Making STEM a better place for women

[popnbrown]

Originally Posted by Philip Arola

It should be treated neutrally. Neutrally does not mean that you think it is not creepy, neutrally means that you try to understand both sides.

So this is the cause of our disagreement. Neutral action implies disbelief in that the act was not creepy. Whether you mean it or not. You (a general you, not you specifically) are that girl's mentor, the person who is there to support her, to teach her, to guide her. Not being absolutely supportive of her discomfort is not living up to your role as a mentor. Implication can mean everything

Try to inform the other party of what they were doing wrong without coming down as the hammer of Thor.

I agree with you on this approach, given that this may be offender's first offense. The majority of suggestions have been: talk with the offender, have a aside conversation, don't embarrass them, etc. But this is what we've been discussing how should we approach the other party.



I want to be absolutely sure that we address the first part before we move on. So I'm going to respond with the assumption that we're going to have two discussions at the same time, and that the primary conversation is the one above ^

Conversely, when someone comes to me because they hate someone beyond redemption because they think the other person is weird, there needs to be room for the offended party to learn. Is that agreed upon?

Yes, but only after you absolutely support offended party's claim of "creepiness". It would make you look like an absolute -donkey-, but it's still your role to support the student. I would only teach this lesson after I learnt of it during my disciplining of offending student. While not specifically with claims of "creepy" I have been in this situation, where X accuses Y, but Y really didn't, and then I go to X with "not cool...", and then I go back to Y "i apologize...not cool of X", and X loses a little bit of credibility with me.