I can’t prevent every act of pervyness/assholeness, but I can put my foot down on any of it going on in my bus. When I got a job as a bus driver, it made me more interested in public transit. When I would date women, I’d ask them if they took public transit (hoping they did, so I could talk them into riding my bus so I could hang out/talk with them more )
All of them said they didn’t take public transit, reason being is they felt unsafe. Getting groped/the threat of getting groped was enough to deter them. I live in the Bay Area, a place I wouldn’t consider Gropolis, but then again, I’m a man, and I don’t have to worry about every woman, girl, and grandma taking a grab at my scrotum when I’m not looking.
I’m surprised no one’s called you on this, so I will.
Stop it. Right now.
Calling a person ‘slutty’ because of how they dress is offensive. It is offensive to that person. It is offensive to others like that person. It objectifies and degrades the you are insulting, and you need to understand that when you do this, you reinforce attitudes and values that make women more vulnerable to sexual assault than they have to be.
The slur ‘slut’ is used to denigrate women for being, or appearing to be, sexually active, and there is an old, evil habit of belief which says if a woman has chosen to have sex in the past - or looks like she has - she no longer has any say over who has sex with her in the future. If a woman is raped and happens to look “slutty”, she’s told its her own fault, because her dress invited the attention of her attacker and made it clear she was sexually available. Rapists learn they can rape with impunity if they stick to ‘slutty’ looking women. Women, in turn, learn that theymustdress in certainways to prove that they are not sluts.
You may have found that woman’s appearance unattractive or inappropriate, but your use of that slur is far more telling about your own character than her dress was about hers.
OP: you seem to be well written for someone with 11 year old concerns. It seems odd to me that you are troubled by young girls seating preferences on the bus.
Why not make a scene? Often there is plausible deniability. Is he purposefully rubbing his crotch on me, or is it just the crowd? Beyond that, when those things happen it’s so gross and obnoxious that you, above all, just want it to go away so that you can get one with your day.
Female here, live in a big city, take public transit all the time.
Aside from the social aspects raised above, and notes that women are in much more danger of being harassed in public spaces than men, there are some circumstances under which I choose to stand rather than take a seat next to a guy on the bus or subway for practical reasons. Many men – particularly those my age and younger – feel the need to sprawl out, as if their family jewels are in dire need of ventilation at all times. Funny as it is to watch someone do this while wearing the kind of drainpipe jeans commonly known as “ball-huggers”, it does mean that they encroach on the seats next to them. I feel the same way about women who carry those enormous tote-bag purses, and anyone who boards the bus carrying more bulging shopping bags than they have hands.
I’ve also picked up a knack for riding the subway without hanging onto anything. I can stand in the aisle where there’s more room and I’m not constantly whacking someone with my laptop bag, and I don’t even have to take any hands off my video game to do it.
The first portion of my question has been pointedly ignored. Interesting behavior given how much you wanted your question about urinal behavior responed to.
Yes, when I was living in a certain part of the city I had friends who were mugged and the assailant was almost always a Black male. Was profiling all Black males therefore appropriate? By your logic it would be. (It is not.)
I also asked a specific question about this specific circumstance. Not forced to stand crowded next to people but sitting in a seat next to someone on a modertely crowded bus. Groped in that circumstance? Reaching over and groping you?
The view that any unknown male is best considered a potential threat and is therefore best kept away from, best not even sit near one, is profiling, pure and simple.
Okay, I read it. And I suspect that across the whole world there is even more than that one highly publicized case in India. Maybe one in China too, big country and not all gets reported. Sateryn76’s point stands:
One case documented across the whole world, in India, really is the basis of fear driving prejudicial behaviors against a whole class of people? Really?
Look I honestly don’t care where you sit. I don’t take the bus very often but if I did I’d be thrilled that a group of people gave me extra space. Score! But it is entertaining that no one who acts on prejudiced beliefs, behaving differently to people they do not know based on nothing other than the most superficial of information (color of skin, gender, etc.) believes they are racist or sexist or prejudiced in anyway. No, their beliefs are justified because some of group X is Y more often than other groups. The fact is that the rationalizations are exactly the same.
And the jumping over the op was odd. He asked why women judged him as a threat for merely being male. It made him wonder. The intial responses all snark that implied something was wrong with him for noticing and then explaining why judging him to be and treating him as a presumed threat based on his gender and nothing more was appropriate.
Yes the psychology is interesting and well established that people will self-segragate in public spaces and that subtle prejudices will play out in simple things like where we sit and how we interpret behaviors. Not everyone’s prejudices are as overt as Broomstick’s but most of us have 'em and they have signiicant impacts.
Oh, I’ve had guys my age tell me “but sit down!” (right beside them; no thank you, I want to go someplace, not have some unknown dude try to chat), and I’ve certainly received my share of public transportation groping, but I also happen to prefer to stand just because it changes my posture. On buses it has the advantage of getting a better view than when you’re sitting in one of the inner seats.
A lot of people have problems understanding “I just want to stand”, I think it’s yet another form of “what do you mean, not everybody wants and likes the same things I do?”
Out of curiosity Nava, have you not had women trying to cajole you to sit down and/or overly friendly women trying to have conversations on the bus?
I am also curious how far this male-phobia goes. Do those who avoid sitting near males on buses also avoid sitting near males in movie theaters, in lunch rooms or diner counters, in check out lines at grocery stores, wait for the next elevator if there is a male in the one that comes first? Get offended if a male tries to strike up a conversation at a laundromat while waiting for clothes to dry? Worry about the fact that their boss is male because after all some male bosses across the world and history have sexually harrassed female employees? Even raped them. Concerned over the gender of co-workers? Or are males only particularly creepy on public transportation?
Do those who avoid sitting near males on buses also avoid sitting near males in movie theaters, - yes, of course
in lunch rooms or diner counters, -yes
in check out lines at grocery stores - no
wait for the next elevator if there is a male in the one that comes first? - probably not
Get offended if a male tries to strike up a conversation at a laundromat while waiting for clothes to dry? - not offended, but aware that he may turn out to be a creep
Worry about the fact that their boss is male because after all some male bosses across the world and history have sexually harrassed female employees? - not unless his behaviour was inappropriate. That’s not someone I need to make a snap decision about though.
Are you offended that some women feel this way about men they don’t know?
As an overweight middle aged guy, I avoid sitting next to young women out of “politeness.” I think I also avoided it when I was an underweight younger guy, though more out of shyness.
a> You wouldn’t, as the key to getting away with it is plausible deniability.
b> We do, often. The reaction we get from speaking out can include:
-getting laughed at. This one happened to me, and no one on the bus, including the bus driver (this was a school bus, btw) even so much as looked up.
-denial, denial, denial. “What? I didn’t do anything!” or even better he’ll turn it around on her: “Quit freaking out on me, crazy bitch!”
-threats and intimidation. When you have a guy twice your size looming over you and screaming about you “getting in his face,” yes, you do tend to make a threat assessment before saying anything.
Or, we turn around and simply can’t figure out who did it, so there’s no one to confront. See a>.
This was a girl under 18, I don’t think its appropriate for anyone to be going to school like that. She’ll probably be running to a forum asking why she can’t have a serious relationship with men when she’s dressing provocatively. Am I really that wrong?
I’m a white woman in London who takes public transportation all the time and, if given a choice, I will sit by a woman, of any race, before ever sitting by a male, of any race. We never hear about a woman groping us, or chatting us up, or making inappropriate remarks to us, or sexually assaulting us, but men do do these things. And when something inappropriate happens, somehow it’s always OUR fault! We sat by them; we looked available; we were dressed “slutty” (whatever that means - skirt too short for you? see a bra strap? not in a burqa?); in other words: we were “asking for it”!
So, yes, since society has chosen to teach women not to be sexually assaulted rather than to teach “men” not to sexually assault, I will continue to choose to sit by women. Why invite trouble? If the only seat available is next to a man, I can live with it, but it would not be my first choice, and yes, I’ll have my phone out if it’s more than a short trip.
deepboy, you’re criticizing these young women for not acting the way you want them to act (and I’m including your idiotic “slut” comment). Stop it. They’re completely entitled to sit wherever (and dress however) they want without being judged by you. You have a lot of growing up to do.
It’s not right to profile, but it’s understandable. You’ll notice the OP notices this phenomenon among young women. That makes sense. Older women get better at threat assessment, and are more confident about their ability to handle uncomfortable situations.
For a teenage girl, the level of every day harassment can be overwhelming. Creeps specifically target younger women, because they often don’t have the street smarts to push back. I remember people starting to yell lewd things at me out of cars when I was middle school age. I’ve had men say sexual things to me after calling a wrong number. And at school, harassment and sexualized bullying crosses into sexual assault territory casually and often. The shit that young women who have been targeted for sexual bullying go through is terrifying and disgusting, and it happens all the time, in every school. And at that age, you don’t fully understand why it’s happening or how to react to it. You just know it’s uncomfortable and scary and you’d do just about anything to avoid it.
So I’d cut young ladies some slack. They will learn how to read a situation soon enough. But right now they don’t have a lot of life experience, and many of their interactions with strange men have been hostile and inappropriate.
A young man groped me on the school bus, years ago. I punched him in the face.
But, that didn’t undo the fact that he groped me. So I stopped sitting by males on buses and airplanes. The goal is to avoid being groped. Retaliating after it happens doesn’t fix it, or make me feel better.
And yes, I will sit next to a “slutty” girl rather than a man. Why would “slutty” bother me? Why would sitting next to a “slutty” girl bother anyone?
Right. And when you violate those norms–when you get closer to someone than what is considered normal–that is interpreted as communicating some sort of a message. That message is generally going to be seen as either aggressive (this guy was looking to pick a fight) or sexual (this guy/girl was looking to get hit on).
The norm on a bus is to separate by gender when possible. It’s firmly embedded in our psychology that the “personal space” bubble is more flexible within a gender than outside of it: that’s why people don’t like sharing restrooms or locker rooms with the opposite sex, even if all actual nudity takes place in stalls.
I will sit next to a man on a bus–or a movie theater, or in line at the grocery store. But just as I wouldn’t sit next to a man if there were other empty seats available, I wouldn’t sit next to a man if there were other seats next to women available. To do so would be unusual enough that it would appear to be an expression of interest. Then you potentially have a guy who thinks you want to be hit on–physically or verbally-- and that any further protests are playing hard to get. After all, you sat down right next to him when you didn’t have to.
I mean, if you were the only person on a bus and a woman entered and sat right next to you, would you not interpret that as a meaningful gesture? As communicating something? It would appear aggressive or sexual. I think for a woman to chose a seat by a man when there are other open seats next to woman is effectively the same.
I like the way this poster has distiller the root issue. But that leads the question of how we accomplish it. We were all saddened and disgusted by last years bus rape/murder in India, and then some of us were also saddened and disgusted that many women, supposedly the gentler, civilizing sex, advocated that India exact revenge by means of its seldom-used death penalty. I don’t believe the solution to this issue is to kill the bad actors and maintain a simmering resentment towards all men in general.
Looking at, respectively, two of history’s oldest and highest points, IMHO the solution was always on offer. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, Enkidu is formed by hos goddess- mother’s spit and clay, and lives as a wild man until he is overcome and civilized by Gilgamesh. In The Tempest, Caliban remembers his she-devil mother fondly, but still tries to rape Miranda, until he is kept under control by Prospeo.
My point being that while women can give birth to boys, men need to make men. And my hope is that women continue to gain full financial equality, so that they won’t see their children’s fathers as disposable walking wallets.
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