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Things That Will Surprise No One

Jill

John Derbyshire

John Derbyshire — he of “15-year-olds are the sexiest broads around because women reach their expiration date at 20″ fame — has some Things To Say about sexual harassment and racial discrimination:

Is there anyone who thinks sexual harassment is a real thing? Is there anyone who doesn’t know it’s all a lawyers’ ramp, like “racial discrimination“? You pay a girl a compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up. Is this any way to live?

I mean, you can’t even walk up to a high school girl anymore and tell her what nice tits she has — next thing you know it’s all police officers and sex offender registries. No way to live!

If I were Derbyshire’s employer, I would be particularly concerned with his views on this issue, especially if he is interacting in any way with other human beings. Hello walking expired milk jug of liability.

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25 thoughts on Things That Will Surprise No One

  1. If I were Derbyshire’s employer, I would be particularly concerned with his views on this issue, especially if he is interacting in any way with other human beings.

    Wow, he’s in for a surprise when he guest blogs on Feministe next week 😉

  4. This is a completely illogical argument and I have no idea where to start on this article.
    “Racial discrimination” exists and is prevalent in America because our country was dead last in abolishing slavery (our mother country Britain got it together before us). At least from the “bad” parts of California I’ve seen minor instances of racial discrimination (but still discrimination none the less). I’m stereotyped (as a minority) and surprisingly I found more racism in America than any of the other countries I have traveled to thus far (Japan, Canada, Scotland, England, Spain, and France). Also, Mr. Derbyshire, I’m assuming can’t identify with many occurrences of racism (perhaps because he is a Caucasian-American male?) and probably hasn’t experienced much “sexual harassment” either (because again he is male).
    “You pay a girl a compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up.”
    What kind of compliment? I’m assuming a judge will ignore a sexual harassment claim about a man complimenting a female co-worker’s shoes, but I’m thinking something along the lines of “Your ass looks hot in that skirt,” will probably be labeled as “sexual harassment” (and rightly so!). Also his quote is directly correlated to only women, so clearly Mr. Derbyshire thinks “sexual harassment” usually applies only to women. If women are the ones being “sexually harassed” isn’t it possible at least half (or all) of those women didn’t appreciate the harassment? Don’t those women have a right to sue their harassers? I’m fairly certain nothing would better remind a person not to “sexually harass” than a notice for court and a costly settlement (or any settlement for that matter).

  6. Guys like Derbeyshire are also guilty of writing about things that they are AFRAID MIGHT happen (the police get called because you compliment a woman) as thought they are actually real, rather than things that HAVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED. The very IDEA that they might have to behave in a civilized way around other human beings EVEN IF THEY ARE FEMALE OR BLACK, sets them into hysterics! These priviliged white guys are terified of absolute Bogeymen!

    I think we should call them……PANTSHITTERS!

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  8. “Racial discrimination” exists and is prevalent in America because our country was dead last in abolishing slavery

    Technically, Brazil took longer. And that’s only counting the Western hemisphere.

  9. @megalodon: I know more about some things than some other people, but generally it isn’t in good taste to point that out, especially when the better knowledge isn’t really relevant to the point being made. A better post, and a better trick, would have been your denying that #4 experienced more racism in the U.S. than in any of the other countries she has traveled.

    You are welcome for this entry on Blog Etiquette.

  10. You pay a girl a compliment nowadays, she runs off and gets lawyered up. Is this any way to live?

    For whom?

    Somehow I get the feeling he’s entirely unconcerned about what it’s like to be female in a world where sexual harassment is a social force.

  11. Well, he can hardly be concerned about sexual harassment as a social force if he doesn’t think it’s a real thing.

    The National Review Online, ladies and gentlemen; America’s Shittiest Website.

  12. The National Review Online, ladies and gentlemen; America’s Shittiest Website.

    Oh, I think the competition is a lot stiffer than that.

  15. Iam138: @megalodon: I know more about some things than some other people, but generally it isn’t in good taste to point that out, especially when the better knowledge isn’t really relevant to the point being made. A better post, and a better trick, would have been your denying that #4 experienced more racism in the U.S. than in any of the other countries she has traveled.

    You are welcome for this entry on Blog Etiquette.

    Was this sarcastic? I don’t think there was any problem with Megalodon making a factual correction. This comment struck me as incredibly odd.

  16. This stuff about sexual harassment is such bullshit.

    This isn’t my practice area and I’d love to see a primer from someone who does employment discrimination law here, but there are only two things that are sexual harassment:
    1) Quid pro quo
    2) hostile work environment

    Now, even assholes like Derb will say that it’s wrong to say “sucking my cock is part of the job description.” I don’t believe he believes it, but he at least knows he can’t say that.

    So the issue is really hostile work environment. But a compliment doesn’t create a hostile work environment. My recollection is that it takes either something that shocks the conscience or a pattern of behavior, such as persistent unwanted propositioning.

    And, in fact, lots of these cases die at the summary judgment stage without ever getting to a jury, and the alleged harassers almost never have to pay any litigation costs because employers cover them, so it’s just the inconvenience of being accused of something — I’m just not sympathetic to that.

    They’re complete pants-shitters. In my life, the only people I’ve seen get into trouble at work for sexual harassment were people who had a pattern of sexually harassing people. If all they do is tell a coworker, “nice earrings,” nobody — nobody — thinks that’s harassment. If they think they can say something sexually charged about their coworkers regularly, then they may well be creating a hostile work environment and HR should fix their little red wagons.

    Also, Derb has made it pretty clear that he’s primarily interested in jailbait, so I don’t know why anyone takes him seriously anymore.

  17. Jadey: Wasthissarcastic?Idon’tthinktherewasanyproblemwithMegalodonmakingafactualcorrection.Thiscommentstruckmeasincrediblyodd.

    Ditto. The correction was entirely appropriate, and frankly it was needed.

  19. Sadly, slavery is alive and thriving in many countries today, perhaps underground, but slavery of many kinds is happening even in the US. Has anywhere really effectively abolished it?

  20. FINALLY, someone puts into words what I’ve been secretly thinking for 20 years now: that Anita Hill should have been grateful for that pube on her Pepsi. Can’t a broad take a compliment? Sheesh.

    WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE PERVERTS?

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  22. Thomas MacAulay Millar: If all they do is tell a coworker, “nice earrings,” nobody — nobody — thinks that’s harassment.

    Seriously.
    I remember in the 90s, as a grad student, having other men in the department freak out and ask me if I just didn’t understand as a Canadian that I was treading dangerous ground if I mentioned to one of my female colleagues she looked nice that day.

    Of course I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t creating a hostile work environment, the women involved weren’t weirdly vindictive people, and no one thinks that’s harassment. But man, these guys were convinced I must be a daredevil or have some magic mojo to “get away with it in this environment”.

    It was downright weird.

  23. I really enjoy how often grown ass men refer to grown ass women as “girls”.

    And by enjoy, I mean I actually hate it.

    Though I suppose that this doucheperv may actually be talking about girls, as he seems to fancy the underage set.

  24. LC: I wasn’t creating a hostile work environment, the women involved weren’t weirdly vindictive people, and no one thinks that’s harassment.

    And as TMM pointed out, even if they were weirdly vindictive, it wouldn’t have gone very far, because sexual harassment means something other than “something and a woman doesn’t like it.”

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