Quote:
Originally Posted by AmiableVariable
I agree that there is no inherent harm in flirting where boundaries are respected. I do have a problem with a blanket statement of "this is life" and "this is natural "in a thread where the topic of discussion trends towards harassment and how to deal with it to make for a more welcoming environment. Even if you intended to refer to indubitably clean mutual flirting, the context and phrasing made it sound much worse. Ditto for indirectly attributing these problems on girls lack of interest in the field. Neither make for a more welcoming environment.
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It looks like Sperkowski has been misinterpreted by a lot of people. He is being pragmatic, not fatalistic. Meaning he appears think that this is an inevitable consequence of life, not that we should be doing nothing. The point of that being that perhaps there needs to be understanding of both sides, and a measured response. This was because the thread had already deviated from the original harassment angle, and strayed into territory where someone said to embarrass people making you feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, we are also not saying that people who are uncomfortable should not speak up. As far as what I believe and have already said, I believe quite the opposite. What I believe, and what people misinterpret as fatalism, is that we shouldn't be shaming awkward teenagers when they are awkward.
As someone who shares Sperkowski's viewpoint, I can say that harassment is totally unacceptable, and certainly NOT what I (and probably he was) am talking about when we talk about "that this is natural." He is referring to uncomfortable situations that arise because someone is simply awkward by nature.
To deviate slightly, I find the rules banning relationships to be quite ill conceived. Not only is this unenforceable (you need to get parents involved, and I don't think you are going to have too much success even with that), but it is a direct discouragement of healthy relationships. I don't like teams being embroiled in drama as much as the next person, but do you honestly think that forcing high schoolers to suppress their hormones (assuming they just don't go behind everyone's back) will work?