Protect me from bad jokes, please!
[Ned Lebow] says he was joking when he asked to be let off an elevator at the ladies’ lingerie department. A female scholar who was attending the same annual meeting of the International Studies Association was not amused, and neither was the association when she complained.
Now his refusal to formally apologize has touched off the latest skirmish in the #MeToo battles rocking academe. At issue is whether a comment made in jest rises to the level of a punishable offense, and what happens when a complaint some deem as trivial results in a vicious online backlash against the offended party.
Have all feminists turned into Nurse Ratched these days?
She said she offered to press the floor buttons for people in the elevator, whom she described as mostly conference attendees and all, except one other woman, white middle-aged men. Instead of saying a floor, Lebow smiled and asked for the women’s lingerie department “and all his buddies laughed,” Sharoni wrote in a complaint, the details of which he disputed, to the association later that day.
“After they walked out, the woman standing next to me turned to me and said, ”˜I wonder if we should have told them that it is no longer acceptable to make these jokes!” she said in her complaint.
Sharoni, who wrote in her complaint that she has experienced sexual harassment in academe in the past and was shaken by the incident, said it took her a while to figure out that Lebow thought it was funny “to make a reference to men shopping for lingerie while attending an academic conference. I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that we froze and didn’t confront him,” she wrote.
Maybe if you’re so fragile, you shouldn’t be out in the world entering elevators where “white middle-aged men” make silly jokes and laugh at them. And maybe, just maybe, before you get on your high horse and complain to the International Studies Association, you should get a little perspective and sense of proportion, and maybe even the courage to say something to the person himself first:
After glancing at Lebow’s name tag, Sharoni says she went back to her hotel room to check out the association’s code of conduct. She then wrote to Mark A. Boyer, the association’s executive director. He forwarded the complaint to the group’s Committee on Professional Rights and Responsibilities, which determined that Lebow had violated the conduct code.
Lebow insists it never should have gotten to that point because he tried to resolve the problem informally, as the association’s conduct code recommends. After being informed that his conduct was under investigation, Lebow wrote Sharoni an email assuring her that “I certainly had no desire to insult women or to make you feel uncomfortable.”…
Boyer informed Lebow that his remarks had been deemed “offensive and inappropriate.” An even “more serious violation,” than the elevator remarks, Boyer wrote, was “that you chose to reach out to Prof. Sharoni, and termed her complaint ”˜frivolous.’”
Lebow was told to write an “unequivocal apology” to Sharoni and submit a written copy by May 15 to the association’s executive committee. The apology should focus on Lebow’s actions, rather than Sharoni’s perceptions of them, it said, adding that if he failed to comply, the executive committee would consider appropriate sanctions.
Lebow has refused.
He also sent an email to colleagues calling his treatment “a horrifying and chilling example of political correctness” that “encourages others to censor their remarks for fear of retribution.”…
He said it was a man, not a woman, who asked for the floors and that the other men in the elevator were not his “buddies” as she had described them. He wasn’t smiling, he said, and she wouldn’t have known if he was because he was standing in the back and she was in front of him.
Doesn’t matter, Ned. She sees you when you’re sleeping, she knows when you’re awake, she knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sake.
So you better watch out. No public place is safe, especially if you’re wearing a name tag.
Oh, and “Lebow added that he felt he was the ‘aggrieved party,’ as someone who has supported, mentored, and coauthored with women in the profession for 53 years.” Doesn’t matter; won’t protect you.
I suggest that Lebow have a talk with Jordan Peterson on this. It might be helpful.
For Sharoni’s complaint to reach this level, the cooperation of an organization like the International Studies Association is required. It’s no accident this occurred in the context of academia, the epicenter of political correctness and the campaign against free speech.
[NOTE: I also want to call your attention to this news of the passage of a law attempting to protect free speech at Arizona universities (public state-supported ones, I’m assuming).]
Empowered Feminists speak out. Clearly, she wasn’t an empowered Feminist.
Perhaps he was identifying as a woman at that point and was considering a few purchases?
An adult in this situation, empowered feminist or not, would engage the joker and explain that she was offended by the remark. He might ask why she took offense, perhaps explain that he was just joking, and, most likely, let her know he didn’t mean to offend. He might even apologize for causing offense.
A child, on the other hand, would do as she did: run to the authorities and file a complaint.
I first heard this joke in 1959 when I had a part time job after school and on weekends being a stock boy and elevator operator in a county seat town department store. Women’s wear was on top floors and when men, no matter what age were in the elevator as passengers they would make the comment “Second floor, women’s foundations and undergarments.”
Every person regardless of age or gender would grin and moan and leave with a smile. What the hell happened that a stupid old joke like this has become offensive, so offensive that a public apology is required. At the same time the whole vocabulary of adolescent swear and cuss words describing female parts and sex acts are permissible in all sorts of public forums.
Huh??????
I hate these vile women worse than life itself.
Have all feminists turned into Nurse Ratched these days?
It was always about socially-sanctioned aggression and about freedom from accountability. Or as Helen Smith put it, “Women have options. Men have obligations”. Compare feminist discourse to the life of Clare Boothe Luce or Carly Fiorina or Joan Didion and the words they have uttered about the worlds in which we live, large and small. The work and words of a woman of authentic accomplishment do not constitute a feminist discourse.
A woman commenting at another blog thought the joke was a reference to Mrs. Slocombe of the Women’s Lingerie Department in the Brit Sitcom “Are You Being Served.?”
I am reminded of a joke:
Did you hear about the 3 feminists?
That’s not funny.
But I like feminists because they are an endless source of amusement. First they tell us there is no difference between men and women, then they continually complain about men’s behavior.
No one working for universities will be surprised by this. The offending party is a senior faculty member with tenure. Anyone else would be applying for food stamps and trying to figure out how to start a new career outside of academia.
Currently, universities are full of vicious, odious women with unrestrained power–petty and otherwise. Looking for one with a sense of humor is the definition of futility. I wish I were exaggerating.
She really went to quite extraordinary lengths to be an asshole.
Lebow should have burst into song: “The Lumberjack Song.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZa26_esLBE
i’m sure the other guys in the elevator would have happily served as the RCMP chorus.
Even Ruth Marcus at the Washington Post is calling this “the latest exemplar in the academy of political correctness gone wild”. Her whole piece is worth a read. This jumped out:
Not enough to change your practices, you must change your beliefs. Well, at least she’s honest about her totalitarian instincts.
Thought Police.
This was pretty good damage control. By distracting people with social media, they have covered up Hollywood’s satanic rituals, human sacrifices, pedos, and sex trafficking rapists.
Nothing to see here folks, look towards the Stars instead!
I read that Sharoni is not a native-born American. I bet that she has no context for the dated joke about bygone times when multi-level department stores had elevator operators who would call out the departments on each floor. When are the people who jump to conclusions and assume the worst about others going to be the ones who apologize? She completely mis-read the situation and should be open to having a conversation about this where each side could learn something.
Oh, yeah, well, lingerie for the neo-lady is fashionable, even progressive.
This reminds me of the incident in Korea where a British Nobel Prize winner was savaged for a joke.
The complaining female was not even a scientist but a “journalist” of some sort. I can’t even find her name in all the articles. I remember she was black and had no credentials.
If I were still a professor I would require my students to write a gender neutral description of men’s and women’s underwear departments – only upmarket department stores would be eligible for observation. One must, after all, teach the little beggars good taste. The point of the exercise is to root out any perceived differences in men’s and women’s underwear as mental constructs. All claims of actual difference will result in a failing grade.
“Have all feminists turned into Nurse Ratched these days?” – Neo
It actually happened about 12 nanoseconds after the formation of the Women’s Liberation Movement.
“After they walked out, the woman standing next to me turned to me and said, ‘I wonder if we should have told them that it is no longer acceptable to make these jokes!” she said in her complaint” — quoted by Neo.
After we found out we weren’t the only ones Schneiderman had assaulted, the other woman turned to me and said, “I wonder if we should have told him that it is no longer acceptable to beat, strangle, and verbally abuse women he is sleeping with!” no one actually said in any complaint to the police at the time.
RigelDog Says:
May 8th, 2018 at 10:26 pm
I read that Sharoni is not a native-born American. I bet that she has no context for the dated joke about bygone times when multi-level department stores had elevator operators who would call out the departments on each floor. When are the people who jump to conclusions and assume the worst about others going to be the ones who apologize?
* * *
When the sane people of the world quit giving them a platform for their asinine complaints.
This sounds very much like the #MeToo idiots complaining that 90+ year old President HWB was groping them while telling his old chestnut about David Cop-a-feel.
However, you don’t have to be an immigrant these days to not get the joke – I vaguely remember live elevator operators in my childhood.
miklos000rosza Says:
May 8th, 2018 at 6:31 pm
She really went to quite extraordinary lengths to be an asshole.
* * *
That is the new characteristic of the left – they can’t get enough headlines with the first complaint, because we are getting inured to the inanity that follows the onset of publicity about real problems, so they refuse the apology in order to churn the MSM until somebody makes them a star.
When you are dealing with people who won’t take “I apologize” for an answer, then there is no point in apologizing to them at all.
Which, BTW, Donald Trump figured out long ago.
A normal person would’ve joked back.
Better than Jordan Peterson, have someone get him a copy of SJWs Always Lie and SJWs Always Double Down by Vox Day.
And make sure that he understands, no matter how much pressure is exerted Never Apologize.
Never ever ever ever ever…
Hilarious, to where this kind of mind control has led us. Back to the times of religious hypocracy and inquisition.
Fractal Rabbit Says:
May 9th, 2018 at 8:38 am
Better than Jordan Peterson, have someone get him a copy of SJWs Always Lie and SJWs Always Double Down by Vox Day.
VoxDay picked up a lot of his tactics from Alinsky. It took him quite awhile to go from moderate Christian to living in Italy and giving up on the US political experiment.
Ymar Sakar,
And?
The coercive tool of political correctness is one of the very effective weapons that the Left’s Gramcian attack employs against Western bourgeois nations/societies/cultures–very much including us–as those on the Left try to, first, manipulate and, then, to use the power of the social/cultural institutions, media, and governmental organizations they have seized control of, to force us–under penalty of intense criticism, shunning, up to loss of job or career, or even legal penalties and jail time–anyone remember Nakoula Basseley Nakoula of Benghazi fame–to channel our thoughts, words, and deeds into the restrictive channels that they demand we use; we have to think, and say, and do the “right things,” as they define “right.”
And, if they are really cooking, they hope they can crush anyone not toeing their line, to serve as an example of what happens when you don’t.
It seems to me that the only recourse we have to defend ourselves is to mock and resist–both passively, and, if we can, very actively–to slap down each and every such attempt by the Left or some individual Leftist or group of Leftists to force our thoughts, words, and deeds into the “correct” pattern that they dictate.
We have to champion free thought and free expression of that thought, as well as actions that are taken in the real world that flow from our thoughts.
The mind is–at least so far–the ultimate fortress; they can’t know what your actual thoughts are.
As in the old Soviet Union–that was just one gigantic lie, from top to bottom and back to front, inside and out–people paid lip service to the “party line,” did what they had to do to survive within that system, but knew what the actual reality was, and when the chance came to be free, they were.
I have seen people who lived in the former U.S.S.R. comment there and there that they see ominous signs of the kinds of things they lived through and saw in the old U.S.S.R. creeping into our country.
I would pay very close attention when someone who grew up in the old U.S.S.R., someone who has lived under those conditions, warns us that he or she sees and recognizes the signs that we are edging closer and closer to replicating the conditions of coerced mental slavery they lived through here in the U.S.
Fractal Rabbit Says:
May 9th, 2018 at 3:39 pm
Ymar Sakar,
And?
And it’s true. What else do ya need.
Not gonna apologize for writing the truth either.
We have to champion free thought and free expression of that thought, as well as actions that are taken in the real world that flow from our thoughts.
That doesn’t work when people go Full Alinsky.
Ymar Sakar,
Wasn’t asking you to apologize for anything.
I also wasn’t questioning validity. I was questioning the point of the comment, wondering ‘Where is he going with that?”. (I like a good debate as much as the next guy). Hence the ‘And?’ and not the “That’s not true!” or that old standby, “That’s irrelevant!” (both of which you will note I did not say).
I read blogs so I can get information to make or not make decisions. Is that why people here write comments and posts? I don’t know. Why do I write stuff here, probably for the same reason other people write stuff that may or may not be on topic. Individuals are weird.
I don’t need a reason to write the truth. If you want a reason, then it’s a debate. Your position then becomes that I need a reason. Then it moves to whether the reason is agreeable or not to you. And my counter position is that I don’t need a reason.
Why do people write blog posts that may or may not be true? You don’t ask that question here, I have observed. But you asked it of me. That was interesting.
I know you weren’t asking me to apologize for it.
I know you weren’t questioning validity of the comments, your position was presented as a neutral question.
You had not written “that’s not true”, because you were waiting for something to disagree with ; )
Since I wasn’t writing what I knew of VoxDay to get into an argument, I didn’t respond that way. The easiest way not to get into an argument is to change the topic or stop communicating.
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