We don’t leave female journalists alone with Lawrence
There are people corroborating the BuzzFeed story on Lawrence Krauss on social media.
Adding my voice to this – in 2013 I attended an event with Krauss and considered requesting an interview. Was told by someone who works with him that “we don’t leave female journalists alone with Lawrence”. Decided not to do the interview.
This “whisper network” people are talking about wasn’t made up of people who didn’t like him and wanted to smear him. It was people who worked with him who didn’t want to deal with the drama.
The same would apply to other people who warned women about Krauss: the goal was not [necessarily] to smear Krauss but to warn the women. That’s how it works. Warnings about people are also damaging to the reputations of said people, but that’s inherently part of such warnings.
A comment on a public post by Daniel Bastian:
A few years ago, I watched him proposition an 18 year old who had recently escaped a home schooling religious cult. I wasn’t sure why people I used to be close to didn’t decide he was a lowlife right then and there.
Drip drip drip.
“Warnings about people are also damaging to the reputations of said people, but that’s inherently part of such warnings.”
Krauss has this all wrong if he thinks the warnings and whisper network somehow show the warners and whisperers in a bad light. They have more regard for the safety and wellbeing of their audience than he does. The warnings are a public service like hazzard cones around a pothole full of raw sewage. Krauss (and Dawkins) don’t seem to see that Krauss has a starring role as the pothole.
So here’s an idea: don’t do shit that makes people feel the need to warn others about the shit you do. Simple.
Oh, and for added bonus points (which only help in getting you out of a hole you dug yourself, not ahead or above anyone), apologize for the shit you have done to the people you did it to, but don’t expect or demand to be forgiven or trusted by anyone, ever (especially the aforementioned recipients of your shitty conduct) simply because of your apology.That’s within their rights and part of the cost of having been shitty.
And one thing to add to YNnB – recognize that the more males that are revealed to be engaging in this sort of predatory behavior, the more women will become suspicious even of men that are not engaging in this sort of behavior. Just because we haven’t heard anything about them doesn’t mean nothing has happened, and we begin to look at all men as potential predators. This does both women and men a disservice, as it shrinks the range of relationships that are going to be available.
For instance, how can women journalists get the stories people want to read if you can’t leave them alone with the men that people want to read about? That story of the woman journalist made me feel angry that a woman should have to take the potential hit to her career by not being able to write the story her readers might want. Someone else will get those interviews, those stories, and will go on to become bigger names in journalism.
So many ways this stuff destroys women.
The fact that the warnings were issued without being leaked for over ten years is, as far as I am concerned, prima facie evidence that the purpose was never about defamation or cashing in on his fame. Hell, the clue is in the name for this sort of thing – it’s a whisper network, not a shouting network, because it keep things quiet.
But a ‘whisper network’ obviously doesn’t work. It protects the perpetrator more effectively than it does the ongoing supply of victims. It is just another aspect of the normalizing and fostering of abusive power.
To be fair, I think the point of the “whisper” part was to avoid the same treatment as Rebecca Watson..
“…told by someone who works with him that “we don’t leave female journalists alone with Lawrence”. ”
Now why would they say that? Could it be his own handlers knew of his reputation? Is he sueing them? Sounds like his behaviour was an open secret that’s now not as secret as it used to be. Dawkins doesn’t seem to care; he didn’t seem to care with regards to being in the same organization as Shermer. The Not So Amazing James Randi didn’t care about Shermer either. See also Grothe, re “locker room banter.” Whisper networks are all that’s left when those who know and should act know and don’t. Quiet backstage warnings are what’s left when costly lawsuits are threatened in efforts to protect public reputations against the simple truth of their private behaviour. That these reputations have been reduced to less than the value of a bucket of warm spit by the individuals launching the suits seems to be beside the point.