I’m not sure why that the assault was by a group of other males makes any difference. And females assault males as well, certainly nowhere near as often but it does happen, or more usually they get their male compatriots to do the actual assaulting while they cheer from the sidelines.
In the interests of maintaining a civil conversation I’m not picking a fight, I recognise that women have concerns that men don’t have (at least not to the same extent) however men also concerns that women don’t have (at least not to the same extent). A woman is a lot more likely to be sexually assaulted than a man but a man is a lot more likely to be just plain assaulted.
And yes, just like a woman I consider other men in a general sense to be a much higher threat in that sense than women but I don’t perceive every man even if he is much larger and better built than me to be a threat (beyond the common sense factor that I don’t know him so a little prudence is in order.)
However that is only in a straight physical build sense, no matter what level of mad hand-to-hand skillz you have you aren’t going to win a fight against a handgun or a knife and a woman is perfectly as able to wield those as a man.
And somehow this knowledge of statistics and your own abilities and limitations is not an affront to the male gender as it has with Chimera’s example. Why is that?
I’m trying to relate here, but there is no scenario I can imagine that fairly dismisses a smaller, weaker person’s real fears of potential crime. Were I to find 5’10” self trapped in an elevator with a slight-framed woman who eyed me fearfully while clutching pepper spray, I’d consider her size, her stature, her age, her culture, her past experiences, and sensationalized media reports of violence. Then I’d pity her for her fear and admire her resourcefulness for taking steps to protect herself while going about her daily business. And like Chimera, I’d cross my fingers and hope she wasn’t crazy enough to discharge the pepper spray in the elevator and incapicate us both and I’d be relieved when we parted. But the last thing I’d do is take it as a personal insult or consider it an indictment on my gender.
In my opinion you lack empathy for those smaller and weaker than you and took the momentary fear of a stranger as a personal insult to your character. I disagree with your opinion that one lone, fearful woman indicted your entire gender because of a brief and ancient incident in which no one was harmed. Your definition of hate is apparently bloated by the same metrics which cause you to remain angry and indignant that a stranger once briefly feared your presence.
The fact that I remember incidents from that far back, and indeed going back to as early as 4 years of age, and recall such things when triggered by discussions of similar or related issues by no means indicates that I bear any form of grudge for those long past events. Continuing to insist on malice on my part for this ability does indicate malice on your part. Statements such as that one only continue to affirm that suspicion.
If Chimera’s example is the one regarding the elevator I don’t, and haven’t in this thread, taken it as an affront to my gender.
In that scenario I’d back off with my hands raised and talking to her in a reassuring voice, but the very fact I would have to do so is because of the way she reacted to my presence in a manner which means that she is a threat to me. A woman can still hurt a man, even a smaller apparently terrified woman, in fact the latter means that the threat level is substantially increased as she isn’t thinking straight. She may ‘merely’ empty the pepper-spray in my face which would be unpleasant enough in itself but what if she then attacks me when I’m down and defenceless, the dynamics in that situation aren’t as clear as you make it. As I said before women may be physically weaker than men but that doesn’t mean they’re weak, if a small woman decided to give me a hiding when I’m not able to defend myself she can still do a lot of damage and in the scenario above she’s the one with the weapon, not me.
Of course I’d try to deescalate the confrontation but I wasn’t the one who escalated it in the first place.
I don’t consider it a slight on my masculinity or some sort of gender-based power game, in fact I’m not entirely sure where your going with that post. I’m willing to ‘put myself in her shoes’ as it were but as I said before if someone is that frightened in a contained and safe work environment I’m not sure how she could function elsewhere, she’s a danger to herself and others.
Quoting this, but responding to a few different things in the thread…
I think there are three questions on the table regarding this incident. The main one I’ve been discussing is whether I’d be angry at the woman in question, and I really don’t think I would be. A related question is whether she was responding to a realistic danger (as opposed to a fantasy danger, e.g., terrified that she was about to be kidnapped and chopped up for spare organs). Again, I think she was: even though the danger is much smaller than the danger of acquaintance rape, it’s still tens of thousands of incidents annually. There’s a far smaller chance of being struck by lightning, but I still don’t stand under tall trees during a thunderstorm.
But there’s a third question that I, at least, haven’t been addressing, and I’m not sure it’s been addressed, even though it’s obvious: was her response to this danger a reasonable response?
I think she responded to a real danger, and I wouldn’t be angry at her response. But I don’t think her response was reasonable.
She had alternatives. She could have taken another elevator. She could have kept the pepper spray in her hand without holding it out in front of her. Her response was not proportionate to the risk, in my opinion.
So why wouldn’t I be angry at her?
Precisely because the response suggests more questions. What would motivate someone to respond in this way? Malevolence, greed, vengeance–none of these work as motives. What does make sense as a motive is fear.
Our stat of 21000 stranger rapes per year is abstract. Nobody experiences 21000 stranger rapes per year. Everyone experiences either zero, or more than zero. And if you’re raped even once in a year, there’s no comfort in the statistical rarity of that crime.
If a woman responded to me as in Chimera’s example, then, that’s where my mind would go. This person is responding unreasonably. There’s a reason for that unreasonable response. I’d lay money on that reason being (most likely) a recent victimization, or, at the very least, knowing a woman who’d been raped recently.
Could I be wrong? Sure: maybe she was just a psycho, or some sort of hard-core anti-man bigot based on nothing more than one of those demonic Women’s Studies Classes that strike such terror into the hearts of Men’s Movement Morons. But I doubt it. A response like that suggests trauma to me.
My anger, then, would be at the society with room for such trauma in it, not at the person responding inappropriately to something that reminds her of the trauma.
Is this the same topic? Is creepiness the same as a threatening violent propensity imagined by a woman who may have been a victim of a different man in the past?
They say rape is a crime of violence, not sexuality. I’ve never heard that about child molestation … it seems to be clearly a matter of pathological sexuality. Are going to draw a distinction between men being potential flashers, peeping Toms and pedophiles, and men as suspected stalkers and rapists? If you roll all these charming possibilities into one thread, it’s not about creepiness anymore, it’s about barbarism.
I can’t see a mother being afraid that every solo man she sees is a pedophile. I know it happens … I’ve seen it. In a case like that, it’s her problem, she needs some kind of counseling. But, in the case of a woman with a history of being a victim, or having been close to a victim, of assault, especially sexual assault, I absolutely understand that she’ll be extra alert, and seemingly overreactive. It’s a reasonable response for a woman with that history.
I would argue child molestation is also about power, since children most likely to be molested have their abuser in a position of power over them (Priest, Scoutmaster, parent, cousin, uncle, teacher, etc). It were solely about gratification, I would figure random molestation/fondlings would be much more common, but statistics suggest children are molested by people close to them, and the children most likely to be molested are those with the least power (poor, stepchild, foster child, disabled).
I’m not sure why you’re bringing the emotion of anger into it, people have said they would be surprised, concerned and fearful by her actions I don’t think anyone has said they’d be angry at her.
Surely anger would be an entirely reasonable reaction to being unjustifiably pepper-sprayed? Saying he would be angry if that happened doesn’t me he was angry about what actually happened.