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

[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...