Sorry if this is a hijack, but since it looks like this thread is headed off the rails anyway I wanted to get in a reply to this post:
Although you intended to be helpful, it seems obvious to me that this woman feared that you were asking which bus she was looking for because you wanted to follow her. (FWIW this does seem a bit paranoid to me, but we don’t know what her past experiences were.) Your question may have seemed particularly suspicious to her because she wasn’t even waiting for a bus and was standing several yards away from the bus stop. In my experience it’s also unusual for someone at a bus stop to ask a stranger which bus they’re waiting for; people who want to know if the #2 has been by already will ask.
I’m not saying you did anything wrong here, but I do not think this woman reacted the way she did simply because you were a man but rather because you were a man who seemed a little too interested in where she was going. I’m sure it sucks to get this sort of response when you are just trying to be helpful, but you were a total stranger to this woman and she had no way of knowing whether you were just a nice, helpful guy or a creep trying to get his foot in the door by acting friendly. Women are warned to watch out for things like strange men offering to help us carry in our groceries (a tactic used by the rapist described in the opening of The Gift of Fear) or give us a ride even though, if taken at face value, these are helpful offers.
Men are more likely to commit violent crime, and it is more likely to be committed against other men. Women are far less likely to be involved in violent crime, especially with a stranger, either as a perpetrator or as a victim.
The vast majority of violent and sexual attacks on women are carried out by someone the woman knows and trusts, so you won’t have your pepper spray handy at that point.
Now, I’m not advocating not using caution when around strangers. But that caution involves being alert for threats, and responding to them, not assuming that there is a threat just because someone who looks like they might have a penis is in your general vicinity. You do not have the right, morally or legally, to threaten someone with a weapon just because they might be a threat - you have the right to defend yourself if they do threaten you. You may not preempt that.
Your ignorance of the facts about violence, and about the law, is causing you and others unnecessary fear, and causing innocent people to be threatened, and to find it hard to do normal activities they have every right to.
Not every man is a potential rapist, especially to strangers. Anyone who claims otherwise is either dangerously ignorant or mentally ill.
Oh, and to add to the earlier point about women having to live in fear - that’s a choice you make, it’s not based on reality. It seems to me to be a harmful and foolish choice, as you’re reducing your ability to function in society, quite apart from any affect on others.
Jesus Christ, people, this thread has enormous potential for each side to understand the other. I have not read every single post in this thread. But please, calm down now or I will shut it down.
[Modern Post Magazine] *If you read only one post this year, make that post #160 starring Slithy Tove. Truly a modern classic. You’ll laugh. You’ll cry. It will become a part of you. * [MPM]
Not for me. I do as I please, go where I want. I arm myself with pepper spray primarily to protect myself against stray dogs, but if a man happens to follow me or attempt to intercept my route I’m going to prepare myself to use non-deadly force if he makes a physical move on me. I’m tall, strong, and in good shape, so I’ve only sprayed three men with pepper spray in my life. But I run in the dark, hike in the woods, and tend to shop in off hours so I expose myself to elements outside the typical 9-5 workday. No, I’m not going to avoid favorite hobbies and habits because I’m female. And as I’m responsible for a child and aging parents, my personal security and safety trumps the hurt feelings of a man who is bigger, stronger, and statistcally less likely to be harmed by me than I am by him. When you have a daughter or sister to worry about, you may become able to see things from my point of view.
I wish the youth mental treatment facility I worked at had this rule. I had to transport a child a few times alone to Dr appointments and after the third time, I said no. I would not transport another child alone, especially since many of them has histories of making false accusations of molestation against both men and women. My boss made my life hell because of it and tried to guilt me into going back on my word because he “didn’t have enough staff to have two adults on every transport”, but I never regretted my decision. Male and female staffers were routinely allowed alone with the children. I have no doubt some of them who were pedos but never caught took advantage of the situation. I HATED working there.
I know at my middle school (early 2000s) there was a rule that the teachers weren’t allowed to pick up students walking to/from school for any reason. The reasons was because of a couple (at least purported) incidents where the students extorted the teachers by threatening to throw open the car door and yell “rape” if the teacher didn’t pay them off.
We’re not talking about hurt feelings. We’re talking about you threatening people who’ve done nothing wrong with pepper spray. You say you’ve only sprayed three men with pepper spray? All of them strangers who were threatening you? I find that extremely hard to believe.
You do, of course, have the right to defend yourself - but none of what you’ve posted has been about defence from credible threats. You continually assume that all men are likely to attack you, and that no women are, both of which are false. I honestly don’t know what you hope to gain by putting yourself in a state of irrational fear, or why you think you have the right to threaten people. And, once again, pulling a weapon on someone who is not threatening you cannot but be considered threatening them.
I suspect you’re getting at the answer “from men.” Am I right?
If so, this is essentially accurate and misleading and irrelevant.
Accurate: yes, I am in more danger than you are of violent crime. And the perpetrators who put both of us in danger are men.
Misleading: the fact that I’m in more danger from men than from women doesn’t indicate that men therefore have less to worry about, in the same way that drug dealers, being in more danger from other drug dealers than from civilians, therefore shouldn’t get uptight. Being a drug dealer is, unlike being a man, a choice they’ve made.
Irrelevant: unless the war between the sexes has become literal, how does it matter that my increased danger comes from men?
That said, I have a similar reaction, and I suspect many people do as well. I know that I face less danger from women than from men. If I’m aware that I’m entering a secluded place–say, an alley at night (which I don’t do any more, but I commonly did so as a teenager, taking all sorts of shortcuts around my town)–and if I’m aware that a man enters the alley behind me, I’ll be all kinds of more alert than if a woman enters the alley behind me. I won’t apologize for that, and if there are men who insist that they’re equally alert from the approach of a strange man as from the approach of a strange woman, I’ll say this to them: :dubious:
Is it unfair that, as a man, I’m suspected more than I would be if I were a woman? Sure. And it’s rough reading all these stories in which men were arrested because of these unfounded fears, maced, shot, beaten up, depor–
Oh, wait. None of those things happened, because it’s vanishingly rare for a man to face anything more than a suspicious glare (and maybe a prominent clutching of a pepper spray bottle) as a result of this unfairness. It’s unfair, but it’s also trivial. To compare it to the bigotry against black people (who have, due to this bigotry, faced centuries of murder and disenfranchisement), against women (who have, due to this bigotry, faced centuries of rape and disenfranchisement), and so on, is absurd.
[QUOTE=Troppus]
I’ve only sprayed three men with pepper spray in my life.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I raised my eyebrow at that too, but then I remembered something.
There has been at least 4 times in my life when I NEEDED some pepper spray or something.
Once, when I was 17, I was walking home way past my curfew, and more than a little tipsy, through a spotty part of town. The guy walked past me, then stopped, turned around, picked up a bottle on the ground and started jogging at me. I know all of this because my alerts were up and when he passed me, I started throwing looks over my shoulder. Thank goodness I was on point. I ran to the end of the dark street I was on and jumped into the middle of a busier street. I jumped in the car that stopped and got in. Didn’t know these young men from a can of house paint, but was grateful they stopped to help me when I needed them.
The thing is, I didn’t fear the guys who stopped for me. They could have easily not taken me home, but I didn’t think they would hurt me, it seemed unlikely, I needed their help and I didn’t see any reason to believe they would harm me. The guy who passed me and then turned to chase me was a different story. He looked creepy to me from the jump, and I knew it was sketchy for **me **to be walking alone down a dark road, I figured he was a bit sketchy too. The guys in the car looked like they were coming from a night of clubbing and they just seemed harmless to me.
Another time I could have used some pepper spray, a young man pushed his way into my mom’s apartment when I was over visiting. My mom and daughter were gone to the store and I was there alone. I was able to talk him out of hurting me until my mom got home, and then I was able to talk him out of the house. He walked me down the block a little where I saw a bunch of neighbors outside drinking. As soon as I saw my neighbors, I asked to use their cell phone and I called to tell my mom to lock the door. Then I called the police. The whole time, the guy was still standing there, looking like he was on fucking bath salts or something.
He started cussing me out pretty bad and making threats, but luckily my neighbors were telling him to fuck off or get fucked up.
That’s a long story that I’ve never talked about to anyone really, but I would be willing to go into more detail in another thread, another time.
I still go for night walks and I still don’t treat men like potential rapists. But I can understand why someone might keep their hand on the mace. When I go for nightwalks, I often keep a knife handy. I used to keep a gravity knife, but I got in trouble for carrying because it turns out it’s illegal. I figure if I’m walking in the city at night, I need to be prepared. I mean, a female crack head makes me a bit tense, too, walking behind me all of a sudden.
I guess what I’m saying is, I get why women are a bit jumpy, but I totally understand why a man gets annoyed with feeling like he’s being treated like a scumbag when he isn’t.
This isn’t the same thing, and I hate to throw the race card in it, but let’s face it, it’s already been thrown out in this thread: When I’m in a store, and I get the feeling I’m being watched because I’m black…and it doesn’t happen that often…but when it does, it feels shitty, man. I’m not a fucking thief, and I don’t appreciated being treated like one, regardless of whether or not you have had mainly black people ripping you off.
So, while I do see both sides of the story, I do believe that men should get the chance to vent a little about it if they need to. I understand when they are corrected in certain threads, but in a thread like this, created for the sole purpose of getting the man’s point of view, it doesn’t seem fair for women to say, “Oh, well suck it up, buddy, at least you aren’t a woman who often fears for her very safety.”
I appreciate the examples, and yeah, while I was incredulous, on thinking about it, the story isn’t incredible. Pepper spray is a lot less remarkable a weapon than a gun or knife is; and if someone said, “I’ve only gotten in three fistfights in my life,” that wouldn’t be totally weird (I mean, more than me, but not totally weird).
As for men being potential rapists: I read that differently from how a lot of guys in this thread seem to be reading it. They seem to be reading it as, “You, Dorkness, are one bad day away from RAPE!!!1!” but I don’t think that’s how it’s meant. I think it’s meant as, “You, Dorkness, aren’t a rapist–but there’s no way for me to know that just from looking at you, so until I know for sure, I’m going to acknowledge the potential danger in the situation.” Just as every card in a game of hearts is potentially the queen of spade until it’s revealed, every man is potentially a rapist until you get to know him better. Sucks, but there it is.
And there definitely is some room to gripe about it. But the solution isn’t for women to stop being extra-cautious around men, I don’t think: the solution is for people to stop raping. The extra caution is, within limits, a good thing. (And yes, some of the examples in this thread MAY have gone beyond the limits, but none of them unambiguously did so).
As a young man who uses a wheelchair, I often find myself being made to feel quite the creep by young mothers/parents who seem visibly uncomfortable with any interaction I might be having with their children. This depends a lot on the ages of the children but I think I’m being pegged as a potential child molester. :eek: