I don’t know what stats you are referring to, but I knew the Australian data that gave rise to statements like that, and there was a mixture of wishful thinking and ‘Chinese Whispers’/Telephone.
The ‘man you know and trust’ category somehow expanded to include ‘that creepy guy you see at Walmart’, and the new larger category was bigger than the 'stranger from a different part of town that nobody had ever seen before" category. But if you looked at the original data reports, the categories “coach or teacher” and “family member” together were still smaller than “all the other cases”.
But this thread is not about stories like that. This story is about a viral social media post referencing women’s own accounts of things that happened to them:
In other words, AFAICT, the author of that post appears to be angered by seeing so many first-person accounts (like the three or four I’ve already quoted in this thread) from women being subjected to unmistakably intimidating, lewd and/or criminal behavior by creepy dudes in a Walmart. And she’s exhorting women (maybe not totally seriously) to fight back physically with the weapons at hand.
This has nothing to do with “stories about suspicious-looking people stalking Wal-Marts in the sticks seeking women and children to grab and throw into unmarked vans to sell them into sexual slavery somewhere”. This is about women’s own first-person accounts of experiences with creepy strangers. You know, the sort of accounts that you yourself just said you’re inclined to believe are true, unless and until proven false.
Shee-eesh. What with DrDeth imagining that the issue is advocating violence against innocent men just for looking creepy, and now Saintly Loser imagining that the issue is people making up third-person anecdotes about suspected sex-slavery kidnappers, I’m starting to wonder how many people even here on the Dope actually know how to read anymore.
You know, i wasnt going to come back here, but this is so fundamentally wrong- and dangerous:
However, statistics by government and police bodies have shown that “stranger danger” killings of children are incredibly rare, and that the overwhelming number of cases of child abuse and murder were committed by someone who was known to the child. The Soham Murders in Cambridgeshire, where two 10-year-old girls were found dead two weeks after their disappearance in August 2002, are a notable example — the killer of the girls, Ian Huntley, was known to both of his victims, and his role as a local school caretaker perhaps portrayed him as a man with a position of trust, who would not appear to be a likely danger to children whether known to them or not.
About 90% of children who are victims
of abuse know their abuser. 12,13
Only 10% of sexually abused children are abused
by a stranger.12
Approximately 30% of children who are sexually
abused are abused by family members. 12, 13
http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV26_Revised%20Characteristics%20of%20Crimes%20against%20Juveniles_5-2-12.pdf
*Perpetrators against Juveniles
As figure 9 shows, in incidents where knowledge of perpetra‐
tors allows their identification as family member, acquaint‐
ance, or stranger, most offenders against juveniles (89 per‐
cent) are known to the victim (i.e., the offender is a family
member or an acquaintance). Only 10 percent of the child
victimizers in violent crimes are strangers, suggesting that
while “stranger danger” may be an important concept in
child safety training, it is far from sufficient. *
Please dont spread false facts. *Stranger danger *isnt even accepted any more:
Now everyone can go back to completely misunderstanding my OP, and saying how great their “creepy radar” is and how men are creeps.
Back in the days when packs of Hare Krishnas roamed the airports, a smiling young man tried to give a flower to a young woman I knew. She got right in his face and growled, “FUCK OFF!” in a voice straight from The Exorcist.
We don’t know what the author of the post is angered by. She exhorts women who feel that they are being followed by a creepy guy to respond with force, armed force, and possibly lethal force (she says she carries, which generally means carrying a firearm). She does not give us the details of the stories to which she is responding.
I said that, yes. You have no reason to question my truthfulness in saying that. If a woman tells me (or says publicly, like, for instance, Christine Blasey Ford) that a man assaulted her, or aggressively pushed for sex, I’m going to believe her until given a very good reason not to believe her.
I have no idea what DrDeth imagines.
I can assure you that I know how to read. I can also assure that I do not imagine the issue is people making up third-person anecdotes. I do think there’s an issue with people assuming that become someone “looks creepy,” that person must have ill intent, and the beholder is justified in taking some kind of action (violent action, if we’re to take the social media post that touched this whole thing off seriously) against said creep.
If some guy presses up against a woman, or pinches her ass, or jerks off at her (or pretty much anywhere except in the privacy of his own home), then that woman is perfectly justified in beating the living shit out of him and then calling the cops and having him arrested and publicly shamed as a sex offender for the rest of his life and imprisoned. I’m not so okay with the firearm stuff or actually killing him, but short of that, hey, he was asking for it. If he’s following her around, or even appears to be following her around, she’s justified in calling him on it and telling him to fuck off. In no uncertain terms, so that everyone hears it.
Okay? We clear?
But, if some weird-looking dude happens to be in the same aisle in a big store a bunch of times, that’s not conclusive proof that he’s doing anything wrong. So the beating the shit out of, etc. is *not *then justified.
Well, she explicitly says that what she’s angered by is reading so many online first-person accounts along the lines of “I was followed at such n such Walmart by some creepy dude”.
And AFAICT, most such accounts are describing the narrator’s personal experience with some guy at a Walmart doing something seriously creepy, such as pressing up against her or groping her or following her out to her car or masturbating at her.
However, that doesn’t seem to be the same issue as the one in this viral post that the OP was complaining about, because the author of that post nowhere mentions anything about how anybody looks.
I don’t know what “most” accounts are describing. That said, my post above (#126) was quite clear on what I thought would be the appropriate response to anything like what you describe. I think we’re pretty much on the same page.
No. I mentioned that. My first post in this thread describes my experience with people who think someone is up to no good, and take action on that feeling. It was an accurate description of my experience. I’ll stand by that.
Nobody here is disagreeing with that. The point is that no evidence has been offered that anyone discussing this, including the author of the viral post that the OP was complaining about, is actually advocating any physical violence against anybody who’s not doing anything wrong, no matter how “weird-looking” he may happen to be.
To recap:
All over the internet there are first-person accounts by women of having to deal with creepy guys in a Walmart who are inflicting on them behavior that is unmistakably intimidating, lewd, and/or criminal.
A woman makes a social-media post saying how angry it makes her to read first-person accounts by women along the lines of “I was followed at such n such Walmart by some creepy dude”, and urging women to aggressively confront or get physically violent with the “creepy dude” who’s frightening them in that situation. The post goes viral with a lot of enthusiastic approval.
Because the author of the post doesn’t explicitly specify exactly what behavior on the part of said “creepy dude” justifies the response she’s recommending, some men jump to the conclusion that she’s advocating violence against innocent men merely for looking “creepy”.
Some men persist for three pages of a messageboard thread trying to get other posters on board with their indignation about the issue that they’ve jumped to the conclusion about, but which nobody AFAICT is demonstrably in support of.
It’s a first-person account of her reading other women’s first-person accounts. Are you saying that she should disbelieve those first-person accounts, or that we should disbelieve hers?
Edit: Wait a minute, I think I may see the problem here. Are you perhaps mixing up “first-person account” with “in-person account”?
Missed edit: That is, are you interpreting “first-person account” to mean something like “somebody recounting their experiences in a face-to-face conversation with someone they know”?
The “chain of belief,” for want of a better term, is getting a bit stretched.
Obviously, it’s a first-person account of her reading first-person accounts. It’s hard to argue with that. I mean, it’s a tautology.
But, someone says, “I read a first-person account of creepy behavior, and here is my response, which advocates extreme violence,” and I must believe that the story said person cites actually says what she says it does, or justifies the response she advocates?
No, not really.
Look, I’m not sure why you’re arguing with me. I’m pretty sure that essentially we’re in agreement.
I cited some personal experience which leads me to believe that some people react to vague feelings that something wrong is going on exactly as if something had actually happened. Having been on the receiving end of that, I’m not at all comfortable with that. I think that’s pretty understandable. That’s too close to the Bush doctrine for my comfort.
That’s all. What are you taking exception to? Seriously,
A first-person account is someone saying “x happened to me,” not someone saying “someone told me x happened to them,” or “I read a story online about x happening to someone.”
Well, for one thing, that you’re not paying enough attention to the distinction between “someone who thinks that there’s imminent danger of a pedophile kidnapping a child”, which is something that almost never happens, and “someone who thinks that a creepy dude is being lewd/threatening/criminal at her in a public place”, which is something that happens all the time.
In other words, your personal experience with being falsely suspected of being a pedophile child-kidnapper is not really very relevant to accounts by women of being followed by creepy dudes in a Walmart.
Nobody’s saying that you “must believe” that her response is correct or that her reporting is accurate. It’s taking all our time just trying to get you and some other posters in this thread to realize that it’s not particularly reasonable to believe that she’s advocating violence against innocent people just for “looking creepy”.
My concern is that some seem to think that “being lewd/threatening/criminal at her in a public place” (or anywhere else) should purely be a subjective determination made by the person who perceives him or herself to be the object of such lewd, etc. behavior. You know, in the eye of the beholder, like that.
I disagree. I don’t think you’ll persuade me otherwise.
And, by the way, the social media post that set off this whole thing only mentioned “following,” not masturbating, rubbing up against, etc. You seem to be saying that I’m expanding the discussion past the original bounds (which is absolutely true – so what? That happens in discussions). But so are you. If I’m moving the goalposts, so are you.
I’m well aware that they are very different things.
True. And, by the same token, the experience of women being followed (assuming they are in fact being followed, and not just seeing some dude shopping for the same stuff they’re shopping for) is not very relevant to my personal experience with being falsely suspected.
Well, she’s clearly advocating that women use extreme, even lethal, violence against men who are following them. Even if the (unnamed, unquoted, uncited) women are right about being followed, there are more appropriate responses than bashing someone’s face in with canned goods, or shooting that person (that said, once a creep touches a woman, all bets are off, he’s asking for whatever he gets).
Nowhere does she say that “following them” is the only thing these “creepy dudes” are doing that the women object to.
Again, you’re jumping to the conclusion that the woman who wrote the post, or the women whose accounts she’s responding to, are probably overreacting to innocent behavior on the part of men who don’t deserve such an extreme response.
What I keep having to point out is that that’s a conclusion you’re jumping to, not one necessarily implied by the words of the post in question.
But this thread is not about stories like that. This story is about a viral social media post referencing women’s own accounts of things that happened to them: