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You missed the point of my anecdote. There's a common thread here that women's voices, regardless the age, are not being heard. In both cases, the UNWANTED attention was rejected, yet continued or escalated into potentially criminal behavior. In my friend's situation, the authority figure who should have been helpful sought to assign blame to her, or excuse the perpetrators, as you seem to want to do to the woman on the train.jlaw172364 wrote:There's a big difference between these things happening to a minor on private property repeatedly and them happening one time, albeit serially from different men in a public space to a grown woman.
With private property, the perpetrators know where their target lives, and can come back when no adult supervision is around. Plus, the girl is minor, and as a latchkey kid, suffers from a shortage of parental supervision.
You absolutely did the right thing, because what can start off as harmless hanging out can quickly lead to adolescent pregnancy, or worse.
There are always those threats, kept in mind by most women in some form if they're sensible.Also, people seem to equate being hit on with the threat of imminent death or bodily injury, when it could also be viewed as a minor annoyance.
jlaw172364 wrote:So, a man can never understand feminism better than a woman. It doesn't matter how many books he reads, or how much he thinks on the subject, or if the woman he's compared to is an illiterate moron with no interest in the subject who watches TV all day long. She automatically understands because she's a woman.
compared2what? wrote:jlaw172364 wrote:
Now, is there an explanation for this phenomenon that gets away from the whole "men are from mars, women are from venus" tail-chasing?
Understanding is a mind thing, not a body thing.
I'd wager that minds are gender neutral.
Disagreeing with a handful of women does not equal misogyny.
Some men used to say that women couldn't understand certain subjects. In fact, some men with expertise in any field think that women can't grasp the subject as well as men.
Some men.
This "men will never understsand as well as women" smacks of similar thinking to me.
All you need is one genius that can articulate a more cogent theory and the model collapses.
But go ahead and believe whatever you like.
jlaw172364 wrote:Nothing she did put her at risk?
Being alive puts you at risk of death,
jlaw172364 wrote:suitors suitor suitor suitors suitor
jlaw172364 wrote:If you walk up to some guy reading a book or listening to an I-pod and start talking to him, and his reaction is to yell at you to leave him alone, you might react REFLEXIVELY by calling him a jerk.
And then if he writes an article about how people are constantly coming up to him and talking to him when he wants to be left alone, and then reacting poorly when he yells at them, or otherwise dismisses him in a rude manner, you'd think he was a weirdo.
But if someone goes and talks to a woman, she's at risk of being brutalized. According to her, none of those guys even asked her out. She didn't let them get that far. Maybe they were just being friendly. We'll never know. We weren't there. We don't hear their side of the story, just hers. She basically stated that when she reads a book on the train while wearing a fake wedding ring people might not notice, people are automatically supposed to know not to dare approach her and talk to her. And if they do cross her invisible, imaginary line, she has license to yell at them as if they were grabbing her boobs, because any speech directed at her while she's reading her book is automatically sexual harrassment, according to her unilateral standard.
None of you bothered to address the "what if" she actually received advances from someone she found desirable scenario.
It's only harrassment if they girl thinks the guy is unworthy of her time.
jlaw172364 wrote:These men didn't know she was going to reject them in advance or else they wouldn't have bothered. They thought she might say "yes" to them. That's why they tried to talk to her. They weren't doing it just to harrass her. Or at least, that's not the only conclusion you can draw from reading what she wrote.
It unequivocably turned into harrassment after she rejected them, because they tried to save face. This isn't to say that there aren't men who run around just harrassing women with no serious intent to go out with them, but the author didn't make it clear that this was the case.
jlaw172364 wrote:
Was she in danger of being gang-raped on the train in front of a bunch of onlookers? No. Did anyone touch her? No. They got in her space, but maybe there was an alternate explanation, like it was loud on the train, or they're close talkers and do that to everyone.
I think she acted in an imperious manner that exacerbated the situations that naturally occur as a result of going in public.
Being hit on in public is another poodle complaint.
Complaining that SOME guys abreact to your imperious, humiliating dismissal is another poodle complaint.
82_28 wrote:I personally think this thread is whistling in the graveyard, as they say.
As for the woman in transit story. Same fucking shit happens to me and probably to us all.
Last March I get off the light rail in the downtown tunnel. Ascend stairs. Get on sidewalk and light cigarette.
Girl asks me for a smoke and money and I said nope. Fuck, they're motherfucking 10 bucks a pack.
Well she and some dude start following me. Dude says, "yeah you fucking do." "You got smokes and you got money, motherfucker."
They followed me for about two blocks and at a certain corner I said to them, "If you need some fucking smokes, bro, there's a cigarette store right fucking there." They basically left me alone after that.
However, I don't doubt how frightened I was was any more or less than the woman in the tale. I literally did not know what to do if it escalated. Should I run? Should I fight? Was I about to get shot? I didn't fucking know. It happens to us all.
sw wrote:People can be crazy and their reactions speak about their state of mind.
I'd respond in a monotone voice that I'm sick and feel like vomiting so can't talk now. Or I have a migraine and can't talk because I feel like vomiting.
Then cough and make a gagging noise and they might flee.
Or continue with this and have a tissue in your hand to make fake vomit / cough sounds and they'll leave....hopefully.
barracuda wrote:I don't find it tremendously important in this context to discuss various conciliatory strategies a woman might consider in response to harassment on a train. They all boil down to the same thing, some sort of acquiescence to oppression. We might just as easily be putting forth suggestions as to just what firearms or other self-defense weapons are most conveniently carried on a woman's person. (I recommend a .32 cal pocket pistol - the Kel-Tec P-32 carries eight rounds, weighs six ounces and can be purchased for as little as $300. In the close confines of a train, higher caliber stopping power is less important than concealment and the handiness of a smaller gun, but the small caliber is nicely offset with the Kel-Tec's eight shots and the ability to easily fire a sixty grain hollow point).
I don't normally expect to see discussions here on the best ways in which to cringe in deference in order that your oppressors don't get hurt feelings. But maybe we need a new subforum for ideas about the proper prostration methods suitable for the permanent underclass.
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