Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja, recently said he would not stream with women because people would then harass his family and accuse him of having an affair. People called him names and made accusations about Ninja over these statements. But is part and parcel of the social justice metoo era. Men don't want to be perceived as doing something wrong or inappropriate with women so they avoid interactions. In fact according to Lean In the number of men refusing to mentor, work with, or even socialize with women is going up, dramatically. So just why is it that men are refusing to work with women?
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Recently news was made when one of the most popular gaming live streamers, Tyler Blevins, also known as Ninja, said that he wouldn't stream with women out of respect for his family and his marriage.
People then said he was misogynistic, he was sexist, he refuses to stream with girls.
But he clarified that this was because he will be harassed, that his family will be harassed, and that people will accuse him of flirting or cheating on his wife and things of that nature.
And this is reminiscent to what we saw with Mike Pence, when not too long ago the story came out that he wouldn't dine alone with people who weren't his wife.
In the wake of the MeToo movement, there have been many men who are refusing to mentor women, who are refusing to socialize, and don't even want to be in the same room as women out of a fear that anything they say or do could be misinterpreted or they could be falsely accused.
So today, I want to ask the question, Why is it that there are so many men who are concerned about being alone with women?
Why is it that men are now unlikely to mentor women?
But before we get started, let me give a quick shout-out to today's sponsor, Newsvoice.
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First, we'll start with the most recent news, from Variety.
Ninja doesn't stream with women to avoid rumors and marriage issues.
The Twitch star who streams Fortnite Battle Royale currently has over 10 million followers on his channel.
If I have one conversation with one female streamer where we're playing with one another,
and even if there's a hint of flirting, that is going to be taken and going to be put on
every single video and be clickbait forever," Blevins said.
Blevins, who is married, says he also wanted to make 100% sure that he was not connected
to other women in the online world.
He said this decision was his and not a decision made by his wife, Jessica Blevins, who is also a streamer on Twitch.
That was not even her, Blevins said.
She had nothing to do with it.
That was me being, I love our relationship, and no, I'm not even going to put you through that.
Despite his personal reasons, the general consensus in the gaming community was surprised at Ninja saying he will only stream with male gamers.
The range of response runs the gamut from outrage at the message that the biggest Twitch streamer not playing with females sends, to others respecting Blevins choice as a personal one.
There hasn't been a single female gamer or streamer on Twitch, or anything like that, who's been upset about that, Blevins said, regarding his choice.
He then calls it a respect thing.
Ninja clarified.
He said that people will essentially harass his family, and videos will pop up because he's got 10 million followers, claiming that he's cheating on his wife.
And he's not wrong.
Interactions between men and women are dramatically different.
If I make a joke to a man on Twitter, people just assume I'm making a joke.
But even if I simply... There's somebody on Twitter.
And I simply said, hey, are you going to this convention next September?
I'll see you there.
And people started acting like all of a sudden we were dating and making jokes about it.
And then, yes, it was rather uncomfortable because we're just trying to have a professional relationship.
And this leads me to the bigger story.
That in the wake of the Me Too movement, there's many reasons why men are actually refusing to interact with women.
Not all men, but the numbers are going up.
From leanin.org, key findings.
Almost half of male managers are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together.
the widespread media reports of sexual harassment, here's what we learned.
Almost half of male managers are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with
a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together.
Again, almost half.
Almost 30% of male managers are uncomfortable working alone with a woman, more than twice
as many as before.
The number of male managers who are uncomfortable mentoring women has more than tripled, from 5% to 16%.
This means that 1 in 6 male managers may now hesitate to mentor a woman.
Senior men are 3.5 times more likely to hesitate to have a work dinner with a junior-level woman than with a junior-level man.
Five times more likely to hesitate to travel for work with a junior level woman.
The survey shows that the amount of men who are uncomfortable working with women, socializing with women, or even being alone with women has actually gone up.
And I can't say it's surprising because interactions between men and women are different.
One example I've given is if a man compliments the appearance of another man, it's typically brushed off as nothing.
Like if a guy looks at another guy up and down and says, man, that is a stunning suit, you're gonna kill it with the ladies.
Very few men are probably gonna take that as sexual harassment or be offended by it.
But if it's the opposite sex doing it to each other, it immediately becomes something more nefarious.
If a man looks a woman up and down and says, wow, that's a stunning dress, you look great, you're gonna kill it with the guys, that could be considered sexual harassment.
As much as the other instance could too, it just seems more likely that a man interacting with a woman is more likely to be perceived as harassment.
Suffice it to say, there are basic interactions men can have with each other that are typically not seen as harassment, that, when a man or a woman would do to each other, is seen as sexual in nature, and thus, interactions between men and women are different.
So it's unsurprising, then, that men are feeling this way about mentoring, working with, or being alone with women.
The Globe and Mail has a story from May 27th.
Is Me Too worsening the divide between men and women?
And it is from Lisa Kimmel, the president and CEO of Edelman Canada.
This is a very big company.
Lisa writes, A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine, who happens to be a male executive, confided in me that he has been accused of sexual misconduct at a recent company function.
I didn't do this, he implored, but I know my career and reputation are over.
The sheer panic in his voice was terrifying.
The allegations against him were subsequently proved to be false.
I was rocked by this news.
Both the initial allegations and the resulting dismissal.
Not only as his friend, but as a female executive who has commented on the business implications swirling around even the threat of such accusations.
There's no question that my view of the MeToo movement has evolved since I wrote about the issue in January.
I have had the opportunity to talk about my thoughts at a recent Women's Forum Canada debate about whether the movement will inevitably help unify men and women in creating better workplaces.
While my position on the matter may not be the popular one, I'm steadfast in my evolving belief that MeToo is worsening the divide between men and women instead of bridging the gap towards meaningful change.
In an interview with Vice News, Jordan Peterson questioned if men and women can work together.
Is society ready to tackle sexual harassment in the workplace effectively?
In the interview, he states he doesn't know if they can work together because it's only been a few decades and in his opinion it's been disastrous.
We've had sexual harassment and now we have the blowback.
It does seem like equality is very hard to attain when men and women behave differently towards each other.
And then we have the current circumstances.
Where men actually sexually harass women and do very inappropriate things.
The MeToo movement isn't wrong in that regard.
But the result of this is blowback.
It's a backlash.
Where now men don't even want to go to social functions with women, let alone be in the same room as them.
And again, it's not all men.
It does seem to be a minority.
But it's a decent-sized minority of men who are straight-up saying, we don't want to do this.
There are examples of men being falsely accused, like we saw from Lisa Kimmel, CEO of Edelman Canada.
She tells a story about a friend of hers who was falsely accused.
And even if it is rare that a man is falsely accused, don't be surprised if many men want to avoid any situation where they could be falsely accused for any reason.
I think about it this way.
If you have a one-in-a-thousand chance, a one-in-ten-thousand chance of being falsely accused of inappropriate behavior, is that a lottery ticket you really want to buy?
It's probably better just to avoid the situation outright and not risk your career and possibly offending someone.
It's not just about the man saying they don't want to work with the woman because they could be falsely accused.
It's also about the man saying maybe they'll do something wrong that will make the woman uncomfortable and it's better if they just don't work alone or go to social functions out of a fear of social ramifications.
But there is another issue I want to address.
What happens when it is the man accusing the woman?
Well, often the system doesn't support the man in the same way.
Again, it sometimes does.
But we do have a recent example in which a man filed a claim against a woman and feminists actually defended the abuser.
The New York Times ran a story a couple days ago.
What happens to Me Too when a feminist is the accused?
The story is about Evital Ranel, a world-renowned female professor of German and comparative literature at New York University.
She was found responsible for sexually harassing a male former graduate student, Nimrod Reitman.
An 11-month timeline investigation found Professor Ranel, described by a colleague as one of the very few philosopher stars in the world, responsible for sexual harassment, both physical and verbal, to the extent that her behavior was sufficiently pervasive to alter the terms and conditions
of Mr. Reitman's learning environment, the university has suspended Professor Ronald
for the coming academic year.
I want to point out, they refer to it as sexual harassment, but show that it was physical.
That's sexual assault, and that's a difference.
But how do you think some high-profile feminists responded to the accusation against one of their own?
Soon after the university made its final confidential determination this spring,
a group of scholars from around the world, including prominent feminists,
sent a letter to NYU in defense of Professor Ronald.
Judith Butler, the author of the book, Gender Trouble, and one of the most influential feminist scholars today,
was first on the list.
We're told we have to believe, listen and believe.
When someone says that they've been assaulted and abused, we should believe them.
In this instance, feminists are actually defending the abuser.
But is that really surprising?
Because politics today is all about tribe, not about principle.
A man was not only sexually harassed verbally.
He was sexually harassed physically, which I would straight up say is sexual assault.
And there's emails sent to the New York Times that actually prove some of these allegations.
In the semester that followed, Mr. Reitman said he was expected to work with Professor Ronald often at her apartment during lengthy work sessions nearly every weekend.
Professor Ronald frequently detailed her affection and longing for him according to emails from her that Mr. Reitman provided to the New York Times.
I woke up with a slight fever and sore throat, she wrote in an email on June 16, 2012, after the Paris trip.
I will try very hard not to kiss you until the throat situation receives security clearance.
This is not an easy deferral.
In July, she wrote a short email to him.
Time for your midday kiss, my image during meditation.
We're on the sofa, your head on my lap, stroking your forehead.
Playing softly with your hair, soothing you, headache gone.
Yes?
Now Ronald denies wrongdoing and says that all of it was consensual.
And I'm not trying to highlight the story to make accusations against the left or the right, but the point I want to bring up is that there are many men who are worried they will be falsely accused.
But in the same instance, we could also say that we have seen examples of men who have actually laid the accusations, a Title IX investigation sided with the man who was physically assaulted and abused by this professor, and feminists are still defending her.
So what incentive is there for a man to engage in private behavior, in social behavior, or to mentor a young woman when there is a risk that a woman will misinterpret what you say, could accuse you of wrongdoing, or if they do actually engage in wrongdoing, feminists won't agree with you?
I'm not saying that this is the norm.
I'm saying that these instances are likely rare and probably very rare.
But all that matters is these stories have emerged, we have seen them, and it is likely that many men are going to see these stories as well and be worried that their careers and reputations can be tarnished or destroyed by a false accusation.
But again, I want to clarify.
There are probably many well-intentioned men that engage in certain behaviors with other men that is deemed totally acceptable.
But that behavior towards a woman would be totally unacceptable.
And it's likely that many men don't really know how to navigate that, so they err on the side of not engaging with women.
And it's really unfortunate that's the case.
I hope that we can find a future where men and women can work together peacefully, amicably, without harassment, that women can be free from sexual harassment, men can be free from sexual harassment, and nobody falsely accuse anyone.
But the truth is, these things happen.
They will likely happen.
But I want to end with this.
It's not just about inappropriate behavior.
It's not just about being falsely accused or someone misunderstanding your intentions.
We can go back to the main point about Ninja.
It's also the fact that if a man does mentor a woman, many people may accuse them of having an affair and be very disrespectful.
The Muse has a story, why men don't mentor younger women, and how we can change that.
It says, a 2010 study from the Center for Talent Innovation, formerly the Center for Work-Life Policy, found that nearly two-thirds of men in senior positions pulled back from one-on-one contact with junior female employees because of a fear of being suspected of having an affair.
Meanwhile, half of junior women reported being nervous about one-on-one contact with senior men for the same reason.
And this is probably, in my opinion, a bigger reason as to why men don't want to work with women.
Because if a man and a woman leave to go to lunch together, you know that people are gonna start gossiping about how they're going on a date and things like that.
I don't know if Jordan Peterson is right to question whether or not men and women can work together, because I believe they can for the most part.
But I think he is right to point out that it has been, at least to a relative degree, a disaster.
In that, with men and women working together, there are accusations of harassment, false accusations, and general uncomfortability, and it's created a big social hubbub, I suppose.
Women absolutely deserve the right to work alongside men or whoever they want without being harassed.
Men and women deserve to work together without being accused of having an affair, and men deserve to work comfortably alongside anyone they want as well.
People deserve equality, and it's unfortunate that for whatever reason, our society has these issues.
I think it's a natural effect of men and women just behaving differently with each other.
So let me know what you think in the comments below, and we will keep the conversation going.
Why do you think men don't want to work with women?
And obviously, it's the minority.
It's not all men.
But as we saw from Lean In, it seems like there is a growing number of men who don't want to work with, mentor, or even socialize with women in the workplace.
Why do you think that is?
Comment below.
We'll keep the conversation going.
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