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

[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.