is the apparent total lack of response to signals at all. If he’s just been looking for sex, he would have figured out he should move on. So it really sort of looks like what he “needs” is to be having these discussions with women who are actively trying to discourage them, but who, for some reason, can really only get out of the situation by sacrificing their careers. ( Oddly, his big problem starts when Monica who moves out of science communication and gets established in writing plays and fiction, spills the beans!)
Lucia,
“The head of Journal Y is creepy. He’s abusing power. But is there any legal liability? If yes, for whom? University Z? He wasn’t really abusing his position at University Z. Journal Y? He’s not employed at Journal Y.”
.
More than creepy, and clearly abusing his power. I would argue that his influence does in fact stem in part from his position at the university and in part from the journal accepting his services as an editor…. even if unpaid. Now these organizations may not be aware of his abuse, in which case they are probably blameless, but if the abuse were already brought to their attention, and they did nothing (that is, both kept him on without any real consequences), I suspect there would be a legal case against both. At a minimum, the negative publicity and legal costs from lawsuits for those organizations would be bad enough that they would probably be forced to settle…. via financial or other means. These situations are a mess, and ‘he said she said’ is always going to be part of the story, of course, but a recurring pattern is very damning.
Jeepers. This guy is desperately creepy.
“Go grab some 6’4″ bodybuilding homophobic guy’s ass down in the bar and explain to him that you did it in some non-challant, non-sexual way and see how he reacts!†”
On the less serious side that was a gem.
Lucia,
Only one more comment on this subject, then I am done.
No, she obviously doesn’t. Worse, there exists the possibility that she actually encourages him to ‘make moves’, in spite of uncertainty about a quid pro quo… in which case, nobody would likely ever hear about it, even though he is of course inappropriately using his position. The bigger problem is when he imagines one thing is going on and she another (and having known both men and women, I can say with some confidence that this is a real possibility 😉 ), because he is then obviously abusing her via his position of authority. If he had half a gram of sense, he would just avoid the possibility of misunderstanding and not ‘make moves’ on any woman who he could possibly help with her career…. ever. My experience is that a lot of men in these circumstances do not have even half a gram of sense.
SteveF
Unless it turns out she was expecting the “pro quo” in return for what she thought was “quid” and then complains. And if she’s conniving he could be a serious risk. Sort of like what we might see in movie plots.
Absolutely. And in a situation where there is no “employee handbook”, as a matter of law or employment policy, everything gets murky. After all: at a university: if a professor slept with the undergraduate, s/he’s violating policy even if the student hit on the prof with the hope of improving their grade or getting good college recommendations or what not. What the school would do might not be up to snuff, but these days, every employee handbook is going to at least say the professor who has sex with a student in one of his classes or enrolled in his department violated the job rules. (The rigmarole involved in enforcing the rule against a professor with full tenure aligned with reluctance of some department heads to deal with misbehavior on the part of professors who bring in lots of funding and combined with the student seeing little benefit in pursuing the issue may for all practical purposes vitiate the rule. But it is generally a stated rule in an employee handbook.)
Here’s a bit on the legal position for freelancers like Monica
http://www.cjr.org/minority_reports/science_freelancer_harassment.php
SteveF “Worse, there exists the possibility that she actually encourages him to ‘make moves’,”
I think the worst scenario is when the perp is aware that his victim is made uncomfortable by his advances. In that case he’s using sexual advances to actively victimize and assault.
Oh well, I suppose if he gets caught, he can always claim “difficult time in my career”, “my wife won’t have sex with me” or even “what about the children!?”.
While I was on the Nordic track exercising, this announcement was posted
http://www.scientificamerican.com/pressroom/pr/corporate-press-releases/2013/bora-zivkovic-resigns-from-scientific-american/
Bora Zivkovic resigns from Scientific American
yes Lucia.
what he is doing is very clear when you look at the situation where the woman asks ‘are you suggesting we have sex?” to which he replies no. that was the endgame he probably wanted.
he has, i would argue, no intention of actually following through. he likes the distress it causes them. he likes thinking about it and talking about it, and walking up to and across the line, but he wants to preserve his phoney victim status ( faithful husband who has been starved for 7 years ). that is how he rationalizes his behavior..
Of course this doesnt excuse him.
I rarely comment here, but just had to say Mosher is spot on as usual. And came accross this blog of Greg Laden, and thought “who is this guy and what have they with the Greg Laden that I know from climate blogs?” It’s very reasoned and insightful. I wonder if he sees any comparisons/’aha’ moments to climate discussions…
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2013/10/16/bora-zivkovic-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
“Bora Zivkovic resigns from Scientific American”
.
If the guy has anything of value to contribute (and I honestly doubt that) he will find a real job. More likely, a sympathetic left wing political organization will end up supporting him for a while. That is just the way these things go. Of course, depending on the extent of his abuse, his legal troubles could just be starting.
.
Carrick,
“I think the worst scenario is when the perp is aware that his victim is made uncomfortable by his advances.”
Sure, but it is not clear when/if that happens. I will cut the creep this much slack: he may just be so interpersonally dumb that he can’t perceive when he is way out of line. More likely (of course) is that he is just a predatory jerk.
Hmm. I just posted this link on his October 9th picture where he looked a little sad. I asked if this was the reason that he seemed sad:
http://monicacatherine.wordpress.com/2012/10/09/this-happened/
Never been un-friended so fast in my life.
If I was in his shoes, I probably would’ve taken this as an opportunity to address the issue, apologize again for my bad behaviour, and beg forgiveness from the public.
Scott Basinger (#120316): “If I was in his shoes, I probably would’ve taken this as an opportunity to … beg forgiveness from the public.”
The last bit, while common enough nowadays, bothers me. Bora owes apologies to all the women he molested/harassed. He owes one to his employer, which he brought into disrepute. To the public, I don’t think he owes anything — certainly he doesn’t owe me anything. Public apologies seem to be a matter of damage-control PR and not sincerely offered. As a result, I don’t give them much credence.
I also don’t think he owes me an apology. It’s an interesting event. It would be heartening to read Maynard admit his preconceived notion of what was ‘right’ (keeping Bora’s name secret) was wrong. But I don’t think we are going to see that– and he doesn’t owe me anything either. (I can still observed his behavior though!)
Wow….88 comments, until now. Seems everybody wants to chip in to share their moral outrage and view of the psychological backgrounds. It happen all the time and everywhere with powerful, charismatic men, remember Strauss-Kahn?
Personally I would like to leave it to the persons directly involved, but I guess schadenfreude is something human too?
After reading this stuff I need a deep cleaning.
Anyhow ding dong the AGW wombat is gone.
And the whole world sees what kind of friend Maynard is.
Who was that guy, the Vietnam vet turned congressman who dropped a grenade and blew his own legs off? Maynard just “Max” Cleland himself.
It’s inevitable. AGW proponents are crooks. Just got to wait for them to self implode. This year I have a feeling they’ll be imploding like popcorn.
“BAMPH”
See. There goes another one.
From a political perspective, and also sort of a prediction, since the Obama campaign mechanism has signed on to the global warmer movement, I would look for a shift in the media toward an all female editorial staff at the usual AGW tub thumping outlets.
Joe Romm will be replaced by a girl with a hyphenated last name, fighting the patriarchy with one hand and carrying the IPCC AR5 in the other.
And when someone points out detailed scientific inaccuracys, she’ll pretend to break down into a puddle of jello, while asserting it as her right to not publish the mean, predatory male’s comments, “because he’s a sexist!”
yeah they’ll go there.
But remember, just like Al Capone, Ms. Hyphen-Name is at her core a crook. She’ll have passed bad checks, cheated on her income tax, swindled most everyone she’s ever known, and she’ll be just waiting to be caught.
Hoi Polloi,
“Personally I would like to leave it to the persons directly involved, but I guess schadenfreude is something human too?”
.
Often the victims of sexual abuse are not able to adequately defend themselves. Sometimes moronic moral midgets like Maynard defend rather than condemn the abuser, and through that defense enable continued abuse. That is why you see outrage; it is not schadenfreude.
Hoi Polloi
You mean the guy who is currently facing charges for running a prostitution ring in France? He’s a pig. And a perfect example of why people why these things should be talked about. He might be president of France if he hadn’t been arrested. Turns out he’d been a predator for a long time. When the maid made a criminal accusation, lots of women came out of the wood-work saying he’d attacked them too. He’s probably attacking fewer now because other than the women who are paid, women are likely giving him a wide berth.
Laurie Penny is a young journalist, writer and social commentator in the UK. Last year there were institutional sexual abuse/rape allegations about one of the UK’s revolutionary left-wing parties.
The party then resorted to the ‘cover up’ technique and Laurie wrote this piece for the Independent.
It is not something that I would normally link to on a climate blog, but it is instructive to the men in the readership about the pressures and abuses that women face.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/laurie-penny-its-nice-to-think-that-only-evil-men-are-rapists–that-its-only-pantomime-villains-with-knives-in-alleyways-but-the-reality-is-different-8079403.html
DocMartyn,
Too bad she didn’t name the guy. After all, if that behavior is ok– as the politicians she quotes said– then naming the guy must be ok too.
I think everyone, including Bora Z.’s wife, needs to know about his behavior. Future employers put themselves at risk hiring someone who shows no discretion in these sorts of activities. I submit to you that his wife has a right to know as her very life is at risk from certain STDs. If he is going to do this sort of thing, he owns the consequences.
Remember Al Gore and the masseuse?
jim2,
Yep. Creepy. Gore doesn’t seem to have vaulted to the “Strauss-Kahn” level of triple-threat-creep- in – every-possible-setting- creepoid, which is really truly amazing, but definitely creepy.
Gore: maybe failing at local warming, he went back to the global kind.
jim2,
“Remember Al Gore and the masseuse?”
.
Tipper did finally get rid of him; the settlement was probably high 8 figures.
.
Really poor judgement in all things (climate science to economics to sexual escapades to sexual abuse) seems a common theme among men who consider themselves ‘progressive’. You can count on it continuing. Of course, ‘progressives’ have no monopoly on poor judgement, especially when it comes to sex, but they really do seem, well, more enthusiastic in their mendacity, deceit, and abuse than men who consider themselves ‘conservatives’. Bill Clinton comes to mind as the poster child for the progressive mindset.
My impression that men with power of any kind are more prone to sexual escapades, irregardless of political orientation. Men in general have that tendency, but powerful ones, especially.
I think quite a few aspects of societal behavior may change in coming years. We’re still adapting the internet-age (as invented by big Al himself).
Of course some aspects of human behavior may change more slowly. I’m still chuckling about the Bora Z phrase “horizontal loyalty”.
So that’s what they call it these days…
Since we are in moral values rage mode, how about the early days green/left “laissez-faire” (and even legalizing) attitude of sexual relationship with minors (Cohn-Bendit, German Green Party leader Trittin)?
Hoi–
I”m not familiar with that. & I don’t want to change the subject to a discussion of some obscure to me pedophilia debate from some period you call “early days” involving German politicians I’ve never heard of. I want to avoid your suggested thread jack sufficiently that I invite people to discuss it in some other venue and I will delete any discussion of “german green politicians and pedophilia” on this thread.
Interesting. After ‘once only’ confession, @BoraZ solicited women to defend him http://scientopia.org/blogs/ethicsandscience/2013/10/19/ripplesofdoubt-and-harassments-collateral-damage/
Maynard still tweeting crud like this
https://twitter.com/2020science/status/392028998563155968
@Sheril_ @hildabast @sethmnookin @davidmanly @BoraZ Desperately sad – well meaning but oh so destructive w/o consideration & process
What Maynard seems to refuse to accept is that Monica tried to go through the process and it was Maynard and his ilk who chose to whitewash the event and gaslight the victims.
If there is collateral damage they have no one to blame but themselves. All it takes for evil to succeed….
Lucia,
I must say, I still find Maynard’s position incomprehensible. I’ve refrained (and will continue to I suppose, at least for a while longer) from speculating on his motives, but I don’t see what he hopes to accomplish with his spiel. I still don’t even really understand what he means, if he means anything at all, with the crucible references and due process and all that. Is there any substance to be found there that he’s just not articulating very clearly or is it merely a smokescreen? (not rhetorical, genuine question)((Although why I should ask you is another durned good question 🙂 asking for your opinion I guess)).
Well… turns out that the SciCom group seems to have turned to eating their young. . . That was in a long line of tweets including loads of twitter handles discussing how they shouldn’t be discussing something involving allegations of harassment not involving BoraZ.
Evidently, the original offending post is deleted. (Deletion announced on Twitter.) I tweeted to tell them to delete the google cache version. 🙂
Mark Bofill–
Oh. And I could make some comments about how it is MAYNARD tweeting to explain the horrors of a story he thinks should be kept out of public eye that brought my attention to said story! Also: Crucible reference by another was sufficiently catch as to catch my eye.
Don’t all those “sci com” types understand that if you think something should NOT be discussed in public, they can’t tweet the story non-stop for what appears to be two days? (Of course the story will be out now. And one of the sci-com types said he’ll post about the dangers. )
Mark,
“I’ve refrained (and will continue to I suppose, at least for a while longer) from speculating on his motives, but I don’t see what he hopes to accomplish with his spiel.”
.
Ummmm… nothing complicated. He is a ‘progressive’ worm. He appears to be trying to help a fellow ‘progressive’ worm. Worms helping worms, you know? That’s all there is to it.
Amateurs. 🙂
Oh… well… I can’t help reading the tweets… soap opera playing out on twitter.
Mark Bofill (Comment #120341)
October 20th, 2013 at 4:32 pm
I have had the same reactions to the defenders’ spiels that I have heard, i.e. the intent and purpose make no sense and appear to be purposely vague. They agree that the actions were wrong but seem to imply that the perpetrator and his family need protection at all costs. The perpetrator, himself, asks not for any defenses, admits he was wrong and says he is learning (which may indicate that he has taken himself off the moral hook and instead laid this off to a learning process like a teenage male might need to experience). None of this addresses the problem in any way or helps those offended understand in any way. Maynard’s line seems almost to be saying: Here is how a caring appearing and seemingly political correct spin can be put on a suggested proper reaction to this situation? And providing a suggested course that is vague and incomplete. A moral compass is replaced with an amoral one were one picks and chooses their course through a difficult situation.
Meanwhile the potentially adverse reactions of the person offended are entirely lost in these seemingly forced and unfeeling responses to the offended. I cannot myself say that as an elderly male I understand in detail what a young female in this situation might feel but I do have an image. An image of someone who is looking for a way to obtain an opportunity to enter a field of her choice and perhaps judges that someone has seen her work and is willing to give her that opportunity. She may even have went to some effort in preparation for that interview no matter how informal it might have been perceived. Her expectations I would suspect would be one of showing that person doing the interview that she had both people and technical skills. In this case there must have been a gradual and perhaps sickening realization that the interview was something else when the interviewer talks about himself and then chooses a particularly personal and suggestive line of conversation. I have not read in detail about the offended person’s reaction but I get the impression that she was willing to assume the interview with this person at that time and place or later could get on track of discussing her professional skills.
I think at some point the offended person realizes that the interviewer was merely a cad and using a line to hit on her that might have come from a teenage male whose hormones were surging out of control. Evidently her dashed expectations arising from this situation had something to do with her leaving her initial line of pursing a profession behind her and in that case the adverse effects on her would seem to me to be severe. I expect a big part of negative reaction to this situation was that of the organization(s) and people to which she appealed her case. She seems sufficiently mature to probably realize that all organizations can have a bad apple or two but when an entire organization fails to act that creates a much different impression. Her approach to resolving this situation would appear to me to be a more mature one than one I would have chosen – but then again I excuse myself as thinking as a retired man who has no fears of a professional or public retribution.
This appears to be Andrew Maynard’s daughter, Jade:
She doesn’t specifically discuss her father. Enjoy.
Kenneth
Or at least the way the Andrew Maynard initial email and self-justifying post read, one is not guided to consider that as a practical matter the victims of Bora’s harassment hae no realistic recourse and would therefor bear any consequences. Certainly, that issue is not mentioned in what– I think– Maynard would be advancing as a “thoughtful weighing of the relevant factors”. In reality, even before Maynard wrote his email, there was abundant evidence in the 2012 post (whose updating triggered Maynards email) that without naming,
(a) that Bora’s behavior wise likely not a one time event,
(b) that Monica likely had access to information from private communication from others (though she wasn’t going to divulge that and
(c) if Bora was not named, nothing would occur.
There would be no “due process”. There would be no attempt to find a resolution to any problem. Basically things would continue as if there was no problem.
But now to segue into the topic that turned out to have something to do with “The Crucible” allusion, and Maynards more recent tweet. Here we go:
Oddly, there is a current on going kerfuffle that could be called “collateral damage”. Yesterday I wanted. But it looks like the tweeting is continuuing– it started on Oct 18. Anyway, as far as I can sort out, it looks like a particular blogger should not have “named names”. Nevertheless, it looks like Maynard’s advice is still mostly wrong or possibly more correctly so incomplete as to be wildy off the mark. It is true that sometimes one should not name names. There can be many reasons. But lets start.
(a) When relating a story alleging scurillous behavior, whether or not one names names, one should not write a supposedly detailed laden post of specific events that you heard by way of what you perceive as a “short grapevine”. That is: “victim #2” said something in confidence to your friend. Your friend told you her version of what victim #2 supposedly told her. Everything that can go wrong in (a) can go doubly wrong here.
(b) If you violate (a) do not any names. None.
(c) If you violate (a), (b) giving out information that permits people who know the person you named to guess the identifies of the people not named
(e) Don’t include your speculations about motives about what caused the alleged predator to stop
(f) Don’t drop in names of others who are neither alleged vicitims or alleged perpetrator.
If you do this, you will find the result is
(a) The alleged perpetrator will tweet something to suggest the story is not quite as written up in the post.
(b) An unnamed alleged victims may end up writing a post ‘explaining’ half of the things you got wrong and
(c) Others whose names were dropped in the post will be forced to tweet something or another which will assure that any blunders in your post will be prominent.
Now, one might say that if the person writing the stupid post had thought about the wife, the children, or the person she named (as in Maynard’s post) maybe she wouldn’t have posted. But the real stupidity — and reason not to post– here is not the harm to those people. The real stupidity is that the person posting hasn’t done due diligence on the story. Not by a long shot.
If you are going to air dirty laundry, you need to be dang sure you’ve seen all the laundry and you know the provenance of the various poop stains. Otherwise, you’ll find the shit hits the fan, splatter all over the place and much of it will land on you because much of what you say is substantively inaccurate.
With regard to this dirty laundry: I would be silent, but the story seems to have broken on Oct 18. The people involved and other incessant tweeters are just tweeting away. This includes “apologies” to people who tweeted links to the story without wondering about its accuracy, people responding to the “apologies” and people discussing how the story should be deleted etc (and those pointing out that you can’t unburst a balloon.)
When I read the story was to be deleted, I also suggested making sure to instruct google to clear the cache.
Anyway: I suspect that in figure Maynard may use this as an example of “collateral damage” and why one should have “due process”. But in fact, it is a better example of “what goes wrong when someone writes up what they think is a scurrilous story on the basis of incomplete 2nd hand information”.
lucia (Comment #120353)
October 21st, 2013 at 9:36 am
Are we sure that is Maynard’s daughter? If it is, she has a very different POV than her father in this matter and would make it public, I would suspect, to make the public aware of that difference.
Lucia, in your reply to me above you seem to indicate that someone involved in the Bora case had bad information. I have not been following what has been going on very closely and I was wondering if you could save me the effort and detail what transpired.
Kenneth
Pretty sure.
See image at link:
http://www.wiwmonline.com/1/post/2013/03/awaitingapotheosis.html
Nothing inaccurate in Bora case. I’ll write another long comment next.
In the wake of BoraZ, “Nerdy Christie” ( https://twitter.com/NerdyChristie )
posted what was called by some tweeters a “brave” post here: https://medium.com/the-power-of-harassment/873515a58835
(I would call it odd and ambiguous.)
Christine’s post comments on the BoraZ story adding very little to what we knew about BoraZ, just linking to the other stories.
NerdyChristie’s story involved a woman who was a complete stranger who asked to feel NerdyChristie’s boobs in a bar. Anyway… you be the judge of what that means.
In response to that post, a person named Stephanie Zvan posted
http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/2013/10/18/one-more-thing/ which is now a 404. (But as most addicted bloggers know will remain in googles cache until google visits that page again.) I will allow those who want to hunt for it to do so.
Stephanie Zvan’s Oct 18 post discussed NerdyChristie’s alleged behavior toward two unnamed men. Christie was named. Sufficient details were included to — quite likely- permit the unnamed men to be identified or nearly identified. One of the men blogged and then deleted his post:
http://brianswitek.wordpress.com/2013/10/20/regret/
In fact, http://brianswitek.wordpress.com/ gives me a 404.
But I do find http://brianswitek.com/
Yes. I read the post at brianswitek.wordpress.com yesterday. I did not save text (why would I?) It’s not in google cache. However, this guy commented:
http://slymepit.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?p=137323#p137323
and what he says comports with my recollection.
Who are these people?
My impression (which could be wrong) is @NerdyChristie is a “PhD student in Cell and Molecular Biology” and blogged for Scientific America (possibly other things.) (https://twitter.com/NerdyChristie )
She anticipates graduating in 2015. http://christiewilcox.com/cv.html
“Brian Switek/@Laelaps is a ‘freelance science writer, blogger, and author of the critically-acclaimed book” He seems to be married.
http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/blog/laelaps/
http://brianswitek.com/about/
Neither seemed to have any real ‘power’ in any professional sense, though I could be mistaken. They came in contact with each other because both work in Science Communications.
And Stephanie Zvan is “Stephanie Zvan is an analyst by trade, but she’s paid not to talk about it. She is also the associate president of Minnesota Atheists and one of the hosts for their radio show and podcast, Atheists Talk.” https://twitter.com/szvan http://freethoughtblogs.com/almostdiamonds/
This story is being tweeted about a whole freakin’ lot. I mean a whole stinking lot, lot, lot. My commenting on it is not spilling any beans.
It’s fair to say this is a case where Stephanie Zvan should not have “named names”. But not “for the sake of the children” or even to spare anyone’s spouse but rather because her knowledge of the details was sketchy at best.
BTW: reactions to SZvans story when it came out:
https://twitter.com/szvan/status/391347290947870720