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Abuse is no excuse.

> abusers of all varieties tend to realize the mileage they can get out of saying, “I’m abusive because the same thing was done to me.”
— Lundy Bancroft, "Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men"

For those for whom this excellent description has resonance, I strongly recommend the book, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". [1] It's nominally written about domestic abuse, but its descriptions of abuser psychology and its taxonomy of abuser behaviors have been really helpful to me in a work context.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling-ebook/dp...

Exactly my thought.

For anybody interested in the topic of abuse, I strongly recommend, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men": http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-He-That-Controlling/dp/042519...

It is the single most astute book I have read. The author, a domestic violence counselor for men, mostly had clients who were court-ordered to attend his sessions. He spent a decade listening to vast amounts of self-justifying bullshit and then wrote a thoughtful, precise, and clear breakdown of why and how abusers work and how the abused can get out of it.

At this point I've given away 15 or so copies. Some to people who needed it urgently, and many to people who just wanted to learn more. Ignorance gives abusers cover, and I honestly think this book should be required reading for every high schooler so that they can spot and call out patterns of abuse.

Speaking of abusive bosses, let me recommend a favorite book:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000Q9J0RO

It's Lundy Bancroft's, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It's the single most astute thing I've ever read. The guy spent more than a decade as a counselor for abusive men, most of them ordered to him by the courts. It's clear he heard an ocean of bullshit and became very good at seeing through it.

It's targeted at domestic abuse, but his insights are so clear and well-explained that it's easy to apply the lessons elsewhere. E.g., a couple of years back my boss got pushed out, so suddenly I was being managed by his boss. I walked out of my first meeting with him wondering what the fuck had just happened; everything I said he jumped on aggressively. But the pattern rang a bell, so I thumbed through the book. He lists a variety of abuser styles, and the one called "Mr. Right" fit him perfectly. In one meeting he hit something like 2/3rds of the items in the checklist.

Had I not read that, I would have probably walked away thinking that the problem was me, even though my original boss had been happy with me and my work. Instead, I was prepared for what came next: a couple more abusive meetings and then a surprise, no-notice "layoff" where I and the other manager my boss hired were pushed out. (And where we were asked to sign a no-disparagement clause if we wanted any severance. Seeing it a further abuser-style manipulation, I passed.)

Over the years I've given away maybe 15 copies of the book, often to people who were in abusive relationships without recognizing it. If you ever even begin to wonder, I strongly recommend reading the book.

I think it depends on what you mean a lot by "think". Did they wake up thinking, "Hey, let's go for some misogyny today"? Probably not. But on the other hand, it's not like their behavior is random, patternless. People often do things without really understanding what it means. Indeed, given how hard actually understanding a global society and its history is, I'd say we almost never totally understand anything we do. It's a big world, and people are universes unto themselves.

One book you might read here is, Bancroft's "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". It's written by a therapist who mainly dealt with men in court-mandated therapy programs related to domestic abuse. Few of the men ever saw themselves as bad actors. There was always a reason they were justified in their abuse. He goes into great detail examining how abuse worked well for them.

I also think you misunderstand the systemic nature of things like misogyny and racism. You are effectively saying it's the job of women to fix sexists. Putting the burden there acts to support sexism. That's true anywhere, but it's especially true when we're talking about academia. Look at that UMich CS professor: he had many opportunities to understand his behavior was wrong. He surely heard it from women. He certainly heard it in trainings; "don't grope the students" is something every professor knows by now. Ignorance is not the problem, and suggesting that women with little power should educate men who can ruin their careers only helps abusive men.

Ignorance can be the problem in specific cases, of course. But even there, individuals are responsible for their own behavior. If men would like to not be sexist, they should study the topic. For the HN crowd, I might suggest Manne's "Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny" and the follow-on book "Entitled". Both are sharp, readable, and very analytical looks at the topic.

Franz de Waal's "Chimpanzee Politics". It's nominally about the social relationships of a chimp colony in a Dutch zoo. But it made me see the extent to which humans are just another great ape, and a lot of human dynamics are really primate dynamics, especially around social power.

Johnstone's "Impro". It's about improvisational theater, and mainly meant for people learning improv. But the section on status transactions helped me see a lot about how we express those primate dominance dynamics. There's also great material on the nature of creativity.

"Getting to Yes" is a great book about business negotiation, but is lessons about shifting discussions from zero-sum to positive-sum are things I use a lot.

Braitenberg's "Vehicles: Experiments in Synthetic Psychology" is a way of thinking about psychology (and our inference of mind) by examining imaginary robots.

"The Toyota Way" and other books on Lean Manufacturing are about running extremely effective manufacturing operations. But they have deeply changed how I think about systems of making software and running businesses. Other great books in this category include "Toyota Kata" and "Principles of Product Development Flow".

"Crossing the Chasm" is about how tech products get adopted. But its mindset around segmenting audiences and building credibility taught me a lot about any sort of social change.

"Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men" is nominally about abuse in romantic relationships. But its insights about power and control have been useful to me way beyond that. E.g., so much behavior in large corporations is inexplicable if you look at it in business terms, and perfectly sensible if you think about if from the perspective of, "What would a person with abusive tendencies gain from this situation?"

Also, hearty +1s for books "Design of Everyday Things", "Finite and Infinite Games", and "Punished by Rewards".

It sounds like you don't have much experience dealing with abusers. I'd suggest reading, "Why Does He Do That? Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men". Abusers will use private approaches like that as another opportunity to berate and dominate. Indeed, if you read the addenda to Butterick's piece, you'll see that Felleisen approached him privately and with "a strange mix of concilliation and hostility". That is also typical of abusers.

Your "adult" approach only works if the other person is also behaving as an "adult". Felleisen gave no indication to Butterick that he was capable of working at that level. If Felleisen wanted feedback, he could have signaled that.

Further, in the context of a project like this, bringing the behavior up to the people running it is generally a good place to start. The behaviors acceptable in a community are determined by the community. What Butterick learned was that abuse from Felleisen was considered normal and acceptable, and that the community would protect Felleisin over Butterick. In that circumstance, there's little point to approaching the abusive person because they already know they can keep doing what they want.