An informal poll about attitudes - REVISED

[unixronin]

Caution:  May be inflammatory.

Just for the sake of possibly-morbid curiosity:  I direct you to this article that perspicuity pointed out to me elsewhere.  Please go and read it.  Particularly the beginning.

Now, please answer only one poll.  First up, asking my readers of the feminine persuasion here:

[Poll #1472271]

For my chromosomally heterogeneous readers, I offer the following alternate poll with your own seven eight choices:

[Poll #1472272]

My personal feeling is that if you regard every male as a probable rapist lacking only the opportunity, I want some way to know in advance, because if the very first thought that goes through a woman's head is, "Is that man going to try to rape me?", I don't even want to start a conversation.  I find the whole attitude insulting, to say the least.  It's way too high a disadvantage to start out having to first of all convince someone that you're not planning to rape or murder them, and if I knew in advance that I was going to be up against that, I'd move on immediately to talk to someone saner.  I don't know how people who approach the world with that kind of level of fear every day can even function, but I do believe that it's not my responsibility to walk on eggshells everywhere I go, just to avoid triggering someone else's paranoia.

(Heh.  I just discovered I have to answer both polls to be able to see the results of my own poll.  Pretty obviously, so does everyone else.  Please note I am RESUBMITTING to add a "Just show me the results" entry to each poll.  If you already voted, this means your vote will be lost.  Feel free to vote again.  We apologize for the confusion.)

Comments

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

How many of her bolded points do you feel are unreasonable if they are applied to everyone?

For that matter, how many of her points do you feel are unreasonable if they are applied to everyone?

Women, fairly or not, evenly or not (and it's not even at all), are brought up to think of ourselves as prey. We have to be attractive. We have to make you want to come closer. We have to adapt to your environment. We have to be bait. We are supposed to be coy and wait for you to chase us.

A lot of us outgrow it. A lot of us are training our daughters, our sisters, our friends, to at least think we know better and to at least notice part of the time what we're doing, and try to not play those kind of games.

A lot of us can't outgrow it, haven't gotten to where we can outgrow it, aren't allowed or aren't allowing ourselves to outgrow it.

I don't regard every male as a probable rapist. I do find that I regard a lot of males as potential threats. I am, to my chagrin, a bit wary of those males I hold dear and who I am reasonably sure would be threats at my back instead of to my back.

"Be careful of your safety." "Be alert." "Don't reveal yourself as vulnerable in public by drinking or wearing revealing clothing." "Make sure someone knows where you are, and travel in groups."

These are all pieces of advice I've seen on how to prevent rape. These are all, every last one of them, herd behaviors. Predators are not herd animals. Women, apparently, are supposed to be, and it's tough to break or bend the conditioning.

I do not think you personally are a rapist. But I will be uable to stop myself from evaluating you as a threat when/if we meet in person. I am not going to blame it on my parents or on my past.

I don't live in a fluffy-bunny world where unicorns fart winning lottery tickets. I can't afford to take the risks of pretending I do.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

First of all, thanks for re-voting.

Awareness, I think, is essential to everyone. People who have no threat awareness, people who go through their days in what we call "condition white", are very frequently those who get mugged or assaulted, because their lack of situational awareness leaves them unable to recognize a threat until it's too late to avoid or escape it. Awareness informs caution, and caution guides action. Caution lies in avoiding a potential threat once you've become aware of it, instead of continuing to walk into it.

Let me talk a little about awareness states, as taught by Col. Jeff Cooper (USMC).

Condition white, as we've already mentioned, is complete unawareness ... you're neither looking for potential threats, nor in any frame of mind to be able to avoid them. You are completely unprepared in the event of an attack.
In condition yellow, you are aware of your surroundings and alert for potential threats, and you're thinking about how you might use your surroundings to escape or evade a threat, and about what possible escape routes you have.
In condition orange, you have positively identified a tangible threat, and — in a civilian environment — should be taking action to evade or escape it and reach a place of safety, and if possible preparing to defend yourself if necessary. If you're armed, you should have made sure your weapon is ready and accessible.
In condition red, you have directly encountered the threat and are faced with either defending yourself, disengaging, or both, possibly involving the use of force, potentially including deadly force. If you're armed, you should have already cleared your weapon for action.

Unfortunately, most people are in condition white most of the time. The ideal of situational awareness is to train yourself to habitually be in condition yellow, rather than condition white. It enables you to avoid most threats by recognizing them before you walk into them, and just not entering the situation.

That article reads to me as though the writer lives in condition orange. She sees threats where there are none. She seems to assume everything is a threat until proven otherwise. That's bad for several reasons, including that it desensitizes and overloads you to the point that you may not recognize a real threat when it appears. It's the principle of the boy who cried wolf: when an actual threat does appear, it may take vital seconds to convince your limbic system "No, this is REAL this time." On the other hand, it also carries the risk of inappropriately escalating to red — in the case of the article and writer, frankly if I knew how hinky she was, I'd want to stay well away from her lest she mace me simply because she thought I looked at her funny. And it could simply be that I'm facing in her direction while thinking negative things about something else entirely, and not even registering that she as a person is there.


You're right, it isn't a fluffy-bunny world, and unicorns don't fart lottery tickets, winning or otherwise. But neither does every shadowed doorway hide a slavering monster waiting to leap out. Awareness is great; preparedness is excellent; appropriate caution is perfectly reasonable. (And none of them require being a herd animal ... in fact, the herd mentality is actively counterproductive.) But I think this writer has thrown the baby out with the bathwater. Many of her individual points are basically sound — but the whole, colored with the attitudes she started out by describing, add up to something I find pretty scary. She comes across as someone more likely than most to just snap one day.

[wyrdling.livejournal.com]

i take a lot of that stuff into consideration in my basic situational threat monitoring. i assume my gut will ping off of whether or not a person is likely to be a threat, and some of the markers she mentions are telltales. though not grasping when someone is trying to be left alone is common enough to not be such a big deal to me.
i mean, sometimes i'm not very good at figuring that out. particularly with women who think they're obligated to be nice.

doesn't mean i assume guilt until innocence is proven, i just suspend judgement until i think i have enough data. which can take less than a second based on body language and vocal cues. for the basic immediate threat or possible support impression.

i've done pretty well at picking up pretty fast what men i would want to have standing near me if something stupid started happening.
(reminding me for some reason of any of the men in my father's family is a good cue, so maybe i'm luckier than women who don't have those sorts of subconscious models of protective figures in their lives.)
but it's not primarily a conscious process- i think it's high level subconscious information digestion/intuition.

thus, having a ongoing threat assessment level doesn't make me paranoid. i think.
but i'm also pretty confident in my ability to stay out of dead ends and think on my feet. and, if necessary, my ability to smash things with steel toed boots. (martial arts training as a teenager. a bit rusty, but i keep discovering how imprinted those reflexes are.)

[beckyzoole.livejournal.com]

Perhaps most men live in condition white all the time. Most women, however, live in condition yellow. It is really, truly, not unusual for a woman to live in condition orange. This is not insanity. It's just a sad commentary on society.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your honesty.

I agree with you that women are taught to be prey. I think many men are taught to be prey, too. We are taught from a very early age that fighting is wrong: a little kid who defends himself from violent playground bullying will be suspended for every bit as long as his or her tormentors. The lesson we inculcate in children is that violence, for whatever reason and under whatever provocation, is wrong except when it is applied by authority figures. “Don’t fight back, call the cops,” is a lesson that men get as well as women.

I am glad that you have rejected the prey mentality. It is an unfit philosophy for anyone who considers themselves to have free will and moral agency.

And once again, thank you for your honesty.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

I am aware of my surroundings, evaluate body-language, am wary of strangers. But then, I scan rooftops and trees . . .

I think much of what she says represents common sense for both sexes. We taught it in the dojo.

[ariyanakylstram.livejournal.com]

hear hear.

all people, but especially those significantly larger than I (and that includes MOST men, as I am petite) are potential threats in the right situation. That's what any martial art teaches you. Know your surroundings. Know what your body language says about you. Know your out. Be prepared ...and be able to make your evaluation long before they're in range to hurt you, if at all possible.

also, consider where she's FROM. she's in New York. I've visited once, and I can tell you that compared to the relative comfort I feel in SF, NYC was a totally different place. I was very aware of how often I was being weighed and measured by the people around me. When I went over to Brooklyn (IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY) to go train at a circus warehouse, I promise you I was downright uncomfortable waiting outside until they let me in -- in jeans, a tshirt, and a backpack. I wasn't advertising.

If I were in the meat-market dating scene anywhere, I'd use her techniques, but ESPECIALLY in New York, of all the places I've visited. I've certainly used variations of them in the past.

So yeah, I think maybe she's going a bit far, but our situations are different, and at the end of the day, she has to do what makes her comfortable and able to live her life.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I hear you. To me, while the individual pieces of advice are sound up to a point (at least, the ones that aren't just insulting), I'm not certain her complete formula is followable. She seems to be pretty much stating that a man should not even look at or speak to a woman until and unless explicitly invited to. But y'know, most women won't. Ever. Our society has done too good a job of conditioning women that it's improper for them to make the first move ... any first move. And if one sex won't make the first move, and the other isn't allowed to ... well ... there's a problem.

I think she's approaching the problem from an unsound starting frame of mind, but which she thinks is perfectly reasonable. But it's not reasonable to approach life with the attitude that every male is a rapist until and unless proven otherwise, especially when she declares right up front that in her mind, no male can ever be proven not to be a rapist.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Ever hear of "The Secret"? Basically, the message is that whatever you focus your attention on most, you will create in your life.

If you focus on "I never have enough money" - you will never have enough money.

If you focus on every stranger being a potential rapist, there is a good chance you're going to get raped by a stranger. Maybe already has been, judging by the level of paranoia.

And, as someone else said earlier in this thread, most women who are raped know their rapist in some way. So she really is punishing the wrong target.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I must respectfully dissent.

I did not read her as saying she regards every man as a probable rapist. I read her as saying she was always cognizant of the nonzero chance of meeting one. She does a back of the envelope calculation and comes up with about one man in sixty is a rapist. I’m not sure I agree with her on that, but modern psychology believes sociopathy and/or antisocial personality disorder is found in two to three percent of the male population, and about one percent of the female.

I don’t think that being cognizant of the risk is a slander to men. I didn’t read her writing as, “men must prove to me their intentions are honorable,” so much as, “these are the behaviors that trigger my danger sensors.” This may just wind up being my own personal interpretation of what was written, though.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

True, and all perceptions differ. Mine are perhaps more likely than many to be atypical with regard to the "norm", for several different reasons.

[masgramondou.livejournal.com]

The one in 60 thing is almost certainly a misleading metric - but it is fair enough as a back of the envelope calculation to show that yes most men know at least one rapist.

However - and this is important - men are not totally homogenous. I don't spend my hours on the streets of Brooklyn with gangstas and druggies. Nor do I spend it with other sorts of people who have a basic "women are property" or similar thought process. Hence I doubt that I know many rapists and probably know no more than one or two as more than casual acquaintances.

However while stereotypes (see above, also including folks with tattoos etc. as mentioned in the oroginal piece) are bad they are based on logic and a requirement to extrapolate threat analysis from limited data. With limited data and a significantly more likely downside it makes sense for women to be skeptical. After all women are assaulted (robbed, mugged etc. if not raped) far more than men are because they are generally weaker.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I always find most women's responses to things like this a lot more paranoid than my own. However, it was once pointed out to me that I'm a whole lot taller, bigger, and stronger than the average woman.

Size matters in this as in many other things.

Sad, and infuriating

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

(First, a comment on the survey options: I have to admit that I was torn on Survey #2 - I selected "Crazy Alert" since it slightly better matched my feelings than "I'm insulted", but it was a very near thing)

I've seen a lot of this sort of thing of late...as a [gay] guy who is far from being a threat to any women, it saddens me to see so many folks (female or not) cowering in fear. I've posted links to similar essays in my own LJ commenting on how depressing they are.

Given that I've got x-rays here showing broken ribs from having been gay-bashed*, I can partially wrap my head around her POV...but only partially. (A) The situations are somewhat different (B) I can't and won't let myself assume that all-who-differ-in-a-particular-way are THE ENEMY as she clearly does. Her chosen world is a fair approximation of my idea of Hell.

In all fairness, she does make some valid points on how to interact; points that are indeed universal - such as being aware of the signals one's appearance conveys, being aware that all conversation locations are not created equal, and paying attention to what's being "said" both verbally and by body language. [Recast to make the points generic]. And, with any luck, if the tale of "Mr. Too-Much-Email" is even partially true**, he'll read it and realize he's had a splendid opportunity to dodge a landmine. :)


Rather like Cipherpunk (upthread), I've gotten the occasional call from female friends asking for a escort away from an obnoxious guy. It is indeed a sort of compliment, although the dynamic is probably different for the two of us.


*Yes, I'm a big, brawny, somewhat scary-looking guy. Guano occurs.

**The overall tone of the essay leaves the accuracy of the anecdote in question.

Re: Sad, and infuriating

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

In all fairness, she does make some valid points on how to interact; points that are indeed universal - such as being aware of the signals one's appearance conveys, being aware that all conversation locations are not created equal, and paying attention to what's being "said" both verbally and by body language.

Absolutely. The advice is, on the face of it, not unreasonable. What bothers me is the apparent mindset it's coming from, and the idea that these are deep mysteries that most or all males are too dumb to have figured out any clue about for themselves.

[rain-manpnw.livejournal.com]

I think what tips the scale for me is lines like this:

> Ask yourself, “If I were dangerous, would this woman be safe in
> this space with me?” If the answer is no, then it isn’t
> appropriate to approach her.

Um ... let's face it, the way she's slanted it, the answer is ALWAYS going to be "no".

> 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.

So basically, guys are NEVER to initiate a conversation. Always let the woman make the fist move. Anything else brands yo as a rapist.

IMNSHO, this woman is scary.

Of course, I'm the kind of guy that even the COPS think is a mugger, so maybe I'm biased. But life has gotten to the point that, even in a relatively easy-going city like the one I live in, I treat all strange women as if they were this one - ready to scream rape if I look at them funny.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Thank you for reminding me of that line.

If I am dangerous, then by definition it’s not safe to be in this space with me. Ergo her rule leads quite directly to no communication ever happening unless it’s on the woman’s explicit terms, which I find to be an unconscionably sexist policy.

I was wrong. She is not espousing a reasonable, if pushing the boundaries of reasonability, view: she is espousing an unreasonable view. unixronin, I’d like to change my vote if possible. I now concur with you and others that she is unhinged.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think what tips the scale for me is lines like this:

> Ask yourself, “If I were dangerous, would this woman be safe in
> this space with me?” If the answer is no, then it isn’t
> appropriate to approach her.

Um ... let's face it, the way she's slanted it, the answer is ALWAYS going to be "no".

Exactemente! My point precisely.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

It doesn't brand you a rapist to initiate a conversation. But most guys don't think of it this way: when she makes eye contact with you and smiled, *she* initiated the conversation. You just either followed up, gave a maybe, or shot *her* down in flames by letting your bored eyes slide across her on to something else.

Even if she doesn't it's okay to say hi. What's not okay is if she's giving bug off signals-- looking away, or looking back at her book, or is saying as few words to you as possible--continuing to pester her

*That* doesn't brand a guy a rapist. It just brands him as someone who's being a jerk and doesn't *care* that she's not interested--or, every bit as bad, doesn't notice. That is an attribute of men who ignore "no." Not *all* men who occasionally make jerks of themselves ignore "no," but guys who ignore "no" will typically make jerks of themselves in this general fashion. So yeah, it sure as hell increases the probability that the guy who's ignoring "bug off" is "that guy."

[attutle.livejournal.com]

I picked "Crazy alert! Crazy alert! Back away SLOWLY.", and I'll explain why.

The 1:6 statistic is for a lifetime. The odds of being raped on any particular day must be substantially lower, more like 1:100000 [assuming a life expectancy of at least 46 years]. This could put the odds for a single person on a particular day somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1:million [assuming you interact with at least 10 people that day].

"Schrödinger’s Rapist" suggests "50% safe" instead of "99.9999% safe".
Even if she knows it's not 50%, it seems a bit over the top to spend that much effort evaluating each interaction.

It seems like it would make more sense to look at that initial 1:6 lifetime statistic, and consider the implied 5:6 statistic for women who will not be sexually assaulted during their lifetime. I suspect she could arrange to be in the 5:6 group without obsessing quite so much.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

The guys who are "that guy" are disproportionate in the unattached dating pool to their percentage in society. Reason? Many other women see red flags from them or have a creeped out gut instinct about them and shoot them down in flames. Many others drop them like hot rocks.

No, I'm not saying if you're single and looking you're probably a rapist. I'm saying losers are disproportionately available in the pool because they have a tough time getting dates. This is not rocket science. Rapists are just one more variety of losers; they sometimes hide in the woodwork real well, so a chick who might date you does have to watch for signs that you just might be available for a damned good reason.

[jmkelly.livejournal.com]

When you go to the bank, there's at least one armed guard, an alarm button no more than two feet from the teller's lap, and maybe bulletproof glass. Not because you're a bank robber, or because there are so many bank robbers, but because banks just hate to get robbed, even once. If a customer feels insulted by all this, that's his tough luck. Most of us take the guards, alarm buttons, and bulletproof glass as a matter of course. (Actually, bulletproof glass is a little off-putting to me -- maybe over the top -- but if I were a bank teller, or if my wife were, I'd probably see it differently.)

So when a woman discloses the ugly truth that one of the first questions she tries to settle when she's getting to know you is whether you're going to assault her, it similarly ought to be no surprise. I do the same IFF myself walking down some streets.

I think every man ought to meditate on the privileges he enjoys just by being male; one of them being that as long as you can stay out of jail, you don't have to worry about getting raped.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

While this is true, I don't believe it's really applicable, because the alarm button and armed guard don't interfere with you doing your banking¹, and because they're there to protect you and your money, not just the bank. You benefit as well by their presence.

By contrast, as several other commenters have pointed out, the woman who wrote this article has set up her standard of "reasonable" behavior such that if one is to comply strictly with her rules, a man MAY NOT EVER initiate communication with a woman, because she has set up a standard of safety that is de facto impossible to meet.

Ask yourself, “If I were dangerous, would this woman be safe in this space with me?” If the answer is no, then it isn’t appropriate to approach her.

And as cipherpunk explicitly pointed out, IF I am dangerous to her, then by definition it's not safe for her to be in any space with me. Hence, according to her rules, if I am dangerous, it is never appropriate for me to initiate communication. But there is no room permitted for an "I'm not a danger to her" condition. Under her rules, I am required to a priori always assume that I am a danger to her. Hence the test will always fail, because the failure condition is expressly set up as a required precondition for the test. It's as though, before checking whether your phone has dial tone, you were required to always unplug it first. Of COURSE it doesn't have dial tone ... it's not plugged in.

The only way to comply with her rules is for the man to ALWAYS wait for the woman to make the first move ... and even in today's relatively "enlightened" times, probably somewhere between 80% and 95% of women never will. (And that's not even getting into the mixed-signals issue.)

(I also note, purely as an aside, that it is a myth that a male cannot be raped by a female. It is uncommon, true, but it happens. And as for males never having to fear rape outside of prison ... I would have thought all the recent publicity about priests sexually molesting young boys should have set that to rest.)



[1] Although the bullet proof glass sometimes makes communication with the teller a little difficult, if they haven't paid attention to that. Then again, I can't remember the last time I was in a bank that hid the tellers away behind bullet proof glass.

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

"I think every man ought to meditate on the privileges he enjoys just by being male; one of them being that as long as you can stay out of jail, you don't have to worry about getting raped"

Like the privilege to be much more likely to be the victim of a violent crime? (for most of my like *massively* more likely, but as crime rates (including rape) have plummeted since the early 70s, that disparity is shrinking, so men are only about 25% more likely to be victims.

[house-pundit.livejournal.com]

A lot of you are ignoring that she mentioned a potentially interested woman will make eye contact and smile. I'll go further. This is, as she said, a "go" for talking to the chick.

We do it all the time. I will not meet a guy's eyes and smile if I want him to bug off. I might not want to date you, you might not want to date me, but it's at least an opening to converse.

I *will* seek eye contact and smile if I notice him and I'm at all interested in talking to him.

It is perfectly okay for him to try to initiate eye contact with me and smile at me. More than okay. If I: do not smile back; avoid his eyes; I give a tight-lipped, forced, smile; or look immediately away and try to pretend eye contact never happened, then I don't want to talk to him, period. If he tries to talk to me he *will* get shot down, or I will get out of the conversation as quickly as I possibly can.

It's okay to initiate a conversation--via eye-contact and exchanged smiles. If eye-contact is inherently awkward (you're in line next to each other), common sense applies. Yeah, say something if you want, but pay close attention for bug off signals.

Her point? If a guy is a jerk about ignoring clear signals to bug off, his chances of being a jerk in other, critically important ways just went *way* up. And he doesn't just look like a jerk to the chick he just struck out with. He looks like a jerk to every other chick who witnessed the interaction.