Mansplaining

[Iamwhomiam]

Developing concern for others, thinking of them as part of us, brings self-confidence, reduces our sense of suspicion and mistrust, and enables us to develop a calm mind. ~ Dalai Lama

Although we are all the same in not wanting problems and wanting a peaceful life, we tend to create a lot of problems for ourselves. Encountering those problems, anger develops and overwhelms our mind, which leads to violence. A good way to counter this and to work for a more peaceful world is to develop concern for others. Then our anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions will naturally weaken and diminish. ~ Dalai Lama

[Project Willow]

You do a better job at it than I do, though. Which I appreciate.

In no way is that true or, I think, even possible. I am glad you're contributing here because I have a painting deadline and several others this week. There's no time to battle misogyny now except with paint and pencil! The work is for an art show called Who Does She Think She Is? a response to the republican war on women, set to open in Oct.

In the meantime, thought I'd share this, via Jeff, via Alwyn, and making its way around FB ATM:

http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/30861660109/i-debated-whether-or-not-to-share-this-story

I debated whether or not to share this story.
Posted 1 day ago

And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life. How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.

So here goes.

I often ride the Metro when I commute from North Hollywood to Long Beach in order to save money. I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself.

Without fail, I am aggressively approached by men on at least half of these commutes. The most common approach is to walk up to where I am sitting with body language that practically screams LEAVE ME ALONE and sit down next to me or as close to me as possible, when the train is not crowded and there are many empty rows. Sometimes an overly friendly arm is draped over the railing behind me, or they attempt to lean in close to talk to me as if we are old friends. Without fail, the man or boy in question will lean to close and ask me

What are you reading?

Is that a good book?

What’s that book about?


This serves the double purpose of getting my attention and trapping me in a conversation. If I stop reading the book I enjoy to talk to you, random stranger, you hit on me or just stay way too close to me. If I tell you to leave me alone, you get mad at me. Because I somehow, as a woman, owe you conversation.

Tonight when I boarded the train in Long Beach at 10:30pm, it started up right away. I was not on the train more than three minutes before three boys who looked eighteen sat in the row behind me and leaned over the seats into my personal space, close enough to breathe on me. The one with his arm draped over onto the back of my seat asked me—surprise— “what are you reading?” I went through my usual routine. I told them loudly and firmly that I wanted to be left alone to read my book. They got angry. I was told “Why are you going to be like that? I just wanted to talk!” His friends start laughing at me and they don’t move, telling me come on! and why are you gonna be like that? until I tell them to leave me the fuck alone, stand up, and move to the front of the car near the three other people on the train, a couple and a business man in a suit. They spend the next two stops shouting at me from the back of the car, alternating between trying to sound flirtatious and making fun of me, shouting “I bet she’s reading Stephanie Meyer! I bet she’s reading Twilight or some shit! You reading Twilight or some shit?”

They exit the train at the next stop, and I’m relieved. The train is going out of service at the next station, so we all exit to board a new train to Los Angeles. As we board, the business man steps aside to let me go through the door first and asks me if those guys were bothering me. I say yes, that it happens all the time, and he tells he’ll beat them up for me if they come back. He is a nice person who talks to me like I’m a human being instead of a walking pair of tits, and I make a mental note: This is how a real man talks to a woman on a train.

The business man and the couple exit our new Blue Line train an exit or so later, and I think my night is ending on a good note. A seemingly normal man enters the train with his bicycle. At this point I am three rows from the front of the car, another man was sitting near the back of the car, and the rest of the car is empty. Bicycle Man walks halfway down the row, and settles into the seat directly opposite me. Perfect, I think. Twice in one night.

It’s not the first time I’ve been bothered multiple times. As such, I’m still amped from the teenagers on the first train. So when this man leans across the aisle into my personal space and asks me, yes, what are you reading, I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone, I am reading. The man stands up, moving to the front and muttering angrily over his shoulder that it isn’t his fault I’m pretty.

Yes. Exactly that. I am the bad person in this situation because somehow this is all my fault. I started this by being attractive. I am making a mental note to bitch about this to my friends later. I go so far as to write it down so I know I’m remembering it properly.

It is at this exact moment I realize Bicycle Man is not taking it well. The seemingly annoying but normal man a moment before is now talking to himself, becoming agitated. In my years of being bothered by total strangers, I have learned how to hold a book and seem to be reading while taking in everything around me. He is glaring at me, and says out loud in an angry baby talk voice “PLEASELEAVEMEALONEI’MREADING. PLEASE LEAVE ME ALOOOONE.”

Then he’s up out of his seat and things go from bad to worse. He begins pacing back and forth in front of his bike, alternating between screaming something about his mother being dead and calling me a slut, a hoe, a bitch. I am frozen in place. There is one other person in the car, and I’m not sure if trying to change seats will draw more attention to me or less. I trust my instincts and show no fear, doing my best to appear to be calmly reading my book, never once looking up to acknowledge the abuse he’s hurling at me. There are four stops left until we reach the main downtown station where there are lights and security officers. Those four stops are virtually abandoned, and I have no guarantee that leaving to wait for another train won’t motivate him to leave the train as well, leaving us potentially alone at a metro station platform just outside of Compton. I’m frozen in place, trying to plan what I’m going to do if he decides to take all this rage directly to me. I’m ready to kick him, scream, make enough noise that he panics and flees.

At this point he’s punching the walls and doors of the train, screaming at me. He stares me full in the face and screams

SUCK MY DICK, BITCH

YOU BITCH

YOU STUPID BITCH

YOU GODDAMN HO

IF I HAD A GUN I’D SHOOT YOU

I WOULD FUCKING KILL YOU BITCH

This went on for two stops. No one came to see what was happening. The man in the last row was as frozen as I was. I’m not angry he didn’t come to my defense. He was smaller, older, and frailer-looking than I was. Again, I was worried if I got up, I would be turning my back on him to walk down the aisle. In the state he was in, I had no guarantee it wouldn’t get physical, and I had more physical strength with my back to the window and feet in kicking position where I was. If he had chosen to assault me, I would only be making it easier for him by standing up and putting myself directly in his path. On and on, over and over, he screamed at me, screamed at his dead mother, screamed at me again.

The moment we reached the downtown station, I was out the door and down the stairs. I still had to catch a connecting train to North Hollywood, and made sure there was no sign of Bicycle Man before I entered the car. That’s when I finally starting shaking, and almost threw up. By the time I exited the Red Line and reached my car I could barely breathe and my heart was pounding out of my chest. Even now, in my own home, my hands are still shaking and for some reason the stress has made my back muscles feel cold and numb. From all the tension, I can only assume. I can’t eat anything, I still feel like I’m going to vomit, and I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t cried so much, so hard I still have the headache.

So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.

I just wanted to read my book.

It’s not my fault I’m pretty.

My tidbit on FB:
Jeez, and I was complaining because a strange man called me "dear" the other night, incessantly asked, "What are you drawing?" Then promised that he and I were gonna get it on.. or something, as he rejoined his buddies. I'm old enough to be his mom. When does it stop?

[jlaw172364]

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.

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.

[barracuda]

[jlaw172364]

With regard to the woman being harassed on the train, clearly a certain subset of the male population is not interpreting "woman reading a book" as a clearcut signal of "I want to be left alone to read my book; don't talk to me, period." Maybe it's because reading does not hold a high priority to them, so they cannot relate to a person who would choose a non-social activity over a social one. Additionally, they're obviously more focussed on their own desires and are thus tuning out her desires. So, it's a combination of not understanding where she's coming from, and valuing their own agenda to the point that it infringes on hers, which they're oblivious to.

In a perfect world, these types of things wouldn't happen.

I don't think that commanding someone to "leave you alone" in these types of situations is a good (safe) strategy.

Travelling into the outside world elevates risk since you're going to encounter other people. If people start a conversation with you, you have to be wary, because often times, these conversation can be pretexts to muggings, either to distract, or to gauge vulnerability, whether you are male or female.

My strategy is generally one of polite defusement, and I'm a relatively physically imposing person, who arguably get away with brusquer behavior. But I don't do that, because I'm cautious, and seek to avoid physical confrontation. I always assume that people who start conversations with me may have an agenda and a capacity for violence that could exceed my own.

I think this woman's behavior clearly exhibits frustration at not being able to read a book on a train, but I think it's putting her at risk. I mean, if your reaction leads to death threats, you need to rethink your reaction, as unfair as that may seem, even if you are technically within your rights. Suppose the second guy had actually been armed, he might have shot you and any chivalrous businessman who tried to defend you?

Of course, this woman has no problem with random strange men offering to act as her personal bodyguard. Nothing strange about that at all for her. Suppose that guy had gotten the crap kicked out of him by the teenagers? Suppose one of them had a knife and stabbed him? Would this woman pay for his hospital bills, or take care of his family? Oh wait, since he's a businessman, he probably has insurance . . . unless it's crap insurance.

But he's one of the good guys. He's just supposed to risk his life and limb so she can read her book in an unsafe public space where men and women are routinely mugged and relieved of their valuables.

"As we board, the business man steps aside to let me go through the door first and asks me if those guys were bothering me. I say yes, that it happens all the time, and he tells he’ll beat them up for me if they come back. He is a nice person who talks to me like I’m a human being instead of a walking pair of tits, and I make a mental note: This is how a real man talks to a woman on a train."

Another thing to note: the businessman could easily be hitting on her in his own way, striking up a conversation, offering to protect her, doing it in a genteel, polished way carefully cultivated from years of training and practice. Clearly, his approach works better than the unpolished, direct, "Hey, how are you doing, I'm a random stranger." He also benefits from not being the actual person to disturb her from reading, but opportunistically gets to play her rescuer.

[brainpanhandler]

Btw, jlaw. Thanks for participating.

@Brainpanhandler

Yes, she says both things; she primarily espouses the doctrine that non-authoritative wind-baggery is a man thing, but then uses the "both genders" rhetoric to pre-empt criticism.

Do you really believe that Solnit believes that "non-authoritative wind-baggery" is solely a man thing? That no women ever talk out of their ass about stuff they know nothing about? If you don't believe that then it follows that she uses the "both genders" qualification not only to pre-empt unfair criticism from those who would suggest that she was solely attacking men for this behavior, but also because she's not an idiot and knows that both genders are capable of this behavior. She's talking about larger, deeply entrenched, almost to the point of invisiblity for many (mostly men) societal trends. Again, why are you unable to take her at her word? How come it's ok for you to say, "Men and women are both guilty of trying to talk authoritatively about things they know little about", but when Solnit does it it's some sort of rhetorical trick masking her real thoughts?

If only "some men" are doing this, why bother writing an article about it?

The article is a short, anecdotal piece. It's not meant to be an exhaustive survey of all the injustices perpetrated against women. She's pointing at a symptom of much larger systemic injustice.

When she writes things like:

So I opened an essay for The Nation with this interchange, in part as a shout-out to one of the more unpleasant men who have explained things to me: Dude, if you're reading this, you're a carbuncle on the face of humanity and an obstacle to civilization. Feel the shame.

I get the impression she's unpacking some pain. It's a cathartic rant. It's not meant to be a footnoted treatise on chauvinism.

I don't know what's worse, that such a superfluous article was written, that it was brought to this forum, that mansplaining was elevated to the level of serious grievance, or that we're wasting our collective time discussing a D-level internet meme.

Well, it's obviously struck a chord with you. You've doggedly lodged your complaints throughout the whole thread and spent a good deal of time doing it. If it's just a "poodle complaint" (I get what you mean by that with the context but a short google search for "poodle complaint" didn't really help me understand this phrase you're so fond of. What pray tell is the etymology of poodle complaint?) why all the fuss?

I'm aware of the advantages of being a male. I'm also acutely aware of the disadvantages.

Yes, but are you acutely aware of the disadvantages of being a female? If not, why not?

I'll never know the experience of being a woman, but neither will a woman know the experience of being a man, so that kind of balances out, although to hear some women tell it, since I'm a man, and not a woman, it is impossible for me to even deploy my imagination in a genuine attempt to relate to the female experience.

I suggest that you redeploy your imagination and try to figure that one out. I mean isn't it possible that there are all sorts of subtle symptoms/expressions of chauvinism that are so ubiquitous that you just don't notice? Don't people tend to repress where their own privilege comes from if it's ill gotten? Why should you notice if it advantages you or fills some ego driven need? Why wouldn't you rationalize a state of affairs that unfairly advantages you?

You really think the following is just a "poodle complaint"?

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

...

this syndrome is a war that nearly every woman faces every day, a war within herself too, a belief in her superfluity, an invitation to silence, one from which a fairly nice career as a writer (with a lot of research and facts correctly deployed) has not entirely freed me. After all, there was a moment there when I was willing to let Mr. Important and his overweening confidence bowl over my more shaky certainty.

many men don't want the power and privilege bestowed on them by society, but they accept it anyway because they're brainwashed, or conditioned to accept it, and they don't know any other way. They just do what's expected of them, even though they may not like it, because they fear disappointing their family and friends more than doing what makes them happy.

[barracuda]

I think this woman's behavior clearly exhibits frustration at not being able to read a book on a train, but I think it's putting her at risk. I mean, if your reaction leads to death threats, you need to rethink your reaction, as unfair as that may seem, even if you are technically within your rights. Suppose the second guy had actually been armed, he might have shot you and any chivalrous businessman who tried to defend you?

You are massively missing the point here: she uses the book as one layer of the shielding required to keep men off of her. She lists her defenses:

"I bring a book, pointedly wear a ring on my ring finger to imply I’m married (I’m not) and keep to myself."

The book is literally a wall she can put up between herself and the men who want to engage her. And it works for her, to an extent. But she has learned to always bring a book, wear a fake wedding ring, and keep to herself. This has about zero to do with being able to read her book, which is essentially a hand-held means of diffusing unwanted attention.

if you have a book, you don't have to spend the whole commute desperately trying to stare absently out the window, which is particularly hard if you don't happen to get a window seat.

Of course, this woman has no problem with random strange men offering to act as her personal bodyguard. Nothing strange about that at all for her. Suppose that guy had gotten the crap kicked out of him by the teenagers? Suppose one of them had a knife and stabbed him? Would this woman pay for his hospital bills, or take care of his family? Oh wait, since he's a businessman, he probably has insurance . . . unless it's crap insurance.

No one acted as her bodyguard, though. She left the seat where the boys were hassling her and moved closer to the other people on the train. Physically leaving a bad situation, joining safety in numbers, eye-contact avoidance - these are basic, basic survival skills, protocols she enacted herself. She clearly is taking responsibility for her safety inasmuch as that's possible within the confines of a train car.

She's wearing a fucking disguise, ferchrissake.

Another thing to note: the businessman could easily be hitting on her in his own way, striking up a conversation, offering to protect her, doing it in a genteel, polished way carefully cultivated from years of training and practice. Clearly, his approach works better than the unpolished, direct, "Hey, how are you doing, I'm a random stranger." He also benefits from not being the actual person to disturb her from reading, but opportunistically gets to play her rescuer.

No one ever said men aren't allowed to hit on women. The man may have been doing just that. But he didn't abuse her, or treat her like a pair of tits, or interrupt her reading. That is to say, he acknowledged her personal space and privacy.

You aren't gonna get it, are you, not even the parts of it that are available for you to get, I think, and let's face it, you're really not gonna get the parts of it that are not yours to get or not get.

[jlaw172364]

I double-posted, the following post is the final post.

[jlaw172364]

The woman on the train was assaulted, according to the legal definition, at least once. She could also file civil suits for intential infliction of emotion distress, etc. The perpetrators were in the wrong. No doubt. But I think part of the reason they reacted negatively to her dismissal was that she didn't do it in a way that allowed the men to save face. But why should she bother to do that?

Wearing a wedding ring is not going to do much. If the woman is young and pretty, many potential suitors will just assume she's single, since she doesn't "look" married. Married people cheat all the time. A married person is forbidden fruit, and this may egg on some people, who are themselves married. A wedding ring is a relatively small piece of jewelry. Many teenagers don't think about whether young-looking women are married or not.

The types of people that hit on her don't sound like they'll be cracking open a gender studies book any time soon. If they were exposed to gender sensitivity issues, they may have slept through it, or pooh-poohed it.

The basic drive to mate, procreate is powerful enough to overwhelm social conditioning towards genteel behavior. Men know that women aren't going to ask them out. Men know that other men know this too, and that if they want to get a girl to be their mate, they'll have to aggressively pursue her. They have to approach her. They have to start the conversation. They have to make all the calculations. They have to take the psychological risks. And they have to deal with the rejection. They know it's a numbers game, and that luck is involved. They don't know in advance which women will accept or reject their advances. They know they have a limited window of opportunity. They know they only get so many chances. They also see women reward men for being aggressive. They see cultural images of aggressive men "getting" the girl. So that's where they are coming from.

One of the disadvantages of being pretty or sexually attractive, as in you resemble what the cultural projects in images as being desirable, is that you will get unwanted attention in the form of sexual advances. Of course, the advantage of being pretty is that you get the option to say no to advances that might have taken a lot of time, effort, and courage. You also get to say a simple yes to similar advances from people you are attracted to. And if the advances are slow in coming, you can drop a few hints.

And since women generally DON'T approach men, at least not men of little means who aren't particularly attractive, that significantly increases the likelihood that a woman will get hit on, and a pretty woman will get hit on even more. And when you go into a public space, you will be hit on. You have no "reasonable expectation of privacy," to borrow a term from constitutional law.

Now, suppose these men were desirable to her. Would she care that much that they're interrupting her book-reading? Notice, I didn't say "hot" or "attractive," I said, "desirable to her," meaning she actually wants their attention. What would happpen if the desirable men were put off by her fake wedding ring? Whoops! Is she presuming that no men are desirable on the public transportation system? Is approaching women on a train a big no-no, and should it be added to the ever-increasing lists of places YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED to hit on women: the workplace, the gym, and pretty much any other place if the woman doesn't like you . . . . unless she does like you, in which case, why didn't you hit on her, you gutless coward?

Maybe I'm just a man, but if someone I were attracted to approached me while I was reading a book or listening to my MP3 player, I would be glad to come out of my little bubble of solitude. But that's probably because it rarely if ever happens, let alone several times a day.

So, what's the solution to her problem? Nothing leaps out that doesn't involve a somewhat radical lifestyle change. Dressing as a man? She might get hit on by gay men. If she's primarily interested in deflecting male attention, and not so much interested in reading per se, she could listen to an I-pod, or she could pretend not to speak any English. People will still hit on her, but she'll be able to deflect them in a way that doesn't make them feel like worthless pieces of shit.

As long as she goes into public while being "pretty," she'll be hit, whether she wants the attention or not. She'll be hit on because she's pretty, and she'll be hit on because the dynamics of male female interaction mean men pursue women, and not so much vice versa. And if stops being pretty, the attention will drop off pretty drastically, which a lot of women find relieving.

The key thing is, if you're going to reject someone, you should do it in a way that is the least likely to humiliate them. Telling someone to "please leave you alone" suggests that they did something "wrong" by starting a conversation with you. And maybe they did do something wrong. But people rarely see themselves as the villains in their personal dramas. They see themselves as heroes. They thought they were being brave by approaching the cute girl, and then polite when they asked her what she was reading. And then she made them feel like a rapist creep by telling them to leave her alone.

This happens all the time to them. It's not fair. It hurts their feelings. Girls never ask them out. They have to do the asking out, but if they do it wrong, they get yelled at and made to feel like a loser. So they get angry at the people that reject them.

Maybe the bicycle guy got rejected 10 other times that day, and all the rejections were really rude, because the women were thinking that if they rejected the man rudely, he'd never ask them out again, or that it would have a magickal effect on all other men, who would somehow get the message through the rejection of one man.

It seems like the woman who related that experience was hoping for rejection tactic to have a magick effect. But it didn't work the first time, and then she tried it again and got a worse result. If she keeps using those same tactics, she may get a worse result, not that she'll deserve it, but because her cultural calculus isn't pessmistic or realistic enough. That was my point. Not that's she's an evil bitch.

[barracuda]

You realize you're taking the exact same position as the bicycle guy, right?

[Perelandra]

So when people (men) want to talk about “legitimate” forms of assault, tell girls they should be nice to strangers and give men the benefit of a doubt, tell them to consider it a compliment, tell them to ignore the bad behavior of men, I want them to be forced to feel, for even one minute, what it feels like to have so much verbal hatred and physical intimidation thrown at them for nothing more than being female and not wanting to share.

Horrible story, PW. The quote reminds me of a recent unfortunate incident in which I had to advocate for a young woman's rights mainly to another woman. My thirteen-year old latchkey friend had a problem with some young male neighbors on her property and harassing her because they wanted to hang out. I drove them away and went straight to the property manager, whose wife proceeded to make sympathetic noises, but said things like, "boys will be boys", "oh you're so pretty", "you shouldn't be home alone", and "it's your word against theirs". I almost couldn't believe what I was hearing. I think I made it pretty clear that those statements were false and/or unhelpful. Thankfully, the problem was resolved.

If your argument from nature holds true, jlaw, then men should expect to be rejected, just as women should expect to be approached. What part of "please leave me alone" should cause death threats or worse?

[jlaw172364]

The disadvantages of being a woman, some of which are privileged based, others are not:

Well, depending on what part of the world you live . . . .

You may be your husband's personal property if you are married: he may treat you like an object/servant and not like an autonomous human being. You may be married off to partner not of your choosing by your family in exchange for a dowry. You may be killed outright at birth because your parents wanted a son. You may be sold into slavery. You may have your genitals mutilated against your will. If your husband dies, some people actually expect you to throw yourself on his funeral pyre out of grief. You may have other parts of your body altered against your will as a cultural practice. You may be married off to a much older man when you are a child who then impregnates you when you are twelve and you die in child-birth. You don't have access to any educational resources that help you manage the biological condition of being a woman because such resources are viewed as blasphemous or evil, and therefore, you have a shaky understanding of your own biology as well as the reproductive cycle and the risks associated with venereal disease. You are forced into prostitution and there are no social services that will lift a finger to help you, in fact, there are no social services available to you period. Certain obscure cults create a market where your body can be bought and used for ritual purposes. You are denied entry into almost every field with some promise of economic autonomy, and are discouraged from engaging in practices that generate wealth, unless they're done as a employee or slave to a man. You have to wear uncomfortable clothing that limits your freedom of movement, your ability to perceive the world around you, and your ability to express yourself. You're not allowed to become literate. If you violate any number of seemingly innocuous social rules, but all of which relate to male dominance of females, i.e. such as being alone with a non-male relative, you risk being made an example of in the form of being either killed, maimed, or imprisoned. If you become pregnant against your will, or if you simply desire not to have another baby, getting an abortion from a medical professional is a virtual impossibility, unless you come from a wealthy family, and you will have to risk inducing a miscarriage without arousing any suspicions. You're not allowed to develop yourself in any way outside your basic duties of wife and mother. This means no hobbies, no politics, and maybe no reading at all. You've been reduced to nothing more than living vessel for bearing children. You have no civil liberties or rights. You have no freedom of travel. You have no property rights. You are a piece of property. Because you are uneducated, illiterate, and restricted on all sides and in numerous interlocking, overlapping ways, you have only a dim, ill-conceived conception of how the world works, and if taken or thrust outside your sheltered "comfort zone," you quickly begin to panic and experience terror because your limited, circumscribed life has so ill-prepared you for novel experiences. Consequently, if faced with such an experience, you seek to avoid novel things and experiences, which you now view with fear and distrust.

Well, that's a partial list.

Many of these actually apply to women in the so-called civilized, Western world. These would be women who live in private enclaves who technically have de jure rights, but are too fearful, for perfectly sound reasons (retribution, authorities being paid off to look the other way) to exercise them. A lot of these women are foreign nationals surrepticiously repatriated into the USA or Europe under false pretenses, and then kept as virtual prisoners.

A partial list if you are a middle-class and above woman living in a part of the Western world that currently isn't retrogressing on women's rights:

You run a much a higher risk of contracting a venereal disease from sexual intercourse than men. You run the risk of becoming pregnant, which carries a series of mandatory costs and health risks. If you elect to have the child, you run the risk of having to raise it by yourself, with or without child support from the father, who may or may not abscond beyond the increasingly long arm of the law (possibly a diminishing risk due to modern communications technology and multilateral recognition of wage garnishment statutes). You constantly receive unwanted and unsolicited male attention in the form of sexual advances. Sometimes these men are even related to you or are close friends you trusted. Since you constantly receive unwanted male attention in the form of sexual advances, you run a risk of being raped, as well as a risk of being killed after being raped, or just killed by someone would rape you if they could. Sometimes these men are even related to you, or are close friends you trusted. In the event that you are raped, you have to run the risk of the authorities not believing you, and of your humiliating ordeal being made public, where people question whether your ordeal even happened or whether you share any of the responsibility for it happening. Even though you technically have certain rights and freedoms under law, as well as in fact, since you are assumed to have a free will, a significant portion of society constantly pressures you to perform certain roles, namely mother, nurturer, house-hold-runner, wife that subordinate you to purposes not entirely you own and occupy a considerable amount of time and energy that take away from other pursuits. At the same time that one section of society is pressuring you, other sections pressure you to better yourself, go into debt to get an education, strive for a career, achieve something. If you don't do these things, you are made to feel inadequate, weak, and cowardly, yet if you do them, other people attack you for not fulfilling your traditional role, for being selfish, etc. If you opt for the traditional role of mother, you feel as though you lose your sense of individuality as you quickly become subordinated to the demands of your children or your husband. You have little time for the things that make you feel like yourself since you're constantly running around doing errands. Your husband expects you to do the lion's share of the work with regard to raising the child, so you have to get up all the time in the middle of the night, and he acts resentful if you ask him to lift a finger, since he works all day at his job and is tired and grouchy when he gets home. You run the risk of spousal abuse. If you opt for a career, you enter into a field that has been dominated by men for decades. You may enter into a field still dominated by men with few female role models. If there are women in your field, they may seem to act more like men than women, whatever that means. You are expected to adapt, to become one of the boys, so to speak, unless you enter into a female-dominated firm. Now you're influx of unsolicited sexual advances increases due to spending more time in a quasi-public sphere around other men. Some of these men are your superiors in the corporate hierarchy. If they make advances, there is always the threat and promise of a firing or a promotion attached, and the alternation of fear, temptation, and guilt, depending on whether you're in a relationship or not. Although you may be accomplished in a number of fields and areas, you suspect that many men don't view you as their equal, even you surpass their abilities. Some men, in fact, don't, and they treat you accordingly. In the event that you get a terminal illness, if you're heterosexual, you're more likely to have a male leave you than the other way around.

Well, it's a partial list.

[jlaw172364]

@barracuda

The bicycle guy assaulted her, as far as I'm concerned, but I have a very liberal interpretation of assault that encompasses idle death threats made more out of frustration than serious intent. What he did was not okay by any stretch of the imagination. There's no need to threaten to kill someone just because they don't want to talk to you, even if they are really rude to you. It's obviously wrong.

However, I think her strategy increased the likelihood of these kinds of outbursts. In a perfect world, she could say anything she wanted, or the men would automatically know, or they'd all be well-behaved. We don't live in that world and we can't pretend otherwise. We have to engage in strategies that maximize the likelihood of desirable outcomes. When you reject someone, you should do it gently in a way that allows the other party to save face. She let her frustration at being hit on get the better of her because she wants to live in that ideal world where all men act like gentlemen at all times. That desire and frustration put her at risk.

Critquing a poor strategic reponse is not the same as praising the unwanted advance.

@Perelandra

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.

[barracuda]

However, I think her strategy increased the likelihood of these kinds of outbursts. In a perfect world, she could say anything she wanted, or the men would automatically know, or they'd all be well-behaved. We don't live in that world and we can't pretend otherwise. We have to engage in strategies that maximize the likelihood of desirable outcomes. When you reject someone, you should do it gently in a way that allows the other party to save face. She let her frustration at being hit on get the better of her because she wants to live in that ideal world where all men act like gentlemen at all times. That desire and frustration put her at risk.

She's already hiding, bro, and in a basic fight or flight state from the moment she gets on the train, if not before. It sounds like you want her to either conciliate these motherfuckers who are out to assault her (yeah, that'll help), or wear a burka. My solution would be for men to tone their stupid shit down. She's already gone about as far as she can to avoid their nonsense.

Nothing SHE did put her at risk. Fuckheads put her at risk.

Look, you're a smart guy, and even YOU can't come to terms with the reality here. You want her to change her behavior to accommodate the people bent upon brutalizing and marginalizing her, which is as wrong as wrong can be. Fuck that. That's like the definition of a victim.

[jlaw172364]

@barracuda

Nothing she did put her at risk?

Being alive puts you at risk of death, as well as an assortment of other things. She didn't put herself at risk. She was already at risk by being alive, and specifically at risk of unsolicited sexual advances for being a woman in a public place, with her attractiveness and youth as an aggravating factor. She didn't have to do anything per se.

As for the unwanted suitors over-reacting, she reacted to their advances in such a way that caused them to be defensive, and in one case hostile and aggressive.

As you stated, she shouldn't have to do that. They should "tone their shit down." But they won't. Guys like me, we "tone our shit down," but not every guy will. What should she do? Hand out books on male etiquette? They won't be read. I'm thinking of ways she can minimize her risk, not be an instrument of "justice" or "retribution" against the clumsy advances of overeager males. I can speak from experience about being bullied that almost every "real," "genuine" reaction to unwanted attention is wrong. If you don't react, it can be bad too, as the bully keeps trying to get you to react, ratcheting up the outrages until you're forced to react, or until you want to react. If your overreact, you give the bullies what they want too. So what do you? You can counter-attack, but that can make things worse. You can get in trouble with the authorities. The bullies can redouble their efforts to save face. This is not an easy situation to be in, and some people won't let you off the hook.

I don't know about you, but I'm in flight or fight mode as soon as I leave my apartment. I'm always scanning for risks, whether it be cars that won't stop at a stop-sign, potential muggers, falling tree-branches, angry birds that swoop in too close to you because you walk near their tree, large dogs off leashes, hornets, police officers who might give me a ticket, etc. etc. It's all fine and well to say that a driver is at fault for hitting you, a pedestrian, when you had "the right of way," but any remuneration you get is cold comfort if you're faced with being crippled for life and all that entails. Of course, the driver should have been paying attention, or not drunk, or not texting, but humans are fallible, so . . . you have to adjust your behavior accordingly.

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.

In her situation, pretending not to understand English might be a good strategy in some situations. It's clear that assertively exclaiming "leave me alone!" brought undesirable results for her.

"I went through my usual routine. I told them loudly and firmly that I wanted to be left alone to read my book. They got angry. "

[ . . . . ]

"So when this man leans across the aisle into my personal space and asks me, yes, what are you reading, I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone, I am reading. The man stands up, moving to the front and muttering angrily over his shoulder that it isn’t his fault I’m pretty."

In both cases, her "routine," resulted in an angry response.

In the first case she describes her tone as "loud and firm," in the second "assertive but calm." But this could be interpreted as "fuck you," rude.

She could change her routine to "short, to-the-point, but polite response" delivered in a monotone, followed by going back to reading, and keep doing it until they give up trying to talk to her. Instead, she leaps immediately into "DON'T TALK TO ME, I'M READING!!!" mode.

Plenty of people read because they have nothing better to do, and then drop it at the first opportunity to socialize.

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.