Glomming at caltech
In the CalTech weekly newsletter, there was an announcement for a session on coping with glomming and stalking. I’d never heard of glomming, so I looked it up on google, and surprise surpise I found a Ms. magazine article that appropriately enough was written by a CalTech woman. Apparently glomming is when a bunch of guys follow a single woman around, or lie in wait of her, just to stare at her; usually this is done by undergraduate men to undergraduate women. Extremely disturbing behavior that according to the article’s writer, was common practice at CalTech. I haven’t yet seen any glomming, but then I’m not around undergraduates that much, and I’m not that observant. Clearly we still have a problem with that behavior, since it’s thought necessary to have a session on how to cope with it. My answer, though tongue-in-cheek, is simple: videotape the bastard(s) and threaten or execute prosecution for harassment.
Possibly relevant posts:
- Pirates and the original gay marriage (6/11/2007)
- TransAmerica (9/10/2006)
- Life Plans (5/29/2004)
[…] just can’t hack it at Caltech. The speaker advocated pepper spray; I like this blog’s video solution. The ubiquity of cameras in cellphones can be put to good use to take pictures of glommers […]
Pingback by 2020 Hindsight » Will more women at Caltech translate to less glomming? — 8/6/2007 @ 12:39 pm
That article is extremely misleading, and it’s clear the author has little understanding of undergrad life.
Glomming is primarily a social-awkwardness phenomena, a matter of incompetence rather than malice, where social incompetence among undergrads at Caltech probably vastly exceeds anything in the outside world.
Comment by j — 8/7/2007 @ 2:53 pm