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

[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.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Actually, that's not entirely true. Women are raped far more often than men, but men are still assaulted rather more often than women. The disparity has been declining over the past 20 years, but a man is still 25% more likely to be assaulted than a woman, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reports.

I don't know what the ratio is for muggings/robberies.