Timeline for How to refuse a business trip due to low budget
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
19 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Nov 14, 2022 at 21:50 | comment | added | Steve | @GreenMatt, I don't think acknowledging the reality of individual variation has become outdated anywhere in the world. I've already answered that if a firm person effectively says they are frightened, then it can be considered a threatening place. But the point is that a person with firmness would be less frightened by any given menace than a person without firmness, and when a firm person is somewhat frightened, they are more likely to respond by taking steps to increase the threat they pose to any would-be assailant, rather than avoiding the streets completely as an infirm person may. | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 19:19 | comment | added | GreenMatt | Also, going back to my first post, a mugging may have been a bad example. If the only place a "firm" man could find to stay was a hostel in an area known for gang warfare or in danger of being devastated by a riot, do you think they should still travel and stay in that place? 2/2 | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 19:16 | comment | added | GreenMatt | @Steve: Like user3067860, you express a viewpoint that is outdated where I live. However, it's my sense that you've dug in here and nothing I say is going to change that. OTOH, it might help if you'd more fully explain what you mean by "firm"; it seems to me you're using it in different ways in different places. Does it mean physical traits? Mental/emotional/character traits? 1/2 | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 18:28 | comment | added | Steve | @user3067860, the irony is that the person who lets themselves be "peer pressured into a bad situation" is infirm - the brave man gets the boss told. The point is not to allow yourself to be governed into bad situations by others, it's about a shared notion that some risk in life is inevitable, and about having the audacity to take remote risks including the willingness to resist criminals even if you're killed in the process, because the alternative to such willingness to resist totally, is to be willing to submit to the whims of criminals at any time. | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 18:07 | comment | added | Steve | @GreenMatt, in your culture, is there no variation in people's susceptibility to fear? Or is it just not your culture to acknowledge the variation out loud? | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 14:54 | comment | added | user3067860 | @Steve The worst part is that this kind of thinking somehow still contributes to people discriminating against women when the real liability is the idiot who lets their boss peer pressure them into a bad situation based on some 1950s idea of masculinity. | |
| Nov 14, 2022 at 10:08 | comment | added | GreenMatt | @Steve: Note that my latest reply was because DKNguyen directed comments to me. I suspect there are different cultural attitudes involved here; your choice of the term "firmness" - which is odd to me - supports this. However, yes, I think that phrase is disparaging to all involved. However, more importantly, it doesn't affect the truth of what follows, thus serves no useful purpose. | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 16:54 | comment | added | Steve | ...and therefore more likely to be targeted. It wasn't my intention to be disparaging, as you seem to think it is, and I don't think I am being disparaging. I'd also emphasise that this is only one possible front of argument. I'm not suggesting that firm men should sleep in hostels on business, but the kind of argument I would advance for myself might not be about bodily safety, if I were talking to another man who felt safety was sufficient for himself in the same circumstances. (2/2) | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 16:54 | comment | added | Steve | @GreenMatt, what exactly is the issue for you? My original line of thinking was that a female traveller could say she felt unsafe to a male boss, and it would probably wash, even if the boss did not feel the same about the circumstances himself. I then thought further and conceded that there are certain men who could probably receive the same deference - these maybe being whoever the boss thinks it wouldn't be reasonable to hold to his own standard of firmness, or whoever the boss thinks has a physicality or character which makes them appear to be less firm,... (1/2) | |
| Nov 13, 2022 at 14:48 | comment | added | GreenMatt | @DKNguyen: The main point is that having that phrase in the answer is unnecessary; in fact it's worse than that, as it is distracting (at a minimum) - this whole comment thread is proof of that last point. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 8:03 | comment | added | Steve | @TigerGuy, and a line of policemen with shields and machine guns will be firmer still. As I say, most criminals seek control initially using fear, because struggle not only poses a threat to them in return, but most means they could bring to bear to overcome that struggle decisively (such as by immediately striking their target with a knife) not only potentially deprives them of their goal (which is rarely to just kill someone on the street as quickly as possible), but creates extreme determination amongst the authorities to hunt them down too. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 3:18 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @GreenMatt If a man shared safety concerns about not want to go somewhere, are you going to say they aren't valid because, as a man, feel comfortable in those same places? You might not, but it isn't difficult to imagine another particularly callous man would. But it is difficult to imagine that same man reacting the same way if it were a woman sharing such a concern. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 3:16 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @GreenMatt You're missing the point. Steve isn't saying those things that you are suggesting at all. You're the one suggesting that "there is something wrong with a man whose "firmness" is below average". What Steve is saying is that there are particularly strong arguments that the OP might be able to make in their favour. | |
| Nov 11, 2022 at 2:23 | comment | added | Tiger Guy | @Steve, no matter how firm you are, a knife blade will be firmer. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 19:32 | comment | added | Steve | @GreenMatt, the simple fact is that it would be generally more acceptable for a woman to advance that reason, as it may well be for a man who lacks firmness, and it will likely be accepted as a reason even when others don't share the same subjective fear. If a man of above-average firmness feels unsafe in a neighbourhood, and says so, then it can be considered a dangerous place without doubt. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 19:09 | comment | added | GreenMatt | Nothing is gained by including that phrase in your answer, the point of the sentence would be the same without it. Furthermore, it is sexist wrt "a woman" and indicating there is something wrong with a man whose "firmness" is below average, or with one who is average or above who still feels unsafe staying in a bad neighborhood. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 18:47 | comment | added | Steve | @GreenMatt, the question is whether, before such an event materialised, you'd be worried about it enough to deter travel. Muggers and other assailants typically want to leverage fear to gain compliance without struggle. It's not enough that they feel capable of subduing their target - they may themselves be injured or overmastered in the process of trying, or if they bring overwhelming force to bear against an individual target, then they risk being sought with determination, and punished severely, by the authorities. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 18:35 | comment | added | GreenMatt | "If you're a woman, or a man of below-average firmness...." Entirely unnecessary - even if you are a man of average or better "firmness", being outnumbered or facing a weapon in a mugging (or worse) will likely make that moot. | |
| Nov 10, 2022 at 18:20 | history | answered | Steve | CC BY-SA 4.0 |