Subject: Re: men crossing the street at night to avoid frightening women
Nntp-Posting-Host: alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu
Message-ID: <3eh+L-j027n@khantazi.welly.gen.nz>
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Reply-To: banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz
Organization: My Arc.
Approved: tittle@ics.uci.edu
Lines: 35
Date: 2 Jan 93 05:33:25 GMT
References: <1ho1c9INN1f7@agate.berkeley.edu>
<9212292355.AA02165@york.cs.ucla.edu>
gds@ficus.cs.ucla.EDU (Greg Skinner) writes:
> For argument's sake, let's say all non-threatening men decided to
> maintain a respectable distance from women late at night, but it is
> not possible to distinguish a non-threatening man from a man who
> intends to do harm to women. Would you say that women still have
> something to fear, even though they would no longer be frightened by
> non-threatening men? Would you say that steps ought to be taken to
> empower women to defend themsleves against these men? In other words,
> does avoiding frightening women really help them protect themselves?
> If women are given (and take) the means to protect themselves, what
> purpose does the non-threatening men keeping a respectable distance
> serve?
It serves the purpose of avoiding you getting hurt for being mis-interpreted
in your actions. It helps keep the woman who can defend herself more relaxed as
they don't have to be prepared to use whatever methods of defence quite so
immediately as when you are close, not to mention it keeps the woman who hasn't
(and really shouldn't need to) learnt to defend herself relaxed too. And finally it prevents you from having a crowded personal space, something I personally don't like much and I suspect
alot of other people don't too...
Philip
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