“Ted” has been posting on Craigslist for months, looking for a woman to teach him how to approach women in public. It sounds coercive and awful—he’s going to pay a woman to teach him how to claim his God-given right to any woman’s attention at any time.
Unemployed as I am, I comb the Gigs section daily, and one fateful night, I decided to respond. I told Ted that he needs to learn when women aren’t interested in talking, and he also needs to think about the personal safety issues women face all the time. I even outed myself as a feminist.
Shockingly, Ted wrote back, and I made a plan to meet him at a coffee shop and discuss the job.
If I get this job, I plan to use it to teach Ted when not to approach women in public, aka 99% of the time. I don’t want to give this guy the confidence to talk to any woman—I want to teach him to recognize when women don’t want to talk and respect that. Ultimately I want to teach him that pushing women’s boundaries in public social situations is never acceptable.
I’d like to use this opportunity to mold a decent, non-d-bag man from someone who’s at least recognized that he’s having trouble talking to women, and won’t find my perspective in the standard lore. There’s a lot I can use for teaching materials, like Phaedra Starling’s piece “Schrodinger’s Rapist” and RP’s “But I’m Nice!”. But I’m worried about three things: first, if I’m helping a man talk to women, won’t my perspective necessarily be diluted? I find myself nodding my head when talking to men disturbingly often. How can I do this in good conscience? Second, what if he’s a d-bag? What if he’s a rapist? Third, what if he doesn’t really listen to me, just uses some parts of what I’m saying to manipulate women? I just don’t know how to do this, or if I should.
I need advice, everyone. Is there any universe in which this isn’t blatantly cooperating in women’s oppression?
Gender Agenda 
Snacktivism, you’re a weirdo first of all.
This might not be the most compassionate attitude to have towards someone who might just be a lonely guy who lacks social confidence, but when guys tell me they have trouble talking to women I always assume they mean they have trouble getting women into bed. There’s no reason a man should have a problem talking to women if he doesn’t have a problem talking to men. Most of the time the problem is that they don’t WANT to talk to women. They want to talk at them, make them giggle, and fuck them. They’re similar to guys who complain about how women always want to be “just friends” with them (anyone, by the way, who describes a friendship as “just a friendship” is a shitty friend).
Anyway, I think this guy would be really lucky to get your advice and while he might infer ways to manipulate women from what you tell him, anyone else who answers that ad will probably tell him directly how to manipulate women. I think if you want to you should do it, and meet in a public place.