Such imagination, no wonder the idea of a woman in a burkini terrifies you (I’ll tell you a secret, they are not concealing tentacles or poison spikes under their burkinis). I live in this world and I expect any man I encounter to keep his hands off me unless I give him permission. Anything less and I am going to view it as a threat and treat him according to the degree of threat I perceive. And there is something absolutely as vile as any other type of rape about a man forcing a woman to have public physical contact with him if he knows or even possibly thinks she find the practice immoral.
Sarafeena is right, though. Part of being a feminist is accepting that women (and men, of course) get to define their own boundaries and decide what is and isn’t appropriate behavior. I defend anybody’s right to not be touched if they don’t want it. But I’ll defend anyone who is cool with hugging just as fervently.
Hmmm…I don’t actually think she says that handshaking is rape, she says it’s inappropriate and rape-culturey for men to insist on shaking hands with women. Which…if a handshake is politely declined and he insists on grabbing the woman’s hand anyway, I’d say that is inappropriate and rude. I think that for some guys it definitely might show a lack of boundaries that would indicate he might feel free to push more boundaries as well. For other guys it’s likely just boorishness & cluelessness. Taking it to the extreme that the OFFER of the hand by a man to a lady is inappropriate and rape-culturey, that shows her inability to ascribe agency to women.
What I’m saying is that it’s not outside of the realm of possibility that a man might either:
grab a woman’s hand without enough warning for her to refuse,
grab a woman’s hand after she has refused, or
hang onto the handshake longer than a woman might be comfortable with
Hate to burst your bubble about guys, but some of them actually are rapey assholes. The difference between me and ZPG is that I don’t think they’re all rapey assholes, and I don’t think that the offer of a handshake is necessarily indicative of being a rapey asshole.
So, out of curiosity, I sent a female co-worker of mine the above exact verbiage, and asked her what I should have done. I told her the bare minimum about why I was asking, so as not to poison the well. Deborah is a fiercely independent woman who has been involved in women’s rights issues at the state political level. I am good enough friends with her to know that there were some abuse issues in her childhood, which may have led her to be as active for this cause as she is.
Her response?
I would never have thought of writing a note to shield her from my actual touch. I just don’t see that it would be needed. I think the great majority of people (male and female) would not see anything wrong with a non threatening touch to get someone’s attention.
O.K. Funny, but . . .
There are some men who insist on grabbing your hand and shaking it vigorously as if to say “feel my manly and good-natured handshake! Feel it!” Which is something even I, a bloke with a less-than-ideal respect for personal boundaries, find irksome.
The most awkward and unwelcome handshake I have ever received was from an overly enthusiast and, I’m sure, entirely well-meaning woman.
Sometimes people do things that make us feel uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s on them. Sometimes it’s on us. It’d be nice if all people could read the cues that indicate whether someone is open to physical contact and respect those boundaries, but I also think its fair to forgive a little indiscretion (a handshake, a hug, a slap on the shoulder) where there’s no ill intent.
I’ve had dudes give me bad handshakes. I even had a dude give me a handshake that made me want to have him arrested (like seriously, I was 18, he used his middle finger to caress my palm, I was at work and couldn’t tell him to fuck off, he showed me a picture of his Little Brother in the BB/BS program–a quarter century later I still wonder if there’s any way I could’ve called the cops on him).
And I’m a dude. I’m absolutely sure 100% sure it happens more to women.