Q:I don't see how walking behind a person makes men assholes... I mean I understand why women are afraid. In your position I would be afraid as well. Often, I feel afraid for my girlfriend when she's out alone because some men are truly horrible creatures and the truth is women shouldn't have to feel afraid but in this truly fucked up world how else could any female respond. But I mean, walking behind someone doesn't make a man an asshole, I'm just trying to get home or pizza or something. idk man
harlequinnade-deactivated201903:
Okay so like
When I went to college my dad’s gift to me was a can of mace. That was my graduation into living on my own. There’s this institutionalized THING that comes out of patriarchal thinking and the objectification of women and etc etc that leads us to the point where women don’t feel comfortable walking alone at night unless they have someone on the phone with them so that any would-be attacker might shy off due to a witness on the other end of the line. And sometimes that isn’t even enough of a deterrent?
And that’s horrifying and awful and bad.
Because I worked the late shift at my part-time job all throughout college, and I often walked ~20 minutes home by myself and as soon as I noticed someone in my periphery, I’d get out my keys and clench them between my knuckles. Because I’m taught that I have to fend for myself or be made a victim. Because there were so many sexual assault and rape warnings on the student alert system e-mails at school, and I’m sure they were only a fraction of the attacks that were actually reported—because I know a number of survivors who did not go to the police.
And that’s horrifying and awful and bad.
Now, on the other side of things—you, or that hippie kid in my feminism class I referred to in my original post, just happen to be out walking late at night to get a pizza or whatever. And you just happen to be taking the same route as some woman. And you see her get tense and you see her get out her phone or her keys or whatever. And you feel sad because you are being perceived as a threat when honestly you’re just a good dude who would never dream of hurting someone else.
That’s… like, a mild, brief inconvenience to your psyche.
My point is that, amidst a discussion that I was having in a classroom wherein a number of women voiced their disgust with having to constantly be on guard ready to defend ourselves due to the permissibility of sexual assault within patriarchal structures that puts our bodies at risk DAILY—
—it is not entirely helpful to interject, ”Yeah, but I’m not a bad guy, and it hurts my feelings when women perceive me as a threat.”
If that is your input into the conversation, then that makes you an asshole.
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