Timeline for How can I avoid inadvertently offending my female peers and getting into trouble for it?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| May 22, 2018 at 14:12 | comment | added | Steve Jessop | FWIW I have seen the second option work out well (at least, "well" as defined by the goals of the person who took that route). It doesn't work out well in cases that end up international news because of what an unbelievable jerk the person was being, but people do quite often get away with being far worse jerks than this, unremarked. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:53 | comment | added | Mark Amery | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:51 | comment | added | Mark Amery | @user568458 Imagine a mirror universe where the disciplinary committee had found in the opposite direction - where Prof. Y had criticised Prof X's comment to his face in the elevator instead of filing a complaint, and Prof X had filed a complaint, and a disciplinary committee had demanded that Prof Y apologise to Prof. X for the hurt caused by her criticism of his joke. Imagine that Prof Y refused to do so, because she believed she had done nothing wrong. Would you similarly argue that she is fighting an "imaginary culture war" and should thus not be employed? If not, what's different? | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:48 | comment | added | Cronax | @MarkAmery As an outside party, you don't get to decide whether or not they are dishonest about asserting hurt. I am indeed saying that when you hurt someone, you are responsible. I am explicitly not saying you are culpable. Your examples turn the whole concept around and are therefore not a good analogy. Even in those cases however, there's nothing wrong with saying "I'm sorry you were hurt", it says nothing about whether or not the hurt can actually be blamed on you. Perhaps we should continue this discussion in chat? | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:37 | comment | added | Mark Amery | @Cronax Your first sentence discounts the possibility of somebody claiming to be hurt dishonestly. As for your second sentence, it presumes that you are responsible for all harm others suffer in interactions with you. But I doubt you actually believe that. If I kick you and break my toe, you would surely not say that you broke my toe. More relevantly to this case, if you are driving responsibly and I step out in front of your car, get hit, and break my leg, you still probably would not say that you broke my leg, even though your actions were a necessary part of the chain of events. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 11:08 | comment | added | Cronax | @MarkAmery If someone says you hurt their feelings, or their behavior clearly indicates it, then their feelings were hurt. If this was the result of an interaction with you, you hurt their feelings. There's no room for 'this is possibly untrue' here, no room for argument. The only thing you can argue in front of a disciplinary committee is whether or not you intended to hurt their feelings, on which the proposed apology concedes nothing. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 10:05 | comment | added | Mark Amery | @Cronax Even saying "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings" concedes that such hurt genuinely occurred and that you are culpable for it. As such, it seems like an unwise thing to say if you think that either of those things is untrue; simply by saying it, you've effectively thrown away any possibility of arguing in front of a disciplinary committee that you are innocent of any wrongdoing. That said, I am sympathetic to your characterisation of Prof. X's (non-)apology; I think the prudent thing would've been for him to simply not apologise at all. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 9:04 | comment | added | Cronax | @MarkAmery The problem isn't qualifying your apology, it's how this person did so. Saying "I'm sorry I hurt your feelings" is a good way to qualify what exactly you're apologizing for. "I'm sorry you take offense easily when there's no reason to do so" is not an apology but a sarcastic quip disguised as an apology. I don't think the difference is hard to understand. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 8:36 | comment | added | user56reinstatemonica8 | Wow, some startling but enlightening comments here. I'd happily employ someone who sometimes makes bad jokes and takes responsibility for their actions in a mature, friendly and good-humoured way. I would not want to employ someone who would refuse to apologise after making a bad joke because they are afraid to "cede ground" in an imaginary "cultural war" they are fighting, 24/7, with their own colleagues and peers! Not on my time, thank you. | |
| May 22, 2018 at 6:05 | comment | added | David Ketcheson | This doesn't answer the question, as it deals only with the aftermath of the original incident. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 16:28 | comment | added | John K | Apologies absolutely can and often are about power. And make no mistake, there is currently a cultural dialogue (some say, war) that has been going on about the limits of taking offense, how carefully we must tread to avoid offending others, what constitutes unacceptable behavior, etc. To offer an "unequivocal apology" is not simply being decent and empathetic human being, it's to admit you are wrong in the first place, and possibly (if you care) to cede ground in this cultural dialogue. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 15:20 | comment | added | Mark Amery | This seems like dangerous advice to me. It's easy enough to look at Prof X's situation and suggest that qualifying his apology made things worse for him, but you don't actually know that without seeing the counterfactual. I have heard that hospital lawyers in the US tell doctors not to say things like "I'm so sorry" to grieving family members, lest an expression of regret be spun by an adversarial party as an admission of culpability. The same risk applies here. When you already know that you're dealing with somebody who wants your head, it's wise not to hand them the axe to take it with. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 14:09 | comment | added | Edwin Buck | I really wish people didn't see apology as an assault on their ego or power, then we might see more of them. The apology is not about being right, it's about acknowledging that someone got hurt and showing that you're a decent human being in lessening that hurt. | |
| May 18, 2018 at 20:49 | history | edited | aparente001 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
fixed a subject-verb agreement
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| S May 18, 2018 at 11:52 | history | mod moved comments to chat | |||
| S May 18, 2018 at 11:52 | comment | added | Wrzlprmft♦ | Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat. | |
| May 17, 2018 at 17:48 | history | wiki removed | Wrzlprmft♦ | ||
| S May 17, 2018 at 17:38 | history | answered | user9646 | CC BY-SA 4.0 | |
| S May 17, 2018 at 17:38 | history | made wiki | Post Made Community Wiki by user9646 |