Thoughts on Rape Culture

[anthraxia]

I needed to go through my email 'sent' folder, and found this from 2013. Don't think it was published by the people I sent it to, but still think it says something. And no, not all men are like this, all the time - just enough.

Comments

[learnteach]

It makes me sad and angry to hear these truths. I try to fight rape culture and call others on it. But it's not likely to be done around me. I'm sorry.

[kareina]

I am so grateful I have never experienced anything like this. I wonder if that is because I tend to keep out of cities, so that the people I see around me are rarely strangers? Is it easier for them to be so disrespectful because they don't know you? Probably.

I did live in Milan for a year and a half, and didn't notice such behaviour there, either. I have never tried the pose you describe--when I walk, I walk briskly, head up, eyes looking around me to seek out interesting things to look at (in Milan that was the pretty details in the architecture, which is usually up above eye level. Come to think of it, I have visited Edinburgh several times, and didn't get such comments there, either--they not make such comments to people who are looking at the pretty buildings and/or cool geology because we must be tourists? Or was I just lucky?

[anthraxia]

Generally what you describe is how I walk. It's when I got approached on the street that I'd shut down, 'adopt the pose'. And I got it in Edinburg, in London, in Cardiff - although not as badly as Adelaide, I must admit. Probably because I was older, less likely to be walking home past lots of pubs, or even possibly because I'd learned to be more - and so looked more - confident.