Bit busy, but thought I’d drop by and offer an opinion and a story.
First, opinion. I understand why a woman would be more concerned for her well being than being politically correct. At the same time, I don’t always appreciated getting suspicious stares because I happened to glance in the direction of a woman briefly at a green light who happens to be going in the same direction of myself.
It’s a complicated issue, and there are no good answers that are going to make everyone happy.
Maybe us “good guys” should all wear t-shirts that say, “I’m not a rapist, so why won’t you fuck me?”
Anyway, story, and it’ll be brief, as I actually am taking a brief break from other things I need to be doing right now.
I’ve worked food service from 14 years old until a few years ago. One thing about food service is that there are quite a number of people that have car issues, especially servers. It doesn’t pay all that well, and getting paid in cash everyday makes you less disciplined in wealth management.
End result, many servers need rides to and from work all that time. I had a car, so I would pick up or drop off servers pretty much every day. If it was well out of my way, I’d ask for a contribution on gas money, but mainly I found it useful having servers owe me a favor for when I needed food run or other server duties that they tended to slack off on from time to time. It was nice that I ended up with a cadre of servers that followed my directions, it made the restaurant run much more smoothly.
All the female servers wanted to get a ride with me. I thought that was pretty cool, and used the time to go over menu items and plans and general business stuff (this is as just another employee, not a manager).
It was only a few years later, that I discovered the reason that the servers were so eager to get a ride in my not so new or clean car, with its crappy tape deck and me droning on about running food and making salads. It was because that was a price they were far more willing to pay than the price most of the other cooks demanded, which were, obvious now that I think about it, sexual favors of varying degrees. The guy that told me about this was making fun of me for missing out on blowjobs, or at least getting to feel her up. Apparently, being bored by my diatribes and then owing me a favor of running food was preferable to sexual assault, in their eyes.
So, yeah, I get it. Many men are pigs that objectify women and use them for their personal gratification. But then, most of these men are also pigs who use other men for their personal amusement as well, even if it is is not sexual in nature, but just bullying and jerkishness. They get enjoyment out of dominating others and uplifting themselves in the process. There are certainly women out there like that as well, but they are not typically in as high positions of power as the men are, so even if it is an even split in the demographics, it is still the men that are doing the greater harm (for now).
What it comes down to, I guess, is that some percentage of people are assholes who desire to harm or at least dominate others. Men, being physically stronger on average than women, and holding more social, economic, and political power at this time than women, are better positioned to make their desires to harm and dominate a reality.
And really, that’s the biggest reason why some level of “sexism” is appropriate. There is a power disparity between women and men. If I was alone with a woman, and decided to rape her, there’s really not all that much she could do about it, not all that great a chance that I would get punished for it after the fact either. And it is quite the naive woman that doesn’t know that. Some men that don’t know that may be naive, but it really does border on intentional ignorance to sit back and ponder for what reason a woman has more to be concerned about being alone with a man than a man has being left alone with a woman, or even with another man, or really anyone.
