The rules are for idiots, idiots!

Back in the day it was quite an outrage about the personal (not political) decision of US Vice president Mike Pence that he is never alone with a woman who isn’t his wife and doesn’t go out to social group meetings (defined as “serving alcohol”) without her. It was considered sexist and demeaning, labeling women as temptresses. Or at least it was labeled horribly outdated that hurts women at work by denying them casual networking.

After the stories of “work meetings” of Harvey Weinstein came to light, Mike Pence looks much less stupid. As a conservative blogger said: “The media will never run stories about Mike Pence sexually harassing women. They’ll never run stories about women unsure whether Pence was propositioning them or if they were reading too much into something.”

Of course the idiots still don’t get it. They acclaim “Is the only thing standing in the way of sexual abuse not allowing yourself to be alone in the same room with a woman?”. No idiots! But it is the only thing standing in the way of an idiot. Rules are for idiots, idiots! If everyone would be smart and logical, there would be no need for rules, we would all live in harmony in utopia!

But – go figure – there are morons and slackers among us who do stupid stuff either because they are too dumb to realize, or “lol 4fun”. There are only two ways to stop them from happening. One is systematically filtering out – at least some kinds of – M&S from the group. The other is banning the behavior for everyone. You can’t just ban it for M&S because M&S don’t self-identify. Actually they are prone to break even the written rules, so the good rules are also restricting their victims from engaging into something that leads to their victimization. The Pence-rule stops the workplace sexual harassment not by stopping the conscious harassers, but by stopping the morons from getting into a situation where they can’t control themselves and by stopping their victims walking into their trap.

Yes, I do support – at least a limited version of – the Pence rule: man and women who are in a power dynamic (what is that will be tomorrow’s post, don’t miss it!) should not hang out alone. I don’t find it problematic if two people who aren’t linked by power hang out, because that’s essentially the same setting as bumping into a stranger on the streets. Since no one holds power, no one can force anything on anyone – besides brute force assault, which is rare and if you are afraid of that, you really can’t leave your home.

Ironically, that means that I also accept that much less developed cultures (ones with much more morons) need bizarre rules like wearing a burka at streets to prevent street rape or women walking at the street alone. In that setting, it’s a good rule. Of course, for us, it’s much better to just not let these kind of morons into our countries.