"As a man who has never witnessed any acts of threatening sexism against a woman, I will stay out of this thread"
I am stunned. You are a very lucky man. As I said, I have encountered strangers frightened of me, which hurts. I certainly have seen a lot of stuff, minor but real and painful, from across the aisle or bar.
bob, you can either do the eye-contact+smile, or just look straight ahead. Believe me, not making eye contact doesn't come off as creepy. That might depend on where you live, though.
Also, I think the half-smile is better for these purposes than a genuine smile. It's like turning up your lips a little, possibly with a head-nod. The half-smile conveys acknowledgement and friendliness while a full, genuine smile can come on too strong.
Of course, the tension is probably going to be there no matter what you do.
A. I misspoke, Bob, if I said never. I'm terrible about forgetting when I come back to DC from Montana, and it takes a couple of hostile glares to remind me. Going to other way it doesn't take but a minute: I much prefer a world with eye contact, and where one is expected, on a two lane, to wave (sign really) to oncoming traffic.
B. It's obviously not genetic, but must be cultural. Women have been complaining about Italian men -- for example -- all my life. An Egyptian woman I know was telling me (25 years ago -- cultures change) about a trip to Saudi Arabia 4 or 5 years before that. She didn't wear a veil, and, although clearly 12, was hit on and followed constantly, even walking with/near her father. I can imagine that NYC would be uniquely bad for this sort of thing because of the diversity of cultures, and the ever-renewing population of people not really assimilated to your expectations.
C. I see no difference between 'she was killed' and 'she got killed' except to me the second is more about her, and less about killing. I accept that I'm out of synch on this (and that it would not be the first or last time).
D. I keep losing in Kansas City because the judge likes the other side better. It's poetic justice because I beat the other guy in a particularly humiliating way 6 or 7 years ago, and told other people out there about it. I refuse to think it's because the lawyer on the other side is about 6 inches taller than me with Hollywood good looks.
E. I briefly lived in a strange place where gender roles had become reversed, and was followed home by young women several times. It went from flattering to creepy very quickly. I'm not saying it's the same thing at all -- for one thing, I was always at least 5 inches taller than my stalker and, at the time, in great shape, so physical danger wasn't an issue. Still, the stalkers had trouble getting their heads around the idea that I thought it should be my choice whether to hang out with them or not.
121: Except that, compared to, say, Cleveland, where the average catcall was "You come back here and suck my dick, you blonde fucking bitch!" the average catcall here at least starts with, "Why don't you smile for me, baby?" When I moved here, I was actually grateful for the change.
I was walking along a street in Italy at night on my way to buy gelato when I heard someone call my name. I looked up and saw a friend from my program crossing the street walking quickly towards me. Behind her, still on the sidewalk, there was a guy walking in the direction she'd been going. He had his head down and was obviously straining to go as fast as he could without running. He disappeared around a corner.
My friend told me he'd been following her for a few blocks and that only when she saw me and called my name did he give up, and then he did so immediately, without a word. (I'd been looking in the other direction, towards the river, and didn't see her or him until she called out to me, so I didn't see that.) She said this kind of thing happened to her a lot, but never, of course, when she was walking with a man.
Pretty much every woman I've ever met who's traveled alone has said that it can be nearly impossible to, say, quietly sit on a bench and read without someone approaching them.
A friend of mine who lives in Paris had recently started dating a new, very spontaneous guy. She was feeling particularly happy and breezy, and had dressed all cute, in a new skirt, goint to meet him. While stopping at a railing to pause and take in the view, she felt a hand slide up the back of her thigh under her skirt. She was rather thrilled, until the guy spoke to her. It wasn't her new beau. She shrieked and the guy acted all pissed off. He was like, "What's wrong with you fucking American women? Fuck you!" She was terribly shaken up by it, partially because she blamed herself for letting it happen.
Unrelated question: When an object or occurrence at a wedding is billed as 'tradition', and not obviously religious in nature, that means it was either made up by DeBeers or by the wedding-industrial complex, and therefore 'tradition' should be read as 'marketing gimmick' and calabatted to the curb, correct?
E. I briefly lived in a strange place where gender roles had become reversed, and was followed home by young women several times. It went from flattering to creepy very quickl
CharleyCarp, Where was this? I can't even imagine where it might be.
With the caveat that some such are either practical or intended to demonstrate respect for particular parties, and as such should be dealt with carefully. I had a reasonably quick-and-dirty wedding; caterer, outdoor ceremony, no attention to 'tradition', and I managed to hurt my mother's feelings in that there's some kabuki ritual intended to pick out the mother-of-the-bride as not just another guest that I omitted.
"Pretty much every woman I've ever met who's traveled alone has said that it can be nearly impossible to, say, quietly sit on a bench and read without someone approaching them."
Too pull the thread in a completely unrelated and selfish direction, this is the main reason I've never once worked up the courage to try the stereotypical "pick up" thing. All I can ever imagine is that they're going to think "jesus, can't I ever just get a minute?"
Although me and my teenage friends did once follow a rollerbading guy around in my friend's car yelling things at him in an attempt to "turn the tables" on harrassment. I still feel kind of bad about that, but not that much.
To defend CC, if you read his blog he had an extensive hippie-type past, which it seems not implausible might have included people being self-consciously anti-stereotypical-sex-roles in peculiar ways. What he said here is consistent with other stories he's told.
146: I don't know about followed home or gender roles reversed, etc., but I've been catcalled by women a couple of times, and found women in Country X surprisingly aggressive; this including being followed briefly. These sorts of events were exceedingly rare, exceptionally surprising to me, and nothing at all like what women have to deal with in either frequency or tone. Which is to say, it was so unexpected and unwarranted, in each case, that it wasn't creepy for me.
To be honest, the stereotypical pick up is probably not such a great idea anyway.
Re. weddings, it's all nonsense. And as LB said, yes, some people's feelings get hurt over whatever-it-is anyway. I chose to think of our wedding as basically a big catered party that we were throwing for our best friends, and we did away with an enormous amount of silly ritualized crap, and to this day I am glad of it.
Tia, that stinks. I'm so glad your neighbor was there.
Shifting gears: I've never once worked up the courage to try the stereotypical "pick up" thing. All I can ever imagine is that they're going to think "jesus, can't I ever just get a minute?"
These threads just keep reminding me how important context and tone are. (Latest example: Lack of anger at Dsquared despite his use of potentially explosive vocabulary.) Which is to say: Yeah, pickups can be skeevy, scary, unpleasant, or just unwanted. But also: fun, entertaining, exciting. Context matters, tone matters. I'd ask:
1) Can the person get away from you gracefully? If they're trapped (sitting next to you on a train), tread carefully.
2) Is the person in a position (salesclerk, greeter) where they are professionally obligated to be friendly? If so, tread carefully.
3) Are you approaching the person or the image? Per 134, if even the subtext is "I like X [blonde hair, whatever] and you have it," you're on thin ice.
4) Do you have fun with process, or are you headed just one place? If the goal is to "get" something (a smile, a phone number, a night), that's probably going to be communicated by your tone. Perhaps the pickup-ee will be okay with that. Perhaps not. But it does encourage the sense of feeling like a pawn.
Shorter comment: Jerky guys harass and bug women all the time. Good guys do well to be sensitive to this fact, but it'd be a shame if they completely avoided conversation with strangers because of it.
156: I dunno, I've been lurking for a very long time but somehow I'm not remembering those threads. Maybe I was on vacation.
(I'm remembering a much more recent thread with samk (?) and some others talking approaching service workers, which actually didn't completely agree with this advice.)
Where was Country X? I'm all for pseudonymity, but that can't reveal all that much about you.
Yeah, I have no idea why I did that. Habit, I guess. Just after I hit "Post," I thought, "That was idiotic." It was Jamaica. I am totally retiring there.
how what was true fifteen years ago speaks to today.
What does this mean? Fifteen years ago is today for all intents and purposes. That's not even one generation -- most everybody that was sentient then is sentient now and vice versa.
"3) Are you approaching the person or the image? Per 134, if even the subtext is "I like X [blonde hair, whatever] and you have it," you're on thin ice."
how do you avoid approaching the image? obviously you need to get beyond that, but you can't know anything more about the person until you talk to them.
157: I think they were shortly before ogged retired (which I think would put them in January). There's not really much reason to dig them up, since 155 covers pretty much everything useful that was decided.
There can be a payoff. As I have said I spend hours, like 20 a week, walking the monsters in parks. Half the time on trails or linear parks, encountering joggers and bikers. I let them roam on 12' leashes so there is a dynamic where I watch the oncomer to gauge their dog fear and shorten leashes accordingly, while trying to avoid eye contact. (I trust the dogs with anything that can walk...they have licked 3 yr olds)...aww this is gettin too long.
Shortly:A dynamic of respecting space and vulnerability can get you appreciative smiles and even other-initiated conversation.
160: Easy. You talk to people in a way that doesn't overtly distinguish between being friendly and trying to hit on them, as opposed to the "hey, pretty laydee" kind of thing.
It wasn't some kind of countercultural strangeness, really just an isolated resort where the female employees vastly outnumbered the male employees (4-1). Far away (like 1,000 miles) from where nearly any of either men or women lived in their real lives, and only for a short period (just a summer, then everyone would get back to real life). Some folks knew eachother in real life, but mostly people didn't, and didn't expect to later on. Just about all of us were under 25 years old; many, like me, were 19 (the minimum age and, at the time, the drinking age), most 21-23.
It was the late 70s. Concern about laws prohibiting certain victimless crimes was unbelievably low. Alcohol was always cheap, and often free. Jobs very undemanding, no TV, telephone, or personal computers.
With demographics as they were, some few of the women became a little competitive, or at least creative. Strange dymanic ensued, not generally satisfying for anyone other than those of the 'sex toy' school.
I made some friends for life there, but can't condone the arrangement at all.
I really shouldn't use the word 'stalker' -- they weren't really strangers -- they knew my name even if I didn't know theirs -- and were just as confused by the situation as everyone else.
So, really so little relation to the awful situation experienced by Tia, it's as if she had said 'I had a bowl of ice cream today' and then I piped up with 'gee, I smelled a candy bar once.'
That's not even one generation -- most everybody that was sentient then is sentient now and vice versa.
If you look at the mass of commenters, you'll note that teo was maybe six, Wolfson eight, Cala maybe ten, Becks maybe ten, Kotsko maybe ten, etc. This is, IME, well before the age during which notions like "you can't rape a slut" get discussed. I'm surprised guys that, for example, are hanging out with Kotsko still think that way, that's all.
Mores can change rapidly; the world of 1965 (or even 1985) is nearly unimagineable.
I have three times been harassed by gays in restaurants and bars, going beyond come-ons and conversation, not accepting "No", moving up to physical touching, shoulders, arms, hands.
The feelings were complicated, but mostly very bad.
Mores can change rapidly; the world of 1965 (or even 1985) is nearly unimagineable.
I'm on board here for 1965, but have a much harder time with 1985. Probably because I haven't changed so much in those 21 years, mores-wise. 'Can't rape a slut' was considered an outrage when I was in high school; m leblanc's comment about advice to women about avoiding rape tracks nearly verbatim a Berkeley dorm conversation from '76. (I had thought then that we'd have gotten a whole lot farther on gender and race by now; the contrast between where we all knew our society needed to go and where we've actually gone is so demoralizing, I have to try not the think about it).
I was walking home after dark in Berkeley one night and looked back to see a black guy walking a half block behind me. I walked another few seconds, then looked back again to see where he was. On my second look back, he waved and crossed the street away from me, to make his benign intentions clear. I thought that was awfully aware and considerate of him, but I was sad that he had to think of himself as a scary-looking person.
I get asked out by street people a lot, but so far cheerful 'No, thank you's' have worked fine. I make a lot of eye contact, and don't mind eye contact in return.
The difference between '85 and now is clearest, for me, when I think about conceptions of gay people. Just unimagineably different. Kinsley actually had an article recently (last 6 mos.) in which he noted that TNR once (it must have beein in the 80s) had a cover with two men on a wedding cake as a sort of nod to the unimagineableness of some policy or another.
mid-60s H.S. Slacks were forbidden, and miniskirts limited IIRC to 3 inches above the knee. That's pretty weird.
My freshman college class, according to my girlfriend, was 80 per cent virgin. 60 percent in the sophomore class. We hippies and dopers had more fun. Most of this stuff wasn't on the agenda for the straights, and wasn't discussed. But I wasn't very active or aware.
I've crossed the street more than once in Berkeley to avoid walking behind someone at night. But that probably wasn't me because I've never signaled that that was what I was doing.
169: I was referring to the libertarian thing about how the universe was invented yesterday and people don't have psychology or history, so there's really no excuse for being (say) poor other than your own laziness.
But what Tim's getting at is more the liberal thing that society tends to become more open and tolerant over time; i.e., that mores change, and surprisingly quickly. This may not be true either, but it's not the same thing.
Yeah, the cross the street or wave thing is nice for guys to do at night. Also making some kind of noise, like aimless whistling, so as to not seem like you're trying to be sneaky.
173 -- Yeah, SCMT, it's not all hell-in-a-handbasket. I'm not sure how different we really are though. I knew some single and coupled-up gay people in the 70s and early 80s, and decent people treated them decently -- like actual human beings -- while ignorant people behaved ignorantly. Maybe on this subject I'm just a lot more pessimistic than most others, because it is so totally obvious to me that, in legal terms, (a) one either accepts Loving v. Virginia as an accurate statement of the rights of human beings in our system, and thus sees that gay marriage must be permitted, or (b) one is stuck in some kind of rearguard action against the Enlightenment, conceding the holding of Loving not because the reasoning is correct, but because only a moral monster can oppose it. And yet, a great many people, including a majority of the NY Court of Appeals, are willing to do just this, for no apparent reason other than 'an ancient prejudice is a respectable prejudice.'
144: Calaflamethrower it is! Well, at least I say that. But apparently there are traditions about who pays which must not be violated.
Mores do change quickly, but we do have parents and other old people and talk to them and deal with their prejudices. I have no idea what the 1920s were like, but I'm pretty sure I have 1980 down okay.
I honestly don't think I do, and I wasn't even born then. But it's not like we don't have movies, tv, and books to give us some sense of what the social mores and expectations were. And you know, they had cars and tv and roads and everything. The suburbs had been invented, middle class women got married much younger and didn't necessarily expect to go to college, schools were pretty much segregated, liberals condescended to blacks but didn't think that overt bigotry was polite, and so on. It's not *that* foreign a place.
184: Hey, out of curiousity, what are those traditions? Is it that the bride's parents are supposed to pay? 'Cause shit, that ain't happening in my family.
Sure we know what 1965 was like in an objective sense, but I mean what it felt like to live in that society. It was similar to the one we live in now, but different enough that I can't really picture what my views on important issues would be or how I would interact with people different from me, for example. Anyone who does remember 1965 want to weigh in?
I read Freakonomics last year, and one chapter discussed his theory for the decline in crime. It brought it all back to me, how scared we were in LA in the mid to late 80's. There were driveby shootings at my high-school and gangs were about to Take Over The World and wearing any hint of blue or red would get you Killed Instantly. Instead, crime dropped precipitously and my high school age sister doesn't have any of that feeling. I'd forgotten it too. It was way different, less than a generation ago.
(Also, the kids I hang out with (who are 20ish) are all much more androgynous than I remember us being, but that might just be this crowd.)
The 'tradition', which I'm sure either originated with WASPs or the fashion mags and should therefore be binned, is that the bride's parents are hosts and pay for most things, but that there are certain things, like the bride's bouquet (cause it's TRADITION means it doesn't have to make sense) and the liquor, that are the responsibility of the groom's family.
If one does not know this, one can expect a mother freaking out if one's mother hasn't adjusted to the fact that it isn't 1975.
When I'm walking behind a woman a night, I'm usually very conscious of the effect that I might be having. My solution is to a) pass as quickly as possible; b) change sides of the street if it doesn't look too odd or unnatural; and c) blow my nose or cough.
I usually have allergies, so c) is easy. I'm not sure if it works, but it seems like the most harmless thing you can do. I mean, who plots to attack someone while blowing his nose?
I'm on Krissy's side, on the assumption that since women don't normally shove men who grab them into the wall, and there's a strong cultural presumption against going off like a hair trigger in such a case, that he didn't just brush against her.
I also think Dr. Helen probably hasn't been clubbing recently.
Was just talking with my lady about this, and she had her laptop. I said the big change was Griswald, so she looked up Planned Parenthood.
"During his brief two-term tenure as a congressman, Mr. Bush sponsored the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970. It was co-sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Joseph Tydings of Maryland and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 24, 1970. The bill authorized the then-huge sum of $382 million for family planning services, population research, education and information through 1973 with much of the money funneled through Planned Parenthood clinics. The Bush-Tydings bill mandated the infamous Title X program through which the taxpayers have been forced to pay for contraceptive/abortion-causing drugs and devices for the poor as well as abortions and treatments for the sexually-transmitted diseases resulting from the corresponding vast increases in sexual promiscuity engaged in by Title X beneficiaries."
From some right wing site I won't link to. Not everything has changed for the better. As someone who grew up on the climb, whatever amount of fall bugs me a lot.
183: I think mores can change surprisingly quickly. I don't think we're guaranteed on the direction. Someone once wrote that the 80s were the great lost decade for Gay Americans--things seemed to be moving apace and then---BAM!--AIDS, Reagan, and the rise of the Moral Majority.
188: That's more or less what I mean. If I just look around my world, the number of changes that would have to be made to re-make 1965 are pretty astonishing. And it would make the world pretty unrecognizeable to me.
One time a dude did a bicycle drive-by ass-grab of, well, my ass, and I pushed his bike over hard, with it landing on top of him. He may have been hurt, but I wouldn't know, 'cause I ran away. Fuck it.
I am trying, but I was a thoughtless teenager, who never hung in sophisticated crowds or payed attention. There was Griswald and the pill, and the scond wave of feminism. I read Friedan and Greer as they came out I think. Joy of Sex. Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem. There was like, a war. There were civil rights and race riots. What did feel like 1965-70? Give me a break.
Elvin Hayes & Houston beat UCLA and Kareem's million game winning streak. Pete Maravich had hair like a girl.
190: "just trying to touch her." Isn't there a pretty strong cultural norm in the US that says you can whoop anyone who touches you without your consent?
190: Dr. Helen is an anti-feminist reactionary. And any guy who grabs a woman deserves to be shoved up against a wall. I'll wager there's not a woman over 18 alive in the US who hasn't had her ass grabbed at some point, and the only reason guys get away with this shit is because women don't fucking deck them when they do.
I remember being angry and humiliated, gauging the other guys, size...he was much bigger...holding the fork in my hand and thinking hiz size really didn't matter. I have never much been scared that way, I would have done his eye. But I didn't want the hassle, was I overreacting, was it my prejudice, women get hit like this all the time, am I being homophobic, the waitress is watching is she feeling sorry for me or contemptuous, what does he think I am whu did he pick me for a target do I look gay am I gay if I just keep saying no he will go away.
He went back to his booth with his friends and they laughed a lot. I finished my eggs. The waitress gave me a free OJ and coffee.
191: Actually those traditions do make sense. The idea is that the bride's family pays for the ceremony and reception and her dress and stuff, b/c they are hosting it; effectively this is all we have left of the dowry system, but until the girl is married, it would be very improper for a man or non-relative to pay for anything big on her behalf. The groom pays for small things like the wedding bouquet and ring, because they are gifts to the bride; he also pays for the honeymoon, because he is taking her on it, which is okay now b/c he's her husband. His family pays for the rehearsal dinner b/c it serves as a kind of thank-you to the bride's family for hosting the wedding.
I find it rather interesting that, on the blog telling Krissy that she should stop overreacting about strange men sexually assaulting her, there was an ad for a book on why women should all learn to use and carry guns.
Because shooting men for threatening you is ladylike. Kneeing them in the gut is cowardly.
But nowadays the rule is, whoever is hosting the event should pay for it; usually the couple, but if their families are jointly footing the bills, then the wedding invitations are issued jointly *by* their families: "Mr. and Mrs. Skeezit, Captain Jones and Doctor Burroughs kindly request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their children, Julie Skeezit and Barnaby Burroughs-Jones..."
206: Yeah, ladies don't hit someone, even when someone is a jerk in a bar who squeezes a lady's boob. Because it's unladylike to have your boob squeezed, so you're supposed to pretend it didn't happen. Or some shit like that.
205: They only make sense if your folks were nobility.
206: Krissy also asked the guy to stop several times and then slammed him against the wall. Only thing bruised is his damn ego. Dr. Helen is acting like she broke his arm or something.
169: So, I'm still sort of doing stuff around the house instead of watching, but the Football Outsiders message boards seem to think the Giants just got screwed on the offensive PI. Any opinion?
Pardon me, but I don't even need to read the links to know that Insty's wife is full of shit. I'm inclined to automatically assume the opposite of anything she writes.
I'm on Krissy's side. Playing nicey-nice was not going to get that guy to bug off.
Re: 1985 vs. now, it was unimaginable in my high school for students to be out of the closet, even in my liberal Bay Area suburb. There was one teacher who was out to some of his students, and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who paid attention that he was gay, but it was something you just didn't talk about.
When my brother was in the same school in the early 90s, a teacher came out to the whole school and it was a HUGE deal.
Are you basing that on the fact that she's married to Insty? You should really look at her blog; she's a lot crazier than that might lead you to expect.
(This post means I don't mind what I say about her. I do not in fact think I have to admire anyone who thinks I ought to be killed.)
I was a teenager in 1965, who had an older brother who'd been dating and got married that year. I had seen a lot and been talked to a lot about what was going on. It was also the year I began to become sexually aware. My son is now the age I was then, so I have a sense of how knowing it was possible to be.
Of course the changes have been enormous, but what strikes me looking back is the continuity, the number of patterns, of expectation and initiative and so on, that remain similar, particularly if changes in terminology are allowed. It wasn't that different a country.
Let's not mis-frame the issue as a choice between whether Krissy should have either (1) let the guy "touch" her (which for all we know, could have been a tap on the shoulder, not an ass-grab or something like that) or (2) "shoved him up against a wall" and "jammed her arm into his throat".
I'm thinking there has to be a middle ground in there somewhere. And while it is fun to cheer on Krissy in a rah-rah-you-go-girl spirit, what would she have done if the guy hit her back? Or followed her into the parking lot? Or came back the next day with a gun to get "revenge"? Or sued Krissy, because, you know, he's got this funny pain in his throat where she elbowed him?
Let's also avoid the false "But Dr. Helen likes guns, so she's a hypocrite!" charges. She favors using guns to protect yourself when you are threatened with actual harm. She is not in favor of shooting lecherous men on general principle.
Playing nicey-nice almost never works. "If it wuz bodderin' her, she woulda said sumpin'." If it worked, we'd never have these problems because the guys would all stop when we demurely sidled away.
223:Unless you are on the vanguard or the events effect you personally...it felt like "fashion" and "news". It didn't feel like revolution except for a few. You go to work or school, you eat, drink, party, have friends and family...the changes are on the margin and gradual, and even if not on the margin...are just not felt revolutionary.
My girlfriend went on the Pill. She was unmarried, had to try three doctors in the midwest before she found one who would give her a prescription. She didn't think she was changing the world, although she was changing hers. The doctor might have had a different perspective.
which for all we know, could have been a tap on the shoulder, not an ass-grab or something like that
I don't care. It's not like she hit the guy (which you mis-frame, by the way, by saying "hit her back"). She pushed him up against a wall and let him know that he couldn't fuck with her.
After a night of harrassment, a hand on the shoulder is a big deal. It's a sign of his moving in, and a violation of her personal space. It angers me when people I don't know touch me, people of either gender, and especially men, and especially in a bar, and especially after they've been bothering me all night. This isn't a "tap, tap, hey, your backpack's unzipped and all your crap is about to fall out" kind of tap (which I get like every other day because my zipper is broken). It's not friendly. It's threatening, and she was exactly right to react the way she did.
No one's framing the issue as the false "choice" you set up. The question is, is Krissy awesome? Yes. Is what she did both awesome and correct? Yes.
She did ask him to stop several times, GB. Firmly telling him to go to hell is a good first choice, but if he isn't getting the message, I'm not sure 'let him grope you now because there's a small chance he might follow you later or sue you' does much.
I guess I'm reasonably willing to believe from her recounting (she says she asked him to stop several times) of it that he wasn't tapping her on the shoulder politely to ask the time; women get bothered in bars all the time, and most of us assess the risks just as you say, GB. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that if weighing all that, she did try to make a move on him, he must have done something to warrant it.
No one's mentioned guns here, so, just make sure you're not arguing with the strawpeople who speak Swahili.
206 and 211. Though my preferred inference is not "Dr. Helen is a hypocrite because she supports the use of guns in self-defence and opposes the use of light physical force to deter someone who is physically molesting you" but "Dr. Helen is known to be batshit insane and we shouldn't pay that much attention to her."
Let's also avoid the false "But Dr. Helen likes guns, so she's a hypocrite!" charges. She favors using guns to protect yourself when you are threatened with actual harm.
Christ, that guy got off easy. I've told my wife that once you've told a guy several times to back off, and he decides to grab you anyways, to go ahead and knife him and get the hell out of there.
And how is a woman supposed to discern "actual harm" here? Once he's been verbally warned, multiple times in this case, and still shows willingness to cross that barrier of physical contact, it's not the woman's problem to try and figure out in that instant to what degree this is an assault.
224: Let's not misframe the issue as "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" (is this, in fact, likely based on the description we have of the incident? No, not hardly. And even if it were, again, given the description of the incident, it wouldn't be unreasonable or surprising for her to interpret that tap as a prelude to something much less benign). Or as "gosh, what if he'd hit her back?" which is just gross. So women are supposed to let men grope them because otherwise the men might do something even worse?
In my world, "actual harm" includes having strange men deliberately touch my body, yes it does. Alameida posted something about this way back when on another blog in response to a Volokh post trying to understand why a man deliberately touching a woman's body constituted sexual assault, and I presume everyone reading this thread remembers that.
My gut feeling would be that this sort of harassment happened less in 1965 than now. That may be a controversial statement. Everybody was more inhibited back then.
224: The thing is, there are any number of possible interpretations of the description given. Krissy's reaction might have been anything from wildly inappropriate to too little. So each of us ends up betting on the people involved, here either Krissy or Dr. Helen. A Blue vs. someone who is, assuming her politics are anything like her husband's, genuinely anti-American? Gimme a break. I bet Blue down the line.
Or as "gosh, what if he'd hit her back?" which is just gross. So women are supposed to let men grope them because otherwise the men might do something even worse?
Be fair, B. It's a reasonable prudential concern that a lot of people raised when Becks said she'd decked that guy at the concert. It's not a concern Dr. Helen had, but it's not a bad thing to say.
It's a reasonable prudential concern, but again, context: following a statement that "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" it really does rather end up sounding like the concern trolling, or whatever it's called.
Plus, come on. Presumably a woman who can shove a man up against a wall doesn't need to be warned to be careful because, you know, he might hit you back.
Doesn't Scalzi's update take care of "Did he just tap her on the shoulder?"
I don't know anything about Scalzi, but isn't it a little odd that the original post said the guy tried to touch her and the update said he grabbed her in a not nice way? Maybe he just didn't want to say his wife had been grabbed in the original post....
239: Dude, yes, it's a legitimate concern, but in the context in which GB used it, it's gross. Let's revisit:
And while it is fun to cheer on Krissy in a rah-rah-you-go-girl spirit, what would she have done if the guy hit her back?
What GB is saying is that the fact that creepy dude might have hit Krissy back is a reason not to cheer her on, that makes her actions imprudent or dumb (and, along with the next two hypotheticals, weirdly fantasy-like).
Which is different from Becks saying "I hit this guy, and right after I did, I was like shit, what if he hits back?" The analog would be if Becks told us the story, and we went "gosh, Becks, he could have hit you back! Didn't you think of that?"
228: It's not like she hit the guy (which you mis-frame, by the way, by saying "hit her back"). She pushed him up against a wall and let him know that he couldn't fuck with her.
She "jammed her arm into his throat."
224: Let's not misframe the issue as "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" (is this, in fact, likely based on the description we have of the incident? No, not hardly.)
I think if the guy had grabbed her ass or something like that, it would have been specifically mentioned in the post. Why hold back on the description of his jerkiness?
229: GB. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that if weighing all that, she did try to make a move on him, he must have done something to warrant it.
Yes, you are assuming wrongly. I firmly believe this guy was a jerk who needed to be stopped. I also believe, based on the post, that Krissy was hardly encouraging his behavior, and in fact was trying to stop it.
What I am saying is that the use of violence (while cool in the movies, where the jerk gets his comeuppance and slinks away, chastened) often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
the 'what if it was just a tap on the shoulder' is a red herring because 'tap on the shoulder' is a 'get someone's attention' move when you start speaking to someone. this guy had already intiated coversation several times with her.
Why hold back on the description of his jerkiness?
Maybe because, like ogged said, Scalzi doesn't want to give detailed descriptions of bad creepy shit that happened to his wife on the internet (possibly because people love to read about violence against women), but instead focus on the fact that she showed the guy what was what.
which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
I share it. But she got away with it, without further incident, so pragmatic concerns such as escalation don't need to be addressed. Unmitigated win for the good guys.
244, 247: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
In fairness to GB, he raised precisely the same concern in the thread about Becks, so this isn't just his wingnuttery talking.
But GB, I think reasonableness demands that we assume that the guy was a complete prick and in fact touched her inappropriately. People almost never just go off like Krissy did without provocation.
I firmly believe this guy was a jerk who needed to be stopped. I also believe, based on the post, that Krissy was hardly encouraging his behavior, and in fact was trying to stop it.
Then why quibble and take issue with her shoving him up against a wall when he escalated to the point of touching her in any manner whatsoever?
What I am saying is that the use of violence . . . often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
No doubt. But you're overlooking the point that a man who repeatedly hassles a woman who tells him to leave her alone, and then touches her, is the one who is initiating the violence; his touching her did indeed escalate the existing situation, and it did indeed backfire.
What I am saying is that the use of violence (while cool in the movies, where the jerk gets his comeuppance and slinks away, chastened) often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
This is absolutely true. But it's also true according to the updates on the guy's site and Dr. Helen's site that she asked him to stop several times, and then he grabbed her inappropriately. At this point, he's starting it, and saying 'but what if he does something further?' just doesn't seem to be prudent advice when the guy already can't keep his hands to himself and doesn't get the verbal hint.
252: Sure, she came out ahead this time, so good on her. Would I advise shoving guys in the throat as a general policy? No.
253: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
I never said any aspect of the story was a lie.
255: Then why quibble and take issue with her shoving him up against a wall when he escalated to the point of touching her in any manner whatsoever?
Because there are ways to defuse a situation, and ways to escalate it. Krissy won this time; next time, she might get Random Jerk #453, whose response to getting shoved in the throat is to start punching.
One thing for feminists like BPhD to consider: A guy who elbows another guy in a bar in the throat has got a fight on his hands. Krissy didn't. Why not? Probably because, even in his drunken state, the jerk who groped her thought that "it's wrong to hit a girl". So Krissy's success in this particular incident was due not to her indomitable Grrrrrl Power, but by the persistence of the very sexist paradigms you despise.
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
When I meet a jerk in a bar (he may not be grabbing my ass, but jerks manifest themselves in many ways), my number one thought is "How do I get out of this situation?" It is not "How do I score macho points by turning this into a fight with some loser I don't know and don't care about?"
Maybe I'm influenced by the fact that in Japan, the cops throw fighting foreigners in jail and ask questions later, if at all. But I think it's a good rule wherever you are. It's the adult, non-testosterone-fuled way to handle the situation. It's sad to see women aping the worst traits of men in the name of feminism.
For the record, since I believe it's lame to offer criticisms without proposing solutions, here's what I would have done: Complain to the bouncer or bartender. In any respectable bar, the jerk would have been kicked out before he knew what was happening.
No. Probably the guy didn't hit back because he was really fucking shocked that she didn't let him get away with it. And I'm perfectly well aware that the presumption that girls can be more aggressive than guys b/c the guys won't hit women is one that depends on chivalry underlied by sexism.
One thing for guys like GB to consider is that touching a woman who has made it clear she wants to be left alone is not just being a jerk. It is, in fact, assault. And no one is saying let's ape men's worst traits in the name of feminism; what we are saying is that if a man assaults a woman and she responds by shoving him up against a wall and telling him to leave her the fuck alone, she is absolutely in the right.
"I'll wager there's not a woman over 18 alive in the US who hasn't had her ass grabbed at some point"
False. I've gotten some unwelcome comments and stares, but no following or grabbing.
No idea why. Could be lack of eye contact.
Other countries are a different story...hit on creepily in France, though it would have ended at the non-creepy phase if I knew what I was doing. (I was just out of high school, & jet lagged and out of it). In Turkey, pretty much the minute I was away from my husband some guy would approach me. This was mildly funny when it was someone asking if I wanted to "see some ancient coins he had" and tried to ingratiate himself to me by telling how much he like George Bush. The guy who followed me to a pharmacy, waited outside, and asked what was wrong with me, not so much. And I was with my husband practically the whole trip, too. I hear it's even worse for blondes.
259: Actually, legally speaking, it's assault and battery, with battery defined as any nonconsensual touching. You can assault someone without touching them.
And while Krissy may be in the right, plenty of bad things happen to people who are in the right. This isn't about who's right and who's wrong, it's about the best way to handle the situation.
Says you. I think the rest of us were cheering her on because we thought it was about who's right and who's wrong. At least, that's what the original post with the links was pretty clearly asking people to opinionate about.
253: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
I never said any aspect of the story was a lie.
This by the way, fair enough. I was under the misapprehension that you'd read the post at the same time I had, by which point it had been made clear that it wasn't a shoulder tap.
258: Odds would be good that if she involved the bouncer, the guy would take that as an escalation and wait outside for her. In that situation I'd prefer to take my chances with violence in the bar rather than violence in the parking lot where there are fewer witnesses.
GB is talking sense. It is almost never a good idea to escalate an unpleasant bar situation into a fight unless there are no other options available. You never know what you might be getting into.
It is also, as a corollary, usually a good idea to get the guy thown out if he's aggressively persisting past the first refusal. A bar whose staff will not do this is not respectable.
Having said that... Dr. Helen is an evident nutcase, and Krissy's action entirely understandable, quibble as we will about its practical aspects.
it was unimaginable in my high school for students to be out of the closet, even in my liberal Bay Area suburb
See I was going to high school in the Central Valley, far less liberal than the bay area though still I guess majority Democratic, in the mid-80's, and there were certainly out gay students in my high school.
The thing about "was it really a good idea?" is that (a) we weren't there, so we don't have a full sense of the tactics involved, and (b) it's not really much of our business -- while opinining on whether someone you don't know did something right or wrong is one thing, focussing on whether it was unacceptably risky is being a busybody. Krissy, whoever the hell she is, is a big girl, and can pick her own risks.
On the complaining to the bar management (and I'm not accusing anyone of adopting the positions I'm talking about, just teasing it out a little): It is also, as a corollary, usually a good idea to get the guy thown out if he's aggressively persisting past the first refusal. A bar whose staff will not do this is not respectable.
So, what does she do if she's not in a respectable bar? Is going into a non-respectable bar an unacceptable risk?
More broadly, what if she doesn't want to make a case to a gatekeeper about whether making the guy stop touching her is justified? The difference between taking direct action yourself and trying to sell the idea that you need to be defended to a third party is pretty psychologically significant, and one that I'd take on some additional risk for. (Not much, I'm a non-violent coward, but it's worth something.)
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
I'm not sure she did that. She did manage to shove the guy into a wall and pin him at throat level; to me that suggests that either she's pretty strong and tall or that she's trained enough to know her own limits. (There aren't many guys short enough for me to do that.) No need to assume, I think, that she was hoping he wouldn't swing 'cause she was a girl.
And if we're playing the what-if game, running to management to get him thrown out could also escalate to him waiting around in the parking lot. I guess it would just be nice if someone were having this conversation about the consequences of the guy's action for once (like, duuuuude, don't grab the chick's ass cause she could sue you or wait in the parking lot or shove your sorry ass into the wall) rather than the appropriateness of her reaction to it.
It's sad to see women aping the worst traits of men in the name of feminism.
I think it's more in the name of not being assaulted in a bar, personally, rather than saying we have a duty to beat up people who make catcalls.
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
Yeah, this is bullshit. Is the claim being made here that the guy who grabbed her is being treated unfairly because chivalry binds him to not 'hit her back'? Because, you know, he's already demonstrated that he's not so much bound by chivalrous norms. Is he being treated unfairly because there's a presumption that if he tries to beat her up, other men will help her because she's a woman? I'm not getting the moral difference between this and 'she should get the bartender to throw him out'.
Look, in terms of getting into fights, most women are in the position of smallish, weakish, men. You start with (a) don't start fights, because hitting people is wrong. You move onto (b) generally avoid fights where possible, because there are strong odds you could get hurt. And these two rules cover the vast majority of situations. But in situation (c), where someone else has (according to our social norms) behaved in a manner that justifies violence, and in your best judgment, the risks are acceptable, either because you think your odds in a fight are okay, or because you have backup. The idea that someone else may jump into a possible fight on your side is not unfair -- men do that for each other too.
This talk of escalation and starting fights is crap. Good hell, she didn't start it, and she didn't escalate it.he did. If she was of comparable size and strength, then her response was perfectly appropriate. If he was bigger, her mistake was not using a weapon.
(Also: Tia, ack. I'm glad you're alright. In my experience, this dude was in the dangerous stalker category, not the benighted admirer category. If you see him again, anywhere around your home, please call the police immediately.)
268 again: More broadly, what if she doesn't want to make a case to a gatekeeper about whether making the guy stop touching her is justified?
If the staff have to be "convinced" that it's justified to make the guy stop touching her, then see above re: disreputable joints. It's more about the staff being informed about what's going down so they can support you, rather than having to figure out what's going on once something breaks out. (In the general sense, I don't think this advice applies more to women than it does to men. It just seems like a generally good precaution to me.)
Of course obviously a) one doesn't always have this luxury, and b) it can be more cathartic, and hence more tempting, to take direct action and consequences be damned.
If the staff have to be "convinced" that it's justified to make the guy stop touching her, then see above re: disreputable joints.
Not really. Even in a perfectly respectable joint, she has to tell a convincing story that entitles her to have him removed. Did you notice some of the reactions in the comments in the linked posts: first, to say come on, he didn't really do anything wrong, and then when a clarification that he'd grabbed her was made, to say that she's changing her story? Her credibility is in play if she needs to convince anyone of what happened.
If the incident wasn't widely witnessed, then she has to sell her story successfully to the bartender. It may be easy, but it's still a barrier.
275: Well, maybe. It's been my experience that a convincing story consists mainly of saying "that guy won't leave me / my friends alone and is creeping me / them out, please have him removed." I've seen this done, and done it on behalf of others, more times than I can count and never once seen the staff at any establishment (including some skeevier ones) quibble with it.
unless the groper was friends with teh staff/manager, she just needs to say she was uncomfortable and most staffs will throw the guy out no questions asked. i've also heard about some guy who was causing problems who the staff didn't do anything to because he was part of some biker gang, but this is a 3rd-hand story.
I think part of the point is maybe that women don't necessarily know that all we have to do is gripe to a bouncer. First, because in personal life one so often runs into suspicion about one's account (e.g., in this thread), and second because one isn't thinking about it in terms of "this guy's assholery is bad for business" but in terms of "this guy is personally threatening me," and since it's personal, it simply doesn't occur to one that a total stranger is going to give a shit or take my word over his. It really wouldn't occur to *me* to complain to a bouncer; I suspect that if I couldn't convince a jerky guy to leave me the fuck alone, I would simply leave.
It wouldn't occur to me immediately to take a problem like that to a bouncer, but if I did, and the bouncer were a dick about it or in any way minimized my problem, I'd SO not be going back there. And, if my opinion were worth anything, neither would any of my friends.
Cripes. This is way more analysis than this incident can sustain. This is a story about standing up to a bully. Insofar as women get bullied more often, or in specific ways, then there's a gender issue here. But, really, it's just that someone stood up to a bully, it worked out like in the movies, and that's great.
Huh. I was actually thinking about pulling this up to a post, to see if anyone other then GB shared his sense that her behavior was anti-feminist because chivalric norms mean that the guy couldn't hit back, because I think GB's a generally reasonable guy, but terribly wrong about this, and if there are other people out there who agree with him on that point I want to argue with them at length.
279: I think part of the point is maybe that women don't necessarily know that all we have to do is gripe to a bouncer.
I find that surprising, actually. But I can see why that would be the case for some people.
280: It's always seemed to me that one reason most bouncers are vanishingly unlikely to minimize or dismiss the problem is that, even if they're sexist bastards themselves (and of course a great many are), it's very rare for someone in a position of authority like that to pass up a chance to exercise it. Sometimes power-tripping can one work in one's favour.
282: Despite having agreed with his basic "fighting is a last resort" point, I think GB is over the top in using the words "anti-feminist." OTOH it seems to me you're misreading him in your 270. Maybe he'll be up for arguing it at length...
Has anyone else here read "Are You A Lesbian?" by Alasdair Gray? I guess I'll spoil it -- woman goes to a bar for some alone time, is hit on by notorious lech, after telling him to go away several times has him thrown out, then is asked to leave herself because solitary women are disruptive. Of course it's fiction, not real.
I think GB is wrong to think that "It's wrong to hit a girl" is sexist, although perhaps it is part of a sexist paradigm in the following sense: In our sexist society, men frequently do beat women severely and physically intimidate them. Decent non-sexist men (and other decent men) therefore draw a very bright line around this behavior, and won't hit women at all. Maybe in some egalitarian utopia this wouldn't be necessary (or maybe it would, men being larger than women as I think LB mentioned earlier). But "It's wrong to hit a woman" certainly isn't itself a sexist paradigm, in our world as it exists now.
283: even if someone is a sexist bastard, that could work in your favor if its the 'i must protect my womens from ohter guys come-ons, even if i myself would do that sort of come-on' kind of way.
I think it's more like "It used to be ok to hit your wife, but it's never been ok to fight a woman." The latter half of that rule owes to chivalry, rather than progressivism. It'll be funny if we get to "It's not ok to hit your wife, but it's fine to fight a woman."
But "It's wrong to hit a woman" certainly isn't itself a sexist paradigm, in our world as it exists now.
I might disagree with that. I would say that it's wrong to hit people outside of self-defense, other-defense, or certain categories of provocation that slide into self-defense (like the one in the linked story). And that it's particularly wrong to hit people who are smaller and weaker than you (that is, although it's not a millieu I particularly understand, there is a possibility of a fair fight -- people who don't mind getting into fights hitting each other. I'm not going to call that wrong, exactly, here, but I would if it involved a serious mismatch in size or strength.) And once you've knocked out those two categories, there aren't going to be very many occasions at all where it isn't wrong for a man to hit a woman.
But saying that it's always wrong does, I think, partake of sexism in that it's a restriction that makes sense only if you assume that no woman is physically capable of being a threat to any man, and that no woman is emotionally capable of acting in a genuinely physically threatening or damaging manner towards a man.
290 gets it right. There could be exceptions when a woman is a genuine physical threat who can only be restrained by force (though I'm not sure how that would work exactly, since then force might not be effective), but it's still an extremely good rule. And I think that the framework of male-on-female violence makes it worse, as a rule, to hit a woman than it would be to hit a man of the same size and strength. Although that's still bad.
But I'm suggesting that it's not sexist to think there's something bad about hitting a woman as a woman, given our society.
Sorry, I can't read all the comments now, so I apologize if I'm being duplicative.
But Tia, I wanted to thank you for posting this, b/c when something similar happened to me a few months ago I almost felt stupid for being scared and angry. I don't know if it was intentional or subconscious or a misperception on my part, but I felt like most people I told didn't want to hear about it.
Milder things happen to me *all the bloody time.*. On BART, around BART, in parking lots and stores---a guy will approach me and initiate a conversation that while non-threatening in tone, is entirely objectifying (ooh, you're so pretty) and insistent. My natural friendliness evaporates at that point, and I pretty much walk away. (On the other hand I have struck many a real conversation with strangers on bart, usually about books or music or somethign funny that happened, and everything was fine, male or female. It's the notion that you, a stranger, are looking at me, someone you know nothing about, as a desirable object for anything more than a split second, and think I would want to know this in anyway, that I find offensive bordering on threatening.) I disliked it, and it gets my guard up, and I get angry about it , and feel like if these people had more power, then I'd be in trouble, but generally I never felt threatened enough to be scared.
So then this spring, I was waiting at a bus stop near the 16th & Mission station. Normally this stop woudl be packed with people, but it was pouring cats and dogs, dark much earlier than I had expected. There was no one on that street corner nor the one directly opposite, and the people at the station corner proper were all huddled under the bus stop. I thought the bus would be right there, and was looking at my watch, surprised to have missed it, about to turn back when a man walked by and asked me where I was from. He was very short, only a few inches taller than me. I demurred and started moving away, and but instead he kept moving towards me and in fact blocked my way towards the crowded area, my back against the wall, and started telling me how beautiful I was and how he was going to take me home to have dinner. At this point I said, please don't stand so close, and he said, "don't be like that," and as I backed away, along the wall, he tracked me at an arm's length, talking the same way the whole time. I realized if I tried to run past him to where the crowd could see me, he would easily be able to trip me, so I decided to keep my feet planted firmly and use the phone. I got out my phone and he said, "don't pretend to call your boyfriend, I know you dont' have one." He came evencloser and even started reaching out, but luckily my friend with the loudest voice was the last person who called me, so one button and his voice boomed out of the speaker. The man started backing away and I said, "Are you driving to M's house? Almost here?" "Yeah?" "I'm at BART come get me right now." "I'll be right there." The man backed away a littl emore, enough that I felt I could run past without being tripped, and I sprinted right past him to BART, and a minute later my friend drove up and the other passengers in the full car pulled me in, and I was totally shaken, contemplating my luck.
I'm a pretty modest dresser in public, especially when I'm by myself. I was wearing a baggy rain coat. I could not have been standing alone on the desserted side of the street for more than two minutes. It was like he was waiting to pin someone small and female there. For some reason the line, "Don't pretend you have a boyfriend, I know you don't," especially frightened me. I don't, actually, have a boyfriend. Instead I have a posse of guys who will drop everything if I even whisper help, and who complain mightily if they even hear of me walking alone on a non-busy street at night. This was one of the very few times I was ever out by myself in a non-super crowded area in the dark, and it overwhelmed my statistical brain.
I don't have a feminist or empowering interpreation of this. I once took martial arts with this same friend, and late one night I left a board game party at his house, and apologetically asked if he would walk me to my car, which was not parked right outside his house like it usually is. "My Aikido is not that good," I joked self-deprecatingly. "Don't be silly, asking me to walk you to your car is Aikido," he replied. Reassuring, b/c he's usually around--but what if he wasn't? Or was less extreme in making sure I knew to call on him. That experience, and reading about other experiences, make me profoundly grateful that I do have friends like that. They treat me as an equal in all other things, and I simply can't fault their protectiveness. But I have to wonder what will happen when they're not around, and it's upsetting to realize that the luck and kindness that gives me such friends is what's responsible for my sense of freedom in being out in the world. What about other people? What about me when they're gone? It's terrifying, really.
Well, re. "it's wrong to hit a woman," I have no doubt that there are women who abuse men and take advantage of this "don't hit women" thing to do so.
But I remember when the older boy across the street hit me because I stood up (verbally) for a much younger boy who the older boy was bullying: older boy's mom came over to talk to my mom about it, realized that I was a girl, and yelled at her son, "didn't I tell you never to hit girls?!"
After they left, my mother said to me, "if she taught him never to hit *anyone*, this whole mess wouldn't have gotten started." And I think that's really the main point. It's wrong to hit people, period. And if someone *does* hit, or otherwise threaten you (e.g., moving into your space, laying a hand on you after being told to back off), then it is okay to use reasonable force (shove them up against a wall, hit them back) to put an end to it. It may be preferable to go find someone *else* (a cop, a bouncer) to threaten them with reasonable force, for various reasons, but it certainly isn't wrong to defend yourself.
Since it's come up, what is the protocal on asking a women if she would like to be walked home/walked to the car/etc. On the one hand it seems very infantalizing, and feels like it's implying that she can't handle herself (or that women can't be safe without a man around). On the other hand there are all these very true stories. So I'd be curious to see what people's opinion is. My inclination is that it's good to ask if it's someone who is comfortable with you, but not a good idea with strangers and one shouldn't be at all insistant about it.
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Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) |
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09-11-06 10:14 PM
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Well, don't ask strangers b/c for all they know you're the freaky guy. Otherwise it seems nice, especially if it's not all "oh no, it's dark out, you can't walk to the car alone!" but rather just a friendly gesture. It seems like good manners; I'll offer to walk friends to their car, or home.
I'm having trouble imagining asking a stranger, and would think the question is more, when is or isn't it demeaning to offer to walk someone who is comfortable with you home? In which case I'd also be curious about perspectives on this.
You did great, Ile, and I'd only add that if none of your friends were around or available, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of strangers to help you dissuade such a potential assaulter. Odds are that any person you approach will be less dangerous than your stalker, and most of the time, another person involved will change the dynamic and make the stalker-guy go away.
Related: how great is the cellphone? I talked myself into getting one almost only for these sorts of situations.
**
It was *bad* in Paris, worse than I got in Spain or Italy, let alone Germany. New York has almost seemed like feminist paradise in comparison. Here's my favorite anecdote of that sort from Paris:
A friend and I were going out to a club at around 11pm. We were trying to catch a cab at the Gare de Lyon, and two guys in track suits walked up to us and tried to hit on us. Where are you going, oh, you're so fine, you should come with us in our car, and we were nice, but direct. Then, as was standard procedure for guys on the street who were told off, they called us bitches and whores and walked away. But here's where these two guys get unusual: they *came back to try again*: Where are you going, we can take you in our car, you're so fine... Later, we were able to laugh about their ability to believe that we would reconsider their proposal after having been called whores. Rather later.
That became funny in retrospect, but the guy who followed another friend home off the Metro and nearly raped her at knifepoint was not so funny. (This was during the Bastille rape/murder scare of '98; the police concluded much later that the guy who attacked my friend was a copycat, not that they didn't blame her for being beautiful and wearing fur trim.) After that, I walked around ready to deck the next guy who looked at me the wrong way: somehow, nobody approached me when I was itching for violent outlash.
By stranger I don't mean complete stranger I mean someone you know but not well who you're talking to at a party or something similar when she needs to leave.
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09-11-06 10:28 PM
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The protocol for offering assistance is pretty fraught, I'm afraid. If I feel nervous, I might silently tag along behind someone whose appearence seems okay. If I'm really nervous (as in, I've identified an actual person I feel threatened by), I might actually approach that sort of person and ask to tag along. I would probably look rather suspiciously on offers of assistance, frankly. But then I'm a fairly street-savvy, fairly strong young woman. An older person (or perhaps a more naive person?) might appreciate offers of assistance a good deal more than I would.
305, that's a highly ambiguous situation, because there are other (consensual, if you get my meaning) reasons to offer to walk someone home, and similarly for someone to request that you escort them home.
305.---Oh, in that case, it usually feels rather nice. It's nicest when there's not reason to think that the accompagnier then has to walk a ways alone because he or she saw you safely to your destination.
rough story, ile. I'm not sure the first thing i would think of if someone called me and said 'pick me up right now' would be that they're were in an immediatly sketchy situation. i guess it depends on the way fear was coming through in the voice, although that might be modulated because you were right in front of him.
187: You mean there were students at your school who were out out, as in people other than their friends knew they were gay? Because I knew a couple of kids who were out to their friends to varying degrees, but no one who was willing to really publicly identify as gay. Sounds like Modesto was ahead of us and/or people at my school were more worried about what people would think and/or that it's easier to be a high school closet case when you can easily sneak off to the Castro on weekends.
Hey, thanks everyone. I'm glad I'm okay too! It's nice to get some feedback. I thought I did okay, and the rescuing friend did too. But oddly enough, I had a hard time telling other women about this, and that's where I wanted the most feedback.
You did great, Ile, and I'd only add that if none of your friends were around or available, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of strangers to help you dissuade such a potential assaulter.
So I think I feel better when the strangers are identifiably different parties from the offending party. When out and by myself, I feel most safe in diverse crowds. In this case the thing that really frightened me was the idea that the closest strangers wouldn't be able to see me or hear me b/c of the way he had me angled away from them, and because of the rain.
Maybe because it sounds like he's done this before; and it doesn't sound nearly nervous enough.
Yeah, I think upto then I think I was still hoping he was just being very ineptly like all the other people.
This brings up another issue. I was shaken, so I got in the car and let them drive me to the party and just went into the party and didn't talk about it to anyone until later. And then I felt bad. On one hand it seems overkill to call the police, but on the other hand--what if the next girl is not so lucky? Practically I can't think of anything they would have done--it seems like it would have been impossible to find him, and I don't think I'd recognize if I saw him now. . .not sure about then. But was there really nothing I could have done better in that regard?
I don't want to live in a society where we hair-trigger tag people as creeps, but I wish there was some middle ground---someway of making sure people know that if they act like creeps, they're going to get some trouble.
I'm not sure the first thing i would think of if someone called me and said 'pick me up right now' would be that they're were in an immediatly sketchy situation.
I don't normally use the unqualified imperative with anyone. This friend is very sharp, so between that, the voice, the location and the time he probably figured it out. But even so, he's the kind of person who would rather come when called and be mistaken and annoyed rather than something worse.
--------
re:stranger/newfriends offering to walk you. From the offerer's pov--don't be insistent, and I don't see why not. From the offeree's pov---part of me says trust your gut, and then another part of me wonders about things like the story of Sepia Mutiny's Anna. Doesn't our gut instinct get stunted by protective environments and then dulled by socialization to some extent?
Ok, I take back what I said in the Megan-doesn't-date-guys-she-can't-beat-up discussion. This is some pretty seriously creepy shit, which big-ish guys never have to deal with.
If it's worse in the Latin-ish cultures than it is in the US, where is it better? Correcting for city size, I guess, per comments re: Montana.
Ile, I think re. calling the cops, that if such a thing were to happen (which god forbid), I'd call and make a report. It's possible there's been a rape or a robbery or something in the area, and it might be helpful to know additional information, maybe.
Jackmormon---I was looking for stuff on the Bastile rape scare you refer to, but I couldn't really find it quickly. Do you think Paris is any better now, or the same? On a smaller scale, I feel like Downtown Berkeley is better than it used to be, but South Berkeley is still not great, and San Francisco may be even worse? Hard to tell since I only recently started hanging out there a lot.
I feel like foreign countries throw me off balance. I felt very safe in Japan, though later I found out about the only bad thing that ever happens there is harrasment. Less safe in Switzerland, don't know how that compares to reality. Super crazy safe in Iceland. Didn't feel so safe in Rome. For some reason I felt pretty safe in Paris, not sure why. . .no one bothered me.
"As a man who has never witnessed any acts of threatening sexism against a woman, I will stay out of this thread"
I am stunned. You are a very lucky man. As I said, I have encountered strangers frightened of me, which hurts. I certainly have seen a lot of stuff, minor but real and painful, from across the aisle or bar.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 3:51 PM
To put it less politely than Bob does, I find 123 really hard to believe. Unless it's a joke?
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 3:57 PM
bob, you can either do the eye-contact+smile, or just look straight ahead. Believe me, not making eye contact doesn't come off as creepy. That might depend on where you live, though.
Also, I think the half-smile is better for these purposes than a genuine smile. It's like turning up your lips a little, possibly with a head-nod. The half-smile conveys acknowledgement and friendliness while a full, genuine smile can come on too strong.
Of course, the tension is probably going to be there no matter what you do.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 3:58 PM
Tia, I'm glad you're ok.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:06 PM
Ding-ding-ding. 'I got drunk' implies that I had agency. 'I got screwed over' doesn't.
The "I got drunk" isn't a passive sentence, Cala, except in unusual (or sexually metonymically) circumstances.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:06 PM
A. I misspoke, Bob, if I said never. I'm terrible about forgetting when I come back to DC from Montana, and it takes a couple of hostile glares to remind me. Going to other way it doesn't take but a minute: I much prefer a world with eye contact, and where one is expected, on a two lane, to wave (sign really) to oncoming traffic.
B. It's obviously not genetic, but must be cultural. Women have been complaining about Italian men -- for example -- all my life. An Egyptian woman I know was telling me (25 years ago -- cultures change) about a trip to Saudi Arabia 4 or 5 years before that. She didn't wear a veil, and, although clearly 12, was hit on and followed constantly, even walking with/near her father. I can imagine that NYC would be uniquely bad for this sort of thing because of the diversity of cultures, and the ever-renewing population of people not really assimilated to your expectations.
C. I see no difference between 'she was killed' and 'she got killed' except to me the second is more about her, and less about killing. I accept that I'm out of synch on this (and that it would not be the first or last time).
D. I keep losing in Kansas City because the judge likes the other side better. It's poetic justice because I beat the other guy in a particularly humiliating way 6 or 7 years ago, and told other people out there about it. I refuse to think it's because the lawyer on the other side is about 6 inches taller than me with Hollywood good looks.
E. I briefly lived in a strange place where gender roles had become reversed, and was followed home by young women several times. It went from flattering to creepy very quickly. I'm not saying it's the same thing at all -- for one thing, I was always at least 5 inches taller than my stalker and, at the time, in great shape, so physical danger wasn't an issue. Still, the stalkers had trouble getting their heads around the idea that I thought it should be my choice whether to hang out with them or not.
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:23 PM
Sorry I'm so late to this.
121: Except that, compared to, say, Cleveland, where the average catcall was "You come back here and suck my dick, you blonde fucking bitch!" the average catcall here at least starts with, "Why don't you smile for me, baby?" When I moved here, I was actually grateful for the change.
Cala: THE grad center? Email me. I had no idea.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:25 PM
I'm reasonably certain Cala's talking about a different grad center.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:30 PM
I was walking along a street in Italy at night on my way to buy gelato when I heard someone call my name. I looked up and saw a friend from my program crossing the street walking quickly towards me. Behind her, still on the sidewalk, there was a guy walking in the direction she'd been going. He had his head down and was obviously straining to go as fast as he could without running. He disappeared around a corner.
My friend told me he'd been following her for a few blocks and that only when she saw me and called my name did he give up, and then he did so immediately, without a word. (I'd been looking in the other direction, towards the river, and didn't see her or him until she called out to me, so I didn't see that.) She said this kind of thing happened to her a lot, but never, of course, when she was walking with a man.
Pretty much every woman I've ever met who's traveled alone has said that it can be nearly impossible to, say, quietly sit on a bench and read without someone approaching them.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:38 PM
A friend of mine who lives in Paris had recently started dating a new, very spontaneous guy. She was feeling particularly happy and breezy, and had dressed all cute, in a new skirt, goint to meet him. While stopping at a railing to pause and take in the view, she felt a hand slide up the back of her thigh under her skirt. She was rather thrilled, until the guy spoke to her. It wasn't her new beau. She shrieked and the guy acted all pissed off. He was like, "What's wrong with you fucking American women? Fuck you!" She was terribly shaken up by it, partially because she blamed herself for letting it happen.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:53 PM
goint s/b going
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 4:58 PM
That's awful, AWB.
Posted by Anarch | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:00 PM
Unrelated question: When an object or occurrence at a wedding is billed as 'tradition', and not obviously religious in nature, that means it was either made up by DeBeers or by the wedding-industrial complex, and therefore 'tradition' should be read as 'marketing gimmick' and calabatted to the curb, correct?
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:02 PM
140: Surely yes.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:06 PM
E. I briefly lived in a strange place where gender roles had become reversed, and was followed home by young women several times. It went from flattering to creepy very quickl
CharleyCarp, Where was this? I can't even imagine where it might be.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:07 PM
With the caveat that some such are either practical or intended to demonstrate respect for particular parties, and as such should be dealt with carefully. I had a reasonably quick-and-dirty wedding; caterer, outdoor ceremony, no attention to 'tradition', and I managed to hurt my mother's feelings in that there's some kabuki ritual intended to pick out the mother-of-the-bride as not just another guest that I omitted.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:08 PM
But generally, 'traditional' wedding favors, monogrammed matchbooks, color coordinated napkins? Calaflamethrower for them all.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:10 PM
"Pretty much every woman I've ever met who's traveled alone has said that it can be nearly impossible to, say, quietly sit on a bench and read without someone approaching them."
Too pull the thread in a completely unrelated and selfish direction, this is the main reason I've never once worked up the courage to try the stereotypical "pick up" thing. All I can ever imagine is that they're going to think "jesus, can't I ever just get a minute?"
Posted by jason | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 5:45 PM
142. Yeah, I can only think that this is made up. Sorry, CharleyCarp.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:31 PM
Although me and my teenage friends did once follow a rollerbading guy around in my friend's car yelling things at him in an attempt to "turn the tables" on harrassment. I still feel kind of bad about that, but not that much.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:33 PM
To defend CC, if you read his blog he had an extensive hippie-type past, which it seems not implausible might have included people being self-consciously anti-stereotypical-sex-roles in peculiar ways. What he said here is consistent with other stories he's told.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:35 PM
Wasn't it Cryptic Ned, and not CharleyCarp, who said it?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:39 PM
146: I don't know about followed home or gender roles reversed, etc., but I've been catcalled by women a couple of times, and found women in Country X surprisingly aggressive; this including being followed briefly. These sorts of events were exceedingly rare, exceptionally surprising to me, and nothing at all like what women have to deal with in either frequency or tone. Which is to say, it was so unexpected and unwarranted, in each case, that it wasn't creepy for me.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:41 PM
Where was Country X? I'm all for pseudonymity, but that can't reveal all that much about you.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:42 PM
To be honest, the stereotypical pick up is probably not such a great idea anyway.
Re. weddings, it's all nonsense. And as LB said, yes, some people's feelings get hurt over whatever-it-is anyway. I chose to think of our wedding as basically a big catered party that we were throwing for our best friends, and we did away with an enormous amount of silly ritualized crap, and to this day I am glad of it.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:43 PM
Ignore my 149.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:43 PM
149: No.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:43 PM
Tia, that stinks. I'm so glad your neighbor was there.
Shifting gears:
I've never once worked up the courage to try the stereotypical "pick up" thing. All I can ever imagine is that they're going to think "jesus, can't I ever just get a minute?"
These threads just keep reminding me how important context and tone are. (Latest example: Lack of anger at Dsquared despite his use of potentially explosive vocabulary.) Which is to say: Yeah, pickups can be skeevy, scary, unpleasant, or just unwanted. But also: fun, entertaining, exciting. Context matters, tone matters. I'd ask:
1) Can the person get away from you gracefully? If they're trapped (sitting next to you on a train), tread carefully.
2) Is the person in a position (salesclerk, greeter) where they are professionally obligated to be friendly? If so, tread carefully.
3) Are you approaching the person or the image? Per 134, if even the subtext is "I like X [blonde hair, whatever] and you have it," you're on thin ice.
4) Do you have fun with process, or are you headed just one place? If the goal is to "get" something (a smile, a phone number, a night), that's probably going to be communicated by your tone. Perhaps the pickup-ee will be okay with that. Perhaps not. But it does encourage the sense of feeling like a pawn.
Shorter comment: Jerky guys harass and bug women all the time. Good guys do well to be sensitive to this fact, but it'd be a shame if they completely avoided conversation with strangers because of it.
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:44 PM
Huh -- were you around for the great "whether and how to pick people up" threads?" Because you just summarized a big chunk of them.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 6:58 PM
156: I dunno, I've been lurking for a very long time but somehow I'm not remembering those threads. Maybe I was on vacation.
(I'm remembering a much more recent thread with samk (?) and some others talking approaching service workers, which actually didn't completely agree with this advice.)
Posted by Witt | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:01 PM
Where was Country X? I'm all for pseudonymity, but that can't reveal all that much about you.
Yeah, I have no idea why I did that. Habit, I guess. Just after I hit "Post," I thought, "That was idiotic." It was Jamaica. I am totally retiring there.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:09 PM
how what was true fifteen years ago speaks to today.
What does this mean? Fifteen years ago is today for all intents and purposes. That's not even one generation -- most everybody that was sentient then is sentient now and vice versa.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:12 PM
"3) Are you approaching the person or the image? Per 134, if even the subtext is "I like X [blonde hair, whatever] and you have it," you're on thin ice."
how do you avoid approaching the image? obviously you need to get beyond that, but you can't know anything more about the person until you talk to them.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:14 PM
157: I think they were shortly before ogged retired (which I think would put them in January). There's not really much reason to dig them up, since 155 covers pretty much everything useful that was decided.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:15 PM
155:S C
There can be a payoff. As I have said I spend hours, like 20 a week, walking the monsters in parks. Half the time on trails or linear parks, encountering joggers and bikers. I let them roam on 12' leashes so there is a dynamic where I watch the oncomer to gauge their dog fear and shorten leashes accordingly, while trying to avoid eye contact. (I trust the dogs with anything that can walk...they have licked 3 yr olds)...aww this is gettin too long.
Shortly:A dynamic of respecting space and vulnerability can get you appreciative smiles and even other-initiated conversation.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:15 PM
80: in "The Court Jester", a repeated bit of dialog is:
--Get it?
--Got it.
--Good.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:17 PM
160: Easy. You talk to people in a way that doesn't overtly distinguish between being friendly and trying to hit on them, as opposed to the "hey, pretty laydee" kind of thing.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:18 PM
Sorry, I was off having dinner.
It wasn't some kind of countercultural strangeness, really just an isolated resort where the female employees vastly outnumbered the male employees (4-1). Far away (like 1,000 miles) from where nearly any of either men or women lived in their real lives, and only for a short period (just a summer, then everyone would get back to real life). Some folks knew eachother in real life, but mostly people didn't, and didn't expect to later on. Just about all of us were under 25 years old; many, like me, were 19 (the minimum age and, at the time, the drinking age), most 21-23.
It was the late 70s. Concern about laws prohibiting certain victimless crimes was unbelievably low. Alcohol was always cheap, and often free. Jobs very undemanding, no TV, telephone, or personal computers.
With demographics as they were, some few of the women became a little competitive, or at least creative. Strange dymanic ensued, not generally satisfying for anyone other than those of the 'sex toy' school.
I made some friends for life there, but can't condone the arrangement at all.
I really shouldn't use the word 'stalker' -- they weren't really strangers -- they knew my name even if I didn't know theirs -- and were just as confused by the situation as everyone else.
So, really so little relation to the awful situation experienced by Tia, it's as if she had said 'I had a bowl of ice cream today' and then I piped up with 'gee, I smelled a candy bar once.'
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:19 PM
That's not even one generation -- most everybody that was sentient then is sentient now and vice versa.
If you look at the mass of commenters, you'll note that teo was maybe six, Wolfson eight, Cala maybe ten, Becks maybe ten, Kotsko maybe ten, etc. This is, IME, well before the age during which notions like "you can't rape a slut" get discussed. I'm surprised guys that, for example, are hanging out with Kotsko still think that way, that's all.
Mores can change rapidly; the world of 1965 (or even 1985) is nearly unimagineable.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:26 PM
Your libertarian side is showing, Tim.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:34 PM
I have three times been harassed by gays in restaurants and bars, going beyond come-ons and conversation, not accepting "No", moving up to physical touching, shoulders, arms, hands.
The feelings were complicated, but mostly very bad.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:34 PM
167: I'm not understanding, for some reason. Also Eli Manning just got saved by Burress.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:36 PM
Mores can change rapidly; the world of 1965 (or even 1985) is nearly unimagineable.
I'm on board here for 1965, but have a much harder time with 1985. Probably because I haven't changed so much in those 21 years, mores-wise. 'Can't rape a slut' was considered an outrage when I was in high school; m leblanc's comment about advice to women about avoiding rape tracks nearly verbatim a Berkeley dorm conversation from '76. (I had thought then that we'd have gotten a whole lot farther on gender and race by now; the contrast between where we all knew our society needed to go and where we've actually gone is so demoralizing, I have to try not the think about it).
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:37 PM
"Mores can change rapidly; the world of 1965 (or even 1985) is nearly unimagineable."
:)
But honestly, hard to remember. I wasn't watching back then.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:38 PM
I was walking home after dark in Berkeley one night and looked back to see a black guy walking a half block behind me. I walked another few seconds, then looked back again to see where he was. On my second look back, he waved and crossed the street away from me, to make his benign intentions clear. I thought that was awfully aware and considerate of him, but I was sad that he had to think of himself as a scary-looking person.
I get asked out by street people a lot, but so far cheerful 'No, thank you's' have worked fine. I make a lot of eye contact, and don't mind eye contact in return.
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:44 PM
The difference between '85 and now is clearest, for me, when I think about conceptions of gay people. Just unimagineably different. Kinsley actually had an article recently (last 6 mos.) in which he noted that TNR once (it must have beein in the 80s) had a cover with two men on a wedding cake as a sort of nod to the unimagineableness of some policy or another.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:47 PM
mid-60s H.S. Slacks were forbidden, and miniskirts limited IIRC to 3 inches above the knee. That's pretty weird.
My freshman college class, according to my girlfriend, was 80 per cent virgin. 60 percent in the sophomore class. We hippies and dopers had more fun. Most of this stuff wasn't on the agenda for the straights, and wasn't discussed. But I wasn't very active or aware.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:53 PM
172: That happens to me too. It's disconcerting when you give a guy a dollar and he invites you to lunch.
Posted by mcmc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:53 PM
I've crossed the street more than once in Berkeley to avoid walking behind someone at night. But that probably wasn't me because I've never signaled that that was what I was doing.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:53 PM
169: I was referring to the libertarian thing about how the universe was invented yesterday and people don't have psychology or history, so there's really no excuse for being (say) poor other than your own laziness.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:54 PM
But what Tim's getting at is more the liberal thing that society tends to become more open and tolerant over time; i.e., that mores change, and surprisingly quickly. This may not be true either, but it's not the same thing.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:56 PM
Yeah, the cross the street or wave thing is nice for guys to do at night. Also making some kind of noise, like aimless whistling, so as to not seem like you're trying to be sneaky.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:56 PM
178: Yeah, but that whole 1965 is unimaginable now! thing is just silly.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:57 PM
What I usually do is slow down and the guy behind me speeds up and then overtakes me, and then I feel much better.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:58 PM
I don't know about you, but I certainly have a hard time imagining what it would be like to live in 1965.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 7:59 PM
173 -- Yeah, SCMT, it's not all hell-in-a-handbasket. I'm not sure how different we really are though. I knew some single and coupled-up gay people in the 70s and early 80s, and decent people treated them decently -- like actual human beings -- while ignorant people behaved ignorantly. Maybe on this subject I'm just a lot more pessimistic than most others, because it is so totally obvious to me that, in legal terms, (a) one either accepts Loving v. Virginia as an accurate statement of the rights of human beings in our system, and thus sees that gay marriage must be permitted, or (b) one is stuck in some kind of rearguard action against the Enlightenment, conceding the holding of Loving not because the reasoning is correct, but because only a moral monster can oppose it. And yet, a great many people, including a majority of the NY Court of Appeals, are willing to do just this, for no apparent reason other than 'an ancient prejudice is a respectable prejudice.'
Posted by CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:01 PM
144: Calaflamethrower it is! Well, at least I say that. But apparently there are traditions about who pays which must not be violated.
Mores do change quickly, but we do have parents and other old people and talk to them and deal with their prejudices. I have no idea what the 1920s were like, but I'm pretty sure I have 1980 down okay.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:01 PM
I honestly don't think I do, and I wasn't even born then. But it's not like we don't have movies, tv, and books to give us some sense of what the social mores and expectations were. And you know, they had cars and tv and roads and everything. The suburbs had been invented, middle class women got married much younger and didn't necessarily expect to go to college, schools were pretty much segregated, liberals condescended to blacks but didn't think that overt bigotry was polite, and so on. It's not *that* foreign a place.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:03 PM
First sentence of 185 to 182.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:05 PM
184: Hey, out of curiousity, what are those traditions? Is it that the bride's parents are supposed to pay? 'Cause shit, that ain't happening in my family.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:08 PM
Sure we know what 1965 was like in an objective sense, but I mean what it felt like to live in that society. It was similar to the one we live in now, but different enough that I can't really picture what my views on important issues would be or how I would interact with people different from me, for example. Anyone who does remember 1965 want to weigh in?
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:09 PM
I read Freakonomics last year, and one chapter discussed his theory for the decline in crime. It brought it all back to me, how scared we were in LA in the mid to late 80's. There were driveby shootings at my high-school and gangs were about to Take Over The World and wearing any hint of blue or red would get you Killed Instantly. Instead, crime dropped precipitously and my high school age sister doesn't have any of that feeling. I'd forgotten it too. It was way different, less than a generation ago.
(Also, the kids I hang out with (who are 20ish) are all much more androgynous than I remember us being, but that might just be this crowd.)
Posted by Megan | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:11 PM
What say you about this versus this?
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:12 PM
The 'tradition', which I'm sure either originated with WASPs or the fashion mags and should therefore be binned, is that the bride's parents are hosts and pay for most things, but that there are certain things, like the bride's bouquet (cause it's TRADITION means it doesn't have to make sense) and the liquor, that are the responsibility of the groom's family.
If one does not know this, one can expect a mother freaking out if one's mother hasn't adjusted to the fact that it isn't 1975.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:14 PM
When I'm walking behind a woman a night, I'm usually very conscious of the effect that I might be having. My solution is to a) pass as quickly as possible; b) change sides of the street if it doesn't look too odd or unnatural; and c) blow my nose or cough.
I usually have allergies, so c) is easy. I'm not sure if it works, but it seems like the most harmless thing you can do. I mean, who plots to attack someone while blowing his nose?
Posted by Chris | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:14 PM
I'm on Krissy's side, on the assumption that since women don't normally shove men who grab them into the wall, and there's a strong cultural presumption against going off like a hair trigger in such a case, that he didn't just brush against her.
I also think Dr. Helen probably hasn't been clubbing recently.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:17 PM
Was just talking with my lady about this, and she had her laptop. I said the big change was Griswald, so she looked up Planned Parenthood.
"During his brief two-term tenure as a congressman, Mr. Bush sponsored the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970. It was co-sponsored in the Senate by Sen. Joseph Tydings of Maryland and signed into law by President Richard Nixon on December 24, 1970. The bill authorized the then-huge sum of $382 million for family planning services, population research, education and information through 1973 with much of the money funneled through Planned Parenthood clinics. The Bush-Tydings bill mandated the infamous Title X program through which the taxpayers have been forced to pay for contraceptive/abortion-causing drugs and devices for the poor as well as abortions and treatments for the sexually-transmitted diseases resulting from the corresponding vast increases in sexual promiscuity engaged in by Title X beneficiaries."
From some right wing site I won't link to. Not everything has changed for the better. As someone who grew up on the climb, whatever amount of fall bugs me a lot.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:17 PM
Considering that Loving came after 1965, I can imagine my life being quite significantly different had I been the age then that I am now.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:18 PM
183: I think mores can change surprisingly quickly. I don't think we're guaranteed on the direction. Someone once wrote that the 80s were the great lost decade for Gay Americans--things seemed to be moving apace and then---BAM!--AIDS, Reagan, and the rise of the Moral Majority.
188: That's more or less what I mean. If I just look around my world, the number of changes that would have to be made to re-make 1965 are pretty astonishing. And it would make the world pretty unrecognizeable to me.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:19 PM
Never mind the misplaced modifiers.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:19 PM
I say that Krissy is friggin' awesome.
One time a dude did a bicycle drive-by ass-grab of, well, my ass, and I pushed his bike over hard, with it landing on top of him. He may have been hurt, but I wouldn't know, 'cause I ran away. Fuck it.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:19 PM
"Anyone who does remember 1965 want to weigh in?"
I am trying, but I was a thoughtless teenager, who never hung in sophisticated crowds or payed attention. There was Griswald and the pill, and the scond wave of feminism. I read Friedan and Greer as they came out I think. Joy of Sex. Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem. There was like, a war. There were civil rights and race riots. What did feel like 1965-70? Give me a break.
Elvin Hayes & Houston beat UCLA and Kareem's million game winning streak. Pete Maravich had hair like a girl.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:25 PM
(Also, the kids I hang out with (who are 20ish) are all much more androgynous than I remember us being, but that might just be this crowd.)
I attribute this to:
A) Title IX
B) Bands like Panic! at the Disco and The Arcade Fire leading the upcoming wave of fop-rock
Posted by Cryptic Ned | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:29 PM
190: "just trying to touch her." Isn't there a pretty strong cultural norm in the US that says you can whoop anyone who touches you without your consent?
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:38 PM
Yes, there is.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:41 PM
190: Dr. Helen is an anti-feminist reactionary. And any guy who grabs a woman deserves to be shoved up against a wall. I'll wager there's not a woman over 18 alive in the US who hasn't had her ass grabbed at some point, and the only reason guys get away with this shit is because women don't fucking deck them when they do.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:57 PM
292:See 188
I remember being angry and humiliated, gauging the other guys, size...he was much bigger...holding the fork in my hand and thinking hiz size really didn't matter. I have never much been scared that way, I would have done his eye. But I didn't want the hassle, was I overreacting, was it my prejudice, women get hit like this all the time, am I being homophobic, the waitress is watching is she feeling sorry for me or contemptuous, what does he think I am whu did he pick me for a target do I look gay am I gay if I just keep saying no he will go away.
He went back to his booth with his friends and they laughed a lot. I finished my eggs. The waitress gave me a free OJ and coffee.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 8:59 PM
191: Actually those traditions do make sense. The idea is that the bride's family pays for the ceremony and reception and her dress and stuff, b/c they are hosting it; effectively this is all we have left of the dowry system, but until the girl is married, it would be very improper for a man or non-relative to pay for anything big on her behalf. The groom pays for small things like the wedding bouquet and ring, because they are gifts to the bride; he also pays for the honeymoon, because he is taking her on it, which is okay now b/c he's her husband. His family pays for the rehearsal dinner b/c it serves as a kind of thank-you to the bride's family for hosting the wedding.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:02 PM
I find it rather interesting that, on the blog telling Krissy that she should stop overreacting about strange men sexually assaulting her, there was an ad for a book on why women should all learn to use and carry guns.
Because shooting men for threatening you is ladylike. Kneeing them in the gut is cowardly.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:03 PM
But nowadays the rule is, whoever is hosting the event should pay for it; usually the couple, but if their families are jointly footing the bills, then the wedding invitations are issued jointly *by* their families: "Mr. and Mrs. Skeezit, Captain Jones and Doctor Burroughs kindly request the pleasure of your company at the wedding of their children, Julie Skeezit and Barnaby Burroughs-Jones..."
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:04 PM
206: Yeah, ladies don't hit someone, even when someone is a jerk in a bar who squeezes a lady's boob. Because it's unladylike to have your boob squeezed, so you're supposed to pretend it didn't happen. Or some shit like that.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:06 PM
"A dynamic of respecting space and vulnerability can get you appreciative smiles and even other-initiated conversation."
Hah.
Posted by Kyle | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:07 PM
206:Should taken out his eye, huh. For caressing my arm in a restaurant. Felt like less a man cause I didn't.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:07 PM
206: See Roy.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:07 PM
205: They only make sense if your folks were nobility.
206: Krissy also asked the guy to stop several times and then slammed him against the wall. Only thing bruised is his damn ego. Dr. Helen is acting like she broke his arm or something.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:10 PM
169: So, I'm still sort of doing stuff around the house instead of watching, but the Football Outsiders message boards seem to think the Giants just got screwed on the offensive PI. Any opinion?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:12 PM
Cala is teh peasant!
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:12 PM
Dr. Helen is an anti-feminist reactionary.
Pardon me, but I don't even need to read the links to know that Insty's wife is full of shit. I'm inclined to automatically assume the opposite of anything she writes.
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:21 PM
Oh crap, she's Insty's wife? Jeezameezus.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:22 PM
I'm on Krissy's side. Playing nicey-nice was not going to get that guy to bug off.
Re: 1985 vs. now, it was unimaginable in my high school for students to be out of the closet, even in my liberal Bay Area suburb. There was one teacher who was out to some of his students, and it was blatantly obvious to anyone who paid attention that he was gay, but it was something you just didn't talk about.
When my brother was in the same school in the early 90s, a teacher came out to the whole school and it was a HUGE deal.
Posted by Magpie | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:22 PM
Ha! I saw that she had gotten some link or other via Instapundit, but I didn't know that.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:23 PM
Oh crap, she's Insty's wife? Jeezameezus.
You've been reading her without knowing that? Awesome.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:24 PM
Are you basing that on the fact that she's married to Insty? You should really look at her blog; she's a lot crazier than that might lead you to expect.
(This post means I don't mind what I say about her. I do not in fact think I have to admire anyone who thinks I ought to be killed.)
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:25 PM
The 'that' in 220 to 215.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:27 PM
219: I haven't been reading her--I've seen her linked maybe twice, and my first visit basically pegged her as anti-feminist apologist.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:27 PM
I was a teenager in 1965, who had an older brother who'd been dating and got married that year. I had seen a lot and been talked to a lot about what was going on. It was also the year I began to become sexually aware. My son is now the age I was then, so I have a sense of how knowing it was possible to be.
Of course the changes have been enormous, but what strikes me looking back is the continuity, the number of patterns, of expectation and initiative and so on, that remain similar, particularly if changes in terminology are allowed. It wasn't that different a country.
Posted by I don't pay | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:29 PM
Let's not mis-frame the issue as a choice between whether Krissy should have either (1) let the guy "touch" her (which for all we know, could have been a tap on the shoulder, not an ass-grab or something like that) or (2) "shoved him up against a wall" and "jammed her arm into his throat".
I'm thinking there has to be a middle ground in there somewhere. And while it is fun to cheer on Krissy in a rah-rah-you-go-girl spirit, what would she have done if the guy hit her back? Or followed her into the parking lot? Or came back the next day with a gun to get "revenge"? Or sued Krissy, because, you know, he's got this funny pain in his throat where she elbowed him?
Let's also avoid the false "But Dr. Helen likes guns, so she's a hypocrite!" charges. She favors using guns to protect yourself when you are threatened with actual harm. She is not in favor of shooting lecherous men on general principle.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:41 PM
Playing nicey-nice almost never works. "If it wuz bodderin' her, she woulda said sumpin'." If it worked, we'd never have these problems because the guys would all stop when we demurely sidled away.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:41 PM
223:Unless you are on the vanguard or the events effect you personally...it felt like "fashion" and "news". It didn't feel like revolution except for a few. You go to work or school, you eat, drink, party, have friends and family...the changes are on the margin and gradual, and even if not on the margin...are just not felt revolutionary.
My girlfriend went on the Pill. She was unmarried, had to try three doctors in the midwest before she found one who would give her a prescription. She didn't think she was changing the world, although she was changing hers. The doctor might have had a different perspective.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:43 PM
Oh crap, she's Insty's wife?
The funny thing is: Glenn seems merely disingenuous; Helen sounds bat-shit crazy (although quite attractive judging by her photo).
Posted by Paul | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:45 PM
which for all we know, could have been a tap on the shoulder, not an ass-grab or something like that
I don't care. It's not like she hit the guy (which you mis-frame, by the way, by saying "hit her back"). She pushed him up against a wall and let him know that he couldn't fuck with her.
After a night of harrassment, a hand on the shoulder is a big deal. It's a sign of his moving in, and a violation of her personal space. It angers me when people I don't know touch me, people of either gender, and especially men, and especially in a bar, and especially after they've been bothering me all night. This isn't a "tap, tap, hey, your backpack's unzipped and all your crap is about to fall out" kind of tap (which I get like every other day because my zipper is broken). It's not friendly. It's threatening, and she was exactly right to react the way she did.
No one's framing the issue as the false "choice" you set up. The question is, is Krissy awesome? Yes. Is what she did both awesome and correct? Yes.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:47 PM
She did ask him to stop several times, GB. Firmly telling him to go to hell is a good first choice, but if he isn't getting the message, I'm not sure 'let him grope you now because there's a small chance he might follow you later or sue you' does much.
I guess I'm reasonably willing to believe from her recounting (she says she asked him to stop several times) of it that he wasn't tapping her on the shoulder politely to ask the time; women get bothered in bars all the time, and most of us assess the risks just as you say, GB. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that if weighing all that, she did try to make a move on him, he must have done something to warrant it.
No one's mentioned guns here, so, just make sure you're not arguing with the strawpeople who speak Swahili.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:50 PM
No one's mentioned guns here
206 and 211. Though my preferred inference is not "Dr. Helen is a hypocrite because she supports the use of guns in self-defence and opposes the use of light physical force to deter someone who is physically molesting you" but "Dr. Helen is known to be batshit insane and we shouldn't pay that much attention to her."
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:56 PM
Let's also avoid the false "But Dr. Helen likes guns, so she's a hypocrite!" charges. She favors using guns to protect yourself when you are threatened with actual harm.
Christ, that guy got off easy. I've told my wife that once you've told a guy several times to back off, and he decides to grab you anyways, to go ahead and knife him and get the hell out of there.
And how is a woman supposed to discern "actual harm" here? Once he's been verbally warned, multiple times in this case, and still shows willingness to cross that barrier of physical contact, it's not the woman's problem to try and figure out in that instant to what degree this is an assault.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:56 PM
224: Let's not misframe the issue as "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" (is this, in fact, likely based on the description we have of the incident? No, not hardly. And even if it were, again, given the description of the incident, it wouldn't be unreasonable or surprising for her to interpret that tap as a prelude to something much less benign). Or as "gosh, what if he'd hit her back?" which is just gross. So women are supposed to let men grope them because otherwise the men might do something even worse?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:56 PM
AWB did actually mention guns in 206.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:56 PM
No one's mentioned guns here
Not quite true, Calamonster, but otherwise beating up on GB is allowed and encouraged.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:57 PM
Weiner-pwned. Damn.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:57 PM
In my world, "actual harm" includes having strange men deliberately touch my body, yes it does. Alameida posted something about this way back when on another blog in response to a Volokh post trying to understand why a man deliberately touching a woman's body constituted sexual assault, and I presume everyone reading this thread remembers that.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 9:59 PM
My gut feeling would be that this sort of harassment happened less in 1965 than now. That may be a controversial statement. Everybody was more inhibited back then.
Posted by bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:00 PM
224: The thing is, there are any number of possible interpretations of the description given. Krissy's reaction might have been anything from wildly inappropriate to too little. So each of us ends up betting on the people involved, here either Krissy or Dr. Helen. A Blue vs. someone who is, assuming her politics are anything like her husband's, genuinely anti-American? Gimme a break. I bet Blue down the line.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:00 PM
Or as "gosh, what if he'd hit her back?" which is just gross. So women are supposed to let men grope them because otherwise the men might do something even worse?
Be fair, B. It's a reasonable prudential concern that a lot of people raised when Becks said she'd decked that guy at the concert. It's not a concern Dr. Helen had, but it's not a bad thing to say.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:02 PM
I will weiner-pwn you all!
Doesn't Scalzi's update take care of "Did he just tap her on the shoulder?"
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:05 PM
It's a reasonable prudential concern, but again, context: following a statement that "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" it really does rather end up sounding like the concern trolling, or whatever it's called.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:05 PM
Fair enough. I thought 206 was just referring to the ads, and 211 isn't actually here, but okay.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:06 PM
Plus, come on. Presumably a woman who can shove a man up against a wall doesn't need to be warned to be careful because, you know, he might hit you back.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:07 PM
Doesn't Scalzi's update take care of "Did he just tap her on the shoulder?"
I don't know anything about Scalzi, but isn't it a little odd that the original post said the guy tried to touch her and the update said he grabbed her in a not nice way? Maybe he just didn't want to say his wife had been grabbed in the original post....
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:07 PM
239: Dude, yes, it's a legitimate concern, but in the context in which GB used it, it's gross. Let's revisit:
And while it is fun to cheer on Krissy in a rah-rah-you-go-girl spirit, what would she have done if the guy hit her back?
What GB is saying is that the fact that creepy dude might have hit Krissy back is a reason not to cheer her on, that makes her actions imprudent or dumb (and, along with the next two hypotheticals, weirdly fantasy-like).
Which is different from Becks saying "I hit this guy, and right after I did, I was like shit, what if he hits back?" The analog would be if Becks told us the story, and we went "gosh, Becks, he could have hit you back! Didn't you think of that?"
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:08 PM
244: I assumed "grabbed in a not nice way" from the original.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:12 PM
228: It's not like she hit the guy (which you mis-frame, by the way, by saying "hit her back"). She pushed him up against a wall and let him know that he couldn't fuck with her.
She "jammed her arm into his throat."
224: Let's not misframe the issue as "for all we know, he tapped her on the shoulder" (is this, in fact, likely based on the description we have of the incident? No, not hardly.)
I think if the guy had grabbed her ass or something like that, it would have been specifically mentioned in the post. Why hold back on the description of his jerkiness?
229: GB. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that if weighing all that, she did try to make a move on him, he must have done something to warrant it.
Yes, you are assuming wrongly. I firmly believe this guy was a jerk who needed to be stopped. I also believe, based on the post, that Krissy was hardly encouraging his behavior, and in fact was trying to stop it.
What I am saying is that the use of violence (while cool in the movies, where the jerk gets his comeuppance and slinks away, chastened) often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:16 PM
I think if the guy had grabbed her ass or something like that, it would have been specifically mentioned in the post.
Did you read the update?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:18 PM
the 'what if it was just a tap on the shoulder' is a red herring because 'tap on the shoulder' is a 'get someone's attention' move when you start speaking to someone. this guy had already intiated coversation several times with her.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:19 PM
Why hold back on the description of his jerkiness?
Maybe because, like ogged said, Scalzi doesn't want to give detailed descriptions of bad creepy shit that happened to his wife on the internet (possibly because people love to read about violence against women), but instead focus on the fact that she showed the guy what was what.
Posted by m. leblanc | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:20 PM
I have now seen the update about the guy grabbing Krissy "not in a nice way". Noted.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:21 PM
which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
I share it. But she got away with it, without further incident, so pragmatic concerns such as escalation don't need to be addressed. Unmitigated win for the good guys.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:21 PM
244, 247: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:22 PM
In fairness to GB, he raised precisely the same concern in the thread about Becks, so this isn't just his wingnuttery talking.
But GB, I think reasonableness demands that we assume that the guy was a complete prick and in fact touched her inappropriately. People almost never just go off like Krissy did without provocation.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:23 PM
I firmly believe this guy was a jerk who needed to be stopped. I also believe, based on the post, that Krissy was hardly encouraging his behavior, and in fact was trying to stop it.
Then why quibble and take issue with her shoving him up against a wall when he escalated to the point of touching her in any manner whatsoever?
What I am saying is that the use of violence . . . often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
No doubt. But you're overlooking the point that a man who repeatedly hassles a woman who tells him to leave her alone, and then touches her, is the one who is initiating the violence; his touching her did indeed escalate the existing situation, and it did indeed backfire.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:28 PM
What I am saying is that the use of violence (while cool in the movies, where the jerk gets his comeuppance and slinks away, chastened) often escalates an existing situation, backfires, or creates new problems entirely — which is a view I would have figured many of the commenters here would share.
This is absolutely true. But it's also true according to the updates on the guy's site and Dr. Helen's site that she asked him to stop several times, and then he grabbed her inappropriately. At this point, he's starting it, and saying 'but what if he does something further?' just doesn't seem to be prudent advice when the guy already can't keep his hands to himself and doesn't get the verbal hint.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 10:42 PM
252: Sure, she came out ahead this time, so good on her. Would I advise shoving guys in the throat as a general policy? No.
253: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
I never said any aspect of the story was a lie.
255: Then why quibble and take issue with her shoving him up against a wall when he escalated to the point of touching her in any manner whatsoever?
Because there are ways to defuse a situation, and ways to escalate it. Krissy won this time; next time, she might get Random Jerk #453, whose response to getting shoved in the throat is to start punching.
One thing for feminists like BPhD to consider: A guy who elbows another guy in a bar in the throat has got a fight on his hands. Krissy didn't. Why not? Probably because, even in his drunken state, the jerk who groped her thought that "it's wrong to hit a girl". So Krissy's success in this particular incident was due not to her indomitable Grrrrrl Power, but by the persistence of the very sexist paradigms you despise.
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
When I meet a jerk in a bar (he may not be grabbing my ass, but jerks manifest themselves in many ways), my number one thought is "How do I get out of this situation?" It is not "How do I score macho points by turning this into a fight with some loser I don't know and don't care about?"
Maybe I'm influenced by the fact that in Japan, the cops throw fighting foreigners in jail and ask questions later, if at all. But I think it's a good rule wherever you are. It's the adult, non-testosterone-fuled way to handle the situation. It's sad to see women aping the worst traits of men in the name of feminism.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:01 PM
For the record, since I believe it's lame to offer criticisms without proposing solutions, here's what I would have done: Complain to the bouncer or bartender. In any respectable bar, the jerk would have been kicked out before he knew what was happening.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:05 PM
No. Probably the guy didn't hit back because he was really fucking shocked that she didn't let him get away with it. And I'm perfectly well aware that the presumption that girls can be more aggressive than guys b/c the guys won't hit women is one that depends on chivalry underlied by sexism.
One thing for guys like GB to consider is that touching a woman who has made it clear she wants to be left alone is not just being a jerk. It is, in fact, assault. And no one is saying let's ape men's worst traits in the name of feminism; what we are saying is that if a man assaults a woman and she responds by shoving him up against a wall and telling him to leave her the fuck alone, she is absolutely in the right.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:08 PM
"I'll wager there's not a woman over 18 alive in the US who hasn't had her ass grabbed at some point"
False. I've gotten some unwelcome comments and stares, but no following or grabbing.
No idea why. Could be lack of eye contact.
Other countries are a different story...hit on creepily in France, though it would have ended at the non-creepy phase if I knew what I was doing. (I was just out of high school, & jet lagged and out of it). In Turkey, pretty much the minute I was away from my husband some guy would approach me. This was mildly funny when it was someone asking if I wanted to "see some ancient coins he had" and tried to ingratiate himself to me by telling how much he like George Bush. The guy who followed me to a pharmacy, waited outside, and asked what was wrong with me, not so much. And I was with my husband practically the whole trip, too. I hear it's even worse for blondes.
Posted by Katherine | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:11 PM
there's probably also the calculation of 'does she have friends who could kick my ass'
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:15 PM
259: Actually, legally speaking, it's assault and battery, with battery defined as any nonconsensual touching. You can assault someone without touching them.
And while Krissy may be in the right, plenty of bad things happen to people who are in the right. This isn't about who's right and who's wrong, it's about the best way to handle the situation.
Posted by Gaijin Biker | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:19 PM
Says you. I think the rest of us were cheering her on because we thought it was about who's right and who's wrong. At least, that's what the original post with the links was pretty clearly asking people to opinionate about.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:21 PM
253: Why assume that the description of the event is a lie? I'm really bothered by that. It's just creepily close to hypothesizing that a woman is lying about rape. I see no reason whatsoever to assume that this is just some random out of control chick who likes pushing men around in bars. Come on.
I never said any aspect of the story was a lie.
This by the way, fair enough. I was under the misapprehension that you'd read the post at the same time I had, by which point it had been made clear that it wasn't a shoulder tap.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:24 PM
258: Odds would be good that if she involved the bouncer, the guy would take that as an escalation and wait outside for her. In that situation I'd prefer to take my chances with violence in the bar rather than violence in the parking lot where there are fewer witnesses.
Posted by Magpie | Link to this comment | 09-10-06 11:48 PM
GB is talking sense. It is almost never a good idea to escalate an unpleasant bar situation into a fight unless there are no other options available. You never know what you might be getting into.
It is also, as a corollary, usually a good idea to get the guy thown out if he's aggressively persisting past the first refusal. A bar whose staff will not do this is not respectable.
Having said that... Dr. Helen is an evident nutcase, and Krissy's action entirely understandable, quibble as we will about its practical aspects.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:03 AM
it was unimaginable in my high school for students to be out of the closet, even in my liberal Bay Area suburb
See I was going to high school in the Central Valley, far less liberal than the bay area though still I guess majority Democratic, in the mid-80's, and there were certainly out gay students in my high school.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 5:36 AM
The thing about "was it really a good idea?" is that (a) we weren't there, so we don't have a full sense of the tactics involved, and (b) it's not really much of our business -- while opinining on whether someone you don't know did something right or wrong is one thing, focussing on whether it was unacceptably risky is being a busybody. Krissy, whoever the hell she is, is a big girl, and can pick her own risks.
On the complaining to the bar management (and I'm not accusing anyone of adopting the positions I'm talking about, just teasing it out a little): It is also, as a corollary, usually a good idea to get the guy thown out if he's aggressively persisting past the first refusal. A bar whose staff will not do this is not respectable.
So, what does she do if she's not in a respectable bar? Is going into a non-respectable bar an unacceptable risk?
More broadly, what if she doesn't want to make a case to a gatekeeper about whether making the guy stop touching her is justified? The difference between taking direct action yourself and trying to sell the idea that you need to be defended to a third party is pretty psychologically significant, and one that I'd take on some additional risk for. (Not much, I'm a non-violent coward, but it's worth something.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 6:02 AM
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
I'm not sure she did that. She did manage to shove the guy into a wall and pin him at throat level; to me that suggests that either she's pretty strong and tall or that she's trained enough to know her own limits. (There aren't many guys short enough for me to do that.) No need to assume, I think, that she was hoping he wouldn't swing 'cause she was a girl.
And if we're playing the what-if game, running to management to get him thrown out could also escalate to him waiting around in the parking lot. I guess it would just be nice if someone were having this conversation about the consequences of the guy's action for once (like, duuuuude, don't grab the chick's ass cause she could sue you or wait in the parking lot or shove your sorry ass into the wall) rather than the appropriateness of her reaction to it.
It's sad to see women aping the worst traits of men in the name of feminism.
I think it's more in the name of not being assaulted in a bar, personally, rather than saying we have a duty to beat up people who make catcalls.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 7:06 AM
Ergo, starting a fight you are not prepared to finish in the expectation that the guy will not hit you back because you are female is anti-feminist behavior, and immature to boot.
Yeah, this is bullshit. Is the claim being made here that the guy who grabbed her is being treated unfairly because chivalry binds him to not 'hit her back'? Because, you know, he's already demonstrated that he's not so much bound by chivalrous norms. Is he being treated unfairly because there's a presumption that if he tries to beat her up, other men will help her because she's a woman? I'm not getting the moral difference between this and 'she should get the bartender to throw him out'.
Look, in terms of getting into fights, most women are in the position of smallish, weakish, men. You start with (a) don't start fights, because hitting people is wrong. You move onto (b) generally avoid fights where possible, because there are strong odds you could get hurt. And these two rules cover the vast majority of situations. But in situation (c), where someone else has (according to our social norms) behaved in a manner that justifies violence, and in your best judgment, the risks are acceptable, either because you think your odds in a fight are okay, or because you have backup. The idea that someone else may jump into a possible fight on your side is not unfair -- men do that for each other too.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 7:41 AM
This talk of escalation and starting fights is crap. Good hell, she didn't start it, and she didn't escalate it.he did. If she was of comparable size and strength, then her response was perfectly appropriate. If he was bigger, her mistake was not using a weapon.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:08 AM
268: So, what does she do if she's not in a respectable bar?
Probably pretty much what she did.
Is going into a non-respectable bar an unacceptable risk?
I would think it's up to her to decide what risks are acceptable and not.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:14 AM
Wait, what did I say?
(Also: Tia, ack. I'm glad you're alright. In my experience, this dude was in the dangerous stalker category, not the benighted admirer category. If you see him again, anywhere around your home, please call the police immediately.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:52 AM
268 again: More broadly, what if she doesn't want to make a case to a gatekeeper about whether making the guy stop touching her is justified?
If the staff have to be "convinced" that it's justified to make the guy stop touching her, then see above re: disreputable joints. It's more about the staff being informed about what's going down so they can support you, rather than having to figure out what's going on once something breaks out. (In the general sense, I don't think this advice applies more to women than it does to men. It just seems like a generally good precaution to me.)
Of course obviously a) one doesn't always have this luxury, and b) it can be more cathartic, and hence more tempting, to take direct action and consequences be damned.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:52 AM
If the staff have to be "convinced" that it's justified to make the guy stop touching her, then see above re: disreputable joints.
Not really. Even in a perfectly respectable joint, she has to tell a convincing story that entitles her to have him removed. Did you notice some of the reactions in the comments in the linked posts: first, to say come on, he didn't really do anything wrong, and then when a clarification that he'd grabbed her was made, to say that she's changing her story? Her credibility is in play if she needs to convince anyone of what happened.
If the incident wasn't widely witnessed, then she has to sell her story successfully to the bartender. It may be easy, but it's still a barrier.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 11:08 AM
275: Well, maybe. It's been my experience that a convincing story consists mainly of saying "that guy won't leave me / my friends alone and is creeping me / them out, please have him removed." I've seen this done, and done it on behalf of others, more times than I can count and never once seen the staff at any establishment (including some skeevier ones) quibble with it.
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 11:37 AM
unless the groper was friends with teh staff/manager, she just needs to say she was uncomfortable and most staffs will throw the guy out no questions asked. i've also heard about some guy who was causing problems who the staff didn't do anything to because he was part of some biker gang, but this is a 3rd-hand story.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 1:46 PM
she just needs to say she was uncomfortable and most staffs will throw the guy out no questions asked
The guy was Chasidic and davening? This puts a whole new spin on the story for me.
Posted by Clownæsthesiologist | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:00 PM
I think part of the point is maybe that women don't necessarily know that all we have to do is gripe to a bouncer. First, because in personal life one so often runs into suspicion about one's account (e.g., in this thread), and second because one isn't thinking about it in terms of "this guy's assholery is bad for business" but in terms of "this guy is personally threatening me," and since it's personal, it simply doesn't occur to one that a total stranger is going to give a shit or take my word over his. It really wouldn't occur to *me* to complain to a bouncer; I suspect that if I couldn't convince a jerky guy to leave me the fuck alone, I would simply leave.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:06 PM
It wouldn't occur to me immediately to take a problem like that to a bouncer, but if I did, and the bouncer were a dick about it or in any way minimized my problem, I'd SO not be going back there. And, if my opinion were worth anything, neither would any of my friends.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:11 PM
Cripes. This is way more analysis than this incident can sustain. This is a story about standing up to a bully. Insofar as women get bullied more often, or in specific ways, then there's a gender issue here. But, really, it's just that someone stood up to a bully, it worked out like in the movies, and that's great.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:20 PM
Huh. I was actually thinking about pulling this up to a post, to see if anyone other then GB shared his sense that her behavior was anti-feminist because chivalric norms mean that the guy couldn't hit back, because I think GB's a generally reasonable guy, but terribly wrong about this, and if there are other people out there who agree with him on that point I want to argue with them at length.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:25 PM
279: I think part of the point is maybe that women don't necessarily know that all we have to do is gripe to a bouncer.
I find that surprising, actually. But I can see why that would be the case for some people.
280: It's always seemed to me that one reason most bouncers are vanishingly unlikely to minimize or dismiss the problem is that, even if they're sexist bastards themselves (and of course a great many are), it's very rare for someone in a position of authority like that to pass up a chance to exercise it. Sometimes power-tripping can one work in one's favour.
282: Despite having agreed with his basic "fighting is a last resort" point, I think GB is over the top in using the words "anti-feminist." OTOH it seems to me you're misreading him in your 270. Maybe he'll be up for arguing it at length...
Posted by Doctor Slack | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:43 PM
282: Because more arguing about feminism is exactly what we need right now.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:46 PM
Has anyone else here read "Are You A Lesbian?" by Alasdair Gray? I guess I'll spoil it -- woman goes to a bar for some alone time, is hit on by notorious lech, after telling him to go away several times has him thrown out, then is asked to leave herself because solitary women are disruptive. Of course it's fiction, not real.
I think GB is wrong to think that "It's wrong to hit a girl" is sexist, although perhaps it is part of a sexist paradigm in the following sense: In our sexist society, men frequently do beat women severely and physically intimidate them. Decent non-sexist men (and other decent men) therefore draw a very bright line around this behavior, and won't hit women at all. Maybe in some egalitarian utopia this wouldn't be necessary (or maybe it would, men being larger than women as I think LB mentioned earlier). But "It's wrong to hit a woman" certainly isn't itself a sexist paradigm, in our world as it exists now.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:53 PM
283: even if someone is a sexist bastard, that could work in your favor if its the 'i must protect my womens from ohter guys come-ons, even if i myself would do that sort of come-on' kind of way.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:55 PM
who goes to the bar for some alone time??
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 2:59 PM
I think it's more like "It used to be ok to hit your wife, but it's never been ok to fight a woman." The latter half of that rule owes to chivalry, rather than progressivism. It'll be funny if we get to "It's not ok to hit your wife, but it's fine to fight a woman."
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:02 PM
But "It's wrong to hit a woman" certainly isn't itself a sexist paradigm, in our world as it exists now.
I might disagree with that. I would say that it's wrong to hit people outside of self-defense, other-defense, or certain categories of provocation that slide into self-defense (like the one in the linked story). And that it's particularly wrong to hit people who are smaller and weaker than you (that is, although it's not a millieu I particularly understand, there is a possibility of a fair fight -- people who don't mind getting into fights hitting each other. I'm not going to call that wrong, exactly, here, but I would if it involved a serious mismatch in size or strength.) And once you've knocked out those two categories, there aren't going to be very many occasions at all where it isn't wrong for a man to hit a woman.
But saying that it's always wrong does, I think, partake of sexism in that it's a restriction that makes sense only if you assume that no woman is physically capable of being a threat to any man, and that no woman is emotionally capable of acting in a genuinely physically threatening or damaging manner towards a man.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:07 PM
Rule utilitarianism, while not a wizard cocksucker moral theory, seems appropriate here.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:17 PM
289: Weiner's a pretty big sexist, LB. You've got to give him time to grow.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:17 PM
The biggest sexist in all of Texas.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:29 PM
290 gets it right. There could be exceptions when a woman is a genuine physical threat who can only be restrained by force (though I'm not sure how that would work exactly, since then force might not be effective), but it's still an extremely good rule. And I think that the framework of male-on-female violence makes it worse, as a rule, to hit a woman than it would be to hit a man of the same size and strength. Although that's still bad.
But I'm suggesting that it's not sexist to think there's something bad about hitting a woman as a woman, given our society.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 3:32 PM
Sorry, I can't read all the comments now, so I apologize if I'm being duplicative.
But Tia, I wanted to thank you for posting this, b/c when something similar happened to me a few months ago I almost felt stupid for being scared and angry. I don't know if it was intentional or subconscious or a misperception on my part, but I felt like most people I told didn't want to hear about it.
Milder things happen to me *all the bloody time.*. On BART, around BART, in parking lots and stores---a guy will approach me and initiate a conversation that while non-threatening in tone, is entirely objectifying (ooh, you're so pretty) and insistent. My natural friendliness evaporates at that point, and I pretty much walk away. (On the other hand I have struck many a real conversation with strangers on bart, usually about books or music or somethign funny that happened, and everything was fine, male or female. It's the notion that you, a stranger, are looking at me, someone you know nothing about, as a desirable object for anything more than a split second, and think I would want to know this in anyway, that I find offensive bordering on threatening.) I disliked it, and it gets my guard up, and I get angry about it , and feel like if these people had more power, then I'd be in trouble, but generally I never felt threatened enough to be scared.
So then this spring, I was waiting at a bus stop near the 16th & Mission station. Normally this stop woudl be packed with people, but it was pouring cats and dogs, dark much earlier than I had expected. There was no one on that street corner nor the one directly opposite, and the people at the station corner proper were all huddled under the bus stop. I thought the bus would be right there, and was looking at my watch, surprised to have missed it, about to turn back when a man walked by and asked me where I was from. He was very short, only a few inches taller than me. I demurred and started moving away, and but instead he kept moving towards me and in fact blocked my way towards the crowded area, my back against the wall, and started telling me how beautiful I was and how he was going to take me home to have dinner. At this point I said, please don't stand so close, and he said, "don't be like that," and as I backed away, along the wall, he tracked me at an arm's length, talking the same way the whole time. I realized if I tried to run past him to where the crowd could see me, he would easily be able to trip me, so I decided to keep my feet planted firmly and use the phone. I got out my phone and he said, "don't pretend to call your boyfriend, I know you dont' have one." He came evencloser and even started reaching out, but luckily my friend with the loudest voice was the last person who called me, so one button and his voice boomed out of the speaker. The man started backing away and I said, "Are you driving to M's house? Almost here?" "Yeah?" "I'm at BART come get me right now." "I'll be right there." The man backed away a littl emore, enough that I felt I could run past without being tripped, and I sprinted right past him to BART, and a minute later my friend drove up and the other passengers in the full car pulled me in, and I was totally shaken, contemplating my luck.
I'm a pretty modest dresser in public, especially when I'm by myself. I was wearing a baggy rain coat. I could not have been standing alone on the desserted side of the street for more than two minutes. It was like he was waiting to pin someone small and female there. For some reason the line, "Don't pretend you have a boyfriend, I know you don't," especially frightened me. I don't, actually, have a boyfriend. Instead I have a posse of guys who will drop everything if I even whisper help, and who complain mightily if they even hear of me walking alone on a non-busy street at night. This was one of the very few times I was ever out by myself in a non-super crowded area in the dark, and it overwhelmed my statistical brain.
I don't have a feminist or empowering interpreation of this. I once took martial arts with this same friend, and late one night I left a board game party at his house, and apologetically asked if he would walk me to my car, which was not parked right outside his house like it usually is. "My Aikido is not that good," I joked self-deprecatingly. "Don't be silly, asking me to walk you to your car is Aikido," he replied. Reassuring, b/c he's usually around--but what if he wasn't? Or was less extreme in making sure I knew to call on him. That experience, and reading about other experiences, make me profoundly grateful that I do have friends like that. They treat me as an equal in all other things, and I simply can't fault their protectiveness. But I have to wonder what will happen when they're not around, and it's upsetting to realize that the luck and kindness that gives me such friends is what's responsible for my sense of freedom in being out in the world. What about other people? What about me when they're gone? It's terrifying, really.
Posted by Ile Has | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 8:35 PM
Ile, just wanted to let you know that I had read this. Frightening.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 8:52 PM
What Matt said. Ugh.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 8:55 PM
"Don't pretend you have a boyfriend, I know you don't,"
That's chilling. Maybe because it sounds like he's done this before; and it doesn't sound nearly nervous enough. Psycho.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:28 PM
Well, re. "it's wrong to hit a woman," I have no doubt that there are women who abuse men and take advantage of this "don't hit women" thing to do so.
But I remember when the older boy across the street hit me because I stood up (verbally) for a much younger boy who the older boy was bullying: older boy's mom came over to talk to my mom about it, realized that I was a girl, and yelled at her son, "didn't I tell you never to hit girls?!"
After they left, my mother said to me, "if she taught him never to hit *anyone*, this whole mess wouldn't have gotten started." And I think that's really the main point. It's wrong to hit people, period. And if someone *does* hit, or otherwise threaten you (e.g., moving into your space, laying a hand on you after being told to back off), then it is okay to use reasonable force (shove them up against a wall, hit them back) to put an end to it. It may be preferable to go find someone *else* (a cop, a bouncer) to threaten them with reasonable force, for various reasons, but it certainly isn't wrong to defend yourself.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:38 PM
Seriously, Ile. Glad you're okay. What a fucking creep.
Posted by Cala | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:42 PM
Ile, you're a smart chick; it sounds like you handled a scary situation really well.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 9:46 PM
Since it's come up, what is the protocal on asking a women if she would like to be walked home/walked to the car/etc. On the one hand it seems very infantalizing, and feels like it's implying that she can't handle herself (or that women can't be safe without a man around). On the other hand there are all these very true stories. So I'd be curious to see what people's opinion is. My inclination is that it's good to ask if it's someone who is comfortable with you, but not a good idea with strangers and one shouldn't be at all insistant about it.
Posted by Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:14 PM
Well, don't ask strangers b/c for all they know you're the freaky guy. Otherwise it seems nice, especially if it's not all "oh no, it's dark out, you can't walk to the car alone!" but rather just a friendly gesture. It seems like good manners; I'll offer to walk friends to their car, or home.
But yeah, pushy = gross.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:21 PM
I'm having trouble imagining asking a stranger, and would think the question is more, when is or isn't it demeaning to offer to walk someone who is comfortable with you home? In which case I'd also be curious about perspectives on this.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:21 PM
You did great, Ile, and I'd only add that if none of your friends were around or available, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of strangers to help you dissuade such a potential assaulter. Odds are that any person you approach will be less dangerous than your stalker, and most of the time, another person involved will change the dynamic and make the stalker-guy go away.
Related: how great is the cellphone? I talked myself into getting one almost only for these sorts of situations.
**
It was *bad* in Paris, worse than I got in Spain or Italy, let alone Germany. New York has almost seemed like feminist paradise in comparison. Here's my favorite anecdote of that sort from Paris:
A friend and I were going out to a club at around 11pm. We were trying to catch a cab at the Gare de Lyon, and two guys in track suits walked up to us and tried to hit on us. Where are you going, oh, you're so fine, you should come with us in our car, and we were nice, but direct. Then, as was standard procedure for guys on the street who were told off, they called us bitches and whores and walked away. But here's where these two guys get unusual: they *came back to try again*: Where are you going, we can take you in our car, you're so fine... Later, we were able to laugh about their ability to believe that we would reconsider their proposal after having been called whores. Rather later.
That became funny in retrospect, but the guy who followed another friend home off the Metro and nearly raped her at knifepoint was not so funny. (This was during the Bastille rape/murder scare of '98; the police concluded much later that the guy who attacked my friend was a copycat, not that they didn't blame her for being beautiful and wearing fur trim.) After that, I walked around ready to deck the next guy who looked at me the wrong way: somehow, nobody approached me when I was itching for violent outlash.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:26 PM
By stranger I don't mean complete stranger I mean someone you know but not well who you're talking to at a party or something similar when she needs to leave.
Posted by Unfoggetarian: "Pause endlessly, then go in." (9) | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:28 PM
The protocol for offering assistance is pretty fraught, I'm afraid. If I feel nervous, I might silently tag along behind someone whose appearence seems okay. If I'm really nervous (as in, I've identified an actual person I feel threatened by), I might actually approach that sort of person and ask to tag along. I would probably look rather suspiciously on offers of assistance, frankly. But then I'm a fairly street-savvy, fairly strong young woman. An older person (or perhaps a more naive person?) might appreciate offers of assistance a good deal more than I would.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:32 PM
305, that's a highly ambiguous situation, because there are other (consensual, if you get my meaning) reasons to offer to walk someone home, and similarly for someone to request that you escort them home.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:34 PM
I, personally, usually so "no thanks, I'll be fine." But I'm not offended unless someone's all skeezy about it, which usually people aren't.
Re. the party situation, I think that "is someone walking you to your car?" or similar is probably a pretty tactful offer.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:36 PM
305.---Oh, in that case, it usually feels rather nice. It's nicest when there's not reason to think that the accompagnier then has to walk a ways alone because he or she saw you safely to your destination.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:38 PM
rough story, ile. I'm not sure the first thing i would think of if someone called me and said 'pick me up right now' would be that they're were in an immediatly sketchy situation. i guess it depends on the way fear was coming through in the voice, although that might be modulated because you were right in front of him.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:54 PM
Ile, that was scary. Glad you're ok.
187: You mean there were students at your school who were out out, as in people other than their friends knew they were gay? Because I knew a couple of kids who were out to their friends to varying degrees, but no one who was willing to really publicly identify as gay. Sounds like Modesto was ahead of us and/or people at my school were more worried about what people would think and/or that it's easier to be a high school closet case when you can easily sneak off to the Castro on weekends.
Posted by Magpie | Link to this comment | 09-11-06 10:58 PM
Hey, thanks everyone. I'm glad I'm okay too! It's nice to get some feedback. I thought I did okay, and the rescuing friend did too. But oddly enough, I had a hard time telling other women about this, and that's where I wanted the most feedback.
You did great, Ile, and I'd only add that if none of your friends were around or available, you shouldn't underestimate the potential of strangers to help you dissuade such a potential assaulter.
So I think I feel better when the strangers are identifiably different parties from the offending party. When out and by myself, I feel most safe in diverse crowds. In this case the thing that really frightened me was the idea that the closest strangers wouldn't be able to see me or hear me b/c of the way he had me angled away from them, and because of the rain.
Maybe because it sounds like he's done this before; and it doesn't sound nearly nervous enough.
Yeah, I think upto then I think I was still hoping he was just being very ineptly like all the other people.
This brings up another issue. I was shaken, so I got in the car and let them drive me to the party and just went into the party and didn't talk about it to anyone until later. And then I felt bad. On one hand it seems overkill to call the police, but on the other hand--what if the next girl is not so lucky? Practically I can't think of anything they would have done--it seems like it would have been impossible to find him, and I don't think I'd recognize if I saw him now. . .not sure about then. But was there really nothing I could have done better in that regard?
I don't want to live in a society where we hair-trigger tag people as creeps, but I wish there was some middle ground---someway of making sure people know that if they act like creeps, they're going to get some trouble.
I'm not sure the first thing i would think of if someone called me and said 'pick me up right now' would be that they're were in an immediatly sketchy situation.
I don't normally use the unqualified imperative with anyone. This friend is very sharp, so between that, the voice, the location and the time he probably figured it out. But even so, he's the kind of person who would rather come when called and be mistaken and annoyed rather than something worse.
--------
re:stranger/newfriends offering to walk you. From the offerer's pov--don't be insistent, and I don't see why not. From the offeree's pov---part of me says trust your gut, and then another part of me wonders about things like the story of Sepia Mutiny's Anna. Doesn't our gut instinct get stunted by protective environments and then dulled by socialization to some extent?
Posted by Ile Has | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:37 AM
also the first thing i thought of when reading jackmormon's post was the opening of les bonnes femmes.
Posted by yoyo | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:38 AM
Ok, I take back what I said in the Megan-doesn't-date-guys-she-can't-beat-up discussion. This is some pretty seriously creepy shit, which big-ish guys never have to deal with.
If it's worse in the Latin-ish cultures than it is in the US, where is it better? Correcting for city size, I guess, per comments re: Montana.
Posted by Jake | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:40 AM
Ile, I think re. calling the cops, that if such a thing were to happen (which god forbid), I'd call and make a report. It's possible there's been a rape or a robbery or something in the area, and it might be helpful to know additional information, maybe.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 12:46 AM
Jackmormon---I was looking for stuff on the Bastile rape scare you refer to, but I couldn't really find it quickly. Do you think Paris is any better now, or the same? On a smaller scale, I feel like Downtown Berkeley is better than it used to be, but South Berkeley is still not great, and San Francisco may be even worse? Hard to tell since I only recently started hanging out there a lot.
I feel like foreign countries throw me off balance. I felt very safe in Japan, though later I found out about the only bad thing that ever happens there is harrasment. Less safe in Switzerland, don't know how that compares to reality. Super crazy safe in Iceland. Didn't feel so safe in Rome. For some reason I felt pretty safe in Paris, not sure why. . .no one bothered me.
Glad you're okay though. Man, I'm glad we're all okay! Yeesh.
Posted by Ile Has | Link to this comment | 09-12-06 1:21 AM