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.)

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with ongoing threat assessment. That's called "being in condition yellow." :)

[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.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

That is, indeed, not a comforting thought.

[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.

[brownkitty.livejournal.com]

I'm nowhere near out of it. I'm still working on being conscious of it, and trying not to teach my children that it's ok.

As for honest, isn't that a basic consideration that people deserve? Not full disclosure, but honesty?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. For example, I'd rather have someone honestly say "I don't like you" than lie to me and pretend. And if I ask someone a question I need the answer to, I'd FAR rather they tell me "I don't know", than bullshit and make something up that's more than likely wrong.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

Better the lies that exalt us than ten thousand truths.

Vladimir Pushkin

It’s not about being honest with me. It’s about being honest with yourself.

When you lie to yourself, when you tell yourself that black is white and that what you’re doing isn’t actually what you’re doing… that’s, in my experience, when the deepest betrayals start. Better to face the truth, even if it is unflattering to you, rather than tell yourself a lie and then pass these lies off for truth when you relate them to others.

Most people think of honesty as an adjective which describes how you relate to other people. I think of honesty as an adjective which describes how you relate to yourself. The latter is, in my experience, far more rare than the former. Unflinching self-honesty is probably the trait I most respect in a person.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

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.

And that's a big part of the problem. If we made an effort to teach that unprovoked violence is wrong, but self-defense is not only a right (in both senses) but a civil responsibility, there would be a lot less need for police. But that would move power away from the hands of government and put more of it back in the hands of individual citizens, and government doesn't like that.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

I would settle for children simply being taught that violence is a social act — as in “part of the fabric of human existence,” not as in “socially commendable” — and there exist multiple perspectives on how it ought be treated. You know, the same way everything else is taught.

If little kids are taught that, “well, from some perspectives it’s okay that Heather has two mommies,” and, “well, from some perspectives Columbus Day should be a day of mourning” — to name two perspectives I don’t mind at all being taught in school, and which I think should be taught in school, with ultimate choice on which is right being left to the student — why is it so hard to teach, “well, from some perspectives responding with violence is the Right Thing To Do”?

When I was seven I read Pat McCord’s “A Bundle of Sticks” (http://www.amazon.com/Bundle-Sticks-Pat-Mauser-McCord/dp/1880336863). Even by the standards of 1982 it was controversial. It is even moreso today, just because it teaches kids that there is a when, a why and a how to fighting — and that when all three questions are answered, fighting is forgivable.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

See, I am personally of the school of thought that legitimate self-defense should NEVER be controversial. If you don't have a right to defend yourself, do you really have any rights at all that mean a damned thing? Because if you don't have a right to defend yourself, anything else you have can be taken away from you with impunity.

I'm one of those who believes the Second Amendment should have been first, because without it, all the rest are just unenforceable hot air.

[cipherpunk.livejournal.com]

The problem with that thinking is it handwaves the word, “legitimate.” I think the overwhelming majority of people with two neurons to rub together would agree that legitimate self-defense is uncontroversial. However, I think a disturbingly large number of people today would have some really appalling ideas for what constitutes “legitimate.”

And even then, even if we all agree that in theory legitimate self-defense is uncontroversial, in practice it will always be. I’ve seen women who successfully fended off violent assault get pilloried by their “sisters” (a word I use mockingly, since their language made it clear they could claim no kinship with the brave soul they were disparaging) because, “don’t you know it’s almost always safer to just give him what he wants?”

So, yeah. Those are my two objections to your statement. The first is that it handwaves the word “legitimate.” The second is that even if self-defense is legitimate, it will still face social approbation from the malinformed, the unwise and the sheeple.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

The problem with that thinking is it handwaves the word, “legitimate.”

True. Mea culpa.

Let me try to clarify what I meant by "legitimate" self-defense ... shall we try "appropriate level of force, used only when necessary, with the intent of stopping an attack, not necessarily of wounding or killing the attacker"?

Social approbation from the malinformed and the craven, unfortunately, is something to be endured, and to be addressed with education of the malinformed. If we allow our actions and choices to be dictated by those whom we believe to be wrong on the subject, and just accept that, we're lost. We don't give up and say "Ah, well, we'll just have to live with gay-bashing, because some misguided people believe it's perfectly OK." So why should we just resign ourselves to giving up self-defense because some misguided people believe it's wrong?

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

"appropriate level of force, used only when necessary, with the intent of stopping an attack, not necessarily of wounding or killing the attacker"

OK, I have a problem with that...

Like 'legitimate', I think 'appropriate' is a bit of hand waving, too.

But then, I generally think if you shoot someone inside your house (or more generally on your property) uninvited, that's just peachy.

I'd prolly tsk tsk at mutilating the corpse or mounting the head on a pike, but making that illegal seems overkill.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

In this case, I was thinking more along the lines of "probably shouldn't shoot someone who started running away the moment he saw the gun". ;)

People these days are just so effete when it comes to heads on pikes...