That’s clearly not what she said. Again, she said “Men who shake women’s hands are potential rapists and should be watched.” I don’t know where you’re getting this bit about society from.
Except that is not what she thinks. She has not said that women who shakes hands with men are sluts, or unclean, or anything like that. She has only said that *men *who shakes hands with women are probably rapists.
She’s a nutter.
Actually, it isn’t ingrained in many American cultural groups. I grew up in the old South where men only extended their hands first to hookers. Most of my families close non-Roma friends were orthodox Jews or Latino, none of them ever pawed at women, well hookers in bars maybe, but not women they respected. In fact, the only American cultural group that I know of where sticking out a hand at a woman is accepptable is the lower working class sort of redneck culture where the people don’t know how to act like polite members of society.
No, she’s saying that men shouldn’t offer their hands to women because it’s as bad as, indeed it is, rape. Men who stick out their hand to a woman might as well stick out their penis.
Really, we went round and round and offered her many suggestions about how she could maybe modify this to make it, you know, sane. Nope. Handshake=Rape. End of story.
She clearly believes that women should be treated differently than men, even in a business environment. Why else would women be treated differently except because of their oh-so-delicate constitutions?
Fuck that. I spent years in school and worked hard to earn respect in my professional field. Over time I’ve shook hands with probably hundreds of men and never have I encountered one who shook mens hands but not womens. If I did I would be fairly offended. I work as hard as any man in my field and I’m not about to accept different treatment solely due to my possession of a vagina. I’m not in need of some kind of protection from the big nasty men of the world.
Any man who insists on touching a woman when she doesn’t want to be touched is potentially a rapist. How this could be a controversal statement, I’ll never understand?
Most women don’t have any problem shaking hands with people. That’s what you don’t understand.
For the last time, dopey, putting out your hand is not ‘insisting’.
Well, I spent years in shcool and worked hard to earn respect in my professional field. I work harder than most men and I will be damned if any sexist asshole is going to publically reduce me to the social level of a prostitute. I am not some toy to jump doing his bidding. I am there to do my job and I demand respect for that. It has nothing to do with “oh-so-delicate constitutions” it’s an acknowledgement that working women deserve to treated with respect.
So then why don’t you get upset when men shake hands with other men? *Clearly *that means they are reducing their male clients and business partners to prostitutes, right? They better watch out before they get raped!
Why should we accept being treated differently than men?
Why can’t you accept that most of us would be much more offended if a man went around the room shaking hands and skipped us than if they offered their hand? Why does it not matter that your cultural mores are offensive to us,when it matters so much if our culture offends your tiny minority?
For the last time, sleeze bucket, putting out you hand is often a highly visible act that MANY people can observe, not just you and the other person involved. You don’t have the right to damage someone else’s reputation by your actions regardless of what that act means to you personally. Just as I don’t walk up to someone in an academic business meeting and ask how they cheat on their taxes, I don’t appreciate them implying that I’m a hooker or an easy mark in negotiations.
ZPG Zealot, just as a note for the future:
As a general rule, men don’t treat women like they’re prostitutes by shaking hands with them.
They treat them like prostitutes by fucking them and then paying them for the pleasure.
Surely you can see the difference. Right?
Holy crap, you get nuttier with every word.
If you’re in the US, who is doing this observing that is leading to them believe you’re a ho?
Actually, I’ll back up a step:
If you saw a man offer me his hand, would you believe I’m a whore?
To be quite honest, I think men who shake hands with men too freely are shallow, but I will leave that to other men in how they choose to deal with that. I certainly do support the right of any man who does not want to shake hands casually to avoid the practice.
Except that’s not what an AMERICAN man means when he extends his hand to a woman for a handshake. In mainstream American culture it’s a friendly greeting, nothing more. And if you’re going to live and work in mainstream American culture, then you need to learn its rules of etiquette.
It would be like me moving to Japan and refusing to bow because “I don’t kowtow to anyone!”, completely ignoring how a bow functions as a greeting in Japan.
ZPG Zealot, I was born out of marriage. According to the same traditions that say giving a woman a handshake is just like rape, I am a vampire.
Am I a vampire?
Except no one is actually implying this.
Imagine you grew up speaking a language where a word that sounds like “hello” was actually an obscene curse akin to “fuck you”. Everywhere you went in English speaking countries, it would sound to you like everyone was being unspeakably rude to everyone. Or you could realize that it doesn’t mean what you think it means to them.
If you were offended by it, no. If you reacted pleasantly, I would wonder.