What was being proposed previously though is that we should treat women differently than men because of some danger of being a woman at night. I don't hear men complaining about some woman talking to them on an elevator or while reading a book. Why should women be treated differently?
What Vector said. It's kind of a dick move to zoom right by a jogger/bicyclist and come within inches of clipping them.
It's actually law here that if a cop has pulled someone over on the side of the road, you're supposed to get one lane over away from the shoulder. So the cop can do his job without the fear of being hit by a car. Those stinking job-ists. Why should we make special allowances for somebody just because of their profession, right?
The idea behind the premise in this whole conversation is that you should swerve if it's a woman, but who cares if it's a guy. (or: Change lanes if it's a cop, but if it's a typical stranded motorist changing their tire... who cares.)
see:
All men. ALL men who have given sufficient consideration to women's position in our society do this walking trick. If you are a man and you do not know about this trick then there is a problem with you.
Just going to post this link again. I think this bit is relevant;When I was about 14 through 17, hanging around in an urban environment, with no car, and spending a lot of time at night on foot going places, I learned to do this trick. Say I'm walking down State Street and it's 1:00 AM and there's a woman walking in front of me in the same direction. With very few exceptions, I'll overtake her, and there will then be this long, maybe one-third of a city block long period when I'm right behind her, then right next to her, then just in front of her.
From any of those three vantage points, I could grab her. From behind, or from next to her, or by turning around and grabbing her from the front. Then I could push her to the ground and drag her into an alley or whatever.
But I would not do that. Therefore, the woman walking alone at 1:00 AM in the morning downtown has nothing to worry about, right? Well, actually, since she does not know me she has a great deal to worry about because the chances that some guy walking (fast) alone down State Street in the middle of the night is a perfectly nice guy who will do no harm (me) vs. the chance that the guy is some sort of sexual assaulter or mugger is hard to assess, and the chance of the latter being the case is far from zero.
So I learned this trick. Cross the street about a block back and "pass" the lady that way. Same with a potential head-on encounter. If you see a woman walking towards you in the middle of the night on a lonely urban street, my practice in those days was to cross the street to not stress her out.
...
All men. ALL men who have given sufficient consideration to women's position in our society do this walking trick. If you are a man and you do not know about this trick then there is a problem with you.
I don't know if I'm particularly sociable, but this kind of thing has just seemed obvious to me. I'm a six foot tall guy. On one occasion when I was wearing a hood up due to rain I had a girl come up to me (while I was in a large group of mixed friends) and take it down saying I looked too scary like that. It's always seemed obvious to me that I could creep someone out without meaning to or ever being a threat. I've also lived in fairly safe places, crime wise, so walking around at night isn't something I think twice about doing myself. But I'm also aware that what I think of as safe places are places where women are still assaulted or raped with enraging frequency.
It's entirely this point that was the point of the initial video and early follow up. Basically, "see this behaviour? It's creepy. DON'T DO THAT!" The difficulty in communicating it really baffles and worries me. The massive backlash and attacks against those trying to communicate it is enraging and sickening.
So now we decided to change the conversation to include every person, independent of sex?
Being polite/considerate doesn't have to be focused towards women. Id' say it should probably be general.... The world is a very cruel place and some consideration between people, regardless of gender, couldn't hurt, could it?
"Politeness is free; give and receive it...."
(I'm not picking you out or saying you allude to this, but in the general conversation this post fits.)
There are going to be some pretty busy crosswalks while people try to shuffle back and forth across the street to avoid walking up behind someone else on a dark night. We may as well avoid talking to anyone on an elevator and asking them up (or for that matter, over to your place) for a cup of coffee. We've turned into a society where everyone is afraid of everyone else because personal fears and it's alienating people to conversations and interactions. The world we are steering toward is a dark place if this is the expected norm.
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Topic: Chill and Relaxed Progressive Irritation and Annoyance Thread (Read 873558 times)