"I want to be let alone"

[discipuladc]

I'm home safe

Comments

[marveen]

I think I'll post about that in my own journal, rather than break it up into comments. Thanks for the link.

[discipuladc]

Yeah, for me it isn't about "I think everyone that walks by has ill intent" and certainly not a sexist "I fear all men but no women" but a "please respect that I don't want to be bothered

[marveen]

All of which is perfectly true and justified.

I doubt you spend all day every day cringing because it might happen, though. (Which is the main problem I had with her whole post.)

[discipuladc]

I used to, but then I got therapy and anti-anxiety meds. Seriously though, hyper vigilance is a PTSD symptom, not a normal precaution. There is such a thing as being alert to one's surroundings, but most city girls, even those of us with PTSD and social anxiety, know how to be safe without being agoraphobics.

[marveen]

See my own journal for a public post on the parts I really had a problem with. Some of the comments got interesting also. ;)

[marveen]

"Painting all men with the same brush", "culture of fear", that kind of thing.

I also view tangents as interesting, but maybe that's just me again.

[discipuladc]

I suppose that's a lot of the question. There are many women, and people in general I would say, that are cautious in public, but is the article doing a disservice to women and/or men by acting like fear of male on female sexual violence is the only component?

I remember Jess telling me about how she listened to a female security guard and a female teenaged metro passenger discuss inventing a story about Jess sexually assaulting the girl because Jess was dressed like a freak. I've watched urban kids from a rapster culture harass a boy on metro for wearing make-up.

I'm scared of people, but since I've started addressing my mental health, it is no longer to the extent that I can't go outside in suburbia. Part of my fear, I'm sure, is my history of sexual abuse, but it's also that people in general are jackasses to each other.

[discipuladc]

Interesting link, but only valid as a gender-based point if it doesn't happen the other way around too, and I don't know if it does or not