Craig and Gender Double Standards

A couple of our commenters made this point well, too, but this post very effectively expresses my puzzlement over various male commenters who seemed to think that having a foot tapped and hand rubbed on the side of a bathroom stall to signal sexual desire is a completely unconscionable act mandating immediate police intervention:

What I find more astonishing is the definition of “disorderly conduct.” By this reckoning, ten years and thirty pounds ago, I had disorderly conduct foisted upon me approximately…let’s see…15,923 times.

Per week.
Give or take.

But, even if they’re unwanted advances, that’s the natural order of things, right? Whereas men have to be protected from the unwanted advances of men at all costs (why? because they’re worried they just might succumb to a particularly persuasive piece of foot telegraphy?).

Given the constant, daily harassment women endure (come on now, don’t tune out; stay with me, here) — harassment that makes us compress our daily activities into daylight hours, that circumscribes where we go, who we go with, and even what we wear; intrusive harassment, ruin-your-day, make-you-feel-powerless/angry/depressed harassment — the overzealous prosecution of the toe-tapper really pisses me off. It’s like those sophomore discussions one has of human trafficking, in which someone invariably says “but what about the men?”, and then the rest of the discussion, in some form or another, is overwhelmingly preoccupied with those minority cases. Heaven forfend we don’t keep men front and center, even if it makes lousy Bayesians of us all.

Look: if there’d been groping, a physical risk, or even just a persistent advance in the face of a single “no” (which doesn’t seem to have ever been uttered), I’d be supportive regardless of the gender base-rates involved. But “he tapped his foot and looked at me funny”? Please! Men! Grow a pair!

Indeed; I’ll also add that as far as Craig knew the advance was not unwanted but invited, which makes the case particularly problematic (although I don’t know if it rises to the standard of entrapment under Minnesota law.) The rest of the post is sound analysis, too. [Via Prettier Than Napoleon via Catherine Andrews.]

UPDATE: Further thoughts here.