"No wonder they say, 'oh, women, women!'" "Who does?" "Well, chaps, mostly"
Further to ankaret’s post mentioning the Schrodinger’s Rapist post and having ended up at this post about privilege, which happens to say, “If you've ever tried to describe to a man what it feels like to live under the threat of sexual assault and had him respond by suggesting pepper spray, a male escort, or self-defense classes, then you know in part what this is like”, I have been giving some thought to this concept of women being afraid of sexual assault in a way that men can’t conceive.
At first glance, I find posts like the Schrodinger’s Rapist to be a little OTT. I think to myself, you know, that’s all well and good, and yes a woman is far, far, (massively) far more likely to be sexually assaulted than a man, but I don’t actually walk down a street afraid that I’m going to be raped. I don’t see in every man I meet a potential rapist.
Except, I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I sort of do. The path from my local station to the main road my flat’s on runs through some woods. I walk down there alone late at night, and I’m not particularly worried about. But if it’s really dark, I don’t like it. When one of the lights stopped working, it freaked me out a bit. I always check behind me to see if anyone’s following me, and I’m never completely at ease until they’ve passed me. Occasionally there’ll be a couple of men just standing there, and that makes me uncomfortable. It’s not that it stops me walking down there. It’s not that I ever really articulate my worries even in my own head. It’s just that I feel relieved when I reach the main road.
I meet men, and I don’t think, “you could be a rapist for all I know.” But, come on, I don’t think it’s exactly that straightforward, is it? A friend of mine went to meet a man she’d meet on Match.com, and even though some of his texts that evening on her way to meet him made her uneasy, she was still planning to do it (fortunately, when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, he told her to forget it), and when she told me I was horrified! Jizzy Chrizzy, the woman’s got the sense of a beetle! Who knows what he would have done? When you meet strange men, of course you should tell someone where you’re going and with whom, and of course you should think twice if your spidey sense starts tingling. Because you never know. And that’s the point: as women, we know what can happen and (if we’ve actually got any common sense at all) our minds automatically plan accordingly. I might not consciously think a man might be a rapist, but instinctively I’m going to act as if it’s a possibility.
That’s a weird thing to have to write. Like I said, I’ve never really articulated this before. I’ve never really thought this before, not consciously.
Anyway, just to round this off, this has been said many times before by people better able to express it, but there is something so twisted about the whole “how women can protect themselves against rape” thing. In the dialogue about preventing sexual assault, it’s all about women being careful and women staying out of dark places and women carrying pepper sprays. What the fuck happened to men not raping women? Men learning that when a woman says no that might possibly be what she means? It’s not the women in this scenario who are the problem.
So, just some light Thursday thinking for everyone… *g*
At first glance, I find posts like the Schrodinger’s Rapist to be a little OTT. I think to myself, you know, that’s all well and good, and yes a woman is far, far, (massively) far more likely to be sexually assaulted than a man, but I don’t actually walk down a street afraid that I’m going to be raped. I don’t see in every man I meet a potential rapist.
Except, I’ve been thinking about this some more, and I sort of do. The path from my local station to the main road my flat’s on runs through some woods. I walk down there alone late at night, and I’m not particularly worried about. But if it’s really dark, I don’t like it. When one of the lights stopped working, it freaked me out a bit. I always check behind me to see if anyone’s following me, and I’m never completely at ease until they’ve passed me. Occasionally there’ll be a couple of men just standing there, and that makes me uncomfortable. It’s not that it stops me walking down there. It’s not that I ever really articulate my worries even in my own head. It’s just that I feel relieved when I reach the main road.
I meet men, and I don’t think, “you could be a rapist for all I know.” But, come on, I don’t think it’s exactly that straightforward, is it? A friend of mine went to meet a man she’d meet on Match.com, and even though some of his texts that evening on her way to meet him made her uneasy, she was still planning to do it (fortunately, when it became apparent that she wasn’t going to sleep with him, he told her to forget it), and when she told me I was horrified! Jizzy Chrizzy, the woman’s got the sense of a beetle! Who knows what he would have done? When you meet strange men, of course you should tell someone where you’re going and with whom, and of course you should think twice if your spidey sense starts tingling. Because you never know. And that’s the point: as women, we know what can happen and (if we’ve actually got any common sense at all) our minds automatically plan accordingly. I might not consciously think a man might be a rapist, but instinctively I’m going to act as if it’s a possibility.
That’s a weird thing to have to write. Like I said, I’ve never really articulated this before. I’ve never really thought this before, not consciously.
Anyway, just to round this off, this has been said many times before by people better able to express it, but there is something so twisted about the whole “how women can protect themselves against rape” thing. In the dialogue about preventing sexual assault, it’s all about women being careful and women staying out of dark places and women carrying pepper sprays. What the fuck happened to men not raping women? Men learning that when a woman says no that might possibly be what she means? It’s not the women in this scenario who are the problem.
So, just some light Thursday thinking for everyone… *g*