It¡¯s a set-up to present the seemingly-simple idea that a person who ignores social cues to back off will ignore other cues to get what they want. And that is what a rapist does.posted by muddgirl at 8:21 AM on October 8, 2009 [16 favorites]
mostly because the dress people choose to wear at work is worn because they don't want to get attention for what they're wearing.Maybe so, but the thing is that I don't know the which is which: who is just trying to dress professionally in order that her work be the center of attention, and who is proud of her new pinstriped slacks she wants to show off today? I find it best simply to assume the former.
Depends on where and with whom you work. For me, yes. For some of the men and women in my office, definitely not.
So if you speak to a woman who is otherwise occupied, you¡¯re sending a subtle message. It is that your desire to interact trumps her right to be left alone. If you pursue a conversation when she¡¯s tried to cut it off, you send a message. It is that your desire to speak trumps her right to be left alone. And each of those messages indicates that you believe your desires are a legitimate reason to override her rights.posted by Elsa at 12:45 PM on October 8, 2009 [41 favorites]
"Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, "They are afraid women will laugh at them." When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, "We're afraid of being killed."posted by tzikeh at 12:57 PM on October 8, 2009 [29 favorites]
Predictable as the sunrise, some man somewhere in a discussion on misogyny, sexism, and rape will say, "But you'd get progress on all of this/more allies/more sympathy/whatever if only you didn't speak so angrily!" Surprise, being the object of this hateful culture pisses women off. Dealing with clueless males trying on their new, brilliant argument that women have only heard for the 5,675th time this week is annoying and tiring. And when you, the man, demand that woman modulate her tone to you when she is talking about how misogyny/sexism/rape makes them feel, you are asserting your privileged "right" to control the conversation.Me: We don't have to listen to you; you have to listen to us.
You are asking women to cater to your wishes. In a discussion about women. What is that if not male privilege?
Man was made for joy and woe;I would also agree with 235w103: that you are even thinking about these matters bodes extremely well for your children, especially given what you say you went through in your own childhood.
And when this we rightly know,
Thro' the world we safely go.
Joy and woe are woven fine,
A clothing for the soul divine.
Under every grief and pine
Runs a joy with silken twine.
Children need to be taught from the very beginning that self determination and bodily integrity is not just a moral or religious thing, but a HUMAN RIGHTS thing ¨C and the right education can program in the survival instincts that very well could save her life.This commenter got the expected criticism for "fear-mongering" but, personally, I think that little girl stands a pretty good chance of staying safe. And if all this education and preparation cannot keep her safe, I hope it teaches her that she has a right to make decisions about her own body, and that it is the people who violate her boundaries who are to blame.
I was raised to be quiet, sweet, cooperative, submissive and respectful. Not bad things to be, in the right place, the right time, the right context. The problem is, no one taught me any OTHER way to be, like empowered, strong, feisty, angry, loud or stubborn. No one taught me how to read context, either. I never told anyone when I was raped, because I¡¯d been taught that if it happened it must somehow be my fault.
This will NOT happen with my daughter. I started teaching her to define her own boundaries before she could even talk. The first baby-sign she learned was ¡°enough¡±. (boths hands palm out in the ¡°stop¡± position, and wave back and forth) This was incredibly useful at meal times, but even more useful when we started tickling her. She LOVES being ticked, but like everyone she¡¯d start to get over stimulated. She would sign ¡°enough¡± and we would stop and take our hands away. Consistently, every. single. time. She learned that she had a way of saying NO that was respected, and that created an incredible bond of trust. To this day, she still loves the Tickle Monster attacks, and still says ¡°enough¡±.
When she was three, I started teaching her about context, and knowing who to trust. She had a Hello Kitty stuffie that was bigger than she was. I could crouch behind it, holding a candy in the Kitty¡¯s paws, waving it enticingly in the air. I specifically chose her favorite kitty, because anyone can spot a bad guy in a black hat and cape, twirling his mustache and cackling with glee. Bad guys can be men, women, children, rabbis, teachers, strangers or family.
I ask her if she wants candy. She says ¡°No thank you, my mommy gives me candy.¡± I tell her ¡°Your mommy says it¡¯s OK, it¡¯s kosher candy.¡± Oooh, this is a hard one. I see it in her eyes. She really wants that candy. She starts to reach for it. I pull back and put the kitty down. I tell her that the answer is ¡°Let me go get my mommy to check the wrapper.¡± and then RUN to find me. Then comes the hard one.
I crouch behind the kitty, and reach out and grab her wrist. Her eyes get huge, she doesn¡¯t know if this is still a game or not. I tell her to pull back, to yell ¡°NO!¡±. She wiggles a bit. A weak ¡°no¡±. It¡¯s so hard for her to yell at a grownup! I pull harder, tell her to yell. This ¡°no¡± is a bit louder, and I praise her and encourage her to keep it up. ¡°NO!¡± Good girl! I give her the candy and a big snuggle. That was intense, and I¡¯m proud of her.
A week or so later, we try again. She¡¯s yelling ¡°NO!¡± now, and yelling for help. Now, she gets to punch and kick the kitty as hard as she wants. She can pinch, scratch, pull fur, and anything else she can think of. She gets more candy and lots more praise. We do this a lot, at least once a week. Her reaction needs to be instant and without hesitation.
As she reaches 4 and 5, I start teaching her Aikido moves. Grabbing the wrist is a classic opening move, and there¡¯s lots of ways to escape. She learns how to grab my thumb and pull it backward. She learns that the instinctive reaction to touching something gross is to drop it, so she learns that if someone puts their hand over her mouth, to lick them like a slimy slug.
All of these survival tips have worked against me when she¡¯s having a temper tantrum and I need to control her. ¡°NO!¡± Kicking, prying off my grip, running away, even the slimy lick! As annoyed as I get, I still think ¡°Thank G-d¡±. She¡¯s loud, confident, stubborn, independent, and not afraid to use what she¡¯s been taught. I hope and pray she never has to use these skills on anyone but me, but if she does, she¡¯ll be ready.
Perhaps if you saw a jerk hassling a woman and you stepped up and said, "hey, buddy, she's telling you buzz off, why don't you do so?" then that woman would trust you enough to know she can let you know if she's interested and then you could tell.tkchrist: FYI. PRO-TIP: Don't ever do that. Not unless that jerk is your friend. Or you're very confident you can kick the ass of that jerk and his two (maybe three) friends waiting around the corner. I can't count the number of fights I've seen start just like that. From experience I've never met woman impressed with my ability to kick some jerks ass. In fact it seemed a sure way for said jerk to suddenly get all the sympathy.
I spent nearly a decade working in a Goth/Fetish club, and while all of our bouncing staff were very attentive to ¡°Did that drunk woman come here with that guy? Where are her friends? Is she too drunk? Miss, I think we should call you a cab¡± and just knowing who the local predators were, sort of issues, we had one bouncer, B, who went sort of above and beyond. B was 6¡ä7¡å and a good 290 lbs, easily. He had multiple facial piercings and tattoos, a beard and a network of scars on his face from getting hit with a beer stein.Also, today the author of the blog added to the Stuff What Boys Can Do thread by posting this story from the BBC about Lloyd Gardner, who provided information to the police which resulted in the arrest of a rapist, and how Mr. Gardner then gave his ?10,000 reward to the rape victim, saying, "It was a difficult decision to make because it is a lot of money and it would have been very helpful but I didn't feel like a deserved it at all. With the state that the girl was in after the incident, I really felt that it would go towards making her life a lot better over the next couple of years."
You all know that guy who starts hitting on you by invading your personal space, and keeps getting closer if you say no, all the while asking you ¡°why not?¡± B used to watch for these guys, and if he saw them doing that to girls, he would walk up to the bar and do that to the guy in question. It usually took less than a minute for the guy in question to start freaking out. At which point B would say, ¡°Yeah, well guess how you made that girl feel.¡±
We rarely had repeat offenders.
"I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?" Somebody's asking, "How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?" Somebody's asking, "When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?" Somebody's asking, "When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, and truth bear it?"posted by billyfleetwood at 11:54 PM on October 14, 2009 [7 favorites]
I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour,it will not be long, because "truth crushed to earth will rise again."
How long? Not long, because "no lie can live forever."
How long? Not long, How long because "you shall reap what you sow."
"How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
-MLK
A girl in India dies every four minutes because her parents don't believe she's worthy of medical care; a third of all women worldwide are beaten at home; women between the ages of fifteen and forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined ; according to the United Nations, 90 percent of females over the age of three were sexually abused in parts of Liberia during the civil war there; there are, very conservatively, according to the British medical journal The Lancet, ten million child sex slaves.What has this to do with cat-calling women on the street? Well, everything, actually:
[Gender inequality] takes the form of sexual slavery and other kinds of bondage; rape and other kinds of physical and mental assaults; and the withholding of medicine, food, and other privations; and it issues from a belief so fixed as to be unimpeachable: women are less human than men. (Not that they are less worthy, but that they are, fundamentally, less human.)Some men have commented in the thread that they (I'm paraphrasing) don't see the problem with catcalling, that it's a form of, um, appreciation. Given how it has made me feel when I've been subject to it, I have always assumed that the entire purpose of catcalling was intimidation. And hostility, and humiliation. Catcalling may a lit candle to the inferno of systematic rape in war, but the element, the fire, is the same.
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posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:13 AM on October 8, 2009 [8 favorites]