Mansplaining

[jlaw172364]

@barracuda

Well, technically, we're supposed to have 2nd Amendment in the good old US of A, but there's all kinds of unconstitutional state and local ordinances that render the Amendment meaningless. If you pull a gun in a major metropolitan area, it has grave implications, unless you're part of a privileged caste that is duly licensed to carry said gun. The Supreme Court recently ruled these ordinances unconstitutional, but, it's not as simple as that.

Cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. have been getting away with this for decades.

BTW, in law school, not ONE word about the 2nd Amendment in any of my classes. Maybe it was because it was a Chicago law school?

This reminds me of a story my parents told me about their honeymoon. They pulled over at a deserted picnic area to eat lunch and a truck rolled up with several drunken locals. My dad, who had joined the military, and had dealt with rowdy drunken types, didn't see them as a threat, and he chatted amiably with them, and eventually they left. My mom had surrepticiously armed herself with a knife and was preparing to stab one or more of them if they got out of hand.

I think that while the threats to women are very real, the media has terrorized women to the point where they tend to overreact in every situation and have no real way of gauging the threat level. I think that yelling "leave me alone" really loudly in a semi-deserted or deserted area has more justification than yelling it in a crowded public area.

I'm not saying that the woman was in the wrong, or a bad person. I'm merely saying that her tactics may bring about undesired outcomes given the psychology of the people involved. If she wants people to go away peaceably, she should try something different.

Also, why assume that the people wanted her to have sex with them imminently? Maybe they wanted to go out with her? She didn't write that anybody mentioned sex to her, merely that they'd interrupted her reading trying to talk to her and get to know her, but with an overtone of sexual interest. Clearly it would be crass and inappropriate to walk up to a stranger and say something equivalent to "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

Also, that they didn't know her is irrelevant. While many women subscribe to the paranoid insider sales model of dating, only going out with guys they know through friends over a period of months or years, other women are more open to go out with people they don't know. Along those lines, what about all the statistics about acquaintance rape? It's not like guys you "know" or "think you know" are automatically safer. Some of the best predators are well aware of these dynamics, and take their time getting close to their prey, earning their trust, etc.

[barracuda]

Well, technically, we're supposed to have 2nd Amendment in the good old US of A, but there's all kinds of unconstitutional state and local ordinances that render the Amendment meaningless. If you pull a gun in a major metropolitan area, it has grave implications, unless you're part of a privileged caste that is duly licensed to carry said gun. The Supreme Court recently ruled these ordinances unconstitutional, but, it's not as simple as that.

Assaulting a woman on a train is supposed to carry its own share of grave implications as well. I don't think there's any doubt that what bicycle guy did was assault.

I think that while the threats to women are very real, the media has terrorized women to the point where they tend to overreact in every situation and have no real way of gauging the threat level. I think that yelling "leave me alone" really loudly in a semi-deserted or deserted area has more justification than yelling it in a crowded public area.

I'm not saying that the woman was in the wrong, or a bad person. I'm merely saying that her tactics may bring about undesired outcomes given the psychology of the people involved. If she wants people to go away peaceably, she should try something different.

I especially like the way you've convinced yourself that she was at some point yelling at the men harassing her. It's funny, in a sad sort of way, that you've morphed her little "please leave me alone" into hysteria without really batting an eyelash.

Also, why assume that the people wanted her to have sex with them imminently? Maybe they wanted to go out with her? She didn't write that anybody mentioned sex to her, merely that they'd interrupted her reading trying to talk to her and get to know her, but with an overtone of sexual interest. Clearly it would be crass and inappropriate to walk up to a stranger and say something equivalent to "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

But someone actually did mention sex to her. The bicycle guy called her a whore and asked her rather pointedly to suck his cock.

Personally, I think that qualifies, don't you? As more than an overtone?

Also, that they didn't know her is irrelevant. While many women subscribe to the paranoid insider sales model of dating, only going out with guys they know through friends over a period of months or years, other women are more open to go out with people they don't know. Along those lines, what about all the statistics about acquaintance rape? It's not like guys you "know" or "think you know" are automatically safer. Some of the best predators are well aware of these dynamics, and take their time getting close to their prey, earning their trust, etc.

The fact that one in six American women have been the victim of an attempted or completed rape in their lifetime is just another reason your perspective is part of the problem, not the solution, bub.

[Perelandra]

A teen pregnancy is a possible outcome of letting an adolescent hang around with older men who might take advantage of her naivete. Did I misunderstand something with regard to that?

Yes, it's almost as if you're planning how to misinterpret what was said. Nobody said anything about "letting" her hang out with older men. My concern was that my young friend's privacy and security were being violated by two little punks, on her property, who wouldn't leave when asked politely. Then it was that she be able to relate the incident to the appropriate humans without being blamed or dismissed.

Anyway, I'm done explaining. I'd prefer to discuss subjects related to Willow's OP, such as gender and language, if and when I can.

The firearms advice is much appreciated, though, Mr b.

[Project Willow]

Rape is about asserting absolute power and control in the sexual arena.

Street harassment is about the display of power, leveraging the ever present potential of rape. It is an instrument of social and sexual control, a means of oppressing women.



http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/statistics/statistics-academic-studies/

...1. Indianapolis, USA: In one of the first street harassment studies ever conducted, Carol Brooks Gardner, associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, interviewed 293 women in Indianapolis, Indiana, over several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The women were from every race, age, class, and sexual orientation category of the general population in Indiana and the United States. Gardner found that every single woman (100 percent) could cite several examples of being harassed by unknown men in public and all but nine of the women classified those experiences as “troublesome.” (1)

2. Canada: Using a national sample of 12,300 Canadian women ages 18 and older from 1994, sociology professors Ross Macmillan, Annette Nierobisz, and Sandy Welsh studied the impact of street harassment on women’s perceived sense of safety in 2000. During their research, they found that over 80 percent of the women surveyed had experienced male stranger harassment in public and that those experiences had a large and detrimental impact on their perceived safety in public. (2)
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually-harassed

...
Dismissing sexual harassment – from unwanted comments on the street about appearance to groping – as "harmless fun" or complimentary was dangerous, she added.

"Sexual harassment has a real impact on women's lives, whether it is changing their behaviour or whether they feel safe on the streets," she said.

"It feeds into a fear of rape and sexual violence and has a harmful effect on broader issues of equality."

The poll also found 31% of women aged 18 to 24 experienced unwanted sexual attention on public transport and 21% of 25- to 34-year-olds. Overall, 5% of the women surveyed had experienced unwanted sexual contact on public transport.

Fiona Elvines, of South London Rape Crisis, said it was rare to meet a woman who had not suffered street harassment. "Women manage this harassment every day, in their routines and daily decisions – but it has an impact on their self-esteem and body image," she said. "Women are saying that there are consequences to this, and it's time to start listening to them."
...

[Project Willow]

(Posta duble, but I think I'll leave it.)

Rape is about asserting absolute power and control in the sexual arena.

Street harassment is about the display of power, leveraging the ever present potential of rape. It is an instrument of social and sexual control, a means of oppressing women.



http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/statistics/statistics-academic-studies/

...1. Indianapolis, USA: In one of the first street harassment studies ever conducted, Carol Brooks Gardner, associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at Indiana University, Indianapolis, interviewed 293 women in Indianapolis, Indiana, over several years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The women were from every race, age, class, and sexual orientation category of the general population in Indiana and the United States. Gardner found that every single woman (100 percent) could cite several examples of being harassed by unknown men in public and all but nine of the women classified those experiences as “troublesome.” (1)

2. Canada: Using a national sample of 12,300 Canadian women ages 18 and older from 1994, sociology professors Ross Macmillan, Annette Nierobisz, and Sandy Welsh studied the impact of street harassment on women’s perceived sense of safety in 2000. During their research, they found that over 80 percent of the women surveyed had experienced male stranger harassment in public and that those experiences had a large and detrimental impact on their perceived safety in public. (2)
...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/25/four-10-women-sexually-harassed

...
Dismissing sexual harassment – from unwanted comments on the street about appearance to groping – as "harmless fun" or complimentary was dangerous, she added.

"Sexual harassment has a real impact on women's lives, whether it is changing their behaviour or whether they feel safe on the streets," she said.

"It feeds into a fear of rape and sexual violence and has a harmful effect on broader issues of equality."

The poll also found 31% of women aged 18 to 24 experienced unwanted sexual attention on public transport and 21% of 25- to 34-year-olds. Overall, 5% of the women surveyed had experienced unwanted sexual contact on public transport.

Fiona Elvines, of South London Rape Crisis, said it was rare to meet a woman who had not suffered street harassment. "Women manage this harassment every day, in their routines and daily decisions – but it has an impact on their self-esteem and body image," she said. "Women are saying that there are consequences to this, and it's time to start listening to them."
...

[compared2what?]

@barracuda

Well, technically, we're supposed to have 2nd Amendment in the good old US of A, but there's all kinds of unconstitutional state and local ordinances that render the Amendment meaningless. If you pull a gun in a major metropolitan area, it has grave implications, unless you're part of a privileged caste that is duly licensed to carry said gun. The Supreme Court recently ruled these ordinances unconstitutional, but, it's not as simple as that.

Cities like Chicago and Washington D.C. have been getting away with this for decades.

BTW, in law school, not ONE word about the 2nd Amendment in any of my classes. Maybe it was because it was a Chicago law school?

I don't see what that would have to do with it.

But if your first-year courses either didn't include Constitutional Law or your first-year constitutional-law class didn't cover the second amendment, maybe it wasn't ABA-acccredited.

Are you sure it was a law school?

This reminds me of a story my parents told me about their honeymoon. They pulled over at a deserted picnic area to eat lunch and a truck rolled up with several drunken locals. My dad, who had joined the military, and had dealt with rowdy drunken types, didn't see them as a threat, and he chatted amiably with them, and eventually they left. My mom had surrepticiously armed herself with a knife and was preparing to stab one or more of them if they got out of hand.

I think that while the threats to women are very real, the media has terrorized women to the point where they tend to overreact in every situation and have no real way of gauging the threat level. I think that yelling "leave me alone" really loudly in a semi-deserted or deserted area has more justification than yelling it in a crowded public area.

Stop spinning your arguments out of straw immediately, please. Because:

I assertively but calmly tell him to please leave me alone,

Also, it's sexually disparaging.

I'm not saying that the woman was in the wrong, or a bad person. I'm merely saying that her tactics may bring about undesired outcomes given the psychology of the people involved. If she wants people to go away peaceably, she should try something different.

Then you're saying she was in the wrong.

Also, why assume that the people wanted her to have sex with them imminently? Maybe they wanted to go out with her? She didn't write that anybody mentioned sex to her, merely that they'd interrupted her reading trying to talk to her and get to know her, but with an overtone of sexual interest. Clearly it would be crass and inappropriate to walk up to a stranger and say something equivalent to "Nice shoes, wanna fuck?"

When what the guy wants is to fuck, there's nothing wrong with him making a polite, direct inquiry when it's a socially appropriate desire.

^^In the event that "polite" is a vague or foreign concept to you, you can substitute "considerate."

Also, that they didn't know her is irrelevant. While many women subscribe to the paranoid insider sales model of dating, only going out with guys they know through friends over a period of months or years, other women are more open to go out with people they don't know.

And that's why it's so common for men to advise their daughters and sisters to have relationships with random men that they meet on street corners and at bus stops.

Along those lines, what about all the statistics about acquaintance rape? It's not like guys you "know" or "think you know" are automatically safer. Some of the best predators are well aware of these dynamics, and take their time getting close to their prey, earning their trust, etc.

Prepare to complain to a mod that you've been disrespected in violation of board guidelines, okay?
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Fuck you.

[jlaw172364]

@comparedtowhat

Maybe you should civiliansplain to me about my law school experience?

Virtually all the law schools in the USA are ABA-accredited. I think California allows you to sit for the bar if you go to a non-ABA accredited law school. In any case, ABA accreditation seems to me to be about ideological conformity.

I took Constitutional Law.

Not one word about the Second Amendment.

Chicago and surrounding suburbs have had unconstitutional anti-gun ordinances for decades. The Supreme Court finally overturned them last year.

Had I gone to law school in a gun-rights friendly state, like Texas, I'd wager that the 2nd Amendment might have been discussed in detail.

But not in Chicago, where people are routinely arrested, charged, and convicted of owning a gun while black.

That was an aside to illustrate the Establishment's dislike, or conflicted feelings about the Second Amendment.

I mean, wealthy people like to own guns. But they get nervous at the prospect of poor people having gun rights.


When I said waiving a gun has grave implications, someone replied with, "yeah, but so does harrassing women."

Really? No shit. Except, harrassment is much harder to prove, and the damage is psychological. And of course, you have to get a lawyer, and sue, and win, and enforce a judgment, and the creep that harrassed you actually has to have money to pay for your therapy.

Pulling a gun on someone risks a bloodbath where actual people, including you, the creep that harrassed you, bystanders, etc. may all die. If you pull a gun on someone, that person might think you're trying to kill them. They may pull a gun. Someone else with a concealed weapon might pull a gun. There might be a struggle over the gun. A lot of people could die. The cops don't like civilians with guns. Brandishing a gun in public may get the cops shooting you. You may get charged with municipal and state offenses you had no idea existed because you thought the 2nd Amendment gave you blanket protection.

People on here seem to be suggesting that we should live under a regime where women who think they're being harrassed have the right to unilaterally and summarily maim or execute their alleged harrasser with a deadly weapon as a means of deterring sexual harrassment.

This sounds like a classic (male) bullied kid's revenge fantasy.

Right and wrong has less to do with it, and more about what's an effective strategy and what isn't. She's not "in the wrong," she's just using an ineffective tactic.

What I said that prompted someone to say "Fuck you" to me . . . .

"Along those lines, what about all the statistics about acquaintance rape? It's not like guys you "know" or "think you know" are automatically safer. Some of the best predators are well aware of these dynamics, and take their time getting close to their prey, earning their trust, etc."

What was it that so upset you about those statements? Their veracity?

@Perelandra. I agreed with you. Had you done nothing with that knowledge, you would have been the one doing the letting, no? Again, you did the right thing.

@Barracuda. What's my perspective? That people should use tactics that minimize their chances of getting a worse outcome such as a vicious beating, verbal abuse, or incarceration? I personally believe that people should all carry weapons and have combat training to be used as a last resort, or if it foreseeable that it will have to be used as a last resort. But weapons can be taken away, and combat training can give a false sense of security. Plenty of women who have been raped, and who subsequently took combat training, were raped again, in part because it gave them a false sense of security that led them to believe they could handle any violent confrontation. Does this mean they shouldn't carry weapons or get combat training? No. It may mean, though, that deploying them as a first response, or at some other inappropriate time, would be unwise, like pulling a gun out because someone says, "Hey sexy!"

[Canadian_watcher]

I think that yelling "leave me alone" really loudly in a semi-deserted or deserted area has more justification than yelling it in a crowded public area.

yelling 'leave me alone' in a deserted area would be:
a) futile.
b) provocative.

the leave me alone thing really only works when other people are around. it's like a car alarm. you understand cars.. right?

[vanlose kid]

"I'm not saying that the woman was in the wrong, or a bad person. I'm merely saying that her tactics may bring about undesired outcomes given the psychology of the people involved. If she wants people to go away peaceably, she should try something different."

reminds me:



*

[compared2what?]

@comparedtowhat

Maybe you should civiliansplain to me about my law school experience?

Most law school graduates are civilians.

Virtually all the law schools in the USA are ABA-accredited. I think California allows you to sit for the bar if you go to a non-ABA accredited law school. In any case, ABA accreditation seems to me to be about ideological conformity.

Same goes double for both law and school, ftm.

I took Constitutional Law.

Not one word about the Second Amendment.

Chicago and surrounding suburbs have had unconstitutional anti-gun ordinances for decades. The Supreme Court finally overturned them last year.

I think you mean two years ago, although I suppose you might also mean four years ago. But assuming the former: That ruling wasn't exactly an all-U.S.-Constitution-based piece of jurisprudence, you know.

Had I gone to law school in a gun-rights friendly state, like Texas, I'd wager that the 2nd Amendment might have been discussed in detail.

On consideration, I have to concede that if you went to law school more than a few years ago, you might even be overstating the centrality of the Second Amendment to a Texas legal education, if anything. Especially if it was two or more decades ago.

But at least Wayne LaPierre has taken care of that now, and in the good old-fashioned American way, too. By which I mean that he used the faith and money of a bunch of suckers as political cover in his quest to buy a nice, central place in American law for gun rights that only truly benefit the wealthy industrialists whose investment in him covered most of the costs.

I also mean "Well, they'll have to teach it now, won't they?" BTW. Just to say it in plain English.

But not in Chicago, where people are routinely arrested, charged, and convicted of owning a gun while black.

That was an aside to illustrate the Establishment's dislike, or conflicted feelings about the Second Amendment.

I mean, wealthy people like to own guns. But they get nervous at the prospect of poor people having gun rights.

Yeah. That's not exactly true. Plus it's so all over the place that if it weren't for its being absolutely irrelevant to the law in every particular, it might not even seem like the product of a single intelligence.

When I said waiving a gun has grave implications, someone replied with, "yeah, but so does harrassing women."

I know that you have spell-check. But other than that, I have no response, due to having no clue what you're talking about.

Really? No shit. Except, harrassment is much harder to prove, and the damage is psychological. And of course, you have to get a lawyer, and sue, and win, and enforce a judgment, and the creep that harrassed you actually has to have money to pay for your therapy.

Pulling a gun on someone risks a bloodbath where actual people, including you, the creep that harrassed you, bystanders, etc. may all die. If you pull a gun on someone, that person might think you're trying to kill them. They may pull a gun. Someone else with a concealed weapon might pull a gun. There might be a struggle over the gun. A lot of people could die. The cops don't like civilians with guns. Brandishing a gun in public may get the cops shooting you. You may get charged with municipal and state offenses you had no idea existed because you thought the 2nd Amendment gave you blanket protection.

Thanks for the elucidation, counselor.

People on here seem to be suggesting that we should live under a regime where women who think they're being harrassed have the right to unilaterally and summarily maim or execute their alleged harrasser with a deadly weapon as a means of deterring sexual harrassment.

This sounds like a classic (male) bullied kid's revenge fantasy.

If people on here seem to you to be suggesting that, I humbly submit that your reading-comprehension strategy isn't effective.

Right and wrong has less to do with it, and more about what's an effective strategy and what isn't. She's not "in the wrong," she's just using an ineffective tactic.

What I said that prompted someone to say "Fuck you" to me . . . .

"Along those lines, what about all the statistics about acquaintance rape? It's not like guys you "know" or "think you know" are automatically safer. Some of the best predators are well aware of these dynamics, and take their time getting close to their prey, earning their trust, etc."

What was it that so upset you about those statements? Their veracity?

No. And I wasn't all that upset by it, truth be told. I was speaking in accordance with the principled conviction that it does nobody any favors to pretend that suggesting women who have a problem with acquaintance rape resolve it by going with strangers isn't as monumentally and dangerously mean and stupid as it is. Somebody might get hurt.

[barracuda]

People on here seem to be suggesting that we should live under a regime where women who think they're being harrassed have the right to unilaterally and summarily maim or execute their alleged harrasser with a deadly weapon as a means of deterring sexual harrassment.

The worst fear of the oppressor is often that their victims will find a way to effectively fight back. But no, no one here has suggested that "we should live under a regime where blah blah..." &c. We most certainly wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.

What's my perspective? That people should use tactics that minimize their chances of getting a worse outcome such as a vicious beating, verbal abuse, or incarceration?

I don't think people need me to reiterate your perspective for them. It's familiar as a favorite pair of shoes.

[jlaw172364]

In my opinion, part of the reason some people on here seem to write to me as if I'm some sort of misogynist, is that we're discussing "mansplaining," and a woman approached on a train who complains of male abreactions to her rejections of their advances or perceived advances.

These are borderline gray area cases with lots of nuance, in my opinion. Not every guy that starts talking to a woman reading a book is a would-be rapist deserving of condemnation. Mansplaining used to be called bullshitting, talking out of your ass, windbaggery.

My point about acquaintance rape is that many women seem to operate under the illusion that "strange" men are dangerous, and "familiar" men are safe. I've seen this before in meatspace, and some people on here said things that suggested that these men had no business approaching the train woman because they didn't know her. I wasn't advocating dating complete strangers and eschewing the guy next door. Come on! This misconstruing is getting really tortured.

@Compared

My reading comprehension? Overstating Texan legal educations on gun rights? I merely speculated. They didn't even MENTION the 2nd Amendment at my law school, which just happens to be in a city that had a facially unconstitutional ordinance for DECADES. If I recall correctly, there was no caselaw in our case-book mentioning it, and it was in none of the assigned readings, and therefore, none of the class conversations.

I distinctly recall my constitutional law professor exclaiming "You can't mean that!" in disbelief when I merely suggested that the "War on Drugs" was actually Jim Crow 2.0. Now it's almost "conventional wisdom," even though it was obvious decades ago to anyone whose salary didn't depend on not understanding such things.

I guess you must be one of those coincidence theories Jeff mentioned awhile back.

Black people aren't arrested for owning a gun while being black? Really? It's not true exactly. I guess they must not be arrested for driving while black, voting while black, walking down the street while black, being in the wrong place at the wrong time while black, carrying cash while black, etc. etc. etc. And this definitely never happens in Chicago, because hey, Obama's from Chicago!

Well, I guess I can now reasonably conclude you to be a berobed, cross-burning white supremacist.

But in all fairness, I didn't really understand what went on in the South Side of Chicago until I spent 4 months in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans. Then it really sank in that these neighborhoods are like feeder-concentration camps that lead to the prison-concentration camps, unless of course you are a near-saint who can withstand the omnidirectional onslaught of negative cultural influences, and avoid being murdered of course by living in near monastic seclusion until you can escape.


The white establishment never intended guns rights for non-whites, regardless of what the law says. They hire battalions of lawyers and pay them to recreate legislation that effectively eliminates everything supposedly enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and all you have to do to get rid of this red tape is either fight it in the corrupt court system for several decades, or completely recapture the legislature from the hands of the wealthy, who if they catch on to what you're up to through their omnipresent surveillance systems, will either derail you in some diabolically clever way, or bump you off.

Gee, I sure do regret the error of not bothering to google the exact date of the Supreme Court opinion, or spend hours analyzing the implications of its holdings for this forum's exclusive benefit. Maybe its because I know that the Justices, who don't actually write any of their own opinions, don't even believe the opinions they attach their names to. The Supreme Court can issue opinions to the cows come home, but it lacks effective means to enforce them. After the decision, some Chicago politicians started talking about requiring gun-owners to purchase mandatory gun insurance. Maybe people should have to purchase defamation insurance to, in order to exercise free speech rights. Just in case their free speech defames someone's character and they lack money to pay exorbitant damages. In the event that gun insurance is brought into play, then various advocacy groups can spend another few decades in the court system while wealthy white people add the fee to their list of bills, and poor black people get fined and arrested for gun insurance violations.

Yes, I failed to spell harassment "correctly" in earlier posts. I see that you subscribe to the ideological and grammatical tyranny of the dictionary. Totalitarian!

Anyway, I think I'm going to call it quits. We've talked this to death and people have their opinions. I've expressed mine sufficiently.

Cheers!

[barracuda]

My reading comprehension? Overstating Texan legal educations on gun rights? I merely speculated.

That thing about the reading comprehension? You should look into that, because here's the quote in question:

People on here seem to be suggesting that we should live under a regime where women who think they're being harrassed have the right to unilaterally and summarily maim or execute their alleged harrasser with a deadly weapon as a means of deterring sexual harrassment.

This sounds like a classic (male) bullied kid's revenge fantasy.

If people on here seem to you to be suggesting that, I humbly submit that your reading-comprehension strategy isn't effective.

But thanks for 'splaining some entirely unrelated issue to everybody in response.

[jlaw172364]

And I'm back . . . .

@Barracuda

The idiom didn't translate. I criticized Compareds reading comprehension of what I wrote, the vast majority of which, nobody addressed, choosing instead to cherry-pick and misconstrue. I apologize for not communicating perfectly, like everyone else on here.

BTW, I approached a woman I've never met before last night while she was busy sifting through karaoke tunes with a group of her friends, clearly signaling her desire to be left alone, or else, how could she properly concentrate on which tune to select if I selfishly distract her by trying to engage in conversation with her, I being a mere stranger at a bar, a male, who as we all know, is only interested in one thing, and only starts conversations with women for one reason, and wouldn't you know it, we had a lovely conversation, she liked me and gave me her phone number before I even asked for it!



At no point did she say, "LEAVE ME ALONE, can't you see I'm trying to decide which song I want to sing, you ignorant mansplainer?" Maybe it was because she had tact?

I should try it in other situations where women appear to be preoccupied to see if I'm rewarded similarly.

[barracuda]

BTW, I approached a woman I've never met before last night while she was busy sifting through karaoke tunes with a group of her friends, clearly signaling her desire to be left alone, or else, how could she properly concentrate on which tune to select if I selfishly distract her by trying to engage in conversation with her, I being a mere stranger at a bar, a male, who as we all know, is only interested in one thing, and only starts conversations with women for one reason, and wouldn't you know it, we had a lovely conversation, she liked me and gave me her phone number before I even asked for it!

You're seriously going to compare your experience in a karaoke bar on a Friday night with day-to-day street harassment of women on public transportation, huh? Well done. I can see you've got a real handle on the issue.